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Gavin Newsom’s Environmental Budget Cuts Escalate Tensions with California Activists

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Dustin Gardiner

SACRAMENTO — Fewer rebates for electric-car buyers. No new oil and gas industry regulators. Less money to preserve wildlife habitats.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed spending cuts to balance a state budget mauled by the coronavirus pandemic have angered numerous progressive constituencies, but perhaps none more than environmental activists who were suspicious of him even before an estimated $54 billion deficit materialized.

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Farmers Must Diversify in a Post-Pandemic World, Ag Experts Say

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Kate Cimini

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, few industries have been quite as essential to the nation as agriculture.

From pickers crouching for nine hours a day to scoop up strawberries to CEOs making handshake deals to keep their companies afloat, hundreds of thousands of workers are feeding America. But, in many ways, the pandemic is forcing farmers to reevaluate how they do business.

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What’s at the Heart of California’s Water Wars? Delta Outflow Explained

/in , , /by /Cal Mattersby Jeffrey Mount and Greg Gartrell

The latest dustup In California’s water wars, as noted in Dan Walters’ commentary, revolves principally around the federal government’s efforts to increase the amount of water supplied to farms and cities by the Central Valley Project, and a breakdown in cooperation between the state and federal government.

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Budget Cuts for SGMA Funding Could Hurt Farmers Later

/in , , /by /Agri Pulseby Brad Hooker

The pandemic-induced recession has come at a critical time for water planning in the state. The governor’s administration in January pitched ambitious proposals to help fund the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and cushion its impacts on farmers and local communities. In the May Revision of the budget proposal, however, all but one funding allocation from an earlier proposition have been withdrawn.

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American River in Sacramento Still Tainted with Feces, Despite New Parkway Bathrooms

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Theresa Clift

Over the scorching hot Memorial Day weekend, hundreds of people headed to Tiscornia Beach near the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers, one of the region’s most popular swimming areas. A few days earlier, state scientists had collected water samples with rates of E. coli bacteria that reached the highest limits of the testing equipment. The samples on May 12 and May 21 at Tiscornia Beach were at least seven times higher than state and federal standards for E. coli in a waterway.

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Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda Gets Pushback from Federal Judges

/in , /by /AP Newsby Matthew Brown

Federal courts have delivered a string of rebukes to the Trump administration over what they found were failures to protect the environment and address climate change as it promotes fossil fuel interests and the extraction of natural resources from public lands.

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Water, Highway Bills Among Must-Pass Legislation, Hoyer Says

/in , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Kellie Lunney

House Democrats will focus this summer on passing essential legislation, including the Water Resources Development Act, a highway reauthorization bill, and appropriations measures, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday.

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SF’s Shuttered Office Buildings Could Face New Health Threat: Unsafe Water

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby J.K. Dineen

Before San Francisco office workers start streaming back to downtown high-rises again, property owners and managers need to make sure those buildings are safe. Not just from the threat of coronavirus circulating among cubicles, but from medical problems that can be caused when water in buildings sits stagnant for months.

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The Problem America Has Neglected for Too Long: Deteriorating Dams

/in , , /by /National Geographicby Maya Wei-Haas

Aging and undermaintained infrastructure in the United States, combined with changing climate over the coming decades, is setting the stage for more dam disasters like the one that struck Midland, Michigan, last week.

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When Life Dries Up

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

Nowhere has California’s dry winter hit harder than the state’s far north.

In a handful of counties along the rural Oregon border, where late-season rains have done little to sate the parched forests and dusty plains, hundreds of farmers are at risk of having their irrigation water shut off — and watching their crops wither in the field.

The Klamath Project, a U.S. government-operated waterworks that steers runoff from the towering Cascades to more than 200,000 acres of potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, onions and other produce on both sides of the state line, is running low on supplies. The local water agencies served by the project say they may not have water to send to farms beyond next month.

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