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IN THIS ISSUE – “Get Ready for a Seismic (Political) Scramble”
POLITICS
- California Loses House Seat for the First Time…Ever
- Recipe for a Recall – Dinner & A Court Order
- Parents (ie, Voters) Approve of Newsom’s School Re-Opening
- “Behested”: Understanding One-Off Political Donations
- Corporate Donors Gave $226 Million On Newsom’s Behalf in 2020
- Sacramento DA Announces for Attorney General
REVENUE & TAXES
ENVIRONMENT
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week, tailored to your business and advocacy interests. Please feel free to forward.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!!
FOR THE WEEK ENDING APRIL 30, 2021
California Loses House Seat for the First Time…Ever
Politico
For the first time in state history, California is losing a House seat. We remain the most populous state with about 39.5 million residents and retain the largest House delegation, but population growth has stagnated as more people have flowed from California to other states while immigration and new births have failed to offset that decline. High cost of living – exorbitant housing prices especially – have played a central role in spurring Californians to relocate.
Get ready for a seismic scramble. California elected officials and prospective candidates have been frozen in a holding pattern for months as they’ve waited to see what the Census Bureau would giveth or taketh away. That includes the possibility of a House seat or two vanishing and the likelihood that both congressional and legislative seats will shift in a way that could make re-election rockier for incumbents — and potentially force some state lawmakers to find new homes so they remain in their districts.
Now the logjam should start to loosen. A dynamic we’ve been closely tracking is the advanced age of California’s House delegation, about a third of whose members will be 70 or older by the time November 2022 midterms arrive. Long-serving members who are forced into more competitive districts could decide to hang it up, particularly if they’re otherwise contemplating a bitter Democrat-on-Democrat battle royale — like the infamously caustic Brad Sherman vs. Howard Berman showdown in 2012 that came after the prior redistricting round and almost fomented fisticuffs.
That has some ambitious younger politicians hoping for a generational changing of the guard. From Los Angeles to San Francisco, there are ample Democrat-controlled House seats tantalizing contenders, and that could in turn create a cascade of openings in the Legislature. As Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon told us: “I think people are waiting and I think there will be a two-week period when you see a billion different announcements.”
The million-dollar logistical question: how and where will that loss of a seat play out on the ground? Smarter folks than we have pointed to the Los Angeles area, a population hub and host to a huge chunk of California’s house delegation that has seen significant demographic shifts. Los Angeles County bled population last year while bordering big counties like Riverside and San Bernardino grew (and for you Sacramentans, your county added the second-most people after Riverside). We won’t know for a while: the deadline for new maps has already been bumped to mid-December and may get moved again.
Recipe for a Recall – Dinner & A Court Order
NY Times
For all the controversies and Covid-19 crises that now have Gov. Gavin Newsom of California facing a historic recall election, it was a pair of prosaic events on Nov. 6 — a court hearing and a dinner — that led to the current political instability that will grip the state for months to come.
That Friday morning, a Sacramento Superior Court judge gave a small cadre of conservative Republicans four additional months to gather signatures for a petition to recall Mr. Newsom. The state felt the governor had such a compelling case that its lawyers did not even show up for oral arguments against the recall proponents, who said Mr. Newsom’s pandemic restrictions had “severely inhibited” their ability to collect the nearly 1.5 million signatures required.
Then, that night, Mr. Newsom and his wife celebrated the birthday of Jason Kinney, a Sacramento lobbyist and longtime friend and adviser. The governor had recently urged residents to stay home amid fears of a holiday-season virus outbreak — but there he was in Napa Valley, schmoozing maskless at the French Laundry restaurant. Photographs of him mingling set off a fury up and down the state.
Within a month, a recall effort that had only managed to submit roughly 4 percent of the necessary signatures was suddenly soaring, as major Republican donors sent money and the petition gained nearly 500,000 signatures.
With Monday’s announcement that the recall has officially qualified for the ballot, California finds itself plunged into a political reversal-of-fortune scenario: A fading Republican Party that has not won a statewide election in 15 years is mounting a real challenge to a high-profile Democratic leader, in only the second recall election of a California governor in more than 80 years of attempts.
