A historic vote on the Delta tunnels project is getting a do-over.
No, Californians, it's not against the law to shower and do laundry on the same day — even though loud voices in the conservative blogosphere are claiming it is.
For the first time in the state's history, California is setting permanent water-consumption goals to prepare for future droughts and climate change, with a local elected official involved in the historic move.
Californians approved the $4.1 billion bond measure Proposition 68 on Tuesday, giving a boost to California's long-delayed and underfunded effort to build thousands of acres of wetlands around the shrinking Salton Sea.
As a young biologist in the 1970s, Peter Moyle remembers towing nets behind boats in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and catching 50 to 100 translucent, finger-length smelt in a matter of minutes.
Chinook salmon, steelhead, and green sturgeon will soon have an easier path to the Sacramento River, and eventually their spawning grounds.
IN THIS EPISODE of Deeply Talks, Tara Lohan, Water Deeply's managing editor, speaks with University of California, Davis fisheries experts Peter Moyle and John Durand about the challenges and opportunities for fish restoration in the California Delta.
The San Diego County Water Authority now supports Gov. Jerry Brown's twin tunnels project, a $17 billion plan to carry water south from the rivers of Northern California.
A bruising battle between the Central Arizona Project and many states and water users has revitalized the push for a stillborn plan to prepare for more drought on the Colorado River.
Water districts that have voted to commit their funds to the California WaterFix have formed a Joint Powers Agreement to help the state Department of Water Resources accomplish construction of the Delta Twin Tunnels.
The Colorado River has for years been locked in a pattern of chronic overuse, with much more water doled out to cities and farmlands than what's flowing into its reservoirs.
Some environmentalists go so far as to call the desalination proposal for south Orange County, just north of Doheny State Beach, a "good" approach.
CALIFORNIANS THIS YEAR will vote on not one but two water bond measures totaling $13 billion.
Farmers receiving allocations from the State Water Project can expect a bigger allotment this year than they anticipated as recently as last month, thanks to late-season precipitation.
The final round of the 16th annual Solar Cup Competition, where students from 38 Southern California high schools rely on the sun's rays to power boats, will be held Sunday at Lake Skinner in Winchester.
For the past seven months, hundreds of high school students have been building boats equipped with solar panels, steering capabilities and motors that produce up to 320 watts of power.
A joint powers authority has been formed to oversee design and construction of California's delta water tunnel project, a milestone in the multibillion-dollar plan that has been in the works for more than a decade.
California's super bloom hasn't materialized the way it did last spring, but that hasn't stopped Woodland Hills homeowners Ron Gales and Andrea Fields from enjoying a spectacular wildflower bloom of their own.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two other water districts that agreed to fund the California Waterfix tunnel project announced today the formation of a public agency that will be charged with its design and construction.
It's well-understood at this point that the Trump Administration is no friend to science-based governance.
Warmer days — and nights.
Mexico and the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada face a better-than-even possibility of getting less water from the Colorado River in 2020 because of a persistent drought, water managers said Wednesday.
Imagine the snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains as a giant reservoir providing water for 23 million people throughout California.
Gov. Jerry Brown warned local water agency officials throughout California on Thursday that unless the delta tunnels project gets needed state and federal permits soon and continues advancing, the major infrastructure project may not happen in their lifetime.
A Bay Area water agency agreed Tuesday to pump $650 million into Gov. Jerry Brown's Delta tunnels project, providing a meaningful boost for the controversial $16.7 billion plan.
On May 8, phase two of reconstruction will begin on the Oroville Dam Spillway, but as more repairs take place, the bills are stacking up.
In 2012, the San Diego County Water Authority launched an unusual website to attack Southern California's largest supplier of water, the Metropolitan Water District.
The outlook for the most important river in the Southwestern U.S. remains grim this summer after April storms failed to produce much snow in the mountains that feed the waterway, forecasters said Monday.
One of the teams within UC Riverside's Engineers Without Borders (EWB), a chapter under the Inland Empire professional chapter, took home first prize for the team category at the 11th annual Metropolitan Spring Green Expo on Thursday, April 19.
The 2014 water bond included a novel funding approach designed to take at least some of the politicking out of deciding which projects get public money.
California Gov. Jerry Brown's twin tunnels project in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta could receive a significant boost thanks to one Bay Area water district, but that extra help could result in higher water bills for some customers in the South Bay.
Many Americans know the name Kesterson as the California site where thousands of birds and fish were discovered with gruesome deformities in 1983, a result of exposure to selenium-poisoned farm runoff.
After a five-hour packed public hearing, the board of Silicon Valley's largest water provider postponed a decision on whether to provide up to $650 million toward a $17 billion plan to build two giant tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to move water south.
Lake Mead is the country's biggest reservoir of water. Think of it as the savings account for the entire Southwest.
The day of reckoning is drawing near for Huntington Beach's long-planned desalination plant, which would help quench Orange County's thirst with sea water and free up imported water for the rest of the Southern California.
Twenty years and $50 million into the process, officials with desalination plant purveyor Poseidon are optimistic they will get their final two permits — possibly by year's end.
When California's Orange County Water District began distributing drinking water derived from sewage in the mid-1970s, it acted out of simple need.
Lower Basin states can easily store conserved water upstream in Lake Mead, but it's not so simple for Upper Basin states with major reservoirs below them.
In a dramatic reversal of its stance just six months ago, Silicon Valley's largest water district has scheduled a vote Wednesday on a plan to commit up to $650 million to Gov. Jerry Brown's controversial proposal.
Recently, Southern California water leaders made their biggest investment decision in half a century.
Sea level rise and changing streamflows are converging with uncertain results in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The meager 3 inches of rainfall this season is a reminder just how dependent San Diego and all of Southern California is on water from somewhere else.
Proposition 68 would allow California to sell $4.1 billion in bonds to pay for desperately needed improvements in parks and water systems.
The California Department of Water Resources on Tuesday announced a statewide increase in State Water Project allocations for 2018.
Despite getting a financial boost earlier this month, California's project to build two new water tunnels still faces big regulatory and legal challenges.
Californians should expect more dramatic swings between dry and wet years as the climate warms.
California already has one of the most variable climates and the swings between extremes will become more pronounced with unchecked climate change.
California has long battled both torrential rain and water shortages.
As Gov. Jerry Brown moves through his final months in public life, an elusive signature project — the construction of two massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, intended to salvage the state's water supply network — has seemed endangered.
Last fall, after years of study, the state's largest water agency voted to spend $4 billion on a new project to bring water south from Northern California's rivers.
April is often a time of abundance in the mountains of the American West, when snowpack is at or near its peak, and forecasters work to determine how much runoff will course through our rivers and fill reservoirs later in the season.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted Tuesday to shoulder most of the cost of revamping the system that delivers water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta to the Southland, committing nearly $11 billion to building two massive tunnels.
After a decade of planning and debate, the controversial Delta tunnels project got a huge cash infusion Tuesday and took a giant step toward becoming reality.
The largest water district in California agreed Tuesday to fork over nearly $11 billion to build two tunnels that will siphon water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a major boost for Gov. Jerry Brown's pet project.
A week after Southern California's largest water agency abandoned a plan to pay for much of the state's ambitious water project, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's Board of Directors approved a nearly $11 billion plan for a two-tunnel project that would bring water from Northern California to Southern California.
Southern California's largest water wholesaler decided Tuesday to commit nearly $11 billion to build two tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to divert water south to Los Angeles and neighboring counties.
Officials have voted in favor of a proposed two-tunnel system that would deliver much needed water to Southern California.
California's largest water agency has approved a nearly $11 billion plan to help fund two enormous delivery tunnels, breathing new life into Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to remake the state's water system.
Today is a big day for billions of dollars in water projects.
