State water regulators urged Californians to do more to save water after the latest monthly data showed conservation lagging in September, with statewide water use in cities and towns decreasing 3.9% compared with the same month a year ago.
The reduction in water use was smaller than in August, when Californians used 5% less.
California has not built enough new reservoirs, desalination plants and other water projects because there are too many delays, too many lawsuits and too much red tape.
That’s the message from a growing coalition of Central Valley farmers and Southern California desalination supporters who have begun collecting signatures for a statewide ballot measure that would fast-track big water projects and provide billions of dollars to fund them — potentially setting up a major political showdown with environmentalists next year shaped by the state’s ongoing drought.
Two Fresno area Democrats who attended the signing of President Joe Biden’s $1 billion infrastructure bill into law on Monday say the package will improve the lives of Valley residents and strengthen the local economy.
Hailed as a complex and historic step, Sonoma County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously endorsed plans to guide use and governance of groundwater relied on by rural residents, farmers and cities.
The plans, required by a 2014 state law crafted amid California’s past drought, will eventually include well water use fees in three basins underlying the Santa Rosa Plain and Sonoma and Petaluma valleys.
Louie Pitt Jr. has a clear memory of a day four years ago when a valve broke on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. He was in a meeting with the tribal operations officer when she was interrupted by a phone call.
The Santa Margarita River flows through town but Fallbrook had to fight for 70 years to finally use it.
The narrow river winds its way from Riverside County, through Fallbrook, and eventually onto Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. For the longest time, the military base did not want to share the river’s water with Fallbrook. The federal government filed a lawsuit against Fallbrook in 1951. Since then, Fallbrook Public Utility District General Manager Jack Bebee said they’ve battled, negotiated, and pleaded with all levels of government.
For California, the arrival of winter means the beginning of our rainy season, at least relatively speaking.
However much precipitation California is going to receive in a year, the bulk of it typically falls between December and March. And given the severity of our state’s ongoing drought, the amount of rain we get this winter couldn’t be of more importance.
Thousands of jobs in infrastructure — like clean energy and roads — could come to California and San Diego thanks to a $1 trillion package signed Monday by President Joe Biden.
The hard-fought, bipartisan package, inked into law by Biden on the White House lawn, makes major financial commitments into broadband internet, the power grid, airports and environmental cleanup efforts, among others areas. Its largest area of spending is in road and bridges where new spending over the next five years is expected to be $110 billion.
An estimated 40 million people rely on water that originates in the Colorado River Basin, but the river can no longer keep up with demand, and it’s raising serious questions about the future of water in the west.
Surrounded by bright orange pumpkins and empty shanks of corn outside his store east of Pueblo, Shane Milberger surveys his field.
Despite pleas to conserve water during a historic drought, Californians have not saved much at all this year. But there are exceptions. We look at how Healdsburg dramatically cut its water use.
