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Marin Municipal Water District Tightens Usage Restrictions

/in , , /by /Marinijby Will Houston

Most Marin County residents will be prohibited from turning on their sprinklers and drip irrigation systems under new drought restrictions starting in December.

The Marin Municipal Water District board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance that bans residents from using outdoor irrigation systems including overhead sprinklers and drip irrigation from Dec. 1 through May 31. Hand spot watering using a hose and spray nozzle or a watering can is still allowed.

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From Sky to Bedrock, Researchers Near Crested Butte Are Resetting What We Know About Water in the West

/in , /by /The Colorado Sunby Mark Jaffe

Eight white shipping containers, instruments spouting from the tops of some and a generator humming away in another, sit in the East River valley, on the outskirts of this mountain town, pulling data out of the air.

The containers, a “mobile atmospheric observatory,” will gather bits of information over the next two years about the winds and clouds and rain and snow and heat and cold above the silvery and serpentine waterway as it slides past the gray granite dome of Gothic Mountain on its way to the Colorado River.

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California May Soon Impose New Water Restrictions. Here’s What That Means in San Diego.

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

San Diegans could be forgiven for not knowing how seriously to take California’s current drought.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency last week, reiterating a desire that urban water users from San Diego to Sacramento voluntarily cut consumption by 15 percent. That would bring water use back down to roughly where it was in 2016, after then-Gov. Jerry Brown issued the state’s first-ever mandatory drought restrictions.

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Drought-Stricken California Pounded by Massive Storm

/in , , /by /AP News

A massive storm barreled toward Southern California on Monday after flooding highways, toppling trees, cutting power and causing rock slides and mud flows in areas burned bare by wildfires across the northern half of the state.

Drenching rains and strong winds accompanied the weekend arrival of an atmospheric river — a long plume of Pacific moisture — into the drought-stricken state.

Rainfall records were shattered and heavy snow pounded high elevations of the Sierra Nevada. The National Weather Service issued numerous flash flood warnings.

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Opinion: It’s Time to Get Serious About Water Crisis

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

Talk about timing.

Last Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended and expanded his declaration of a drought emergency, just as the first in a series of storms rolled in from the Pacific to give California a much-needed respite.

Of course, it was just coincidence, one that reminds us of the fickle nature of the state’s water supply, dependent as it is on a few wet months each year. We’ll need an old-fashioned wet winter, with soaking rains and heavy snowfalls, to truly get some relief.

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Southwest States Facing Tough Choices About Water as Colorado River Diminishes

/in , , /by /60 Minutesby Bill Whitaker

This past week, California declared a statewide drought emergency. It follows the first-ever federal shortage declaration on the Colorado River, triggering cuts to water supplies in the Southwest. The Colorado is the lifeblood of the region. It waters some of the country’s fastest-growing cities, nourishes some of our most fertile fields and powers $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity. The river runs more than 1,400 miles, from headwaters in the Rockies to its delta in northern Mexico where it ends in a trickle. Seven states and 30 Native American tribes lie in the Colorado River Basin. Lately, the river has been running dry due to the historically severe drought.

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Healdsburg Cut its Water Use in Half. What’s in the City’s Secret, Water-Saving Sauce?

/in , , /by /KQEDby Ezra David Romero

Cutting water use became a bit of a competition for retiree John Diniakos and his wife Merrilyn Joyce after the city mandated a 40% water restriction back in June.

Wearing a faded green collared shirt tucked into equally worn blue jeans, Diniakos said he now limits his showers to “once every other day, sometimes every three days.”

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Unchecked Oil and Gas Wastewater Threatens California Groundwater

/in , , /by /Inside Climate Newsby Liza Gross

California has a reputation as a leader on climate and environmental policy. So it doesn’t advertise the fact that it allows the oil and gas industry to store wastewater produced during drilling and extraction in unlined pits in the ground, a practice that began in the early 1900s.

Now, though, researchers have revealed the environmental costs of California’s failure to regulate how its $111 billion oil and gas industry manages the wastewater, known as produced water.

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EPA Finally Has an Action Plan to Improve Water Infrastructure and Sanitation for US Tribes

/in , /by /Gristby Mark Armao

Hoping to step up the federal government’s response to long-standing water issues facing Native American communities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an “action plan” earlier this month that will seek solutions to the many barriers tribes have to running water and wastewater services.

The plan will guide the EPA Office of Water as it works with federally recognized tribes to implement the plan, which was prepared with input from the National Tribal Water Council, an EPA-funded advisory group. Priorities include the creation of federal baseline water-quality standards under the Clean Water Act.

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Opinion: Why San Diego County Should Be Spared Mandatory California Water Cutbacks

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board

Mandatory water cutbacks sure seem inevitable, even imminent, in California, by the numbers, by the images of emptying reservoirs, by the arc of history.

California just had its hottest summer on record, tying the 1936 Dust Bowl summer with average temperatures 2.6 degrees above normal. California also just had its second driest water year on record and worst since 1924, with just 11.87 inches of rain and snow statewide, about half the average. And California is in its second-worst year ever for wildfire damage, with nearly 2.5 million acres burned as of this month. The only worse year for that? 2020.

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