"“California doesn’t need to have a water
problem,” Netanyahu said. “Israel has no water problems because we are
the number one recyclers of waste water, we stop water leaks, we use
drip irrigation and desalination.”" 3/5/14
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
5/4/14, "California city looks to sea for water in drought," AP Science writer, Alicia Chang, Santa Barbara, Calif.
"This seaside city
thought it had the perfect solution the last time California withered in
a severe drought more than two decades ago: Tap the ocean to turn salty
seawater to fresh water.
The $34 million desalination plant was fired up for only three months and mothballed after a miracle soaking of rain.
As the state again
grapples with historic dryness, the city nicknamed the "American
Riviera" has its eye on restarting the idled facility to hedge against
current and future droughts.
"We were so close
to running out of water during the last drought. It was frightening,"
said Joshua Haggmark, interim water resources manager. "Desalination
wasn't a crazy idea back then."
Removing salt
from ocean water is not a far-out idea, but it's no quick drought-relief
option. It takes years of planning and overcoming red tape to launch a
project.
Santa Barbara is uniquely positioned
with a desalination plant in storage. But getting it humming again won't
be as simple as flipping a switch.
After the
plant was powered down in 1992, the city sold off parts to a Saudi
Arabia company. The guts remain as a time capsule - a white elephant of
sorts - walled off behind a gate near the Funk Zone, a corridor of art
galleries, wineries and eateries tucked between the Pacific and U.S.
101.
The city estimates that it will need $20
million in technological upgrades, a cost likely to be borne by
ratepayers. Any restart would require city council approval, which won't
vote until next spring after reviewing engineering plans and drought
conditions.
Santa Barbara, population 89,000,
has enough water for this year and even next year by buying supplemental
supplies and as long as residents continue to conserve.
While
it may seem like a head-scratcher to put the plant in hibernation soon
after it was built, officials said the decision saved the city millions
of dollars in unnecessary operating costs.
"With
the current drought likely to continue, they now appear as if they will
be able to cash in on their insurance policy," said Tom Pankratz,
editor of Water Desalination Report and consultant on several other
desalination projects in California.
The
cyclical nature of droughts has made it difficult, if not impossible, to
bet on desalination. It requires prime coastal real estate and the
foresight to diversify the water supply in flush and dry times.
Communities that choose desalination may be more resilient to inevitable
droughts in the future.
Santa Barbara relies
on water piped through tunnels from the Santa Ynez Mountains. But with
Lake Cachuma, the main reservoir, dangerously low, the city expects
desalination to play a role.
"We live in a
desert. We can expect droughts. It's just inevitable that desalination
is going to become a part of our regular water portfolio," Haggmark
said.
Santa Barbara is not alone in mulling
desalination as parched conditions persist for a third straight year,
forcing some rural places to ration water and farmers to fallow fields.
Earlier
this year, the agency that delivers water to the central coast town of
Cambria voted to approve an emergency desalination plant with the hopes
of getting it running by July before water supplies dry up.
Instead
of drawing ocean water, the proposed $5 million plant would pull
brackish water from a well, treat it and reinject it into the aquifer.
Since that would require a lengthy study, the plant likely won't be able
to go online until fall.
Not long ago, there
was a rush to quench California's growing thirst with seaside
desalination plants. Currently, there are about a dozen proposed
projects, according to the California Coastal Commission, which is
charged with permitting the facilities.
The
Western Hemisphere's largest desalination plant is under construction
north of San Diego after overcoming years of regulatory hurdles. The
developer - Poseidon Resources LLC - is seeking approval to build
another one in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles.
In
California's agricultural belt, a solar-powered desalination plant in
Fresno County has purified irrigation runoff for the past year. The
output is small, but the operator hopes to expand.
Not
every community embraces desalination. The port city of Long Beach is
trying to reduce dependence on imported water but dropped the idea of
desalination after realizing the cost.
Australia,
Singapore, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other thirsty countries are big
desalination supporters, but tougher regulatory requirements have made
it a harder sell in the U.S.
Many environmentalists see desalination as a last resort, contending it's an energy hog that sucks marine life into the plants."...
[Ed. note: An "energy hog?" Fresno desalination plant operates on solar power.]
