Last month, many regions passed a major milestone in implementation of state legislation that has the potential to transform the way crops are farmed in the state.
At the end of January, big regions of the San Joaquin Valley had to turn in their plans for how residents and growers would comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has put forward aframework for managing water and habitat in the Delta and its watershed. As far as we can tell, no one is very happy with the framework—and that may be a good sign.
The framework is the product of years of effort to negotiate an agreement among water users, other stakeholders, and regulatory agencies. Details are yet to be worked out, including firm commitments for water and funding, along with critical negotiations with the federal government on how to cooperatively manage upstream dams and the Delta pumps. Ultimately, the package has to be acceptable to state and federal regulators.
The beating heart of California’s massive system of capturing, storing and distributing water is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Water flows into the West’s largest estuary from the Sacramento, San Joaquin and several lesser rivers that drain the state’s mountain chains on its northern and eastern edges. While most of the water continues into the Pacific Ocean, giant pumps on the southern edge of the Delta suck much of it into canals supplying San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities as far south as San Diego.
The State Water Resources Control Board announced yesterday it will reduce the level of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in drinking water that trigger responses by local water systems. Based on recommendations from the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment the Board lowered response levels to 10 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and 40 ppt for PFOS. Previously, the response level was 70 ppt for the total concentration of the two contaminants combined.
California’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection agencies late Thursday shared a framework for potential voluntary agreements to improve river flows and habitat to help recover salmon and other native fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its key watersheds. The framework outlines a 15-year program that would provide substantial new flows for the environment to help recover fish populations, create 60,000 acres of new and restored habitat, and generate more than $5 billion in new funding for environmental improvements and science.
California wants to slash the allowable levels in drinking water for two “forever chemical” compounds, immediately prompting agencies supplying water to 2.5 million residents in Orange County to remove a fifth of their wells from service.
The State Water Resources Control board Thursday said it planned to dramatically lower its response levels for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), though actual drinking water standards are still years away.
The response levels require water suppliers to install treatment, and remove wells from service if they exceed the thresholds. Notifying customers is required if districts plan to keep wells in service without treatment for an extended period.
Orange County oversees the area’s groundwater basin and provides water to 19 agencies, which rely on underground supplies for 77% of deliveries. The remainder comes from the Colorado River and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to 19 million people in the region.
Shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom called on state agencies to deliver a Water Resilience Portfolio to meet California’s urgent challenges — from unsafe drinking water, flood and drought risks from a changing climate to severely depleted groundwater aquifers and declining native fish populations — he appointed Nancy Vogel, a former journalist and veteran water communicator, to get it done. In an interview with Western Water, Vogel explains how the draft portfolio released Jan. 3 came together and why it should matter to average Californians.
Pure Water Monterey has finally secured a critical final state approval and is poised to begin delivering potable recycled water to the Seaside basin by mid-February.
After an all-day inspection of the $126 million recycled water project’s advanced water purification facility by a nine-member team on Tuesday, the state Division of Drinking Water signed off both verbally and by email.
A new Climate Central report analyzes snowfall trends over the past fifty years, finding that snowfall has been decreasing in the spring and fall seasons across much of the U.S. but with clear regional differences.
The impact of climate change on snow can be a tricky story to tell. While warming winters would suggest that more precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, a warming climate is also associated with increased precipitation which, in cold regions, can lead to an increase in snowfall. A new report from Climate Central aims to make sense of this challenging subject—analyzing snowfall data collected between 1970 and 2019 from 145 stations across the country.
Across much of California, fossil fuel companies are leaving thousands of oil and gas wells unplugged and idle, potentially threatening the health of people living nearby and handing taxpayers a multibillion-dollar bill for the environmental cleanup.
From Kern County to Los Angeles, companies haven’t set aside anywhere near enough money to ensure these drilling sites are cleaned up and made safe for future generations, according to a months-long data analysis and investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity.
