Thank you for visiting the "Water News" page where your thirst for water knowledge will be quenched. Water is the most basic of necessities for human survival. We need it. We can't live without it. Therefore it should be one of the most important topics we should be concerned with. My hope is that People much smarter than I will use this as a forum to come up with a sustainable water plan for California. ~ Rodney Spooner
Desalination is the solution worth its' salt. I was amazed at how wide spread desalination has been used worldwide to solve water problems. Here I will present the best information that I find on the subject.
Instead of spending BILLION$ on High-Speed Rail, that the vast majority of Californian's are now against and is so far off its rails that the project doesn't even remotely resemble Proposition 1A that the Citizens of California voted for, we should spend it for something that California desperately needs and would greatly benefit more from. - Rodney Spooner
Desalination is the solution worth its' salt. I was amazed at how wide spread desalination has been used worldwide to solve water problems. Here I will present the best information that I find on the subject.
Instead of spending BILLION$ on High-Speed Rail, that the vast majority of Californian's are now against and is so far off its rails that the project doesn't even remotely resemble Proposition 1A that the Citizens of California voted for, we should spend it for something that California desperately needs and would greatly benefit more from. - Rodney Spooner
May 2016
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Wednesday,
May 29, 2016 |
Questions linger over health risk over desal plant water
Why is our state government paying $27 million for desalinated water in 2016-17 – plus more options totalling almost $90 million when Melbourne Water's own estimates show that, even with low drought-affected rainfall and existing reserves, the catchment areas would have sufficient water to last 20 years. The best answer seems to be the report in Fairfax publications by resources reporter, Peter Ker, in March that the water order "has come just in time for the company that owns the plant by enabling it to refinance a looming debt obligation of $830 million maturing in October, a sum that dwarfed the $1.68 million profit the company posted for the 2015 financial year". Aquasure is built on a mountain of debt, ensuring it doesn't pay tax. According to the 2015 annual report of the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries, the "take or pay" contract costs Victorians a weighted average cost of capital of 11.04 per cent without one drop of water being delivered – nearly three times the cost of capital if the plant had been financed by public borrowings. Worse, there are real public health risks associated with the possibility of dangerous levels of boron left in permeate (manufactured water) of reverse osmosis plants like Wonthaggi. This was of academic interest only while no water was ordered. But as a result of the order foisted on Melbourne Water by the government, the company has been able to borrow $900 million for seven years, syndicated across at least 12 banks at an extremely favourable rate estimated to be below 4 per cent – despite Aquasure's BBB+ credit rating – according to Ker. Continue reading at http://www.theage.com.au/comment/questions-linger-over-health-risk-from-desal-plant-water-20160526-gp47oi.html |
June 2015
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Tuesday,
June 23, 2015 |
Economy may cool, poll respondents say: Drought beats housing as top Bay Area concern
About 24% of Bay Area residents list the California drought as the top concern for the region, the poll determined. Other problems related to quality of life were left in the dust, well behind the concerns about the drought in the Golden State. A distant number 2 on the list of concerns was the cost of housing, with 15% of respondents listing that as the top problem. No. 3 was the cost of living, with 14% listing that as the top problem, according to the poll. |
April 2015
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Friday,
April 10, 2015 |
Jerry Brown Showers California with More Government
Brown, who took unprecedented emergency action, gave viewers a glimpse of the massive government intrusion that’s coming. “It’s requiring action and changes in behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border,” Brown said of his mandate. “It affects lawns. It affects people’s–how long they stay in the shower, how businesses use water.” With Brown, there’s always a method to his madness. All you have to do is listen to him. “I can tell you, from California, climate change is not a hoax,” he said last Sunday on ABC’s This Week.“We’re dealing with it, and it’s damn serious.” |
December 2014
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Monday,
December 8, 2014 |
California's Worst Drought Ever Is 1st Taste of Future
The drought now plaguing California is the worst to parch the central and southern parts of the state in the last 1,200 years, a new study finds. The 2012 to 2014 drought's lack of rain isn't remarkable on its own, according to tree-ring records reported in the study. There have been three-year periods when less rain and snow fell. But the current drought comes at a time of extreme heat. Record-high temperatures exacerbated the drought, creating the driest soil conditions since the 9th century, according to the study, published Dec. 3 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "Precipitation is not the whole story for California drought," said lead study author Daniel Griffin, a tree-ring researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "When we factor in temperature, this drought really stands out as an extreme and unprecedented case for the past 1,200 years." [The 5 Worst Droughts in US History] |
November 2014
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Monday,
