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Water Authority Awarded $3M from State’s Urban Drought Relief Grant Program

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

The San Diego County Water Authority was awarded $3.3 million Thursday by the state’s Department of Water Resources for installation of high-efficiency toilets and smart irrigation controllers.

The funding is part of $46 million in grants the department awarded nine projects in six counties. The Urban Community Drought Relief Grant program is intended to “address drought impacts in California’s communities while furthering water conservation,” a statement from the agency reads.

According to the state, the San Diego County projects are expected to provide 1,323 acre-feet in water savings per year and transform up to 333,420 acres to more water-efficient landscapes.

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Colorado River Crisis is So Bad, Lakes Mead and Powell Are Unlikely to Refill in Our Lifetimes

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Rong-Gong Lin Ii and Ian James

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is the deepest it’s been in decades, but those storms that were a boon for Northern California won’t make much of a dent in the long-term water shortage for the Colorado River Basin — an essential source of supplies for Southern California.

In fact, the recent storms haven’t changed a view shared by many Southern California water managers: Don’t expect lakes Mead and Powell, the nation’s largest reservoirs, to fill up again anytime soon.

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Resistance is Futile – Agriculture is Key to Fixing Lower Colorado River Water Shortages

/in , , /by /California WaterBlog by Jay Lund and Josué Medellin-Azuara

The lower Colorado River has been out of balance for about 40 years, using more water than has been available.  As their reservoirs empty, the three lower basin states, federal government, and water users are getting around to addressing this problem.

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Will All This Rain Mean Lower Water Prices for Californians?

/in , /by /KRON 4by Travis Schlepp

January storms propelled California from a state of water scarcity to one of water optimism.

The drought outlook in much of the state has improved thanks to continued and steady precipitation, and with more than two months left in the wet season, snowfall in the Central Sierra mountains of California has already reached 100% of the average for an entire year.

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Opinion: Why California Leaders May Regret Playing Hardball in Negotiations Over the Colorado River

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune

The failure of California and six other Western states to meet a Jan. 31 deadline for deciding how to divvy up the dwindling water supplied by the Colorado River clears the way for one of the biggest fights over natural resources in U.S. history — and already the Golden State is being cast as the villain in some national coverage for being the sole holdout to a deal agreed to by Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah. Due to a regional “megadrought” now in its third decade and the accelerating climate emergency, the Biden administration last year called for creation of a plan that cuts annual water use by at least 15 percent.

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California Town Wonders if Restored Floodplain Prevented Disaster

/in , /by /Reutersby Daniel Trotta

When devastating floods swept California last month, the community of Grayson – a town of 1,300 people tucked between almond orchards and dairy farms where the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers converge – survived without major damage.

In the minds of some townspeople and experts, that was thanks partly to the 2,100 acres (850 hectares) of former farmland just across the San Joaquin that have been largely restored to a natural floodplain.

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Wet Winter Won’t Fix Colorado River Woes

/in , , /by /Yale Climate Connectionsby Bob Henson

Snowpack has been running well above average this winter across the Colorado River watershed. It’s a rare bright spot after 23 years of grinding megadrought brought the driest conditions in 1,200 years to the basin that supplies 40 million people in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Mexico.

Should the generous rains and mountain snows continue into spring, they could help head off a deeper water crisis, including perhaps an unprecedented loss of hydropower generation from severely depleted Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

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California Finds Itself Isolated, Alone in Battle Over Colorado River Water Cuts

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

After a key deadline passed this week without an agreement on how to address the Colorado River’s crisis, California is now sharply at odds with six other states over how to take less water from the shrinking river.

Now that California has rejected a plan offered by the rest of the region, the state has entered a political tug-of-war with high stakes. So why has the state that uses the most Colorado River water decided to go it alone?

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Recent Rains Are ‘Nowhere Near’ What California Might See in the Future, Climate Expert Says

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

The atmospheric rivers that pummeled California are a far cry from what a series of extreme storms could potentially bring, climate scientist Daniel Swain said at a legislative hearing on Wednesday that explored the impacts of the recent storm sequence.

“We’re nowhere near the kinds of events that we think are possible in a warming climate,” said Swain, a researcher at UCLA and The Nature Conservancy.

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Despite an ‘Incredible’ Snowpack, Drought Not Over in California

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Natalie Hanson

California may celebrate having double the expected snowpack after a string of atmospheric river storms, but state water experts warn that more needs to come to offset years of record-breaking drought.

At the season’s second monthly snowpack survey conducted Wednesday at Phillips Station — at the intersection of Highway 50 and Sierra-at-Tahoe Road — the California Department of Water Resources measured current snow depths and water content.

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