If whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over, five years of drought have transformed California’s civil courts into well-worn legal boxing rings. As climate change threatens the state’s long-term water future, local water officials and legal experts say water rights have morphed into priceless bounty worth protecting by any means necessary.
Tests have confirmed the presence of toxic cyanobacteria — also known as “blue-green algae” — in south Delta waterways, state officials said Thursday. The “extensive” bloom is present in Old River and Grantline Canal, along Fabian Tract not far from Tracy and Mountain House, the State Water Resources Control Board announced.
The rumbling started Monday morning deep under the Salton Sea. … The temblors were not felt over a very large area, but they have garnered intense interest — and concern — among seismologists.
California’s Water Year 2015-’16 will go down in the record books as “dry” despite parts of Northern California experiencing average to slightly above average precipitation. The water year also will be remembered for its “snow drought” in which much-needed precipitation fell more often as rain than snow, according to a press release from the California Department of Water Resources.
Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill creating a program for a statewide earthquake early warning system in California. State Senator Jerry Hill authored the legislation.
As plans move forward for a massive desalination plan in Rosarito Beach, a proposed pipeline to carry some of that water to San Diego County is undergoing scrutiny by the U.S. State Department.
A new study finds that unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures helped cause a massive bloom of toxic algae last year that closed lucrative fisheries from California to British Columbia and disrupted marine life from seabirds to sea lions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls nutrient pollution the “single greatest challenge to our nation’s water quality.” Rising concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in waterways, the agency reports, are a significant threat to human health, ecosystems, and local economies.
It’s not often a golf course gives way to cropland, but this could be the future for an enormous planned community on the north edge of Palm Springs. … The project would also include about 6.5 miles of hiking trails, a dog park, community gardens and two 25-yard lap pools.
One of California’s true natural gems and iconic ski resorts could soon see massive expansion including an indoor water park, trampoline jump center, arcade and bowling alley.
With Lake Mead receding year after year and the threat of a shortage looming, the overallocated Colorado River seems to be approaching a breaking point. But John Fleck argues this crisis doesn’t necessarily mean we’re headed for a future in which conflicts flare and communities run dry.
A wildfire in a mostly remote area of California’s Santa Cruz Mountains has now destroyed eight homes and sent a firefighter to the hospital, officials said Thursday.
More than 3,700 feet above San Jose, the rescue of this majestic peak — the home of critical Bay Area communications equipment — is a survival story in a tale filled with heartbreak.
The superintendent of Yosemite National Park on Thursday announced that he is stepping down amid an ongoing federal investigation into allegations of a hostile work environment in which employees, particularly women, are bullied, belittled and marginalized.
Fall is the prime time to see Kokanee salmon spawn right here on the South Shore. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 1-2, the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit hosts its annual Fall Fish Festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
This summer, as temperatures soared and depleted groundwater turned the San Joaquin Valley into a collection of sinkholes, state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, put forth legislation to fast-track conservation of underground water supplies.
For the third time, economists from the University of Utah have offered their independent analysis of financing a $1.3 billion-$1.7 billion pipeline to carry water from Lake Powell to St. George. And for the third time, the analysis shows it isn’t practical to think the people who would use that water can actually cover that cost by themselves.
One of my [Water Energy Innovations President Laurie Park] fondest memories growing up in Hawaii was Hurricane Nina, which wasn’t very significant in the history books, but it left an impression on me. Torrential rains and heavy winds knocked down banana trees and power lines, and took out water mains.
