Free Republic

California Republicans are seeing political gold in California's water problems, hoping to steal the issue from Democrats and win support from one of that party's key constituencies - Latinos. GOP leaders have put water atop their agenda for next year's statewide campaigns. They are expanding voter-registration efforts in the drought-stricken Central Valley, where unemployment is high and food banks are busy, and encouraging candidates to reach out to Latino voters hit hard by the recession. The strategy was distilled on a 5-foot-high banner at the Republican voter registration table in front of a Walmart store in Dinuba (Tulare County) in...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers failed to reach final agreement on ways to solve the state's water problems Sunday, but the governor nevertheless released scores of bills after concluding some progress had been made. Schwarzenegger's action reversed a threat last week in which he vowed to kill "a lot" of the 704 bills on his desk unless he and legislators reached an agreement. The governor said progress in closed-door talks was enough so that he is calling a special session on water, and discussions could continue. It was not announced when the session will start. "While we still have a...

A political earthquake is rumbling in the Central Valley over water, and it could cause a real tsunami for the Democrats in the 2010 elections if they don't handle it well.That's the message I'm getting from my Blue Dog Democrat friends in farm country.Rep. Jim Costa, D-Hanford (Kings County), told me unemployment in his district is running at 35 to 45 percent. The once-fruitful federal farm subsides are drying up and so is the water, with people blaming the Democrats on both counts.The perception is that folks like Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and environmental activists are orchestrating a policy out...

The federal government must compensate two regional water authorities for water diverted to preserve the environment, a federal appeals court ruled this week in a landmark decision that could open the floodgates for agencies who contend the government is taking water from them for fish. After a 16-year legal battle, the 2-1 decision came down as California is coping with a drought and new environmental rules that are cutting into the water supplies of farmers and cities across the state. The ruling appears to create an opening for San Joaquin Valley farm districts that are lashing out at environmental regulations...

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

Last week, FNC’s Sean Hannity traveled to the San Joaquin Valley to report on the man-made drought that’s wreaking havoc on farmers in the name of saving the Delta smelt: {video}...Earlier tonight, GOP South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint tried to turn the water back on. The Senate voted down his amendment, 61-36. Here’s the roll call vote.

If you plan to attend the protest with Sean Hannity tomorrow and don't know what to wear, print this reversed on a t-shirt iron-on.

Excerpt from Wall Street Journal Letters to the Editor: Your editorial "California's Man-Made Drought" (Sept. 2) about the severe drought and water crisis in California argues that California's water problems could be wished away if our nation were only willing to sacrifice an endangered three-inch fish, turn on a few pumps to move water from Northern California to the Central Valley, and wave a magic wand. The trouble is: The fish are a sliver of the problem, the pumps are already on, and pointed fingers can't make it rain. California's water crisis is far more troubling than your editorial suggests....

The unions are gearing up for a fight – again – with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A coalition of national unions that includes grocery clerks, hotel workers, farmworkers, Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union dumped $1 million Tuesday into a campaign fund to fight a proposed water bond

A Republican running for a Fresno-area Assembly seat next year is offering a Delta delicacy of sorts at an upcoming fundraiser. An invitation from Brandon Shoemaker, at right, for an Oct. 3 feed promises Delta smelt appetizers with a robust meal featuring barbecued beef.

On August 28, 2009 Taxpayers will go back to the Capitol to Demand our Representatives stop taxing us and start representing us! In California's vast and fertile central valley, the federal government has shut off the water to farmers. Fields lie fallow, and once thriving orchards are dry and dead. After generations on the land, families are losing their farms. In some areas unemployment exceeds 40%. All this to protect a "minnow." The government is putting fish before families. This insanity must end. In the mountains, family owned timber operations, working and managing our forests for generations, are being forced...

• Salmon, sturgeon being killed by pumping, says new report • ‘Chips away at our ability to provide a reliable water supply for California’ The National Marine Fisheries Service has ruled that the operation of both the federal and state water projects in California are contributing to the possible extinction of salmon, sturgeon, southern resident killer whale, and steelhead. In a briefing for Congressional offices held earlier Thursday, NMFS announced exports from the Delta would be reduced 330,000 acre feet. The state has an even grimmer view. “The new opinion, which could reduce Delta export on average by about 300,000...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The Klamath Tribes and farmers have agreed to drop their state water rights battle pending approval of a federal agreement leading to removal of dams on the Klamath River. The settlement filed Wednesday with the Oregon Department of Water Resources mirrors the water issues in the dam removal plan, known as the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. Greg Addington of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents farmers, said it made no sense to spend time and money fighting out their claims in the long-running state adjudication process when they have reached a settlement that just hasn't...

