Category: Media article

Wells, metering project subject of water district committees

From the Ridgecrest Independent:

“The Indian Wells Valley Water District’s finance and plants and equipment committees on Tuesday discussed costs for some final projects as well as the price tag of an upcoming customer portal project for the district’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure program.

At the plants committee meeting on Tuesday, Water District associate engineer Travis Reed updated committee members and staff on completion of rehabilitation work for its Well 18. The final results came back clean.

Reed noted that the rehab project included a number of change orders from the contractor that performed the work. … “

Continue reading at the Ridgecrest Independent by clicking here.

 

Paso’s wells could collapse into the Salinas River. Here’s how the city is preventing that

From the San Luis Obispo Tribune:

After two winters of downpours, the resources that supply Paso Robles with two-thirds of its drinking water are on the verge of collapsing into the Salinas River.

The city’s Thunderbird well field — used to extract water that’s percolated under the sandy riverbed — and the equipment used to process Lake Nacimiento water are located on a dangerously eroded riverbank.

Although the river looks dry now, it’s become swollen with water during the past two rainy seasons — more so than during the previous five years of drought.

Dry wells, sinking land and fears of a global food crisis

From E&E News:

The bottom is falling out of America’s most productive farmland.

Literally.

Swaths of the San Joaquin Valley have sunk 28 feet — nearly three stories — since the 1920s, and some areas have dropped almost 3 feet in the past two years.

Blame it on farmers’ relentless groundwater pumping. The plunder of California’s aquifers is a budding environmental catastrophe that scientists warn might spark a worldwide food crisis.

“This is not sustainable,” said Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “If those aquifers continue to be depleted and if we start running out of water in these big aquifer systems, the global food system is going into meltdown mode.”

Click here to continue reading at E&E News.

A New Groundwater Market Emerges in California. Are More on the Way?

From Water Deeply:

“A “use-it-or-lose-it” system of water allocation has historically required growers in California to irrigate their land or lose their water rights, whether market forces compelled them to grow crops or not.

Now, in a significant breakthrough for the state’s water economy, a community of farmers near Ventura are about to join a new groundwater market. The buying and trading system, expected to begin by July 1, will allow farmers under the purview of the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency to fallow their own land and sell groundwater to other users willing to pay more than their crop sales would generate. This small-scale water market has been in planning stages for more than a year and is being launched as a pilot project that could eventually serve as a model for the rest of California. … “

Read more from Water Deeply here:  A New Groundwater Market Emerges in California. Are More on the Way?

Toxic Trap: Groundwater Overpumping Boosts Arsenic in California Aquifer

From Water Deeply:

“In California’s agricultural heartland, the San Joaquin Valley, excessive pumping of groundwater has resulted in subsidence, damaging crucial infrastructure, including roads, bridges and water conveyance. A study last year from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, found overpumping of groundwater since the 1920s had caused parts of the San Joaquin Valley to sink as much as 28ft.

But groundwater overpumping may have another serious side effect, according to a study published June 5 in the journal Nature Communications. Researchers found that recent groundwater pumping caused an increase in the concentrations of arsenic in the aquifer. … “

Read more from Water Deeply here:  Toxic Trap: Groundwater Overpumping Boosts Arsenic in California Aquifer

Stanford scientists map seawater threat to California Central Coast aquifers

From Stanford News:

“Researchers from Stanford and the University of Calgary have transformed pulses of electrical current sent 1,000 feet underground into a picture of where seawater has infiltrated freshwater aquifers along the Monterey Bay coastline.

The findings, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Hydrology but are available online now, help explain factors controlling this phenomenon, called saltwater intrusion, and could help improve the groundwater models that local water managers use to make decisions about pumping groundwater to meet drinking or farming needs. … “

Read more from Stanford News here: Stanford scientists map seawater threat to California Central Coast aquifers