Satellite data and images are provocative, even disturbing. They confront us with a global view that can be at once breathtaking, like a piece of art, and yet, in this era of rapidly changing climate, they paint a picture of the demise of the environment. How and if we will respond to what we see is uncertain. That uncertainty lies at the root of our perilous future.
San Diego, Calif. – A beauty shot of an East Count reservoir and a portrait of a young couple at Sunset Cliffs took the top prizes in the San Diego County Water Authority’s “Brought to You by Water” photo contest during Water Awareness Month in May.
Construction crews broke ground on a new drought-resistant water supply on Friday in Templeton. The “Upper Salinas River Basin Conjunctive Use Project” will capture existing wastewater that is currently being released outside of the Atascadero Basin and returns the water to the Meadowbrook Wastewater Treatment Plant. Templeton Community Services District officials say this essentially increases the water supply by an additional 242 acre-feet per year.
A proposed tax on California’s drinking water, designed to clean up contaminated water for thousands of Californians, was abandoned by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders Friday as part of the compromise on the state budget. Lawmakers and Brown’s office scrapped the “Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Act,” which would have taxed residents 95 cents a month to raise millions for cleaning toxic wells. Instead, legislative leaders agreed to spend $5 million from the general fund to deal with lead in drinking water at child care centers.
San Diego city officials are reminding residents of an upcoming hike to their water rates. Starting Aug. 1, city water rates will go up 2.16 percent — pending a San Diego County Water Authority vote on June 28. The rate increase was approved by the San Diego City Council in 2015, with funding from the hike to be used for “water reliability and infrastructure improvements,” according to city officials.
Ventura County has spent five straight months under severe drought conditions, despite some big storms earlier this year. That’s not expected to change anytime soon – at least not for the better. “California has gone into its dry season now,” said Adam Allgood, meteorologist with the Climate Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The days leading up to a key funding vote on the delta tunnels project were marked by intense politicking and head-counting by board members at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The behind-the-scenes campaign to get the board to approve nearly $11 billion in financing for the water delivery project is spelled out in a series of texts and emails that Metropolitan released Thursday in response to a Public Records Act request filed by two groups that challenged the April 10 approval.
The citizens of Cape Town, South Africa are breathing a sigh of relief. “Day Zero,” when water taps for citizens and businesses shut off, had been projected to arrive in April. Restrictions on personal and agricultural water use have bought the city a reprieve. Yet a delay is not a solution. The city’s 4 million people, already constrained to 90-second showers and a meager 13 gallons of water a day, will eventually face a day of reckoning when the taps run dry.
A historic vote on the Delta tunnels project is getting a do-over. Southern California’s powerful water agency — the Metropolitan Water District — said Thursday its board will vote again in July on whether to pay for the lion’s share of the project, known officially as California WaterFix. The announcement comes after environmentalists and an open government group complained that Metropolitan directors violated the Brown Act before voting in April to support the tunnels. The Brown Act sets rules intended to prevent government boards from making decisions behind closed doors.
A judge denied a request Thursday by a federal water management agency for more time to evaluate the environmental impacts of California’s water transfer program that allows some water rights holders to sell water to parched farms in the southern part of the state. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O’Neill ordered the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to come up with its full environmental analysis of a 10-year water transfer program by the end of June.
