San Diego County’s farming community has endured a rain of body blows and attempts to hurt it with legislation during the year of COVID-19 but has proven to be remarkably resilient.
“We are pivoting the best we can,” said Hannah Gbeh, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. She is speaking of both area growers and the organization itself, which is based in Escondido at the AgHub Office Building at 420 S Broadway.
Although wetlands cover less than 4% of the Earth’s surface, 40% of all animal species live or reproduce in them. One-third of all organic matter on our planet is stored in places like the gigantic Pantanal wetland in western Brazil, the Sudd floodplain in southern Sudan or the Wasjugan Marsh in western Siberia.
The California Department of Water Resources has secured $308 million in funding to pay for reconstruction and repair work that has been done on the Oroville Dam’s spillways.
The funds, released by FEMA, are in addition to the $260 million that the agency provided for repairs on the lower portion of the dam’s main spillway.
In a year when California has only received approximately half its average rainfall, the Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency hosted a virtual public meeting to inform residents of the Water Shortage Contingency Plan and gather community input Thursday.
The large amount of rain and snow that fell in recent days were the result of the state’s first major atmospheric river this winter, changing drought predictions, according to Thomas Chesnutt, a consultant from A&N Technical Services. However, according to data released Jan. 19, drought conditions have returned to California, with much of Los Angeles County in moderate drought conditions.
Dry conditions are the worst they’ve been in almost 20 years across the Colorado River watershed, which acts as the drinking and irrigation water supply for 40 million people in the American Southwest.
As the latest round of federal forecasts for the river’s flow shows, it’s plausible, maybe even likely, that the situation could get much worse this year.
Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to climate scientists throughout the basin. We called several of them and asked for discrete numbers that capture the current state of the Colorado River basin.
Comedian Ron White once joked that we should have two levels of national security warnings: Find a helmet and put on a helmet. If such a system were in place for controversies, Arizona’s water community would now be in the “put on a helmet” stage.
Cyclical water shortages are a challenge that Eastern Municipal Water District takes seriously. As California’s sixth-largest retail water agency, they embrace the opportunity to balance water use efficiency with meeting the needs of a diverse and growing customer base. By using a smart utility network from Xylem’s Sensus brand, EMWD can better advance service and sustainability, and help ensure social distancing through remote meter monitoring.
Officials in Imperial Beach continue to grapple with sewage spilling into the Tijuana River after heavy rains, polluting the air and the water along south San Diego.
Wednesday, President Biden unveiled his plans to put environmental justice at the top of his list to fight climate change. Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina said he applauds the move and he wants to Imperial Beach to be a part of the new plan.
It is no secret that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant when it was proposed, and I still wasn’t completely on board when the plant began operations in 2015, or even when I was elected to the Carlsbad City Council in 2016.
But time has given me perspective, and I recognize now that the value that the Carlsbad Desalination Plant provides our region is undeniable.
We are now celebrating the plant’s fifth anniversary since operations began. In that time, I’ve seen firsthand how the Carlsbad Desalination Plant benefits our city and the entire San Diego region, given it has produced more than 65 billion gallons of high-quality drinking water. To put that in perspective, that is enough water to fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena all the way to its brim nearly 200 times!
This updates a post from December on the likelihood of California entering a second dry year. Normally, a second dry year brings drought operations for California’s overall water system operations.
Today, it is even likelier that California is entering a multi-year drought.
Precipitation conditions have improved somewhat with a nice atmospheric river this last week, but remain 51% of average for this time of year for the Sacramento Valley. (San Joaquin and Tulare basins are 61% and 47% of historical seasonal average precipitation so far.) Snowpack has improved somewhat with very recent storms, but is about as scarce as the precipitation.
