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Riverbanks Collapse After Oroville Dam Spillway Shut Off

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander and Tara Duggan

When state water officials scaled back their mass dumping of water from the damaged Oroville Dam this week, they knew the riverbed below would dry up enough to allow the removal of vast piles of debris from the fractured main spillway. But they apparently did not anticipate a side effect of their decision to stop feeding the gushing Feather River — a rapid drop in river level that, according to downstream landowners, caused miles of embankment to come crashing down.

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New Permanent Exhibit at Fleet Explains San Diego’s Water Supply

/in /by /Times of San Diegoby Chris Jennewein Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

A new permanent exhibit at the Fleet Science Center explores what may be the San Diego region’s most important system — it’s water supply. From the Colorado River to dams to desalination, the exhibit focuses on innovation and conservation in the 21st century. It replaces an earlier exhibit that debuted a decade ago. The new water exhibit is supported by the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego and was funded by a grant from the Hans and Margaret Doe Charitable Trust.

 

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BLOG: How Desalination Plants Are Trying To Overcome Environmental Concerns

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Padma Nagappan Mentioned: Carlsbad Desalination Plant

As California labored under a severe drought for more than five years, industry and media debated the pros and cons of desalination coming to the rescue of the drought-stricken state. About a dozen or so desalination plants have been planned or proposed up and down the Golden State’s coast, with the 50 million gallon (189m liter) per day Carlsbad desalination plant opened in December 2015 and Santa Barbara’s smaller desalination facility set to open this spring.

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America’s Biggest Water Users – Farmers – Learn To Use Less Of It

/in /by /The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.)by Zack Colman

Kevin Rogers, a fifth-generation farmer near Scottsdale, sees how technology is helping him use less water. Wearing an off-white cowboy hat while driving his silver truck around his farm, he points to a flood-irrigated field that uses laser-leveling technology. The sensor gathers a signal from satellites to ensure fields are cleared as smooth as possible, preventing water from pooling.

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Oroville Dam Faces Another Risk: Earthquakes From Rapid Rise In Water Levels

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Rong-Gong Lin II

The crisis over the last few weeks at Oroville Dam was about how to handle large amounts of water flowing into the lake with both of the reservoir’s spillways damaged. But there also was a seismic angle to the story. As Lake Oroville swung from being at 41% of capacity to 101% in just two months, scientists are asking whether the filling of the reservoir at the fastest rate in at least a generation can produce a damaging earthquake.

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Policy Exclusions Shield AIG Unit In Construction Dispute

/in /by /Business Insurance (Plantation, Fla.)by Judy Greenwald Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

An American International Group Inc. unit is not obligated to provide coverage in a dispute with a construction firm over a San Diego water project, based on exclusions in its policy, says a federal appeals court. Atlanta-based Archer Western Contractors Ltd. was the general contractor for the San Diego County Water Authority’s emergency water storage project, according to Thursday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in Archer Western Contractors Ltd. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, Pa., a Pennsylvania Corporation.

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Reservoirs Swell After Monday’s Deluge

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby J. Harry Jones Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The deluge that hit the county Monday has done wonders for local reservoirs, which — buoyed by an exceptionally wet winter — were already beginning to recover from years of punishing drought. On the border of San Diego and Escondido, Lake Hodges is now 88 percent full. It was just 57 percent full 10 days earlier, according to data gathered by the San Diego County Water Authority and City of San Diego. Lower Otay’s spill gates had to be opened to drain off excess water and Lake Poway was just inches away from overflowing.

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Rainstorms Wash Away Drought In More Than 90 Percent Of California

/in /by /NBC Los Angelesby Jonathan Lloyd

This week’s U.S. Drought Monitor report shows more improvement in California, where winter rainstorms and heavy snowfall have washed away drought in more of the state after a five-year dry spell. Just three months ago, more than 73 percent of California was in drought, but that number has dropped to 9 percent after this winter’s powerful storms, according to the weekly Drought Monitor report released Thursday.

 

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Nevada Still In Drought Despite Full Snowpack

/in /by /LasVegasNow.comby Katie Boer

The 2016-2017 winter season dropped plenty of snow in the Rockies. For years, the decade and a half drought across southern Nevada and the lower Colorado River Basin has impacted water levels at Lake Mead, creating what locals have long dubbed “the bathtub ring.” Nevada is still considered to be in a drought, but the accumulation in snowpacks has experts hopeful about the health of Lake Mead.  However, the state’s not out of the clear.

 

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The Quad: After The Rain – A Clarification Of California’s Drought Status

/in /by /Daily Bruin (Los Angeles)by Claire Hubert

Throughout the past couple weeks, I’ve felt almost as if I needed to build an ark to get to class. The greater Los Angeles area has been slammed with copious amounts of rain this season. During these monsoons, my trek from De Neve Holly all the way to Bunche Hall has been nothing short of a drenched, waterlogged nightmare. During this wet, wet winter quarter, you name it, we’ve seen it: soaked backpacks, umbrellas turned inside out, disgruntled and sopping wet students

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