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Salton Sea Still In Need Of Restoration Funding

A sweeping deal to plan for drought in the Colorado River Basin may yet include the river’s largest water user. The Imperial Irrigation District was frozen out of the multi-state deal when Los Angeles water managers offered to provide water cutbacks if Lake Mead continues to lose water. However, the Southern California water district still hopes to join the federal drought contingency plan.

West-Side Water Ticks Up to 65% of Allocation. Is It Too Little, Too Late?

The heavy rains and snow falling on California this year are enabling the Bureau of Reclamation to boost water deliveries to growers on the west side of Fresno County.The Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that it will supply South-of-Delta growers with 65% of their contracted water total. “This has been a great year for California’s water supply,” said Mid-Pacific Regional Director Ernest Conant. “The increased precipitation has allowed us to increase the amount of water we allocate to our South-of-Delta contractors.”

IID Sues To Halt Colorado River Drought Plan Signed By Trump, Says Officials Ignored Salton Sea

It’s not over yet. The Imperial Irrigation District has sued to halt a sweeping Colorado River drought plan that was signed in to law by President Trump on Tuesday. Officials with the sprawling, sparsely populated rural water district in southeastern California say the Salton Sea was wrongly left out of the plan. IID holds among the oldest and largest rights to water from the river.  The petition, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges violations of the California Environmental Quality Act by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It asks the court to suspend the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan until a thorough environmental analysis has been completed.

California Dispute Threatens Plan To Protect Colorado River

A dispute between two major California water agencies is threatening to derail a hard-won agreement designed to protect a river that serves 40 million people in the U.S. West. The Imperial Irrigation District, the largest single recipient of Colorado River water, on Tuesday sued a Los Angeles water utility that agreed to contribute most of California’s share of water to a key reservoir under a multistate drought contingency plan.

OPINION: Salton Sea 10-year ‘Rescue’ Plan Flawed, But Letting Lake Revert To Desert Would Be Folly

Geraci proposes we forget about the birds and salinity of the Salton Sea and concentrate “limited resources” on human-related mitigation to the sea’s decline. He finds much fault with the state’s 10-year Plan commitment to 50 percent of the acreage mitigated being aquatic, which he contends is 20 times as expensive as playa mitigation accomplished done by planting. Perhaps it was a mistake to fund the sea’s restoration under the Fish and Game Department, but that is the vehicle.

 

California Native Gardens Offer Surprising Results With Little Water

This spring’s flowers  there are just so many of them cannot be compared to those of any spring in recent memory. Perennial plants native to dry climates and most of those in our gardens come from Mediterranean lands and the arid parts of South Africa and Australia, too  are especially prone to flowering more after heavy rains. With their roots luxuriating in moist earth, dry climate plants “know” the soil will stay wet long enough for them to continue to absorb water through their roots and so remain fully hydrated to the tips of their shoots for an extended period. This “knowledge” encourages them to make scads of flowers in whose ovaries seeds are formed.

California Irrigation District Challenges River Drought Plan

The Salton Sea is at the center of a legal challenge to a plan designed to protect the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people and 7,812 square miles of farmland in the West.The Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan seeks to keep two Colorado River reservoirs from dropping so low they cannot deliver water or produce hydropower. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming worked for years to come up with the plan.