Water Agencies May Ease Curbs
California may be in its fifth year of drought, but on Tuesday, state water regulators effectively turned back the clock to 2013.
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Los Angeles Makes it Harder to Qualify for Water-Wise Landscaping Rebates
The Board of Water and Power Commissioners today tightened up the criteria for granting turf removal rebates, under which synthetic turf and mulch will no longer be allowed and more rainfall capture features and plant coverage will be required.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power gives out $1.75 for each square foot of grass lawn that is removed.
State Auditors Look Into ‘Potentially Improper’ Delta Tunnel Transactions
Last week, Northern and Southern California state legislators had a rare breakthrough over one of the state’s most divisive issues — water. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted to instruct the State Auditor to launch an audit of Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed Delta Tunnels. Recent revelations show the project has murky funding and even supporters know the tunnels cannot be built on a financial house of cards. The Delta Tunnels would be 40-foot tall, 35-mile long tunnels dug beneath the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary.
Sea Level Rise Would Redraw the Map
Many San Diego properties would have a lot more ‘ocean’ in their ‘oceanfront’ if climate predictions come true. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps track of various climate scenarios, and maps what areas would be affected.
Most Water Agencies Can Ease Up on Conservation Under New Standards
California may be in its fifth year of drought, but on Tuesday, state water regulators effectively turned back the clock to 2013. Staff members of the State Water Resources Control Board announced that 343 of the state’s 411 water districts reported having enough water to meet their customers’ demands — even if the next three years are unusually dry. To blunt the impact of drought, the state required water providers to reduce their consumption compared to 2013 levels. Each provider was assigned a so-called conservation standard, which was expressed as a percentage.
Metropolitan Makes $6.67 mil. Solar Investment at Water Treatment Plant
The Metropolitan Water District‘s board of directors voted Tuesday to invest $6.76 million to develop a 1-megawatt solar power generating facility on six acres at the district’s Joseph Jensen Water Treatment Plant in Granada Hills. The solar installation is expected to produce 2.3 million kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable energy a year, enough to power about 325 homes, according to the MWD. As part of Tuesday’s action, Metropolitan’s board awarded a $4.88 million contract to Riverside-based Sol Construction Co. to construct the solar facility. Construction is slated to begin next month, with plans to start up the solar plant in late 2017.
OPINION: Desalination Plant’s Value to Ratepayers Is Clear (By Mark Weston)
More than two decades ago, the San Diego County Water Authority heard a clarion call from the region’s ratepayers – a call demanding better water supply reliability. A call to never again let our region – our communities, our friends, our neighbors, our businesses – be vulnerable to crippling water shortages, as when the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California cut water supplies to our region in 1991 by 31 percent for more than a year.
No More Water for a Stupid Delta Fish, At a Time When Farmers are Desperate
It is disheartening to see once credible environmental organizations calling for a “more of the same” approach – one that has so miserably failed for a quarter century – in a misguided attempt to help the imperiled delta smelt. Of course we must save them, but neither the public, nor the delta smelt, will benefit from a proposal built on fiction. Claims that the Projects have “sucked”, “trapped”, or made the Delta too salty thru “massive water diversions” are patently untrue.
Salton Sea Ecosystem May Be On Brink Of Failure
Wildlife experts at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge have found alarming evidence that the salinity of the sea has reached a point where the fish are not breeding. Biologists noticed that among the dead fish washing up on the shores of the sea this summer, there were no small ones. They were all full-grown. This means the fish are not breeding. And there’s more bad news. Audobon California Policy Director Mike Lynes says the diminishing habitat is hurting the birds.
OPINION: We Must Respond to Warning Signs at the Salton Sea
Scientists say they’ve seen disturbing new signs that the ailing Salton Sea is entering a dangerous phase. Biologists Chris Schoneman and Tom Anderson of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge say it appears reproduction might be stalling for a once-hardy fish species. Meanwhile, some birds that normally flock to the lake are nowhere to be found. Schoneman and Anderson say this could signal a long-anticipated tipping point in the ecosystem at California’s largest lake.
