State projects 10 percent of full water deliveries [Palm Springs Desert Sun]
State
officials announced Monday that with the drought persisting, water agencies can
expect only 10 percent of their full allotted amounts of water next year
through the canals and pipelines of the State Water Project. The initial
allocation set by the California Department of Water Resources was up from the
5 percent of full water deliveries that Southern California agencies received
in 2014. Mark Cowin, the department’s director, said in a statement that
projections in the extended forecast “give us hope that we will return this
winter to normal or above-normal precipitation levels after three years of
drought.”…The Department of Water Resources can revise its initial allocation
depending on the weather in the coming months.
Rain
brings hopes, fears to drought-hit California [Associated Press]
A
Pacific storm moved into drought-stricken California on Tuesday, bringing
much-needed moisture but triggering traffic accidents and fears of mudflows on
wildfire-scarred hillsides….Storm watches were issued for a large swath of the
Sierra Nevada, where a huge amount of the state's water supply is normally
stored as snowpack. Significant accumulations were predicted but not enough to
be a drought buster….The back-to-back storms are helping some cities in
northwest California reach normal rainfall amounts for the year, or even
better, but the reservoirs and Sierra snowpack that provide much of the state's
water remain far short of what they should be after three years of intense
drought. The state Department of Water Resources reported the Sierra snowpack,
which counts most for the state's water supply, was at 24 percent of normal for
this time of year.
Thirsty
for a lot more [Marysville Appeal-Democrat]
It's
becoming a tired refrain, but it bears repeating: No, the recent rain storms do
not mean the drought is over. In fact, those storms weren't even enough to
bring the total amount of November precipitation to the historical average and
barely affected the levels of local reservoirs….Camp Far West in Yuba County
picked up only about 300 acre-feet of water from the weekend rain, said Brad
Arnold, general manager of the South Sutter Water District. An acre foot is
326,000 gallons. Currently, the reservoir has only 6,000 acre feet of water— a
mere 6 percent of its capacity of 93,000 acre-feet….It was a similar story at
Collins Lake, which supplies water to Browns Valley Irrigation District
customers. The lake level increased only a tenth of a foot.
Patterson,
Vidak look to blunt cap-and-trade plan that likely will raise gas prices
[Fresno Bee]
A
controversial plan to lower greenhouse gases could raise the cost of gasoline
in California — starting Jan. 1. The big question is how much….Fearing the
worst, two central San Joaquin Valley Republican legislators on Monday
introduced legislation that would kill the plan, which will add transportation
fuels to the state’s cap-and-trade program. But in the Democratic-dominated
state Legislature, the bills are given little chance of success. Even a more
modest proposal earlier this year by Assembly Member Henry T. Perea, a Fresno
Democrat, failed — and it had the support of 17 Democrats. Perea’s bill would
have delayed by three years putting transportation fuels under the
cap-and-trade program. Perea this year is trying again with a new bill to
address the long-term effect that the gas tax will have.
Republicans
try to balance immigration action while avoiding a shutdown [New York Times]
Congressional Republicans returning to
Washington on Monday found themselves facing a treacherous 10 days as they try
to balance their desire to fight President Obama’s executive action on
immigration with the political imperative not to shut down the government.
Congress must pass a broad spending bill before Dec. 11 to prevent a government
shutdown. But Mr. Obama’s executive action last month, which could allow up to
five million people now in the country illegally to live and work without
threat of deportation, has inflamed Republicans and complicated their
calculation over what
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