Social Droughts and Water Wars: The Never-Ending Californian Saga.

California’s Central Valley: Ground Zero in Water War
NICK CAHILL | February 22, 2019

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An almond orchard in full bloom in California’s Central Valley.

FRESNO, Calif. (CN) – Stretching hundreds of miles from the mountains bordering Los Angeles north toward the state capital, the San Joaquin Valley doesn’t resemble landscapes typically associated with California. Devoid of the skyscrapers, beaches and bridges that make California famous, the sprawling valley is instead filled with thousands of farms and oil fields that quietly help drive the state’s $2.7 trillion economy.

Known as the “food basket of the world,” for over a century the valley and its rich soil have spoiled Americans with a wide variety of nuts, produce, wine grapes, dairy and even cotton.

The average motorist traveling on the valley’s north-south thoroughfares – Interstate 5 and State Route 99 – can scarcely tell they are inside the most altered rural landscape in California. But there is no mistaking the fact that humans have transformed the valley conservationist John Muir described as California’s “grandest and most telling” landscape when he walked it in 1868.

Since Muir’s journey, Californians have not only drained Tulare Lake – once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi – but built hundreds of miles of canals and aqueducts that irrigate over 5 million acres of farmland and deliver water to 4 million residents in eight valley counties.

Now stripped of its once vast wetlands and nearly sucked dry from the overpumping of groundwater during the West’s increasingly common droughts, the fertile valley is in need of a reboot: Its aquifers have shrunk and the remaining water is often contaminated with nitrate and salts.

Citing a new water law that will have major effects on water suppliers and farmers, experts are calling for an “all hands on deck” approach to fixing the valley’s water woes.

“This is a region that faces really unprecedented challenges and inevitable change,” said Ellen Hanak, director of water policy at the Public Policy Institute of California, at an event Friday at California State University, Fresno. “A lot is at stake for the economy, public health, the health of society and the environment.”

Preserving aquifers

Since 2016, Hanak and her team of researchers have been brainstorming ways to help water agencies and farmers comply with the state’s new Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

The landmark act consists of three water bills signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown during California’s most recent drought. The package introduced regulations on groundwater use for the first time in state history, with the end goal of replenishing and bringing underground basins to sustainable levels by the year 2040.

Water agencies that tap into what regulators consider overused basins, many of which are in the valley, have been developing sustainability plans over the last few years. The state wants water agencies to speed up the recharging process for aquifers, improve water quality and stop land subsidence.

Valley farmers were forced to rely heavily on groundwater during the unforgiving drought, after state and federal surface water supplies were cut off. The accelerated pumping from 2012 through 2016 caused irrigation and drinking water wells to go dry and ultimately caused land in the valley to sink. Sections of the 444-mile-long California Aqueduct dropped more than two feet, threatening infrastructure that provides water to most of the state’s 39 million residents.

Alvar Escriva-Bou a research fellow at the PPIC’s Water Policy Center who worked on the report for two years, said the Central Valley’s groundwater overdraft is beyond serious.

“We estimate the amount of this deficit is almost 2 million acre-feet per year,” he said. “Almost 90 percent of the water is used by farms.

Hanak and the PPIC researchers believe there is no silver bullet available for valley water suppliers to comply with the groundwater regulations. According to the PPIC, farmers may have to fallow at least 500,000 acres of farmland and switch to crops that require less water, while suppliers will have to capture more runoff from storms and decrease reliance on expensive water imported from Northern California.

Some farmers, like Maricopa Orchards CEO Jon Reiter, have already begun fallowing some of their land. Reiter, who grows almonds and pistachios, said he only plants half the average number of trees in critically overdrawn areas of his farm.

“While we are focused on permanent crops, we take great efforts to not overplant,” Reiter said. “When we decide as to what we’re going to plant, every tree that goes into the ground we’re looking at where that water is going to come from not next year or the year after, but 10 years down the line when the tree is fully matured. Our strategy is we’re going to have open land in our portfolio. We use the water associated with that open land to support the planted acreage.”

He said fallowed ground is put to other uses with economic benefits, like leasing the land to solar companies.

The PPIC report said that kind of creativity is crucial in the fight to conserve valley water.

“With the largest groundwater deficit in the state, the valley is ground zero for implementing this law,” the PPIC warns in its latest report. “Valley farmers and residents have a history of creatively adapting to difficult and changing conditions. Although major challenges lie ahead, constructive solutions are in reach.”

The authors presented their report “Water and the Future of the San Joaquin Valley” to a room full of valley farmers and water experts gathered at the Fresno State event on Friday. Experts on three separate panels told the crowd that farmers, environmentalists and suppliers will have to team up to tackle the new groundwater regulations.

“How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time,” said Ric Ortega, general manager of Grasslands Water District in Merced County. “You try things and you engage in partnerships.”

Dirty water

While the valley only makes up 10 percent of the state’s total population, it’s home to more than half of the public drinking water systems that are out of compliance with state law. Over 100 small rural and disadvantaged communities rely on tap water contaminated with nitrates, and over 1 million Californians don’t have access to safe water.

One of the main contributors to nitrate contamination is the dairy industry, which fertilizes crops with nutrient-rich water from manure lagoons. Over time, excess nitrates from the water leach into the surrounding water table and often into water wells used for drinking.

Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairymen, says the industry is aware of the problem and is currently testing out new technologies. She expects the industry to make major strides in cutting out nitrate use over the next 5 to 10 years.

“It’s always hard having a flashlight shone directly over you,” said Raudabaugh.

Her group and others are pushing state lawmakers to pass a new tax that would go toward cleaning up wells contaminated with nitrates. The idea has failed in the past but under the latest iteration, residential water customers would pay an extra 95 cents per month along with fees assessed on dairies and fertilizer mills.

Supporters, like Veronica Garibay of the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, believe the so-called “water tax” will create long-term funding for clean drinking water programs. She says the 1 million Californians without clean water currently face a triple penalty: They are paying for dirty tap water, bottled water and for medical bills caused by using contaminated water.

At his first state budget press conference, Gov. Gavin Newsom called it a “disgrace” that some Central Valley residents don’t have access to clean water and announced support for a similar affordable drinking water improvement fund. Garibay agrees.

“This shouldn’t be a political issue; it’s time to get it done. We shouldn’t keep looking the other way and allowing this to continue in 2019,” said Garibay of the legislation.