Gov. Jerry Brown, in a last-minute bid to forge ahead with one of his legacy projects, urged Southern California's big water agency Monday to support a plan to build the two Delta tunnels simultaneously.
With the city of Los Angeles and Orange County on opposite sides, Southern California's role in financing a massive water delivery project is likely to hinge on a few smaller agencies.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) voted to approve its initial share of funding the entire $16.7 billion California WaterFix project in October 2017.
Communities across California are struggling to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the state's first comprehensive attempt to rein in wanton groundwater depletion.
In law school, first-year students are introduced to the term ipse dixit, a Latin phrase meaning a statement that, while unsupported and unproven, may carry some weight based solely on the authority or standing of the person who made it.
Camrosa Water District, a public services provider in Ventura County, gets its water from a combination of groundwater, recycled wastewater, and the State Water Project, which transports water south through the state.
After a spring storm system dumped 5 to 7 inches of rain into the Feather River basin over the weekend, state officials said Sunday they likely won't have to use the partly rebuilt flood control spillway at Oroville Dam after all.
The first thing to remember about precipitation in California is that it's unpredictable, as the past several winters have once again shown us.
Four days after Southern California's biggest water agency dropped a plan to pay for most of a major water delivery project, the funding proposal is back on the table.
A million people live in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. If Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to siphon water to Los Angeles is completed, all of us are going to suffer.
More groups are coming to their senses by not wanting to spend tens of billions of dollars on a wasteful project that will ruin the Delta forever.
Modernizing the state's water delivery system through the California WaterFix is necessary for our survival in Southern California.
A powerful Southern California water agency has breathed life back into the twin-tunnels Delta water project, a plan that appeared dead just a few days ago.
For far too long, too many leaders in California have had tunnel vision – Gov. Jerry Brown, local elected officials, water district executives.
About a year into his second go-round as governor, Jerry Brown was talking about all the challenges facing California.
Just how bad was California's last drought?
At the height of the California drought, David and Christine Ramirez started to question the practicality of their Woodland Hills lawn.
Pounding rains, heavy snow: It's shaping up as another wintry week in Northern California.
California's water conservation habits, refined and improved over five years of drought, are quickly evaporating.
ONE OF CALIFORNIA'S foremost experts on freshwater fish believes there may be hope for restoring native salmon to abundance – but there's a catch: California must build the controversial Delta tunnels, he says.
Water that once coursed through city sewers may soon find new life coming out of your home faucet.
DESPITE RECENT RAIN and snow, California is back to dry conditions again after a very wet 2017.
Lake Mead is unsustainable.
Two tunnels, one or none? The question continues to swirl around plans to perform major surgery on the sickly heart of California's water system.
Scientists have found dramatically declining snowpack across the American West over the past six decades that will likely cause water shortages in the region that cannot be managed by building new reservoirs, according to a study published Friday.
Facing pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown, Southern California's largest water agency could vote as soon as April on whether to take a majority stake in the twin-tunnels project Brown plans for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
About the size of a beagle, they can quickly turn a lush green marsh to a wasteland.
Amid one of California's driest winters in modern history, state water regulators on Tuesday met in Sacramento to consider making permanent the water-wasting rules that were in effect during the last drought — rules that would carry fines of up to $500 per violation.
With California facing another potential drought, legislators demanded Wednesday that a state agency release $2.7 billion in bond funding for dams, reservoirs and other water storage projects.
As dry conditions persist in California, residents in San Diego County and around the state have started using water at levels not seen since before the state's historic drought.
Amid a winter marked by more sun than storms, California is desperate for rain and snow.
It appears Gov. Jerry Brown's Delta Tunnel plan could be back on track with both underground waterways.
In a dramatic twist on the Delta tunnels saga, Southern California's powerful water agency is exploring the feasibility of owning the majority stake in the controversial project, a move that raises fears of a "water grab."
Even a single water tunnel burrowed under the California's Delta would be worth it for urban ratepayers and farmers who would to pay to build and maintain the project, according to an analysis released Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration.
Like a patient waiting for heart bypass surgery while the insurance company dickers with the hospital over the numbers, California has been stuck in pre-op for decades, awaiting approval of an aqueduct or tunnel bypass from the Sacramento River around (instead of through) the state's hydrological heart — the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The troubled Delta tunnels project was officially downsized Wednesday, as Gov. Jerry Brown's administration announced it would attempt to build a single tunnel in its effort to re-engineer California's elaborate water-delivery system.
Governor Brown's proposed budget―the last of his tenure―highlights his priorities for the state.
Water policy is becoming a prisoner of its own limited vocabulary, particularly when it comes to the weather.
When Governor Brown issued mandatory restrictions back in 2015, many people ripped out lawns in favor of drought-resistant gardens or, at the very least, watered our plants a lot less.
This winter in the southern Rocky Mountains is shaping up to be one for the record books. And not in a good way.
Many Western reservoirs are full, and downpours have triggered floods and deadly mudslides in parts of California.
By summer, four million people in the city of Cape Town—one of Africa's most affluent metropolises—may have to stand in line surrounded by armed guards to collect rations of the region's most precious commodity: drinking water.
Semi-arid Southern California's residents saved a record amount of water last year, more than 1 million acre feet, according to the Metropolitan Water District, the region's biggest water wholesaler.
California water officials have approved $34.4 million in grants to eight desalination projects across the state, including one in the East Bay city of Antioch, as part of an effort to boost the water supply in the wake of the state's historic, five-year drought.
They gathered this week at Sacramento's federal building on Capitol Mall, carrying protest signs and vowing to resist the Trump administration's plan to pump more of Northern California's water through the Delta to the southern half of the state.
The 2016-2017 water year was one of the wettest on record in California.
The news, as it often does, has been bouncing back and forth from extreme to extreme — historic drought, historic snowfall, historic fires, fatal floods and mudslides.
California officials have moved closer to scaling back the troubled Delta tunnels project, officially notifying potential construction contractors that they're considering limiting the project to one tunnel.
Colorado mountain snowpack shrunk to record-low levels this week, raising concerns about water supply, and some federal authorities calculated even big late snow — if it falls — may not make up for the lag.
Think of it as a dense blob of air. When it parks itself over the Pacific Ocean, it can act like a wall – and prevent rain and snow from reaching Northern California.
Biologists assumed baby winter-run Chinook salmon hung out in the Sacramento River where they hatched until they grew large enough to make the trip downstream to the Pacific Ocean.
Republican senators used their majority to advance two of President Donald Trump's picks for key environmental posts over the objections of Democrats who say the nominees are unfit for office.
I got up at 5:15 a.m. on Saturday morning with the idea of driving 100 miles to watch the sun rise over the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
During California's five-year drought, the row of ponds in the desert north of the Palm Springs often lay empty and dry.
California regulators on Tuesday approved a plan to spend nearly $400 million over 10 years to slow the shrinking of the state's largest lake, a vital migratory stop for birds and a buffer against swirling dust in farming towns.
Governors of 19 Western states are pressing the federal government to do more to prevent the spread of damage-causing invasive mussels from infected federally managed waterways.
The Oroville Dam flood control spillway has been fixed.
Hydrologist Mark Hanna stood on the North Broadway Bridge recently and gazed out on an industrial vista of treated urban runoff flowing down the Los Angeles River channel between graffiti-marred concrete banks and train trestles strewn with broken glass.
If two massive, 40-mile long, 40-foot-diameter tunnels that would direct Sacramento River water around the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Central and Southern California are too big, too expensive and too scary to contemplate, how about splitting the difference and going with a single tunnel?
Indian tribes in our arid region need access to reliable water to continue to live on reservation lands. This session, I jointly wrote Assembly Bill 1361 with Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D – Coachella, to streamline water deliveries to Indian reservations throughout California.
