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New Law Requires California Dams to Have Emergency Plans — But Do They?

/in , , /by /KCRA by David Manoucheri

In the heart of Cameron Park sits a neighborhood of homes with some of the widest streets in the county. The homes all have garages with doors wide enough to let a full airplane park inside. That is what the neighborhood is known for: The streets double as runways and the residents all fly. Jim Bray and his wife moved into their house in March. The couple built a single prop plane together — one he uses to commute to the Bay area. “I fly to Palo Alto three days a week and work from home a couple days a week,” Bray said from the driveway of his home. “So, this is perfect for me.”

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Groundwater: Deadline Nears for Completion of Local Plans

/in , /by /AgAlertby Christine Souza

With roughly two and a half months remaining before a state-mandated deadline, local agencies overseeing critically overdrafted groundwater basins are working to finalize sustainability plans as required by a 2014 state law. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, requires local groundwater sustainability agencies in critically overdrafted basins to submit their plans by next Jan. 31. The plans must describe how local agencies will achieve groundwater sustainability by 2040, and should include measurable objectives and milestones in five-year increments.

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Bay Area Rainfall: When Is It Coming And When Should We Start To Worry?

/in , , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)by Paul Rogers

Normally between Oct. 1 and mid-November, if historical averages are any guide, the Bay Area has received nearly 2 inches of rain, and Los Angeles and Fresno each have received about an inch.

But so far this year? None.

To be sure, there was one-hundredth of an inch recorded in San Jose and San Francisco — about the thickness of a few sheets of paper — over the past six weeks. But nearly every city from Sacramento to Silicon Valley to San Diego is showing lots of zeros in the rainfall column for the first two months of California’s winter rainy season.

 

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At Least 1,680 Dams Across The US Pose Potential Risk

/in , , /by /AP Newsby David A. Lieb, Michael Casey, and Michelle Minkoff

On a cold morning last March, Kenny Angel got a frantic knock on his door. Two workers from a utility company in northern Nebraska had come with a stark warning: Get out of your house.

Just a little over a quarter-mile upstream, the 92-year-old Spencer Dam was straining to contain the swollen, ice-covered Niobrara River after an unusually intense snow and rainstorm. The workers had tried but failed to force open the dam’s frozen wooden spillway gates. So, fearing the worst, they fled in their truck, stopping to warn Angel before driving away without him.

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Feds Set To Lock In Huge Water Contract For Well-Connected Westlands Water District

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times by Bettina Boxall

Westlands Water District, a sprawling San Joaquin Valley farm district with ties to the Trump administration, is poised to get a permanent entitlement to a massive quantity of cheap federal irrigation supplies.

Westlands is the first in line to permanently lock in its contract for Central Valley Project deliveries under a 2016 law. Other valley farm districts are expected to follow, but as the project’s biggest customer, Westlands arguably has the most to gain.

The deal would entitle Westlands to annual deliveries that are roughly double what the entire city of Los Angeles uses in a year.

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2 Years After Spillway Crumbled, Lessons Learned At Oroville Dam

/in , /by /KCRA 3 (Sacramento, Calif.)by David Manoucherl

It is the tallest earthen dam in the country, standing at 770 feet. The central feature standing over the town of Oroville, the dam brings water and electricity to parts of the state using water from the Feather River.

Today, construction crews are still busy doing some final grading on work that has spanned more than two years. It all began in February 2017 when the main and emergency spillways were damaged. More than 180,000 people were forced to evacuate downstream from the dam.

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Sonoma County Drills Wells To Study Groundwater Sustainability

/in , , /by /The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.)by Guy Kovner

The shallow wells Sonoma County’s water agency is drilling near 11 waterways have nothing to do with delivering water to 600,000 residents of Sonoma and Marin counties.

Instead, the 21 wells will serve as measuring sticks to determine whether pumping groundwater in the county’s three basins — the Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma Valley — is curbing the flow in creeks inhabited by federally protected fish and other species.

The $300,000 project is the latest consequence of a state law, enacted during California’s five-year drought, requiring long-term sustainability of underground water supplies that were heavily tapped during the prolonged dry spell.

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Yorkshire Water Launches World’s First Poo-Powered Pub

/in , , /by /Water & Wastewater Treatment (England)by Alec Peachey

In what will be the first time a public space has been powered by electricity made from poo, The Number Two Tavern is launching for a limited time in The Light, Leeds from 7th until 9th November.

The company is holding its first ever carbon week to spread the word and share knowledge about how we can all reduce our carbon footprint.

The power for The Number Two Tavern is coming from a ground-breaking process, called “anaerobic digestion,” which converts waste into biogas that can be used to generate heat and electricity. Yorkshire Water has charged a Hybrid Power battery with the poo-power, which is being created at Yorkshire Water’s Knostrop Recycling Centre.

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The Water Is Already Low At A Florida Freshwater Spring, But Nestlé Wants More

/in , /by /NPRby Greg Allen

In Florida, Nestlé is taking heat from environmental groups and others concerned about the future of one of the state’s most endangered natural resources — its freshwater springs. Florida has more than a thousand freshwater springs, which provide drinking water, important natural habitat and places for recreation. Nestlé wants to begin taking more than a million gallons of water each day from Ginnie Springs, a popular destination in north Florida for swimming, canoeing and tubing.

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California Red-Legged Frog Delays Construction of Morro Bay Water Reclamation Facility

/in , /by /KSBY-TVby Megan Healy

Morro Bay leaders hoped construction of the new Water Reclamation Facility would begin in October, but a frog has delayed those plans. The site, located near the intersection of South Bay Boulevard and Highway 1, is habitat for the California red-legged frog, a threatened species according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS). Environmental leaders at the USFWS worry construction could impact the species, which is already on the verge of being endangered.

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