Water News - Page 85 of 85 in California's San Joaquin Valley

Local water districts feel cheated by ‘exchange’

April 1, 2019

• by Lois Henry

Oh, the fascinating stuff our protracted drought is revealing. I’m not talking about tires and old town foundations at the bottom of California’s reservoirs. This drought is also putting long-held assumptions about water rights under intense scrutiny. In this instance, a dispute over how the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has administered a contract spanning more…

Floods

Survey says! We got a boatload of water coming soon

April 1, 2019

• by Lois Henry

The numbers are in and they are good. Amazing, actually. The April 1 manual snowpack survey for the Kern River basin shows we are at an overall 215 percent of average, according to the Department of Water Resources. (See side box for particulars.) The basin was at 49 percent of average last year and that…

Floods

Water districts stuffing Kern River water in every nook and cranny they can

April 1, 2019

• by Lois Henry

The good news is that not a drop of Kern River water is going into the California Aqueduct to fill Southern California taps. Yet. But water managers are keeping an eagle eye on the snowpack and the weather hoping there are no sudden moves from either in the near future. A warm rain or rapid…

Floods

Little Poso Creek causing big problems for farmers in northern Kern

April 1, 2019

• by Lois Henry

Poso Creek wreaked havoc on a number of northern Kern County farms in recent weeks, flooding thousands of acres. Farmers were busy patching levees and pumping remnants of the flood water off their lands Thursday. But even as berms were rebuilt and their fields dried, farmers eyed the giant Sierra snowpack and warned, “It’s not…

Drought

Pollution plumes stopped by drought but how much longer for cleanup?

April 1, 2019

• by Lois Henry

The good news is that more than 40 million pounds of petroleum hydrocarbons have been sucked — literally — out of the ground around the former Shell Oil (now Alon) refinery on Rosedale Highway. And the really good news is that toxic plume, which had been creeping toward the Kern River bed and several drinking-water…

Personalities

Water conspiracy or just poor optics?

April 1, 2019

• by Lois Henry

There’s a reason Matt Hurley wears so many hats, his critics say. And he does wear a lot of hats: General manager of Angiola Water District, Green Valley Water District and Deer Creek Storm Water District; chairman of the newly formed Tri-County Water Authority; and he’s a director on the Fresno Slough Water District and…

NEWS

Local water districts feel cheated by ‘exchange’

Survey says! We got a boatload of water coming soon

Water districts stuffing Kern River water in every nook and cranny they can

Little Poso Creek causing big problems for farmers in northern Kern

Pollution plumes stopped by drought but how much longer for cleanup?

Water conspiracy or just poor optics?

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