Three resourceful homeowners took advantage of free resources, including design and plant selection advice, to create beautiful drought-tolerant landscapes. Their projects were named winners of the 2023 Vallecitos Water District Landscape Makeover Contest.
A reflection on the very rainy past seasons may leave San Diego County residents optimistic about the water outlook for this summer. After all, we had record rainfall levels in the southern half of California and snow falling as low as 1,500 feet, generating a snowpack of 172% of normal. It’s very easy to think a 2023 drought has been averted.
Unfortunately, headlines don’t always convey the full story. Despite the significant rain and snow that fell locally and in the northern Sierra Mountains, Southern California must continue to be judicious about continued water conservation and permanent water use efficiency.
Now that July’s sizzling numbers are all in, the European climate monitoring organization made it official: July 2023 was Earth’s hottest month on record by a wide margin.
July’s global average temperature of 16.95 degrees Celsius (62.51 degrees Fahrenheit) was a third of a degree Celsius (six tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) higher than the previous record set in 2019, Copernicus Climate Change Service, a division of the European Union’s space program, announced Tuesday. Normally global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so this margin is unusual.
“These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess. There have been deadly heat waves in the Southwestern United States and Mexico, Europe and Asia. Scientific quick studies put the blame on human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
Across the western U.S., many areas received record or near-record amounts of snowpack over the winter. With the spring and summer temperatures melting the abundant snow, a record volume of streamflow has been recorded in several basins in the southwestern U.S., providing more water for the area later into the summer than is typically seen.
After two multi-year episodes of intense drought over the past decade, there is finally a centralized hub of resources and information for well owners and communities that suffered when their wells went dry. Before the most recent drought lifted thanks to this year’s historic winter, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) launched its Be Well Prepared program in May.
In early 2023, Lake Powell hit a record low — sitting at only about 22% capacity. As of late July, those levels were nearly double. Utah’s Colorado River Commissioner Gene Shawcroft said the ailing reservoir had risen 65 feet from the record spring runoff. Those inflows lifted the water levels to about 40% capacity.
Two associations that represent the interests of wastewater treatment and water reclamation plant operators are unlikely to succeed on their claims challenging the federal government’s approval of California’s new water quality standards, a federal judge in the state ruled Monday. On May 22, Clean Water SoCal and the Central Valley Clean Water Association — groups with member agencies that own and operate wastewater treatment and water reclamation plants — sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Tomas Torres, director of EPA’s Region IX, over the approval of California’s new water toxicity provisions.
The gray, two-story home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came over the weekend as a glacial dam burst in Alaska’s capital, swelling the levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree.
Rage Against the Machine’s “Take the Power Back,” is quickly becoming part of San Diego’s water wars soundtrack.
The power systems at play in that tune have nothing to do with California water politics. Nevertheless, its general message aimed at challenging oppressive systems sprang to mind while I watched Valley Center Municipal Water District board meeting last month.
Some of the region’s smaller, rural water buyers are fed up with how the city of San Diego’s been throwing its weight around recently and they see an opportunity to change things as the city scurries to stop two other agencies from defecting.
