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Some water agencies say ‘no’ to mandated water cuts despite drought

/in /by /89.3 KPCCby Emily Guerin

Municipal water agencies across California are required to report to state officials by midnight Wednesday on whether they have enough water to withstand three more years of drought. If they don’t, a new state conservation plan requires them to calculate how much they need to start saving to meet anticipated demand.

Officials with the State Water Resources Control Board are calling it a “stress test.”

But what if many of the state’s 400-plus local water agencies don’t find much stress?

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26 million trees have died in the Sierra since October, raising fire risk

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Matt Stevens and Corina Knoll

A lethal combination of drought, heat and voracious bark beetles has killed 26 million trees in the Sierra Nevada over the last eight months — an alarming finding for a state already raging with wildfires fueled by desiccated landscapes.

The dire estimate offered Wednesday by federal officials brings the loss of trees since 2010 to at least 66 million, a number that is expected to increase considerably throughout the year, despite an average winter of rain and snow that brought some relief to urban Californians.

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‘Seismic strain’: Land around the San Andreas fault is rising and sinking, new earthquake research shows

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Rong-Gong Lin II

For the first time, scientists have produced a computer image showing huge sections of California rising and sinking around the San Andreas fault.

The vertical movement is the result of seismic strain that will be ultimately released in a large earthquake.

The San Andreas fault is California’s longest earthquake fault, and one of the state’s most dangerous. Scientists have long expected that parts of California are rising — and other parts sinking — around the fault in a way that is ongoing, very subtle and extremely slow.

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Baby bald eagle gets its own ‘no fly zone’ as choppers battle wildfire

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Nina Agrawal

Firefighters battling a pair of wildfires in the San Gabriel Mountains have been instructed to avoid a 1,000-foot radius area around a nest where a baby eagle is getting ready to fledge, a U.S. Forest Service official said Wednesday.

The bald eagle’s nest is not located in part of the forest where the Reservoir and Fish fires are burning. The buffer zone above and around the nest is intended for water-dumping helicopters, which create noise and air turbulence that could disturb the chick, said Ann Berkley, a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service.

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No Easy Path to Implementing California Groundwater Law

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (As Published by KPBS)by Amy Quinton

The state’s new groundwater management laws mean Californians no longer have unfettered use of underground water.

State law will require the creation of local agencies with sweeping powers to meter wells, tax and penalize anyone who overuses groundwater. If agencies aren’t created by next year, state regulators can take over. The wine region of Paso Robles is among the 21 groundwater basins the state has deemed critically overdrafted. That means more water is pumped out than can be replenished.

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Consortium Wins Bid for Rosarito Desal Plant

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Sandra Dibble

Baja California’s state government has selected a bidder for the construction of a massive desalination plant in Rosarito Beach that eventually could supply water to San Diego County.

The winning bid, announced last week, came from a consortium of two foreign companies — Nuwater of Singapore and the French company Degremont — as well as a Mexican company, NSC Agua, which is a subsidiary of Cayman Islands-based Consolidated Water.

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BLOG: Will Water Sector Help or Hurt on Climate Change?

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York) Quoted: Kelly Rodgers

California has been diligently trying to reduce use of fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 350, which requires 50 percent of the electricity from utilities to come from renewable sources by 2030.

But it’s not just energy utilities that can add more renewables to their portfolios – water suppliers can, as well, although they aren’t mandated to do so. It takes a lot of energy to pump, treat and deliver drinking water, and to treat and dispose of wastewater. Some water travels hundreds of miles from source to tap.

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RCWD Moves to Drought Stage 3c, Restoring Customers Efficient Water Budget

/in /by /Valley News (Fallbrook)

Rancho California Water District’s board of directors voted June 9 to move out of Stage 4a and into Stage 3c of the District’s Water Shortage Contingency Plan.

The move will restore residential, landscape, agricultural, and commercial customer’s efficient budgets to 100 percent and will continue to encourage customers to use water efficiently. The Board also voted to remove the drought penalty charges that were added to tier 4.

 

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California Proposes Adopting New Permitting Program for Wetlands and Waters of the State

/in /by /The National Law Review (Western Springs, Ill.)

On June 17, 2017, the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) published proposed amendments to the Ocean Plan and the water quality control plan for Inland Surface Waters and Enclosed Bays and Estuaries and Ocean Waters of California to adopt procedures for discharges of dredged or fill material to waters of the state that are not protected by the federal Clean Water Act (CWA).

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Drought Conditions Improve in West

/in /by /Feedstuffs (Bloomington, Minn.)by Krissa Welshans

In May, the West saw the biggest decreases in drought areas, while the Southeast saw the biggest increases, according to National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) climatologist Deborah Bathke.

A steady improvement in conditions in northern California and western Nevada led to a reduction of extreme (D3) and severe (D4) drought in these areas. “Extreme southeastern California and the northwestern parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico also saw changes for the better, with some removal of moderate drought conditions,” Bathke noted.

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