California’s major reservoirs have seen significant gains in water level in recent days after two weeks of exceptionally heavy rain across the state. It comes after months of severe drought in the region, leaving water levels in the state’s most important reservoirs well below their historical average.
The California snowpack is starting off strong, raising hopes for water resources throughout the drought-stricken state. But for farmers, these high numbers may not translate into more water for their crops.
The amount of snow high up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains has a direct impact on the fields of crops below. Jason Giannelli, a fourth generation farmer in Kern County who grew up in the farm life, understands this.
Hungarian writer and poet Sándor Márai published a description of the San Diego-Tijuana region in 1964. His chronicle provides details of the conditions that surround the U.S.-Mexico border. He compares the streets of California packed with automobiles and Tijuana’s dusty, cluttered, noisy avenues. The Tijuana pedestrians were everywhere and the difference caught his attention because seeing a person walking in California was “suspicious.” That’s how the poet makes an urban cross-border description, according to a fragment translated into Spanish by Rafael Muñoz.
The Colorado River can no longer withstand the thirst of the arid West. Water drawn from the river flows to more than 40 million people in cities from Denver to Los Angeles and irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland.
For decades, the river has been entirely used up, leaving dusty stretches of desert where it once flowed to the sea in Mexico. Now, chronic overuse and the effects of climate change are pushing the river system toward potential collapse as reservoirs drop to dangerously low levels. A water reckoning is about to transform the landscape of the Southwest.
Colorado River in Crisis is a series of stories, videos and podcasts in which Los Angeles Times journalists travel throughout the river’s watershed, from the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to the river’s dry delta in Mexico. These stories reveal the stark toll of the river’s decline, responses that have yet to match the scale of the crisis, and voices that are urging a fundamental rethinking of how water is managed and used to adapt to the reality of a river that is over-tapped and dwindling.
Elected officials in Marina have joined forces with three water agencies in a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission over its tentative permitting in November of California American Water Co.’s desalination project.
One of the San Diego County Water Authority’s large-scale capital improvement projects – the Mission Trails Flow Regulatory Structure II and Flow Control Facility (FRS II) – is now completed. The project upgraded the Water Authority’s untreated water supply system by improving the delivery of water to treatment plants serving the central and southern areas of San Diego County.
The FRS II project, which began construction in spring 2020, includes a new 5-million-gallon underground covered reservoir, a flow control facility and pipeline interconnections. The reservoir is covered with soil and vegetation, except for several access hatches and vents that allow for air movement inside the reservoir.
FRS II is the Water Authority’s second underground water tank located in Mission Trails Regional Park – the other one, located just west of the new one, is a treated water tank. The two tanks work to efficiently move water through the region, ultimately to customer’s homes and businesses.
“The Water Authority thanks the community for their patience while crews work to successfully build this important water delivery project,” said Michael Heu, the Water Authority’s construction manager for the project. “With the project completed, we are pleased to reopen the park trails which were previously impacted due to construction activity. The public’s safety was a top priority during this work.”
The parade of severe storms slamming into Northern California could lead to one of the strongest seasons since the wild El Niño-fueled winter of 1997–98, given the relentless pace of weather systems marching in with little relief. And this isn’t even an El Niño year. Already, Northern California and the Central Valley have been hit by a number of history-making storms, pouring floodwaters into homes, cars, restaurants, a nursing home, freeways and underpasses.
The atmospheric river storm that was bearing down on the Bay Area Wednesday night and Thursday morning raised concerns about mudslides, power outages and other problems. And a series of new storms headed our way this weekend means the end is not yet in sight.
California has seen so much rain in the last few weeks that farm fields are inundated and normally dry creeks and drainage ditches have become torrents of water racing toward the ocean. At the same time, most of the state is still in severe drought. All that runoff raises the question — why can’t more rainwater be collected and stored for the long, dry spring and summer when it’s needed?
California’s State Water Resources Control Board asked the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank to issue $650 million for a revolving fund so it can loan money to local governments for a wide range of projects. IBank’s staff recommended approval of the resolution authorizing the issuance of the bonds at a Dec. 21 meeting. The board meets again on Jan. 25.
