Reservoirs supplying city of 4 million are nearing bottom during record-setting drought.
A city of 4 million people, Cape Town is banning outdoor water use in response to the worst drought in more than a century.
“Flushing only when needed can help save up to 9 liters (2.4 gallons) of water per flush.” Every drop counts these days in South Africa’s second-largest city.
“The feeling is that we should be OK this year,” Kristy Carden, a water management researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Future Water Institute, told Circle of Blue.
Peak use in January, which is the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere and when demand is highest, was down roughly 20 percent compared to a year ago.
Water managers want daily use to fall to 450 megaliters through the winter, an “easily achievable target,” according to the Future Water Institute.
A megaliter is one million liters, or 264,000 gallons.
It is a move that Cape Town officials are considering, if they need to tap the bottom 10 percent of their reservoirs.
“There is little doubt that the Western Cape needs to prepare, in the longer term, for a drier climate,” according to the Alliance for Collaboration and Earth Systems Science.
Treated residential wastewater and rainfall are funneled to filtration basins that replenish the aquifer.

In a post at AEI, Jim Pethokoukis said that this rise in job tenure was “another sign of America’s declining dynamism.” The trends through 2014 are indeed troubling, as they are indicative of a less dynamic economy where too many workers are rooted in place, pessimistic about their prospects of moving to a better, potentially more productive job.
However, the most recent data from the Department of Labor finds a pickup in labor turnover after 2014.
Source: Department of Labor, “Employee Tenure in 2016.” The share of workers with tenure of five years or more has fallen back to under 48 percent, to some extent reversing the recent surge documented by the Census report.
After falling as low as 1.3 percent in some months of 2009 and 2010, the quits rate has recovered and remained above 2.0 percent since June 2015.
Over the past year it has inched even higher, at or above 2.1 percent in every month.
After increasing for almost a decade, job tenure has declined in recent years.
Job switching is related to the churn rate of new firms, and the recent reduction in median job tenure could be some of the first tentative signs that a measure of dynamism could be returning to the economy as it finally gets out from the long shadow of last decade’s recession.
Firm age was the other major explanatory factor identified in the report, explaining between 37 and 50 percent of the increase in job tenure of five years or more.
The reversal of that trend is a sign that dynamism and the labor market are recovering.
If the trends of the past few years continue, median job tenure returning to pre-recession levels would be a sign of reduced complacency and an increased appetite for risk-taking.

California’s drought is all but over, but some wells are still dry.
Despite a wet California winter, six years of drought have left thousands of dry wells in the state’s Central Valley.
It’s one of four counties that still receive emergency drought funding.
Today, her yard is dried up, her family stays inside, and she doesn’t even have enough water for her garden.
They are helping Okieville residents organize the community and obtain state and federal funding for a new well.
“So now, people are spending what little money they have on water, because without water everything stops, you can’t cook you can’t grow food.” Coyne says the state and county provide bottled water and household tank deliveries, which run about $400,000 a month.
For houses without tanks, residents have made do by stringing hoses between houses.
“The drought is, just people don’t have money to drill the wells, he said, “and that’s the biggest problem.” The large-scale farms surrounding Okieville can afford to drill deeper but most farmworkers can’t.
A lot of families who could afford to walk away from their homes have left, but many can’t do that or don’t want to.
“Yes, without water, Marquez said, [we] can’t do anything.”