In a decision that could force Silicon Valley's largest water provider to refund millions — or perhaps tens of millions — of dollars to its customers, a judge on Thursday ruled that one of the Santa Clara Valley Water District's primary fees is illegal. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy found that the district's "groundwater extraction fee" requires voter approval under Proposition 218, a state law passed in 1996.

Something like the purges of the Kulaks during the Russian Bolshevik Revolution is about to happen to many of California's Central Valley farmers. Only in a Capitalist society like ours the government just adjudicates the de facto taking of your property only without additionally hanging you like Lenin did the Kulaks. But why are California's coastal cities not joining with agricultural water districts to appeal the court order which has blocked 85% of water deliveries through the California Aqueduct to both farmers and Southern California? Don't they both have something to lose? For those who haven't been following what is...

With the budget passed, the water wars are back. Focus is returning to California's seemingly perennial struggle to find a solution to its water woes. On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a formal drought proclamation, a move to raise awareness of the state's water shortage. Last Thursday, Sen. Dave Cogdill, a Modesto Republican, introduced a water bond bill (SB 371) after similar efforts stalled last year. Sen. Dean Florez, the No. 2 Democrat in the house, introduced a counter measure (SB 301). Even the federal government is getting involved. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack...

It's come to this. A drought approaching epic status in California may force the state to choose one imperiled species of fish over another. On Thursday, state and federal water agencies petitioned regulators to relax standards for flows of fresh water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, hub for most of California's water supply. This means holding fresh water in the state's severely depleted reservoirs. Water officials fear there won't be enough cold water behind those dams this fall to trigger and sustain the Central Valley's fall run of iconic chinook salmon. But the controversial move would leave less fresh water...

A panel of state leaders is calling for California to begin building a canal to divert water around the Delta by 2011, without approval from lawmakers or voters.The final report released late Friday by the Delta Vision Committee, made up of five state Cabinet secretaries, thrusts the controversial canal into the top tier of California political battles.The canal would divert a portion of the Sacramento River around the Delta in order to protect a freshwater supply serving 25 million Californians from earthquakes, floods and sea level rise. It is a modern-day version of the peripheral canal rejected by voters in...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top water policy advisers have recommended construction begin in 2011 on an aqueduct to carry water around the Delta, a version of the Peripheral Canal that California voters rejected in 1982. In a report released late Friday, the Delta Vision Committee largely embraced the broad outlines of a report from a task force in October. But the committee of mostly cabinet-level officials stopped short of embracing how the goals of protecting the environment and improving water reliability should be met. For example, the committee did not take a firm stance on the first concrete recommendation in the...

Reaching back to the laws of ancient Rome, environmentalists sued Monday to cut off Delta water operations and dramatically shake up the long-term balance between economic and environmental needs in the region. If it succeeds, the lawsuit would shift the focus from the worsening conflict between individual species of fish and the amount of water pumped out of the Delta to a comprehensive attempt to balance competing interests. "The only things that are already protected are already endangered," said Michael Jackson, a lawyer for the environmental groups. "But what's happening is the whole bottom is falling out of the ecosystem....

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- Water will be scarce next year for farms and cities that rely on the state for their supplies, a situation that is likely to prompt water rationing and less planting. The Department of Water Resources on Thursday announced it will deliver just 15 percent of the amount that local water agencies throughout California request every year. That marks the second lowest projection since the first State Water Project deliveries were made in 1962. It could force farmers in the Central Valley to fallow fields and cities from the San Francisco Bay area to San Diego to impose...

I am posting this important and breaking news ahead of Sacramento TV stations and The Sacramento Bee. The California Resources Agency this evening in Clarksburg, California held a meeting in which they presented their plans to "save" the vital agricultural heartland of California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region. Option four of the presentation (which can be found here: http://baydeltaoffice.water.ca.gov/sdb/bdcp/bdcp_draft_scoping_meeting.pdf ) includes a PERIPHERAL CANAL starting south of Freeport in Scribner Bend and following the exact route of the proposed 1982 Peripheral Canal to the pumping stations of Clifton Court Forebay. But that's not all. Option four as presented this evening also...