The PPIC report and many of the participants at the Fresno event acknowledged the valley can’t afford to wait around for lawmakers to fix the valley’s water crisis.

“Although state and federal partners can help, the valley’s future is in the hands of its residents. A valley-wide conversation on the changes that lie ahead can help determine how to tackle the challenges outlined here and take the next steps for creating a better future. The stakes are high. So are the costs of inaction,” the 88-page report concludes.

https://www.courthousenews.com/californias-central-valley-ground-zero-in-water-war/
 
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Understanding California’s ever-changing water wars
By Dan Walters | May 24, 2019

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As 2018 was winding down, one of California’s leading newspapers suggested, via a front-page, banner-headlined article, that the drought that had plagued the state for much of this decade may be returning.

Just weeks later, that same newspaper was reporting that record-level midwinter storms were choking mountain passes with snow, rapidly filling reservoirs and causing serious local flooding.

Neither was incorrect at the time, but their juxtaposition underscores the unpredictable nature of California’s water supply.

The fickleness of nature has been compounded by a decades-long, multi-front struggle among hundreds of water agencies and other interested parties over allocations of the precious liquid, not unlike the perpetual religious and ethnic wars that consumed medieval Europe.

Adding another layer of complexity, the conflicts over California’s water supply are often proxy wars for land-use disputes, involving such issues as whether the state’s chronic shortage of housing should be addressed by continuing to carve farmlands into subdivisions or shift to a high-density mode that builds up rather than out.

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Even though the state doesn’t seem to have a comprehensive approach to managing its water—although Gov. Gavin Newsom says he wants one—the big conflicts are deeply interconnected and appear to be reaching their climactic phases. How they are resolved over the next few years will write an entirely new chapter in California’s water history.

California’s basic water infrastructure of dams, reservoirs, canals and pipelines was constructed in the 20th century. At that time, water supply was seen largely as an engineering problem: catching winter rains and spring snow runoff by damming rivers; moving water from its source to where it was needed for farms and homes via canals and pipelines; and drilling wells to augment surface diversions.

However, just as the last of the state’s major water projects was completed in the 1960s, environmental consciousness arose, making what had been a linear exercise much more complicated. In the 1970s, new state and federal laws began compelling water managers to make allowances for the environmental effects of their diversions.

Meanwhile, California’s farmers opened vast new acreages of high-value crops, such as almonds, that demanded more reliable water. And the state’s population boomed to 40 million thirsty human beings.

During the first years of the 21st century, these and other trends coalesced into interrelated mega-issues that range the entire length of the state.


Divvying up the Colorado River


The west’s longest river touches seven states and forms the boundary between California and Arizona before flowing into Mexico and the Sea of Cortez. California has been legally entitled to 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water, three-quarters of it for the Imperial Irrigation District in the state’s southeastern corner, which was among the river’s earliest diverters.

Historically, California drew more than its allotment. But Nevada and Arizona, with rapidly increasing populations, have sought more from the river and it is heavily overdrafted.

The federal government demanded that the affected states either voluntarily agree to reduce their draws or have Washington impose its own reallocation. Early this year, a short-term proposal was finally hammered out and the affected states will next turn to negotiating longer-term reductions in their use of the Colorado.

Meanwhile, the deserts of southeastern California are seeing another sharp conflict over water, involving huge aquifers beneath the Mojave.

Cadiz, Inc., an investor-owned, publicly traded company based in Los Angeles, wants to extract about 16 billion gallons, or 50,000 acre-feet, of water a year from the aquifers beneath land it controls in the Cadiz Valley, midway between Barstow and Needles. The proposal has drawn fire from environmental groups, and efforts have been made in the Legislature to block it. But the Trump administration has indirectly endorsed it by clearing the way for a pipeline to carry the water.

The storage conundrum

Building more storage, whether in reservoirs or by replenishing underground aquifers, is attracting more support as a response not only to drought but also to forecasts that climate change will cause California to receive more precipitation as rain and less as snow. That change would degrade the natural reservoir of winter snowpacks in the Sierra, thereby requiring manmade storage to capture winter rains.

The most advanced storage proposal is Sites Reservoir on the west side of the Sacramento Valley in Colusa County. Sacramento River water would be pumped into Sites during high flows via a 14-mile-long pipeline—as much as 1.8 million acre-feet when full—and released back into the river as needed.

The off-stream nature of Sites and the prolonged drought have reduced the traditional opposition of environmental groups to water-supply projects. So Sites stands a pretty good chance of becoming reality, although the $5.2 billion cost has not yet been fully covered.

Sites is not the only storage project kicking around, however. Agricultural groups south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, facing cutbacks in both surface and underground supplies, have been trying to gain traction for what’s called Temperance Flat, a dam on the San Joaquin River just upstream from the river’s major storage facility, Friant Dam and its Millerton Lake.

As an on-stream project involving an already stressed river, however, Temperance Flat is much more controversial than Sites and less likely to make the cut.

A third project is the enlargement of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County, which draws water out of the Delta. It enjoys support from environmental groups and, as an off-stream project, is likely to eventually receive state construction funds.

As these proposals make their way through the political and regulatory thickets, with no outcome certain, there is one more big project in the talking stage: raising Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River north of Redding, increasing storage in what is already the state’s largest reservoir, with a current capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet.

Although the idea of raising the dam by 18 feet and increasing Lake Shasta’s storage by 600,000 acre-feet has kicked around for decades, Washington has made the $1.3 billion project a priority as part of Trump’s pledge to help California farmers with water supplies. However, state officials, backed by environmental groups and Indian tribes, say the plan would destroy sacred tribal sites and violate the state’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protections for the McCloud River, one of the Sacramento River’s major tributaries.


The bedeviled Delta

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, along with several lesser waterways, merge in the 1,100-square-mile Delta, originally a seasonal marsh that was transformed by human labor into a maze of agricultural islands separated by about 1,000 miles of channels and sloughs that flow toward San Francisco Bay.

State and federal water systems push water into the Delta from dams and reservoirs, principally Shasta and Oroville, then pull water from the southern edge of the Delta for shipment via canals to San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California’s 20-plus million residents.

The pumps involved are so powerful that they grind up some small fish and can reverse flows in the Delta’s channels, adversely affecting wildlife habitat.

