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Supervisors Add 39 Acres to San Luis Rey River Park

/in , , /by /Village Newsby Joe Naiman Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Two separate San Diego County Board of Supervisors actions, Jan. 15, added approximately 39 acres to the future San Luis Rey River Park. One 5-0 vote approved the purchase of approximately 37 acres from North American Resort Properties Inc., for the appraised value of $1,673,000. The other 5-0 vote approved an exchange of land in which 2.11 county-owned acres not contiguous to the planned active recreation area will be transferred to the San Diego County Water Authority and 2.11 acres of California Department of Transportation land contiguous to the active recreation property will be transferred to the county.

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City of Ventura Faces Calls to Drop Legal Action, Water Adjudication

/in , /by /VC Star.by Cheri Carlson

People crowded into an Ojai junior high school auditorium recently after thousands received legal notices or a court summons from the city of Ventura. The city notified 14,000-plus property owners in the Ventura River watershed of a potential adjudication of water rights. That move came years after the city faced legal action over its own water use. In 2014, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper filed a lawsuit alleging the city was taking too much water from the river, hurting habitat for steelhead trout and other wildlife. The nonprofit sued to compel the state to intervene, analyze the city’s pumping and set conditions on it if appropriate.

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Changing the (Red) Tide: Experts to Discuss Cause, Impacts of Algal Blooms

/in , /by /Santa Cruz Sentinelby Ashleigh Papp

“I didn’t know what was happening — the water, usually clear and blue, was brownish red and murky.” Emily Pomeroy, a program manager with Save Our Shores, recalled a visit to Monterey’s Del Monte Beach in the summer months of 2019. “I’d heard of red tides before … but I had never seen one in person,” she said. These periods of discolored water that Pomeroy had stumbled upon can be called a “red tide” though in reality they are better known as a “harmful algal bloom.” They occur when water temperatures and nutrient levels rise, Pomeroy learned, and often lead to devastating consequences for marine life and those who depend on it.

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California Can Be Carbon Neutral in 25 Years-With Drastic Action

/in , /by /Scientific Americanby Anne C. Mulkern

California can hit its goal of going carbon neutral by 2045 if it pulls emissions out of the air and slashes greenhouse gases from farming, landfills and other sources, according to a federal study released yesterday. The nation’s most populous state needs to remove 125 million tons of carbon emissions per year from the atmosphere, roughly equivalent of removing 26 million cars from its roads annually, said an analysis by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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Opinion: Whose Water is Being Carried By Trump’s Latest Environmental Rollback?

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle

When a Healdsburg winery leaked thousands of gallons of Cabernet into the Russian River last week, the jokes flowed, too. It was noted that the Russian was red, that water turned to wine, and that red wine doesn’t go with fish. But the spill coincided with a more sobering blow to clean water, coming to light the day the Trump administration announced it was ripping up expanded protections for streams, wetlands, and groundwater adopted by the Obama administration. And the revision goes beyond rolling back Obama-era policy to undo longer-standing protections under the Clean Water Act, which became law with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1972.

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Powerful Storm to Usher In Damaging Wind Gusts Across Southern California

/in , /by /AccuWeatherby Brandon Buckingham

Through the past week, much of Southern California has experienced an offshore breeze, promoting above-average temperatures. Heading into the first full week of February, that will change as this storm system tracks through. A major storm system that is expected to bring feet of snow to the Intermountain West will usher in potentially damaging wind gusts to Southern California. Powerful north-to-northwest wind gusts will pick up in earnest late Sunday across Southern California and Nevada, leading to localized power outages and travel issues.

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Dry, Sunny Days in January Have Taken a Toll on California’s Snowpack

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry

All of those dry January days have taken a toll on California’s snowpack, but officials say it’s too early to worry about drought conditions.

Surveyors with the California Department of Water Resources trekked through a snow-covered field Thursday at the department’s Phillips station, above Lake Tahoe, to take the second seasonal measurement that serves as an important marker for the state’s water supply.

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Most Major California Dams Lack Emergency Plans. ‘High-Risk Issue,’ State Auditor Says

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

The vast majority of California’s major dams aren’t adequately prepared for an emergency.

Three years after the near-disaster at Oroville Dam, only 22 state-regulated dams have finalized emergency plans — out of 650 major dams that are required by law to have plans in place — according to a report issued Thursday by State Auditor Elaine Howle.

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Across the U.S., States are Bracing for More Climate-Related Disasters

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alex Brown

State lawmakers across the country are calling for huge investments to mitigate the effects of wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, droughts and other natural disasters made more devastating and frequent by climate change.

Following the hottest decade on record, which saw record-breaking wildfires in the West, extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy, a years-long drought in California, and severe flooding in the Midwest, legislators in many states say it’s long past time to treat such events as the new normal — and invest accordingly.

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As Forests Burn Around the World, Drinking Water is at Risk

/in , /by /The Associated Pressby Tammy Weber

Fabric curtains stretch across the huge Warragamba Dam to trap ash and sediment expected to wash off wildfire-scorched slopes and into the reservoir that holds 80% of untreated drinking water for the Greater Sydney area.

In Australia’s national capital of Canberra, where a state of emergency was declared on Friday because of an out-of-control forest fire to its south, authorities are hoping a new water treatment plant and other measures will prevent a repeat of water quality problems and disruption that followed deadly wildfires 17 years ago.

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