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California Ends Some Water Limits After Storms Ease Drought

/in , , /by /AP

California Gov. Gavin Newsom ended some of the state’s water restrictions on Friday because a winter of relentless rain and snow has replenished the state’s reservoirs and eased fears of a shortage after three years of severe drought.

He also announced local agencies that supply water to 27 million people and many farmers would get much more from state supplies than originally planned. But Newsom did not declare an end to the drought, warning much of the state is still suffering from its lingering effects.

“Are we out of a drought? Mostly — but not completely,” Newsom said Friday from a farm northwest of Sacramento that has flooded its fields to help replenish groundwater.

Newsom said he would stop asking people to voluntarily cut their water use by 15%, a request he first made nearly two years ago while standing at the edge of a nearly dry Lopez Lake in the state’s Central Coast region — a lake that today is so full from recent storms it is almost spilling over. Californians never met Newsom’s call for that level of conservation — as of January the cumulative savings were just 6.2%.

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Opinion: Western Water Crisis Solutions Inevitably End With a Lot Less for California Farms

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Jim Newton

A modest proposal for western water: Turn off the spigot to the Imperial Valley and let the farms go fallow. In return, provide a water future for Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.

Sure, there would be a price to pay. California’s Imperial Valley, which sits in the southeastern corner of the state, bordered by Arizona and Mexico, produces alfalfa, lettuce, corn and sugar beets, among other crops. It’s home to more than 300,000 head of cattle. Cutting off the water would end all of that, along with the livelihoods of the farmers and ranchers who produce it and the communities that depend on it.

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Newsom Relaxes California Drought Rules

/in , , /by /Mercury Newsby Paul Rogers

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday relaxed drought rules in California amid a winter season filled with atmospheric river storms, flooding and a massive Sierra Nevada snowpack — soaking conditions that followed three dry, grueling years that had been marked by water shortages, extreme wildfires and heat waves.

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Western Lawmakers Form Caucus to Talk Colorado River in Congress

/in , , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

Members of Congress from six of the seven states that use Colorado River water are convening a new caucus. The group aims to help rally federal funding for water projects along a river that supplies 40 million people and is shrinking due to climate change.

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California Farmers Flood Their Fields in Order to Save Them

/in , /by /Reutersby Michael Roy Blake and Daniel Trotta

When Don Cameron first intentionally flooded his central California farm in 2011, pumping excess stormwater onto his fields, fellow growers told him he was crazy.

Today, California water experts see Cameron as a pioneer. His experiment to control flooding and replenish the ground water has become a model that policy makers say others should emulate.

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California Appellate Judge Confirms State Agency’s Limits on Perchlorate

/in , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Eric Burkett

An appeals court in Sacramento on Thursday upheld a California environmental agency’s standards for limiting the presence of the chemical perchlorate in the state’s drinking water.

In the appeal brought by plaintiff California Manufacturers and Technology Association, Judge Elena Duarte ruled the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment properly considered iodide uptake inhibition and established its public health goal “at the level at which no known or anticipated adverse effects on health occur, with an adequate margin of safety.”

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Worry and Suspicion Reign as Once-Dry Tulare Lake Drowns California Farmland

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James and Susanne Rust

Sixth Avenue used to cut through miles of farmland. Now, the road has disappeared under muddy water, its path marked by sodden telephone poles that protrude from the swelling lake. Water laps just below the windows of a lone farmhouse that sits alongside the submerged route.

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191% of Normal: Utah Snowpack Breaks 40-Year-Old Record

/in , , /by /Salt Lake Tribuneby Leia Larsen

Records keep piling up across Utah this winter.

Snowpack reached a new high after Thursday night’s storms. The snow water equivalent in Utah, or the amount of water the snow will release when its melts, sits at 26 inches as of Friday morning. That ties with the previous known record of 26 inches set on April 13, 1983, according to Utah Snow Survey data. And with the snow still falling, Friday is likely a new snowpack record.

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California May Break the Record for the Amount of Water in Its Snowpack

/in , , /by /Fox 40by Matthew Nobert

Since the beginning of 2023, California has seen a record-setting amount of snow across the state, especially in the Sierra Nevada, setting up the state to close in on the records for the highest snow water equivalent, which was reached just over a decade ago.

Snow water equivalent is the amount of water that would result from melting the snowpack, according to the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab.

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Opinion: Why California Will Still Have a Water Shortage No Matter How Much It Rains This Year

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Jay Famiglietti

During a winter of blizzards, floods and drought-ending downpours, it’s easy to forget that California suffers from chronic water scarcity — the long-term decline of the state’s total available fresh water. This rainy season’s inundation isn’t going to change that.

How is this possible, given the unrelenting series of atmospheric river systems that have dumped near-record snowfall over the Sierra and replenished the state’s reservoirs?

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