A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday by veteran journalist Matt Weiser.
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Please Note: The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here, and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
If PG&E has to shut off power in the East Bay to prevent
wildfires from igniting and burning homes, residents will be
strongly urged to severely reduce their water use during the
emergency. That’s because their main water supplier, the East
Bay Municipal Utility District, may have its power cut off,
too, and be forced to rely on 29 emergency backup generators.
State and local officials believe benzene contamination in the
water systems in areas burned by the Camp Fire is limited to
isolated pockets after ongoing testing, they said at a
community meeting on Monday. … A no-drink advisory in the
Paradise Irrigation District will be lifted at each location as
testing confirms no unsafe levels of the chemicals in the
service lines.
Initially, farmers had been contracted $285 per acre/feet for
conserved water and the IID welcomed all participants. However,
due to the farmers’ innovation and ingenuity, the total
acre/feet saved the past three years exceeded the amount needed
for the QSA transfer.
Update 2018 presents a vision for greater collaboration and
alignment among water sectors and institutions, sound
strategies, and long-term investments needed for the
sustainable management of the California’s water supply.
Requirements to balance supplies in California groundwater
basins have refocused attention on how best to achieve
recharge, and on what’s known as the conjunctive use of surface
and groundwater supplies. Some irrigation districts have been
recharging groundwater in that manner for years or even
decades.
The three design schemes look totally distinct on paper and
come with different names — “Island,” “Soft Edge,” “The Yards”
— but they all have the same goal: restore wildlife habitat,
plant people-friendly landscapes and develop flood-control
strategies for a place that has been the subject of so much
neglect, speculation, dreaming and debate: the L.A. River.
Brokered in large part by rookie state senator for California’s
14 Senate District, Melissa Hurtado, the southern portion of
the Valley has gained tens of millions of dollars of investment
in drinking water, asthma mitigation, aging and disability
resource centers and Valley Fever research.
The Clovis City Council has approved landmark water deals with
the Fresno Irrigation District that officials say will secure
the city’s growth for decades to come. According to the Clovis
General Plan, the city expects 280,000 residents in 2083 — 2.5
times its 110,000 population. Plans call for Clovis to grow
northeast and southeast.
The rebate for Malibu residents who remove grass landscaping
has been increased from $4 to $5 per square foot of turf
removed, the City of Malibu announced Monday. The incentive is
part of the Malibu Smart water conservation program offered by
the City of Malibu, County of Los Angeles and West Basin
Municipal Water District.
River towns can start by restricting floodplain development so
that people and property will not be in harm’s way. This will
create space for rivers to spill over in flood season, reducing
risks downstream. Proposals to raise and improve levees should
be required to take climate change and related flooding risks
into account.
California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot and
a diverse panel of experts had a public conversation about
efforts to reactivate the floodplains in the Sacramento Valley.
The Portfolio Recommendations Group is an ad hoc gathering of
leaders from over 80 urban water districts, ag water districts,
tribes, environmental justice groups, business groups,
environmental groups, flood agencies, fire agencies and
watershed groups. All interested parties are invited to join
this focused 3-month effort to develop recommendations for
Governor Newsom’s Water Resilience Portfolio.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced that 30 projects will
receive $5.1 million from the Desalination and Water
Purification Research Program to develop improved and
inexpensive ways to desalinate and treat impaired water.
Agricultural scientists across the globe including at Stanford
University and the University of California at Davis have in
recent years been making new discoveries showing that healthy
soil holds more carbon than previously thought and that good
soil management can serve as an important carbon sink.
Groundwater overdraft is a major problem globally and has been
a persistent and growing problem in California for decades.
This overdraft is predominantly driven by the economic value of
water for agricultural production and cities.
The Eel River—once home to the state’s third-largest salmon and
steelhead runs, all of which are now listed as threatened―may
see the return of healthy fisheries in coming years. A unique
opportunity to remove a dam that blocks fish from reaching
spawning habitat has arisen. We talked to Curtis Knight,
executive director of CalTrout, about the situation.
Earlier this year, President Trump launched – by executive
order, of course – a new process designed to circumscribe
dramatically states’ longstanding authority to review
applications for federal permits for any activity that may
result in a discharge to a water body within a state’s
boundaries. That proposal is fundamentally flawed, both on its
merits and in the procedures USEPA is using to implement it.
A growing menace in the form of 15-pound swamp rodents is
threatening Delta waterways, and the state is throwing money,
hunting dogs and birth control at the invasive pests which have
the potential to destroy crops and wetlands.
Summers in San Francisco may soon feel more like the warmer
East Bay. The East Bay may soon feel more like Sacramento. And
Sacramento — well, it might just be too hot to stick around any
longer. One of the most detailed studies on rising temperatures
suggests that few places in the United States will be
unaffected by extreme heat by the middle of this century.
Californians may feel like they’re enduring an epidemic of
fire. The past decade has seen half of the state’s 10 largest
wildfires and seven of its 10 most destructive fires, including
last year’s Camp Fire, the state’s deadliest wildfire ever. A
new study, published this week in the journal Earth’s Future,
finds that the state’s fire outbreak is real—and that it’s
being driven by climate change.
