The Paso Robles City Council has approved millions in funding for an ambitious recycled water project.
The project involves building a 4.5-mile pipeline that will carry recycled water to vineyards and parks on the east side of the city.
“I think it’ll save water and it goes back into the ground,” said Doris Vermi, who lives near Paso Robles.
If passed, a bill in the Nevada Legislature would urge the United States Bureau of Reclamation to consider more measures to protect and manage the Colorado River.
SJR 3 reads that the Colorado River is the most vital water source in Nevada, and much of the western states, including 22 Native American tribes and Mexico.
Ninety percent of Southern Nevada’s water supply comes from the Colorado River via Lake Mead, which is still facing unprecedented drought and aridification.
A project announced by the San Elijo Joint Powers Authority on Monday, April 3, aims to capture more than 7 million gallons of stormwater per year and redirect pollutants from entering the San Elijo Lagoon, in addition to other water infrastructure improvements.
The $18.3 million project, recently approved by JPA directors, involves upgrades to drainage and water treatment infrastructure in Encinitas, according to a San Elijo JPA news release. Work is slated for 2024 and expected to take 10 months to complete.
The walls of the ozone contactors at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Robert A. Skinner Water Treatment Plant are experiencing cracks, and the March 14 MWD board meeting included the award of a contract to rehabilitate the structure walls of two of the contactors.
The Otay Water District has launched its annual WaterSmart Landscape Contest as part of a continuing effort to encourage water conservation. Outdoor watering accounts for more than half of residential water use. The resident judged to have the most attractive, drought-toleranat garden receives a nursery gift card, among other prizes, and the title “Best in District.”
Following three consecutive years of drought in California, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is one of the most bountiful in more than 40 years. While the record snowpack and snow water equivalent is great news for water supply, there are concerns the record snowpack could create flooding issues.
California and Colorado are both receiving impressive amounts of snow.
That’s good for us because snow in the Rocky Mountains ultimately ends up in the Colorado River, which leads to Lake Mead.
That snow is hitting places like the Copper Mountain Ski Resort, which sits 9,700 feet up in Frisco, Colorado. That’s about an hour and a half west of Denver.
California’s unusually stormy winter is promising good news for the state’s struggling hydropower industry.
After three years of extreme drought, winter weather has driven up the most populous U.S. state’s snow levels to 235% of normal, according to the latest figures from the California Department of Water Resources. That’s likely to fill up hydro reservoirs during the spring melt, which could lead to more of the cheap renewable energy source and less dependence on fossil fuels, public agencies and utilities said.
The healthy snowpack whitening Colorado’s mountain peaks has given water officials some breathing room to manage the Colorado River Basin’s ongoing drought. The challenge will be not to squander it.
As winter storms wind down, water managers and policymakers are mulling over decisions about how to release and retain water in shrunken reservoirs across the basin, which supports 40 million people across the West.
Marty Plaskett upgraded his farming equipment and spent $60,000 on new sprinklers to conserve water, even before the rural Nevada valley where he farms alfalfa began more strictly managing groundwater.
Now, Plaskett is weighing another adjustment: selling off part of his legal right to use water that lies under his land to the state.