Bringing more certainty to an unruly and unpredictable Colorado River system was a common theme among water managers speaking at the Colorado River District's annual seminar September 15.
After far too many years lost to the indecisiveness of "let's do yet another study," momentum finally seems to be behind real efforts to "save" the Salton Sea.
Silicon Valley's water district Wednesday rejected Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to build twin tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta but said it would support a smaller, less expensive project.
When it comes to water policy, all environmental groups are not the same.
The Coachella Valley's largest water agency voiced support for California's proposed $17.1 billion plan to build two water tunnels beneath the Delta, even as key questions about the project remain unanswered — including how much customers would end up paying.
Southern California's largest water agency Tuesday threw a lifeline to California WaterFix, approving a $4.3-billion buy-in to the water delivery project.
Southern California's powerful water agency committed more than $4 billion to the Delta tunnels Tuesday, giving the troubled plan a desperately needed vote of confidence.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California took the opportunity to give voice to the love of water conservation in a new media campaign called "H2 Love Letters."
A longtime Sonoma County water manager and environmental advocate is in line to lead the state Department of Water Resources, Gov. Jerry Brown announced Wednesday.
An internationally recognized purification system credited with turning wastewater into drinkable water in Orange County will begin the final stage of expansion with a $124 million investment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, officials announced Wednesday, July 19.
The federal government is poised to invest as much as $492 million to get Pure Water, the city of San Diego's effort to turn sewage into drinking water, off the ground.
The state's recently released survey about California's use of recycled water was disappointing for recycled water use advocates, but it doesn't tell the full story.
In Santa Clara County, 40 percent of the water we need for our families, businesses and to grow our local food comes from the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta. But the infrastructure that delivers this water is aging, at risk of collapse and subject to continual supply cutbacks due to the deteriorating condition of the Delta.
The governor's proposed Delta tunnels ran into a roomful of skeptics Monday – an influential group of San Joaquin Valley farmers who remain unconvinced the controversial project will deliver the water they need at a price they're prepared to swallow.
Two years ago, the amount of water in the massive Diamond Valley Lake was … well, not so massive.
California officials are trying to speed up repairs on Oroville Dam's battered flood-control spillway.
The price of almost everything is on the rise, but we tend to shrug off inflation in goods and services we can cut back or do without.
California could get wetter — not drier — in coming decades, according to a UC Riverside study that upends some conventions about climate change.
UC Riverside climate researcher Robert Allen says California should get ready for more rain.
A new bill in the state Legislature would require California to review the environmental impacts of a company's proposal to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and sell it to Southern California cities — a controversial plan that was slowed down by President Obama, but which appears to have the backing of the Trump administration.
The preliminaries are just about over. Permanent structural repairs are about to begin at Oroville Dam.
When it comes to California and climate change, the predictions are staggering: coastal airports besieged by floodwaters, entire beaches disappearing as sea levels rise.
The Delta tunnels got a crucial green light from two federal agencies Monday when scientists said the controversial project can co-exist with the endangered fish that inhabit the waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Gov. Jerry Brown won crucial early approval from federal wildlife officials Monday for his $16 billion proposal to re-engineer California's north-south water system, advancing his plan to build two giant tunnels to carry Northern California water to the south even though much about the project remains undetermined.
Federal fishery agencies Monday pushed forward a controversial water project that would change the way Northern California supplies are sent to the Southland.
Federal wildlife agencies gave the controversial Delta tunnels a partial approval on Monday, announcing that the $17 billion project to replumb the dying estuary will not jeopardize threatened and endangered fish.
The San Diego County Water Authority – and San Diego ratepayers – were dealt a major legal loss this week that could leave local water customers back on the hook for billions of dollars over the next several decades.
The San Diego County Water Authority – and San Diego ratepayers – were dealt a major legal loss this week that could leave local water customers back on the hook for billions of dollars over the next several decades.
legal ruling that San Diego County water officials said would save customers here up to $7 billion has been overturned.
A legal ruling that San Diego County water officials said would save customers here up to $7 billion has been overturned.
The Butte Creek salmon story is a rare one. Usually stories about fisheries in California are centered around a species that is disappearing. This one is about a species that is thriving.
For the first time in the Western Hemisphere, the public will receive bottles of highly purified wastewater, demonstrating the safety and technological advancements of sophisticated treatment systems that now provide new sources of drinking water, officials announced.
The Butte Creek salmon story is a rare one.
While winter rains have refilled California reservoirs and dumped near-record snow on the mountains, communities across the state are wisely seeking ways reduce their vulnerability to future droughts.
Love it or hate it, the Delta tunnels project is reaching a decision point.
A company's vision to pump water from the Mojave Desert and sell it to thirsty Southern California cities had looked to some to be a long shot.
As Southern California gardeners select drought-friendly plants and keep water conservation in mind, it would be wise to not forget about maintenance.
California is emerging from one of the worst droughts in its modern history, a dry spell that prompted emergency regulations and some deep reflections on the fragile nature of our water supplies.
San Diego County Water Authority directors have met behind closed doors more than three times a week on average since the start of the year, putting the agency on pace to surpass last year's tally of gatherings that critics say could run afoul of open-meetings laws.
Jerry Brown took an Old English turn from his Latin wisdom in 2012 by declaring: “I want to get s--- done,” a reference to his vision for building two tunnels 30 miles long to move Sacramento River water south from the Delta to the rest of the state.
The San Diego County Water Authority is floating a radical idea to upend how 19 million Southern Californians get their water.
The San Diego County Water Authority is floating a radical idea to upend how 19 million Southern Californians get their water.
San Diego has some of the most expensive water in California – and in the country.
Those weed fabrics and barriers that you just spent the weekend putting down? They're great at cutting back on weeds in the short term.
CALIFORNIA'S LARGEST LAKE, the Salton Sea, is an accident. It was created in 1905 when a levee broke on an irrigation canal, flooding a giant desert playa.
California's five-year drought was officially declared to be over in April.
Officials in Arizona have reached an impasse on a multistate agreement aimed at storing more Colorado River water in Lake Mead, but Southern Nevada Water Authority chief John Entsminger said he is confident the deal will still get done.
The first part of this article, about the current water situation in the state, will run this week.
California has decrepit water infrastructure at risk of catastrophic failure.
The Riverside County board of supervisors, who act as the board of the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District, approved a Memorandum of Intent between the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District, the Valley-Wide Recreation and Park District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the city of Hemet and the Eastern Municipal Water District, regarding the Diamond Valley Lake Recreation Area.
While no one will be swimming in Diamond Valley Lake anytime soon, plans for developing recreational opportunities around the reservoir are moving forward.
The winter's welcome wet spell has brought at least an unofficial end to California's drought.
The company that built one of greater Sacramento's most important flood-control projects in years will fix the damaged spillways at Oroville Dam, site of a near catastrophe two months ago.
Design flaws, construction shortcomings and maintenance errors caused the Oroville Dam spillway to break apart in February, according to an independent analysis by Robert Bea for the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UC Berkeley.
The company that built one of greater Sacramento's most important flood-control projects in years will fix the damaged spillways at Oroville Dam, site of a near catastrophe two months ago.
California's historic five-year drought is officially over, washed away with the relentlessly drenching rains, floods and snowstorms of this winter.
A series of late-season storms has vaulted this winter into the history books, making it the wettest winter for California's northern Sierra Nevada in nearly a century of record-keeping, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
California's historic five-year drought is officially over, washed away with the relentlessly drenching rains, floods and snowstorms of this winter.
Land subsidence from over pumping groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley has been called the largest human alteration of the Earth's surface.
California's climate has long been dominated by cycles of intense dry conditions followed by heavy rain and snow.
California's climate has long been dominated by cycles of intense dry conditions followed by heavy rain and snow.
