LeakBird

(March 10, 2009, Reuters)
It’s hard to visualize a water crisis while driving the lush boulevards of Los Angeles, golfing Arizona’s green fairways or watching dancing Las Vegas fountains leap more than 20 stories high.
So look Down Under. A decade into its worst drought in a hundred years Australia is a lesson of what the American [...]

David Curran wrote a stimulating op-ed on the California drought in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle.  Mr. Curran expressed his perplexity at the incongruity of intermittent first quarter flooding in the Bay Area and the Governor’s dire “worst drought ever” declaration.
California has gone from being the bread basket of the US to a water crisis basket [...]

(Feb. 26, 2009, The Guardian)

The world’s pre-eminent climate scientists produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US yesterday, warning of droughts that could reduce the American south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities.
In an update on the latest science on climate change, [...]

(March 9, 2009, The Californian)
The slogan, “food grows where water flows,” is part of a water education campaign by the California Farm Water Coalition (www.CFWC.com). You’ve probably seen it on signs and banners in the San Joaquin Valley. It’s just as true in the Salinas Valley.
There are some important differences here.
Water for farms doesn’t flow [...]

(March 8, 2009, The Fresno Bee)
It is China’s latest grand attempt to tame nature. Three canals will bring water hundreds of miles to Beijing and other thirsty cities in the north. More than 350,000 people in the way will be forced to move.
For many in Zhangyigang, a village of 942 people in brick and mud [...]

(March 8, 2009, David Curran, The San Francisco Chronicle)
I experienced the Bay Area droughts of the 1970s. I vaguely recall taking navy showers and reciting, “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.” And I remember the dry times of the late 1980s when I was always in short sleeves and [...]

As the growing demand for all things water escalates across the United State (hydrologists, water conservation systems, water lawyers, new sources of water, et cet.), the drought environment, such as regions in Georgia, Florida, Nevada and California, has the highest market demand water conservation technologies for three reasons:

 
Timeliness
Fast Payback
Higher Water Rates

 
Timeliness
This is perhaps the most [...]

(March 8, 2009, SramanaMitra)
While people focus on carbon footprints and potential ways to reduce the impact man-made CO2 emissions, the world is running out of another of its key elements: fresh water.
We use fresh water much faster than it can replenish: it is increasingly scarce and has no alternative.
Water is a strategic resource for countries [...]

(March 7, 2009, The Mercury News)

Foster City residents who take their time in the shower or run the washing machine with just a few shirts inside will soon pay for their wasteful ways.
At a meeting Monday night, the Foster City City Council will consider approving a water rate structure that escalates the cost of water [...]

(March 7, 2009, The Merced Sun Star)

Kenneth Shackel is feeling more like an emergency-room doctor than an agricultural researcher these days as he helps west Valley farmers cope with little to no irrigation water this season.
“It’s like triage,” said Shackel, a University of California at Davis pomologist and plant science professor. “For some, this isn’t [...]

(March 7, 2009, MSNBC)
Using the back yard of a Tierrasanta resident as a backdrop, Mayor Jerry Sanders called on San Diegans to get serious about water conservation.
Sanders revealed what he has done personally to conserve and showed clear disappointment in the overall efforts of San Diegans.
“Despite some successes, we still continue to fall shrt of [...]

(March 5, 2009, Kansas City InfoZine)
Maintaining water quality and efficiency shouldn’t be purely a local problem, a panel of water experts told the House Science and Technology Committee Wednesday.
Five witnesses said federal agencies should cooperate on water research and policy initiatives to combat scarcity caused by drought and population growth.
“We can’t continue to use the [...]

(March 5, 2009, Randall Amster, Huffington Post)

Life here in the desert southwest is richly complex and oftentimes a great challenge. A hint of frontier culture remains even as rampant growth and homogenization take hold at breakneck speed. People love the landscapes and the history, but can still sit and watch both disappear in the name [...]

(March 5, 2009, The Sound News)

Rainy Seattle, nestled between Lake Washington and Puget Sound, enjoys an abundance of the wet stuff. Being surrounded by water and having it come down on us throughout the year is misleading in thinking that general availability and accessibility is the norm. The collective mindset reflects a standard, a high [...]

With all of the rain California has been receiving over the last few weeks, water levels are back to 80% in Sierra snowpack terms and there is “drought improvement“.  The 167-mile stretch of the Hetch-Hetchy system, which provides 85% of the Bay Area’s water, can continue to flow at four fifths capacity.  But water restrictions [...]

(March 5, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
The ongoing struggles of managing California’s limited water supply to support our cities, farms and natural environment are well known. As we face what some are calling one of the worst droughts in California history, we must all learn to conserve water wherever possible. Just as the Bay Area [...]

