Sites Reservoir: A long time in coming, a long way to go [Chico Enterprise-Record]
This
month, another step forward was taken for plans to build Sites Reservoir near
Maxwell. Congressmen John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, and Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale,
have introduced federal legislation to authorize and complete the feasibility
study for the proposed new water storage. One could call the progress slow and
steady, understanding that the timeline is decades. State water leaders have
been talking about the location for water storage since the 1960s, and local
water districts have been working to gather support for the past dozen years.
The state Department of Water Resources received the go-ahead to study water
storage north of the delta in 1996, and more funding was approved every several
years since then.
Imperial Valley
fallowing program retooled [Palm Springs Desert Sun]
A
program that pays Imperial Valley landowners to leave portions of their
farmland fallow has been changed by the Imperial Irrigation District, which
decided to extend a portion of those payments to tenant farmers who previously
received no compensation. The IID board approved the new fallowing program at a
meeting in El Centro on Tuesday. Under the new program, which begins July 1,
landowners will receive 80 percent of the proceeds for fallowing farmland,
while tenant farmers will receive 20 percent. Previously, landowners had
received all of the money through the program. The change comes after
complaints by tenant farmers, who say they’ve been losing land they would
otherwise rent to the higher amounts paid by the agency through the farmland
fallowing program.
Commentary: Bill Jones: Gov. Brown must step up big on drought
[Fresno Bee]
…The
lesson we need to heed comes from those parts of the state that are best able
to cope with this year's drought. These areas leapt ahead of the impasse at the
state and built local storage on their own. Storage is part of their solution.
It's working. The rest of the state needs this relief as well. Rather than more
planning and talks, other direct actions are needed now….The governor says he
can't make it rain, and no one expects him to. But we do expect him to
prioritize and choose wisely….After a quarter century of inaction and missed
opportunities, now is the time to act so that our state does not live on the
razor's edge of supply, year after year, for the one basic resource on which we
all rely ... water.
The water revolution
California needs [Los Angeles Times]
This
year's drought has thrown California into a sudden tizzy, a crisis of snowpack
measurements, fish-versus-people arguments and controversial cuts in water
deliveries. But in reality, crisis is the permanent state of water affairs in
the Golden State — by design, because our institutions keep it that way….The
primary response of the governor and state agencies has been to demand more
subsidized mega-projects, while failing to fundamentally reform a flawed and
failing system. Instead, California ought to learn from the experience of
Australia, the driest continent on Earth, with a broadly similar economy,
climate and, until recently, a similarly balkanized and economically irrational
water management system. Faced with a 12-year-long drought, which brought fatal
brush fires to its cities and devastation to its agricultural communities,
Australia's state and federal governments agreed in 2007 to manage their water
"in the national interest rather than on jurisdictional or sectoral based
views," in the words of the federal environment minister.
High-speed rail faces
skeptical lawmaker, foreshadows coming Capitol fight [Sacramento Business
Journal]
In
a snapshot of a coming legislative debate that could prove fatal for the bullet
train, the chair of a Senate transportation committee pressed the California
High-Speed Rail Authority on Thursday on how the agency intended to come up
with necessary funding to keep the project viable. “You couldn’t get a business
loan for a small business based on what we’re assuming here,” said state Sen.
Mark DeSaulnier, a Democrat from Concord who chairs the Senate Committee on
Transportation and Housing.…The authority is relying on two high-risk bets in
order to stay operable. First, the
agency hopes to win an appeal on a November ruling from a Sacramento Superior
Court judge that ruled the authority violated the statewide voter initiative in
2008 that authorized state bonds for the rail project. Second, the authority
must convince the Legislature to support a plan by Gov. Jerry Brown that would
direct $250 million a year from the state’s controversial cap-and-trade
emissions control program into the train project.
Review: 'Cesar
Chavez' captures only the shell of the complicated man [Los Angeles Times]
Cesar
Chavez, the man who became the face of disenfranchised California farmworkers,
was many things: courageous, controversial, quietly charismatic, politically
astute, singular in his focus. "Cesar Chavez" the movie, starring
Michael Peña as the Mexican American activist and America Ferrera as his wife,
Helen, could use more of those qualities….The conflict with the growers was his
mission and becomes the organic centerpiece of the film….Though most of the
film is pulled from the pages of history, the lead grower and chief adversary,
Bogdanovich (John Malkovich), is a fictional character. He is also the most
believable of the group; the others are caricatures of angry white men. A
Croatian immigrant, Bogdanovich is more concerned with protecting the business
he has built than the workers' plight. In Malkovich's hands, he is implacable
and unbending, but not a monster.
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