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Price Of Water 2019: Even Without Federal Infrastructure Deal, Cities Continue To Invest

/in , , /by /Circle Of Blue by Brett Walton

In the third year of the Trump administration, Congress and the White House have repeatedly discussed a multi-trillion dollar investment in the country’s roads, dams, levees, telecommunication networks, power grids, drinking water pipes, and sewage treatment plants.

Neither side has agreed on such a plan, and a deal seems out of reach at the moment. For drinking water infrastructure, Congress has preferred instead to fortify existing loan funds and grant programs. The country’s metropolitan centers, by and large, are taking advantage of those incremental measures. They are also forging ahead on their own, not waiting on Beltway politics to be resolved before making investments to prepare their water systems for the decades ahead.

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Groundwater Sustainability Plan To Be Released In July

/in , , /by /Times Publishing Groupby Michael Oppenheimer

California has over 500 groundwater basins and only 21 are classified as “high-priority basins in critical overdraft.” The Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin is one of these 21 basins. In the Santa Cruz Mid-County, critical overdraft means our freshwater supply is threatened by active seawater contamination at the coast and a locally developed Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) must be in place by January 31, 2020 that addresses how to achieve a sustainable basin by 2040. The Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin provides water for a population of approximately 95,000 people from Live Oak to La Selva Beach and the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Coast.

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Cal Poly Graduate Invents Sensor To Monitor Water Usage On Your Phone

/in , , /by /KSBY (Santa Barbara)by Dustin Klemann

California beat its drought this year, but from that seven-year drought came a new device, engineered by a Cal Poly graduate. The sensor, called Flume, could be the next step in water conservation from your couch. Each American uses about 88 gallons of water at home each day, according to the EPA. That same report shows on average, a family spends $1,000 on water every year. “You literally just take [the device], put it on the side of the meter, run some water, and just like that you’re calibrated,” said Eric Adler, co-founder and CEO of Flume, Inc., while demonstrating the device.

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NASA Is Tracking One Of Earth’s Most Valuable Resources — Water

/in , , /by /Space.com (New York)by Elizabeth Howell

Water is a complex problem on Earth: Some places get far too little of it and some get far too much. That’s why NASA and its international partners are tracking the flow of freshwater across the world in hopes of improving access to it for the billions of us who depend on it. Satellites study how water moves through its cycle. Sometimes it evaporates from warm oceans in the tropics, condenses into clouds and then falls back into the ground as snow or rain. The water might stay in a river or lake — or freeze, locked within ice or snow. It can either evaporate into the atmosphere or soak into the ground, moistening the soil or filling an aquifer.

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Why Fighting For Clean Water With Climate Change Money Worries Some California Lawmakers

/in , , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Rachel Becker

Combat climate change, or clean up California’s water? Those alarmed by the Legislature’s decision to dip into a greenhouse gas fund to pay for clean drinking water may need to get used to it: constitutional restrictions on spending that money are set to expire in 2021. At issue is the decision to address one environmental crisis—the lack of clean water for one million Californians—with money set aside for fighting another: climate change. It’s a move that pits those committed to curbing greenhouse gases against environmental allies over $1.4 billion dollars of polluters’ money, even as the state boasts a $20.6 billion surplus.

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Wet California Winter Is A Boon For Skiers And Water Supply. But It Brings A Threat: Wildfires.

/in , , /by /The Washington Postby Scott Wilson

This early June morning is Boyd Shepler’s birthday, No. 66, and he is spending it in a classic California way: a few hours of skiing in a snowflake-filled morning, then a round of golf in the dry afternoon sun. The snow here in the Sierra Nevada is epic, packed into a base that is more than double the historic average for early summer. Here on Mammoth Mountain, the ski lifts will be running into August. At lower altitudes, a spring of atmospheric rivers and hard rain has filled the state’s once-languishing reservoirs.

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Treated Waste- Water To River Being Sought

/in , /by /The Manteca Bulletin (Manteca, Calif.)by Jason Campbell

The City of Lathrop has taken another step towards achieving the long-awaited goal of being able to discharge tertiary treated wastewater into the San Joaquin River. With the approval of the Lathrop City Council, the city is now in a contract with Ascent Environmental to initiate the environmental documentation necessary to acquire the permit to discharge of water from the city’s water treatment plant into the river – a move that could pay sweeping dividends to the city in the future.

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India Is Hitting The United States With More Tariffs

/in , /by /CNNby Rishi Iyengar

India just increased tariffs on US exports, dealing another blow to fragile global trade. The tariffs on 28 US products, announced on Saturday by India’s Finance Ministry, went into effect Sunday. The goods targeted include American apples — which will be hit with a 70% tariff — as well as almonds, lentils and several chemical products. India first announced plans to impose new tariffs a year ago in retaliation for increased US import duties on Indian steel and aluminum. But it repeatedly delayed imposing them while the two sides held a series of trade talks.

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Can California Better Use Winter Storms To Refill Its Aquifers?

/in , , /by /PHYS.org (Los Angeles)by Felicity Barringer

The general long-term forecast for California as climate change intensifies: more frequent droughts, intermittently interrupted by years when big storms bring rain more quickly than the water infrastructure can handle. This bipolar weather will have profound implications for the state’s $50 billion agriculture industry and the elaborate network of reservoirs, canals, and aqueducts that store and distribute water. A system built for irrigation and flood protection must adapt to accommodate more conservation. “The effects of climate change are necessitating wholesale changes in how water is managed in California,” the state Department of Water Resources wrote in a June 2018 white paper.

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Los Olivos Board Presents Options For Sewage Treatment

/in , /by /Santa Ynez Valley Starby Raiza Giorgi

All options are still on the table in developing a wastewater treatment system in Los Olivos, but the community needs to pick one quickly — before the state takes over the decision, according to the Los Olivos Community Services District. In a special meeting May 30, the LOCSD board presented a range of wastewater treatment options after spending the last year meeting with the California Regional Water Quality Control Board and Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services.

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