The United States Bureau of Reclamation recently announced its selection of sixteen research projects to receive funding under the Desalination and Water Purification Research Program (DWPR), two of which will be conducted in part by Orange County Water District’s (OCWD) research and development staff. Of the $3.5 million that the DWPR awarded, $350,000 will go to OCWD research.
When you think of high tech in Silicon Valley, your mind immediately goes to the latest app or newest device. What you probably don’t think of is the “water” industry. You turn on your tap and there it is … clean, fresh water, a fundamental building block we often take for granted. What you probably don’t know is that the water industry is a leader in innovation, creating demand for exciting careers at all levels in a field that is essential to our health, safety and well-being.
California lawmakers passed a bill last week requiring the state to get 100 percent of its electricity from climate-friendly sources like solar and wind. But they didn’t vote on several proposals designed to help California achieve that goal, including a plan backed by Gov. Jerry Brown to connect the power grids of as many as 14 western states, as well as a bill that would have promoted geothermal energy development at the Salton Sea.
In this month’s episode of Deeply Talks, Water Deeply managing editor Matt Weiser discussed the American West’s dual challenges of water scarcity and wildfires with Crystal Kolden, associate professor of forest, rangeland and fire sciences in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho, and Van Butsic, assistant cooperative extension specialist at the University of California, Berkeley.
California’s legislative session ended last week, and with it, the hopes for a statewide pool of money that would have supported drinking water projects. It was called the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, and it would have been available for disadvantaged communities in need of water cleanup projects. The fund would have been sourced by fees on residential water bills and on some agricultural producers. But the two bills that set the framework for the fund died in the state assembly last week as California’s legislative deadline passed by.
California needs a clean, safe and reliable water supply to meet its needs as the population grows and the climate changes. Proposition 3 will provide that water supply for people, agriculture, and our native fish and wildlife. Proposition 3 is a general obligation bond, and will not raise taxes. Some of its most important features include
A new report on the safety of more than 1,200 California dams reveals only one dam is listed as unsatisfactory — and that dam is Oroville. In this Butte County town of some 19,000 people, some are getting wary. “Businesses are concerned with getting on with business,” said Eric Smith, CEO of the Oroville Chamber of Commerce. “And folks are wanting to get on and feel they can live safely in their homes.” The new report by the Division of Safety of Dams in the Department of Water Resources shows an old problem is still active at Oroville Dam, which has the “unsatisfactory” rating due to safety deficiencies.
Two major lakes in the Colorado River Basin that operate as one huge reservoir to supply millions of people with water are drying up, scientists have warned. Water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell have been steadily declining over the course of a two-decade drought affecting the region. In addition to the extended dry spell hitting the Colorado River Basin, the water supply is suffering a severe ‘structural deficit,’ in which more water is being consumed each year than can be replenished. More than 40 million people and 7,800 square miles of farmland rely on the Colorado River and its tributaries.
So here’s the good news: Despite fears to the contrary, California isn’t facing a year-round drought in our warming new world. However, UC Riverside Earth Sciences Professor Robert Allen’s research indicates that what precipitation the state does get will be pretty much limited to the winter months—think deluge-type rainfall rather than snow—and non-winter months will be even dryer than usual, with little or no rain at all. “It is good news,” Allen said. “But only relative to the alternative of no rain at all.”
They say you can’t get water from a stone, but one man says he can solve California’s water crisis with water from the desert. Scott Slater is the CEO of Cadiz, a California company that owns 45,000 acres in the Mojave, one of the driest places on earth. He says that a few hundred feet beneath the ground surface lies an enormous watershed the size of Rhode Island, about 1300 square miles. He is proposing taking hundreds of trillions of gallons of desert ground water a year and piping it over a hundred miles to the populated suburbs around Los Angeles.
