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San Francisco, Agricultural Interests Band Together For Water Rights Fight

/in , /by /Redding Record Searchlightby Mike Wade

“The judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in Elimra, New York in 1907. That quote exemplifies the reason that five irrigation districts on tributaries to the San Joaquin River as well as the city of San Francisco filed lawsuits recently against the State Water Resources Control Board. They are defending their water rights. In December, ahead of the Water Board hearing, Governor Brown and Governor-elect Newsom both asked the Water Board to hold off and let the districts, the State, and the federal government finalize the voluntary agreements.

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Arbiter Sides With Tribes In Contract Dispute With San Diego County Water Authority

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Teri Figueroa Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

An arbiter has sided with five local tribes in a dispute over what county water officials argued was a request that left them with an unexpected $2.1 million budget deficit after the tribes won back lost water rights. At issue was a one-time loss to the San Diego County Water Authority in 2017. The dispute arose after the federal government restored water rights to the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority, which represents the tribes, that year. Shortly after winning back water rights, the tribes submitted a request to the county water authorities that would essentially allow them to start collecting money on those water rights.

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Water Rights Permits Issued for Conjunctive Use Project

/in , /by /Village News (Fallbrook)by Joe Naiman

The State Water Resources Control Board issued updated water rights permits and an updated license which finalizes that part of the Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project. The three permits and the license were issued Nov. 20. “It’s a big accomplishment to finally have the underlying permits and water rights for the project,” said Fallbrook Public Utility District general manager Jack Bebee. The Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project being pursued by FPUD, Camp Pendleton and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will enhance groundwater recharge and recovery capability within the lower Santa Margarita River basin and develop a program which will increase available water supplies for FPUD and Camp Pendleton.

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Farm Bureau President Says Water Rights Will Be Priority In 2019

/in , /by /The Daily Democrat (Woodland, California)by Jim Smith

For months, the Santa Clara Valley Water District has been preparing for its annual flood awareness campaign. Our multi-language poster full of flood safety tips is hitting mailboxes in areas located in or near flood-prone zones. You may hear or see our new flood awareness ads, with the theme “Climate Changed.” The timing of this message could not be more fitting. The newly released Fourth National Climate Assessment shows that the effects of climate change are already being felt all over the country, including more frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-related events.

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Denham Is Desperate To Stop A California Water Plan. Nothing Has Worked – Yet

/in , /by /McClatchy DC Bureauby Kate Irby

Rep. Jeff Denham, one of the nation’s most vulnerable Republicans, is trying desperately to shut down a state water plan that’s widely disliked in his district. But nothing has worked so far. One thing could: Yet another lawsuit between the Department of Justice and the state of California over the issue. Denham first tried to include a provision in a congressional budget bill in July that would prevent a federal reservoir, called New Melones, from using federal dollars to participate in the plan, which would direct greater amounts of water out of his district’s water resources and into the ocean, purportedly to help salmon populations.

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Water From The Mojave Desert – One Company’s Plan

/in , /by /Fox Newsby Douglas Kennedy and Rebecca Kesten

They say you can’t get water from a stone, but one man says he can solve California’s water crisis with water from the desert. Scott Slater is the CEO of Cadiz, a California company that owns 45,000 acres in the Mojave, one of the driest places on earth. He says that a few hundred feet beneath the ground surface lies an enormous watershed the size of Rhode Island, about 1300 square miles. He is proposing taking hundreds of trillions of gallons of desert ground water a year and piping it over a hundred miles to the populated suburbs around Los Angeles.

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OPINION: In Response: Water Cost Story Missed Key Points

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Mark Muir Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Re “County water move has its costs” (July 1): The San Diego Union-Tribune addressed an important regional question on whether the San Diego County Water Authority’s decades-long strategy to create a reliable portfolio of water supplies is worth the cost. Unfortunately, the story omitted clear-cut evidence that the region’s supply reliability strategy is an unqualified success: Our independent water supplies from the Colorado River are both less expensive and more reliable than supplies from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which have been cut twice in the past decade by drought.

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How Splitting California Into 3 Could Hurt The Water System

/in , /by /Malibu Patchby Hoa Quách

An effort to split California into three states may be a good idea to some voters, but it could hurt the region’s complex water system. The Sacramento Bee reported dividing the water system might not be possible. “California has spent more than a century crafting one of the world’s most elaborate — and interdependent — networks for storing, allocating and delivering its water,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Billions of dollars have been poured into reservoirs, pumping stations and aqueducts, mostly to move water from the rainy north to the arid and densely populated south.”

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Can A Truce Hold Off Another Water Rebellion?

/in , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler

The last time water was this scarce in the Klamath Basin, a rugged agricultural area straddling the California-Oregon border, farmers clashed with U.S. marshals and opened locked canal gates with blowtorches so they could irrigate. Nearly 10,000 agriculture activists from around the U.S. later converged on the region to hold symbolic “bucket brigade” protests. Months of unrest ended after then-Vice President Dick Cheney personally intervened and worked behind the scenes to have water delivered to the growers – a decision that tribal fishing communities downstream blamed for killing 68,000 salmon in the fall of 2002.

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