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Senators to Unveil Climate-Focused Water Infrastructure Bill

/in , /by /E&E Newsby Andrew Rypel

Senators plan to roll out a draft water infrastructure bill today that will serve as a vehicle for bipartisan provisions that aim to protect the nation’s coasts against widespread, deadly flooding and storm surge tied to climate change. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is planning to release a draft 2022 Water Resources Development Act. Known as WRDA, the legislation has a long track record of passing both chambers and making its way to the president’s desk every two years. The bill provides a blueprint for how the Army Corps of Engineers conducts some of the nation’s largest and most ambitious flood control, navigation and ecosystem restoration initiatives.

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Government Spending on Stormwater Management in California

/in , , /by /California WaterBlogby Erik Porse, Maureen Kerner, Brian Currier, David Babchanik, Danielle Salt, and Julie Mansisidor

Stormwater infrastructure in cities is highly visible and serves to mitigate flooding and reduce pollution that reaches local waterbodies. Being so visible, it might be reasonable to assume that stormwater is adequately funded both in infrastructure and water quality management. Yet, stormwater infrastructure and water quality improvement are notoriously difficult to fund. Paying for stormwater quality improvements in California has been a multi-decade challenge due to the industry’s relatively recent emergence during a time of fiscal constraints on local governments.

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Desperate for Water, Wine Country Grape Growers Build Expensive Pipelines to Cities’ Recycled Sewage

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Esther Mobley

Justin Seidenfeld’s vineyard ran out of water last year. The area of Petaluma where his Parliament Hills Vineyard is located received just 4.5 inches of rain throughout 2021, not nearly enough sustenance for his vines of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

“We ended up trucking water in at a very, very high cost,” Seidenfeld said, “and even with that trucking, we had barely enough to get by.”

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Megadrought Threatens California Power Blackouts This Summer

/in , , /by /Bloombergby David R Baker, Mark Chediak, and Naureen S Malik

The historic drought that’s choked off rivers and reservoirs from the Rocky Mountains to the California coast is threatening to strain power grids this summer, raising the specter of blackouts and forcing the region to rely on more fossil fuels.

Many reservoirs that should be brimming with spring snowmelt show bathtub rings of dry dirt instead, including the largest one in the U.S., Lake Mead, which fell this week to a record low. Hydropower dams feeding off those reservoirs won’t be able to pump out as much electricity as they should, if they keep operating at all.

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When the Desert Runs Dry

/in , , /by /Desert Newsby Eric Balken

Somewhere between Bullfrog, Utah, and the Hole in the Rock trailhead, I’m following the distant rumbling of a waterfall, echoing between 500-foot walls of Navajo Sandstone. Not far from here is Cathedral in the Desert — a famed grotto in the heart of Glen Canyon. It gives me chills, knowing that this sound hasn’t been heard since 1968. After rounding one last corner of the canyon, there it is: a 60-foot cascade bellowing into a clear pool. Water in the desert is a magical thing. It’s also a complicated thing.

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Despite Third Dry Year, Water Managers Say Reno-Sparks Supply Is Prepared for Drought

/in , /by /The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg

Three back-to-back dry years have crunched water supplies for many cities and farms across Nevada and throughout the West. The past two decades, according to a report released earlier this year, represent the most extreme drought in the last 1,200 years. As the West continues to warm, officials expect more uncertainty, driven largely by changes in precipitation and aridity.

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Valley’s ‘Water Blueprint’ Makes Splash With Statewide Push for $6.5bil in Water Funds

/in , /by /The Sunby Don Wright

A coalition of water stakeholder organizations from across California joined together to send a letter addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom and six key legislators requesting action to address water issues.

The nine page document dated April 19, 2022 was signed by 18 organizations and entities including the San Joaquin Valley Water Blueprint and 10 Southern California, four Bay Area and three trade groups.

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Department of Water Resources Aquifer Surveys Will Help Bolster Groundwater Supply

/in , /by /KCRAby Heather Waldman

For the past year, California’s Department of Water Resources has been taking measurements of aquifers in central and southern parts of the state. The same will be done for the Sacramento Valley over the next several weeks.

This project, which is known as an Airborne Electromagnetic (AEM) Survey, is a direct result of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which calls for local and state water agencies to work together to better understand and manage groundwater supply.

AEM surveys are taken using a helicopter that carries a special set of instruments suspended on a large ring below the aircraft, shown below.

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Las Vegas Turns on Low-level Lake Mead Pumps Designed to Avoid a ‘Day Zero’

/in , /by /The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg

The country’s largest man-made reservoir, Lake Mead, has dropped to such a historically low level that Las Vegas water officials have completed the process of turning on a pump station that will allow Southern Nevada to retrieve water, even under extreme conditions.

The move — to turn on the pump station full bore — is an indication of how low Lake Mead has fallen over the past decade and serves as a bulwark against the possibility of Las Vegas losing physical access to its water as regional issues on the Colorado River become increasingly dire.

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Recent Wet Weather Has Led to Rising Folsom Lake Level, but Will It Last?

/in , /by /CBS Sacramentoby Velena Jones

As California’s wildfire season nears amid another year of drought, Folsom Lake looks much different than it did a year ago when a low water level left an exposed lakebed. Now, splashing, swimming and boats have returned—but will it last?

“We couldn’t do anything at all. We couldn’t go swimming or anything like that. The water was really, really low,” lake visitor Robert Morpanini said of last year’s levels.

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