Tag Archive for: Drought

Running Out of Water and Time: How Unprepared is California for 2021’s Drought?

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Rachel Becker and Julie Cart

With most of the state gripped by extreme dryness, some conditions are better, some worse, than the last record-breaking drought. Over-pumping of wells hasn’t stopped. But urban residents haven’t lapsed back into water-wasting lifestyles. “We are in worse shape than we were before the last drought, and we are going to be in even worse shape after this one,” said Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at University of California at Davis.

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California Farmers Facing Drought Are Choosing Empty Fields

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Greenby Daniela Sirtori-Cortina and Breanna T Bradham

In some areas of California it’s so dry that farmers aren’t even bothering to plant crops this season. Growers north of San Francisco have begun pulling out of local farmers markets and produce-box programs. County Line Harvest, which farms more than 30 acres in Petaluma, California, doesn’t have enough water to grow all the peppers, lettuces and other produce that normally go into its subscription boxes, according to a video posted to its Instagram page.

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East Bay Water Officials Have Eyes On The Future

/in , , /by /SF Gateby Tony Hicks

East Bay Municipal Utility District officials have seen droughts come and go. But they seem to be coming more frequently this century.

Climate change is stoking devastating wildfire seasons year after year, drying the state out and just making it more flammable the following year. State water officials say that means less water in the Mokelumne River Watershed, the main source for EBMUD and its 1.4 million customers.

Last winter was the state’s driest since 1977, prompting the district to officially declare a stage one drought on April 27 and ask customers to cut ten percent of their water use. What can the East Bay expect moving forward?

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New Research Finds Climate Models Mostly Get It Right

/in , , /by /KPBS-FM/TVby Erik Anderson

New climate research, which was done mostly in San Diego, finds that a study of land temperatures during the last ice age confirms some widely held thoughts about climate change.

Lead author Alan Seltzer, a paleoclimatologist at the Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute, studied ancient water as a way to gain insight into previously unrecorded planetary temperatures.

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State Plans to Order Drought Restrictions, But it Doesn’t Have Good Water Data to Do It

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

As California descends deeper into drought, state regulators are planning to do something they’ve done few times in modern history: order thousands of people, farms, and even cities and towns that hold historic water rights to stop drawing water from the rivers, lakes and ponds they rely on.  The move is intended to make sure the dwindling flows in California’s waterways are reserved for those with the most senior water rights, as well as for fish and other wildlife.

Many of those with lesser rights would have to turn to storage, groundwater or another source, if they have it.  The problem, besides leaving several in a tough spot, is that the state doesn’t have an accurate tally of how much water is being pulled from its watersheds, nor who exactly is taking it.

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Water Usage Down Sharply in San Diego, Shrinking City’s Reliance on Expensive Imported Supplies

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby David Garrick Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego’s vulnerability to water shortages and drought is shrinking significantly because residents and businesses are using less water and city officials are boosting the local supply.

A new city analysis shows local water use dropped sharply from 81.5 billion gallons in 2007 to about 57 billion gallons in 2020, even though the city’s population has grown about 1 percent per year over that time.

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Dry Soils And Drought Mean Even Normal Snowpack Can’t Keep Up With Climate Change In The West

/in , , /by /CPR Newsby Michael Elizabeth Sakas

Brian Domonkos straps on a pair of cross-country skis and glides through the trees along Mosquito Creek west of Fairplay.

It’s May, but there’s still snow in Colorado’s mountains near the headwaters of the South Platte River.

Domonkos, the Colorado Snow Survey supervisor, gets to work measuring how much snowpack is left from the winter to runoff into streams, rivers and reservoirs this summer.

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A Few Lessons for California’s New Drought

/in , , /by /California WaterBlogby Jay Lund

We asked some colleagues for lessons that might be useful in managing the California’s new drought. Here is a first sampling of thoughts.

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Water Crisis “Couldn’t be Worse” on Oregon-California Border

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Gillian Flaccus

The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year.

In what is shaping up to be the worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system.

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New Report: Drought to Hit Rural Latino Communities Hardest

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Rachel Becker

Rural, low-income Latino communities across California were hardest hit by the last drought and could see drinking water shortages again this year as extreme drought spreads across the state, according to a report released today by non-partisan advisors to California’s lawmakers.

The report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office warns state officials to prepare by ramping up monitoring of wells in vulnerable communities and lining up emergency drinking water supplies to send there.

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