Flooding in recent years provides a reminder of how important it is to invest in California’s flood infrastructure. The Central Valley Tributaries Program provides Proposition 1 funding for multi-benefit flood risk reduction projects on tributaries to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Funded projects will address Central Valley flood risk for urban and small communities, enhance ecosystems, and improve fish and wildlife habitat. The program is currently soliciting grant proposals, which are due February 12, 2019.
A state board on Wednesday approved a contentious proposal to boost water flows through a Central California river, a move that would increase habitat for salmon but deliver less water to farmers and cities such as San Francisco. The plan under consideration by the Water Resources Control Board would alter management of the Lower San Joaquin River and three tributaries to address what environmental groups say is a crisis in the delta that empties into San Francisco Bay.
As all eyes turn to the State Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday, the board won’t have complete settlement agreements with Modesto-area irrigation districts to consider at a crucial meeting. At most, the districts and negotiators with the state Natural Resources Agency will have the basic framework of an agreement that’s an alternative to a state plan for river flows that is fiercely opposed by water users and local agencies in Stanislaus County.
Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Elect Gavin Newsom exhibited exceptional leadership Nov. 6 by engaging in the process for the update of the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan. They suggested time be provided to allow ongoing negotiations of voluntary agreements to progress as a path forward in resolving challenges within the Bay-Delta. While the state and nation were understandably consumed by election news, a letter by Brown and Newsom urged the State Water Resources Control Board, which met the following day, to postpone taking up the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan Update until this week, on Dec. 12.
A crucial certification needed to build two tunnels that officials believe would help solve California’s water delivery problems was withdrawn Friday, ensuring that Gov. Jerry Brown’s pet water project won’t be approved before he leaves office in January.
Merced County sweet potato farmer Stan Silva hadn’t even heard the word “nutria” until a few months ago. He’s still never seen one, but he’s worried about the damage these 20-pound rodents with big orange buck teeth could do in California if they’re not eradicated. “It would be devastating,” Silva says. “They can basically ruin the ag industry here — they get in your fields, burrow into your canal ways, your waterways.” They can also tear up crops and levees, making the state’s water infrastructure more vulnerable.
California’s most senior Democrat and most powerful Republican in Washington are teaming up to extend a federal law designed to deliver more Northern California water south, despite the objections of some of the state’s environmentalists. While controversial, the language in their proposal could help settle the contentious negotiations currently underway in Sacramento on Delta water flows — the lifeblood of California agriculture as well as endangered salmon and smelt.
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, offered The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board his view of California’s plumbing system last week.
If Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers want voters to weigh in this year on a multibillion-dollar water bond – a big if – they will need to compromise on what may seem like an arcane point: Who controls the money earmarked for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta?
The federal District Court in Fresno denied a legal effort by Chico’s AquAlliance and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance to stop water transfers this year.
San Joaquin County supervisors agreed Tuesday to oppose Gov. Jerry Brown’s twin tunnels project – for the second time – and to send nearly 100 pages of highly critical comments to state and federal officials.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed twin tunnels “will effectively destroy the Delta as it exists today,” and will forever alter San Joaquin County’s economy, county officials warn in a new report.
Agencies from San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties to NASA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture formed an invasive-weed task force seeking holistic, more comprehensive solutions to free the Delta from its oppressors.
Seventy-plus years later, [Whitey] Rasmussen is still tying his own feathered flies and crafting his own lures, still using them to catch his own trophy fish, and still telling some great stories in a way that only an ex-Navy man can. But Rasmussen is more than a storyteller.
Stockton can continue to pump water from the Delta this summer, ensuring that its new $220-million drinking-water plant — funded by ratepayers —won’t be standing idle.
The California Supreme Court has agreed to decide an epic battle over whether the state must condemn and acquire parcels on tens of thousands of acres of private property to conduct preliminary testing for Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to construct two large water-conveyance tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The lone state agency to oppose Gov. Jerry Brown’s twin tunnels plan warns that the project could force marinas out of business and take a big bite out of Delta agriculture.
With the governor’s controversial Delta tunnel project a key part of the debate, lawmakers on Monday failed to advance a leading Senate proposal to put a revised water bond on the November ballot.
