In a dusty empty lot on the edge of town, Camarillo public officials picked up shovels and broke ground Wednesday to commence the construction of a long-awaited desalter plant.
The groundbreaking ceremony was decades in the making for the North Pleasant Valley Groundwater Desalter Plant, which aims to convert brackish water from the Calleguas Creek watershed into potable water for the city of Camarillo.
In the middle of July, I was surprised to find myself trudging through a couple feet of snow while hiking south of Lake Tahoe. It was a striking contrast to the long walks I took on the dry lakebed of Folsom Reservoir near my home during the historic drought just five short years ago.
That crisis led our state leaders to approve the most sweeping change in water law in a century: the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law on Sept. 16, 2014.
In their Fresno Bee op-ed (Sept. 8), Reps. Jim Costa and TJ Cox opined the remedies they suggested would improve Senate Bill 1 enough to make it possible for Gov. Newsom to sign the bill.
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
Unfortunately, SB1 is so flawed that if it is signed by the governor, it will set back progress towards excellent solutions to California’s infamous water woes by decades.
The Colorado River Basin’s 20 years of drought and the dramatic decline in water levels at the river’s key reservoirs have pressed water managers to adapt to challenging conditions. But even more extreme — albeit rare — droughts or floods that could overwhelm water managers may lie ahead in the Basin as the effects of climate change take hold, say a group of scientists. They argue that stakeholders who are preparing to rewrite the operating rules of the river should plan now for how to handle these so-called “black swan” events so they’re not blindsided.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday announced final plans to redefine and thus shrink the waterways that must be protected under the law, a move likely to be swiftly challenged legally by environmentalists.
The final plans to repeal the 2015 Obama-era Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule would stymie the federal government’s capacity to regulate pollutants in wetlands and tributaries that feed into large rivers.
Senate Bill 513, authored by Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger), is headed towards Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for approval. The bill, which received bi-partisan support, will provide relief for families without reliable access to water by delivering a temporary alternative source of water supply.
“Today, water shortage in the southern Central Valley continue to impact thousands of families who face limited access to clean drinking water,” stated Sen. Hurtado
The latest salvo is California’s long-running water wars, SB307, has the potential to emerge as one of the most important pieces of water regulation in recent years. Although its target was narrow — it was designed to undercut the capacity of Cadiz, Inc. to pump annually upwards of 16 billion gallons of groundwater in eastern San Bernardino County and sell it to ever-thirsty Southern California — the legislation may prove to be far-reaching in its consequences.
The Trump administration plans to revoke an Obama-era regulation that provided federal protection to many U.S. wetlands and streams, according to two Environmental Protection Agency officials with knowledge of the plan.
The rule defined which waterways are subject to federal regulation. The administration plans to replace it with its own version, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A California State University, Monterey Bay professor will receive a substantial grant from the Defense Department to find methods to harness fog.
The $266,589 gift will fund research on ways to use mesh-based devices to collect water circulating in fog, according to CSUMB. The DoD is interested in the study to collect usable water for drinking or irrigation, which may be useful for military personnel in remote foggy regions.
It started out as a bold effort by the California Legislature to prevent the Trump administration from rolling back protections for the environment and labor.
The bill, proposed by one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, would attempt to negate every environmental regulation proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration for the duration of his term or terms. It has a clause that would expire the day he leaves office in 2025 if he wins a second term.