(March 5, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s declaration of a statewide drought emergency last week had classic comic timing: It’s been pouring ever since. What’s not funny are the governor’s proposals: Expedited water transfers now, which may adversely affect fish and wildlife, and possible mandatory rationing later. Is the drought really that bad?
Some [...]

(March 4, 2009, The Mercury News)

It has been nearly a week since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dropped the bomb, laying out a doomsday drought scenario so starkly apocalyptic he sounded like Dr. Strangelove. And yet, Justina Pillado endured weather Tuesday in the teeth of the governor’s state of emergency that made her toes curl.
“This rain sucks,” [...]

(March 4, 2009, David Zetland, Aguanomics)
RT writes:
I am an economist from Australia who works on among other issues urban water policy.
I read with interest your nicely-written Forbes article.
We seem to have pretty much a similar situation here in Australia and a few of us make similar suggestions.
I’d love to understand more about the your situation [...]

(March 3, 2009, Aguanomics)
I talked to Ray Walker, a retired water rights analyst, about the “new source” of water he’s been mentioning in comments to this blog. Since both of us are interested to find out if any water managers are interested in this new supply, I am posting his request for expressions of interest. [...]

(March 2, 2009, The Mercury News)

Even with the recent heavy rains that deluged the state, California’s snowpack is 80 percent of normal and the state’s largest reservoirs are still far below where they should be at this time of year.
“Obviously, it’s much better than last month. The problem is, on the heels of two critically [...]

(March 2, 2009, John Laumer, Treehugger)
The Las Vegas Review-Journal cites the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority saying ‘now may be the time to take a serious look at a decades-old idea of capturing floodwater from the Mississippi River and using it to recharge the massive groundwater aquifer beneath the Central Plains.’
Was She [...]

(March 2, 2009, The Sacramento Bee)
Californians have grown accustomed to digesting odd ideas that routinely flow out of Sacramento, many of them not so palatable.
But are they ready for this one?
Last week, amid a third year of a statewide drought, the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District adopted a strategy to sell treated sewage as drinking [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, The San Bernardino Sun)
Water is one of California’s most vexing challenges.
Most of the state’s rainfall comes in Northern California and its snowpack is in the Sierra Nevada range. But most of the users are in Southern California and the Central Valley, where agriculture is the main consumer.
There are obstacles at every step [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, MSNBC)
Butte County water officials have concerns that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proclamation Friday on the drought isn’t clear about protecting local control over groundwater.
Paul Gosselin, director of the county Department of Water and Resource Conservation, said there are concerns about what exactly the governor means by “expedited water transfers.”
Butte County has an ordinance [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought emergency Friday, urging cities to cut their use of water 20 percent and paving the way for projects such as desalination plants and water recycling projects to bypass standard environmental reviews.
Despite heavy rainstorms this month, state officials say California’s water [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, The OCRegister)
Even as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide water emergency Friday, Orange County agencies were pushing ahead with tough new restrictions on water use amid growing worries about drought-driven cuts in water supply.
Despite recent rains, the state is in its third year of drought, a statement from the Governor’s Office said. [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, Reuters)
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday declared a state emergency due to drought and said he would consider mandatory water rationing in the face of nearly $3 billion in economic losses from below-normal rainfall this year.
As many as 95,000 agricultural jobs will be lost, communities will be devastated and some growers in [...]

(Feb. 26, 2009, Ceres)
Global climate change is exacerbating water scarcity problems around the world, yet few businesses and investors are paying attention to this growing financial threat, according to a report issued today by Ceres and the Pacific Institute.
Water is crucial for the global economy – driving every industry from agriculture to electric power to [...]

(Feb. 26, 2009, The Mercury News)

In March, after a series of cold winter storms, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada was above normal. That seemed to be good news for California’s water supply, which relies heavily on Sierra Nevada snow.
But after a record heat wave in the early spring, it was as if the winter’s [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
With California’s budget crisis resolved for the moment, state lawmakers Thursday turned their attention to another emergency: a three-year drought that has left key reservoirs at 35% of capacity.
Legislators stepped forward with plans to ask voters to borrow as much as $15 billion for projects to expand and improve [...]

(Feb. 26, 2009, Bloomberg News)
On a cloudless December day in the Nevada desert, workers in white hard hats descend into a 30- foot-wide shaft next to Lake Mead.
As they’ve been doing since June, they’ll blast and dig straight down into the limestone surrounding the reservoir that supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas’s water. In September, [...]

 
I came across a fascinating and informative document on a recent meeting between some associates from the University of Washington and the Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) regarding water rates and billing in Seattle.
The document’s notes cover a wide gamut, but basically I learned seven things that I think any landlord or property manager in Seattle [...]

(Feb. 24, 2009, Aguanomics)
San Diego is looking north for water this year, working out a number of smaller option agreements with Sacramento Valley Districts. I looked into one 10,000 AF transfer with South Feather Water and Power to get a handle on numbers for this year.
San Diego is paying $10 per acre-foot for the option [...]