(continuing): "Other
options should be exhausted "before you start putting a straw into the
ocean," said Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal
Protection Network based in Santa Barbara. "People tend to have a
knee-jerk reaction to drought."
The city
council is set to take action Tuesday on an $820,000 contract spelling
out what's needed to restart the facility. The city contends that it has
the permits to reactivate the plant, but the state coastal commission
said it needs new or amended permits.
On a
recent tour of the ghost plant, Haggmark inspected the onetime
state-of-the-art control room. A pair of bulky desktop computers
boasting floppy disk drives served as a vintage reminder. A line of
trailers outside store the original pumps and empty metal cylinders that
used to hold parts that have since been sold. Intake valves pulled from
the seafloor sit exposed to the elements.
The
original plant had a capacity to produce about 7,500 acre-feet of water
per year, about half of the city's average water use. An acre foot is
enough to last a family of four about a year.
Haggmark
acknowledged desalination's limits, but he said it made sense to start
considering it as an option to ease the strain on local supplies. The
earliest restart date would be summer 2016.
"This
community can't conserve its way out of this drought as it currently
has been unfolding," he said. "It's just been unprecedentedly dry."" via Drudge
=========================
Desalination in Israel began in 1973:
1/24/14, "Over and drought: Why the end of Israel's water shortage is a secret," Haaretz, Yuval Elizur
"Remember all the years of being told to conserve 'every drop?' Well, times have changed: Today, Israel has so much affordable water, it can offer to export it....The public learns about this success only incidentally....
There is now a surplus of water in Israel, thanks largely to the opening of several new desalination plants - and the development of natural-gas fields that can power them cheaply....
Desalination in Israel began in 1973, when Mekorot built facilities that operated by reverse osmosis; these supplied the Dead Sea, Eilat and communities not served by the National Water Carrier. It was only 35 years later, in 2008, that the government decided to establish five large desalination plants along the Mediterranean coast, with the aim of providing 505 million cubic meters of water a year by 2013 (a forecast met in full) and 750 million cubic meters a year by 2020. However, since 2008, two technological revolutions – both of which also have far-reaching political implications - have radically altered the water situation in Israel."...
===============================
NOAA scientist contradicts Obama, says Calif. drought not caused by global warming:
3/6/14, "A Climate Analyst Clarifies the Science Behind California’s Water Woes," NY Times, Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin
"On February 14, Mr. Obama suggested climate change as an explanation for the area’s drought....
Though some of California is natural desert, the state long ago developed a system of water delivery including to its prime agricultural areas. Then the highly profitable 'kill America slowly' industry took off (also known as the 'greens.') It included diverting water from California agricultural lands and sending it instead into the Pacific Ocean:
A Dec. 2008 court ruling to protect a bait fish the California Delta Smelt could in some years cut state (California) water deliveries by half...."On Dec. 15, 2008, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service chose fish, a decision driven by a lawsuit filed in federal court in 2006."...
---------------------------------
The "richest" must be brought down:
"The San Joaquin Valley is the single richest agricultural region in the world." EPA.gov, 2/16/14.
EPA statement source: "Pacific Southwest Region 9, State Agricultural Profiles," EPA.gov.region9
==========It's not fair to be the 'richest in the world' so American politicians deliver punishment:
"The pain people felt this year may continue into the future."...Obama Interior Sec., 11/29/09 report
11/29/2009, "Congressional Water Report," KMPH (Fresno, Ca.), By: Rich Rodriguez
"Four Valley Congressmen have raised their voices in Washington about the Valley's water crisis.
Two Democrats have the ear of the Obama Administration, but change has been slow in coming. Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of Tulare has been very vocal about the federal pumps and the Endangered Species Act.
In early June the pumps were reduced to a trickle due to the decline of the Delta Smelt, a protected fish. Nunes said, "it's hard to give anyone hope if the House of Representatives won't pass a bill to let the pumps run.
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has visited the Valley twice to see how the drought and environmental regulations are impacting the westside. His second trip left farmers and farm workers feeling helpless when he announced that environmental rules in the Delta would not be relaxed. Salazar said, "the reality of this is we do not have those solutions at hand. The pain people felt this year may continue into the future.""...
.
