Bay Area Archives

These Before-After Images of Bay Area Reservoirs Show Drought’s Severe Impact

August 26, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /The San Francisco Chronicleby Jessica Flores

Water levels at several Bay Area reservoirs have reached historical lows — just one of the devastating environmental impacts of California’s punishing drought, the Santa Clara Valley Water District said Wednesday.

Reservoirs operated by Valley Water, the main provider in Santa Clara County, were 85% full in April 2017, the agency said. As of Wednesday morning, they were at 12.5%. Then-and-now images illustrating how low the reservoirs have dwindled reinforced the agency’s grim report.

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California Drought: Dozens of Communities are at Risk of Running Out of Water

July 30, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The Mercury News (Bay Area)by Paul Rogers

In Fort Bragg on the Mendocino Coast, city leaders are rushing to install an emergency desalination system. In Healdsburg, lawn watering is banned with fines of up to $1,000. In Hornbrook, a small town in Siskiyou County, faucets have gone completely dry, and the chairman of the water district is driving 15 miles each way to take showers and wash clothes.

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Drought Depleting Bay Area Reservoirs, Driving Urgent Need For Conservation

July 29, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /CBS SF Bay Areaby Devin Fehely

The state’s severe drought is transforming the landscape of our streams, lakes and reservoirs as the supply of water is depleted day by day.

The changes at Uvas Reservoir in the hills above Morgan are readily apparent. The waterline has receded significantly as the footprint of the reservoir shrinks.

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Amid Escalating Drought, Bay Area Residents Slow to Cut Back on Water Use

July 16, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

As the sun began to rise over Santa Rosa’s Montgomery Village neighborhood, the headlights of a city work truck brought into view utility official Shiloh Jones’ target: wasted water.

Jones, part of Santa Rosa’s newly formed “water waste patrol,” had spotted a puddle on the sidewalk and traced it to a runaway irrigation system in a bed of pink roses.

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California’s Rain Year Just Ended – and the Data Shows We’re in Trouble

July 1, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /San Francisco Chronicleby Kellie Hwang

California’s rain year officially ended Wednesday, and the data reflects what the dry landscape in much of the Bay Area already shows: It wasn’t pretty. Data shows that for many of the major regions of California, the July 2020-June 2021 rain year was one of the top 10 driest ever. Even more troubling is that the extreme dry spells are starting to stack up, especially in the Sierra Nevada watersheds that supply so much of the state’s water.

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When It’s Too Hot for Food to Grow

June 18, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Bay Natureby Eric Simons

Kou Her’s family has run the 12-acre Herr Family Farms in Sanger, just east of Fresno, for the last 20 years, raising a variety of vegetables for Bay Area produce and farmer’s markets. In those 20 years, Kou and his parents haven’t seen anything like the heat wave gripping the Central Valley this week.

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Cyberattack on Bay Area Water Supply: ‘No Specific Threat to Public Safety’

June 18, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Cyberattack-on-Bay-Area-water-supply-No-16256688.phpby Nora Mishanec

A hacker accessed the computer system of a Bay Area water treatment plant in January and deleted programs the plant used to treat drinking water, a senior intelligence official confirmed Thursday.

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Opinion: State Restrictions Reflect Urgent Need to Conserve Water

June 17, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /The Mercury News

The state’s decision this week to cut off Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta access to thousands of farmers and water agencies highlights the need for serious and immediate conservation throughout the Bay Area and California.

It’s been obvious for months that the state faces its most serious water shortage since the historic 2012-16 drought. Bay Area water agencies should be imposing mandatory water restrictions on users now.

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74% of California and 52% of the Western U.S. Now in ‘Exceptional’ Drought

June 7, 2021/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /San Francisco Chronicleby Steve Rubenstein

Drought conditions in California remain at record highs, with most of the state now classified in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought, reflecting conditions across the Southwest, according to a new report from climate scientists. Much of the Bay Area and the northern Central Valley have been included in the most severe “exceptional drought” zone, along with much of southeast California, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported.

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Here’s Where the Bay Area’s Water Actually Comes From, and What to Expect During California’s Drought

June 3, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /San Francisco Chronicleby Yoohyun Jung and Nami Sumida

With three quarters of the state now in extreme drought zones, dwindling water supplies are forcing many California water agencies to take restrictive measures to conserve water. In the Bay Area, Marin County was the latest to declare a state of emergency as parched conditions had ranchers trucking in water from elsewhere.

Yet compared to rural parts of California, the water supplies for San Francisco and the East Bay, are in healthier shape. But it’s not because San Francisco or the East Bay are getting much more rain than the rest of the state.

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