You are now in California and the U.S. Media Coverage category.

January Will End On a Dry Note in Southern California as the Jet Stream Locks Into a Zonal Pattern

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Paul Duginski

January will continue to be dry in Southern California as the jet stream settles into a stable or zonal pattern, which means it flows more directly from west to east with little fluctuation. A wavy or undulating jet stream is the pattern that brings storms from the north Pacific into California. “When the winter jet stream calms down, Southern California stays dry,” says Bill Patzert, former climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the jet stream is unstable, it meanders from north to south and back again. Cold air sinks farther south and warm air is carried into higher latitudes.

Full Story

New Water Recycling Projects Will Help Battle Central Coast’s Seawater Invasion

/in , /by /Santa Cruz Sentinelby Lara Streiff

For decades, California’s coastal aquifers have been plagued by invading seawater, turning pristine wells into salty ruins. But the state’s coastal water agencies now plan to get more aggressive in holding back the invasion by injecting millions of gallons of treated sewage and other purified wastewater deep underground. The additional groundwater will both enhance potable water supplies and help prevent saltwater from seeping further into coastal California’s massive subterranean reservoirs. A decade ago, Orange County was the first in California to successfully employ this tactic — mocked by critics as a “toilet to tap” solution.

Full Story

Russian Riverkeeper Works to Protect, Restore Russian River

/in , /by /The Press Democratby Stephen Nett

Rivers are vital. Like life-giving arteries, they deliver water for drinking and irrigation and fertile soil for vineyards and farms. They support watersheds teeming with life. But humans are hard on rivers. We crowd their banks, dump waste in them and take out water, fish and other resources. In the process, waterways often end up reduced to narrow, dirty channels, shadows of their former selves. When that happens, who speaks for the river? For our longest local river, that voice has often been the nonprofit Russian Riverkeeper.

Full Story

New EPA-Corps Rule Narrows Federal Clean-Water Jurisdiction

/in , /by /Engineering News-Recordby Tom Ichniowski

The Trump administration has carried out a major rewrite of a key environmental rule, significantly tightening the definition of which bodies of water are subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act, and which are not. The rule, governing what the statute calls “waters of the United States,” (WOTUS) is important to the construction industry because it determines where contractors must get a federal permit before they build near wetlands or streams. Construction  groups hailed the new rule, which top officials of the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers signed on Jan. 23.

Full Story

Rain Brings Urban Runoff to Beaches

/in , /by /Village News

The San Diego County Department of Environmental Health issued a General Rain Advisory to avoid water contact at all coastal beaches and bays due to recent rainfall, Jan. 21. Swimmers, surfers, and other water users are warned that rain brings urban runoff, which can cause bacteria levels to rise significantly in ocean and bay waters, especially near storm drains, creeks, rivers and lagoon outlets. Urban runoff may contain large amounts of bacteria from a variety of sources such as animal waste, soil and decomposing vegetation. Bacteria Levels can remain elevated after a rainstorm depending upon the intensity of the storm, volume of runoff and ocean conditions.

Full Story

Trump Administration Unveils New Clean Water Act Rules. California Could See Big Impact

/in , , /by /Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.)by Mark Olalde

The Trump administration on Thursday revealed an overhaul of the Clean Water Act that could remove federal protections for waterways around the country, including as many as two-thirds of those in California.

The arid West, where intermittent rainfall often flows through arroyos and washes, could be especially impacted by the rollback of federal jurisdiction, as the new “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” will remove federal oversight from ephemeral waterways created by rain or snow.

About 66% of California’s waterways are ephemeral or intermittent, according to the government’s own reports that were used in formulating earlier Clean Water Act rules. That number rises to 81%  around the entire Southwest, including 94% of Arizona’s watercourses.

Full Story

UC Merced Researchers Working on Innovative Way to Desalinate Ag Water

/in , /by /ABC 30 News/KFSN (Fresno, Calif.)by Sara Sandrik

MERCED, Calif. (KFSN) — A new project at UC Merced is focusing on irrigation water.
The work could have a significant impact on the crops that are grown throughout the Central Valley.

“We’re trying to take two problems and come up with one solution out of the two of them. We have an excess of drainage water which has excess salt in it, and we need cooling of agricultural greenhouses,” says assistant professor James Palko.

Full Story

Desalination Emerges as a Possible Solution for Another Monterey County Water Challenge

/in , , /by /Monterey County Weeklyby Asaf Shalev

On par with mission architecture or cattle ranching is another consequential relic of Spanish colonialism in California: the idea that water pumped from underground belongs to whoever owns the land above.

In the Central Valley, a major danger of unregulated pumping has been a drooping of the surface at a rate of one foot a year. Here, in the Salinas Valley, so much freshwater has been extracted that, in some aquifers, the natural flow from continent to ocean has reversed – seawater is pushing through gravel and sand into groundwater sources, threatening to spoil a critical household and agricultural supply.

Full Story

Escondido Water Quality Lab Leads by Example

/in , , /by /Water News Network

California’s 600 certified water quality testing labs will face strict new accreditation standards in the near future. While final hearings still need to take place on the draft regulations before adoption, the City of Escondido Water Quality Lab isn’t waiting. Escondido is working now to adopt the anticipated regulations.

Escondido is one of only two California labs already compliant with the draft regulations, which require more stringent quality controls.

Full Story

Opinion: We Must Focus on the Most Viable Solutions for the Ailing Salton Sea

/in , /by /Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.)by Alexander Schriener Jr.,

Talk about the Salton Sea, its possible effects on the surrounding communities, and solutions is ofttimes heavy in emotion but lacking a grounding in fact and science.

Here are a few facts that are often missed:

The Salton Sea lake is going through the natural evolution of a landlocked body of water, with minimal inflow, located in an arid environment. These lakes turn into salty lakes (think Great Salt Lake) and eventually turn into a salt flat or playa (think Bonneville Salt Flat).

Full Story