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Modesto Approves Outdoor Watering Three Times a Week

/in /by /The Modesto Beeby Kevin Valine

Modesto residents will be able to water their lawns three times a week for the first time in two years. The City Council on Tuesday night approved increasing outdoor watering from two days to three days a week from June through October. Modesto has limited outdoor watering to once or twice a week depending on the time of year since May 2015. The city is easing up after winter storms drenched the valley and covered the Sierra Nevada in snow. Modesto gets its drinking water from wells and Tuolumne River water treated by the Modesto Irrigation District.

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Community Briefs: Cal Water Drops Watering Restrictions — But Not So Fast, Bakersfield

/in /by /The Bakersfield Californianby Henry A. Barrios

For a brief moment, the California Water Service Company and the City of Bakersfield were at odds. Cal Water announced Tuesday that it is lifting restrictions that limit customers to three days of outdoor watering per week. But don’t get excited yet, Bakersfield. The fine print says Cal Water will follow local ordinances, and the current City of Bakersfield municipal code prohibits watering more than three days a week. So until the City Council reviews its water ordinance, which it is expected to do later this year, Cal Water customers will not have the freedom to water every day without penalty.

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Padre Dam Holding Hearing on Proposed Water, Sewer Rate Hike

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Karen Pearlman

Water and sewer rates for Padre Dam Municipal Water District customers are about to go up.

The board of directors of the Santee-based district is holding a public hearing June 21 to vote on proposed increases and adjustments to water and sewer rates, and service charges.

The rate hikes, if approved, would take effect in November. The average residential Padre Dam customer would pay $154.75 a month for water and sewer services, up from $151.

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Homeowners Who Let Grass Go Brown to Save Water During California Drought Could Face Fines

/in /by /10Newsby Jonathan Horn

Homeowners who let their grass go brown to save money during the drought may have to turn the sprinklers back on, or else their HOA can fine them. In April, Gov. Jerry Brown declared the drought over for most parts of California, lifting restrictions that kept homeowners associations from disciplining residents who stopped watering their grass to help save money and water. However, those days are over, and HOAs are starting to require families to make all their grass green again.

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PG&E Urges Planning For National Dam Safety Awareness Day

/in /by /East Valley Times (Palo Cedro)by Judy La Russa

In recognition of National Dam Safety Awareness Day on May 31, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) urges those living or working below dams to recognize the signs of a potential dam breach and to have or update an evacuation plan. PG&E’s  97 storage reservoirs are used primarily for generating hydropower and are generally far smaller than state and federal multi-year water storage reservoirs like Lake Oroville and Shasta Lake. In February, damage to the Oroville Dam spillway led to evacuations in Butte, Yuba and Sutter counties.

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DWR: Spillway Construction Ahead Of Schedule, Workers Seen On Spillway

/in /by /KRCR News (Redding)by Jerry Olenyn

For the first time since the reconstruction process began on the Oroville Dam spillway, workers could be seen on the damaged spillway. Construction of the new spillway is approximately one week ahead of schedule, according to Jagdeep Sidhu, an engineer with the Department of Water Resources Program Control Section.  The first area of work on the spillway itself is focusing on the lower chute where the water flows into the Feather river.

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Irrigation Enhancement Project Helps Farmers Regulate Water Usage

/in /by /Register-Pajaronian (Watsonville) by Johanna Miller

A new irrigation enhancement project has seen positive results for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. The project, which took three years to be designed and funded, and only months to be built, cuts down on water usage from the South San Joaquin Valley Irrigation District that backs up in the Stanislaus River. “This grew out of an idea I had,” said Sam Bologna, Engineering Department manager of the South San Joaquin Valley Irrigation District and developer of the project, who was recently in Monterey attending an Association of California Water Agencies conference. “We needed to find a way to serve farmers and also conserve water.”

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Rapid Snowmelt Causes Floods, Impacts Recreation

/in /by /Lake Tahoe Newsby Kathryn Reed

Memorial Day weekend is usually the start of summer for most of the country. For Lake Tahoe, it’s really the end of winter. This coming weekend won’t be any different. While the forecast is for sunny skies and highs in the mid- to high 60s, the remnants of winter will likely be felt by people who are near any body of water and on hiking-biking trails. The National Weather Service in Reno has issued a flood watch that is in effect through 11pm May 24 for South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Bridgeport, Mammoth Lakes, Stateline, Incline Village, Carson City, Reno and Gardnerville.

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Rancho Santa Fe Water District Plans Double-Digit Rate Hike

/in /by /Rancho Santa Fe Reviewby Joe Tash Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Customers of the Santa Fe Irrigation District (SFID) are looking at double-digit increases in their water bills next year, based on a proposed spending plan that will be considered for adoption by the district’s board of directors in June. The rate hike, which is planned for Jan. 1, 2018, will total between 11 and 13 percent, said Jeanne Deaver, the district’s administrative service manager. This includes a 9 percent rate hike imposed by the district, plus a “pass-through” of between 2 and 4 percent based on expected rate increases by the district’s wholesale water supplier, the San Diego County Water Authority.

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Most California Farm-Water Suppliers are Breaking This Law. Why Doesn’t the State Act?

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Phillip Reese

During California’s epic five-year drought, most of the state’s irrigation districts didn’t comply with a 2007 law that requires them to account for how much water they’re delivering directly to farmers, a Bee investigation has found. State regulators are largely powerless to stop them, but they don’t seem too bothered by it. They say they’d rather switch to a different form of reporting. Farm-advocacy groups say irrigation districts have been bombarded with a confusing slew of state and federal laws and regulations that often have overlapping reporting requirements, so it’s no wonder their compliance rates are low.

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