Poll: Strong support for state water bond -- and for local water bonds too [San Jose Mercury News]
An
epic drought and wave of wildfires have left California voters thirsty for the
$7.5 billion state water bond on November's ballot -- and also anxious to
approve local bond measures to supply more water, a wide-ranging new poll
finds. Water-POLICY experts are cheered by the overwhelming public concern, but
worry that it could be washed away if heavy rains return this winter. A
whopping 72 percent of likely voters now say water supply is a "big
problem" in their corner of the Golden State, up 11 points from just two
months ago, the Public Policy Institute of California found. And when asked
what's the most important issue facing the state's residents today, 29 percent
of Californians name water and drought, second only to jobs and the economy at
32 percent.
ALTERNATIVE
ENERGY: Sweeping plan seeks to protect desert, streamline development
[Riverside Press-Enterprise]
With
giant windmills rotating behind her Tuesday, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally
Jewell announced a sweeping land-use plan for energy development in California’s
deserts that seemed more like a promise than a strategy. The 8,000-page Desert
Renewable Energy Conservation Plan will do things RIGHT , she said, after years
of controversy over large-scale solar projects consuming vast desert landscapes
that are home to imperiled wildlife and areas sacred to Native Americans. “The
areas that shouldn’t be developed will be set aside,” Jewell told an audience
of dignitaries and reporters under a shade tent at a wind farm just north of
Palm Springs. “And areas that should be developed will have a streamlined
process.”
Jerry
Brown calls for ‘more ambitious’ climate change action at U.N. [Sacramento Bee]
Gov.
Jerry Brown, appealing to world leaders for joint action on climate change,
issued a forceful defense Tuesday of plans to expand California’s cap-and-trade
PROGRAM to vehicle fuels next year. In remarks at a United Nations summit in
New York, Brown held out California as a “hopeful example” of bipartisanship in
the effort to reduce carbon emissions, even as Republicans and some moderate
Democrats criticize Brown in California for regulations they say will increase
the price of fuel. Brown said California will meet its goal of reducing carbon
emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and within six months will set a new goal for
2030 “that will be more ambitious, that will require more TECHNOLOGY and will
also require heightened political will.”
Fracking
debate lands at Monterey County Board of Supervisors [Monterey Herald]
…During
a 3 1/2-hour workshop on developing state regulations and a proposed two-year
moratorium on the procedure in Monterey County, more than 40 people spoke out
on the issue. The workshop was scheduled to allow state Department of
Conservation chief deputy DIRECTOR Jason Marshall a chance to offer an overview
of well stimulation techniques, including fracking, and to outline the state's
plan for regulating fracking under SB 4….Monterey County Farm Bureau executive
DIRECTOR Norm Groot and others noted that fracking is not currently practiced
in the county's oil fields, and is not likely to be due to the area's geology,
making a moratorium moot.
Fueled
by drought, California experiences a particularly bad season for West Nile
virus [Washington Post]
There
are now at least 311 human cases of the West Nile VIRUS in California,
according to the state's resource on the mosquito-spread infection. That's more
than twice as many cases as there were last year at this time, and more than
triple the five-year average in the state. Twelve of those infected with West
Nile in the state have since died. As it turns out, the historic drought
plaguing California could be a major contributor to the increase. Although it
might seem that mosquitoes, which depend on water to breed, would suffer when
there's less water on the ground, the opposite is true under the RIGHT
conditions. Droughts, along with warm weather, can produce the conditions
necessary for an abundance of the insects.
Officials
planning wetlands projects at Salton Sea [Palm Springs Desert Sun]
State
and federal officials said Tuesday they are moving ahead with plans to build
wetlands along portions of the dry shorelines of the Salton Sea, aiming to
preserve habitat for fish and birds while also controlling dust. John Laird,
California's Secretary for Natural Resources, said the state is committed to
habitat restoration efforts and intends to put out contracts by the end of the
year for a project along the Salton Sea's southern shore. The $25 million
project, the first phase of a larger habitat restoration effort, would create a
wetland by covering a stretch of 600-800 acres of exposed lakebed with water
from the New River. "It was designed to be a pilot PROGRAM to show how it
would work and how it would be done," Laird told The Desert Sun while
attending the launch of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan at a wind
farm in North Palm Springs.
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