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USS Midway: A History Of Sustainable Water Management

/in , /by /Water News Network Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The USS Midway Museum, docked in San Diego, is the most popular naval warship museum in the United States and among the most visited museums in the country, with 1.4 million people annually coming aboard. Those visitors discover the Midway made its own fresh water while at sea, from the first day it was commissioned in 1945 until it was taken out of active service in 1992. But when this venerable aircraft carrier found new life as the USS Midway Museum in 2004, its relationship with water entered a new era as well.

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Oroville Dam independent Review Board Releases First Report

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Risa Johnson

The independent review board hired by the state Department of Water Resources to put outside eyes on an assessment which will play a large role in the future operations of the Oroville Dam has released its first report. Suggestions for infrastructure changes like the construction of a second gated spillway are expected to be considered through what DWR is calling a comprehensive needs assessment. The department has selected four independent industry experts to be part of a board which will review the assessment and make recommendations.

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What’s Different About California’s Fires This Year?

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

California is burning, with at least 16 big wildfires statewide. The largest, in and around the northern city of Redding, has killed at least six people and burned more than a thousand homes and other structures. Fires are nothing new in the state this time of year. It’s fire season, after all, as it is elsewhere in the West. But something feels different this time, perhaps because, following the Santa Rosa fire last October, this is the second year in a row in which fire has destroyed large parts of a city.

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Proposal To Increase Delta Water Flows Causes Contention Between Farmers, Fisheries

/in , /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by Nadine Sebai

Following nine years of research, a California agency has proposed to increase water flows in the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary. But the decision is causing contention between farmers and fisheries. The California State Water Resources Control Board says the proposal will prevent an ecological crisis, including the total collapse of fisheries. About 70,000 fall-run Chinook salmon adults returned to the San Joaquin Basin in 1984, but that number fell to just 8,000 in 2014.

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OPINION: Water Tunnels Approval Is Pure Government Arrogance

/in , /by /Ventura County Starby Tom Elias

The way environmental activists in California’s Delta region tell it, there is no part of government in this state more arrogant than the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The huge MWD, supplier of water to the majority of the state’s populace, is certainly acting the part as it pushes for a project Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to make an irreversible fait accompli before he leaves office at the end of this year.

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Hot July Is Fueling California’s Summer Wildfires

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Lisa M. Krieger

The calendar says it’s the first of August. But an unforgiving early wave of heat means that California’s landscape feels as dry as September, igniting a deadly wildfire season up and down the state. Hot and dry as a powder keg, recent weather has accelerated the normal drying of western landscapes, turning vegetation into kindling, say weather experts. Even nights are warm. “Fuels are really really dry. It’s closer to what we should get by late summer or early fall,” said professor Craig Clements, director of the Fire Weather Research Lab at San Jose State University.

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San Diego County Wasn’t Immune To Extreme Weather In July

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Robert Krier

San Diego County didn’t escape the extreme weather happening around the planet in July that produced massive fires above the Arctic Circle, a deadly heat wave in Japan, and a 124 degree day in Algeria believed to the highest temperature ever recorded in Africa. The county had it’s own set of remarkable temperatures that stressed both plants and people. The city of San Diego had its hottest July in a dozen years and its fifth hottest since 1874. The month was 5 degrees warmer than normal, and the 96 degrees recorded on July 6 was the third highest reading ever seen in July.

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The Common Thread In California’s Wildfires: Heat Like The State Has Never Seen

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Rong-Gong Lin II and Ruben Vives

The northern Sacramento Valley was well on its way to recording the hottest July on record when the Carr fire swept into town Thursday. It was 113 degrees, and months of above-average temperatures had left the land bone-dry and ready to explode. Within a few hours, hundreds of structures were lost and six people killed.

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How Climate Change Is Making Disasters Like The Carr Fire More Likely

/in , /by /The Washington Postby Angela Fritz

Firefighters are waging war against 17 wildfires that cover 200,000 acres in California this week. Front-line dispatches suggest that, at least at times, they’ve lost the battle. The bodies of two children were found under a wet blanket with the remains of their great-grandmother hovering over them. Three firefighters and one bulldozer operator are dead. More than 700 homes have burned to the ground. Crews have struggled, at least in part, because they have never seen fires behave like this before.

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Simulating The Weather Created By Fire In New Study

/in , /by /KUER 90.1 (Utah)by Erik Newman

A recent study is helping researchers understand the role of wind in the largest forest fires. Megafires are large, hard-to-manage burns with big economic costs. “These big fires are really hard to deal with,” said Natasha Stavros with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

 

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