The recall effort has revealed that even a one-party stronghold like California can be rocked by the nation’s political polarization, as health emergencies and lockdown policies disrupt and divide a jittery public. It has also brought into relief the conservative vein that threads through the state, from the rural Far North, through the Sierra foothills, down the Central Valley and into the tile-roof-and-cinder-block tracts of the struggling Southern California exurbs.
“The whole social reality is disturbing to a lot of people,” said Jerry Brown, the former four-term governor of California, who said the recall effort also reflected anger at political leaders across the country. “The destruction of so many businesses — there’s an acceleration of instability and therefore in the confidence that millions of people have in their future. That’s then a breeding ground for hostilities. That certainly makes scapegoats very attractive.”
The political targeting of Mr. Newsom comes as public schools have yet to fully reopen, leaving many children at home and many parents aggravated. Public school enrollment has dropped by more than 160,000 students, while the state has lost roughly 1.5 million jobs and unemployment remains at 8.3 percent, one of the highest rates in the country.
“There’s a lot of frustration and rising anger on a variety of issues — jobs are leaving, homelessness is rising, so many parents across the state are furious,” said Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and a Republican candidate for governor, who has made the slow reopening of public schools a central theme of his case against Mr. Newsom. “I strongly believe that voters are looking for someone with common sense.”
As a political force, Mr. Newsom has always been more inevitable than loved, a rich San Franciscan who has steadily climbed from political office to office and enjoyed long ties to Mr. Brown and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one in California, and Mr. Newsom easily won the open governor’s seat in 2018.
Democrats still have a narrow window to block the recall, by convincing enough voters who signed the petition to withdraw their support, but even Mr. Newsom’s aides have called that outcome unlikely. The Legislature’s joint budget committee will also have to sign off on a California Department of Finance report on the cost of the special election, which Mr. Newsom’s supporters estimate could be $100 million or more.
If those hurdles are cleared, as is widely expected, the recall would present Mr. Newsom with more political challenges and scrutiny than he has ever faced. Over the winter, the recall supporters were already capitalizing on his every move.
As schoolchildren struggled with online instruction, the supporters accused Mr. Newsom of coddling teachers’ unions. As small businesses withered, they pointed to Mr. Newsom’s success as a wine merchant. When Mr. Newsom implied that his own children were being schooled virtually and it turned out that their private school had actually resumed in-person classes, his critics heckled his daily livestreams, accusing him online of French Laundry-style elitism.
Then the unemployment insurance program in which death row inmates and international identity theft rings stole an estimated $11 billion to $30 billion. Or by a string of high-profile political vacancies that forced him to choose appointees from his own party’s competing political factions.
The recall effort needed only to tap a portion of the six million Californians who voted to re-elect Donald J. Trump — more Trump voters than even in Texas — to meet the signature qualifications. But actually recalling Mr. Newsom will prove far harder.
If the blue line of the Democratic Party holds for the governor, the pro-Trump Republican base would be easily outnumbered, and Mr. Newsom has been able to keep Democratic rivals off the recall ballot. The ultimate test would be turning out his voters, which would require not only the help but also the enthusiasm of critical constituencies such as organized labor.
Polls show a solid majority of support for Mr. Newsom, though some surveys indicate his standing may be soft among Latino voters. And some policies, such as a recent vow to gradually ban new fracking permits, have already put him on a collision course with unions that view the state’s fossil fuel industry through the lens of the higher-paying jobs it offers.
“California’s politics are far left, but the state is predominantly blue-collar,” said Erin Lehane, a Sacramento political consultant who works with unions. “Those working families — those essential workers who have been out there this whole crazy year — will decide the vote in this recall.”
Recall attempts are a political pastime in California, which, as a result of Progressive Era reforms passed in 1911, has some of the nation’s most generous rules for removing public officials from office. But initiatives to recall governors rarely manage to gather the support needed to make it onto a ballot.
California is enormous, with a population of nearly 40 million, and the funds and effort required to campaign statewide tend to thwart all but the most moneyed and determined critics. Only one other California governor, Gray Davis, has ever faced a recall election, which he lost to Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. That initiative struggled until Representative Darrell Issa, who had hoped to replace Mr. Davis, donated $2 million to the campaign.
