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House Republican leaders and California’s senior senator announced Monday a new attempt to pass legislation that would increase water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and Southern California.

The 90-page proposal was added to a water infrastructure bill that Congress is expected to vote on this week before adjourning for the rest of the year. The deal sets Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on a collision course with her colleague, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who blasted the proposal as a poison pill and vowed to do everything she could to stop it, including halting all action in the Senate unless it is removed.

Our homeowner association near Santa Clarita has a problem that most of the other associations around us don’t seem to share. Our association board appears to go out of its way not to approve drought-resistant landscaping or makes it difficult for owners to pick out plants. Several dozen of our 500 or so homeowners have stopped watering because of the drought. Trees, shrubs and lawns are completely dead. Most of the dead grass has even disappeared and all that is left at many properties is just dirt.

 

At Heavenly Ski Resort, thousands of feet up in the northern Sierra Nevada, the heavy snowfall around Lake Tahoe forced the lodge to close its small roller coaster due to poor visibility this week. In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, concerns over dry conditions were quickly dispatched when more than two feet of snow dropped around the lake in just two days. Now, if past weather patterns are fulfilled this year, experts say, Northern California’s winter — and long-term relief from years of drought — could be just around the corner for the state’s most important watershed.