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IN THIS ISSUE – “Democrats Have Been Awoken; They’re Like ‘Oh S*** This Is Real!’ ”

POLITICS

WILDFIRE & WATER

Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique service.

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FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPT. 3, 2021

 

Newsom Beating Back Recall, Leading Poll Finds

Sacramento Bee & Public Policy Institute of California

A majority of voters plan to support Gov. Gavin Newsom in the Sept. 14 recall election, new polling shows, shifting a weeks-long perception that the first-term Democrat is in serious danger of removal.

The nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) published a survey late Wednesday showing a majority of likely voters, 58%, plan to vote “no” on removing Newsom. That’s slightly higher than previous PPIC polling, which showed support for Newsom at 56% and 57% in March and May, respectively.

Another recent survey, conducted by the right-leaning Trafalgar Group in late August, found 52% of respondents planned to vote “no” on the recall, while 44.4% supported the removal. Of the 1,088 respondents contacted, 3.7% said they were undecided.

Similarly, a recent poll from SurveyUSA showed a 51% to 43% margin in favor of keeping Newsom — a drastic change from polling SurveyUSA did a month ago, when it found 51% of voters supported the recall, while only 40% opposed it.

Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., said he suspects vigorous messaging on the part of Democrats has awakened Newsom’s voters, along with the perceived threat from frontrunner Larry Elder, a radio talk show host whom Newsom has attacked as a far-right Trump supporter.

“Six or eight weeks ago it was really close, because Democrats were just not activated at all. They’d been fed a message that ‘this thing’s a joke, it’s not even going to get on the ballot…. people weren’t taking it seriously,” Mitchell said.

“Democrats have now been awoken, they’re like ‘oh s— it’s real, I guess I do have to vote.’ And then the Larry Elder gift to the Newsom campaign and being such a polarizing candidate, allowing Newsom to talk about national political issues…. now Democrats are like ‘yep I’m against the recall.’ They know what to say, they have an opinion, they are engaged, they’re turned on.”

Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO, said the research has indicated for months that the recall is an extremely polarizing race. The institute’s recent polling also indicates voters are less supportive of the recall process as a whole and more concerned about the negative consequences of removing Newsom.

After a summer of political messaging by the anti-recall campaign, a shrinking share of California likely voters say the current effort to recall the governor is an appropriate use of the recall process (44% today, 52% March) That shift is most evident among Democrats, 35% of which said the Newsom recall is an appropriate use of the process in March, compared to 17% today.

More likely voters indicated in the PPIC poll that they expect things in California will get worse if Newsom is recalled (41%) compared to 34% in May.

In its analysis, SurveyUSA suggested Democratic voters have become more motivated over the past month by the arrival of mail ballots and increasing concern around COVID-19. Elder, the leading candidate to replace Newsom, has promised to repeal the state’s mask and vaccine mandates upon taking office.

“Voters concerned about the spread of COVID, newly focused on the possibility of Elder sitting in the Sacramento Governor’s Mansion, may be newly sobered by the possibility of a recall,” the pollster said in its analysis.

Elder continues to lead the pack of candidates in the PPIC poll, with 26% of likely voters backing him. But nearly half of all respondents, 49%, said they don’t favor any replacement, plan not to vote for a replacement, or don’t know who they should pick.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article253918438.html#storylink=cpy

Survey:

https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-september-2021/

 

Don’t Pop Champagne Corks Yet, Democrats Caution;

Could a Narrow Recall Win Weaken Newsom in 2022?

Politico

Gov. Gavin Newsom may defeat a recall challenge if Democrats extend their early voting advantage. But that’s a big “if.”

Initial figures show Democratic voters are returning an outsized share of early ballots and vastly eclipsing Republicans. The incipient numbers have allayed previous anxieties that voters in Newsom’s own party might sit out the recall vote and create an opening for his conservative foes.

“People are very active, very participatory in this election and we’re seeing that gap in terms of knowledge of what is at stake close very rapidly,” Newsom said Tuesday, “and I’m very encouraged by that.”

Democratic turnout will likely decide Newsom’s fate. While there are roughly five million more registered Democrats than Republicans in California, polls have consistently shown that conservative voters are more motivated to vote in the recall. That mismatch could allow Republicans to close the gap and secure a pro-recall majority.

