Bay Area Archives

California Drought: Summer is Crucial for Saving Water, but Conservation Still Ho-Hum

August 3, 2022/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

Californians began paying more attention to their water use as summer arrived, but statewide conservation remains well short of what the governor has requested during the drought.

In June, municipal water consumption dropped 7.6% compared to the same month in 2020, marking a second straight month of savings, according to state data released Tuesday, and parts of the Bay Area did considerably better. The four prior months, however, saw increases in water use, sometimes by double digits.

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The Biggest Potential Water Disaster in the United States

May 11, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /The New Yorkerby David Owen

The Sacramento is California’s largest river. It arises near the lower slopes of Mt. Shasta, in the northernmost part of the state, and runs some four hundred miles south, draining the upper corridor of the Central Valley, bending through downtown Sacramento, and, eventually, reaching the Pacific Ocean, by way of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Erik Vink, the executive director of the Delta Protection Commission, a state conservation agency, described the Sacramento to me as “California’s first superhighway.” By the eighteen-fifties, daily steamboats ferried passengers between San Francisco and Sacramento in as little as six hours.

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What 76 Inches of Sierra Snowfall Looks Like From Space

April 25, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Jessica Flores

The recent storm that brought wet weather to the Bay Area last week dumped an “impressive” amount of snow on the Sierra Nevada for the month of April, said the National Weather Service.

The storm dumped 31.1 inches of snow, increasing April’s snowfall total to 76 inches — “almost double what we received January through March,” the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab tweeted Friday.

Snowfall totals also slightly increased California’s snowpack in the last week to 35% of average as of Friday — up from 28% of average on April 15, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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Bay Area’s Biggest Water Agency May Start Capping Household Water Use

April 21, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

As California enters a third dry year, the Bay Area’s biggest water agency, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, may soon push forward with strict caps on customer water use, and fines for those who exceed the limit.

The agency, like most water suppliers in the region, has been relying only on modest outdoor watering restrictions, and voluntary conservation, to reduce consumption. But with lackluster savings and a continuing water shortage, the district’s governing board is scheduled to decide next week whether more aggressive rules are necessary.

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Punishing Bay Area Drought Prompts Calls for Major Water Rethink

April 6, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KQEDby Ezra David Romero

Each morning for months, Amelia Morán Ceja has peered out her window, searching Sonoma’s wine country for dark clouds or the residue of rain on the leaves of her grapevines.

Her searching has proved futile, and now she’s worried as California faces its third consecutive summer with drought.

The dry conditions threaten her thirsty vines at Ceja Vineyards and elevate the risk from fire and heat waves. The triple threat is a “perfect storm during harvest,” she said.

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Here’s How Much the Latest Rainstorms Affected Water Levels in California’s Reservoirs

March 30, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Danielle Echeverria

The storms that rolled across the Bay Area and much of California on Sunday and Monday delivered some of the highest rainfall totals of the calendar year so far, as meteorologists predicted — but that still isn’t much, they said Tuesday.

“On a bigger picture, this is one of the biggest storms we’ve had of 2022,” said Matt Mehle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “But we’ve only had a handful of systems actually bring any precipitation to the Bay Area in January and February.”

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Satellite Images Show Just How Quickly Sierra’s Snowpack Is Retreating

February 28, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Gwendolyn Wu

The storms that frosted the Sierra Nevada with a healthy layer of snow in December soon gave way to dry weather, and the snowpack is showing it.

Satellite images from NASA show a big difference even between January and February. Images from Jan. 9 showed a blanket of snow over the Sierra Nevada and their foothills, with clouds overshadowing parts of the Bay Area and Central Valley.

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This S.F. Bay Area City Just Had Its Driest January on Record

February 3, 2022/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Jessica Flores

Last month was among the driest Januaries on record, according to data collected in cities across the Bay Area, with one South Bay city recording an almost immeasurably small amount of precipitation.

The uniquely dry start to 2022 is expected to continue, according to National Weather Service meteorologists, with little chance of rain expected until mid-February.

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Busting Water Limits Won’t Cost You in Marin County: Penalties Canceled as Rain Fills Reservoirs

January 20, 2022/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Danielle Echeverria

After recent reservoir-boosting rainfall, Marin County’s largest water district decided Tuesday to repeal recently established financial penalties for excessive water use.

In September, the Marin Municipal Water District board adopted an ordinance that established financial penalties for exceeding certain water use limits it set in April as drought conditions worsened across the Bay Area and California.

In the September ordinance, the district set penalties for going over “tier 1” water usage, which, for single family households, is 65 gallons of water per person, per day. Penalties would range from $5 to $15, depending on how much customers went over that limit.

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Marin, Santa Cruz May Relax Water Restrictions

January 11, 2022/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /KTVU FOX 2by Tom Vacar

It’s been almost a month since the Bay Area’s last atmospheric river and the hope is there will be more rain in the coming weeks, so water restrictions can be eased.

California can hope that’s the fairytale like water story in Marin and Santa Cruz comes true statewide: eased restrictions. The two major atmospheric rivers and some other healthy rains came to the Bay region since October, working wonders for water supplies.

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