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Deeply Talks: Protecting Native Fish In The Delta

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Ian Evans

In this episode of Deeply Talks, Tara Lohan, Water Deeply’s managing editor, speaks with University of California, Davis fisheries experts Peter Moyle and John Durand about the challenges and opportunities for fish restoration in the California Delta. The Delta is a critical artery for California’s water. The estuary is the outlet for two of the state’s most important rivers – the Sacramento and San Joaquin – and it is a main source of the water transported south through the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.

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Environmentalists’ Lawsuit To Drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Heads Back To Court

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Paul Rogers

Two years after losing in court and six years after being rejected by voters, a Berkeley environmental group is continuing its long-running battle to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a linchpin of the water supply for 2.6 million Bay Area residents from San Francisco to San Jose to southern Alameda County. The reservoir in Yosemite National Park, built in 1923, violates California’s constitution, according to a lawsuit from the nonprofit group, Restore Hetch Hetchy, because the constitution requires water to be diverted in a “reasonable” way, and there are other places to store Hetch Hetchy’s water that aren’t in a national park.

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After Years Of Skepticism, San Diego Supports Massive Water Project

/in , /by /Voice Of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority now supports Gov. Jerry Brown’s twin tunnels project, a $17 billion plan to carry water south from the rivers of Northern California. For five years, the Water Authority has been one of the fiercest critics of the plan. It’s worked since 2013 with environmental groups opposed to the tunnels, and it’s spent countless employee hours trying to undermine the project. Just last month, Water Authority representatives tried to prevent Southern California’s largest water agency from spending $11 billion on the project.

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Dire Challenges Facing Colorado River Water Lifeline

/in , /by /Arizona Daily Sunby Tony Davis

A bruising battle between the Central Arizona Project and many states and water users has revitalized the push for a stillborn plan to prepare for more drought on the Colorado River. The original dustup was over whether the CAP was seeking to “game the system” of reservoir operations at lakes Mead and Powell to benefit itself at the expense of the river’s Upper Basin states: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. That’s prompted new talks to try to also resolve longstanding differences with another of CAP’s adversaries, the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

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OPINION: The State Knew Disaster Awaited The Salton Sea In 2018 And Didn’t Do Enough. That Has To Change

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

The Salton Sea is a natural wonder in deep trouble. And for the past 10-plus years, state officials have known this problem would grow worse if action was not taken by 2018. So while the Imperial Irrigation District honored its legal commitment to pour water into the shrinking Salton Sea until 2018, the state has backed away from its responsibility for funding for remediation. Now the water has stopped and more and more of the sea’s toxin-laden shoreline is being exposed.

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New Set Of Scores Released For Water Bond Projects

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Steve Schoonover

Water storage projects seeking money from Proposition 1 got another round of scoring Friday from the California Water Commission staff, adding a little more clarity to what will get how much. Proposition 1, a water bond measure passed in November 2014, included $2.7 billion for new water storage in the state. Twelve projects initially sought a share of that money, including Sites Reservoir, a proposed 1.8 million acre-foot off-stream reservoir west on Maxwell in Colusa County.

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6 Things To Know About Dire Challenges To Our Colorado River Water Lifeline

/in , /by /Arizona Daily Starby Tony Davis

A bruising battle between the Central Arizona Project and many states and water users has revitalized the push for a stillborn plan to prepare for more drought on the Colorado River. The original dust-up was over whether the CAP was seeking to “game the system” of reservoir operations at lakes Mead and Powell to benefit itself at the expense of the river’s Upper Basin states: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

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OPINION: Stop Outrageous Effort To Ban Delta Tunnels Lawsuits

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)

Shameful. It’s the only way to describe the latest effort by a Southern California lawmaker to grab as much water as possible from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta without regard to the health of the largest estuary west of the Mississippi. Riverside County Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, on May 8 slipped a rider into the 2019 House Interior and Environmental Appropriations bill prohibiting any judicial review of Gov. Jerry Brown’s $16 billion Delta twin-tunnels plan. It’s beyond outrageous.

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OPINION: Seawater Desalination Is Water Independence For Orange County

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Denis Bilodeau

Managing our existing water supplies and planning for future needs requires thoughtful deliberation. Significant fluctuations in the manifestation and intensity of seasonal weather conditions, symptoms of climate change, are becoming the new normal and there is no “one size fits all approach” to dealing with its effects. Consider that, in just this current decade, California has gone from its most severe drought to one of its wettest winters in recorded history, and now back to a below-average winter snowpack this year.

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New EPA Administrator In San Francisco Says He’s Prioritizing Superfund Site Clean Up

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco headquarters vowed Friday to work diligently on environmental issues, including the clean up of toxic Superfund sites, a slate of work that he claims will keep him so busy it won’t matter that he still lives in Southern California. Mike Stoker, the 62-year-old Santa Barbara County attorney named last week as administrator of the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region, was criticized by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, for what she said was his plan to oversee 702 San Francisco employees from a Los Angeles satellite office.

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