Thousands of acres of crops, from corn to nectarines, surround Melynda Metheney’s community in West Goshen, California — one of the key battlegrounds where residents say irrigation and overpumping have depleted drinkable water.
“You know what you’re up against when you live in these communities. You have to decide, are there enough of us?” said Metheney, standing in her parched yard.
A natural resources investment company announced Thursday it intends to allocate up to 5,000 acre-feet of water annually to the Salton Sea and Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Tribe as part of a public-private partnership intended to help reinvigorate the dying Salton Sea and ensure reliable potable water for communities on tribal land.
Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. said that an agreement with the Salton Sea Authority, tribe and Coachella Valley Water District will be part of a wider water distribution enterprise known as the Cadiz Water Conservation & Storage Project, which originally focused on drawing water from the Colorado River and delivering it to Southern California metropolitan areas via a single pipeline.
Although we’re currently mired in the dog days of summer, it’s time to look ahead to the rainy season.
The state thirsts for a wet winter, with extreme drought existing in just under 60% of California. Below-average rain and snow have plagued the state the last couple of years, coinciding with La Niña conditions and expanding drought conditions.
Poseidon Resources, the company that built and operates the Carlsbad seawater desalination plant, is in violation of its California Coastal Commission permit for the restoration of wetlands habitat at the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge in South San Diego Bay.
A permit the commission approved April 30, 2021, required Poseidon to start the restoration work by Oct. 30, 2021, according to a staff report prepared for next week’s Coastal Commission meeting. The work has not started, although it is on track to begin this fall.
Two powerful Southern California water districts are actively negotiating an agreement for hefty voluntary cuts of Colorado River supply to farmers and reduced delivery of water to greater Los Angeles, as part of urgent efforts across seven states and Mexico to stave off the collapse of the drought-stricken river system that provides drinking water and irrigation for nearly 40 million people.
Responding to a June mandate from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for all those who rely on the river to cut 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water usage within 60 days, Imperial Irrigation District and Metropolitan Water District officials are negotiating “around half a million, between 400,000 and 500,000 acre-feet” in combined reductions, IID general manager Enrique Martinez said on Monday.
The Helix Water District Board of Directors appointed Brian Olney as the organization’s new general manager, effective September 1, 2022. Olney was previously the Assistant General Manager and before that, the water district’s Director of Water Quality and System Operations. He has 28 years of experience in the water industry.
Successfully installing water-saving irrigation starts long before you get out your tools. You need to complete an assessment of your landscape plan’s specific water needs, draw a complete plan showing the layout, then select your irrigation and purchase your irrigation equipment. If your soil needs amendments (and it almost certainly does), you must get this done first. With all of this important prep work complete, you can start to implement the design.
The Western US is an empire built on snow. And that snow is vanishing.
Since most of the region gets little rain in the summer, even in good years, its bustling cities and bountiful farms all hinge on fall and winter snow settling in the mountains before slowly melting into rivers and reservoirs.
The United Nations warned on Tuesday that the two biggest water reservoirs in the United States have dwindled to “dangerously low levels” due to the impacts of climate change.
The situation has become so severe that these reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are on the verge of reaching “dead pool status” — the point at which water levels drop so low that downstream flow ceases, according to the U.N. Environment Program.
KTVU is continuing its week-long series of stories about the drought with a look at the dire situation at California’s largest reservoir.
Lake Shasta provides water not only to agriculture in the Central Valley, but also to several regional Bay Area water systems. Lake Shasta is located 10 miles from Redding, in Shasta County, and about 200 miles north of the Bay Area.
