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California Drought: Water Allocation Has Winners, Losers

/in /by /Marin Independent Journal by By Paul Rogers

In the latest sign of California’s improving drought picture, federal officials announced Friday that cities will receive 55 percent of their contracted water amounts this summer — up from 25 percent last year — from the Central Valley Project, California’s largest water delivery system.

Heavy rains in March boosted the amount of water in Northern California’s large reservoirs such as Shasta and Folsom, allowing farmers in the Sacramento Valley and wildlife refuges to receive 100 percent of their contracted amounts, while the Contra Costa Water District also will receive 100 percent, up from 25 percent a year ago.

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Farmers Howl as Feds Unveil Central Valley Water Deliveries

/in /by /E&E News (Washington, D.C.)by By Debra Kahn

The Bureau of Reclamation today announced wildly differing amounts of water that drought-strapped farmers in the California delta can expect from federal pumps this year.

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Get ready for another summer of SoCal drought

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

All of this means drought conditions will continue clobbering Southern California for the time being. That’s bad news for farmers like Chris Sayer of Petty Ranch in Ventura County. He grows citrus and avocado trees. Lately, the leaves on some plants have started going brown.

“A lot of these leaves look really stressed, you can see how the tips of them are all dried out,” Sayer explained as he walked past an avocado grove.

 

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OPINION: California’s Most Pressing Need: Water

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

As if we needed more proof, the Sierra snow survey last week made clear that Californians must continue to conserve water while working to build a more reliable water system.

The snowpack is roughly normal in Northern California. But the situation is worse in Southern California, where El Niño was a bust, delivering half of normal rainfall.

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Not All Appreciated Big Net Cast for Records

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by By Lauryn Schroeder

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California made the argument that the district’s email servers are often used for personal business, and are therefore the realm of private communications.

Even though the U-T asked only for official emails on government accounts, the district claimed emails sent by a government employee on an official account saying “what a disaster” would not be relevant to government activities.

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Feds to Announce Water Allotment for Some California Farms

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Federal officials will say how much water some California farmers can expect to receive this year in one of the nation’s most productive agricultural regions.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s announcement on Friday affects San Joaquin Valley farmers, spanning California’s interior from Stockton to Bakersfield. It is home to about one-third of California’s farmland. Because of drought, many of the farms in the last two years received no water from a vast system of reservoirs and canals.

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How Much Rain Did SoCal Receive This Winter? Not Much at all

/in /by /KPCC (Pasadena)by Aaron Mendelson

It’s the last day of March, which means it’s the end of the six-month period during which Southern California receives most of its rain. So, during this El Niño winter, how much rain did the region get?

Not much at all. A number close to 100 would mean it had been a typical year for precipitation—and this year the L.A. area is still about 40 percentage points below that. With just a few hours left in March, it will be impossible to make that up.

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Water Agency: ‘Relax’ Conservation Mandate For Northern California

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

Some water providers in northern California say that with near-normal northern Sierra snowpack, state water managers should “relax” conservation mandates for the region.

The comments come a day after the season’s last Sierra Nevada snowpack measurement and as the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report shows drought has eased slightly in northwest California. Extreme drought still covers 55 percent of the state and exceptional drought nearly 35 percent of California.

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Proposed California Ballot Measure Funds Water Storage Projects

/in /by /Capital Press (Salem, Ore.)by By Bruce Colbert

Ballot measure establishes in the California Constitution — above the reach of politicians, bureaucrats, special interests or judges — that the priorities of water use are: domestic use first, and irrigation use second.

A proposed California ballot measure funds water storage projects to address the state’s immediate water supply needs. The proposed Reallocation of Bond Authority to Water Storage Initiative also prioritizes water uses in California by putting people and growing food first in the California Constitution. For 25 years, politicians, bureaucrats, special interests and the courts have made other uses of water more important than domestic and irrigation uses.

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Study Reveals Hidden Value of Baja California Mangroves in Climate Change Fight

/in /by /Los Angeles Times by By Joshua Emerson Smith

As climate change has heightened concerns about the global decline of mangroves, a study released this week found that such ecosystems along the desert coast of Baja California may be more important than previously thought for keeping heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered that despite their short and stunted appearance, mangroves in these desert locations had surprisingly high rates of sequestering carbon underground. In some cases, the ability was several times greater than that of lush mangroves in tropical locations.

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