When physicians want to take a look at a patient’s vascular system to see things that aren’t visible to the naked eye, they often turn to MRI technology. That is what experts with the California Department of Water Resources are doing to analyze the state’s water system – specifically the underground aquifers that collect and store precipitation and other surface water.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that California will receive more than $600 million in water infrastructure funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
California water agencies that serve 27 million residents and 750,000 acres of farmland won’t get any of the water they’ve requested from the state heading into 2022 other than what’s needed for critical health and safety, state officials announced Wednesday.
It’s the earliest date the Department of Water Resources has issued a 0% water allocation, a milestone that reflects the dire conditions in California as drought continues to grip the nation’s most populous state and reservoirs sit at historically low levels. State water officials said mandatory water restrictions could be coming.
“If conditions continue to be this dry, we will see mandatory cutbacks,” Karla Nemeth, director of DWR, told reporters.
The Yuba County Water Agency might sell billions of gallons of water to Marin County through a proposed pipeline across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
Under the proposed agreement, the agency would be able to sell Marin and the East Bay Municipal Utility District at least 10,000 acre-feet of water from its New Bullards Bar Reservoir at an estimated cost of more than $10 million.
With the drought showing no signs of abating, California officials announced Wednesday they plan to deliver almost no water from the State Water Project to begin next year — and suggested that mandatory cutbacks in urban usage could come if conditions stay dry.
Karla Nemeth, director of the Department of Water Resources, said the various cities and farm-irrigation districts that belong to the State Water Project — the elaborate state-run network of reservoirs and canals — are getting “essentially a zero allocation” to start 2022.
California water regulators have proposed new emergency drought regulations that would prohibit a wide range of wasteful water behaviors for the entire state.
On Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board released a draft of the regulations that would prohibit “excessive” irrigation, ban the use of potable water for street cleaning and forbid landscape irrigation within 48 hours of a rain storm, among other things.
The new mandatory rules would be enforced by local water agencies and people found to be wasting water could face fines, according to a statement from the Water Board, which will vote on the proposal sometime in January for the entire state.
Despite the wet start to this year’s rain season, Shasta Dam remains at only 25% capacity.
“So three-quarters of the lake is empty; we need some really significant winter storms back-to-back-to-back to help fill this lake,” said Don Bader, the area manager at Shasta Dam.
Bader says they would like to have the dam typically around 60% full during this time of year. He says the dam depends mostly on rainfall.
Californians may face new restrictions, including fines for improperly washing their cars, as the state prepares to virtually eliminate the water it supplies to local communities as it grapples with an unrelenting drought.
Whoever coined the phrase “Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting” didn’t have things quite right.
In California, water is for scamming. The newest example is a majestically cynical ploy being foisted on taxpayers by some of the state’s premier water hogs, in the guise of a proposed ballot measure titled the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022” — or, as its promoters call it, the More Water Now initiative.
Arizona’s water authorities are close to entering into a new pact with officials from Nevada and California they hope will restore water levels at Lake Mead and stave off future rationing requirements.
A Tier 1 Colorado River water shortage begins in 2022, triggering a mandatory 512,000 acre-foot reduction to Arizona. The emergency stems from the Lake Mead reservoir reaching water levels not seen since its construction. The designation doesn’t affect Arizona residents, rather the state’s agriculture industry that represents the majority of water usage.
