Surveying the recently scorched earth of Big Basin Redwoods State Park with the nation’s top environmental official this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that it might be time for mandatory statewide water restrictions — in six weeks or so.
What is he waiting for?
With more than a million acres burned fairly early in the fire season, California is entering uncharted territory as the record dry conditions that have fueled so much destruction will soon combine with seasonal winds that fire officials fear will bring unprecedented dangers.
Officials have attributed warming temperatures and worsening drought to the explosive growth of fires, mostly in the mountains of Northern California, this summer.
As the drought crisis worsens throughout California, Fresno and Clovis leaders, as well as residents, are answering the challenge.
Both cities are recycling water through “purple pipe” systems to offset non-potable usages like landscape irrigation, cooling towers, and agricultural irrigation.
Just one day after U.S. officials declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California issued a water supply alert calling on the region to conserve vital resources and prepare for continued drought.
The MWD supplies water to approximately 19 million people across six Southern California counties and is one of the largest water distributors in the nation. The decision by its board Tuesday marks the first time in seven years the agency has issued an official supply alert — the third of four escalating phases in its water supply framework.
The declaration marks a call for regional agencies and consumers to voluntarily reduce their water consumption in order to mitigate the need for more severe restrictions.
Californians could soon face mandatory statewide water restrictions — but likely not until the end of September, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday.
The timing suggests the governor may be trying to avoid unpopular mandates before the Sept. 14 recall election — but California’s devastating drought and ever-expanding fire season have their own schedules.
Around 51,000 Californians could wake up this morning without power — a scenario Newsom undoubtedly would like to avoid as recall ballots hit voters’ mailboxes. Still, PG&E’s decision to start preemptively cutting power as humidity plummets and fierce winds buffet Northern California could help Newsom avoid an even worse situation — another massive wildfire igniting.
Western water scarcity is prompting big law firms in the Colorado River Basin to advise their clients to pursue conservation measures — but also to buy more water.
A projected shortage and first-ever water cuts announced Monday by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation means that cities, industry, and commercial businesses need to prepare for the likelihood the current 21-year megadrought in the region represents a “new normal.”
Cropless fields, fishless rivers, burning forests, empty reservoirs and powerless dams — either you’ve seen the headlines, or you’re living it. America’s West has run out of water.
For most of us, this is a reckoning moment. Water exists in abundance. It’s cheap, free-flowing and limitless. We’re quite literally swimming in the stuff.
But suddenly, that’s no longer true. California’s surging population and farming-dependent economy, coupled with sustained drought, means that demand has completely drowned out supply.
Kelly O’Brien’s drinking water well had been in its death throes for days before its pump finally gave out over Memorial Day weekend.
It wasn’t a quiet death at O’Brien’s home in Glenn County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.
Spigots rattled. Faucets sputtered. The drinking water turned rusty with sediment. In the end, two houses, three adults, three children, two horses, four dogs and a couple of cats on her five acres of land were all left with no water for their sinks, showers, laundry, troughs and water bowls.
While local reservoirs have enough imported water for Southern Californians to weather the drought into next year, the severity of water shortages throughout the West on Tuesday prompted the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to declare a “water supply alert.”
The move triggers a call for a voluntary 15% reduction in water use. That reduction could help forestall further water savings moves, including restricting supplies to the 26 local water agencies served by Metropolitan and issuing fines for excessive use.
Residents and businesses in unincorporated areas of San Diego County are eligible for increased water-use efficiency rebates under a partnership announced Tuesday between the county’s Watershed Protection Program and the San Diego County Water Authority.
The program could save money for residential, commercial and agricultural customers who make landscape upgrades designed to improve the region’s climate resilience and reduce the flow of pollutants into waterways.
