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Drawing Lines On Privacy, Wildfire, Water And Schools

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Dan Morain

The nation’s first big-city ban on the use of facial-recognition technology by municipal agencies and local law enforcement passed Tuesday in San Francisco, signaling the next front in the debate over data privacy. Voting 8-1, supervisors in the tech hub made an exception for federally regulated facilities, like the airport. Oakland is considering a similar measure, and San Francisco Assemblyman Phil Ting has authored a more limited statewide version. SF police actually don’t use facial recognition. But privacy advocates say other law enforcement agencies do (San Jose, San Diego, California Department of Justice), that the technology can violate privacy, and that it can be inaccurate, especially with subjects who are not white men.

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Rare ‘Atmospheric River’ Storms To Soak California This Week

/in , /by /East Bay Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)by Paul Rogers

Dig out that umbrella, and even the tire chains. It’s mid-May, but a series of rare, winter-like storms will soak the Bay Area and much of California through next week and bring up to 2 feet of new snow to the Sierra Nevada. Two atmospheric rivers are moving in from the Pacific, forecasters say. And although they are weak — expected to be a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5 — they will generate steady rainfall starting Wednesday and continuing through next Tuesday.

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Spillway Concerns? DWR, Sheriff Kory Honea Say No

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Brody Fernandez

The California Department of Water Resources released a Lake Oroville community update on Monday afternoon amid rumors of ongoing safety concerns regarding the Oroville Dam’s main spillway. These rumors have been circulated mostly on Facebook, according to DWR Public Information Officer Elizabeth Whitmore. “At this time, the community update should answer all questions regarding any safety issues with the main spillway, as well as concerns growing over the upcoming rain storm,” Whitmore said.

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Dam It All: More Than Half Of The World’s Long Rivers Are Blocked By Infrastructure

/in , /by /Salonby Rachel Ramirez

It hasn’t even been a week since the U.N. released a depressing report on biodiversity, and now, a new study in Nature shows that 63 percent of the world’s longest (at least 620 miles) rivers are impeded by human-built infrastructures such as dams and reservoirs. Dam(n). Rivers are a key source of food and water for agriculture, energy, and humanity. They’re critical to many cultures and communities and home to a plethora of species like salmon and trout. They also bolster ecosystems by restoring groundwater and serve as a buffer against drought.

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Snow In May? Sierra Could Get Up To A Foot As Rare Cold Storm Sweeps Over California

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Michael McGough

In addition to wet weather and possible record-setting cold in the Sacramento Valley and foothills later this week, the Sierra will see snow showers Thursday and into the weekend. With temperatures dipping as low as 25, a rare mid-May snowstorm could affect the northern and central Sierra. In a special weather statement early Monday, National Weather Service’s Reno office warns that snow levels could fall to 6,000 feet by the end of the week. Forecasts for the mountains and foothills also show wind gusts up to 40 mph are possible by midweek, with even stronger winds expected.

 

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A New Water Tax Might Be California’s Best Chance At Clean Water For All

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle

At least 1 million Californians don’t have stable access to clean drinking water. That’s a shameful and unacceptable fact in this wealthy state. In his February State of the State address, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the safe drinking water crisis which is centered in lower-income communities ranging from the coasts to the Central Valley  “a moral disgrace and a medical emergency.”

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March-Like Storm To Blast California With Drenching Rain, Mountain Snow and Severe Weather

/in , /by /AccuWeatherby Kyle Elliott

After sunshine and pleasant weather grace California early this week, a powerful storm system will barrel into the state during the middle to latter part of the week. The return of a March-like weather pattern, driven by a large dip in the jet stream, will be the culprit for driving this rare storm into the West Coast. Rain will first move into Northern California on Wednesday before overspreading the rest of the state by Wednesday night and Thursday. By the time the storm moves into the Four Corners region later on Friday, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and parts of Northern and coastal California will receive between 1 to 3 inches of rain.

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New Dam Proposal In Sierra Nevada Stirs Debate Over California Energy Policy

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

Up a remote canyon in the towering eastern Sierra, a Southern California company has an ambitious plan to dam the area’s cold, rushing waters and build one of the state’s first big hydroelectric facilities in decades. The project, southeast of Yosemite near the town of Bishop (Inyo County), faces long regulatory odds as well as daunting costs. But residents of the Owens Valley downstream and state environmentalists are not taking it lightly. The complex, as proposed in an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month, is scheduled for mostly federal land at the edge of the Inyo National Forest, partly in the popular John Muir Wilderness.

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What’s All This About A Water Tax?

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

Gov. Gavin Newsom has made repairing hundreds of failing drinking-water systems in California a big priority since taking office, giving fresh momentum to an entrenched problem the state’s leaders have long struggled to resolve. But his proposed solution — a $140 million yearly tax raised in part through fees on urban water districts — has raised eyebrows in a state where residents already feel overtaxed. Toxic drinking water in California is a much larger problem than many people realize: From the coasts to the Central Valley, from Southern California to the northern reaches of the state, hundreds of public water systems regulated by the state do not meet safe drinking standards.

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Storage Is Essential For California To Achieve 100% Green Energy Without Blackouts

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by S. David Freeman

California’s law mandating 100% carbon-free electricity has a big hole in it. It fails to address energy storage. Batteries as well as other longer-duration energy storage solutions are absolutely essential for a reliable supply of electricity that relies largely on energy resources such as solar and wind, which are available only some of the time. Ordinarily, one might assume the state’s utilities would invest in large storage projects such as pumped storage, an efficient technology allowing the capture and storage of excess renewable energy so we don’t have to waste it. When the sun is shining or the wind is blowing during the day, it pumps water uphill.

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