============================
Comment: Federal taxpayer dollars are diverted from real problems and handed out to cronies for non-existent global warming. Desalination would deflate a big profit center of the hate America crowd (the greens).
.
===========================
12/28/2010, "Fresno, Zimbabwe," IBD Editorial
"A victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made...by greens."...
"Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America."
But 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.
Image of Delta Smelt from US gov., Fish and Wildlife Service
==============================
Aug. 14, 2009, WSJ op-ed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Ca., Central Valley Dist. 21, on how the federal gov. ordered California water to flow into the Pacific Ocean rather than to farmland:
"The water is now flowing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and out into the Pacific Ocean."
8/14/2009, "It's Fish Versus Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley," WSJ op-ed, Rep. Devin Nunes
"Crops rot and people stand in line for food while the EPA engineers a drought."
"In 1931, a severe drought began that within a few years engulfed the Oklahoma panhandle and a third of the Great Plains in a "Dust Bowl." Tens of thousands of people fled the region—many traveling to California along Route 66, which John Steinbeck called "the mother road, the road of flight" in "The Grapes of Wrath."
A lot of the "Okies" settled in the San Joaquin Valley. In the decades that followed, state and federal officials built dams and other irrigation projects that helped turn the valley into some of the world's richest farmland.
But today the San Joaquin Valley is being transformed into a dust bowl. Hundreds of thousands of acres are fallow, while almond and plum trees are being left to die in the scorching sun. Tens of thousands of people have been tossed out of work—the town of Mendota alone has an unemployment rate of about 40%—and the lines for food donations stretch down streets. The reason? There isn't enough water to go around this year, and the Obama administration is drawing up new reasons to divert more of it from farms and people and into the San Francisco Bay....
California has the largest water storage and transportation system in the world. With 1,200 miles of canals and nearly 50 reservoirs, the system captures enough water to irrigate about four million acres and provide water to 23 million people. In many cases, as with the San Joaquin Valley, water in this system is sold to communities by the federal government.
Some claim that California is facing a three-year-old drought. But, according to the state's Department of Water Resources, California reservoirs have received 80% of their normal amount of water and precipitation in the northern Sierras has been 95% of its yearly average this year.
So why isn't there more water for farms?
Because theirs is a regulatory-mandated drought. The 1973 Endangered Species Act requires that the government take steps to save endangered species. In California, that's meant diverting vast sums of water into rivers and streams to protect fish. Those diversions this year have forced federal authorities to decide who to serve—fish or farmers.
.
On
Dec. 15, 2008, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service
chose fish, a decision driven by a lawsuit filed in federal court in
2006 by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental
groups. To settle the suit, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to
divert more than 150 billion gallons of water this year away from
farmers south of San Francisco in hopes of protecting the Delta smelt—a
three-inch bait fish. The water is now flowing underneath the Golden
Gate Bridge and out into the Pacific Ocean.
Of course, the Delta smelt isn't a particularly attractive species to protect when it means throwing Americans out of work. On June 4 (2009), the National Marine Fisheries Service declared that delivering water to farms in the San Joaquin Valley would harm killer whales in the Pacific. And to save the whales, the Obama administration is now demanding even greater water restrictions beyond what has been diverted for the smelt.
.
There
are 130 animal species in California on the federal endangered list,
including five salmon species, five steelhead species, four trout
species and the North American green sturgeon. To date, not a single
fish within the California water system has been removed from the
Endangered Species List over the past 35 years.
=========================
Desalination in Israel began in 1973:
1/24/14, "Over and drought: Why the end of Israel's water shortage is a secret," Haaretz, Yuval Elizur
"Remember all the years of being told to conserve 'every drop?' Well, times have changed: Today, Israel has so much affordable water, it can offer to export it....The public learns about this success only incidentally....
There is now a surplus of water in Israel, thanks largely to the opening of several new desalination plants - and the development of natural-gas fields that can power them cheaply....
Desalination in Israel began in 1973, when Mekorot built facilities that operated by reverse osmosis; these supplied the Dead Sea, Eilat and communities not served by the National Water Carrier. It was only 35 years later, in 2008, that the government decided to establish five large desalination plants along the Mediterranean coast, with the aim of providing 505 million cubic meters of water a year by 2013 (a forecast met in full) and 750 million cubic meters a year by 2020. However, since 2008, two technological revolutions – both of which also have far-reaching political implications - have radically altered the water situation in Israel."...
