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OPINION: Sites Proponents Have Years Of Advocacy Ahead Of Them To Get the 500,000 acre-foot lake finally under construction

/in , /by /Appeal Democrat (Marysville, California)

Sites Reservoir proponents are happy with what’s happened this year … they’ve collected commitments for some serious coinage – state and federal. They can stay grounded, however, by the fact that they’ve got several billion dollars still to go. There’s a lot of work ahead. The off-stream reservoir adds a sizable storage capacity to Northern California, with none of the environmental and fewer political traps of an on-stream dam.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Under A Cloud Of Scandal, Is ForcedOut

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Eli Stokols

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who endeared himself to President Trump but was caught up in scandals and infuriated environmental activists, will be departing his post by the end of the year in the latest shake-up of the president’s Cabinet. “Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning. “Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation.”

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California Cedes Water To Feds In Delta Deal With Trump

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

Southern Californians could lose billions of gallons of water a year to Central Valley farmers under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has struck with water officials working for President Donald Trump. There’s no guarantee the agreement with Trump will accomplish what Brown’s team is seeking: a lasting compromise on environmental regulations that could stave off significant water shortfalls for farms and cities across California. A powerful state agency, the State Water Resources Control Board, hasn’t yet signed off on Brown’s compromise environmental proposal. Environmental groups have called the governor’s idea woefully insufficient to save ailing fish populations.

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Top Federal Water Official Gives States Jan. 31 Deadline To Pass Colorado River Drought Deal

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

Water leaders throughout the West now have a hard deadline to finish deals that would keep the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs from dropping to deadpool levels – the point at which water no longer can be released. The nation’s top water official is giving leaders of the seven states that rely on the river until Jan. 31 to finalize a Drought Contingency Plan. The combination of multistate agreements would change how reservoirs are operated and force earlier water cutbacks within the river’s lower basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada as reservoirs drop.

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A Larger Issue Looms Over Short-Term Colorado River Plan: Climate Change

/in , /by /The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)by Ian James

With the water level in Lake Mead hovering near a point that would trigger a first-ever official shortage on the Colorado River, representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada are trying to wrap up a plan to prevent the water situation from spiraling into a major crisis. The plan is formally called the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. But at an annual Colorado River conference this week, many water managers stressed that it’s merely a stopgap plan to get the region through the next several years until 2026.

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UC Merced Researchers Assess Western Forests’ Ability To Survive Next Drought

/in , /by /Sierra Sun Times

By Lorena Anderson, UC Merced – UC Merced researchers have evidence that California’s forests are especially vulnerable to multi-year droughts because their health depends on water stored several feet below ground. “Each year our forests, grasslands and shrublands depend on water stored underground to survive the dry summers, but during multi-year dry periods there is not enough precipitation in the wet winter season to replenish that supply,” said Joseph Rungee, UC Merced graduate student and lead author on a new paper published in the journal Hydrological Processes.

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All Eyes are on Arizona as Colorado River Meetings Open with Focus on Finishing Drought Deal

/in , /by /The Arizona Republicby Ian James

Representatives of water agencies from across the West convened here this week for their annual Colorado River meetings, focusing on finishing a drought plan to prevent the levels of reservoirs from continuing to drop. Many of the water managers said they’re looking to Arizona to finish negotiating the details of its plan so the state can sign on and make possible a larger deal aimed at preventing Lake Mead from falling further. Federal officials had expressed hopes that Arizona, California and Nevada would iron out remaining issues and be ready to sign the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan at the Las Vegas conference.

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California Unveils $1.7 Billion Plan For Rivers, Fish. Will It Ward Off A Water War?

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

Hoping to head off one of the biggest California water wars in decades, state officials Wednesday proposed a sweeping, $1.7 billion plan to prop up struggling fish populations across many of the state’s most important rivers. Capping 30 days of feverish negotiations, the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Wildlife unveiled a dramatic plan that would reallocate more than 700,000 acre-feet of water from farms and cities throughout much of the Central Valley, leaving more water in the rivers and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to support ailing steelhead and Chinook salmon populations.

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Climate Change will Bring More Strong El Niños. Here’s What That Means for California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Julia Rosen

California is no stranger to extreme weather. The last decade has brought crippling droughts and dam-busting deluges. And climate change is only making the situation worse by turning up the heat during the dry season and supercharging storms during the wet season. Now, a new study suggests rising temperatures also will increase the frequency of strong El Niño events, which often bring pummeling rains across the state. “This adds to the evidence that what we’ve experienced in California over the last several years is consistent with what we can expect from global warming,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study.

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Major Rollback of Water Rules Endorsed by California Farmers

/in , /by /Daily Democrat (Woodland, CA)by Ellen Knickmeyer and John Flesher

The Trump administration proposed withdrawing federal protections for countless waterways and wetlands across the country Tuesday, making good on President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to weaken landmark Obama-era water rules long opposed by some developers, farmers and oil, gas, and mining executives.

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