Scientists have watched in astonishment as ocean temperatures have steadily risen over the past several years – even as the cooling La Niña phenomenon had a firm grip on the Pacific. The oceans have been record-warm for the past four years, scientists reported in January. Then in mid-March, climatologists noted that global sea surface temperature climbed to a new high.
Five months ago, San Luis Reservoir — the massive lake along Highway 152 between Gilroy and Los Banos — was just 24% full, an arid landscape of cracked mud and lonely boat ramps painfully far away from the dwindling water’s edge.
California has one of the most complex water systems in the world. And so, the factors giving rise to our region’s floods are more complicated than the simple cascading of rain and snowmelt downhill during a rainier-than-average wet season.
We are well into one of the wettest winters on record in the San Joaquin Valley. Historic precipitation levels have buried the high Sierra Nevada under more than 50 total feet of snow. And parts of the Valley, stricken for years by severe drought, are underwater.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a $170 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan to Poseidon Resources in San Diego County, California, to support its Carlsbad Desalination Plant Intake Modification and Wetlands Project, which will help provide sustainable access to drinking water.
San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Sandra L. Kerl delivered an inspiring keynote address at the 2023 Women in Water Symposium at Cuyamaca College. The conference was not held at the college in 2021 or 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic. And Kerl’s address focused on the sixth annual conference theme, “Building Resilience In Post-Pandemic Times.”
The power and technology behind the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, which turns seawater into drinking water, is described in this video report from Reporter Trason Bragg.
The Carlsbad Desalination Plant is the largest, most technologically advanced and energy-efficient desalination plant in the nation, and it has produced more than 100 billion gallons of drinking water for San Diego County since operations began in December 2015.
The Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty of San Diego County has financial aid available for low-income water customers in the region to cover residential water and wastewater bills.
There is $2.5 million available for income eligible households through MAAC’s Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program—no past due balance or debt owed is required to qualify.
With an exceptionally rainy season for California, much of the state is free from drought, including most of San Diego County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The latest drought monitor map released Thursday shows all but 11% of San Diego County remains in some form of drought, which is the same as last week. But that’s significantly down from 3 months ago when all of San Diego County was in some form of drought.
Nothing says the end of drought like ending water restrictions — and the pesky drought surcharges on utility bills.
On the heels of California’s remarkably wet winter, the Bay Area’s biggest water agencies, including the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and East Bay Municipal Utility District, have either rescinded their drought policies or are about to do so.
Colorado is awash in white this spring, with statewide snowpack topping 140% of average this week, well above the reading a year ago, when it stood at just 97% of normal.
“Conditions in the American West are way better than they were last year at this time,” state climatologist Russ Schumacher said Tuesday at a joint meeting Tuesday of the Water Availability Task Force and the Governor’s Flood Task Force.
