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Water Authority Conditionally Backs $17 Billion Delta Tunnels Plan

/in , /by /Times of San Diego Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority’s board of directors gave conditional support Thursday to the California WaterFix, the state’s $17 billion plan to upgrade key water infrastructure.

San Diego joins the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles and Santa Clara County Water District in Silicon Valley in backing one Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature long-term projects.

The massive project would divert water from the Sacramento River as it enters the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and carry it to existing federal and state pumping stations in the southern part of the delta through one or two 35-mile tunnels.

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Smoke Should Clear; Heat To Stay

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Robert Krier

Northwestern San Diego County got off to a smoky start Thursday after smoke from the Holy fire in Orange County drifted over the region Wednesday night. The weather pattern should clear out the smoke Thursday, but it will only add to the heat. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning, in effect until 8 p.m. Thursday, from the foothills to the coast. Highs at the beaches could reach the mid 90s, while the inland valleys could be as hot as 104. The culprit is a push of hot air from the east.

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July Was The Hottest Month On Record In California, Record-Wettest In Mid-Atlantic

/in , /by /The Weather Channelby Bob Henson

California experienced its hottest single month in 124 years of recordkeeping, according to NOAA’s monthly summary of United States climate released Wednesday. For the contiguous U.S. as a whole, it was the 11th-hottest July on record, with almost every state coming in warmer than average. The national average of 75.5 degrees Fahrenheit was 1.9 degrees above the 20th-century norm, said NOAA. In addition, several communities in California and adjacent Nevada had their all-time hottest single month.

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Trump Administration Moves To Open 1.6 Million Acres To Fracking, Drilling In California

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dale Kasler

Ending a five-year moratorium, the Trump administration Wednesday took a first step toward opening 1.6 million acres of California public land to fracking and conventional oil drilling, triggering alarm bells among environmentalists. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said it’s considering new oil and natural gas leases on BLM-managed lands in Fresno, San Luis Obispo and six other San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast counties. Meanwhile, activists in San Luis Obispo are pushing a ballot measure this fall to ban fracking and new oil exploration in the county.

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Feds Order Water Release Changes After Trump Tweets On California Wildfires

/in , /by /CBS Sacramentoby Kyle Buis

Despite firefighters saying there is no need for more water to fight California’s wildfires, the Commerce Department is paving the way for more water pumping. The move comes after President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday and Monday that California’s water rules were leaving firefighters without enough water, a statement Cal Fire officials say isn’t true. The president appears to have confused firefighting efforts in California with the state’s water rights system and how water allotments are meted out to farmers and water agencies throughout California. Firefighters are able to draw water from nearby reservoirs and ponds if necessary.

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“Crucial Milestone” Met At Oroville Dam With Structural Concrete Placement

/in , /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Risa Johnson

Crews have begun to place the final layer of concrete this week on the upper portion of the Oroville Dam spillway chute. This marks a “crucial milestone,” said Tony Meyers, project manager for the recovery project for the state Department of Water Resources, in a moderated media call on Wednesday. The top layer of the spillway consists of structural concrete slabs, which are designed to be erosion-resistant. The first two structural concrete slabs were placed Monday on the upper chute.

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OPINION: The Bullet Train Has (Almost) Nothing On Brown’s Twin Tunnels

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Susan Shelly

If you thought the bullet train was a boondoggle designed to lift money from your wallet while delivering nothing, wait until you hear what’s next. The state of California is building a time machine. That’s how Gov. Jerry Brown and the Department of Water Resources intend to pay part of the cost of the $17 billion twin-tunnel project known as WaterFix. They have to get voters to approve the costly undertaking so property taxes can be raised to pay for it. Here’s the catch: The voters have to approve it in 1960.

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California Water Regulators Help Target Black Market Marijuana Farmers

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

After Riverside County deputies raided an unlicensed cannabis farm in the small, unincorporated community of Aguanga, they found nearly 3,000 plants growing scattered between the brush. The tip that led Sgt. Tyson Voss and his team to that illicit farm last month came from a source you might not expect: the Cannabis Enforcement Unit of the California State Water Resources Control Board. The state water agency created a pilot cannabis team four years ago to investigate marijuana growers in Northern California who divert or pollute waterways in their effort to profit via cannabis.

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OPINION: Block Outrageous Effort To Lock In Delta Tunnels Water Grab

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

Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration is now trying to jam through a political deal that would enable construction of his $17 billion Delta twin-tunnels project, the biggest public works project in state history, without the approval of the state Legislature, the voters or ratepayers who would be footing the bill. Brown’s state Department of Water Resources suddenly plans to extend State Water Project contracts, with amendments, for another 50 years. Fifty years! That would allow water contractors backing the twin-tunnels project to lock in water contracts for the Delta tunnels project before Brown leaves office at the end of this year.

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SANDAG Will Preserve Nearly 112 Acres Of Habitat In Carmel Valley

/in , /by /Del Mar Times

SANDAG recently acquired nearly 112 acres of native habitat and old agricultural lands in Carmel Valley, according to a news release. The old agricultural lands will be restored to wetland habitat and the remaining land will be preserved as open space. The land, referred to as Deer Canyon East, is immediately adjacent to and upstream of the 31-acre Deer Canyon West wetland mitigation site. The acquisition was finalized this June shortly after the West property was deemed successfully restored by federal and state agencies.

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