“In the likely voter model, Republicans have been punching above their weight,” said Mindy Romero, who studies voter behavior as head of the University of Southern California’s Center for Inclusive Democracy. “But it’s always been Newsom’s election to win if he avoids an incredibly low turnout election … There’s been a complacency amongst Democrats, but I think that’s starting to change a bit because Newsom has started to talk about the stakes of the election a lot, especially in the past few weeks.”

Democrats comprise about 46 percent of the electorate but have accounted for around 54 percent of the votes cast as of Wednesday. Republicans and no-party-preference voters have filled out and submitted ballots at the same rate as their shares of the electorate, and independent voters who supported Democrats in the past have outpaced Republican-leaning independents.

Those trends have followed Newsom pivoting to a tactic of pummeling his Republican opponents — particularly frontrunner and conservative talk show host Larry Elder — and warning a GOP victory would undercut California’s progress in battling the coronavirus.

But political consultants and election experts say it’s too early for Newsom to begin popping champagne. With weeks of voting left before a Sept. 14 end date, most of the 22 million ballots mailed to California homes are still out there. Campaigns anticipate a late surge of pro-recall votes as Republicans wait to cast their ballots in person — a trend that manifested in 2020 when many Republicans voted later amid party leaders’ warnings about mail voting fraud.

“I think the early returns are pretty meaningless,” said Dave Gilliard, a Republican consultant working on the pro-recall campaign. “We saw in 2020 that the pattern of voting really flipped: conventional wisdom was Republicans would vote early and Democrats would wait, and last year that flipped.”

Election data expert Paul Mitchell, a vice president of Political Data Inc., also noted that less than a tenth of the large and Democrat-leaning bloc of 18-to-34-year-olds have weighed in. Mitchell said those voters would be critical for Newsom to build a cushion capable of counteracting the expected late Republican surge.

“The endgame has to include a strategy to get these people to vote, and if they don’t as the late Republican ballots come in, this thing could really tighten up,” Mitchell said. “If they don’t start coming out, then the Democratic advantage is going to start to narrow as we get closer to Election Day.”

Some political analysts believe Newsom’s inherent registration edge is all but insurmountable, requiring an unlikely combination of near-universal Republican participation and minuscule Democratic turnout. Strategist Robb Korinke, a principal at GrassrootsLabs, found that Newsom would still prevail even if Republicans build a 30-point turnout advantage and a sixth of Democrats defect to vote for the recall.

“They would have to be asleep, if not in a coma, to lose an election like this,” Korinke said, “unless something very profound is occurring in the Democratic electorate that we’re not seeing.”

Republicans believe Newsom is overestimating his strength among independents and Democrats. Gilliard predicted a quarter of Democrats would vote for the recall, and he pointed to Newsom enlisting prominent Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren to cut campaign ads as a sign of weakness.

“They would not have Bernie Sanders on if they were not worrying about their base not voting in this election,” Gilliard said.

Romero agreed that Republicans could feel a greater incentive to vote. “When you’re dealing with a negative emotion, that can be very motivating — often that can be a bigger driver than when people are happy. When people are upset, they want change,” she said.

And a narrow victory could still damage Newsom politically. The governor won a landslide 24-point victory in 2018. If he barely prevails over the recall despite enormous voter and fundraising advantages, Newsom could enter the 2022 reelection cycle in a weakened position, inviting a challenge from a well-financed competitor who can appeal to the broad electorate.

“I think a 2-point win is a disaster for Newsom in a lot of ways,” Korinke said. “An election that close in California, knowing how protracted it could be, you could end up with a really chaotic fall.”

