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

Los Angeles Restoring Water Tunnel to Capture Runoff

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by NBC Southern California)

Los Angeles is restoring a century-old water tunnel to capture runoff from the Sierra Nevada, which had a record snowfall this winter after years of drought. The Department of Water and Power is spending $4.5 million to repair and reopen a 2-mile-long tunnel that once carried water from the Los Angeles Aqueduct to a now-defunct reservoir, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. The tunnel is part of the Maclay Highline system of channels and tunnels that supplied water to homes and farms in Sylmar and the Sunland-Tujunga area.

Full Story

Gov. Brown’s $16 Billion Water Tunnels Get Expected OK

/in /by /The Associated Press (As published by KCRA 3 Sacramento)

The main California agency promoting Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed $16 billion water tunnels gave its expected approval to the project Friday. The move by the Department of Water Resources, which is helping shepherd Brown’s tunnels project over the regulatory and financial hurdles it must clear to break ground, endorsed the tunnels as a sound step environmentally. The Democratic governor wants to remake the state’s water system by tapping two 35-mile tunnels, both of them four-stories high, into Northern California’s Sacramento River, augmenting aging pumps to the south.

Full Story

California Shows How States Can Lead on Climate Change

/in /by /The New York Times

California, which has long been a pioneer in fighting climate change, renewed its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions last week by extending, to 2030, its cap-and-trade program, which effectively puts a price on emissions. It’s a bold, bipartisan commitment that invites similarly ambitious policies from other states, and it sends a strong signal to the world that millions of Americans regard with utmost seriousness a threat the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge, let alone reckon with.

Full Story

An Unconventional New Captain for California’s Water Agency

/in /by /News Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

California Gov. Jerry Brown last week appointed Grant Davis as director of the state’s Department of Water Resources. Davis, 54, general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency, brings an unusual resume to the job. With a degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, he had never worked for a water utility until joining the Sonoma County agency in 2007 as assistant general manager. Previously, he spent a decade as executive director of The Bay Institute in Novato.

Full Story

Water Authority Solicits Proposals for Potential Joint Energy Storage Facility with City of San Diego.

/in /by /The Voice of Renewables Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority this week issued a Request for Proposals for a potential joint energy storage project with the City of San Diego that could lessen upward pressure on water rates and also increase opportunities for renewable energy penetration throughout the region by leveraging existing infrastructure at San Vicente Reservoir. The potential project would consist of a closed-loop interconnection and pumping system between the existing San Vicente Reservoir (which is owned by the City of San Diego) near Lakeside and a new, smaller reservoir located uphill.

Full Story

California Sues To Validate Bonds To Fund Delta Tunnels Project

/in /by /SCV News (Santa Clarita) by Matt Reynolds

The California Department of Water Resources is seeking validation of $11 billion in bonds to fund Gov. Jerry Brown’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta tunnel project, California Water Fix, which cleared its final environmental hurdle on Friday. In the lawsuit filed Friday, the agency says it’s seeking a judgment that confirms the validity of the bonds to fund capital costs of the tunnel project. The project calls for two tunnels up to 150 feet beneath the delta and three new intakes with 3,000-cubic-feet-per-second capacity and an average annual yield of 4.9 million acre-feet.

Full Story

Time to Audit San Diego County Water Authority Allegations Against MWD

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

In recent years, the California State Auditor’s Office has waded into the affairs of several small water districts and water retailers, including districts in Victorville and Hesperia and the city of Downey’s Public Works Department. This is all well and good. The state auditor’s office purview covers a wide range of government bodies, and the obscure ones certainly merit the same sort of oversight.

Full Story

Severe, Chronic Flooding Will Devastate California Coast As Sea Levels Rise, Experts Say

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Joshua Emerson Smith

As glaciers melt amid the heat of a warming planet, scientists predict that coastal communities in the United States could eventually experience flooding from higher tides. Conservative estimates range from an increase of about one to four feet in sea-level rise by the end of the century. Experts also warn that people should be prepared for unlikely but extreme scenarios of up to eight feet in sea-level rise, which would cause severe and chronic flooding in hundreds of coastal cities. Grappling with this problem would be expensive for local governments.

Full Story

Exceptional Drought Levels Move Toward Zero In U.S.

/in /by /24/7 Wall St. (New York) by Douglas A. Mcintyre

At one point, the U.S. Drought Monitor map showed the presence of “exceptional drought”, the worst category designated by researchers, across much of California and a large portion of the areas of northern Texas and Oklahoma. A look at the map today shows neither of those areas has a drought problem at all. “Exceptional drought” has become a rarity across the country. The current U.S. Drought Monitor map shows relatively small areas of “exceptional drought” in a part of North Dakota and a tiny sliver of northeast Montana.

Full Story

The Status of the Drought and Atmoshperic Rivers

/in /by /San Benito County Newsby Shawn Novack

According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor (July 11), less than 32 percent of the state faces drought conditions and only 1 percent of the state is experiencing “severe” drought. Nowhere in the state are we experiencing “exceptional” or “extreme” drought. Governor Jerry Brown ended the drought state of emergency in most of California on April 7. A year ago, more than 90 percent of the state was in some form of drought. The drought’s end comes thanks in large part to so-called atmospheric rivers (AR) — warm weather systems that flow east from Hawaii and the western Pacific.

Full Story