Wednesday, February 12, 2014

News articles and links from February 12, 2014


Water Supply 

From: Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, on Tuesday presented a Senate committee with a proposal to place a scaled-down, $6.9 billion water bond on the November ballot. She asserted the one now scheduled to go before voters this fall is too bloated and controversial to pass.

Coalition response...State Sen. Fran Pavley's thoughts on substituting new water storage construction with an effort to dredge silt from existing reservoirs sounds reasonable but more things need to be considered before a final decision is made. In her comparison to the storage capacity of a potential Sites Reservoir, it is important to also consider the benefits to the Bay Delta in terms of water quality and flexibility in managing flows through the estuary. New storage is important for California for a variety of reasons, not all of which can be met by increasing the volume of existing reservoirs by a little bit here and there.

Water Supply

From: Staff, Your Central Valley   

Lawmakers introduce yet another bill to bring water to thirsty Californians, but will an agreement ever be reached? It's the second proposed drought relief bill in the last week, and the ongoing fight to aid an historic drought is just ahead of President Obama's historic visit to Fresno this Friday.

From: Dave Bryan, KCAL 9   

Southern California's largest supplier of water, the Metropolitan Water District, which provides water for 19 million people, declared a "Water Supply Alert" Tuesday in light of California's historic drought. "I think there are things we can do as far as the timing of any deliveries that we might get from Northern California," Metropolitan Water District's Bob Muir said. "Backing off (on water usage) until later in the year, and making that water available to other parts of the state; primarily agriculture."

From: Jim Carlton and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal
(A subscription may be required for this article)     

California's drought is becoming a hot issue on Capitol Hill, where bills from Senate Democrats and House Republicans offer rival solutions on how to best aid water-starved farmers.

Transfers

From: Garth Stapley, Modesto Bee

The Modesto Irrigation District will explore creating a program to pay farmers for not irrigating, freeing up some water to be offered at a premium price to others with crops suffering in the drought. The price would be the same on both ends and would amount to a water transfer brokered by the MID, something staff initially did not want to do.

Technology 

From: Chris Nichols, SD Union-Tribune

California's water conservation push hit the highways on Tuesday when Caltrans posted the message "Serious Drought. Help Save Water" on its 700 electronic signs across the Golden State.

No comments:

Post a Comment