Innovative Ideas

Overview April 24, 2014

Innovative Ideas

Aquafornia news January 18, 2019 L.A. Daily News

Opinion: California’s proposed water tax: Gavin Newsom’s trickle down economics

California’s new governor looked at the rainfall and saw millions of dollars in uncollected water taxes going right down the drain. In one of his first moves as chief executive, Newsom declared that he wants to tax the state’s drinking water, in order to give poor people access to safe and affordable water. I guess this is his idea of trickle-down economics.

Aquafornia news January 17, 2019 Science Daily

Study: Idled farmland presents habitat restoration opportunities in San Joaquin Desert

Most of the native habitat in California’s San Joaquin Desert has been converted to row crops and orchards, leaving 35 threatened or endangered species confined to isolated patches of habitat. A significant portion of that farmland, however, is likely to be retired in the coming decades due to groundwater overdraft, soil salinity, and climate change. A new study … found that restoration of fallowed farmland could play a crucial role in habitat protection and restoration strategies for the blunt-nosed leopard lizard and other endangered species.

Aquafornia news January 17, 2019 San Francisco Chronicle

Opinion: Newsom’s picks for environmental protection and water chiefs will reveal his priorities

Far less settled is how Newsom will fill his administration’s most important positions regarding state water policy. One of Newsom’s key tests confronts him immediate: State Water Resources Control Board Chair Felicia Marcus’ term expires this week.

Aquafornia news January 17, 2019 California Department of Fish and Wildlife

News release: CDFW releases guidance document for Delta conservation planning

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) today released the Delta Conservation Framework as a comprehensive resource and guide for conservation planning in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta through 2050. The framework provides a template for regional and stakeholder-led approaches to restoring ecosystem functions to the Delta landscape.

Aquafornia news January 17, 2019 UC Davis

Blog: Finding shovel-ready solutions for carbon sequestration

An ambitious new multicampus, multipartner consortium led by the University of California, Davis, and the UC Working Lands Innovation Center is taking on that challenge with the goal of finding ways to capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide and bring net carbon emissions in California to zero by 2045. The consortium has received a three-year, $4.7 million grant from the state of California’s Strategic Growth Council to research scalable methods of using soil amendments — rock, compost and biochar — to sequester greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in soil.

Aquafornia news January 16, 2019 Association of California Water Agencies

Blog: Gov. Newsom unveils $144 billion budget

The budget specifically calls out funding for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water. It discusses the need to find a stable funding source for long-term operation and maintenance of drinking water systems in disadvantaged communities, stating that existing loan and grant programs are limited to capital improvements.

Aquafornia news January 16, 2019 Water Finance & Management

Santa Monica announces water system upgrades via design-build

Arcadis has announced it will partner with Kiewit Infrastructure West and PERC Water to serve as the progressive design-build team for the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Project (SWIP) in the City of Santa Monica, Calif. Currently, the city partially relies on imported water to meet its water needs. This project will allow the city to take a major step toward water independence, supporting existing programs designed to create a sustainable water supply

Aquafornia news January 16, 2019 California Department of Water Resources

News release: McCormack-Williamson Tract project aims to protect people and wildlife

The McCormack-Williamson Tract restoration project, a 1,500 acre site, lowers the levees on the north side of the island to allow the river to overtop into the site. On the south side, DWR will alleviate the surge flows that pose a risk to neighbors by opening small holes in the levee. 2018 saw the completion of construction of a levee to protect existing infrastructure on the site, as well as progress on habitat restoration plans. For the next phase, DWR will strengthen the interior levees and take steps toward opening the site up to tidal flows.

Aquafornia news January 16, 2019 Water Finance & Management

Nasdaq launches California water pricing index

Nasdaq, along with Veles Water and WestWater Research, has announced the launch of the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index (NQH2O), the first of its kind water index that benchmarks the price of water in a way that supports price discovery and enables the creation of a tradable financial instrument.

Aquafornia news January 16, 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office

Report: Bureau of Reclamation water reuse grant program is managed consistently with federal regulations

A Bureau of Reclamation program awards grants to water districts and other project sponsors seeking to reuse water and add to supplies. From 1992 through 2017, it awarded about $715 million for 46 construction projects and 71 studies. Nearly all of the funding—about $703 million—went for construction projects that recycled water.