===============================
NOAA scientist contradicts Obama, says Calif. drought not caused by global warming:
3/6/14, "A Climate Analyst Clarifies the Science Behind California’s Water Woes," NY Times, Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin
"On February 14, Mr. Obama suggested climate change as an explanation for the area’s drought....
In the wake of an unusual public debate on this issue between President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren, and Roger Pielke, Jr., a longtime analyst of climate-related disaster losses at the University of Colorado, I received a helpful note from Martin Hoerling, who studies climate extremes for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration....
"The bottom line is that this type of drought
has been observed before. And, to state the obvious, this drought has
occurred principally due to a lack of rains, not principally due to
warmer temperatures.
This may seem pretty obvious (and trivial)
from simple inspection of historical observations, and indeed this
drought is quite familiar to anyone who lived in California during the
mid-1970s, as I did.""...
.
.
===========================
.
.
2/14/14, "Obama On California Drought: Climate Change Threatens The Nation," AP, Darlene Superville, via Huffington Post
=============================
Added: Two deserve more credit: GOP "leaders" Boehner and McConnell have spent decades building imaginary global warming into a $1 billion a day racket.
================================ =============================
Added: Two deserve more credit: GOP "leaders" Boehner and McConnell have spent decades building imaginary global warming into a $1 billion a day racket.
Though some of California is natural desert, the state long ago developed a system of water delivery including to its prime agricultural areas. Then the highly profitable 'kill America slowly' industry took off (also known as the 'greens.') It included diverting water from California agricultural lands and sending it instead into the Pacific Ocean:
A Dec. 2008 court ruling to protect a bait fish the California Delta Smelt could in some years cut state (California) water deliveries by half...."On Dec. 15, 2008, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service chose fish, a decision driven by a lawsuit filed in federal court in 2006."...
---------------------------------
The "richest" must be brought down:
"The San Joaquin Valley is the single richest agricultural region in the world." EPA.gov, 2/16/14.
EPA statement source: "Pacific Southwest Region 9, State Agricultural Profiles," EPA.gov.region9
==========It's not fair to be the 'richest in the world' so American politicians deliver punishment:
"The pain people felt this year may continue into the future."...Obama Interior Sec., 11/29/09 report
11/29/2009, "Congressional Water Report," KMPH (Fresno, Ca.), By: Rich Rodriguez
"Four Valley Congressmen have raised their voices in Washington about the Valley's water crisis.
Two Democrats have the ear of the Obama Administration, but change has been slow in coming. Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of Tulare has been very vocal about the federal pumps and the Endangered Species Act.
In early June the pumps were reduced to a trickle due to the decline of the Delta Smelt, a protected fish. Nunes said, "it's hard to give anyone hope if the House of Representatives won't pass a bill to let the pumps run.
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has visited the Valley twice to see how the drought and environmental regulations are impacting the westside. His second trip left farmers and farm workers feeling helpless when he announced that environmental rules in the Delta would not be relaxed. Salazar said, "the reality of this is we do not have those solutions at hand. The pain people felt this year may continue into the future.""...
.
============================
Comment: Federal taxpayer dollars are diverted from real problems and handed out to cronies for non-existent global warming. Desalination would deflate a big profit center of the hate America crowd (the greens).
.
===========================
12/28/2010, "Fresno, Zimbabwe," IBD Editorial
"Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America."
But 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.
Image of Delta Smelt from US gov., Fish and Wildlife Service
==============================
Aug. 14, 2009, WSJ op-ed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Ca., Central Valley Dist. 21, on how the federal gov. ordered California water to flow into the Pacific Ocean rather than to farmland:
"The water is now flowing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and out into the Pacific Ocean."
8/14/2009, "It's Fish Versus Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley," WSJ op-ed, Rep. Devin Nunes
"Crops rot and people stand in line for food while the EPA engineers a drought."
