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MET Board approves financial support for two OC water projects

/in /by /Orange County Breeze

Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday agreed to help offset the costs of two Orange County projects that will save enough water to supply more than 1,600 families a year.

With the recommendation from the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC), recycled-water projects in the El Toro (ETWD) and Santa Margarita (SMWD) water districts will receive funding under MET’s Local Resources Program (LRP), which helps offset the costs of water-saving projects.

 

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Nation’s Largest Water Recycling Plant Expanding in Orange County

/in /by /KQED News (San Francisco)

California’s prolonged and ongoing drought has at least one positive outcome. It has prompted water officials across the state to quickly develop new sources of water — and one of those new sources is flushed water.

The Orange County Water District is leading the nation in wastewater treatment to replenish groundwater supplies — and that project is expanding now, designed to eventually supply water to 2.4 million people, about 40 percent of all water needed in Orange County.

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Storm to bring up to 2 inches of rain to LA, Ventura counties

/in /by /89.3 KPCC (Pasadena)

A rain storm is expected to pass through Southern California starting Thursday afternoon that will last through Friday.

Some areas are expected to receive up to 2 inches of rainfall, with potentially significant episodes of heavy downpour mainly on Thursday night in Ventura and L.A. counties, Carol Smith with the National Weather Service told KPCC. The San Gabriel Mountains are expected to see up to 3 inches. “It’s certainly not a drought-breaker, but it is going to be a good rain event with periods of heavy rain,” Smith said.

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Potent storm to unleash soaking rain, localized flooding in California

/in /by /AccuWeather (Wichita, Kan.)by Alex Sosnowski

A double-barreled storm will soak California with rain and flash flooding while areas farther north are hit with more snow and ice into Friday. While the storm will bring beneficial moisture to the region, it will also cause travel disruptions to heavily-populated areas along the Pacific coast. Travel was halted along part of Highway 20 in Oregon on Wednesday afternoon after multiple avalanches made the mountain road impassable. No injuries were reported and crews quickly worked to clear the snow.

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Storm swooping in to dump 2 to 5 inches of rain on Bay Area

/in /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Evan Sernoffsky

One of the strongest rainstorms of the season is set to gush over the Bay Area on Thursday just as unusually high tides and blustery winds hit, making for what forecasters expect to be a day of mayhem.

City work crews were gearing up for the super soaker that’s forecast to dump up to 2 inches throughout the day in San Francisco and in the East Bay, and twice that amount in parts of the North and South Bay. Commuters all over the Bay Area should expect hellish driving conditions during the morning and afternoon, when the most intense rain sweeps through.

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King tides expected to have more impact as sea levels rise

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicleby John King

As she stood at the edge of the Embarcadero on Tuesday, the bay waters surging high but rarely spilling toward her feet, Lori Lambertson stated the obvious.

“Tides are real tricky,” said Lambertson, a staff teacher at the Exploratorium science museum. She was explaining the phenomenon known as king tides, when the oceans’ water levels reach higher than at any other time of the year and offer a taste of how sea level rise might alter our shoreline. There was only one problem, so to speak: The tides weren’t putting on much of a show.

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California’s Lake Davis to refill, 20 years after pike disaster started

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by The San Jose Mercury News)

Water regulators plan to allow a lake in Northern California to fill to the brim this winter for the first time since using chemicals to kill off non-native fish.

The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/2hli5sQ ) that the Department of Water Resources lowered Lake Davis in the 1990s to prevent storms from washing predatory northern pike into the waterways below the dam, where they could kill native fish.

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Storms could see Northern California river surging up to 24 feet

/in /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Amy Graff

As what’s expected to be the biggest storm of the season batters Northern California on Thursday, rivers throughout the region are expected to swell.

Creeks and streams in the Bay Area will likely rise only a few feet and won’t come close to flooding, but some flows on the North Coast and in the Sierra Nevada are predicted to reach moderate flood stage. As of Wednesday afternoon, the California-Nevada River Forecast Center predicted the Sacramento River at Fort Ord and the Truckee River in the town of Truckee may reach flood stage in the next 48 hours.

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Lake Tahoe filling up, what does that mean for Calif. drought?

/in /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Amy Graff

The Sierra Nevada is getting soaked this year, and Lake Tahoe is one of the biggest beneficiaries.

The sixth-largest lake in the United States, which straddles California and Nevada, reached its natural rim after weekend storms dumped 12.5 billion gallons of water into the lake. A trickle is now flowing through the dam and into the Truckee River. This is a huge milestone for a body of water that has flirted with record-low levels amid an ongoing drought.

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Carlsbad desalination plant produces 15 billion gallons of fresh water in first year

/in /by /San Francisco Examinerby Nuala Sawyer Quoted: Mark Muir

A mere year after opening, the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant is seeing enormous success in its efforts to provide water for California in the midst of the state’s multi-year drought.

Opened on Dec. 14 2015, the Carlsbad plant uses the most technologically advanced seawater desalination equipment of any plant in the nation. Pulling water from the Pacific Ocean, it met around 10 percent of San Diego County’s water demands in its first year, producing more than 15 billion gallons of fresh water.

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