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Health Officials Urge Californians To Remove Standing Water

/in /by /Santa Monica Observer

California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith calls on the people of California to help reduce the number of mosquitoes by eliminating standing water, especially in areas that have recently had rain and continue to experience warm temperatures. “Rainy weather can create new breeding grounds for mosquitoes if water is allowed to pool and remain stagnant,” said CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith.

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OPINION: Taxpayers Need Protection From Flooding During The Drought

/in /by /The Orange County Registerby Carolyn Cavecche

As California continues to experience drought concerns, most of us are probably not thinking about flooding. Yet, the high cost of flooding in our country is something that every taxpayer, sooner or later, will be forced to address. Already in 2016, 20 major flooding disasters have been declared, exceeding $10 billion in estimated costs. Making matters worse, the National Flood Insurance Program is $23 billion in debt. Thankfully, some relief may be in sight.

 

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SF Bay Ecosystem Collapsing As Rivers Diverted, Scientists Report

/in /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Carolyn Lochhead

Evidence of what scientists are calling the planet’s Sixth Mass Extinction is appearing in San Francisco Bay and its estuary, the largest on the Pacific Coast of North and South America, according to a major new study. So little water is flowing from the rivers that feed the estuary, which includes the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, Suisun Marsh and the bay, that its ecosystem is collapsing, scientists who conducted the study say.

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Water Planners Brace For 6th Year of Drought

/in /by /Inland News Today (Riverside)

Southern California water suppliers are bracing for a possible sixth year of drought. It’s a new ‘water year’ that began this month and officials will outline their plans Monday to meet the region’s water needs. Although the region’s water-saving efforts and last winter’s rain and snow in Northern California helped improve local stored reserves, extreme drought persists in much of the region. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is maintaining a Water Supply Alert calling for continued awareness and reinforced conservation throughout the district’s 5,200-square-mile service area.

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Opinion: San Francisco To State On Water-Use Cutbacks: How Low Can We Go?

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Harlan L. Kelly Jr. and Nicole Sandkulla

Do you think you could reduce your water use by 40 percent? What if we asked for even more than that? This is the type of rationing we can expect during a severe drought if a new proposal from the State Water Resources Control Board is implemented. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is the retail water provider for San Francisco and the water provider for 26 wholesale customers in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties. Today, 85 percent of the water we deliver to our customers comes from the Tuolumne River.

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OPINION: San Francisco’s Turn to Cut Back Water Use To Help Fish

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Spreck Rosekrans

The contentious struggle to restore threatened fisheries in the San Francisco Bay-Delta and the Central Valley has focused mostly on reducing the amount of water exported from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farms and Southern California cities. That’s now changed. The State Water Resources Control Board has asked San Francisco and other communities that withdraw water from rivers that feed into the delta from the south to be part of the solution. Declaring that “the Bay-Delta is in ecological crisis,” the state water board has proposed leaving 40 percent of the natural flow of these rivers untouched.

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More Water In California Reservoirs, But Drought Persists

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

California’s major reservoirs are holding 69 percent more water than a year ago, the U.S. government announced Friday, but regulators warned that drought conditions continue to plague the state. In its annual inventory of water in storage, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said the six key reservoirs owned by the federal government’s Central Valley Project held a combined 4.9 million acre-feet of water as of Oct. 1, the beginning of the “water year” that runs through next September. That figure compared with 2.9 million acre-feet a year earlier.

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BLOG: Meet the Minds: Kelly Twomey Sanders On Water In A Changing Climate

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Eline Gordts

California’s drought has helped the public see what many researchers have known for a long time: Water and energy are deeply intertwined. Kelly Twomey Sanders has been exploring this energy-water nexus in depth. She joined the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California in 2014 after having completed her PhD at the University of Texas. Sanders is working to identify the technical, market and regulatory interventions that can help reduce water-related disruptions to energy services in the context of a changing climate.

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AM Alert: Water board discusses drinking wastewater

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Taryn Luna

Let’s talk about drinking (treated) pee.

California is in the midst of a multi-year drought and just last week forecasters admitted to having no idea if the upcoming wet season will actually bring any rain. With water scarcity a major concern in California and beyond, recycling wastewater to drinkable standards is evolving from idea to reality.

The state commissioned a panel of experts through the State Water Resources Control Board to determine if it’s possible to develop standards for recycling wastewater into a drinkable source. Short answer: It’s doable, but we need to conduct more public health research first.

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BLOG: Water contractors sue federal government for $350 million

/in /by /The Associated Press (As Published by: The Daily Progress - Charlottesville, Va.)

Seventeen California water districts have filed a lawsuit for $350 million against the federal government for not delivering water to contractors in the drought year of 2014.

The Fresno Bee reports (http://bit.ly/2dUTACL ) that the districts in the San Joaquin Valley and the city of Fresno filed the suit Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.

Attorney Craig Parton, who is representing the contractors, says the claim seeks to recover the fair market value of Friant Division water not delivered to the contractors even though there were sufficient supplies in Millerton Lake that year.

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