California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced Thursday that 44 statewide drought and flood projects will receive millions of dollars in Department of Water Resources grants.
In total, $217 million will be directed to increase water supply, combat flooding, and expand new water storage and conservation initiatives. An additional $71 million will be used to respond to local drought impacts.
Long Beach Utilities commissioners met again Thursday to discuss a potential rate hike for water, which could be as high as 10% next year as the department deals with declining sales due to customer conservation, increasing costs and an expanding capital investment plan that could, in the long term, increase the city’s supply of less expensive groundwater.
A staff-recommended hike of 10% for water rates next year would amount to a $5.69 monthly increase for the average customer, according to the department. However, an alternate increase of 9% that was requested at the commission’s last meeting would add about $5.13 to the monthly bill.
Early data shows the greatest net gain of water over the winter in nearly 22 years, but the state’s groundwater levels still suffer from the effects of years of drought.
After years of intense drought and diminishing groundwater, California just saw its greatest year-over-year water gains in two decades, according to data from the GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) satellite mission, a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). This past winter’s bonanza of atmospheric rivers alleviated some of the water deficit that the state incurred during periods of drought over the last 10 years, which included the three driest years on record in California.
Imperial Beach urgently needs federal funding to put an end to the Tijuana River’s ongoing sewage spill that’s kept portions of the city’s beaches closed, Mayor Paloma Aguirre wrote in a letter to the White House.
Seeking a federal state of emergency status for the continued pollution, Mayor Aguirre called on the Biden administration to declare the emergency for the shoreline of Imperial Beach and the Tijuana River Valley. Such a proclamation would expedite funding and projects across federal agencies to tackle the source of the issue.
The shrinking and drying out of the Salton Sea has reduced stress on the San Andreas Fault, possibly reducing the frequency and severity of earthquakes in Southern California, according to research from San Diego State University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that the reduced stress on the fault from a significantly lesser amount of water may be delaying the next “big one.”
A debate in California’s Assembly about whether to fast-track bills looking to trim down the state’s notoriously laborious environmental review process caused some pushback on behalf of public transparency.
State lawmakers convened the last in a series of informational committees serving as the first public hearings on Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed policy and budget package for the coming year.
Officials at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton are bringing two new water filtration facilities online by the end of the year to address so-called “forever chemicals” in base drinking water.
Per- and poly fluoroalkyl substances, or “PFAS,” are a family of man-made compounds used for more than 70 years in all manner of consumer products. Non-stick cookware, stain-wicking clothing and even fast food wrappers are just some of the many items in everyday use worldwide containing the compounds.
Along the Central Arizona Project (CAP) Canal, just beyond the city of Buckeye, is a place being considered for a project that could double the amount of water in the canal.
“It’s a game changer for the state if it works,” said Chuck Podolak with the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona.
The Sweetwater Authority selected 10 elementary school students as the winners of its “Being Water Wise Is…” 2023 Student Art Poster Contest. The annual contest is open to kindergarten through sixth-grade students in the Authority’s service area. The contest encourages students to think about the importance of water in their everyday lives, and how they can help protect and conserve water in their homes and community.
The last time Lake Oroville neared capacity was four years ago, and very quickly it plunged into drought territory and has seen low water levels until this winter. And now that billion-dollar, renovated spillway is back in use as the reservoir is back at 99% of its capacity.
The Feather River is getting a fair amount of extra water flow these days as Lake Oroville has been releasing water over the last week. Oroville is California’s second-largest reservoir, with a capacity of over 3.5 million acre-feet of water, and also just about at capacity is the state’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, which has a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet and is at 98%.