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/09/01/democrats-encouraged-by-recall-ballot-data-but-still-plenty-of-voting-left-1390603?nname=california-playbook&nid=00000150-384f-da43-aff2-bf7fd35a0000&nrid=0000016a-7368-d919-a96b-f7f9c66d0000&nlid=641189

 

Legislature Enters Final Week of 2021 Session; Major Issues Linger

CalMatters

With the legislative session ending Sept. 10, state lawmakers don’t have much time left to decide the fate of controversial bills — and the pressure is starting to build. Here’s a look at some of the last-minute maneuvering to push proposals across the finish line:

  • Mental health advocates are racing to find the $50 millionthey estimate is needed to support call centers and related crisis response services for 9-8-8, a forthcoming number Californians can call when seeking help for a mental health crisis, CalMatters’ Jocelyn Wiener reports.
  • Lawmakers are making significant concessions to law enforcement groupsin an effort to pass a package of police reforms; for example, a proposal that would create a process to decertify bad cops was amendedto include tougher standards.
  • Police unions are also battling a billthat would expand California’s sanctuary state law by blocking local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal authorities to deport undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes.
  • A bill that wouldrepeal laws banning people from loitering with the intent to commit prostitution is facing fierce opposition from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, the California Family Council and other groups that say it will increase sex trafficking of poor women.

Meanwhile, some noteworthy bills that lawmakers sent to Newsom’s desk:

And lawmakers have less than two weeks to decide the fate of about 700 bills::

Dead for the year:

  • Newsom’s budget proposal to create an Office of Health Care Affordability to lower and control health care costs. “Those discussions have paused, taking a back seat to the state’s more immediate crises that we are currently facing,” said Assemblymember Jim Wood, a Santa Rosa Democrat and chair of the Assembly Health Committee.

And Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, said Monday that she is no longer advancing a plan to mandate vaccines for many indoor venues and force employers to require worker vaccinations or regular COVID testing.

 

Gaming Interests Ante Up for Online Sports Betting Ballot Initiative;

Massive Financial Interests Impact Virtually All Major Political Figures

Politico

Major gambling players intend to ante up $100 million for an online sports betting initiative that would fund homelessness and mental health efforts, adding a new wrinkle to the 2022 battle over California’s lucrative gaming future.

Proponents told POLITICO they will file the “California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support Act” today with the state attorney general’s office. Top backers include DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, and they will establish a campaign committee today, according to campaign manager Dana Williamson, a veteran political strategist who advised former Gov. Jerry Brown.

Though 21 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia now allow online sports betting after a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the California ballot measure would be the first in the nation to dedicate a permanent revenue stream for homelessness and mental health programs.

“Permanent solutions require a permanent funding source. The California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support Act will raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually to fight homelessness and expand mental health support in California by allowing regulated entities to offer safe, responsible sports betting online,” Williamson told POLITICO in a statement.

The potential windfall from such a measure could be huge. Forbes reported earlier this year that the U.S. sports betting market generated $1 billion in revenue in 2020, “and that number is projected to grow sixfold by 2023.”

Proponents insist the measure does not conflict with a sports-betting initiative backed by California gambling tribes that is already headed for the 2022 ballot. That initiative would allow for in-person sports betting at tribal casinos and racetracks. Backers of the new proposal called their measure “complimentary” to the tribal one.

“Any online sports betting operator seeking to participate in the California marketplace must do so by partnering with a California tribe,” Williamson said, noting that “a portion of the measure’s revenue is dedicated to uplifting Tribal communities.”

Still, the initiative could open a third front in the battle for control of a lucrative new gambling sector. Native American tribes have already donated roughly $12 million to qualify the measure that would give them control over sports wagering. Meanwhile, card rooms have spent $450,000 so far to pass a rival proposition giving them a slice. Tribes and card rooms have long battled over gambling revenue and turf.

Given how many of Newsom’s consultants are tied to the new initiative, the effort also risks cleaving Newsom from Native American tribes, one of his most financially powerful supporters. Tribes have channeled more than $3.2 million so far to beating back the recall, accounting for some 5 percent of the roughly $60 million Newsom has raised.

Williamson, who served as Brown’s cabinet secretary, heads a powerhouse group of California political players hired to get the measure across the finish line. Also involved: Bearstar Strategies, the political consulting team behind Newsom, Kamala Harris, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, among others. So is Nathan Click, the former communications director for Newsom — and current spokesperson for the anti-recall campaign — and David Binder, the pollster for Newsom and the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama.

With three separate proposals potentially headed to the ballot, the issue could be resolved next summer in the state Capitol. Lawmakers could craft a compromise measure that would prompt tribes, card rooms, race tracks and the sports betting giants to withdraw their proposals before next fall. But the interest groups have tried for years to get their own versions of bills through the Legislature without success.

