Even though there’s still plenty of snow in the Sierra and plenty of warm weather ahead, the California Department of Water Resources says it believes the annual snowmelt has peaked and should now decline. The observation came after a week in which landowners in some low-lying areas coped with flooding that resulted from a record-setting mid-June heat wave.
California’s 2017-2018 fiscal year budget includes $17 million in allocations to tackle the Golden State’s drinking water crisis’ immediate needs, the Community Water Center reported. The drinking water advocacy group also called for state officials to seek long-term, sustainable funding sources for the state’s water systems. In a separate announcement, the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation announced seven grants for projects around California, including one in the Central Valley.
In the Ohlone Wilderness south of Pleasanton is a 220-foot-tall reminder that the past may catch up with California. Calaveras Dam – built by the City of San Francisco 92 years ago – sits next to an active earthquake fault. Downstream are Fremont and other communities along Alameda Creek where 300,000 people live who are considered at risk in a major quake. The dam’s base is comprised of loose earth from a previous dam that had failed earlier in the 20th century. It was back in the day when quake knowledge was just barely out of the Stone Age.
The drought may be over in the minds of urban Californians, quite literally washed away by huge accumulations of rain last year that filled reservoirs and left the state’s mountains covered with snow even now. But the farmers and others in the Central Valley, veterans of multiple drought-and-flood cycles, know the reprieve is only temporary. On Wednesday they pressed new U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris to work to ensure a more reliable source of water for the nation’s most bountiful farming region.
A new bill in the state Legislature would require California to review the environmental impacts of a company’s proposal to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and sell it to Southern California cities — a controversial plan that was slowed down by President Obama, but which appears to have the backing of the Trump administration. Cadiz Inc. hopes to pump 16.3 billion gallons of groundwater annually in the heart of the desert, about 75 miles northeast of Palm Springs, on land surrounded by Mojave Trails National Monument and near Mojave National Preserve.
Thousands of excited snowboarders and skiers took advantage of the snow in Squaw Valley over the holiday weekend, as slopes remained open thanks to the huge snowfall this year. The warm weather, paired with “corn snow” — the snow consistency that is the more desirable pellet-type favored for beginners — made for a great atmosphere as people took to the slopes. “The snow is very soft and forgiving, so it’s great for beginners and intermediates,” said Sam Kieckhefer, spokesman for Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. “You’re coming out in a t-shirt and shorts, and it’s warm — you don’t have to worry about getting cold.”
As drought and water shortages become California’s new normal, more and more of the water that washes down drains and flushes down toilets is being cleaned and recycled for outdoor irrigation. But some public officials, taking cues from countries where water scarcity is a fact of life, want to take it further and make treated wastewater available for much more — even drinking. “This is a potential new source of water for California,” said former Assemblyman Rich Gordon. “We need to find water where we can.”
The Salton Sea is about 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles, but its landscape could be from another world. Once-bustling marinas in California’s largest lake, located along the San Andreas earthquake fault, are now bone-dry. The area has likely flooded and dried out several times through the ages, but a look at its history since the early 1900s also reveals many changes packed into the last 100-plus years. In the early 1900s, irrigation canals diverted Colorado River water into a dry lakebed in southeastern California.
A giant Southern California water district that could decide whether to invest in the Delta tunnels as soon as September has released the first of three “white papers” which are expected to address some unresolved issues. Among other things, this latest document from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California describes the new joint powers authority that might be formed to oversee construction of the 40-foot-wide tunnels. The tunnels are a state project, but the Department of Water Resources is busy with the reconstruction of the Oroville Dam spillway after this year’s flooding, the white paper notes.
Environmentalist have filed a lawsuit after the federal government said last week that Northern California’s delta tunnels project would not harm endangered fish in the delta and bay. That decision gave the project a big boost. The state wants to build two huge tunnels that would take water from the Sacramento River, ship the water under the delta and send that river water to existing aqueducts that already send delta water south. Californians have been fighting over water for generations. Remember all the talk of a peripheral canal? The state eventually pulled the plug on that after lots of opposition.