FOXBOROUGH, Mass.
— The Maryland men’s lacrosse team’s 42-year national championship drought ended at approximately 3:16 p.m. on Monday afternoon, with the Terrapins celebrating their 9-6 title game win over Ohio State with a mosh pit in the south end zone of Gillette Stadium.
The Terrapins’ win marked a sweep for the school – the Maryland women’s lacrosse team won a national championship on Sunday, clinching their third title in four seasons.
Junior midfielder Tim Rotanz scored three goals and senior attack Dylan Maltz added two for the Terrapins, who used suffocating defense to cause two Ohio State scoring droughts that lasted more than a quarter.
Dylan Maltz also scored against an Ohio State short stick early in the second quarter, and DiMillo followed up with his second goal off an assist from Rambo that pushed the lead to 5-2 with 9:43 remaining in the first half.
The Terrapins then killed an extra-man opportunity for Ohio State on the ensuing possession, and although they didn’t score on their own extra-man chance later in the quarter, they did enough defensively to go into the locker room with a three-goal lead at halftime.
Rotanz scored his second goal of the day off a backdoor cut, finishing off a feed from Maltz to make it 6-3 with 5:30 left in the third quarter.
Maltz scored his second goal of the game at a crucial point, giving Maryland a 7-3 lead with 13:04 remaining, which came after yet another patient, deliberate possession.
Ohio State pulled within 8-5 after freshman Trey LeClaire beat Maryland goalie Dan Morris low with five minutes remaining.
But after Ohio State retained possession on the ensuing faceoff and had a chance to pull within one goal, Morris came up with a crucial save on a laser of a shot by LeClaire.

Cooperation helps mammals survive in tough environments.
Cooperatively breeding mammal species, such as meerkats and naked-mole rats, where non-breeding helpers assist breeding females in raising their offspring, are better able to cope with living in dry areas than related non-cooperative species, new research reveals.
A comparative study of mammals, by University of Cambridge researchers Dieter Lukas and Tim Clutton-Brock, shows that cooperatively breeding species occur in dry areas, yet are absent in tropical climates — even though these are the places on earth with the highest biodiversity.
"Rainfall often affects food availability, and cooperatively breeding mammals appear better able to cope with the uncertainties of food availability during periods of drought," said Lukas, from Cambridge’s Department of Zoology.
In this study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the researchers mapped the global occurrence of mammalian species living in different social systems to determine how averages and variation in rainfall and temperature explain species distributions.
They found that although the presence of non-breeding adults in breeding groups is not associated with contrasts in climate, non-breeders commonly play an important role in raising the offspring of breeders in species living in dry environments.
"Long-term field studies show that helpers improve offspring survival, and our findings highlight that such cooperation is particularly important under harsh conditions," said Clutton-Brock.
Groups of cooperative breeders occupy territories year-round.
Cooperative breeders are also twice as likely as non-cooperative mammals to occupy human-modified habitats suggesting that cooperative breeding may make it possible to colonize new environments.
Story Source: Materials provided by University of Cambridge.

Happy Memorial Day!
No Daily Digest today; Maven’s Notebook surpasses 2 million page views.
Happy Memorial Day!
Dear Readers, There’s hardly anything new in the news this morning, although Water Deeply isn’t taking the holiday off and has posted the article, Oroville Dam in Miniature: Scale Model Helps Repair Damaged Spillway and here are today’s reservoir conditions.
For more news and commentary, here’s the weekend Daily Digest: DAILY DIGEST, weekend edition: Three conservation bills advance to Assembly floor; California creatures thriving after record winter rains; Tribes call for Klamath agreement termination; How would engineers build the Golden Gate Bridge today?
Of course, such a milestone could not have been reached without your continued readership, so thank you, readers!
May you have a peaceful and enjoyable holiday!
With warm regards, Maven Sign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post … Sign up for free daily email service and you’ll get all the Notebook’s aggregated and original water news content delivered to your email box by 9AM.
And with breaking news alerts, you’ll always be one of the first to know … About the Daily Digest: The Daily Digest is a collection of selected news articles, commentaries and editorials appearing in the mainstream press.
Items are generally selected to follow the focus of the Notebook blog.

It’s called the "wildland urban interface" where people can live close to nature and to the fires that burn there.
As more houses are built near wildlands, more of them burn.
Robert Bonnie: There’s no question that we’re spending more on the federal-government side firefighting today because of houses in the landscape that we had nothing to do with approving.
Robert Bonnie: The other issue is we put firefighters’ lives in danger if we ask them to fight fires that essentially we can’t stop.
USDA VIDEO: Protecting Your Home From Wildfire Cohen: What ignited this house and burned it down were the little things.
Kern County requires property owners to clear 100 feet of defensible space around homes.
It’s the house of Fred Roach, that retired Forest Service firefighter.
Fred Roach: The house was stucco’ed about fire years ago.
Steve Inskeep: Which doesn’t burn nearly as— Fred Roach: No.
Steve Inskeep: When people have not properly prepared their homes, what do they expect from the fire department when— Judy Hyatt: They expect them— Steve Inskeep: –fire approaches?

