With the state in the grips of a historic drought, reservoirs in Santa Clara County are at extremely low levels, as seen in a new video from the county’s water provider.
Santa Clara Valley Water, which provides for and manages the water needs of two million people in the county, released a new video Wednesday illustrating the dire state of the county’s reservoirs.
If you live in San Diego and pay your own water and sewer bills, you should have gotten a mailer recently from the city government. It was easy to miss, but it has important details on how much the city wants to raise its rates, and included a way residents and businesses could potentially block the proposal.
Under the proposal, San Diego businesses and residents of apartment buildings would initially pay cheaper wastewater rates, while residents of single-family homes would see their rates go up. The changes are part of an overhaul to city fees used to maintain the sewage system.
It has been a very active monsoon season, especially in Arizona.
However, here in Southern California, we do not expect much rain during the summer, and the totals we have seen thus far will not be a drought buster.
What is the monsoon?
Here is a little recap: monsoon season occurs when upper-level winds shift, drawing moisture off the Gulf of Mexico and into the Southwestern United States. Typically, this mainly impacts New Mexico and Arizona but can also impact Southern California.
The Bay Area water system is a byzantine patchwork of agencies — more than 50 in all — that provides water to customers. Some are the ones you see on your water bill. Others are middlemen that provide water to local agencies at the wholesale level.
And some of that water makes a long journey. Southern California has the reputation for tapping far-flung sources for its water needs, but the Bay Area is in the same boat.
Dams are killing salmon on the river’s lower half, while irrigation threatens endangered species on the upper half.
It’s been a tough year for the Klamath River.
The Klamath, which flows through Oregon and Northern California and into the Pacific Ocean, is suffering from drought and infrastructure problems. That’s caused trouble, not just for the fish in the river, but also for the tribes and farmers who rely on it for day-to-day living.
Congressional leaders are calling on President Joe Biden to declare a drought disaster in the West as record temperatures and historic wildfires batter multiple states.
In letter, Reps. Joe Neguse of Colorado and Jared Huffman of California, Democrats whose districts have been ravaged by drought and wildfires, ask Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to release additional resources to aid Western communities faced with water cuts as supplies rapidly dwindle.
As climate-driven drought and wildfires rage in California, the Biden administration is struggling to navigate the hard politics that come with deciding who gets access to the state’s precious — and dwindling — water supplies.
Responding to the hot and parched conditions that have contributed to the wildfires and worsened the water shortages this summer has strained both federal and state capacity. Now the Biden administration is delaying action on the fundamental question at the heart of California’s long-running water wars: How much water should be reserved for species protections, at the expense of the state’s powerful agricultural industry?
Lake Casitas is home for Owen Peralta. He works the dock at the marina and each year he’s watched the water levels drop more and more.
It has gotten so bad he’s worried the lake, which serves as a reservoir supplying parts of Ventura with drinking water, could dry up.
In 2020 the U.S. government through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) committed $300 million in The United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade agreement to identify infrastructure solutions to mitigate the transboundary pollution. Infrastructure solutions for transboundary flows from the Tijuana River have been studied for the past year. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has been tasked with creating solutions, originally proposed 10 possible projects. In time the projects have been narrowed down to three, which were presented during the last virtual public information meeting on Aug. 6.
Water levels at several Bay Area reservoirs have reached historical lows — just one of the devastating environmental impacts of California’s punishing drought, the Santa Clara Valley Water District said Wednesday.
Reservoirs operated by Valley Water, the main provider in Santa Clara County, were 85% full in April 2017, the agency said. As of Wednesday morning, they were at 12.5%. Then-and-now images illustrating how low the reservoirs have dwindled reinforced the agency’s grim report.
