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Endangered Wetlands Offer Vital Wildlife Habitat And A Reason To Fight About Coastal Development

/in , /by /Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.)by Martin Wisckol

Between Southern California’s popular beaches and much-traversed mountain trails lies an unsung natural landscape, teeming with its own special wildlife. As you head outdoors to celebrate Earth Day weekend — or to simply connect with nature and leave behind the anxieties of urban life — one option is our area’s often overlooked coastal wetlands. In Orange and Los Angeles counties, more than 90 percent of the estuaries, lagoons and other coastal waters that existed in the 19th century have been lost to roads, buildings and other development. But what remains provides a crucial habitat for resident animals and migrating birds, including several endangered species.

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Imperial Irrigation District Sues To Block Colorado River Drought Plan

/in , , /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

Just as a long-negotiated agreement for how California and six other Western states will deal with drought on the Colorado River was about to cross the finish line, the river’s biggest user put up a roadblock. The Imperial Irrigation District in southeast California filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a state court to block the plan until more analysis is done on the accord’s environmental impacts.

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What Drought? These States Are Gearing Up To Draw More Water From The Colorado.

/in , /by /The Gristby Naveena Sadasivam

Wyoming wants to modify the Fontenelle Dam so it can use an extra 80,000 acre feet of water from a tributary of the once-mighty Colorado River. At its headwaters, Denver Water hopes to expand a reservoir’s capacity by 77,000 acre-feet of water. And several hundred miles south, Utah is trying to build a pipeline that can funnel another 86,000 acre-feet out of the river. There are at least six high-profile projects in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming that combined could divert more than 300,000 acre-feet of water from the beleaguered Colorado River.

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Golf Course Will Be Site Of Groundwater Treatment Plant

/in , , /by /Thousand Oaks Acornby Becca Whitnall

In an effort to end Thousand Oaks’ near total reliance on imported water, public works staff is asking the City Council to commit $16.6 million over the next two years to build a groundwater treatment plant at the city’s publicly owned golf course.  The Los Robles Greens Golf Course Groundwater Utilization Project which will be offset with an estimated $6 million in State Water Project (Prop. 1) grants is the single most expensive item on the city’s proposed $97-million 2019-21 capital improvement program budget, which outlines spending on public infrastructure over the next two fiscal years.

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Salton Sea Still In Need Of Restoration Funding

/in , , /by /KPBSby Erik Anderson

A sweeping deal to plan for drought in the Colorado River Basin may yet include the river’s largest water user. The Imperial Irrigation District was frozen out of the multi-state deal when Los Angeles water managers offered to provide water cutbacks if Lake Mead continues to lose water. However, the Southern California water district still hopes to join the federal drought contingency plan.

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IID Sues To Halt Colorado River Drought Plan Signed By Trump, Says Officials Ignored Salton Sea

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

It’s not over yet. The Imperial Irrigation District has sued to halt a sweeping Colorado River drought plan that was signed in to law by President Trump on Tuesday. Officials with the sprawling, sparsely populated rural water district in southeastern California say the Salton Sea was wrongly left out of the plan. IID holds among the oldest and largest rights to water from the river.  The petition, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges violations of the California Environmental Quality Act by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It asks the court to suspend the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan until a thorough environmental analysis has been completed.

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California Dispute Threatens Plan To Protect Colorado River

/in , , /by /The Associated Pressby Felicia Fonseca

A dispute between two major California water agencies is threatening to derail a hard-won agreement designed to protect a river that serves 40 million people in the U.S. West. The Imperial Irrigation District, the largest single recipient of Colorado River water, on Tuesday sued a Los Angeles water utility that agreed to contribute most of California’s share of water to a key reservoir under a multistate drought contingency plan.

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OPINION: Salton Sea 10-year ‘Rescue’ Plan Flawed, But Letting Lake Revert To Desert Would Be Folly

/in , , /by /The Desert Sunby Bob Terry,

Geraci proposes we forget about the birds and salinity of the Salton Sea and concentrate “limited resources” on human-related mitigation to the sea’s decline. He finds much fault with the state’s 10-year Plan commitment to 50 percent of the acreage mitigated being aquatic, which he contends is 20 times as expensive as playa mitigation accomplished done by planting. Perhaps it was a mistake to fund the sea’s restoration under the Fish and Game Department, but that is the vehicle.

 

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California Native Gardens Offer Surprising Results With Little Water

/in , /by /Pasadena Star-Newsby Joshua Siskin

This spring’s flowers  there are just so many of them cannot be compared to those of any spring in recent memory. Perennial plants native to dry climates and most of those in our gardens come from Mediterranean lands and the arid parts of South Africa and Australia, too  are especially prone to flowering more after heavy rains. With their roots luxuriating in moist earth, dry climate plants “know” the soil will stay wet long enough for them to continue to absorb water through their roots and so remain fully hydrated to the tips of their shoots for an extended period. This “knowledge” encourages them to make scads of flowers in whose ovaries seeds are formed.

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California Irrigation District Challenges River Drought Plan

/in , /by /The California irrigation district challenges river

The Salton Sea is at the center of a legal challenge to a plan designed to protect the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people and 7,812 square miles of farmland in the West.The Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan seeks to keep two Colorado River reservoirs from dropping so low they cannot deliver water or produce hydropower. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming worked for years to come up with the plan.

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