In a unanimous vote Tuesday, April 28, the Amador County Board of Supervisors joined other government agencies, organizations and individuals in opposing the proposed expansion of Pardee Reservoir on the Mokelumne River. The East Bay Municipal Utilities District has included the Pardee expansion project as part of the "preferred portfolio" in its Water Supply Management Plan 2040. EBMUD gets 90 percent of its water supply from the Mokelumne.
»The water content of the state's snowpack actually shrank in the final month of winter, from 80 percent of normal on April 1 to 66 percent of normal recorded Thursday in the state's final snow survey of the season.
»The Commerce Department Thursday released $53 million to Oregon and California to help West Coast salmon fishermen after the third fishery failure in four years. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke declared the latest disaster in a letter to the governors of the two states. He cited continued low returns to the Sacramento River in California. The river is the second largest producer of salmon on the West Coast.
»Republican Tom McClintock, whose district includes Oroville, was quoted in the Sacramento Bee as saying he doesn't believe there's a water shortage. He just thinks too much water is dedicated to fish and the delta ecosystem.
»It's not difficult to save water in our daily lives. Just as Californians have embraced compact fluorescent light bulbs and recycling, it's easy to get in the habit of reducing our water use every day. As our efforts on energy conservation have shown, small changes in our daily habits can add up to a big difference for California.
»Referring to Australia's seven-year drought, that's how the state's top water manager describes the new paradigm for water planning at the DWR. Speaking to a packed house at the annual forum of the SRWP yesterday, DWR Director Lester Snow said his staff is assuming that 2010 will be another dry year. Snow warned about "loss of resilience" in the state's water system, calling it "completely unsustainable" in it's present form, given predictions for population growth, coupled with anticipated effects of climate change.
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