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Farm Bureau Endorses Water Legislation

/in , /by /Register-Pajaronian (Watsonville, Calif.)

Water legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate recognizes the continued crisis facing water reliability in the West, according to the California Farm Bureau Federation (CFBF). CFBF endorsed the Drought Resiliency and Water Supply Infrastructure Act by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who introduced the bipartisan legislation along with Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz). The bill would authorize federal funding for new storage, recycling and desalination projects; create a loan program for water supply projects; enhance forest restoration and other activities to benefit water supply or quality; and take additional steps to encourage water development.

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OPINION: Drought Contingency Plans Embrace Water Marketing

/in , /by /Tucson.comby Robert Glennon

At Hoover Dam on May 20, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation hosted the seven Colorado River Basin states at a ceremony to celebrate the signing of the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plans. The jubilant mood of the dignitaries masked a grim reality facing the Basin states: legal rights to Colorado River water exceed the amount of water in the river, which supplies water to 40 million people and irrigates 5.5 million acres of farmland. The act authorizing the plans, which Congress enacted in a rare display of bipartisanship, is only a few paragraphs long. It simply instructs the secretary of the interior to carry out the provisions of various state drought plans.

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District Raises Water And Sewer Rates, Despite Protests

/in , , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Julie Gallant Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

After objections from the public and lengthy discussions, Ramona Municipal Water District Board of Directors approved four types of rate increases recommended by staff. The first action — to adopt an ordinance increasing water rates and fees — was approved 3-2 with President Jim Robinson and directors Thomas Ace and Bryan Wadlington in favor, and directors Jim Hickle and Jeff Lawler opposed. Monthly water charges will increase in different amounts depending on meter size and treated vs. untreated water. The increase reflects a 7 percent revenue adjustment each year for the next five years. Because meters and water quality vary for each customer, the increase in rate revenues do not necessarily directly correlate to the increase in proposed rates.

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Bonneville, The Northwest’s Biggest Clean-Power Supplier, Faces Promise And Perils In Changing Energy Markets

/in , , /by /Seattle Timesby Hal Bernton

When workers started pulling apart the three largest hydroelectric units in North America — capable of supplying more than enough power for all of Seattle — they found the damage far worse than expected. They encountered large cracks, worn-out bearings and a defect in a critical weld that, if left in place, could fail, unleashing catastrophic flooding inside the powerhouse that risked killing workers and destroying the 7 million-pound generator-turbine units. That last discovery halted work for 10 months to give engineers time to come up with a fix that would ensure a crucial covering would hold fast. “How do we deal with the unexpected?

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OPINION: All Californians Should Have Safe, Clean Water. But How Do We Make It Happen?

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Dan Schnur

“Few California urbanites grasp the intolerable, third-world conditions that nearly a million of their fellow Californians live in when it comes to accessing safe drinking water,” said Michael Mantell, president of the Resources Legacy Fund. “That residents of a state with the fifth largest economy on the planet lack that access is nothing short of scandalous.” Lea Ann Tratten, a partner at TrattenPrice Consulting, described the Californians who suffer most without access to clean water and reiterated the urgency for action. “The heaviest burden of the toxic taps crisis has fallen on our most marginalized communities, communities of color and people with low-incomes,” Tratten said.

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OPINION: Desalination Makes More Sense For California Than A Multi-Billion Dollar Water Tunnel

/in , /by /Ventura County Starby Ted Kuepper and John P. MacHarg

There is an obvious connection between the proposed multibillion-dollar Sacramento Delta Water Tunnels, the proposed mining/pumping of water from the Mojave Desert, Central Valley farmers lacking the water resources to maximize food production, and the Sacramento River and fishing stocks suffering from inadequate water flows. That connection is the State Water Project, which pumps water to Southern California and reduces the river water needed for fisheries, farmers, and the river itself. The reality is Southern California needs water and if we don’t produce it here, then we’re going to take it anywhere we can find it, regardless of environmental damage and economic considerations.

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New History Exhibit Shows City’s Deep Relationship With Water Is Everywhere

/in , /by /Long Beach Postby Barbara Kingsley-Wilson

Long Beach’s origin story is awash in water. It was a resort and farming town of transplanted Iowans who got water from aquifers under Signal Hill; the drill bits even found a more lucrative resource underneath: oil. Then when the city outgrew the wells, the Metropolitan Water District was forming and voters jumped in. Freshwater for drinking and saltwater for playing. The Pike, the L.A. River, the aquarium and Alamitos Bay, then there are the coastal wetlands that have largely disappeared, though, thanks to climate change, those wetlands seem to be coming back. The city’s evolving relationship with water is the subject of the Historical Society of Long Beach’s new exhibit “Water Changes Everything.”

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Lake Tahoe Is At Its Fullest In Nearly 20 Years As Snowmelt Pushes Water Level Close To Limit

/in , /by /KTLA 5

Lake Tahoe is the fullest it’s been in nearly two decades. Officials say the alpine lake on the California-Nevada line is approaching the legal limit after snowmelt from a stormy winter left enough water to potentially last through three summers of drought. For three weeks, Tahoe has been within an inch (25 millimeters) of its maximum allowed surface elevation of 6,229.1 feet (1,898 meters) above sea level. It crept to within a half-inch (13 millimeters) earlier this week. Chad Blanchard, a federal water master in Reno responsible for managing the water, told the Reno Gazette Journal it’s the longest he’s seen the lake stay that high for so long.

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San Diego Company Awarded EPA Grant To Develop Water Quality Testing Tech

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby Debbie L. Sklar

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it awarded a $100,000 contract to a San Diego-based technology company to develop technology to monitor water quality. The grant, awarded to 2W iTech LLC, is one of nearly two dozen awarded by the EPA through its Small Business Innovation Research program. The EPA awarded grants worth a combined $2.3 million to 21 companies across the country to develop technologies to improve environmental and human health, monitor air and water quality and clean contaminated areas. With its grant, 2W iTech will develop a low-cost method to identify trace amounts of perfluoroalkyl substances in water at a rate as small as 10 parts per trillion.

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Five Most Fascinating L.A. Dams, Where Disasters Struck And Catastrophes Were Averted

/in , /by /KCETby Sandi Hemmerlein

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was one surefire way for man to conquer nature in Southern California. Build a dam. With dams, water agencies could control the flow of raging rivers, stockpile emergency water supplies and even create giant lakes out of natural dry (or mildly soggy) basins. But the water that was supposed to be held and controlled sometimes overcame some of these great civil engineering feats. And so, many of the stories of the Los Angeles Basin’s tragedy and triumph can be told through the histories of its dams – those that still exist and those that have been lost to failure.

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