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A Beginner’s Course On How Officials Determine Potential Run-Off

/in , /by /Sierra Wave (Bishop, Calif.)by Deb Murphy
To Eastern Sierra residents, in most years, annual run-off means the streams and canals rise and pasture lands start to green-up. For Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, run-off is the city’s life’s blood, the calculation that figures into the department’s operations for the next 12 months. In years like 2017, run-off is an all-consuming 24/7 concern. So, how do they figure it out? Eric Tillemans, LADWP engineer, gave the Inyo County Board of Supervisors a beginner’s course in Run-Off 101 at a recent meeting. Here’s how it works.
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States Sign Short-Term Colorado River Drought Plan, But Global Warming Looms Over Long-Term Solutions

/in , /by /The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)by Ian James

The Colorado River just got a boost that’s likely to prevent its depleted reservoirs from bottoming out, at least for the next several years. Representatives of seven Western states and the federal government signed a landmark deal on Monday laying out potential cuts in water deliveries through 2026 to reduce the risks of the river’s reservoirs hitting critically low levels. Yet even as they celebrated the deal’s completion on a terrace overlooking Hoover Dam and drought-stricken Lake Mead, state and federal water officials acknowledged that tougher negotiations lie ahead

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OPINION: Climate Change Could Wipe Out L.A.’s June Gloom. Losing It Would Be Disastrous

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Usha Lee Mcfarling

For many of us in Southern California, the marine layer is a lifesaver. Those low decks of clouds — you might know them as June Gloom or May Gray — roll in off cool, ocean waters, shading coastal regions and cooling beaches and West Side cities even as the Inland Empire scorches. Now, we may be losing them. A new study by a Caltech climate scientist and two colleagues suggests those familiar low decks of stratus clouds could eventually become a casualty of the increasing CO2 emissions that are warming the planet.

 

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Late Spring Storm Drops Snow On Southern California Mountains, More On The Way

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Beatriz E. Valenzuela

Just a month before the official start to summer, some mountain residents awoke Monday morning to a wintry scene, and snow and rain showers are predicted for much of the week. But just how rare is this late-in-the-season dusting? “We weren’t shocked,” said Brenda Norton, co-owner of the Broadway Cafe, 1117 W. Big Bear Blvd., on Monday morning. “We always get snow usually around Mother’s Day, so this is pretty normal.”According to the National Weather Service, the Big Bear area saw a dusting of snow in early May last year May 2, to be exact. About an inch and a half fell at that time.

 

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Moulton Niguel Water District Agrees To Pay $4.8 Million In Wastewater Dispute

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Martin Wisckol

The Moulton Niguel Water District has agreed to pay $4.8 million to settle a 3-year dispute with South Orange County Wastewater Authority, which processes a portion of the district’s wastewater, according to a settlement agreement released Monday. Moulton Niguel wanted to terminate funding obligations for a treatment plant run by the wastewater authority, the Coastal Treatment Plant, because the water district has rarely needed the sewage capacity since signing a use-agreement in 1999. Instead, it has been able to rely on other plants and has said its customers shouldn’t have to pay for something they didn’t use.

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There’s So Much Plastic, It’s Falling From The Sky

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

It is raining plastic, according to federal researchers. A new paper by the U.S. Geological Survey finds that plastic is circulating in the atmosphere and falling from the sky near Denver and in Rocky Mountain National Park. Similar research shows that tiny bits of plastic are being blown across the globe, landing in such remote places as the Pyrenees mountains.

 

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OPINION: Why Orange County And California’s Drinking Water Should Not Go To Waste

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Garry Brown

California is in a drinking water crisis. Across the state, residents pay billions of dollars for clean drinking water and we use this water only once. We drink the water, then it goes to coastal sewage treatment plants, which carry out various levels of sewage treatment, then gets dumped into the ocean through outfall pipes as partially treated sewage, harming the ecosystem in the area. Billions of gallons of treated wastewater is dumped into our California coast each day, and with it, billions of resident dollars are quite literally going to waste

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Fresh Rain And Light Snow Expected In San Diego County Tuesday Night

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by Gary Robbins

Another unseasonably cold Pacific storm will blow ashore late Tuesday night, bringing showers to the coast, heavier rain to inland foothills and valleys, and about one inch of snow to the top of Mount Laguna, says the National Weather Service. The storm will produce sporadic precipitation at the coast until Thursday, producing roughly 0.25 of rain in San Diego. About twice as much will fall in the upper foothills. It’s also possible that some south-facing slopes will get one inch of rain

 

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Climate change: One Man’s Fight To Save A California Tree

/in , /by /BBC News by Georgina Rannard

As a child, he had happily played and hiked among these statuesque conifers, which provide shelter to black bears and black-tailed deer. By the age of 37, he wanted to do his bit to conserve and repair the land. But in the six years since he began, California has experienced severe drought, which scientists link to global warming, and 650 of Cody’s 750 seedlings died. Cody’s emotional account of surveying his dying trees struck a chord with thousands of people on social media when it was posted on Earth Day, in April.

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Rain Returns To Southern California And Another Storm Is Coming Tuesday

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Christine Mai-Duc

Pay no mind to the fact that Memorial Day is around the corner — winter is here again. Across California, yet another May storm on Sunday brought cool temperatures and rainfall throughout Southern California, hail in the Bay Area and even snow in the Sierra. “This is May gray on steroids,” said Bill Patzert, a local weather expert and former climatologist with Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Usually by this time of year, we’re done, but this meandering jet stream has been persistent through the spring, and it’s given us four times our normal rainfall.”

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