Have you notice that government agencies never talk to one another? Instead, they sue and get the courts and attorneys involved. There is something wrong with a system where one government agency sues another==and the taxpayers are always the losers.
““Solano County will be working with three other counties and a couple of water districts to “initiate litigation challenging the final environmental impact report and project approval for the Delta Conveyance Project.” The Solano County Board of Supervisors, on a unanimous vote taken during a closed session Tuesday, approved the action. County Counsel Bernadette Curry reported that the county will be coordinating with outside counsel on the litigation: Osha Meserve, from the Soluri Meserve firm; Tom Keeling, from the Freeman law firm; and Roger Moore, from the Law Office of Roger Moore. No formal budget has been set but the county is anticipating a cost of $75,000.
One side will spend $75,000. The agency sued will spend the same or more on attorney’s fees. Any wonder government is in deficit? Morally, ethically and financially.
Solano County ready to sue state over Delta tunnel EIR
Mavensnotebook, 1/11/24 https://mavensnotebook.com/2024/01/11/daily-digest-1-11-solano-county-ready-to-sue-state-over-delta-tunnel-eir-zone-7-mulls-sites-reservoir-share-climate-change-is-shrinking-snowpack-in-many-places-arizonas-plan-to-fix-the-colorado/
“Solano County will be working with three other counties and a couple of water districts to “initiate litigation challenging the final environmental impact report and project approval for the Delta Conveyance Project.” The Solano County Board of Supervisors, on a unanimous vote taken during a closed session Tuesday, approved the action. County Counsel Bernadette Curry reported that the county will be coordinating with outside counsel on the litigation: Osha Meserve, from the Soluri Meserve firm; Tom Keeling, from the Freeman law firm; and Roger Moore, from the Law Office of Roger Moore. No formal budget has been set but the county is anticipating a cost of $75,000. The county, in its most recent letter to the state Department of Water Resources, called the impact report “inadequate” in its response to the county’s concerns and how the project will mitigate a host of potential impacts. … ” Read more from the Daily Republic.
Tunnel to collect freshwater flows
“Plans for a massive water tunnel received approval from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) last month, despite environmental concerns over the project’s impact on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Part of the State Water Project (SWP), the 45-mile Delta Conveyance Project will draw water from the Sacramento River, at a point about 15 miles south of Sacramento, and carry it to the Bethany Reservoir, near Mountain House, for storage before integration with the rest of the SWP. The Tri-Valley relies heavily on the SWP for its water. At full capacity, the tunnel will be able to move 6,000 cubic feet of water per second, a capability that the DWR said is necessary to take advantage of higher river flows brought about by increasingly larger storms, before the water runs out to the ocean. DWR said that the additional collected water will help carry the SWP through longer droughts. … ” Read more from the Livermore Independent.
Zone 7 mulls Sites Reservoir share
“Sites Reservoir, California’s first major reservoir in 45 years, recently took a crucial step forward despite opposition from environmental groups. The Sites Project Authority has certified its final environmental impact report and approved the project. … The 1.5 million acre-foot reservoir operates on a “beneficiary pays” system, in which some 30 agencies across California — such as the Coachella Valley Water District, the Desert Water Agency and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — have contributed funds in return for a commitment to receive blocks of reservoir water delivered through the State Water Project (SWP). To date, the Tri-Valley’s Zone 7 has contributed $4.3 million to the Sites Project as part of the reservoir’s planning process and expects reservoir water rights of 10,000 acre-feet per year. Zone 7 General Manager Valerie Pryor said the Sites Reservoir will bolster Tri-Valley water supplies through longer droughts. … ” Read more from the Livermore Independent.
