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A Whiplash Spring and California’s Water Supply

/in , , /by /Public Policy Institute of Californiaby Jeffrey Mount

It has been widely reported that March was a disaster for California’s snowpack. Summer seemed to arrive three months early, with record-shattering heat and dryness and a mere pittance of precipitation. Did a relatively cool, rainy, and even snowy April make up for it? The short answer is no—but it helped.

It’s important to remember that snowpack is California’s third-largest source of water storage, behind surface reservoirs and groundwater. Our statewide water supply grid is built around storing roughly 30% of statewide water supply in snowpack, a relatively reliable source of water through the 20th century.

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California Will Soon Have More Than 300 Data Centers — but Where Will They Get Their Water?

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Steven Rodas

The new data center proposed for a quiet city about 115 miles east of San Diego came across people’s radars in different ways.

For patrons of the deli on West Aten Road, it was the white “Not In My Backyard” signs jutting out of lawns. For local irrigation district workers, it was something called an “electric service application.”

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Morning Report: LAFCO Calls Off Investigation Into Water Authority”

/in , /by /Voice of San Diego Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

(scroll down) No one is getting rid of the San Diego County Water Authority just yet.

The San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, had planned to look into the possibility in what’s called a municipal service review, or MSR. But on Monday, LAFCO commissioners scrapped that process.

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Understanding Water Rights in the Colorado River Basin

/in , /by /Marketplaceby Sabri Ben-Achour, Alex Schroeder and Emma Condon Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The Colorado River provides water to some 40 million people across seven U.S. states and Mexico. And, after a historically hot and dry winter, those western states are scrambling to shore up supplies.

One solution comes from California, Arizona, and Nevada. The three Lower Basin states recently announced a water-saving plan that aims to “stabilize the Colorado River through 2028.” The proposal suggests a 13% reduction in California’s use of the river water; Arizona and Nevada will also cut back.

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Flood or Fire? A Disaster at Lake Hodges Is Looming, Residents Warn

/in , /by /inewsourceby Katie Futterman

Lake Hodges is a San Diego landmark where people hike, bike, fish, kayak, canoe, bird watch and take photographs against the backdrop of a century-old, city-owned reservoir.

It’s also a disaster waiting to happen.  The question is whether calamity would come by flood or by fire.

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Ariz., Calif., Nev. Announce Plan To Save Colorado River Water

/in , /by /Tucson.comby Tony Davis
Arizona, California and Nevada say they’ve put together a proposal to stabilize the ailing Colorado River by saving at least 3.2 million acre-feet of water through 2028.
That’s the equivalent of enough water to serve Tucson for 32 years.
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California, Arizona and Nevada Propose Water-Saving Plan for Colorado River

/in , /by /The Guardianby Roque Planas

The states of California, Arizona and Nevada have proposed voluntary water-saving measures for the next three years aimed at buying time while negotiations remain deadlocked over the future of shrinking reservoirs filled by the Colorado River.

The Colorado River provides water to some 40 million people in the American west. But the two massive reservoirs filled by the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both stand at historically low levels, after consistent overdrawing coupled with reduced snowpack and warming from climate change.

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Delta Tunnel Inches Forward

/in , /by /Cal Mattersby Lynn La

Proponents of a huge water project are claiming victory after the $20 billion tunnel largely cleared a key hurdle last week. But the massive construction — known as the Delta tunnel — is still mired in controversy, and many roadblocks lay ahead, writes CalMatters’ Rachel Becker.

To shore up state water supplies, the Delta tunnel aims to divert more water from Northern California — while bypassing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — and deliver water to roughly 30 million people living mostly in Southern California, as well as farmland.

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For the First Time, California Growers Have To Say How Much Groundwater They’re Taking

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

For the first time, growers in one of California’s most acutely water-stressed areas have to reveal how much groundwater they are pumping. For generations, they’ve been free to take water from wells on their own land without reporting to it the state.

The State Water Resources Control Board ordered landowners in parts of the San Joaquin Valley around Corcoran and Pixley to submit detailed reports by Friday.

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This Summer, the American Water Crisis Becomes Real

/in , /by /Wired.com

Two high-profile water crises, juiced up by climate change and industrial overuse, are building in the US. From a city in Texas staring down a drought emergency to a decades-long political crisis coming to a head for the states that rely on the Colorado River, water issues in the West will take center stage this summer—and experts tell WIRED that other places should take notes and start planning ahead for their own future.

In February, following a winter of record-breaking heat, snowpack in various mountain ranges across the American West reached record lows. March came in even hotter, smashing records in states across the region.

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