The San Jerardo housing cooperative in Salinas is home to 60 farm workers and their families. I am its general manager.
The people in my housing cooperative breathe pesticides when neighboring fields are sprayed. When agricultural practices harm wildlife, we see the change in our backyards. The people of San Jerardo also have a stake in moving toward more sustainable agricultural practices.
The boards of the Rainbow Municipal Water District and the Fallbrook Public Utilities District have each adopted resolutions of application to detach from the San Diego County Water Authority.
The City of San Diego’s Public Utilities Department last week took a major step toward completing an innovative project to improve water quality in Lake Hodges. A newly installed oxygenation system, designed by city engineers, will introduce highly oxygenated water to the bottom of the reservoir to reduce the accumulation of excess nutrients and harmful algae growth.
A rather quiet gathering of those who control the most precious resource in the West happened on the Strip last week.
It was the annual Colorado River Water Users Association Conference.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday called for more federal money and oversight to shore up the nation’s aging dams following an Associated Press investigation that found scores of potentially troubling dams located near homes and communities across the country.
My personal and professional lives collided in the middle of the night at the end of October when my neighbor pounded on our front door.
Had we received the warnings of the growing Getty fire? We hadn’t. Our neighbor shouted that mandatory evacuations had been issued for much of our Pacific Palisades community in Los Angeles.
San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District did not have to look far to find its new General Manager. At its Board Meeting on Tuesday, December 17, 2019, after a statewide search for the best candidate to lead the regional water resource agency, Valley District’s Board of Directors announced the selection of Heather Dyer as its new General Manager.
The heavy management of river systems in California is causing a compression in the migration timing of Chinook salmon to the point that they crowd their habitats. As a result, they might miss the best window for entering the ocean to grow into adults. Currently, less than 3% of wetland habitat remains in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
In a landmark win for the Central Valley, Representative Josh Harder (CA-10) recently announced that $14 million in investments has been secured for Central Valley and regional water projects in the bipartisan year-end funding deal. Harder has been pushing these projects both publicly and privately during House deliberation earlier this year and during the drafting of the final deal this month. These projects were also included and supported in Rep. Harder’s SAVE Water Resources Act. The bill is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law this week.
The House voted to pass a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package on Tuesday, which includes $14 million in investments for Central Valley and regional water projects.
The spending legislation would forestall a government shutdown this weekend and give President Donald Trump steady funding for his U.S.-Mexico border fence. The year-end package is anchored by a $1.4 trillion spending measure that ends a months-long battle over spending priorities.