Bypassing the Delta has been a bedrock of the state’s water system for more than a half-century, mostly as a “peripheral canal” that would draw water from the Sacramento River upstream from the Delta and transport it 43 miles around the Delta to the head of the California Aqueduct near Tracy.

After much arm-twisting by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, aided by pressure from Southern California water agencies, the Legislature authorized its construction four decades ago. However, two major interest groups, San Joaquin Valley farmers and environmental-protection advocates, remained opposed and formed an odd-bedfellows alliance that successfully challenged the project via a referendum on the 1982 state ballot.

The Delta issue devolved into morass of political and legal conflicts and the bypass approach reemerged during action-movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger’s improbable governorship, this time in the form of one or two tunnels beneath the Delta.

As Brown began his second governorship in 2011, he enthusiastically endorsed it, characterizing it as a way to save the Delta, and it acquired a new official name, “California WaterFix.”

By the time Brown departed again in 2019, however, the project’s fate was still uncertain and very quickly, Brown’s successor, Gavin Newsom, formally abandoned the twin tunnels and relaunched the approval process for a single tunnel.

A 300-mile flashpoint

If the Delta is the hydrologic flashpoint of California’s troubled water system, the 300-mile-long San Joaquin Valley—the heart of California’s huge agricultural industry—south of the Delta is its socioeconomic center.

When the region was settled in the latter half of the 19th century, its chief agricultural product was wheat. Eventually, that gave way to fruits and vegetables, later to cotton and other commodities and most recently to high-value crops such as almonds and wine grapes.

Post-wheat agriculture required irrigation water. One by one, the streams flowing into the valley from the Sierra were dammed by federal and local water agencies with elaborate systems of canals to deliver water to the fields.

The California Aqueduct, which runs down the western edge of the valley, made it possible to sharply expand agricultural production there, but the aqueduct became the focal point of political and legal conflicts that arose over the impact on the Delta, exacerbated by drought.

As state and federal water managers reduced allotments to valley farmers and federal judges required more water to remain in the Delta to protect endangered species, farmers drilled thousands of wells to keep their valuable orchards and vineyards alive. But the depletion of underground aquifers led to subsidence—shrinking or sinking land—that threatened the viability of the valley’s complex water-delivery system.

Overdrafts persuaded Brown and the Legislature to do something in 2014 that would have been unthinkable in the past: regulate groundwater. The law they enacted requires local water agencies to eventually decrease pumping to sustainable levels.

Subsidence has also exacerbated a San Joaquin Valley water-supply issue that carries a serious human health threat. Many small farming communities lack safe supplies due to pollution of their wells, even though the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the problem. Newsom is now proposing a dedicated tax on water and other agriculture-related activities to improve the substandard systems.

As the groundwater issues play out, a high-stakes battle has been waged on the state Water Resources Control Board over whether farmers should reduce their use of San Joaquin River water so more could flow to the Delta for habitat improvement.

Farmers saw it as a tradeoff connected to the twin-tunnel project being pushed by Jerry Brown. They were being asked, they complained, to give up water for their fields and orchards so that more could be sent to Los Angeles.

If nothing else, it illustrates how the ostensibly separate conflicts over water storage, the Delta tunnels, Delta water flows, subsidence and groundwater regulation are, in fact, deeply intertwined.

So where are we headed?

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There are mismatches in California’s water supplies and uses. The most obvious one is that agriculture generates just 2% of California’s $2.6 trillion economy but consumes three times as much water as all other human activities.

Shifting a relatively tiny amount of water from agricultural to non-agricultural use, say 2 million acre-feet a year, could meet much of the demand from the latter. But how would such a shift occur?

One way would be to reconfigure California’s very complex welter of water-use rights, some dating back more than a century, that creates a pecking order for who gets water and who doesn’t, especially during droughts.

Agricultural groups resist diminution of water rights, seeing them as their last line of defense. But farmers, who once dominated the state’s politics, have also seen their political clout slipping away, so reconfiguring water rights could cause a major battle in the not-too-distant future.

Another way to shift water from farms to cities would be to expand what is now a relatively small water marketing system. Farmers and their water agencies have been trading water among themselves for decades, but only rarely have they sold water to non-agricultural users.

The fear among farmers is that however it may occur, shifting water from fields to cities will force them to take land out of production—“fallowing” in agricultural jargon—and further depress the industry’s status.

Environmental groups contend that rather than pursue new supplies of water, California should do a better job of using and conserving what it has by changing how farmers and homeowners use water to grow crops and lawns, spurring the change by pricing water more realistically, which could raise rates.

And then there’s desalination—tapping the unlimited waters of the Pacific Ocean by stripping away their salts.

One big desalination plant is operating in northern San Diego County, producing 50 million gallons of water daily, enough for 400,000 people, according to the San Diego County Water Authority. A clone is proposed in Huntington Beach, and Santa Barbara has a small plant for its own use.

The technology of desalination is well established. The problem is that the machinery consumes large amounts of electricity, which makes the output relatively expensive—about $2,000 an acre-foot.

During the state’s countless water policy conferences, some desalination advocates envision coupling huge arrays of solar panels with a string of coastal desalination plants to provide unlimited supplies of carbon-free water—and ending California’s water wars forever.

Is that a pipe dream? Possibly. But it may also be no more inconceivable than the world-class system of capturing and conveying water that transformed California from sparsely populated frontier into a state of 40 million people with the fifth-largest economy in the world.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/24/walters-understanding-californias-ever-changing-water-wars/
 
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Water and Agricultural interests are fighting California’s bid to block Trump’s environmental rollbacks
By Phil Willon | Sep. 9, 2019

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SACRAMENTO — California is close to adopting strict Obama-era federal environmental and worker safety rules that the Trump administration is dismantling. But as the legislative session draws to a close, the proposal faces fierce opposition from the state’s largest water agencies.

To shield California from Trump administration policies, lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow state agencies to lock in protections under the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and other bulwark environmental and labor laws that were in place before President Trump took office in January 2017.

Written by one of the most powerful politicians in Sacramento, state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), Senate Bill 1 has strong support from some of California’s most influential environmental and labor organizations, including some that helped get Gov. Gavin Newsom elected.

But several of California’s water suppliers and agricultural interests, which also flex ample political muscle, oppose the measure. This coalition includes the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which has made SB 1 a top lobbying priority.

