First came the asparagus field. Then came the melons. And now Joe Del Bosque is considering the unthinkable: tearing out a sprawling almond orchard bursting with healthy, nut-producing trees.
South San Joaquin Irrigation District is suing the state in a bid to avoid a curtailment order from creating severe water shortages in 2022 for 200,000 Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy residents and growers farming nearly 55,000 acres
SSJID, along with Oakdale Irrigation District, over a century ago secured first-in-line rights under state law for the initial 600,000 acre feet of annual water runoff in the Stanislaus River Basin.
A curtailment order issued Aug. 20 by the State Water Resources Control Board is essentially seizing the water the SSJID and OID legally own and prevents the agencies from diverting and storing Stanislaus River runoff in Donnells, Beardsley, New Melones and Tulloch Reservoirs.
The city of Antioch’s water supply has been challenged in recent years by a variety of factors. But the Brackish Water Desalination Project, the first desalination project of its kind in the five-county Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, is intended to improve the reliability of the city’s water.
The city filed its notice of preparation for the project just over four years ago and then broke ground on the plant in February of this year.
There have been all kinds of efforts and money allocated to trying to solve California’s water woes. Now an organization states it has the solution — the 2 percent solution.
In what it’s calling the 2 percent solution More Water Now is working to place an initiative on the November 2022 ballot that would require 2 percent of the state budget to be allocated to the state’s water resources. If placed on the ballot and approved the water abundance ballot initiative would set aside 2 percent of the state budget to water.
There has been a great deal of water allocated toward dealing with California’s water issues, which includes a $7.5 billion bond measure that was passed by the state’s voters in 2014. But seven years later that bond has done little to place a dent in dealing with the state’s water woes.
San Francisco has pledged to invest another $600 million into the city’s sewer system in an effort to prevent chronic flooding in low-lying areas as part of an agreement with state water quality officials.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board announced the tentative pact, which was negotiated with city officials but needs final approval from the Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed. The city’s Public Utilities Commission has recommended approval.
People wait in line at Elk Creek Marina to back their trailers into the water to pull their boats out of the lake. Some, like Walter Swetkoff, are frustrated.
Swetkoff and his wife have sailed Blue Mesa Reservoir outside of Gunnison, Colo., for more than 30 years. The National Park Service told everyone who stores their boats at the marina they had 10 days to get out of the water because of the drought.
Concerned that tens of millions of dollarspromised to help address woes at the Salton Sea could vanish from this year’s state budget, a chorus of Riverside and Imperial County officials this week wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot politely demanding that the funding stay on track.
“In May, we joined regional leaders in lauding your decision to include $220 million for the Salton Sea as part of a $5.1 billion dollar ‘California Roars Back’ plan,” wrote the president and vice president of the Salton Sea Authority, a joint powers agency comprising area water districts, both counties and the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians.
As wildfires tear across America’s West, the immediate risk is to life and property, but they will eventually affect water supplies.
That’s one reason large corporations are beginning to help fund forest restoration in order to mitigate their water risk.
The water supply for many communities, including large cities, starts in mountains and national forests. In California, about 70% of the water either starts or flows through national forests, according to Forest Service estimates.
Freshly cut off from their chief water supply, a group of California water agencies in one of the state’s most fertile farming areas sued on Wednesday to freeze the latest round of emergency drought rules.
In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, the suppliers argue they were denied due process when state regulators ordered thousands of landowners last month to cease diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta due to drought conditions. They claim the sweeping water curtailments were based off faulty data and will cause permanent damage to pricey fruit and nut orchards.
Last week, the State Water Board finally intervened in the unincorporated area of Tooleville’s 20-year struggle to obtain the basic human right to clean drinking water with a letter to the city of Exeter and the Tooleville Mutual Nonprofit Water Association, giving the two parties six months to hash out terms for a voluntary consolidation of Tooleville to Exeter’s water system or face a mandatory order with much less cooperation.
