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The ‘Third Age’ of Water: Stretching Every Drop Efficiency Plus Conservation is Smarter, Cheaper than Dams and Desal, Experts Say

/in /by /Santa Barbara Independentby Melinda Burns Mentioned: Carlsbad Desalination Plant

If you were thirsting for some good news about the water crisis, the panelists at the Lobero Theater on Sunday had some.

It’s true, they said, that 700 million people around the globe are without access to safe drinking water. Polluted rivers still catch on fire. People still get sick from water-borne diseases such as cholera, and from lead poisoning, as in Flint, Michigan. In California, where aqueducts crisscross the state, every source of water, including rivers, lakes, and underground basins, is over-committed, both legally and physically, the experts said. Even absent the drought, there is not enough water.

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The Weird Weather That Entrenched California’s Drought

/in /by /Climate Central (New York)by John Upton

Several months after storms fueled by a fierce El Niño exploded over the northern Sierra Nevada, California’s mountain snowpack has nearly disappeared.

Scientists bid adieu last week to an El Niño that had been among the strongest on record, but that brought disappointingly few wintertime snowflakes and raindrops to the Southwest. Snow that bucketed down in northern California during a string of March storms has largely withered during a sunny and warm spring.

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California Grape Production Continues to Set the Bar High

/in /by /The Produce News (Oradell, N.J.)by Lora Abcarian

 

Fresh grape production in California continues to supply global consumers with a premium standard that has set the bar high.

Looking at production during 2015, Barry Bedwell, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association told The Produce News, “We had 110.5 million boxes of grapes.” This bodes well for an industry, which set a record for 2014 value of production of $1.83 billion. For 2016, Bedwell said estimates are that 117 million boxes of grapes will be produced.

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Heat Wave — ‘One for the Record Books’ — to Slam LA

/in /by /Curbed LAby Jenna Chandler

Haven’t these chilly mornings and evenings felt nice? Don’t take the drizzle and gray for granted. That marine layer is expected to dissipate this weekend as a serious heat wave threatening to break high-temperature records lands in Los Angeles.

“There is a very real chance that this heat wave will be one for the record books,” says the National Weather Service. Temperatures will start rising steadily Friday. They’ll reach the 90-degree range on Saturday, creep into the mid-90s on Sunday, and peak Monday, when max temperatures in the valley will soar somewhere between 110 and 118 degrees, according the Weather Service.

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California’s Cap-and-Trade Program Faces Daunting Hurdles to Avoid Collapse

/in /by /Los Angeles Times by Chris Megerian and Ralph Vartabedian

The linchpin of California’s climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles that threaten to derail the state’s plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The program has been a symbol of the state’s leadership in the fight against global warming and a key source of funding, most notably for the high-speed rail project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. But the legality of cap and trade is being challenged in court by a business group, and questions are growing about whether state law allows it to operate past 2020.

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Groups Petition State to Address Predatory Fish in Delta

/in /by /Capital Press (Salem, Ore.)by Tim Hearden

Two farm groups have joined a broad coalition that wants the state Fish and Game Commission to address the issue of non-native, predatory fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The California Farm Bureau Federation and Western Growers have teamed with water districts and conservation groups to petition the state body, asking that fishing controls for several types of bass be loosened or lifted. The groups say invasive black bass, striped bass and other predators are feeding on threatened and endangered salmon and smelt, which are native to the Delta region.

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Do Southern California Water Wholesalers Have Enough Supply for 3 More Years of Drought?

/in /by /89.3 KPCC (Pasadena)by Emily Guerin

Wednesday will be a day of reckoning for California water wholesalers like Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District (MWD). They have to prove to the state that they have enough water to get through three more years of drought. If they don’t, they need to figure out how much they need to save. It’s a big change from the way the state was regulating water just a month ago. Let’s break it down.

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Fun Fact: Lots of California Isn’t Metering Its Water

/in /by /WIRED (Boone, Iowa)by Nick Stockton

Last June, the State Water Resources Control Board (water board, from here on) warned some senior rights holders that the surface supplies did not contain enough water to meet their needs. Several kept slurping, and the water board slapped one offender (the Byron Bethany Irrigation District) with a $1.5 million fine. Byron Bethany appealed. Last week, after an internal review failed to turn up enough evidence that the water shortage would affect Byron Bethany’s allotment, the water board dropped the fine.

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BLOG: What Climate Change Means for San Diego’s Water

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Padma Nagappan Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego imports 80 percent of its water, with the Colorado River supplying about 63 percent, and 20 percent coming from Sierra Nevada runoff funneled from northern California via the State Water Project. The remaining 17 percent comes from local sources – a mix of rainwater, groundwater, desalination and recycled water.

While these numbers vary from year to year, what hasn’t changed is the fact that San Diego has relied heavily on imported water for many decades. With climate change heralding warmer weather and prolonged droughts, this impacts the level of snowpack and river flow, which in turn threatens the region’s water security.

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Federal Judge Wants More Details Before Ruling in Nestle Lawsuit

/in /by /The San Bernardino County Sunby Jim Steinberg

A federal judge Monday said he needed more information before he can determine if the government has erred in allowing Nestle to continuously withdraw millions of gallons of water annually from Strawberry Creek — 28 years after the company’s permit expired.

Judge Jesus G. Bernal asked both U.S. Forest Service attorney Andrew Smith and Matt Kenna, representing the environmentalist-plaintiffs, to provide briefs examining whether certain U.S. Forest Service regulations fall under the Federal Administrative Procedures Act, which proscribes how the federal government goes about its business.

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