One of the Bay Area’s last storms of the winter is expected Wednesday, with rainfall likely beginning this morning and continuing into the evening. “The rain will enter the North Bay early this morning and slowly push southward for the day,” said Brian Mejia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
A dystopian drama is unfolding in Cape Town, a popular tourist destination of nearly 4 million on the coast of South Africa that in April is expected to become the modern world’s first major city to run out of water after three years of drought. For Californians, who panted through five years of record drought before last winter and have seen a fairly dry winter so far this year, it raises the worrisome question: Could it happen here?
The state Department of Water Resources could have lost control of the spillway radial gates for days during the Oroville Dam crisis if crucial power lines had gone down, according to department officials. DWR leaders Cindy Messer and Joel Ledesma stated this Jan. 10 during a legislative oversight hearing on the dam at the State Capitol. This has since led some local groups to wonder why there was no backup power supply.
The past week was a difficult one for supporters of the California WaterFix project, formerly referred to as the Delta tunnels project, as allegations of ex parte communications between the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the California State Water Board have come to light, largely as a result of work done by the Discovery Bay-based Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA).
Every year, Californians get a report card from their water department telling them if something is wrong with their water. These polished brochures typically begin by laying out all the great things water agencies are doing with ratepayer money. It would be easy to just throw them away. But near the end is series of hard-to-decipher charts that show what sort of contaminants have been found in their drinking water. These are things, like bacteria, that could make someone sick immediately and others, like disinfectant byproducts, that could give someone cancer over time.
Infrastructure EPC company Black & Veatch will evaluate proposals received for a 500MW pumped hydro energy storage facility in San Diego, California. San Diego Water Authority issued a request for proposals (RfP) for the plant last summer, with a 12 September 2017 deadline for submissions. The RfP was for a facility with 5-8 hours energy storage duration, to help support the stability of the local grid at peak times and to integrate local renewable energy production, mostly solar PV.
Water agencies across the West, including in Southern California, have for decades shot silver iodide into clouds from cannons and airplanes. The theory is that the particles make the clouds drop even more snow than would fall otherwise. But there is very little scientific evidence that it works. “You do get the question, how much snow did we make? I can’t really tell you. I don’t really know.” said Chris Harris, executive director of the Colorado River Board, a California state agency that represents Southern California water agencies on Colorado River issues and spends up to $250,000 annually on cloud seeding in the Rocky Mountains.
