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House keeps California water provision in spending bill over Democratic objections

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Sarah D. Wire

Provisions aimed at moving water around California remain in an appropriations bill after House Republicans on Wednesday rebuffed California Democrats’ attempts to have it removed.

The provision, sponsored by Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), focuses on funneling more water to San Joaquin Valley growers by reducing the amount used to support endangered fish populations.

The House voted 248-181 to reject an amendment by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton) and other California Democrats that would have removed the language from the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill.

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Weakening La Niña forecast may mean closer to normal SoCal rain this winter

/in /by /89.3 KPCCby Sanden Totten

That’s because in the past, strong La Niña events typically bring warm, dry winters in Southern California. However, when there is a weak La Niña or none at all, odds are better we might see a regular winter with average rainfall.

“I’d say that’s a reasonable bet,” said Michael Jacox, an ocean scientist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fellow NOAA researchers said Thursday that chances a La Niña will form this fall are about 55 to 60%.

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OPINION: Planning for California’s Water Future

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Mark W. Cowin

We cannot rebuild California’s water infrastructure from the ground up. All the dams, pumps, aqueducts – and rules and laws – arise from 200 years of human engineering in the Golden State. Our forebears designed these projects for the sole benefit of a few million people, and today we struggle to adapt them to the support of threatened fish and wildlife and 39 million people.

While we depend on this infrastructure not just to survive but thrive, some of it is undeniably outdated, and sometimes harmful. We cannot undo most of the environmental damage of our water development, but we can ameliorate it.

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Landscape renovation to cut RSM church’s water use by 500,000 gallons annually

/in /by /The Orange County Registerby NATHAN PERCY

One Rancho Santa Margarita church, with help from its members and a few companies, is facing the drought head on.

In an effort to conserve, Community Lutheran Church plans to save an estimated 500,000 gallons of water per year with new landscaping and water use technology. Both were unveiled in front of a small crowd last week.

With work completed on the CLC Landscape Renovation Project, which broke ground in February, onlookers gazed at new native plants and trees surrounded by wood chips and gravel paths that replaced grass.

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How ‘Green’ Is Hydropower?

/in /by /EcoWatchby Dr. David Suzuki

People have harnessed energy from moving water for thousands of years. Greeks used various types of water wheels to grind grain in mills more than 2,000 years ago. In the late 1800s, people figured out how to harness the power to produce electricity. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, hydropower has expanded, producing about 17 percent of the world’s electricity by 2014 and about 85 percent of renewable energy—and it shows no signs of slowing.

 

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California to Extend Cap-and-Trade System to 2050

/in /by /Scientific Americanby Debra Kahn

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration yesterday released a plan to extend the state’s landmark cap-and-trade program in a bid to slash greenhouse gas emissions through midcentury.

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) proposed amendments to the program yesterday evening that envision a carbon market through 2050 with increasing allowance prices, sending a signal to businesses that have been waiting to see if they should keep participating in the state’s quarterly auctions.

 

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Cadiz executive claims legal victory for Mojave Desert water transfer plan

/in /by /San Bernardino County Sunby Jim Steinberg

The time period for legal challenges to the controversial San Bernardino County Mojave Desert underground water transfer plan has passed, officials for Cadiz Inc. said this week.

“As a result, all challenges to the environmental review and approval of the Cadiz Water Project under the California Environmental Quality Act, the toughest environmental law in the U.S., are now final having withstood scrutiny by state superior and appellate courts,” the company said in a statement.

 

 

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Water management is a wicked problem, but not an unsolvable one

/in /by /The Christian Science Monitorby Christa Brelsford

Last summer, it was hard to miss news about California’s drought, caused by the four driest years in the state’s history. Its impact on California’s economy in 2015 alone was estimated at $2.7 billion dollars and 21,000 jobs lost. Thanks to El Niño, this drought has eased some, but 42 percent of the state is still in a condition of extreme drought.

In 2007, there was a drought that didn’t garner quite the same national attention: Atlanta, Georgia was in a state of exceptional drought from September to December and came within a few months of running out of water.

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Denham’s ‘Save Our Salmon’ Act Passes Through Congress

/in /by /Oakdale Leader

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed H.R. 4582, the Save Our Salmon (SOS) Act, introduced by area Congressman Jeff Denham (R-Turlock).

Denham’s bill would remove the fish doubling provision in the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) for non-native, predatory striped bass, thereby protecting native salmon and steelhead and reducing nonessential water usage.

“One of the greatest threats facing the Central Valley is drought, and this bipartisan legislation would provide a common sense solution to wasteful fresh water usage,” said Rep. Denham.

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Low Sierra snow seen as piece of alarming climate picture

/in /by /SFGate (San Francisco)by Kurtis Alexander

A fifth year of disappointing snow in the Sierra is part of a much larger predicament of record-low snow across the Northern Hemisphere, a setback that scientists identified Wednesday as another reminder of the alarming pace of human-caused global warming.

A panel of climate experts organized by SEARCH, or the Study of Environmental Arctic Change, met in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the historic melt-off of snow and ice during the first six months of 2016 — and the resulting problems.

 

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