Earlier this month Valley PBS launched a documentary miniseries called “Tapped Out: The History and Battle over Water in California’s San Joaquin Valley.” The four-part series examines the history of water in California. Each episode delves into a different part of the history and future of water in the region and includes the voices of farmers, water leaders and environmentalists.
After years of intense, record-setting drought across the U.S., particularly in the Great Plains and California, the country is now experiencing its lowest level of drought in the 17 years since the U.S. Drought Monitor began its weekly updates. Less than 5 percent of the U.S. was in some stage of drought as of May 4, the most recent update, compared to the 65 percent mired in drought in September 2012.
From “farmageddon” to good fortune. Five years after the drought, farmers across California’s Central Valley say produce is finally plentiful, but that doesn’t mean better prices. When the water ran out, farmers let go of their land. But after five years of California’s devastating drought, farmers markets are ripe for business. “The quality is exceptional this year,” said Missy Gotelli of Gotelli Farms. And fans know it. But perfection doesn’t come cheap. Alex Moreno at JJ Farms charges $5 a pound for cherries at local markets.
East Bay water customers would see rates rise 19 percent over the next two years under a proposal announced Tuesday. The East Bay Municipal Utility District said the increase is needed to more quickly replace old pipe, upgrade treatment plants and offset reduced water use by customers. The district proposes a 9.25 percent increase to take effect July 1 and another 9 percent increase to go into effect on July 1, 2018. Compounded, the increases amount to nearly 19 percent over two years for the district’s 1.4 million residents in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
“April showers bring May flowers” took on a whole new meaning this year: The United States just experienced its second-wettest April on record. Average precipitation across the Lower 48 was 3.43 inches. In other words, if you spread all of the rain and snow out across the continental United States, each location would have received nearly 3 ½ inches. That is a lot of water. This record is second only to April 1957 and nearly a full inch more than the average April rainfall in the 20th century.
California is putting communities downstream in danger of flooding with the way it runs the now-crippled Oroville Dam, mayors and county leaders wrote this week in a strongly worded letter to Gov. Jerry Brown. The letter — signed by mayors of the city of Oroville and six other communities downstream, county leaders, state lawmakers and others — comes in the wake of a February spillway emergency at the dam that forced the evacuation of 188,000 people.
The melting of this year’s record snowpack is continuing to create problems, with authorities warning of more flooding in Yosemite National Park and fast-moving, high water at a popular Central Valley river. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning Tuesday as Yosemite’s Pohono Bridge was expected to be swamped overnight. By 4 a.m. Wednesday, the Merced River probably will reach its flood stage of 10 feet, said Christine Riley, a weather service meteorologist in Hanford, Calif.
Crucial details about the location and depth of certain California water wells can be kept secret, and out of the hands of an environmental group, a top federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. Although targeting a specific request for California information, the ruling by what’s sometimes called the nation’s second-highest court could shape at least a few of the other Freedom of Information Act requests nationwide. More than 700,000 FOIA requests were filed in Fiscal 2014, and the question of what can be denied recurs often.
Sacramento State consultants have identified 43 water fountains, bottle filling stations and sinks that must be repaired or replaced due to high lead levels, according to new reports released Monday. The university initially shut down 85 sinks and fountains with lead levels above 5 parts per billion on Jan. 13. That came after students and professors found high lead levels when they tested 449 sinks and fountains over three days in January as part of a research project.
California is asking the federal government to pay 75 percent of the hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs to the badly damaged spillways at the nation’s tallest dam, a state water agency spokeswoman said Monday. The question of whether taxpayers or the water contractors that get water via the Oroville Dam would foot the biggest share of the bill has been one of many contentious ones in the aftermath of this winter’s damage at the dam, which is an anchor of the state’s water supply system.
