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OPINION: Huntington Beach Desalination Project Would Help Meet Region’s Water Needs

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Dr. Allan Bernstein

As the price of imported water continues to rise, and technological advances for seawater desalination improve efficiencies, California’s time to turn ocean water into drinking water has come. Orange County is poised to integrate purified ocean water into its drinking water portfolio, just as San Diego has successfully done by producing 35 billion gallons of drinking water from the Pacific Ocean in just three short years. The ocean is the world’s largest reservoir; it’s always full and sits on our front doorstep. At the cost of a half-penny per gallon, seawater desalination is cost-competitive with the development of other new water supplies.

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Wasting Wastewater: New Report Identifies Water Recycling Opportunities

/in , /by /KCBX (San Luis Obispo) by Menaka Wilhelm

In California, it is a persistent challenge making water supply and water demand match up. A report being released Wednesday outlines how much water California’s coastal wastewater treatment plants dump into the ocean, and how much of that could be saved through better water management. James Hawkins is a water policy researcher at the Santa Barbara-based Heal the Ocean. The nonprofit is focused on reducing ocean pollution, and undertook a multi-year study of the state’s recycling potential. They did so by compiling an inventory of wastewater discharges into coastal waters, wastewater coming from urban cities along the coast.

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Feinstein Urges Voluntary Water Agreements Ahead Of Vote By State Water Board

/in , /by /The Modesto Bee by Ken Carlson

Sen. Dianne Feinstein and some state representatives in the Bay Area are calling for voluntary settlement agreements, rather than a State Water Board proposal, to bolster the salmon population in tributaries of the San Joaquin River. In a letter Friday to water board chairwoman Felicia Marcus, Feinstein said a voluntary settlement will achieve more in restoring fish in the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Merced rivers.

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California’s Largest New Reservoir Likely To Face Water-Access Limits

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

Sites Reservoir, the largest new water storage proposal in California, recently won a commitment of $816 million in state funds to help with construction. It promises to deliver enough water every year, on average, to serve 1 million homes. But regulatory realities looming in the background may mean the project has substantially less water at its disposal. The project would inundate an oak-studded valley 8 miles west of Maxwell, a town on Interstate-5 about a 90-minute drive north of Sacramento. For a total construction cost of $5.1 billion, the shallow Sites Reservoir could store 1.8million acre-feet of water.

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OPINION: A Fight Over A Unique Delta Island

/in , /by /The Record (Stockton, Calif.)by Michael Fitzgerald

A Delta farming island crucial to sandhill cranes is so mismanaged that the levees may break, a lawsuit alleges. Ironically, the allegedly bad manager is The Nature Conservancy. A suit by the Wetlands Preservation Foundation seeks to stop TNC’s allegedly bad, even dangerous, farming practices to avert a potential catastrophe on Staten Island in San Joaquin County. “TNC has failed to live up to its proud environmental tradition,” says the suit, filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court. The Nature Conservancy counters that the suit is baseless. The nonprofit is proud of its work on Staten, which is helping cranes rebound, a spokesman said.

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Water Deal Provides Less Costly, More Reliable Supplies

/in , /by /The Daily Transcriptby Mark Muir Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

A historic achievement for San Diego County passed mostly under the radar this summer when the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors approved wholesale rates for 2019. The rate increases were among the lowest in 15 years — but that’s just part of the story. The critical long-term accomplishment highlighted by the rate-setting process was that the Water Authority’s independent water supplies from the Colorado River are now both less expensive and more reliable than supplies from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. That’s a goal the region’s water officials started working towards two decades ago, and one that will bear fruit for decades to come.

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KTLA 360 Video: Seven Oaks Dam

/in , /by /KTLA 5by Giovanni Moujaes

At 550 feet, Seven Oaks Dam is the tallest in Southern California. Completed 19 years ago in the San Bernardino Mountains, the dam prevents severe storms from flooding communities along the Santa Ana River, protecting millions of residents in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.

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One Year Anniversary Of City Of Riverside-Western Municipal Water District’s Successful Partnership

/in , /by /California Water News Daily

It’s been one year since the City of Riverside and Western Municipal Water District (WMWD) executed a Regional Water Partnership deal that allowing WMWD to purchase surplus Riverside groundwater supplies that are part of the City’s Court-adjudicated water right in the San Bernardino Basin Area. In its first calendar year, the partnership has resulted in a $2.6 million savings for Western and $4.5 million in revenue for the City. It has also brought an additional 2.4 billion gallons of local groundwater to WMWD’s customers, which is enough annual water supply for about 15,000 single-family homes. The deal will also help keep water rates as low as possible in the years to come for both agencies.

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Down Year Predicted For California Olives After Weather Confuses Crops

/in , /by /CBS (Sacramento)

Olive harvest season is getting started in California and farmers are concerned this could be one of the worst in recent memory. California leads the nation in olive oil production, but now there may be a shortage. It’s a significant setback for a growing industry just two years removed from its largest crop.

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Shasta Dam To Raise Over 18 Feet

/in , /by /Action News Now (Chico)by Stephanie Schmieding

Construction is currently underway to raise the height of the Shasta Dam by 18 and a half feet, a project that has been decades in the making. The stage of pre-construction is expected to take place in the next few months. Geologists have already begun drilling for core samples on and around the dam to determine the engineering needs for construction. “The cores provide concrete-strict data that contractors would then use for determining how to anchor the new 18 and a half feet onto the existing surface,” said Jon Bader, manager for the Bureau of Reclamation in Northern California.

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