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Planning Group Hears About Huge Storage Reservoir

/in , , /by /Valley Roadrunnerby David Ross Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

A full complement of 15 members of the Valley Center Community Planning Group Monday, meeting via Zoom, took up several items, all of them informational, rather than voting items. 

They listened to a report by Kirk Whitaker of the San Diego County Water Authority on the Hauck Mesa Storage Reservoir that will be constructed over the next couple of years on a location formerly occupied by a much smaller water tank once owned by the Valley Center Municipal Water District.

The SDCWA is the big agency that sells water to Valley Center. It was created by an action of the state legislature in 1944 and provides most water in the county, selling to municipalities. 

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Researchers Predict More Frequent, Severe Megastorms Due to Climate Change

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby City News Service

A study last week predicts that massive, often-devastating “hundred-year storms” may occur three times as often and be 20% more severe in the U.S. due to climate change. The researchers, in a paper published in the American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future, found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at a rapid rate, the continental U.S. would likely see such mega-storms every 33 years.

The occurrence of historic rainfall events, like the ones that caused Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and California’s Great Flood of 1862, are likely to increase faster than lower-magnitude events, which already happen about every decade, according to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

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Ignoring Mega-Flood Risk — Like California Did With Wildfire Prevention — May Spell Disaster, Experts Say

/in , , /by /Cap Radioby Ezra David Romero

The Sacramento region is not prepared for a mega-flood and won’t be for nearly a decade, says Rick Johnson, executive director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.

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First Rains of Year Didn’t Bring Much to Northern California — But Another Storm is Coming

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Molly Burke

In some places, more than an inch of precipitation fell Friday in Northern California while other places, including Sacramento, saw only a fraction of that. Whatever came down in the first rains of the season were a mere drop in the bucket.

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Bernhardt Order Gives States Veto Authority Over LWCF

/in , /by /E&E Newsby Emma Dumain and Jennifer Yachnin

The Interior Department is seeking to make sweeping changes to how Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars can be spent in what critics say is tantamount to a rewrite of the Great American Outdoors Act. It’s the latest chapter in the ongoing saga over the administration’s rocky implementation of its signature conservation law enacted in August.

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On Climate, Biden Urged to Follow the ‘California Agenda’

/in , /by /E&E Newsby Anne C. Mulkern
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Army Corps of Engineers Signs Off on Rindge Dam Removal

/in , /by /The Malibu Timesby Emily Sawicki

Removal of the 90-year-old Rindge Dam from Malibu Canyon—a long-anticipated, multi-million-dollar project—moved a crucial step closer to reality on Friday, Nov. 13, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced the project’s report was signed and sent to congress for funding.

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Seeing Clouds Clearly: Are They Cooling Us Down or Heating Us Up?

/in , /by /Inside Climate Newsby Bob Berwyn

Though scientists know that clouds are critical to the climate system, their exact role is still uncertain. New studies are starting to fill in the knowledge gap.

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The Rebirth of a Historic River

/in , /by /BBCby Alexander Matthews

“My great uncle and my grandma and my great grandparents and, I’m sure, their great grandparents: they were all fishermen. That’s just what they did – they fished and it was out of necessity to support their families. And it’s because that’s what we’ve always done and we’ve never known another life,” says Amy Cordalis, the general counsel of the Yurok, and a member of California’s largest indigenous tribe.

It’s hard to overstate how important this livelihood has been to the Yurok people who have lived for millennia in rural Northern California. And yet this livelihood has been diminishing for decades after the Klamath River – which flows through the tribe’s territory – was dammed for hydroelectricity. But now, after years of painstaking negotiations, the fortunes of the Yurok could be set to change, with the largest dam removal project in US history given the green light.

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Water Utility Hero of the Week, Matthew Carriveau, Otay Water District

/in , , /by /Water News Network

This feature highlights water utility employees in the San Diego region working during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure a safe, reliable and plentiful water supply. The water industry is among the sectors that are classified as essential. Matthew Carriveau, Otay Water District Customer Pump Mechanic I, is the Water Utility Hero of the Week.

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