Texas has always seen its share of extreme weather events, but over the past two decades they have intensified. A few years ago, after the fifth “ 500-year flood” in five years, I remarked to a friend, “We’re going to have to stop calling them that.”
February is normally the wettest month of the year in downtown Los Angeles, when 3.8 inches of rain would usually fall. This year, next to nothing has fallen. L.A.’s rainfall to date has been 4.39 inches, less than half of normal for this point, which is 9.71 inches.
San Diego officials plan to spend the next five months analyzing what size tax increase city voters would likely support in November 2022 to pay for projects that boost flood prevention and water quality.
The ballot measure would be the first opportunity for San Diegans to vote to raise taxes on themselves to tackle an estimated $6 billion infrastructure backlog that city officials began calling San Diego’s No. 1 challenge eight years ago.
Less water for the Central Arizona Project — but not zero water. Even more competition between farms and cities for dwindling Colorado River supplies than there is now.
More urgency to cut water use rather than wait for seven river basin states to approve new guidelines in 2025 for operating the river’s reservoirs.
That’s where Arizona and the Southwest are heading with water, say experts and environmental advocates following publication of a dire new academic study on the Colorado River’s future. The study warned that the river’s Upper and Lower basin states must sustain severe cuts in river water use to keep its reservoir system from collapsing due to lack of water.
Heavy equipment will dominate a stretch of Carlsbad’s beach near the old Encina Power Plant for the next month.
Crews are funneling thousands of cubic yards of sand per day onto the beach, not only to protect the shoreline, but also the water supply.
Poseidon Water, which runs the desalination plant adjacent to the old power plant is running the project. The desalination plant converts 50 million gallons of ocean water to drinking water per day, providing 10 percent of the region’s water supply.
It’s a picture-perfect scene — the snow-dusted Sandia Mountains providing a backdrop to the dormant willow and cottonwood trees lining the Rio Grande.
While the recent snow has provided a psychological salve to the pains of a persistent drought, it won’t go far in easing the exceptional conditions that have taken hold of New Mexico over the past year.
The City of San Diego Planning Department is seeking public feedback as it develops a climate resilience plan focused on preparing for sea level rise, flooding and drought, extreme heat and wildfires — risks backed up by a climate change vulnerability assessment completed early last year. The Climate Resilient SD plan would build on the city’s Climate Action Plan released in 2015.
Reports of Tijuana sewage leaking over the border into the San Diego region stretch back at least to the 1930s. The fundamental issue hasn’t changed all that much over time. Plumbing still isn’t keeping pace with population growth. Water officials in Baja California have frequently pointed out that sewage collection in Tijuana far exceeds that in many parts of Mexico.
Ancient giant redwoods are among the charred survivors in Big Basin Redwoods State Park after a wildfire last year. Now rangers and conservationists are developing plans to better protect them out of fear that the world’s tallest trees may not survive future blazes that are almost certain to come.
