Please Note: The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here, and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
California voters on Tuesday rejected a water bond for the first time in almost 30 years, disregarding pleas from its backers that the money would fix crumbling infrastructure, bring clean drinking water to disadvantaged communities and kick-start badly needed environmental restoration projects.
The Klamath Tribes have dismissed a pending lawsuit against a federal agency over several endangered fish species in the Upper Klamath Lake, but the tribes maintain the agency’s actions have brought the fish close to extinction.
Climate troublemaker El Niño has an 80 percent chance of developing this winter, federal scientists announced Thursday. “The official forecast favors the formation of a weak El Niño,” NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said in its monthly forecast. The center gives it an 80 percent chance of continuing through the winter.
Scientists have developed a new tool that could help conservation agencies make a tough decision: How to prioritize the growing number of endangered species. Faced with limited funding, conservation managers face the conundrum of how to allocate inadequate resources to recover as many species as possible. That’s why a team of scientists and researchers from Arizona State University, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, developed the data tool, called Recovery Explorer.
A lawsuit by a group of young Americans, which asserts the U.S. government is harming them by having created a national energy system that causes climate change, is on hold again after a federal appeals court Thursday granted the Trump administration’s motion for a temporary stay. … The young plaintiffs also accuse the government of failing to protect natural resources as a “public trust” for future generations.
Joseph Riofrio is one Mendota resident who’s frustrated with the limited news coverage. … Riofrio pulls out a flyer the city sends to residents along with the water bill. It’s called “The Mendota Journal.”
Citing concerns about possible pension liability, Larkspur officials this week took the first step toward severing the city’s membership in the Central Marin Sanitation Agency, a wastewater organization it helped form in the late 1970s.
Fishing regulators are collecting the final comments from the public before deciding whether New England’s shrimp fishery should remain closed for another year. Scientists and environmentalists have portrayed the shrimp fishery as a victim of climate change, as the warming temperature of the Gulf of Maine has made the shrimp’s habitat inhospitable.
Thursday’s decision does not permanently block a federal permit for Keystone XL. It requires the administration to conduct a more complete review of potential adverse impacts related to climate change, cultural resources and endangered species. The court basically ordered a do-over.
Anticipation has built steadily in recent weeks over the upcoming release of “On a River Winding Home — Stories and Visions of the Petaluma River Watershed,” the meticulously researched and gorgeously photographed collaboration between Petaluma-based photographer Scott Hess and award-winning author and historian John Sheehy.
Don’t ask us to feel sorry for the people who want to act as arbiters of our fate. When members of the State Water Resources Control Board failed to deliver a “victory” for Bay Area environmentalists Wednesday, their anguish was palpable. Any sympathy for a million lives possibly uprooted or ruined in the Northern San Joaquin Valley was, well, not apparent.
Rivers are life. They flow through the heart of the communities that surround them, providing food, jobs, transportation, energy and, of course, water. Environmental occurrences and human interference such as severe weather, pollution or overfishing all threaten rivers and, subsequently, the people who rely on them.
The California Supreme Court begins its landmark 1983 Mono Lake decision with these powerful words: “The public trust is an affirmation of the duty of the state to protect the people’s common heritage of streams, lakes, marshlands and tidelands…” … The focal point of the [Defense Trust] weekend was the presentation of the Defender of the Trust Award, which celebrates individuals who champion Mono Lake and advocate for the public trust. This year’s recipient was hydrologist and hydrogeographer Peter Vorster.
It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our partner and friend, Russell Behrens, on Nov. 2. He was 82. “Russ was an amazing human being and a fantastic lawyer,” said Best Best & Krieger LLP Partner Alisha Winterswyk, a friend and colleague in the firm’s Irvine office and in the Environmental Law & Natural Resources practice group. … “When Russ joined BB&K in 2012 he had already been practicing for more than 50 years, but he brought us some key clients and stayed active for several years while transitioning them,” said Managing Partner Eric Garner.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman announced today [Nov. 8] that Reclamation has selected 58 projects to receive $3.7 million for small-scale water efficiency projects in 16 western states. The funding from Reclamation is being leveraged to support more than $8.2 million in improvements throughout the West. The projects funded with these grants include installation of flow measurement devices and automation technology, canal lining or piping to address seepage, municipal meter upgrades, and other projects to conserve water.
Under pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, state regulators once again postponed a vote on a contentious plan to force San Francisco and several big San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts to give up some of their water supplies for environmental protection. On the eve of Wednesday’s scheduled vote, Brown and the man who will succeed him next year, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, asked for a month’s delay and promised to get involved in ongoing settlement negotiations.
California voters rejected borrowing nearly $9 billion for water infrastructure improvement projects despite the state suffering from chronic water scarcity. Proposition 3 lost Tuesday by a narrow margin of less than 3 percentage points. The initiative called for devoting the money to storage and dam repairs, watershed and fisheries improvements, and habitat protection and restoration.
Department of Interior official Alan Mikkelsen — who spent the week in Klamath Falls and Medford — said he will return to the Basin next month to continue water talks, but that he has no plans to reach out to the Klamath Tribes based on their last interaction. Mikkelsen, senior adviser to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke on water and western resources, said he’s met with a group of stakeholders at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Medford on Monday for what he calls a “coalition of the willing.”
AGENDA FOR DEC. 5 ‘WATER YEAR 2019: FEAST OR FAMINE’ WORKSHOP NOW ONLINE
Tomorrow’s weather forecast may be spot on, but can we ever get accurate precipitation forecasts weeks to months in advance? At Water Year 2019: Feast or Famine, a one-day workshop Dec. 5 in Irvine, scientists from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Western Regional Climate Center and the California Department of Water Resources will offer insights into the latest research on improving long-range weather forecasting and what it means for water management.
