Fresno City Council members voiced no objections Thursday to allowing residents to water their landscaping up to three days a week during the hot summer, and two days a week during the milder spring and fall months. A wet winter with ample rainfall is creating the relief for residents who want to keep their lawns green. The city’s stringent one-day-a-week winter watering schedule will come to an end on April 30.
Increases in California’s gas tax and vehicle fees approved last week are expected to raise $52.4 billion over 10 years for the state’s backlog of road and bridge repairs. It is, by any measurement, a significant amount of money — Gov. Jerry Brown dubbed the proposal “a hell of a good deal” — but only about half of what the state would ultimately like to put behind large-scale improvements in the Inland Empire and beyond if the federal government is willing.
Thanks to a historically wet winter, Central Valley farmers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta got some long-awaited good news this week from federal water managers. For the first time in more than a decade, they will receive their full allotment of groundwater from the Central Valley Project. It’s a remarkable turnaround from last year, when farmers got only a 5 percent allotment, or even earlier this year, when they got 65 percent.
The Sutter County Board of Supervisors approved a letter to be sent to top California officials about concerns surrounding Oroville Dam and its spillways. The “coalition letter” is the result of a pair of meetings guided by Assemblyman James Gallagher and state Sen. Jim Nielsen in the weeks following February’s evacuations. “We convened all these different groups together and compiled all the different issues people were concerned about,” said Gallagher. “The idea was to have a united voice and have the region come together and hone in on what the issues are.”
While you sidestep the puddles and wrestle with your umbrella, be comforted by this: Northern California is going through the wettest rainy season on record. The region broke the 34-year-old record for precipitation in one year, the Department of Water Resources reported early Thursday. The eight-station index for the northern Sierra Nevada, a series of rain gauges positioned from Pacific House to the city of Mount Shasta, showed that 89.7 inches of inches have fallen since the “water year” began last fall.
A mind-boggling 751 inches of snow have pummeled the Sugar Bowl ski area near Lake Tahoe this winter. It’s emblematic of a record season for precipitation in California’s northern Sierra Nevada mountain range, and the abrupt end to a historic drought. As of Thursday morning, the northern Sierra had achieved its wettest water year in recorded history, the National Weather Service office in Sacramento announced.
California’s top water official said Thursday he’s considering releasing redacted copies of safety and progress reports at the troubled Oroville Dam after his office had tried to keep them secret because of terrorism concerns. Bill Croyle, the acting director of the Department of Water Resources, told reporters that his staff met for several hours Thursday with Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea to discuss which parts of the documents should be kept secret and which to release.
In January, California’s Jerry Brown became the first governor in the state’s history to declare a state of emergency for a drought and a flood simultaneously. On Friday, Brown lifted the drought emergency in all but four counties (Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Tuolumne counties). But, rather than lift the burdensome water regulations implemented to cope with the drought, he announced that many of those regulations would remain intact, even though the flood emergency remains.
Fresno’s stringent one-day-a-week watering schedule will come to an end later this month. What replaces it – and whether Fresno residents will get to start watering their lawns two days a week or three – could be decided Thursday. Thomas Esqueda, the city’s public utilities director, will present a workshop for Fresno City Council members Thursday afternoon outlining Fresno’s success in meeting state water conservation goals and offering three possible options for outdoor irrigation starting May 1.
American Rivers has labeled the lower Colorado River as America’s most endangered this year, a river which Arizona depends on. According to their study released on Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts will affect a river that provides drinking water for 30 million Americans. The lower Colorado river also irrigates fields that grow 90 percent of the nation’s winter vegetables, according to the study. The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget proposal means there could be cuts to many environmental departments.
