Tag Archive for: California

State Tells San Joaquin Valley Agencies That Groundwater Plans Are Flawed

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

California water officials have alerted local groundwater agencies in farming areas across the San Joaquin Valley that their plans for bringing aquifers into balance don’t adequately address how continuing declines in water levels could cause many more wells to run dry. The state Department of Water Resources notified agencies in six areas of the San Joaquin Valley this week that their groundwater sustainability plans are incomplete and have deficiencies that need to be corrected.

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A Category ‘AR 3’ Atmospheric River Is About to Hit California. Here’s What That Means

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

The winter storm that could dump several feet of snow in the Sierra and soak the Sacramento Valley with rain is listed as a “strong” category “AR 3” system by the scientists who study the powerful storms that supply California with most of its water. In 2019, the scientists who study the storms known as “atmospheric rivers” agreed to a ranking scale similar to the “Cat” system used to describe a hurricane.

 

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Opinion: Governor’s Drought Solutions: Too Little, Too Late

/in , /by /The Mercury News

Four words sum up Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest effort to ease the impact of the drought: too little, too late.

California needs to take far more aggressive action to ensure a reliable source of water for 2022 and beyond. Newsom’s administration is targeting unreasonable waste by urban users, who consume 20% of the state’s water. It’s time for him also to get aggressive with Big Ag, which sucks up the other 80%.

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Opinion: Desalination Plant Company Not Shy About Asking for Government Handouts

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Steve Lopez

We all know we’re in the midst of a terrible drought in California.

And we all know we’ve got an 1,100-mile coastline.

Is desalination the answer to our problems?

No. It comes after water conservation and recycling, and is just one tool among many that might prevent the state from going dry.

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California’s Drought Threatens Food Production in 2022 With Water Cuts

/in , , /by /Bloombergby Elizabeth Elkin and Alvaro Ledgard

California farmers who struggled to make it through record-breaking drought and heat in 2021 are bracing for another bad year, this time without any additional water from the state.

The state said it won’t give any water from the State Water Project to farmers unless drought conditions improve. That could mean even higher food prices at a time when consumers are struggling with an ongoing pandemic and inflation across the board.

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$63 Million Wetland Restoration Could Be a Blueprint for How California Adapts to Climate Change. But It’s Taking Forever

/in , , /by /The San Francisco Chronicleby Tara Duggin Mentioned: https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/This-delta-wetland-restoration-will-help-16680372.php

An ambitious project to restore tidal wetlands on almost 1,200 acres of delta farmland has just completed its first phase, and the hoped-for transformation already is flourishing: River otters, rare seabirds and a single black bear have all returned to once-drained-out pastureland called Dutch Slough — results that hold promise for similar efforts toward many California environmental goals, including storage of greenhouse gases.

Opinion: Has Biden Moved to Finally Kill California’s Most Farcical Water Project?

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Michael Hiltzik

Desperation over water scarcity has produced any number of schemes to relieve the crisis. But few are as chuckle-headed as a plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and transport it 200 miles to urban Southern California.

This is the Cadiz water project, which has been percolating along since the turn of the century.

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More Than 400 Toxic Sites in California Are At Risk Of Flooding From Sea Level Rise

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Rosanna Xia

When Lucas Zucker talks about sea level rise in California, his first thoughts aren’t about waves crashing onto fancy homes in Orange County, nor the state’s most iconic beaches shrinking year after year.

What worries him most are the three power plants looming over the Oxnard coast, and the toxic waste site that has languished there for decades. There are also two naval bases, unknown military dumps and a smog-spewing port. Just one flood could unleash a flow of industrial chemicals and overwhelm his working-class, mostly Latino community.

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California Remains in Precarious Water Predicament

/in , , /by /Fox KTVUby Tom Vacar

October was a welcome water wonderland, but November was pretty much a dry bust for the Golden States. Was California’s wet October a sucker punch to the state’s all important reservoirs?

“Historically, 1976, which was historically dry, started off with a wet October, so we’re not counting our chickens yet,” said East Bay Municipal Utilities District Public Information Officer Andrea Pook.

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Calif.’s Central Valley Groundwater May Not Recover From Droughts

/in , , /by /Water World

Groundwater in Calif.’s Central Valley is at risk of being depleted by pumping too much water during and after droughts, according to a new study in the American Geophysical Union journal Water Resources Research.

The study finds that groundwater storage recovery has been dismal after the state’s last two droughts, with less than a third of groundwater recovered from the drought that spanned 2012 to 2016.

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