California farmers are often mischaracterized as using 80 percent of the state’s water supply, but that’s simply not true, based on numbers published by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). According to the DWR figures, farms account for 40.8 percent of California’s water demand according to the California Water Plan. The largest water user
Rare changes in wind patterns this fall have caused the Pacific Ocean off California and the West Coast to warm to historic levels, drawing in a bizarre menagerie of warm-water species. The mysterious phenomena are surprising fishermen and giving marine biologists an aquatic Christmas in November. Temperatures off the California coast are currently 5 to
When President Ronald Reagan was pushing for offshore oil drilling on the edges of Monterey Bay in the mid-1980s, Santa Cruz voters fought back, approving a ballot measure that banned construction of all storage tanks, pipelines and other oil equipment in the city. The small protest vote was soon copied by 25 other coastal communities,
They are building the Carlsbad Desalination Project, which will convert as much as 56 million gallons of seawater each day into drinking water for San Diego County residents. The project, with a price tag of $1 billion, is emerging from the sand like an industrial miracle. In California’s highly regulated coastal zone, it took nearly
For the past decade, the U.S. shale boom has mostly passed by California, forcing oil refiners in the state to import expensive crude. Now that’s changing as energy companies overcome opposition to forge ahead with rail depots that will get oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. Thanks in large measure to hydraulic fracturing, the U.S.
The environmental review of the Kern Water Bank has been struck down by the Sacramento County Superior Court, which says the California Department of Water Resource didn’t do enough in 2010 to examine how the water bank’s operation effects the state’s water resources and wildlife. It’s seen as a major victory for environmental groups and
The public will get another chance Monday to weigh in on La Grange Dam, erected on the Tuolumne River decades before the far larger Don Pedro Reservoir came along. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission launched studies on fish and other concerns after its 2012 ruling that La Grange needs a license. The dam has stood
California’s top water official told a key gathering of south state water representatives that “hard-earned progress” is being made on the Brown administration’s controversial plan to build twin tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The comments by Mark Cowin, director of the state Department of Water Resources, were aimed in part at dispelling rumors
As the state ends the fourth-driest water year on record with no guarantee of significant rain and snowfall this winter, Californians face the prospect of stricter rationing and meager irrigation deliveries for agriculture. California begins a new October-September water year Wednesday with total reservoir storage at 36% of capacity, or 57% of average for this
Regulators released a draft of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan on Friday, giving California its first look at a document that could transform how solar, wind, geothermal and transmission projects are sited in the desert. The goal of the long-awaited plan — known as the DRECP — is to establish a new framework for