In 2010, Los Angeles used enough water irrigating lawns to meet the needs of nearly a half-million average households for a year. That’s according to a new study by scientists at the University of Utah, who conducted what they say is the first city-scale assessment of water consumed by landscaping. Their findings show that Los Angeles’ landscaping consumed the equivalent of 100 gallons per person each day, with lawns accounting for 70 percent of that. Urban trees, it turns out, consume relatively little water. And by providing crucial shade, trees can actually make lawns less thirsty.

The number of retired public employees in the CalPERS system with annual pensions of $100,000 or more grew 63 percent since 2012, according to a report released Wednesday. Riverside County, Long Beach, Anaheim, Torrance and Riverside made the list of the 25 public agencies with the most pensioners receiving six-figure retirement pay, Transparent California reported. Almost 23,000 CalPERS retirees collected pensions of at least $100,000 in 2016, the government watchdog group found. The rise in $100,000 pensions underscores the importance of making public employee pension data public, Robert Fellner, Transparent California’s research director, said in a news release.

At a hearing last month, Bernhardt testified that he stopped lobbying for Westlands on Nov. 18, 2016, at a time when he was serving on the Trump transition team. But since then, Bernhardt had helped draft two major California water bills and wrote a proposed executive order for Trump on water issues – all at Westland’s behest. Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting’s stories on the issue were based on a trove of Bernhardt’s emails first obtained by the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group.