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Major Power Shut-Offs Are New Reality As California Enters Peak Wildfire Season

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alex Wigglesworth and Joseph Serna

Russ Brown and other emergency officials in Yuba County have been trying to get the word out.

Charge your medical equipment and phone batteries now. Make sure you have enough nonperishable food to last a few days.

Because when the hot winds start blowing, the power to your house may be shut off.

The state is entering the height of fire season, with a dangerous mix of strong winds and temperatures approaching triple digits forecast across its valleys and foothills.

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Rare California Trout Species Returns To Native Habitat

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times

For the first time in nearly a century, a rare California trout species will swim in a mountain creek that is its native habitat, marking a major milestone that conservationists hope will lead to a thriving population and removal of its threatened status.

About 30 Paiute cutthroat trout will be plucked Wednesday from Coyote Valley Creek in the eastern Sierra Nevada wilderness and hauled in cans strapped to pack mules about 2 miles west into Long Valley.

 

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Trump Administration To Finalize Rollback Of Obama’s Clean Water Protections

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times

The Trump administration plans to revoke an Obama-era regulation that provided federal protection to many U.S. wetlands and streams, according to two Environmental Protection Agency officials with knowledge of the plan.

The rule defined which waterways are subject to federal regulation. The administration plans to replace it with its own version, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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Los Angeles OKs A Deal For Record-Cheap Solar Power And Battery Storage

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

For a long time, there were two big knocks against solar power: It’s expensive, and it can’t keep the lights on after sundown.

A contract approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shows how much that reality has changed.

Under the 25-year deal with developer 8minute Solar Energy, the city would buy electricity from a sprawling complex of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries in the Mojave Desert of eastern Kern County, about two hours north of Los Angeles. The Eland project would meet 6% to 7% of L.A.’s annual electricity needs and would be capable of pumping clean energy into the grid for four hours each night.

 

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A Giant Mass of Warm Water off the Pacific Coast Could Rival ‘The Blob’ of 2014-15

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Deborah Netburn

A large and unusually warm mass of water is threatening to disturb the marine ecosystem along the Pacific Coast from Southern California to Alaska, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.

They call it the Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave of 2019, and if it doesn’t dissipate soon, researchers said it could be as destructive as the infamous “blob” of warm water that caused massive toxic algae blooms along the coast and wreaked havoc on whales, salmon, baby sea lions and other marine life in 2014 and 2015.

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UCSD Discovers Surge In Plastics Pollution Off Santa Barbara

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Gary Robbins

UC San Diego researchers say they have discovered an “explosion of plastics pollution” in the seafloor off Santa Barbara, in an area where little of the material appeared to exist before the end of World War II.

The university’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography says the surge may reflect the boom in plastics production that occurred worldwide after the war, largely for use in consumer products, ranging from bottles to clothing.

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Microplastics Are Found In Lake Tahoe’s Waters For First Time

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Louis Sahagun

Scientists have detected microplastic pollution in Lake Tahoe’s deep blue waters for the first time. Now they are trying to determine its source and potential harm to the lake’s flora and fauna.
Preliminary analyses of water samples collected by researchers at the Desert Research Institute in Reno revealed the presence of particles of synthetic fiber and bits of red and blue plastic no bigger than the head of a pin.

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Could A Hurricane Lash Los Angeles? 80 Years Ago, This Deadly Storm Came Close

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Paul Duginski

September 1939 was a stormy month on the world stage. On Sept. 1, Hitler invaded Poland. On Sept.3, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand responded by declaring war on Germany. In Los Angeles that month, as residents sweated through an unusual heat wave and nervously watched the storm clouds of World War II gathering overseas, four tropical cyclones that would affect Southern California were born in the eastern North Pacific. No tropical cyclones had made it north of 25 degrees latitude in the northeastern Pacific basin during all of 1937 and 1938.

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A Report Shows Trump’s Water Plan Would Hurt California Salmon. The Government Hid It

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

Federal officials suppressed a lengthy environmental document that details how one of California’s unique salmon runs would be imperiled by Trump administration plans to deliver more water to Central Valley farms. The July 1 assessment, obtained by The Times, outlines how proposed changes in government water operations would harm several species protected by the Endangered Species Act, including perilously low populations of winter-run salmon, as well as steelhead trout and killer whales, which feed on salmon. But the 1,123-page document was never released.

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Odor Advisory Issued For Salton Sea Area; Hydrogen Sulfide Leads To Rotten-Egg Smell

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Carlos Lozano

An odor advisory was issued Sunday for the Salton Sea area in Riverside County due to elevated levels of a gas that smells like rotten eggs, according to state air regulators. The advisory was issued for the Coachella Valley and will remain in effect until at least Monday because of winds from the south, with peak concentrations of hydrogen sulfide emissions occurring in the morning hours, the South Coast Air Quality Management District said in a statement. “Hourly average concentrations of hydrogen sulfide peaked [Sunday] morning at 239 parts per billion immediately downwind of the Salton Sea – at a monitor close to the shore, in an area with little population,” the district said.

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