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Sweetwater Reservoir Now Open on Fridays for Public Use

/in , , /by /Water News Network

The Sweetwater Authority has added another day for the public to enjoy activities at the Sweetwater Reservoir in Spring Valley. Previously open Saturdays through Mondays, the Authority expanded operations to include Fridays to give residents more opportunities to get outside and experience nature this summer.

Starting Friday, July 2,  Sweetwater Reservoir will be open so that San Diego County residents can enjoy fishing, hiking, biking and bird watching.

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As Drought Ravages California, Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Could Help Store More Water

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby David Lightman and Dale Kasler

As California and the West suffer through an epic drought, President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans and Democrats have included $5 billion for Western water projects in their infrastructure deal.

The prospect of federal money comes as several big-ticket water projects are on the drawing boards in California — although many are still years from completion and probably wouldn’t get finished in time to help California with the current drought.

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Santa Rosa Orders Residents, Businesses to Reduce Water Use By 20%

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Omar Shaikh Rashad

The Santa Rosa City Council approved mandatory water-use restrictions for its residents and businesses starting Thursday, becoming the sixth city in Sonoma County to cut back on water.

The motion to approve the water-shortage contingency plan — which mandates residents and businesses reduce water use by 20% — passed with five ayes from Council Members Eddie Alvarez, John Sawyer, Tom Schwedhelm, Mayor Chris Rogers and Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers. Council Members Victoria Fleming and Jack Tibbetts were absent.

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Proposed Federal Grant Program Could Bolster Lake Mead Water Levels

/in , , , /by /Las Vegas Review-Journal by Blake Apgar

Water officials in Las Vegas are backing a federal bill that could help pay for a California project that would leave more water in Lake Mead.

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Historic Drought in the West is Forcing Ranchers to Take Painful Measures

/in , , /by /National Geographicby Sarah Gibbens

On Andrew McGibbon’s 90,000-acre cattle ranch south  Tucson, Arizona, the West’s punishing drought isn’t just drying up pastureland and evaporating water troughs.

“We’re having the death of trees like I’ve never seen in my lifetime. Thousands of trees are dying,” he says of species that have adapted to Arizona’s desert landscape, such as oak and mesquite.

Nearly 1,000 miles from McGibbon’s ranch, near Rio Vista, California, the drought on Ryan Mahoney’s ranch feels just as bad.

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Opinion: San Diego County Must Not Suffer if Fallbrook and Rainbow Leave Water Authority

/in , , /by /Times of San Diego by Keith Lewinger and Mel Katz Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

With nearly 100 years of combined experience working on important regional issues across San Diego County, we wanted to share some observations about a proposal currently pending among our region’s water providers.

The Fallbrook Public Utility District and Rainbow Municipal Water District have filed applications to leave the San Diego County Water Authority and instead get their water from an agency in Riverside County.

First and foremost, this is a regional decision that has regional implications. Rainbow and Fallbrook’s plan for leaving for Riverside will raise water bills on every family and business in San Diego County, all while our economy is trying to recover from a recession caused by the pandemic.

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U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Hear Michael Abatti’s Colorado River Water Case Challenging IID

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Janet Wilson

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday unanimously declined a petition by Imperial Valley farmer Michael Abatti claiming he and a handful of other agricultural landowners, not the Imperial Irrigation District, held senior rights to Colorado River water that nearly 40 million people across the West depend on.

The decision likely is the last stop for a torturous legal battle that dates back to 2013. As the law stands, farmers have a guaranteed right to water delivery but not a special claim above other users like homes and geothermal plants.

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It’s Some of America’s Richest Farmland. But What Is It Without Water?

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Somini Sengupta

In America’s fruit and nut basket, water is now the most precious crop of all.

It explains why, amid a historic drought parching much of the American West, a grower of premium sushi rice has concluded that it makes better business sense to sell the water he would have used to grow rice than to actually grow rice. Or why a melon farmer has left a third of his fields fallow. Or why a large landholder farther south is thinking of planting a solar array on his fields rather than the thirsty almonds that delivered steady profit for years.

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Water Futures Market Fails to Make a Splash with California Farmers

/in , , /by /Reutersby Karl Plume

Former bond trader Alan Boyce is just the type of California farmer expected to dive into the world’s first water futures contract.

Boyce is comfortable navigating financial tools, and he grows irrigated pistachios, tomatoes, alfalfa and other crops in California’s drought-prone Central Valley. But he says the water contract is still too illiquid to benefit him.

Financial exchange operator CME Group launched the contract late last year to help big California water users such as farmers and utilities hedge rising drought risk and give investors a sense of how scarce water is at any given time. The exchange and a United Nations report said this is the first water futures contract in the world.

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Opinion: Is it Time to Start Thinking About the Worst-Case Scenario on Lake Mead?

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Joanna Allhands

It seemed like Colorado River basin states were ahead of the curve in 2007 when we enacted a 20-year set of guidelines that spelled out what would happen if Lake Mead were to ever fall into a shortage.

But a decade later, as water levels at the lake plummeted, it was clear that we hadn’t planned nearly enough for shortage. A “stress test” that better accounted for more recent drought conditions revealed that if we didn’t do more to prop up water levels, there was an unacceptably high chance of the lake tanking within a few years.

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