California plans to reduce water for farms and cities from one of its biggest river systems in order to boost the amount of water for salmon and other threatened fish, state officials said Thursday. The plan, which still must receive final approval, rekindles a divisive fish-versus-farmers debate in the nation’s biggest agriculture state.
In 2000, researchers took a coring from the bed of a small, shallow lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. They analyzed the organic matter and chemicals in the sediments to reconstruct a climate record of the past 10,000 years. They then compared it with reconstructions of ancient ocean temperatures. The results echoed previous studies that have found a link between past periods of climate warming, cool sea-surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean and centuries-long droughts in California and the West. Does that mean that global warming is pushing California to the threshold of endless drought?
State regulators want to leave more water for fish and wildlife in the heavily tapped tributaries of the San Joaquin River, setting the stage for another bruising California water fight. The proposal to keep more water flowing in the Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers could spread the pain caused by environmentally related water cuts to irrigation districts and cities that have largely escaped them, thanks to their location and seniority in the hierarchy by which the state allocates water rights.
The San Diego County Water Authority is trying to become a player in the energy market. It’s not going very well.The agency’s biggest energy project is increasingly bogged down by a soaring price tag, relatively small returns and questions about whether it’s even needed. The project aims to address what’s become a major problem in the energy world: how to stop using fossil fuels without sacrificing reliability. Power generated from the sun, wind and water are better for the environment, but the sun doesn’t always shine, wind doesn’t always blow and hydroelectricity doesn’t work in a drought.
A small school district in Warner Springs is still struggling with arsenic levels in its water that are above state limits, according to a new report. The Warner Unified School District is one of 95 water systems in California with arsenic levels that exceed the state threshold, the report by the Environmental Integrity Project found. The district, which serves about 210 students in the rural community in eastern San Diego County, had arsenic levels at 11.4 parts per billion, leaving it slightly above the state limit of 10 parts per billion, the report said.
As we enter the wet season when California gets more than 90 percent of its rainfall and snowfall, we urge state and federal officials to manage the state’s massive water system to ensure everyone gets their share of water this year. A University of California at Davis study found that mismanagement of the state’s water system has contributed to the water shortages facing all of California and has greatly contributed to the drawing down of the underground water supply in the San Joaquin Valley.
Swaths of public land in the California desert will be opened to solar and wind farms under a federal plan released Wednesday that preserves much of the landscape for conservation and recreation. The long-awaited blueprint finalized by the U.S. Interior Department after a years long process seeks to balance renewable energy development and species protection on 17,000 square miles (44,030 sq. kilometers) of desert managed by the federal government.The plan drew sharp criticism from clean-energy producers who warned it would severely limit development.
California’s Salton Sea and state-straddling Lake Tahoe would receive funding for environmental restoration under a bill set for Senate approval Thursday. More controversial water-related efforts remain stuck in Capitol Hill limbo, however. Put simply, California’s diverse water ambitions face a complicated future in what remains of the 114th Congress. Showing some progress, senators have groomed a bill that includes a 10-year, $415 million Lake Tahoe restoration package. The broader water resources development bill also authorizes help for the endangered Salton Sea, the much-diminished Los Angeles River and Sacramento-area flood control, among other projects.
Giant tunnels that Gov. Jerry Brown wants to build to haul water across California are economically feasible only if the federal government bears a third of the nearly $16 billion cost because local water districts may not benefit as expected, according to an analysis that the state commissioned last year but never released. The findings run counter to longstanding state pledges that the districts that would get water from the tunnels would pay the full cost.
For decades, environmentalists have rhapsodized about the tranquil beauty of California’s deserts while battling fiercely with energy companies, the government and within their own ranks over what if any power production should occur on those sun-baked, wind-blown, geothermally active expanses of land. On Wednesday, U.S. Interior Department officials signed a blueprint that they touted as a finely tuned effort to balance conservation of California’s iconic desert landscapes with the state’s growing hunger for clean energy in the age of climate change.
