A bit of irony has emerged over Jerry Brown’s name for his twin tunnels idea — California WaterFix — because it sure looks like the fix is on. The plan to put two huge tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to carry north state water south has faltered on its own, and is unlikely to advance if it is put to the kinds of environmental and financial review that it warrants.
California cities and towns may find themselves on a water budget in the next decade under a pair of bills approved Thursday by the legislature. The measures follow Gov. Jerry Brown’s call to make water conservation a permanent way of life in a state long accustomed to jewel-green lawns and suburban tracts studded with swimming pools. More than a year of legislative negotiations reflected the enduring conflicts over state and local control. Though the bills establish a framework to end excessive urban water use, the proposals were substantially weakened by a series of amendments sought by water districts.
In the next 18 months, a small plane will fly over every city in California, recording data on what kind of plants are growing in our lawns, parks and street medians. That data will help determine where we’re wasting water, and help cities use it more efficiently. It’s a radical departure from the way water conservation has been done in California in the past, when, during water emergencies, state officials would simply instruct cities to cut usage by a certain percentage.
The Trump administration on Friday named Mike Stoker, a Santa Barbara County attorney and former oil company spokesman who some credit with coining the “lock her up!” chants against Hillary Clinton at the Republican Convention in 2016, as the new West Coast head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Stoker will lead the U.S EPA Region 9 office, which is based in San Francisco. The office oversees a wide variety of subjects, from air pollution fines against oil refineries to drinking water issues and wetlands permits for developers in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and the Pacific Islands.
Three hundred miles to the south, our society rewards the makers of tech trinkets with the greatest fortunes ever amassed in history — largely, infamously untaxed. Meanwhile, a coalition of government officials here and in Sacramento is asking you to pay a little more to ensure that everyone in the state has access to clean drinking water. It’s true, clean drinking water is an admirable goal for all and a sad memory for some. Just ask the residents of Flint.
If you care about the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or protecting California water rights, you should be very alarmed by something that just happened 3,000 miles away in the halls of Congress. Backed by southern California interests, the House Appropriations Committee just unveiled the fiscal year 2019 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill. It includes language that would prohibit any judicial review of anything associated with the disastrous twin tunnels project, also known as California WaterFix, under federal or state laws. Let’s be clear on what this means. Currently, there are over 25 lawsuits challenging various aspects of the project.
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna’s Like a Virgin topped the musical charts. It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month. Last month marked the planet’s 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. The cause for the streak? Unquestionably, it’s climate change, caused by humanity’s burning of fossil fuels.
2018 has brought record-low snowpack levels to many locations in the Colorado River Basin, making this the driest 19-year period on record. With the depressed snowpack and warming conditions, experts indicate that runoff from the Rocky Mountains into Lake Powell this spring will yield only 42 percent of the long-term average. With drought and low runoff conditions dating back to 2000, this current period is one of the worst drought cycles over the past 1,200-plus years.
California’s safe drinking water and natural resources are increasingly threatened by drought, wildfires, floods and mudslides. Proposition 68 is designed to help make our communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The measure was placed on the June 5 ballot by a bipartisan, two-thirds vote of the Legislature to make much-needed investments to bolster the reliability of our water supply and the infrastructure we depend on to help get us through wet and dry years. The Nature Conservancy’s mission goes beyond land conservation. We aim to protect the waters on which all life depends.
It’s time, Californians, to hold on to our collective wallets. “It does NOT raise taxes,” proponents of Proposition 68 insist in the official state voters’ guide. Then where do they think the money will come from to repay the $4 billion inbonds that are supposed to go for parks and “climate adaptation,” whatever that is? Bonds are debt. Debt needs tobe repaid, with interest. The debt payments will increase the state budget or something in the budget will have to be cut to provide the required funds. But most likely, taxes will have to be raised.
