If you live in the central San Joaquin Valley, there’s a chance your tap water is unsafe to drink.
Nearly 180,000 people in the region get their water from systems that do not meet drinking water standards — and it’s hard, as a resident, to learn more and find out what to do to keep yourself and your family safe.
Do you know whether your drinking water is polluted with a contaminant? If so, this guide provides a summary of known health risks of contaminants, and how you can protect you and your family if your water is known to be polluted. If you’re unsure, click here to find out if your water system is contaminant and what pollutants are above healthy levels.
After months of devastating wildfires and waiting desperately for the upcoming wet winter season to bring relief, some communities in California are now at high risk of potentially deadly mudslides.
The fires burned thousands of square miles of land and left scorched and barren hillsides vulnerable to an especially dangerous fast-moving type of landslide that scientists call “debris flow.” Known less formally as mudslides, these flows are typically triggered by short, intense storms and can send tides of soil, ash, vegetation, rocks and even cars and homes careening downhill, destroying everything in their path.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only disrupted the social and economic realities of our communities, but also undermined some of the basic infrastructure we depend on. Our water infrastructure has been at the heart of this realization; its importance to health, hygiene, and safety has never been more obvious, yet millions of disadvantaged and vulnerable households still lack reliable and affordable access to water.
When it comes to poor water quality, Tulare County is ground zero in the state. Of the state’s 300 water systems out of compliance with water quality standards, 10% are located in Tulare County affecting an estimated 100,000 people, according to the State Water Resources Control Board, more commonly known as the State Water Board.
As local groundwater agencies throughout California consider how to implement the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, two lawsuits against a Kern County groundwater sustainability agency show the potential implications for agriculture and other businesses with historic, overlying water rights. The cases involve the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, a groundwater sustainability agency overseeing a critically overdrafted aquifer that covers part of eastern Kern County and parts of Inyo and San Bernardino counties.
The sixth annual ‘Imagine a Day Without Water,’ advocacy day is returning this Wednesday, Oct. 21, with likely thousands of individuals, companies and organizations expected to take part in highlighting the importance of water and the need for investment. Imagine a Day Without Water is a national education campaign that takes place one day a year and brings together diverse stakeholders to illustrate how water is essential, invaluable and in need of investment.
The WIFIA Loan Program recently announced that it has reset the interest rates on two undrawn loan commitments originally made in mid-2018. The fixed rate on a $135 million loan to Orange County Water District and a $614 million loan to San Diego Public Facilities Financing Authority were reset downward from about 3.1 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively, to around 1 percent, reflecting the steady decline in the Treasury curve since the loans’ first-rate setting.
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment can list bisphenol A under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act despite challenges regarding the lack of evidence of its harm to humans, a state appeals court said Monday.
The agency added BPA, a chemical used to coat food and beverage packaging, to the so-called Proposition 65 list in 2013, based on a study published by the National Toxicology Program’s Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.
Federal scientists say that La Niña — the phenomenon where Pacific Ocean waters off South America are cooler than normal — is underway this winter.
A commonly held assumption among many Californians is that La Niña means a dry winter is coming, and in years when the opposite occurs, El Niño, a wet winter is considered more likely.
So brown lawns and water rationing are just around the corner, right?
Not necessarily. Looking at historical records, there isn’t a clear pattern. In the Bay Area, La Niña years have been drier than normal only about half the time.
