Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
I just came across an interesting article from the San Diego Union-Tribune about a bold shift taking place among California farmers that has been largely overlooked. Acala cotton, long known as King Cotton in the Central Valley, is losing its...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
600,000 acre-feet is a lot of water. It’s just about a year’s supply of water for the City of Los Angeles. You’d think that a tool that provides this much water in California during a third consecutive dry year would...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
A new report from NASA reveals that the Central Valley has lost enormous amounts of groundwater over the past six years. Taken together, the Sacramento and San Joaquin drainages have lost more than 30 cubic kilometers of water since 2003--enough...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
We hear a lot of grim reports these days about the future of state’s water supply, but recent studies offer some good news for a change: one of California’s newest and most promising water sources is actually expanding. This data...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
As the end of the year approaches, it's time for predictions for 2010. Here's my first: 2010 will be a year of serious debate about the financing of water projects. One of the most significant of those issues is how...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
To the non-water wonk, a long-range planning process within the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (known as Met) might appear as exciting as drying paint. But for those of us within the water community, it has the potential to...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
Over the coming week, my colleagues and I will write about some of the major provisions in the ambitious package of water reform legislation passed on November 4. The many provisions in this complex package will require some time for...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
Since the end of the legislative session in September, support for ambitious water reform legislation has been growing steadily. Not only is the list of those calling for change long, but it also includes some unlikely allies. Major stakeholders from...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
In the past decade, people have become familiar with the concept of peak oil -- the notion that we have passed the zenith of oil extraction and are facing a steady decline in the amount of oil we can recover....
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
Harry Truman once said that "close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades." In the coming year, we'll see if close also counts in California water policy. Last Friday, in the closing hours of the legislative session for the year,...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
What do Dutch engineers and the new California water governance bills have to do with one another? Quite a lot, I realized the other afternoon, as I listened to a group of engineers explain how the Netherlands is preparing its...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment
A recent op-ed written by Delta Senator Lois Wolk points out an obvious truth, but one that she thinks has been forgotten in the Delta: When you are planning the future of a community, you have to involve the community. ...
Posted by Barry Nelson in Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
I have been working on California water issues for 25 years, and I've learned that major opportunities for transformative change doesn't come around too often. Now is one of those times. Late last week, the California Legislature released a package...
