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San Diego County Reduces Water Use by 23% in April

/in /by /Times of San Diego Quoted: Mark Weston

Customers in San Diego County cut back on water consumption by 23 percent in April, compared to the same month three years ago, marking the largest monthly reduction since September, the San Diego County Water Authority reported Monday.

The state-mandated target for the county as a whole is to reduce consumption by 13 percent compared to the corresponding month in 2013. The goal was lowered recently from 20 percent after the region was given credit for bringing a desalination plant in Carlsbad online.

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San Diego’s Losing Its Grip on the Avocado Market

/in /by /Voice of San Diego by By Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Like any plants, avocados need water to thrive. But lately, water has been causing a lot of headaches for San Diego’s avocado farmers.

Water rates have soared over the past several years. And as San Diego water officials have scrambled to assemble a drought-proof water supply, they’ve begun to rely more on water from the Colorado River. That water, it turns out, is quite salty. Avocado trees are particularly sensitive to salt.

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California Water Bill Has Three Possible Paths for Passage

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee by Michael Doyle

House Republicans this week are adding a controversial California water bill to an unrelated Senate energy package, opening a new front in a fight that’s already put Democrats on the defensive.

The unexpected energy bill maneuver gives San Joaquin Valley lawmakers a third vehicle they might propel all the way to the White House. At the least, it builds up steam for the GOP drive to boost California water storage and divert more irrigation deliveries to Valley farms.

 

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As Lake Mead Swindles, Can An Interstate Water War Be Far Behind?

/in /by /Los Angeles Times by Michael Hiltzik

The last time two states went to war over water, it was 1934. The combatants were California and Arizona and the casus belli was the start of construction of Parker Dam, which would direct water from the Colorado River into California via the Colorado River Aqueduct.

The episode unfolded with a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan absurdity. Arizona’s governor, Benjamin Baker Moeur, dispatched a handful of National Guardsmen upriver in a ferryboat named the Julia B., which frontline correspondents dispatched to the river by The Times and other California newspapers happily dubbed the “Arizona Navy.”

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OPINION: Many Myths in San Joaquin River Politics

/in /by /The Fresno Bee

There have been repeated false claims by The Bee’s guest opinion writers and letter writers stating that San Joaquin River water is being “wasted” to the sea.

In fact, not one drop of restoration water in the San Joaquin River over the last five years has reached the ocean. Just drive across the riverbed out by Los Banos on Highway 152 if you want proof. All of this water is going to farmers, not fish.

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Northern California Hit By More Rain and Snow

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by Los Angeles Times)

It’s already late May. But parts of Northern California got another blast of rain and snow this weekend, helping the state’s drought relief efforts.

A spring storm dropped rain in parts of Northern California on Saturday afternoon, but it was less severe than the one a day earlier that dumped up to 13 inches of snow on a Sierra Nevada highway and hit the Sacramento area lightning, winds gusting to 40 mph and dime-sized hail.

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Spring Storm Drops Rain in Parts of Northern California

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by The Orange County Register)

A spring storm dropped rain in parts of Northern California on Saturday afternoon, but it was less severe than the one a day earlier that dumped up to 13 inches of snow on a Sierra Nevada highway and hit the Sacramento area lightning, winds gusting to 40 mph and dime-sized hail.

Some arriving flights at San Francisco International Airport were delayed for up to 90 minutes on Friday. Meanwhile, traffic was snarled on Interstate 80 in the northern Sierra Nevada for hours as crews plowed as much as a foot of snow and dealt with dozens of spinouts and minor crashes.

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Yorba Linda Legal Fight Turns Nasty as Residents Seek to Overturn Water Rate Hike

/in /by /Los Angeles Times by Matt Stevens

With its tract homes, expansive lots and rural soul, Yorba Linda exemplifies the sort of sleepy suburb that would coin the motto “Land of Gracious Living.”

Recently, though, this upscale Orange County city of 66,000 has been anything but. Longtime residents are engaged in a legal brawl with their water provider, punctuated by vitriol and name-calling that some say reminds them of the 2016 presidential campaign. At issue is a $25-per-month rate hike that Yorba Linda Water District officials say was needed to keep the agency solvent after state-mandated water conservation blew a hole in its budget.

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Garamendi, Congress Take Another Stab at Water Legislation

/in /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby By Jim Smith

Congress could be taking another swing at modernizing the state’s water management policies to provide both short- and long-term solutions, under legislation introduced by 3rd District Congressman John Garamendi, D-Fairfield.

Whether the package introduced Tuesday will make it through Congress, however, is anyone’s guess. California lawmakers have been trying for the last three years to produce a plan that would deal with the state’s drought without success. Meanwhile, in related action, the California Farm Bureau Federation urged the U.S. Senate to take up drought legislation.

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Cloud Seeding Can Only go so Far in Fighting California Drought

/in /by /The San Luis Obispo Tribune by By John Lindsey

Despite the strongest El Niño event on record and the well above normal amounts of rainfall it brought to Northern California, the worst category of drought (D4 Exceptional Drought) continues to persist throughout most of San Luis Obispo and Kern counties and all of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Since the start of 2016, nearly all the long-range models have consistently advertised that a La Niña condition — which historically produces below average rainfall for the Central Coast — will develop in the eastern equatorial Pacific this upcoming winter.

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