As many readers know, I have long emphasized the coming global water crisis and its relationship to a healthy ocean. And in my forthcoming book, THE ONCE AND FUTURE OCEAN: Notes Toward a New Hydraulic Society, I offer a greater amplification of this synergy and how it might inform a new paradigm for valuation, organization, and behavior in the 21st century.
Recent rainstorms have swelled Lake Mendocino, reopening the reservoir to motor boats for the first time since August, swallowing islands raised by the drought and bringing fresh hope to ranchers and water officials.
By Thursday afternoon, the lake had reached 98 percent of capacity for this time of the year, when some space is reserved in the reservoir to help with flood prevention.
Once the level hits 100 percent, dam managers must increase releases to keep it at that level, unless they are given permission to hold back additional supplies.
North Monterey County farmland could be getting desalinated water for irrigation at the same price as its current recycled wastewater source.
Closing the circle on a key agreement aimed at addressing a critical water rights issue involving California American Water’s proposed Monterey Peninsula desalination plant, the Board of Supervisors is set to consider on Tuesday signing onto a provision that calls for sending a portion of desal “return” water to the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project at the heavily discounted rate of $56.48 per acre-foot.
Residents of Pauma Valley will have the opportunity of expressing their opinions about the possibility of the County of San Diego becoming a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) in the San Luis Rey Groundwater Basin at the February 2, 7 p.m. meeting of the Pala Pauma Community Sponsor Group at the Pauma Valley Community Center.
Once formed under the requirements of the Groundwater Sustainability Management Act (SGMA) of 2014, as amended, GSA’s will have broad responsibilities, including fee collection and enforcement actions, over the use and management of groundwater that are yet to be fully understood by many of the residents of Pauma Valley.
During a water crisis in California, the state and local governments ran a program for residents, offering rebates to people who replaced their lawns and landscaping with plants that can survive drought conditions and don’t require constant watering. Now people who received rebates are getting a surprise in the mail: they’ve received letters saying that they have to pay federal taxes on that money.
State regulators launched Thursday into a year of pivotal decisions on Gov. Jerry Brown’s quest to build two giant tunnels to ferry water from Northern California for Central and Southern California, a $17-billion project that would be one of the largest in decades in the state.
Brown’s administration and the water agencies are slated — but not yet formally committed — to pay for the two, 35-mile-long tunnels from the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and the 2016 calendar is full of federal and state hearings and reviews that are required to start digging.
Water infrastructure issues are much in the news in the U.S. — not only in the West, where drought continues to take a high toll, but also in other parts of the country, where the water needs for municipalities, energy production, commercial interests, and agriculture intersect and sometimes conflict. In this interview, one in a series of three exploring some of the nation’s water challenges, we talk with Bob Yamada, Director of Water Resources for the San Diego County Water Authority, about the mix of strategies adopted to meet the growing needs of the authority’s customers, and the new Carlsbad Desalination plant. This advanced technology reverse osmosis facility was built, financed, and will be operated through a public-private partnership under a water purchase agreement to serve the region for the next three decades.
It was nice to see California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein offer her own legislation to deal with California’s water crisis. Now, let the negotiating begin.
As expected, Feinstein’s bill does not go as far as the House bill in providing relief to San Joaquin Valley farmers who are being starved of water for their thirsty crops. Her bill does address water storage and does call for some flexibility in pumping water out of the San Joaquin Delta.
Forecasters have a clearer picture than they did a couple days ago about just how clear the sky won’t be over Modesto this weekend.
Storm systems moving through Northern California from Thursday night through Sunday could drop as much as half an inch of rain in Modesto, 2 to 3 inches in Sonora.
For eight glorious weeks, from March 23 to May 18, 2014, the Colorado River flowed all the way to the Gulf of California, something it hasn’t done regularly since the 1930s.
Minute 319, a 2012 amendment to the 1944 water treaty between Mexico and the United States, allowed water from the Morelos Dam to run through a 40-mile stretch of parched riverbed to the Colorado River Delta. Scientists designed a “pulse flow” to release 105,392 acre-feet of water to mimic spring floods and “base flows,” which will continue until the measure expires in 2017.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
