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IID Sues To Halt Colorado River Drought Plan Signed By Trump, Says Officials Ignored Salton Sea

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

It’s not over yet. The Imperial Irrigation District has sued to halt a sweeping Colorado River drought plan that was signed in to law by President Trump on Tuesday. Officials with the sprawling, sparsely populated rural water district in southeastern California say the Salton Sea was wrongly left out of the plan. IID holds among the oldest and largest rights to water from the river.  The petition, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges violations of the California Environmental Quality Act by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It asks the court to suspend the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan until a thorough environmental analysis has been completed.

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California Dispute Threatens Plan To Protect Colorado River

/in , , /by /The Associated Pressby Felicia Fonseca

A dispute between two major California water agencies is threatening to derail a hard-won agreement designed to protect a river that serves 40 million people in the U.S. West. The Imperial Irrigation District, the largest single recipient of Colorado River water, on Tuesday sued a Los Angeles water utility that agreed to contribute most of California’s share of water to a key reservoir under a multistate drought contingency plan.

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OPINION: Salton Sea 10-year ‘Rescue’ Plan Flawed, But Letting Lake Revert To Desert Would Be Folly

/in , , /by /The Desert Sunby Bob Terry,

Geraci proposes we forget about the birds and salinity of the Salton Sea and concentrate “limited resources” on human-related mitigation to the sea’s decline. He finds much fault with the state’s 10-year Plan commitment to 50 percent of the acreage mitigated being aquatic, which he contends is 20 times as expensive as playa mitigation accomplished done by planting. Perhaps it was a mistake to fund the sea’s restoration under the Fish and Game Department, but that is the vehicle.

 

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California Native Gardens Offer Surprising Results With Little Water

/in , /by /Pasadena Star-Newsby Joshua Siskin

This spring’s flowers  there are just so many of them cannot be compared to those of any spring in recent memory. Perennial plants native to dry climates and most of those in our gardens come from Mediterranean lands and the arid parts of South Africa and Australia, too  are especially prone to flowering more after heavy rains. With their roots luxuriating in moist earth, dry climate plants “know” the soil will stay wet long enough for them to continue to absorb water through their roots and so remain fully hydrated to the tips of their shoots for an extended period. This “knowledge” encourages them to make scads of flowers in whose ovaries seeds are formed.

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California Irrigation District Challenges River Drought Plan

/in , /by /The California irrigation district challenges river

The Salton Sea is at the center of a legal challenge to a plan designed to protect the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people and 7,812 square miles of farmland in the West.The Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan seeks to keep two Colorado River reservoirs from dropping so low they cannot deliver water or produce hydropower. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming worked for years to come up with the plan.

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Trump Signs Colorado River Drought Plan

/in , /by /The Associated Pressby Jonathan J. Cooper

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a plan to cut back on the use of water from the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people in the U.S. West. The Colorado River drought contingency plan aims to keep two key reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead, from falling so low they cannot deliver water or produce hydropower. It was negotiated among the seven states that draw water from the river.

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States Say Half Of Wetlands Would Lose Protection Under EPA Proposal

/in , , /by /Reuters by Valerie Volcovici

Fourteen states, including New York and California, and the District of Columbia said the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to replace an Obama-era water regulation would end federal protection for half of wetlands and 15 percent of streams across the country. The attorneys general issued a joint statement on Monday critical of the EPA’s proposal to narrow the scope of protections in the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule that President Barack Obama’s administration expanded in 2015 to cover a wide range of water bodies.

 

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L.A. weather Shifts As Gray Skies Make Way For A Spike In Temperatures

/in , /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry

The ominous gray clouds hovering above Los Angeles on Tuesday aren’t likely to produce much more than the occasional sprinkle for the region before summer-like temperatures return later in the week. The dash of moisture, which forecasters say will be mostly focused on the northern slopes of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, is the result of a low-pressure system known as an inside slider that’s moving over the inland portion of the state.

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Here’s Your Regular Reminder That We’re Already Drinking Sewage

/in , /by /The Voice of San Diego by Megan Wood

San Diego relies on importing 85 percent of its water supply each year from the Colorado River and Sacramento Delta. But soon, that won’t be the case. The city is working on a multibillion-dollar project to purify enough wastewater to provide a third of the city’s drinking water by 2035. The city’s project, called Pure Water, will soon raise resident’s water bills by $6 to $13 a month. That story prompted another round of reminders that some San Diegans aren’t thrilled about the idea of treated sewage flowing from their taps.

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Despite Warnings Of Contaminated Water, Some Paradise Residents Are Moving Back

/in , /by /KQED News (San Francisco)by Kirk Siegler

Six months after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, the town of Paradise remains a disaster zone. Only 6 percent of the debris from last November’s Camp Fire has been hauled away. Burned-out skeletons of cars, piles of toxic rubble and blackened old-growth pine trees can still be seen everywhere. Before the wildfire, the population of Paradise was about 26,000. Today, it’s in the hundreds. The extent of the latest crisis unfolding in Paradise is yet unknown: The deadly fire may also have contaminated up to 173 miles of pipeline in the town’s water system with cancer-causing benzene and other volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

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