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Spring Storms Help Snowpack As California Drought Persists

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by By Ed Joyce

There was no change in drought conditions last week in California and Nevada, but spring storms added snow to the northern Sierra Nevada.

The U.S. Drought Monitor released April 28 shows that slightly more than 4 percent of California, in the northwest part of the state, is not in drought. But, unlike the previous update, which showed extreme and exceptional drought had eased in the state, there were no changes in this week’s report (which has a cutoff day of Tuesday).

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Diamond Valley Lake Ramp Reopening in May

/in /by /Press-Enterprise (Riverside)by By Bob Pratter

Wednesday, April 28, was a happy time at Diamond Valley Lake as news spread that rising water levels will enable private boat launching to resume May 18.

 

The lake’s massive concrete launch ramp, which has a vertical rise similar to an 11-story building, closed a year ago because of low water levels caused by the drought. MWD officials drew the lake down 115 feet below its high-water mark to supply customers during the water shortage. That left the ramp dry.

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OPINION: Delta Islands Purchase is to Restore Wetlands, Not Capture Water

/in /by /San Jose Mercury News by By Jeffrey Kightlinger

There is talk that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is purchasing four islands and tracts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to construct a reservoir project to divert more water from the estuary. It’s not true, and events will prove so in the days and weeks ahead.

 But the prevalence of this opinion, which even finds its way into newspaper pages such as this one, gets to the heart of a far more troubling issue. Too much of our discourse about the Delta is based on fear rather than reality. 
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Plan to enlarge Los Vaqueros Reservoir gains momentum

/in /by /San Jose Mercury Newsby Paul Rogers

For nearly two decades, Los Vaqueros Reservoir — a sprawling lake in eastern Contra Costa County nearly 3 miles long and 170 feet deep — has been a popular spot for boating, fishing, hiking and a key source of water for local residents.

But now, after years of drought and new money available from a 2014 state bond measure to fund water projects, a long-standing idea to dramatically enlarge the reservoir to help provide drought insurance to cities all the way to San Jose is gaining momentum.

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Little rain, but El Niño brings deluge of data for local scientists

/in /by /89.3 KPCC (Pasadena)by Sanden Totten

Still, the phenomenon did bring warmer than average ocean temperatures and some extremely high tides. And that was a big silver lining for scientists hoping to learn more about how climate change is expected to affect coastal areas in the future.

Over the past few months, researchers spent days surveying beaches, wetlands and tide pools to see how warmer, rising seas affect ecosystems and coastal communities.

“It’s incredibly useful for thinking about our future” said Sarah Giddings, a researcher with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

 

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Is El Niño Over? Not By a Long Shot

/in /by /Outside Magazine (New Mexico)by Andrew Lewis

“Don’t count it out yet,” Klaus Wolter, a research scientist at CU Boulder and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association’s Earth System Research Laboratory, told me recently. It was a warm April day in Boulder, Colorado, where the lab is located, and Wolter, an El Niño expert wearing a short-sleeve floral print shirt, seemed excited for the change of season. We were on our way to the “War Room”—an otherwise innocuous conference room save for the large screen on the wall featuring various spinning, crimson-splashed El Niño weather models.

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“Unreasonable” Water Use Could Earn Angelenos A $40,000 Fine

/in /by /Buzz Feed News (New York)by Jim Dalrymple II

Los Angeles water wasters could be fined up to $40,000 per month under new regulations created in response to a crushing drought that’s poised to stretch into a fifth year.

Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the new regulations into law Wednesday. They allow the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to fine homeowners between $1,000 and $40,000 for what Garcetti described in a statement as “unreasonable use.”

 

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L.A.’s water wasters will soon face heavier fines and audits

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Matt Stevens

As regulators mull softening the state’s drought restrictions amid outcry from some Northern California water districts, water wasters in Los Angeles will soon face stiffer fines and water audits under a plan approved this week by Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Under the city’s amended water conservation plan, which will take effect Tuesday, the Department of Water and Power will be able to fine residents between $1,000 and $40,000 a month for what it deems “unreasonable use” of water when the city is in an elevated phase of its emergency drought plan.

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Carlsbad Desalination Plant Named International Plant of the Year for 2016

/in /by /Seaside Courier (Encinitas) Quoted: Mark Weston

The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant has been honored with a Global Water Award as the Desalination Plant of the Year for 2016 by Global Water Intelligence, publisher of periodicals for the international water industry.

The award, announced this week at the Global Water Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, goes to “the desalination plant, commissioned during 2015, that represents the most impressive technical or ecologically sustainable achievement in the industry.”

 

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Federal Water Bill Would Boost Salton Sea Projects

/in /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by By Bartholomew Sullivan

A major water resources bill introduced Tuesday in the Senate would allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to partner with local governments and other agencies – not just California officials – on projects to address the problems of the shrinking Salton Sea.

The bill also would require the Army Corps of Engineers to present plans for completing projects that involve restoring ecosystems such as those at the Salton Sea, and that are aimed at tackling threats to public health.

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