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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Amid a severe drought, California regulators on Wednesday advanced what could be the state’s first major new water storage project in years despite warnings it would hasten the extinction of an endangered salmon species while disrupting the cultural traditions of some native tribes. The plan is to build a new lake in Northern California that, when full, could hold enough water to supply 3 million households for one year. Supporters need about $4 billion to build it. Wednesday’s vote by the California Water Commission means the lake — named Sites Reservoir — is eligible for about...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring, “There is no drought.” Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea “to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.” “We’re going to solve your water problem. You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea,” Trump said to cheers at a rally that drew thousands.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring, "There is no drought." Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea "to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish

In the coming days, I will shed light on the players and their motivations behind this latest California Water War Water wars are historic undertakings in California. Countless other publications have written recently about the proposed ballot measure that would redirect High Speed Rail bond money for water-related projects and prioritize the use of water, But what makes this story interesting is the coalition of opponents, their motivations and techniques being employed. The Committee to Stop the Special Interest Water Grab, led by David Guy, president of the Northern California Water Association, Tim Johnson, president of the California Rice Commission...

In a White House statement released on May 26, President Obama stated: “I called on the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clear up the confusion and uphold our basic duty to protect these vital [water] resources.”Obama went on the explain that the two federal bodies will provide businesses and industry with the “clarity and certainty” they need to determine which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, and ensure that polluters “can be held accountable.”During a “press gaggle” the next day aboard Air Force One, AP’s White House press correspondent Darlene Superville asked...

a debate is emerging between the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency over the potential disaster if the 89-year-old Mountain Tunnel, which supplies 2.6 million Bay Area homes and businesses with water, collapses. The PUC acknowledges that the tunnel does have a chance of "catastrophic collapse," which would require repairs costing $100 million or total replacement, costing up to $630 million. But the PUC’s 10-year-old 4.6 billion water system improvement program did not include the Mountain Tunnel in its plans. ... The risk right now is that the tunnel lining could...

Mountain Tunnel, a key part of the Hetch Hetchy water system - which supplies 2.6 million Bay Area residences and businesses - is at risk of a "catastrophic collapse" and will cost more than $100 million to repair or up to $630 million to replace, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. City officials have known for 25 years that significant work is needed on the 19-mile-long tunnel just outside Yosemite National Park in a steep, hard-to-access wilderness area. They considered making it part of the PUC's decade-old, $4.6 billion water system improvement program, which is now more than...

Home » California » In dry California, water fetching record prices SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Throughout California's desperately dry Central Valley, those with water to spare are cashing in. As a third parched summer forces farmers to fallow fields and lay off workers, two water districts and a pair of landowners in the heart of the state's farmland are making millions of dollars by auctioning off their private caches. Nearly 40 others also are seeking to sell their surplus water this year, according to state and federal records. Economists say it's been decades since the water market has been this...

<p>For a while, we’ve been wondering why President Obama doesn’t do any public events while he flies through the Bay Area to swoop up campaign cash. If you think that’s tough, he has NEVER visited Fresno during his campaign nor his presidency. And Monday night, in an interview with ABC 30 in Fresno, Obama was asked, essentially, “What’s up with that?”</p>

Gov. Jerry Brown warned this week that his administration's soon-to-be unveiled plan to tackle the state's water delivery challenges is "going to be controversial" but vowed he would "push it through." Saying that state leaders have failed for five decades to ensure water reliability in the Golden State, Brown told a group of about 900 business leaders in San Jose Thursday that his administration would soon announce its preferred plan - widely expected to be two giant pipelines that move water out of the Sacramento River and under the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to the Bay Area, Central Valley...

California salmon and salmon fishermen won in federal court Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the federal water project is obliged to provide enough water to double the salmon population. You can read the decision here. Under the ruling, only surplus water from the bay-delta water system can be delivered to water users in the San Joaquin Valley, not water from the 800,000 acre-foot allotment promised to fish under a 1992 federal law.

