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OPINION: California WaterFix: Let’s Talk Dollars

/in /by /Orange County Breeze

In the coming weeks, water agencies throughout California will make important decisions about a project that modernizes our state’s water system. About a third of the water used in Southern California comes from Northern California through the State Water Project. But the hub of that water delivery system, the section carrying water to the Southland from the state’s two largest rivers—the Sacramento and San Joaquin—through a region known as the Delta, needs to be modernized.

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‘Winter Is Coming’: What Do Climate Scientists Predict For California?

/in /by /The Mercury News (San Jose)by Steve Scauzillo

After suffering more than a week under searing, desert-like heat, winter might be the furthest thing from the minds of most Californians. However, to borrow a phrase from TV’s “Game of Thrones,” winter is coming. The only question is whether the gods will allow a rerun of last winter which unexpectedly dumped record amounts of rain and snow throughout the state that filled reservoirs and kept skiers on the slopes through August.

 

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Capitol Roundup: Immigration Deal, Parks Bond, DACA Developments

/in /by /Capital Public Radio News (Sacramento)

A “sanctuary state” bill deal, the emergence of a $4 billion parks and water bond, two new California legal fronts against the Trump administration, and the Mexican foreign minister’s visit to the state Capitol – just another Manic Monday as lawmakers begin their final week of work before adjourning for the year.

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BLOG: New Study: WaterFix Is Unnecessary For SoCal’s Water Supply

/in /by /NRDC (New York)by Doug Obegi Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Last week, my colleague published a report entitled Mismatched: A Comparison of Future Water Supply and Demand for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Its Member Agencies. The report compares the 2015 Urban Water Management Plans prepared by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and its member agencies. It documents that in average water years, MWD’s plan assumes that demand for imported water is hundreds of thousands of acre feet higher than the local agencies’ plans.

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OPINION: Delta Tunnel ‘WaterFix’ Vote Now? Santa Clara Valley Should Say No Way

/in /by /The Mercury News‎ (San Jose)

Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to force California water agencies, including the Santa Clara Valley Water District, to vote in the next month on whether they will pay for building his $17 billion “WaterFix” Delta tunnels project. It is an arbitrary, outrageous and irresponsible deadline. There is no formal agreement on how the project will be financed, how it will be governed or how the water will be allocated: none of the information a responsible water board needs to know for an informed decision.

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Delaying Vote on California’s Delta Tunnels Gives Estuary Hope

/in /by /Multi Briefs

On Aug. 28, the Central Basin Water Board voted, 5-2, to postpone a decision on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed Delta Tunnel project (also known as California Water Fix) until rate impacts of the project can be clarified. Specifically, officials are concerned about the burden citizens from poorer areas of Los Angeles County will bear without seeing an increase of water supplies. The $25 billion California Water Fix proposes to construct several massive underground tunnels that will update California’s water infrastructure by diverting more water, making the delivery more reliable and improving environmental conditions.

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Frustration, Friction Flashed Behind the Scenes as Oroville Dam Emergency Grew

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

In the confusion and chaos of the emergency at Oroville Dam, as thousands of residents were being evacuated, public safety officials and others involved in managing the crisis found themselves clashing with the people operating the nation’s tallest dam. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea questioned an assertion by the director of the state Department of Water Resources that the situation was stabilizing.

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Taxpayer Money Was Wrongly Used to Plan California Water Tunnel Project, Federal Audit Says

/in /by /Los Angeles Times

A federal agency left U.S. taxpayers on the hook for $50 million in water project costs that should have been paid by Central Valley irrigation districts, according to an inspector general’s report released Friday. The audit found that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation improperly subsidized the districts’ share of planning costs for a controversial proposal to build two massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

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BLOG: Why did the Fed Interior Dept misuse $84 million for California Delta Tunnels planning?

/in /by /Red, Green, and Blue

Mary Kendall, the deputy federal inspector general for the U.S. Department of Interior, today issued a 42 page report detailing the misuse of the money and the recommendations made to the state and federal agencies to resolve the issue. “The audit says that California water districts — and not federal taxpayers — were supposed to bear the costs of the $16-billion water project,“ the Associated Press reported via the LA Times. “The inspector general says federal authorities also did not fully disclose to Congress or others that it was covering much of the cost of the project’s planning.”

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Governor’s Delta Tunnels Scheme Sees $50 Million in Federal Funds Misspent

/in /by /Central Valley Business Times (Stockton)

The twin water tunnels project pushed by Gov. Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. as a substitute for his voter-rejected Peripheral Canal have seen at least $50 million misspent by the Bureau of Reclamation, one of the supporters of the controversial project. That’s the charge by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior, in a report Friday.

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