It was not immediately clear how the new proposal would divvy up revenues between mental health services, homelessness and tribes that affiliate with online gambling firms.

The initiative calls for 85 percent of total revenue to go to homelessness and mental health, with 15 percent going to tribal communities, proponents say.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he welcomes the measure. As a Democratic assemblymember, Steinberg spearheaded the 2004 initiative that increased income tax rates on millionaires to pay for mental health services.

“It is a rare occasion when any initiative seeks to dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars or more for the cause,” he said in an interview. “Funding mental health programs and fighting homelessness is currently subject to the whims of the economy.”

Backers could face opposition from those concerned about expanding gambling access in California, as well as gambling interests that get cut out of proceeds. Proponents say the new initiative “strictly limits online betting to individuals 21 years of age or older, using the most advanced and proven technology to enforce restrictions, and it imposes fines of up to $100,000 for any operator who knowingly accepts bets from minors.”

The initiative also gives the California Department of Justice “broad power to regulate online sports betting in California to ensure there is no corruption or illegal activity in the market,” proponents say.

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/08/31/sports-gambling-giants-back-new-online-betting-initiative-in-california-1390581?nname=california-playbook&nid=00000150-384f-da43-aff2-bf7fd35a0000&nrid=0000016a-7368-d919-a96b-f7f9c66d0000&nlid=641189

 

“There’s Fire All Around”: Changing the Way Blazes are Battled

New York Times

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — They sent thousands of firefighters, 25 helicopters and an arsenal of more than 400 fire engines and 70 water trucks. Yet the fire still advanced.

They dropped retardant chemicals through an ash-filled sky and bulldozed trees and brush to slow the march of the flames through the steep and rugged terrain of the Sierra Nevada. Yet the fire still advanced.

Bursting across a granite ridge into the Lake Tahoe basin, the Caldor fire now threatens tens of thousands of homes and hotels that ring the lake.

The lake, renowned for its bright blue hues and the evergreen forests that surround it, was smothered in a slate of sickly orange-gray haze. On the Nevada side of the border, which has not yet been evacuated, one industry was still limping along: A trickle of gamblers sat at slot machines to the whooshing sound of large air purifiers that attempted to keep out the pungent smoke. The air quality index was nearing 500, a level considered hazardous.

Battling the Caldor fire has been humbling and harrowing for California firefighters. Experts believe that the challenge is a cautionary tale for future megafires in the West and lays bare a certain futility in trying to fully control the most aggressive wildfires.

“No matter how many people you have out on these fires, it’s not a large enough work force to put the fire out,” said Malcolm North, a fire expert with the U.S. Forest Service and a professor at the University of California, Davis.

“You can save particular areas or particular homes,” Professor North said. “But the fire is pretty much going to do what it’s going to do until the weather shifts.”

The authorities say about 27,000 firefighters were battling blazes across the country, about 15,000 of them in California. All national forests in California will be closed by Tuesday night. Hundreds of soldiers and airmen and several military aircraft have been sent by the National Guard. But the resources are no match for the ferocious blazes, which continue to outpace firefighters and explode across the state.

The blazes in Sierra forests have exposed the domino effects of climate change on firefighting challenges: Frequent heat waves and overall higher temperatures have desiccated West Coast flora, making it more vulnerable to large fires. Droughts have weakened trees, encouraging insect infestations that have contributed to the deaths of close to 150 million trees. This creates more fuel for fires.

Scientists say there is also a correlation between global warming and the increased wind conditions that have fanned fierce wildfires across the state. And they point to a need for better forest management, thinning out some of the thickest woods.

What characterizes the megafires of recent years, experts said, is their tendency to launch embers far ahead of the main fire front — sometimes by miles — and for the embers to land on parched terrain that is instantly combustible. This can rapidly expand the perimeter of the fire, which hops over one of the main containment tools: the bulldozed areas, known as fire breaks, that create a line of containment.

The Tubbs fire in October 2017 jumped over what would normally be considered a formidable fire break — a six-lane freeway — and went on to incinerate 1,200 homes in the residential community of Coffey Park.

“These spot fires are causing a lot of havoc,” said Craig Clements, a professor of meteorology and the director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University, a group that is modeling the spread of the Caldor fire.

