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The Desert Is In Super Bloom At Anza-Borrego State Park

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Marisa Gerber

Heather Slavey squinted as she stared into the badlands. She shook her head in awe of the natural montage — yellows, pinks, purples. “Wow,” she said. “It looks like something out of the Wizard of Oz.” Slavey, who does marketing for a law firm, and her husband, Robert, left their home in San Diego early Saturday morning, and drove toward Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Like thousands of others across the Southland, they made the pilgrimage into the desert this weekend to witness a once-in-a-decade wildflower “super bloom” — the aftereffect of heavy winter rains.

 

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San Luis Reservoir Full For First Time In Six Years

/in /by /Santa Cruz Sentinelby Paul Rogers

Last summer it was a jarring symbol of California’s historic five-year drought. San Luis Reservoir — the vast lake along Highway 152 between Gilroy and Los Banos, the state’s fifth-largest reservoir and a key link in the water supply for millions of people and thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland — was just 10 percent full. A parched expanse of cracked mud, littered with old beer bottles and millions of tiny clam shells, San Luis was at its lowest level in 27 years.

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Photos Taken Weeks Before Oroville Dam Spillway Broke Show Something Wrong

/in /by /The Reporter News (Vacaville)by Dan Reidel

Something was wrong with the Oroville Dam spillway weeks before the Department of Water Resources noticed a hole in the concrete. Two photos taken by photographers from this newspaper show discoloration and possible damage to the concrete of the spillway at the spot where a gaping hole opened Feb. 7. Those pictures were taken Jan. 13 and Jan. 27. When asked for a response to the photos, California Natural Resources Agency deputy secretary for communication Nancy Vogel wrote in an email to this newspaper, “Oroville dam was frequently inspected by multiple state and federal agencies.

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River Flow Debate Has Turned On How Best To Help Fish

/in /by /The Modesto Beeby John Holland

Thousands of salmon have begun their lives not in sparkling mountain streams but in plastic trays stacked 16 high in a building. The Merced River Hatchery, near Snelling, has assisted Mother Nature since 1970. It removes eggs from adults that have returned after a few years in the Pacific Ocean, then rears the young until they are ready for their own journey to the sea. Upgrading the hatchery is part of a plan the Merced Irrigation District devised in response to a state proposal to sharply increase releases from Lake McClure.

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Moosa Canyon Erosion Control Project Unopposed At Public Hearing

/in /by /The Fallbrook/Bonsall Village Newsby Joe Naiman Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) held a public hearing on the draft environmental Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) for the Moosa Canyon erosion control project, and the Feb. 23 hearing during the meeting of the SDCWA’s Water Planning Committee did not produce any opposition to the draft MND. “It’s always good when there is little or no public comment, (because) that generally means that bases got covered, and we worked hard to do that,” said Water Planning Committee chair David Cherashore, who is one of the City of San Diego’s representatives on the CWA board.

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OPINION: If The Feds Won’t Protect Our Water, California Has To Do The Job Itself

/in /by /Los Angeles Times

President Trump’s directive to roll back key protections for the nation’s waters helps to crystallize California’s challenge in the Trump era — and points the way toward a workable strategy for preserving and promoting the state’s environmental values despite an administration that is pushing in the opposite direction. At issue is a rule that defines the reach of the landmark Clean Water Act, the 1972 law to prevent contamination of drinking water and degradation of U.S. waterways.

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When Is a Drought Over? A Wet California Wants to Know

/in /by /The New York Timesby Adam Nagourney

The Hollywood Reservoir is nestled in a basin surrounded, usually, by dusty brown hillsides, broken up by the occasional dry wisp of shrubbery. Not these days. After yet another burst of rain the other day, the hills were transformed into lush fields of knee-high grass, spotted with purple flowers. And the reservoir? As high as it has been in years. In Northern California, snow could be seen on top of Mount Diablo outside San Francisco last weekend. Across the state, dams are under siege and reservoirs are overflowing.

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OPINION: Recycling California’s Water Key To Preserving Supply

/in /by /The Orange County Registerby Colin Sabol

Kale or quinoa? Free range chicken or seasonal veggie medley? Pellegrino or … recycled water? Californians could soon start drinking purified wastewater. In response to a five-year drought, the State Water Resources Control Board recently informed legislators that regulating recycled, drinkable water is perfectly feasible. California would be the first state in the nation to implement such regulations.

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Damaged Oroville Dam Spillway May Need To Be Used By Next Week, State Officials Say

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Joseph Serna

A damaged flood control spillway at the Oroville Dam may have to be used as early as next week as storm runoff and snowmelt continue to fill the massive reservoir on the Feather River, state water officials said. The spillway has been dry since Feb. 27, when engineers with the Department of Water Resources rapidly reduced the flow of water down the concrete chute from 50,000 cubic feet per second to zero so they could repair the spillway and restart a nearby hydroelectric plant.

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California Is Having Its Rainiest Water Year On Record, Lifting Many Out Of Drought Conditions

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Joseph Serna

California is having its rainiest water year since record-keeping began in 1895 — a deluge that has been rapidly altering the landscape of a state that until recently was in drought. It has rained an average of 27.81 inches statewide from Oct. 1 to Feb. 28, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information reported. A water year begins on Oct. 1. The 20th century average was 15.5 inches in the same time period, and the previous record was the winter of 1968-69, when it rained an average of 27.34 inches, the agency reported. Signs of this shift are everywhere.

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