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Sites Reservoir: Bond Fund Proposal Must Be Ready In August

/in /by /Oroville Mercury Register

The plans to build a new reservoir near Maxwell have been a long time in coming. At this point, 30 agencies throughout the state are on the list to help pay for planning efforts and later receive a share of an estimated average yield of 500,000 acre-feet of water. The next step is to apply for partial funding through Proposition 1 funds, the statewide water bond approved in 2014. Within the $7.5 bond amount, $2.7 billion is set aside for water storage projects.

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The Challenge of Measuring Groundwater in California’s Central Valley

/in /by /News Deeplyby Ian Evans

During droughts, groundwater pumping is increased to make up for losses from surface water. This is especially true in California’s Central Valley, which stretches roughly 400 miles from Redding to just south of Bakersfield, and is the heart of the state’s $47 billion-a-year agricultural industry. For decades, many parts of the Central Valley aquifer have been overdrafted, but recent work by scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Houston have attempted to put a more precise number on how much water is being pumped.

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VIDEO: CA Superintendent Talks Water Quality in San Diego

/in /by /NBC 7 San Diego

California’s Superintendent of schools, Tom Torlakson, visited schools in San Diego Thursday to talk about water quality issues and to congratulate a couple of teachers of the year. NBC 7 Investigates uncovered lead contamination in drinking water at some local schools, and now the topic is top of mind for many. NBC 7’s Liberty Zabala reports.

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Debate Continues Over Proposed Huntington Desalination Plant Amid Latest Environmental Report

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ben Brazil Mentioned: Carlsbad Desalination Plant

The long debate over Poseidon Water’s proposed ocean desalination plant in Huntington Beach continued this week as the California State Lands Commission released a draft of a supplemental environmental impact report analyzing planned additions to the facility that are meant to reduce potential harm to marine life and increase the plant’s efficiency. The supplement to a 2010 EIR addresses the possible environmental effects of a screen and diffuser added to the intake and outflow pipes, respectively, that would be used by the $1-billion desalination facility proposed at Newland Street and Pacific Coast Highway.

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Commentary: Desalination Will Not Solve California’s Water Woes

/in /by /The Mercury News‎by Leon Szeptycki and Newsha K. Ajami

In the wake of the recent drought, desalination of ocean water continues to be a central topic in California water debates. Some coastal communities were particularly hard hit by the drought, including a large swath of the central coast that is among the last regions in the state still suffering from drought conditions. Desalination seems to hold the potential for limitless, drought-proof supplies, but the reality is far more complex.

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BLOG: The Hidden Opportunity for Water Storage in California

/in /by /Environmental Defense Fund by Maurice Hall

California’s historic winter ended the drought in many parts of the state and piled up record levels of snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. With so much precipitation, surface water infrastructure – our network of dams, reservoirs and levees – has been called into action like never before, and in some cases has struggled to handle the influx of flows.

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Oroville Dam Update: Fracture Likely Caused By ‘Multiple Factors’

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

If you’re expecting a quick and easy answer on what caused the spillway failure at Oroville Dam, think again. The leader of the independent forensics team studying the Oroville crisis said Thursday that the crack in the dam’s main flood-control spillway likely was caused by a combination of problems. “We do anticipate there will be multiple contributory factors, no single factor,” said dam safety consultant John France in a conference call with reporters.

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New Emergency Siren Installed at Dam that Forced Evacuations

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by ABC10 News)

Officials say they have installed a new emergency siren at a Northern California dam whose damaged spillway forced evacuations earlier this year. The state Department of Water Resources says it will conduct the first test of the new siren at Oroville Dam on Friday. Monthly tests in July and August will follow. The previous siren was lost during water releases in February. Construction crews have begun demolishing the destroyed portion of the main spillway at the dam, which is the nation’s tallest.

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Rising Seas Could Swamp The Shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Plant By Next Century

/in /by /KPBS

Southern California Edison’s plan to store 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station has citizen activist Ray Lutz on edge. “It’s only 100 feet from the seawall to the edge of where the deposit is,” Lutz said. The permit from the California Coastal Commission for the storage is for 20 years. But Lutz contends that the permit is practically permanent because there’s no long-term nuclear waste storage site in the United States. “They don’t know if it will be removed in 2051 or even for many decades after that,” Lutz said.

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Solana Beach Embarks On New Energy Future

/in /by /Del Mar Timesby Sebastian Montes

Solana Beach is on its way to becoming the first jurisdiction in San Diego to move toward an energy alternative to SDG&E, striving for the promise of cheaper electricity rates, greater local control and a higher percentage of renewable energy. In a historic 4-1 vote on Wednesday, May 24, the Solana Beach City Council launched into the exploratory phase of a three-phase plan to shift Solana Beach’s 7,800 energy customers out of SDG&E’s monopoly and into city-run community choice aggregation (CCA).

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