In the seven years Simon Hammel has lived in his Burbank home, he says he’s replaced at least 60% of the grass that used to be there.
It’s now primarily mulch, drought-tolerant plants and fruit and veggie trees. Hammel is trying his best to do as much as he can to conserve water and live eco-friendly.
San Diegans could be forgiven for not knowing how seriously to take California’s current drought.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency last week, reiterating a desire that urban water users from San Diego to Sacramento voluntarily cut consumption by 15 percent. That would bring water use back down to roughly where it was in 2016, after then-Gov. Jerry Brown issued the state’s first-ever mandatory drought restrictions.
Residents and property owners must now follow immediate citywide changes to watering and irrigation in the wake of this week’s City Council water shortage emergency declaration.
According to a city release, the council’s declaration Monday night goes into effect immediately and is intended to limit water use by 15 percent compared to last year, in part by limiting landscaping to three times a week at most.
At first glance at the north fork of the Mokelumne River, the water supply looks healthy for Amador County, but some waterways like Sutter Creek sit dry.
On June 9, as California’s historic drought deepened, the largest water agency in Santa Clara County declared a drought emergency and asked the county’s 2 million residents to cut water use by 15% from 2019 levels to preserve dwindling supplies.
San Francisco, along with a handful of Central Valley irrigation districts, is suing the state for enacting drought restrictions that are keeping thousands of landowners and suppliers from drawing water from rivers and creeks.
San Francisco, along with a handful of Central Valley irrigation districts, is suing the state for enacting drought restrictions that are keeping thousands of landowners and suppliers from drawing water from rivers and creeks.
The Bureau of Reclamation, the agency charged with water resources management for the West at the federal government level, announced unprecedented Tier 1 cuts in water deliveries from Lake Mead on the Colorado River to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico in 2022. The Tier 1 cuts will reduce water deliveries due to historic low water levels in Lake Mead.
California deliveries are not impacted by this announcement due to senior water rights, but they could be coming if water levels continue to drop. The Colorado River watershed and most western river watersheds that feed reservoirs with snowmelt are not producing as much runoff as they have historically due to the warming atmosphere affecting snow elevations and dryer and warmer soil and air temperatures.
Life in Tooleville wasn’t easy before the latest drought.
Residents of this tiny, two-road farmworker community, tucked into the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills in eastern Tulare County, have been living on bottled water since 2014 because its two wells are contaminated with hexavalent chromium.
Then in July, one of those wells started to dry up, thanks to plummeting groundwater levels. State Water Resources Control Board officials agree Tooleville’s other well will likely hit sand in a matter of months.
When it comes to water supplies in California and the U.S. Southwest, the news has been remarkably grim in recent weeks.
Unlike other parts of the state, Southern California has avoided the worst of the drought-inspired water restrictions because of ample supplies. But that could be changing.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday issued a supply alert, calling on the region to conserve vital resources and prepare for continued drought.
