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California Moves Closer To Crafting Specific Water Caps For Urban Districts

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

California cities and towns may find themselves on a water budget in the next decade under a pair of bills approved Thursday by the legislature. The measures follow Gov. Jerry Brown’s call to make water conservation a permanent way of life in a state long accustomed to jewel-green lawns and suburban tracts studded with swimming pools. More than a year of legislative negotiations reflected the enduring conflicts over state and local control. Though the bills establish a framework to end excessive urban water use, the proposals were substantially weakened by a series of amendments sought by water districts.

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As Salinity Grows And Toxic Dust Spreads, Patience Wears Thin At Salton Sea

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Louis Sahagun

Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia watched with ill-disguised frustration as a hearing aimed at expediting state projects to restore habitat and control dust storms at the shrinking Salton Sea instead dissolved into discussion of why the efforts were falling further behind schedule. “We have a plan, we have money, there is additional money lined up, and we have a constituency — myself included — that is running out of patience,” Garcia (D-Coachella), chairman of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife, said.

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This Zombie Dam Project Underscores California’s Dilemma Over Water

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Michael Hiltzik

Despite what you may have gleaned from television and the movies, zombies aren’t always constituted of flesh and blood. Sometimes they come in concrete and rock. Exhibit A is a $3-billion dam proposal on the San Joaquin River known as Temperance Flat. The project’s beneficiaries, chiefly growers in the San Joaquin Valley, have struggled for years to justify its construction. Its critics say they’ve done so by exaggerating the probable water yield from the dam and reservoir while understating its negative impact on the region’s ecology and cultural and recreational environmental impacts, and overstating its recreational resources.

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A Former Lawn Sets The Stage For A Wildflower Super Bloom In Woodland Hills

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Lisa Boone

California’s super bloom hasn’t materialized the way it did last spring, but that hasn’t stopped Woodland Hills homeowners Ron Gales and Andrea Fields from enjoying a spectacular wildflower bloom of their own. Walking up to the house in springtime, it’s hard to believe the landscape was “an ugly lawn filled with weeds” when they purchased the home in 2009.

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Shrinking Glaciers, Bigger Fires And Hotter Nights: How Climate Change Is Altering California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Tony Barboza and Joe Fox

California may be a leader in the fight against climate change, but the state is increasingly hard hit by symptoms of the unrelenting rise of greenhouse gases, a new state assessment finds. As global warming accelerates, California is getting hotter and drier. Trees and animals are moving to higher ground. Air conditioning is an increasing necessity. More winter precipitation is falling as rain and there’s less spring snowmelt to satisfy the water demands of farms and cities.

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Gov. Jerry Brown Warns That Delta Tunnels Project Could Be Jeopardized If Momentum Is Not Maintained

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Patrick McGreevy

Gov. Jerry Brown warned local water agency officials throughout California on Thursday that unless the delta tunnels project gets needed state and federal permits soon and continues advancing, the major infrastructure project may not happen in their lifetime. Brown issued the warning Thursday in a speech to more than 1,000 water experts and officials whom he urged to support the project at a conference of the Assn. of California Water Agencies.

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Gov. Brown Pitches Nearly $100 Million In Spending To Prevent Wildfires

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Liam Dillon

Gov. Jerry Brown plans to add $96 million to next year’s spending plan to address threats of wildfires and climate change. Brown made the announcement in an executive order issued Thursday. Among other changes, the state will double the land currently managed for vegetation thinning, controlled burns and reforestation from 250,000 acres to 500,000 acres, boost education programs for landowners on forest fires and expand grants to improve watersheds.

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EPA’s Move To Fast-Track Orange County Groundwater Cleanup Questioned

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Tony Barboza and Louis Sahagun

When a contaminated aquifer in Orange County made U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s list of top-priority sites for “immediate, intense action,” the local water district was quick to highlight the announcement. But questions of political favoritism are swirling over Pruitt’s decision in December to prioritize cleaning the Orange County North Basin groundwater pollution plume beneath Anaheim and Fullerton using the federal Superfund program. Newly disclosed records show the action occurred soon after a meeting between Pruitt, the Orange County Water District and its lawyers that was arranged by conservative radio and television host Hugh Hewitt.

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Separating Water And Politics Isn’t Easy In California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

The 2014 water bond included a novel funding approach designed to take at least some of the politicking out of deciding which projects get public money. This week’s tortured deliberations by the California Water Commission showed just how tough it is to do that. By applying a complex procedure for grading proposals, the bond restricted state taxpayer spending to the pieces of a project that would provide measurable benefits to the public.

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OPINION: Recharging Groundwater Reserves, Not Building New Reservoirs, Is Key To California’s Water Future

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

To the editor: Your editorial, “California is dammed enough already,” raises some important points about improving our water future. The state faces a chronic problem that will only get worse with climate change: depleted groundwater supplies. Groundwater is the lifeline communities and farmers turn to in drought. The good news is there’s an untapped solution under our feet called groundwater recharge, which is much cheaper than building new surface reservoirs, has few environmental hurdles and can be implemented relatively quickly. There’s also three times more water storage capacity underground than in all of California’s surface reservoirs combined.

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