On the Changala family farm in Tulare County, the past and future are separated by a dirt road and a barbed-wire fence.
On the south side sits a wheat field. On the north, a solar farm, built three years ago, sending electricity to thousands of Southern Californians. Alan Changala sees little difference between the two.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
The utility’s ‘future water company, today’ initiative uses the Newmarket region of its operating area as a proving ground for innovations promising the greatest benefits.
As part of this, Black & Veatch is creating a digital representation of the region’s water treatment and distribution infrastructure and embedding Hybrid Adaptive Real-time Virtual Intelligence (HARVI) – an artificial intelligence (AI) provided by its strategic partner EMAGIN – into the digital twin.
This enables predictive capabilities and intuitive decision support and intervention.
The Trump administration warned California officials Thursday that the state is “failing” to meet federal water quality standards, the latest move in the president’s escalating political feud with the state’s liberal leaders.
In a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler threatened possible enforcement action if the state did not improve the way it deals with lead, arsenic and human waste in its water.
California is fighting a plan by President Donald Trump’s administration to push more water through the Delta – a move state officials say would harm endangered fish species and deprive millions of Southern Californians of water.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife, in a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the federal plan would harm the nearly-extinct Delta smelt and other species. The state said the plan would also hurt the mostly urban water agencies that belong to the State Water Project, which might have to surrender some of its supplies to compensate for the federal plan.
Chemicals used for carpets and anti-stain products have been found in water sources for 7.5 million people in California, detailing the extent of the problem as state regulators work to develop safety levels for the contaminants that have been linked to cancer.
A report released Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group found variants of the chemicals known as PFAS in 74 community water systems between 2013 and 2019, according to data from state and federal regulators. More than 40 percent of the systems had at least one sample that exceeded the health advisory level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development California State Director Kim Dolbow Vann on Monday, Sept. 23 announced more than $5 million in investments for three infrastructure improvement projects in California.
“We know that in order for California’s rural communities to continue to prosper, it is essential they have safe, reliable infrastructure,” said Vann. “USDA’s programs are addressing those needs and today’s investments will help improve water or wastewater systems in three communities.”
Funding is provided through USDA Rural Development’s Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant program, and can be used for drinking water, storm water drainage and waste disposal systems for rural communities with 10,000 or fewer residents.
California’s economy is continuing to outperform the nation as a whole, but thanks to anticipated economic slowing in the United States and globally, the state will likely start seeing some negative impacts by the end of next year, according to a UCLA Anderson Forecast released Wednesday.
In his report on the state, UCLA Anderson Forecast Director Jerry Nickelsburg wrote that California’s unemployment rates remain “extremely low,” particularly in the largest job markets. And while the U.S. gross domestic product has slowed, California’s has been growing at a 4% annual rate.
Farmers pump water from streams through irrigation canals and fish can also end up in those canals. When the irrigation season is over, fish are often left stranded.
Before farmers and other irrigators shut down their irrigation systems this year, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says to call them to ensure fish are not left stranded.
Farmers divert or pump water from streams through irrigations canals to water crops and livestock, but fish also end up in those canals. Experts said when the irrigation system is shut off, fish often end up stranded in the empty canals.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rapped California for allowing “piles of human feces” and other pollution tied to the state’s “homelessness crisis” to foul nearby waterways, opening a new front in a Trump administration battle with the nation’s most populous state.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler demanded California outline its plans for tackling the problem in a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday.
