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Silicon Valley’s Largest City Is Sounding The Alarm About A Drinking Water Crisis That No One Knows How To Fix

/in , /by /Business Insiderby Aria Bendix

San Jose, California is plagued by both an absence and surplus of water. Until recently, the city suffered from a prolonged period of drought that forced nearly one million residents to cut back their water usage. Like many coastal cities, San Jose is also vulnerable to the growing threat of sea level rise, which has exposed the city to chronic flooding. In 2017, San Jose saw the worst floods to hit the Silicon Valley in a century — the product of an overflowing reservoir that spilled into the local Coyote Creek, trapping hundreds of residents in their homes and forcing more than 14,000 others to evacuate.

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Water-Rights Dispute Between Fallbrook, Camp Pendleton Ends After Nearly 70 Years

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

After 68 years of litigation and more than a half-century of settlement talks, a dispute between the water district that serves Fallbrook and Camp Pendleton has officially ended. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in 1951 and lays out how the Fallbrook Public Utility District and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton will share water rights to the Santa Margarita River. A federal judge last month signed off on what is known as the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project, which will capture locally available water that flows through the river and into the ocean. The settlement, agreed to by both sides in late 2017, creates a local supply that will reduce Fallbrook’s dependence on expensive imported water.

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Western States Sign Historic Agreement To Deal With Drought

/in , /by /Nevada Public Radioby Rachel Christiansen

Representatives from seven states along with federal water managers met at the Hoover Dam Monday to sign a historic agreement on how to deal with the ongoing drought in the West. The Drought Contingency Plan has been years in the making – and it’s not been an easy road. Negotiations were difficult, especially for the states who will have to cut back their use of this most precious resource. Brenda Burman is the commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation. She admitted there were times where it seemed an agreement wasn’t going to happen, but water managers eventually came together.

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A Beginner’s Course On How Officials Determine Potential Run-Off

/in , /by /Sierra Wave (Bishop, Calif.)by Deb Murphy
To Eastern Sierra residents, in most years, annual run-off means the streams and canals rise and pasture lands start to green-up. For Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, run-off is the city’s life’s blood, the calculation that figures into the department’s operations for the next 12 months. In years like 2017, run-off is an all-consuming 24/7 concern. So, how do they figure it out? Eric Tillemans, LADWP engineer, gave the Inyo County Board of Supervisors a beginner’s course in Run-Off 101 at a recent meeting. Here’s how it works.
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States Sign Short-Term Colorado River Drought Plan, But Global Warming Looms Over Long-Term Solutions

/in , /by /The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)by Ian James

The Colorado River just got a boost that’s likely to prevent its depleted reservoirs from bottoming out, at least for the next several years. Representatives of seven Western states and the federal government signed a landmark deal on Monday laying out potential cuts in water deliveries through 2026 to reduce the risks of the river’s reservoirs hitting critically low levels. Yet even as they celebrated the deal’s completion on a terrace overlooking Hoover Dam and drought-stricken Lake Mead, state and federal water officials acknowledged that tougher negotiations lie ahead

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OPINION: Climate Change Could Wipe Out L.A.’s June Gloom. Losing It Would Be Disastrous

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Usha Lee Mcfarling

For many of us in Southern California, the marine layer is a lifesaver. Those low decks of clouds — you might know them as June Gloom or May Gray — roll in off cool, ocean waters, shading coastal regions and cooling beaches and West Side cities even as the Inland Empire scorches. Now, we may be losing them. A new study by a Caltech climate scientist and two colleagues suggests those familiar low decks of stratus clouds could eventually become a casualty of the increasing CO2 emissions that are warming the planet.

 

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Snow In May: Yosemite Looks Like A Winter Wonderland In The Middle Of Spring

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Gabby Ferreira

“It was surreal.” As an unseasonal winter storm blanketed Yosemite with snow Sunday, people took to social media to share their awe. Photos from the Yosemite Conservancy’s webcam show El Capitan shrouded in fog and a dusting of snow atop Half Dome. Videos and photos posted to social media show thick snowflakes coming down and conditions that look out of place for late spring. “Sometimes Mother Nature has a plan of her own. Like snowmen in May in your hiking vacation in Yosemite!” said one Instagram user, who posted a photo of her child making a snowman near Tenaya Lodge.

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Want To Know If California Can Make Zero Emissions By 2045? Here’s What To Watch

/in , /by /Utility Dive (Washington, D.C.)by Herman K. Trabish

California plans to reach 60% renewables by 2030 and a zero emissions economy by 2045 as its investor-owned utilities (IOUs) face wildfires and bankruptcy, new and unproven electricity providers proliferate and customers demand a decentralized energy system. What could go wrong? The key to success is eliminating natural gas as an electricity resource, stakeholders told Utility Dive. To do that, the state must make one fundamental change at the local level and another at the transmission system level.

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Late Spring Storm Drops Snow On Southern California Mountains, More On The Way

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Beatriz E. Valenzuela

Just a month before the official start to summer, some mountain residents awoke Monday morning to a wintry scene, and snow and rain showers are predicted for much of the week. But just how rare is this late-in-the-season dusting? “We weren’t shocked,” said Brenda Norton, co-owner of the Broadway Cafe, 1117 W. Big Bear Blvd., on Monday morning. “We always get snow usually around Mother’s Day, so this is pretty normal.”According to the National Weather Service, the Big Bear area saw a dusting of snow in early May last year May 2, to be exact. About an inch and a half fell at that time.

 

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They Grow The Nation’s Food, But They Can’t Drink The Water

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Jose A. Del Real

Water is a currency in California, and the low-income farmworkers who pick the Central Valley’s crops know it better than anyone. They labor in the region’s endless orchards, made possible by sophisticated irrigation systems, but at home their faucets spew toxic water tainted by arsenic and fertilizer chemicals. “Clean water flows toward power and money,” said Susana De Anda, a longtime water-rights organizer in the region. She is the daughter of lechugueros who worked in lettuce fields and helped make California one of the agricultural capitals of the world. “Homes, schools and clinics are supposed to be the safest places to go. But not in our world.”

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