Tag Archive for: Climate Change

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Winning Waterwise Landscapes in the Vallecitos Water District

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San Diego County residents continue to embrace a conservation ethic by creating beautiful, waterwise landscapes. The Vallecitos Water District reports that more District water customers are reducing their outdoor water use and adopting WaterSmart practices.

Three Vallecitos customers are the most recent examples of the landscape makeover trend, creating beautiful landscapes, and winning the regional Watersmart Landscape Contest.

Neighbors often ask the Hausmanns about their new landscaping. Doug Hausmann often shares plants and lends a hand on their projects. Photo: Vallecitos Water District winning

Neighbors often ask the Hausmanns about their new landscaping. Doug Hausmann often shares plants and lends a hand on their projects. Photo: Vallecitos Water District

Best in District winners Doug and Pam Hausmann have lived in San Diego County since 1975.  They both became interested in succulents and decided to remove their sprinkler system. They now water by hand. Some of their plants get by with as little as four waterings a year.

By propagating and selling succulents, the Hausmanns raise about $1,000 a year on behalf of a nonprofit supporting a friend’s grandson affected by a rare disease. Photo: Vallecitos Water District

The Hausmanns started growing different plants from cuttings provided by neighbors, and from plants they purchased and then divided. Their success with propagation generated interest in low water use gardening among their friends and neighbors. The couple donated their propagated plants and expertise, helping neighbors to plant waterwise succulent gardens at their own homes.

Waterwise landscape as philanthropic enterprise

The Hausmanns propagation talent helped raise money for “24 Hours for Hank,” which supports research in Cystinosis, a rare genetic disease. Cystinosis affects 500 people in the United States. Because the disease only affects a small percentage of the population, research money is scarce. By propagating and selling succulents, the Hausmanns raise about $1,000 a year for the charity on behalf of a friend’s grandson affected by Cystinosis.

The Hausmanns were selected as contest winners for their successful landscape project, for the philanthropy it generated, and for the teaching opportunity it inspired.

Saving water, saving wildlife

 

All three winning landscape designs provide habitat for pollinators and birds. Photo: Vallecitos Water District winning

All three winning landscape designs provide habitat for pollinators and birds. Photo: Vallecitos Water District

Tours of residential native landscapes and a visit to the Vallecitos Water District Sustainable Demonstration Garden inspired second place winner Bruce Ferguson to follow through on his desire to transform his yard into a more natural and native setting, attractive to wildlife.

Ferguson loves to see lizards, birds, and butterflies. His garden design reduces stormwater runoff and allows for more infiltration of rainwater into the ground by including two small bioswales. He added two small ponds to provide a water source for animals. After the makeover, Ferguson’s water savings range from 20% to 40% monthly.

Bruce Ferguson completed all the work himself on his landscape makeover. Photo: Vallecitos Water District

Third place winner Ellen Kaplan replaced her lawn with a drought-tolerant garden to conserve water, eliminate expensive monthly landscaping, and to give her home more curb appeal.

She used a variety of palms, annuals, kangaroo paws, and succulents. She replaced the existing sprinkler system (which she admitted did a better job of watering her driveway) with a drip system providing targeted watering only where needed.

Ellen Kaplan enjoys watching hummingbirds visiting her new landscaping - and so does her cat from safely inside the house. Photo: Vallecitos Water District winning

Ellen Kaplan enjoys watching hummingbirds visiting her new landscaping. Photo: Vallecitos Water District

All three winners received a gift certificate to Green Thumb Nursery in San Marcos to support their waterwise gardening adventures and a Watersmart Landscape Contest Winner sign for their front yards.

(Editor’s note: The Vallecitos Water District is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)

Drought Prompts California to Halt Some Water Diversions

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Adam Beam

Some farmers in one of the country’s most important agricultural regions will have to stop taking water out of major rivers and streams because of a severe drought that is threatening the drinking water supply for 25 million people, state regulators said Tuesday.

The Water Resources Control Board approved an emergency resolution empowering regulators to halt diversions from the state’s two largest river systems. The order could apply to roughly 86% of landowners who have legal rights to divert water from the San Joaquin and Sacramento river watersheds. The remaining 14% could be impacted if things get worse.

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Lake Oroville at Lowest Levels Since 1977

/in , , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Riley Blake

Lake Oroville reached the lowest levels since September 1977, measuring 643.5 feet above sea level at 10 a.m. Tuesday. For comparison, when Lake Oroville is full, the surface water level is 900 feet above sea level.

