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Researchers Test a Possible Drought Solution by Flooding an Almond Farm

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby By Geoffrey Mohan

The El Niño rainstorm had already turned Nick Blom’s almond orchard into a quagmire. Still, he wheeled open the lid of a massive irrigation pipe. Fifteen minutes later, a gurgling belch heralded a gush of water that surged over the lip of the pipe and spread across five acres of almond trees.

 

Blom is neither crazy nor self-destructive. He’s a volunteer in an experiment run by UC Davis that could offer a partial solution to California’s perennial water shortages, and in the process, challenge some long-standing tenets of flood control and farming in the Central Valley.

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California Adopts Rules for Tracking Water Diversions

/in /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by By Ian James

California water regulators on Tuesday approved new rules aimed at improving how the state tracks diversions of surface water.

 

The regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board require all those who divert water from rivers and streams to measure and report how much they use annually. The regulations apply to thousands of holders of water rights across the state, from farmers to water agencies.

 

Water board officials said previously some holders of water rights were required to report on diversions every three years instead of annually, and a number of them had been able to claim an exemption to avoid the measurement requirements.

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Could Fish Waste Be Key In California’s Drought Fight?

/in /by /10News (San Diego)by By Joe Little

A San Diego-area nonprofit group believes fish waste may be the best cure for California’s drought.

 

The local organization ECOLIFE Conservation uses grant funding to create sustainable vegetable gardens that rely on fish waste to fertilize plants.

 

The process is called aquaponics, and the Environmental Club at Patrick Henry High School is the first in San Diego County to start its own aquaponics garden.

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El Niño Gearing Up For ‘Second Peak’ in Southern California

/in /by /Curbed LAby By Bianca Barragan

It’s a little too soon to write of this season’s El Niño as a no-show, just because a punishing succession of drenching storms has yet to materialize. The weather phenomenon is still on, even if the drizzles in Southern California and the harder rain up north that are happening now aren’t really El Niño-driven, according to experts. (With the exception of the intense rain in the first week of this month.) The LA Times reports that the relatively mild weather we’re seeing now here in the Southland is actually just part of normal weather for this time of year, but they insist that there are still serious storms .

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What Happened To El Niño? Be Patient, L.A., It’ll Come, Expert Says

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby By Rong-Gong Lin II

When the first hints of El Niño developed last year, experts believed that the brunt of the rain would occur in Southern California rather than Northern California.

So far this season, the opposite has happened.

 

Since Oct. 1, San Francisco was at 100% of average rainfall as of Monday; Eureka at 142% and Fresno, 152%. Yet Los Angeles was only at 64% of average.

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Study: Borrego Water Woes Dire

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

A study recently completed by the U.S. Geological Survey confirms what people in the tiny desert town of Borrego Springs have suspected for some time: Their only source of water, deep below the earth, is being depleted at a rate roughly four times faster than it is being replenished.

 

The six-year study, done in conjunction with the Borrego Water District, puts hard numbers to a situation that can only be described as dire. Complicating matters further, the Borrego Water District recently was forced to enter into an agreement with the state saying it will find a way to stop over-drawing the aquifer within 20 years.

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California Snowpack, Local Reservoir Levels Slowly Growing

/in /by /Times of San Diegoby By Chris Jennewein Quoted: Dana Friehauf

California remains in a serious drought, but the good news is that El Niño-driven storms are slowing rebuilding the Sierra snowpack and raising reservoir levels in San Diego County.

The state snowpack stood at 110 percent of normal level for this time of year on Friday, and reservoirs in San Diego County were at their highest level in January in four years.

 

“We’re always pleased to see our reservoir levels increase,” said Dana Friehauf, water resources manager for the San Diego County Water Authority. “We probably did capture some of the rainfall from the past week.”

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Water Regulators Propose Further Relaxation of Conservation Requirements

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby By Matt Stevens

Water providers that have struggled in recent months to meet conservation targets could soon get some relief under the modified drought rules unveiled Friday by state regulators.

 

The proposed changes to California’s emergency drought regulation reward water districts for investing in new local supplies and allow for adjustments to savings goals based on a district’s climate and population growth.

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Judge Orders MWD to Release Data on Recipients of Turf Replacement Rebates

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby By Taylor Goldenstein

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California must release the names and addresses of recipients of millions of dollars in turf replacement rebates.

 

The L.A. Department of Water and Power sued MWD in late July to block the release of the data to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a sister newspaper of the Los Angeles Times. Three other agencies — West Basin Municipal Water District, Foothill Municipal Water District and Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District — later joined the DWP suit.

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When It Pours in Dry LA, Water Quickly Runs Out To Sea

/in /by /Market Place (Los Angeles)by By Sarah Gardner

Winter rains finally hit water-starved southern California in January. The first bands of El Niño storms delivered around three inches to Los Angeles alone, and more is expected. But nearly all that water went straight into the Pacific Ocean. After four years of punishing drought, that may seem like a colossal waste, but the people who built this sprawling West Coast metropolis wanted it that way.

 

To understand, rewind to the early 20th century, when rain was seen as a threat to the city’s rapid economic development. A series of deadly floods hit the city, killing hundreds of people, destroying homes, railroad lines, bridges and roads. Woody Guthrie sang about one of those disasters in “The New Year’s Flood.”

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