The years-long fight between the Imperial Irrigation District and farmer Michael Abatti over control of Colorado River water could be nearing its grand finale in the California Supreme Court. After Abatti requested last month that the state’s highest judicial body take up his case, the water district filed its opposition on Monday.
A top water regulator from New Mexico yesterday warned senators that hardrock mines, wastewater facilities and other industrial entities could face stricter environmental oversight as the Trump administration’s Waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule takes effect.
Wade Crowfoot, a California Cabinet secretary, didn’t plan on confronting President Trump on extreme heat and wildfires. Then Trump dismissed climate change.
“It’ll just start getting cooler, you just watch,” Trump said during a Monday meeting with California officials who were briefing him on the state’s catastrophic wildfires.
Crowfoot, in a response that went viral, responded: “I wish science agreed with you.”
San Diego County supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to increase the size of a recreational area in a South Bay community, and set a hearing on a Valley Center preserve addition. The board approved spending $1.07 million on 2.75 acres for the county- owned Otay Valley Regional Park Trail, located on the east side of Heritage Road and south of Main Street in Chula Vista.
Message to Democrats: Just because President Trump says it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.
Yes, our president habitually fantasizes, distorts and lies. But to borrow an old cliché, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
One important example: Trump’s widely ridiculed comment that California needs to “rake the floor” of its forests better.
Olivenhain Municipal Water District’s Recycled Water Pipeline Extension 153A was recognized September 10 as a 2020 Project of the Year by the San Diego and Imperial County Chapter of the American Public Works Association at its virtual awards event. The pipeline extension connected the Surf Cup Sports youth soccer fields in San Diego to OMWD’s recycled water distribution system. By allowing Surf Cup to convert the irrigation of 55 acres of grass fields to recycled water, OMWD has reduced potable water demands for irrigation by up to 100 million gallons per year.
The risks of water shortages continue to grow along the Colorado River, which supplies about 40 million people from Wyoming to Arizona.
Federal water managers released projections Tuesday showing higher odds of shortages occurring within the next five years.
The Colorado River is in the 21st year of a severe drought that’s being compounded by hotter temperatures influenced by climate change, and the river’s flows have increasingly been insufficient to meet all the demands of cities and farms across the region.
Like most Californians, I have not seen blue skies for weeks. The dirty air I’m breathing hurts my lungs and stings my eyes. My kids are confined to the indoors to protect their growing lungs, though I’m concerned that even our air indoors contains dangerous pollutants.
While fire crews work to stop more loss of life and officials work to update plans for the next fire season, California must face the toughest challenge of all: How do we slow and ultimately stop the changes in our climate that are making wildfires in California even more dangerous and deadly?
House lawmakers pressed top defense officials yesterday for more information on research and cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. “I represent a community that has a number of PFAS contamination sites,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said during a hearing of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.
The Colorado River’s largest reservoirs are expected to keep struggling over the next five years due to climate change, according to the federal agency that oversees them.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s new modeling projections, which include this year’s record-breaking heat and dryness in some parts of the southwestern watershed, show an increasing likelihood of an official shortage declaration before 2026.
If dry conditions like the Colorado River Basin has seen since 2000 persist, the agency’s model shows an almost 80% chance of seeing an official shortage declaration by 2025. The chance of seeing the reservoir drop to a critically low level is about 20% in that same time period.