"In 1931, a severe drought began that within a few years engulfed the Oklahoma panhandle and a third of the Great Plains in a "Dust Bowl." Tens of thousands of people fled the region—many traveling to California along Route 66, which John Steinbeck called "the mother road, the road of flight" in "The Grapes of Wrath."
A lot of the "Okies" settled in the San Joaquin Valley. In the decades that followed, state and federal officials built dams and other irrigation projects that helped turn the valley into some of the world's richest farmland.
But today the San Joaquin Valley is being transformed into a dust bowl. Hundreds of thousands of acres are fallow, while almond and plum trees are being left to die in the scorching sun. Tens of thousands of people have been tossed out of work—the town of Mendota alone has an unemployment rate of about 40%—and the lines for food donations stretch down streets. The reason? There isn't enough water to go around this year, and the Obama administration is drawing up new reasons to divert more of it from farms and people and into the San Francisco Bay....
California has the largest water storage and transportation system in the world. With 1,200 miles of canals and nearly 50 reservoirs, the system captures enough water to irrigate about four million acres and provide water to 23 million people. In many cases, as with the San Joaquin Valley, water in this system is sold to communities by the federal government.
Some claim that California is facing a three-year-old drought. But, according to the state's Department of Water Resources, California reservoirs have received 80% of their normal amount of water and precipitation in the northern Sierras has been 95% of its yearly average this year.
So why isn't there more water for farms?
Because theirs is a regulatory-mandated drought. The 1973 Endangered Species Act requires that the government take steps to save endangered species. In California, that's meant diverting vast sums of water into rivers and streams to protect fish. Those diversions this year have forced federal authorities to decide who to serve—fish or farmers.
.
Of course, the Delta smelt isn't a particularly attractive species to protect when it means throwing Americans out of work. On June 4 (2009), the National Marine Fisheries Service declared that delivering water to farms in the San Joaquin Valley would harm killer whales in the Pacific. And to save the whales, the Obama administration is now demanding even greater water restrictions beyond what has been diverted for the smelt.
.
.
Despite massive amounts
of water diverted to help them, the "protected" smelt, sturgeon and
salmon populations have continued to decline. It is hardly unreasonable
to ask why farmers should continue to suffer if diverting water hasn't
even helped the fish."...
==================================
Comment: Congressman Nunes' (R) op-ed provides good history of California water since 1931 but as he notes, the Bush admin. is responsible for the Dec. 2008 decision to allegedly save the Delta Smelt. The California water situation could only improve if GOP "leadership" used microphones at their disposal every single day to alert Americans to the political problem. Nunes didn't suggest this in his op-ed and it hasn't happened.
===================================
10/9/2009, "Environmental lawsuits rake in billions for lawyers," maninnature.com, by Jake Putnam
"She wanted to know how much money the Federal Government had paid out in lawsuit legal fees over the past decade and what she found is astounding.
In just six years non-profit environmental groups filed more than 15-hundred lawsuits and in turn the Federal Government paid out more than $4.7 billion in taxpayer dollars in settlements and legal fees in cases against the U.S. government....
"Nonprofit, tax exempt groups are making billions of dollars in funding," said Falen. She says the majority of this legal fee money is not going into programs to protect people, jobs, wildlife, or endangered species but to fund more lawsuits from non-profit environmental groups. Farmers and ranchers that struggle to make a living off the land are forced to spend money out of their pocket to defend themselves."...
==========================
2/14/14, "California's Drought Isn't Due To Global Warming, But Politics," IBD Editorial
.
========================
In 2009 the US Senate voted against turning the water back on in California, 61-36:
9/22/2009, "Senate rejects measure to turn California water on," Washington Times, Amanda Carpenter
"The Senate rejected an amendment proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, to send more water to struggling farming area of California’s Central Valley through pumps that were shut down earlier this year to save a three-inch fish. [Enacted by George Bush in Dec. 2008]
This is the latest in a series of efforts in recent weeks to undo a biological opinion from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that required water to be cut off to the valley to protect the Delta Smelt, a small fish that resembles a large minnow.
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, who represents some of the valley, has been trying to reverse the measure but has been unable to convince Democrats in the House to hold the floor vote necessary to do so. For their part, many Democrats attribute the area’s farming woes to recent droughts and say giving the valley more water isn’t the right solution.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity took his highly-rated prime time television program there earlier this month to interview the farmers who were asking the government to get the water back. This brought national attention to a problem that had only been covered by a few outlets, like the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Hannity called his program “The Valley that Hope Forgot” and slammed the Democrats in power for protecting fish at the expense of suffering farmers."...
