The west coast state will spend millions of dollars over the coming years on improving water quality and reducing waste. The deal signed with the Danish Ministry for Food and the Environment will provide the opportunity for Danish business to be involved in that development, the ministry said in a press statement. Minister Esben Lunde Larsen, who signed the agreement, said the Californian market was ideal for Danish water technology.
Westlands Water District underscored a basic truth in rejecting a decade-long effort to construct a $17.1 billion twin tunnel project to transfer water from the Delta to farms and cities to the south and west: Without clear financing, the project will collapse. But the vote by seven Westlands board members, representing 600 San Joaquin Valley farm owners, doesn’t end California’s water struggles. Gov. Jerry Brown, the project’s main proponent, could be forgiven if he walks away from the Delta. He shouldn’t. Whoever replaces Brown as governor after the 2018 election will be less knowledgeable on this slow-motion mess.
The pressure on California’s water supply during the recent drought was further complicated by outdated policy and antiquated infrastructure. There are multiple projects and policies in the process of getting funded or being approved that will address some of the water needs of the state. Executive Director for the California Water Alliance Aubrey Bettencourt explained that “we have this undersized, outdated water infrastructure system that hasn’t quite been updated since the ‘60s and ‘70s and it’s not able to keep up with our modern priorities, our modern requirements of it.”
Voters in California may see two more water-related bond measures on their ballots next year as proponents try to build on the success of Proposition 1. Gerald Meral, a former deputy secretary of the state Natural Resources Agency, is about to begin gathering signatures for an $8.9 billion measure for such water-related projects as repairs to the sinking Friant-Kern Canal in Tulare and Kern counties.
A coalition of California environmental groups is calling on the California Department of Water Resources to build a complete, functional emergency spillway at Oroville Dam as part of a sweeping program to improve dam safety and flood control practices across the state and beyond. The conservation coalition — including Friends of the River, the California Sports Fishing Alliance, the South Yuba River Citizens League and American Whitewater — released a 53-page report seeking to apply lessons learned from February’s Oroville spillway crisis.
A few hours after the Westlands Water District board voted 7-1 to not participate in the proposed $67 billion California Delta water tunnels project, the state government said it would continue to pursue the controversial project. “This vote, while disappointing, in no way signals the end of ‘WaterFix,’” says California Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird. The name “WaterFix” is the latest marketing moniker for the tunnels project, pushed by Gov. Edmund Gerald Brown Jr.
In a major and potentially fatal setback to Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion plan to build two huge tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, America’s largest irrigation district voted Tuesday to pull out of the project. The board of Westlands Water District, based in Fresno, voted 7-1 following an hour of debate and discussion over the costs of the project, which is intended to make it easier to move water from north to south.
The board of the Westlands Water District on Tuesday dealt a potentially fatal blow to the most ambitious California water project planned in decades. By a 7-1 vote, the state’s largest irrigation district decided not to join California WaterFix — a $17-billion plan to build two tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that would re-engineer the way Northern California supplies are moved to the rest of the state. The proposed financing structure of the project “doesn’t work for Westlands Water District,” board member Todd Neves said.
Just months after Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shore up California’s water system with two giant tunnels won key approval from regulators, the $17 billion project is running into potential financial problems. The dozens of agencies that have expressed support for the delta tunnels as a way to ensure that they get more reliable water deliveries, from Silicon Valley to the Central Valley to Los Angeles, are supposed to produce financial commitments in coming weeks. Many, however, appear reluctant to sign on.
Some Sacramento-area water agencies would end up paying for a small share of the Delta tunnels under a last-minute alternative funding plan pitched by one of the state’s largest farming groups. Westlands Water District, whose board of directors is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to help pay for the tunnels, says it needs to spread the costs among a greater number of water districts, both north and south of the Delta, to make the project affordable to the Fresno and Kings county farmers who get water from Westlands.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
