“Storms won’t make a dent in the drought.” I hate that headline. It is so untrue — not that we haven’t used it ourselves a few times over the five years of California drought.
But the fact is that the Friday and Saturday rains made a big dent in the drought, and not just for those of us who like our little yards. The drought is not a monolith; we all have our own locavore version of it to grapple with.
Even though the California Department of Water Resources reports a near normal snow pack after four years of little snow, the governor’s office is not ready to turn on the rinse-off showers at local state beaches yet.
The beach showers at Silver Strand, Torrey Pines, Cardiff, and South Carlsbad, were shut down last July. Later in the year, so were some campground showers and beach restroom sinks.
The Metropolitan Water District has been sued over the multi million-dollar purchase of five islands in the Sacramento River Delta.
Two Northern California counties, two water districts and two environmental groups filed suit on Thursday.
This year I introduced Assembly Bill 2438 to help speed construction of recycled water pipelines along existing rights-of-way by streamlining costly, time consuming regulations that have delayed or prevented these projects statewide.
The Otay Water District will soon choose a winner of its 2016 landscape contest, which seeks out yards that prioritize water conservation and eco-friendly features.
The winners, chosen over the next week or so, are selected based primarily on the yard’s environmentally-conscious features and how much water the homeowner saves.
The California drought is not over. The great hope for major replenishment of California’s surface and groundwater supplies — the “Godzilla” El Niño — has failed thus far to live up to its super-sized hype, delivering only average amounts of rain and snow, primarily to the northern half of the state.
Average, however, is welcome. Average means that snowpack is visible atop the Sierra, water levels are rising in many reservoirs and a drought-fatigued public is getting a little emotional relief after enduring one “hottest-ever, driest ever” winter after another.
The National Weather Service has confirmed what many Southern Californians suspected during a scorching February: El Niño, and its badly needed rainstorms, are pretty much kaput.
“It’s looking pretty grim,” said Anthony Barnston, the chief climate forecaster for the International Research Institute for Climate and Society in New York. “This winter was really disappointing.” This week, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center published an El Niño advisory that not only forecast the end of the Pacific Ocean-warming phenomenon, but also warned that El Niño’s drier flip side, La Niña, would replace it by the end of the year.
Senate Bill 927, which would allow the Fallbrook Public Utility District to change its method of electing directors from at-large seats to by territorial unit, passed out of the State Senate’s Governance and Finance Committee on a 7-0 vote March 30.
“We were pleased with the support of the committee and look forward to testifying if necessary before the Elections Committee,” said FPUD general manager Brian Brady. The passage out of the Governance and Finance Committee sends the legislation to the State Senate’s Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee, which is expected to hold a hearing on the bill in late April.
The Sycuan Indian reservation is situated deep in East County, and the tribe would very much like to undertake some new development projects like a hotel and casino expansion. One problem: they just don’t have the water to do it. Ry Rivard reports how the tribe has summoned significant support in the California legislature to bypass the normal processes and give them quick access to Colorado River water, desalinated water, and other water sources used by San Diego.
