California regulators are seizing on a chance to study the public health effects of air pollution, as stay-at-home orders and drops in freight traffic related to the coronavirus pandemic have presented a unique research opportunity.
It’s the early 1990s, and Park Williams stands in the middle of Folsom Lake, at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills in Northern California. He’s not walking on water; severe drought has exposed the lakebed.
“I remember being very impressed by the incredible variability of water in the West and how it’s very rare that we actually have just enough water,” said Williams, who went on to become a climate scientist at Columbia University. “It’s often the case there’s either too much or too little.”
Williams is the lead author on a report out this month in the journal Science detailing the extent of drought conditions in the American West.
California Water Environment Association names Hollister Water Reclamation Facility Best Small Wastewater Plant for 2019.
Dan Walters’ column does a good job describing a potential water battle that all Californians should want to avoid. The historic cooperation between the state and federal governments that has managed California’s water supply is threatened by this looming battle. We can’t let that happen.
The view from high up in Del Mar’s 17th Street lifeguard station is a visit-California poster: a sweeping curve of sand, dramatic coastal bluffs, a welcoming sea. What scientists see, though, is somewhat more sobering: the Pacific Ocean as seething menace, a marine battering ram born of climate change that will inexorably claim more and more land and whatever sits upon it.
With rising seas now posing a greater threat to California’s economy than wildfires or severe earthquakes, state authorities are cautioning those who live along some of the Golden State’s famous beaches to do what they’re loath to do: retreat. Turn their backs to the sea and move homes, businesses, schools and critical infrastructure out of harm’s way.
The ocean could rise two to ten feet by 2100, imperiling $150 billion in property, according to state estimates, and erasing two-thirds of California’s beaches.
U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt isn’t shying away from reminding Californians who reigns supreme in its water wars. In a letter issued Tuesday, Bernhardt reminded California leaders that its ability to act unilaterally in enacting restrictive rules governing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is limited and could violate the law.
While restaurants, gyms, schools and other buildings are closed indefinitely to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the quality of water left sitting in pipes could change.
In buildings nationwide, water left sitting for long periods of time could contain excessive amounts of heavy metals and pathogens that are concentrated in pipes, say researchers who have begun a field study on the impact of the pandemic shutdown on buildings.
The problem of stagnant water may not be confined to buildings recently closed. Water could have been bad for months or years in old hospital buildings that cities are reopening to accommodate a potential influx of COVID-19 patients.
By now we’ve heard plenty about the difficulty of accessing widespread testing for the coronavirus. However, there is another approach for municipalities who want to know the presence and extent of the COVID-19 virus in their community…
A growing body of research shows that the Upper Colorado River Basin is growing warmer on average. In fact, the national hot spot centers on Western Colorado and much of the Southwest.
On the campaign trail in 2016, President Trump swung into California’s agricultural hub and vowed to deliver more water to the drought-ridden state’s farmers.
