After years of pervasive declines, groundwater levels rose significantly in much of California last year, boosted by historic wet weather and the state’s expanding efforts to replenish depleted aquifers.
California’s vital groundwater reserves grew by a record 8.7 million acre-feet — twice the volume of giant Shasta Lake — in the official water year ended Sept. 30, the Department of Water Resources reported this week.
The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.
Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.
After massive downpours flooded California’s rivers and packed mountains with snow, the state reported Monday the first increase in groundwater supplies in four years.
California groundwater storage increased by roughly 8.7 million acre-feet in the 2023 water year, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) said. The department said that it was the 8th wettest water year in 50 years and the groundwater storage increase was the first since 2019.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will examine the possibility of drilling tunnels through Glen Canyon Dam to ensure water can pass through it at low Lake Powell elevations, two knowledgeable sources told the Arizona Daily Star.
For the second year in a row, Lake Oroville, one of California’s largest reservoirs, is at full capacity.
A rare late season storm dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on some regions of Northern California over the weekend, breaking at least one daily snowfall record.
Despite this year’s deep snowpack, record-setting rainstorms and consequently full reservoirs, the 27 water agencies she represents as general manager of the State Water Contractors are getting just 40 percent of their contracted deliveries, as we reported earlier this week.
A weekend spring storm that drenched the San Francisco Bay area and closed Northern California mountain highways also set a single-day snowfall record for the season on Sunday in the Sierra Nevada.
The wet weather system had mostly moved out of the state by Sunday morning, but officials warned that roads would remain slick after around two feet (60 centimeters) of snow fell in some areas of the Sierra.