A state-commissioned report on climate change released Wednesday raises the stakes for fighting global warming, offering a clearer and, in some cases, more catastrophic picture of how much sea levels will rise in California.
CALIFORNIA IS A LAND OF EXTREMES – where preparing for extremes must be constant and eternal.
Startlingly green hills, surging rivers and the snow-wrapped Sierra Nevada had already signaled what Gov. Jerry Brown made official Friday: The long California drought is over.
After one of the wettest winters on record, Gov. Jerry Brown declared Friday that California's historic drought is officially over for all but a handful of areas in the Central Valley.
Gov. Jerry Brown made official on Friday what anyone who happened to be looking out a window at yet another soggy Sacramento morning may have suspected: The California drought is over.
The drought officially ended in most of California on Friday, but state officials vowed to clamp down on wasteful water use and impose a long-term conservation program that could create friction with urban water users.
Southern California's most powerful water agency is prepared to invest in Sacramento Valley's proposed Sites Reservoir, a move that could broaden support for the $4.4 billion project but also raise alarms about a south state "water grab."
In this year of record rainfall, billions of gallons of water are flowing to the ocean that – if only sufficient storage existed – could be stored for the drought that inevitably will return.
The Trump administration has removed a major roadblock to plans by a Los Angeles company to pump ancient groundwater from below the Mojave Desert and sell it to urban areas of Southern California.
Californians are still conserving substantial amounts of water even as Gov. Jerry Brown appears ready to rescind or relax his drought declaration.
My age begins with a "five," so on this rare issue, I speak with a degree of authority.
Jason Tucker's job title is facility manager at the Glen Canyon Dam.
Jason Tucker's job title is facility manager at the Glen Canyon Dam.
To understand how climate change is creating a world of extremes, look to California, where the reality of severe drought coupled with intense precipitation threatens millions of residents, a rich ecosystem and the dated infrastructure designed to protect them.
The main spillway at Oroville Dam is riddled with design flaws and so badly damaged that an independent panel of experts hired by the state has concluded it's probably impossible to repair the structure completely before the next rainy season begins in November.
As California pulls out of the drought, expect to see a weird thing: water agencies opposing plans to help the state get through future droughts.
Stanford Professor Noah Diffenbaugh warns that heavy California rains like those experienced this past winter are here to stay.
In the years before California's civil engineers got around to confining the Sacramento River, it often spilled over its banks, inundating huge swaths of the Central Valley.
In the years before California’s civil engineers got around to confining the Sacramento River, it often spilled over its banks, inundating huge swaths of the Central Valley.
The city of Los Angeles gets much of its water from the Owens River watershed in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
Gov. Jerry Brown asked the federal government Sunday to provide additional help for California's storm recovery, including repairs at the damaged Oroville Dam.
California officials have temporarily resumed using the damaged main spillway at Lake Oroville, marking an important milestone in efforts to get the vast state reservoir back to normal after a near collapse last month.
During one of this winter's frequent storms, sheets of rainwater spilled from roofs, washed across sidewalks and down gutters into a sprawling network of underground storm drains that empty into the Los Angeles River channel.
Last year, 100 percent of the imported water needed to run the North County economy came from the Colorado River.
State officials said Wednesday that Californians reliant on water pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta won't face supply shortages, even as crews shut down a massive pumping station that serves much of Southern California for at least a month to make repairs to its intake reservoir.
A deluge of rainstorms have soaked many parts of California this winter, quenching a thirst that persisted for nearly five years and plunged us into an alarming state of drought emergency.
Kale or quinoa?
California's years-long drought put hydroelectric power flat on its back.
Fueled by a parade of "Pineapple Express" storms, California is in the midst of its wettest water year in 122 years of record-keeping, according to federal scientists.
The dramatic spillway failure at Oroville Dam sparked a national conversation around the status of dams throughout the West.
Over the last 18 months, California has experienced one of the driest, wettest and wildest rides in its recorded water history.
The recent election may have changed the dynamic in Washington, but the facts on the ground in the California desert remain the same: The Cadiz water mining project poses a grave threat to the California desert and should not be approved.
Since the beginning of the year, enough water has spilled out of California's rain-swollen Lake Oroville to meet the demands of roughly 14 million people for a year.
Here's a cold, wet reality: the more water in California's reservoirs, the less urgency there is to build new ocean-water desalination plants that became a major talking point during the state's long, parched years of drought, an ultra-dry period some folks insist has still not ended despite months of heavy rains.
For three generations, Phillip Filter's family has tended orchards that grow on a shelf of floodplain above the Feather River.
The drought has been declared over in most of California, with heavy winter rains sending water over the Oroville dam and forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people.
Water distribution agencies from across Southern California reacted with alarm after state officials announced recently that free-floating microscopic larvae of an invasive mussel had been found in water samples collected from a State Water Project pipeline that connects Silverwood Lake and Lake Perris.
The crisis over the last few weeks at Oroville Dam was about how to handle large amounts of water flowing into the lake with both of the reservoir's spillways damaged.
As California labored under a severe drought for more than five years, industry and media debated the pros and cons of desalination coming to the rescue of the drought-stricken state.
Plunging the long, metal rod into the snow beneath his feet in the mountain town of Phillips, state snow survey chief Frank Gehrke measured the Sierra Nevada snowpack Wednesday not against California's recent, historic drought but against its biggest rain years.
The epic rainfall that has pummeled Southern California this winter has lifted the area out of extreme drought – and it's also been great for air quality.
Californians are in shock that after five years of too little water, the problem now is too much.
Many Californians are still in disbelief that after five years of too little water during the drought, now the problem is too much water.
Operators of Oroville Dam – the nation’s highest – shut down its main spillway Monday so that debris could be cleared and the dam’s hydroelectric turbines could be restarted.
Until a few weeks ago, the McCormack-Williamson Tract in the California Delta was an island of low-lying farmland, more than two square miles protected from the surrounding rivers and sloughs by earthen levees.
For three weeks, Oroville Dam's fractured main spillway and the surrounding hillsides have taken a nearly nonstop pounding.
Good politicians like Jerry Brown know not to waste a good crisis.
The historic drought that plagued California for five years is finally over in nearly every part of the state, federal scientists reported Thursday.
For the first time ever, heavy winter rains have filled the Las Virgenes Reservoir in Westlake Village to the brim, causing the excess water to flow through a spillway that has never been used before.
As a kid growing up in the Southland, I got my weather tips on the television from a mustached meteorologist named Dr. George.
The snow keeps piling up in the Sierra Nevada.
As heavy winter storms continue to hammer California, the Legislature is launching a review of dam and levee safety and bracing for major investments necessary to shore up flood control throughout the state.
Bill Croyle stood in front of an aerial photo of Lake Oroville and swept his hand across the top of the emergency spillway that was helping drain water out of the brimming reservoir.
No disaster is entirely natural in our re-engineered state and valley. Owing to our hubris, we humans have a direct hand in them all.
Jeffrey Mount, a leading expert on California water policy, remembers the last time a crisis at the Oroville Dam seemed likely to prompt reform. It was 1997 and the lake risked overflowing, while levees further downstream failed and several people died.
How did a giant, gaping hole tear through the massive Oroville Dam's main concrete spillway last week, setting in motion the chain of events that could have led to one of America's deadliest dam failures?
The Oroville Dam crisis was about infrastructure.
After five years of record-setting drought, much of California is being pummeled by an extremely wet winter.
The St. Francis Dam was a proud symbol of California’s engineering might and elaborate water system
Federal emergency officials approved Gov. Jerry Brown's requests to pay for winter storm damages and to support California's unfolding response to the emergency at the distressed Oroville Dam, the White House announced Tuesday
California's snowpack is at 184% of average for this time of year. Cities from San Francisco to Los Angeles have recorded their highest rain levels in years.
