As drought conditions persist and with the potential for another dry winter due to La Niña, some good news: the California State Water Resources Board learned Wednesday reservoirs in the northern and central parts of the state have more water than at this time last year.
State Water Project reservoirs across Northern and Central California remain below historical averages after three consecutive years of drought.
Good morning. I’m Ian James, water reporter for The Times, filling in for Sammy Roth, who will be back next week.
It’s crunch time for the Colorado River. The river’s badly depleted reservoirs keep dropping, and the federal government has announced that major water cutbacks need to happen soon to prevent supplies from reaching perilously low levels.
The Ramona Municipal Water District board on July 12 adopted the San Diego Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Plan as an avenue to $4.8 million in grants.
The water district has already applied for the funds available through IRWM grants. The source of the funds is Proposition 1 — the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act — which was approved by California voters in 2014 and authorizes $510 million in IRWM funding.
Los Angeles residents apparently have no patience for water-wasters during the current drought.
During the first six months of the year, the city’s MyLA311 system received 1,643 reports about water waste or people violating irrigation rules, more than double the number from the first half of last year, according to data released today by a nonprofit news organization.
Pittsburg water customers will soon see a 5% increase in their water rates for each of the next five years as a result of council action this week.
Paul Rodrigues, city finance director, cited increases in the cost of energy and raw water, and the need to make capital improvements – at a $76.5 million price tag – in the water treatment plant as reasons for the increases. Both commercial and residential customers will be affected, but seniors will pay less, seeing only a 2% increase each year.
In late March, Gov. Gavin Newsom called on local water agencies to implement more aggressive water conservation measures, and for the State Water Resources Control Board to look at banning irrigation of decorative grasses around commercial, industrial and institutional buildings.
Then, at the end of April, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency, requiring millions of people to cut their outdoor watering to one day a week.
Since its opening in 1992, the Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve has evolved into one of San Diego County’s most precious natural resources.
Celebrating its milestone 30th anniversary, the reserve, or EFRR, was originally developed when the Olivenhain Municipal Water District partnered with the San Diego County Water Authority and the Bureau of Land Management as part of the regional Emergency Storage Project.
The seven Colorado River basin states have until mid-August to come up with a plan to drastically cut their water use. Federal officials say the cuts are necessary to keep the river’s giant reservoirs from declining to levels where water cannot be released through their dams and hydropower production ceases. If state leaders fail to devise a plan, they could face a federal crackdown.
But while federal intervention is a key feature of Colorado River governance and management, to cajole stubborn water users into negotiating — it’s rarely tested.
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot says the Sites Reservoir Project is “on a pretty good pathway” for advancing through the environmental permitting process.
Speaking at the Agri-Pulse Food & Ag Issues Summit in Sacramento last week, Crowfoot explained that the Department of Fish and Wildlife within his agency has been evaluating potential impacts that the reservoir proposal could have on endangered and threatened species and its adherence to the California Environmental Quality Act.
After a high profile, decades-long battle to build a desalination plant in Huntington Beach ended in denial, all eyes will be on the California Coastal Commission as it considers whether or not to approve two smaller desalination projects this fall.
