The storms pounding California this week are expected to bring an end to a wildfire season that shocked fire crews with its unprecedented, climate-change-driven behavior.
For the first time ever, wildfires burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, destroying multiple towns including the Gold Rush-era community of Greenville and the mountain hamlet of Grizzly Flats.
Every time it rains, Angelenos might be thinking: are we saving any of that rain water?
Thursday’s storm brought some much needed rainfall, but with a burgeoning drought, many Southern California residents are wondering if we benefitted at all.
Desperation over water scarcity has produced any number of schemes to relieve the crisis. But few are as chuckle-headed as a plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and transport it 200 miles to urban Southern California.
This is the Cadiz water project, which has been percolating along since the turn of the century.
California has not built enough new reservoirs, desalination plants and other water projects because there are too many delays, too many lawsuits and too much red tape.
That’s the message from a growing coalition of Central Valley farmers and Southern California desalination supporters who have begun collecting signatures for a statewide ballot measure that would fast-track big water projects and provide billions of dollars to fund them — potentially setting up a major political showdown with environmentalists next year shaped by the state’s ongoing drought.
Southern California’s largest urban water district declared a drought emergency on Tuesday and called for local water suppliers to immediately cut the use of water from the State Water Project.
The resolution passed by the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California calls on people across the region to step up conservation efforts, but also focuses especially on six water agencies that rely heavily or entirely on the water-starved State Water Project.
After a brief interruption for some rain late last month, the Los Angeles region is back to its regularly scheduled programing. In November, that means little or no rain.
For those hoping for more rain, the prospects aren’t good, as the National Weather Service puts it. The long-range models look dry into early December.
Not that L.A. gets much rain in November. The monthly normal for downtown Los Angeles is 0.78 of an inch. Downtown normally receives 0.58 of an inch of rain in October, but got 0.71 of an inch, putting L.A. less than a quarter-inch above normal so far for the rainfall season.
Another historic drought has gripped the West and California, with the entire state facing abnormally dry conditions and 87% of it facing an extreme drought, according to the latest federal data. Yet Southern Californians are in far better shape to handle the situation than Northern Californians thanks to policies that southern water agencies have adopted.
Two-thirds of the state’s rain falls in Northern California, which has one-third of the state’s population — and vice versa. Yet many northern cities are running out of water, with several San Francisco Bay Area communities already adopting water rationing and water-use restrictions. This isn’t happenstance, but the result of planning — or lack thereof.
ON A DUSTY hilltop in San Diego, the drinking water of the future courses through a wildly complicated and very loud jumble of tanks, pipes, and cylinders. Here at the North City Water Reclamation Plant, very not-drinkable wastewater is turned into a liquid so pure it would actually wreak havoc on your body if you imbibed it without further treatment.
First the system hits the wastewater with ozone, which destroys bacteria and viruses. Then it pumps the water through filters packed with coal granules that trap organic solids. Next, the water passes through fine membranes that snag any remaining solids and microbes. “The pores are so small, you can’t see them except with a really powerful microscope,” says Amy Dorman, deputy director of Pure Water San Diego, the city’s initiative to reduce its reliance on water imported from afar. “Basically, they only allow the water molecules to get through.”
The Metropolitan Water District, which provides water to six counties in Southern California, announced a partnership on Wednesday, Oct. 13 with Arizona water agencies to collaborate on planning for what could become one of the nation’s largest water recycling plants, producing up to 150 million gallons daily to serve more than 500,000 homes.
Central Arizona Project will provide $5 million and the Arizona Department of Water Resources will provide $1 million for environmental planning of the Regional Recycled Water Program, which will purify treated wastewater to produce a new, drought-proof water supply for Southern California. If the full project is developed, it would cost $3.4 billion and improve sustainability of Colorado River water supplies.
Programs from the drought-busting handbook practiced by Southern California water agencies include recycling water, building storm-water capture basins and offering cash rebates for replacing thirsty lawns with xeriscape landscaping.
With the grip from a second year of drought tightening, a regional water-planning agency in the Inland Empire is moving ahead for the first time in its history with a more controversial program: cloud seeding.
