You are now in California and the U.S. Media Coverage category.

OPINION: To Prepare For Climate Change, California Is Making A Huge Investment In Water Storage

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Armando Quintero and Carol Baker

On Tuesday, the California Water Commission completed a groundbreaking process to make the state’s largest investment in water storage in a generation. With the commission’s action, eight diverse projects around the state are in line to receive nearly $2.7 billion from Proposition 1, approved by voters in 2014. These projects – including $816 million for the Sites reservoir north of Sacramento – could add 4.3 million acre-feet of new water storage both above and below ground, better preparing California for climate change and drought.

Full Story

Water Still Top Enviro Issue; Motor Voter Registers 250,000 More

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Bryan Anderson

ThePublic Policy Institute of California released a poll Wednesday, examining the public’s attitudes on a range of environmental issues. Findings show water remains the top environmental issue for likely California voters. The poll also reveals a strong partisan divide on the issue of global warming. Here’s what you need to know:

Full Story

Controversial Bill Could Exempt California WaterFix From Judicial Review

/in , /by /The Press (Brentwood)

A federal spending bill containing three controversial riders that may impact California water management for decades passed the House of Representatives July 19 and will next face debate in the U.S. Senate. The Fiscal Year 2019 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill (H.R. 6147), was introduced by Rep. Ken Calvert (CA-42). Calvert, who serves as the Chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, included a rider identified as Section 437 in the bill that would exempt the California WaterFix project from state and federal judicial review.

Full Story

Capitol Rally To Protest Water Agency’s Bay-Delta Plan

/in , /by /Western FarmPress

Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, is holding a rally on August 20th at noon on the steps of the State Capitol to protest Phase 1 of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Bay Delta Plan The plan would require an average of 40% unimpaired flows along the Merced, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus Rivers for the protection of fish.

Full Story

Sites Reservoir Earns $816 Million In Proposition 1 Funding

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Record

Nearly four years after voters approved billions of dollars for new water storage in California, the state finally announced how the pie would be divided. Sites Reservoir in Colusa County, west of Maxwell, will get the largest chunk. The proposed reservoir has been on the drawing boards since last century. It’s the largest and most expensive proposal of the eight projects considered by the California Water Commission on Tuesday. It received the largest award, too — $816 million.

Full Story

Temperance Flat Dam Gets $171 Million. Project Just Needs Another $2.6 Billion

/in , /by /The Fresno Beeby Lewis Griswold

The proposed Temperance Flat dam east of Fresno on the upper San Joaquin River has been awarded $171 million by the California Water Commission, which doled out $2.5 million Wednesday for water storage projects around the state. The amount for Temperance Flat is far less than the $1 billion that proponents had asked for. The cost of building the dam is estimated at $2.83 billion. But the project is not dead, said Tulare County Supervisor Steve Worthley, president of the San Joaquin Valley Water Infrastructure Authority.

Full Story

OPINION: Why A Water Board Plan Should Worry The Whole State

/in , /by /AgAlert (Sacramento)by Justin Fredrickson

It’s not just the northern San Joaquin Valley that should be concerned about the state water board’s plan to redirect water away from farms and cities in a misguided bid to save fish. No matter where you live in California—and no matter your source of water—you should be worried. For now, the focus rests on regions along the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers. From there, it moves to the Sacramento Valley and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and from there, who knows where?

Full Story

California Funds New Dams To Protect Against Future Drought

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

For the first time since California’s dam-building boom ended nearly a half century ago, state officials on Tuesday approved a windfall of cash for new water storage projects, setting the stage for at least a mini-resurgence of reservoir construction. The historic $2.7 billion of voter-approved bond money will go to elevating two Bay Area dams, at Los Vaqueros Reservoir near Livermore and Pacheco Reservoir east of Gilroy, as well as to the development of two much larger dams in the Central Valley. Funds also will go to four less traditional endeavors that store water underground.

Full Story

The $3 Billion Plan To Turn Hoover Dam Into A Giant Battery

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Ivan Penn

Hoover Dam helped transform the American West, harnessing the force of the Colorado River — along with millions of cubic feet of concrete and tens of millions of pounds of steel — to power millions of homes and businesses. It was one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century. Now it is the focus of a distinctly 21st-century challenge: turning the dam into a vast reservoir of excess electricity, fed by the solar farms and wind turbines that represent the power sources of the future.

Full Story

California Hit With Two Heat Waves In Less Than A Month. Here’s Why It Matters.

/in , /by /Mashableby Mark Kaufman

Historic heat records fell in California earlier this month. Yet, two weeks later, another mass of warm air has returned to the southern part of the state, heating the region for days. The second heat wave of July will last from Monday through Thursday, said the National Weather Service. While this heat won’t be quite as severe as the last, it’ll still bring “record and near-record high temperatures” to different areas of California. As average temperatures around the globe continue their accelerated rise, extreme heat events like these are becoming more and more frequent.

Full Story