Los Angeles-based members of Congress today applauded a House committee’s inclusion of a Los Angeles River restoration project in an annual water infrastructure funding bill.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee opted to include the Los Angeles River Ecosystem project — which would restore natural habitats to the portions of the 51-mile river — into the Water Resources and Development Act of 2016.
Think the current California drought has been tough? It will get worse in the future, because the state is always growing. But quantifying that effect has largely been guesswork. Until now.
A new study in Environmental Research Letters by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Nature Conservancy estimates how water demand will change in 2062 by projecting the present rate of land-use change. This includes urban growth and farmland conversion – both conversion of farms into urban areas and conversion of annual crops to permanent crops, like orchards and vineyards.
Water supplies are better than normal in Northern California, so why is it that Central Valley Project (CVP) water users can’t get a break? The water users in question are the farms and ranches in the San Joaquin Valley that rely on the federal Central Valley Project water conveyance system. They are set to receive a meager 5 percent of their water supply this year.
It’s the middle of May and rainfall in the northern Sierra is currently 111 percent of normal. Lake Shasta is 93 percent full and 108 percent of its year-to-date average.
The water in the largest U.S. reservoir has sunk to a record low, due to the severe drought in the American Southwest.
Lake Mead, in Nevada, had dropped 10 feet in three months. With an average depth of 1,084 feet in February, last week the reservoir measured only 1,074 feet deep, or only 37 percent of capacity, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The manmade lake — formed during the Great Depression by the blocking of the Colorado River with Hoover Dam — has endured despite the drought that has dried up the mountain snowpacks that feed the river.
I want to be absolutely clear that whatever it takes, we cannot allow the twin tunnels to ever be built. Sized for a capacity of 15,000 cubic feet per second, they are capable of taking all the water that flows down the Sacramento River for half of every year. The tunnels are the ultimate vampire capable of sucking the Delta dry.We must stop the tunnels, but that is not enough. We must conserve water on farms and in cities.
I see the relaxed drought-required conservation measures being responded to in varying degrees, depending on the municipality, geographic location and local water supplies. Readers may recall when I wrote in this column that there was no rational reason for Red Bluff residents, and Red Bluff officials, to implement—or even consider—the mandates from the water wizards in our Emerald City to the south.
My fellow Americans, it’s time we stop worrying and learn to love the bug. Not only are they imperative to our life here on this planet, but these squirmy little heroes are always finding new ways to help us out of our jams. The most recent case-in-point is California, where worms are being used to tackle a massive wine industry issue: wastewater disposal.
It’s common knowledge among vintners that creating a single glass of wine in California can use up to 14 gallons of water—and then you have to clean it.
Customers in San Diego County cut back on water consumption by 23 percent in April, compared to the same month three years ago, marking the largest monthly reduction since September, the San Diego County Water Authority reported Monday.
The state-mandated target for the county as a whole is to reduce consumption by 13 percent compared to the corresponding month in 2013. The goal was lowered recently from 20 percent after the region was given credit for bringing a desalination plant in Carlsbad online.
From December 2015 to May 2016, Folsom Lake went from its lowest historical capacity of 13 percent to 86 percent. Photos from three different views of Folsom Lake on Nov. 2, 2015; Jan. 26, 2016; March 7, 2016 and May 24, 2016, show drastic differences in the lake’s water levels
The “Godzilla” El Niño that began last fall is finally over after months of above-average sea surface temperatures in the Pacific that altered weather patterns around the world, the Australian weather-monitoring agency said Tuesday.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s counterparts in other countries around the world will likely announce the same finding in their coming El Niño reports. Reports published earlier this month by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the World Meteorological Organization suggested that El Niño was already in decline.
