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The Golden State’s water crisis: California and EPA poised to expand pollution of potential drinking water reserves

/in /by /Salon (Sacramento)by Abrahm Lustgarten

As the western United States struggles with chronic water shortages and a changing climate, scientists are warning that if vast underground stores of fresh water that California and other states rely on are not carefully conserved, they too may soon run dry.

Heeding this warning, California passed new laws in late 2014 that for the first time require the state to account for its groundwater resources and measure how much water is being used.

 

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Lake Powell could dry up in as little as six years, study says

/in /by /Arizona Daily Starby Tony Davis

Lake Powell has been called “Jewel of the Colorado” by the federal agency that built it, the Bureau of Reclamation.

It’s been a vital force for the intermountain West because of its ability to store vast amounts of water and generate electricity for farmers, cities and towns in 13 states.

But a new study warns that the lake could virtually dry up in as few as six years if the region gets a repeat of the dry spell it experienced from 2000 to 2005.

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Drought Hurting California Salmon

/in /by /The Associated Press (As Published by: U.S. News) by ELLEN KNICKMEYER

California’s iconic native salmon are struggling amid five years of drought.

On a recent fishing trip by the Salty Lady charter boat just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, fishermen were hooking native Chinook salmon that had been born at state and federal hatcheries and then carried in trucks for release downstream.

Golden Gate Salmon Association president Victor Gonella says trucking is the only reason the state’s vital fall-run salmon survived the previous two years of drought.

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District to Conduct Water Rate Study

/in /by /Ramona Sentinelby Karen Brainard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The water district says it’s time to seek proposals to conduct a water rate study since the last one was in 2011.

At the water board’s Aug. 9 meeting David Barnum, the district’s general manager, said the agency did not raise water rates this year in anticipation of an updated rate study. The study would include a district water model incorporating changes in water operations and, using that model, updating the water facilities plan. After identifying necessary projects in the facilities plan a consultant would develop an updated water rate study, according to district staff.

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Clarifications on estimates of irrigated cropland idled due to 2016 California drought

/in /by /Imperial Valley Newsby Josue’ Medellin-Azuara, Duncan MacEwan, Richard E. Howitt, Daniel A. Sumner and Jay R. Lund

On August 15, a team from UC Davis, ERA Economics and the UC Agricultural Issues Center released an economic impact report related to the California drought of 2016.

Several commentaries have indicated that land fallowing in the summer of 2016 exceeds the approximately 80 thousand acres in the 2016 drought report. Therefore, this short “supplement” provides additional details and clarification on how we estimated the impact of the 2016 drought on land idling as opposed to other causes of water shortages in 2016. (The same clarification applies to jobs and other economic aggregates.)

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Heavy Water Users in California Could Face Penalties, $500 Fines If Drought Persists

/in /by /KTLA

Locked in a multi-year drought, California’s urban water suppliers have, for the most part, happily enforced rules that prohibit specific wasteful water practices, such as hosing down driveways and over-watering lawns.

But far fewer agencies have been willing to go beyond state mandates and penalize customers simply for using profligate volumes of water. The names of those heavy users have been mostly kept secret under California public records law. That’s about to change.

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Fading Salton Sea Thirsting For Water

/in /by /KPBSby Erik Anderson

Tom Anderson stands on an overlook on the southern edge of the shallow lake. Red Rock Hill rises up near the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, where Anderson is a deputy project manager. Anderson works to reclaim habitat for shore birds that come here to forage and feed. Agricultural runoff and evaporation team up to concentrate the salt in this land-locked lake, according to Anderson. That leaves the lake significantly saltier than the Pacific Ocean. The Salton Sea is also getting smaller.

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OPINION: Finally, Progress Towards a Sustainable Salton Sea

/in /by /Los Angeles Times

As California’s two largest inland bodies of water go, Lake Tahoe is the stereotypical beauty queen — classically stunning, endlessly photogenic, fragile. Frankly, quite chilly yet eternally inspiring to legions of admirers. The Salton Sea is the neighbor tucked away at the far end of the street and often forgotten. Stark, spare, somewhat homely, beloved by only a select and discriminating community of devotees. The result of an accident. Unkempt. Sometimes — let’s be honest here — a little smelly.

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OPINION: Water Relief Is on The Way – If Congress Works Together

/in /by /The Fresno Beeby Dianne Feinstein

A recent study by UC Davis confirmed that the Central Valley continues to suffer the brunt of the drought, to the tune of $630 million this year and $5.5 billion over the past three years. Farmers have fallowed more than 1 million acres of land, and 42,000 people have lost their jobs. But we need to look beyond the numbers. Small farms have gone bankrupt. Generations of farmers have lost their livelihoods, including a cantaloupe farmer I recently met with who lost the farm his grandfather started. He and his father had worked that land side-by-side for decades.

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Can San Diego’s Ambitious Environmental Plan Make it a Test Case For Green Urbanism?

/in /by /Curbed (New York City, N.Y.)by Patrick Sisson

When San Diego passed a far-reaching Climate Action Plan last December, there was real reason to celebrate. The nation’s eighth-largest city, a poster child for Southern California suburbia, had passed a far-reaching, progressive environmental policy (with a Republican mayor in charge) that not only advocated for important goals, such as slashing carbon emissions in half by 2035, but made them legally binding. It was a bound promise suggesting a level of civic engagement and vision that would make the city a trailblazer for others, hitting benchmarks that perhaps have never been hit by any other city.

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