When designing a living, water-saving landscape, you want your new outdoor space to fit your house, your neighborhood, and your lifestyle. Finding that fit begins by asking a few basic questions. First, how do you want to use your space? It’s possible to significantly improve your home’s water efficiency and meet your lifestyle needs at the same time.
When undertaking a water-saving landscape renovation, strive to continuously feed as much organic matter as possible to the landscape soil to keep it healthy. Start with compost and mulch to jump-start the process. Eventually, your plants will feed themselves with their own leaf litter.
Our investments to protect San Diego County from the harsh effects of the worst drought in 1,200 years continue to pay off. Last week, the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors unanimously adopted a resolution reaffirming our commitment to water conservation after we were joined by California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, and many regional leaders to commit to additional water-saving measures that stretch our limited resources.
My sincere thanks go out to Secretary Crowfoot and Mayor Gloria for their leadership, as well as the many other civic and business leaders who joined us to promote the Summer of Water Savings. We are proud to have coordinated regional efforts to maximize San Diego priorities and efficiencies within the San Diego County economy and quality of life.
Southern California areas told to cut water use by 35% finished June on track to stave off an outdoor watering ban.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California supplies those communities in Ventura, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties with Northern California water delivered by the State Water Project. After a record dry start to the year, the state limited its deliveries to just 5%.
The outlook for California’s drought is grim.
The first five months of the year have been the driest on record. Snowpack in the mountains, at its usual April 1 peak, was the smallest it’s been in seven years. Reservoirs are hovering near historic lows for the season, including Lake Shasta, the state’s largest.
Edwin McBride decided 20 years in the U.S. Navy wasn’t enough time in the water, so he dove into the SkillBridge Program to intern at the San Diego County Water Authority. The program is helping military veterans transition to career-track training opportunities, including work in the water and wastewater industry.
For Georg Kochi, tearing out his Koreatown lawn has been as much about spiritual growth as water conservation — a deep and sometimes playful exploration into habitat, rebirth and decay on the property where he lived as a boy and returned decades later as a retiree.
The parkway in front of his house in St. Andrews Square, for instance, was full of wildflowers this spring, but the colorful flowers have turned into dry, dirty-blond seed heads and stalks interspersed with clouds of blooming buckwheat, juvenile coastal live oak trees and waves of native grasses.
The seven states that rely on the Colorado River must come up with a plan to cut 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water use.
By mid-August.
And if they don’t, the federal Bureau of Reclamation will act for them.
New but relatively minor restrictions went into place immediately this week with the adoption of a new water shortage declaration unanimously adopted Tuesday night by the Newport Beach City Council.
Automated sprinkler use in Newport Beach is now limited to three days a week, and residents will be asked to decrease their household water usage to where it was in 2020.
Looking to avoid power blackouts, California may turn to the one energy source it’s otherwise desperate to get rid of: fossil fuels.
A sweeping energy proposal Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Thursday puts the state in the business of buying power to ensure there’s enough to go around during heat waves that strain the grid. But some critics say the method of getting there is at odds with the state’s broader climate goals, because it paves the way for the state to tap aging gas-fired power plants and add backup generators fueled by diesel.
