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Dry Start To Water Year

/in /by /Hanford Sentinelby John Lindt

It’s been day and night comparing rainfall between northern and southern California through the first week of December. While Northern California stands at 112 percent of average for this date, the Tulare Basin is only 39 percent of average. The beleaguered city of Ventura stands at just 1.5 percent of average rain for this date says the National Weather Service. High pressure across the state this month is blocking any storm system in the Pacific from coming in at least until Dec 22.

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Santa Barbara Hits Its Seventh Year Of Drought

/in /by /Sana Barbara Independantby Nick Welsh

Santa Barbara is now entering the seventh year of drought conditions, a circumstance City of Santa Barbara Public Works czar Rebecca Bjork called “unprecedented.” Bjork’s remarks ​— ​it’s been seven years since Lake Cachuma has spilled ​— ​came as she gave the City Council its monthly update on drought and water supply issues. The good news is that city residents are using less water now than they have anytime since 1985. They used 35 percent less in the month of October than they consume during a so-called “normal” month. Annualized, the numbers are even more dramatic: 40 percent less.

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Here’s Why Ventura Residents Must Boil Their Water for Days as Thomas Fire Burns

/in /by /Whittier Daily News (Monrovia)

Southern Californians who reside near the mountains, hillsides or canyons live with the risk of a wildfire burning down their homes. But rarely do they think about a fire contaminating their drinking water. Perhaps they should. Just ask residents of Ventura, Santa Paula and Ojai, who must boil their tap water before drinking it, cooking with it or brushing their teeth, the result of the powerful Thomas fire that knocked out portions of their water system Tuesday and grew to 96,000 acres by Thursday.

Oroville Dam: Spillway Failure Report Delayed; Coming Soon

/in /by /Chico Enterprise-Record (As published by East Bay Times)

An independent forensic team has “essentially completed” its investigation into what caused the Oroville Dam spillway to collapse in February and its findings are expected to be made public sometime in the next few weeks. The forensic team’s final report was expected by the end of November, but as that deadline passed, the United States Society of Dams issued a short press release Tuesday explaining the vast amount of information to sift through and interviews to be conducted took longer than anticipated.

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Pioneering Practice Could Help California Reverse Groundwater Depletion

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)

Groundwater overdraft in the San Joaquin Valley – producer of half the state’s agricultural output – has averaged roughly 1.8 million acre-feet annually since the mid-1980s. Even before the start of the most recent drought in 2011, a few San Joaquin farmers recognized the dire need for sustainable water management and started individually pioneering a groundwater recharge practice that has since gained statewide traction.

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Hundreds Turn Out To Speak Up About Controversial WaterFix Project

/in /by /The Press (Brentwood)by Tony Kukulich

A recent town hall meeting on the controversial WaterFix project,hosted in the heart of the Delta, gave those whose lives and livelihoods are most dependent upon the Delta a chance to make their voices heard – and they did not hold back. The meeting, attended by more than 200 people, was held in the Jean Harvey Community Center in Walnut Grove, and co-hosted by Assemblymember Jim Frazier and California State Senator Bill Dodd, who are members of the Delta Caucus.

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OPINION: Mark Altgelt: Protect Delta Water With A Dam

/in /by /Times Herald Online (Vallejo)by Mark Altgelt

California’s primary source of water is at risk because the sea level is gradually rising and will begin to contaminate the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta estuary with ocean water. The Sea level is predicted to rise 3 to 7 feet by 2100, depending on how fast Antarctic and Greenland ice melts. A 3-foot rise in sea level would inundate the Delta estuary west of Route 5. A larger catastrophe is also looming because any one of several known potential glacier collapses would significantly exceed current sea level rise predictions.

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Climate Scientists See Alarming New Threat To California

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Evan Halper

California could be hit with significantly more dangerous and more frequent droughts in the near future as changes in weather patterns triggered by global warming block rainfall from reaching the state, according to new research led by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The latest study adds a worrying dimension to the challenge California is already facing in adapting to climate change, and shifts focus to melting polar ice that only recently has been discovered to have such a direct, potentially dramatic impact on the West Coast.

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Portable Treatment Systems To Create First ‘Virtual Water District’

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

One of the hard truths revealed by California’s five-year drought is that many small, rural communities lack the resources to adapt to water shortages. In this case, that means both money and expertise. It can be very expensive, for instance, to build a new water treatment plant or connect with one in the next closest town. Even if a community finds the money to build a small treatment plant, it may not have anyone locally with the expertise to operate it.

 

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What Could Cause California Droughts? Melting Sea Ice

/in /by /The Mercury News‎ (San Jose)

Polar bears aren’t the only ones in trouble from the Arctic’s melting ice. A new study by Bay Area scientists concludes that Californians could face reduced rainfall — and worse droughts — by the continuing loss of sea ice. Their computer analyses show a 10 to 15 percent average decrease in California’s rainfall in the coming decades. The culprit, scientists now believe, is a link between the melting ice and the buildup of massive high pressure systems that park off the California coast and block Pacific storms.

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