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San Diego Creates State’s First Water, Sewer ‘Capacity Bank’ To Boost Biotech, Breweries

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by David Garrick

San Diego will create California’s first “capacity bank” for water and sewer, allowing breweries and biotech firms to cheaply buy excess water and sewer capacity from former factories.

The City Council unanimously approved the capacity bank on Tuesday, calling it an innovative idea that will create jobs and help the city avoid expensive expansions of its sewer and water infrastructure.

“From conversations I’ve had with a lot of breweries in my district, this is going to be a very popular program,” said Councilman Chris Cate, who represents Miramar, Mira Mesa and Kearny Mesa.

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Will It Rain Soon And End Bay Area’s Fire Season? It May Be Up To Russia

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Matthias Gafni

Say what you will about Russian interference, it just might get us Northern Californians out of this year’s precarious fire season.

Meteorologists are forecasting that around Nov. 10, a strong jet stream originating from Russia is likely to undercut the dominant high-pressure ridge sitting off the coast and provide much-needed moisture to the West Coast.

“Now the question is, how confident are we?” said Brent Wachter, a fire meteorologist with the North Operations Predictive Service. “Not very. But there’s a glimmer of hope.”

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California’s Blackouts Could Make Fighting Climate Change Even Harder

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times by Sammy Roth

The state’s electric grid was experiencing rapid and unprecedented changes even before Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison began shutting off power to millions of people in a desperate scramble to prevent their transmission lines from sparking wildfires.

Solar and wind power were booming. Gas-fired power plants were shutting down. Investor-owned utility companies such as PG&E and Edison were being replaced by city-run alternatives. And the falling cost of lithium-ion batteries was making some households less reliant on the grid than ever before.

The changes will only accelerate in the coming years, as California ramps up efforts to fight climate change by cleaning up its energy supply.

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Big If It Works: New System Aims to Pull Water Rights Out of the Sky

/in , , /by /Forbesby James Conca

Over 4 billion people live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month of the year. Over a billion people spend several hours a day searching for water, wasting precious time and putting them in frequent danger. Some of this scarcity has led to violence and conflict, especially in Africa, Southern Asia and the Middle East. The Syrian conflict was triggered by a years-long drought. So it would go a long way to achieving global peace and ending global poverty if we could give these people water without a lot of cost and trouble, and without a lot of infrastructure.

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Disadvantaged Communities Claim A Stake In State Groundwater Overhaul

/in , , /by /Valley Public Radioby Kerry Klein

Jovita Torres Romo lives in a grayish bungalow surrounded by cactus and succulents and strung with Christmas lights. It’s located on one of the handful of streets that make up Tombstone Territory, an unincorporated Fresno County community that’s been her home for 30 years. It’s quiet, except for the few days a week when her young grandchildren come over to watch cartoons and play in the backyard. “I like it here,” she says through a Spanish interpreter. “I raised five children here, they grew up in this house, and I like living outside the city in the county.”

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Fishery Plans Aim to Add Flexibility to Water System

/in , /by /AgAlertby Christine Souza

In an action that influences how water will move through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, federal fisheries agencies have issued new biological opinions to guide operation of federal and state water projects. Representatives of farmers and water districts said the opinions released last week promise to enhance the flexibility of the California water system. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries determined that the proposed long-term operations of the federal Central Valley Project and State Water Project do not jeopardize the continued existence of protected salmon and delta smelt in the bay-delta watershed.

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Demand-Management Groups Multiply in Colorado Water Fight

/in , /by /The Aspen Timesby Heather Sackett

GLENWOOD SPRINGS — The state of Colorado’s investigation into the feasibility of a demand-management program has spawned the spinoff of several additional groups to study the issue, underscoring persistent tensions between the Western Slope and Front Range water managers. In June, the Colorado Water Conservation Board named 74 people — most of them experts in their fields — to nine workgroups charged with helping the state study whether a water-use reduction plan is right for Colorado.

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World Unprepared For Impact of Climate Change On Mountain Water Supplies: Experts

/in , , /by /Reuters by Emma Farge and Cecile Montavani

The world faces increased flooding, droughts and possible conflicts due to the effects of climate change on fresh water supplies drawn from mountains but is “woefully unprepared” to tackle these risks, experts said.

Mountain-sourced water supplies, which provide about half of all drinking water worldwide, is becoming more unpredictable as warmer temperatures melt glaciers and change precipitation patterns and river levels, affecting countries unevenly.

In some areas, such as the Alps, extra water from glaciers has caused flash floods while shrinking snow cover in the Andes has led to droughts in places like Chile.

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Agencies Dismiss Concerns About Trump’s Calif. Water Plan

/in , , /by /E&E News by Adam Aton

California water projects have pushed winter-run chinook salmon into the single place that remains suitable for them to breed: the reservoir behind the Shasta Dam.

Even that sanctuary fails during drought years as the same pressures that drove salmon into the reservoir — too little water and too much heat — take hold in their only breeding ground. Climate change is making those pressures worse, and the chinook population is closer than ever to extinction, according to NOAA Fisheries.

 

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The Fight To Stop Nestlé From Taking America’s Water To Sell In Plastic Bottles

/in , , /by /The Guardian by Tom Perkins

The network of clear streams comprising California’s Strawberry Creek run down the side of a steep, rocky mountain in a national forest two hours east of Los Angeles. Last year Nestlé siphoned 45m gallons of pristine spring water from the creek and bottled it under the Arrowhead Water label.

Though it’s on federal land, the Swiss bottled water giant paid the US Forest Service and state practically nothing, and it profited handsomely: Nestlé Waters’ 2018 worldwide sales exceeded $7.8bn.

Conservationists say some creek beds in the area are now bone dry and once-gushing springs have been reduced to mere trickles. The Forest Service recently determined Nestlé’s activities left Strawberry Creek “impaired” while “the current water extraction is drying up surface water resources”.

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