A pair of warm storms expected to hit Northern California later this week could dump more than 8 inches of rain in the mountains and have North Coast rivers roaring. But weather forecasters and hydrologists say the first substantial storms of California’s rainy season are unlikely to put much of a dent in the state’s water-supply woes, nor will they bring much risk of flooding to the parched Sacramento Valley.
At the end of September, water wonks cheered as Governor Jerry Brown signed into law an important new bill that will set California on the path towards a 21st-century water management system. Though it received little attention amid the flurry of new bills signed by the governor, the Open and Transparent Water Data Act (AB 1755) is a critical step forward in ensuring the long-term sustainability of California’s dwindling water resources.
California’s drought may not be over, but a troubling number of residents – and the suppliers that deliver water to them – appear to be acting like it is. Last week, the State Water Resources Control Board announced that, compared to 2013 numbers, urban water conservation dropped from 27 percent in August 2015 to 17.7 percent this past August. It’s a clear sign that voluntary reduction targets aren’t having the same effect as the 25 percent statewide mandatory cuts issued by Gov. Jerry Brown a year and half ago, which were lifted in June.
Tensions over unanswered questions on how California’s largest water district might help pay for two proposed giant water tunnels boiled over into cursing at a meeting of the water district’s board members. Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration is pushing to get financing and regulatory approval squared away for the $15.7 billion water tunnels. The 35-mile-long tunnels would divert water from Northern California’s Sacramento River before it reaches the San Francisco Bay, delivering the water to Central and Southern California cities and farms.
The San Francisco Bay and all forms of life that depend upon it are in trouble. So declares a new study from The Bay Institute which finds that upstream water diversions have removed so much water from the Delta and the Bay estuary that artificially created “supercritically dry” years have become the norm — endangering the entire ecosystem as a result. No need to panic or anything.The Chronicle picked up the study, and noted that it shows evidence of “the planet’s Sixth Mass Extinction.” Yeah, so that’s a terrifying term.
One of the largest potable water users in Half Moon Bay could soon benefit from the flush of a toilet. Years in the making, officials on the coast are getting closer to designing a recycled water treatment plant to reduce the amount of potable water being used for landscape irrigation. Instead of discharging millions of gallons of treated sewage into the ocean every month, recycled water would be used to nourish a local golf course.
Since 1998 there have been slow but steady changes along the Sacramento River. Areas that had been managed by man have returned to something closer to the wild. Native trees and plants have thrived Just south of Ord Bend Park is a very visible example of habitat restoration by Chico-based River Partners. Visitors pull into a gravel parking lot and pass by a brown sign explaining where to go and what to see. From there, trails meander through trees and shrubs intentionally planted more than a dozen years ago, then nurtured until nature could continue the job.
Water infrastructure globally needs major improvements. Replacing US water pipes alone would cost at least $1 trillion over the next 25 years, according to the American Water Works Association. This, coupled with increasing water scarcity, demands a huge investment in water distribution systems. A new report from Navigant Research says smart water products and technologies will play a growing role in upgrading and replacing these aging systems.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project began water year 2017 on Oct. 1 with 4.9 million acre-feet of water in its six key reservoirs. The amount is 2 million acre-feet more than was in storage at the beginning of water year 2016, federal officials announced. The amount of storage in the key reservoirs – Shasta, Trinity, Folsom, New Melones and Millerton reservoirs and the federal share of the joint federal/state San Luis Reservoir – is 82% of the 15-year average of annual carryover of 6.0 million acre-feet.
California’s sewage treatment plants produce billions of gallons of wastewater every year, nearly all of it dumped into rivers or the Pacific Ocean like garbage. And this is how it’s done all over the U.S.and most of the world. But what if we began looking at treated sewage, instead, as a valuable resource? That’s what David Jassby and his co-authors Kurt Schwabe and Quynh Tran at the University of California, Riverside, did in a recent study published by the journal Environmental Science &Technology.
