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California Senate Leader Puts 100% Renewable Energy On The Table In New Legislation

It wasn’t just talk — Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) is proposing legislation that would require California to generate all of its electricity from renewable sources. The measure, SB 584, was introduced without fanfare before last week’s deadline for new proposals in the Capitol. If approved, 100% of the state’s electricity would need to come from clean sources such as solar and wind by 2045. De León first suggested the idea in a conversation with The Times last month.

Hit By Worst Floods In A Century, San Jose Got Little Warning Of Impending Disaster

Over the last two weeks, heavy rains pushed water levels at Santa Clara County’s largest reservoir into the danger zone, with officials warning it could overflow. That happened over the weekend, sending massive amounts of water into the Coyote Creek, which runs through the heart of San Jose. By Tuesday, the creek was overflowing at numerous locations, inundating neighborhoods, flooding hundreds of homes and forcing the frantic evacuations of more than 14,000 residents, who remained out of their homes Wednesday.

President Trump Promised California Farmers He Would ‘Start Opening Up The Water.’ Can He?

Last May, Donald Trump stood in an arena full of farmers from California’s desiccated Central Valley and said words many yearned to hear: “If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water.” The audience, waving FARMERS FOR TRUMP signs, hollered their approval. “I just met with a lot of the farmers,” he said. “They have farms up here and they don’t get water. I said, ‘Oh, that’s too bad. Is it a drought?’ ‘No, we have plenty of water.’ I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Well, we shove it out to sea.’ And I said ‘Why?’”

Powerful Storms Continue To Batter Northern California Amid Concern About Levees

An “atmospheric river” continued to batter parts of Northern California on Tuesday, causing widespread flooding. The heavy rains prompted the National Weather Service to warn of a dam failure outside Carson City, Nev., saying that it was “not a drill” and that residents should “move to higher ground now.” But less than 90 minutes after issuing the alert, the agency changed its report to say the retention basin in Dayton, Nev., had not failed. Instead, it was full and overflowing into drainage areas, the weather service said.

Inland Lakes Swell With Rainfall

Last weekend’s storm provided another healthful dose of water to area lakes from Lake Hemet to Big Bear, but probably none received a greater benefit than Lake Elsinore. Southern California’s largest natural freshwater lake — which depends primarily on water overflowing Canyon Lake’s dam upstream — has risen more to 1,240 feet above sea level — eight feet higher than in early September when it was at its lowest point in more than 20 years.

 

Levee System Battered By Record Rainfall From ‘Atmospheric River’

As the latest major storm to saturate California got in its final licks Tuesday, the state deployed all the weapons in its flood-control arsenal — including farm tractors, pontoon boats and controlled releases from mountain reservoirs. By nightfall, as the storm weakened over Northern California, it appeared that the region — so far — had successfully navigated its way through another “atmospheric river,” as meteorologists now call the intense, Pacific-born storm systems once known as the Pineapple Express.

Powerful Storms Continue to Batter Northern California Amid Concern About Levees

An “atmospheric river” continued to batter parts of Northern California on Tuesday, causing widespread flooding. The heavy rains prompted the National Weather Service to warn of a dam failure outside Carson City, Nev., saying that it was “not a drill” and that residents should “move to higher ground now.” But less than 90 minutes after issuing the alert, the agency changed its report to say the retention basin in Dayton, Nev., had not failed. Instead, it was full and overflowing into drainage areas, the weather service said.

LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl Announces Stormwater Fee Framework At VX2017

At VerdeXchange 2017, Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl announced her plans to introduce a motion to develop a countywide funding measure for stormwater capture and management. In a powerful regional stormwater collaboration VX2017 panel, which also included Felicia Marcus, Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board; Robert Garcia, Mayor of Long Beach; Jeff Kightlinger, GM of Metropolitan Water District; and Matt Petersen, Chief Sustainability Officer for City of Los Angeles, Sup. Kuehl announced her intension to fund pertinent regional water infrastructure through a parcel fee on property owners. TPR presents an excerpt of the panel.

SoCal Dries Out Following Deadly Storm

Waterlogged Northern California will get more heavy rainfall into Wednesday, renewing fears about flooding in the region. The new onslaught of rain comes as Southern California dries out following downpours that left five people dead. A flood warning is in effect for Northern California’s interior counties through Thursday. Storms started overnight Saturday, with two to four inches of rain expected by Wednesday, CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar said. Some areas may get up to 10 inches and the driving rain could drastically reduce visibility, Chinchar warned.

OPINION: Ignored Oroville Warning Raises Big Quake, Levee Questions: Thomas Elias

Just because nature allows a delay of many years while officials dither over a catastrophe in the making doesn’t make that disaster any easier to handle when it finally strikes. This is one major lesson of the Oroville Dam spillway crisis that saw the sudden evacuation of almost 200,000 persons from their homes when the dam’s emergency spillway crumbled under the force of millions of gallons of fast-moving water. Warnings of precisely this sort of crisis at Lake Oroville were submitted to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission during a 2005 relicensing process, almost 12 years before those predictions came true.