Water policy in California is missing a north star. Think of the last time you started on a difficult journey without a plan for where you wanted to end up. Seems silly right, how could you possibly succeed if you don’t know where you are headed?
Two years ago, Cape Town, South Africa, a city of 4 million people, informed its shocked citizens that the city was just a few months away from running out of water due to drought. It was a wake-up call for all of us to become much better stewards of our own water. Luckily, for Cape Towners, innovative water conservation and efficiency measures, smarter data use, expanded water storage, and help from Mother Nature all combined to help them avoid a major water shutoff.
Four elected officials representing area water districts expressed frustration with state laws aimed at water conservation during an American Liberty Forum of Ramona informational meeting Saturday, June 27.
Roughly 50 attendees gathered at Ramona Mainstage to hear the “Water Regulations Today and Tomorrow” presenters discuss the pending impacts of Senate Bill 606 and Assembly Bill 1668, which were signed into law by former Gov. Jerry Brown in May 2018.
The state had been wrestling with the problem for 15 years, and there were hopes it was about to get pinned to the mat. A decade and a half of meetings, lawyerly and political negotiations, and massive public input had led the State Water Resources Control Board to the brink of a momentous decision: California must leave a lot more water in its rivers and streams in order to save the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.
Re “California water war re-ignited”; Dan Walters, April 20, 2020, CalMatters
Dan Walters’ column does a good job describing a potential water battle that all Californians should want to avoid.
The COVID-19 pandemic has rendered uncertain many things we used to take for granted. When can we next go to a restaurant, plan a vacation or go to a baseball game? We can’t afford to add to that list, “will there be food at the grocery store?” Our food supply has been one of the few things we’ve been able to count on in recent months and we need that to continue.
We are stunned by the suggestion that yet another water lawsuit will help anyone. Conflict has dominated California water policy at least as far back as the coining of the phrase “whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.”
And what have decades of endless lawsuits accomplished?
California water policy leaders say balancing the supply of groundwater by implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA, and addressing policies related to water supply and water quality, will continue to be priority issues in 2020.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein waded into California’s water wars as a peacemaker Thursday morning.
In a letter, the six-term Democrat urged Gov. Gavin Newsom and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to work together to develop consistent standards for water projects in California.
California regulators are teaming up with the United Nations to develop “sustainable insurance” guidelines that would help address climate-change-related disasters such as coastal flooding and larger wildfires — the first such partnership of its kind between the international organization and a U.S. state, officials announced Tuesday. After a roundtable discussion at UCLA with lawmakers, state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced that his agency would work with officials from the U.N. Principles for Sustainable Insurance Initiative over the next year to develop a plan to confront California’s climate risks, which are manifold.
After rushing forward on a plan to send more water to California’s Central Valley, the Trump Administration has unexpectedly hit the brakes and ordered the work already done by federal scientists to be completed by a different team. Just days before federal biologists were set to release new rules governing the future of endangered salmon and drinking water for two-thirds of Californians, the administration replaced them with an almost entirely new group of lawyers, administrators and biologists to “refine” and “improve” the rules, according to an email obtained by KQED.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