[Ed. note: The law "protecting fish" referenced in this article was not enacted by Democrats, it was enacted by George Bush in Dec. 2008.]
(continuing): "Mr. DeMint put the question to a test on Tuesday evening by proposing adding a measure to the Senate’s Interior spending bill to prohibit any federal funds from being used to restrict the water supply in that area.
It was voted down 61-36.
California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein voted against it and likened Mr. DeMint’s amendment to let more water flow in her state to the sneak attack the Japanese made on Pearl Harbor. “I don’t quite understand what is going on here,” she said on the floor of the Senate. “And that is the reason for my objection. I’m not going to put the state of California and the Bay Delta in the threat of another lawsuit. We have enough already and water is a huge, difficult and complicated issue…in a way this a kind of Pearl Harbor, when everything we are trying to do, to work together, to put Interior in the lead, not to handcuff Interior and that is the reason I object to the amendment.”
A video of her statement, posted by Mr. DeMint’s office can be viewed HERE.
Mr. DeMint seemed to think she was making it too complicated. “Unlike most of the big government solutions coming out of Washington that cost taxpayers billions, this amendment doesn’t cost a single penny,” said Mr. DeMint in statement. “We can turn the water on so thousands of Central Valley farmers can get back to work without creating another federal program or bailing out another industry.”"
.
.
==========================
10/21/2005, "Report: Saving the Delta Smelt to be costly," RedOrbit.com
==================================
Comment: Congressman Nunes' (R) op-ed provides good history of California water since 1931 but as he notes, the Bush admin. is responsible for the Dec. 2008 decision to allegedly save the Delta Smelt. The California water situation could only improve if GOP "leadership" used microphones at their disposal every single day to alert Americans to the political problem. Nunes didn't suggest this in his op-ed and it hasn't happened.
===================================
10/9/2009, "Environmental lawsuits rake in billions for lawyers," maninnature.com, by Jake Putnam
"She wanted to know how much money the Federal Government had paid out in lawsuit legal fees over the past decade and what she found is astounding.
In just six years non-profit environmental groups filed more than 15-hundred lawsuits and in turn the Federal Government paid out more than $4.7 billion in taxpayer dollars in settlements and legal fees in cases against the U.S. government....
"Nonprofit, tax exempt groups are making billions of dollars in funding," said Falen. She says the majority of this legal fee money is not going into programs to protect people, jobs, wildlife, or endangered species but to fund more lawsuits from non-profit environmental groups. Farmers and ranchers that struggle to make a living off the land are forced to spend money out of their pocket to defend themselves."...
==========================
2/14/14, "California's Drought Isn't Due To Global Warming, But Politics," IBD Editorial
.
========================
In 2009 the US Senate voted against turning the water back on in California, 61-36:
9/22/2009, "Senate rejects measure to turn California water on," Washington Times, Amanda Carpenter
"The Senate rejected an amendment proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican, to send more water to struggling farming area of California’s Central Valley through pumps that were shut down earlier this year to save a three-inch fish. [Enacted by George Bush in Dec. 2008]
This is the latest in a series of efforts in recent weeks to undo a biological opinion from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that required water to be cut off to the valley to protect the Delta Smelt, a small fish that resembles a large minnow.
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, who represents some of the valley, has been trying to reverse the measure but has been unable to convince Democrats in the House to hold the floor vote necessary to do so. For their part, many Democrats attribute the area’s farming woes to recent droughts and say giving the valley more water isn’t the right solution.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity took his highly-rated prime time television program there earlier this month to interview the farmers who were asking the government to get the water back. This brought national attention to a problem that had only been covered by a few outlets, like the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Hannity called his program “The Valley that Hope Forgot” and slammed the Democrats in power for protecting fish at the expense of suffering farmers."...
[Ed. note: The law "protecting fish" referenced in this article was not enacted by Democrats, it was enacted by George Bush in Dec. 2008.]
