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Water Vending Businesses Tap Into Customer Fears Over Water Quality

/in , /by /Voice of San Diego by Ry Rivard

People flock to a Chula Vista parking lot to fill up jugs with water from a colorful kiosk owned by Colorado-based Watermill Express.

The company is one of several competing for customers suspicious of city tap water and fed up with buying bottled water.

Watermill, which runs a few dozen water vending machines across San Diego County, typically pays about $4,000 for the water that comes into its machines – city tap water that must meet state and federal water quality standards to begin with.

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Palm Springs Saw 8.84 Inches of Rain in the Last 12 months — That’s 154% of Normal

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Keith W. Kohn

It was a wet and stormy year in the Coachella Valley and there may — or may not — be more on the way as the National Weather Service’s rainfall year began anew on Tuesday, a forecaster said.

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California’s water year starts with a large increase in reservoir storage. Here’s why

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Mitchel Bobo

California is enjoying an increase in average water reserves due to increases in snowfall and precipitation, according to the Department of Water Resources.

Statewide, the reservoir is at 128 percent of average, which is about 29.7 million acre-feet. Some of the biggest increases include Lake Oroville, which is currently at 102 percent of its average, compared to 62 percent this time last year; Shasta Lake is at 126 percent (88 percent in 2018) and San Luis Reservoir is at 132 percent (117 percent last year).

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8 Million Gallons Of Tainted Water Foul Tijuana River Valley

/in , , /by /KPBSby Erik Anderson

The United States-Mexico border region is enduring the latest in a series of massive cross-border sewage tainted spills.

Federal officials in charge of monitoring the trans-border sewage situation on the U.S. side of the border said nearly 8 million gallons of tainted water flowed crossed the border in the Tijuana River channel.

The flow crossed the border from 7 p.m. Sunday evening through 10 a.m. Monday.

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DWR Reports ‘Good Water Year’ For California

/in , , /by /FOX 40 by Dennis Shanahan

During this past winter, FOX40 met people who moved up the mountains for the snow — and then got sick of it. Many homes were completely buried in snow and the region saw heavy downpours of rain that tested storm drains and levees.

But from a Water Resources perspective, it was “a good water year,” according to spokesman Chris Orrock.

Orrock said California had above-average precipitation, with around 30 atmospheric rivers during the 2018-2019 water year, which ends on the last day of September.

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Storage Bill Expanding Utility Rate Recovery Options for Battery Projects Clears Senate Committee

/in , /by /Utility Diveby Robert Walton

With bipartisan support, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week advanced a comprehensive energy storage package, reported as an amendment to the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act.

Introduced by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the BEST Act would require the federal government to support energy storage research and demonstration projects. Along with the attached bills, it would open a standardized path for utilities to recover storage costs in federal rate proceedings.

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How Does Climate Change Affect Mountainous Watersheds That Give Us Our Water?

/in , , /by /Berkeley Labby Christina Procopiou

The image of huge chunks of ice breaking away from glaciers and ice sheets, then floating out to sea in Earth’s most remote places, may be the most iconic symbol of a warming planet. And while most people will never see these familiar phenomena up close, what’s happening within some of the iciest settings still affects people and regions thousands of miles away.

Ecologist Heidi Steltzer, a Fort Lewis College professor and member of the Department of Energy’s Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA) project led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, studies how reduced snowpack and earlier snowmelt caused by climate change impact water supply in high-mountain areas..

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To Guard Against Drought, Santa Maria Looks To Acquire Rights To Suspended State Water Supply

/in , , /by /Santa Maria Times by Razi Syed

To guard against volatility in the amount of state water it receives, Santa Maria and several other Central Coast Water Authority members are planning to claim an additional 12,214 acre-feet of state water that was set aside decades ago.

The move — which would be funded by issuing a $42 million bond — would increase Santa Maria’s annual right to state water from 17,820 to over 27,000 acre-feet each year.

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2019 Water Year Sees Above-Average Rainfall

/in , , /by /Turlock Journalby Angelina Martin

After a lackluster amount of rainfall throughout the San Joaquin Valley in 2018, the recent end to the 2019 precipitation year was a welcome sight for community members wary of drought thanks to plenty of storms that brought above-average numbers.

This past precipitation year, which began Sept. 1, 2018 and ended Aug. 31, 2019, saw 45.65 inches of rainfall — nearly 10 inches more than the historical average for the area or about 125 percent of average for the date.

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Paradise Residents Still Can’t Drink the Water

/in , , /by /KQEDby Molly Peterson

Since last November, when the Camp Fire almost completely destroyed the town of Paradise, the cancer-causing chemical benzene has tainted the town’s water, leaving it undrinkable. Now an independent team of scientists will begin testing for the carcinogen and other pollutants inside the houses that the fire left standing.

“The main goal is to really understand what’s going on, basically, and to address any issues that come up,” environmental health investigator Dr. Gina Solomon told residents at a recent Paradise Irrigation District meeting.

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