El Dorado County Water Digest

Water fights have shaped California since its infancy as a state, when its abundance seemed limitless. Now, Californians are being forced to confront limitations, and the state that prides itself on creating the future is now reckoning with its past.

The California Department of Water Resources released an environmental impact report for a tunnel that the state would like to build through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The report identifies potential impacts to farmland, tribal remains and endangered species of fish.

Water managers in Pajaro Valley are paying farmers for water they get back into the ground. The move comes as California has grappled with water shortages in recent years.

In preparation for the single-use plastic bottle ban South Lake Tahoe will implement in 2024, Take Care Tahoe has released a new Drink Tahoe Tap Map that lists locations where people can freely fill up reusable water bottles.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is getting a $100 million loan to help cover a shortfall more than three times as large. The district also may change how it charges its more than 19 million customers for water.

Much of California could get hit by extreme weather conditions this winter. A major storm is due to hit Northern California this week.

The Elmore Desert Ranch gets 22.5 billion gallons of water from the Colorado River, almost as much as is cleared for Scottsdale, Ariz. And that’s just a fraction of the 386.5 billion gallons from the river going to 19 other families in Imperial Valley.

El Dorado Water Agency’s fifth Countywide Plenary for Water focused on aligning watershed management with economic development and community resilience, as well as investments needed to improve hydrologic forecasting, to better handle droughts, floods and other disasters.

The first reservoir in California in nearly 50 years is now on the fast track for completion.

Intense rains have California out of a drought less than a year after most of the state faced water shortages. A climatologist is urging wise water usage ahead of California’s next drought.

At the Water Education Foundation annual water summit in Sacramento, Eric Oppenheimer, chief deputy director of the California State Water Resources Control Board, discussed what he described as the state’s “antiquated” water rights system.

The Georgetown Divide Public Utility District has been selected as a recipient of $250,000 in state appropriations funding.

The El Dorado Irrigation District Board of Directors has adopted its 2024-28 Capital Improvement Plan.

Wet weather and planned cuts by California, Arizona and Nevada averted declines that could have threatened water deliveries and power production—but long-term threats to the Colorado River remain.

After multiple years on hiatus, the Watershed Education Summit once again brought together local high school students, teachers and resource specialists to participate in a watershed monitoring project.

Hundreds of wells in Tulare Lake aquifer are at risk of going dry. Today's recommendation is the first time that state officials have moved to crack down on local plans that fail to stop excessive groundwater pumping.

Water providers say rebates for residential areas are costly and residents may refuse to remove their lawns. The rules aim to save enough water for more than a million households a year.

The irrigation bill, which aims to force businesses and institutions to remove their lawns, now goes to the governor.

The joint project brings together interdisciplinary collaborators from the Department of Fisheries Biology and the Department of Native American Studies, as well as local and regional organizations, to assess the viability of bull kelp growth in Humboldt Bay.

A Trump administration plan for delivering more water to Central Valley farmers—bottled up in court by opponents for almost four years—could be returned from legal limbo this summer by House Republicans.

Barton Health is moving forward with its regional expansion project, relocating the acute care hospital to Stateline, Nev., while broadening outpatient services at its California campus.

Clean Up the Lake, known for its 72-mile cleanup project around the shores of Lake Tahoe, has opened its Environmental Dive Center at Lake Tahoe.

There’s a possible rise of four invasive animals in California—another consequence from downpours last winter and spring. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services warned about a potential population surge due to storm-related flooding.

The Department of the Interior announced the distribution of $24,881,884 to the state of California today as part of the $295,582,830 granted this year from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.

The new El Dorado Water Agency website is designed to help stakeholders and community members understand the role EDWA plays in planning for the county’s long-term water resources.

Raising Shasta Dam to increase its capacity would provide 634,000 more acre-feet of water per year, legislators say. But that assumes there will always be enough precipitation, and the move risks flooding sacred Native American lands and harming local habitats.

The city of South Lake Tahoe is building stormwater drains to address localized flooding and reduce runoff pollution on Barton and Helen avenues and 2nd Street. To accommodate this project, South Tahoe Public Utility District will be moving waterlines, which will result in some water shutdowns in the neighborhood.

In the magazine Nature, a team of scientists reports that they have detected changes in ocean color that cannot be explained by natural, year-to-year variability alone. These color shifts have occurred over 56 percent of the world’s oceans.

The environmental costs of ending water diversions from Mono Lake to Los Angeles would be mixed: It might help a shore bird habitat but would require changes that increase carbon emissions.

At a cost of $4,171,246.80 crews will replace 3,576 linear feet of water line on Forebay Road.

U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) announced $3.1 million in funding she secured for Lake Tahoe in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to prevent and combat the spread of aquatic invasive species in the lake through the Lake Tahoe Aquatic Invasive Species Program.

D.L. Bliss State Park, on the West Shore of Lake Tahoe, will be closed for the summer to replace the aging main waterline, which will impact hiking on the Rubicon Trail.