The water agencies fear the state would cement into law endangered species protections and pumping restrictions that would add to uncertainties about pumping water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, joined by four Democratic members of Congress from the Central Valley, also sent a letter to Newsom on Friday echoing concerns raised by the bill’s opponents. Without changes, the legislation would “prevent the state from incorporating the latest science and other information in permitting decisions,” the letter stated.

“We’re stuck on one key issue, and that’s the Endangered Species Act,” Atkins said. “I’m keeping an open mind, but ... the intent of this bill is to protect programs that we have had in place for decades.”

While Atkins said she will continue negotiations with the bill’s opponents and will consider amendments, time is running out, since this year’s legislative session ends Friday.

Atkins appears adamant about keeping tough protections for endangered species in California.

She said the intent of the water suppliers and Central Valley agricultural interests is crystal clear — they benefit from Trump administration proposals to weaken the Endangered Species Act because that would allow them to divert more water from the delta.

“That is the hope on their part,” Atkins said.

The delta, the largest estuary on the U.S. Pacific Coast, is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and provides water for more than 25 million people and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland. The delta supplies a third of the Southland’s water.

Newsom’s position on the bill, known as the California Environmental, Public Health, and Workers Defense Act of 2019, remains unclear. His administration has been buffeted by intense lobbying by environmental groups who support the legislation and some of California’s most influential agricultural interests, business groups and water suppliers, who have been fighting for changes to the bill.

The California Chamber of Commerce also labeled the bill a “job killer,” saying businesses would have a difficult time navigating the litany of new state environmental and workplace regulations and almost assuredly would unleash a wave of legal challenges, causing even more uncertainty for companies.

But the legislation mostly stoked the ongoing clash between water users — Central Valley farms and Southern California cities — and environmentalists over efforts to protect delta smelt, Chinook salmon and steelhead trout in the delta by limiting the amount of water that can be siphoned away.

Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said he’s worried — the legislation will create separate sets of endangered species projections and pumping restrictions on California’s two major water systems that draw water from the delta: the federal Central Valley Project, which is under the purview of U.S. Department of the Interior, and the State Water Project, which California authorities oversee.

Metropolitan draws water from the State Water Project, and Kightlinger said the amount of water his agency receives will be reduced if it has to abide by stricter state regulations than do customers of the federal water system. While Atkins’ legislation specifically says that state law will apply equally to both water systems, Kightlinger fears that would be susceptible to legal challenge.

“It would cost us water. We’d be able to pump less; federal contractors would be able to pull up more,” Kightlinger said.

Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors association, said the state mandates also could derail voluntary agreements between water districts and state regulatory agencies that would allow greater flexibility in how to protect endangered species, including the use of habitat restoration and real-time water management techniques.

Pierre said the state law would require decade-old federal rules that regulate water pumping and species protections in the delta, called biological opinions, to be frozen into place, forcing new scientific findings that offer better management practices to be ignored.

Feinstein made the same argument in her letter to Newsom.

“Without additional flexibility, this provision would severely restrict voluntary agreements whereby water users would support additional flows and habitat improvements for salmon and other imperiled fish in return for some level of water supply reliability,” the Sept. 6 letter stated.

Doug Obegi of the Natural Resources Defense Council called the objections by water suppliers a ruse, saying the water agencies have a long history of trying to undermine endangered species protections so they can divert more water with little concern if native species go extinct.

“That’s been their M.O. for years,” Obegi said.

Obegi said the legislation already allows state agencies to incorporate the latest science when drafting management plans for the delta.

He also said the need for the legislation grows more essential with every day Trump is in the White House.

The Trump administration last month took action to weaken the 45-year-old Endangered Species Act, including removing protections for creatures recently added to the threatened list and allowing the federal government to disclose economic costs when deciding whether to list a species as endangered. The Interior Department says those costs will not be a factor in any decisions about species.

That came in the wake of the administration decision to roll back a series of Obama-era environmental policies, including stringent vehicle mileage standards and fighting climate change by phasing out coal-fired power plants.

In August, The Times also reported that federal officials suppressed a lengthy environmental report detailing how a number of California species would be jeopardized by Trump administration plans to deliver more delta water to Central Valley farms.

In the report, which is called a biological opinion, the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that siphoning out more water probably would imperil endangered Chinook salmon and threatened Central Valley steelhead, as well as endangered Southern Resident killer whales that eat the salmon.

“Given the rollback we see in D.C., we need the state to operate at multiple levels to resist the Trump administration,” Obegi said.

The Westlands Water District, a San Joaquin Valley irrigation district led by some of the state’s wealthiest growers, would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s proposal to allow more water to be withdrawn from the delta.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, before joining the Trump administration, was a partner at a law and lobbying firm that represented Westlands and sued the Department of the Interior four times on behalf of it.

John McManus of the Golden Gate Salmon Assn. said increased water withdrawals from the delta that benefited the San Joaquin Valley farmers almost two decades ago almost wiped out the salmon and the salmon fishing industry. Salmon populations bounced back after 2008 when new limits on delta water diversions were implemented, he said.

“We’re hopeful that [the governor] appreciates the grave threat, not only to salmon, but the other native species in California if Secretary Bernhardt gets his way and diverts more water to his friends in the San Joaquin,” McManus said.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-07/california-trump-environment-federal-laws-water
 
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Newsom plans to veto bill that would have blocked Trump’s rollback of endangered species protections
By Phil Willon | Sep. 14, 2019

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A provision in Senate Bill 1 would have imposed pumping restrictions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, raising concerns from water agencies across the state

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to veto a bill passed by California lawmakers that would have allowed the state to keep strict Obama-era endangered species protections and water pumping restrictions for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Newsom’s intentions, confirmed by his spokesman on Saturday, comes less than 24 hours after state lawmakers passed the sweeping legislation.

The overall intent of the bill was to shield California from the Trump administration’s rollbacks of environmental laws and workplace protections, but Newsom said the legislation fell short of that promise.

“I fully support the principles behind Senate Bill 1: to defeat efforts by the President and Congress to undermine vital federal protections that protect clean air, clean water and endangered species,” Newsom said in a statement released Saturday.

“Senate Bill 1 does not, however, provide the state with any new authority to push back against the Trump Administration’s environmental policies and it limits the state’s ability to rely upon the best available science to protect our environment,” the statement said.

