Eminent domain matters dominated this month’s California Water Commission (CWC) meeting on August 17.  The Department of Water Resources (DWR) was asking the Commission to approve a process for taking public comment when considering a “resolution of necessity” intended to lead to eminent domain proceedings.  But the discussion covered much wider ground than just the...Read More

Of course the real “bosses” here are the State Water Project and the water contractors who use it.  DWR staff are adept at justifying what they are doing for these bosses, although the occasional piece of flawed logic does make its way into the briefings. For example, staff counsel cited close to 70 years of...Read More

Without any obvious context, the geologist briefing the CWC mentioned the West Tracy Fault and told the Commissioners, “You’ve probably never heard of this.”  According to a June 2007 technical report assessing faults in the Northeastern Diablo Range, the West Tracy Thrust Fault is a blind fault – the kind with no current surface trace...Read More

Infrastructure design and construction management firm HNTB, based in Los Angeles, has done a survey asserting that the Delta has 1600 miles of levees, and that 162 levees have failed in their history due to intense rains.  Notes engineer Robert Pyke, “The HNTB fact sheet and press release are inconsistent with the recent findings of...Read More

Now that the State’s budget problems are solved (!), Governor Jerry Brown is moving on to big infrastructure projects: high-speed rail and the peripheral canal.  Brown told the Fresno Bee’s editorial board this week that in the next year, his administration will have a detailed proposal to build a water conveyance system around the Sacramento-San...Read More