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California Is Drought-Free For The First Time In Nearly A Decade

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

It’s official: California is 100% drought-free. For the first time since 2011, the state shows no areas suffering from prolonged drought and illustrates almost entirely normal conditions, according to a map released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Former Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order in 2017 that lifted the drought emergency in most of the state, leaving some breathing a sigh of relief. But he cautioned Californians to keep saving water as some parts of the state were still suffering from extreme drought.

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Here’s What A ‘Very Likely’ Sequel To California’s 1862 Megastorm Would Look Like

/in , /by /Popular Scienceby Eleanor Cummins

Dale Cox isn’t your typical prophet of the apocalypse. But in his work at the U.S. Geological Survey, the bald, bearded, and technically-precise project manager spends an inordinate amount of time on catastrophe. Since 2006, Cox has worked with the interdisciplinary Science Application for Risk Reduction division in an effort to model hypothetical but entirely feasible disasters—and sell local governments on prevention methods.

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Calif. Joins Colorado River Drought Management Plan To Sustain Lake Mead

/in , /by /Las Vegas NOWby Orko Manna

California has officially joined a multi-state agreement to sustain water levels at lake mead. But despite the promise of progress, Lake Mead is still bracing for the worst and plans to move a marina further out into the water. One of the marinas at Callville Bay at Lake Mead needs to be moved, but in order for that to happen, the power has to be shut off. NV Energy crews de-energized the marinas Thursday to make a move possible. “The marina that’s right down here, we call it Marina 3,” said Rod Taylor, the vice president of Forever Resorts. Rod Taylor operates the marinas.  He says all of the action is in the face of water woes.

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Look At The Drought Difference In California From One Year Ago

/in , /by /NBC4 (Los Angeles)by Jonathan Lloyd

Storms continued to pile on snowpack and fill California’s water reservoirs over the past week, pulling even more of the state out of drought. Last week, a small sliver of extreme Northern California was the only part of the state in moderate drought. That area and a swath of California near its border with Mexico were listed as abnormally dry, a less severe condition than drought, in this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor report.

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OPINION: Poseidon Is A Bad Deal For Orange County

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Steve Bone

Why is Poseidon trying to hide the real costs of its water boondoggle? Because it doesn’t make any sense for ratepayers. The privately owned Poseidon water project would depend on a massive public handout of $400 million. On top of that subsidy, Poseidon would charge ratepayers significantly more for its water than any of the alternative water supply projects recently evaluated by the independent Metropolitan Water District of Orange County (MWDOC). Poseidon is a bad deal for ratepayers.

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Climate Change Will Endanger 3 Times More Californians Than Previous Estimates, Study Says

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Michael McGough

Climate change through the rest of the 21st century could be much more threatening to coastal California than previously anticipated, based on newly published research led by the U.S. Geological Survey. The new numbers are dramatic: Dynamic flooding in California could total more than $150 billion in property damage and impact about 600,000 people by the year 2100, according to research. When factoring in population trends, extreme scenarios could increase the total number of affected Californians to more than 3 million.

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Here’s How Much Snow Has Fallen In The Sierra This Winter

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Vincent Moleski

After a series of storms, multiple “atmospheric rivers” and Sierra deluges, Northern California can boast an impressive amount of snowfall this winter. The National Weather Service said Tuesday that over the course of the season, more than 50 feet of snow has fallen at the highest elevations. And across the state, California’s snowpack is doing quite well as a result. As of Tuesday, the average statewide snow-water equivalent is a whopping 3 feet, 6 inches, which is 160 percent of normal for this time of year, according to the California Department of Water Resources. Drought conditions have been pushed to the far corners of the state, with nearly 90 percent of the state not under drought conditions, according to the federal National Drought Mitigation Center.

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Coastal Ecosystems Suffer From Upriver Hydroelectric Dams

/in , /by /Science Daily

The researchers analyzed downstream ecosystems from four rivers, two dammed and two unobstructed, in the Mexican Pacific states of Sinaloa and Nayarit. They found dramatic coastal recession along the mouths of the obstructed rivers, including in vital ecosystems like mangrove forests, which provide protection from storms, commercial fishery habitats, and belowground carbon storage. The rivers that the researchers studied run roughly parallel to each other through similarly-developed land, into large coastal lagoon systems. The Santiago and Fuerte rivers have dams that provide hydroelectric power for the region, but withhold 95% of the flow of these rivers. Meanwhile, the San Pedro and Acaponeta rivers are relatively free-flowing and undammed, with over 75% of the rivers remaining unobstructed.

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Edison CEO talks Wildfires, Climate Change And The Utility’s Vanishing Monopoly

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Sammy Roth

These days, Pedro Pizarro spends a lot of time fighting fires. Pizarro is president and chief executive of Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison, which provides electricity to 15 million people. Unlike Pacific Gas & Electric — which could face tens of billions of dollars in liabilities from fires linked to its infrastructure — Pizarro’s company has stayed out of bankruptcy court despite facing similar wildfire-related risks.

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Valley Farmers Need Sacramento To Sustain Water Levels

/in , /by /The Sun-Gazette (Exeter, Calif.)by Reggie Ellis

Sacramento law makers have shown little interest in helping the Valley solve its water problems yet the only path forward is to get them to take interest in the area that grows most of the state, and the nation’s food. A panel discussion last Wednesday at the Citrus Showcase, an industry conference for growers hosted by Exeter-based California Citrus Mutual (CCM), discussed the looming deadline for local governments to comply with the Groundwater Sustainability Management Act (SGMA). Often referred to as “sigma,” the 2014 law set a deadline of Jan. 31, 2020 for local agencies to implement plans to become water neutral, meaning they put as much water back into the ground as they take out.

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