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Without a Statewide Water Supply Target, California’s Future is at Risk

/in , , /by /Capitol Weeklyby Heather Dyer and Graham Knaus

If you don’t already know, it will surprise you to learn that for all the attention that our state’s water supply receives in California – for all the worry and effort it takes to make sure there’s enough for our 40 million residents, 24 million acres of farmland, countless acres of natural environment, and status as the world’s fifth-largest economy (of which its agriculture and environment are huge parts) – no statewide goal exists to ensure a sustainable water supply for California’s future. What big, bold vision has ever been achieved without first setting a goal?

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Big Year of Rain Means Big Budget Hole at Metropolitan

/in , , /by /Voice of San Diegoby MacKenzie Elmer Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

California’s biggest water supplier is hurting for cash this year as the recent record-breaking rainy winter means its customers need to buy less water.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is facing a more than $300 million budget shortfall – about a quarter of its normal revenue from selling water.

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Feds Are Flooding California’s Water Market

/in , , /by /Politicoby Blanca Begert, Wes Venteicher and Alex Nieves

WATER PRICE LINE RISING: Who could forget last May, when Arizona, California and Nevada made a three-year pact to conserve water from the Colorado River? Many thought it couldn’t be done, but with Lake Mead reservoir levels at a historic low, and the federal government poised to wrest control of the process, the states agreed to conserve 10 percent of their water — nearly a billion gallons — between now and 2026.

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Metropolitan Water District Forges Partnerships to Secure Colorado River Water in Lake Mead

/in , , /by /The Desert Reviewby Betty Miller Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

In a pivotal move addressing California’s water conservation goals and reinforcing partnerships in the face of the ongoing Colorado River drought, the Metropolitan Water District is seeking authorization for its General Manager to establish agreements with the Coachella Valley Water District, Imperial Irrigation District, and San Diego County Water Authority. These agreements aim to facilitate the addition of water to Lake Mead under the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program for the year 2023.

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Opinion: This Water Project is Expensive, Wasteful and Ecologically Damaging. Why is It Being Fast-Tracked?

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Michael Hiltzik

Noah Cross, the sinister plutocrat of the movie
“Chinatown,” remarked that “politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

He might have added public works projects to that list: If they get talked about long enough, sometimes they acquire the image of inevitability. That seems to be the case with the Sites Reservoir, a water project in the western Sacramento Valley that originated during the Eisenhower administration.

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The Future of the Colorado River Hinges on One Young Negotiator

/in , , /by /ProPublicaby Mark Olalde and Janet Wilson

John Brooks Hamby was 9 years old the last time a group of Western states renegotiated how they share the dwindling Colorado River. When the high-stakes talks concluded two years later, in 2007, with a round of painful cuts, he hadn’t reached high school.

Yet this June an audience of water policy experts listened with rapt attention as Hamby, now 27, recited lessons from those deliberations.

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Sites Project Authority Certifies Sites Reservoir’s Final Environmental Report

/in , , /by /CBS News Sacramentoby Brandon Downs

An important milestone was reached Friday for the construction of another reservoir in California. The Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for Sites Reservoir was certified and the Sites Reservoir Project was approved by the Sites Project Authority, the lead agency under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Next up for the Sites Project Authority is to move the project through the final planning stages. After getting through the final stages, crews will begin building the reservoir.

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What an El Niño Winter Could Mean for California

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Soumya Karlamangla

Odds are that this winter’s going to be a wet one. The intermittent climate phenomenon known as El Niño, which typically means more rain and snow for California, developed over the summer and is expected to intensify in the next few months. And this year’s El Niño is predicted to be an exceptionally strong one — maybe even ranking in the top five on record, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at U.C.L.A.

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Turf Replacement Rebates To Increase Thanks To $38M Grant

/in , , /by /Patchby Paige Austin

A $38 million state grant awarded this week will be used to increase rebates to businesses and institutions that replace turf with water-efficient landscaping as a deadline looms to phase out turf at commercial, industrial, municipal and institutional properties.

In addition to the rebate program, the money will also be used to help thousands of low- income households install water-efficient irrigation systems.

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County Water Authority Pulls the Plug on Lawsuit Challenging Fallbrook, Rainbow Detachment

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Jeff McDonald Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

What began as a brash legal complaint that millions of ratepayers faced historic damage ended with a fizzle this week as the San Diego County Water Authority voted in closed session to settle a lawsuit filed earlier this year.

The water authority board approved an agreement to end its litigation challenging the plan by the Fallbrook Public Utilities District and Rainbow Municipal Water District to leave the broader agency and join the Eastern Municipal Water District of Riverside County.

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