Is this the beginning of water wars? 18:00 11 April 2008 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic As Barcelona runs out of water, Spain has been forced to consider importing water from France by boat. It is the latest example of the growing struggle for water around the world – the "water wars". Barcelona and the surrounding region are suffering the worst drought in decades. There are several possible solutions, including diverting a river, and desalinating water. But the city looks like it will ship water from the French port of Marseilles. The water services authority in Marseille say that no...

NASHVILLE — Tennessee officials are denouncing a resolution passed by the Georgia Legislature that urges a reconsideration of the boundary between the two states. Georgia lawmakers, led by Republican state Sen. David Shafer, argue that the border was wrongly drawn in the 19th century, depriving drought-stricken Georgians of their rightful access to the plentiful water supply of the Tennessee River. Tennessee Rep. Gerald McCormick, a Chattanooga Republican, called the resolution “silliest thing I’ve ever seen any group of Republicans do.” “I’m embarrassed that they would embarrass the party like that,” he said. “They’re idiots.” Congress in 1796 designated that Tennessee’s...

OXFORD, Miss. -- A federal judge this afternoon dismissed Mississippi's $1 billion lawsuit against Memphis, ruling he did not have jurisdiction to hear the case in which the Magnolia State claims the city is stealing its water. U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson said the two need to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mississippi's lead counsel, Don Barrett, said he would appeal the decision. After expressing “real serious questions” about jurisdiction of the case this morning, Davidson heard about 90 minutes of legal arguments from both sides. Mississippi Atty. Gen. Jim Hood filed suit against Memphis and...

SACRAMENTO - The order by a federal judge to reduce pumping by 30% in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta leaves water suppliers who rely on the California Aqueduct, including those in the Antelope Valley, in a bind. Just last week U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger issued his final word regarding the slowdown in pumping operations at the Harvey O. Banks, the starting point of the 444-mile California Aqueduct, core to the State Water Project that furnishes drinking and agricultural water to much of Southern California. Wanger mandated the pumping reduction in order to protect an endangered fish species, the...

Georgia Officials Threaten to Sue Corp of Engineers Over Draining Reservoirs

Could ruling to protect smelt drive foes to the table to agree on restoring the Delta? For years, anyone watching the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has known that a smack-down was looming over endangered smelt. These tiny fish, a bellwether for the ecosystem, have declined over the last decade while water exports from the Delta have been rising.The Endangered Species Act gives judges wide latitude in curtailing government operations that prompt the extinction of a species. And while the smelt and other Delta fish appear to face a variety of threats -- including invasive species, water pollution and loss of habitat...

Environmentalists still hoped for more as judge orders cutbacks to protect fish; rationing may be considered next year -- FRESNO -- California's water supply suffered a historic blow Friday when a federal judge ordered a series of cutbacks and other measures meant to protect a tiny Delta fish from going extinct. The order is expected to force water agencies up and down the state to consider water rationing next year and could force San Joaquin Valley farmers to fallow hundreds of thousands of acres, water officials said. The momentous decision did not go as far as environmentalists hoped nor as...

Researchers at Purdue University have further developed a technology that could represent a pollution-free energy source for a range of potential applications, from golf carts to submarines and cars to emergency portable generators. Purdue researchers demonstrate their method for producing hydrogen by adding water to an alloy of aluminum and gallium. The hydrogen could then be used to run an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell. The reaction was discovered by Jerry Woodall, center, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering. Charles Allen, holding test tube, and Jeffrey Ziebarth, both doctoral students in the School of Electrical and...

Environmentalists sued Tuesday to cut off water deliveries across California after state and federal water managers refused to follow a recommendation from scientific experts to slow down massive Delta pumps. The legal showdown comes after hopes were dashed that a crisis pitting Californians' need for water against a dying ecosystem would abate during the weekend. Instead, hundreds of imperiled fish have been killed since an unprecedented 10-day pumping shutdown ended June 9 and water officials began gradually restoring water deliveries. Water officials, who have been increasing pumping rates for more than a week, plan to continue ramping up water deliveries...

