Kale or quinoa? Free range chicken or seasonal veggie medley? Pellegrino or … recycled water? Californians could soon start drinking purified wastewater. In response to a five-year drought, the State Water Resources Control Board recently informed legislators that regulating recycled, drinkable water is perfectly feasible. California would be the first state in the nation to implement such regulations.
A damaged flood control spillway at the Oroville Dam may have to be used as early as next week as storm runoff and snowmelt continue to fill the massive reservoir on the Feather River, state water officials said. The spillway has been dry since Feb. 27, when engineers with the Department of Water Resources rapidly reduced the flow of water down the concrete chute from 50,000 cubic feet per second to zero so they could repair the spillway and restart a nearby hydroelectric plant.
California is having its rainiest water year since record-keeping began in 1895 — a deluge that has been rapidly altering the landscape of a state that until recently was in drought. It has rained an average of 27.81 inches statewide from Oct. 1 to Feb. 28, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information reported. A water year begins on Oct. 1. The 20th century average was 15.5 inches in the same time period, and the previous record was the winter of 1968-69, when it rained an average of 27.34 inches, the agency reported. Signs of this shift are everywhere.
America’s infrastructure is close to failing. That’s the assessment of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which released its 2017 “infrastructure report card” Thursday, giving the nation’s overall infrastructure a grade of D+. The report came a day after President Donald Trump held a high-profile meeting with a group of executives to discuss his campaign pledge to invest a trillion dollars to upgrade the nation’s critical infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, airports and dams.
Conditions have improved in a small swath of Southern California that was one of the last areas of severe drought still standing during a wet winter for the record books. Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties are no longer under severe drought, according to this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor report. Recent rainfall improved the outlook for groundwater in the region, accounting for the improvement, the Monitor report said.
California’s biggest lake, about 350 square miles, is dying. It’s not the first time. The Salton Sea, straddling the Imperial and Coachella Valleys, is the latest incarnation of a body of water that has been drying and refilling over eons with water from the Colorado River. Native Americans once fished and camped on Lake Cahuilla, a prehistoric and larger version. The Salton Sea was born in the early 1900s after a canal burst sent water from the Colorado flooding into the valley over a period of two years.
California’s water regulators are looking to strengthen their focus on climate change, adopting policies aimed at helping the state prepare for more severe floods, more extreme droughts and shrinking snowpack. The State Water Resources Control Board approved a resolution this week outlining plans for what it calls a “comprehensive response” to climate change. In the document, the board says given the seriousness of global warming’s impacts on California, “our response to climate change must be comprehensive and integrated” into all of the agency’s work.
Pure Water Monterey now has permission to inject highly treated recycled wastewater into the Seaside basin for later use as drinking water. With staff offering its full-throated support, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board on Thursday unanimously approved a permit blessing the recycled water project’s advanced treatment plan for purifying a variety of wastewater sources prior to pumping the water into the basin. The hearing was held at Watsonville City Hall. Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency official Mike McCullough celebrated the latest step forward for the project.
At Heritage Oak Winery, acres of 10-year-old grapevines are still underwater. It’s been days since Lodi’s last rainfall, but for Heritage Oak’s owner, Tom Hoffman, it may be a while before the flooding brought by two wet months begins to recede. Plenty of farmers still have fields, vineyards and other land covered by standing water. Not Hoffman. “I don’t have standing water, I have running water,” he said. Heritage Oak’s property in Acampo includes about 60 acres of bottom land along the Mokelumne River, and 10 acres are planted with grapes, he said.
Just before the Oroville Dam became daily front page news, during what turned out to be a brief lull in this winter’s storms, one of my neighbors asked if I thought the drought was over. “Nope, just an interlude,” I said. Then, within the week, more rain came – rain and snow, depending on where you reside in this great state. But as far as I can tell, we still live in a continuing drought. These storms are just a brief interruption. After so much rain, and massive, record-setting snow, why do I say that?
