In her latest blog post on The California Spigot,  Patricia McBroom reports on new USGS findings that the threat of Delta levee breaches in an earthquake is greater than anyone thought. The report is based on the response of Delta soils to ten small earthquakes (up to 4.2 magnitude) that have occurred in the East...Read More

In McBroom’s blog, Greg Gartrell of the Contra Costa Water District suggests that in the event of seismically-induced levee breaches, water supplies might be compromised for three to four months by salt water intrusion before fresh water has a chance to flush the system. In the meantime, some Californians could be using water stored in...Read More

Last week the Hanford Sentinel reported that the Kings County grand jury has criticized the board of supervisors and the Kings County Water Commission for not doing more to stop the sale of water out of the county. Click here for article Last year, Sandridge Partners, a Bay Area firm with substantial farm holdings in...Read More

Members of Congress and the California legislature have sent a letter urging Lester Snow and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to open up the closed door talks now underway among “Delta Principals.” As we reported in our last newsletter, a small group of unidentified people has been meeting to work out a deal for the Bay...Read More

Every bit of progress made in the past year to curtail pumping and give habitat a chance to recover is threatened by the close-door meetings now taking place among top water agency officials, regulatory agencies, and three environmental groups. State Resources Secretary Lester Snow is coleading closed-door sessions to negotiate an agreement about the Bay...Read More

We congratulate Mike Machado on his appointment as director of the Delta Protection Commission.  He will take over September 20, replacing Linda Fiack, who is retiring. Restore the Delta will be sorry to lose Machado’s expertise on its board of directors, but we are happy to have such an experienced and knowledgeable person directing the...Read More

Governor Schwarzenegger addressed the Bohemian Grove oligarchs at the end of July in a keynote speech on an “undisclosed” topic.  If you’ve never heard about this shadowy institution of America’s elite movers and shakers, click here read Dan Bacher’s recent editorial on the subject. As Bacher points out, this is the kind of secrecy we’ve...Read More

Last week, Mike Taugher reported in the Contra Costa Times that key people – including some of those institutional enviros – have been meeting behind closed doors to work out a deal for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).  The Governor really wants that canal, and he prefers to do water policy closeted with a...Read More

The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, a group of Kern County growers and irrigators whose idea of a sustainable Delta is one from which they can get a large and uninterrupted supply of water, is suing the Department of Fish and Game for having game fish protection on striped bass, a non-native predator.  There’s plenty...Read More

Last week the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) adopted an interim plan for the Delta as required by last year’s Comprehensive Water Package. This is the plan that the DSC will use to guide its actions until the Delta Plan is adopted and implemented, by January 1, 2012. There were problems with the legislation that created...Read More