A debate in California’s Assembly about whether to fast-track bills looking to trim down the state’s notoriously laborious environmental review process caused some pushback on behalf of public transparency.
State lawmakers convened the last in a series of informational committees serving as the first public hearings on Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed policy and budget package for the coming year.
Along the Central Arizona Project (CAP) Canal, just beyond the city of Buckeye, is a place being considered for a project that could double the amount of water in the canal.
“It’s a game changer for the state if it works,” said Chuck Podolak with the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona.
The last time Lake Oroville neared capacity was four years ago, and very quickly it plunged into drought territory and has seen low water levels until this winter. And now that billion-dollar, renovated spillway is back in use as the reservoir is back at 99% of its capacity.
The Feather River is getting a fair amount of extra water flow these days as Lake Oroville has been releasing water over the last week. Oroville is California’s second-largest reservoir, with a capacity of over 3.5 million acre-feet of water, and also just about at capacity is the state’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, which has a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet and is at 98%.
Water bills will be rising for nearly a tenth of San Jose’s residents starting July 1 after San Jose councilmembers approved the rate hike on Tuesday — one of the largest increases in the region this year.
Customers under the city-run San Jose Municipal Water System (SJMWS) will see a 14% rise in their bills — about $16 extra per month. SJMWS serves roughly 140,000 residents in North San Jose, Alviso, Evergreen, Edenvale and Coyote Valley.
Officials blame the rising costs on increased prices from third-party water providers, supply and usage issues related to drought conditions and future infrastructure projects. In total, SJMWS expects to receive $8.9 million from the increase.
Councilmembers voted 9-2 for the price increase, with Councilmembers Domingo Candelas and Bien Doan voting against it.
Water usage is expected to remain the same this coming year — and costs are expected to rise in the years ahead. By 2024, water bills could go up by 15%, 11.5% in 2025 and 10% for the next seven years after that.
Sonia Herbert of Bombay Beach wants people to know that California’s Salton Sea isn’t all dystopian sunbaked abandoned homes, poverty, ominous toxic dust and decaying nostalgia. It’s also a place where people live and find beauty around the mirage-like lake in the desert.
As millions of newcomers have flocked to the Las Vegas Valley over the past 50 years, every level of government in the nation’s driest state has worked to ensure that water shortages don’t stop the growth.
Since 1999, southern Nevada has ripped out thousands of acres of turf from lawns, sports fields and roadway medians under the West’s most ambitious grass-removal program. These efforts helped halve the amount of water each resident consumed and freed up enough for Clark County to add nearly 1 million people.
Carbon dioxide levels measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked at 424 parts per million (ppm) in May, continuing a steady climb further into territory not seen for millions of years, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego announced today, June 5, 2023.
Lake Mead’s water levels have risen slightly as the record snowpack in the southwest continues to melt.
As of June 5, the Colorado River reservoir in Nevada stood at 1,054.42 feet.
The lake has risen sharply since the end of April when the Bureau of Reclamation released a vast amount of water from Lake Powell. The water ran through the Grand Canyon and eventually into Lake Mead, replenishing sandbars and beaches.
For the first time in this drought-stricken century, a new price for water in the West has been set – and it’s 25 times higher than what farmers have paid for the last 75 years.
Arizona, Nevada and California recently agreed to reduce their water consumption from the Colorado River by 13% through 2026. The federal government will pay their irrigation districts, Native American tribes and cities $521 for each acre-foot of water they don’t use.
