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We Should Stop Wasting Water

/in /by /Valley News (Riverside)by By Marie Waldron

As most of you know, water remains one of the most pressing issues facing our state and region. Whether or not our drought is ending cannot yet be determined, though future droughts are a certainty.

I have long supported initiatives that would increase local water supplies. While a member of the Escondido City Council, I was an early supporter of the `toilet to tree’ plan. I joined with Escondido Growers for Agricultural Preservation (EGAP) to support using recycled wastewater to irrigate the citrus and avocado groves on the city’s perimeter. Since the capacity of the city’s outfall pipeline that delivers Escondido’s excess wastewater to the ocean is insufficient for future growth, a costly upgrade will soon become necessary. Instead of spending millions to upgrade the pipeline, Escondido is now building the first part of a multi-phased project to deliver this water to local farmers and other users. While this solution won’t work everywhere, the plan could become a model for the entire state.

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California’s Drive to Save Water Is Killing Trees, Hurting Utilities and Raising Taxes

/in /by /The Washington Post by By Darryl Fears

Everywhere he goes, Anthony Ambrose sees the dead and dying.
They haunt this city’s streets, the browning yards of stylish homes, the scenic grounds of the local University of California campus and dry roadway medians. They’re urban trees, thirsty for water as the state enters the fifth year of the worst drought in its history, and thousands are keeling over.

“It’s definitely not a good thing,” said Ambrose, a researcher at the university who studies forest ecosystems. “They’re not as visual, they’re not as pretty. Along the highway you see a lot of dead redwoods. I feel sorry for the trees.”

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Snowpack Experts Not Concerned About Unseasonably Warm Weather in Southwest

/in /by /The Durango Herald (Durango, Colo.)by By Jessica Pace

A mild, dry winter spell like the one Durango experienced this February is generally accompanied by concerns about snowpack and the coming spring.

Last week on Sunday and Monday, temperatures reached their warmest this month when they climbed to 54 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

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Lake Tahoe Level Rises But Mild Weather Puts Brakes On Sierra Snowpack

/in /by /CBS (San Francisco)

The water level at Lake Tahoe continues to rise, but a dry February is putting the brakes on the heavy snowpack that was fueling relief earlier this winter from four years of drought on both sides of the Sierra.

Lake Tahoe has risen to within about 9 inches of its natural rim, but that’s still far short of the average this time of year of more than 2 feet above the rim, National Weather Service hydrologist Tim Bardsley said.

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El Nino: NASA Describes What California Should Expect Next

/in /by /ABC 30 (Fresno)by By Leslie Lopez

NASA is breaking down the effects of El Nino across California and what the state should expect next. The agency says there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that warm El Nino water is still present in the Pacific, so there is still time to get some good El Nino storms in both Southern California and Northern California.

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OPINION: Feinstein and Costa Sound Like Broken Records

/in /by /The Fresno Bee

California Democrats are so predictable, they’re like a broken record playing a bad song over and over. Every election cycle they propose “new” legislation or hype their “prior efforts” to help solve our state’s water-supply crisis.

This time Sen. Dianne Feinstein is proposing “new” legislation that would do nothing to solve the underlying causes of California’s water supply crisis – rigid, scientifically groundless, environmental regulations that so far this year have allowed enough water to flow to the ocean to fill six Millerton lakes, about 3 million acre-feet.

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Will Weakening El Nino Give Way to La Nina?

/in /by /Discovery Newsby By Patrick J. Kiger

Unless you’ve been hibernating with Punxsutawney Phil this winter, chances are that you know about El Niño, a periodic warming in surface ocean temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean, which has been altering weather across the globe. The effects have ranged from wildfire-causing droughts in Indonesia to ocean storms off the coast of Chile, with waves massive enough to rush up onto land and flip an SUV.

An El Niño’s effect on weather can be complex, and in some cases didn’t behave as predicted. In drought-ravaged California, for example, meteorologists thought the ocean temperature phenomenon probably would bring above-average rain to the southern part of the state in January, with a lesser chance of precipitation in the north.

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BLOG: Drought’s Economic Impact on Farmers

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by By Tara Lohan

Earlier this month a report from California’s agriculture department found that even despite severe drought conditions, California’s farmers had record sales of $53.5 billion in 2014.

“With the punishing drought entering its fifth year, the figures are sure to stoke tensions between farmers on one side and, on the other, city-dwellers and environmentalists, who complain they are being forced to make greater sacrifices than growers,” wrote the Associated Press in an article about the report.

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Names, Addresses of DWP Customers Who Received Turf Rebates Are Released

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby By Taylor Goldenstein

After a seven-month legal battle, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Friday released the names and addresses of thousands of Los Angeles residents who received cash rebates for replacing their lawns.

Nearly three dozen Angelenos received rebates of $10,000 or more, the data show. The largest single rebate among the nearly 3,400 Los Angeles residents who received a payout was $25,000 for the owner of a single-family home in Brentwood.

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Water Savings Slip as Drought Persists

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby By Joshua Emerson Smith Quoted: Dana Friehauf

Water savings by Californians continued to dip in January for the sixth straight month, raising questions about whether conservation efforts will satisfy Gov. Jerry Brown’s aggressive 25 percent reduction target.

Regulators announced Thursday that residents cut water use by 17.1 percent last month when compared with the same time period in 2013, the baseline year under the mandate.

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