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The Precarious Plan for the Lake Powell Pipeline

/in , /by /High Country News (Colorado)by Emma Penrod

Nearly a decade ago, Gabriel Lozada, a man with a wiry frame and waves of steel-gray hair who looks exactly like the mathematician he is, set out to answer what he thought was a relatively simple question: Could Utah’s proposed Lake Powell Pipeline — a plan to ferry Colorado River water to southern Utah — live up to the state’s rosy forecasts of growth and prosperity? Or was it more likely to tank the economy of a small but lively retirement community in the southwestern Utah desert?

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San Francisco Leaders Hate Trump Enough They Voted to Limit the City’s Water Rather Than do This

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

For months, San Francisco, a hotbed of anti-Donald Trump sentiment, has found itself in the awkward position of being aligned with his administration over California water policy. On Tuesday, the city’s leaders said the alliance was unbearable. In an 11-0 vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed in a resolution to support the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposal to leave more water in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries to benefit struggling fish populations. The supervisors’ vote is subject to veto by Mayor London Breed, although the board could override the veto.

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Massive California Water Tunnel Project Forges Ahead on Several Fronts

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Cariad Hayes Thronson

The spring and  summer of 2018 saw frenzied activity around California WaterFix, the latest iteration of a decades-long, on-again-off-again effort to convey fresh water from the Sacramento River to the South Delta export pumps while bypassing the Delta itself. Governor Jerry Brown has made WaterFix a top priority, but as his administration heads into its final months, the project – one of the largest infrastructure projects in state history – still faces a raft of uncertainties.

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Permit Delays Dam Up Hydro Projects, Relicensing Costs Millions

/in , /by /Bloomberg Environmentby Rebecca Kern

Alvin Thoma’s youngest son was born the year his employer, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., began the process of renewing the license for its Upper North Fork Feather River hydropower facility in northern California. His son is 19 years old now. The facility, however, is still undergoing relicensing. “For me, that’s a mental image of just how long it takes to go through this process,” Thoma, a director of power generation at PG&E, which runs one of the largest hydro systems in the country, told Bloomberg Environment.

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California’s Dry October Could be a Sign of More Concentrated Rainy Seasons

/in , /by /Capital Public Radioby Ezra David Romero

The first part of fall has been dry so far in California, and that trend might continue. UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said it’s not unusual for rain to be scarce in October, but that dry conditions – like the ones forecast over the next few weeks – are increasingly being pushed deeper into autumn. “We expect there to be a further concentration of California’s already narrow rainy season into even fewer months during just the middle of winter,” Swain said, as laid out in his recent blog post. Swain’s research suggests this trend is already evident, especially in Southern California.

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OPINION: Untangling the Complexities of California’s Proposition 3 Water Bond

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Heather Cooley, Sonali Abraham, Sarah Diringer and Cora Kammeyer

On November 6, California voters will decide the fate of Proposition 3 (the Water Supply and Water Quality Act of 2018), which authorizes the sale of $8.9 billion in new general obligation bonds for water-related infrastructure and environmental projects. This includes funds – most of which would be distributed through grants – for various projects related to water supply, watershed health, flood management, groundwater, facility upgrades and fish and wildlife habitat. Many are confused about the bond, and numerous organizations have taken positions supporting or opposing it. We at the Pacific Institute, a California-based think-tank focused on water, are taking no formal position on Proposition 3, opting instead to offer the voting public some insights into its complexities.

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OPINION: State Water Grab will Devastate our Community

/in , /by /The Modesto Beeby Dave Long and Jeff Marchini

Are you a mechanic? A food processor? A trucker? Do you work in a bank? Sell insurance? Much more simply, do you drink water in eastern Merced County? Assuming you answered yes to any of these questions, get ready: the State Water Resources Control Board will soon vote to take more than $230 million and about 1,000 jobs from our community. In July, the water board released its newest plan to require that twice as much water remain in the Merced River and flow north into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. After a series of hearings and delays, the board is poised to adopt this doomed-to-fail plan on Nov. 7.

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Delta Caucus Objects to Federal Loan to Support Tunnels Project

/in , /by /Daily Democrat (Woodland, Calif.)

Members of California’s Legislative Delta Caucus, including its co-chairmen, Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, and Assemblymember Jim Frazier, D-Discovery Bay, sent a letter Friday to the Environmental Protection Agency objecting to a $1.6 billion loan for construction of the state’s controversial twin tunnels project on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta known as WaterFix. “This project poses devastating environmental consequences for the state’s most important waterway while threatening the economic vitality of the entire region,” said Dodd, one of nine lawmakers to sign the letter.

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In Water-Stressed West, an Old Water Efficiency Metric Needs a Reboot

/in , /by /Water Deeplyby Gary Pitzer

People in California and the Southwest are getting stingier with water, a story that’s told by the acre-foot. For years, water use has generally been described in terms of acre-foot per a certain number of households, keying off the image of an acre-foot as a football field a foot deep in water. The longtime rule of thumb: One acre-foot of water would supply the indoor and outdoor needs of two typical urban households for a year.

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The Energy 202: California Says Trump’s Fuel Standards Plan Will ‘Forfeit Our Best Chance to Fight Climate Change’

/in , /by /Washinigton Postby Dino Grandoni

California is coming out swinging in its official response to one of the Trump administration’s most consequential attempts at rolling back regulations to date — to freeze fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks through 2026.

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