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Majority of Californians Fear Worsening Weather Swings Due to Climate Change, Poll Finds

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith

As California continues to experience swings from one weather extreme to another, a majority of residents say they are increasingly concerned about the state’s changing climate, and some worry that weather impacts could force them to move in the future.

Nearly 70% of registered voters say they expect that volatile fluctuations between severe drought and periods of heavy rain and snow — what some call weather whiplash — will become more common in the future due to climate change, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

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Slew of Water Bills Swirl Around Sacramento

/in , , /by /SJV Waterby Jesse Vad

Senior water rights holders have arguably the sweetest deal in California water. They often have ironclad deals and some even get access to substantial water during the worst of drought.

But three new bills in the state legislature are taking aim at senior water rights in an attempt to level the playing field.

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California Water Agencies Outline $3.2B Plan for Central Valley Flood Prevention Projects

/in , , /by /ENR California by Michael Powell

California water officials are urging a $3.2-billion investment in flood prevention projects over the next half decade to safeguard the Central Valley; particularly communities on the San Joaquin River that are considered among the most vulnerable in the nation.

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Opinion: California’s Snow Is Melting, and It’s a Beautiful Thing

/in , , /by /The New York Times by Andrew Schwartz

My fellow Californians often remark that the weather in this state feels like it has been reduced to two seasons, both defined by natural disasters: In summer and fall, huge, intense wildfires rip their way across dry land, while winter and early spring bring intense atmospheric rivers with heavy rainfall, floods and landslides along with winds that take down trees.

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Lake Hodges Reopens After Extensive Repair to Hodges Reservoir Dam

/in , , /by /CBS 8by Malik Earnest

San Diego’s infamous Lake Hodges was reopened to the community after being closed since mid-2022 due to critical repair work of the Hodges Reservoir Dam.

The City of San Diego officials announced that Lake Hodges would reopen on Wednesday, May 31, but only on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from sunrise to sunset.

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Can This $24 Device Help You Be More Water-wise? We Decided to Find Out

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Adam Tschorn

Last fall, before the epic, near-biblical rains of early 2023 pushed California’s historic drought off our collective radar, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced a pilot water-conservation program that sounded too good to be true.

According to the announcement, for just $24, single-family homeowners in the city would be able to track real-time water usage, detect leaks and create a water budget from a smartphone app using a Wi-Fi-enabled, easy-to-install Flume water-meter sensor.

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Map Shows Epic Amounts of Water Gushing Through California’s Rivers

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jack Lee

This year’s historic snowpack has meant epic amounts of water flowing through California’s rivers, streams and creeks. … That’s more than the capacity of four standard 40-foot shipping containers rushing by each second. Around 40% of the roughly 500 stream gauges across the state are running above normal, provisional data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows. A few dozen are registering record highs for this time of year, especially along the central and southern Sierra. With peak melt season expected in the coming weeks, this means plentiful amounts of water running into reservoirs, but also dangerously fast flows and the risk for potential flooding.

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First Drought, Then Flood. Can the West Learn to Live Between Extremes?

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Brook Jarvis

The shadows were long and the wind across the flatlands fierce as trucks and ATVs began pulling into Chepo Gonzales’s yard one afternoon this March. “Did you double up your socks today?” Gonzales teased one of the arrivals, a man who complained about cold feet during the previous night’s patrol. Another man leaned out the window of his truck and offered a more serious status report: “There’s a lot of water out there, but it’s flowing north.”

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Assembly Bill Would Require Countywide Vote for Fallbrook, Rainbow to Exit Water Authority

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby Chris Jennewein Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

An Assembly bill introduced late last week would require a countywide vote before two agricultural districts in north San Diego County could leave the San Diego County Water Authority.

Assembly Bill 530, introduced Thursday by Tasha Boerner Horvath of Encinitas, would amend California’s Water Authority Act, to require a majority vote in both the separating district and the county to complete a detachment.

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California Agreed to Reduce Its Colorado River Usage, but San Diego Might Not See a Change

/in , , /by /FOX 5 San Diegoby Danielle Dawson Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

In a historic consensus, California, alongside the six other states that rely on the Colorado River for survival, announced an agreement last week for a plan to cut back water usage over the next three years.

The proposal drafted by the three lower basin states – California, Arizona and Nevada – would cut water use from the river by at least 3 million acre-feet by the end of 2026 through conservation to prevent the river’s reservoirs from falling to critically low levels.

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