Increasing issues are arising from the low levels being seen at Lake Oroville. Water operations manager for the Department of Water Resources State Water Project Molly White said last week in an email that due to the falling lake levels, the Edward Hyatt Power Plant may be forced to close down for the first time in its history due to low lake elevation.

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States Are Considering Paying People to Keep Their Water in the Colorado River. Some Don’t Think They Can Afford It

/in , , /by /Colorado Public Radioby Michael Elizabeth Sakas

More than 40 million people rely on the Colorado River in the West, and every drop of it is used. But with climate change, there’s now less water to go around. To try and avoid a multi-state legal battle over this precious resource, Colorado and other states are considering paying people to keep more water in the river.

In southwest Gunnison County, farmers and ranchers rely on water that would otherwise end up in the Colorado River. Drought has plagued the area for more than 20 years, so the resource is now more valuable than ever.

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Roseville Announces 20% Mandatory Water Cut Amid Worsening Drought. What You Need to Know

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Molly Sullivan

Roseville residents will be required to reduce water use by 20% beginning Monday, Roseville officials announced Tuesday.

The reduction, which began as a voluntary measure months ago, is now mandatory for all residents and builds on the 10% cut that was announced in May. The new measure to conserve water “recognizes that the water supply outlook worsens at Folsom Lake and throughout California,” city officials said in a news release.

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Researchers Study Impact of California Drought, Wildfires

/in , /by /The Daily Californianby Zachary Khouri

As California grapples with the effects of an ongoing drought, UC Berkeley researchers are studying changes in the magnitude of streamflows and drought-induced tree mortality in order to advise climate change policy.

Laurel Larsen, campus associate professor in the department of geography, is the lead scientist of the Delta Stewardship Council and provides data that informs the council’s decisions on water management in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

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Funds for Pumped Storage Hydro Expected to Help Propel California’s Clean Energy Future

/in , , /by /NHA Powerhouseby Cameron Schilling Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

Employees working at the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego likely won’t be taking much of an August vacation. Instead, many of them will be gearing up for preliminary studies, environmental reviews, and licensing activities for the proposed San Vicente Energy Storage Facility.

That’s because the facility – being proposed in partnership by the city and the Water Authority – received a shot in the arm in July 2021, when California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the state budget into law. Specifically, the budget includes $18 million in funding – enough to advance the project through initial design, environmental reviews, and the federal licensing process.

The proposed 500-MW project would be located outside of San Diego. It is designed to be closed loop or “off-river,” which means the facility will have few environmental impacts to the local area.

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A Drought Like No Other, NOAA Scientist Says

/in , , /by /Capital Pressby Don Jenkins

The West has been so dry and so hot for so long that its current drought has no modern precedent, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist.

For the first time in 122 years of record-keeping, drought covers almost the entire Western U.S. as measured by the Palmer Drought Severity Index, said Richard Heim, a drought historian and an author of the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“It’s a very simple ‘yes,’ in terms of this drought being unprecedented,” Heim said.

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Opinion: San Diego’s in an Eerie Climate-Change Bubble, at Least for the Moment

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Michael Smolens Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego has long been blessed with its weather.

But this summer, it’s ridiculous — as in ridiculously good compared with the extreme weather exacerbated by climate change that’s wreaking havoc elsewhere.

Across oceans or up the coast, it seems various regions of the world are either burning or drowning.

But here, this summer has been, well, very San Diego. Sure, there have been hot spells and even some record temperatures, but really nothing much out of the ordinary.

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Opinion: It’s Time Again for Water Officials to Sound the Alarm

/in , , /by /Ventura County Starby The Star Editorial Board

California’s five-year drought that ended in 2016 was brutal, one of the most severe in history. It unfolded during historic statewide high temperatures and included the driest four-year period on record and the lowest Sierra Nevada snowpack ever recorded.

It took sacrifice and resolve, but the state made it through that challenge, thanks in part to a 25 percent reduction in urban water use mandated by former Gov. Jerry Brown.

Now drought conditions have returned — and arguably the underlying conditions are worse than those experienced five years ago. Temperatures continue to rise, setting all-time records last summer, and parched conditions have extended throughout most of the West, stressing the Colorado River basin.

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