Growing your food can be a wonderful and fulfilling activity to
connect with nature, improve your health and well-being, and,
oh yeah, save water. California grows more than 400
agricultural commodities, which translates into over one-third
of the vegetables and almost three-fourths of the country’s
fruits and nuts. Regardless of your view on commercial
agriculture, one thing is true, California has prime weather
for growing a wide range of edible plants in your backyard,
balcony, or indoor window sill. Sometimes, gardening is
easier said than done. And more often than not, when we think
about water efficiency and conservation, we think about
removing turf and installing beautiful native landscapes. This
is certainly a wonderful endeavor and can supply a needed
habitat for beneficial pollinators, improve soil health,
support local ecology, and save water.
The environmental impact report prepared by the city of
Tehachapi for the proposed Sage Ranch residential development
made the case that the project would not result in any
significant, unmitigated impacts — and included a water supply
assessment suggesting sufficient water exists for the project
over the required 20-year horizon. The city of Tehachapi and
Sage Ranch developer Greenbriar filed documents they believe
support that position in Sacramento County Superior Court on
Monday, Feb. 26 to defend the EIR approved by the Tehachapi
City Council in September 2021. At the same time, the council
approved a masterplan for the project that would
transform 138 acres near Tehachapi High School by adding 995
residential units over seven years.
Pacific Coast Highway closing during high tides or heavy
rainstorms near the Bolsa Chica wetlands is a common problem
for drivers in the area, and Caltrans officials say they are
looking to address the flooding problems in the future. When
asked if Caltrans had plans to address the flooding concerns
along that stretch of road at a recent Huntington Beach City
Council meeting, Caltrans District 12 Asset Manager Bassem
Barsoum said officials are working on a plan. Storms earlier
this month forced a 93 hour closure of the road in town to
traffic.
Federal tax deadlines have been extended until June 17 for San
Diego County residents affected by last month’s rainstorms, the
Internal Revenue Service announced Tuesday. The amended
deadlines will offer relief “for individuals and businesses in
parts of California affected by severe storms and flooding that
began on Jan. 21,” according to the IRS. The relief extends to
any areas designated by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, which includes San Diego County.
On a mid-winter morning in central California, Alyson Hunter
and Bruce Delgado gathered at the Marina State Beach parking
lot, the sea raging in the distance. Heavy rolling waves gushed
toward shore, crumbling before the dune. The temperature was in
the high 40s, though the morning sun was strong and the air was
nearly still. … Without a coordinated state-wide
plan for sea level rise, however, cities and towns have arrived
at vastly different approaches to their shared problem. This
lack of coordination along the coast could present additional
challenges down the line, sparing certain areas at first but
ultimately worsening the impacts of sea level rise for more
economically and environmentally vulnerable communities.
The controversial Delta Conveyance Project may have bigger
problems than legal action over its recently approved
environmental impact report. Who’s going to pay the
estimated $16 billion price tag? The concept, a tunnel to take
Sacramento River water beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
to thirsty towns and farms further south, relies on the end
users footing the bill. But over the decades that the project
has languished in various iterations, those end users have
become less enthusiastic to open their wallets. In fact,
the single largest recipient of delta water via the State Water
Project – and the single largest payer – the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, has committed only $160
million for project planning this time around.
When a water agency for most of California’s Inland Empire and
parts of Orange County started a pilot program to seed clouds
in the region in November to see if it could increase water
supplies, officials expected to face some questions and
skepticism. What officials didn’t expect was to be wrongly
accused by conspiracy theorists and critics of causing one of
California’s strongest storms in recent history — or, worse
yet, trying to poison the region.
From January to February, Southern California went from quite
dry to overwhelmingly wet, as a series of storms dropped more
than a year’s worth of water in just a few weeks, loading up
the L.A. River. Given that our dry months are coming up, just
how much of that stormwater were we able to hold on to? And
could we be doing better? The main way that we capture
stormwater is by letting it soak into the Earth and travel
through the soil into underground reservoirs. Back in the
day, this would happen all across places like the L.A. Basin,
but as we paved over much of the area, we lost much of our
ability to sequester rainfall. That’s where spreading
grounds, like those in the San Fernando Valley (seen below),
come in.
Portions of San Diego’s First Aqueduct will shut down this week
for yearly inspections and maintenance of water supply
pipelines for the region, the San Diego County Water Authority
announced this week. The San Diego County Water Authority’s
historic First Aqueduct delivers treated and untreated water
from just south of the Riverside County/San Diego County border
to the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside, transporting up to
120 million gallons of water per day to the San Diego region.
Portions of the San Diego County Water Authority’s historic
First Aqueduct are scheduled to shut down from Feb. 25 to March
5 as the Water Authority works to maintain a safe and reliable
water supply for San Diegans.
A local agency has been awarded nearly $1 million in emergency
funding by the state to provide assistance to residents hit
hard by January’s storms, it was announced Thursday. With this
award, from the California Employment Development Department
and Workforce Development System, the San Diego Workforce
Partnership will collaborate with the county, city and San
Diego Labor Council on temporary job-creation projects. San
Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas said the
funding will provide “essential aid, including rental
assistance, legal services, transportation and childcare
support” to individuals and businesses in need.
… According to the workforce partnership, an estimated
20,000 employers and 80,000 jobs stand at risk from temporary
or permanent damages, the majority of which was to small
businesses.
