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Napa County Recycled Water Used at Record Levels Amid Drought

/in , , /by /Napa Valley Registerby Barry Eberling

Napa Valley Country Club golf course is lush and green, thanks to the purple pipe.

A two-year drought is helping to boost Napa County’s recycled water use to record levels. The Napa Sanitation District wastewater treatment plant provides enough non-potable irrigation water annually to fill St. Helena’s Bell Canyon reservoir and more.

Napa Valley Country Club in rural Coombsville started piping water from the plant six miles away in late 2015. That allows it to depend less on a well in an area where groundwater levels have long been a concern.

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California’s Dry Season is Turning Into a Permanent State of Being

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Greenby David R Baker, Brian K Sullivan, Josh Saul

Drought across the Western U.S. has forced California to ration water to farms. Hydroelectric dams barely work. The smallest spark — from a lawnmower or even a flat tire — can explode into a wildfire.

While this region has always had dry summers, they’re supposed to follow a pattern that leads to relief with the arrival of the annual rainy season in November. But a break is no longer guaranteed.

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Stanislaus River Basin Suffering from Its 5th Driest Year Since 1901

/in , , /by /Manteca/Ripon Bulletinby Dennis Wyatt

On any given day a small group of farmers gather behind Jimmy’s One Stop on Airport Way, kick back in resin patio chairs and shoot the breeze under a canopy of ragged trees.

If they glance to the east they can see the future of Manteca — as well as farmers in the South San Joaquin and Oakdale irrigation districts plus struggling Chinook salmon in the Stanislaus — flow by in the San Joaquin River.

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How Dry are Our Lakes as Drought Continues On Central and South Coasts?

/in , /by /KCLU Santa Barbaraby Caroline Feraday

The Central and South Coasts are once again experiencing a drought. We take a look at how it’s affecting one part of our region’s water supply.

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First Water Cuts in US West Supply to Hammer Arizona Farmers

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Felicia Fonseca

A harvester rumbles through the fields in the early morning light, mowing down rows of corn and chopping up ears, husks and stalks into mulch for feed at a local dairy.

The cows won’t get their salad next year, at least not from this farm. There won’t be enough water to plant the corn crop.

Climate change, drought and high demand are expected to force the first-ever mandatory cuts to a water supply that 40 million people across the American West depend on — the Colorado River. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s projection next week will spare cities and tribes but hit Arizona farmers hard.

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New Plan Slows Lake Mead Decline by Paying Farms Not to Plant Crops

/in , , /by /Las Vegas Review-Journalby Blake Apgar

Officials in Lower Colorado River Basin states want to slow the decline of Lake Mead’s water levels over the next few years by paying Southern California farmers not to plant crops.

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Despite Curtailment Order, Water Still Vanishing

/in , , /by /KRCBby Marc Albert
Despite a week-old curtailment order, water levels in the upper Russian River remain stubbornly low.
Since the end of July, operators of the Coyote Valley Dam at Lake Mendocino have sent 115 cubic feet per second down the Russian River. By the time the river reaches Healdsburg, barely 20 percent of the water remains.
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Roseville Drought Declaration Establishes Watering Days, Enforcement Measures

/in , , /by /Gold Country Media

Beginning this past Monday, Roseville residents are required to reduce water use by 20 percent.

The mandatory conservation requirement builds upon the 10-percent voluntary water use reduction announced in May and recognizes that the water supply outlook is stressed at Folsom Lake and throughout California.

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Water Shortage Announcement Expected Monday for Lake Mead

/in , , /by /3News (Las Vegas)by Jeff Gillan

Federal authorities are expected to declare a water shortage for Lake Mead Monday, which would trim Nevada’s allocation of water in 2022.

A shortage gets triggered if the lake is expected to sit below 1,075 feet on January 1, 2022. As of Wednesday morning, the lake sits at 1,067.93 feet. The shortage has been anticipated as Lake Mead’s water level continues to drop.

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Wildfires Are Threatening Municipal Water Supplies

/in , , /by /EOSby Alex Tat-Shing Chow, Tanju Karanfil, and Randy A. Dahlgren

In recent decades, wildfire conflagrations have increased in number, size, and intensity in many parts of the world, from the Amazon to Siberia and Australia to the western United States. The aftereffects of these fires provide windows into a future where wildfires have unprecedented deleterious effects on ecosystems and the organisms, including humans, that depend upon them—not the least of which is the potential for serious damage to municipal water supplies.

In 2013, the Rim Fire—at the time, the third-largest wildfire in California’s history—burned a large swath of Stanislaus National Forest near Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, raising concerns about the safety of drinking water provided from the reservoir to San Francisco.

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