Several weeks ago, the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors approved a resolution committing the district to doing two things on the Colorado River in the year ahead:
First, that IID will engage with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the broader river community to negotiate a successor agreement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines, which end in 2025. Second, that the district will do nothing to harm the Salton Sea.
No, you’re not going be fined for taking a shower and doing laundry on the same day. A news story by a Los Angeles area television station and carried through the internet on New Year’s Day wrongly stated just that as an effect of upcoming water efficiency laws.
KTLA has since taken that story down, but not before people across the state shared it, stating each person in the state could only use 55 gallons of water a day before being fined starting January 1.
Federal agencies would no longer have to take climate change into account when they assess the environmental impacts of highways, pipelines and other major infrastructure projects, according to a Trump administration plan that would weaken the nation’s benchmark environmental law.
The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act could sharply reduce obstacles to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and other fossil fuel projects that have been stymied when courts ruled that the Trump administration did not properly consider climate change when analyzing the environmental effects of the projects.
Until recently, any time Long Beach firefighters practiced using their high-powered hoses, the water they sprayed ended up in the drain.
In any given year, that added up to millions of gallons that washed away during training exercises.
“The old way of doing training was either doing it dry or, if you really wanted to do training while flowing water, that water went directly into the gutter and was completely wasted,” Long Beach Fire Engineer Mike Shrout said.
That changed in 2018 when the Long Beach Fire Department acquired something called a Direct Recycling Apparatus Firefighter Training & Sustainability Unit, or DRAFTS Unit, for short.
Just five years ago, the boat launch at Diamond Valley Lake barely met the water’s edge. Today, the same area is under water thanks to recent rain and snow.
It’s a turnaround that has the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California cautiously optimistic.
After a slow start to California’s wet winter season, a series of storms that hammered the state at the tail end of 2019 dumped enough snow on the Sierra Nevada to kick off the new year with a solid snowpack.
Surveyors with the California Department of Water Resources trudged through a snow-covered field Thursday at the department’s Phillips station — fresh powder crunching beneath their snowshoes —and plunged a hollow pole into the snowpack for the first monthly measurement that serves as an important marker for the state’s water supply.
After a dry start to California’s winter rainy season, a series of big storms that began around Thanksgiving delivered enough snow for the Sierra Nevada to begin 2020 in relatively good shape.
As of Dec. 31, the statewide Sierra Nevada snowpack — a major source of California’s water supply — stood at 94% of its historical average.
That’s the highest total in four years, when it came in at 106% on Dec. 31, 2015.
We are stunned by the suggestion that yet another water lawsuit will help anyone. Conflict has dominated California water policy at least as far back as the coining of the phrase “whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.”
And what have decades of endless lawsuits accomplished?
California’s legislature and new governor were busy last year and a slew of environment and energy laws have just taken effect, from trying to reduce wildfire risks to banning fur trapping.
The measures also touch on a frequent California theme: taking aim at disagreements with the Trump administration and attempts to roll back or weaken environmental protections.
Last year came in and went out like a wet lion in San Diego County. In between, it was a relatively tranquil, although not uneventful weather year.
