California water regulators on Wednesday recommended tighter oversight of agricultural irrigation and a permanent ban on over-watering urban lawns, a first step toward developing a long-term conservation plan amid ongoing drought.
The proposal comes as nearly two-thirds of the state heads into a fifth year of severe drought despite a wet fall and heavy rains last winter that have ameliorated conditions in many areas.
One hundred and seventy percent of normal: It sounds so impressive.
But Stockton’s wet fall — mirrored across much of Northern California — doesn’t necessarily portend a wet winter.
The real test begins today, as we kick off the crucial months of December, January and February.
“Those are the three wettest months of the year, and that’s what’s going to make or break it,” said Jan Null, a meteorologist with the Golden Gate Weather Service in the Bay Area. It’s a tale of two states as California tries to pull itself out of a deep drought hole.
As the drought enters its fifth year, California is considering tightening its urban water conservation standards.
In a series of proposals released Wednesday, state officials said they might require urban water districts seeking to avoid state conservation mandates to prove they have a five-year water supply on hand.
Under rules that went into effect earlier this year, urban districts have to show only a three-year supply to get out from under the state’s previous mandates, which required savings of 25 percent.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is emerging as President-elect Donald Trump’s leading contender for interior secretary, three people close to Trump’s transition team told POLITICO.
Fallin, a Republican who was in contention to serve as Trump’s vice president, has been the governor of Oklahoma since 2011. Before that, she served in the U.S. House. She also chaired the National Governors Association from 2013 to 2014.
It seems simple enough: The State Water Resources Control Board, arbiter of equitable water use in California, wants to leave 40 percent of the water in three streams feeding the San Joaquin River south of Stockton. To the surprise of no one who follows this stuff, it’s more complicated than it sounds. Let’s ignore, for the moment, that the board has actually proposed a range of river flows from 30 percent to 50 percent, starting at 40 percent. I can only handle so much complexity, so we’ll just examine that 40 percent number.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) reports that the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to notify public water systems in the coming days regarding a new initiative to provide lead sampling to schools. Specifically, the State Water Board is expected to contact water systems this week with information about a statewide program that will require water systems to provide lead sampling services to K-12 schools upon request. The State Water Board also is expected to announce details about a webinar that will provide water systems with details about the initiative.
Asking the public to listen carefully to their controversial plan, state water officials began a series of hearings Tuesday on permanently shifting a share of water away from farms and cities and reallocating it to wildlife on streams feeding the San Joaquin River. Tuesday’s meeting was in Sacramento, but the board will next head to Stockton on Dec. 16 for a session at the Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium. San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties have expressed strong opposition.
California’s rain and snow season is getting off to a fast start as Thanksgiving week brought more storms, launched the ski season early and raised cautious hope for a wet year after five years of drought. Two damp months in a row have boosted seasonal rainfall totals in Woodland to 3.25 inches. That compares with 2.57 for the same time in 2015. The 10-year seasonal average for Woodland, according to the UC Cooperative Extension Service, is 2.90 inches.
The first couple months of the new water year has yielded better-than-average rain and snow for parts of California. Water years begin Oct. 1 and run through the end of the following September. For California, the new water year got off to a rather wet start. While it’s being called the wettest start in 30 years, some almost seem to be egging on the drought by reminding us that we could end up in our fifth year of it on short notice.
Some 102 million trees have died in California since 2010, and that number will likely grow. Dead trees in a forest are natural, but the extraordinary numbers we see in parts of the Sierra Nevada threaten many benefits of our forests. Some places that had 20 trees per acre a century ago now have 260 trees. Too many trees, dead or alive, produce too much fuel. Once a fire gets started, a continuous expanse of fuel makes it more likely the fire will become extreme. California’s wildfires affect the whole nation.