(Feb. 24, 2009, The San Diego Union Tribune)
The punishing drought that threatens to disrupt California’s economy could also exact a heavy toll on the environment, from the Anza-Borrego Desert to the mountains casting shadows on Lake Tahoe.
Water managers are bracing to get by with just a trickle of the normal deliveries from state and [...]

(Feb. 22, 2009, RedOrbit)
California’s primary source of irrigation water is projected to go dry in 2009 due to drought, idling more than 60,000 workers and up to 1 million acres of farmland, federal officials said Friday.
California water officials declared a zero allocation policy for farmers who purchase water from the federally managed Central Valley Project [...]

(Feb. 21, 2009, Jesse McKinley, The New York Times)
The country’s biggest agricultural engine, California’s sprawling Central Valley, is being battered by the recession like farmland most everywhere. But in an unlucky strike of nature, the downturn is being deepened by a severe drought that threatens to drive up joblessness, increase food prices and cripple farms [...]

(Feb. 20, 2009, Contra Costa Times)

The Contra Costa Water District’s 500,000 customers likely will face mandatory water rationing in the coming months and some of the biggest farms in the state may get no water at all, water managers said Friday.
The cuts to water supplies across the state are in response to what is shaping [...]

(Feb. 21, 2009, John Laumer, Treehugger)
Last minute negotiations may have solved California’s budget crisis; but, a far more protracted problem shadows the future of civilization-as-they-know-it: water reservoirs are drying up; and climate change is likely to worsen the problem. Food prices throughout the nation will be affected in the short-term. Long-term prospects point to an [...]

(Feb. 20, 2009, Associated Press)

Federal water managers said Friday that they plan to cut off water, at least temporarily, to thousands of California farms as a result of the deepening drought gripping the state.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries [...]

(Feb. 19, 2009, Taiwan-Guide Blog)

I came across this article in the Taipei Times today which noted that parts of central and southern Taiwan are yet to record any rainfall this year! The article mentions concerns about an imminent drought and then goes on to say,
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Water Resources Agency issued a warning [...]

(Feb. 18, 2009, Steve Gorman, Reuters)
With a recent flurry of winter storms doing little to dampen California’s latest drought, the nation’s biggest public utility voted on Tuesday to impose water rationing in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly two decades.
Under the plan adopted in principle by the governing board of the L.A. Department [...]

(Feb. 11, 2009, Stephen Chu, Alternet)

Eight years of disinformation and muzzling U.S. climate scientists has left the public largely unaware of the catastrophes ahead.
Finally, we have a top administration official telling it like it is. Energy Secretary and Nobelist Stephen Chu told a Los Angeles Times reporter:

In a worst case, Chu said, up to [...]

(Feb. 15, 2009, USA Today)
Skiers and farmers rejoiced after another storm dropped more than 2 feet of snow in portions of the Sierra Nevada, but the range’s snowpack still is below average so far this winter.
The latest snowfall was just in time for the Presidents Day weekend, traditionally one of the busiest periods of the [...]

(Feb. 16, 2009, Business-Green)
Water supplies to Las Vegas could run dry within six years thanks to receding water levels at Lake Mead, officials warned last week, bringing into question the long-term viability of the fastest growing city in the US.
Pat Mulroy, the chief executive of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said that the water level [...]

(Feb. 11, 2009, Boise Weekly)
After weeks of shoveling driveways several times a day and mornings spent sliding down busy roads, it’s hard to believe that a lack of snow could be a problem. But the snow gods are a fickle group, and now the valley is facing the threat of a summer water shortage if [...]

(Feb. 10. 2009, The Mercury News)

Santa Clara County residents will face mandatory water rationing this spring, although it is not yet clear exactly when, or how much residents and businesses will have to cut their water usage.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors voted Tuesday to impose rationing measures on the county’s 1.7 [...]

(Feb. 11, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
California’s unfolding drought – now three years running – may prove to be the worst in recorded history. Farms have begun to fail, communities to crumble, food prices to rise and more people are going hungry. How we respond to the drought will offer us a template of how [...]

(Feb. 10, 2009, The Wall Street Journal)
MENDOTA, Calif. — Dwindling water supplies are compounding economic woes in California’s Central Valley, causing farmers to leave fields fallow and confront the prospect of going under.
The state’s water supply has dropped precipitously of late. California is locked in the third year of one of its worst droughts on [...]

(Feb. 8, 2009, ChicoER)
California is experiencing “the most significant water crisis in history,” according to the state Department of Water Resources.In the Central Valley, farmers are choosing to plant fewer crops this year. Some orchardists are making tough decisions about whether to allow their trees to go without water.
Residents in areas such as the Bay [...]