Aquafornia news January 15, 2019 CalWatchdog.com

Blog: Despite record budget surplus, Gov. Newsom wants new water, phone taxes

Specific details have not yet emerged on Newsom’s plan, but it’s expected to be similar to a rejected 2018 proposal from state Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, to tax residential customers 95 cents a month to help fund water improvements in rural farming communities in the Central Valley and throughout the state. It would raise about $110 million to get clean water to what the McClatchy News Service estimated last year to be 360,000 people without such access. Others looking at the problem see it as much worse.

Aquafornia news January 14, 2019 WaterOnline.com

Opinion: Building the post-boomer water workforce

A labor crisis has been bearing down on the water industry for some time, so it’s time to prepare for the future. Luckily, some industry trailblazers have charted paths to success.

Aquafornia news January 14, 2019 California WaterBlog

Blog: Shared interest in universal safe drinking water

California’s failure to provide safe, affordable drinking water to the remaining roughly 1% of residents is probably the most solvable and affordable of California’s many difficult water problems. There will always be isolated small systems with vexing problems, but the number of Californians currently without access to safe affordable drinking water is embarrassing and irresponsibly high.

Aquafornia news January 14, 2019 Space.com

Where Is the Water on Mars? Scientists and Explorers Alike Will Need to Know

There is plenty of water on Mars, but it’s frozen, locked in water-rich minerals, tucked away below the surface — or a combination of those challenges, which is why we still don’t know where it all is. That’s a problem for Rick Davis, assistant director for science and exploration in the planetary science division at NASA, because he is heading the agency’s project to evaluate potential human base sites on the Red Planet.

Aquafornia news January 14, 2019 Modesto Bee

Gavin Newsom visits Stanislaus County to talk safe drinking water

A day after proposing a tax on drinking water, Gov. Gavin Newsom took a “surprise” road trip to meet with Stanislaus County residents in a community known for having unsafe wells. Newsom and his cabinet made their first stop at the Monterey Park Tract in Ceres, where he held a roundtable discussion with people who for years had to use bottled water for drinking and cooking because their community’s two wells were long-contaminated with nitrates and arsenic.

Related articles

Modesto Bee: Opinion: Gov. Newsom delivers a message: We’re in this together.

Manteca Bulletin: Opinion: In office less than a week & governor wants to tax your drinking water

Aquafornia news January 11, 2019 Sonoma West Times & News

Coho salmon recovery programs seek help from local landowners

A coalition of groups interested in salmon recovery — California Sea Grant’s Russian River Salmon and Steelhead Monitoring Program (CSG), Russian River Coho Salmon Captive Broodstock Program and Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District (RCD) — are working together and with local landowners to see if unexplored areas of these local watersheds might hold the key to the recovery of native coho salmon populations.

Aquafornia news January 11, 2019 Daily Democrat

Congressman reintroduces bill to establish ‘Delta Heritage Area’

Congressman John Garamendi, D-3rd District, has reintroduced the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area Act along with a handful of other representatives. A National Heritage Area designation would authorize $10 million in federal funding over 15 years to provide matching grants to local governments, historical societies, and community nonprofit organizations throughout the Delta.

Aquafornia news January 11, 2019 Environmental Health News

Scientists are using bacteria to remove harmful contaminants from our water

John Coates’ laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley … is growing many different kinds of bacteria, multiplying in petri dishes at mind-boggling rates. But these bacteria aren’t out to harm people or animals. In fact, quite the opposite — they’re hard at work breaking down a dangerous chemical that pollutes waterways across the United States.

Aquafornia news January 11, 2019 The Sacramento Bee

Newsom proposal wants to tax drinking water

Tackling what promises to be a controversial issue, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a tax on drinking water Thursday to help disadvantaged communities clean up contaminated water systems. Newsom’s plan for a “safe and affordable drinking water fund,” included in the new governor’s first budget proposal, attempts to revive an idea that died in the Legislature last year.

Aquafornia news January 10, 2019 Maven's Notebook

Jeff Mount: Ecosystem water budgets are a novel approach to managing water for the environment

Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California, spoke recently about managing freshwater systems with ecosystem water budgets. “I will argue that drought, because of the way we have modified this system, is the major bottleneck ecologically,” he said. “Step 1 has to be thinking about drought: how to mitigate drought and how to deal with drought – that is plan for, respond to, and recover from drought. We don’t do that at all, even though we just had this big drought.”

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