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Move Over, Green Lawns. Drier, Warmer Climate Boosts Interest in Low-Water Landscaping

/in , /by /U.S. News

When Lena Astilli first bought her home outside of Denver, she had no interest in matching the wall-to-wall green lawns that dominated her block. She wanted native plants — the kind she remembered and loved as a child in New Mexico, that require far less water and have far more to offer insects and birds that are in decline.

“A monoculture of Kentucky bluegrass is not helping anybody,” Astilli said. After checking several nurseries before finding one that had what she wanted, she has slowly been reintroducing those native plants to her yard.

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California’s Next Big Energy Experiment Is Working

/in , /by /SF Gateby Tessa McLean

California’s water system is considered to be one of the most complex in the world. Thousands of miles of canals snake through Central California’s agricultural fields, transporting water from the state’s intricate network of dams and reservoirs to feed the thirsty almonds, strawberries and grapes (among other crops) that cover sprawling fields. Most Californians only glance at this system from a passing highway, remarking at its many miles of efficient uniformity. But soon, these waterways may start to look a little different.

Near Hickman, California, just outside Modesto, a 110-foot-wide grid of solar panels now tops a section of canal, arching over the gently flowing water. Solar projects have long been a crucial piece of the state’s movement to clean energy, and these panels are part of a new project that’s hoping to do far more than just generate electricity. Dubbed Project Nexus, the $20 million state-funded initiative hopes to better understand whether these installations can be an even more efficient approach to solar energy.

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Tropical Storm Mario to Bring High Humidity, Scattered Showers and Storms to San Diego County

/in , /by /CBS 8by Karlene Chavis, Evan Noorani

Following a hot and dry start to the week, humidity and rain chances climb starting Wednesday in San Diego County as a post-tropical storm sends clouds and showers across Southern California. Tropical Storm Mario has been brewing over the eastern Pacific Ocean, moving north for days now. As it nears the Southwestern edge of the country, it will send its decaying outer bands of dense clouds and at times some rain toward us.

Tropical Cyclone Mario made the transition from a Tropical Storm on Tuesday morning to a Tropical Depression on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday night, Mario officially became a post-tropical system as it weakened in cooler ocean waters. It is churning in the Eastern Pacific as a strong low-pressure system.

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2 Bills Meant to Speed up California Delta Tunnel Project Die Without Vote

/in , /by /CBS Newsby John Ramos

Last Tuesday, the California Legislature cast a vote on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial water tunnel project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by not voting at all.

A couple of bills meant to speed up the process were allowed to die in committee before reaching the state Assembly. Opponents of the project consider it a victory in a fight to protect the water of the delta and the towns that live along its banks.

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Novel Project in California Has Solar Panels Stretching Across Water Canals

/in , /by /Corporate Knightsby Maria Gallucci

A novel solar power project just went online in California’s Central Valley, with panels that span across canals in the vast agricultural region. The 1.6-megawatt installation, called Project Nexus, was fully completed late last month. The $20-million state-funded pilot has turned stretches of the Turlock Irrigation District’s canals into hubs of clean electricity generation in a remote area where cotton, tomatoes, almonds and hundreds of other crops are grown.

Project Nexus is only the second canal-based solar array to operate in the United States – and one of just a handful in the world. The United States’ first solar-canal project started producing power in October 2024 for the Pima and Maricopa tribes, known together as the Gila River Indian Community, on their reservation near Phoenix, Arizona. Two more canal-top arrays are already in the works there.

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Tropical Moisture Set to Bring Rain and Storms to San Diego

/in , /by /Fox 5 San Diegoby Dominique LaVigne, Ciara Encinas

A warmup is in store for the county at the beginning of the workweek, with tropical moisture entering and bringing a chance for showers.

By Tuesday, the coast and valleys will run about 5 to 10 degrees above average for this time of year. Daytime highs will be several degrees above average on Tuesday across the county.

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Low Water Levels Reported at El Capitan Reservoir

/in , /by /Fox 5 San Diegoby Rhea Caoile

Low water levels at one of the City of San Diego’s reservoirs have halted some water activities. According to an announcement by the city on Thursday, the boat launch ramp at El Capitan Reservoir in Lakeside has been closed due to low water levels.

However, available water activities include shore fishing, canoeing, car toppers, kayaking and float tubes, the city said.

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The Dwindling Colorado River Can’t Wait for States to Cut Water Use, Experts Say

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

The Colorado River’s massive reservoirs are now so depleted that another dry year could send them plunging to dangerously low levels, a group of prominent scholars warns in a new analysis.

The researchers are urging the Trump administration to intervene and impose substantial cutbacks in water use across the seven states that rely on the river — California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

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Watersmart Makeover: Creating a Serene Setting in Encinitas

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Caron Golden

Ramona Copley has lived in her Encinitas home since 1976, sharing it with her husband, David, who died last year. Their grown daughters live nearby. Today, her 16-year-old Chihuahua mix Cookey is her constant companion. Before David’s death, the couple had been planning the relandscaping of their front and backyards. They let the lawns die and David installed brick planters and concrete. They got rid of a cypress and ants destroyed white birch trees, Ramona said. Once he was in hospice and then passed, the landscaping project obviously was put on hold.

Within months, Ramona Copley, in her 80s and retired from being a seamstress for the San Diego Chargers, began to reignite the ideas that she and her late husband had put together. She had help from her stepdaughter Michelle in choosing plants that would be drought tolerant, hired a gardener after taking several bids and, in one month, had a front landscape anchored by three, four-trunk king palms that she’d been fixated on to provide shade over a dry creekbed and a variety of variegated agaves, mat rushes and dymondia lining it.

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California May Help Solar Bloom Where Water Runs Dry

/in , /by /CalMattersby Rachel Becker

Ross Franson stood on the road between two fields, where nothing grows under the Fresno County sun.

As a teen, Franson hauled a water tank to spray down the dust on roads like this — rolling past rows of almond and pistachio trees, the CD on his Discman skipping with every bump.

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