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OPINION: Cadiz Water Project Poses Grave Threat To California Desert

/in /by /Redlands Daily Factsby Dianne Feinstein

The recent election may have changed the dynamic in Washington, but the facts on the ground in the California desert remain the same: The Cadiz water mining project poses a grave threat to the California desert and should not be approved. Covering about 35,000 acres of prime desert land, the project sits in the heart of the new Mojave Trails National Monument, described by President Obama as an area that “exemplifies the remarkable ecology of the Mojave Desert, where the hearty insistence of life is scratched out from unrelenting heat and dryness.”

 

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NASA Launches Pilot Project To Measure Snow Pack From The Sky

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by Ezra David Romero

After five years of drought and now all this precipitation there’s so much snow in the Sierra Nevada that state water officials are preparing for a massive runoff year. But the traditional way of calculating the snowpack has a huge margin of error. A new way to measure it could greatly decrease that inconsistency. Every winter and spring a network of snow surveyors manually tally how much snow is in the Sierra Nevada. They do this by measuring snow depth in the same spots every year.

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Failure at One of These 15,000 American Dams Would Be Fatal

/in /by /Smithsonian by Erin Blakemore

It’s not often that a hulking piece of infrastructure makes headlines, but the dam at California’s Lake Oroville did just that when it nearly failed last month. Though 180,000 people who were evacuated during the crisis are back home, people are now asking questions about the condition of the nation’s dams. As E&E News’ Jeremy P. Jacobs reports, there’s reason to worry: Nearly 15,500 of America’s dams could cause loss of life if they fail.

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As State Drowns In Winter Storms, California Water Use Is Lowest Since 2014

/in /by /CBS Sacramento

Officials say Californians are using less water than they have in years, thanks partly to winter rains that are doing the lawn-watering for them. The Water Resources Control Board said Tuesday that the average Californian used just 58.1 gallons of water a day in January. That’s the lowest residential use since the state started tracking water use in summer 2014.

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Safe To Drink?: San Marcos Schools Tested For Lead In Water

/in /by /NBC San Diegoby Wendy Fry

NBC 7 has learned three schools in the San Marcos Unified School District were involved in testing for lead levels in water provided to students on campus. Of the three schools, one had a water fountain with lead levels higher than acceptable, district officials confirmed Tuesday. The district recently tested the water at three schools including Alvin Dunn Elementary, Richland Elementary, and San Marcos Middle School.

 

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Global Warming Is Slamming California. Will Trump Take Notice?

/in /by /McClatchy Washington Bureau (Washington, DC)by Sean Cockerham

The drought has been declared over in most of California, with heavy winter rains sending water over the Oroville dam and forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people. But climate change is still in the air, and the recent weather pattern is a harbinger of what’s to come. The abrupt shift to record rainfall is the kind of extreme weather forecast for a warming planet. “Current models suggest the dice are loaded toward an increased probability of this kind of year,” said Columbia University climate scientist A. Park Williams.

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Striking Photos Taken From Space Show Dramatic Impact Of 2017 Storms

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Amy Graff

Satellite photographs from the NASA Earth Observatory show the striking difference in California’s drought-ravaged landscape after ceaseless storms soaked the state at the start of 2017. These images taken from space reveal the dramatic changes that have unfolded across the state between 2014, amid the a multi-year drought, and winter 2017, a season marked by record rain- and snowfall.

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OPINION: Our Wild, Wet Winter Doesn’t Change This Reality — California Will Be Short Of Water Forever

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Jay Famiglietti and Michelle Miro

Over the last 18 months, California has experienced one of the driest, wettest and wildest rides in its recorded water history. As the 2015-16 water year opened in October 2015, drought had driven the state’s reservoir and groundwater levels to all-time lows. Entire towns were left without water. Reports of lakes turned to puddles, of wells running dry by the thousands, and of the cracked ground above depleted aquifers sinking several feet a year dominated state headlines.

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Jerry Brown Requests A Third Presidential Disaster Declaration

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Jim Miller

Gov. Jerry Brown asked President Donald Trump on Tuesday to declare a major disaster for California due to damage caused by heavy rains that hit the state from Jan. 18 to 23. “This record-breaking precipitation resulted in numerous rivers, creeks and streams again exceeding flood stages throughout California,” Brown wrote Trump, saying the storms caused flooding, breached levees, left an estimated 55,000 homes and businesses without power, and led to six deaths. A presidential disaster declaration would make available federal assistance to reimburse state and local costs, small-business loans and other programs.

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Poway Names New Public Works Director

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

The appointment of Mike Obermiller as Poway’s public works director was announced Tuesday by City Manager Tina White. Obermiller started with the city in August 2014 as the department’s assistant director. During his tenure, he served as the city’s liaison with several regional groups including the Metro Wastewater Joint Powers Authority and San Diego County Water Authority. Prior to joining the city, Obermiller served 20 years in the US Navy as a Civil Engineer Corps officer, leading comprehensive public works and construction management organizations in Japan, Iraq, Mississippi and California.

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