The leadership of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Golden Gate Fisherman’s Association, and the Northern California Guides and Sportsmen’s Association are calling for an immediate closure of the 2023 salmon season and are requesting that Governor Newsom, the State Legislature, and state agencies seek Federal and State disaster assistance funding for affected ocean […]
To inform the “Adapting Water Rights to our 21st Century Climate” hearing at the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife on Tuesday 2/28/23, Restore the Delta today released the results of a California water rights analysis by race, completed by employees with the Department of Water Resources, but deleted from the agency’s website soon after […]
On Feb. 9, Representative Josh Harder (D CA-9) reintroduced his Stop the Delta Tunnel Act, a bill that prohibits the Army Corps of Engineers from issuing a federal permit necessary for the State of California to build the Delta Conveyance Project. By Dan Bacher “The Delta Tunnel is a zombie project,” said Rep. Harder in a […]
Like so many of the planet’s natural habitats, wetlands have been systematically destroyed over the past 300 years. Bogs, fens, marshes and swamps have disappeared from maps and memory, having been drained, dug up and built on. Christian Dunn, Bangor University The Conversation Being close to a reliable source of water and generally flat, wetlands […]
Stanford, CA – As Central Valley salmon populations plummet and the Bay-Delta ecosystem continues to collapse, a coalition of California Tribes and Bay-Delta Environmental Justice groups submitted comments on Feb. 8 regarding the Draft Scientific Basis Report for proposed Voluntary Agreements (VAs) for the Sacramento River, Delta, and Tributaries Update to the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Water Quality Control Plan. By […]
It was called Boulder Dam in February 1935 when it began holding back the Colorado River to form the gigantic reservoir of Lake Mead. The foundations of irrigation-driven economic development—a dream of entrepreneurs since the 1890s—had been laid. Now, however, a relentless drought that has drained this and other reservoirs to record lows could turn that dream into a nightmare for the 40 […]
Since the seven Colorado River Basin states failed again last week to reach a consensus on a plan to conserve the region’s dwindling water resources, environmental justice campaigners have implored officials to prioritize combating the “overuse and abuse” of water by agribusiness and fossil fuel corporations. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New […]
Amid the deepening cycle of long-term drought, punctuated by brief periods of extreme rainfall and flooding that California now exists in, a new report from the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch – “Big Ag, Big Oil, and the California Water Crisis” – zeroes in on the “toll that corporate agriculture and fossil fuel drilling […]
California officials claim we are in the grip of a major drought, as the Governor issues a flood disaster proclamation requesting presidential aid, while he claims the State is running out of water. Critics are raising questions, “is it because California has gone nuts?” In every major drought, since the turn of the 21st Century, tens-of-thousands of acres […]
On Dec. 15, Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland executed a memorandum that ensures statutory funding to protect fish and wildlife as required under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA). The memo reverses a Trump administration action to defund environmental mitigation and restoration, as required under the CVPIA. By Dan Bacher The CVPIA, signed into law in […]
California has seen so much rain over the past few weeks that farm fields are inundated and normally dry creeks and drainage ditches have become torrents of water racing toward the ocean. Yet, most of the state remains in severe drought. Andrew Fisher, University of California, Santa Cruz The Conversation The L.A. River was wild […]
The Hoopa Valley Tribe has asked a federal district court in Fresno for an injunction against the Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department agency responsible for restoring Hoopa’s fishery on California’s Trinity River. By Dan Bacher Reclamation plans to set aside a twenty-two year-old agreement with the United States to restore the Tribe’s fishery, which […]
Gia Moreno of Hood spoke passionately about her commitment to stop the proposed Delta Tunnel at a public meeting hosted by the Delta Counties Coalition and Delta Legislative Caucus at the Willow Ballroom last week. By Dan Bacher “I am a mother, an artist, an educator, and I’m tired. I’m tired of coming to these […]
Environmental justice advocates cried foul after it was reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is allowing a fracking giant to resume drilling operations in Dimock just two weeks after it accepted responsibility for poisoning the small rural town’s drinking water. By Kenny Stancil Common Dreams Roughly 14 years after a well explosion on New Year’s Day […]
The West uses too much water. For such a simple problem, the obvious solution — use less — lies frustratingly out of reach. That inability to change may seem hard to understand, but the root of the problem becomes clearer if we consider the role of the West in the historical development of the United […]