Drought, extreme heat and high winds have fueled wildfires across the western U.S. this month. But another enemy is driving California’s most destructive blaze of the fire season so far: tens of millions of dead trees.
A year after California attacked the drought with an unprecedented water rationing program that drove cities and towns to cut back 24 percent collectively, state officials have changed course and given local agencies the leeway to come up with their own water-saving goals.
The Bureau of Reclamation announces the selection of three California water districts to receive $3 million total in Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency grants for Fiscal Year 2016. The grants, combined with local cost share contributions, total more than $6 million slated for water management improvement projects to be implemented during the next two years.
The AWCE program is a joint effort with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to promote district level water conservation improvements that facilitate on-farm water use efficiency and conservation projects. With NRCS support, Reclamation selected three projects for funding.
In a decision that could delay or complicate Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to build two huge tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a Superior Court judge ruled Friday that a comprehensive management plan for the estuary is no longer valid.
I’ve photographed dozens of wildland fires in my 37 years as a photojournalist and as a resident of Bodfish, we’ve been packed and ready to go more than once. But the Erskine Fire has wrought devastation like I have never seen, and hope to never see again.
The 2002 Deer Fire started behind my house and burned many structures in the area as the wind-whipped flames ran into our neighboring town of Lake Isabella, causing havoc along its path. Like our neighbors, we prepare as much as possible by clearing brush, pine needles and weeds. We’ve cleaned out a ravine behind the house three times already this year.
California voters could have yet another decision to make on an already-packed November ballot. The state Assembly voted today to add a three billion dollar bond measure for state and local parks.
Democratic Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia said a lack of funding has caused parks to fall into disrepair. “It’s been close to 14 years since this body has last approved a substantial funding measure designed to improve and expand park and outdoor infrastructure in the state of California,” says Garcia.
Board member Gary Osmundson, sued along with the Oakdale Irrigation District, had a judge removed from the case after the judge sided against the district in a pretrial ruling.
In other action related to the lawsuit on OID’s stalled fallow-for-money program:
The California State Lands Commission is scheduled next week to consider a joint proposal from Pacific Gas & Electric, NRDC, Friends of the Earth, and others to begin an orderly closure of the giant Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, located along California’s majestic central coast that also is home to abundant and unique sea life, marine plants, and animals.
Barbara Vlamis, director of Chico-based AquAlliance.net, was dancing on the grave of the Delta Plan Thursday.
Her group was a among a coalition that challenged the environmental review of the plan, which includes plans for the hotly-contested twin tunnels. However, a judge’s decision in May, and a clarification this week, invalidated the plan because it did not meet the laws passed by the state legislature in 2009. Because the plan was invalidated, the questions about compliance with environmental review laws don’t apply, Judge Michael Kenny stated in a six-page document released Thursday.
Any hope of a wet winter dousing California’s fire season is quickly going up in flames.
It seems that California just can’t catch a break. Sure, the state got its highest precipitation in years – at a critical time. But “for the brush and trees,“ says CAL FIRE’s Daniel Berlant, “the amount of rain we received this winter was not enough to really make up for the now five years of lack of rainfall.”
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
