When do you get labor icon Dolores Huerta attacking a press conference attended by NAACP leaders? When it’s about water — which as we know is for fighting, not drinking. A press conference yesterday at the Capitol, put on by the group Groundswell and attended by state Sen. Steven Bradford and NAACP regional president Rick Callender, is raising environmentalists’ hackles.
As the world grapples with rising water use and climate-fueled drought, countries from the United States to Israel to Australia are building huge desalination plants to bolster their water supplies. These plants can create water for thousands of households by extracting the salt from ocean water, but they have also drawn harsh criticism from many environmental groups:
In a scathing review, advisors to the state Legislature have found that California’s proposed regulations for urban water conservation would be costly, overly complicated and difficult to implement.
Is anyone really surprised to learn that bottled drinking water is loaded with tiny bits of plastic? The bottles are, after all, plastic. So are the caps. It stands to reason that microscopic bits of the stuff get into the water inside during bottling or packaging, or while sitting in storage. A 2018 study found as much.
Two independent and respected monitors of California government are warning the state’s top water regulator that it is dangerously off course by proposing massive cuts in water use for residents throughout the state, particularly in the Central Valley, in the name of better day-by-day conservation
Recent Sierra storms have helped to build up California’s snowpack after a very slow start this winter. According to data published on the Department of Water Resources’ California Data Exchange Center, the statewide snowpack is now at 42% of the average for the date. On Jan. 1, the water content in the snow was just 28% of the average.
Lake Shasta, California’s largest reservoir, stands at 113% of the historical average and only 52 feet from being full, thanks to the gift of rain the state is receiving so far this winter.
Former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s multi-billion dollar plan for a desalination plant or other hugely expensive project to add to the desert state’s imperiled water supply is still alive and has the support of his successor despite a budget crunch that will crimp funding needed to get a project built.
It was just 18 months ago when the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation warned that the Colorado Water River system was in danger of collapse unless wholesale water use reductions were enacted — cutbacks much bigger than the system has ever seen.
Using meteorology and chemistry to help prod Mother Nature, water officials have begun seeding storm clouds throughout the Santa Ana Watershed to boost regional water supplies by enhancing the rain and snowfall produced during storms.
