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Wide Fluctuation In October Water Conservation Numbers

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Record

Water conservation numbers for October were announced last week by the Water Resources Control Board, and the savings were all over the place. Statewide, urban water use was down 13.4 percent compared to October 2013, the pre-drought benchmark year. That was down from 14.6 percent in September, but the conservation rate has been pretty static since July. However the Sacramento River watershed, usually one of the more thrifty regions, had savings of just 12.1 percent in October. The conservation rates were higher on the South Coast, 13.1 percent, and in the Bay Area, 14.0 percent.

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OPINION: Did Jerry Brown Do Enough On Climate Change?

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Jacques Leslie

Jerry Brown, in the last term of his two-part, 16-year governorship, came close to redeeming his environmental faults. Brown deserves a salute for striving to get out the message that climate change is indeed, in his words, a global “existential crisis” and that we are living in the “new abnormal.” He has been doing what a U.S. president ought to do, finding allies among nations, regions and cities for a crucial struggle — in contrast to President Trump , who abdicated the job.

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What Caused Nearly 20,000 Quakes At Oroville Dam? Scientists Weigh In On Mystery

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

The earthquakes hit just days after last year’s near-catastrophe at Oroville Dam, when the spillway cracked amid heavy rains and 188,000 people fled in fear of flooding. The timing of the two small tremors about 75 miles north of Sacramento was curious, and frightening. Were the quakes part of a seismic hot spot that caused the giant concrete spillway to tear? Was the weight of the water behind the dam triggering the quakes? Could all of Lake Oroville be prone to slipping?

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OPINION: Arizona Has No Choice But To Act On The Drought Contingency Plan

/in , /by /The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman has issued an edict to Arizona and the two other lower Colorado basin states: Come up with a drought contingency plan by Jan. 31 or she will step in and do it for us. Burman is right to throw down the gauntlet. The Colorado River is in trouble. A nearly two-decade drought and the ravages of climate change have reduced water levels in Lake Mead, the lower basin reservoir, to record lows. Hydrologists predict water levels in Lake Mead will likely drop below levels that, under the existing multistate agreement, trigger the first tier of mandatory cutbacks in Colorado River water deliveries to lower-basin states.

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40 Million Americans Depend On The Colorado River. It’s Drying Up.

/in , /by /Mother Jones (San Francisco)by Eric Holthaus

Prompted by years of drought and mismanagement, a series of urgent multi-state meetings are currently underway in Las Vegas to renegotiate the use of the Colorado River. Seven states and the federal government are close to a deal, with a powerful group of farmers in Arizona being the lone holdouts. The stakes are almost impossibly high: The Colorado River provides water to 1 in 8 Americans, and irrigates 15 percent of the country’s agricultural products. The nearly 40 million people who depend on it live in cities from Los Angeles to Denver.

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Water Shortages Ahead? Sierra Nevada Snow Pack On Track To Shrink 79 Percent, New Study Finds

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Paul Rogers

Every year, like a giant frozen reservoir, snow that falls across the Sierra Nevada mountain range slowly melts in spring and summer months, providing roughly one-third of the water supply for California’s cities and farms, from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. But at the current rate at which the climate is warming, the amount of runoff from Sierra snow into California’s largest reservoirs is heading for a dramatic decline — a 54 percent drop in the next 20 to 40 years and 79 percent in the next 60 to 80 years, according to a new study from scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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OPINION: Gov. Brown Working To Save His Tunnels

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle

In the world of water politics, where change occurs at a glacial pace, the past few weeks have seen enormous swings in how our state’s most precious resource is managed and delivered. The discussions behind these changes are not easily known and even less easy to understand what they ultimately will mean for cities, farms and, yes, fish in California as climate change accelerates. What is apparent however is that Gov. Jerry Brown is working hard to put his delta tunnels project on the glide path to the finish line before he leaves office in January.

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OPINION: Sites Proponents Have Years Of Advocacy Ahead Of Them To Get the 500,000 acre-foot lake finally under construction

/in , /by /Appeal Democrat (Marysville, California)

Sites Reservoir proponents are happy with what’s happened this year … they’ve collected commitments for some serious coinage – state and federal. They can stay grounded, however, by the fact that they’ve got several billion dollars still to go. There’s a lot of work ahead. The off-stream reservoir adds a sizable storage capacity to Northern California, with none of the environmental and fewer political traps of an on-stream dam.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Under A Cloud Of Scandal, Is ForcedOut

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Eli Stokols

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who endeared himself to President Trump but was caught up in scandals and infuriated environmental activists, will be departing his post by the end of the year in the latest shake-up of the president’s Cabinet. “Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning. “Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.”

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California Cedes Water To Feds In Delta Deal With Trump

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow

Southern Californians could lose billions of gallons of water a year to Central Valley farmers under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has struck with water officials working for President Donald Trump. There’s no guarantee the agreement with Trump will accomplish what Brown’s team is seeking: a lasting compromise on environmental regulations that could stave off significant water shortfalls for farms and cities across California. A powerful state agency, the State Water Resources Control Board, hasn’t yet signed off on Brown’s compromise environmental proposal. Environmental groups have called the governor’s idea woefully insufficient to save ailing fish populations.

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