California
California Now Has Mandatory Water Conservation in Urban Areas: How Will the New Rules Affect Your Supplier? | KQED
The water board’s initial proposal — unveiled last year and estimated to cost $13.5 billion at the time — faced an onslaught of criticism from water suppliers and state analysts who called the rules too costly and difficult to achieve. In March, the state water agency revised its proposal to delay enforcement of the conservation targets and extend the timeline for tightening the water budgets based on outdoor residential use.
Individual residents won’t be regulated — only suppliers, who must meet their conservation targets or face fines or other penalties. The costs of complying through 2050 are now estimated at $4.7 billion — which is largely expected to be passed onto ratepayers — but water agencies and their customers will also save about $6.2 billion, in large part from buying less water, according to the agency’s analysis (PDF).
Water board staff estimate that through 2040, the measures will save 1.7 million acre-feet — enough to supply almost half the state’s population for a year. That’s about 73% less than the earlier proposal, which would have saved 6.3 million acre-feet through 2040, staff told CalMatters. Through 2050, the savings could reach about 3.9 million acre-feet — more than a year’s supply for the state’s entire population.
Local water providers told the board that the targets would still be difficult to meet and warned that the costs could hit lower- and fixed-income members of their communities especially hard. They urged the board to provide more technical assistance and funding. Still, many applauded the changes, which they said will soften impacts to customers and communities.
“Water suppliers will need to develop and implement new programs that require long-term customer behavior change and significant investments,” Chelsea Haines of the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents more than 450 public agencies, told CalMatters. “It’s an unprecedented approach that will require a level of commitment that we’ve never seen before.”
However, environmental groups and lawmakers say the weakened rules reduce and delay the water conservation that the drought-plagued state needs.
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” said Heather Cooley, director of research at the Pacific Institute, a global water think-tank. “While surface reservoirs are full now, I think there’s a tendency to forget about water scarcity and drought.”
The authors of the bills that required mandatory conservation rules — former state Sen. Bob Hertzberg and Assemblymember Laura Friedman from Burbank — said in a March opinion piece that the water board’s changes “trample on the hard-won work that’s been done so far by allowing water utilities until 2035 or later to implement meaningful reductions.”
“The State Water Resources Control Board has decided to kick the can of California’s water future down the road at a time when we can least afford such inaction,” Friedman told CalMatters after the vote, adding that California must invest more in water efficiency or be forced to spend billions on wastewater recycling and desalination.
Water board Chairman Joaquin Esquivel said, “This is not a perfect regulation. We can never have a perfect regulation. But it is a significant one and moves us into a direction here into the future that we can all be proud of — and that is nation-leading.”
“The arc of conservation in this state has been an incredible one. Californians know that conservation is critical,” he said during the meeting. “What this creates is really a floor. And importantly, it’s not a policy in isolation.”
Although the rules were changed multiple times before they came up for a vote on Wednesday, the fundamental concept remains the same. Each local agency’s water budget is calculated from a combination of standards for indoor and outdoor water use at residences, certain commercial landscapes and losses like leaks. Other factors, such as livestock and recycled water, are also taken into account.
Suppliers must meet targets through a combination of rebates encouraging thriftier landscapes and appliances and rate changes penalizing thirstier water users.
A previous, more stringent version of the rule carried the hefty price tag of around $13.5 billion from lost revenues and the costs of funding rebates, infrastructure improvements and other conservation measures. The benefits of having to buy less water or scrounge for expensive new supplies were tallied at around $15.6 billion.
California
Mother, daughter found ‘alive and well’ after going missing on Southern California hiking trail
A mother and daughter who went missing after going for a hike on a difficult trail in San Bernardino County’s San Gorgonio Wilderness have been found “alive and well,” the sheriff’s department announced Friday.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department told KTLA they were uninjured and “walked out on their own.”
Krystal Meyers, 41, and her daughter Alexis Meyers Martinez, 21, were hiking on the Vivian Creek Trail Thursday but didn’t return, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
They were last known to be at the 10,300-foot elevation mark above the High Creek switchbacks at 11 a.m., according to the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue team.
The Vivian Creek Trail is widely considered one of the more strenuous and hazardous routes in the San Gorgonio Wilderness.
The U.S. Forest Service says it’s the shortest and steepest route to the summit of Mount San Gorgonio and requires experienced mountaineering skills.
Officials did not provide any further details about the circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — The California Highway Patrol is urging drivers to stay focused on the road as they head out for Fourth of July celebrations.
The holiday weekend can be a dangerous time on our roads as millions of drivers are expected to travel.
CHP Officer Jorge Toro joined Eyewitness News Mornings to share how drivers can stay safe behind the wheel.
Officer Toro also highlighted the importance of sober driving over the holiday.
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He says anyone hosting a party should make sure all of their guests get home safely, ensuring anyone who may be impaired doesn’t drive.
California is returning a stretch of rugged Mendocino County coast to the Indigenous nations whose ancestors once stewarded its shores.
State transportation officials recently approved the transfer of Blues Beach and the surrounding bluffs to Kai Poma, a nonprofit founded by representatives of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
The transfer of 136 acres just south of the community of Westport will mark the first time land managed by the California Department of Transportation has been returned to Indigenous tribes.
“This is beyond huge,” said J. Carlos Rivera, tribal chairman of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s enormous from our tribal perspective that we are basically obtaining the land that our people once lived on before colonization.”
California purchased the swath of rocky cliffs and windswept shoreline in the 1960s to expand the construction of Highway 1 and create a scenic viewpoint for highway travelers, according to a California Coastal Commission report.
More recently, public access has been largely unregulated, and summer weekends and holidays have drawn large groups who camp and party on the beach, at times driving through sensitive areas, damaging cultural sites and leaving behind trash, the report states.
Kai Poma plans to conduct cultural and archaeological resource studies and environmental surveys and then prepare a resource management plan for the property, according to planning documents. The nonprofit and the Coastal Commission have drafted a public access management plan that states the land will be open from sunrise to sunset.
Rivera described the entire property as a sacred site. The coastal waters are used by tribal people for seaweed and abalone gathering, and the shores host youth cultural camps, he said. “Protecting the land, it has a deeper meaning for us because we’re connected to the land,” he said.
The effort to acquire the land took years — and required a change in state law. Caltrans lacked the ability to transfer land to tribal governments until 2021, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) that enabled the transfer, according to a news release issued at the time. The law also bars commercial activity on the property and requires public access be maintained.
“With 136 acres now officially transferred into tribal stewardship, one of the most spectacular stretches of the Mendocino Coast will be forever protected,” McGuire said in a statement.
“This agreement, the first of its kind in California, gives these three dynamic Native American tribes the rightful opportunity to reclaim sacred lands and cultural traditions on this special piece of earth. And it’s about damn time.”
The land transfer cleared its last regulatory hurdle June 26 with the approval by the California Transportation Commission, said Neil Thapar, an attorney who works as an advisor and legal consultant to Kai Poma. Caltrans staff will next record the deed transferring the title from the state of California to Kai Poma, which is expected to happen any day, he said.
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