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Forecast For California: More Frequent Wild Weather Swings

/in , /by /Yale Climate Connections (New Haven, Conn.)by Bruce Lieberman

Many people are attracted to large parts of California for their reliably pleasant Mediterranean climate. It can be a welcome break for visitors weary of Nor’easters and scorching summers. But in coming decades, California and the rest of the West Coast could see increasingly wild swings in weather – a consequence of continued climate change. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in Nature Climate Change by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles, UC-Irvine, and The Nature Conservancy. T

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Deeply Talks: Protecting Native Fish In The Delta

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

In this episode of Deeply Talks, Tara Lohan, Water Deeply’s managing editor, speaks with University of California, Davis fisheries experts Peter Moyle and John Durand about the challenges and opportunities for fish restoration in the California Delta. The Delta is a critical artery for California’s water. The estuary is the outlet for two of the state’s most important rivers – the Sacramento and San Joaquin – and it is a main source of the water transported south through the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.

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Environmentalists’ Lawsuit To Drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Heads Back To Court

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

Two years after losing in court and six years after being rejected by voters, a Berkeley environmental group is continuing its long-running battle to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a linchpin of the water supply for 2.6 million Bay Area residents from San Francisco to San Jose to southern Alameda County. The reservoir in Yosemite National Park, built in 1923, violates California’s constitution, according to a lawsuit from the nonprofit group, Restore Hetch Hetchy, because the constitution requires water to be diverted in a “reasonable” way, and there are other places to store Hetch Hetchy’s water that aren’t in a national park.

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Dire Challenges Facing Colorado River Water Lifeline

/in , /by /Arizona Daily Sunby Tony Davis

A bruising battle between the Central Arizona Project and many states and water users has revitalized the push for a stillborn plan to prepare for more drought on the Colorado River. The original dustup was over whether the CAP was seeking to “game the system” of reservoir operations at lakes Mead and Powell to benefit itself at the expense of the river’s Upper Basin states: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. That’s prompted new talks to try to also resolve longstanding differences with another of CAP’s adversaries, the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

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New Set Of Scores Released For Water Bond Projects

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Steve Schoonover

Water storage projects seeking money from Proposition 1 got another round of scoring Friday from the California Water Commission staff, adding a little more clarity to what will get how much. Proposition 1, a water bond measure passed in November 2014, included $2.7 billion for new water storage in the state. Twelve projects initially sought a share of that money, including Sites Reservoir, a proposed 1.8 million acre-foot off-stream reservoir west on Maxwell in Colusa County.

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6 Things To Know About Dire Challenges To Our Colorado River Water Lifeline

/in , /by /Arizona Daily Starby Tony Davis

A bruising battle between the Central Arizona Project and many states and water users has revitalized the push for a stillborn plan to prepare for more drought on the Colorado River. The original dust-up was over whether the CAP was seeking to “game the system” of reservoir operations at lakes Mead and Powell to benefit itself at the expense of the river’s Upper Basin states: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

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OPINION: Stop Outrageous Effort To Ban Delta Tunnels Lawsuits

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

Shameful. It’s the only way to describe the latest effort by a Southern California lawmaker to grab as much water as possible from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta without regard to the health of the largest estuary west of the Mississippi. Riverside County Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, on May 8 slipped a rider into the 2019 House Interior and Environmental Appropriations bill prohibiting any judicial review of Gov. Jerry Brown’s $16 billion Delta twin-tunnels plan. It’s beyond outrageous.

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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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