Washington -- Dan Lungren, a Republican member of Congress from Sacramento County, wants to give the world "a second Yosemite Valley." The valley already exists, in Yosemite National Park - buried under 300 feet of water in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which provides San Franciscans and 1.7 million other Bay Area residents with pristine water straight from the Sierra. All that would be needed would be to blow up the dam, which Yosemite godfather John Muir fought to his dying breath in 1914. The Schwarzenegger administration in 2006 estimated the cost at $3 billion to $10 billion. Lungren said Yosemite...

SAN DIEGO -- A landmark accord that ended decades of acrimony over how Southern California gets its water is in jeopardy. A California appeals court is considering whether to overturn a 2003 pact that created the nation's largest farm-to-city water transfer and set new rules for dividing the state's share of the Colorado River. If a lower court ruling stands, consequences could ripple to six other Western states and Mexico, which also rely on the 1,450-mile river that flows from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez. ... In January 2010, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Roland Candee gutted the...

WASHINGTON — Federal protections for California's delta smelt will remain intact, but Western water controversies will keep on boiling, with a Supreme Court decision Monday not to hear farmers' ambitious challenge to a key environmental law. The court's decision, issued without comment, effectively upholds the conclusion by a Fresno, Calif.-based trial judge and a lower appellate court that the Endangered Species Act can protect even those plants and animals that don't cross state borders.

With a House Republican loading political ammunition in a national fight over government science, Interior Department officials said Friday they would stand by the work of two scientists whose integrity was attacked recently by a federal judge overseeing the Delta water wars. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, in a lengthy and strongly worded assault Sept. 16, said the two scientists deliberately misled him when they urged him not to weaken new rules meant to help imperiled Delta smelt in wet years like this one. He called one scientist, Jennifer Norris of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a "zealot" who...

For the second time in a year, a federal judge has tossed out a key permit governing Delta water deliveries. The permit was meant to prevent salmon runs and other fish from going extinct. . . . "Some of (the National Marine Fisheries Service's) analyses rely upon equivocal or bad science to impose (restrictions) without clearly explaining or otherwise demonstrating why the specific measures imposed are essential" to protect salmon, steelhead and green sturgeon,

Delta water users have sued to block a temporary decrease in pumping meant to save thousands of salmon, a move that seems destined to raise the stakes in an escalating water war. After a drought-busting winter that was good news for fishers and farmers, tens of thousands of salmon have been caught or killed at the powerful Delta pumps in the past few months. In addition, more than 6 million Sacramento splittail, a large minnow that environmentalists say should be protected by endangered species laws, were also collected or killed at the pumps. Government biologists contend that the large number...

Those who really believe California has a water shortage should spend five minutes standing in Old Sacramento, watching the Sacramento River. Operators of the three major dams on the Sacramento and its tributaries – Shasta, Oroville and Folsom – have opened their gates widely, sending boiling torrents of water downstream. They must draw down reservoirs behind the dams to control anticipated runoff from one of the heaviest mountain snowpacks on record. A week ago, Sacramento River flows hit 90,000 cubic feet per second, even with diversions into bypass channels. But on Friday, the flow was about 75,000 cfs, which meant...

A new report released Wednesday on California's well-recognized water management problems might be most noteworthy for what it does not include. The report by the Public Policy Institute of California, "Managing California's Water," does not suggest deep water conservation on farms. It also does not presume that all of the state's native fishes can be saved. Or that all its aquatic habitats should be restored to some pre-settlement ideal. Rather, the report's theme is "reconciliation," which the authors define as managing California's water resources to benefit the environment and the economy of today. "We have to keep in mind, we...

Just for grins, let's assume that Jerry Brown beats the long political odds and persuades the Legislature and voters to enact his tough-love plan to close the state budget gap. What's next for the septuagenarian retread? Walking on water? Yes, in a manner of speaking. If Brown can put the budget crisis behind him, at least for a few years, California's other long- festering political sore will almost certainly move to the top of his agenda. Predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger supposedly settled California's water wars before leaving office. In fact, he didn't. He merely put in place a complex mechanism to...