An atmospheric river storm is approaching California. Here’s when rain could return
“Winter storms have taken aim at the West Coast this week, bringing rain to the North Coast and Bay Area, and heavy snow to the Sierra Nevada. After a break from wet weather, another storm is expected to arrive this weekend. On Thursday, skies will clear, and a frost advisory is in effect until 10 a.m. for large swaths of the Bay Area, including the North Bay, East Bay interior valleys, Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara Valley. Dry, cold weather will continue in the Bay Area on Friday, before an atmospheric river-fueled storm is forecast to bring downpours to Northern California, from Friday night through Saturday. This storm is expected to drop heavy rain in the North Bay and dump multiple feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada. … ”
Stronger cold storm this weekend in NorCal, then warmer and quieter weather to follow. Plus: seasonal outlook and El Niño update…
Dr. Daniel Swain writes, “December was an extraordinarily warm month globally and nationally (the warmest December on record both globally and generally across the United States). All of California experienced a much warmer than average month, and some regions (particularly in central CA, including the San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast region) also experienced their warmest December on record. Precipitation was much more of a mixed bag, ranging from drier than average across the Sierra to wetter than average along the Central Coast. Notably, extreme thunderstorm downpours from a slow-moving cut-off low pressure system, characterized by unusually unstable air (aided in part by unusually warm near-shore ocean temperature) and a robust subtropical jet (perhaps thanks to El Nino and other tropical goings on) produced some of the heaviest hourly rainfall ever observed in non-mountainous California: over 3 inches in a single hour in and near Ventura. … ” Read more from Weather West.
What are snow droughts and is climate change making them worse?
“Scientists distinguish among an expanding variety of droughts. There are droughts when it doesn’t rain. There are droughts when soil is too dry, when rivers and groundwater levels fall, and when water storage can’t meet society’s needs. Increasingly, researchers also are talking about snow droughts, which a new study in the journal Nature links to climate change. There are also connections between snow droughts and wildfires. Is “snow drought” a new term? The term is old, with use peaking in the late 1970s, according to the Google Books Ngram viewer. It bubbled up again during the 2010s as regions that depend on snowpack for water saw their bounties thin, and it began to climb in 2017. That’s when three US researchers wrote an essay titled “Defining Snow Drought and Why It Matters,” which kicked off a global effort to document trends around the world and explain them. … ” Read more from Bloomberg (gift article).
Snow drought current conditions and impacts in the West
“In early January, snow water equivalent (SWE) observations at some SNOTEL stations in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington were at record low values. The highest concentration of record low SWE is in the northern Rocky Mountains across Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Storms over the next week will improve conditions in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, and northern Rockies, but are unlikely to completely erase existing deficits. … ” Read more from NIDIS.
The West’s winter is off to a dry start, raising concerns for the nation’s largest reservoirs
“Even as winter arrived in the East this week, with treacherous snow and an impending Arctic cold snap, much of the West and its major river basins are still entrenched in warm and dry conditions. It’s a sluggish start to what should be the region’s wet season and is raising concerns about the future of the water supplies that depend on it. The weather through early January was “great for outdoor activities like beach volleyball but not great for water supply,” Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River Resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to Los Angeles, told CNN. Although meteorologists and Western water experts caution it’s still early in the winter and a lot can change between now and April, the warm, dry weather is notable for how far-reaching it has been. … ” Read more from CNN.
Climate change is shrinking snowpack in many places, study shows. And it will get worse
“River basins around the world that were once regularly snowbound are increasingly seeing their snowpack shrink and climate change is to blame, a new study found. “Many of the world’s most populous basins are hovering on the precipice of rapid snow declines,” concluded the study of snow amounts since 1981 in Wednesday’s journal Nature. That’s because the study found a key threshold for the future of snowpacks in the Northern Hemisphere: 17.6 degrees (-8 degrees Celsius). In places where the winter temperature average is colder than that, the snowpack often survives because it’s cold enough. But areas warmer than 17.6 degrees for a winter average tend to see their winter wonderland dreams melt like the wicked witch of the west. And it’s happening fast. … ”
Assemblymember Connolly passes clean water protections for rural communities and endangered wetlands
“Today, Assemblymember Connolly passed Assembly Bill (AB) 828 out of the Assembly Water, Parks & Wildlife Committee, which allows managed wetlands and small disadvantaged communities to use their average annual water usage without being subject to excessive fines by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) as part of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Several GSAs are proposing groundwater allocations that are unworkable for rural communities and endangered wetlands. AB 828 will protect small communities’ access to safe and affordable drinking water and keep some of the state’s last wetlands from going dry. “Wetlands are a critical natural resources for our state, and small, rural communities are being hit the hardest by the state’s depleting groundwater resources,” said Assemblymember Damon Connolly (D-San Rafael). “These disadvantaged communities usually depend on a single source for their water supply, leaving them vulnerable to drought and affordability challenges. AB 828 brings California closer to protecting safe and clean water accessibility for all California communities. ” … ” Read more from Assemblymember Damon Connolly.