“There’s just fire all around,” Professor Clements added, “and that makes it very difficult to suppress.” As a measure of how combustible the landscape has become, other scientists have calculated that embers have a 90 percent chance of becoming spot fires once they land.

The chaotic way these megafires spread was on display in the hills above South Lake Tahoe Kyle Hukkanen was leading a crew of 12 inmate firefighters armed with axes, shovels and chain saws. They bounded down a steep hillside of granite boulders and evergreen trees until they reached a spot where wisps of smoke were rising from the ground.

They dug and sprayed the smoldering fire with water before ascending back to their idling truck. “This is not good,” Mr. Hukkanen said as gusts of wind fed the spot fire on the hillsides. The radio crackled with reports of spotting farther down the mountain toward South Lake Tahoe, and Mr. Hukkanen and his crew disappeared down a smoke-shrouded road.

Fire specialists say some firefighting tools are appropriate on a smaller scale but outmatched by the huge fires of recent years.

In the hills and gullies where the Caldor fire has burned 190,000 acres over the past two weeks, helicopters dropped large buckets of water — thousands of gallons at a time — but they hardly seemed a match.

“That’s great for protecting a neighborhood, but when you think about the size of a 750,000-acre fire, that’s nothing,” Professor North, the U.S. Forest Service expert, said of dropping water or retardant in large swaths of forest.

He and others added that the Sisyphean task of fire containment pointed to a desperate need for better mitigation.

Controlled burns that embrace Indigenous methods to use “good” fire to fight destructive megafires have become an increasingly accepted method in recent years, but experts say the state has a lot of catching up to do.

Until then, attempts to suppress fire are inevitably required to save lives and property. In the past year, California spent more than $1 billion on emergency fire suppression efforts but slashed its prevention budget. This year’s budget includes more than $500 million for fire prevention, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in April.

Still, resources remain strained. The U.S. Forest Service has struggled to retain federal firefighters, who earn around half of their state counterparts’ pay at Cal Fire. When the Caldor fire ballooned to 6,500 acres in mid-August, just 242 firefighters had been assigned to it. Eventually, hundreds more were redeployed from the Dixie fire, which has razed more than 800,000 acres and was less than half contained on Tuesday afternoon.

On the receiving end of the worsening blazes are the residents who wonder where, if anywhere, will be safe from wildfire.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/us/lake-tahoe-nevada-fire.html

 

Permanent Dry Times Come to the San Joaquin Valley

Fresno Bee

Madera County is running out of time as groundwater levels plummet to new depths.

Wells are going dry everywhere. Drillers have months-long waitlists. Residents are scrambling for water tanks. And farmers will soon face a reckoning after agriculture’s footprint, particularly nut trees, has more than doubled in the past 50 years — far outpacing irrigation supplies.

There’s growing consensus among farmers, county officials and residents that Madera’s groundwater problem will be solved mainly by cutting water demand, not by waiting for more dams to be built or even recharging excess water into the aquifer.

“There’s only so much water you can percolate into the ground,” explained David Loquaci, owner of Madera Ag Services and a Madera Irrigation District board member.

“Guys who have been farming for years and years, and people who have planted more recently — they’ve all got to cut back. The disagreement is how fast.”

Time is not on their side: Some are concerned that efforts to restore the aquifer and comply with California’s seven-year-old groundwater law aren’t keeping pace with nature’s plans.

Matt Angell has spent the better part of his six decades living in Madera County as an almond grower, an irrigation systems engineer, a soil enthusiast, the president of the San Joaquin Valley Regional Resource Conservation Districts, and, since 2012, the owner of Madera Pumps, a well repair company.

He has watched the water table at one of his own wells drop 60 feet since February and has seen similar drops in groundwater in the hundreds of wells his company has serviced this year.

It’s part of a much larger decline he’s observed in the past decade: more than 100 feet across the Madera sub-basin since 2010. According to Angell, that equates to about 1 million acre feet per year. For comparison, Millerton Lake holds about 520,000 acre feet when it’s full.

Allison Quady’s family has run Quady Winery in the Madera Irrigation District since 1977. One of their wells has dropped about 70 feet between 2014 and now — 10 feet a year for the past seven years. Prior to that, it had dropped just 10 feet over a 20-year span. “It’s an exponential curve of loss,” she said. “That’s what scares me.”

