You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Environmental Group Says Metropolitan Violated Its Own Rules In Buying Delta Islands

/in /by /Central Valley Business Times (Stockton)

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California failed to get an independent appraisal of Delta islands that they bought earlier this year, prior to the time of purchase, as required under the District’s own Administrative Code, says Restore the Delta, an environmental group that opposed planned water tunnels under the Delta. The water district bought four water-filled “islands” and a portion of a fifth in the California Delta from a unit of Zurich Insurance Group of Switzerland.

 

 

Rain Contest Deadline Nears

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego has endured five years of drought. Will 2016-17 be year number six?
You have just two more days to weigh in with your answer. Tell us the exact amount that will fall at the airport – site of San Diego’s official weather station – between Oct. 1 of this year and Sept. 30, 2017.The person who comes closest to the actual total, either over or under, will win a ski weekend for four at Snow Valley Mountain Resort, plus lodging at Lake Arrowhead Resort & Spa.In case of a tie, also tell us the calendar day you think will be the wettest.

Full Story

County Reports Stable Ground Water Levels Under Napa Valley

/in /by /Napa Valley Registerby Barry Eberling

Napa County is trying to make the case that it does a good job managing the underground reservoir beneath the Napa Valley that provides groundwater for rural homes, wineries and vineyards. Groundwater levels beneath the main Napa Valley floor are five to 35 feet deep in the spring and the basin remains “full overall” despite the drought, according to a new, draft Napa Valley groundwater report. “The conditions in the main Napa Valley subbasin have been stable for many decades,” said consultant Vicki Kretsinger Grabert, who worked on the report.

Full Story

A Giant Reservoir That Supplies A California County’s Drinking Water Is Nearly Empty

/in /by /The Washington Postby Darryl Fears

At the marina Monty Keller manages amid sloping mountains here, business is down by half. For hours every workday, he stares sadly at the reason. Lake Cachuma, a giant reservoir built to hold Santa Barbara County’s drinking water, has all but vanished in California’s historic drought. It reached an all-time low this summer — 7 percent capacity, which left a thick beige watermark that circles the hills framing the lake like an enormous bathtub ring. “We’re just amazed,” Keller said.

Full Story

Is Sites Reservoir A Savior For The Sacramento Valley – Or A Delta Tunnels Project In Disguise?

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

An hour north of Sacramento, in a ghost town tucked into a remote mountain valley, California is poised to build a massive new reservoir – a water project of a size that hasn’t been undertaken since Jerry Brown’s first stint as governor in the 1970s. Sites Reservoir, all $4.4 billion of it, represents an about-face in a state where drought has become the norm and water users are told to scrimp and save. Promoters of Sites say the reservoir would significantly enhance water supplies for the rice farms of the Sacramento Valley as well as the cities of Southern California.

Full Story

Desalinization Won’t Solve Drought Woes

/in /by /The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.)by Justin Fox Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Whenever there’s a drought in California, a seemingly obvious source of new water supply beckons. The state abuts a giant ocean. Why not just take the salt out of some of that seawater? It’s the high-tech, forward-looking thing to do, right? It’s also the really expensive thing to do. Of all the options for increasing the state’s water supply considered in a report out Thursday from the Pacific Institute, an environmental think tank based in Oakland, California, desalination costs the most per acre-foot (325,851 gallons, 1.2 million liters) of water produced.

 

Full Story

San Diego hit its 2020 climate plan benchmark before document was approved

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

The city of San Diego released its first Climate Action Plan monitoring report Thursday, finding that its short-term goal for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions was essentially satisfied before the plan was even approved last December. The report outlined progress on emissions cuts during the past five years and found that by 2015, climate pollution had been reduced by 17 percent below the baseline year of 2010 — surpassing the plan’s targeted 15 percent reduction goal by 2020. The emissions cuts resulted largely from state and federal mandates to green up electrical grids and improve fuel-efficiency standards.

Full Story

BLOG: How Conservation Is Getting a 21st-Century Overhaul

/in /by /News Deeplyby Tara Lohan

The seriousness of our environmental situation today calls for the implementation of new tools and technology, and more focus on outcomes instead of procedure. That’s the idea behind the work done today by the Freshwater Trust (TFT). The organization, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, works to restore the health of watersheds by using very precise environmental accounting. “We analyze data, model outcomes and develop rigorous systems and protocols to quantify the environmental benefits of every restoration action,” TFT explains on its website.

Full Story

Dry Farming Flourishes In Drought-Stricken California

/in /by /CNNby Natasha Maugder, Isa Soares

Reducing the amount of water we use to grow our food would go a long way to helping the world’s water stress. At the moment, we use more than two thirds of our water for agriculture. With the United Nations predicting that by 2025 two thirds of us could be living with water scarcity, it throws the issue into sharp relief. Fresh water is rarer than you might think. In fact, it’s only 3% of the planet’s supply with around 75% stored in glaciers.

Full Story

Officials: California Salmon Avoid Catastrophic Year

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by The Washington Times)by Scott Smith

California’s iconic native salmon, which has been hard hit by historic drought and high temperatures, avoided a third disastrous year, federal officials said Thursday. The number of juvenile winter-run Chinook salmon spawning on the Sacramento River in Northern California and swimming out to sea has doubled from 2015, and it’s significantly up from the prior year, officials said. California has experienced five years of drought. The fishing industry and farmers in California’s fertile Central Valley are in a constant struggle over the same river water to sustain their livelihoods.

 

Full Story