Rather than call out the hypocrisy of San Francisco’s complaint that losing nearly half of its Tuolumne River water to the State Water Board and environmental activists, let’s see these concerns as a “glass half-full” opportunity. According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s opinion page, the city/county’s public utilities commission is concerned about losing much of its water to a state water grab with strong concerns rippling across the state.
Jerry Brown and his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, this month jointly celebrated the 10th anniversary of California’s war against greenhouse gas emissions. Brown pointed out that Schwarzenegger not only signed the 2006 bill, but also championed two immense public works projects that Brown has adopted as his own. “Arnold, thanks for being for climate change, cap and trade, the tunnels project, high-speed rail and all the other unpopular issues I’m saddled with,” Brown kidded Schwarzenegger.
Today, along with more than 100 other elected and municipal water leaders, we are asking the White House to support local efforts to promote water-use efficiency, reuse and green infrastructure solutions in our communities.As cities and towns across the West have risen to the challenge of conserving water in the face of historic drought, consumer rebate programs have grown significantly and have been imperative to our success. However, these rebates may be considered taxable income by the Internal Revenue Service, a clear financial disincentive and one that could seriously undermine conservation efforts.
The world is on the verge of a water crisis. Rainfall shifts caused by climate change plus the escalating water demands of a growing world population threaten society’s ability to meet its mounting needs. By 2025, the United Nations predicts 2.4 billion people will live in regions of intense water scarcity, which may force as many as 700 million people from their homes in search of water by 2030, reports Thomas Sumner. (1) Population growth is one factor requiring drinking water and sanitation, but there is also the need to produce more food. Agriculture accounts for 70% of water use. (2)
Prompted by a 2015 state law, the State Water Resources Control Board has begun designing a program to provide state aid to individuals and families who need help paying their water bills. Due to the Legislature by February 1, 2018, California is determined to be the first to use state funds to subsidize water service for poor residents, water rate experts say.
Governor Jerry Brown and other state officials have constantly claimed the Delta Tunnels project will “restore” the Delta ecosystem, but they revealed their real plans on October 7 when the administration applied for a permit to kill winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and other endangered species with the project. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) submitted an “incidental intake” application for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) in alleged “compliance” with the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) in order to build the Delta Tunnels, also known as the California WaterFix.
If you live in an apartment in California, you don’t pay for the water you use – not directly, anyway.
Apartments in California, with few exceptions, don’t have individual water meters, known as submeters. Instead, water usage is wrapped up in the rent payment, which means tenants have no idea how much water they’re using, and no direct financial incentive to conserve.This also means millions of Californians aren’t helping the state survive its ongoing drought.
Look out weather watchers: La Niña is lurking. And that could mean a warm and dry winter for the USA’s southern tier and a potentially cooler, stormier one across the north, federal scientists announced Thursday morning. The La Niña climate pattern — marked by cooler-than-average ocean water in the central Pacific Ocean — is one of the main drivers of weather in the U.S. and around the world, especially during the late fall, winter and early spring.
In a move that could have ramifications across the arid West, a government watchdog agency accused federal water regulators of wasting taxpayer funds when they gave Klamath Basin farmers more than $32 million to stop growing crops and to pump groundwater instead of drawing from lakes and rivers.The funds were spent in a failed bid to protect endangered fish and wildlife near the California-Oregon border, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior said in a report this week.
California has been trying to fill its reservoirs for 5 years, and it will get a little help from a storm expected to hit later this week. Right now, Lake Shasta is only at 60% capacity and Lake Oroville is at 44%, with other reservoirs across the state even lower. “So, there’s plenty of room in our reservoirs to accommodate runoff from the storms expected to arrive this weekend,” says Doug Carlson with the Department of Water Resources. “But really, the ground has become so dry that much of the rainfall is expected to be soaked up like a dry sponge.”