State engineers have found new damage to the Oroville Dam spillway, although not as much as they'd feared, after conducting two test releases to see how much water the scarred facility could handle, the state said Thursday.
The State Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday voted to keep statewide emergency drought controls in effect, even as most of California sees historic amounts of rain and snow.
Until Donald Trump won the presidency, prospects looked bleak for Cadiz, a California company that has struggled for years to secure federal permits to transform Mojave Desert groundwater into liquid gold.
Roaring storms that brought California almost a year's worth of snow and rain in a single month should make state water managers' Sierra snowpack survey Thursday a celebration, marking this winter's dramatic retreat of the state's more than 5-year-drought, water experts say.
After five years of drought, could California really have so much rain and snow there's no room to store all the water?
The state's snow survey measured 28.1 inches of snow water content at Phillips Station off Highway 50, the highest measurement for February since 2005, state figures show.
After a month of huge blizzards and "atmospheric river" storms, the Sierra Nevada snowpack — source of a third of California's drinking water — is 177 percent of the historic average, the biggest in more than two decades.
Think of the snow that falls each winter in the Sierra Nevada as something like a paycheck for California's water supply.
How do you seriously dent a drought?
The arrival of rains with the new year have tempered one of California's most severe ongoing drought periods on record, which officially entered its sixth year in October 2016.
Late last week, something rare happened in Southern California: It rained for three days.
At the end of June, Los Angeles had recorded its driest five-year period since record-keeping began almost 140 years ago.
California's water year officially began in October, and it got off to a good start, with above-average precipitation in Northern California
California's top water regulator has strongly suggested the state will keep drought conservation rules in place despite winter storms that have waterlogged many communities.
San Luis Reservoir west of Los Banos is on its way to filling for the first time since 2011 as rain and snow bring the state additional relief from a punishing drought.
Following two weeks of winter storms, Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for Sacramento and 49 other counties, making them eligible for money to fix roads and make other repairs.
California's water year officially began in October, and it got off to a good start, with above-average precipitation in Northern California.
Los Angeles County storm water capture systems have shunted enough water from rain
Ventura could begin actively exploring connecting to state water if the City Council approves setting aside money for a comprehensive study evaluating what it would take.
The third in a series of powerful winter storms unleashed a deluge in Southern California on Sunday, flooding numerous roads and freeways, setting new rainfall records and stranding some in dangerously rising waters.
California water suppliers pleaded with state water officials on Wednesday to end a statewide emergency water conservation regulation.
Despite a wet winter that has much of California emerging from drought, state officials are showing no sign that they'll ease up on water regulations imposed on cities and towns over the past three years.
Kevin Starr entered this world in 1940 in a rare fraternity — a fourth-generation Californian whose family's roots dated back to the Gold Rush era.
After weeks of storms in Northern California, the water picture in the Golden State is brighter than it has been in years.
After five years, is the drought over? The feds seem to think so, at least as far as Sacramento and most of Northern California are concerned.
Leaning against a wooden rail, environmental activist Geoffrey McQuilkin took stock of a parched geological wonderland that had been altered by a weekend deluge.
A large-scale effort to purify wastewater and inject it into groundwater basins could feasibly produce enough water to serve 335,000 homes, according to a study released by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The third and latest storm to hit the state within a week is expected to inundate rivers in Northern California and flood parts of Napa Valley wine country, while also blanketing the frigid Sierra Nevada in heavy snowfall, according to state officials.
The powerful storms that soaked Northern California over the past week did more than trigger power outages, mudslides and flash floods.
OK, so let's get this straight: California is soaked, Los Angeles had its wettest December in six years
We're close – really close – to an agreement on how Arizona, California and Nevada will share looming cuts to the water we all depend on from Lake Mead.
Two weeks before President Barack Obama leaves office, his administration vowed to move full speed ahead on California's controversial Delta tunnels project, calling it essential for the state's water supply as well as its environment.
The outgoing Obama administration on Wednesday tried to nudge forward Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to build two giant north-south water tunnels for California.
Higher elevations of Northern California were hit by heavy snowfall overnight, prompting avalanche warnings, as the region braced for a week of intense weather.
California is getting the rain and snow it needs this week thanks to a shift in the weather, and the region's meteorologists are finally calling it "normal" for winter on the West Coast.
Municipal water agencies deny that the sole purpose of tiered pricing — in which users pay more per gallon as they use more gallons — is to encourage conservation, but such rate structures just happen to provide fair and sensible incentives for Californians to use their most precious public resource wisely and with respect for its scarcity.
Despite five years of record drought, many Californians have not been required to cut their water use.
The San Francisco Bay estuary is in crisis.
After years of working on water, environment and agriculture issues in California, it remains a mystery to me why the appointed State Water Resources Control Board and several other environmental boards and commissions so often don't understand the pushback from ordinary Californians on their regulatory agenda.
Foreign governments concerned about climate change may soon be spending more time dealing with Sacramento than Washington.
Once dreamed of as a Riviera, the Salton Sea has become a decaying, smelly mess largely written off by the state of California.
After many alternatives, iterations and tweaks, final environmental documents are to be made public Wednesday for a water re-routing project that has come to be known as the California WaterFix.
A multistate agreement aimed at shoring up Lake Mead can't be finished until California finds a way to solve two major, long-simmering environmental fights.
If two water diversion tunnels could help solve California's water delivery woes, can one tunnel be even better?
Public water agencies throughout California are looking to spend billions of dollars in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to address a fundamental physical reality: The existing water system in the southern Delta poses an intractable environmental problem.
Poseidon Water hopes to help quench Orange County's thirst, but first the company's proposed desalination project must slake a thirst of its own.
With the prospect of reduced Colorado River deliveries as early as 2018, U.S. and Mexican negotiators have been in a race against the clock to forge an agreement that involves sharing any future shortages — and are hoping for a signing before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20th.
It's only a beginning.
On Nov. 8, Los Angeles voted to invest in infrastructure improvements that will transform the region for generations to come.
More than a year ago, Fresno County farmer Wayne Western Jr. penned a letter to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, pleading for help.
The number of dead trees in California's drought-stricken forests has risen dramatically to more than 102 million in what officials described as an unparalleled ecological disaster that heightens the danger of massive wildfires and damaging erosion.
The Southland's biggest water agency painted a surprisingly upbeat picture Monday of the region's water supplies.
Despite five consecutive years of drought, record-setting heat and water being diverted to protect the state's native fish population, Southern California's top urban water agency said Monday it has enough water stored up for nearly five years.
Joshua trees could soon follow polar bears as one of the first species to be listed as threatened due to climate change.
With Lake Mead receding year after year and the threat of a shortage looming, the over allocated Colorado River seems to be approaching a breaking point.
Odds favor below-normal rainfall and above-average temperatures in Southern California this winter, according to a National Weather Service forecast released Monday.
October is the time for optimism about water in California.
The Sacramento Bee's editorial board suggests that it would be proper state policy to wring the last drop of water out of California's food producers ("Stop farms from grabbing all the groundwater," Editorial, Sept. 30).
Californians' water conservation slipped for the third consecutive month in August, prompting new alarm from regulators about whether relaxed water restrictions may be causing residents to revert to old habits as the state enters its sixth year of severe drought.
There were high hopes going into water year 2016.
A simple truth: Our homes, businesses and communities in western Los Angeles County served by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District would not exist were it not for water from Northern California.
Last year at this time, weather forecasters had a pretty good idea of what was in store as California headed into the rainy season.
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.
Drive through rural Tulare County and you'll hear it soon enough, a roar from one of the hundreds of agricultural pumps pulling water from beneath the soil to keep the nut and fruit orchards and vast fields of corn and alfalfa lush and green under the scorching San Joaquin Valley sun.
A major river in California has so much water taken from it by agribusiness that it runs dry for miles.
