People have harnessed energy from moving water for thousands of years. Greeks used various types of water wheels to grind grain in mills more than 2,000 years ago. In the late 1800s, people figured out how to harness the power to produce electricity. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, hydropower has expanded, producing about 17 percent of the world’s electricity by 2014 and about 85 percent of renewable energy—and it shows no signs of slowing.
California Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration yesterday released a plan to extend the state’s landmark cap-and-trade program in a bid to slash greenhouse gas emissions through midcentury.
The California Air Resources Board (ARB) proposed amendments to the program yesterday evening that envision a carbon market through 2050 with increasing allowance prices, sending a signal to businesses that have been waiting to see if they should keep participating in the state’s quarterly auctions.
Last summer, it was hard to miss news about California’s drought, caused by the four driest years in the state’s history. Its impact on California’s economy in 2015 alone was estimated at $2.7 billion dollars and 21,000 jobs lost. Thanks to El Niño, this drought has eased some, but 42 percent of the state is still in a condition of extreme drought.
In 2007, there was a drought that didn’t garner quite the same national attention: Atlanta, Georgia was in a state of exceptional drought from September to December and came within a few months of running out of water.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed H.R. 4582, the Save Our Salmon (SOS) Act, introduced by area Congressman Jeff Denham (R-Turlock).
Denham’s bill would remove the fish doubling provision in the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) for non-native, predatory striped bass, thereby protecting native salmon and steelhead and reducing nonessential water usage.
“One of the greatest threats facing the Central Valley is drought, and this bipartisan legislation would provide a common sense solution to wasteful fresh water usage,” said Rep. Denham.
A fifth year of disappointing snow in the Sierra is part of a much larger predicament of record-low snow across the Northern Hemisphere, a setback that scientists identified Wednesday as another reminder of the alarming pace of human-caused global warming.
A panel of climate experts organized by SEARCH, or the Study of Environmental Arctic Change, met in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the historic melt-off of snow and ice during the first six months of 2016 — and the resulting problems.
Controversial efforts to steer more water toward California farms advanced Wednesday in the House of Representatives, setting up yet another post-election showdown.
Amid frustration and finger-pointing from all sides, the Republican-controlled House rejected Northern California Democrats’ efforts to strip the California water provisions from a fiscal 2017 funding bill.
The House’s actions, following debate Tuesday night, mean House and Senate negotiators will once again confront technical and highly consequential California water language when they work out a final federal government funding package.
Working from a bland, windowless office on the 13th floor of the Resources Building, one of California’s newest state employees focuses on the one issue from which all else flows, water. Bruce Babbitt has signed on to help Jerry Brown fix what the governor calls the California WaterFix. They are of a type, Westerners, who understand the precarious balance between being environmental stewards and having millions of people inhabit deserts. And at 78, Babbitt and Brown understand that time is not limitless.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, known as SGMA, is comprehensive statewide groundwater legislation that went into effect Jan. 1, 2015. SGMA requires for the first time sustainable groundwater management throughout California. The legislation allows local agencies to develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans specific to local conditions, however, if local agencies cannot or will not manage groundwater sustainably, the state will step in.
SGMA mandates that all high and medium priority groundwater basins in California must be managed sustainably over a 20-year implementation period. In Colusa County we have two groundwater basins subject to SGMA: the Colusa subbasin and the West Butte subbasin.
The plan to buoy historically low salmon populations imperiled by California’s historic drought made for a contentious hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill. House Republicans accused federal agencies of depriving farmers of water while the Golden State’s reservoirs sit full. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Maine Fisheries Service teamed up for the drought proposal debated at this morning’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.
California Republicans are spreading out their bets in their annual effort to steer more water to the state’s farmers. In the absence of negotiations, such tactics matter most right now. Framed by a hearing Tuesday, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives will vote this week on whether to retain farmer-friendly California water provisions in an Interior Department funding bill for the fiscal year that begins in October. Whether this vehicle succeeds where others have failed will probably be known only after the November elections.
