Tag Archive for: Drought

Surfing in the California Desert? Developer’s Plan Sparks Outrage Over Water Use, Drought

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

In a part of the Coachella Valley where exclusive neighborhoods wrap around lush golf courses and ponds, a stretch of open desert could be transformed into a new sort of artificial oasis.

A developer has plans for hundreds of homes and a resort featuring a surfing lagoon. If La Quinta’s City Council endorses the proposal, the sandy ground at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains would become the site of a 12-acre pool where surfers could take off on sculpted lines of peeling waves.

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Most native Southern California plants do well in hotter temperatures, so summer plant care is easy with a little planning. Photo: Annie Spratt/Pixabay

Find the Right Plant for Your Landscape Plans Online

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If you’re looking to upgrade your landscape or just love gardens, it can be challenging to choose the right plant that will thrive within your WaterSmart Living landscape plans for your specific conditions.

The online plant finder WaterSmart Landscaping in San Diego County can assist you through a comprehensive database of choices well suited to this region’s Mediterranean climate.

Pollinators and birds are attracted to native plants like this Stonecrop (Crassulae). Photo: City of Escondido

Pollinators and birds are attracted to native plants like this Stonecrop (Crassulae). Photo: City of Escondido

This interactive gardening tool has thousands of pictures of plants and garden designs. Take visual tours of beautiful, water-efficient landscapes through photographs that include hotlinks to plant information screens.

Photos are organized by landscape category to make them easy to find. Explore galleries of ideas for back yards, front yards, hillsides, patios, planters, and other outdoor living areas.

If you’re simply looking at plants, the online guide offers more than 1,000 plants and search tools that make plants easy to find.

Online guide features specialty plant sections

right plant

Beach strawberry makes an attractive lawn substitute. Photo: Flickr

Specialty sections include:

  • Lawn alternatives: Create non-traditional lawn space without thirsty turf.
  • Pollinator attracting plants: Pollinator gardens with flowers that provide pollen and nectar for pollinating insects provide vital nutrients to support the pollinator population, and preserve agriculture, ecosystems, and biodiversity.
  • Plants for fire safety: trees, shrubs, ground covers, vines, and perennials that can help reduce fire intensity and do not contribute significantly to fuel the fire due to moisture or chemical content, or total volume.
  • California natives: Because native plants are adapted to local environmental conditions, they require far less water. They also provide vital habitat for birds and other wildlife and preserve biodiversity.you’re exploring, save plant and garden images you like to your plant list, then print reports about them before you shop.
Most native Southern California plants do well in hotter temperatures, so summer plant care is easy with a little planning. Photo: Annie Spratt/Pixabay

Most native Southern California plants do well in hotter temperatures, so summer plant care is easy with a little planning. Photo: Annie Spratt/Pixabay

Go to the website to get started

Click through the navigation bar to see the lists and available resources.

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WaterSmart Living-Logo-San Diego County Water Authority

(Editor’s Note: The San Diego County Water Authority and its 24 member agencies offer programs, resources, and incentives to improve water-use efficiency for residential, commercial, and agricultural users. WaterSmart choices are a way of life in the region. Stay WaterSmart San Diego! For more water-use efficiency resources, go to WaterSmart.SD.org.)

Olivenhain Municipal Water District Logo landscape design workshops

Free Workshop on October 13 Highlights Importance of Efficient Irrigation

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Encinitas, Calif. — Olivenhain Municipal Water District, in partnership with Hunter Industries, invites the public to attend a free workshop featuring practical tips to save water through an efficient irrigation system. This workshop is designed for individuals interested in the latest irrigation advances in reducing outdoor water use. The workshop will be held on October 13, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Elfin Forest Interpretive Center Honoring Susan J. Varty, located at 8833 Harmony Grove Road in Escondido.

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Nevada Looks to Conservation as Colorado River Dwindles

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Daniel Rothberg

Only a few miles from the Las Vegas Strip, in the Mojave Desert, is an unlikely scene: A county park with walking trails and thick vegetation that circles a vibrant rush of flowing water.

Known as the Las Vegas Wash, the water running through this channel is a crucial part of how Nevada has managed to keep its net Colorado River use below its allocation, despite booming population growth and two decades of persistent drought, worsened by a changing climate.

 

(AP EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a collaborative series on the Colorado River as the 100th anniversary of the historic Colorado River Compact approaches. The Associated Press, The Colorado Sun, The Albuquerque Journal, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Arizona Daily Star and The Nevada Independent are working together to explore the pressures on the river in 2022.)

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Supervisors Take 1st Step to Overhaul Water, Drought Management Strategies

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Elizabeth Ireland and City News Service

The Board of Supervisors directed the chief administrative officer Wednesday to update the county’s water and drought-management strategies, including sustainability efforts, and deliver a final report within the next year.

The overhaul, proposed by board Vice Chairwoman Nora Vargas, will incorporate the entire region, including local municipalities, Imperial County and bi-national cities.

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As the Colorado River Shrinks, Water Managers See Promise in Recycling Sewage

/in , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager

In the parched Colorado River basin, water managers are turning over every stone looking for ways to keep the taps flowing. Now, they’re finding more water in some unusual places – shower drains and toilet flushes.

At a sprawling sewage treatment plant in Carson, California, the occasional breeze delivers a pungent whiff of a reminder of how used water becomes “reused.” Here, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is planting the seeds for a massive new facility, where a multi-billion-dollar installation could help recycle wastewater and keep drinking supply flowing for the agency’s 19 million customers.

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Solvang to Consider Construction Moratorium Due to Drought Conditions

/in , , /by /Santa Ynez Valley Newsby Jennifer Best

Solvang City Council members Monday requested a construction moratorium in the face of drought conditions. The issue will be placed on their agenda for the Oct. 10 meeting for public input and council action.

“You’ve heard already here, and if you’ve been listening to the planning commission you’ve probably been getting e-mails, that maybe we should consider a construction moratorium until we get out of this drought. We are forcing everybody to take rather large cutbacks in water, and then you want to add in a hotel or apartments or whatever else,” Council Member Mark Infanti said.

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Opinion: Can We Save the Diminishing Colorado River?

/in , /by /The Hillby Bruce Yandle

Years of hot, dry conditions and population growth across the Southwest have brought painful reductions in Colorado River water flow allocations to Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico. Based on a 1920s multi-state pact, the Department of the Interior sounds an alarm when the river’s reservoirs fall to extremely low levels, leaving states with no choice but to severely cut their water use, limiting consumption by agriculture, industry and citizens.

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Farming, Water and Wall Street On Colorado’s Western Slope

/in , /by /AP Newsby Chris Outcalt

Under the blazing afternoon sun, Joe Bernal navigates a shiny-green John Deere tractor onto a dirt road a few miles north of downtown Fruita. Bernal is headed to cut hay in a field a few hundred feet down the road. On his way, he points out the land his family has acquired over the years. His grandparents had 150 acres over there. His parents bought this land here. His great grandparents, who showed up in 1925, lived in a house right there.

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Opinion: Water Woes Will Only Get Worse for California

/in , /by /Antelope Valley Press

We are so technologically advanced, that we can send messages to people thousands of miles away in mere seconds; we have access to a world of knowledge with a few computer keystrokes, cars can drive themselves and phones are mini computers that we carry in our pockets. 

Despite all the strides the human race has made to make life more convenient, we still struggle with things like drought, climate change and water shortages.

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