A new California Biodiversity Collaborative will help determine how to carry out an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom aimed at conserving 30% of California’s land and marine areas by 2030—and agricultural organizations said they would participate to assure the collaborative recognizes stewardship efforts carried out on the state’s farms and ranches.
The order raises more questions about the administration’s agenda when it comes to pesticides and freshwater flows for threatened fish species.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently released his Water Resilience Plan, a platform of 142 proposals gathered from state agencies to manage and improve California’s water future.
The big ticket items are two infrastructure projects: the Delta conveyance tunnel and Sites Reservoir, alongside the Sacramento River.
Touting ways to shield California’s most precious resource from climate change, Governor Gavin Newsom released strategies Tuesday to improve drinking water quality, revive a stalled multibillion-dollar tunnel and build new dams.
Amid the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide uprisings for racial justice, California’s promise to fulfill the human right to water has never been more clear or urgent.
A year ago this month, the state legislature, led by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia and Senator Bill Monning, passed and Governor Newsom signed the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund (SB 200) into law, the result of years of frontline community organizing and advocacy.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed into law the key provisions of a new state budget, a spending plan that seeks to erase a historic deficit while preserving service levels for schools, healthcare and social services.
The pandemic-induced recession has come at a critical time for water planning in the state. The governor’s administration in January pitched ambitious proposals to help fund the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and cushion its impacts on farmers and local communities. In the May Revision of the budget proposal, however, all but one funding allocation from an earlier proposition have been withdrawn.
As you have probably heard, initial 2020 water allocations have been announced by the Bureau of Reclamation for Central Valley Project contractors.
For agriculture, north-of-Delta is currently allocated 50 percent of their contract while south-of-Delta ag users will receive is 15 percent.
Friant Class 1 users initial allocation is 20 percent while Class 2 is zero. Wildlife refuges will receive 100% while the San Joaquin Restoration Program will receive just under 71,000 acre-feet of water.
Other allocations cover senior water right holders and municipal and industrial uses.
It’s critical to note that reservoir levels and snowpack are not great but are also nowhere near the terrible levels of 2014 and 2015.
The beating heart of California’s massive system of capturing, storing and distributing water is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Water flows into the West’s largest estuary from the Sacramento, San Joaquin and several lesser rivers that drain the state’s mountain chains on its northern and eastern edges. While most of the water continues into the Pacific Ocean, giant pumps on the southern edge of the Delta suck much of it into canals supplying San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities as far south as San Diego.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law new legislation to further prevent the exposure of harmful chemicals and sewage into the Tijuana River Valley.
