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California Bullet Train, Delta Tunnels: Jerry Brown’s Pet Projects Face Threat From Ballot Measure

/in /by /San Jose Mercury Newsby Paul Rogers

Two of Gov. Jerry Brown’s favorite projects — building a high-speed rail system and a pair of massive tunnels under the Delta — face a serious threat if California voters pass a measure heading for the November ballot.

 The “No Blank Checks Initiative,” bankrolled with $4.5 million from Stockton farmer and businessman Dean Cortopassi, would require a public vote on any state project in which $2 billion or more in revenue bonds would be issued. And since both the bullet train and twin-tunnels projects would most likely require that kind of financing, voters could ultimately get a chance to decide their fate.
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BLOG: Is California a ‘State in Denial’ Concerning its Drought?

/in /by /Weather Undergroundby Christopher C. Burt

Following the first year of near average rainfall compared to the past four years of extreme drought conditions, California has decided to retract all urban water conservation efforts for the foreseeable future. The state’s reservoirs are full and various urban water municipalities have been losing money as a result of the water conservation efforts enforced last year. This effort succeeded beyond what was projected. Now all restrictions have been dropped for, at least, urban consumers. Is this a wise decision?

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2,600 Buildings Threatened by Northern California Wildfire, Forcing Residents to Flee

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Matt Hamilton and Joseph Serna

A wildfire burning in Northern California has grown to more than 1,500 acres and continues to threaten thousands of homes, forcing residents to flee, authorities said Thursday.

The Trailhead fire broke out Tuesday along the middle fork of the American River near Todd Valley, about 50 miles northeast of Sacramento, according to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Amid temperatures in the 90s and low humidity, the fire grew Thursday by at least 300 acres as about 1,900 firefighters sought to control the blaze.

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Let Bass off the Hook in Gov. Jerry Brown’s Delta Tunnel Plan

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby George Skelton

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton….” Hold it there. Cotton growers don’t like those fish jumpin’.

Neither do hardly any other growers in the thirsty San Joaquin Valley. Not bass, anyway, jumpin’ in the bucolic California Delta. They want `em dead. Striped and black bass, so popular with recreational anglers, are trying to survive in water that San Joaquin Valley growers desperately covet for their crops. And the fish are messing it up.

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Court Rules That Sale of Delta Islands Can Proceed

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s $175 million purchase of five islands in the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has been cleared to move forward, even as legal challenges continue.

On Thursday, the 3rd District Court of Appeal lifted a temporary stay order it had issued in June that briefly prevented the sale from closing. A coalition of environmental groups and local water districts, along with San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties, had requested the stay as part of a broader lawsuit challenging the sale.

 

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Another record ag year for Monterey County

/in /by /The Californianby David Castellon

Monterey County marked a fourth year of record sales in 2015, with crop production values totaling more than $4.84 billion.

Total crop values in 2015 were $348 million more than in 2014 or a 7.75% increase, according to the 2015 Monterey County Crop report county Agricultural Commissioner Eric Lauritzen presented at its annual news conference on Tuesday.

Key representatives of the county’s agriculture organizations including the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, the Farm Bureau, The Monterey County Vintners & Growers Association (MCVGA) and the California Strawberry Commission also attended.

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OPINION: California needs action now on groundwater protection

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

As if California’s water supplies weren’t already sufficiently imperiled, a bill that would have taken a small step toward groundwater regulation unfortunately has now stalled.

Sen. Lois Wolk’s Senate Bill 1317 would have slowed the speed at which new wells are drilled, and denied permits for wells in critically overdrafted basins until groundwater regulations begin to take effect in 2022. But it ran into opposition from agricultural interests and local government agencies.

Water agencies and farmers should recognize the urgent need to better manage the overuse of this precious resource.

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Summer of Fire: Drought Transforms Southern Sierra

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

It was revealed in June that California’s southern Sierra Nevada is now stocked with an estimated 66 million dead trees, all killed directly or indirectly by the state’s ongoing drought.

The number is staggering and difficult to comprehend. Even more difficult is understanding what it means. In short, the southern Sierra – the highest section of California’s majestic mountain range – is undergoing ecological changes on a scale never seen before in human history. The estimate was obtained by the U.S. Forest Service using surveys conducted during airplane flights over the range.

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California Water Projects to Receive WaterSMART Grants for 2016

/in /by /Association of California Water Agenciesby Emily Allshouse

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has awarded more than $25.6 million in WaterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grants to support projects that increase water and energy conservation and efficiency, protect endangered species or address climate-related impacts on water.

A total of 53 projects in 11 states will receive the FY 2016 grants. Those states include California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

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Floating Solar: A Win-Win for Drought-Stricken Lakes in U.S.

/in /by /Yale Environment 360by Philip Warburg

The Colorado River’s two great reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are in retreat. Multi-year droughts and chronic overuse have taken their toll, to be sure, but vast quantities of water are also lost to evaporation. What if the same scorching sun that causes so much of this water loss were harnessed for electric power?

Installing floating solar photovoltaic arrays, sometimes called “floatovoltaics,” on a portion of these two reservoirs in the southwestern United States could produce clean, renewable energy while shielding significant expanses of water from the hot desert sun.

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