It’s often said you can’t make something out of nothing. Cody Friesen may have come as close to succeeding as anyone. To show me his technological sleight of hand, Friesen invites me to a hillside house in Berkeley, California on a sunny afternoon. There, in a shaded courtyard, we each sample a cup of water that flows from a drinking fountain. The water is cool and delicious – and it was made out of thin air. Literally.
It’s time for California to rethink how it manages water for the environment. Despite four decades of effort, many of the state’s freshwater-dependent native species are in decline. Controversy over water for the environment remains high. The latest drought left lasting impacts on already-stressed species and their ecosystems and highlighted the need for a change of course.
A grand opening was held for Oceanside’s Mission Basin Groundwater Purification Facility Operation Building at 215 Fireside Drive, which was recognized for its environmentally-friendly design. The facility earned a LEED Gold certification and is the first such LEED certified project completed in Oceanside. The building earned the certification for its design features, which supported sustainable green practices including efficient lighting, ultra-low water use fixtures and large amounts of recycled content in building materials.
After our recent drought, the importance of providing sustainable water supplies for California’s cities and farms – both now and over the long term – is clearer than ever. And long-term water planning has to include a commitment to manage groundwater aquifers carefully, recharging them whenever possible and pumping from them only when necessary. Modesto must protect its groundwater supplies. It’s the only way for farmers and city dwellers alike to maintain their economy, their heritage and their very way of life for future generations.
I got up at 5:15 a.m. on Saturday morning with the idea of driving 100 miles to watch the sun rise over the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. I wanted to show my 84-year-old mom the beauty of one of California’s best-kept secrets. Maybe see some of the Delta’s magnificent sandhill cranes capable of flying up to 400 miles in a single day. But my real goal was to get a clearer perspective on the merit of building a single, 35-mile tunnel to provide a more reliable supply of water for generations of thirsty Californians.
The first atmospheric river-fueled storm of the season is expected to make landfall in California on Wednesday afternoon, when it will dump inches of rain in the Bay Area, disgorge up to a foot of snow over the Sierra Nevada and likely trigger flash floods in fire-scorched wine country. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning from 4 p.m. Wednesday to 3 a.m. Thursday for those areas of Sonoma and Napa counties that were scorched by a multiple wildfires in October.
City of San Diego crews worked through the night to repair a sinkhole closing a popular route in or out of Pacific Beach just north of Garnet Avenue. A 30-inch transmission water pipeline burst Monday, prompting the closure of the Interstate 5 off-ramp to Mission Bay Drive. The break, reported before noon, created a massive sinkhole estimated at more than 30 feet in diameter on the northbound lanes of Mission Bay Drive at Damon Avenue.
Between 2015 and 2010, Californians slashed their water use by seventeen percent, according to the US Geological Survey report. During that time, the state was gripped by the worst drought in modern times, and Governor Brown declared the first-ever mandatory water restrictions. But despite the savings, Californians still use more water than residents of many East Coast states. As of September 2017, Californians use 110 gallons per person per day for outdoor and indoor consumption. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, residents needed just 35 gallons of water per person per day in 2015 – less than half the national average of 82 gallons per person per day.
The current three- to seven-day forecasts Americans have come to rely on for planning everything from weekend picnics to hurricane evacuations rely heavily on constant updates from satellites that orbit Earth’s poles measuring temperature, moisture and a host of other variables that define the planet’s ever-changing weather. Early Tuesday, NASA plans to launch the first of four state-of-the-art polar orbiters for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a $1.6 billion weather satellite that will monitor the entire planet as it rotates below, feeding computer models the data they need to make increasingly accurate predictions.
A roaring “pineapple express” is expected to blast the Sierra Wednesday and Thursday, marking the biggest storm of the season so far. The warm, moisture-rich storm is fueled by an “atmospheric river” originating in the South Pacific and predicted to bring up to a foot and above of snow at elevations as low as 7,500 feet.