Not many simple statements can be made about the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, except these: It's hard to overstate the importance of the region's resources to California – or the complexity of sharing those resources.
Environmental Defense in February of 2005 noted 85 percent of the 260,000 acre feet of water San Francisco takes from the Tuloumne River watershed is diverted at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.
What if it were your job to make sure there's enough water for everyone in your city to drink – in the middle of the worst drought in 500 years?
To support our prosperity and growth, California needs to expand its investments in our physical and natural infrastructure.
The California Supreme Court has ruled that a Southern California water supplier can go ahead with the purchase of five Delta Islands, regardless of the opposition and lawsuit against it.
It has been 110 years since the San Francisco fire led to the damming of the Tuolumne River, cornering dibs on some of the world's most pristine water for that lucky city by the bay.
In a move that foreshadows sweeping statewide reductions in the amount of river water available for human needs, California regulators on Thursday proposed a stark set of cutbacks to cities and farms that receive water from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries.
State regulators want to leave more water for fish and wildlife in the heavily tapped tributaries of the San Joaquin River, setting the stage for another bruising California water fight.
California's rivers work hard.
When it comes to water management in California, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a giant.
It's getting close to that time of year when weather watchers and water managers start wringing their hands and wondering whether it will be a boy or a girl.
La Niña may not happen after all.
Residents of drought-stricken California kept up water conservation in July despite the long, hot days near the peak of summer, officials said.
A reckoning arrives every August for the Colorado River and the 40 million people across the West who depends on it.
As California's two largest inland bodies of water go, Lake Tahoe is the stereotypical beauty queen — classically stunning, endlessly photogenic, fragile.
Locked in a multi-year drought, California's urban water suppliers have, for the most part, happily enforced rules that prohibit specific wasteful water practices, such as hosing down driveways and over-watering lawns.
Driving through Beverly Hills one afternoon this spring, I pulled over at a corner lot with a tennis court, a pool, a guest house, twenty towering sycamore and redwood trees, and an acre of emerald grass.
You don't have to look too far to find disheartening stories about water in the American West. In general, it seems, we're running out.
The Obama administration unveiled initiatives to help restore the Salton Sea and improve the region's climate resilience, economy and public health as part of President Barack Obama's visit to Lake Tahoe Wednesday.
The country's largest desalination plant is in the ground at Carlsbad and its water is in our pipes, but the debate over whether it was a wise or economical investment continues.
California's top water guzzlers — the people who use tens of thousands of gallons more than their neighbors to keep lawns bright green during serious droughts — could soon be hit with higher water bills and their names made public if the drought continues.
A drone whirred to life in a cloud of dust, then shot hundreds of feet skyward for a bird's-eye view of a vast tomato field in California's Central Valley, the nation's most productive farming region.
It wasn't so long ago that our water deliveries would really spike as the temperature crept above 90 degrees in many Southland areas.
In 1987, California was at the beginning of what would be a six-year drought – the second driest in the state's history.
Construction began Monday on a project at the Tujunga Spreading Grounds that is expected to double the amount of stormwater that can be captured at the facility to about 5 billion gallons per year.
Continuing a string of global heat records, last month was the hottest July ever recorded, NASA said.
Water is like money.
Many of California's farmers, facing severe water cutbacks yet again this year, are blaming the hand they've been dealt on environmental protections for endangered fish.
Michael George has called the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta "highly important, highly complex, highly compromised."
How has California's four-year drought affected the priorities of the Metropolitan Water District?
People in the Coachella Valley continued to save substantial amounts of water in July, even after California regulators relaxed drought measures and gave water districts a reprieve from state-imposed conservation targets.
State officials will not force most California water districts to reduce water use this year, even as they caution that the five-year drought persists and note that drought-fueled wildfires continue to wreak havoc.
California may be in its fifth year of drought, but on Tuesday, state water regulators effectively turned back the clock to 2013.
California's drought is costing farmers an estimated $603 million this year, although the impact is far less than a year ago, according to a study released Monday by UC Davis.
Millions of Californians nearly had their water shut off late last month because the federal government ran out of water — sort of.
With the dual goals of cutting carbon emissions and reducing operational costs, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a state-established cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies serving nearly 19 million people in six counties, has unveiled its latest investment in solar power.
Rafaela Tijerina first met la señora at a school in the town of Lost Hills, deep in the farm country of California's Central Valley.
With conservation cutting into demand, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California used nearly 16 acres of land originally set aside for additional water production for a solar farm at its F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in La Verne.
Earlier this summer, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association gave its Golden Watchdog award to the Carlsbad Desalination Project, reflecting the group's support "every step of the way" for what many in the environmental community consider the region's biggest boondoggle in recent memory.
As every Californian knows by now, our state is in the fifth year of a drought, and this persistent imbalance of supply and demand in our water supply is likely the new norm.
Looking north from Blue Canyon near Shaver Lake, copper-colored forests blanket mountain slopes that stretch ridge after ridge to the horizon.
The dancing jets of water in front of the Bellagio have served as a convenient symbol of waste in countless news stories and documentaries.
The State Water Resources Control Board has just released the first month of conservation data under new state rules that emphasize drought preparedness and local discretion regarding conservation activities.
Around 1925, Los Angeles water baron William Mulholland badgered Yosemite National Park Superintendent Horace M. Albright with a proposal to dam Yosemite Valley.
Scientists from two federal agencies are about to overhaul the rules governing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, potentially increasing protections for endangered fish populations and limiting the amount of water pumped to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.
California officials Tuesday released a detailed environmental blueprint for Gov. Jerry Brown’s controversial Delta tunnels project, saying the $15.5 billion plan “minimizes potential effects” on endangered fish species whose populations have dwindled following decades of water pumping.
Californians are continuing to save significant amounts of water despite the decision by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration to relax drought rules two months ago.
Californians conserved less water in June, state officials said Tuesday in releasing results from the first month that statewide drought restrictions were eased after a winter of heavier precipitation in the northern half of the state, which supplies most of the water.
The multi-year drought has become so bad in some parts of California that last year wells dried up and communities had to have their water hauled in by truck.
It might not be what you expect to hear about California agriculture in the throes of drought: After four years of historic water shortages, farm earnings in the state increased 16 percent, and total employment increased 5 percent.
Recently, the Sacramento Bee invited Jeffrey Kightlinger, General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District, to talk about the California Water Fix and other California water issues in a forum attended by newspaper subscribers and students.
A scenic spot along the Sacramento River is quickly becoming ground zero in the fight over California's water future as the new California WaterFix project is generating strong reactions.
It's been 10 years since California enacted AB 32, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020.
The Yorba Linda Water District won its legal fight Monday against a community group opposed to a $25 monthly water-rate increase imposed on ratepayers.
Representatives of California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Obama administration began making their pitch for approval Tuesday to build a pair of massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Tribes are apprehensive, cities are more upbeat and farmers stand somewhere in between over a proposed plan to cut CAP water deliveries to keep Lake Mead from falling to dangerously low levels.
That question has been asked, often quite loudly, by many Californians in the months since voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, the 2014 water bond that authorized $7.5 billion in funding for various projects and needs, and specifically allocated $2.7 billion for storage projects.
An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Monday in a closely watched case that customers of a water district cannot void rate increases using a referendum.
Now that Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has completed its $175 million purchase of four islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, totaling almost 20,000 acres in size, it is time to engage in a discussion of how Met can be a good Delta neighbor.
Still swirling in controversy, Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed $15.5 billion re-engineering of the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is heading into a critical phase over the next year that could well decide if the project comes to fruition.
Diamond Valley Lake returned to its postcard-worthy splendor after Metropolitan Water District pumped in nearly 52 billion gallons of water since spring.
