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Drought’s End Means California Beachgoers Get Showers Back

/in /by /U.S. News & World Report

California surfers are stoked after showers at state beaches that were turned off during the drought are flowing once again. The parks department turned off the showers in July 2015 at the height of the dry spell as Gov. Jerry Brown urged state officials to cut back on water use. Brown issued an executive order on April 7 ending the drought state of emergency. The Orange County Register reports Wednesday that showers at Bolsa Chica, Huntington Beach and Doheny state beaches are back on. Parks spokeswoman Gloria Sandoval says more beaches will follow as the agency evaluates the condition of public rinse stations.

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Many Areas Struggling To Set Up Groundwater Agencies as Deadline Looms

/in /by /Capital Pressby Tim Hearden

With their deadline less than three months away, local governments in many critical California groundwater basins still haven’t settled on a local entity to implement the state’s new pumping regulations, a key water official says. Counties, cities and water districts in many areas have submitted “a hodgepodge of overlapping claims” to be their region’s groundwater sustainability agency, said Pat Minturn, who is on the Northern California Water Association’s groundwater committee that’s working with state officials on solutions.

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Documents Provide Play-By-Play of Dam Crisis Response

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by U.S. News & World Report)

In early February, a massive crack opened in a concrete chute that carries water from America’s tallest dam. For nearly a week, Oroville Dam managers assured the public there was no imminent danger as they slowed releases of water down the main spillway to assess the damage. Then, with the lake behind the dam swelling from rain and runoff, water began running down a never-before-used backup spillway. But that, too, began breaking apart, and nearly 200,000 people were suddenly ordered to evacuate.

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Cosumnes River Provides Model for Floodplain Restoration in California

/in /by /News Deeplyby Michelaina Johnson

With California’s surface drought over, the state can prioritize investing in groundwater recharge and floodplain restoration to help fight one of its biggest lingering problems: groundwater overdraft. As it does so, the relatively unknown Cosumnes River watershed has emerged as a model. Roughly half of the groundwater basins in California’s Central Valley are critically overdrafted, including the San Joaquin Valley basin to the south of the Cosumnes.

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California’s Rainy Winter Likely To Give Mosquito Populations A Boost

/in /by /CBS SFBayArea (San Francisco)by Devin Fehely

After years of drought the mosquito population is poised to make a comeback — with a vengeance. Our exceptionally wet winter left no shortage of places for mosquitoes to breed. Santa Clara County Vector Control spokesperson Russ Parman says, “They’re very good at finding all of that water. So, we will have higher than average mosquito populations this time of year.” Health officials are bracing for an explosion of the insects which can spread dangerous diseases like West Nile Virus.

 

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Groups Demand Transparency on Oroville Dam Spillway Repairs

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

A coalition of environmental groups that had warned Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway was fatally flawed long before it nearly washed away this winter is demanding that federal regulators open up dam repair plans for public vetting. In a filing Wednesday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a coalition of environmental groups led by Sacramento-based Friends of the River also said it was concerned that the state Department of Water Resources is only going part way in repairing the emergency spillway.

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Recycled City Water for Ag Use Ensures Prosperous Future

/in /by /The Turlock Journalby Daniel Marsh

With the drought ending for the most part in this part of California, agriculture will have enough water once again to produce its bounty and prove farming is the economic base of the valley. Saying that, many are thinking ahead and bringing about a new and unique water resource project for the west side of Stanislaus County.   I think both the cities of Modesto and Turlock deserve high praise for selling recycled and treated waste water to the water sparse Del Puerto Water District. This is a first for us in this county.

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California State Water Project Boosts Irrigation Allotment

/in /by /Western Farm Pressby Todd Fitchette

Fresh on the heels of a boost to 100 percent for federal water contractors south-of-the-Delta, California water managers upped their initial allocation to full allotments for northern California users and 85 percent for those south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta . Acting California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Director William Croyle hopes to boost the south-of-Delta allocation as the state continues to monitor hydrologic conditions, which have never been wetter in California’s recorded history.

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California Tries to Refill Its Biggest Reservoir

/in /by /Bloombergby Justin Fox

After the wettest winter in 122 years of record-keeping, California’s reservoirs are filling up again, with more than 22 million acre-feet of water in the 46 reservoirs tracked by the state Department of Water Resources (they’d be even fuller if it weren’t for flooding worries at the now-infamous Oroville Dam and several other reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada foothills): The snowpack in the state’s mountains, while it hasn’t quite broken records across the board, currently holds even more water than the reservoirs — about 29 million acre-feet.

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Food and Farm News — Drought Still Influences Plant Sales Trends

/in /by /East Valley Times (Palo Cedro) by Judy
Drought still influences plant sales trends. Despite the demise of the California drought, plant nurseries say their customers remain interested in drought-tolerant landscaping. Nursery operators say Californians want to remain water conscious while livening up their yards by planting fresh annuals. Demand for what nurseries call “edibles”–such as fruit trees, blueberry bushes and vegetable gardens–has also increased.
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