Based on two weeks of research into the probable future of water supplies in the American West, it’s pretty clear that no water expert or journalist truly believes Colorado is likely to become a lifeless, waterless desert, within the lifetime of anyone currently alive.
California’s political leaders have made the long-overdue decision to clean up the Central Valley’s contaminated drinking water, and help cash-strapped rural water districts.
The catch: rather than assess a fee on water users or tapping into the state’s budget surplus, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature relied on cap-and-trade money to pay for a portion of the operation.
Several major developments have altered the course of water management in California this year. First, Governor Newsom significantly modified the plan to bring water to the southern region through the Delta. Second, California forged a historic agreement with seven other states to cooperate in times of drought. And not least, industry veteran Gloria Gray took the helm at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. In this interview, Gray shares how she plans to steer the largest water supplier in the nation through changing political priorities and climate conditions to continue safeguarding the future of California’s water.
A catastrophic forest die-off in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range in 2015-2016 was caused by the inability of trees to reach diminishing supplies of subsurface water following years of severe drought and abnormally warm temperatures. That’s the conclusion by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and UC Merced outlined in a study published today in Nature Geoscience.
Salmon fishing been superb this summer in the ocean off the Sonoma and Marin county coasts, but you can also catch hard-fighting landlocked Chinook salmon at Lake Oroville, located on the Feather River.
Everyone with any knowledge of the subject agrees: California is on the brink of a potentially disastrous fire season. And there is concern that the problem is not going to be solved soon.
“Our best efforts may still be inadequate,” said Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission told reporters in June. Forty percent of California is in a fire danger zone, Picker added, and half of the state’s new housing is being built in those danger zones
In order to assist in fulfilling CA Governor Gavin Newsom’s April 29 executive order calling for a suite of actions to build a climate-resilient water system and ensure healthy waterways three state agencies are seeking the public’s input and assistance. Public input will aid the Natural Resources Agency (NRA), California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), and Department of Food and Agriculture (DFA) craft recommendations for meeting future water needs and ensuring environmental and economic resilience through the 21st century.
Water legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate June 20 recognizes the continued crisis facing water reliability in the West, according to the California Farm Bureau Federation.
CFBF endorsed the Drought Resiliency and Water Supply Infrastructure Act by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who introduced the bipartisan legislation along with Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
Back in 1989, Californians received a sobering warning: The accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere would likely bring more droughts, floods, fires and heat waves to the state.
In the 30 years since, those projections of what would happen in a warming world have proven to be remarkably prescient.”We’ve already observed some of the things we expected in 1989,” said Susan Fischer Wilhelm, a research manager at the California Energy Commission, the agency that compiled the report.
Independent scientists have raised serious concerns about a Trump administration plan to divert more water to California farmers, according to documents obtained by KQED.
In their analyses, they write that the plan poses risks to threatened fish; that the process is rushed; that they didn’t receive enough information to provide a complete scientific review; and that the Trump administration may be skewing the science to make the environmental impact look less serious.
