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Senate Passes California Water Infrastructure and Ecosystem Restoration Priorities

/in , /by /PublicCEO

Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chair of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife, announced that he secured several top water infrastructure priorities for California through the unanimous Senate passage of the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2024. The legislation includes provisions Padilla fought for to address the Tijuana River transboundary sewage crisis, to invest in salmon recovery and habitat restoration around the Sacramento River Basin, and to provide the Army Corps of Civil Engineers with enhanced drought and flood control authorities.

The Senate and House of Representatives have each passed their respective versions of WRDA, which will now be conferenced to produce final legislation.

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Will Global Warming Turn L.A. into San Bernardino? Map Models Climate Change in 60 Years

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith

Imagine it’s a Saturday morning in Santa Monica in the year 2080. You brew your coffee, open your front door and breathe in the hot, dry air of … San Bernardino?

That’s the potential future if climate change continues unabated, according to a new mapping tool from researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The tool draws direct lines between an area’s projected climate in 60 years and the places that are experiencing that climate today.

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Heat Wave, Thunderstorms to Raise the Risk of Wildfires in California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Summer Lin

Another heat wave and more monsoonal thunderstorms are expected to increase wildfire danger in California over the weekend and into next week.

A high-pressure system is expected to expand over the western United States on Wednesday and get stronger through Friday, according to the National Weather Service. California will be spared the worst of the heat, the weather service predicted, as the system concentrates over the Rocky Mountains.

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State Water Project Supplies Could Fall up to 23% Within 20 Years Due to Climate Change

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

Climate change threatens to dramatically shrink the amount of water California can deliver over the next 20 years and could reduce supplies available from the State Water Project by up to 23%, according to new projections released Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.

The analysis by the California Department of Water Resources examined a range of climate change scenarios and projected that by 2043 the average amount of water transported through the massive network of reservoirs and canals to more than half the state’s population could decline between 13% and 23%.

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OPINION: Californians Will Have to Use Less Water Under State Board’s New Rules

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Kerry Jackson

It’s been said in different ways by a variety of people, but there’s more than just a grain of truth in it: If the federal bureaucracy or a socialist regime were ever put in charge of the Sahara Desert, there would eventually be a shortage of sand. This helps explain why there is such a scarcity of water in California that permanent use restrictions have been, for the first time in the state’s history, set.

On July 3, the California State Water Resources Control Board approved the rules for “Making Conservation a California Way of Life.” Under this framework, retail water suppliers are going to have to figure out how to meet the imposed “water use objective,” which “is 70% or less of the supplier’s average annual water use” in 2024-26 by July 2040.

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OPINION: California Could Lose up to 9 Million Acre-Feet of Water by 2050. Here’s What Can be Done

/in , /by /Aol.by Jake Frederico

California’s water supply is trending poorly. Unless we act now to transform how California manages its water — by passing an important bill that would update our approach — the state will soon lose some of its year-to-year supply.

By 2050, California is expected to lose between 4.6 and 9 million acre-feet of its annual water supply. In other words, by 2050 at the latest, Californians would lose access to a volume of water that is enough to supply 50-90% of all the state’s households — or to irrigate 17-33% of all the state’s farmland. Picture a volume of water as large as two Lake Shastas disappearing from the state’s water bank.

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The American West’s Last Quarter-Century Ranks as the Driest in 1,200 Years, Research Shows

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

Three years ago, climate researchers shocked drought-weary Californians when they revealed that the American West was experiencing its driest 22-year period in 1,200 years, and that this severe megadrought was being intensified by global warming.

Now, a UCLA climate scientist has reexamined the data and found that, even after two wet winters, the last 25 years are still likely the driest quarter-century since the year 800.

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Water (and its Absence) Looms Large in the California Mind. Here are 6 Ways to Make the Most of it

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alyssa Bereznak

There are three go-to topics of conversation for Angelenos: weather, traffic and water. Our city is perpetually trying to rid itself of H20 or thirsting for it. Those opposing needs shaped L.A.’s topography and made a mythic king out of a self-taught engineer from Belfast. And recent drought has forced us to confront the reality of climate change, rethink our water sources and dig up our lawns.

Given how large water supply looms in the minds of Californians, our access to it in L.A. feels especially miraculous, and — during the relentless radiating heat of summer — uniquely enlivening.

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A Plan to Replenish the Colorado River Could Mean Dry Alfalfa Fields. And Many Farmers are for it

/in , /by /Fox 5/KUSIby Amy Taxin

A plan to help shore up the depleted Colorado River by cutting off water to alfalfa fields in California’s crop-rich Imperial Valley is finding support from the farmers who grow it.

The Imperial Irrigation District — the biggest user of water from the 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) river — has offered to pay farmers to shut off irrigation to forage crops including alfalfa for up to 60 days during the peak of the sweltering summer. While farmers often balk at the idea of letting fields lie fallow, at least 80% of properties eligible for the new program have been signed up to participate, said Tina Shields, the district’s water department manager.

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WATCH: Tipping Point: Colorado River Reckoning- A PBS News Special

/in , /by /KPBS by Miles O'Brien

Forty million people depend on the Colorado River for water, but that vital resource is in peril. The river’s storage system has shrunk to an estimated 41 percent capacity as of June 2024.

The river, which irrigates 4 million acres of some of the most productive agricultural land in the United States, may never fully recover due to climate change, according to scientists.

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