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Pursuing truth toward justice

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice
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Environment

PG&E: A Casualty of Global Warming?

November 4, 2019 By Bruce Frohman 6 Comments

PG&E tuned

Amid the power outages and horrific fires caused by downed transmission lines, a growing chorus of politicians is suggesting restructuring Pacific Gas and Electric Company.  Although the company operates efficiently with a large economy of scale, San Francisco and other urban areas are looking into breaking off pieces of territory to establish locally owned power companies. Is this a good idea? Climate Change Before 2000, California had longer and wetter […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: PG&E rural, PG&E San Joaquin Valley

Trinitas Partners Hires OID Water Attorney: Conflict?

October 30, 2019 By Eric Caine 4 Comments

OID March 20

In a move very likely to revive local controversies and bitter memories, Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) water attorney Tim O’Laughlin has been hired by Trinitas Partners to manage its huge Hawaiian farming operation in Maui, where it’s known as “Mahi Pono.” Now an entity with too many names and subsidiaries to list, Trinitas/Mahi Pono recently purchased 56,000 acres in Maui for $267 million from sugar cane growers Alexander & Baldwin. […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Oakdale Groundwater Association, Oakdale Irrigation District Fallowing Program, Oakdale Irrigation District water sales, Oakdale Irrigation water rates, Trinitas Partners Oakdale

Water Myths of the San Joaquin Valley

September 16, 2019 By Eric Caine 12 Comments

Among the more persistent myths about water in the San Joaquin Valley, none is more durable than the canard that water shortages and land subsidence have been caused by, “an innumerable myriad of Endangered Species Act-related laws, mandates, opinions, rulings and settlements.” This latest addition to the catalogue of misinformation comes from Kristi Diener, in an OP/ED for the Modesto and Fresno Bee newspapers. Diener, like everyone else who attempts […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Central Valley Project, San Joaquin Valley groundwater, San Joaquin Valley subsidence, State Water Project

On the Public Record is just too Good

August 21, 2019 By Eric Caine 4 Comments

Binder

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how little most of us really know about water in the San Joaquin Valley. And even when we do know just a little, it’s even easier for what little we know to be submerged in the flood of mis- and disinformation that fills most of our media most of the time. For those reasons and more, insiders who follow western water news closely rely on […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Devin Nunes, Maven's Notebook, On the Public Record

A New Tyranny of the Minority Threatens Wildlife and Nature

August 15, 2019 By Eric Caine 8 Comments

Aleutian Cackling geese flying

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?  In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind. […]

Filed Under: Environment

Trinitas Partners Brings its Water Hammer to Maui

July 22, 2019 By Eric Caine 12 Comments

Almonds to the horizon, eastern Stanislaus County

Like any journalist in these days of escalating water prices amid growing scarcity, Deborah Rybak maintains a keen interest in agriculture. So late last December, when she learned 56,000 acres of farmland had changed hands on the island of Maui, her reporter’s radar went on full alert. Rybak writes for Maui Time, the island’s leading news journal. The selling price alone—$262 million—was enough to pique her interest. Anyone with that […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Almond Orchards eastern Stanislaus County, OID water sales, Trinitas Partners, Trinitas Partners Oakdale

State Water Board Rips the Irrigation District

May 13, 2019 By Eric Caine 7 Comments

So far, it’s been a rough year for the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID), and it’s not even half over. First, OID lost again in its case against the Oakdale Groundwater Association (OGA) when the Fresno Appellate Court denied its appeal and awarded OGA court costs and attorneys’ fees. That decision cost OID upwards of $330,000, in addition to the money it shelled out to its own attorneys. Next, OID lost […]

Filed Under: Environment

Water and the River: Upping the Ante

March 31, 2019 By Eric Caine 14 Comments

Those who attended last Tuesday’s afternoon session of the Federal Energy Regulation Comission (FERC) at Modesto’s Doubletree Hotel listened to people who use and love the Tuolumne River explain why their needs should be represented in decisions about relicensing Don Pedro Dam’s hydroelectric project, which is powered by the Tuolumne River. The chief issue for everyone was the state’s proposal to increase flows along all the major rivers of the […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: FERC Tuolumne River, Restoration of flows along Tuolumne River, State Water Resources Control Board Tuolumne River

Water: “We farm, you pay.” Subsidence and Socialism in the Valley

March 25, 2019 By Eric Caine 9 Comments

Among the more persistent mythologies of the American west, few are as enduring and erroneous as those about water, especially here in the San Joaquin Valley. The one consistent element in all of them is that no matter what’s wrong, “It’s all government’s fault.” So it is that when California became the last state in the nation to regulate groundwater, the cry went up that water shortages are, “All the […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: California groundwater, California groundwater law, Eastern Stanislaus County groundwater, groundwater Stanislaus County

Will the Valley Run Out of Fresh Water?

March 16, 2019 By Bruce Frohman 9 Comments

With record rain and snowfall in the winter of 2018-2019, many people are no longer worried about the water supply. The drought is over for now and reserves are growing in lakes and reservoirs. Nevertheless, recent concerns about water are no less relevant today than they were before our winter rains. Ron Myers monitors wells for farms throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Although we have plenty of water this year, when […]

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: California groundwater, mining groundwater, San Joaquin Valley groundwater

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Off The Wire

California faces catastrophic flood dangers ? and a need to invest billions in protection
California faces catastrophic flood dangers and a need to invest billions in protection
A new state plan for the Central Valley calls for spending as much as $30 billion over 30 years to prepare for the dangers.
www.latimes.com
Oakland will get millions for the ?inhumane? crisis at one huge homeless encampment. Officials say it?s not enough
Oakland will get millions for the “inhumane” crisis at one huge homeless encampment. Officials say it’s not enough
Gavin Newsom’s administration has awarded Oakland a $4.7 million grant to come up with…
www.sfchronicle.com
Alaska?s Fisheries Are Collapsing. This Congresswoman Is Taking on the Industry She Says Is to Blame.
Alaska’s Fisheries Are Collapsing. This Congresswoman Is Taking on the Industry She Says Is to Blame.
Mary Peltola won her election by campaigning on a platform to save the state’s prized fisheries. A powerful fishing lobby is standing in her way.
www.politico.com
Jimmy Carter's final foe: A parasitic worm that preyed on millions in Africa and Asia
Jimmy Carter’s final foe: A parasitic worm that preyed on millions in Africa and Asia
One of former President Carter’s biggest hopes is wiping out an infectious parasitic disease that’s plagued humans for millennia. How close is he?
www.latimes.com
Climate Extremes Threaten California?s Central Valley Songbirds - Eos
Climate Extremes Threaten California’s Central Valley Songbirds – Eos
A “nestbox highway” in California’s Central Valley is guiding songbirds to safe nesting sites and giving scientists a peek at fledgling success in a changing climate.
eos.org
Alaska Republican touts benefits of children being abused to death
Alaska Republican touts benefits of children being abused to death
Republican David Eastman suggested the death of child abuse victims could be a “cost savings” to wider society.
www.newsweek.com
Editorial: Newsom's drought order amid wet winter threatens iconic California species
Editorial: Newsom’s drought order amid wet winter threatens iconic California species
Gov. Gavin Newsom has effectively ended environmental regulations protecting California rivers and migratory fish by extending drought-year waivers.
www.latimes.com
Two-thirds of McPherson Square homeless remain on street, D.C. says
Two-thirds of McPherson Square homeless remain on street, D.C. says
As of Thursday, just two of the more than 70 residents of McPherson Square had been placed in permanent D.C. housing.
www.washingtonpost.com
More Building Won?t Make Housing Affordable
More Building Won’t Make Housing Affordable
America’s housing crisis has reached unfathomable proportions. But new construction isn’t enough to solve it.
newrepublic.com
Why YIMBYs are about to sue the daylights out of cities across the Bay Area
Why YIMBYs are about to sue the daylights out of cities across the Bay Area
Housing advocates are about to deliver a message to the Bay Area: Comply with state…
www.sfchronicle.com
At the heart of Colorado River crisis, the mighty 'Law of the River' holds sway
At the heart of Colorado River crisis, the mighty ‘Law of the River’ holds sway
At the heart of tensions over water allotments from the Colorado River is a complex set of agreements and decrees known as the ‘Law of the River.’
www.latimes.com
Biden restores roadless protection to the Tongass, North America's largest rainforest
Biden restores roadless protection to the Tongass, North America’s largest rainforest
The Tongass National Forest in Alaska, a focus of political battles over old-growth logging and road-building in forests for decades, has received new protection from the Biden administration.
theconversation.com

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Email us at:
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