The network of pipes and massive bathtubs that is the Colorado River Basin’s reservoir storage system is going to see some recovery this year thanks to higher-than-average snowpack. That’s a promising sign for aquatic habitats in need of a health boost.
Big crowds were out at Folsom Lake on Memorial Day, and with a record-breaking snowpack, the lake is now nearly full. But there’s also a large amount of water being released downstream
There’s now a plan underway to store more water in the lake, and that involves raising Folsom Dam.
San Diego leaders have directed the region’s water wholesaler to pinch every penny this year in the agency’s $1.8 billion budget, as ratepayers continue to grapple with ever-higher utility bills.
The San Diego County Water Authority has in response made substantial changes to its spending plan, looking to cut several positions and delay about $48 million in capital projects, including a pumped hydropower facility at San Vicente Dam.
“Thanks for Planting Me!” encourages more widespread adoption of sustainable landscapes to prepare the Southern California region for a hotter and drier climate.
The “Thanks for Planting Me!” summer campaign offers gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of San Diegans who have transformed their landscapes using low-water and native plants as part of a larger effort to use water more efficiently. Thanks for Planting Me! also is intended to show resident the WaterSmart advantages of embracing regenerative low-water landscapes as climate change stresses water supplies across the Southwest.
Valhalla High School senior Lily Martinez and Grossmont High School senior Stephen Abkin are the 2023 recipients of the Helix Water District’s Robert D. Friedgen and Dr. Lillian M. Childs college scholarships. Martinez and Abkin were presented with their $1,000 scholarships at the May Board of Directors meeting.
This winter produced record snowfall in California, but a new study suggests the state should expect gradually declining snowpacks, even if punctuated with occasional epic snowfalls, in the future.
An analysis by Tamara Shulgina, Alexander Gershunov, and other climate scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggest that in the face of unabated global warming, the snowlines marking where rainfall turns to snow have been rising significantly over the past 70 years. Projections by the researchers suggest the trend will continue with snowlines rising hundreds of meters higher by the second half of this century.
At one of Los Angeles’s main water treatment plants a few miles north of the Port of Los Angeles, a small-scale facility is demonstrating what might be part of the solution to the region’s water woes. The Pure Water Southern California Demonstration Plant facility uses membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet radiation to process about 500,000 gallons of treated wastewater a day, further purifying it into something clean enough to use in industry, replenish the region’s groundwater, and potentially put back into the city’s drinking water system.
During the El Niño of 1983, Californians counted their blessings. The warm Pacific waters sloshing eastward certainly brought heavy spring rains and record snow. But the state largely escaped the flood risks being frantically managed farther east.
Ventura has been awarded federal loans covering half the costs for a program to convert treated wastewater into safe drinking water and reduce discharges of effluent into the Santa Clara River estuary.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday at the city’s water reclamation plant, officials said the venture will benefit the environment, boost water supplies by up to 20% and protect the community against drought.
Limiting the government’s authority to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act, the Supreme Court ended a nearly two-decade-old dispute Thursday.
The ruling from the court was unanimous, with the justices affirming summary judgment in the suit by Chantell and Michael Sackett against the Environmental Protection Agency.