Mr. Newsom was a target almost from the moment of his election. Three groups had made five recall attempts against him by the time his critics began the current campaign. Their initial complaints were ideological. The lead proponent of this recall bid, a retired Republican sheriff’s sergeant named Orrin Heatlie, took issue with the governor’s policies on the death penalty and immigration.
For a recall to qualify for the ballot, critics needed to gather valid signatures from 12 percent of the voters in the last election for governor. None of the petitions against Mr. Newsom came remotely close to that threshold until Judge James P. Arguelles — at that pivotal November hearing in Sacramento Superior Court — gave Mr. Heatlie and his California Patriot Coalition an extra four months to pass petitions.
“This was the sixth recall attempt,” said Nathan Click, a former spokesman for the governor who is now helping run the campaign to defend him. “Elections are about money and time. They would not have raised the money to get the signatures they did if the judge hadn’t given them that extension. Without the time piece of this, there’s no recall.”
As the recall has become nightly grist on talk radio and conservative cable news shows, Mr. Newsom has gone on the offensive, guided by the veteran Democratic strategist Ace Smith, who has handled past campaigns for Vice President Kamala Harris and Mr. Brown.
In March, Mr. Newsom delivered his State of the State address, a usually bland affair, with an empty Dodger Stadium as his backdrop, blasting the recall effort as a power grab by right-wing extremists trying to game the political system. And he has been touting his own successes. A shelter-in-place order issued early in the pandemic initially kept case rates remarkably low, and a program that leveraged federal money to provide quarantine space in motels for homeless people now offers thousands of Californians permanent supportive housing.
Helped by a Democratic White House and a multibillion-dollar state surplus — a result of the state’s heavy reliance on the kind of high-income earners whose jobs were generally untouched by the pandemic — he has dispensed state coronavirus relief worth $7.6 billion, rolled out more than 29 million vaccine doses and recalibrated health guidelines to prod teachers back into classrooms.
“Governor Newsom thinks time is his best friend,” said Joe Rodota, who worked as an aide to the former Republican governors Pete Wilson and Mr. Schwarzenegger. “Ultimately all recalls are self-inflicted, that’s the history. These things don’t go anywhere unless there’s gasoline that has been poured on the sidewalk personally.”
Already, the state is recovering, as are Mr. Newsom’s approval ratings. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that about 56 percent of likely voters in the state do not support the recall. Unemployment, while high, has fallen steadily, Disneyland is set to reopen on Friday and the rate of new coronavirus cases in California is among the nation’s lowest.
Meanwhile, his allies, including those in the Biden administration, have managed to keep Democrats in line — a feat that Mr. Davis was unable to pull off. Some influential Republicans, too, are remaining on the sideline. Mr. Schwarzenegger has said he will remain neutral.
“We have 40 million people in this state,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said last week in an interview. “I think they’re smart enough to figure out which direction to go. And how far they want to go — is this just going to be a threat? ‘Get your act together and we’re going to back off?’”
If so, he added, the recall proponents “were, in a way, very successful — because he definitely got more engaged in the last few months.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/politics/gavin-newsom-recall-california.html
Parents (ie, Voters) Approve of Newsom’s School Re-Opening
Politico & Public Policy Institute of California
We just got the most concrete evidence yet for why Gov. Gavin Newsom is likely to survive this recall.
Of all the issues fomenting voter discontent, arguably none is more potent than school closures. Parental frustration and anxiety have seeped across party lines and driven efforts to recall school board members around the state, which explains why the issue threatened to drive a wedge between Newsom and his teachers’ union allies. Republican former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has made shuttered schools a centerpiece of his argument for why Newsom has failed, and recall backers in general see this as one of Newsom’s greatest liabilities.
But a new Public Policy Institute of California poll deflates that argument.
According to PPIC, voters overwhelmingly approve (59-40) of how Newsom has handled the reopening issue — and they’re surprisingly satisfied with school progress in general. Two-thirds of voters approve of how their district is handling things and a plurality say school reopenings are proceeding at the right pace. A majority supports partial reopening for now — like the hybrid model many students are now experiencing — rather than a full return to in-person schooling.
