This year’s Groundhog Day was symbolic in more ways than one. When Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow on February 2nd, he did not see his shadow and predicted an early spring. In the Southwest US, his prediction has so far come true. Despite early hopes in January that the strong Pacific El Niño would help bring an end to the drought, February has so far been a bust. The National Weather Service reports that globally, January 2016 was the hottest on record and that temperatures across the Southwestern US reached records. In some parts of California and the desert Southwest, temperatures have been between 15 to 25 degrees hotter than average. As the temperatures have risen, precipitation amounts have fallen. While forecasters believe that the storms may return with some intensity in March, a ridge of high pressure has come into place that blocked storms from tracking through California and the Southwest US. These patterns are reminiscent of the El Niño predictions in 2014 and 2012 that never showed up. But unfortunately, much like Bill Murray’s character woke up to the same day over and over again, the California remains in the midst of exceptional drought conditions month after month. Continue reading
Beyond Flint: The Future of Water Quality Issues in the United States
In my last post, I wrote about how the water problems in Flint, Michigan may not be an isolated incident in the United States. While a series of missteps and mismanagement led ultimately to the water crisis in Flint, the situation there highlights a much greater problem in the United States: We have generally under-invested in our water infrastructure, and water quality may continue to suffer in other parts of the nation as a result. The water system in Flint has pipes in it that are in some instances 100 years old, and many main lines contain lead. But Flint is hardly alone in facing the problems that aging infrastructure cause. Cities on both coasts, from Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles all have lead and cast iron pipes in the ground that will need to be replaced. In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) created a US infrastructure “report card” which assigned grades to a host of infrastructure types. ASCE’s report was not kind to the various water categories. Drinking water, waste water and dams got “D” ratings, and our levees got a “D-“ rating. The report estimates that the drinking water system alone will take $1 trillion in investment to bring the US as a whole up to a satisfactory level of service. Continue reading
Water Main Breaks in California and Tainted Water Supplies in Michigan – A Sign of Bigger Infrastructure Problems in the US?
In 2014, a bit of a media frenzy surrounded a particular water main break in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood. A 93-yar old water main broke and flooded neighborhoods in the area with an estimated 8-10 million gallons of water and caused particular damage to the UCLA Campus. UCLA had recently completed a $133 million renovation of the Pauley Pavilion, the main on-campus sports arena where the school plays its home basketball games. The broken water main caused significant damage to the Pavilion as well as parking structures and other facilities on the campus. Continue reading
El Niño and Drought Relief in the Pacific Northwest
As 2016 begins, climate researchers remain optimistic that the El Niño pattern that began to build last fall will hold and will generally deliver wet weather across areas of the US facing some of the worst drought conditions such as California. At the January 8th Operation Sierra Storm Conference in Lake Tahoe, Sasha Gershunov, climate and meteorology researcher at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego said that, “So far we’ve got out of this event exactly what we expected.” From the initial snow survey on December 30th, California’s mountain snowpack is currently at 136% of average, and many parts of the state received precipitation during the first two weeks of the year. Unfortunately, while the initial snow survey results represent a good start, (especially in comparison to last year’s record low snowpack) the precipitation has not made an appreciable dent in the drought conditions across much of the Western United States. According to the most recent US Drought Monitor conditions, despite appreciable rainfalls, severe drought continues to cover parts of California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The severity of California’s drought has not yet decreased dramatically either. The land area of exceptional drought (the most severe category) fell from 44.84% last week to 42.66% this week. Continue reading