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Drought on Colorado River Sparks Revolutionary Idea: Sharing Water

Business as usual on the Colorado River may be about to come to a screeching halt. One of the worst recorded droughts in human history has stretched water supplies thin across the far-reaching river basin, which serves 40 million people. Nowhere is this more obvious than Lake Mead, which straddles the border of Arizona and Nevada. The water level in the country’s largest manmade reservoir has been plummeting; it’s now only 38 percent full. With an official water shortage imminent, Arizona, Nevada and California are taking matters into their own hands.

 

Another step in long march toward California water deal in Congress

A key House committee on Wednesday approved a big irrigation drainage deal with California’s politically potent Westlands Water District, opening another front in the state’s ongoing conflict over water, money and power.

Watched over by a handful of lobbyists and activists, the House Natural Resources Committee approved the controversial Westlands deal by a mostly party line 27-to-12 vote following an occasionally testy markup. Fresno-area Rep. Jim Costa was one of only three Democrats on the committee to support the legislation.

San Diego Water Leader Questions Delta Tunnels Backers

Yesterday, San Diego County Water Authority’s General Manager, Maureen Stapleton, sent a letter to CA Natural Resources Secretary John Laird asserting that Dr. David Sunding’s economic analysis for the Delta Tunnels project “may significantly overstate Southern California’s future demand for water from the Bay-Delta.” Ms. Stapleton’s letter explains that Dr. Sunding’s economic analysis used water planning assumptions from Metropolitan Water District’s 2015 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) regarding the need for San Francisco Bay-Delta water. However, as Ms. Stapleton points out, MWD’s 2015 IRP only included local projects that were recently completed or under construction.

Pacific on Tap: San Diego County Water Authority

After three years of construction, the San Diego County Water Authority and Poseidon Water dedicated the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant on Dec. 14, 2015. The plant is producing approximately 50 million gallons per day of locally controlled water for San Diego County, helping to minimize the region’s vulnerability to statewide drought conditions. It is part of a $1 billion project that includes the nation’s largest and most technologically advanced and energy-efficient treatment plant, a 10-mile large-diameter pipeline and improvements to Water Authority facilities for distributing desalinated seawater throughout San Diego County.

Engaging Millennials On Water Issues

If this summer’s Pokemon Go fad proved anything, it’s that there’s some truth to the Millennial stereotype. They are maddeningly obsessed with technology. They are self-absorbed. They have short attention spans. It’s reason enough to view the generation with some degree of suspicion. Objectively, we know it is unproductive to allow these broad brush characterizations to unduly influence our view of this, or any other, generation. No generation thinks, hopes or behaves uniformly. We’re individuals, not demographic blocs. Yet, there are shared traits that allow us to effectively incorporate Millennials into targeted public affairs and outreach efforts.

 

Better Water Decisions In The Age Of Deep Uncertainty

The old ecological and political order is crumbling. When calculations are complete, 2016 will be the hottest year on record, surpassing a mark set one year ago. The oceans are rising at an increasing rate. In the American West, it is too warm and dry this month for snow, delaying the accumulation of a natural water reserve that cities, farms, and fisheries rely on during the summer. Politics are no less turbulent. After the U.S. election, domestic regulations affecting energy development, infrastructure spending, and water supplies are in flux.

Future Look For The Delta?

Its marshes drained and diked, its rivers dredged and diverted, today’s Delta has been called a “brittle skeleton” of what it was 200 years ago. In fact, scientists concluded in 2014 that the Delta is hardly a river delta at all, anymore. But in a follow-up report published today, those same experts with the San Francisco Estuary Institute say there is still hope of bringing back at least a portion of the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas. Their broad plan calls for fundamental changes to the mostly agricultural landscape that exists today.

OPINION: Bobker, Rosenfield: San Francisco Bay Estuary Needs More Fresh Water

The San Francisco Bay Estuary and the rivers that feed it face an existential crisis. The signs of impending collapse include six endangered native fish species, shrinking wetlands and beaches, and more frequent cyanobacteria blooms that generate neurotoxins powerful enough to kill pets and sicken people. Just outside the Golden Gate, Orca whales feeding on Chinook salmon go hungry, while commercial fishermen cope with another shortened fishing season.

Cloud Seeding Resumes Over Sierra

Cloud seeding has resumed over the Sierra Nevada in hopes of increasing the winter snowpact, but La Nina might have other plans for the central California rainfall season. The Northern California Power Agency, which has conducted cloud seeding every year since 2006, has begun seeding a 74-square-mile watershed above New Spicer Reservoir in Tuolumne County above 6,500 feet, according Randy Bowersox, hydroelectric facilities manager for the power agency. The cloud seeding project, which commenced on Nov. 1, hopes to augment the winter snowpack runoff by at least 2 percent.

Will Sacramento Finally Lift Its Ban On Artificial Turf?

Now that the state has cleared the way, the Sacramento City Council will again consider finalizing an artificial turf ordinance that would lift a longtime ban on faux grass in front yards. Last year, the Sacramento Planning Commission approved a measure that would lift a three-decade ban on fake turf in front and side lawns visible from a street. But when it got to the council last November, the ordinance stalled out of concerns that too much faux turf could harm the city’s lush urban tree canopy.