There are still warning signs. A slight majority believes California has not done enough to aid school districts. People are overwhelmingly concerned about children falling behind, and they remain skeptical that we’ll be back to school in the fall: two-thirds expressed concern that students won’t return to full-time instruction. That suggests voters aren’t convinced by Newsom saying conditions should allow for a return — a prediction that falls short of a mandate.
But the big picture takeaway here is about as good as Team Newsom could hope for. His record on jobs and the economy drew the same comfortable 59 percent approval rating as his schools stewardship, and a clear majority of voters anticipate good financial times ahead. In other words, Californians are feeling confident about the state’s trajectory and Newsom’s work on schools and the economy. If new variants don’t derail the state’s progress out of the pandemic, the governor is in the driver’s seat
PPIC Poll:
https://www.ppic.org/blog/reading-the-tea-leaves-on-the-governors-recall/
“Behested”: Understanding One-Off Political Donations
Corporate Donors Gave $226 Million On Newsom’s Behalf in 2020
CalMatters
Companies including Facebook, Google, T-Mobile and Blue Shield contributed a record $226 million to government causes on Newsom’s behalf last year, sparking concerns about the power these corporations exert at the state Capitol, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. The companies say they were only trying to help the state respond to the pandemic, but many of them also have business before the governor, received large no-bid contracts or were vying for important appointments — raising questions about potential conflicts of interest. Blue Shield, for example, gave $20 million to one of Newsom’s homeless initiatives — and received a no-bid contract to run California’s vaccine distribution system.
Mindy Romero, director of USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy: “It’s generally a good thing if private organizations want to donate, but … I think we need to be critical: If we get the golden goose, you have to be critical of why it’s being given.”
CalMatters’ Laurel Rosenhall has reported extensively on the surge in so-called “behested payments” at the state Capitol, which allow politicians to raise unlimited sums of money from powerful special interests with limited disclosure requirements. Newly confirmed Attorney General Rob Bonta, for instance, solicited more than $560,000 from groups that lobby the Legislature and directed it to groups that employ his wife — who is now running for his vacant Assembly seat.
Full story:
Sacramento DA Announces for Attorney General
Sacramento Bee
California is in chaos, Anne Marie Schubert says, and she wants to be the person to fix it.
Surrounded by families of crime victims, Sacramento County’s district attorney on Monday launched her candidacy for California attorney general while slamming Democratic leaders’ progressive policies on law and order.
“The newly appointed attorney general has voted for and supported policies and laws that are not only destroying the rights of crime victims, but are destroying public safety in this state,” Schubert said referencing Attorney General Rob Bonta, who was sworn in Friday.
“Here is the truth: California’s criminal justice system is in chaos.”
Schubert, known for prosecuting one of the state’s most notorious serial killers, is trying something no candidate has accomplished in recent memory: She wants to win statewide office in California as an independent rather than as a Democrat or as a Republican.
For years a Republican, Schubert recently switched her voter registration to NPP, or no party preference. She wanted to be authentic, she told The Sacramento Bee, but independent candidates have had little luck winning elections in California.
The last time a non-Democrat won statewide office was Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. Since then, it’s been hard for any candidate without a D next to his or her name to be elected in California.
But Rob Stutzman, a GOP political consultant, said if there’s any statewide office where an independent may have a chance, it’s attorney general.
“I think people are going to vote for AG based on if there’s a contrast between the candidates on criminal justice matters,” Stutzman said. “And a real prosecutor versus someone who is a politician.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article250940494.html#storylink=cpy
Californians’ Income Growth Set Record
State Dept. of Finance
California personal income increased by 6.9 percent in 2020, the largest annual increase since 2015, as income transfer payments tied to the COVID-19 recession increased by 44.4 percent. Excluding transfers, California personal income grew by 0.7 percent in 2020, following 5.2 percent in 2019. U.S. personal income increased by 6.1 percent in 2020 as transfer payments increased by 36.6 percent. U.S. personal income excluding transfers fell by 0.04 percent in 2020 after growing by 2.7 percent in 2019.
