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These California Environmental Bills Made It To The Next Round

/in , , /by /KQED (San Francisco)by Kevin Stark

For California bills and their sponsors, Friday was pass-or-die time in the Legislature. It’s an annual rite of spring: If on a certain date proposed bills don’t pass out of their house of origin, be it the Assembly or the Senate, they die for the year. This year, the Legislature considered a slate of new environmental policies. A bill that prohibits California from authorizing new oil and gas infrastructure on state public lands, AB 342, moved on to the Senate.  A bill that would require smog checks for semitrucks, SB 210, moved on to the Assembly.

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Inspecting Steel Pipelines To Safeguard San Diego’s Water Systems

/in , , /by /Trenchless Technologyby Chris Garrett Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

One of the perks of working in trenchless technology is the ability to get outside and get your hands dirty while safeguarding our community’s infrastructure. That holds doubly true when working in sunny southern California in November. Over the course of 23 days, San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) worked with PICA USA to inspect six miles of steel pipeline and ensure its underground assets can be operated safely for years to come. The SDCWA owns and operates more than 310 miles of pipeline serving the San Diego region, conveying water to 24 member agencies. The WA’s pipeline network ranges in size from 39 in. to 120 in. and is comprised of a variety of materials, including PCCP, steel, RCCP and others.

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5 U.S. Cities That Potentially Could Run Out Of Water

/in , , /by /Asset Stewardshipby Ron Brackett

About 1,000 people arrive in Texas every day. The state’s population is expected to double by 2050 to more than 50 million people, according to the Associated Press. With drought a continual threat, water is a big worry in the Lone Star State. “The state is growing so fast that we’re constantly playing catch-up when it comes to building resilient water supplies,” Robert Mace, executive director of The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, told AP. “The question is: When the bad times come will there be enough water for everybody?”

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In Los Angeles ‘Water Colony’, Tribes Fear A Parched Future

/in , , /by /Reuters by Laurie Goering

When the first white settlers arrived in California’s remote eastern Owens Valley, the name given to its indigenous tribes was Paiute, or “land of flowing water” in the local language. But for more than a century, the water in the valley has flowed in just one direction: toward Los Angeles, nearly 300 miles (480 km) away. In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) quietly bought up broad swathes of ranchland and its associated water rights in the once-lush valley, fringed by snow-capped peaks.

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Combination Of Water Scarcity And Inflexible Demand Puts World’s River Basins At Risk

/in , , /by /UCI NEWS

Nearly one-fifth of the world’s population lives in a stressed water basin where the next climate change-driven incident could threaten access to an essential resource for agriculture, industry and life itself, according to a paper by University of California, Irvine researchers and others, published today in Nature Sustainability. The study’s authors analyzed trends in global water usage from 1980 to 2016, with a particular focus on so-called inflexible consumption, the curtailment of which would cause significant financial and societal hardship. Those uses include irrigating perennial crops, cooling thermal power plants, storing water in reservoirs, and quenching the thirst of livestock and humans.

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With Large Sierra Snowpack, DWR Could Soon Release Water Over The Oroville Dam Spillway

/in , , /by /Oroville Mercury - Registerby Brody Fernandez

Recent rains and snow pack could force California’s Department of Water Resources to release Oroville Dam’s main spillway as early as next week. Currently, the 2019 snowpack for California is now the fifth largest on record dating back to 1950, according to DWR officials. As of Monday, the snowpack is slightly larger than the amount in 2017 when the state received more rain. However, the winter of 2018-19 has been uncharacteristically colder, resulting in a greater snowpack.

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In The Farthest Reaches Of North County, A Retired L.A. Anesthesiologist Is Growing Grapes

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby J. Harry Jones

Back in 2009, Rao R. Anne began buying land just below the northern slope of Palomar Mountain in northern San Diego County. The semi-retired Pasadena anesthesiologist was planning both his future and his return to a lifestyle he knew growing up as a boy on a vegetable farm in southern India. Anne’s Emerald Creek Winery now grows 120 acres of grapes on a 750-acre plot of land that bisects Temecula Creek west of state Route 79 about two miles from the Riverside County line.

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California Snowpack 202% Of Average For This Time Of Year

/in , , /by /AP News

The amount of snow blanketing the Sierra Nevada is even larger than the 2017 snowpack that pulled the state out of a five-year drought, California water officials said. As of Thursday, the snowpack measured 202% of average after a barrage of storms throughout winter and spring, according to the Department of Water Resources. The wet weather has slowed but not stopped, with thunderstorms prompting flash flood warnings Sunday in the central and southern parts of the state. At this time last year, the snowpack measured 6% of average — making this year 33 times bigger than 2018, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

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County’s Wet, Weird May Was Wonderful Out On The Farm

/in , , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Robert Krier

It was wet, but it wasn’t San Diego’s wettest May. In fact, it didn’t crack the city’s top 10. It was cool, but many other Mays have been cooler, including last year. But May 2019 was certainly among the city’s all-time weirdest. And to San Diego County’s $1.77 billion agricultural industry, it was nothing short of wonderful. “We haven’t had a recent May where we’ve had something like this,” National Weather Service forecaster Miguel Miller said. “In the 20 years I’ve been here, I cannot think of another May that was inclement the entire month.”

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Two Agencies Want To Secede From The San Diego County Water Authority

/in , , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Water rates in San Diego are some of the highest in the country. So, two rural San Diego water agencies just came up with a novel way to save money: Buy water from Riverside County instead. Leaders of two water agencies that serve about 50,000 people in and around Fallbrook are fed up with rising costs at the San Diego County Water Authority. Local water agencies from across the region formed the Water Authority in 1944 to import water into the county from rivers hundreds of miles away. But, just in time for the Water Authority’s 75th anniversary, its future as the region’s main water supplier is in question.

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