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Opinion: How ‘Cutting Green Tape’ Can Make California More Resilient

/in , /by /CalMattersby Ashley Boren

California is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots – home to more unique species of plants and animals than any other state in the U.S. This biodiversity makes up the beautiful land and seascapes of the world’s fifth-largest economy and sustains our health, cultures and quality of life.

Yet it is disappearing at alarming rates. Today’s environmental, economic and social challenges – climate change, wildfires, habitat loss and the millions of Californians facing pandemic-related unemployment – threaten our Golden State’s resilience like never before.

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Opinion: Drought Threat Should Trigger Water Conservation Now

/in , /by /The Mercury News

California shouldn’t wait another day to implement water conservation measures to counteract the likelihood of drought this year. The state Department of Water Resources reported Tuesday that the Sierra Nevada snowpack was just 61% of it historical average for this date. “Absent a series of strong storms in March or April, we are going to end with a critically dry year on the heels of last year’s dry conditions,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the state DWR.

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Opinion: As Another Dry Year Looms in California, Key Steps Will Make a Resilient Water Future

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Jim Costa and John Garamendi

On issues ranging from climate policy to immigration and health care, the past four years have been full of discord between California and Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, water users throughout California have not escaped the conflict, including in the Central Valley, where our communities have suffered as a result. Now, with drought conditions returning and the impacts of climate change intensifying, it is time to advance a solution for statewide water policy that will transition us from an era of conflict to one of collaboration.

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Opinion: Utah’s Designs on Colorado River Water Would Ignore the Facts and Evade the Law

/in , , /by /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Claire Geddes
Utah House Bill 297 is a dangerous spending bill that provides its benefactors with exemptions to conflict-of-interest laws that raises serious moral questions about what is happening at the Utah Legislature. The bill creates another heavily-funded and secretive government agency — the Colorado River Authority — that would receive an initial $9 million, plus $600,000 per year thereafter, in addition to collecting unknown sums of money from other agencies.
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Opinion: California’s Climate Change Future is Being Written – in its Waterways

/in , /by /The Sun (Central Valley)by Wayne Western

Much like COVID-19 is changing our election practices and day-to-day business operations, climate change could change your water rights, according to the State Water Resources Control Board.

In the past, I have eluded to the shift from historical facts used for analysis and forecasting to a fear-based guessing game that allows an unelected bureaucracy backed by a one-party-rule elected body to usurp your property rights.

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Opinion: California Needs a More Flexible Approach for Planning for Sea Level Rise Across the State

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Robert Lempert, David Behar

The state of California has changed its sea level rise guidance for state agencies and coastal communities, now advising in new “Principles for Aligned State Action” that Californians employ a single sea level rise target — plan for 3.5 feet by 2050 — as opposed to the more flexible approach the state used in the past. But this single sea level rise number does not represent the best available science and could make California less resilient to climate change.

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Opinion: To Counter the Worsening Drought, California Needs Healthy Soils

/in , /by /CalMattersby Ellie Cohen, Torri Estrada

California is in the early stages of a severe multi-decadal drought, exacerbated by the climate crisis. As Dan Walters pointed out in his recent commentary, we must move quickly to prepare for water shortages and wildfires.

A potent strategy to improve the state’s water storage capacity involves an ancient technology so ubiquitous that it is often overlooked: soil. The urgency of California’s drought and wildfire risks require that we invest in soil health now.

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Opinion: If More Colorado River Water Flows to Queen Creek Now, that Could Start World War III

/in , /by /AZ Centralby Joanna Allhands

Comedian Ron White once joked that we should have two levels of national security warnings: Find a helmet and put on a helmet. If such a system were in place for controversies, Arizona’s water community would now be in the “put on a helmet” stage.

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Opinion: Lasting Colorado River Solutions Come from Main Street, Not Wall Street

/in , , /by /The Daily Sentinel (Colorado)by Dan Keppen, Scott Yates, Taylor Hawes

Sensational headlines, like those speculating that Wall Street will make billions off the Colorado River or that West Slope farmers should pack it in now, certainly attracts readers. Unfortunately, these articles wholly fail to convey the reality of the water challenges facing the Colorado River Basin.

As representatives of irrigated agriculture and conservation organizations, we deal with these issues every day. Often times, we do so through working partnerships with each other. Increasingly, we find these relationships are necessary to ensure that farms and ranches thrive and that rivers continue to support fish, wildlife, and recreation.

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Opinion: Water Markets Critical to Managing Scarcity

/in , , /by /OC Registerby Will Rinehart

As COVID started to spread, farmers and large cities in Southern California were hit with another blindside last March. Fires, drought, and the planting season drove up the price of California’s water market, over 220 percent in just three months. Crops failed and pastures were lost.

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