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Reservoir Levels Rise In California With Record October Rainfall

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by Amy Quinton
Rains have drenched Northern California, where most of the state’s largest reservoirs are located. The state had the second wettest October since the Department began keeping records in 1921.
“We are almost 400 percent of the normal amount of rain in October here in the north and even the San Joaquin and Tulare regions are well above their averages as well,” says Doug Carlson with the California Department of Water Resources. “But if history tells us anything it’s don’t predict what the weather is going to be two or three weeks from now.”
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Study Blames High Temperatures For Low 2015 Snowpack

/in /by /CBS (San Francisco)

The western United States set records for low winter snowpack levels in 2015, and a new report blames high temperatures rather than low precipitation levels, according to a new study.

Greenhouse gases appear to be a major contributor to the high temperatures, according to the study published Monday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Scientists looked at snow-measurement sites in California, Oregon, Washington, western Nevada and western Idaho. They found that in 2015, more than 80 percent of those sites experienced record low snowpack levels as a result of much warmer-than-average temperatures.

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Encinitas City Council Candidate Mark Muir

/in /by /Del Mar Timesby Chris Saur Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority
Quoted: Mark Muir

Encinitas City Council candidate Mark Muir, who is running for reelection after five years on the Council, has truly been serving the public for his entire adult life.

A native San Diegan, Muir was a career firefighter who eventually rose to the rank of fire chief for the city of Encinitas. In his five years on the Council, he has not accepted the retirement salary because “I’m retired and have the time to dedicate myself to protecting, preserving and promoting our wonderful city.”

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OPINION: Ignored Problems Facing San Diego’s 79th Assembly District

/in /by /The San Diego Voice

The real water crisis in California is water management. Two northern California reservoirs have been delayed for a decade or more. The citizens living near the proposed reservoirs want the jobs they will provide. California taxpayers have funded Water Bonds almost every two years since 1970 (40 years) but still no new northern California reservoirs.

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Power Company to Remove Oil Pipeline

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Phil Diehl

An undersea oil pipeline that for more than 50 years supplied Carlsbad’s Encina power plant with fuel and helped keep the lights on across San Diego County soon will be history.

NRG/Cabrillo Power has applied to the California Coastal Commission for permission to remove the 20-inch-diameter steel-and-concrete pipeline that extends out from beneath the power plant on Carlsbad Boulevard more than half a mile into the ocean at a depth of roughly 60 feet.

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California State Considers New Rules For Waste Water Recycling

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by Daniel Potter
California is moving forward with rules for how water districts can turn what goes down your toilet back into drinking water. State regulators are taking comments on a kind of water recycling where wastewater sits in a lake before being treated. Next up might be a way to skip the wait. The state already has rules in place for groundwater recharge – where wastewater goes in an aquifer and later comes out for drinking water. Randy Barnard heads the recycled-water unit for the State Water Resources Control Board. He says both aquifers and surface reservoirs act as ‘environmental buffers,’ killing pathogens and diluting chemicals.
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BLOG: ‘The Blob’ Is Back: What Warm Ocean Mass Means for Weather, Wildlife

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

The blob is back. Since 2014, a mass of unusually warm water has hovered and swelled in the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast of North America, playing havoc with marine wildlife, water quality and the regional weather. Earlier this year, weather and oceanography experts thought it was waning. But no: The Blob came back, and it is again in position off the coast, threatening to smother normal coastal weather and ecosystem behavior. The Blob isn’t exactly to blame for California’s drought, though it certainly aggravated the problem.

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California Drought: Is October Rain Making A Difference?

/in /by /The San Jose Mercury Newsby Paul Rogers

As California enters the sixth year of its historic drought, something unusual is happening: It’s raining. And raining. Rainfall is expected across much of the Bay Area again Sunday, with another storm coming Halloween night. Marin, Sonoma and other North Bay counties should get the biggest soaking. Meteorologists stress that it’s only the very beginning of California’s rainy season, so there are no guarantees that a wet October will bring a wet November, December, January or February. So far, though, October has been surprisingly wet across the northern part of the state, raising the hopes of drought-weary Californians.

 

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In California, A $350 Million Social Experiment Over Lawns

/in /by /Associated Press (As published by The Seattle Times)by Ellen Knickmeyer

California water agencies that spent more than $350 million in the last two years of drought to pay property owners to rip out water-slurping lawns are now trying to answer whether the nation’s biggest lawn removal experiment was all worth the cost. Around the state, water experts and water-district employees are employing satellite images, infrared aerial photos, neighborhood drive-bys and complex algorithms to gauge just how much grassy turf was removed. They also want to know whether the fortune in rebates helped turn California tastes lastingly away from emerald-green turf.

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The Drought Eased Up, And These Californians Turned On The Spigot

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Matt Stevens and Ryan Menezes

The San Juan Water District showed the rest of California how to save water when the state needed the savings most. The supplier for eastern Sacramento and southern Placer counties cut consumption 41% from 2013 levels during the summer of 2015 — the height of a years-long drought. District residents let their acre-sized properties fade, livestock went thirsty, vineyards decayed. Then, the rain arrived. Regulators relaxed the rules and on went some spigots. This summer, the district used almost 600 million more gallons than it did last summer. Lacking a state mandate to conserve, residents’ daily consumption climbed to more than 500 gallons per person.

 

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