SB 1 would allow state agencies to adopt protections under the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and other major environmental and labor laws that were in place before President Trump took office in January 2017.

Many of the labor and environmental provisions were not controversial. But debate over the legislation quickly centered on one of California’s oldest and most bitter divides — the fight over water in the delta, which provides water for more than 25 million people and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland.

Numerous water agencies, including the influential Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, feared the endangered species provisions and delta pumping restrictions would limit their water supply at key times of the year.

The Newsom administration shared some of those concerns, as did U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and four Central Valley Democrats in Congress who submitted a letter last week requesting the bill be amended.

Despite those objections, the Democrat-controlled Legislature passed the bill early Saturday morning in the final hours of its annual legislative session.

State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), who authored the bill, on Saturday said she was “strongly disappointed” with Newsom’s vow to veto the bill.

“Not only must we work to push back against the rollbacks that have already been made, we must start preparing now to push back against the next Trump assaults we know will be coming,” Atkins said in a statement.

Atkins said she intends to keep working with Newsom to safeguard California against “dangerous rollbacks” in environmental policy by the president.

Sending the bill to Newsom’s desk, and Newsom’s quick promise to veto the legislation, marks one of the first times that the governor and Atkins have clashed over major state policy.

The two have been strong political allies for years, with Atkins being the only Democratic legislative leader to endorse Newsom’s successful bid for governor in 2018. The divide could have implications for their future relationship, potentially complicating the governor’s legislative agenda.

Since taking office in January, Newsom has been a frequent critic of Trump’s environmental policies.

In August, California and a coalition of 21 other states sued to block the Trump administration’s attempt to gut restrictions on coal-burning power plants, limits that were central to President Obama’s climate change policy. In July, California circumvented the Trump administration’s efforts to relax tailpipe pollution regulations by reaching a deal with four major automakers to gradually increase fuel-efficiency standards.

Environmental groups, which were a key part of the liberal coalition that helped elect Newsom, saw SB 1 as one of their top priorities for this year’s legislative session. The bill had strong support from Sierra Club California, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Audubon California and other groups. It sailed through the state Senate in May on a 28-10 vote, and went through several changes, based on meetings with various parties.

Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, had been optimistic that Newsom would sign the bill, noting that he was elected on an “environmental platform.”

“I think he’s making a mistake. I think he’s been painted into a corner by some people that don’t have his or California’s best interests at heart and have been heavily invested in getting rid of the Endangered Species Act,” Phillips said. “He’s making it easier for Trump to continue to have a negative impact on California’s environment.”

The Butte County Farm Bureau, however, said the bill would “dismantle” the ability to produce food in California. Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition said the consequences would be dire if Newsom did not veto the bill.

“Last night, California’s Legislature said “no” to future-oriented water policy including new environmental protections and “yes” to an outdated regulatory system and business as usual,” Wade said in a statement on Saturday.

Both Republicans and Democratic lawmakers, primarily from the Central Valley, spoke out against the bill.

Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) said the law would rekindle California’s water wars. Republican Assemblyman Devon Mathis of Visalia said it was a “knee-jerk reaction” by a state Legislature dominated by the Democratic Party against the Republican president. He said it would devastate agriculture in the Central Valley by cutting its water supply, an assertion that supporters of the bill refute.

“What this bill does is turn my area of the state literally into a dust bowl,” Mathis said during the Assembly debate on the bill Friday evening. “I have some of the highest poverty rates, I have one of the largest Latino immigrant areas. And these people depend on agricultural work, which means they depend on water.”

The key legislative fight involved efforts to protect delta smelt, Chinook salmon and steelhead trout by limiting the amount of water that can be siphoned away. Water users, including Central Valley farms and Southern California cities, have clashed with environmentalists over that issue for decades.

In the last several weeks, water interests have ramped up a campaign to derail the legislation or have it significantly amended.

Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors association, said recently that the proposed bill would have locked in outdated federal rules that regulate water pumping and species protections in the delta. As a result, new scientific findings that offer prescriptions for better water and species management practices would be ignored, she said.

The bill’s biggest hitch was a provision that would impose the state’s endangered species protections and pumping restrictions on the Central Valley Project, the water system run by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. The Central Valley Project provides much of the water consumed by farms and people in the Central Valley heart of California.

Water districts that receive water from the Central Valley Project threatened to walk away from voluntary agreements being negotiated between them and state regulatory agencies. The pacts were aimed at allowing greater flexibility in how to protect endangered species and divert water from the delta. Newsom supported the voluntary agreements and did not want to see them derailed, administration officials said, which is why he had urged Atkins to amend the bill.

Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said those agreements would benefit both water users and the ecosystem. Such gains would have been lost if Newsom had signed the bill.

“All along we said the bill was, frankly, a mistake. It will lead to nonstop litigation and do nothing for the environment,” Kightlinger. “SB 1 was good politics but bad policy.”

Phillips called those arguments by water agencies disingenuous. The water agencies and Central Valley farmers want the Trump administration’s weakened endangered species protections in place so they can pump more water from the delta, she said.

Since Trump has taken office, there have been questions whether water users would agree to settlements proposed during the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown, or seek better deals now that Trump administration has pushed rollbacks.

In August, the White House took action to weaken the 45-year-old Endangered Species Act, including removing protections for species recently added to the threatened list. This week, it announced it would weaken Obama-era rules on protecting wetlands.

The Times last month also reported that federal officials suppressed a lengthy environmental report detailing how a number of California species would be jeopardized by Trump’s plans to deliver more delta water to Central Valley farms.

The Metropolitan Water District has defended the federal government’s actions, saying that little has changed, a claim environmental groups have disputed as propaganda.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...egislature-bill-trump-environmental-rollbacks
 
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Demise of key environment bill could escalate California’s water wars
By Julie Cart | September 18, 2019

delta-e1568777231163.jpg

The smoke has (partly) cleared from the legislative battlefield, in the aftermath of a struggle pitting the leader of the California Senate against not only powerful water and agricultural interests but also Gov. Gavin Newsom. And California’s two largest water-delivery systems may soon be operating under rules that differ ever more significantly.

Newsom has said he won’t approve Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins’ bid for a legal backstop against environmental rollbacks by the Trump administration. And Washington is poised to reduce protections for endangered fish species in the state’s largest watersheds.

