In the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll, voters said drought, water supply, and water pollution are the state’s most pressing environmental challenge.
Californians recognize that water fuels our economy, grows our food, and sustains our natural places.
The Modesto Bee has expressed a strong negative opinion of the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposal to require additional water to be left in the Tuolumne River and other San Joaquin tributaries to improve water quality and the environment.
Regrettably, what has received little attention in this debate are the opportunities for improving water management to meet the agricultural and environmental demands placed on these rivers.
In a major development for California American Water’s long-sought desalination project, the California Public Utilities Commission has issued a proposed decision recommending approval of the proposal known as the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project.
In a 223-page filing, a three-judge panel found that Cal Am’s desal project is the best option available to provide the Monterey Peninsula with a timely replacement water supply to offset the state water board’s Carmel River pumping cutback order and the need to reduce pumping from the adjudicated Seaside basin. Judges Gary Weatherford, Robert Haga and Darcie Houck also recommended certifying the project’s combined environmental review document, arguing that project impacts could either be mitigated or would be outweighed by the project’s benefits.
Eighteen months after the dramatic failure of the spillways at Oroville Dam in Northern California, a disaster that led to the evacuation of 188,000 people, construction is on schedule to complete the concrete work in the main spillway by Nov. 1.
In recent weeks, 805 workers from Kiewit, the Nebraska-based company that was awarded the main construction contract on the project, have continued to rebuild sections of the massive 3,000-foot-long spillway.
Serious water shortages on the Colorado River could be less than two years away, according to new federal estimates. Yet after 19 years of drought, just 500 farmers in one Arizona county may decide the fate of the entire Southwest: By holding tight to their own temporary water supply, they could stall a conservation plan designed to save the entire region from water shortages.
Pinal County, sandwiched between Phoenix and Tucson, is the third-largest farming county in Arizona and 54th in the nation, generating about $1 billion in annual sales, according to United States Department of Agriculture statistics. Beef cattle and milk generate more than half of that income, with cotton and alfalfa the next largest commodities
California Influencers, a group of the state’s most respected experts in public policy, politics and government, weighed in on this question: What is the biggest environmental challenge facing the state?
When a wall of flames raced up the hillside at Avalanche Creek on a recent afternoon, firefighters in Yosemite National Park had to act quickly.
The giant Ferguson Fire was headed toward the south rim of Yosemite Valley, and if crews didn’t stop it here, the fire would open up on the edge of the park’s most beloved spot. Already, 10,000 acres of Yosemite had been charred, and much of the park was entering its third week of closure.
But just as the blaze began spitting hot embers out of the creek drainage and across Glacier Point Road, where helicopters with water buckets and engine teams with chain saws had staked their line of defense, firefighters caught a break — at least for the moment.
As students head back to class across California this month, many will sip water from school fountains or faucets that could contain high levels of lead.
That’s because two-thirds of the state’s 1,026 school districts have not taken advantage of a free state testing program to determine whether the toxic metal is coming out of the taps and, if so, whether it exceeds federal standards. Among the 330 districts that have started or completed testing, more than half identified at least one school where levels exceeded the federal standard, according to data submitted to the state by June 1.
The testing by local water utilities has been available to every public and private school in the state for more than 18 months. Exposure to high levels of lead can cause irreversible neurological and brain damage, including lowering a child’s IQ.
With the state legislature returning from summer recess, the proposal to impose a statewide tax on drinking water could return before the end of the current legislative year on August 31.
The proposed tax on drinking water was introduced in 2017 by Sen. Bill Monning (SB 623). The primary purpose of the bill was to fund solutions in some disadvantaged communities without access to safe drinking water, which are primarily located in rural areas in the Central Valley. In September of 2017, the Assembly Appropriations Committee moved the bill to the Assembly Rules Committee, where it currently remains as a two-year bill. The proposal would have generated roughly $110 million per year through a 95-cent monthly fee on home water bills as well as taxes on businesses of up to $10 per month. Another $30 million would come from higher fees on agricultural and dairy businesses, industries whose chemicals contribute to the problem of contaminated groundwater.
In the summer, all we talk about is rain. Walk into a diner or a barn, or just run into someone at the store, and the first question anyone asks – even before, “How are you?” – is, “Did you get any rain?” It’s the same in New Mexico as in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona and California. Everyone is concerned because, as ranchers, we know the health of our cattle depends on the amount of water that falls out of the sky. And this year, it hasn’t been a lot.
