A fierce local battle over water rights unfolding in a small Southern California courtroom Wednesday could threaten federal plans to replenish rapidly dwindling Colorado River water supplies. A third-generation farmer is seeking an injunction to block the Imperial Irrigation District from signing on to the seven-state compact.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue on Tuesday announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing more than $449 million to help build an innovative water management system that will increase the reliability of the California water supply and create more than 560 jobs in the Sacramento Valley. Secretary Perdue was joined by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Rickey “R.D.” James. The announcement follows on President Donald J. Trump’s memo to promote a reliable supply and delivery of water out west.
Desalination, five years after it was last considered a viable water treatment project for Santa Cruz, may soon lose its footing even as a looming backup plan. With a little more than a year before the city is expected to decide how to ensure its long-term water supply security, the Santa Cruz City Council will consider Tuesday all but crossing off construction of the ocean water processing plant, per a recommendation from the city Water Commission, with city Water Department backing.
Rounds of rain are expected to soak areas from Washington to Southern California this week. The first storm rolled ashore in Washington and Oregon on Monday and settled into Northern California on Tuesday. Rain is forecast to push farther south across California during Tuesday night. Rain will fall on San Francisco, as well as the Paradise, California, area from Tuesday afternoon to Tuesday night. More rain is in the offing prior to the end of the week. Overall, this first round will bring mostly rain, but the higher elevations of the Cascades in Washington are likely to receive snow.
The average global temperature is much higher and rising more rapidly than “anything modern civilization has experienced,” according to David Easterling, one of the authors of a new US government report that delivers a dire warning about our future. Thousands more could die, food will be scarcer, and the US economy could lose hundreds of billions of dollars — or, in the worst-case scenario, more than 10% of its GDP — by the end of the century.
In 2009, Jeff Denholm was making a living as an adventure athlete, competing in stand-up paddleboard races and riding giant waves at Mavericks, the famous surf break near his home in Santa Cruz, Calif. Denholm was sponsored by Patagonia Inc., but to generate extra cash—“Adventure athletes don’t make a ton of money,” he says—he had a side gig leasing a fire truck to state and county crews that had run out of equipment battling wildfires.
In a legal battle between a Californian tribe and the state’s water agencies, experts are seeing a turning point in the history of United States water rights, potentially affecting how water is controlled across the entire country. In November of last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, concerned about the effects of climate change and the quality of the water in the aquifer, brought against the Coachella Valley Water District and the Desert Water Agency. This Supreme Court decision left standing a Ninth Circuit ruling, which established—for the first time—the principle that tribes have priority over their reservations’ groundwater.
In the bitter battle over the future of the California WaterFix Project, opponents recently scored a victory in their effort to stop the construction of Delta Tunnels. The development occurred when the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) staff issued a preliminary finding stating that WaterFix, as it exists today, is inconsistent with the Delta Plan. Without a certificate of consistency, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) cannot move WaterFix forward.
A major weather pattern change has arrived on the West Coast, bringing relief for California’s wildfires and choking smoke, but it may also unleash enough rain to trigger dangerous debris flows in recently burned areas of the state. Northern California’s Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire on record in state history, is still not fully contained. Smoke from the fires has hung over millions, fouling air quality since last week in the Central Valley and Bay Area. Air quality has begun to improve but remains unhealthy for sensitive groups on Wednesday in the Central Valley of California.
Small water and sewer utilities in California will struggle to recover after wildfires, especially if they’re near wilderness areas or far from large cities, according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings. After major natural disasters in the state, utilities are typically required to front the costs of repairs and are only reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state government afterward. Utilities in towns that are small or poor, on the edge of flammable wilderness, or far from a major city will have particular trouble in paying for those costs upfront or reestablishing service quickly so they can resume collecting revenue, according to the report by credit analyst Tim Tung.
