For California governor Jerry Brown and his administration, 2017 was a water year to remember, and one that would figure into the drafting of the state’s 2018-19 budget, which was released early this month. The $190 billion proposed spending plan names California’s drought and the “extreme natural events of 2017” as determining factors in how the cash was divvied up.
After a blockbuster snowpack winter for 2016-2017, California is once again in a snow drought and these National Park Service webcams, comparing this week to the same week in 2017, show the shocking difference.Last winter, the snow at the Yosemite “High Sierra” webcam, shown above and located at about 8,000 feet in Northern California, nearly covered the camera. This year, there is barely snow on Half Dome peak shown on the webcam.
Black & Veatch has been selected to serve as owners’ representative for the 500MW San Vicente Energy Storage Facility (SVESF) planned to be built in San Diego County, California, US. Planned to be built at the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside in San Diego County, the new energy storage facility will be owned by the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego.
The San Diego County Water Authority and City of San Diego have selected Black & Veatch as owners’ representative for their 500-MW San Vicente Energy Storage Facility. The plant will be located at the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside, Calif. U.S., with a new upper reservoir, tunnels and underground powerhouse planned for construction. Per the contract, Black & Veatch will assist in evaluating proposals, select service teams and negotiate project delivery agreements.
David Guy is president of the Northern California Water Association (NCWA), an organization committed to ensuring that water supplies are available for the Sacramento Valley — both for today’s users and for future generations. “The Sacramento Valley is a rich mosaic of farmlands, cities, rural communities, refuges, managed wetlands and meandering rivers,” David said. “Every drought we experience reveals numerous pressures on the water supplies that support this vibrant region. We have to be motivated and forward-thinking to advance the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the Sacramento Valley by enhancing and preserving its water rights, supplies and water quality.”
An investigation into last winter’s near catastrophe at Oroville Dam uncovered a litany of problems with how the dam was built and maintained, but one of them stands out: Even as workers built the dam, they were raising alarms about the eroded, crumbling rock on which they were directed to lay concrete for the 3,000-foot-long main flood control spillway.
California’s sweeping effort to regulate groundwater extraction is still in its infancy. But many community groups are already concerned that too little is being done to involve low-income and disadvantaged residents in managing aquifers dominated by agriculture.
Black & Veatch has been selected to serve as owners’ representative for an energy storage facility at the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside in San Diego County, California. The project owners, the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego, are assessing the potential to develop the 500 MW San Vicente Energy Storage Facility to increase the availability and efficiency of renewable energy for the region. It will provide enough stored energy to supply approximately 325,000 homes annually.
Los Angeles is a grand American urban experiment. It brings emerging ideas into the mainstream, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. In the early 20th Century, it seemed fanciful to build a metropolis in a region receiving limited seasonal rainfall. But LA adopted the ideas of the time at grand scales. It built pipelines over hundreds of miles of rugged terrain to import water from the Owens Valley (1913), Colorado River (1939), and Northern California (1972). In a quest for growth, LA has always adopted new ideas to keep ahead.
Controversy is swelling over the February 2017 spillway collapse at the Oroville Dam in Northern California, after local officials last week filed a scathing lawsuit alleging corruption at the state’s main water agency and lawmakers called for FERC to delay the facility’s relicensing. “Decades of mismanagement and intentional lack of maintenance” by the California Department of Water Resources led to the federally declared disaster, according to allegations in the Jan. 17 lawsuit filed by the City of Oroville against the department.
