Way to go, Pleasanton residents!

All of California is in Some Type of Drought

 

For First Time, California Gets Ready For Mandatory Water Restrictions.

90% Chance of the El Niño Global Weather Phenomenon Striking this Year

“It is very much odds-on for an event,” said Tim Stockdale, principal scientist at European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts, who said 90% of their scenarios now deliver an El Niño. "The amount of warm water in the Pacific is now significant, perhaps the biggest since the 1997-98 event.” That El Niño was the biggest in a century, producing the hottest year on record at the time and major global impacts, including a mass die-off of corals.

“But what is very much unknowable at this stage is whether this year’s El Niño will be a small event, a moderate event – that’s most likely – or a really major event,” said Stockdale, adding the picture will become clearer in the next month or two. “It is which way the winds blow that determines what happens next and there is always a random element to the winds.”

What is El Niño?

El Niño is a climate phenomenon that occurs when a vast pool of water in the western tropical Pacific Ocean becomes abnormally warm. Under normal conditions, the warm water and the rains it drives are in the western Pacific.

El Niño occurs every few years. Its most direct impacts are droughts in normally damp places in the western Pacific, such as parts of Indonesia and Australia, while normally drier places like the west coast of South America suffer floods. But the changes affect the global atmospheric circulation and can weaken the Indian monsoon and bring rains to the western US.
It is not certain what tips the unstable Pacific Ocean-atmosphere system into El Niño, but a weakening of the normal trade winds that blow westwards is a key symptom. In 2014, the trigger may have been a big cluster of very strong thunderstorms over Indonesia in the early part of the year, according to Dr Nick Klingaman from the University of Reading in the UK.

An El Niño is officially declared if the temperature of the western tropical Pacific rises 0.5C above the long-term average. The extreme El Niño year of 1997-98 saw a rise of more than 3C.

El Niño is one extreme in a natural cycle, with the opposite extreme called La Niña. The effect of climate change on the cycle is not yet understood, though some scientists think El Niño will become more common.

5 Simple Ways California Could Fix its Drought Crisis

 

Weather-Sensitive Watering, and 4 Other Simple Fixes for California's Drought

A new report issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pacific Institute highlights some solutions that could easily be implemented by using strategies already in place. The researchers behind The Untapped Potential of California's Water Supply evaluated current systems and found that between 10.8 and 13.7 million acre-feet of water—enough to supply more water than is currently used in all of California's cities—could be provided by addressing agricultural and urban efficiency, increased use of treated waste water, and storm-water capture.

Results In: Palmer, McGrail, Greci and Stevens Elected

The election results are in (top 4 elected):

Sarah Palmer	10716	21.10
Jim McGrail	9582	18.86
John James Greci Jr	8594	16.92
Bill Stevens	7019	13.82
AJ Machaevich	6090	11.99
Alfred A. Exner	5135	10.11
Matt Morrison	3515	6.92
Write-in	142	0.28

This is the first time in my recollection that an incumbent Zone 7 director has been defeated, and Jim McGrail received more votes than three incumbents!

Well, the lesson learned is that it takes a comprehensive and well-funded campaign to unseat an incumbent Zone 7 director, but it can be done. Jim McGrail raised nearly $50,000 and spent almost half of that amount. Kudos to Jim for not taking anything for granted and running an impressive campaign.

Note, however, that Jim spent around $2.50 per vote while I only spent 11 cents.  :~)

Pleasanton Weekly Endorses Exner, McGrail, Morrison, and Palmer for Zone 7 Directors

In the May 30 edition the Pleasanton Weekly editorial staff endorsed Alfred Exner, Jim McGrail, Matt Morrison, and Sarah Palmer for Zone 7 Directors.

The editorial urges voters to focus who is chosen to serve on the Zone 7 board because of the current drought that "... without more rain ... could become the worst ever." Zone 7 "... is the driving force to require water rationing  in the Valley, and those chosen in the direct election Tuesday will need the backbone to carry out those decisions."

The editorial remarks that "Morrison is well-known in Pleasanton as a dedicated environmentalist" and "plans to promote ongoing conservation strategies over increasing reliance on environmentally damaging Delta water diversions."

The Independent Endorses Matt Morrison, Jim McGrail, Sarah Palmer and A.J. Machaevich

The editors of The Independent newspaper in Livermore this week endorsed Matt Morrison, Jim McGrail, Sarah Palmer and A..J. Machaevich for the Zone 7 Water Agency Board.

The editors wrote:

"Morrison brings a strong environmental background, including knowledge about water issues. As a member of the Sierra Club, he has chaired the Bay Chapter’s water committee, served as vice chair of the club’s statewide water committee and as vice-chair for Delta issues. He is opposed to the Governor Brown’s plan to build two tunnels to convey water around the Delta. He believes the project is too large and too expensive, with no restrictions on the amount of water that can be pulled out of the Delta. He argues the money could be spent on finding other sources of water, focusing on conservation and developing more local storage to reduce dependence on the State Water Project."

and:

"Both Morrison and McGrail have made the point that Zone 7 needs to do more to educate people when it comes to reducing water use. They also believe that Zone 7 should have been more proactive in retaining water levels in the underground basin. Zone 7 has relied too heavily on being able to obtain water it has stored in Southern California. With the aqueduct shut down, that water is not available."