Residents living along Colorado’s northern Front Range and Northeastern Plains experienced a pretty wet year — the wettest, in fact, in 128 years.
And water experts expect this winter isn’t likely to be much different.
Becky Bolinger, assistant state climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center, said those areas had the wettest year since the state started keeping those records 128 years ago.
Financial assistance will be offered to an expanded number of power customers through the Imperial Irrigation District’s Residential Energy Assistance Program, thanks to an action of the IID Board of Directors during its meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 19.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has before him about a thousand bills approved by the California Legislature that now await his fate but some are far more explosive and politically consequential than others. These bills in Newsom’s pile could reveal how the governor is evolving as a leader, and now he has less than a month to review them.
When the operator of the nation’s tallest dam applied for a new federal permit in 2005, few expected the process to drag on for more than a decade.
It’s still not done.
A local water district is proposing an ambitious plan to turn ocean water into drinking water, and while the idea of a “Blue Water Farm” sounds promising, some environmental groups say that ocean desalination should be a last resort and that more can be done to conserve water in affluent communities.
Padre Dam Municipal Water District’s Board of Directors has appointed Ivan Andujar to fill the Board vacancy in Division 4 as the result of the recent passing of August Caires. Andujar was sworn into office and officially seated on the Board of Directors immediately following the Board appointment at the September 6, 2023 Board meeting. Andujar will serve for the remainder of the current team which expires in December 2024.
“It is a true honor to have been selected to represent Division 4. My interest in being part of Padre Dam’s Board is to be a voice for the customers I serve in Division 4,” said newly appointed Board Member Ivan Andujar. “My first priority as a new Board member will be to learn all aspects of Padre Dam operations so that I will have the knowledge necessary to make sound decisions with my fellow Board members.”
The San Diego County Farm Bureau named Mary Matava as its 2022 Farmer of the Year. Matava, involved in the region’s agriculture industry for 45 years, was recognized for her achievement at an awards dinner September 7 at the Bernardo Winery in Rancho Bernardo.
The Farmer of the Year award is presented to an active or retired farmer who has had a positive impact on the agriculture industry, is active in the community beyond agriculture, and has represented the agricultural industry publicly on behalf of farming interests.
Matava is a trained agronomist with 40 years of experience and a leading expert in soil assessment and amendments, green waste recycling, facility management, and avocado farming.
According to the Farm Bureau, Matava’s work involves “assessing the agronomic suitability of Southern California soils.” For the last 25 years, Matava’s company has manufactured organic soil amendments used by farmers throughout Southern California.
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation, soil management, and crop production.
Matava has spent much of her career studying local soils to determine what kind of nutrients are present and beneficial for crops while also finding more efficient ways to use water and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The California Air Resources Board reports 20% of the methane emissions in California come from landfills. The Environmental Protection Agency cites methane from landfills as the third largest overall source of methane in the U.S.
Matava is the owner and operator of Agri Service, based in Oceanside, and employs 30 people. Agri Service operates compost facilities in Southern California, including the El Corazon Compost Facility in Oceanside.
At midnight Thursday, California lawmakers put their pencils down.
The legislative session had come to a close in Sacramento, and elected officials had approved a whole bunch of climate change, energy and environment bills — and rejected others. Here’s a brief roundup of some of the highest-profile legislation.
About this time last year, I published an article on Hydro Review where I asked: “Who will build the first new pumped storage hydro in the U.S.?”
In that article, I didn’t really provide an answer to the question. I did list the three projects I saw as the front runners, based on them having operating licenses from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: 1,300 Eagle Mountain in California, 400 MW Gordon Butte in Montana and 393 MW Swan Lake in Oregon. And I included the 1,200 MW Goldendale project in Washington in the honorable mention position.
A long stretch of hot, dry weather has left the Mississippi River so low that barge companies are reducing their loads just as Midwest farmers are preparing to harvest crops and send tons of corn and soybeans downriver to the Gulf of Mexico.
The transport restrictions are a headache for barge companies, but even more worrisome for thousands of farmers who have watched drought scorch their fields for much of the summer. Now they will face higher prices to transport what remains of their crops.
Farmer Bruce Peterson, who grows corn and soybeans in southeastern Minnesota, chuckled wryly that the dry weather had withered his family’s crop so extensively they won’t need to worry so much about the high cost of transporting the goods downriver.
“We haven’t had rain here for several weeks so our crop size is shrinking,” Peterson said. “Unfortunately, that has taken care of part of the issue.”
