When Gov. Jerry Brown called for a statewide 25% cut in urban water use last April, drought-weary Californians snapped quickly into compliance.
They slashed consumption enough to easily exceed Brown’s order for four straight months, cheering state water regulators.
Residents in the San Diego Water District are currently tasked with slashing water use 28 percent under state-mandated rules, but this target could be lowered to 20 percent.
General Manager Bill O’Donnell at the district’s Feb. 17 board meeting said the state might lower the district’s target based on a credit for districts that have developed local water supplies since 2013 — in this case, the Carlsbad Desalination Plant that recently opened.
Following a national search to select its top legal officer, the San Diego County Water Authority Thursday named local attorney Mark J. Hattam as general counsel.
A partner in the San Diego office of Allen Matkins, a California-based law firm specializing in real estate, litigation, labor, tax, land use and business law, Hattam will begin his new post March 14.
At a Feb. 3 meeting of the Orange County Water District, members of the public questioned plans to build a new desalination plant along the coast. They noted San Diego County Water Authority officials were forced to dump treated water into a lake because of a contract they signed with Poseidon Resources to build a desalination plant in Carlsbad. In response, Scott Maloni, vice president of Poseidon, said, “Despite some comments you heard tonight about water not being used or not being needed, that is not the case.”
A drier February is having an impact on the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada.
The State Department of Water Resources said Tuesday the statewide snow pack water content is 7 percent below normal despite the fact that precipitation since October 1st is only about 5 percent above average.
What gets measured gets managed, ” management guru Peter Drucker once said. In the fourth year of a historic drought, Drucker’s statement is especially relevant.
Simply put, in spite of numerous databases containing information on hydrology, biology, water quality, water use and other technical information, there is no single entity responsible for collecting and reporting all the data necessary for regulatory and water supply managers to make informed and science-based decisions to manage our precious water resources.
With the El Niño weather phenomenon lingering lightly across the U.S. West Coast, many Californians have breathed a sigh of relief. The recent showers triggered by the weather anomaly so far this year could potentially aid the state’s growers in the short term. But will they abate the accumulated effects of nearly five years of drought in the long term? At www.freshfruitportal.com we caught up with water experts and local growers to find the answer.
Western Growers (WGA) vice president of federal government affairs, Dennis Nuxoll, said one year of stable weather conditions will not curb the long-term effects of the accumulated water shortage
The Metropolitan Water District has no plans at the moment to continue funding an extremely popular turf removal program that has been credited with helping Southern Californians replace more than 100 million square feet of lawn.
Last year, in response to the continued drought, the district added a major injection of funding for conservation programs from its reserve funds. The injections turned what is typically a $20 million conservation budget into a whopping $450 million.
The year’s first congressional hearing on California’s water crisis incited stern voices and familiar feuds Wednesday, but showed no sign of legislative progress.
Instead, for two hours, lawmakers largely remained in trenches dug over many years as they lobbed shells at one another and, at times, the assembled witnesses.
With a bit more snow in the Sierra than in years past, California officials on Wednesday boosted the amount of water they expect to deliver this year from the state’s mountain-fed reservoirs.
The 29 water agencies served by the massive State Water Project, which provides about 25 million Californians with water, are set to receive 30 percent of the supplies they requested — up from 15 percent estimated last month, the Department of Water Resources announced.
