You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Back-to-back bouts of rain that began Monday will make for an unusually wet week leading up to Halloween, said forecasters who are beginning to grow concerned about potential flooding this winter in fire-scorched areas. Sprinkles began falling Monday morning and spread throughout the afternoon, with downpours expected to last through the night. The stormy weather will continue until Tuesday evening, with as much as 2 inches of rain expected in the hardest-hit areas of the North Bay, National Weather Service meteorologists said.

The San Joaquin River is the longest river in Central California, and the second most endangered river in the country. But because of dams, levees, and water diversion, over 100 miles of the river has been dry for 50 years. Sacramento – The San Joaquin River is second only to the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint rivers basin in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida as a seriously endangered river in this country.

 

This time last year the world’s weather was being dominated by one of the strongest El Niño events on record. As surface waters in the equatorial Eastern Pacific warmed by more than 2°C, a chain reaction of extreme weather events was set in motion. From torrential rains in Peru and huge storms pounding the coast of California, to drought and bushfire in Australia and Indonesia and catastrophic floods in south-east India (submerging parts of Chennai under eight metres of water), this El Niño really packed some punch.

The largest reservoir in the country now stands at just 37 percent full. Lake Mead reached its lowest point on record this year, and federal water officials estimate the odds of the reservoir slipping into shortage conditions in 2018 at nearly 50-50. The reservoir’s decline reflects a fundamental deficit in how the Colorado River has been divided up for decades. The old system of allotments that sustains farms and cities is doling out much more water than the river can provide, and the strains on the river are being compounded by 16 years of drought and rising temperatures.

 

Last week, along with more than 100 other elected and municipal water leaders, we asked the White House to support local efforts to promote water-use efficiency, reuse and green infrastructure solutions in our communities. As cities and towns across the West have risen to the challenge of conserving water in the face of historic drought, consumer rebate programs have grown significantly and have been imperative to our success. However, these rebates may be considered taxable income by the Internal Revenue Service, a clear financial disincentive and one that could seriously undermine conservation efforts.