The loss of too much groundwater has other effects, including ground compaction, or subsidence.

“There’s subtle ways you can see subsidence,” said Loquaci. “In almost every well I’ve worked on this year, the casing is broken — it’s being crushed like a beer can.”

People who rely on domestic wells, which tend to be shallower than ag wells, are being hit especially hard right now. The communities of Parksdale, the Madera Ranchos, and the new suburban community of Riverstone have experienced well failures. Fairmead is in the process of getting a new community well after one went dry in the last drought.

More than 200 families are now on water tanks after their wells dried up. Under the groundwater plan for the Madera subbasin, more than 700 domestic wells were expected to fail by 2040, according to an analysis by the UC Davis Center for Regional Change.

In the last decade, two major challenges have converged: an explosion of permanent crops, and a longstanding drought exacerbated by record levels of heat, due to climate change.

Permanent crops, such as almonds or pistachios — which can’t be plowed under or fallowed in dry years — have grown by more than 80,000 acres across Madera County since 2010, according to Madera County crop reports.

At the same time, surface water deliveries from rivers and reservoirs have hit record lows, due to persistently dry conditions.

“A big thing people don’t realize is that the last drought never ended,” said Tom Krazan, owner of Kings River Well Drilling and former president of the California Groundwater Association. “Former Gov. Jerry Brown may have declared the drought was over, but in terms of groundwater tables, we’ve never recovered. This is a long-term drought, not a short-term drought.”

But all those trees still need water. Since 2012, the beginning of the last drought, around 1,254 new agricultural wells have been permitted across Madera County, according to county data acquired by SJV Water, an online publication covering water issues.

Growers say market forces and a shift away from flood irrigation opened the gates for an explosion of permanent crops, despite a lack of surface water.

“It wasn’t anyone breaking the law planting all these almonds,” said Loquaci. “If you want to blame somebody, blame drip irrigation. It opened up thousands of acres of land that could’ve never been flood irrigated.”

“The cost of land is so expensive in California, you have no option but to farm the permanent crops — the almonds, the pistachios,” explained Gurbir Samran, a local farmer.

Profit margins for almonds and pistachios are higher than for most other crops. According to the Madera County 2020 crop report, those two crops alone accounted for nearly half of the $1.9 billion total valuation of all crops grown in Madera County last year.

That kind of money has attracted a lot of interest. Angell said he’s seen a huge influx in investors from the Silicon Valley buying up farmland and planting almonds and pistachios over the past few years.

The vast expansion of new nut trees has created greater demand for groundwater. But how much? There’s still disagreement.

Madera County’s plan to address groundwater overdraft in the Madera subbasin estimates historic groundwater overdraft of about 165,900 acre feet per year with groundwater declines of 4.5 feet per year.

That’s about one-sixth of the overdraft that Angell has seen over the past decade. Angell and other growers are estimating a drop in groundwater levels of 10 feet a year.

The state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA (pronounced ‘sigma’), requires local groundwater subbasins to estimate overdraft and develop a plan to bring the aquifer back into balance, meaning more water isn’t pumped out than goes back in, by 2040.

So, agreeing on the extent of overdraft is key to fixing it.

How can the county’s groundwater model be so far off of reality, as observed by well fixers, growers, and residents?

It could be as simple as which wells you look at, said Stephanie Anagnoson, director of Natural Resources for Madera County and the county’s point person on developing a groundwater plan.

She said Angell and other well fixers are, by the nature of their jobs, seeing distressed and broken wells.

“It’s hard to know which wells are representative of the county,” Anagnoson explained. “You often hear more about the wells that aren’t performing right now. That’s why we try to have a representative sample.”

Groundwater overdraft isn’t unique to Madera County. It’s happening all over the San Joaquin Valley. But Madera County is also grappling with large tracts of “white areas,” or lands that are outside of water district boundaries.

Maps typically show water districts in different colors with undistricted lands denoted in white, hence the name. Unlike growers in water districts, who pay assessments to buy water and build canals to import it, growers in white areas rely almost exclusively on groundwater.

Nearly half of Madera County’s irrigated farmland is in the white areas, which means those lands are pulling hard on the aquifer.

