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Former Interior head enlisted for California delta tunnels

/in /by /The Associated Press (As Published by The Mercury News)

California Gov. Jerry Brown has enlisted a Washington senior statesman to help his massive, $15.7 billion water tunnel proposal clear regulatory and financial hurdles, officials said Thursday.

Since June 22, the state has paid former Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt $10,305 a month to advise senior administration officials on the project.

Brown wants a number of local water agencies to pay for building two, 35-mile tunnels to carry water from the Sacramento River under the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and on to water contractors, primarily in Central and Southern California.


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House keeps California water provision in spending bill over Democratic objections

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Sarah D. Wire

Provisions aimed at moving water around California remain in an appropriations bill after House Republicans on Wednesday rebuffed California Democrats’ attempts to have it removed.

The provision, sponsored by Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), focuses on funneling more water to San Joaquin Valley growers by reducing the amount used to support endangered fish populations.

The House voted 248-181 to reject an amendment by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton) and other California Democrats that would have removed the language from the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill.

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Weakening La Niña forecast may mean closer to normal SoCal rain this winter

/in /by /89.3 KPCCby Sanden Totten

That’s because in the past, strong La Niña events typically bring warm, dry winters in Southern California. However, when there is a weak La Niña or none at all, odds are better we might see a regular winter with average rainfall.

“I’d say that’s a reasonable bet,” said Michael Jacox, an ocean scientist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fellow NOAA researchers said Thursday that chances a La Niña will form this fall are about 55 to 60%.

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OPINION: Planning for California’s Water Future

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Mark W. Cowin

We cannot rebuild California’s water infrastructure from the ground up. All the dams, pumps, aqueducts – and rules and laws – arise from 200 years of human engineering in the Golden State. Our forebears designed these projects for the sole benefit of a few million people, and today we struggle to adapt them to the support of threatened fish and wildlife and 39 million people.

While we depend on this infrastructure not just to survive but thrive, some of it is undeniably outdated, and sometimes harmful. We cannot undo most of the environmental damage of our water development, but we can ameliorate it.

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Landscape renovation to cut RSM church’s water use by 500,000 gallons annually

/in /by /The Orange County Registerby NATHAN PERCY

One Rancho Santa Margarita church, with help from its members and a few companies, is facing the drought head on.

In an effort to conserve, Community Lutheran Church plans to save an estimated 500,000 gallons of water per year with new landscaping and water use technology. Both were unveiled in front of a small crowd last week.

With work completed on the CLC Landscape Renovation Project, which broke ground in February, onlookers gazed at new native plants and trees surrounded by wood chips and gravel paths that replaced grass.

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