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OPINION: Sacramento Sets Its Eye on Taxing our Drinking Water

/in /by /The Orange County Register

Sacramento is setting its eyes on the latest resource it can tax in California — drinking water. For the first time in California’s history, lawmakers are proposing a 95-cent per month tax on your water bill. Senate Bill 623 would establish a new water connection tax, fertilizer tax and milk tax to raise about $200 million for a new “Safe and Affordable Water” fund. While we all can all agree that all Californians should have access to safe and clean drinking water, there are ample general fund resources and many federal grants available to pay for those costs.

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Gov. Jerry Brown Lays Out His Plan for Cap-and-Trade Spending

/in /by /Los Angeles Times

Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled on Thursday his plan for spending cap-and-trade revenue, prioritizing cleaner vehicles and improving air quality. Roughly $1.5 billion, all generated by the sale of permits required to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is available to be spent by the governor and lawmakers. Brown wants the biggest chunk of the money, $607.5 million, to be used on financial incentives for cleaner cars, trucks, buses and farm vehicles.

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OPINION: California WaterFix: The Real Costs, Choices, and Criticisms

/in /by /Red, Green, and Blue

Over the years, some Northern California supporters of Restore the Delta have complained about Southern California water users by making specious claims that everyone down there “has a swimming pool,” or “waters their sidewalk” carelessly during periods of drought, while the Delta continues to decline with inadequate freshwater flows. We even have some supporters who maintain that the answer is to split the state in half, allowing Northern California to keep “its water,” while those people down south “figure out how to get their own water.”

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OPINION: What Keeps Me Awake at Night? – Source of Water Manager Insomnia

/in /by /Valley Roadrunner (Valley Center)

A standard question often asked people in charge of important things (such as being responsible for the water and wastewater needs of 26,000 people as well as hundreds of businesses and farms in our service area), is “What Keeps You Awake at Night.” My answer: The literal army of state legislators and bureaucrats working hard to dream up ways to micro-manage anything and everything your water agency does, how much water you can use on a daily basis and take your money to solve other people’s problems making your monthly water bill more expensive without providing you or our community any benefit.

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Why Save The Delta? Unknown River Towns Fear Untold Devastation From Jerry Brown’s Twin Tunnels Project

/in /by /Sacramento News & Reviewby Scott Thomas Anderson

A cannon-shaped sea drone plunges through the darkness. On the waves above, Nicky Suard steadies herself in a speed boat as she monitors its video feed. The drone’s tiny propellers keep it surging through the depths, diving further into the heart of the Sacramento River. Its floodlights send back murky images of bubbles and silt. There’s no sign of what Suard’s looking for.

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Why California’s Nitrate Problem Will Take Decades To Fix

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Erica Gies

When folks talk about “black gold” in California’s Central Valley, it’s usually a reference to oil – unless you’re in the dairy business. No state in the country produces more milk than California, thanks to its 1.7 million cows. Those cows also produce a lot of manure – 120 pounds per cow per day. But manure isn’t a problem; it’s an opportunity, says Ryan Flaherty, director of business partnerships at the San Francisco-based Sustainable Conservation, a nonprofit that works with diverse stakeholders to help clean water, air and land.

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Groups Battle Over State Water Safety Bill

/in /by /Santa Maria Sunby Spencer Cole

Senator Bill Monning (D-Carmel) announced on Aug. 23 the amended version of Senate Bill 623, which would establish the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund to finance infrastructure improvement projects across the state with the help of a coalition of environmental activists, agricultural industry representatives, and labor groups. The bill will need to garner a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate and Assembly to pass, which at the present could prove difficult due to its widespread opposition among state water agencies.

 

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Call It The Anti-Drought: Water Officials Hope to Drive Up Water Usage

/in /by /Voice Of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

In a jarring contrast to conditions during the drought, the San Diego County Water Authority is actually trying to drive up demand for its water. As recently as the first months of this year, Californians were asked to conserve water. Well, they did. And they still are. Now, that’s a problem. Demand for water is low. In San Diego, it’s so low that drinking water is just sitting in the main pipeline that delivers water from hundreds of miles away to the southern half of the county. Typically demand for water is highest during the summer.

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OPINION: Save Water, Save Energy, Save California

/in /by /Los Angeles Times

California’s lengthy drought has prompted state, regional and local officials to take a series of steps in recent years to restrict water use. One of the first measures lawmakers adopted was an urban conservation plan to ensure that future consumption in California’s cities would not outstrip a dwindling supply. Modeled on tough goals that had been passed to reduce energy use and limit the release of greenhouse gasses, the 20 x 2020 Water Conservation Plan aims for a 20% per capita reduction by 2020.

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California Legislative Leaders Pitch Big Spending For Water And Parks Improvements For The 2018 Ballot

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Liam Dillon

Top lawmakers promised Wednesday to put a bond measure on the 2018 statewide ballot to fund parks and water improvements. “More parks is not just a wish, it’s not just a dream, it’s not just an ideal, it is a real need,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said at a rally outside the Capitol. “We see that all over the state.”

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