When a toilet is flushed in California, the water can end up in a lot of places — the ice in a skating rink, the manufactured snow on ski slopes, in pipes providing irrigation for farmland. And — coming soon — in your drinking glass.
Climate change is wreaking havoc on the water systems that Californians rely on, from the Sierra Nevada to the Colorado River basin.
No one knows that better than Adel Hagekhalil, who as general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, is at the epicenter of the state’s most intractable water woes.
California is set to adopt regulations that will allow for sewage to be extensively treated, transformed into pure drinking water and delivered directly to people’s taps.
The regulations are expected to be approved Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board, enabling water suppliers to begin building advanced treatment plants that will turn wastewater into a source of clean drinking water.
Nearly 100 years after the Colorado River Compact was negotiated, big changes are finally coming for senior water rights holders — at least in the short term.
California is no stranger to severe droughts. Eleven of the past 17 years have been in drought, with urban water shortages, barren farm fields, and a lack of water for fish and wildlife — the most recent ending just last winter when soaking rains finally returned.
The politics of water in California could be likened to the constant grinding of tectonic plates 10 miles or more beneath its surface. The Pacific Plate battles with the North American Plate for dominance along the 800-mile-long San Andreas Fault tracing California’s coast. When one gives way, the state experiences an earthquake.
About seven miles from the Sacramento International Airport, crews are putting the finishing touches on a project meant to provide massive flood relief to a wide swath of the Sacramento region during intense storms.
Increased rainfall, with a growing chance for heavy precipitation over Christmas, is expected across much of California, beginning next week and lasting through the rest of December.
California just agreed to significantly cut its Colorado River water use, but the deal might not be the conservation boon that it seems.
The seven states that share the Colorado River’s water celebrated some conservation wins at their annual meeting here this week but quickly began sparring over who will bear the brunt of future pain that they agree a drying climate will dole out.
