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New Water Restrictions in Sacramento Start Next Month. Here’s What This Means For You

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Hanh Truoung

The fall season is settling into Sacramento, which means watering rules for the city will change soon.

As a part of a water conservation ordinance from 2017, the city of Sacramento set up restrictions on when businesses and residents water their lawns.

From Nov. 1 to Feb. 28, individuals can only water their landscape one day per week, on Saturday or Sunday, at any time of day. Watering on a weekday is not allowed.

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California’s Drought Regulators Lose Big Case. What it Means for State’s Power to Police Water

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Dale Kessler and Ryan Sabalow

California’s drought regulators have lost a major lawsuit that could undermine their legal authority to stop farms and cities from pulling water from rivers and streams.

With California in its third punishing year of a historic drought, an appeals court ruled Monday that the State Water Resources Control Board lacks the power to interfere with so-called “senior” water rights holders and curtail their diversions of water from rivers.

The case stems from orders imposed by the state board in 2015, during the previous drought, when it halted farms and cities throughout the Central Valley from taking water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

 

 

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California’s Water Year is Nearly Over. Here’s Where Our Reservoirs Stand Amid Drought

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Michael McGough

With California about to experience perhaps the hottest and driest start to September in its modern history, 16 of the state’s 17 major reservoirs entered the month below their historic average levels — several of them well below average, in another daunting reminder of California’s extraordinary ongoing drought and water concerns.

 

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Fact Check: Trump says California is Rationing Water. Here’s What’s Really Going On

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

President Donald Trump had a lot to say about his efforts to fight off water rationing in California Wednesday before a cheering crowd of farmers in Bakersfield tired of seeing their water deliveries reduced to protect endangered fish.

But Trump’s claims — about how much of California’s water flows to the Pacific Ocean, and claims the state had set limits on daily water — left out key nuances that make his statements misleading.

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Opinion: California’s Water Department Must Face the Reality of Climate Change and Diverse Needs

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Bill Dodd

As we enter a new decade, California faces increasing environmental challenges caused by climate change, creating an uncertain future for our water resources. We need bold leadership to address these impacts. It is time for California’s Department of Water Resources to implement water policy for the state that shores up our precious waterways and diversifies water supplies in the face of these imminent threats.

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California’s Wet Again, The Snowpack Looks Good and Ski Resorts Are Happy. Will It Last?

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

Just a few weeks ago, it was one of the driest starts to the rainy season in modern California history. PG&E was shutting off power to tens of thousands of Californians as dangerously dry fire weather dragged on nearly to Thanksgiving.

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‘Farming the Sun:’ As Water Goes Scarce, Can Solar Farms Prop Up The Valley?

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

On the Changala family farm in Tulare County, the past and future are separated by a dirt road and a barbed-wire fence.

On the south side sits a wheat field. On the north, a solar farm, built three years ago, sending electricity to thousands of Southern Californians. Alan Changala sees little difference between the two.

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There’s a Silver Lining to California’s Wildfires: More Snowpack and Water Storage, Study Finds

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Michael Finch II

Wildfires in California leave behind acres of scorched land that make snowpack formation easier and more water runoff downstream from the Sierra Nevada to basins in the Central Valley, increasing the amount of water stored underground.

That’s the finding from researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who discovered that blazes in some parts of the state could result in more water availability.

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Appetite For California Almonds Still Growing, But Farmers Feel Squeeze From New Water Rules

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Candice Wang

The California almond has proved resilient under fire. During the late years of California’s most recent drought, from 2015 through 2016, the almond came under attack from a variety of sources, including news outlets such as Mother Jones, Forbes and the New Republic, labeling it a horticultural vampire. It was, they said, sucking California’s groundwater reserves dry, leaving behind brittle, drought-stricken trees and causing the dusty land in San Joaquin County to cave in. But the nut and the crop have not just survived, but thrived.

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OPINION: All Californians Should Have Safe, Clean Water. But How Do We Make It Happen?

/in , , /by /Sacramento Beeby Dan Schnur

“Few California urbanites grasp the intolerable, third-world conditions that nearly a million of their fellow Californians live in when it comes to accessing safe drinking water,” said Michael Mantell, president of the Resources Legacy Fund. “That residents of a state with the fifth largest economy on the planet lack that access is nothing short of scandalous.” Lea Ann Tratten, a partner at TrattenPrice Consulting, described the Californians who suffer most without access to clean water and reiterated the urgency for action. “The heaviest burden of the toxic taps crisis has fallen on our most marginalized communities, communities of color and people with low-incomes,” Tratten said.

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