During the schools out bash at Castaway Cove, the water park was packed with patrons for the unofficial start of summer.
And every little one has their favorite part of the park.
"the wavey pool.
Because I just like the waves."
"Well, we have a four-day break so there’s no better way to cool off than hang out with the boys at the pool."
"It’s been getting a little bit higher from the years that we did have the drought scare and I think now everybody is not as concerned as they were a couple of years ago."
Steve Vaughn, Castaway Cove Park Manager The park had to ship in water every day during the drought.
Meanwhile, park goers sure enjoyed splashing this hot day away.
"We might very well after finding out all of the great things they have here that’s probably in the works."
Joshua Shepherd, Park Patron The park is open throughout the summer until Labor day weekend and season passes will be on sale through June 4!

The Drought Is Over.
“All drought metrics — stream flow and precipitation — look good except for a few monitoring wells that still show below-average conditions in the southern part of the state,” said Brandon Kernen, a geohydrologist at the Department of Environmental Services, who has headed up the state’s inter-agency drought team.
“However with the recent rain, I expect levels to be closer to average when they are measured again at the end of the month.
“Some water systems in the state are still implementing water-use restrictions and bans for this reason.” The all-too-fresh memory of last summer’s drought should be enough to keep people leary about water use this year, even if precipitation levels remain normal or above normal.
Last fall, 80 percent of the state experienced “moderate” to “extreme” drought while the remaining 20 percent was rated “abnormally dry.” For the first time in two years, the U.S. Drought Monitor map for the week ending May 9 had no areas of drought or abnormal dryness in the state.
Entomologist to Receive National Pest Detection Award Christopher Rallis, entomologist and Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey, or CAPS, coordinator for the department’s Division of Plant Industry, has been selected for one of two awards from the USDA’s National Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey Program.
The awards recognize outstanding activities and achievements by members of the CAPS community, including state survey coordinators, pest survey specialists, state plant regulatory officials, state plant health directors, and other individuals and groups.
Rallis is being recognized for exceeding the expectations for the Exotic Woodboring & Bark Beetle survey by also sorting and identifying the bycatch collected during the survey.
The project provided background information on how to use growing-degree days to improve pest management, easily accessible growing-degree day accumulations for accurately timing surveys and other pest management activities, and tables highlighting important degree-day thresholds and targets for the management of many common agricultural, landscape and forest insect pests.
Take a look at the growing-degree days tools available on the department website at www.agriculture.nh.gov.

Summer rainfall in vulnerable African region can be predicted.
Summer rainfall in one of the world’s most drought-prone regions can now be predicted months or years in advance, climate scientists at the Met Office and the University of Exeter say.
The Sahel region of Africa — a strip across the southern edge of the Sahara from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea — is a semi-arid landscape between the desert to the north and the savannah to the south.
The new research used the Met Office Hadley Centre’s Decadal Prediction System and found that the model was good at predicting summer Sahel rainfall over the forthcoming five years.
Forecasting years ahead relies on sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic, whereas the El Niño Southern Oscillation is important for a shorter-term forecast before each summer.
"Our study suggests that skilful predictions of summer rainfall in the Sahel are now possible months or even years ahead," said Dr Katy Sheen, formerly of the Met Office but now of the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.
"With a population reliant on agriculture, the Sahel is particularly vulnerable to major droughts, such as those of the 1970s and 1980s.
"Improved understanding and predictions of summer rainfall in the Sahel has the potential to help decision makers better anticipate future cycles of summer droughts and floods, helping local communities become increasingly resilient to the region’s notoriously variable and changing climate."
"Our study improves our understanding of the driving mechanisms of summer rainfall variability and shows they are predictable," Dr Sheen added.
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