A congressional panel will hold a hearing in Vallejo in two weeks on how to restore the Delta's ailing ecosystem without destabilizing California water supplies. A recent 10-day shutdown of the state's giant Delta water pumps shows that state and federal agencies lack a sustainable plan to meet California's water needs and protect its environment, federal lawmakers said. Court rulings that the state failed to protect the threatened Delta smelt triggered the state pump shutdown from May 31 to June 9. Federal pumps in the Delta also were turned down, but not off, to help protect the smelt. "We have...

Northern California just endured its driest winter in 20 years. The state's population is growing by half a million people a year. New dams are controversial. And this week, a 2-inch endangered fish shut down the pumps at California's largest drinking water source, the Delta. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous line about the ocean -- "water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink" -- has always been true in California. But with so many challenges facing the state's water supplies, more people than ever are looking to the sea for a solution. Although 10 years ago there were none, today 20...

California's electricity crisis a few years back is remembered for its bizarre blackouts. They resulted from a system that grew more dysfunctional over time until the lights simply couldn't stay on. Now California's water world is getting a taste of its version of blackouts. In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, an endangered two-inch smelt is forcing a historic shutdown of pumps that supply 23 million residents and 5 million acres of farmland. Water will continue to flow from taps and onto fields during this shutdown as the water districts find various ways to maintain a steady supply. Never before have Delta...

SACRAMENTO -- The state has shut down the large pumps that send water to 25 million Californians in order to protect a tiny fish teetering on the brink of extinction. State officials said the shutdown could affect water supplies available to users in the Bay Area, the Central Valley and Southern California. Local areas that receive water from the State Water Project include the Tri-Valley, Santa Clara County, Yuba City and Solano County. Some of those areas can obtain water from other sources, including groundwater. The shutdown is expected to last seven to 10 days, officials said. Numbers of Delta...

A federal judge Friday ruled the permit that allows massive Delta water delivery projects to kill a tiny endangered fish is illegal. It is the second time in two months that a court has declared the state's water projects in violation of endangered species laws. The ruling comes the same week new information emerged showing the Delta smelt population has plunged yet again closer to extinction. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno did not immediately revoke water agencies' ability to operate, saying such a step would amount to a "draconian" impact on the state's farms and cities. However, his...

ew alarm that a tiny Delta fish has taken yet another dramatic plunge toward extinction has triggered emergency measures that could threaten water supplies in parts of the state. On Wednesday, the first day after an annual monthlong slowdown of the pumps, water managers did not take the usual step of beginning the annual ramp-up to normal summer pumping levels. And officials are preparing to tap a $13 million fund that has never been used before to buy water that could be used to help prevent Delta smelt from going extinct. When that money runs out after five to 10...

South of the border between California and Mexico, vast farms grow scallions, lettuce and cotton, and hidden wetlands thrive on water that seeps underground from a leaky irrigation canal in the Imperial Valley. North of the border, California water managers want to capture the leakage to supply the subdivisions sprawling onto the desert near San Diego, and more efficiently use their share of the Colorado River, by lining the canal with concrete. California environmentalists and Mexican farmers took the cross-border water battle to federal court in 2005, saying the project to line the All-American Canal imperiled a crucial aquifer in...

The Great Lakes Fake Water War - Book Review By Wayne Lusvardi - CalWaterWarRoom “There is no potato law, or Coca-Cola law, [but] there is water law.” – Jim Olson, environmental attorney battling Nestle Co. water bottling of Great Lakes water Peter Annin, a journalist with Newsweek and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources is worried about who is going to win the purported water war for the Great Lakes. In his new book, The Great Lakes Water Wars, published by the environmentally activist Island Press, Annin tips his hand early in the book as to who, and what,...

Elvis Presley was a young man when bureaucrats and politicians began talking about two large projects to control and use the water that seasonal rain and snow storms dump on Northern California. Building a high dam on the American River near Auburn, water engineers reasoned, would hold more of the seasonal flows for later use while protecting the Sacramento area from flooding. A "peripheral canal," meanwhile, was touted to divert water from the Sacramento River around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for delivery to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California homes and industries. Construction actually began on both. Site clearance...

