Archive for February, 2012
Opinion: Repeal $11.14 Billion Water Bond
Kristin Lynch, California Progress Report
Corporate agriculture giants are plotting a massive, multi-billion dollar water heist and they want you to pay for it. Part of their thirst was quenched in December when Senator Feinstein made it easier for them to resell public water for private profit. Now these water barons have their eyes set on a bigger prize: passage of an $11.14 billion bond measure to help them tap the Sacramento River. In order to protect California’s fiscal and environmental health, the state legislature should repeal this wasteful bond.
John Howard, Cal Water Wars
John Howard, Cal Water Wars
An $11 billion water bond facing voters on the November ballot likely will be rewritten, downsized or delayed two years – or even all three — to reflect political realities and a weak economy, says the leader of the Senate.
Bay Delta Conservation Plan is best option
John Laird, Open Forum, San Francisco Chronicle
For centuries, without a single dam or pipe, water in California’s rivers and streams supported about 300,000 people. Now, California’s population is 38 million, and will grow by 10 million in the next generation.
Transitions for the Delta Economy
Josué Medellín-Azuara, Ellen Hanak, Richard Howitt, and Jay Lund
Enormous changes—from natural forces to management decisions—are coming to California’s fragile Delta region and will have broad effects on its residents. This report finds that in the first half of this century, the Delta as a whole is likely to experience a loss of 1 percent of economic activity as a result of these changes. It also identifies planning priorities for managing the Delta’s future. This research was supported with funding from the Watershed Sciences Center at UC Davis.
Governor Brown endorses Bay Delta Conservation Plan
Bob Morris, Independent Voter Network
Gov. Brown strongly endorsed and supported the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in his State of the State address. He says it will ensure water for 25 million Californians and agriculture, as well as protecting the Delta ecosystem and its abundant fish and wildlife.
California’s best-kept secret?
Statewide survey finds 78 percent clueless about Delta
Nearly four out of five Californians do not know what the Delta is, despite the fact that the estuary of 1,000 square miles provides drinking water for cities from San Jose to San Diego.
Upper District rallies for new kind of peripheral canal bill
Local water agencies, chambers of commerce and construction unions are supporting a bill that would speed up the planning and set a date for construction of a new kind of peripheral canal to bring water from Northern California south.
O.C. agency revives failed desert water plan
A plan to boost water supplies using a Mojave desert aquifer is being floated by an Orange County water agency — nearly 10 years after a similar plan for the same aquifer failed to gain approval, in part because of stiff opposition from a U.S. senator and environmental activists.
Regional Board approves desalination plant
A bid that would allow a Huntington Beach facility to turn seawater into drinking water has been approved by a regional water board, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A Connecticut-based firm Poseidon Resources says the proposed $350 million seawater desalination plant would supply 50 million gallons of drinking water a day, noted the article.
The plan could be halted by environmentalists who think the process would hurt sea creatures and foul up the ocean with its discharges, stated the article.
Water systems need fixes, badly; customers don’t want to fund them
From mountain hamlets to Sacramento City Hall, governments are asking taxpayers to dig deeper into their pockets to improve sewer and water systems. And people are pushing back.
Brown hints at peripheral canal
A possible multi-billion dollar canal to siphon water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to users south of the Delta is being hinted at by Gov. Jerry Brown, a long-time supporter of the concept.
Jerry Brown says he’d support delaying water bond
Gov. Jerry Brown indicated Thursday that he would support delaying an $11 billion water bond currently on the November ballot, saying a massive overhaul of the state’s water system can begin without voters approving huge borrowing this year.
New flood control plan would change Sacramento’s landscape
A massive plan to improve the Central Valley’s flood control system proposes big changes for the landscape of the Sacramento region, from enlarging major floodways such as the Yolo Bypass to improving levees and bridges.
Sacramento given more time to meet sewage standards
A judge on Monday granted Sacramento’s regional sewage treatment agency an additional six months to meet stricter filtration requirements for the treated effluent it discharges into the Sacramento River.
Delta Advocates Blast Flaws in Tainted PPIC Report
Restore the Delta is challenging the accuracy and value of the Public Policy Institute’s controversial “report” on the Delta, “Transitions for the Delta Economy,” funded by the Stephen Bechtel Foundation, Resources Legacy Fund and David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Berryhill’s canal alternative; Plan separates SJ, Sacramento river waters
Assemblyman Bill Berryhill is championing a Delta solution that could please all water interests at an economic cost significantly less than the latest proposal to resurrect the Peripheral Canal.
Debilitating drought to continue across southern USA
The disastrous Southern drought, which led to $10 billion in crop and agricultural losses in 2011, is forecast to continue through at least the next three months, government scientists report.
Hoover Power Allocation Act Signed into Law
Southwestern water and power interests are celebrating the federal government’s renewal of the Hoover Power Allocation Act, which authorizes hydropower generated at the Hoover Dam to be distributed for the benefit of more than 29 million residents of California, Nevada and Arizona. For southern California, which receives water from the Colorado River, the legislation ensures that reliable, low-cost, renewable energy will be available to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) so it can move more than 550,000 acre-feet of water across its Colorado River Aqueduct each year.