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In response to dozens of pending protests, state and federal officials asked for a two-month delay in hearings that could decide the fate of Gov. Jerry Brown’s controversial plan to build two massive tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

On Monday, the state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – the agencies that run the huge Delta pumps – requested a 60-day continuance on hearings that were scheduled to begin in early May at the State Water Resources Control Board.

 

 

 

Almarai Co., Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company, has bought about 14,000 acres in drought-stricken Southern California and Arizona in an effort to grow hay for its massive herd of cows. The purchase has fueled debate over whether a patchwork of laws and court rulings give too much weight to growers of thirsty crops such as alfalfa.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced funding to five institutions to research human and ecological health impacts associated with water reuse and conservation practices.

“Increasing demand for water resources is putting pressure on the finite supply of drinking water in some areas of the United States,” said Thomas A. Burke, EPA Science Advisor and Deputy Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “The research announced today will help us manage and make efficient use of the water supply in the long term.”

California’s snowpack usually reaches its peak in the early spring each year near the first of April. Melting of the snowpack increases as the sun’s path across the sky moves a little northward each day and solar radiation intensifies on the ground.

Snowpack surveys by the Department of Water Resource (DWR) in late March and early April are indicators of how much water California will reap from the melting snowpack, which in normal years provides about 30 percent of the state’s water.