The Delta has degraded so badly that it is time to consider building a highly controversial canal to protect water supplies, a Bay Area legislator says. State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has offered legislation that for the first time in more than 20 years asks state lawmakers to consider a version of the Peripheral Canal. "It's the Peripheral Canal. It's the death knell for the Delta. It's just a water grab," said Dante John Nomellini Sr., manager and counsel for the Central Delta Water Agency. If Simitian succeeds, there will be nothing to prevent water quality in the Delta...

One reason - but by no means the only reason - why the Capitol responds so poorly to California's growth and socioeconomic change is that its occupants spend too much time inside the building, listening to lobbyists for self-interested groups, and too little time in the real world. A case in point is the circular and unproductive debate over how California should respond to its water needs, which has been part of the equally fruitless machinations over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for massive investment in infrastructure. One of the many hang-ups that blocked infrastructure bonds from reaching the June primary...

Future of nation's rivers, wetlands hinges on 2 key cases. Samuel Alito will make his Supreme Court debut with a splash this week when the justices hear two cases that could determine the future of the Clean Water Act. The cases, both from Michigan and scheduled for hearing on Tuesday, could have an enormous impact. For property-rights advocates, an unfavorable ruling could spread the shadow of federal regulation over every tiny stream and rivulet in America, stifling development. Federal authority would extend to "virtually every body of water in the nation -- every brook and pond, every dry wash --...

As expostulated in this space previously - perhaps ad nauseam - California faces any number of long-range political issues that stem from its rapid population growth and equally dramatic social and economic evolution, but those same factors also block responses to those issues. California's growth and ever-increasing diversity - it's already the most complex society in the history of humankind - dissipate social cohesion and undermine the consensus necessary for political decision-making. Sell It Yourself When journalists and academics talk or write about California's crisis of governance, they're not referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's up-and-down governorship or the antics of...

California's thirst for Delta water is increasing at a time when the Delta's health is failing. Two out of every three Californians get at least some drinking water from the Delta. In a state of 37 million people, one in every four gallons of water consumed by the state's farms, factories and people comes from the Delta. And California's population is expected to climb to 48 million by 2030. Meanwhile, the state's use of its second-largest water source, the Colorado River, is being curtailed as upstream states and the federal government begin to more strictly enforce the 1922 interstate treaty...

A workshop in Sacramento Thursday on prospects for restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park ignited passions on both sides of the debate. The valley was dammed in 1923 as a water supply for San Francisco. A series of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorials in The Sacramento Bee helped spur the governor's action to study the matter. The workshop at the Joe Serna Jr. Cal/EPA Building is part of a study launched last fall by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to assess the feasibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy. The goal is not to take a position, but to gather information. The idea...

IT IS common knowledge that oil and territorial issues spark conflict in the Middle East, but there is now growing alarm over the risk that water could be the catalyst for the next war in the region. Middle East nations record some of the highest birth rates in the world but have only 0.4 per cent of the world's recoverable water resources. Some 80 per cent of people in the region rely on water that flows into their country from at least one other. The potential for disputes over this scarce essential resource is obvious, a risk clearly illustrated by...

WASHINGTON -- Two courts. Dozens of California farmers. Millions of dollars in the balance. For Central Valley irrigated agriculture, the judicial soil is well prepared. In two distinct cases now coming front and center, federal judges and the Justice Department confront serious questions for which the common ground is water. Specifically: What does the federal government owe Valley farmers when promised water is not delivered? A lot, some say. "Water is property," Tracy Republican Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, said Wednesday. "If the water is being taken for a public purpose, namely saving endangered species, those property...

A proposal that could reduce the amount of water the federal government delivers to California salmon fisheries is the latest sign that a decade long effort to manage the state's Delta-based water system is fracturing, environmentalists say. The U.S. Department of Interior has proposed changes designed to ensure it does not send more water to salmon than required under a 1992 law, thereby safeguarding supplies for farmers. In addition, the proposal calls for any shortages to be offset with a different source of water that critics say is far less reliable and to date has been funded almost entirely by...

By Patrick McLoughlin STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The risk of wars being fought over water is rising because of explosive global population growth and widespread complacency, scientists said on Friday. "We have had oil wars," said Professor William Mitsch. "That's happened in our lifetime. Water wars are possible." Scientists at the World Water Week conference which began on Sunday in Stockholm said that ignorance and complacency were widespread in wealthier countries. "I don't know what will shake these regions out of complacency other than the fact there will be droughts, pestilence and wars that break out over water rights," said Mitsch,...