They may be unpredictable, but they are unavoidable — droughts. California goes through drought cycles, but that’s what has prepared the state for the worst. KCRA TV Sacramento meteorologist Mark Finan answers five frequently asked questions about droughts and water in California:
Staff at the state Water Commission, tasked with handing out $2.7 billion from a 2014 water bond, are still unwilling to fund a water recycling plant in the city of San Diego. Earlier this month, commission staff concluded that the recycling plant would have no public benefit.
Californians should expect more dramatic swings between dry and wet years as the climate warms, according to a new study that found it likely that the state will be hit by devastating, widespread flooding in coming decades. UC researchers in essence found that California’s highly volatile climate will become even more volatile as human-caused climate change tinkers with atmospheric patterns over the eastern Pacific Ocean.
In this episode of Deeply Talks, Ian Evans, Water Deeply’s community editor, speaks with Tara Lohan, Water Deeply’s managing editor and John Fleck, director of water resources at the University of New Mexico, about the status of this year’s snowpack, what it can tell us about the water year to come and how that fits with long-term climate change trends. The most significant reservoirs in the West are not stored behind concrete dams, but on top of mountains as snowpack. This year, however, snowpack has been alarmingly low throughout most of the West.
California took a big step Friday toward launching a new multibillion-dollar wave of reservoir construction.
After being accused of being overly tightfisted with taxpayer dollars, the California Water Commission released updated plans for allocating nearly $2.6 billion in bond funds approved by voters during the depths of the drought. The money will help fund eight reservoirs and other water-storage projects, including the sprawling Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley and a small groundwater “bank” in south Sacramento County.
The Equinox Project of the Center for Sustainable Energy has a pretty good idea of what comprises “quality of life,” having just released its 2018 San Diego Regional Quality of Life Dashboard reporting on 15 indicators of just that … quality of life. Available to everyone online, this is the ninth annual dashboard.
Sin City has never been a place that thinks small. So it should come as no surprise that Las Vegas – about 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean – is pondering seawater desalination to meet its long-term water demand.
That doesn’t mean Vegas plans to build a pipeline to the ocean. More likely, it would help pay for a desalination facility in a place like Mexico, then trade that investment for a piece of Mexico’s water rights in the Colorado River.
Before some members of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted this week to spend $11 billion on a new water project, several of them got a call from Gov. Jerry Brown urging them to support the project. For decades, Brown has been working to improve the north-south water delivery system created by his late father, Gov. Pat Brown. His solution is a pair of underground tunnels to help move water. Brett Barbre, a Metropolitan board member from Orange County who whipped votes in favor of the project, said it had support from about 52 percent of the board going into the weekend. That was enough to pass, but barely.
Less than fifteen miles from where Beyonce took the stage at the Coachella Music Festival, the Salton Sea is in crisis. As evaporation causes the sea’s shoreline to recede, more of the toxic chemical matter previously embedded in the water is being exposed and swept up into the atmosphere by desert winds.
When the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to finance the lion’s share of the delta tunnels project, some on the board called it a bold stroke of leadership. The delegations from Los Angeles and San Diego, however, called the move alarming, financially risky and irresponsible. MWD’s two largest member agencies, L.A. and the San Diego County Water Authority, were on the losing end of last week’s vote to invest nearly $11 billion in the construction of two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