MONTHLY CASH REPORT
Preliminary General Fund agency cash receipts for the first nine months of the fiscal year were
$16.686 billion above the 2021-22 Governor’s Budget forecast of $120.493 billion. Cash receipts forthe month of March were $2.338 billion above the 2021-22 Governor’s Budget forecast of $8.976 billion. A significant amount of receipts above the January forecast is due to lower refunds caused by a later-than-expected enactment date for the Golden State Stimulus, as well as a delayed opening date of the tax filing season by the Internal Revenue Service.
Personal income tax cash receipts to the General Fund for the first nine months of the fiscal year were
$14.386 billion above forecast. Cash receipts for March were $1.602 billion above the month’s forecast of $4.716 billion. Withholding receipts were $1.523 billion above the forecast of $6.927 billion. Other cash receipts were $291 million above the forecast of $1.551 billion. Refunds issued in March were $183 million above the expected $3.676 billion. Proposition 63 requires that 1.76 percent of total monthly personal income tax collections be transferred to the Mental Health Services Fund (MHSF). The amount transferred to the MHSF
in March was $18 million higher than the forecast of $85 million.
Sales and use tax cash receipts for the first nine months of the fiscal year were $943 million above forecast. Cash receipts for March were $184 million above the month’s forecast of $1.847 billion. March cash includes the second prepayment for first quarter sales and use tax liabilities.
Corporation tax cash receipts for the first nine months of the fiscal year were $1.376 billion above forecast. Cash receipts for March were $655 million above the month’s forecast of $1.607 billion. Estimated payments were $215 million above the forecast of $894 million, and other payments were $412 million above the $863 million forecast. Total refunds for the month were $29 million lower than the forecast of $150 million.
JOBS
California unemployment rate decreased from 8.5 percent in February to 8.3 percent in March 2021, compared to 4.3 percent in February 2020. Civilian unemployment decreased by 49,600 as 39,700 Californians left the labor force and 9,900 people gained employment. There were 1.2 million fewer employed and 530,000 fewer people in the labor force than in February 2020.
California added 119,600 nonfarm jobs in March 2021, with ten sectors gaining jobs: leisure and hospitality (42,400), trade, transportation and utilities (32,200), professional and business services (22,000), other services (7,300), construction (6,000), information (5,400), government (2,200), manufacturing (1,400), educational and health services (1,200), and mining and logging (100). Financial activities lost 600 jobs. In the first quarter of 2021, California nonfarm jobs were 1.6 million or 9.0 percent below the pre-pandemic level of 17.6 million in the first quarter of 2020.
BUILDING ACTIVITY
California housing units authorized by building permits totaled 116,000 on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate in February 2021, down from 136,000 in January 2021 but above the 2020 average of 105,000 units. Multi-family units fell from 71,000 in January to 41,000 in February while single-family units increased to 75,000 in February from 66,000 in January.
REAL ESTATE
Sales of existing single-family homes in California totaled 446,000 units on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate in March 2021, down 3.5 percent from February and up 19.7 percent from March 2020. The statewide median price of existing single-family homes reached a new record high of $758,990 in March 2021, this was 5.7 percent above December 2020’s previous record of $717,930 and up 23.9 percent from March 2020.
https://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Economics/Economic_and_Revenue_Updates/documents/2021/Apr-21.pdf
US & California Tax Systems in Volatile Era
CalMatters commentary
A cosmic convergence of events in Washington and Sacramento last week demonstrated how strongly federal and state tax systems are interconnected.
President Joe Biden, it was revealed, will ask Congress this week to nearly double taxes on capital gains of the highest-income taxpayers, on top of an increase in taxes on their ordinary incomes he had proposed earlier to pay for infrastructure improvements.
California’s budget is extraordinarily dependent on those same taxpayers, with the top 1% — about 150,000 tax filers in a state of nearly 40 million — accounting for nearly 50% of the state’s general fund revenues. Much of those revenues from the state’s wealthiest residents come from their capital gains, which have increased sharply in recent years.
