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County Gets $3 Million For Matiljia Dam Removal

/in /by /Ventura County Starby Cheri Carlson

Plans to demolish Matilija Dam moved another step forward last week. California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it will award $3.3 million to the project, one of 44 selected to get Proposition 1 funds this year. The initiative was passed by California voters in 2014 to provide money for water quality and supply projects and restoration work. Matilija Dam, completed in 1948, was designed to create a reservoir but filled with sediment and quickly became obsolete.

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2016 In Review: California Drought Eased, But It’s Not Over

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

As 2016 wound down, California entered its sixth year of drought. But every part of the state wasn’t created equal. Northern California experienced significant drought relief during the year, while Southern California continued to be mired in historically arid conditions. The reason? A much-anticipated El Niño brought substantial storms during the spring to the north, giving Bay Area cities and communities across Northern California their best rainfall totals in five years. San Francisco rainfall was 98 percent of the historic average. San Jose was a healthy 100 percent, and Oakland 80 percent.

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California, At Forefront Of Climate Fight, Won’t Back Down To Trump

/in /by /The New York Timesby Adam Nagourney and Henry Fountain

Foreign governments concerned about climate change may soon be spending more time dealing with Sacramento than Washington. President-elect Donald J. Trump has packed his cabinet with nominees who dispute the science of global warming. He has signaled he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He has belittled the notion of global warming and attacked policies intended to combat it.

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In American Towns, Private Profits From Public Works

/in /by /The New York Timesby Danielle Ivory and Ben Protess

Nicole Adamczyk’s drinking water used to slosh through a snarl of pipes dating from the Coolidge administration — a rusty, rickety symbol of the nation’s failing infrastructure. So, in 2012, this blue-collar port city cut a deal with a Wall Street investment firm to manage its municipal waterworks. Four years later, many of those crusty brown pipes have been replaced by shiny cobalt-blue ones, reflecting a broader infrastructure overhaul in Bayonne. But Ms. Adamczyk’s water and sewer bill has jumped so much that she is thinking about moving out of town.

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Rain Light In Sacramento, Snow Falling In Sierra As Storm Moves Through North State

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Bill Lindelof and Tony Bizjak

Rain was falling in Sacramento and snow was causing travel troubles in the Sierra Nevada on Friday as a fairly cold winter storm swept into Northern California. By Christmas Eve, snowfall will become insignificant in the mountains, according to the National Weather Service. And in Sacramento, the rain will clear the night before Christmas. But before then, travel to the high country will be challenging with car chains most likely to be as common as ugly Christmas sweaters. The snow level is expected to be around 4,000 feet during the daylight hours, dropping to 2,500 feet Friday night.

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A Big Reason For Southern California’s Drought Has Dissipated; Now The ‘Door Is Open’ For More Winter Storms

/in /by /San Gabriel Valley Tribune (Monrovia)by Steve Scauzillo

It’s gone. The so-called Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, also known as The Blob, once perched off the Northwest coast blocking all storms like a football team’s defensive line, has dissipated, said Bill Patzert, climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. Many climatologists believed this was the main reason for the lack of rainfall in Southern California, making the past five years the driest in Southern California history as measured from downtown Los Angeles.

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With Environmental Review Finalized, Could Construction On The Delta Tunnels Begin In 2018?

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

After years of planning, officials have finalized all 97,000 pages of environmental documents to support Gov. Jerry Brown’s controversial plan to build two massive tunnels through the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. In spite of a recent call for a scaled-down version of the project from a prominent nonpartisan California water think-tank, state officials are moving forward with the original plan for what they call California WaterFix. The $15.5 billion project would tunnel two pipes 40 feet in diameter for 35 miles under the fragile ecosystem that serves as the hub of the state’s water-delivery network.

 

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Jerry Brown’s Controversial Tunnel Project Moves Forward

/in /by /Associated Press (As Published by Los Angeles Times)

Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to build two giant tunnels to send Northern California water southward moved a step closer Thursday to final state and federal decisions, with the state’s release of a 90,000-page environmental review supporting the $15.7 billion project. Brown’s administration is pushing for final federal and state approval of the 35-mile-long, 40-foot-wide tunnels, touted to ensure more reliable water deliveries to city and farm water agencies in Central and Southern California.

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BLOG: Final EIR/EIS For The California Water Fix Now Available Online

/in /by /Bay Delta Conservation Plan (As published by Maven's Notebook)by Maven

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan/California WaterFix Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) is now available. This Final EIR/EIS was prepared jointly by Lead Agencies: the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation).The Final EIR/EIS describes the alternatives, discusses potential environmental impacts, and identifies mitigation measures that would help avoid or minimize impacts. It also provides responses to all substantive comments received on the 2013 Draft EIR/EIS and 2015 Partially Recirculated Draft EIR/Supplemental Draft EIS (RDEIR/SDEIS).

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OPINION: Seeking A ‘Grand Compromise’ On Delta Tunnels

/in /by /The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa)

We’ve made no secret of our objections to Gov. Jerry Brown’s plumbing project — drilling two enormous tunnels, each one 40 feet in diameter and 35 miles long, to divert water to Southern California cities and Central Valley growers. Brown’s plan looks even worse with President Barack Obama’s acquiescence to congressional legislation guaranteeing more water for irrigation at the expense of endangered salmon and the environmentally fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

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