Tag Archive for: Los Angeles Times

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Under A Cloud Of Scandal, Is ForcedOut

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Eli Stokols

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who endeared himself to President Trump but was caught up in scandals and infuriated environmental activists, will be departing his post by the end of the year in the latest shake-up of the president’s Cabinet. “Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning. “Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.”

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Climate Change will Bring More Strong El Niños. Here’s What That Means for California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Julia Rosen

California is no stranger to extreme weather. The last decade has brought crippling droughts and dam-busting deluges. And climate change is only making the situation worse by turning up the heat during the dry season and supercharging storms during the wet season. Now, a new study suggests rising temperatures also will increase the frequency of strong El Niño events, which often bring pummeling rains across the state. “This adds to the evidence that what we’ve experienced in California over the last several years is consistent with what we can expect from global warming,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study.

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Metropolitan Water District approves Colorado River shortage plan

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday approved a plan for sharing Colorado River delivery cuts if a shortage is declared on the drought-depleted river.

The vote by the district, which imports water to the Southland, represents another step in a years-long attempt to forge a shortage agreement among the seven states that depend on the Colorado for drinking and irrigation supplies.

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Trump Administration Unveils Major Clean Water Act Rollback

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Evan Halper

The Trump administration unveiled its plan Tuesday for a major rollback of the Clean Water Act, a blueprint drawn up at the behest of farm groups, real estate developers and other business interests that would end federal protections on thousands of miles of streams and wetlands. The proposal has big implications for California and other arid Western states, where many of the seasonal streams and wetlands that are a foundation of drinking-water supplies and sensitive ecosystems would lose federal protection. Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Obama-era rule that put those waters under the protection of the Clean Water Act “further expanded Washington’s reach into privately owned lands.”

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A Wet Start To The Winter Brings Piles Of Snow To California Mountains And High Hopes For Water Supply

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

In a good sign for California’s water supply, the Sierra Nevada has been blanketed by heavy snow thanks to a series of recent storms. The snowpack measured 106% of average, according to the state’s snow survey taken late last week. That’s more than double the 47% of average measured on the same day last year. The Sierra Nevada is a key source of water for California, which is still recovering from years of drought conditions. Two storms beginning on Thanksgiving brought up to 2 feet of snow in parts of the northern Sierra, said Emily Heller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

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Mudslides Offer A Preview Of What Could Be A Wet Winter In Southern California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry, Rong-Gong Lin II, Hailey Branson-Potts, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Richard Winton

As heavy rain pelted Hollywood Burbank Airport on Thursday morning, the pilot of Southwest Flight 278 out of Oakland came over the intercom with a warning: The runway was short and wet. It was going to be a bumpy landing. Paris Organist, a 31-year-old Oakland resident sitting in the front row, put up his foot to brace himself as the plane rolled off the end of the runway just after 9 a.m., its landing gear plowing into a concrete barrier designed to stop airplanes that overshot their mark. Mud splattered on the plane’s windows.

 

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Storm Expected To Strengthen As It moves South into L.A. Region; Chilly Temperatures To Linger

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry

Keep an umbrella at the ready, Californians, because more wet weather is on the way. A cold front moving through the state will bring up to an inch of rain to Northern California from Monday night through Thursday. “It’s expected to be a really weak and light system,” said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. “We don’t anticipate any impacts over any of the burn scar areas up here.”

 

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Southern California Ski Resorts Received as Much as 8 Inches of Snow in Recent Storm

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Mary Forgione

Southern California’s ski resorts got their first snowfall from Thursday’s storm, with some spots in the San Bernardino Mountains receiving up to 8 inches. More of the white stuff may be on the way Saturday evening. Snow Summit, with a peak elevation of 8,200 feet, received 4 to 8 inches of fresh snow from the recent storm, according to its website. The Big Bear Lake resort had opened for the season Nov. 16 with a base of man-made snow.

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Bigger Wildfires. Worsening Droughts. More Disease. How Climate Change Is Battering California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

Analyses estimated that the area burned by wildfire across the western United States from 1984 to 2015 was twice what would have burned had climate change not occurred. Wildfires around Los Angeles from 1990 to 2009 caused $3.1 billion in damages (unadjusted for inflation). Tree death in mid-elevation conifer forests doubled from 1955 to 2007 due, in part, to climate change. Allowing naturally ignited fires to burn in wilderness areas and preemptively setting low-severity prescribed burns in areas of unnatural fuel accumulations can reduce the risk of high-severity fires under climate change. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally can also reduce ecological vulnerabilities.

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OPINION: L.A. Wasn’t Built In The Desert, But The Desert May Be Coming To Us

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

It’s hard out there for an environmentally responsible but thirsty Angeleno — someone who wants to grow a couple organic tomatoes in the backyard, take more than an occasional shower and still have enough money to repair the rain barrel after paying the various water bills, fees and taxes. Measure W, which voters passed on Nov. 6, will help. But it won’t put an end to our water problems.

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