Water Bond
From: Staff, Associated Press
Details of the $7.5 billion water
package approved by the Legislature Wednesday for the November ballot (the
total repayment cost is projected to be $14.7 billion over 30 years, assuming a
5 percent interest rate on the borrowing):
$2.7 billion for water storage
projects, with criteria that are designed to encourage building the Sites
Reservoir in Colusa County north of Sacramento and Temperance Flat dam
northeast of Fresno.
From: Sharon Bernstein,
Reuters
California Governor Jerry Brown
approved on Wednesday a $7.6 billion plan to improve water supplies in the
drought-stricken state that will be put before voters in November, ending a
year of political wrangling over the measure.
California is in the throes of a
devastating multi-year drought that is expected to cost its economy $2.2
billion in lost crops, jobs and other damages.
From: Staff, CBS 13
Part of California's $7.5 billion
water plan approved by legislators on Wednesday will go into building a
reservoir in Colusa County discussed since the 1950s.
Some neighbors are embracing the
plan to submerge 14,000 acres of rolling hills 20 miles west of Colusa for the
proposed Sites Reservoir. "Revenue, money, water, resources. Bring land
value up. There is a lot of good reasons for it," said Donald Carter.
From: Fenit Nirappil,
Associated Press
Driven to action by the state's
historic drought, California lawmakers on Wednesday voted to place a $7.5
billion water plan before voters in November. The measure marks the largest
investment in decades in the state's water infrastructure and is designed to
build reservoirs, clean up contaminated groundwater and promote water-saving
technologies.
It replaces an existing water
bond that was approved by a previous Legislature but was widely considered too
costly and too bloated with pork-barrel projects to win favor with voters.
From: Staff, Associated Press
California lawmakers on Wednesday
voted to place a $7.5 billion water plan before voters in November, driven to
action by the state's severe and costly drought.
The measure would mark the
largest investment in decades in California's water infrastructure and is
designed to build reservoirs, clean up contaminated groundwater and promote
water-saving technologies.
From: Reid Wilson, Washington
Post
Voters in California will pass
judgement on a massive $7.2 billion water bond package aimed at addressing a
record drought after interest groups came to a last-minute agreement this week.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Tuesday
unveiled a compromise plan that earned support from interest groups ranging
from conservationists to the Chamber of Commerce and agricultural businesses.
Late Wednesday, legislators passed the plan by the required two-thirds vote
after scrambling to meet a legal deadline for this year's election.
From: Melanie Mason, Los
Angeles Times
After months of political
haggling, a ballot measure that will ask voters in November to approve $7.5
billion in borrowing for water projects sailed through the Legislature on
Wednesday.
Soon afterward, flanked by dozens
of lawmakers from both parties, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure, which is
intended to provide funds for new reservoirs, water cleanup and environmental
protection.
From: Melody Gutierrez, San
Francisco Chronicle
California lawmakers voted
Wednesday night to swap out an unpopular $11 billion water bond with one they
hope voters will find more palatable: a scaled-back $7 billion version that
earned widespread bipartisan support. It was promptly signed by Gov. Jerry
Brown.
The smaller water bond will
appear on the November statewide ballot as Proposition 1. Included in the deal
is $2.7 billion for water storage projects, $900 million for groundwater
cleanup and monitoring, $725 million for water recycling and $1.5 billion for watershed
restoration programs.
From: Kevin Riggs, KCRA 3
Anyone who has followed water
politics in California knows it is messy, divisive and often defies compromise.
In view of those dynamics, Wednesday's near-unanimous floor votes to approve a
new November water bond -- 37-0 in the Senate and 77-2 in the Assembly -- mark
an impressive bit of political deal making.
Gov. Jerry Brown has made it
clear he is no fan of additional deep borrowing by the state. But given the
severe drought gripping California, he also recognized the need to push a
comprehensive water bond that would provide relief through short-term fixes
like recycling and treatment as well as longer-term remedies that take the form
of more reservoir storage.
From: Steven Greenhut, San
Diego Union-Tribune
"You know why there are so
many whitefish in the Yellowstone River?" asked Montana-based landscape
artist Russell Chatham, in his 1978 book. "Because the Fish and Game
people have never done anything to help them." I keep that quotation in
mind whenever the government promises to solve a problem, especially a big one
that promises to tame nature.
The very act of legislative
sausage making - that age-old cliché about the ugly nature of lawmaking -
assures that deals to please special interests and appease people with
differing political philosophies and constituencies drives the final result.
Ongoing efforts to craft a drought-related water bond fits that pattern to a
tee.
From: George Skelton, Los
Angeles Times
Five years after producing a
pork-bloated water bond proposal that failed the smell test, the Legislature
has offered up a new serving that's lean and digestible.
Credit mainly Gov. Jerry Brown,
who had the right recipe: smaller portions, light on delta ingredients. The
Legislature passed the bond bill Wednesday night. It doesn't quite fill
everyone's appetite but will do just fine.
Groundwater
From: Adam Herbets, KBAK 29
The state of California uses more
groundwater than any other state in the union, but it's also the only state in
the West that doesn't have any regulations to make sure wells don't run dry.
Agriculture in Kern County is
doing the best it can to produce crops during another year of drought. At
this point, farmers have given up on El Niño bringing through any rain, forcing
them to rely even more on groundwater. "We're panicked," says Beatris
Sanders of the Kern County Farm Bureau. "It's incredibly
vital. We can't live without it. We can't farm without it. We
can't produce food."
Water Supply
From: Staff, Merced Sun-Star
Officials with the Merced
Irrigation District are urging growers to use all their water allocations by
Sept. 15.
The irrigation season will end
when Lake McClure's level drops to 85,000 acre-feet of water. Irrigation water
is measured per acre-foot, which is the amount of water it takes to cover an
acre of land a foot deep, or about 325,900 gallons.
From: Rick Elkins, Porterville
Recorder
For the next 10 days, water will
flow down the Tule River through Porterville and while the amount is not a lot,
it will benefit not only growers in the Terra Bella area, but residents along
the river and eventually the Porter Slough.
The 15-day water run began Aug. 7
and Sean Geivet, manager of the Porterville Irrigation District (PID), said at
the end of the release out of Success Dam the water will be diverted down the
Porter Slough to hopefully help residents along the slough whose wells have
gone dry.
Drought
From: Rich Ibarra, Capital
Public Radio
Farming in California isn't
cheap.
Growers have expenses that
include fuel, fertilizer, and feed, but the biggest cost is labor with one out
of every four dollars spent on human workers. In the Midwest, predominant crops
like corn can be mechanically harvested.
Stockton Grower Marc Marchini
says his asparagus must be picked by hand. "A lot of people are trying to
get away from labor, you know, trying to go to mechanical harvesting,
mechanical pruning, mechanical everything," Marchini says.
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