Saving water in Las Vegas is an all-out turf war, and the campaign is far from over. Since 1999, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has overseen the removal of more than 187 million square……We hope you’re enjoying our content. Subscribe today to continue reading this story, and all of our stories, for just 99 cents.
Water is starting to seep down the rebuilt Oroville Dam spillway. California Department of Water Resources officials said Wednesday this is common and will not affect the operation of the dam’s gates, which are not watertight. “Once the lake reaches or exceeds the elevation of the entrance gates (813 feet) a small amount of water is expected to seep through the gates as they are not watertight,” water resources spokeswoman Erin Mellon said. “This is common and does not affect the operation of the gates nor the spillway.”
More rain in one of San Diego County’s rainiest of winter seasons is expected to drop an inch or two across the region through Friday, but Lake Hodges Dam is holding strong. The dam last overflowed February to March 2011. It also overflowed in February 2005. However, despite a Pineapple Express of rains this season, while Lake Hodges has filled more rapidly lately, its dam looks to continue standing tall and holding firm.
The Success Dam Enlargement Project, headed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, has been working its way towards construction since October 2018. After a public meeting took place at the Veterans Memorial building back in February, the project’s leads have been hard at work to produce a timeline for the widening project. On Tuesday morning the timeline was published, and it reveals that construction on the Success Dam Enlargement Project will begin in mid 2020. Until then, plenty of work is scheduled to happen before construction starts.
Some San Gabriel Valley residents may be eligible to receive $250 worth of drought-resistant plants — for free. The Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District launched the region’s first residential plant voucher program last week; applications are now open, according to a press release. The program is intended to encourage people to integrate drought-tolerant plants into their landscape instead of grass lawns and other water-thirsty plant materials, according to the upper district website. The nearly 1 million people in the upper district service area use more than 78 billion gallons of water annually, according to the release.
Lightning dazzled Los Angeles last night, with nearly 6,000 lightning strikes recorded over Southern California. Earth Networks, a company that uses sensors to detect lightning, observed 5,923 lighting strikes and 14,326 lightning pulses (that’s when the lightning is in a cloud and doesn’t hit the ground) from 6 p.m. to midnight. Steve Prinzivalli, a meteorologist at Earth Networks, tells Curbed that those numbers are “pretty incredible,” and climate scientist Daniel Swain on Twitter described it as the “most spectacular winter lightning display in recent memory.”
Drought? What drought? The big fear in the world of water management is that this big gulp of wet weather will lead some Californians to think that the drought is dead. Politicians from President Donald Trump to Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who displayed a snowball on the Senate floor to “disprove” global warming, willfully try to conflate climate change with weather. But one rainy season is not California’s last-reel rescue from drought.
California’s largest lake has long attracted visitors. Many go there year-round to see thousands of birds congregating around the lake and its nearby habitats, but the lake is changing and that’s changing bird populations. More than 400 different species have been recorded here and estimates put the daily bird population around the sea at more than 100,000. That’s great for bird watchers like Ryan Llamas. The Audubon Society member’s binoculars are pressed tightly against his eyes as he scans the open water.
Another federal deadline passed Monday for seven states in the U.S. West to wrap up work on a plan to ensure the drought-stricken Colorado River can deliver water to the 40 million people and farms that depend on it. The states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — have been working for years on drought contingency plans. But Arizona and California have missed two deadlines set by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and still have work to do.
The Golden State’s had a harsh winter. Between October 1 and March 3, most California weather stations across the state were reporting greater-than-normal amounts of precipitation. And the state’s snowpack has grown to be the fifth largest in 40 years, with up to 25 feet of powder in some places. It’s needed moisture after a six-year-long drought from 2011 to 2017 and last year’s dry winter. Snowpack and reservoirs are stocked right now. But persistent rain has flooded many areas, including towns along Northern California’s Russian River. In Guerneville, residents paddled around after the river swelled to 45 feet high. Rain, floods, and mudslides have also wrecked homes and roads in areas across the state.
