Tag Archive for: environment

Environment Report: Tijuana and San Diego Share a Sewage Problem But Not a Solution

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby MacKenzie Elmer

Vicente Calderon from Tijuana Press and I spend a lot of time picking our way around the sewage-laden Tijuana River, asking ourselves: How is it still this bad? Our latest story from the cross-border sewage crisis plaguing Tijuana and San Diego illuminated that the current approach to solving the problem is a lot like putting a Band-Aid on the stomach flu. The Band-Aid in this case is $300 million that Congress has charged the Environmental Protection Agency with deciding how to spend. But really, and here’s the flu part of the allegory, a lot of Tijuana’s infrastructure is just old and broken, or was never even built to support the neighborhoods that popped up on its hillsides.

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Wells Dry Up, Crops Imperiled, Workers in Limbo as California Drought Grips San Joaquin Valley

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Louis Sahagún

As yet another season of drought returns to California, the mood has grown increasingly grim across the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley. Renowned for its bounty of dairies, row crops, grapes, almonds, pistachios and fruit trees, this agricultural heartland is still reeling from the effects of the last punishing drought, which left the region geologically depressed and mentally traumatized. Now, as the valley braces for another dry spell of undetermined duration, some are openly questioning the future of farming here, even as legislative representatives call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a drought emergency. Many small, predominantly Latino communities also face the risk of having their wells run dry.

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San Francisco Bay: Protection from Costly Disasters is Being Thrown Away, Scientists Say

/in , /by /The Mercury Newsby Paul Rogers

For more than 100 years after California’s Gold Rush, developers and city leaders filled in San Francisco Bay, shrinking it by one third to build farms, freeways, airports and subdivisions.

All that changed in the 1970s with modern environmental laws. But now as sea level rise threatens to cause billions of dollars of flooding in the coming decades, the bay is going to need to be filled again — but this time in a different way, according to a new scientific report out Tuesday.

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Otay Water District Offering Art Contest for Kids

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Karen Pearlman

The Otay Water District is looking for young artists to enter its annual “Water is Life” poster contest for students who live in the district’s service area. Students from kindergarten through 12th grade can win prizes for depicting the importance of water through original illustrations on posters. The district will select six winners based on the theme, originality, and visual and word clarity. Otay will also enter those works of art into a second contest held for water agencies throughout Southern California run by the Metropolitan Water District.

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Earth Week Cleanup in San Diego County

/in , , /by /San Diego Community News Group

After its postponement and production of a smaller cleanup in 2020 due to COVID-19, I Love A Clean San Diego County returns its Creek to Bay Cleanup to its traditional annual date during Earth Week on Saturday, April 24.

This year’s environmental event will operate under the decentralized, socially-distanced model introduced last year where volunteers clean up close to their homes. Organizers aim to double the event’s litter removal impact by issuing a 30,000-pound, one-day challenge to all participants. This is an opportunity for all county residents to safely volunteer and cleanup streets, parks, canyons and beaches within their own neighborhoods. Free online volunteer registration opened on April 1 at CreektoBay.org.

 

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The Water Fight Over the Shrinking Colorado River

/in , , /by /BBC Newsby Paige Sutherland

Scientists have been predicting for years that the Colorado River would continue to deplete due to global warming and increased water demands, but according to new studies it’s looking worse than they thought.

That worries rancher Marsha Daughenbaugh, 68, of Steamboat Springs, who relies on the water from the Colorado River to grow feed for her cattle.

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Newsom Rejects Valley Lawmakers’ Request for Statewide Water Emergency Declaration

/in , , /by /GV Wireby Bill McEwen

With California in drought conditions amid the third-driest precipitation totals in state history, Valley lawmakers want Gov. Gavin Newsom to take immediate action.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group asked Newsom to declare a statewide water emergency. The governor’s office responded by saying Newsom will take action “if it becomes necessary.”

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Study: Drought-Breaking Rains More Rare, Erratic in US West

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Matthew Brown

Rainstorms grew more erratic and droughts much longer across most of the U.S. West over the past half-century as climate change warmed the planet, according to a sweeping government study released Tuesday that concludes the situation is worsening.

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How I Got Beyond the Concrete and Learned to Love my Watershed

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Sammy Roth

A year ago, when stay-at-home orders were a newly disorienting fact of life, I started taking long walks through my neighborhood on L.A.’s Westside. Wandering south from Palms into Culver City, I realized I live near a huge concrete channel — a creek, trapped in place — with a bike path along the water, and a view of oil pumpjacks rising and falling atop the Baldwin Hills. There were beautiful murals, too, showing a healthy, thriving waterway. They were hashtagged #KnowYourWatershed. And the more I admired them, the more I realized that I did not, in fact, know my watershed, despite growing up not far from here.

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Marin Municipal Water District Proposes Mandatory Conservation

/in , /by /Marinijby Will Houston

The Marin Municipal Water District is proposing mandatory conservation rules for the first time since 1988 in response to record-low rainfall levels akin to those of the notorious 1976-77 drought. The proposed ordinance would require customers to limit outdoor watering to one day per week starting May 1 and adhere to other restrictions. The district board of directors plans to vote on the ordinance on April 20. The district has received just 20 inches of rain this year, its second-lowest amount in 143 years of records. The lowest was 18 inches in 1924.

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