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February Has Been Bone Dry. Has Drought Returned To California?

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

Weather experts spent much of this winter cautiously optimistic. There were still weeks to go in the wet season and the reservoirs were full, thanks to last winter’s near record-breaking rain and snow. Now, even the professionals are getting more than a little nervous. There have been weeks of hardly any rain. The Sierra Nevada has received record-low amounts of snow. Meanwhile, the calendar is flipping ever closer to California’s blast furnace dry season. “The outlook isn’t good,” said David Rizzardo, chief of snow surveys with the Department of Water Resources.

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Drought Conditions Spread Across The West – Are We Ready?

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Alastair Bland

The driest December in California’s recorded history was followed by a relieving gush of rain in January, when it seemed there was a chance the state would be on track to receive at least its average level of precipitation. Now, shortly after a record-breaking midwinter heatwave and seemingly endless blue skies, general optimism is waning as February shapes up to be even drier than December, despite a soaking Los Angeles received on Monday.

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5 Things To Know About The Plan To Ship Water To Southern California

/in /by /89.3 KPCC (Pasadena)by Sharon McNary

Earlier this week, KPCC learned Southern California’s largest water importer, the Metropolitan Water District, was considering more than doubling its investment in a plan to reconfigure how supplies are diverted from one of the region’s most important sources of water: the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta just east of San Francisco. Three MWD board members have floated the idea of spending an additional $6 billion to revive a plan to build two giant tunnels under the delta.

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Are We Using The Wrong Words To Talk About Our Water Supply?

/in /by /91.5 KJZZ (Tempe, Ari.)by Mark Brodie

There’s been a lot of talk about drought recently across Arizona and the West – especially with the relatively dry winter we’ve been having. But my next guest wishes we didn’t use the “d” word as much as we do. Tom Philp is strategic communications and policy adviser for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and he’s written about how we may need a new lexicon to talk about our current water situation. Philp joins me.

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Dry, Hot California Winter Closes Ski Resorts, Stalls Wildflower Blooms And Revives Drought Fears

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Paige St. John, Rong-Gong Lin II, and Sarah Parvini

In the Sierra Nevada, snowpack levels are running below even the darkest days of the drought, with cross-country ski resorts closed and mountain biking becoming the sport of choice until the snow returns. In the Bay Area, cities like San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Rosa are experiencing the hottest starts to a year on record. And Southern California remains in the grip of unprecedented dry and hot conditions, despite a weak storm that moved in Monday. February is historically a wet month, but not this year. And the long-term forecast offers little hope for relief.

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Will This Become The Driest February On Record In Bay Area?

/in /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Hank Gomez

The Bay Area has experienced February dry spells before, including twice from 2013 to 2016 during California’s historic drought when rainfall totals were drastically below the monthly average. But this February could close with a distinction most in the Bay Area would like to avoid. This could become the first February in more than 150 years with no rainfall. The only major Bay Area city to go the entire month of February without rain is San Francisco in 1864. San Francisco has the longest set of weather data in the Bay Area, going back to 1850.

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Sustainable Landscaping Guidebooks Available Countywide

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Free copies of a popular guidebook for environmentally friendly landscaping upgrades are available to residents countywide, thanks to a second printing of the “San Diego Sustainable Landscape Guidelines” by the San Diego County Water Authority. Residents can pick up the 71-page, spiral-bound books at the front desk of the Water Authority’s Kearny Mesa headquarters, and at approximately 15 other locations in San Diego, Chula Vista, El Cajon, Oceanside, San Marcos, Bonita and Spring Valley. A list of pickup locations is at sustainablelandscapessd.org/guidelines, as is an electronic version of the guidebook.

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OPINION: We Had A Deal. Without Sites, Temperance You’re Breaking A Promise

/in /by /The Modesto Beeby Adam C. Gray

In 2014, I asked you to support Proposition 1, $7.5 billion water bond written during one of the worst droughts in the state’s modern history. It certainly wasn’t perfect. I would have preferred significantly more than the $2.7 billion it provided for water storage, while others would have eliminated water storage funding entirely. But Prop 1 was a product of compromise and negotiation – something we need a lot more of in today’s political climate. In typical Sacramento fashion, we had ignored a problem until it became so large that we could not possibly ignore it anymore.

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State: Delta Tunnels A Good Investment

/in /by /The Record (Stockton)by Alex Breitler

More than six years after critics began calling for a full economic study of the Delta tunnels plan, the Brown administration released one on Tuesday, finding that the benefits outweigh the costs — albeit by a slim margin for some water users. Delta interests immediately dismissed the study as skewed and speculative. The new study looks only at the first of the two tunnels, which now are expected to be built in phases after officials couldn’t get water districts to commit to the full $17 billion cost.

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What’s Next For The Oroville Dam?

/in /by /Action News Now (Chico)by James Villalobos

The failure of the spillway wasn’t just a scary experience for Oroville, but also a costly one for a city that was already struggling financially. Right now, costs are up by millions of dollars, but it’s crucial to repair the dam which provides water for more than 25 million Californians. Kiewit construction crews continue to be hard at work making repairs on the Oroville Dam Spillway. Construction is being done in two phases, with the first completed in November.

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