A year after California attacked the drought with an unprecedented water rationing program that drove cities and towns to cut back 24 percent collectively, state officials have changed course and given local agencies the leeway to come up with their own water-saving goals.
The Bureau of Reclamation announces the selection of three California water districts to receive $3 million total in Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency grants for Fiscal Year 2016. The grants, combined with local cost share contributions, total more than $6 million slated for water management improvement projects to be implemented during the next two years.
The AWCE program is a joint effort with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to promote district level water conservation improvements that facilitate on-farm water use efficiency and conservation projects. With NRCS support, Reclamation selected three projects for funding.
The City of San Diego recommended moving from a Level Two Drought Alert to a Level One Drought Watch, which would reduce water restrictions.
The suggestion came Thursday after the San Diego County Water Authority’s (CWA) determination that the region has an adequate water supply for the next three and a half years thanks to conservation efforts and new water supply sources.
In a decision that could delay or complicate Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to build two huge tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a Superior Court judge ruled Friday that a comprehensive management plan for the estuary is no longer valid.
I’ve photographed dozens of wildland fires in my 37 years as a photojournalist and as a resident of Bodfish, we’ve been packed and ready to go more than once. But the Erskine Fire has wrought devastation like I have never seen, and hope to never see again.
The 2002 Deer Fire started behind my house and burned many structures in the area as the wind-whipped flames ran into our neighboring town of Lake Isabella, causing havoc along its path. Like our neighbors, we prepare as much as possible by clearing brush, pine needles and weeds. We’ve cleaned out a ravine behind the house three times already this year.
After a year of mandatory water conservation that shortened showers and faded lawns, millions of drought-weary Californians will no longer be required to aggressively cut back their use.
In order to comply with the state’s latest emergency regulation, local water providers this week submitted documents intended to demonstrate whether their agencies have enough supply to meet customers’ demands for another three severely dry years.
The San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors on Thursday adopted rate increases of 6.4 percent for untreated water and 5.9 percent for treated water in 2017, near the low end of projections and similar to the increases adopted by the Board of Directors for 2016.
Rates adopted by the board are primarily driven by higher costs from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, though they also incorporate higher costs for drought-proof water supplies from the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. They also were impacted by state-mandated reductions in water use that decreased sales more than earlier projections.
Los Angeles has enough water to make it through three more years of drought without continuing state-mandated water cuts.
That’s the finding of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s “stress test,” which was due to the State Water Resources Control Board this week. Under a complex calculation handed down by state water officials, local agencies have to project future water supplies given the assumption that California won’t receive any more rain and snow in the next three years than it did over the previous three.
California voters could have yet another decision to make on an already-packed November ballot. The state Assembly voted today to add a three billion dollar bond measure for state and local parks.
Democratic Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia said a lack of funding has caused parks to fall into disrepair. “It’s been close to 14 years since this body has last approved a substantial funding measure designed to improve and expand park and outdoor infrastructure in the state of California,” says Garcia.
Board member Gary Osmundson, sued along with the Oakdale Irrigation District, had a judge removed from the case after the judge sided against the district in a pretrial ruling.
In other action related to the lawsuit on OID’s stalled fallow-for-money program:
