ACWA eNews for May 28, 2014

Floor votes in the Legislature this week advanced two ACWA-supported bills aimed at sustainably managing California’s groundwater.

On Wednesday the Assembly approved AB 1739 by a 44-24 vote.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday announced three water policy appointments, including the appointments of Susan Tatayon to the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) and Karla Nemeth as deputy secretary for water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency.

Brown also announced the appointment of Kristopher Tjernell as special assistant for water policy at the California Natural Resources Agency.

This week the last round of 2014 Chinook salmon smolts will hitch a ride to the ocean via truck.

So says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in its announcement this week that it will conclude its 2014 drought contingency plan related to Chinook salmon with the final trucking and release of approximately 900,000 salmon smolts. The smolts will be trucked from the Coleman National Fish Hatchery (NFH) to the Rodeo area of San Pablo Bay.

Drought relief legislation passed in the U.S. Senate on May 22 stands to provide greatly needed flexibility to combat the devastating effects of drought, ACWA President John Coleman writes in the latest entry in the Voices on Water blog.

Read the blog post here.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed an Emergency Drought Relief Act on May 22 that provides federal and state water agencies with additional flexibility to deliver water where it is most needed during California’s historic drought.

Improving groundwater management in California will be the focus of discussion at a meeting of California State Board of Food and Agriculture June 3 in Sacramento.

ACWA Executive Director Timothy Quinn will join other speakers on the issue including: Gordon Burns, California Environmental Protection Agency; Lester Snow, California Water Foundation; Tim Parker, Groundwater Resources Association of California; Dave Puglia, Western Growers and Chris Scheuring, California Farm Bureau Federation.

The Delta Protection Commission this week released visual simulations of the proposed Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) tunnel intakes. The images are available athttp://www.delta.ca.gov/BDCP.htm.

The May 23, 2014, issue of ACWA News is now available online. This issue looks back at the 2014 ACWA Spring Conference & Exhibition on May 6-9. Nearly 1,700 local and state water leaders from throughout California gathered in Monterey to explore topics ranging from drought to sustainable groundwater management to reducing the amount of water used in producing beer.

Southern California is taking additional steps to stretch its water supply during this year’s drought and meet demand for 2014, officials said Thursday, May 22.

The Senate on Thursday passed the Conference Report on H.R. 3080, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013 (WRRDA), by a vote of 91-7. The bipartisan vote came after the House voted to approve the measure on Tuesday. The measure will now go to President Obama, who has indicated that he will sign it.

A record-high percentage of Californians say water supply is a big problem in their part of the state and most say they are using less water both indoors and outdoors this year, according to the latest statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.