California drought: Winter storms finally starting to boost storage levels in key reservoirs [San Jose Mercury News]
After
three years of relentlessly bad news about California's historic drought, the
drenching storm that barreled in Thursday from Hawaii finally delivered the
state some desperately needed good news. One storm does not end a drought as
severe as this one, meteorologists and water managers emphasized again
Thursday. But this storm and last week's milder one have done something very
important: They have saturated the parched ground across Northern California so
much that rainfall is finally starting to fill up the state's dangerously low
reservoirs as it runs down streams, rivers and hillsides….Now, with a
near-perfect start to the 2014-15 rainy season, the state needs to repeat the
pattern over and over again until March or April, scientists said Thursday.
With fed water bill
under the bridge, D.C. legislators look toward 2015 strategy [Fresno Bee]
California
lawmakers’ failure to pass water legislation this Congress raises questions
about strategy, tactics and the ability to learn from falling short. It also
sets the stage for next year when the whole anti-drought drama returns for an
encore. On Thursday night, the House was expected to conclude its work for the
113th Congress by approving a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill that funds
federal government agencies for nine months. The must-pass bill does not
include the California water language sought by some lawmakers and opposed by
others….The omnibus package, and the Senate’s related unwillingness to take up
a separate House-passed California water bill, leaves up to the state’s
lawmakers the job of explaining to their drought-weary constituents why little
happened this year. Expect finger-pointing, at first.
Opinion: Once again, water
plan stalemated [Sacramento Bee]
As
the most severe winter storm in at least a half-decade bore down on California
on Tuesday, 3,000 miles away in Washington, the House voted, largely along
party lines, for a California drought relief bill….It was, in effect,
Washington’s version of California’s internal – and eternal – battle that
predates the drought by decades: How much Northern California water should flow
southward to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California cities?...It
implies that the stalemate in Washington is not so much over temporarily easing
restrictions on water exports due to drought as it is over whether the federal
government will participate in the twin tunnels project, and the construction
of more water storage facilities, as Brown also wants.
Farmers’ courtroom poke
at Hetch Hetchy Project moved to California [Fresno Bee]
California
farmers suddenly care about preserving water supplies for endangered smelt,
salmon and sturgeon, at least as a way to jab at San Francisco’s own water use.
In a lawsuit filed last August, a farmer-associated group called the Center for
Environmental Science, Accuracy & Responsibility argues that the Hetch
Hetchy Project is endangering the endangered species, by diverting water from
the Tuolumne River….On Wednesday, a Washington, D.C.-based federal judge agreed
with the Obama administration that the case should be transferred to the
Eastern District of California. “While decision-makers may be located in
Washington D.C.,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote, “the decisions
themselves concern a government project that affects the diversion of water
flows in rivers in California.”
Farmers take unified
approach to combat insect, protect crops [Moorpark Acorn]
Citrus
orchards are under serious threat in eastern Ventura County. The appearance of
a flying insect, the Asian citrus psyllid, has rallied farmers in the Heritage
Valley, an agricultural area that includes Fillmore, Santa Paula and
Piru….Ellen Craig, the county’s agricultural deputy commissioner, said the
farmers must pay for the treatment themselves….About 100 anxious farmers met at
the Ventura County Farm Bureau in Oxnard on Dec. 5. Farm bureau officials
introduced a plan to destroy the psyllid with a broad chemical treatment. Some
of the farmers complained that paying thousands of dollars for the treatment
could put them out of business….Farm bureau officials said the pest eradication
will employ tractors pulling spraying equipment as well as helicopter spraying.
The approach is designed to attack the pests on a large scale in one
coordinated effort.
After a long battle,
Drake's Bay Oyster Co. packs it in [Los Angeles Times]
It's
the end of the line for Drake's Bay Oyster Co. On Dec. 31, after a long battle
with the National Park Service, the California Coastal Commission, the
Department of the Interior and wilderness advocates, owner Kevin Lunny and his
family will vacate the starkly beautiful Drake's Estero, a 2,500-acre estuary
where some of the tastiest oysters on the West Coast have been farmed for more
than half a century. A 40-year lease agreement between the feds and the oyster
farm's original owners has expired. Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar could
have extended the lease for a decade, which was allowed by 2009 legislation
that Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein sponsored. But in 2011, Salazar —
fearing a policy precedent — decided that wilderness and oyster farming were
mutually exclusive….In some ways, Drake's Bay Oyster Co. is a casualty of
hardening attitudes about human intrusion into wilderness.
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