You are now in California and the U.S. Home Headline Media Coverage category.

Milestone Colorado River Management Plan Mostly Worked Amid Epic Drought, Review Finds

/in , , /by /Western Water (Water Education Foundation)by Gary Pitzer

Twenty years ago, the Colorado River Basin’s hydrology turned persistently dry, reservoir levels plummeted and a river system relied upon by nearly 40 million people, farms and ecosystems across the West was in trouble. So key players across the Basin attacked the problem. The result was a set of Interim Guidelines adopted in 2007 that, according to a just-released assessment, mostly worked to prevent forced water supply cuts. With the guidelines expiring in 2026, that assessment is expected to aid discussions as key players begin writing a new set of river operating rules.

Full Story

Opinion: Why Are Taxpayers Footing Klamath River Dam Removal Cost?

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

Decades of political conflict over the fate of four obsolete dams on the Klamath River reached a turning point last week with a multi-party, two-state “memorandum of understanding” to remove them in hopes of restoring salmon runs.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, heads of two Indian tribes that depend on the river for sustenance, and an executive of Warren Buffett’s PacificCorp that owns the dams announced agreement on a $450 million removal project.

Full Story

The Future of Madera Groundwater is Being Decided. Do Residents Have a Say?

/in , , /by /The Fresno Beeby Monica Vaughan

If you’re worried about your well going dry and who will pay to drill deeper, or about your community having enough safe and clean water, or about your farm’s ability to irrigate, this information is for you.

Full Story

Mild Weather and Sunny Skies for Bay Area With No Rain in Sight

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jason Fagone

Mild days and sunny skies should linger through next week across the Bay Area, blanketing the region with pleasant winter days while extending the long statewide drought that has fueled this year’s catastrophic wildfires.

Full Story

Conservationists Challenge ‘Destructive’ Central California Dam Project

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Martin Macias Jr

A proposed dam in California’s Central Valley is billed as a vital agricultural resource. But conservationists say it would also flood important cultural and recreational sites for surrounding communities and destroy wildlife habitat.

Full Story

Weary but Determined, California’s Small, Family-Owned Farms Fight Through the Pandemic

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Lucas Kwan Peterson

Vince Bernard loves his trees. He’ll tell you as much. They are what have sustained him and his family for decades at Bernard Ranches. Bernard grows mostly citrus with his wife, Vicki, in Riverside, where a pair of navel orange trees planted in 1871 marked the beginning of the area’s storied citrus industry.

Full Story

Colorado River Users Expect Biden to Put Focus on Climate Change

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Tripp Baltz

The incoming Biden administration will lead efforts to craft a new water-management regime for the seven-state Colorado River Basin, and people involved in the process expect any changes to reflect the impact of climate change in the basin.

The Bureau of Reclamation, under the Interior Department, will lead negotiations to replace 13-year-old interim guidelines used to operate the basin’s two major reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Interior secretary also manages the lower basin, containing all the water below Hoover Dam.

Revisions should reflect ecological values, water rights of American Indian tribes, and the need for more conservation measures by users in the seven states—Arizona, California and Nevada in the lower basin and Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the upper basin, those involved in the process said.

Full Story

Opinion: Our Future Rests on Climate Action

/in , , /by /CalMattrsby Eleni Kounalakis

California is on fire. And the wildfires we’ve seen already this year are not just alarming – they’re a forewarning. In 2020 alone, record temperatures and tens of thousands of dry lightning strikes led our state to experience five of its six largest wildfires in recorded history.

Full Story

State Water Board Official Urges Cal Am to Seek Water Supply Resolution

/in , /by /Jim Johnsonby Monterey Herald

A top State Water Resources Control Board administrator is “strongly encouraging” California American Water to “resolve disputes” and pursue both short-term and long-term water supply solutions for the Monterey Peninsula while pointing out that the Carmel River aquifer pumping cutback order deadline at the end of next year is approaching with no additional water supply project expected to be operational by then.

Full Story

Federal Water Rule Expected to Stay Murky Through Biden Term

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Bobby Magill

A Biden administration won’t be able to untangle the legal and regulatory “mess” under part of the Clean Water Act that determines which streams, wetlands and other waters get federal protection, legal scholars and litigators say.

Any move the Biden administration takes to clarify the definition of Waters of the United States, known as WOTUS, will continue the decades-long “merry-go-round” of administrative rule changes and litigation, said Larry Liebesman, a former Justice Department environmental lawyer who is now a senior adviser at the environmental and water permitting firm of Dawson & Associates.

Full Story