If there were any doubts remaining about whether California is getting hotter and drier, this summer has settled them. We’ve seen record-breaking temperatures and historic wildfires across the state.
San Diego County is again developing a new Climate Action Plan. On Wednesday County Supervisors unanimously directed county staff to develop a new plan and adopted a resolution vacating its 2018 Climate Action Plan, which the 4th District Court of Appeals struck down in June.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have provided funding to fix the ever-sinking Friant-Kern Canal. State Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) introduced the bill back in 2018 and had strong bipartisan support, especially among her fellow Valley lawmakers. SB 559 would have required the Department of Water Resources to report to the legislature by March 31, 2021, on federal funding approved by the federal government for the Friant Water Authority or any other government agency to restore the capacity of the Friant-Kern Canal.
Two lawsuits accusing the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority of ramming through a plan that ignores water rights and, according to one plaintiff, is intended to “destroy agriculture” were filed this week.
At issue is a controversial $2,000-per-acre-foot fee approved by the authority last month that would be charged to certain groundwater users over a five-year period. That money is intended to raise $50 million to buy Central Valley water and, somehow, bring it over the Sierra Nevadas to replenish the overdrafted desert aquifer.
As Americans hunker down to weather the pandemic this winter at home, nearly every facet of life will remain upended to safeguard against the coronavirus. Millions are working from home and learning remotely and even holiday gatherings will look a lot different this year. Staying closer to home may mean fewer weather worries for commutes and disruptions to daily activities, but AccuWeather has you covered on what you can expect weather-wise as we navigate uncertain times.
The recent downgrade in the forecast for the flow of water in the Colorado River should be a death punch to the proposal to build a new pipeline out of Lake Powell. The pipeline was already a major threat to Las Vegas and much of the rest of the Southwest; now the threat risk is heading off the charts.
The proposal would drain 28 billion gallons of water per year from Lake Powell to St. George, Utah, and the surrounding area. That’s a huge amount of water — more than a quarter of what Nevada is allotted annually from Lake Mead (97.8 billion gallons).
The County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to rescind the Climate Action Plan it adopted in February 2018 and move forward in creating a replacement. Supervisor Dianne Jacob said she hopes that the county gets it right with a new version.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday added his signature to a new law that orders the formation of a commission to study the feasibility of lithium extraction around the Salton Sea. Local politicians hope the commission will lead to the creation of a green economy around the state’s largest lake, which is a geothermal hotspot. It was one of several bills focused on California’s environment that Newsom dealt with this week.
3M Co., E.I. DuPont de Nemours Inc., Chemours Co., and Corteva Inc. are facing a suit by Golden State Water Co. over PFAS contamination of the state water supply. The water supplier seeks to recover from 3M as the only manufacturer of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid in the U.S. PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid are both in a family of chemical compounds known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
Santa Clara County’s largest reservoir will soon be nearly empty, and will stay that way for the next 10 years. Under orders from federal dam regulators, the Santa Clara Valley Water District will begin a project to drain Anderson Reservoir on Thursday, the first step in a $576 million effort to tear down and rebuild its aging dam.
