More than 36 million Californians are still living in drought-affected areas — roughly 95 percent of the state’s population, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. The fight to end the drought in California, is far from over.
Gov. Jerry Brown proclaimed a state of emergency for California in January of 2014 and urged residents to conserve in every way possible because of the drought.
At first glance, a proposed initiative to reallocate bond funds from the controversial high-speed rail project to fund water storage projects seems tailor-made for Northern Californian water leaders who have been pushing for such projects, particularly Sites Reservoir, for decades.
But the North State has staunchly opposed the proposal being circulated for signatures to qualify for the November ballot, saying it would not only delay projects such as Sites Reservoir for years, but would also change the state constitution in a way that would jeopardize the Sacramento Valley’s mostly senior water rights.
Even in the midst of a strong El Niño, California’s sunny weather this February is not surprising, experts say: The longest dry spell this month — 14 days — is actually less than the average for a strong El Niño winter.
But state water officials said Monday that unless the rainy weather returns with a vengeance, some drought restrictions are likely to continue this summer.
Californians are doing an outstanding job conserving water, reducing urban water use by nearly 26 percent during the last seven months of 2015, compared with the same period in 2013, exceeding Gov. Jerry Brown’s 25 percent reduction mandate.
California’s investor-owned water utilities, together serving approximately 6 million people, are partnering with their customers to achieve those savings. The State Water Resources Control Board has recognized many of our members among the state’s water conservation standouts.
The California think-tank Pacific Institute released a report—Impacts of California’s Drought: Hydroelectric Generation 2015 Update—earlier this month that contains significant false and misleading information that could negatively impact California rivers and delay the transition away from dirty energy.
First, the report and the news stories surrounding it repeatedly say that hydroelectric power is “less expensive” in California than competing sources. This statement gives credence to the anti-environmental mindset of discounting the negative impacts that dams and reservoirs have on free-flowing rivers, and disregards the externalized costs to the environment. In fact, the report omits the devastating impacts hydropower has on fish, wildlife, wetlands and countless other species that depend on healthy flowing rivers for survival. If the report would have included an “environmental full-cost accounting,” the cost of hydropower for California consumers would have been shown to be huge.
On a hot summer afternoon, California farmer Chris Hurd barrels down a country road through the Central Valley city of Firebaugh, his dog Frank riding in the truck bed. He lurches to a stop in front of Oro Loma Elementary School, which was built in the 1950s to accommodate an influx of farmers’ and farmworkers’ children.
“All three of my sons went here,” Hurd says, as we walk through overgrown weeds toward the shuttered building, closed in 2010. “I was on the school board, the grass was green, kids were running around. Now it’s a pile of rubble.”
There is a lawsuit in San Diego County that is as old as “I Love Lucy.” It was filed the same year a disc jockey coined the term “rock ‘n’ roll,” a gallon of gasoline cost 27 cents, and turn signals were still optional in cars.
And it is still being waged in San Diego federal court today.
In 1951, the U.S. government sued thousands of landowners in and around Fallbrook in a move to secure Camp Pendleton’s water rights. It is the oldest, ongoing civil case in the county.
Road safety, government regulations and corruption, high-speed rail, medical marijuana and state-mandated water restrictions were just some of the topics brought up at Sen. Joel Anderson’s community coffee Thursday evening.
The state senator said the money that is being spent on the state’s high-speed rail, which is supposed to run from the Silicon Valley to the Central Valley, would be better spent on new technology for vehicles, road infrastructure or water projects.
The Rainbow Municipal Water District board approved the district’s strategic plan at the Jan. 26 board meeting.
A 3-0 board vote, with Jack Griffiths abstaining and Bob Lucy having resigned prior to the meeting, adopted the strategic plan.
Last Sunday, I had a column that asked what I thought was a simple question: How much more development can our water supplies sustain?
I figured planners must be looking at this issue considering the drought and new groundwater legislation that requires a holistic attitude toward our basin as opposed to the “I got my straw, go get your own” way we’ve always done things.
Nope.
Even with about 58,000 new homes either in some phase of construction or approved to be built in and around Bakersfield, no one is looking at how all that new demand will affect our aquifer.
