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What Caused Nearly 20,000 Quakes At Oroville Dam? Scientists Weigh In On Mystery

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

The earthquakes hit just days after last year’s near-catastrophe at Oroville Dam, when the spillway cracked amid heavy rains and 188,000 people fled in fear of flooding. The timing of the two small tremors about 75 miles north of Sacramento was curious, and frightening. Were the quakes part of a seismic hot spot that caused the giant concrete spillway to tear? Was the weight of the water behind the dam triggering the quakes? Could all of Lake Oroville be prone to slipping?

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OPINION: Arizona Has No Choice But To Act On The Drought Contingency Plan

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

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman has issued an edict to Arizona and the two other lower Colorado basin states: Come up with a drought contingency plan by Jan. 31 or she will step in and do it for us. Burman is right to throw down the gauntlet. The Colorado River is in trouble. A nearly two-decade drought and the ravages of climate change have reduced water levels in Lake Mead, the lower basin reservoir, to record lows. Hydrologists predict water levels in Lake Mead will likely drop below levels that, under the existing multistate agreement, trigger the first tier of mandatory cutbacks in Colorado River water deliveries to lower-basin states.

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40 Million Americans Depend On The Colorado River. It’s Drying Up.

/in , /by /Mother Jones (San Francisco)by Eric Holthaus

Prompted by years of drought and mismanagement, a series of urgent multi-state meetings are currently underway in Las Vegas to renegotiate the use of the Colorado River. Seven states and the federal government are close to a deal, with a powerful group of farmers in Arizona being the lone holdouts. The stakes are almost impossibly high: The Colorado River provides water to 1 in 8 Americans, and irrigates 15 percent of the country’s agricultural products. The nearly 40 million people who depend on it live in cities from Los Angeles to Denver.

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High-Surf Warnings Issued As Pacific Swell Brings Big Waves To California Coast

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Alene Tchekmedyian

Powerful and potentially destructive waves are expected to hit California’s coast through Tuesday, bringing dangerous conditions that have prompted forecasters to urge surfers and swimmers to stay out of the ocean. A deep low-pressure center in the Gulf of Alaska and storm-forced winds are generating the Pacific swell, creating the potential for spectacularly large — and potentially dangerous — waves, said Tom Fisher, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

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International Water Investigators To Meet Over Tijuana River Valley Sewage Spill

/in , /by /NBC 7 San Diegoby Megan Tevrizian

International water investigators will meet with Mexican counterparts Monday to discuss clean-up and repair efforts after a huge sewage spill in the Tijuana River Valley. The meeting is expected to last most of the day and will mainly cover funding for continued repair of Mexico’s sewage infrastructure. “It’s reached its life cycle,” explained Lori Kuczmanski, the Public Affairs Officer for the IBWC. “The pipes are 50 to 60 years old. They’re outdated and just old and ruptured.”

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Water Shortages Ahead? Sierra Nevada Snow Pack On Track To Shrink 79 Percent, New Study Finds

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Paul Rogers

Every year, like a giant frozen reservoir, snow that falls across the Sierra Nevada mountain range slowly melts in spring and summer months, providing roughly one-third of the water supply for California’s cities and farms, from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. But at the current rate at which the climate is warming, the amount of runoff from Sierra snow into California’s largest reservoirs is heading for a dramatic decline — a 54 percent drop in the next 20 to 40 years and 79 percent in the next 60 to 80 years, according to a new study from scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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OPINION: Gov. Brown Working To Save His Tunnels

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle

In the world of water politics, where change occurs at a glacial pace, the past few weeks have seen enormous swings in how our state’s most precious resource is managed and delivered. The discussions behind these changes are not easily known and even less easy to understand what they ultimately will mean for cities, farms and, yes, fish in California as climate change accelerates. What is apparent however is that Gov. Jerry Brown is working hard to put his delta tunnels project on the glide path to the finish line before he leaves office in January.

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OPINION: Sites Proponents Have Years Of Advocacy Ahead Of Them To Get the 500,000 acre-foot lake finally under construction

/in , /by /Appeal Democrat (Marysville, California)

Sites Reservoir proponents are happy with what’s happened this year … they’ve collected commitments for some serious coinage – state and federal. They can stay grounded, however, by the fact that they’ve got several billion dollars still to go. There’s a lot of work ahead. The off-stream reservoir adds a sizable storage capacity to Northern California, with none of the environmental and fewer political traps of an on-stream dam.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Under A Cloud Of Scandal, Is ForcedOut

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Eli Stokols

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who endeared himself to President Trump but was caught up in scandals and infuriated environmental activists, will be departing his post by the end of the year in the latest shake-up of the president’s Cabinet. “Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning. “Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.”

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California Cedes Water To Feds In Delta Deal With Trump

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow

Southern Californians could lose billions of gallons of water a year to Central Valley farmers under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has struck with water officials working for President Donald Trump. There’s no guarantee the agreement with Trump will accomplish what Brown’s team is seeking: a lasting compromise on environmental regulations that could stave off significant water shortfalls for farms and cities across California. A powerful state agency, the State Water Resources Control Board, hasn’t yet signed off on Brown’s compromise environmental proposal. Environmental groups have called the governor’s idea woefully insufficient to save ailing fish populations.

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