Under the state’s groundwater management law, Madera County took control of the white areas in the Madera and Chowchilla subbasins. Without surface water from rivers or reservoirs, the county has to focus on reducing water demand to reduce the overdraft from those lands.

To get growers in the white areas to stop overpumping the aquifer, the Madera County Board of Supervisors voted on June 8 to charge a fee for water pumped in excess of the “sustainable yield.” That’s the term for the amount of water recharged to the aquifer by rain or runoff.

The amount of the fee, which only applies to white area growers, will be determined by the end of 2021.

White area growers are expected to reduce their pumping beyond the sustainable yield by 2% per year by 2025, and then by another 6% per year by 2040. The final allocation policy is supposed to reduce overdraft by 112,000 acre feet by 2040.

County officials hope that by putting a price on groundwater overdraft, some growers will start taking out trees. “Most growers have areas in their orchards that have never done well, and don’t have high yields. And so it might make sense to take those out,” explained Anagnoson.

The county expects around 29,000 acres of irrigated land to come out of production completely. That’s not even half of the acres of permanent crops that have been added over the past decade.

Pumping fees will go into a fund to fix wells for residents who have run out of water, pay farmers to fallow their land, or purchase extra surface water, said Anagnoson.

County officials — along with some farmers — say the county’s gradual approach to reducing demand is necessary to avoid economic devastation.

Others are worried it’s too little, too late.

“The county thinks that drastic demand reduction is radical. But what’s really radical is the amount of groundwater depletion we’re seeing right now,” said Madeline Harris, a policy advocate with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. “It’s radical to accept we’re going to let this many wells go dry.”

Madera Irrigation District says the county’s plan allows white area growers to unfairly ride the coattails of growers in water districts who’ve been paying for generations to bring water into the county in order to protect the aquifer.

They didn’t mince words in a July 6 letter to their own growers.

“However YOU, a MID landowner, is the one feeling the real impacts of the situation. You and your fellow MID neighbors are the ones not only paying for MID surface water and to retain those precious water rights, but now YOU also have to pay to lower your wells, drill new wells, additional PG&E pumping costs, and water treatment costs because of the actions (or really inactions) of Madera County. Meanwhile, Madera County GSA’s plan is now to monetize that overdraft for the benefit of themselves only?!?”

In response, Anagnoson suggests in a July 16 letter that blame for MID wells going dry is unfairly placed on white area growers — when district growers are pumping themselves after irrigation deliveries were curtailed.

Thomas Greci, the general manager for Madera Irrigation District, says the dispute centers on the scope and speed of necessary pumping reductions, which he said the county has modified since it released its groundwater plan. “They need to be more aggressive and get their reductions on track with the plan,” Greci said.

Anagnoson said Madera Irrigation growers will likely need to cut back on their own pumping if reduced surface water deliveries become the new normal. She noted the district’s groundwater plan relies entirely on groundwater recharge to bring the aquifer into balance.

Will state officials step in?

Some growers are convinced Madera locals are the best source for solutions.

“Farmers are really creative when their backs are up against the wall,” said Karun Samran, a local grower.

Angell thinks Madera farmers and residents can face the crisis themselves.

“We’ve got the ability to hold onto this. We’ve got hundreds of small growers in this county to figure our way out. This isn’t a finger-pointing situation. We all need to understand we all have to get in the boat and row this together.”

Meanwhile, Fairmead resident Vickie Ortiz is nervous about the 200 acres of pistachios that were just planted on a long vacant lot a “stone’s throw away” from her home, which relies on a private well.

“When I’m outside using my hose, and it gets a kink — you lose your breath for a moment and ask, ‘Is this it? Am I out of water this time’?”

https://www.fresnobee.com/fresnoland/article253392983.html#storylink=cpy

 

$7.5 Billion…7 years…No Water Storage Projects

Associated Press

SITES (AP) — In 2014, in the middle of a severe drought that would test California’s complex water storage system like never before, voters told the state to borrow $7.5 billion and use part of it to build projects to stockpile more water.

Seven years later, that drought has come and gone, replaced by an even hotter and drier one that is draining the state’s reservoirs at an alarming rate. But none of the more than half-dozen water storage projects scheduled to receive that money have been built.

