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OPINION: Modernizing Water Infrastructure Is Crucial To Achieving California’s Energy Goals. Here’s Why

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby V. John White

The Colorado River, the State Water Project (SWP) and groundwater are where California gets its water. And all three are at risk, requiring significant investment and changes in current practices if water quality and reliability are to be maintained. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, guided by the steady hand of the state’s Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot, offers a ray of hope. But the rest of us need to help. We share the water in the Colorado River with six other neighboring states and Mexico, and it supplies up to 50 percent of Southern California’s water.

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Climate Change Threatens California Freshwater Fish. We Can Do Something About It, Experts Say.

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Caroline Ghisolfi

Fish die-offs in freshwater lakes are an increasing threat in California, and experts say climate change is to blame. Researchers from UC Davis and Reed College in Portland, Ore., found a strong link between fish deaths in freshwater lakes in Wisconsin and hot summers. They predict that fish die-offs will double by 2050 and quadruple by 2100 in Wisconsin. Andrew Rypel, a UC Davis wildlife, fish and conservation biology researcher, said we should expect similar effects in California. He told The Bee in an interview that California lakes may be even more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than those in Wisconsin, because they host many sensitive cold-water species.

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Fire-Ravaged Paradise Water Agency Faces State Ultimatum: Fix Your Cracked Dam Spillway

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Tony Bizjak and Dale Kasler

Just months after California’s deadliest wildfire laid waste to the town of Paradise, hillside residents face yet another costly and potentially dangerous problem. State safety officials have downgraded the Magalia Dam on the hill above town to “poor” condition, and have ordered the dam’s owner to make interim repairs by November on the cracked spillway. It’s the latest in problem for the Paradise Irrigation District, which lost most of its revenue base in the Camp Fire and is still struggling to deliver potable water to its remaining customers. The fire tainted the district’s water supply with the chemical compound benzene, forcing almost all of the few thousand people who’ve returned to Paradise to drink bottled water.

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If You Haven’t Seen Oroville Dam Repair Work In A While, Here’s The Latest

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby David Caraccio

Crews have finished placement of the structual concrete cap on the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam, according to the California Department of Water Recources.The cap can be seen in a DWR video released June 10, 2019. The work took place from January to May 2019. It’s been over two years since a hole opened up in the spillway, forcing the evacuation of nearly 180,000 people in California.

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‘We Couldn’t Even Take Showers’: Californians With Unsafe Drinking Water Appeal For Fixes

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Kyung Mil Lee

A coalition of California residents affected by unsafe drinking water held a symbolic “water strike” at the Capitol on Wednesday, pressing lawmakers to fund a plan that would clean up their water sources. More than 1 million Californians lack access to clean drinking water, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration. An additional 2 million people are vulnerable to contamination, according to the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund Coalition. “We cannot claim to be the Golden State when we have 1 million Californians without access to clean and affordable water,” said Daniel Peñaloza, City Council Member from Porterville in Tulare County. “This is an injustice and a disgrace.”

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OPINION: Some 360,000 Californians Can’t Drink The Water. And Still No Fix For This Disgrace

/in , /by /The Sacramento Bee

In the world’s fifth largest economy, in the richest state in the richest nation, some 360,000 Californians have water that is unsafe to drink. That’s the equivalent of about three and a half Flint, Michigans, and it’s an outrage. Worse, it’s a fixable outrage, and the fix is being blocked by vested interests. This stalemate has gone on for more than a year now at the stateCapitol while vulnerable families, many of them in the Central Valley, have lived as if this is a Third World country. Yet state leaders have let a solution slip through their fingers – again

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Skiing In July, Dangerous Rivers, Full Reservoirs: What Sierra’s Huge Snowpack Means For Summer

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

More rain is coming to the Sierra Nevada, adding to a bountiful spring that’s left the snowpack at twice its historical average for this time of year. The mountains are holding more snow than they were two years ago, when Northern California was coming off a historically wet winter that officially ended the drought. But the heavy spring runoff is frustrating some hikers, campers and rafters. And it’s left farmers in part of the Central Valley frustrated that they aren’t getting full allocations of irrigation water despite one of the wettest winters in years.

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OPINION: Changes In Climate Continue To Make Surveying Watersheds Tricky. ‘But We Can Change That’

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Frank Gehrke

In April 2015, I escorted then-Gov. Jerry Brown to Echo Summit, where we ceremoniously plunged a metal pole onto the dry, bare earth that typically would have been covered by snow but wasn’t that year. That spring, we were in the depths of a record-setting drought. If you’re among the many Californians who remember the photo of that survey, you’ll probably recognize me. I’m the one wearing a ball cap with “DWR” plastered on the front. Until my retirement last December, I’d been measuring snow in California for nearly 40 years.

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Thirsty Silicon Valley Water Agency Might Buy A Central Valley Farm. Why Agriculture Is Worried

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

Once again, a big thirsty metropolis is looking at buying Central Valley farmland with an eye toward boosting its water supplies. And once again, neighboring farmers are nervous about it. Silicon Valley’s main water agency, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, confirmed Wednesday that it’s considering buying a 5,200-acre Merced County ranch. The district would build a groundwater storage bank beneath the ranch as a buffer during drought conditions.

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As Late-Season Wet Weather Hits Northern California, Snowpack And Reservoir Levels Soar

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Claire Morgan

Northern California rain and snow levels have soared with record wet weather in May, leaving the Sierra with higher-than-normal snowpack levels and pushing several reservoirs toward full capacity. Downtown Sacramento already has broken record rainfall numbers in May, with more than 3.42 inches of rain this month, according to National Weather Service forecaster Karl Swanberg. The previous record of 3.25 inches was set in 1889. Current statewide snowpack levels are being recorded at 20 inches of “snow water equivalent,” the depth of water that would result if the snowpack melted at once, a figure that is 167 percent above average for this time of year, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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