Former Hurricane Hilary was actually no longer a tropical storm
but essentially had the same impact when its destructive
remnants entered California last August, according to a new
National Hurricane Center report. Damage from Hilary was
estimated at $900 million in the United States. Three deaths
were directly related to the storm, including two in Mexico and
one that occurred in California when a woman was washed away in
her home. Hurricane Hilary moved north off Mexico’s Pacific
coast and weakened to a tropical storm before making landfall
in northern Baja California in Mexico, where its center became
less defined as it encountered mountainous terrain and other
atmospheric conditions, the report said.
Visiting Death Valley today, it is hard to imagine nearly all
of it once underwater. It contains the lowest point in the U.S.
It is known for record-setting heat and aridity. But the land
there — and many of the basins that dot the Mojave and the
Great Basin — were once filled with water. During the last
Ice Age, in the late Pleistocene, a lake filled much of what is
now called Death Valley to a depth of about 600 feet. That’s
only a bit shallower than the modern-day Lake Huron (with a
max. depth of about 750 feet). It is believed that the body of
water, later described as Lake Manly, stretched 90 miles long
and 11 miles wide. And it was hardly alone. Further east, in
the heart of the Great Basin, Lake Lahontan and Lake
Bonneville, at their peak, stretched hundreds of miles.
California is taking advantage of this year’s storms to expand
water supplies, building off of last year’s actions to
capture stormwater. Last year, the Newsom Administration’s
actions resulted in three times more groundwater recharge
capacity than would have otherwise occurred. Since 2019,
the Governor has allocated $1.6 billion for flood preparedness
and response, part of the historic $7.3 billion investment
package and to strengthen California’s water resilience. Here’s
what the state is doing this year to capture water:
…Local artists and curators…have taken on the task of
remembering the [Mexicali] region’s departed waters. Since
2020, [they] have overseen the Archivo Familiar del Río
Colorado, or Colorado River Family Album, a project that brings
together contemporary art, environmental education and
historical research to document bodies of water that are
disappearing or are already gone … In 2024, an
exhibition at Planta Libre will collect archival documents and
artwork that engages with water and its loss. Local artists
will lead a series of walks in the surrounding region so that
visitors can develop their own relationship with it
… the absence of the Colorado River and the waters it
nourished forms a cartography of loss that is written on the
landscape. Their mission is to make those absences visible — to
keep their memories alive, and to imagine possibilities for the
future.
Twelve years ago, a San Diego County grand jury urged the city
of Encinitas to find a long-term solution to improve the
existing stormwater infrastructure in Leucadia Roadside Park, a
neighborhood in Encinitas. Last month, historic flooding
across San Diego County damaged the homes and businesses of
more than 1,000 residents – Leucadia Roadside Park was one of
the communities hit hard. The area’s inadequate stormwater
infrastructure was a major reason why. … Five of those
businesses had substantial damage, four are still closed for
repairs, she said, and one of those businesses may not be able
to reopen. Repairs are costing some business owners tens of
thousands of dollars.
Kayakers and nature lovers are flocking to Death Valley
National Park in California to enjoy something exceedingly rare
at one of the driest places in the United States: Water. A
temporary lake has bubbled up in the park’s Badwater Basin,
which lies 282 feet below sea level. What is typically a dry
salt flat at the bottom of Death Valley has for months been
teeming with water after record rains and flooding have
battered eastern California since August. In the past six
months, a deluge of storms bringing record amounts of rain led
to the lake’s formation at the park.
The evidence is undeniable: Southern California steelhead
teeter on the brink of extinction. Southern steelhead serve as
crucial indicators of watershed health and river ecosystem
integrity. These fish play a role within the ecosystem that
you, your family, neighbors, and friends are also a part of. If
one piece of the ecosystem changes or disappears this ripples
throughout the rest of the ecosystem affecting every other
species – plant, animal, and human. Historically,
Southern steelhead thrived, with tens of thousands of them
swimming through Southern California rivers and streams. Today,
it’s rare to see them in double digits. Their dwindling numbers
stem from habitat loss, fragmentation, and the encroachment of
urbanization. We must act urgently to prevent the
irreversible loss of this species.
A judge ruled last month to allow the company that bottles
Arrowhead Spring Water to continue taking water from the San
Bernardino National Forest. Activists are now calling on the
Forest Service to stop the company’s operations. Fresno County
Court Judge Robert Whalen on January 25 ruled to pause the
state water board’s cease and desist order against BlueTriton
Brands. BlueTriton took over Nestle’s operations in the
national forest in 2021. The board last September stopped the
company from extracting water from Strawberry Creek — the
watershed in the forest that feeds local rivers, creeks and
streams.
The El Niño cycle bringing wet weather to California is one of
the strongest such cycles on record, according to researchers
from the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). Their
assertions are corroborated by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s climate prediction center,
which also reported a 62 percent chance El Niño would
continue from April through June with historically strong
conditions early in the year. … Record-shattering
rains poured over sections of California this week, with
rainfall totals as high as ten inches (25 centimeters),
bringing widespread flash floods. As atmospheric rivers pound
California, olive growers face the challenge of potential
diseases and problems that may ensue.
CBS 8 is Working for You to investigate the Lake Hodges water
supply, after receiving a huge response to our report on the
release of more than 600 million gallons of water into the
ocean. Now, CBS 8 has learned, the city of San Diego has lost
its access to Lake Hodges water, due to a state order by the
Division of Safety of Dams, which shut down a pipeline operated
by the San Diego County Water Authority. The city of San
Diego is under the state order to keep Lake Hodges water
levels low – at 280 feet – because Hodges Dam
was found to be unsafe. Neighbor Michael Citrin was not
happy to learn that, since January, the city of San Diego
has released 619 million gallons of water from Lake Hodges, and
there is no end in sight as another storm is on its way next
week.