State, regional, and local leaders are joining forces to urge water conservation across San Diego County and statewide at the start of summer. With drought conditions worsening in every corner of the Southwest, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on residents and businesses to take additional conservation measures to help ease the effects of extreme drought during the hot summer months.
When designing your WaterSmart Living landscape, you want your new outdoor space to fit your house, your neighborhood, and your lifestyle. Finding that fit begins by asking a few basic questions.
To state the obvious: California has a water problem. That’s why more than 6 million Southern Californians can water outside only once or twice a week as of June 1.
But experts say conservation alone can’t solve our water woes. So what does water security look like in a drier future? This story focuses on one piece of the puzzle: recycling wastewater. Let’s dig in.
“We are navigating across the American West with unprecedented drought, uncharted conditions.”
That was the dire warning from California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot during a news conference Thursday at the headquarters of the San Diego County Water Authority. He said federal water officials were worried too.
In the rainless season we call summer in California, images of shrinking bodies of water have a way of looming large.
After more than 22 years of drought compounded by warmer temperatures, Lake Mead and Lake Powell — water sources that are vital to life in the Southwest — have declined to their lowest levels since they were filled. The two reservoirs now sit at just 28 percent of capacity.
It’s time to cut back on water usage. That’s the message from city, county and state leaders Thursday afternoon as officials say this is the worst drought in 1,200 years. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria joined Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency and Gary Croucher, Chair of the San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors for the announcement.
San Diego County’s water supplies are in good shape in the face of severe statewide drought, but local and state leaders said San Diegans should still take steps to avoid water waste and limit outdoor irrigation.
“We’re here on a somber note, and that is as we move into summer… we are navigating across the American West, an unprecedented drought,” California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said.
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The largest water recycling plant in the world can be found in Fountain Valley, California, and work is underway to make it even bigger.
According to the Orange County Water District, its Groundwater Replenishment System takes about 110 million gallons of wastewater from the county’s sanitation district every day that would normally be dumped in the Pacific Ocean.
Beside a canal that runs through farmland, rushing water roared through an irrigation gate and flowed down a concrete culvert toward a wetland fringed with cottonwoods and willows.
For decades, so much water has been diverted to supply farms and cities that the Colorado River has seldom met the sea and much of its delta in Mexico has been reduced to a dry riverbed, with only small remnants of its once-vast wetlands surviving.
