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San Francisco, Agriculture Suppliers Want Their Water, Sue State Over Drought Restrictions

/in , , /by /The San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

San Francisco, along with a handful of Central Valley irrigation districts, is suing the state for enacting drought restrictions that are keeping thousands of landowners and suppliers from drawing water from rivers and creeks.

San Francisco, along with a handful of Central Valley irrigation districts, is suing the state for enacting drought restrictions that are keeping thousands of landowners and suppliers from drawing water from rivers and creeks.

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San Diego Water Agency’s P3 Desalinization Plant Financing Holds Up

/in , , /by /The Bond Buyerby Keeley Webster Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

As California coastal cities look for methods to avert the harsh realities of the state’s second drought in a decade, desalination has returned as a hot topic. In San Diego County, the drought makes the argument that the controversial choice to build a coastside desalination plant was correct. The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant opened in Carlsbad in 2015. It supplies water to the San Diego County Water Authority, a wholesale agency that supplies about three-quarters of the water used within its 3.3 million population service area for 24 member agencies.

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A Test for California’s Groundwater Regulations in the Megadrought

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Stephanie Osler Hastings

Record dry conditions once again in the West have led the federal and state governments to declare water supply shortages. California’s governor has declared that 50 counties, in which approximately 41% of the state’s population exists, are now under a drought state of emergency. This prompted the adoption of emergency regulations ordering water rights holders to curtail their water diversions on numerous northern California rivers.

The state and federal water projects, which together deliver water to approximately 30 million Californians and more than one-third of the state’s agricultural farmland, have reduced deliveries to 5% or less. As a result, agricultural, urban, and environmental water users are being forced to cut back with “devastating impacts on our communities, businesses and ecosystems.”

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California’s Lucrative Almond Orchards Face a Reckoning with Drought, Climate Change

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

First came the asparagus field. Then came the melons. And now Joe Del Bosque is considering the unthinkable: tearing out a sprawling almond orchard bursting with healthy, nut-producing trees.

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SSJID Suing State After Sacramento Goes After Its Water

/in , /by /The Manteca Bulliten

South San Joaquin Irrigation District is suing the state in a bid to avoid a curtailment order from creating severe water shortages in 2022 for 200,000 Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy residents and growers farming nearly 55,000 acres

SSJID, along with Oakdale Irrigation District, over a century ago secured first-in-line rights under state law for the initial 600,000 acre feet of annual water runoff in the Stanislaus River Basin.

A curtailment order issued Aug. 20 by the State Water Resources Control Board is essentially seizing the water the SSJID and OID legally own and prevents the agencies from diverting and storing Stanislaus River runoff in Donnells, Beardsley, New Melones and Tulloch Reservoirs.

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Antioch Launches the Region’s First Water Desalination Project

/in , , /by /The Pressby Tony Kukulich

The city of Antioch’s water supply has been challenged in recent years by a variety of factors. But the Brackish Water Desalination Project, the first desalination project of its kind in the five-county Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, is intended to improve the reliability of the city’s water.

The city filed its notice of preparation for the project just over four years ago and then broke ground on the plant in February of this year.

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Initiative Would Allocated Two Percent of State Budget to Water

/in , , /by /The Porterville Recorderby Charles Whisnand

There have been all kinds of efforts and money allocated to trying to solve California’s water woes. Now an organization states it has the solution — the 2 percent solution.

In what it’s calling the 2 percent solution More Water Now is working to place an initiative on the November 2022 ballot that would require 2 percent of the state budget to be allocated to the state’s water resources. If placed on the ballot and approved the water abundance ballot initiative would set aside 2 percent of the state budget to water.

There has been a great deal of water allocated toward dealing with California’s water issues, which includes a $7.5 billion bond measure that was passed by the state’s voters in 2014. But seven years later that bond has done little to place a dent in dealing with the state’s water woes.

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S.F. to Pay $600 Million to Keep Low-lying Neighborhoods From Flooding. It Will Probably Take Seven Years

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Michael Cabanatuan

San Francisco has pledged to invest another $600 million into the city’s sewer system in an effort to prevent chronic flooding in low-lying areas as part of an agreement with state water quality officials.

The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board announced the tentative pact, which was negotiated with city officials but needs final approval from the Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed. The city’s Public Utilities Commission has recommended approval.

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Drought-Hit Blue Mesa Reservoir Losing 8 Feet Of Water To Save Lake Powell. A Western Slope Marina Feels The Pain.

/in , /by /CPR Newsby Michael Elizabeth Sakas

People wait in line at Elk Creek Marina to back their trailers into the water to pull their boats out of the lake. Some, like Walter Swetkoff, are frustrated.

Swetkoff and his wife have sailed Blue Mesa Reservoir outside of Gunnison, Colo., for more than 30 years. The National Park Service told everyone who stores their boats at the marina they had 10 days to get out of the water because of the drought.

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Will Salton Sea Efforts Get Promised $220 Million in California Budget or Not?

/in , , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Janet Wilson

Concerned that tens of millions of dollarspromised to help address woes at the Salton Sea could vanish from this year’s state budget, a chorus of Riverside and Imperial County officials this week wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot politely demanding that the funding stay on track.

“In May, we joined regional leaders in lauding your decision to include $220 million for the Salton Sea as part of a $5.1 billion dollar ‘California Roars Back’ plan,” wrote the president and vice president of the Salton Sea Authority, a joint powers agency comprising area water districts, both counties and the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians.

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