Local water leaders on Tuesday formally scorned a state proposal to drastically change river levels, saying it would cripple farms and the economy and threaten people’s drinking water in Modesto, San Francisco and beyond. “To me, this is an outrage,” said Greg Salyer, general manager of the Modesto Irrigation District. “This is probably the worst water threat we’ve ever had at MID.”
A projected increase of water temperatures in the Southwest could cause a rise in the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts that would leave Southern California with water shortages in the coming decades, Loyola Marymount University researchers said Tuesday. Scientists predict that by 2050, rising temperatures will increase the amount of precipitation falling as rain rather than snow in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges where the Southland imports 60 percent to 70 percent of its water supply.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 814 into law to crack down on excessive water use during droughts. The law, effective Jan. 1, 2017, penalizes the state’s biggest water wasters and could result in public disclosure of their names.The new law requires retail water suppliers with more than 3,000 customers to put in place rules that define excessive water use and enforce them during drought emergencies. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jerry Hill, stated, “[SB 814] is the result of a San Mateo resident’s demand for households ignoring water use restrictions to be held accountable.”
Flood control efforts in California’s Central Valley get a boost in sprawling water legislation that reaches the House floor Tuesday. No, it’s not the drought-inspired, California-only bill that has inspired so much wrangling in recent years. That remains stuck. Instead, following the Senate’s lead, the House is taking up its latest version of the Water Resources Development Act. The amended bill authorizes 31 Army Corps of Engineers projects and 29 feasibility studies, among other measures. “This bill is by no means perfect,” said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Penn., the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, “but it’s a good bill.”
A new study paints a picture of an Earth that is warmer than it has been in about 120,000 years, and is locked into eventually hitting its hottest mark in more than 2 million years. As part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, Carolyn Snyder , now a climate policy official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, created a continuous 2 million year temperature record, much longer than a previous 22,000 year record. Snyder’s temperature reconstruction, published Monday in the journal Nature , doesn’t estimate temperature for a single year, but averages 5,000-year time periods going back a couple million years.
Farmers in central California are drilling more and deeper wells than ever before to pump water for their fruit orchards and sprawling fields following government imposed limits on surface water. Two years after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill designed to limit groundwater pumping, new wells are going in faster and deeper than ever, according to an analysis by the Sacramento Bee published Sunday. Farmers dug about 2,500 wells in the San Joaquin Valley last year alone, the highest number on record.
A new law requires that virtually all multiple-family complexes built after Jan. 1, 2018, must have water meters on each unit. “Eighty percent of the 15.6 million Californians living in apartments or other multifamily housing are not billed for their water use, meaning nearly a third of the state’s population doesn’t know how much water they’re using or how much they are charged based on their use,” Sen. Lois Wolk, who authored the bill, said in a statement. Gov. Jerry Brown signed Wolk’s Senate Bill 7 on Monday.
The best guess about the weather forecast for the next several months is that its anybody’s guess. There could be more rain and snow, less rain and snow or a neutral amount of precipitation. Up until a month ago, forecasters thought the state might experience a La Niña weather pattern. Predictions are based upon water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator. La Niña is a cooler weather pattern that often results in above normal precipitation in the Pacific northwest, dry conditions elsewhere.
Nearly 200 small earthquakes — including three of a magnitude greater than 4 — struck the Salton Sea area over the last day or so. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the swarm of quakes started early Monday morning and continued into the evening. Quakes measuring 4.3 and 4.2 magnitude occurred Monday night. Nine of the quakes measure greater than 3.0. Many of the quakes were centered near Bombay Beach. They were felt in a relatively small area around the Salton Sea, according to the USGS.
Enrico Ferro, who was appointed to the Valley Center Municipal Water District board for Division 4, has served since February of 2016. He is running for a full term. Ferro has lived in Valley Center since January of 2004 when he purchased an avocado grove and moved here from Deluz. His grandfather owned vineyards and wineries in Mexico but the profession skipped a generation in their family. Ferro’s dad did inspire his son to become interested in agriculture because he was an agriculture inspector. Young Enrico helped him on his rounds as a pest control advisor.
