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California Native Gardens Offer Surprising Results With Little Water

/in , /by /Pasadena Star-Newsby Joshua Siskin

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.

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California Irrigation District Challenges River Drought Plan

/in , /by /The California irrigation district challenges river

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.

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Trump Signs Colorado River Drought Plan

/in , /by /The Associated Pressby Jonathan J. Cooper

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a plan to cut back on the use of water from the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people in the U.S. West. The Colorado River drought contingency plan aims to keep two key reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead, from falling so low they cannot deliver water or produce hydropower. It was negotiated among the seven states that draw water from the river.

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States Say Half Of Wetlands Would Lose Protection Under EPA Proposal

/in , , /by /Reuters by Valerie Volcovici

Fourteen states, including New York and California, and the District of Columbia said the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to replace an Obama-era water regulation would end federal protection for half of wetlands and 15 percent of streams across the country. The attorneys general issued a joint statement on Monday critical of the EPA’s proposal to narrow the scope of protections in the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule that President Barack Obama’s administration expanded in 2015 to cover a wide range of water bodies.

 

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L.A. weather Shifts As Gray Skies Make Way For A Spike In Temperatures

/in , /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry

The ominous gray clouds hovering above Los Angeles on Tuesday aren’t likely to produce much more than the occasional sprinkle for the region before summer-like temperatures return later in the week. The dash of moisture, which forecasters say will be mostly focused on the northern slopes of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, is the result of a low-pressure system known as an inside slider that’s moving over the inland portion of the state.

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Here’s Your Regular Reminder That We’re Already Drinking Sewage

/in , /by /The Voice of San Diego by Megan Wood

San Diego relies on importing 85 percent of its water supply each year from the Colorado River and Sacramento Delta. But soon, that won’t be the case. The city is working on a multibillion-dollar project to purify enough wastewater to provide a third of the city’s drinking water by 2035. The city’s project, called Pure Water, will soon raise resident’s water bills by $6 to $13 a month. That story prompted another round of reminders that some San Diegans aren’t thrilled about the idea of treated sewage flowing from their taps.

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Despite Warnings Of Contaminated Water, Some Paradise Residents Are Moving Back

/in , /by /KQED News (San Francisco)by Kirk Siegler

Six months after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, the town of Paradise remains a disaster zone. Only 6 percent of the debris from last November’s Camp Fire has been hauled away. Burned-out skeletons of cars, piles of toxic rubble and blackened old-growth pine trees can still be seen everywhere. Before the wildfire, the population of Paradise was about 26,000. Today, it’s in the hundreds. The extent of the latest crisis unfolding in Paradise is yet unknown: The deadly fire may also have contaminated up to 173 miles of pipeline in the town’s water system with cancer-causing benzene and other volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

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EPA Won’t Regulate Pollution That Moves Through Groundwater

/in , /by /E & E News (Washington, D.C.)by Ariel Wittenberg and Ellen M. Gilmer

EPA won’t regulate any pollution to surface waters that passes through groundwater. The Clean Water Act regulates pollution to surface water and requires permits for so-called point-source discharges to them. But questions have remained about whether the law regulates any pollution that ends up in surface waters, or only direct discharges.EPA now says it’s the latter. “The agency concludes that the best, if not the only, reading of the Clean Water Act is that Congress intentionally chose to exclude all releases of pollutants to groundwater from the [point source] program, even where pollutants are conveyed to jurisdictional surface waters via groundwater,” the agency wrote in an interpretive statement posted online last night.

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Olivenhain Municipal Water District Logo landscape design workshops

OMWD and UC Riverside Joint Study Yields Reduction in Energy Use

/in , /by

Encinitas, Calif.—A collaborative study conducted by OMWD and UC Riverside shows that water agencies can reduce energy consumption and energy costs by closely analyzing trends and managing consumption. The energy optimization project was funded by a $3 million California Energy Commission grant, awarded in May 2015, with the purpose of bringing energy efficiency solutions to California’s water sector.

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Effort To Repair Friant-Kern Canal Passes First Hurdle

/in , /by /AgNet Westby Brian German

A bill moving through the state legislature looks to make repairs and enhancements to the Friant-Kern Canal.  Senate Bill 559 was authored by Senator Melissa Hurtado, representing the 14th Senate District, and was co-authored by several other San Joaquin Valley lawmakers.  The legislation recently advanced through the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water with a vote of 7 to 0. The canal moves water south from Friant Dam through 152 miles of canal to the Kern River in Bakersfield.  The canal has been shown to be suffering from subsidence issues as a result of over drafted groundwater basins.

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