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BLOG: What Lake Mead’s Record Low Means for California

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Michael Levitin

When the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced last month that the country’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, had fallen to its lowest-ever level at 1,074ft (327m), the question many asked was: How will it affect one of California’s primary drinking sources?

After all, some 19 million Californians, nearly half the state’s population, receive some part of their water from the Colorado River, which flows into the 80-year-old reservoir created by Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas.

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California Drought Bummer: Sierra Water Runoff Coming Up Short

/in /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Kurtis Alexander

The El Niño-fueled storms that coated the Sierra with nearly normal snow this winter brought blasts of hope to drought-weary California.

But after the flurries stopped and the seasons changed, the melt-off from the high country has been swift and disappointingly scant, according to new water supply estimates from the state. The Department of Water Resources now projects that the mountains will produce about three quarters of normal runoff during the months of heaviest snowmelt, shorting the rivers and reservoirs that typically provide a third of California’s water — and cementing a fifth year of historic drought for the Golden State.

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Desalination Plant Again Faces Environmental Questions

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Quoted: Bob Yamada

Carlsbad’s new desalination plant went through years of regulatory review and faced 14 legal challenges from environmental groups before it opened last year. Six months after opening, it’s still facing regulatory hurdles, including one that’ll make the water it produces more expensive.

The plant is also facing claims from regulators that it’s having a larger effect on greenhouse gas emissions than its developers promised, and that the desalination process could be hurting nearby ocean life.

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Twin Fires Burn More than 4,500 Acres and Trigger Evacuations in San Gabriel Valley

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Veronica Rocha , Nina Agrawal and Matt Hamilton

Two sprawling wildfires tore through at least 4,500 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains on Monday, and only a canyon prevented the blazes from merging into one massive inferno, fire officials said.

The two brush fires broke out in Azusa and Duarte amid a blistering heat wave, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes and at least 750 residents. The first blaze, called the Reservoir fire, was reported about 11 a.m. at Highway 39 in the San Gabriel Mountains, said Andrew Mitchell, spokesman for the Angeles National Forest.

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Imperial Beach Braces for Rising Sea Levels

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Maya Srikrishnan

Imperial Beach is surrounded by water on three sides: the Pacific Ocean to the west, the bay to the north and the Tijuana River to the south.

That means it’s always endured storm surges and cross-border pollution, but the city is now coming to terms with another environmental reality: rising sea levels that could eventually impact 30 percent of the city’s properties, 40 percent of its roads, an elementary school and more. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts sea levels could rise up to six and a half feet by 2100, a projection that would be dire for Imperial Beach.

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OPINION: Welcome to Another Summer Apocalypse

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

With triple-digit heat, a full moon and fires raging from Santa Barbara County to the Mexican border, another summer straight out of end times has arrived.

Monday’s summer solstice followed an unsettling 13 consecutive months of record-setting heat on this planet, in a year that is on track to be, yet again, the hottest ever. Across the American West, warnings of dangerous heat have been issued, spanning four states and some 40 million people. At least five deaths have been attributed to the heat wave so far in Arizona, which hit 120 degrees in Yuma.

 

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The Latest: Record-Setting High Temps Around California

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by Watertown Daily Times - Watertown, Wis.)

A severe heat wave has set new record highs for several cities in Southern California. The National Weather Service says the thermometer hit 112 degrees in Lancaster, breaking the old record of 110 degrees set for the same day in 1961.

The service says a record high temperature was set at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank with 111 degrees. That breaks the old record of 106 degrees set for this date in 2008. Forecasters expect Monday to be the peak of the heat wave. Officials say about 20,000 customers were without electricity when outages were at their worst Monday.

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California to Fire Up Burners to Battle Dead Tree Epidemic

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by Capital Press - Salem, Ore.)by Scott Smith

California’s drought and a bark beetle epidemic have caused the largest die-off of Sierra Nevada forests in modern history, raising fears that trees could come crashing down on people or fuel deadly wildfires that could wipe out mountain communities.

Aerial images show vast forests that have turned a rust-color. The epidemic has killed an estimated 40 million trees since 2010 in the central and southern Sierra, and it’s spreading north. Officials who are cutting down and stacking the most dangerous trees in piles across six counties, however, say they are stumped by how to get rid of them all.

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Temperatures in Excess of 100 Degrees Prompt Calls for Energy Savings

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ivan Penn

Sweltering temperatures across Southern California prompted calls Monday for electricity customers to reduce their energy use to help reduce strain on a system already weakened by the absence of the troubled Aliso Canyon natural gas storage plant.

Utility companies urged their residential customers to voluntarily delay washing clothes and dishes until bedtime and to keep their thermostats at 78 degrees or higher. In addition, the power companies asked business customers to voluntarily suspend unnecessary daytime operations such as production line work until nightfall.

 

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Melting Snow, Water Releases and La Niña Complicate California’s Drought Picture

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Phillip Reese

First, the good news: This winter, much of the Sierra had a near-average snowpack. Now, the bad news: It has melted early.

Word of the vanishing Sierra snowpack, which usually helps replenish reservoir levels later in the summer, arrives amid uncertainty over how California’s dams will be managed in coming months to protect endangered fish. It also comes at a critical juncture for urban water officials across the state. Wednesday is their deadline to submit updated drought conservation plans that lay out projections of how much water will be available to customers over the next three years.

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