John Brooks Hamby was 9 years old the last time a group of Western states renegotiated how they share the dwindling Colorado River. When the high-stakes talks concluded two years later, in 2007, with a round of painful cuts, he hadn’t reached high school.
Yet this June an audience of water policy experts listened with rapt attention as Hamby, now 27, recited lessons from those deliberations.
An important milestone was reached Friday for the construction of another reservoir in California. The Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for Sites Reservoir was certified and the Sites Reservoir Project was approved by the Sites Project Authority, the lead agency under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Next up for the Sites Project Authority is to move the project through the final planning stages. After getting through the final stages, crews will begin building the reservoir.
Odds are that this winter’s going to be a wet one. The intermittent climate phenomenon known as El Niño, which typically means more rain and snow for California, developed over the summer and is expected to intensify in the next few months. And this year’s El Niño is predicted to be an exceptionally strong one — maybe even ranking in the top five on record, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at U.C.L.A.
A $38 million state grant awarded this week will be used to increase rebates to businesses and institutions that replace turf with water-efficient landscaping as a deadline looms to phase out turf at commercial, industrial, municipal and institutional properties.
In addition to the rebate program, the money will also be used to help thousands of low- income households install water-efficient irrigation systems.
What began as a brash legal complaint that millions of ratepayers faced historic damage ended with a fizzle this week as the San Diego County Water Authority voted in closed session to settle a lawsuit filed earlier this year.
The water authority board approved an agreement to end its litigation challenging the plan by the Fallbrook Public Utilities District and Rainbow Municipal Water District to leave the broader agency and join the Eastern Municipal Water District of Riverside County.
As forecasts tease California with rainstorms this week, the state’s reservoirs are already flush with water.
It’s a big departure from a year ago: The state’s major reservoirs — which store water collected mostly from rivers in the northern portion of the state — are in good shape, with levels at 124% of average. In late 2022, bathtub rings of dry earth lined lakes that had collectively dipped to about two-thirds of average — until heavy winter storms in January filled many of them almost to the brim.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s board voted Thursday to drop a lawsuit the water seller filed in August against two of its customer water districts that are trying to leave and the agency that gave them permission to do so.
After a closed-door deliberation, the Water Authority publicly directed its lawyers to enter into a settlement agreement with Rainbow Municipal Water District, Fallbrook Public Utilities District and the Local Agency Formation Commission or LAFCO – the boundary referees that agreed to allow two of the Water Authority’s customers to divorce from their water seller.
Millions of Southern Californians who were required to dramatically reduce their water use last year will have increased access to water in the future under two projects recently announced by the Metropolitan Water District.
Metropolitan—the nation’s largest water wholesaler and sole water provider to the local Las Virgenes and Calleguas municipal water districts—approved a $9.8-million contract for the Sepulveda Feeder Pump Stations Project that will bring additional water from the Colorado River, as well as water stored at Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County, to the two local districts.
The Elk Grove Water District is putting together a free sign-up event Friday that will provide a leg up for low-income households struggling to pay bills. The event will help residents apply for assistance through the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP), a federally funded program operated by California Department of Community Services and Development.
A Pacific storm that was expected to drench San Diego County late Friday and early Saturday is turning away from the region and won’t deliver rain that’s needed to help reduce the risk of wildfires ahead of Santa Ana winds next week, the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters originally thought the system would drop about 0.70 inches of rain west of Interstate 15 and as much as an inch in the valleys, foothills and mountains to the east.
