The Supreme Court won’t review a long-running legal debate over the extent of states’ water permitting authority for major pipelines, hydroelectric dams, and other projects.
The justices on Dec. 9 declined to take up California Trout v. Hoopa Valley Tribe, a case focused on Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which calls on states to ensure that proposals that require federal permits meet water quality standards within their borders.
California’s climate threats could soon be jumping from wildfires and blackouts to floods and mudslides as the wet season kicks into gear.
About half the water that falls in the state in any given year does so in the 90 days between Dec. 1 and the end of February. Too much rain has at times meant catastrophic floods and dangerous mudslides. Too little threatens agriculture with drought, and potentially creates a tinderbox effect in the year ahead.
During last month’s PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoffs, like so many across California, my family lost electricity for four days. We couldn’t turn on the lights, access the internet or charge our phones.
But we didn’t lose water for a moment, thanks to the steps our water provider had taken to prepare for this kind of emergency. I sit on the board of that utility, and am proud to say that, while 95 percent of our customers lost power that week, virtually none lost water.
Several storms have barreled across much of California since before Thanksgiving. But now, a shift in the weather pattern looks to bring calmer weather.
Storm after storm dove across the state over the past several weeks, delivering rain, wind and mountain snow.
The jet stream, which helps to influence the track storm systems take, was a big part of the reason for the recent storminess.
The meeting last June in a wood-beamed barn in Newburg, Md., an hour due south of Washington, had all the makings of a secret conclave. The guest list was confidential. No press accounts were allowed. The topic was how to pivot American agriculture to help combat climate change — an issue so politically toxic that the current administration routinely shies away from promoting crucial government research on the issue.
But this meeting represented a change. It was hosted by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, a group made up of the heavyweights in American agriculture. It brought together three secretaries of agriculture, including the current one, Sonny Perdue, among an A-list of about 100 leaders that included the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation — a longtime, powerful foe of federal action on climate — and CEOs of major food companies, green groups and anti-hunger advocates.
The combination of pumped hydro with other storage technologies can increase renewables penetration, improve operational safety and reduce maintenance costs at large-scale hydropower plants, according to new research. The study also focuses on techniques to determine the optimal size of renewables-based pumped hydro storage systems.
Pumped hydro is highly cost competitive as a large-scale energy storage solution, according to a recent report by the San Diego County Water Authority. The higher capital costs of pumped storage technology versus battery storage are outweighed by the longer lifetime of pumped storage, which gives it a lower levelized cost, the authority said.
It came as a bittersweet surprise to biologists and government agencies monitoring the steadily shrinking Salton Sea’s slide toward death by choking dust storms and salt.
Thousands of acres of exposed lake bed have become, of all things, the unintended beneficiaries of lush marshlands that are homes for endangered birds and fish at the outlets of agricultural and urban runoff that used to flow directly into the Salton Sea.
After years of planning, the City of Oceanside is now weeks away from breaking ground on a project that will create a new source of drinking water.
Called Pure Water Oceanside, recycled water with go through a rigorous purification system, ultimately supplying 32 percent of the city’s water supply needs.
“It’s more sustainable and will help us stabilize rates moving forward,” said Sarah Davis, a Senior Environmen
A flash of red streaked through the trees: a vermilion flycatcher. The brightly colored bird chirped and trilled, adding to a chorus that rang from the towering trees.
Beneath the shady canopy of cottonwoods and willows, the San Pedro River flowed shin-deep, gurgling through smooth rocks.
As back-to-back atmospheric rivers have made umbrellas a necessity across the state — and with more rain on the way in California this weekend — a new study reveals the connection between the weather phenomenon and the economic effects of localized flooding.
Atmospheric rivers, the storms that carry moisture from the tropics to the mid-latitude regions, have long been linked to the ecological impacts they have on a region. But when the storm passes, what’s left in its wake?
