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California’s Unusually Wet Spring Is Delaying, Damaging Crops

/in , /by /KTLA 5 (Los Angeles)

California growers are frustrated by an unusually wet spring that has delayed the planting of some crops like rice and damaged others including strawberries and wine grapes. The state’s wet conditions come as much of the West is experiencing weird weather. Colorado and Wyoming got an unusually late dump of snow this week. Meanwhile temperatures in Phoenix have dropped 15 degrees below normal. Large swaths of California have seen two to five times more precipitation than is normal for this point in May, the National Weather Service said. A series of storms soaked much of Colusa County where rice grower Kurt Richter was forced to wait weeks to seed his land.

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Water Wars: Power Struggles Over the Coachella Valley’s Water Supply Have Dominated Recent Headlines. What’s Really Going On?

/in , /by /Coachella Valley Independentby Kevin Fitzgerald

Local news reports as of late have included alarming updates on a spate of disputes that have cropped up involving local water agencies. For example, there’s the outrage expressed by the Desert Hot Springs-area’s Mission Springs Water District over what it refers to as the west valley-area Desert Water Agency’s “seizure” of groundwater management. Or perhaps you saw a headline regarding the Imperial Irrigation District’s concern over the recent legislative action taken by local Assemblymember Chad Mayes (right). His Assembly Bill 854 proposed forcing the IID to expand its board of directors from five to 11 members, with the six new members all coming from Riverside County, whose IID electricity customers pay 60 percent of IID’s power-related revenues.

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May Is Proving To Be A Wet Blanket For California — And More Rain Is On The Way

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry

The calendar shows it’s almost Memorial Day — typically beach weather in Southern California — but gray skies are signaling that unusually chilly temperatures and rain will stick around a bit longer during a month that has already broken precipitation records. The forecast this month has been a doozy in California with rain, hail and snow falling across much of the Golden State two months after the end of winter. Large swaths of the state, including parts of Los Angeles, have seen two to five times more precipitation than is normal for this point in May, according to the National Weather Service.

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Water-Rights Dispute Between Fallbrook, Camp Pendleton Ends After Nearly 70 Years

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby J. Harry Jones

After 68 years of litigation and more than a half-century of settlement talks, a dispute between the water district that serves Fallbrook and Camp Pendleton has officially ended. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in 1951 and lays out how the Fallbrook Public Utility District and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton will share water rights to the Santa Margarita River. A federal judge last month signed off on what is known as the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project, which will capture locally available water that flows through the river and into the ocean. The settlement, agreed to by both sides in late 2017, creates a local supply that will reduce Fallbrook’s dependence on expensive imported water.

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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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