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Facing Water Crunch, Clovis Gets To Work On Drought Resiliency

/in , /by /The San Joaquin Valley Sunby George Hostetter

When it comes to securing a strong future for water deliveries, Fresno City Hall through its half-billion-dollar Recharge Fresno project gets a lot of hard-earned publicity of the good sort. But don’t overlook the fine work being done in a similar regard by Clovis City Hall. Fresno’s neighbor to the northeast is busy making sure it, too, is drought resilient during what figures to be a 21st century full of impressive growth. The Clovis City Council in July approved an amended deal with the Fresno Irrigation District concerning the conveyance of Kings River water to the city’s water system.

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Odor Advisory Issued For Salton Sea Area; Hydrogen Sulfide Leads To Rotten-Egg Smell

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Carlos Lozano

An odor advisory was issued Sunday for the Salton Sea area in Riverside County due to elevated levels of a gas that smells like rotten eggs, according to state air regulators. The advisory was issued for the Coachella Valley and will remain in effect until at least Monday because of winds from the south, with peak concentrations of hydrogen sulfide emissions occurring in the morning hours, the South Coast Air Quality Management District said in a statement. “Hourly average concentrations of hydrogen sulfide peaked [Sunday] morning at 239 parts per billion immediately downwind of the Salton Sea – at a monitor close to the shore, in an area with little population,” the district said.

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Can Water Agencies Work Together Sustainably? – Lessons From Metropolitan Planning

/in , , /by /California WaterBlogby Jay Lund

It is said that, “In the US, we hate government so much that we have thousands of them.” This decentralization has advantages, but poses problems for integration. Integration is easy to say, and hard to do. Integration is especially hard, and unavoidably imperfect, for organizing common functions across different agencies with different missions and governing authorities. (Similar problems exist for organizing common functions across programs within a single agency.) Much of what is called for in California water requires greater devotion of leadership, resources, and organization to multi-agency efforts.

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How Ground-Based GPS Stations Help Weather Forecasters Predict Heavy Rain And Flooding

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby John Lindsey

Geodesy is the study of Earth’s shape, gravity field and rotation. An excellent method to study the Earth is by use of high-precision Continuous Global Positioning System (CGPS) stations that are firmly mounted on bedrock and can measure the slow, persistent ground motion of Earth’s crustal plates down to a few millimeters over time. In the western United States, there are more than 1,200 CGPS stations, including more than 25 on the Central Coast. A few of these stations are classified as Global Positioning System Meteorology (GPS-Met), such as the ones located in Cambria, Los Osos and Point Sal.

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6 Things To Know About Cadiz’s Plan To Pump Water In San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert

/in , , /by /The San Bernardino Sunby Sandra Emerson

The story behind a proposal to pump water from under the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County is a long and complicated one. Since its approval in 2012, the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project has been tied up in litigation from environmental groups, fought over in the state legislature and faced hurdles by state and federal government officials. Here’s more about the Cadiz water project: 1. Who’s behind it? The project is a partnership between Cadiz Inc., a Los Angeles-based natural resources company, and several Southern California water agencies. The company owns about 35,000 acres with water rights in San Bernardino County.

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Los Angeles, State Officials Discuss Increasing Local Water Supplies

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles city and county representatives hosted a discussion with state officials to address ways to increase local water supplies and to support a proposed statewide water system. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was joined Friday by the California Secretary of Natural Resources, Wade Crowfoot, and Secretary of Environmental Protection, Jared Blumenfeld, to discuss the city’s maintenance of its water sources. “We are proud to work hand-in-hand with our state leaders to advance an agenda that protects ratepayers, preserves our environment, diversifies our water portfolio and protects our natural resources in the face of intense droughts and the rising tide of climate change,” Garcetti said.

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New Maps Show How Little Is Left Of West Coast Estuaries

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

The most detailed study ever done of coastal estuaries concludes that nearly 750,000 acres of historic tidal wetlands along the West Coast, including enormous swaths of Bay Area habitat, have disappeared largely as a result of development. The cutting-edge survey led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined that 85% of vegetated tidal lands that once existed in California, Oregon and Washington has been diked, drained or cut off from the sea. The study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS One, documented dramatic decreases in wetland habitat around San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and nearly 450 other bays, lagoons, river deltas and coastal creek mouths throughout the West.

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SDCWA Approves Conjunctive Use Project Subsidy

/in , /by /Valley News (Fallbrook, Calif.)by Joe Naiman Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has a subsidy program for projects which produce local supply, and if MWD approves the agreement Sept. 10 the Fallbrook Public Utility District will receive a subsidy for the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project. FPUD’s board approved the agreement on a 5-0 vote July 22 and the San Diego County Water Authority board approved the agreement July 25. “It will help further reduce the cost of water for the project, which will help further reduce the cost of water for our ratepayers,” said FPUD general manager Jack Bebee.

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FPUD To Prepare Community Benefit Latent Powers Application

/in , /by /Village News (Fallbrook, Calif.)by Joe Naiman

The Fallbrook Public Utility District will be preparing an application for San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation Commission which would allow FPUD to expand its latent powers to provide for public community facilities. FPUD’s board voted 5-0 July 22 to authorize the preparation of the application to LAFCO, although the application itself will be reviewed prior to a separate FPUD vote. “The board reaffirmed the decision to move forward based on the request of those groups,” said FPUD general manager Jack Bebee. FPUD’s May 2018 meeting included a presentation by the Fallbrook Chamber of C…

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Arizona, Nevada Cuts To Colorado River Water Negligible

/in , , /by /Associated Pressby Felicia Fonseca

Arizona and Nevada will face their first-ever cuts in Colorado River water next year, but the changes aren’t expected to be overly burdensome for either state. The water is delivered through Lake Mead, one of the largest manmade reservoirs in the country that straddles the Arizona-Nevada border. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Thursday that Lake Mead barely will fall below 1,090 feet (332 meters) on Jan. 1, triggering cuts for the junior users in the river’s lower basin, at 1,089.4 (332 meters) above sea level. For Arizona, that means less water for underground storage, recharging aquifers and for agricultural use. About 7% of its 2.8 million acre-feet, or 192,000 acre-feet, will be left behind Lake Mead.

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