Coachella Valley water agencies are lifting some drought restrictions following an exceptionally wet winter in California, although experts and officials warn that California residents should keep getting used to “conservation as a way of life.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration have touted plans to build a tunnel to transport water beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, saying the project would modernize California’s water infrastructure and help the state adapt to climate change.
But an advocacy group is urging the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to abandon the $16-billion project, saying it doesn’t make financial sense for the state’s largest urban water agency.
Clint Baze was seated on the San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors on January 25, 2023, representing the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District. Clint Baze is the General Manager of the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District.
While California’s water outlook saw marked improvement in the short term, climatologists say years of worsening conditions across the West will take far more than this winter’s storms to recuperate.
Veva Deheza, executive director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Integrated Drought Information System, said in a briefing Tuesday that about 25% of the West remains in drought — compared to 74% at the start of the water year this past October.
Nearly half of the U.S. West has emerged from drought this spring, but the welcome wet conditions haven’t entirely replenished the region, scientists said Tuesday.
Hydrologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said deep snowpack across much of the West will bring short-term relief, but the equally deep “bathtub rings” at Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are a reminder of the long road to bringing supply and demand in balance.
Atmospheric rivers are essential for the transportation of precipitation occurring in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. The rapidly changing climate is causing shifts in these long, flowing regions of the atmosphere, resulting in an increasing number of extreme weather events that bring about destruction across the world.
A joint venture of AECOM and Brown and Caldwell (AECOM-BC Team) has been chosen to provide program and project management support and engineering design services for the Pure Water Southern California program, one of the largest water reuse programs in the world.
The San Diego County Water Authority received two Awards of Distinction for outreach programs at the 2023 California Public Information Officers (CAPIO) “EPIC Awards” competition for California public agency communication programs.
The Colorado River has shaped life as we know it in the southwestern United States. Its water has allowed for explosive population growth and agricultural development in some of the driest parts of the country. But due to overallocation and climate change, the river is drying up.
In a world of worsening heatwaves, flooding, drought, glacial melting, megafires and other calamities of a changing climate, Gary Gragg is an optimist.
As California warms, Gragg — a nurseryman, micro-scale farmer and tropical fruit enthusiast — looks forward to the day that he can grow and sell mangoes in Northern California.
