Since the historic California drought began five years ago the public has been inundated with water news. Governments and governing agencies have been bludgeoned with new policies and regulations. And there is little sense to be made of it all. Nonetheless, water policy in California is prepared to move forward and more confusion may be on the way with the State Water Resource Control Board’s (SWRCB) latest published proposal.
A new frontier the energy-water nexus is being forged in Southern California. Teaming up with Advanced Microgrid Solutions, Irvine Ranch Water District will be using an energy storage system to reduce its costs and help ease demand on the grid during peak hours.
In a world turned upside down by advancing cancer, Isaiah Branzuela took joy in three things: his home, his dog, and the love of friends and family. Now his home is gone, destroyed by this week’s devastating Loma fire. His beloved dog is gone, too, killed in the conflagration. What remains are his fiercely devoted friends, who are fundraising for the 43-year-old Branzuela and his family, to whom fate has dealt such a blow. And another. And then another. “We take care of each other,” said friend Jamie Rose Berry, who created a GoFundMe campaign for the stunned Branzuela family.
In developing countries, there is not always enough clean water for everybody who wants it, so supplies are scheduled to go to different neighborhoods at different hours of the day. When water flows to a new section, it can create spikes in pressure that break pipes — leading to even less access to clean water. Solving these problems and making water more regularly available could be a boost for the residents in affected areas.
Salmon are struggling to survive all along the West Coast, where runs that historically numbered in the millions of fish have dwindled into the thousands or even dozens. Environmental laws that have been put in place to see that these fish remain healthy and plentiful are not working in many places. While some people have argued that the Endangered Species Act itself is flawed and not sufficiently designed to protect species, others believe the problem comes from the people who are supposed to be enforcing the regulations.
California WaterFix is Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to build twin tunnels under the Delta to move water directly from the Sacramento River to the California Aqueduct, which serves the urban and agricultural interests of Southern California. These twin tunnels are supposed to prevent damage to the Delta ecosystem caused by direct pumping of water from the south side of the Delta. The governor says that no one will get more water and no one will get less water with the tunnels project.
Local water leaders on Tuesday formally scorned a state proposal to drastically change river levels, saying it would cripple farms and the economy and threaten people’s drinking water in Modesto, San Francisco and beyond. “To me, this is an outrage,” said Greg Salyer, general manager of the Modesto Irrigation District. “This is probably the worst water threat we’ve ever had at MID.”
Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 814 into law to crack down on excessive water use during droughts. The law, effective Jan. 1, 2017, penalizes the state’s biggest water wasters and could result in public disclosure of their names.The new law requires retail water suppliers with more than 3,000 customers to put in place rules that define excessive water use and enforce them during drought emergencies. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jerry Hill, stated, “[SB 814] is the result of a San Mateo resident’s demand for households ignoring water use restrictions to be held accountable.”
Flood control efforts in California’s Central Valley get a boost in sprawling water legislation that reaches the House floor Tuesday. No, it’s not the drought-inspired, California-only bill that has inspired so much wrangling in recent years. That remains stuck. Instead, following the Senate’s lead, the House is taking up its latest version of the Water Resources Development Act. The amended bill authorizes 31 Army Corps of Engineers projects and 29 feasibility studies, among other measures. “This bill is by no means perfect,” said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Penn., the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, “but it’s a good bill.”
A new study paints a picture of an Earth that is warmer than it has been in about 120,000 years, and is locked into eventually hitting its hottest mark in more than 2 million years. As part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, Carolyn Snyder , now a climate policy official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, created a continuous 2 million year temperature record, much longer than a previous 22,000 year record. Snyder’s temperature reconstruction, published Monday in the journal Nature , doesn’t estimate temperature for a single year, but averages 5,000-year time periods going back a couple million years.
