Ordinance
is a needed timeout for groundwater basin, stakeholders agree [San Luis Obispo
Tribune]
…Tuesday’s
landmark decision by the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors to impose
emergency land-use restrictions to protect the Paso Robles groundwater basin
begins the lengthy and complicated process of finding a permanent solution to
the North County’s dwindling aquifers. Stakeholders on both sides of the issue
said the ordinance provides a needed timeout on new pumping from the basin. A
permanent solution will be the establishment of a water management district
that can fairly and equitably allocate the basin’s limited supply of water.…The
emergency ordinance prohibits any new pumping from the basin unless it is
offset by conservation or by stopping an equal amount of pumping from elsewhere
in the basin in a 1-to-1 ratio. In other words, if a vintner wants to plant 30
acres of new grapes, he will have to stop irrigating 30 acres of grapes
elsewhere in the basin so there is no net increase in groundwater pumping.
Growers
aim to protect groundwater [Salinas Californian]
Tuesday
night presentation on one of the three key desalination projects moving forward
on the Monterey Peninsula highlights what all the proposals’ proponents
understand: They must pass muster with agriculture concerns in the Salinas
Valley. A couple of dozen growers and agri-business representatives listened to
a presentation Tuesday night at Braga Ranch in Soledad advocating for the
People’s Moss Landing Desalination Project, which, along with DeepWater Desal
and California American Water Co.’s Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project, is
vying for the right to supply Peninsula residents and businesses with water once
court-ordered cutbacks in pumping from the Carmel River go into effect in 2017.
What concerns growers is the potential for a final project to affect
groundwater in the Salinas Valley Basin. Nader Agha, the managing partner and
owner of the 200-acre Moss Landing Green Commercial Park LLC, which would be
the site of the People’s Desal Project, told the assembled crowd that in
addition to having much of the infrastructure already in place, the project is
“not touching the Salinas Valley aquifer.”
Supervisors
push hard for new dams [Hanford Sentinel]
Don’t
expect an ounce of support for the 2014 water bond if it doesn’t include
funding for a new reservoir in California. That was the message Kings County
supervisors communicated Tuesday as they called on the Legislature to pass an
$8.2 billion water bond….Kings supervisors want a continuous appropriation of
$3 billion for new dams, which would allow at least one new reservoir to be
built, such as Temperance Flat above Millerton Lake….Kings also wants $2.25
billion in Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta improvements.…The $3 billion and
$2.25 billion amounts were from the bond’s original 2009 formula.
Sacramento
judge tentatively says state can auction air quality credits in California
[Sacramento Bee]
California’s
cap-and-trade carbon auctions are within the authority of the state Air
Resources Board under a 7-year-old law aimed at addressing global warming, a
Sacramento judge has tentatively ruled. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy
M. Frawley ruled Assembly Bill 32 gave the Air Resources Board discretion to
decide whether to adopt a cap-and-trade program and design the method for
distributing pollution allowances….Frawley stopped short of deciding whether
the estimated multibillion-dollar program constitutes an illegal tax. The judge
heard arguments Wednesday from attorneys for the Pacific Legal Foundation and
the California Chamber of Commerce, which filed similar lawsuits earlier this
year and last fall as the carbon program was kicking into gear….Hadzi-Antich,
in detailing the case of Woodland-based Morning Star Co., a tomato-processing
facility that emits carbon dioxide, said there wasn’t a viable trading market
last fall.
Groups
take shots at Gaviota Coast Plan [Santa Maria Times]
Despite
years of preparation of the first draft of the Gaviota Coast Plan, and a series
of meetings this year by the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission to review
the draft document, it seems there are a lot of people from a variety of
backgrounds that aren’t happy with the idea of the community plan.…Members of
the agricultural community said the plan could kill the farming and ranching it
aims to protect, and lawyers from environmental groups urged the commission to
discourage oil and energy projects and limit building in the plan area to the
size of a large home….Second District Commissioner Cecilia Brown said she
worried about applying urban standards, typical of a community plan, to a
rural, mostly agricultural region….Paul van Leer, who is on the agricultural
advisory committee to the GavPAC, and former county supervisor and Santa Ynez
Valley rancher Willy Chamberlin agreed with Brown and said the plan is placing
limits on ag operations on hillsides and regulating the size of ag structures
which could kill farming and ranching operations along the Gaviota Coast.
Safe
strawberry group asks school board candidates To Support Fumigant-Free Future
[Monterey County Weekly]
School
board candidates are likely to debate school funding and class sizes this
election season. Anti-pesticide activists are hoping they also talk about
fumigants. School boards don’t regulate fumigants, but that’s where activists
in the Safe Strawberry Working Group believe they can get leverage. Next month,
the group plans to finalize a draft resolution urging Gov. Jerry Brown and the
California Department of Pesticide Regulation to phase out fumigants by 2020 –
and to ask candidates to pledge their support for such a resolution if they get
elected. “There’s a little more leverage when people are running for election,”
working group member Gary Karnes says.
Ag
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