November 17, 2014 September 30, |
High court allows delta water contracts to be challenged
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed environmentalists to challenge the government’s renewal of 41 long-term contracts for irrigation water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, in a lawsuit seeking greater protection for the endangered delta smelt. Water districts had asked the justices to review a ruling in April by a federal appeals court in San Francisco. That ruling reinstated a suit by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups claiming the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation should have consulted with government biologists before renewing contracts with farms and water districts for as long as 40 years. The justices denied the districts’ request on Monday. The Bureau of Reclamation first granted long-term contracts in 1964 for water from the Sacramento River and the Delta-Mendota Canal. When the contracts came up for renewal in 2004, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists said the deliveries would not jeopardize the delta smelt, a 3-inch fish whose numbers are considered an indicator of the estuary’s health. The biologists re-examined the issue in 2008 and reached the opposite conclusion. The environmental groups argued that the Bureau of Reclamation should have consulted the scientists, regardless of their changing views, before renewing the irrigation contracts in 2004-05. Read more... |
May 2014
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Friday, May 30, 2014
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Israel solves water woes with desalination
While previous droughts have been accompanied by impassioned public service advertisements to conserve, this time around it has been greeted with a shrug — thanks in large part to an aggressive desalination program that has transformed this perennially parched land into perhaps the most well-hydrated country in the region. |
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Monday, May 19, 2014
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California drought will cost thousands of farm jobs: study
(Reuters) - California's drought will cause thousands of workers to lose their jobs and cost farmers in the state's Central Valley breadbasket $1.7 billion, researchers said in the first economic study of what may be the state's driest year on record. The most populous U.S. state is in its third year of what officials are calling a catastrophic drought, leaving some small communities at risk of running out of drinking water and leading farmers to leave fallow nearly a half-million acres of land. |
March 2014
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Saturday, March 22, 2014
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California drought: So many water bonds, so little time
SACRAMENTO -- As California's drought drags on, more farmers are being forced to fallow fields and a growing number of small towns run out of water. So Republicans and Democrats here finally agree on something: They need to spend billions of dollars to fix California's broken water system. Republicans want to build new dams and reservoirs, Democrats want to fund conservation and recycling projects. And the Bay Area, Southern California and the Central Valley all have competing interests. If lawmakers do nothing, an $11.14 billion water bond previously scheduled for the ballot will go before voters and fail, a Public Policy Institute of California poll in November showed. That proposal was crafted with bipartisan support, but it's bloated with funding for projects, such as parks, that have little to do with water. It has already been pulled from the ballot twice because lawmakers thought it wouldn't pass. "If we don't start conserving and recycling, water is going to become the new oil, and only the rich will be able to afford it and have a good life," said Zamora, 48, an electromechanical engineer. |
February 2014
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Friday, February 28, 2014
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How much energy does California use to move water?
Today’s post is a follow-up of yesterday’s post about Dr. Chu’s talk, debating whether I misunderstood his statement “that 22% of California’s electricity goes to moving water.” The source is no longer available online, and most likely it is a fraction of that, but the subject is important enough to do some further digging. If any readers here have expertise on this subject, please enlighten us with your knowledge in the comments below. |
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Wednesday, February 12, 2014
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Utah legislator introduces bill to cut off NSA’s water supply
Based on model legislation drafted by a transpartisan coalition organized by the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) called the OffNow Coalition, the Utah 4th Amendment Protection Act would prohibit state material support, participation, or assistance to any federal agency that collects electronic data or metadata without a search warrant “that particularly describes the person, place and thing to be searched or seized.” |
'Act of God' or GeoEngineering?
January 2014
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Wednesday,
January 29, 2014 |
Received this email message Wednesday, 1/29/2014
California is moving aggressively forward to control all water and reduce per capita consumption. o webpage o the plan o press release Begin forwarded message: From: Marcia A Date: January 29, 2014 To: <Kirk@DefendRuralAmerica.com> Subject: Fwd: FINAL CALIFORNIA WATER ACTION PLAN fyi told you so This is a message from the State Water Resources Control Board. The final California Water Action Plan was released yesterday by the Governor. The following link has information regarding this Plan: http://resources.ca.gov/california_water_action_plan/ |