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San Diego Taking Steps to Revive Landmark Water Recycling Program Amid Legal Dispute

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby David Garrick

SAN DIEGO — San Diego took key legal steps Tuesday aimed at reviving efforts to construct the city’s $4 billion Pure Water pipeline, which was abruptly halted this summer by a legal dispute over the use of unionized construction workers. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to remove pro-union language from contracts for Pure Water, a recycling system that would purify treated sewage into drinking water and supply one-third of San Diego’s water supply by 2035.

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Odds Of Reaching 100% Of Normal Water Year Precipitation

/in , , /by /Center For Western Weather and Water Extremesby Dr. M.D. Dettinger

Drought status is often represented by maps of how much precipitation has fallen in the year to date, or how that amount differs from normal amounts of precipitation to date. Up-to-date examples of such maps are presented below:

A somewhat different viewpoint on the development of drought considers how much precipitation has fallen (or not) and how much is likely to fall in coming months, based on climatology. The following are maps of this and previous years’ drought development that explicitly takes both of these aspects into account.

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New Mexico Delegation Takes Aim At US West’s Water Scarcity

/in , , /by /AP News

As things begin to dry out again in New Mexico, members of the arid state’s congressional delegation are looking for ways to combat water scarcity here and across the American West.

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall is blaming climate change for growing water scarcity. The New Mexico Democrat worries that snowpack in the region is getting smaller and unable to adequately feed the Rio Grande and the rest of the state’s groundwater supplies.

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Does A Rain-Free October Signal A Return to Drought In California?

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times by Paul Duginski

“There are 200 different definitions of drought,” said climatologist Bill Patzert. “If you’re a firefighter with no rain in the month of October, and there are strong Diablo and Santa Ana winds, it’s a drought.”

Southern California got no rain during October, and it was desiccated by super-dry Santa Ana winds.

The jet stream that fed cold air into the Great Basin last week, fueling strong Diablo and Santa Ana winds in California, could have been delivering the first rain storms of the season from the Gulf of Alaska if it had been positioned about 500 miles to the west.

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Opinion: A Fresh Look At The Future Of Hydropower Requires That We See Clearly Its Past and Present

/in , , /by /The Hill (Washington D.C.)by WM. Robert Irvin

As society grapples with climate change and the challenge of decarbonizing the national energy grid, proponents increasingly hold up hydropower as an indispensable part of the solution, touting it as “clean, green energy.” They decry what they see as the unfair federal and state tax and regulatory advantages of wind and solar. In a recent editorial arguing for “a fresh look,” the National Hydropower Association declared that hydropower “isn’t being discussed as a clean energy solution by the environmental community” despite that it is dependable, renewable and “protects and preserves our natural ecosystems.”

In fact, American Rivers and many others in the environmental community acknowledge hydropower’s potential role in a decarbonized energy future, but a fresh look at that potential requires a clear view of hydropower’s past and present.

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Drought Here To Stay But Action Can Ease The Pain

/in , /by /The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia)

Drought is defined by the Bureau of Meteorology as “acute water shortage” (“How bad’s the drought and what’s causing it?”, November 4). It is certainly not going away, and in all likelihood will become more prevalent. Politicians from all sides are realising that a modified Bradfield scheme (diverting monsoonal waters west of the dividing range in Cape York) is the only way to restore the Murray and Australia’s agriculture. Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson are advocating it.

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24,000 Pounds Of Trash Removed From San Diego River

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Celina Tebor

More than 100 volunteers removed over 24,000 pounds of trash from the San Diego River on Oct. 26, the second largest watershed management area in San Diego County.

The cleanup came from a comprehensive survey of the lower 20.5 miles of the San Diego River to document trash locations. Over 180 trash sites were identified and mapped in the seven-mile section that volunteers cleaned, which stretches from Dog Beach to Mission Valley.

The San Diego River Park Foundation, who organized the cleanup, said the trash along the river is largely the result of homeless encampments, followed by stormwater debris. San Diego doesn’t treat stormwater, which leads to more pollution.

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Carlsbad-Based Seacoast Science Awarded $300,000 by EPA

/in , /by /Times of San Diego by Chrisitine Huard

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it awarded $300,000 to Carlsbad-based Seacoast Science Inc. for the company’s efforts to develop environmentally sound technology.

The EPA awarded a total of $2.7 million to nine small businesses in six states, including three in California, as part of its Small Business Innovation Research program. The EPA previously awarded phase one grants of up to $100,000 to small businesses, including San Diego’s 2W iTech LLC, last July. Those recipients were also allowed to apply for the phase two funding announced Monday.

 

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Flood Risk Heightened for California Dam

/in , , /by /AP News

A California dam could fail during an extreme storm and send water flooding into Mojave Desert communities that are home to about 300,000 people, authorities said Friday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it has changed its risk characterization of the Mojave River Dam from low to high urgency of action. The Corps says it estimates that only 16,000 people in those communities would be affected by flooding.

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The World Is Getting Wetter, Yet Water May Become Less Available for North America and Eurasia

/in , /by /PHYS.orgby Dartmouth College

With climate change, plants of the future will consume more water than in the present day, leading to less water available for people living in North America and Eurasia, according to a Dartmouth-led study in Nature Geoscience. The research suggests a drier future despite anticipated precipitation increases for places like the United States and Europe, populous regions already facing water stresses.

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