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New EPA Administrator In San Francisco Says He’s Prioritizing Superfund Site Clean Up

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco headquarters vowed Friday to work diligently on environmental issues, including the clean up of toxic Superfund sites, a slate of work that he claims will keep him so busy it won’t matter that he still lives in Southern California. Mike Stoker, the 62-year-old Santa Barbara County attorney named last week as administrator of the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region, was criticized by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, for what she said was his plan to oversee 702 San Francisco employees from a Los Angeles satellite office.

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OPINION: California’s Natural Treasures Will Benefit If Proposition 68 Passes

/in , /by /The Fresno Beeby Robert Snow

The Golden State’s incredible natural treasures are woven into our identity as Californians. And that is why we always react with such outrage when these treasures are threatened by things like oil spills, development and habitat destruction. But there is another threat that doesn’t get a lot of headlines, but is no less devastating: lack of funding. Not only does this contribute to the slow deterioration of parks and open space, but it divides our populace into those that have access to nature and those that don’t.

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OPINION: Time For California To Deliver On The Human Right To Water

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Leo Heller

Six years after California recognized the human right to water in state law, more than 1 million Californians still lack access to safe drinking water, and in many ways the scope of the challenge has revealed itself to be even more pervasive and endemic than initially realized. Lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation impacts rural well-users, city residents, schoolchildren, mobile home communities and churches across the state.

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Oroville Dam: DWR Attempts To Quash Butte County Lawsuit

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Risa Johnson

Whether the Butte County district attorney will have a shot at winning a lawsuit against the state Department of Water Resources could come down to a comma. At the North Butte County Courthouse on Friday, the two sides presented different interpretations of the 1875 law that District Attorney Mike Ramsey is suing under for environmental damages caused by the Oroville Dam crisis in February 2017. Lawyers representing DWR tried to convince Butte County Superior Court Judge Michael Candela to throw out the complaint because Ramsey did not have the authority to sue.

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Interior Revives The Push For A Higher Shasta Dam

/in , /by /High Country News (Paonia, Colo.)by Tay Wiles

California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, sits where the dry Central Valley meets the rainier, mountainous northern part of the state. At its western edge is Shasta Dam, 602 feet high, built by the Bureau of Reclamation between 1938 and 1945 to help irrigate California. For decades, agricultural and municipal water districts have sought to heighten the dam to capture more water as it runs out of the Cascade Range through the McCloud, Pit and Sacramento rivers. Environmentalists have long rallied against the proposal, and state officials contend such a project would violate California law.

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Wrap-up Of California’s Dry/Warm Winter; “May Gray” Along The Coast And Persistent Mountain Showers Continue

/in , /by /The California Weather Blogby Daniel Swain

Most of California was on track for one of its driest winters on record as recently as February as a result of persistent (one might even call it resilient) high pressure ridging along the West Coast during the first half of winter. Recall that December 2017 featured the largest wildfire in modern California history, following on the heels of the most destructive and deadly wildfire event in the state’s history just months earlier in October. Through late February, Sierra Nevada snowpack was tracking near its lowest level in recorded history–on par with the near-total snow drought of 2014-2015.

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OPINION: Pouring A Little Rain On Prop 68’s Parade; But Most Others Should Pass

/in , /by /The Modesto Bee

Virtually every newspaper in the state of California is marching in the Proposition 68 parade. The Parks, Environment and Water Bond promises to spend $4.1 billion on state parks, habitat conservation, ocean clean-up and many more water-related projects. Who doesn’t love parks? Who can’t see the need to conserve? Yet, here we are on the curb, unable to get in step.

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Prop. 72 Promises Tax Relief For Water Conservation

/in , /by /KCRA Sacramentoby Mike Luery

Rainwater is a precious resource in California and environmentalists are promoting a ballot measure that aims to protect homeowners who want to collect that water from higher taxes. It doesn’t happen often, but Proposition 72 actually has unanimous support from Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature, along with business, labor and environmental groups. In fact, there is no formal opposition to Prop. 72, which promises some rainy day relief.

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OPINION: Opponents Of Delta Tunnels Deserve Their Day In Court

/in , /by /The Sacramento Bee

It’s one thing to streamline environmental reviews for a major project, which happened for the Golden 1 Center in downtown Sacramento. It’s entirely another to dismiss any environmental lawsuits and prevent others from being filed. That’s what a Southern California congressman is trying to do, to clear the path for the highly contentious $17 billion Delta tunnels project. It’s an outrageous overreach on a slippery legal slope. Congress should reject it.

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Billions In Water Bond Funding Await Decision By California Voters

/in , /by /ABC30 (Fresno)by Gene Haagenson

The Friant Kern Canal provides much of the water to valley crops, and it’s sinking. The November bond measure would pump 750 million in for repairs. The sinking has cut the canals carrying capacity in half. Fresno County has endorsed the measure. Supervisor Buddy Mendes says unlike Prop 1, the 2014 bond measure which failed to deliver enough funds to build Temperance Flat Dam, the funding in this plan is clear. “It’s specific language, and it has a series of what it will do, and one of the things is fixing of the Friant Kern Canal.”

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