Although the state is still coping with a severe recession from COVID-19 shutdowns, the taxable incomes of the state’s most affluent have continued to grow — in part from a surging stock market — and have generated a cornucopia of revenues. The state Department of Finance reported last week that during the first nine months of the 2020-21 fiscal year, revenues are running nearly $17 billion above the budget’s estimates, the vast majority from income taxes on affluent Californians.
Revenue gains are so robust that the Legislature’s budget analyst, Gabe Petek, last week declared that some of the excess money may have to be returned to taxpayers under the “Gann limit,” a ballot measure passed by voters four decades ago. Moreover, Petek said, “Our analysis suggests the (Gann limit) will be an even more important factor in the state budget in the coming years” as revenues surge beyond the limit’s parameters.
The connection between Biden’s tax proposals and California’s budget is how high-income taxpayers would react should his plans be enacted.
Capital gains are largely discretionary. That is, profits in stocks and other investments only become taxable when they are sold and a sharp increase in federal taxes to 43.4% would encourage wealthy investors to hold them to avoid the new levies, which would also depress state revenues from those gains.
California has the nation’s highest marginal income tax rate, 13.3%, which is one reason why the state’s revenues have continued to grow during the recession. Raising the top 37% federal tax rate on wages and other ordinary income to 39.6%, as Biden proposes, would push the combined marginal rate on high-income Californians to nearly 53%.
That would increase the financial impetus for the wealthy to flee to states that have low or no income taxes, such as neighboring Nevada and Texas – especially since the last major federal tax overhaul four years ago limited the deduction for state and local taxes to $10,000.
Governors of high-tax states such as California and New York have pleaded with Congress to repeal the $10,000 cap, fearing that an exodus of the wealthy would cut deeply into their revenues. So far, there’s only been a trickle of tax refugees, which is another reason why California’s revenues have been so strong, but a bigger federal tax bite could be a tipping point for some.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s from New York, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who’s from California, have insisted that repealing the $10,000 cap be included in any new tax legislation, but doing so would reduce the federal revenues that Biden wants for new infrastructure and education spending.
California politicians often portray the state as a “nation-state” that’s largely independent, but as Biden’s proposals demonstrate, Washington calls the tune on tax policy and California must dance to it.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/04/bidens-tax-increase-california-income-wealthy/
Bay Area Water Agencies Invoke Voluntary Conservation
San Jose Mercury
After back-to-back dry winters, two of the Bay Area’s biggest water agencies on moved forward with plans to urge the public to reduce water use to avoid shortages this year. But for now, they are using a carrot rather than a stick, saying they have enough water to get by without resorting to fines, water cops and strict rules.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District, based in San Jose, voted Tuesday night to double the amount of money it pays homeowners to replace their lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping, from $1 a square foot to $2, and to expand the maximum amount it will pay per household from $2,000 to $3,000 under the conservation program.
Last time the agency offered that much, in 2014 during California’s last drought, interest in the program soared nearly 30 fold.
The board also moved forward with plans to double its advertising budget this summer to encourage people to conserve water and meet its goal of a 25% reduction in total water use from 2013 levels.
Meanwhile, the East Bay Municipal Utility District board voted Tuesday to declare a stage 1 drought and to ask the public for a voluntary 10% reduction in water use.
The two agencies together provide water to about 3.5 million people, nearly half the Bay Area population.
“We’re in a moderate drought,” said Tony Estremera, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “We don’t know when it is going to end. We’re trying to prepare the best we can. We’re trying to get ahead of it.”
Both agencies said they did not need to copy their neighbor to the north, the Marin Municipal Water District, which took a tougher approach.
Earlier this week, that district banned its 190,000 residents in central and southern Marin County from washing vehicles at home, washing sidewalks and driveways, power washing, watering public medians and refilling decorative fountains. Violators will be given a warning at first, a $25 fine for a second violation and then a $250 fine for any subsequent rule breaking.
Marin water officials also are considering limiting outdoor irrigation in the coming weeks to one or two days a week and have begun talks with East Bay MUD over possibly constructing a pipeline over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge next year to ship in water from the East Bay, something that hasn’t been done since the 1976-77 drought.
The larger water agencies said they have enough backup supplies to keep things voluntary for now.
