Two years ago, a pact to safeguard the West’s shrinking water supplies took effect at a ceremony high above the Colorado River.
On a terrace overlooking Hoover Dam, water officials from seven states that rely on the river had gathered to sign a deal in hopes of preventing reservoirs from falling to critically low levels.
Local students floated lots of good ideas in the 30th annual Water Awareness Poster Contest, sponsored by North County’s water agencies. This year’s theme was “Love Water, Save Water.”
The contest for fourth-graders aims to increase understanding and appreciation for conserving water and using it more efficiently. Students showed ways they love water, how they save water at home, or ways to save or recycle water in the future to help the Earth. Winning students artwork is printed in the 2022 North County Water Agency Calendar. Free copies are available at local water district offices, usually by mid-November.
Federal officials project more bad news for the drought-stressed Colorado River, which provides water to Las Vegas and much of the Southwest.
The Bureau of Reclamation issued a report last week saying there is a high likelihood over the next few years that California, the river’s largest water user, will join Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico in seeing cuts to its allocation.
With severe drought strangling the West, the country’s largest water provider has embarked on a multibillion-dollar project that could help them cope with increasingly frequent shortages exacerbated by climate change.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California wants to recycle Los Angeles’ wastewater, creating a new supply stream that would significantly reduce the city’s reliance on imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River.
It would mark a new paradigm in Western water infrastructure. Instead of the dam-building and constructing massive pipelines and aqueducts to connect far-flung rivers to cities, Metropolitan’s proposal focuses on producing “new” water locally. And it seeks to utilize what has historically been wasted; Los Angeles’ wastewater is currently treated and discharged into the Pacific Ocean.
California’s energy future keeps pointing to Kern.
The latest 10-figure energy storage proposal in the county is a damlike “pumped hydro” project connected to the California Aqueduct that would store and release 3,500 gigawatt-hours of power per year on or near Tejon Ranch.
There’s no money yet for it or a similar proposal the same Los Angeles County engineering and development group disclosed in December that would be located next to Isabella Lake.
Since the start of the pandemic, thirsty Americans have drowned their sorrow in bottled water. Even before the coronavirus blew into all our lives, bottled water was, and has been for years, the No. 1 beverage in the United States, surpassing soft drinks as the choice of increasingly health-conscious consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated things.
According to a recent report from the International Bottled Water Assn., sales of bottled water exploded last year “as consumers stocked up in order to stay home amid the coronavirus crisis.”
The cost of getting water from the drought-stressed Colorado River is spiraling and parts of San Diego County with some of the highest bills and big water recycling projects on the horizon seem to be drawing pool noodles together.
That is, in any case, the rough sense that stuck out to me as I re-shuffled through my notes from last week’s story about huge, forecasted increases in the price of Colorado River water, which is controlled by San Diego County Water Authority.
As drought continues to affect California, homeowners must balance two needs: preserving landscaping with irrigation while doing so as efficiently as possible to conserve water.
Even when not in a drought, trees planted in a Mediterranean climate often need additional water. For the most effective irrigation, mimic the way Mother Nature provides water.
Until the first half of the 20th century, some areas in Los Angeles County had very high groundwater and springs that residents could use as a water source, said Madelyn Glickfeld, co-director of the UCLA Water Resources Group.
Standing atop a pockmarked red mesa, Rod Colwell looks out at an expanse of water that resembles a thin blue strip on the horizon. The Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, has come and gone at least five times in the last 1,300 years, most recently in 1905, when floodwaters from the Colorado River refilled its basin.
A mid-century resort destination, the lake has since become an environmental disaster zone.
