What you flush and send down the drain once it is treated by the city is a valuable commodity for farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Just how much Manteca’s treated wastewater is worth to agricultural users served by the Delta Mendota Canal that are often at the mercy of fish flows diversions and drought that reduces their Central Valley Project allocations may be determined in the coming year.
The impacts of climate change on water use and how the state can address them represent a significant change in the new 5-year update of the California Water Plan. Update 2018, released last week by the Department of Water Resources (DWR) in Sacramento, recommends actions to meet various important aspects of climate change. One of the priorities, improving integrated management of local watersheds, has been a focus of Zone 7 Water Agency in its role as manager of the Valley’s groundwater basin. As long ago as 20 years, the agency had been using the latest computerized research tools to gain a better picture of how the basin behaved, and best practices for its management.
On Tuesday, the DOE announced more than $16 million in funding for 14 tribal energy infrastructure projects through its Office of Indian Energy. The projects add over 13 MW of capacity for 900 buildings, and will save approximately $7.5 million annually, according to Office of Indian Energy Director Kevin R. Frost. Nine of the projects will involve new solar installations, while others involve energy efficiency, battery storage and microgrids, among other technologies.
Recent earthquakes have us all thinking about emergency preparedness. Whether that’s updating the earthquake kit, putting supplies in the car trunk, or finally affixing the bookshelves to the wall, there are steps we can take personally to prepare for the worst. Critical to any earthquake kit is bottled water. This is because an earthquake may damage local pipelines or water treatment facilities, leaving us with contaminated water or no service at all.
California’s governor on Wednesday signed a law that will take up to $130 million of state money each year that was supposed to clean up the air and instead use it to clean up drinking water. Despite its status as the world’s fifth largest economy, California has struggled to provide the basic service of clean tap water to more than 1 million of its residents. The problem is most acute in the Central Valley, the heart of the state’s $20 billion agriculture industry, where large farms have polluted water sources for mostly rural communities.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, in the Central Valley on Wednesday for a firsthand look at one of the largest oil spills in California history, vowed to go beyond the state’s already aggressive efforts to curtail the use of fossil fuels and seek a long-term strategy to reduce oil production. Newsom also signaled a sharp break with that past by criticizing existing oversight of the oil industry as too permissive. He promised to begin by retooling the state’s top oil regulatory agency, state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.
A bipartisan bill introduced by Representative Josh Harder (CA-10) will receive a hearing in the Water Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee on Thursday, July 25 at 10 a.m. eastern time. The bill, the Water Resources Research Amendments Act, would reauthorize an expired program which supports local water research institutes that solve problems and develop long-terms solutions on water quantity and quality in collaboration with universities, local governments, the water industry, and the public.
The Colorado River, the State Water Project (SWP) and groundwater are where California gets its water. And all three are at risk, requiring significant investment and changes in current practices if water quality and reliability are to be maintained. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, guided by the steady hand of the state’s Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot, offers a ray of hope. But the rest of us need to help. We share the water in the Colorado River with six other neighboring states and Mexico, and it supplies up to 50 percent of Southern California’s water.
California regulators are teaming up with the United Nations to develop “sustainable insurance” guidelines that would help address climate-change-related disasters such as coastal flooding and larger wildfires — the first such partnership of its kind between the international organization and a U.S. state, officials announced Tuesday. After a roundtable discussion at UCLA with lawmakers, state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced that his agency would work with officials from the U.N. Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative over the next year to develop a plan to confront California’s climate risks, which are manifold.
In an update on progress towards the introduction of the Environment Bill – the first for 20 years – the Government has published firm positions, following a range of consultations, on issues ranging from trees to water to recycling, to boost the natural environment. Gove set out the Government’s ambitions for the full Environment Bill in an updated summer policy statement, including commitments to legislate on environmental governance, air, biodiversity, water, and waste and resource efficiency.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