The result may be the heightened regulatory uncertainty that opponents of the bill said they hoped to avoid: While the federal water managers could begin sending more supplies to contractors and agricultural users, state authorities — who adhere to stricter standards for species and habitat protection in the waters they control — could compensate by providing less for cities.

Both state and federal managers have worked for years to harmonize their disparate rules as much as practicable. But now the potential for incompatible management of California’s critical water resources may also create more legal wrangling, experts say, rather than establish a level playing field and resolve the state’s longstanding water wars.

“There’s going to continue to be litigation,” said Holly Doremus, a professor of environmental regulation at UC Berkeley’s law school. “I would think it would help the state to have as much control as it can over water operations.

“California water law imposes requirements that federal law does not; California water law is more protective of the environment,” she said. “The state and the federal government have very different views.”

07082019_PoliceVote_AW_11.jpg

Atkins, a San Diego Democrat, authored the bill, SB 1, which the Legislature passed. It would require the state to assess proposed changes to U.S. environmental and workplace-safety laws. If the new federal rules were to be less stringent than those in place on January 19, 2017 — the day before Trump took office — California officials could either adopt the pre-Trump standards or impose stricter ones.

The thorniest part of the bill involves endangered-species protections and the resulting implications for water supplies. Protection of endangered fish and their habitat restricts water flow in certain places at key times of the year, and farmers and water brokers oppose those constraints, which limit their supplies.

Trump plans to significantly change how U.S. species law is implemented, which could mean more water for farmers at the expense of the Delta smelt, salmon and other fish.

Newsom says Atkins’ bill would disrupt a collaborative, and voluntary, approach to water management. He called the measure “a solution in search of a problem” and is expected to veto it.

Atkins avoided a direct public challenge to Newsom but said in a written statement, “SB 1 is the product of a full year’s worth of work, so clearly I am strongly disappointed in its impending fate.”

In staking out his position, Newsom is caught between his fellow Democrats and environmentalists on one side, and his relationship with Central Valley farmers and water brokers and sympathy for their needs on the other.

The Central Valley water project, run by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, provides water for those farmers as well as flood control and water for Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.


08072019_LosAngeles_AW_36.jpg


Newsom has sunk political capital into the region — and literal capital, too. His administration recently committed $70 million to support the voluntary agreement, funding habitat restoration and projects to enhance water quality.

The agreement is important to Newsom, who has coaxed the various water interests into signing a pact to manage flows from the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems in the Delta Estuary. That process is nearing a conclusion.

And, although Newsom and other opponents claimed the bill would have derailed the agreement, Atkins’ legislation specifically notes that it would have no effect on it: “This article does not affect the process by which voluntary agreements are entered into to assist in the implementation of new water quality standards lawfully adopted.”

Water agencies and others see the anticipated federal changes, coupled with the voluntary accord, as an opportunity to redefine how water is managed in the state, one of the most complex and fraught issues in California.

“I firmly believe it would be one of the most signal accomplishments in my lifetime if we could achieve comprehensive management across the Delta,” said Dave Eggerton, Executive Director of the Association of California Water Agencies. “That would be amazing.”

Both the state and federal water projects are in the midst of recalibrating plans. The state has been regulating the amount of water flowing in and out of the Delta, which has angered Central Valley farmers, who irrigate some 3 million agricultural acres.

The state’s plan update is coming out in phases, and the voluntary agreements could be incorporated into the next update, expected by the end of October, according to Lisa Lien-Mager, a spokeswoman for the state Natural Resources Agency.

Trump has promised farmers they would receive more federal water. Last year he signed a memorandum directing federal agencies to “minimize unnecessary regulatory burdens,” streamline environmental reviews and accelerate water deliveries to the Central Valley.

An updated biological review is also expected soon, and “the smart money is that the new biological opinion will be more permissive (than) the old one,” said Doremus.

That may give the state a legal window, she said, to assert that the Trump administration’s water pumping won’t adequately protect a precious state resource — water. That legal argument, called the “public trust doctrine,” would almost certainly require a court to sort out.

While much of the debate over the bill focused on water, the measure also applied broadly to air regulations and employee safety in the workplace. Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced a new rule eliminating the requirement to report workplace injuries or illness in detailed electronic reports to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Six states sued to reverse the rule, though California was not among them.

California does not need Atkins’ legislation to respond to federal rollbacks with new rules of its own. But in the case of imperiled species, implementing new rules could take years.

For Newsom, torpedoing Atkins’ signature legislation may have long-term political ripples. Support for him among some of California’s environmental advocates has soured, particularly because, they say, Newsom parroted opponents’ talking points that mischaracterized the impact of the bill.

“Is it going to be the same relationship, absolutely not. It’s naïve to think it would be,” said Kathryn Phillips, the California director of the Sierra Club, who called some of Newsom’s statements about the legislation “appalling.”

“Is this going to hurt the long-term relationship? You’re damn right it will,” she said.

Some groups will likely paint the governor — who sees himself as an environmental warrior — as a politician who, when it mattered, sided with big business and Donald Trump.

That’s not slander to the bill’s opponents, who, flush with success, have showered the governor with praise. But those same water and ag interests threatened to walk away from the voluntary water negotiations unless Newsom came out against the bill, and there’s no guarantee that wouldn’t happen again.

Kate Poole, a water lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said Newsom was “blackmailed” by the threats to leave the bargaining table.

“That’s not going to end with SB 1,” she said. “They’ve got him over a barrel.”

https://calmatters.org/environment/...ll-california-water-wars-cost-newsom-support/
 
Yay, we might not have to steal too much this year to keep our lawns green, our swimming pools filled, and our showers hour-long :D

 
Trump OKs more California water for Valley farmers. Gavin Newsom files a lawsuit
By Dale Kasler,Brianna Calix, and Carmen George | February 19, 2020



Gov. Gavin Newsom hailed President Donald Trump’s visit to California on Wednesday with a threat to sue Trump’s administration to block a controversial plan to increase water deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley.

A day later, Newsom’s administration followed through. Two state agencies and Attorney General Xavier Becerra took Trump’s administration to court Thursday evening, claiming the new water plan will put populations of Delta smelt, Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead at severe risk and violates federal environmental law.

Newsom served notice that he would sue just minutes before Trump appeared in Bakersfield on Wednesday to announce his administration had finalized an order removing regulatory roadblocks and enabling the giant Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta pumps to deliver additional water to the southern half of the state.

