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Opinion: As Another Dry Year Looms in California, Key Steps Will Make a Resilient Water Future

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Jim Costa and John Garamendi

On issues ranging from climate policy to immigration and health care, the past four years have been full of discord between California and Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, water users throughout California have not escaped the conflict, including in the Central Valley, where our communities have suffered as a result. Now, with drought conditions returning and the impacts of climate change intensifying, it is time to advance a solution for statewide water policy that will transition us from an era of conflict to one of collaboration.

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Folsom Lake Water Level Below Average

/in , /by /KCRA Sacramentoby Brian Hickey

California water managers are pinning their hopes on the month of March to turn around a below-average water year. Many California reservoirs are still well below average as we start, what typically is, the last big wet month of the season. Folsom Lake has 345,609 acre feet of water between its shores — just 64% of where it should be for this time of year and just over a third of the lake’s capacity.

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‘It’s a Toxic Blend’: Where the Kids are Warned Not to Swallow the Bath Water

/in , , /by /The Guardianby Vivian Ho

An invisible line splits the rural road of Avenue 416 in California’s Tulare county, at the point where the nut trees stretch east toward the towering Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. On one side of the line, residents have clean water. On the other side, they do not. On the other side lies East Orosi, an unincorporated community of about 700 where children grow up learning to never open their eyes or mouths while they shower.

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Reclaimed Water Could Be the Solution to Farming in a Drier Future

/in , , /by /Yes Magazineby Cirrus Wood

On a Saturday in late October, Carolyn Phinney is hip-deep in a half-acre of vegetables, at the nucleus of what will one day be 15 acres of productive farmland.

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Water Security vs. Water Marketing

/in , , /by /The Independentby Melinda Burns

It’s not long ago that Lake Cachuma, the main water source on the South Coast, was in danger of going dry in a seven-year drought.

Water agencies from Carpinteria to Goleta spent millions of dollars scrambling to buy surplus state aqueduct water from around the state to avert a local shortage. They did so not only because their groundwater levels were plunging and Cachuma was failing, but because their yearly allocations from the aqueduct had dropped to zero.

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Rainy Season Peters Out in Another Moisture-Starved Year for S.F.

/in , , /by /The San Francisco Chronicleby Lauren Hernández
A too-dry February left San Francisco with only 38% of normal rainfall for the month, and forecasters say residents should get used to it: With the wet season ending, it’s almost impossible to see the water year ending with anything close to a normal soaking.

San Francisco’s rain total for February — typically the heart of the rainy season along with December and January — was just 1.71 inches, compared to the 4.46 inches that’s considered normal, National Weather Service Bay Area officials said. A year ago it was even worse: February 2020 brought no rain to San Francisco.

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Study: As Wildfires Increase, Southern California Could Face Landslides Almost Every Year

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby City News Service

Fire-prone areas of Southern California can expect to see landslides occurring almost every year, with major events expected roughly every 10 years, a new study found.

The results show residents face a double whammy of increased wildfire and landslide risk caused by climate change-induced shifts in the state’s wet and dry seasons, according to researchers who mapped landslide vulnerability in the southern half of the state.

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California Drought, Dry Conditions Causing Concern for Farms and Agriculture

/in , , /by /ABC10
Much of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley regions are seeing abnormally dry or drought-like weather so far in winter 2021.
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A Tiny Fish is on the Brink of Extinction. Does it Matter that Another Just Like It is Thriving?

/in , , /by /WHYY (Philadelphia)by Jad Sleiman

California’s tiny delta smelt is not a terribly impressive fish at first glance, and not really at second glance either. It’s about the length and width of a finger, silvery and kind of see-through – looks a bit like a sardine.

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More Than 25m Drink from the Worst US Water Systems, with Latinos Most Exposed

/in , /by /The Guardianby Emily Holden, Caty Enders, Niko Kommenda and Vivian Ho

Millions of people in the US are drinking water that fails to meet federal health standards, including by violating limits for dangerous contaminants. Latinos are disproportionately exposed, according to the Guardian’s review of more than 140,000 public water systems across the US and county-level demographic data. Water systems in counties that are 25% or more Latino are violating drinking water contamination rules at twice the rate of those in the rest of the country.

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