In recent years, wildfires in the western United States have occurred with increasing frequency and scale. Climate change scenarios in California predict prolonged periods of drought with potential for conditions even more amenable to wildfires. The Sierra Nevada Mountains provide up to 70% of the state’s water resources, yet there is little known on how wildfires will impact water resources in the future.
When Omar Yaghi was growing up in Jordan, outside of Amman, his neighborhood received water for only about 5 hours once every 2 weeks. If Yaghi wasn’t up at dawn to turn on the spigots to store water, his family, their cow, and their garden had to go without. At a meeting last week here, in an-other area thirsting for freshwater, Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, reported that he and his colleagues have created a solar-powered device that could provide water for millions in water-stressed regions.
Last week California Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) continued with its forward momentum, advancing from the California Assembly Appropriations Committee by a vote of 13 to five. The legislation that some environmental groups are referring to as ‘Trump insurance’ is now headed to the California Assembly floor. The California Environmental, Public Health, and Workers Defense Act of 2019 known as SB 1 seeks to uphold specific federal policy as it pertains to water.
The Trump administration is proposing new rules that would limit state and tribal power to block projects that they deem harmful to water quality.
The rules specifically would restrict these non-federal governments’ authority to review the water quality impacts of projects that require a federal permit or license. These projects range from pipelines to hydropower facilities to dredging — any development that result in “discharge” into U.S. waters.
Under the Clean Water Act, states have the power to regulate water quality within their borders. In Oregon, that authority falls to the Department of Environmental Quality.
Nearly a century ago, America embarked on a great social experiment in the Pacific Northwest, charging up the Columbia River and erecting dams.
It worked. Construction jobs pulled the country out of the Great Depression. Cheap electricity spurred the growth of cities like Seattle, Portland and Boise. And hydropower fueled the military effort to defeat the spread of fascism in World War II.
Now the system is buckling.
The Bonneville Power Administration, the independent federal agency that sells the electricity produced by the dams, is careening toward a financial cliff.
The calendar has flipped to September, but Sacramento is still experiencing August heat.
Following a Labor Day high of 98 degrees, the latest National Weather Service forecasts show a slight cool-down on the way. Tuesday and Wednesday are expected to hit 96 and 95 degrees, respectively, before temperatures cool to the low 90s or high 80s by the end of the week.
The Delta breeze will help bring nighttime relief, with low temperatures expected in the low- to mid-60s through Friday.
In the string of small farm towns that stretches south from California’s Salton Sea toward the border with Mexico, pretty much everyone knows someone with asthma.
As many as three of every 10 people report having the disease in places like Brawley, Calipatria and Westmorland — compared with about one of 10 in California as a whole. Bronchitis is also common, and many residents complain about coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath.
Paul Kehmeier is a fourth-generation farmer from western Colorado. One hundred and twenty years ago, his great grandfather Wilhelm Kehmeier bought land in Delta County, dug an irrigation ditch to bring water from a nearby stream, and got to work planting. The Kehmeier family has been farming on the same land ever since, growing alfalfa, hay and oats. But a few years ago, Paul Kehmeier did something unusual: he decided not to water about 60% of his fields.
A key feature of California’s drinking water system is the large number of individual water systems.
There are approximately 3,000 Community Water Systems (CWSs) in the state, meaning systems that serve a residential population year-round (the remaining 5,000 of the state’s 8,000 Public Water Systems are non-community systems serve places like schools, daycare, hospitals, campgrounds, or businesses that serve at least 25 people but have transient or non-residential populations.
Senate Bill 1, a highly controversial piece of water legislation, is headed to the floor of the California State Assembly in the coming weeks after clearing the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday.
The bill, penned by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D–San Diego) would tie California’s air quality and water laws to the Federal standards as of Jan. 19, 2017 – the final day of the Obama administration.
Initially, Senate Bill 1 was placed in the committee’s “suspense file,” or Legislative jargon for setting the bill aside temporarily. During Friday’s committee hearing, the bill was brought on with new amendments included.