Appearing with farm leaders and elected officials in the heart of Valley agriculture, the president endorsed new rules governing how water moves through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The decision is designed to open the floodgates so that millions of gallons additional water can flow to urban Southern California and the Valley, where farmers are constantly clamoring for additional supplies.

Trump, speaking to a cheering crowd at an airport hangar in Bakersfield, said his plan will bring “a massive amount of water for the use of California farmers and ranchers and all these communities that are suffering.” He decried state policies that have allowed “millions and millions of gallons (to be) wasted and poured into the ocean” and said he hopes Newsom would fall into line.

With roadblocks to water delivery removed, “you’re going to be able to farm your land and you’re going to be able to do things you never thought possible,” the president added. “Maybe we can get the governor to come along and really be friendly on this one.” He didn’t mention Newsom’s plan to file suit.

Newsom, who has sued Trump over everything from air pollution to immigration, originally threatened to sue over the water plan last fall, saying it could harm the environment.

But the Democratic governor has also tried to find common ground with Trump on water. On Monday he sent the Interior Department a letter acknowledging that Valley farmers need more water and pledging to continue negotiating a compromise with federal officials.

“We remain committed to working to resolve these remaining differences in (the) coming weeks and months,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

Grand compromise?

Newsom has been promoting a grand compromise plan on allocating river flows that are designed to prop up faltering fish populations — a plan that he says could resolve decades of “water wars” in California. He reiterated his commitment to that plan Thursday as the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Some farm irrigation agencies, including the influential Westlands Water District in Fresno, have threatened to withdraw from the compromise talks if Newsom sued over Trump’s Delta pumping plan.

After Newsom announced he was going ahead with a lawsuit, Westlands general manager Tom Birmingham said he needs “to assess the situation” before the sprawling farm district continues negotiating on Newsom’s compromise.

“We are so very close to reaching an agreement,” Birmingham said. “It would be a shame to waste the work that has been done.”

Meanwhile, most environmentalists are skeptical about Newsom’s river-flow compromise and are pushing the governor to fight the Trump plan in court.

Environmentalists say the Delta pumps are so powerful that they can alter the natural water flows in the estuary, diverting migratory fish toward predators and the pumps themselves. They argue that additional pumping will put more pressure on endangered species such as Delta smelt and Chinook salmon, whose populations have dwindled in recent years.

“Trump’s shady water deal ... seizes more Northern California water and gravely threatens the jobs of tens of thousands of Californians who work in the salmon industry,” said John McManus of the Golden State Salmon Association. He added that administration officials overruled federal scientists who had argued that the Trump plan would harm fish and the Delta’s eco-system.

Bernhardt — a former lobbyist for Westlands — called those criticisms unfair and said new scientific research shows pumping can be increased at strategic times without imperiling fish.

“We’ll be using the best science,” Bernhardt said at a conference Tuesday hosted by Trump’s political ally Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare. “I feel like it’s rock solid.”

The amount of additional water that can be pumped will depend on the weather, he said. In wet years, like last winter, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could have sent an extra 1 million acre-feet to the southern half of the state, Bernhardt said. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons; 1 million acre-feet is slightly bigger than Folsom Lake when it’s full.

Valley officials called the decision a great gift to the region’s farms. “ Jason Phillips of the Friant Water Authority, a major water agency on the east side of the Valley, said Tuesday that the decision represents “the first substantive positive action that’s being implemented in the Valley for over 50 years.”

Yet Bernhardt said the president’s decision has benefits beyond agriculture.

“We’re talking about the water supply for 25 million people,” he said at Tuesday’s conference.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article240437356.html
 
Gavin Newsome and the rest of the Liberals in California have done nothing but made themselves rich, while everyone else has gotten poorer, and driving out real Californians.

That smiling POS couldn't cut it one day in the valley heat wearing a Farmer's boots.

I'll never forget how the peanut-brained Liberals all patted themselves on the back when they cut off water for Farmers because of the poor, poor Delta Smelt fish being declared "endangered".

Central California had fields and fields of crops. Now, most of it is gone. Towns and cities that used to be farming central, like Mendota, CA, are now MS-13 central.

Good job, shitheads...
 
Destroy the most diverse ecosystem in NA and popular recreation destination in order to maintain crops and green lawns in a desert.

This is fucking insanity
 
I need almonds. Now, senor.
 
California moves to halt Nestlé from taking millions of gallons of water
Nestlé, accused of taking millions more gallons than it is entitled to, receives draft cease-and-desist order from state officials
By Maanvi Singh | 27 Apr 2021

nestle-water.jpg

California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the state.

The draft cease-and-desist order, which still requires approval from the California Water Resources Control Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the expense of local communities and ecosystems.

Nestlé has maintained that its rights to California spring water dates back to 1865. But a 2017 investigation found that Nestlé was taking far more than its share. Last year the company drew out about 58m gallons, far surpassing the 2.3m gallons per year it could validly claim.

Nestlé has sucked up, on average, 25 times as much water as it may have a right to, according to the Story of Stuff Project, an environmental group that has been fighting to stop the bottled water company’s pumping in California for years.

State officials sent the company a letter notifying it of the order on Friday.

“We have a limited amount of water, said Julé Rizzardo, the assistant deputy director of the Division of Water Rights. “And as we face our second dry year in a row, it’s important that we use our authority to protect the municipal water supply and the environment.”

Strawberry Creek, which Nestlé has been pumping from, is a tributary of the Santa Ana river, which provides drinking water for about about 750,000 residents. The region’s watersheds also provide a habitat for deer, fox and mountain lions, and threatened Alameda whipsnakes.

The draft order comes two months after Nestlé, which is based in Switzerland, sold its US- and Canada-based water brands to equity firms One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos for $4.3bn.

Nestlé Waters North America, which has been rebranded as BlueTriton Brands, has 20 days to appeal the draft order and ask for a hearing. A spokesperson said the assessment that it only had the right to draw 7.26 acre-feet of water per year was erroneous.

The company’s fight water in California mirrors similar fights in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Maine and Michigan. Across the US, conservationists have accused Nestlé of leveraging vast lobbying funds to bend local and federal officials to its will.

“The forests that Nestlé is draining – they’re our forests, supported by every US taxpayer,” said Amanda Frye, an activist who provided state officials with documents and research going back at least a century to show Nestlé did not have the right to the water it was pumping.

