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California’s History of Dry Spells in Photos

/in /by /NBC Southern Californiaby Jonathan Lloyd

Dry spells come and go in California, where the difference between a wet and dry year often depends on how much precipitation the state gets from just a few storms during winter. During the period of recorded water history, California’s most significant statewide droughts were 1929-34, 1976-77, 1987-1992, 2007-09 and the current five-year drought, according to the state department of water resources. The 2007-09 drought was was the first for which a statewide emergency was declared.

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OPINION: San Ysidro Schools’ Lead Threat A Wake-Up Call For All

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune

The discovery in drinking water of lead, copper and bacterial contamination due to aging plumbing at La Mirada Elementary School in the San Ysidro School District should be a wake-up call for all local — and state — districts with older schools. San Ysidro officials are so worried about the possibility of water contamination at two other campuses with older buildings, Smythe Elementary School and San Ysidro Middle School, that they are distributing bottled water at all three schools until it’s clear that water from their fixtures is safe to drink.

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OPINION: Drastic Water Plan Could Worsen Housing Crisis

/in /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Adrian Covert

The Bay Area is gripped by an historic housing shortage and affordability crisis. A plan being circulated now by state water officials will only make it worse. The State Water Resources Control Board wants to cut water supplies to 2.6 million Bay Area residents in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the East Bay by up to 50 percent at the first sign of any future drought. The proposed cuts will dramatically reduce our ability to build the new housing we so badly need, even as we struggle to close a massive housing deficit that has been decades in the making.

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OPINION: Advanced Data Would Improve How California Manages Water

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Michael Kiparsky and Roger Bales

Few people realize how outdated our systems for water information are. Because of data limitations, real-time, transparent decisions about drought management, flood response and groundwater protection have eluded the state for the past century. Without basic numbers on where, when and how much water is available and being used, we can’t improve how we manage our most precious water and natural resources.

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VIDEO: What It Will Take To Repair Oroville Dam Spillway

/in /by /Yahoo

Officials are working to find ways to repair the Oroville Dam spillway, which has concrete erosion.

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Water Will Keep Flowing at Oro Dam Spillway Despite Gaping Hole, Erosion

/in /by /Oroville Mercury Registerby Risa Johnson

As a test run at the Oroville Dam spillway commenced Wednesday afternoon, the director of the Department of Water Resources said at a press conference in Sacramento he expected the bottom of the spillway to be eroded away by spring, with a replacement completed by fall. This came after a gaping hole in the spillway at the Oroville Dam, the tallest dam in the U.S., appeared Tuesday morning. The hole in the spillway is 180 feet wide and 30 feet deep, DWR public information officer Eric See said.

 

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Areas Of San Joaquin Valley Sink Further In 2016, Officials Blame Groundwater Pumping

/in /by /CBS Sacramento

Radar satellite maps created by NASA show land continues to sink rapidly in certain areas of the San Joaquin Valley, putting state and federal aqueducts and flood control structures at risk of damage. An August 2015 NASA report documented record rates of subsidence or sinking in the San Joaquin Valley, particularly near Chowchilla and Corcoran, as farmers pumped groundwater in the midst of the historic drought.

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Oroville Dam Officials Find New Damage After Water Releases, As Reservoir Level Climbs

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler, Ryan Sabalow, and Phillip Reese

State engineers have found new damage to the Oroville Dam spillway, although not as much as they’d feared, after conducting two test releases to see how much water the scarred facility could handle, the state said Thursday. Meanwhile, reservoir levels continued to climb behind the critical flood-control structure. The gash that was discovered Tuesday grew by another 50 feet after engineers released water for a combined six hours Wednesday and early Thursday, according to Department of Water Resources spokesman Doug Carlson. “They found additional damage to the spillway, which was predicted,” Carlson said.

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State Water Board Votes To Keep Water Restrictions In Place

/in /by /The CW6by John Carroll Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego County’s Water Authority criticized action taken Wednesday by the State Water Board. On Wednesday afternoon, the Board voted to continue water conservation regulations on a statewide basis. It was late last month that the San Diego County Water Authority declared the drought over in San Diego County. On that day, they called for the State Board to do likewise. But on Wednesday, that call was rebuffed.

 

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State Regulators Vote To Continue Drought Rules

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith Quoted: Dana Friehauf

Despite blankets of snow and rain that have covered California this winter, the state’s top water cops voted Wednesday to maintain emergency drought rules that have been in place in one form or another during the past 19 months. Regional water managers, including those in San Diego County, traveled to Sacramento to plead with the State Water Resources Control Board to end the emergency regulations. They repeatedly told the board that not doing so would erode credibility with residents and make it harder to convince people to adopt strict conservation efforts in the future.

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