(continuing): "Mr. DeMint put the question to a test on Tuesday evening by proposing adding a measure to the Senate’s Interior spending bill to prohibit any federal funds from being used to restrict the water supply in that area.
It was voted down 61-36.
California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein voted against it and likened Mr. DeMint’s amendment to let more water flow in her state to the sneak attack the Japanese made on Pearl Harbor. “I don’t quite understand what is going on here,” she said on the floor of the Senate. “And that is the reason for my objection. I’m not going to put the state of California and the Bay Delta in the threat of another lawsuit. We have enough already and water is a huge, difficult and complicated issue…in a way this a kind of Pearl Harbor, when everything we are trying to do, to work together, to put Interior in the lead, not to handcuff Interior and that is the reason I object to the amendment.”
A video of her statement, posted by Mr. DeMint’s office can be viewed HERE.
Mr. DeMint seemed to think she was making it too complicated. “Unlike most of the big government solutions coming out of Washington that cost taxpayers billions, this amendment doesn’t cost a single penny,” said Mr. DeMint in statement. “We can turn the water on so thousands of Central Valley farmers can get back to work without creating another federal program or bailing out another industry.”"
.
.
==========================
10/21/2005, "Report: Saving the Delta Smelt to be costly," RedOrbit.com
===========================
Sept. 2007, Fed. judge orders Calif. and US gov. to turn off water pumps in California to supposedly protect a fish:
9/1/2007, "Judge Orders State and Federal Governments to Reduce Delta Pumping," indybay.org, by Dan Bacher
"U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger on Friday ruled to restrict water deliveries from the California Delta’s massive export pumps to the Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California to protect the threatened delta smelt, an indicator species."...
Report: Saving Delta Smelt to Be Costly
Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/279628/report_saving_delta_smelt_to_be_costly/#DRMfOBvCBUdeXt8B.99
=============================
12/15/2008 Delta Smelt decision could in some years cut state water deliveries by half:
12/16/2008, "U.S. tightens tap on water from N. Calif.," LA Times, Bettina Boxall, "Restrictions seek to protect river delta and its fish species."
"Federal wildlife officials on Monday released new restrictions on pumping water from Northern California, further tightening the spigot on flows to Southern California cities and San Joaquin Valley farms.
The
curbs, intended to keep the tiny delta smelt from extinction and stem
the ecological collapse of California's water crossroads, could in some
years cut state water deliveries by half....
Federal scientists say pumping has altered the hydrology and salinity of the delta and as a result, its suitability as a wildlife habitat. The pumps are so powerful that they reverse delta water flows, carrying fish to the pumps."...
Federal scientists say pumping has altered the hydrology and salinity of the delta and as a result, its suitability as a wildlife habitat. The pumps are so powerful that they reverse delta water flows, carrying fish to the pumps."...
===================
More on the Dec. 2008 decision to "protect" the Delta smelt:
12/15/2008, "Federal Agency Releases New Biological Opinion for Delta Smelt," Indybay.org, by Dan Bacher
"Continued operation of the projects' pumps, dams, and canals will likely lead to the extinction of the smelt;"...
It was suggested the nation's breadbasket switch to "crops more appropriate for an arid climate." (end of article)
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Comment: In Jan. 2014 GOP House personnel came up with a proposal for 'legislative action' regarding Calif. drought. Assuming it could make a difference, why did they wait 3 years to bring it up?
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"“California doesn’t need to have a water problem,” Netanyahu said. “Israel has no water problems because we are the number one recyclers of waste water, we stop water leaks, we use drip irrigation and desalination.”:
3/5/14, "Netanyahu, Gov. Brown Sign Pro-Business Pact," AP via losangeles.cbslocal.com
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| 3/5/14, Gov. Brown and PM Netanyahu |
“California doesn’t need to have a water problem,” Netanyahu said. “Israel has no water problems because we are the number one recyclers of waste water, we stop water leaks, we use drip irrigation and desalination.”
Brown said he would welcome their ideas. “Israel has demonstrated how efficient a country can be, and there is a great opportunity for collaboration,” Brown said."...
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Added: The Endangered Species Act was signed into law in 1973 by Pres. Richard Nixon. Nixon created the EPA and NOAA in 1970.
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