Frye, who has been protesting Nestlé’s pumping from Strawberry Creek for years, said the draft order is significant.

“But we still have a long way to go in protecting the forest from over-pumping,” she said.

The pumping has desiccated Strawberry Creek, damaging a local ecosystem. “It’s such a lovely ecosystem, and it’s doubly under threat due to climate change,” Frye said. “I hope that if Nestlé stops pumping, the environment will be able to heal.”

Officials said the state’s water board cannot easily challenge Nestlé’s rights to creek water established before 1914.

If the state water board approves the cease-and-desist order against BlueTriton, the company could face fines of up to $1,000 a day, or up to $10,000 a day if a drought is declared in the area.

Meanwhile, as much of the western US faces extreme drought conditions, long-standing fights in California between farmers, cities and environmental groups over the state’s scarce water supplies have heated up. Governor Gavin Newsom has already declared a regional drought emergency in two counties, after a dry winter left the state’s major reservoirs at half capacity or lower.

The climate crisis has brought on hotter, drier conditions – leaving the state more vulnerable water shortages and wildfires.

Prior to its sale this year, Nestlé Waters North America was the largest bottled water company in the US – its brands include Poland Spring and Zephyrhills. It paid the Forest Service a permit fee of $2,100 per year, but had been pumping water for free.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news...ia-nestle-water-san-bernardino-forest-drought
 
California moves to halt Nestlé from taking millions of gallons of water
Nestlé, accused of taking millions more gallons than it is entitled to, receives draft cease-and-desist order from state officials
By Maanvi Singh | 27 Apr 2021

nestle-water.jpg

California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the state.

The draft cease-and-desist order, which still requires approval from the California Water Resources Control Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the expense of local communities and ecosystems.

Nestlé has maintained that its rights to California spring water dates back to 1865. But a 2017 investigation found that Nestlé was taking far more than its share. Last year the company drew out about 58m gallons, far surpassing the 2.3m gallons per year it could validly claim.

Nestlé has sucked up, on average, 25 times as much water as it may have a right to, according to the Story of Stuff Project, an environmental group that has been fighting to stop the bottled water company’s pumping in California for years.

State officials sent the company a letter notifying it of the order on Friday.

“We have a limited amount of water, said Julé Rizzardo, the assistant deputy director of the Division of Water Rights. “And as we face our second dry year in a row, it’s important that we use our authority to protect the municipal water supply and the environment.”

Strawberry Creek, which Nestlé has been pumping from, is a tributary of the Santa Ana river, which provides drinking water for about about 750,000 residents. The region’s watersheds also provide a habitat for deer, fox and mountain lions, and threatened Alameda whipsnakes.

The draft order comes two months after Nestlé, which is based in Switzerland, sold its US- and Canada-based water brands to equity firms One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos for $4.3bn.

Nestlé Waters North America, which has been rebranded as BlueTriton Brands, has 20 days to appeal the draft order and ask for a hearing. A spokesperson said the assessment that it only had the right to draw 7.26 acre-feet of water per year was erroneous.

The company’s fight water in California mirrors similar fights in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Maine and Michigan. Across the US, conservationists have accused Nestlé of leveraging vast lobbying funds to bend local and federal officials to its will.

“The forests that Nestlé is draining – they’re our forests, supported by every US taxpayer,” said Amanda Frye, an activist who provided state officials with documents and research going back at least a century to show Nestlé did not have the right to the water it was pumping.

Frye, who has been protesting Nestlé’s pumping from Strawberry Creek for years, said the draft order is significant.

“But we still have a long way to go in protecting the forest from over-pumping,” she said.

The pumping has desiccated Strawberry Creek, damaging a local ecosystem. “It’s such a lovely ecosystem, and it’s doubly under threat due to climate change,” Frye said. “I hope that if Nestlé stops pumping, the environment will be able to heal.”

Officials said the state’s water board cannot easily challenge Nestlé’s rights to creek water established before 1914.

If the state water board approves the cease-and-desist order against BlueTriton, the company could face fines of up to $1,000 a day, or up to $10,000 a day if a drought is declared in the area.

Meanwhile, as much of the western US faces extreme drought conditions, long-standing fights in California between farmers, cities and environmental groups over the state’s scarce water supplies have heated up. Governor Gavin Newsom has already declared a regional drought emergency in two counties, after a dry winter left the state’s major reservoirs at half capacity or lower.

The climate crisis has brought on hotter, drier conditions – leaving the state more vulnerable water shortages and wildfires.

Prior to its sale this year, Nestlé Waters North America was the largest bottled water company in the US – its brands include Poland Spring and Zephyrhills. It paid the Forest Service a permit fee of $2,100 per year, but had been pumping water for free.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news...ia-nestle-water-san-bernardino-forest-drought
£1000 dollars a day
<Lmaoo>
I’m sure Nestle are shaking in their boots
 
I remember Bill Burr joking about this a few years ago I didn't realize how real it was with Nestle
 
californians are so dumb, maybe stop adding millions of illegals.
And then what happens when there aren’t enough workers? I’ll wait. No I won’t. You’ll bitch about $3 oranges and California will still have water issues as an influx of Americans flock to CA to work the fields.

Illegals are in these states for a reason and it’s not for food stamps. They get paid more in CA than they do in Honduras and fill a role native born Americans won’t do. You’re probably from Canada so what the hell do you know.
 
I have a simple question. Why is it that we have hundreds of oil pipelines, but no significant water pipelines from say the ever flooding Missouri River to Lake Powell that feeds the Colorado River and SoCal? We have a huge Infrastructure Bill and water is not addressed at all.

California Democrats have used water as a political weapon for years. I am sure Nestle' is out of line, but it's far too political.
 
I have a simple question. Why is it that we have hundreds of oil pipelines, but no significant water pipelines from say the ever flooding Missouri River to Lake Powell that feeds the Colorado River and SoCal? We have a huge Infrastructure Bill and water is not addressed at all.

California Democrats have used water as a political weapon for years. I am sure Nestle' is out of line, but it's far too political.

Boarding a flight so no time but take 80 (half water use per person per day in gallons) and multiply it by the number of people in California. Then take that amount and figure out you need a 40 ft in Diameter pipeline. Now image in energy required to move all of that water. Oh and it’s stainless pipe so your costs have increase 8x.
 
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