In a win for the state, the California Supreme Court declared Thursday that the state has the right to go on private property for soil and environmental testing as part of a plan to divert fresh water under or around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on its way to Central and Southern California.
California officials don't have to pay property owners to access their land and decide whether to move forward with a $15.7 billion plan to build two giant water tunnels that would supply drinking water for cities and irrigation for farmers, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday.
Southern California's powerful water supplier has completed the $175-million purchase of five islands in the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the ecologically sensitive region that's a key source of water for the Southland.
A portion of the Delta is now owned by a powerful water agency from Los Angeles.
It's official: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is going to own five islands in the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Southern Californians are conserving water as never before. Yet based on one government formula, we are not conserving at all.
The Metropolitan Water District Tuesday unveiled an "H2Love" campaign asking Southern Californians to embrace long-term conservation as the state's drought enters its fifth year and Los Angeles registers record-low rainfall.
California Republicans are spreading out their bets in their annual effort to steer more water to the state's farmers.
Water suppliers are loosening water-use restrictions and reporting they'll have enough water to meet demand for the next three years.
These past few years have shown us just how bad California's water situation can be when the rain doesn't fall in the Valley and the snow doesn't accumulate in the mountains.
Los Angeles has chalked up yet another dreary milestone in its growing almanac of drought.
Without mandatory conservation, San Diego is positioning itself to fall back into the same short-sighted planning that built the state's drought inadequacies in the first place.
In the final month of mandatory water restrictions in California, residents exceeded Gov. Jerry Brown's goal of cutting water use statewide by 25 percent.
A federal agency projects a record almond crop in California this year, based on sampling results announced Wednesday.
Short-term comfort rarely comes without long-term costs. By the end of the summer, we suspect California will be paying the price for its hasty retreat from sound water policies.
California's drought and a bark beetle epidemic have caused the largest die-off of Sierra Nevada forests in modern history, raising fears that trees could come crashing down on people or fuel deadly wildfires that could wipe out mountain communities.
As if California's water supplies weren't already sufficiently imperiled, a bill that would have taken a small step toward groundwater regulation unfortunately has now stalled.
Twenty-six million people in California, Nevada and Arizona rely on the Colorado River, but this magnificent source of water that carved a continent is drying up.
The state budget Gov. Jerry Brown signed this week includes $80.5 million for restoration of the Salton Sea — more than California has ever allocated for the state's largest and most troubled lake.
In a surprising new study, Stanford researchers have found that drought-ravaged California is sitting on top of a vast and previously unrecognized water resource, in the form of deep groundwater, residing at depths between 1,000 and nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of the state's always thirsty Central Valley.
The water level in Lake Shasta, California's largest reservoir had plunged to less than a third of normal by the end of last year.
When forecasters last year warned of a massive El Niño, some Californians held out hope that a single extremely wet year could bust the state's severe drought.
On April 1, 2015, Gov. Jerry Brown attended a routine snow survey at 6,800 feet in the Sierra Nevada, near Echo Summit on Highway 50 along the road to Lake Tahoe.
The lifeblood of greater Los Angeles runs through the Coachella Valley, coursing through a series of tunnels bored into the rugged foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California today released results of an analysis demonstrating it has sufficient water supplies to meet the demand of its member agencies over the next three years, thanks in large part to successful water conservation by Southland residents.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced Wednesday they will definitely have enough water to meet demands for the next three years, thanks to local conservation efforts.
San Diego imports 80 percent of its water, with the Colorado River supplying about 63 percent, and 20 percent coming from Sierra Nevada runoff funneled from northern California via the State Water Project.
California is moving away from mandatory water conservation rules.
Last month, state water officials eased conservation mandates in response to slightly above-average winter rain and snow in much of California, leading many to speculate that the state's long-running drought has tapered off.
More rain arrived in Northern California this year, which is good news overall.
Here, courtesy of Time, is a nice photo from space of the current state of Lake Mead as compared to what used to be Lake Mead.
For years California was behind the curve on managing groundwater, with dire results. There are now 21 groundwater basins or subbasins in the state that are critically overdrafted.
When California officials announced an end to restrictions on urban water use, they cited the recent wet winter as one reason. El Niño, the climate pattern that brought a succession of storms to Northern California, had given the state a reprieve from its water woes, they said.
Water quality at Southern California beaches has shown marked improvement for the second year in a row in what experts say is a continuing byproduct of the severe drought that has cut polluted runoff into the Pacific Ocean.
State officials recently eased the reins on local water agencies when it comes to the drought mandate.
The last time two states went to war over water, it was 1934. The combatants were California and Arizona and the casus belli was the start of construction of Parker Dam, which would direct water from the Colorado River into California via the Colorado River Aqueduct.
After banning boaters from a popular recreational lake for an entire year due to drought concerns and low water levels, the Diamond Valley Lake is back open just in time for Memorial Day weekend.
For its first four years, the California drought spread its pain across most corners of the state.
California on Wednesday suspended its mandatory statewide 25 percent reduction in urban water use, telling local communities to set their own conservation standards after a relatively wet winter and a year of enormous savings in urban water use.
Marking a major shift in California water policy, state regulators Wednesday voted to lift the statewide conservation targets that for the past year have required dramatic cutbacks in irrigation and household water use for the Sacramento region and urban communities across the state.
It has been a year since Steven Latino has been able to put his fishing boat on Diamond Valley Lake.
Ca California's groundwater is threatened – unsustainable use is causing impacts around the state. Pumping during the drought has been so rapid that changes in groundwater levels can be observed from space.
As Americans across the country scrambled to get their taxes filed before the midnight deadline last month, many homeowners found themselves with a new reason to feel frustrated.
Water splashed underneath the Riverside Poly High School boat as senior Natalie Jones piloted it across Lake Skinner under a sun-drenched sky early Friday.
Water agencies across California are signaling that we may be able to turn the spigot back on, thanks to a decent wet winter and spring in the northern part of the state.
Looking into a crystal ball a decade ago, San Diego water officials expected dramatically rising demand for water. The region would be using 242 billion gallons of water a year by 2015, they thought.
Citing the state's improved hydrology and impressive regional conservation, officials at Southern California's massive water wholesaler voted Tuesday to rescind the cuts they imposed on regional water deliveries last year.
With statewide supplies improving, the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District, the water wholesaler for Southern California, voted today to end a mandatory use-reduction program it imposed on its 26 member agencies to combat the drought.
Solar Cup Gives Students Hands-on Learning Experiences in Water Conservation and Engineering Through Solar-Powered Boat Races
After years of drought, winter's rain and snow storms generated close to a normal supply of water for California.
The Calleguas Municipal Water District Board of Directors was pleased to read the April 10 commentary by John Laird, state secretary for natural resources, on the California WaterFix proposal to build new intakes and tunnels to safeguard and stabilize water deliveries from the northern Sierra and Sacramento Delta.
As promised a year ago, the state is at work restoring wildlife habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh, with six projects targeted for groundbreaking in 2016.
Trees in California are dying at the highest rate in at least 15 years, raising the risk of faster-moving and more-intense forest fires, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
There is talk that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is purchasing four islands and tracts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to construct a reservoir project to divert more water from the estuary.
Let the gleaming bass boats return.
With the Colorado River tapped beyond its limits and the level of Lake Mead in decline, representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada say they've been making progress in negotiating an agreement for all three states to share in water cutbacks in order to stave off a more severe shortage.
Scientists are increasingly focused on shifting warm Pacific waters as a possible cause for Southern California's lack of predicted winter rain.
Californians concerned about the drought and who want to build more water storage and other critically needed infrastructure should be extremely concerned with an initiative that has qualified for the November ballot.
Water is once again flowing into Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet for the first time in three years, which will allow boat launches to resume on Southern California's largest reservoir in mid-May, just in time for Memorial Day weekend fishing.
