Posts Tagged: aquifers

News

Facing drought, climate change recycled water is key to survival

Scant water at Granite Island and River Valley along the North Fork of the American River east of Sacramento. (Photo: Lisa Parsons, via Shutterstock)

In 2019, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled what the city calls “The Green New Deal.” This ambitious sustainability plan stipulates many policy and infrastructural changes to prepare the four-million-person city for climate change. To name a few, the Deal includes: transitioning the power grid to 100% renewable energy by 2045; modifying 100% of buildings to be net zero carbon by 2050; increasing zero emission vehicles, and electrifying all Metro and LADOT buses, to reach zero carbon transportation by 2050.

News

Desalination: Should California use the ocean to quench its thirst?

A beach in Carlsbad, San Diego County, which has the nation's largest desalination plant. (Photo: Sherry V Smith, via Shutterstock)

Here we are again: California is enduring another punishing drought, this one only a few years after the last one ended, which was the most severe drought in the state’s nearly 500 years of recorded history. Low winter snowpack combined with scorching summer temperatures and the driest winter months in 100 years have severely impacted the state’s water supply. Lake Oroville, an important reservoir in Butte County, had sunk to 49% of capacity by July 1

Opinion

Drought: Tearing up lawns is short-sighted

A view of the California drought from Marine One during President Obama's visit earlier this year. (Photo: White House)

OPINION: There is an Armenian proverb: “On a rainy day many offer to water the chickens.” And in a very dry year there are many who want to follow the call to tear out their lawns. The call is coming from the Department of Water Resources and others for urban homeowners to start tearing out their lawns, with financial incentives for doing so.

News

Diving into groundwater — what’s left of it

An old wind-driven pump that tapped groundwater on a California ranch. Photo: Steven Frame)

As the warm temperatures melt California’s meager snowpack, turning rivers into streams and streams into mere trickles, communities and farmers across the state will be increasingly turning to groundwater to meet customer demand and to keep crops and livestock alive. But there’s a problem: Many will be drawing from aquifers already depleted and long under stress as groundwater levels in many basins across the state are reportedly at historic lows.

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