In California water news this weekend, Most California farm water suppliers are breaking this law. Why doesn’t the state act?; Board of Consultants calls for attention to emergency spillway erosion in latest memo; Solano County Supervisor returns from DC feeling Delta issues are being heard; With rivers running fast and frigid, public urged to use caution; Where Trump has weakened public and scientific input; Nearly 72 billion gallons of water have poured into Lake Tahoe since April 1; and more …
In the news this weekend …
Most California farm water suppliers are breaking this law. Why doesn’t the state act? “The vast majority of California’s water use for human needs goes to agriculture, but most large irrigation districts are breaking a state law intended to show how much farms are actually using. A Sacramento Bee investigation reveals that during California’s epic five-year drought, most of the state’s irrigation districts didn’t comply with a 2007 law that requires them to provide an accounting of how much water they’re delivering directly to farmers. State regulators are largely powerless to stop them, but they don’t seem too bothered by it. They say they’d rather switch to a different form of reporting. … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee here: Most California farm water suppliers are breaking this law. Why doesn’t the state act?
Board of Consultants calls for attention to emergency spillway erosion in latest memo: “The fifth memorandum from the independent board analyzing the Oroville Dam spillways design was released Friday, with recommendations to focus on the security of the emergency spillway foundation and methods of installing roller-compacted concrete. The board said it agreed with most of the proposed design plans again, with a few discrepancies. When water flooded down the emergency spillway Feb. 11, it was not a structure at all, but a ravine with trees, rocks and gravel. The new design calls for a reinforced concrete pathway. ... ” Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record here: Board of Consultants calls for attention to emergency spillway erosion in latest memo
Solano County Supervisor returns from DC feeling Delta issues are being heard: “Skip Thomson and other Delta Counties Coalition members had to finish one of their meetings in a hallway, but the Solano County supervisor came back from Washington, D.C., feeling that their voices on critical issues are being heard. At the center of the two-day trip with Congressional and other agency representatives was Gov. Jerry Brown’s tunnel project, the California Water Fix, but Thomson said all things Delta and water were on the agenda. ... ” Read more from the Daily Republic here: Solano County Supervisor returns from DC feeling Delta issues are being heard
With rivers running fast and frigid, public urged to use caution: “That hefty snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is about to start melting more rapidly, setting the stage for spectacular scenery at Yosemite National Park but also raising concerns about public safety from the mountains to the Delta. After getting off to a slow start over the course of this cool spring, the peak of the snowmelt could come in the next week, state officials project. Meanwhile, the warmest temperatures of the season so far are expected in the coming days, perhaps enticing more people into the water. Think long and hard about it first. … ” Read more from the Stockton Record here: With rivers running fast and frigid, public urged to use caution
Where Trump has weakened public and scientific input: “In the past few weeks, the Trump administration’s attitude toward scientific and public input on government decision-making has become clear: It’s not a priority. Beginning May 8, the Environmental Protection Agency dismissed nine members of its 18-person board of scientific counselors, which is supposed to scrutinize the integrity of the agency’s research. Around the same time, the Interior Department suspended 200 advisory boards, many of which allow citizens to make recommendations on natural resource management. … ” Read more from High Country News here: Where Trump has weakened public and scientific input
In commentary this weekend …
Oroville has a chance to make it right, says the Chico Enterprise-Record: “The Oroville Strong! movement, which gets a formal launch Tuesday night, may be the best chance the community has to get what it rightfully deserves. The state and the people who buy water from the state have regarded Oroville as nothing more than the place where they store their water. Not our water mind you, their water. That’s how they see it. It’s always seemed ludicrous that Oroville is literally surrounded by human-made lakes — Lake Oroville, the Diversion Pool, the Thermalito Forebay and Afterbay — yet the community doesn’t have rights to any of that water. ... ” Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record here: Oroville has a chance to make it right
In regional news and commentary this weekend …
