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First Snow Survey Shows Water Content Just ‘Adequate.’ But There’s Hope For Improvement

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

A lot more snow will have to fall if California is to have enough water this year to fill reservoirs, nourish salmon, help crops flourish and moisten the fire-prone hills long enough to avoid another catastrophic conflagration, state officials said Thursday. California’s top snow surveyors, in the Sierra on Thursday with measuring poles and electronic sensor data, concluded that the state’s frozen water supply is just adequate, at best.

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Why Overall Water Use Is Declining In US Despite Population Growth

/in , /by /Environmental Leader (Fort Collins, Colo.)by Jennifer Hermes

Water use efficiency was a hot topic among sustainability experts in 2018, as changing weather patterns, a US population increase of 4%, and aging water infrastructure continue to put a strain on our nation’s water supply. But for all the dire news about the negative impacts of climate change on weather patterns, water restrictions and storms that spilled wastewater into city streets, good news happened, as well. Cities and municipalities are moving forward with innovative water conservation efforts. El Paso, Texas, for example, is building an advanced purification system that will treat sewage water and turn it directly into drinking water.

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California To Conduct Season’s First Snow Survey

/in , , /by /CBS Sacramento

California water managers will conduct the season’s first manual surveys of the state’s crucial winter snowfall. Winter snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains supplies drinking water for much of California as it melts throughout the spring and summer. The amount of snow is measured monthly through the winter at more than 260 locations to help water managers plan for how much they can deliver to customers later in the year.

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OPINION: What New Water Deals Mean And What Work Is Left To Be Done

/in , /by /The Modesto Beeby Karla Nemeth

California’s State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project span several northern watersheds, converging in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where their pumping stations operate a stone’s throw away from one another. They coordinate their operations daily and have done so for decades. Earlier this month, the California Department of Water Resources signed three agreements updating how the state and federal projects share environmental and financial obligations associated with their operations.

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Delta Tunnels, Diversity Are Focus Of New California Water Leader

/in , /by /Bloomberg by Emily C. Dooley

The new person in charge of delivering water to one in 17 Americans has two big goals: seeing through a controversial public works project to build two new California water tunnels and ensuring her agency is represented by a more diverse group of people. Gloria Gray became chairwoman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Jan. 1 and made history, though not for the first time. She will be the first African-American and second woman to head the board of directors in the 90-year history of the state’s southern zone, the nation’s largest treated water supply district. It delivers water to 26 public agencies that supply water for 19 million Californians.

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Like Fruit, Vegetables, and Almonds? Scientists Have Bad News.

/in , /by /Mother Jonesby Tom Philpott

So far, this winter has brought ample snows to the Sierra Nevada, the spine of mountains that runs along California’s eastern flank. That’s good news for Californians, because the range’s melted snow provides 60 percent of the state’s water supply. Anyone in the United States who likes fruit, vegetables, and nuts should rejoice, too, because water flowing from the Sierra’s streams and rivers is the main irrigation source for farms in the arid Central Valley, which churns out nearly a quarter of the food consumed here.

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Couple Fined After Claiming to Use More Water than the Earth Holds

/in , /by /Redding Record Searchlightby Damon Arthur

A couple with rights to take water from a Trinity County creek has been fined $10,000 for overstating the amount of water they diverted, at one point claiming they used more water than is actually available on Earth. As part of an agreement with the State Water Resources Control Board, the couple has agreed to pay for misstating the amount of water they took from Price Creek, a tributary to the Trinity River. Everyone who diverts water is required to report to the Water Board the amount used.

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2018 Another Dry Year for California

/in , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Matthew Renda

As the Golden State moves into 2019, it will close the book on an abnormally dry year with hopes that a few rain storms can stave off the prospect of another drought. Two consecutive years of devastating wildfires killing dozens of residents, causing billions in property damage and reducing millions of acres to ash has demonstrated the effects of the prolonged drought stretching from 2012 until 2017. Storms finally brought much-needed precipitation in 2017, replenishing reservoirs and aquifers, but the moisture content in the forest vegetation and the swathes of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada attest to the consequences of the sustained dry weather.

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Winter Is Shrinking, Scripps Study Finds, Posing New Fire, Water Risks

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Deborah Sullivan Brennan

Across the mountains of the West, the landscape of winter is changing. Deep snowpacks that held fast through winter, then melted in a torrent each spring, are instead seeping away earlier in the year. The period of winter weather is shrinking, too, with autumn lasting longer and spring starting earlier. The findings by Amato Evan, a professor of atmospheric and climate science with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, show changes to Western hydrology that could jeopardize water resources, flood control, fire management and winter recreation.

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California’s Droughts Hurt Fight Against Climate Change. Study Tells Us Why

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

Recent droughts across the West have belted drinking-water supplies, withered crops and fanned deadly wildfires. They’ve also squeezed hydroelectric facilities, with the less obvious side effect of hampering efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. A new study out of Stanford University finds that 10 percent of the total carbon dioxide spewed from California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho for power generation this century is the result of states turning to fossil fuels when water was too sparse to spin electrical turbines at dams.

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