San Diego announced Tuesday that the system it’s building to purify wastewater well enough for drinking will provide enough water to cover half its population. That’s a significant increase over previous messaging that touted the Pure Water program would cover one third of the city’s water supply by 2035.
A forecast of relatively low numbers of Sacramento and Klamath River fall Chinook salmon now swimming in the ocean off the California coast points to restricted ocean and river salmon fishing seasons in 2021.
State and federal fishery managers during the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s salmon fishery information on-line meeting on February 25 forecast an ocean abundance this year of 271,000 adult Sacramento Valley fall Chinook salmon, about 200,000 fish lower than the 2020 estimate.
Human fingerprints are all over the world’s freshwater. A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that while human-controlled freshwater sources make up a minimal portion of the world’s ponds, lakes, and rivers, they are responsible more than half of all changes to the Earth’s water system.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Monday joined a lawsuit challenging a Trump-era rule revising nationwide standards for controlling and remediating lead in drinking water. While the final rule includes certain necessary updates to the existing standard, these changes are overshadowed by the unlawful weakening of critical requirements and the rule’s failure to protect the public from lead in drinking water to the maximum extent feasible, as required by law. In the lawsuit, the coalition argues that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) update to the Lead and Copper Rule is arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the Safe Drinking Water Act’s prohibition on the weakening of existing drinking water standards.
Despite taking two years off from Congress, David Valadao (R—Hanford) is getting back to work by introducing new legislation to help keep water flowing in the Central Valley.
Early this month, Valadao introduced the Responsible, No-Cost Extension of Western Water Infrastructure Improvements, or RENEW WIIN, Act, a no-cost, clean extension of operations and storage provisions of the WIIN Act.
The Helix Water District Board of Directors last week unanimously approved funding for the district’s first financial customer assistance program, which will help East County residents who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing the San Diego region’s limited local water supplies with innovative ideas is something the San Diego County Water Authority has become known for. Using expertise gained from decades of successful planning and projects, the Water Authority is developing strategies to reduce the future cost of water that sustains the economy and quality of life across the county.
A disappointingly dry February is fanning fears of another severe drought in California, and cities and farms are bracing for problems. In many places, including parts of the Bay Area, water users are already being asked to cut back.
Colorado’s high country is just weeks away from its average peak snowpack date. Current measurements are on the fast track to coming up short. “Our snowpack has been struggling. We’re close to average, but not quite to average so the likelihood of getting average snowpack is pretty low at this point. It’s most likely that most areas of our state will have a little bit below average snowpack when we end the season,” said Becky Bolinger, Assistant State Climatologist with the Colorado Climate Center at CSU.
The South San Joaquin Irrigation District season is starting March 10 although board members added an asterisk to that decision. Restrictions on water allocation as the irrigation season unfolds loom as a possibility especially if March ends up being mostly dry. The board last week was guided by the conservative outlook the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration posted for its California and Nevada River Forecast that includes the Stanislaus River watershed that the SSJID relies on to make deliveries to farmers irrigating 52,000 acres around Manteca, Ripon, and Escalon as well as deliver drinking water to Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy.
