You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Californians have moved heaven and earth to get water to the state’s thirsty cities and farms. We pipe water through the nation’s longest aqueducts, store it in the tallest dams and pump it over mountains. But when it comes to the storm water that falls directly on our cities, we flush it out to sea. For California, fresh off a historic drought and suddenly the de facto leader of U.S. climate policy, wasting any water is unacceptable. That’s why Senate Bill 231, by state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, is so important.

Slowly – but surely – we are learning that the near-catastrophic failure of Oroville Dam’s main spillway wasn’t truly caused by weather, even though the state claims that in seeking federal aid for repairs. Rather, it resulted from poor engineering and construction when the nation’s highest dam was rising more than a half-century ago as the centerpiece of the State Water Project, and poor maintenance since its completion. The latest evidence is a huge report by a team of engineering experts, headed by Robert Bea and Tony Johnson of the University of California’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

 

 

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, he backed environmental legislation that led to one of the world’s most closely watched initiatives in the fight against global warming. On Tuesday, Schwarzenegger joined his successor, Jerry Brown, as Brown signed legislation that kept alive a cap and trade program that both men have urged the rest of the world to emulate. The program puts a cap and a price on carbon emissions, creating an incentive for polluters to reduce emissions.

 

For the first time in 11 years, Lake Tahoe is nearing capacity thanks to snow melt coming off of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The lake level peaked at 6,229 feet on July 9, coming extremely close to its full capacity level of 6,229.1, which hasn’t been reached in over a decade, SF Gate reported. The waterway has managed to flourish despite increased evaporation on its surface. In the summer, evaporation from lakes like Tahoe is generally more efficient due to windier and warmer conditions, according to weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Belles.