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BLOG: Westlands Has Said ‘No’ Before

/in /by /Stockton Recordby Alex Breitler

One under-reported detail in the wake of the Westlands Water District’s vote against the Delta tunnels is the fact that this isn’t the first time the water district has supposedly rejected the project — or at least, the process. “We’re not going to spend another dime on this,” Westlands board President Jean Sagouspe told the Fresno Bee in — wait for it — 2010. That’s right. Almost seven years ago Westlands declared that it was pulling out of what was then known as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Its concerns at the time were essentially the same as today: That the project — which was then sized to deliver up to 15,000 cubic feet per second of water, 40 percent larger than today — would simply not deliver enough water to make it worth the cost.

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A Crazy Water Year Ended Saturday. So Did We Set Any Records for Rain and Snow?

/in /by /The Modesto Beeby John Holland

The water year that ended Saturday was the wettest on record for the watersheds feeding the Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers. The Merced River fell just short. The Tuolumne had about 4.86 million acre-feet of runoff from rain and snowmelt from last October through September, the Turlock Irrigation District reported. That beat the previous high of 4.64 million in 1983 and was 255 percent of the historical average, spokesman Brandon McMillan said.

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Water Authority Forecasts Adequate Supply, Continuing Conservation in 2018

/in /by /Times of San Diego Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority is forecasting adequate supplies and expecting continued conservation efforts as California begins the 2018 water year on Sunday. “Thanks to remarkably wet conditions last winter, the 2018 water year will begin with improved supply conditions at the water authority’s two imported water sources – the Colorado River and the Sierra Nevada,” the authority said in a statement. In addition, the region can count on the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, and is prepared with high storage levels in many local reservoirs.

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Work Continues On The Oroville Dam Main Spillway

/in /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Randy Vazquez

Construction continues on the Oroville Dam’s main spillway this week. The Department of Water Resources has been working to reconstruct the the main spillway which was damaged in February because of heavy winter rain. Crews with Kiewit Corp., the lead contractor on the job, are working around the clock to rebuild enough of the main spillway in time for next rainy season. The deadline for the rebuild is Nov. 1. A study by an independent forensic team found that poor design and construction in the 1960s led to the failure of the spillway.

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Court Rules Metropolitan Water Rates to San Diego Will Remain

/in /by /The Desert Review (Imperial Valley) Quoted: Mark Muir

The California Supreme Court denied a petition by the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) September 27 to review an appellate court ruling in a case over rates set by the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, according to the SDCWA website. For years, San Diego water officials argued the region’s major supplier of water, the Metropolitan Water District overcharged to deliver water to San Diego from the Colorado River. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court declined to take up the case, leaving a lower court ruling siding with Metropolitan in place, according to the San Diego Voice.

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OPINION: Water Policy Leaves California Vulnerable

/in /by /The Orange County Registerby Michael Shires

Water is the Central Valley’s economic lifeblood — of that, there is no doubt. The drought of the last five years has put tremendous pressure on the state’s water allocation systems and shown that they are not only broken but incapable of adapting to the realities of a sustained drought cycle. But, why should people in Southern California and Orange County care if water is not available to the Central Valley and agricultural production goes away?

 

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Researchers Map Wells Across The West And Estimate 1 Out Of Every 30 Has Gone Dry

/in /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Ian James

During California’s severe five-year drought, groundwater levels fell to record lows and people in farming communities from Tulare County to Paso Robles saw their wells go dry.  Now researchers have analyzed records for about 2 million wells across 17 western states from Texas to Oregon, and they estimate that one out of every 30 wells was dry between 2013 and 2015.  The researchers also found dry wells were concentrated in farming areas such as California’s Central Valley and the High Plains. In some areas, they estimated that up to one-fifth of wells were dry.

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OPINION: Harmful Water Bills Held Over… A Momentary Flicker of Hope For Water Users

/in /by /Valley Roadrunner (Valley Center)

At some point in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 16, 2017, the California Legislative Session ended with a flicker of hope for there being some sanity, rational thought and common sense about water in the Capital City, Sacramento. Three bills, SB 623, (Monning – Carmel, CA), SB 606 (Hertzberg – Van Nuys, CA) and AB 1668 (Friedman – Glendale, CA) all failed passage and will be held over as two year bills to be taken back up in 2018. So why is this important to you?

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San Luis Rey Water Settlement: Tribes, Cities Are Now ‘Joined At The Hip’

/in /by /Valley Roadrunner (Valley Center) Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

On Monday, one time antagonists of a 50-year battle in the courts over right rights, who eventually became friends and allies, celebrated the San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement. They included representatives of the Rincon, Pala, Pauma, San Pasqual and La Jolla tribes, the City of Escondido, Vista Irrigation District and the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority, whose chairman is Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon tribe.

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The US Has a Vast, Untapped Supply of Renewable Energy That’s Neither Wind, Solar, or Hydropower

/in /by /Quartz (New York)

The value of water as a liquid is obvious. We can drink it, use it to clean ourselves and our things, swim in it to cool off and to play, and build dams across it to harvest its energy. Water as clouds are also essential: they are key for the way they deliver precipitation to cropland and forests. But scientists now say we may have been overlooking the most useful stage of the water cycle.

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