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California Attorney General Warns EPA: State Oversight Is Required By Law Under the Clean Water Act

/in , /by /Sierra Sun Times

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, as part of a coalition of 16 states and four state environmental agencies, last Friday filed a comment letter warning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that any attempt to roll back state oversight of federal projects under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) would be unlawful. The letter responds to the EPA’s request for recommendations to revise existing guidance and regulations implementing Section 401. The statute preserves states’ authority to protect the quality of the waters within their borders.

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San Diego’s Latest Backcountry Development To Be Built Where California Suffered One Of Its Most Historic Wildfires

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

It’s not a matter of if but when wildfire will rip through the bucolic countryside being eyed for an opulent master-planned community, known as Adara at Otay Ranch. The chaparral landscape was scorched in 2007 by the historically destructive Harris Fire, and the surrounding area has experienced wildfire every 18 months on average for the last century, according to records from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

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Is It OK To Water Your Lawn This Summer, Amid Washington’s Drought?

/in , /by /My Northwestby Dyer Oxley

As summer approaches with most of Washington state experiencing drought conditions, the Seattle area will likely weather the season just fine. “After experiencing a below-average snowpack this winter and very little rain in March, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) started refilling its mountain reservoirs earlier than normal,” said Sabrina Register with Seattle Public Utilities. “This operation resulted in a combined reservoir water storage that is above normal for this time of the year, helping to offset the challenging weather conditions.”

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Renewable energy: Australia Bets On A ‘Water Battery’

/in , /by /Financial Timesby Jamie Smyth, Tumut, New South Wales

It took 100,000 construction workers a quarter of a century to bore through the Snowy Mountains to build Australia’s largest hydroelectric scheme. The vast nation-building project links nine power stations and 16 dams via a network of 145km of tunnels and pipelines, providing irrigation water and energy that has helped transform the country’s economy since it began operating in 1974.

Now, almost half a century later, Australia’s newly elected government is placing the state-owned Snowy Hydro plant at the vanguard of another energy transition by transforming it into a massive “water battery” that will help keep the lights on as the country shifts from an electricity grid based mainly on fossil fuels to one built around renewable energy.

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Gas-Powered Engines, Democrats’ Turmoil, And Clean Water

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Dan Morain

A million Californians don’t have clean water when they turn on their taps. Most live in farm towns like East Orosi, as the New York Times detailed last week. And no policymaker doubts there is a problem. The question: How to raise the money to fix the problem. The cost of a solution is pegged at $140 million a year. That should be easy in a $213 billion budget. It’s not, evidently.

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Warmth To Ramp Up In California, Southwest At Late Week Following Unusually Chilly Weekend

/in , /by /AccuWeatherby Courtney Spamer

Following record cold across parts of California, temperatures will rebound to near-normal levels by the end of the month. During the Memorial Day weekend, afternoon high temperatures were held to the lowest levels in almost 10 years. Temperatures in Northern and Central California were mainly in the 50s to near 60 degrees Fahrenheit for the high on Sunday afternoon, while southwestern California failed to get out of the lower 60s.

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OPINION: A Water Portfolio Planning Report Card For California

/in , /by /California Water Blogby Jay Lund

Governor Newsom recently called for a state portfolio of actions to manage water under rapidly changing climate and other conditions.  This post reviews the state of water portfolio planning in California today. In this complex changing world, major problems are rarely solved with a single solution or a single problem-solver. Portfolio-based planning and management tries to do many things in an organized and coordinated way, often wit

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Support Newsom’s ‘Reset’ To A One-Tunnel Project

/in , /by /Bakersfield.comby Ted R. Page

One tunnel or two? It’s just four words, but if you say them around anyone familiar with California water issues they will know exactly what you are talking about, and it’s likely they will have a strong opinion. During Gov. Newsom’s State of the State speech, he made it clear that his administration will build one tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta instead of two as was proposed in Gov. Brown’s California WaterFix.

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Sewage Flows From Tijuana Completely Shutter Imperial Beach Shoreline

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

A beach closure that has been in place for months for the southern part of the Imperial Beach was extended Sunday to include the city’s entire shoreline. The San Diego County Department of Environment Health issued the order to close the coastline to swimmers as a result of sewage-contaminated runoff in the Tijuana River. Signs warning residents of the contamination will be in place until testing indicates the water is safe for recreational use.

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As Late-Season Wet Weather Hits Northern California, Snowpack And Reservoir Levels Soar

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Claire Morgan

Northern California rain and snow levels have soared with record wet weather in May, leaving the Sierra with higher-than-normal snowpack levels and pushing several reservoirs toward full capacity. Downtown Sacramento already has broken record rainfall numbers in May, with more than 3.42 inches of rain this month, according to National Weather Service forecaster Karl Swanberg. The previous record of 3.25 inches was set in 1889. Current statewide snowpack levels are being recorded at 20 inches of “snow water equivalent,” the depth of water that would result if the snowpack melted at once, a figure that is 167 percent above average for this time of year, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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