On Monday, State Water Resources Control Board Chair Felicia Marcus and board member Tam Doduc said there was no merit to a claim filed last month by the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority that accused them of having already made up their minds about a critical issue that could translate into less water delivered to south state water agencies that depend on water pumped from the Delta.
I have only lived six years in Redding along a branch of the Sacramento River and feel extremely fortunate to be able to view and enjoy the abundant wildlife that lives in and along its waters.
The personnel who regulate the amount of water released from Keswick and Shasta Dams have a great responsibility and must take many factors into account. They must guard the public against possible flooding so public safety is a huge concern. Water in the lakes for recreation is important as is water needed for agriculture. All of this must balance and is very difficult with California drought problems.
Throughout late March and into April, much of the West experienced unseasonably warm days. Then, in late April, temperatures plummeted in Southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains and more than 2 feet of wet, heavy spring snow fell. Suddenly, ski boots were out again and for a day or two, it felt like winter was back.
But those storms have only helped a small fraction of the West, with much of the moisture buoying snowpack levels along the Eastern Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming. Meanwhile, the rest of the region is on the opposite trajectory, losing snowpack at record-breaking rates.
Californians deserve rational and complete answers to their questions: Why has our state failed to initiate a meaningful response to not just one or two, but three catastrophic droughts we’ve experienced over the last 45 years?
California simply needs more water. Its people, fish, wildlife, food producers and others – all have been harmed by delays in our response to periodic droughts and climate change. What was an inconvenience in 1973 and a severe shortfall in the 1980s became an economy-stopping, public-health-threatening assault on our state’s residents in 2012-15.
Loren Eiseley, the great humanist and naturalist, wrote, “If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in water. … Its substance reaches everywhere; it touches the past and prepares the future; it moves under the poles and wanders thinly in the heights of air.”
Eiseley’s beautiful essay is correct on many levels. Water vapor in our atmosphere condenses into precipitation and releases latent heat that can have profound implications for severe weather in California. The warmer the atmosphere, the more water vapor it can hold.
Three environmentalist groups filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that to increase water flowing to farms and cities, state and federal regulators in the drought have repeatedly relaxed water-quality standards on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the detriment of its wild fish species.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco claims the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to enforce the Clean Water Act.
The City of Santa Barbara released an update on a future possible agreement with the Montecito Water District for the sale of desalinated water.
In the press release, the City says: “In response to inaccurate information in today’s Santa Barbara News Press concerning the assertion of an agreement between the City of Santa Barbara and the Montecito Water District regarding the sale of desalinated water, the City would like to clarify that there has been no agreement reached on the sale of desalinated water to the Montecito Water District.”
Predictions that La Nia conditions may deepen the drought in California this winter would be more alarming if the results of a Field poll released last week had been different.
Fortunately, the poll showed an overwhelming majority of Californians continue to believe that the state faces an extremely serious water shortage and are continuing to conserve water. With two notable exceptions: Los Angeles and San Diego. They’re failing to do their part.
A Juneau entrepreneur is asking the state to approve his plan to collect fresh water from the Pacific Ocean south of Ketchikan and transport it to drought-stricken California.
Steven Bowhay’s application to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, which he filed four years ago, has gone through two public comment periods. The second ends Wednesday, The Ketchikan Daily News reported. Under Bowhay’s River Recycler System plan, a system of buoys, anchors and sheeting would be deployed to trap fresh water on the ocean surface in Boca de Quadra, an inlet between the Ketchikan and Canadian border.
As El Nino was producing some powerful storms this winter, officials from a water district serving farms just outside of Sacramento got an idea.
They opened the gates of a swelling Cache Creek and let the flood waters flow into the Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District’s system of irrigation canals. The canals’ dirt lining is porous enough to allow the water to seep into the aquifers, recharging a groundwater supply that’s becoming more and more important to growers.
