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They Grow The Nation’s Food, But They Can’t Drink The Water

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Jose A. Del Real

Water is a currency in California, and the low-income farmworkers who pick the Central Valley’s crops know it better than anyone. They labor in the region’s endless orchards, made possible by sophisticated irrigation systems, but at home their faucets spew toxic water tainted by arsenic and fertilizer chemicals. “Clean water flows toward power and money,” said Susana De Anda, a longtime water-rights organizer in the region. She is the daughter of lechugueros who worked in lettuce fields and helped make California one of the agricultural capitals of the world. “Homes, schools and clinics are supposed to be the safest places to go. But not in our world.”

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Interior Department Pulls Support From Klamath Dam Removal Project

/in , /by /Jefferson Public Radio (Redding, Calif.)by Liam Moriarty

The Trump Administration has withdrawn the previous administration’s support for the removal of four dams on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Recently-appointed Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has rescinded a letter of support that Obama-era Interior Secretary Sally Jewell wrote in 2016. Jewell’s letter threw the agency’s weight behind the plan to take out four Klamath River dams to help threatened salmon and other fish. Matt Cox is with the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the non-profit formed to implement the dam removal agreement. He says rescinding Jewell’s letter has no legal effect.

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Public Water Now Appeals Monterey County’s Cal Am Desal Approval

/in , /by /Monterey Heraldby Jim Johnson

Public Water Now is challenging the Monterey County Planning Commission’s approval of a combined development permit for California American Water’s proposed desalination plant project. On Thursday, the organization best known for backing a public takeover of Cal Am’s local water system filed an appeal to the Board of Supervisors of the Planning Commission’s narrow approval of a permit for the 6.4-million-gallon-per-day desal plant north of Marina and associated infrastructure. The appeal argues the desal project proposal fails to properly address several key details, including groundwater rights, and calls for the county to require a supplemental environmental review before considering the proposal.

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Final 100 Miles Of The Colorado Highlight How Badly The River Is Overtaxed

/in , /by /Cronkite News (Phoenix)by Luke Runyon

From above, tracing the Colorado River along the Arizona-California line in an airplane, it’s easy to see how it happened. As the river bends and weaves through the Southwest, its contents are slowly drained away. Concrete canals send water to millions of people in Phoenix and Tucson, Los Angeles and San Diego. Farms, ribbons of green contrasted against the desert’s shades of brown, line the waterway. Farther downstream, near Yuma, the river splits into threads, like a frayed piece of yarn. A massive multistate plumbing system sends river water to irrigate the hundreds of thousands of farm acres in Southern California and Arizona, hubs for winter vegetables, alfalfa, cotton and cattle.

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OPINION: A New Water Tax? California Has A $21 Billion Surplus, Use That Instead

/in , /by /The Daily Press (Victorville, Calif.)by Jon Coupal and Phillip Chen

California has a record $21.5 billion surplus. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we have all that money because you are being overtaxed. Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom released his revised budget proposal, the largest in California history. At a staggering $214 billion dollars, the budget is larger than that of most nations and every other state. The budget also includes a new $140 million tax on water customers to help all Californians have access to clean water.

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OPINION: When You Dream Of California, Does Water Come To Mind? It Should

/in , /by /WBUR-FM (Boston)by Meghna Chakrabarti

On a summer day in the San Joaquin Valley, 101 in the shade, I merge onto Highway 99 past downtown Fresno and steer through the vibrations of heat. I’m headed to the valley’s deep south, to a little farmworker town in a far corner of Kern County called Lost Hills. This is where the biggest farmer in America—the one whose mad plantings of almonds and pistachios have triggered California’s nut rush—keeps on growing, no matter drought or flood. He doesn’t live in Lost Hills. He lives in Beverly Hills. How has he managed to outwit nature for so long?

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California Strawberry Growers Lose Thousands Of Berries To Recent Rains

/in , /by /Times-Standard (Eureka, Calif.)by Elaine Ingalls

Strawberry fields for now, not forever, are losing good berries because of recent rains. Dane Scurich, president of Scurich Berry Farms Inc. and a Driscoll’s strawberry and blackberry grower, said he expects to start cleaning up the damage from the weather in the next day or so, but can knock growers out of production for four to five days depending on the climate. He said the intense rain of the past week damages the berry itself because its delicate skin makes it subject to decay and loss in quality, the flower on the strawberry plant is likely also damaged.

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NorCal Reservoirs Approaching Capacity With More Snow In Sierra

/in , /by /KCRA 3 (Sacramento)by Brian Hickey

With more rain and snow in the forecast this week, managers continue to release water from Northern California reservoirs. Most lakes in the northern half of the state are approaching capacity with significant runoff still pouring in from the snowcapped Sierra crest. On Tuesday morning, Folsom Lake was at 95% of capacity and 118% of average for this time of year. The lake’s elevation was at 461.63 feet above sea level at 2 a.m. Tuesday, just 4.37 feet below the lake’s rim. Water was being released at nearly the same rate it was coming in to maintain the current water level.

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As States Gather To Sign Colorado River Drought Plan, Focus Turns To What’s Next

/in , /by /The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)by Andrew Nicla

After months of tense, difficult negotiations, a plan to spread the effects of anticipated cutbacks on the drought-stricken Colorado River is nearing completion.  On Monday, representatives of the seven states that rely on the river will gather for a formal signing ceremony at Hoover Dam, the real and symbolic center of the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. The plan is a blueprint for shortage sharing built around water levels in Lake Mead, the giant reservoir on the Arizona-Nevada border that has sunk to near-record low levels after two decades of drought.

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More Storms Eye California, Western US Into Memorial Day Weekend

/in , /by /AccuWeatherby Alex Sosnowski

Additional storms bearing rain, locally gusty thunderstorms and high-elevation snow will take aim at California and the balance of the western United States into the Memorial Day weekend. “A block in the jet stream is forcing storms to take a much more southern route onshore into western North America than usual for the latter part of May,” according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson. The first storm in the series brought disruptive snow and record-setting rainfall to California last Wednesday into Thursday. The second storm brought more rain and mountain snow to California on Sunday. In the wake of this system, dry conditions will briefly take hold across most of the state on Monday.

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