Appellate court upholds environmental work for high-speed rail via Pacheco Pass [Fresno Bee]
State
appeals justices on Thursday upheld a lower court's approval of an
environmental impact report that selected the Pacheco Pass between Gilroy and
Los Banos as the preferred corridor for high-speed trains between the Bay Area
and the San Joaquin Valley. The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento
heard the appeal by the Bay Area town of Atherton and the city of Palo Alto.
The two communities were challenging a 2012 ruling by Sacramento County
Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny to approve the California High-Speed Rail
Authority's environmental impact report for the Bay Area-to-San Joaquin Valley
section of the proposed statewide rail network. The rail agency adopted its
first "program-level" environmental report in 2008, outlining general
corridors for the bullet-train system that is intended to someday connect San
Francisco and Los Angeles through the San Joaquin Valley, as well as future
phases to Sacramento and San Diego. More specific and detailed routes were to
be studied in later "project level" environmental impact reports.
That first program-level report identified the Pacheco Pass as the preferred
corridor alternative instead of the Altamont Pass.
Colorado
River Basin drying up faster than previously thought [Washington Post]
Seven
Western states that rely on the Colorado River Basin for valuable water are
drawing more heavily from groundwater supplies than previously believed, a new
study finds, the latest indication that an historic drought is threatening the
region’s future access to water. In the past nine years, the basin — which
covers Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California —
has lost about 65 cubic kilometers of fresh water, nearly double the volume of
the country’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead. That figure surprised the study’s
authors, who used data from a NASA weather satellite to investigate groundwater
supplies. About two-thirds of the water lost over the past nine years came from
underground water supplies, rather than surface water. “We were shocked to see
how much water was actually depleted underground,” Stephanie Castle, a water
specialist at the University of California at Irvine and lead author of the
report, said in an interview.
Drought
starting to kill salmon in Klamath Basin [Associated Press]
Low
warm water conditions from the drought are starting to kill salmon in Northern
California's Klamath Basin — the site of a massive fish kill in 2002. A recent
survey of 90 miles of the Salmon River on found 55 dead adult salmon and more
dead juveniles than would be expected this time of year, Sara Borok, an
environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife,
said Thursday. About 700 live fish were counted in cool pools fed by springs.
Fisheries officials do not want see a repeat of 2002, when an estimated 60,000
adult salmon died in low warm water, but she said there is little to do but
pray for rain.
Local
producers starting to receive farm bill payments [Eureka Times-Standard]
Dean
Hunt looked out over the cattle grazing in the pastures of his farm nestled in
the Arcata Bottom as he talked about the impacts the drought has had on the
business, including the rising cost of feed and the number of cattle available
for purchase. Hunt, the owner of A.N. Hunt & Sons, is one of the nearly 200
local farmers, ranchers and producers that has received part of the nearly $1.5
million paid out by the Humboldt County Farm Service Agency – the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's local branch – for federal disaster relief
assistance under the farm bill. "With the drought, there's not as much
feed available because there's not a lot of water," Hunt said. "The
severity of the drought hasn't been as bad on the bottoms-type of ground as it
is when you get up into the mountains. We do have mountain ranches that we've
had to downsize."
Imperial
Valley farmers discuss the minimum wage hike [Imperial Valley Press]
Not
only will California’s recent minimum wage hike make the state’s agriculture
industry less competitive with other regions, it’s unlikely to reduce a claimed
ag labor shortage, according local farmers. “It’s not going to help the labor
force one iota,” said Steve Scaroni, a Heber-based labor contractor and farmer.
“Paying more money will not bring more workers in. It’s a job that U.S.
citizens don’t want to do at any rate,” he added. California increased its
minimum wage from $8 per hour to $9 per hour effective July 1. It is set to
raise it to $10 in 2015. Farmers already pay their workers more than the state
minimum wage, Scaroni said.
Commentary: Gov. Brown takes a
back seat on immigration reform [Sacramento Bee]
A
year ago, Jerry Brown seemed determined to link his political identity and
destiny to that of America’s immigrant community. California’s governor stated
that he expected to “play a role” in national immigration reform. Last October,
Brown signed a slate of bills that included granting driver’s licenses to
immigrants even if they lack legal status, prohibiting local law enforcement
from detaining immigrants longer than necessary for minor crimes and allowing
illegal immigrants to be licensed as lawyers. That was then, this is now.
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