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What Western Snowpack Tells Us About the Water Year

/in , /by /News Deeplyby John Fleck and Tara Logan

In this episode of Deeply Talks, Ian Evans, Water Deeply’s community editor, speaks with Tara Lohan, Water Deeply’s managing editor and John Fleck, director of water resources at the University of New Mexico, about the status of this year’s snowpack, what it can tell us about the water year to come and how that fits with long-term climate change trends. The most significant reservoirs in the West are not stored behind concrete dams, but on top of mountains as snowpack. This year, however, snowpack has been alarmingly low throughout most of the West.

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Voters OK’d billions for new reservoirs in 2014. California is about to start spending

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

California took a big step Friday toward launching a new multibillion-dollar wave of reservoir construction.

After being accused of being overly tightfisted with taxpayer dollars, the California Water Commission released updated plans for allocating nearly $2.6 billion in bond funds approved by voters during the depths of the drought. The money will help fund eight reservoirs and other water-storage projects, including the sprawling Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley and a small groundwater “bank” in south Sacramento County.

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Desalination In Las Vegas? Faraway Ocean Could Aid Future Water Needs

/in , /by /News Deeplyby Matt Weiser

Sin City has never been a place that thinks small. So it should come as no surprise that Las Vegas – about 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean – is pondering seawater desalination to meet its long-term water demand.

That doesn’t mean Vegas plans to build a pipeline to the ocean. More likely, it would help pay for a desalination facility in a place like Mexico, then trade that investment for a piece of Mexico’s water rights in the Colorado River.

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Southern California Plans To Spend $11 Billion On The Delta Tunnels. Who Will End Up Paying?

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Betina Boxall Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

When the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to finance the lion’s share of the delta tunnels project, some on the board called it a bold stroke of leadership. The delegations from Los Angeles and San Diego, however, called the move alarming, financially risky and irresponsible. MWD’s two largest member agencies, L.A. and the San Diego County Water Authority, were on the losing end of last week’s vote to invest nearly $11 billion in the construction of two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

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Report: Drought Expands; Oklahoma Sees Worst Conditions

/in /by /The Associated Press

Drought is tightening its grip across the American Southwest as extreme conditions spread from Oklahoma to Utah, according to new federal data released Thursday. On the southern high plains, Oklahoma remains ground zero for the worst drought conditions in the United States. About 20 percent of the state is facing exceptional drought conditions — the worst possible classification. Most of Colorado also is under severe drought and almost all of the Texas Panhandle is seeing extreme drought or worse conditions.

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Southern California Water Agency Votes To Fund Controversial Plan To Build Two Delta Tunnels

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted Tuesday to shoulder most of the cost of revamping the system that delivers water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta to the Southland, committing nearly $11 billion to building two massive tunnels.

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Recent Years Prove We Need More Water Storage

/in /by /CALmattersby Dan Walters

The first thing to remember about precipitation in California is that it’s unpredictable, as the past several winters have once again shown us. Several years of severe drought ended in the 2016-17 winter with near-record rain and snow storms that filled the state’s badly depleted reservoirs. The 2017-18 “water year,” as hydrologists call it, began with what seemed to be a return to drought but then, in March, the state experienced a steady stream of storms that added to the Sierra snowpack upon which Californians are so dependent.

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Recent Storms Put California’s Water Supply In Good Shape For Dry Season

/in /by /AccuWeather (State College, Pa.)by Kristina Pydynowski

Despite a dismal start to the rainy season, recent storms have helped to ease fears of water shortages across California during the upcoming drier months. The extended fire season and unusually dry start to the winter may have worried many residents about the state’s water supply for the dry season. California has a distinct wet and dry season. After the wet season typically peaks between December and March, the state relies on reservoirs and melting snow from the mountains for its water supply in the drier months that span late spring to the fall.

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A Strong Tunnel Vision

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

Two tunnels, one or none? The question continues to swirl around plans to perform major surgery on the sickly heart of California’s water system. Confronted with a shortage of funding, state officials announced last month that they would move ahead with the construction of one giant water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta rather than two. But the announcement did little to settle the fate of the project, which Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration considers vital to sustaining water deliveries to one of the country’s richest agricultural regions and the urban sprawl of Southern California.

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Sierra Snowpack Water Content More Than Triples In A Month

/in /by /SF Gateby Amy Graff

A series of supercharged storms that blasted the Sierra in March has bolstered the snowpack that was alarmingly low before the start of the month. The National Weather Service (NWS) in Sacramento tweeted Saturday that the water content of the snowpack has more than tripled in the past month. On Feb. 22, an average of 4.6 inches was measured and on March 23 an average of 15.5 inches was recorded, going from 16 percent to 56 percent of the April 1 average.

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