Weed water fight a waste of taxpayers’ money, says Steve Kilgore: He writes, “More than a year ago, the City of Weed and Roseburg Forest Products together signed an agreement guaranteeing the city access to Beaughan Spring water for at least another decade. The City Council approved that agreement in a public meeting, accepting the terms and committing to begin long-delayed work to identify an independent source of water for its residents. Since then, the same people who helped design and approve the water lease have dedicated themselves to undoing the agreement to which they freely consented, spending scarce public resources not on improving the city’s water infrastructure for the future of its citizens, but on lawyers, litigation and a misguided quest to seize private property from its rightful owner: Roseburg Forest Products. ... ” Read more from the Siskiyou Daily News here: Weed water fight a waste of taxpayers’ money
Nearly 72 billion gallons of water have poured into Lake Tahoe since April 1: “After a winter and early spring marked by unrelenting storms, the Sierra Nevada is piled high with snow. Now, as the storms taper off and the temperatures warm up, the snowpack is beginning to melt and runoff into rivers and lakes. One place that’s seeing a huge impact from all the runoff is Lake Tahoe. Since April 1, the start of the snow melt season, 219,600 acre feet —that’s 71,556,879,600 gallons — of water have poured into the lake, according to Chief Deputy Federal Water Master Dave Wathen. … ” Read more from SF Gate here: Nearly 72 billion gallons of water have poured into Lake Tahoe since April 1
Fresno water worse than Flint’s, class claims: “Eight Fresno, California, residents claim their water is contaminated with almost three times more lead found in the Flint, Michigan, crisis, because water from a treatment facility is corroding their pipelines. Northeast Fresno homeowners Jackie Flannery, Guadalupe Meza, Ronda Rafidi, Shann Conner, Marirose Larkin, Patricia Wallace-Rixman, Harry Rixman and Kelly Unruh filed a class action in state court against the city of Fresno, Vulcan Construction & Maintenance, and Measurement Control Systems on May 17, claiming conversion, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and negligence. ... ” Read more from Courthouse News Service here: Fresno water worse than Flint’s, class claims
Ridgecrest: Groundwater Authority approves bylaws, starts committee selection: “Ridgecrest Mayor and IWV Groundwater Authority board member Peggy Breeden noted that the board and the public had spent 33 hours in various meetings across multiple months debating the bylaws. The debates between the board and certain members of the public that took up this time ranged from how the average resident can be certain their grandchildren will have water, to whether or not an arrow should be added on a non-policy mock up graph. … ” Read more from the Ridgecrest Independent here: Groundwater Authority approves bylaws, starts committee selection
Commentary: The ludicrous plan to pump Mojave water to LA: Peter Brooks writes, “In 1992, prospectors in Los Angeles hatched an idea for a new water supply that was improbable and speculative, even by Southern California standards. Far off in the Mojave Desert, beneath the flat dry lake bed of the Cadiz Valley, millennia’s worth of groundwater could be pumped and piped 43 miles to the Colorado River Aqueduct, the crown jewel of the Metropolitan Water District’s massive web of infrastructure. The water then could be sold to any of the 26 member agencies of the MWD. They called this scheme the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, now known as the Cadiz project. It is owned by a publicly listed corporation, Cadiz Inc., which in 25 years has yet to turn a profit. … ” Read more from the LA Times here: The ludicrous plan to pump Mojave water to LA
Column: As political pressure intensifies, the case for a big desalination plant remains cloudy: Michael Hiltzik writes, “You can surmise that a business is running into trouble when it starts lining up political firepower. Consider Poseidon Water, which has been trying for nearly 20 years to win approval for a $1-billion desalination plant on the Huntington Beach coastline. Poseidon, which was acquired in 2015 by the giant Canadian conglomerate Brookfield Asset Management, has never been a skinflint with campaign and lobbying cash. As my colleague Bettina Boxall reported last year, the company has spent $1.6 million since 2000 on those efforts. Among its attorneys in proceedings before state regulators has been Kathleen Brown, Gov. Jerry Brown’s sister. ... ” Read more from the LA Times here: Column: As political pressure intensifies, the case for a big desalination plant remains cloudy
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About the Daily Digest: The Daily Digest is a collection of selected news articles, commentaries and editorials appearing in the mainstream press. Items are generally selected to follow the focus of the Notebook blog. The Daily Digest is published every weekday with a weekend edition posting on Sundays.
Maven’s Notebook
where California water news never goes home for the weekend