The largest project by far is a proposed lake in Northern California, which would be the state’s first new reservoir of significant size in more than 40 years. People have talked about building the Sites Reservoir since the 1950s. But the cost, plus shifting political priorities, stopped it from happening.

Now, a major drought gripping the western United States has put the project back in the spotlight. It’s slated to get $836 million in taxpayer money to help cover it’s $3.9 billion price tag if project officials can meet a deadline by year’s end. The Biden administration recently committed $80 million to the reservoir, the largest appropriation of any water storage scheduled to receive funding next year.

And the project could get some of the $1.15 billion included in an infrastructure bill that has passed the U.S. Senate.

Still, the delay has frustrated some lawmakers, who view it as a wasted opportunity now that the state is preparing to cut of water to thousands of farmers in the Central Valley because of a shortage.

“The longer you don’t build, the more expensive it gets,” said Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle, whose rural Northern California district includes farmers.

Storage was once the centerpiece of California’s water management strategy, highlighted by a building bonanza in the mid-20th century of a number of dams and reservoirs. But in the more than 40 years since California last opened a major new reservoir, the politics and policy have shifted toward a more environmental focus that has caused tension between urban and rural legislators and the communities they represent.

The voter-approved bond in 2014 was supposed to jump-start a number of long-delayed storage projects. But some experts say the delays aren’t surprising, given the complexities and environmental hazards that come with building new water projects.

“We have about 1,500 reservoirs in California. If you assume people are smart — which they kind of are most of the time — they will have built reservoirs at the 1,500 best reservoir sites already,” said Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis. “What you have left over is more expensive sites that give you less water.”

California’s Mediterranean climate means it gets most of its rain and snow in the winter and spring, followed by hot, dry summers and falls that see rivers and streams dry up. The largest of California’s reservoirs are operated by the state and federal governments, although neither has built a new one since the 1979 New Melones Lake near Sonora, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Yosemite National Park.

That could change with the Sites Reservoir project, which would flood what’s left of the town of Sites, located in a valley amid California’s coast range mountains.

The town’s roots go back to the 1850s, when John Sites, a German immigrant, settled there. At its peak in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was known for a sandstone quarry that provided building materials throughout the state, including the iconic Ferry Building in San Francisco.

But when the quarry closed shortly after World War I, the town slowly dwindled. Fire destroyed many of the buildings, leaving behind about 10 houses on unirrigated land that can only be used for agriculture during the rainy season. Officials would have to eventually buy those properties from residents to build the reservoir. With only two ways in and out of the valley, it’s an ideal spot to flood and turn into a massive lake to store water.

But unlike most California reservoirs, Sites would not be connected to a river or stream. Instead, operators would have to pump water from the Sacramento River whenever it has extra to give. The idea is to take advantage of wet years like 2018, when California got so much rain and snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains that reservoirs were filled beyond capacity.

“We’re really redefining how water is developed in California,” said Jerry Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority, who has no relation to the former governor of the same name.

Pumping the water is expensive, which, along with concern from environmental groups, is one reason the reservoir has been talked about for more than 60 years but never built. Many environmental groups argue the reservoir would do more harm than good because they say operators would have to pull way more water than is environmentally safe from the Sacramento River to make the project feasible.

“Fundamentally, it is a deadbeat dam, a pretty marginal project, or else it would have been built years ago,” said Ron Stork, a senior policy advocate for Friends of the River, an environmental advocacy group.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which included the Sites Reservoir in its water plan, sees the reservoir as a way to prepare for a future impacted by climate change. California’s reservoir system is designed to capture water from melted snow in the mountains. But climate change could mean less snow and more rain, which the state is not as equipped to capture.

“We are going to start swinging to more extremes, (a) dry, deep drought or big flood,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “I do think there is some value to those kinds of projects.”

It will cost $3.9 billion to build the Sites Reservoir, and that’s after project leaders made it smaller to shave about $1 billion off the price tag. Most of the money will come from customers who will buy the water, the federal government and bank loans. California taxpayers have pledged about $836 million to the project from a bond voters approved in 2014.

But to use that money, project leaders have to meet a deadline by the end of the year to show the idea is feasible.

“I’m absolutely confident,” Brown said. “It’s going to be close, but it’s going to make it.”

https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-california-droughts-science–74bbbd535f6519b8aa79d57737e6eef4