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15-Day Watering Ban in Portions of L.A. County Due to Pipeline Leak

Drought-pummeled lawns across Los Angeles County will be a little bit thirstier for 15 days in September when officials suspend outdoor watering in several areas to repair a leaking pipeline, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced Monday.

The emergency repair will shut down the 36-mile Upper Feeder pipeline — which delivers water from the Colorado River to Southern California — from Sept. 6 to 20, the MWD said. The leak was discovered this year, and the pipeline has been operating at reduced capacity under a temporary fix while officials designed a more permanent solution.

Biden Administration Moves to Scrap Cadiz Water Pipeline Right-Of-Way Permit, Cleared by Trump

Federal authorities have moved to reverse a Trump administration decision that cleared the way for Cadiz Inc. to pipe water across public land in the California desert.

The request filed in federal court Friday, which must still be granted, could deal a blow to the company’s decades-long effort to pump groundwater from beneath its desert property 200 miles east of Los Angeles and sell it to urban Southern California. The project is fiercely opposed by conservationists, who say it will dry up desert springs and seeps relied upon by Indigenous tribes and rare wildlife. Cadiz insists its plans won’t harm springs in the area.

Opinion: This Proposed Ballot Measure Would Make You Pay for the Ag Industry’s Water Inefficiency

Whoever coined the phrase “Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting” didn’t have things quite right.

In California, water is for scamming. The newest example is a majestically cynical ploy being foisted on taxpayers by some of the state’s premier water hogs, in the guise of a proposed ballot measure titled the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022” — or, as its promoters call it, the More Water Now initiative.

OPINION: Gavin Newsom’s Plan for California Water is a Good One. Stay the Course

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new blueprint for California water policy offers a stay-the-course agenda for projects and policies intended to help cope with a warming climate and more volatile weather patterns that already are affecting the state’s irrigation, environmental and drinking water supplies. There are no moonshots and few surprises, and that’s fine; it will be challenging enough to ensure that all Californians are hooked up to safe and reliable water supplies to meet their needs for the coming decade and beyond.

Opinion: A Week of Rain is Nice, but Does Virtually Nothing to Help L.A.’s Water Issues

Southern California’s March rain is a welcome relief, coming as it does after a mostly dry January and an absolutely desiccated February. Los Angeles, like much of the rest of the state, had been in drought and was getting by without severe conservation measures only because of reservoirs still brimming from the soaking winter of 2017 and a succession of moderately wet follow-ups.

We have a name for late winter storms that come at the end of mostly failed rainy seasons. We call them March Miracles. The granddaddy of them all came in 1991, when California was facing a desperate water shortage only to be hit by a late-March Sierra blizzard that packed a whole season’s worth of moisture into three days.

February Ranked Among the Driest on Record Across California. Forecasters Hopeful for a ‘Miracle March’

After one of the driest Februaries on record across much of California, the first day of March brought a dash of rain and a dusting of fresh powder to the parched landscape.

The storm, which rolled into Los Angeles County on Sunday afternoon, dropped less than one-tenth of an inch of rain on the coast, while higher elevations saw between one-quarter and an inch of precipitation.

Snow Valley Mountain Resort in the San Bernardino Mountains reported a foot of snow from the system, while Frazier Park in Kern County received a 3-inch dusting, said John Dumas, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Opinion: Newsom Hopes to Broker a Peace Treaty in California’s Water War. Some Worry He’ll Cave to Trump

Gov. Gavin Newsom may be piloting a lifeboat that will rescue the sinking California Delta. Or he may be in water over his head on a doomed mission.

The governor gets angry with skeptics who say he’s being delusional. But history sides with the doubters.

“I love reading all that, ‘Hey, he’s naive. He’s being misled,'” Newsom recently told a forum sponsored by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, his voice rising with a touch of sarcasm.

“It means we’re doing something a little different.”

To Prevent Rail Line Collapse, San Diego Area Spends $10 Million To Repair Del Mar Bluffs

The Del Mar bluffs have been plagued by a series of collapses over the last 18 months that have left residents and officials increasingly concerned about the stability of the busy railroad tracks perched atop the cliffs.

Top transportation officials are now gearing up for the largest bluff stabilization effort in nearly a decade. The San Diego Assn. of Governments and North County Transit District have already dedicated roughly $10 million to repair storm water drainage structures, replace parts of sea walls and install additional steel and concrete support columns to hold back the earth.

Snow Levels Dipping And Widespread Rain Is On Tap For Southern California This Week

Break out the umbrellas and hang onto those heavy coats because the region’s first significant winter storm of 2020 is expected to unleash rain and snow Thursday.

After what has been a mostly dry January, a chilly winter storm is expected to move into the northern portion of the state Tuesday before making its way down the coast to Los Angeles County by late Thursday morning.

Amid the Wasteland of the Salton Sea, a Miraculous but Challenging Oasis is Born

LOS ANGELES — It came as a bittersweet surprise to biologists and government agencies monitoring the steadily shrinking Salton Sea’s slide toward death by choking dust storms and salt.

Thousands of acres of exposed lake bed have become the unintended beneficiaries of lush marshlands that are homes for endangered birds and fish at the outlets of a agricultural and urban runoff that used to flow directly into the Salton Sea.