The destructive algal bloom that struck San Francisco Bay this summer has researchers looking at both causes and solutions. But now, several environmental groups are demanding action on a similar challenge miles upstream from the Bay. They’re focused on a toxic bloom that’s become almost a yearly occurrence in and around the Delta.
Amid a tidal wave of bad news – from inflation and the war in Ukraine to climate change and divisive politics – there is one story that might trump all others in importance, and yet it receives the least sustained global attention: water.
As an environmental scientist, Roger Viadero had to scratch his head over news reports last summer of the thirsty demand in Palm Springs and Las Vegas, among other western cities, for water from the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes.
The letters pages of the Palm Springs Desert Sun newspaper broke their own records for online traffic last June with readers’ proposals to siphon some 22 billion gallons of water per day from the Midwest. To solve the Southwest’s water crisis, the desert denizens wrote, a series of canals and reservoirs could pipe water from the flood-prone Mississippi River to the Colorado River, a supposed win-win for everyone.
Water districts get among the least attention among local governments – yet they control the safety of tap water, the prices, maintain water delivery infrastructure and influence conservation efforts.
So just where do the current candidates stand on issues like the drought, climate change, transparency and term limits?
The Voice of OC newsroom set to find out.
Construction began Friday on a project aimed at restoring around 125 acres of coastal wetlands and salt marsh habitat in the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
The Otay River Estuary Restoration Project, a joint effort of desalination developer Poseidon Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies, seeks to restore salt ponds located within the refuge in order to create new habitat for native fish, wildlife and plant species. Among the species most impacted by the loss of coastal habitats are migratory shorebirds and other salt marsh-dependent species, according to officials.
Several months ago, Rosario Rodriguez faced a financial dilemma that has become all too common for millions of drought-weary Californians — either pay the electric bill, which had skyrocketed to about $300 during a scorching summer in western Fresno County, or pay the $220 combined water, sewer and trash bill.
“Our water is expensive, even though we can’t drink it because it’s contaminated,” Rodriguez said in Spanish.
Western states gripped by persistent drought are unlikely to see any relief in the coming months, as a third year of La Niña weather patterns reduces precipitation in that region, NOAA scientists predicted Thursday.
According to the agency’s 2022-23 Winter Outlook, below-average rainfall and snowpack are expected in a wide stretch of the United States including Southern California, the Southwest, the southern Rockies, the southern Plains, the Gulf Coast and much of the South.
The general manager of the West Slope’s Colorado River District says proposed cuts by California entities in river water use are much less than is needed from that state, and their implication that other states need to step up with similar reductions fails to account for uncompensated, naturally occurring cuts that already impact users in the river’s Upper Basin.
Andy Mueller made his comments in a memo to his district’s board of directors and during the board’s meeting this week.
Earlier this month, the California Coastal Commission approved plans for a desalination plant near Doheny State Beach. In May, the commission voted against a plant in Huntington Beach. Today we look at the differences.
The greenlighted $140 million desalination plant in south Orange County’s city of Dana Point includes technology preferred by environmentalists and regulators and could provide up to 5 million gallons per day. Unlike the rejected $1.4 billion plant in Huntington Beach (that would have produced 50 million gallons per day), the Doheny Ocean Desalination project location has unique hydrogeology that allows advanced slant wells (shown in graphics on the right) to draw water from beneath the ocean floor to protect marine life.
When Eric Seufert brewed a test batch of beer in 2017 with water from recycled sewage, he wasn’t too concerned about the outcome. The engineering firm that approached him about the test explained the process, and together they sipped samples of recycled water. Seufert quickly understood it wasn’t too different from how water is normally handled.
