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Santa Clara Valley Water District Delays $650 Million Vote On Brown’s Delta Tunnels Project

/in , /by /The Reporter News (Vacaville)by Paul Rogers and Jason Green

After a five-hour packed public hearing, the board of Silicon Valley’s largest water provider postponed a decision on whether to provide up to $650 million toward a $17 billion plan to build two giant tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to move water south. Although it appeared there might be four votes on the seven-member Santa Clara Valley Water District board in favor of Gov. Jerry Brown’s so-called WaterFix project, board members late Wednesday night were divided and continued the issue until 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

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Congressman: State Put Delta Tunnels Ahead Of Oroville Dam Spillway

/in , /by /CBS Sacramentoby Kelly Ryan

Just days before the last repair work begins on the Oroville Dam spillway, the federal government is balking at whether or not it will pay for the repairs. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Davis) and Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Oroville) have been speaking with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for months to cover up to 75 percent of the repair costs, but have little to show for it. The agency is conducting a forensics study of the spillway but says it doesn’t have the legal precedent to reimburse repair costs from damage caused by deferred maintenance and design deficiencies.

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Temperance Flat Reservoir Project Far From Key State Funding Despite Valley Backing

/in , /by /The Fresno Beeby Robert Rodriguez

The California Water Commission on Thursday put in serious doubt the future of building a reservoir at Temperance Flat in east Fresno County. Meeting in Sacramento, the commission appeared to be headed toward preventing the massive water storage project to move forward. Commission members spent three days reviewing the public benefit portion of all 11 water projects seeking funding. Consideration of Temperance Flat began Wednesday and continued into Thursday evening. Commissioner Armando Quintero sympathized with the project organizers, but he said the project did not meet the technical requirements necessary.

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OPINION: Address State’s Drinking Water Crisis While Protecting Farming

/in , /by /Bakersfield.comby Nicholas Ortiz and Beatris Sanders

Several years ago, California farmers, including many in the Valley, began receiving threatening letters from the State Water Resources Control Board. The demand? Provide clean drinking water to local residents with nitrate contaminated private wells or face punitive legal action. The logic? Years of fertilizer application by farmers led to excess nitrates in the drinking water supply for some residents in California’s agricultural regions, including our Tulare Lake Basin.

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OPINION: More Water Storage Doesn’t Mean Build More Dams

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle

The California Water Commission has been meeting this week to discuss how to invest $2.7 billion in water storage funds approved by voters under Proposition 1. The commission — and all Californians — should bear in mind that water storage doesn’t necessarily mean a dam with water behind it. The commission’s charge is not to fund the biggest new dam but to fund projects with the greatest net benefits to California cities, farms and wildlife.

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Santa Clara Valley Water District Delays $650 Million Vote On Brown’s Delta Tunnels Project

/in , /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Paul Rogers

After a five-hour packed public hearing, the board of Silicon Valley’s largest water provider late Wednesday night put off a closely watched vote until next week on whether to provide up to $650 million to support Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion plan to build two giant tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to make it easier to move water south. Although it appeared there might be four votes on the seven-member Santa Clara Valley Water District board in favor of the project, which the Brown administration calls WaterFix, board members were divided and continued the issue until Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.

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Pressure Mounts To Solve California’s Toxic Farmland Drainage Problem

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

Many Americans know the name Kesterson as the California site where thousands of birds and fish were discovered with gruesome deformities in 1983, a result of exposure to selenium-poisoned farm runoff. Thirty-five years later, it is one of the oldest unresolved water problems in the state. Selenium, a naturally occurring element, is essential to people and animals alike in small doses. But selenium continues pouring off many San Joaquin Valley farms in larger quantities, which can be toxic.

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To Manage California’s Groundwater, Think More About Surface Water

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Ian Evans

California’s 2014 legislation, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was significant in that it was the state’s first major groundwater regulation. But Michael Kiparsky the founding director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, says that it was also significant in another way. “It breaks with what had been decades of a legal fiction that groundwater and surface water were not part of a single hydrologic system,” he says. While rivers, lakes and other surface waters are often thought of – and regulated – separately from the groundwater below, the two are connected.

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Arizona Utility Tries To End Multi-State Colorado River Feud

/in , /by /AP News (New York)by Dan Elliot

Arizona’s largest water provider tried Tuesday to defuse a multi-state dispute over the Colorado River, saying it regretted the belligerent-sounding words it used to describe its management strategy for the critical, over-used waterway. The Central Arizona Project, which provides water to about 5 million people, pledged to be more cooperative with other river users and promised “to have a more respectful and transparent dialogue in the future.” The river serves 40 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, and consumption is tightly regulated and closely monitored.

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Coast Line: ‘Stage 1’ Water Restrictions Begin Tuesday In Santa Cruz

/in , /by /Santa Cruz Sentinel News

In an effort to maintain water storage in the city’s only drinking water reservoir, Loch Lomond, the Santa Cruz City Council adopted a Stage 1 Water Shortage Alert, which takes effect Tuesday. Below normal rainfall and runoff, coupled with water supply needs for fish habitat, have reduced the amount of water available for city of Santa Cruz water customers. During water shortages, customers are restricted from landscape watering between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. from using a hose without a shut-off nozzle, washing down hard or paved surfaces and filling swimming pools.

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