It takes a while to get to the point, but an 80,000-page environmental opus released Thursday makes the case that Gov. Jerry Brown’s $15.7 billion twin tunnels project is the best way to fix California’s water woes. The final environmental impact report on the controversial plan known as WaterFix does not contain a cliffhanger ending, but the governor characterized it as a crucial bookshelf filler for water wonks.
Northern California and Oregon irrigation districts have won a key round in a long-running legal battle as they seek compensation for their loss of water in the Klamath River Basin. In a 53-page opinion, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Marilyn Blank Horn concluded the federal government’s 2001 diversion of Klamath River Basin water amounted to a “physical taking” of the irrigation districts’ property. Horn’s ruling Wednesday rejected the government’s argument that the diversion instead amounted to a “regulatory taking.”
Where will the water come from? We’re entering the wet time of year, but the drought continues to transform communities around the state. And now, Santa Barbara is almost out. Lake Cachuma, the county’s primary source of water for years, is at 7 percent of its capacity and is expected to go totally dry by the end of the year. So while state regulators have lifted the statewide mandatory 25 percent cut in water usage, Santa Barbara officials are cracking down. Beginning Jan. 1, the city will ban all residential lawn watering.
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.
Folsom Lake is filling up, which means the floodgates must open. On Thursday, Dec. 16, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released 35,000 acre-feet of water between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. According to Louis Moore, deputy public affair officer, starting at 9 a.m. they released 15,000 acre feet and every hour after released an additional 5,000 Acre feet until 1 p.m. Throughout the rainy season, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will be lifting the floodgates periodically to keep up with capacity, what will be coming into the lake and how much will need to be release to flow down the river to the delta.
Watching the live, online feed of the public hearing related to California’s proposal to take two major rivers by forcing water from them to flow unimpeded to the ocean says one thing to me: this is going to be a different fight for government officials who enjoy the view from their thrones.
In less than a month, the United States will be led by a president who denies climate change exists. President-elect Donald Trump has also said he wants to see the U.S. withdraw from the Paris Agreement and wants to roll back environmental regulations. In California, a state that has already seen the impacts of climate change and has been a leader when it comes to efforts to slow its pace and mitigate its results, many are wondering what the new direction on the federal level will mean for the state.
The federal government will spend nearly a quarter-billion dollars to finance several dozen projects aimed at easing the effects of drought in the western U.S. and restoring watersheds that provide drinking water to communities around the nation, officials announced Wednesday. The $225 million in funding will be shared among 88 projects, from California’s Central Valley to centuries-old irrigation systems in northern New Mexico and thousands of square miles of fragmented streams in Maine. More than half of the projects specifically address drought and water quality.
A wet start to the rainy season means much of the Bay Area enters winter with well above average rainfall. The National Weather Service released maps on Thursday showing the majority of the Bay Area at over 110 percent of normal for this time of year. Much of Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties have seen over 150 percent of normal, with dotted areas in the state seeing as much as 400 percent of the typical rainfall by December 20th.
California officials, acknowledging the wet start to winter, on Wednesday more than doubled the expected allocation of water from the State Water Project. The Department of Water Resources said customers can expect to receive 45 percent of what they’ve requested in 2017. That compared with the initial allocation of 20 percent a few weeks ago. The allocation generally grows as the winter progresses and rains fall. Last year the allocation grew from 10 percent at the start of the winter to 60 percent as reservoirs filled up.