“We want to take it a step at a time,” Estremera said. “If the drought continues, we’re going to have to ask people to make sacrifices. We don’t want to go directly to that. We’re in pretty good shape. We’re pretty confident people will respond.”
Both agencies said customers didn’t completely drop their conservation ways and go back to water-wasting habits from before the 2012-16 drought. Despite population growth, Santa Clara County residents used 16% less water last year than they did in 2013. Similarly, East Bay MUD customers last year used 13% less water than they did in 2013.
The Bay Area’s biggest water agency, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which serves 2.5 million people in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and southern Alameda counties through its Hetch Hetchy system, plans to ask for no reductions from residential customers, only a 10% cutback from its 1,600 irrigation customers.
Agencies often are reluctant to crack down on water use. It causes political headaches, and they are worried if they “cry wolf” too early, people won’t respond if droughts become dire. Also, when customers conserve water, agencies sell less water, which affects their bottom lines. A 10% reduction from current water-use levels would cost East Bay MUD about $20 million in lost revenue, the district estimated.
“Staggering” DDT Dump Mapped In Ocean Off LA
Associated Press
Marine scientists say they have found what they believe to be as many as 25,000 barrels that possibly contain DDT dumped off the Southern California coast near Catalina Island, where a massive underwater toxic waste site dating back to World War II has long been suspected.
The 27,345 “barrel-like” images were captured by researchers at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They mapped more than 36,000 acres of seafloor between Santa Catalina Island and the Los Angeles coast in a region previously found to contain high levels of the toxic chemical in sediments and in the ecosystem.
Historical shipping logs show that industrial companies in Southern California used the basin as a dumping ground until 1972, when the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, also known as the Ocean Dumping Act, was enacted.
Resting deep in the ocean, the exact location and extent of the dumping was not known until now.
The territory covered was “staggering,” said Eric Terrill, chief scientist of the expedition and director of the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Underwater drones using sonar technology captured high-resolution images of barrels resting 3,000 feet (900 meters) below the surface all along the steep seafloor that was surveyed. They also were seen beyond the dumpsite limits.
“It really was a surprise to everybody who’s worked with the data and who sailed at sea,” he told reporters Monday.
The survey provides “a wide-area map” of the barrels, though it will be up to others to confirm through sediment sampling that the containers hold DDT, Terrill said. It’s estimated between 350 and 700 tons of DDT were dumped in the area, 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Los Angeles, and 8 miles (12 kilometers) from Catalina Island.
The long-term impact on marine life and humans is still unknown, said Scripps chemical oceanographer and professor of geosciences Lihini Aluwihare, who in 2015 co-authored a study that found high amounts of DDT and other man-made chemicals in the blubber of bottlenose dolphins that died of natural causes.
“These results also raise questions about the continued exposure and potential impacts on marine mammal health, especially in light of how DDT has been shown to have multi-generational impacts in humans,” said Aluwhihare, who was not part of the survey expedition.
If the barrels haven’t leaked, they could be moved to a place where disposal is safer, Aga said. If they leaked, scientists could take samples from the water, sediment and other marine life to gauge the damage.
Scientists conducted the survey from March 10-24 following a Los Angeles Times report last year about evidence that DDT was dumped into the ocean.
“Unfortunately, the basin offshore Los Angeles had been a dumping ground for industrial waste for several decades, beginning in the 1930s. We found an extensive debris field in the wide area survey,” Terrill said.
Scientists started the search where University of California Santa Barbara professor David Valentine had discovered concentrated accumulations of DDT in the sediments and spotted 60 barrels about a decade ago.
High levels of DDT have been detected in the area’s marine mammals, and the chemical has been linked to cancer in sea lions.
The Los Angeles Times reviewed shipping logs from a disposal company supporting Montrose Chemical Corp. of California, a DDT-producing company. The logs showed 2,000 barrels of DDT-laced sludge were dumped in the deep ocean each month from 1947 to 1961 off Catalina, and other companies also dumped there until 1972.
Scripps researchers say they hope their survey will support clean-up efforts.
The expedition on the Sally Ride research vessel included a team of 31 scientists, engineers, and crew conducting 24-hour operations and two autonomous underwater vehicles.