Water

I believe that Ms. Boxall, veteran LA Times water reporter, has asked the wrong question in this article and for that reason got some irrelevant answers. Butter wouldn't melt in the mouth of some of the bigshots she interviewed. They might sing a different tune with a different president.

The question ought to have been: Is this why Gov. Newsom vetoed SB1, the legislative bill to restore pre-Trump standards to federal environmental law and regulation in California?

We’ve read extensively about California state Senate Bill 1, an approach to resisting Trump and Bernhardt’s gutting of the federal Endangered Species Act, other environmental acts and their enforcement by federal resource agencies. Not that the federal government has ever been good at enforcing the environmental laws Congress passed, regardless of which party was in power.

Today the immediate concern seems to be algae bloom in rivers and lakes, which can turn into "red tides" in the Gulf of Mexico and can kill animals. Thirty-five years ago in the Merced County it was the water pollution at the US Fish & Wildlife Kesterson Wildlife Refuge causing the deaths and deformations of newborn birds, amphibians and humans, and causing cancer. Although this is happening from Vermont to California, the cause is the same, runoff from agricultural fields.

So much for populations growth in the "sunbelt," and when the very same people who have promoted the development of the "sunbelt" for the last 40 years pretend to find "balanced solutions" (or whatever their flaws come up with as the sophistry of the moment), you should be highly skeptical. -- blj

Access to water

8-6-19

The Guardian

US states face water crisis as global heating increases strain on supplies

Attorney General Xavier Becerra said raising the dam was bad for the environment.

“The court has stopped Westlands Water District from moving forward with a project that would hurt the people and environment in our state,” Becerra said in a news release.

 “Maybe others believe they’re above the law and can get away with it. But, in California, we’re prepared to prove otherwise,” he said. – Arthur, Redding Searchlight, Aug. 1. 2019

8-1-19

Redding Searchlight

Judge orders Westlands to stop work on Shasta Dam raise

Good for Gov. Newsom, state senators Caballero, Monning, Hurtado, Assemblyman Bloom, Dolores Huerta, and the Fresno-based Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. In a year like this it is terrific news to see that anything decent is being done for farmworkers. --blj

 

Tombstone Territory, about one mile south of Sanger, is a four-block rural community with nearly 40 homes, all on domestic wells.

But, how do you build a water bank under ground?

LeZotte said Santa Clara is sensitive to farmers’ apprehensions about groundwater getting moved.

A sentiment worthy of UC Merced. -- blj

5-29-19

Sacramento Bee

Thirsty Silicon Valley water agency might buy a Central Valley farm. Why agriculture is worried.

By Dale Kasler

There’s help for the Bloomingcamp Ranch right here in Merced City, where Safeway has been tapping into our tap water for years and bottling it for sale. We also have a local developer down here who is expert is constructing pipelines apparently to nowhere. So he can certainly build one from Merced City to the outskirts of Oakdale, so customers of Bloomingcamp can have confidence in the ranches water source. From Ranchwood to Bloomingcamp, ranch-to-camp, so to speak.

Among the many damaging contradictions that plague California society is its agriculture, which regularly, exports irrigated crops while pretending to develop sustainable groundwater plans and grabbing every acre-foot of surface water from every river it can, with contempt for the habitat of species it endangers and destroys. From farmworkers paid to carry signs at public meetings demanding more water to save jobs, to bank loan officers and hedge-fund rainmakers, no one involved with California agriculture can tell the truth about water. Most don’t know it, and those that do lie.

As agencies call a pause to the California Water War, the combatants look like a frieze of ancient Greek soldiers carved on a temple wall.