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Rice Farms Receive Federal Help to Provide Waterbird Habitat

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

With habitat for California waterbirds drying up, conservation groups and rice farmers are collaborating to flood fields and enhance waterbird habitat on roughly 550,000 acres of California’s rice fields.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is contributing $7 million, matched by partner agencies, for helping share farmers’ costs of implementing new practices that align rice growing with waterbird needs. “The idea behind the program is to provide the incentive for people to adopt new things and then do it on their own even without the payment,” program manager Alan Forkey said.

 

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BLOG: Suit Challenges Delta Pumping Restrictions

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Ryan Sabalow

In a failed effort to protect endangered fish, the federal government decided without proper study to default to restricting the giant pumps at the bottom of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

So argues a lawsuit filed Friday at the U.S. District Court in Sacramento by a powerful consortium of water agencies. They’re hoping for a larger share of Delta water. It’s the latest salvo in a political and legal dispute over how to manage the competing demands on the fragile estuary.

 

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California’s Key Climate Change Program Aims for New Life

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Liam Dillon

In advance of a political showdown in the state Legislature, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration made its first formal effort Tuesday to extend the life of the program central to California’s bid to combat climate change.

The California Air Resources Board, which is controlled by the governor, released a plan that would continue the state’s cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions beyond 2020, the date when the program currently expires. Cap and trade functions by forcing companies to buy permits in order to pollute, providing a financial incentive for power plants, oil refineries, manufacturers and other businesses to reduce their emissions.

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Drought Triggers ‘Austerity’ Root System in Grass Crops

/in /by /BBC Newsby Mark Kinver

Grass species of crops adopt an “austerity” strategy and limits the development of its root system during times of drought, a study has revealed.

The results offer an insight into the little understood biology of roots and could help breeding effort to improve drought tolerance, say scientists. Many of the world’s key food and energy crops belong to the grass family and are often grown in drought-prone areas. The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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California’s Climate Change Program: Jerry Brown Pushes Extension of Cap-and-Trade

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by East Bay Times - Walnut Creek)by Ellen Knickmeyer and Juliet Williams

California Gov. Jerry Brown has launched a campaign to extend some of the most ambitious climate-change programs in the country and ensure his environmental legacy when he leaves office in two years.

The centerpiece of the push is a cap-and-trade program that aims to reduce the use of fossil fuels by forcing manufacturers and other companies to meet tougher emissions limits or pay up to exceed them. The program has been one of the most-watched efforts in the world aimed at the climate-changing fuels.

 

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State’s Delta Smelt Plan Calls for More Water Flowing to Sea

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

With Delta smelt numbers at all-time lows, state officials on Tuesday released a list of more than a dozen projects they’re hoping to undertake in the next few years in a last-ditch effort to stave off the fish’s extinction.

One of those plans is sure to be contentious. The “Delta Smelt Resiliency Strategy” released Tuesday by the California Natural Resources Agency calls for allowing between 85,000 and 200,000 acre-feet of extra water to wash out to sea this summer to bolster smelt habitat.

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With Ample Supply, San Diegans Can Water Lawns One More Day a Week

/in /by /Times of San Diegoby Hoa Quach Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The City Council on Tuesday eased restrictions on water use instituted in the face of the drought, allowing residents to water one more day per week.

The action follows the San Diego County Water Authority‘s certification that between the new desalination plant and stored water there is enough available to meet demand for the next three years, even if the drought continues. San Diego residents can now water their lawns three days a week.

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New Website Helps County Residents Create Sustainable Landscapes

/in /by /Seaside Courier (Encinitas) Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego Sustainable Landscapes Program (SLP) has launched a website, SustainableLandscapesSD.org, to help the region’s residents easily find information to transform turf-based urban landscapes into sustainable ones that provide multiple environmental benefits, such as increased water-use efficiency and improved storm water management, according to a San Diego Water Authority press release.

The SLP is a grant-funded partnership created by the San Diego County Water Authority, the City of San Diego, the County of San Diego, the Surfrider Foundation, the California American Water Company and the Association of Compost Producers.

 

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Water District Spends $2.2 Million To Get You To Conserve: ‘H2Love’ Campaign Launched

/in /by /MyNewsLA.comby Debbie L. Sklar

The Metropolitan Water District Tuesday unveiled an “H2Love” campaign asking Southern Californians to embrace long-term conservation as the state’s drought enters its fifth year and Los Angeles registers record-low rainfall.

The $2.2 million advertising and outreach effort is aimed at inspiring Californians to make a lifelong commitment to saving water at home, at work and in their communities. “In the face of this historic drought, Californians have proven they can respond to calls to save water, even under challenging conditions,” said Metropolitan General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger.

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Water districts sue Bureau

/in /by /The Porterville Recorder

The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority and Westlands Water District filed a lawsuit in federal court Friday to compel the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to examine the effectiveness of the existing measures intended to protect endangered species, the environmental impacts of those measures, and whether there are alternatives to those measures that would better protect both endangered fish species and California’s vital water supplies.

The existing measures, adopted in 2008 and 2009, are based on biological opinions issued under the Endangered Species Act.

 

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