Could desalination provide a reliable supply of water for California?
The West Coast's abundant fisheries are at risk as the region's waters become more acidic, a group of scientists warn.
The California drought is not over. The great hope for major replenishment of California's surface and groundwater supplies — the "Godzilla" El Niño — has failed thus far to live up to its super-sized hype, delivering only average amounts of rain and snow, primarily to the northern half of the state.
It was a rainy weekend in Southern California, but there have been too few such storms in what had been expected to be a rain-soaked El Niño season.
Already viewed with suspicion and hostility in the north state water community, the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is broadening its reach by purchasing $175 million worth of real estate in the very hub of California's water delivery network: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
In two months, between January and March, more than enough water to supply all the homes in Ventura County for a year slipped down the Sacramento River and out to the ocean after rules to protect the environment and water quality had been met.
El Niño has been little more than a cruel joke in Southern California this winter.
Stanford researchers who studied trends in the atmospheric circulation patterns that affect California's rainfall have found that conditions linked to the hot, dry weather during our latest drought have become more frequent in recent years, according to research published Friday.
As if we needed more proof, the Sierra snow survey last week made clear that Californians must continue to conserve water while working to build a more reliable water system.
One year ago Friday, Frank Gehrke hiked out to Phillips Station and stuck a tube onto a tuft of brownish-green grass.
After years of drought and months of speculation about how much precipitation a strong El Niño weather pattern would bring, the results are in:
The National Association of Government Communicators has selected Bob Muir, manager of the Press Office of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, as its 2016 Communicator of the Year.
A solution to Southern California's water needs, especially during record-breaking drought years, is now within reach.
In the world of California water, there is a saying about how our statewide system is supposed to work: "big gulp, little sip."
In a further sign of the easing of California's drought, farms and cities that rely on the State Water Project learned Thursday that they will receive an estimated 45 percent of what they requested this year.
Officials in Beverly Hills say they tried it all: educational campaigns, usage restrictions and written notices for people suspected of wasting water.
The board of Southern California's water importer voted Tuesday to buy 20,000 acres of farm islands in the heart of the state's north-south plumbing system.
A fifth year of California drought and continued water challenges now appear unavoidable, even with new storms on the horizon.
It was the final Wednesday of a warm, dry February, and here as in much of California it seemed that spring had made an early arrival.
In what may be an ominous sign for the end of the drought, the El Niño that brought Northern California its wettest winter in five years is continuing to weaken and appears to be giving way to its atmospheric sibling -- La Niña.
Water, water everywhere. Unfortunately, it's not enough.
The California drought has created many oddities over the last few years but none as bizarre as a scene that unfolds regularly on a tributary of the Santa Ana River.
The rainfall across Southern California last week only slightly alleviated the record drought, but was welcome nonetheless.
Southern Californians can expect dry conditions and above-average heat this week as a stubborn high-pressure system continues to block the heavily anticipated El Niño rainstorms that weather officials warned of over the winter.
California residents have been forced to use less water with each passing year, but as drought becomes the new norm, they aren't just conserving, they're revolutionizing the way the state manages its water.
The winter rains finally arrived in Southern California, bringing drenching relief in recent days to a part of the nation suffering one of the worst droughts in history.
A few dozen baby salmon that spent the past two weeks contentedly eating – and growing – in the invertebrate stew of a flooded rice field were netted Friday, dumped into coolers and hauled by pickup several miles to a drainage canal and to the Sacramento River.
Federal climate scientists say the near-record El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean have peaked and are slowly waning.
For California, which has endured four years of extraordinary drought, the state's wet season is off to an encouraging start.
Sadly, I missed the community meeting starring Erin Brockovich, who blew into town this month to inform the citizenry that its officials are too cheap and lazy to provide safe drinking water.
So far this winter, El Niño has not delivered the predicted rains needed to replenish the parched Colorado River Basin, conservationists say.
Northern California's El Niño winter has been on pause lately, with this week's storm representing the only significant rainfall so far in February.
As an attempt to balance many competing interests, the water bill that California Democrat Dianne Feinstein introduced in the Senate last week appears well-thought-through and carefully crafted — and as such it is being greeted by many with the kind of lukewarm response that such attempts often receive.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein has spent two years trying to fashion a bill that would help California deal with its drought, but she has never been able to come up with a proposal that can bridge the gaps between Central Valley Republicans and her fellow Northern California Democrats.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein filed a 184-page water policy bill Wednesday, calling it one of the most difficult bills she's worked on in 23 years representing California.
After months of responding to calls to save water, Southern Californians say they've hit a wall.
After months of hopeful predictions, El Niño is delivering our state much-needed snow and rain. But with Mother Nature doing her small part to ease the drought, the big question remains:
By this point in winter, Southern California was supposed to be dealing with rains and flooding, not brush fires and beach weather.
A new state report shows California farmers reaping record sales despite the epic drought, thriving even as city-dwellers have been forced to conserve water, household wells have run dry and fish have died.
A new study suggests that dry conditions in the southwestern United States, including the ongoing California drought, may become standard.
At the Northstar Ski Resort, where a sugary layer of fresh snow gleamed like icing on a wedding cake, Owen Boran, 5, filled up on M&Ms after several trips down the slopes.
This week I testified at a legislative hearing on implementing the $7.5 billion water bond passed by voters in November 2014.
The San Diego County Water Authority has such an oversupply of drinking water that it just dumped half a billion gallons into a lake.
San Diego's overabundance of water during one of California's worst droughts has reached a new, absurd level.
Protecting our water supplies and the Delta's environment requires real solutions and timely action on the California WaterFix.
I have a mission for the young scientists at the Western Center Academy by Diamond Valley Lake.
The California governor's quest to build two giant water tunnels is now in the hands of state regulators, who face key decisions this year.
California's current snowpack is the deepest it has been in five years -- a modest, yet encouraging milestone in a period of prolonged drought.
A new Golden State Poll shows California voters rank dealing with water problems and strengthening the state's economy as top policy concerns facing the state.
The farmers and cities that rely on the California State Water Project got some slightly encouraging news Tuesday – the state is raising their water allocation to 15 percent of what they requested.
California's congressional delegation continued to wrangle over how to respond to the Golden State's water crisis Thursday when Sen.
To a casual listener, Gov. Jerry Brown's State of the State speech Thursday was minimalist if not prosaic.
Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.
Facing uncertain financing and a ballot measure threatening his $15.5 billion Delta water plan, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday called the project a "fundamental necessity" and said he is confident "we'll get it done."
Southern California's long-term water resource plan that outlines ways to maintain supply reliability for the next 25 years was updated today by Metropolitan Water District's Board of Directors in the midst of a record statewide drought and increased volatility in the available supplies for the region.
The Metropolitan Water District on Tuesday unveiled a revised long-term plan to protect the region from potential water shortages during the record statewide drought.
El Niño is finally making its presence felt with a series of welcome storms.
Some parts of the Central Valley are sinking, and time is running out to make the hard choices to slow the over pumping of groundwater causing it.
A California lawmaker is dramatically raising the stakes in water management, proposing fines that could reach thousands of dollars a day and public shaming of people who use too much.
Will the California Coastal Commission approve Poseidon Water's proposed desalination project?
The State of California has entered into what may prove to be a fifth consecutive year of drought.
To understand the power and potential dangers of El Niño, look at satellite images of the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.
Scott Slater has a plan.
The snow keeps piling up, but the rules requiring water conservation aren't going away.
Jerry Brown is a little like a salmon.
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Solar Cup is a high school education program in which teams of students from throughout Southern California build and race solar-powered boats.
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, issues the following statement regarding the draft State Water Action Plan released today by the California Natural Resources Agency, California Department of Food and Agriculture and California Environmental Protection Agency.
