The governor also issued an Executive Order meant to address related problems caused by the water shortages, such as extreme fire danger due to dry conditions, economic harm to urban and rural communities, loss of crops and the potential to degrade water quality in some regions.”

For the areas in Northern California that supply most of our water, this March, April and May have been the driest ever in our recorded history,” Governor Schwarzenegger said during a press conference. “As a result, some local governments are rationing water, developments can’t proceed and agricultural fields are sitting idle. We must recognize the severity of the crisis we face.”

His order directs the Department of Water Resources and other entities to promote state and local conservation programs to reduce water consumption locally and regionally for the remainder of 2008 and prepare for potential worsening water conditions in 2009. The order also directs DWR to accelerate water transfers to shortage areas, pursue federal assistance and improve coordination between government agencies, identify risks to water supply and help farmers suffering losses.

Last month DWR released a final snow survey for the year that indicated snowpack water content was only at 67 percent the normal amount, and runoff was forecast at only 55 percent of the norm compared to previous years.”This drought is an urgent reminder of the immediate need to upgrade California’s water infrastructure,” the governor added. “There is no more time to waste because nothing is more vital to protect our economy, our environment and our quality-of-life. We must work together to ensure that California will have safe, reliable and clean water not only today but 20, 30 and 40 years from now.”

Photo: Office of the Governor

A California State Assembly committee last week declined to entertain a controversial bill set to build a canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and shelved it until next year.

Senator Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has worked on gaining approval from various parties for Senate Bill 27 for two years. Ultimately, farmers, environmentalists and Delta locals opposed the proposed legislation and may have convinced the assembly committee to reject the bill as is.

Often viewed as a new permutation of the 1980 “Peripheral Canal” bill, which proposed the construction of a Delta water-transfer facility and was viewed by many as threat to the local environment, SB 27 has been controversial from its inception.

Environmentalists have decried the building of a “conveyance” system around the delta because of its potential to harm the endangered delta smelt, a fish that was legally protected from huge water pumping by a California federal judge last August.

Simitian plans to rework the bill and introduce a new one next year after learning the findings of the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, which has been appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to “identify a strategy for managing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a sustainable ecosystem that would continue to support environmental and economic functions that are critical to the people of California.”

Photo: Delta Vision

California Governor Schwarzenegger’s State of the State Address:

Likewise, on infrastructure, I will continue to push for action. We have a water system built decades ago for 18 million people.

Today we have 37 million people. In 20 years, we will have 50 million people. We have to get going.

Already homes and businesses are facing mandatory cutbacks. Farms are unable to irrigate crops. Building permits are being denied.

And yet raging flood waters run wasted into the sea because they can’t be captured. We must expand water storage. We must build new water delivery systems. We must fix the Delta and restore its ecosystem.

We will also continue to make California the world’s environmental leader.

We are leading on climate change, low carbon fuels, energy efficiency - and on clean, green technology. When it comes to cleaning our air, preserving our oceans, protecting our environment, California will continue to be the foremost advocate for change.

And if we have to sue the federal government to get out of our way, we will do so.

Full text of State of the State Address available here.

Sierra Club perspective available at California Progressive Report.

Image courtesy of astro.com

“It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California and 19 other states from adopting these standards. They are ignoring the will of millions of people who want their government to take action in the fight against global warming. That’s why, at the very first legal opportunity, we’re suing to reverse the US EPA’s wrong decision. By implementing these standards, California would be eliminating greenhouse gases equivalent to taking 6.5 million cars off the road by the year 2020.”

As I suggested in my “Open Challenge to California and all State Governments” of Dec. 20, 15 other states or state agencies are joining the action, including Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York.

California’s action comes on the heels of the EPA’s denial of a waiver requsted by the state to impose new, tougher restrictions on car emissions. The new law requires a 30 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by 2016.

The refusal by EPA administrator Stephen Johnson last month, drew this comment from Brown,

“The denial letter was shocking in its incoherence and utter failure to provide legal justification for the administrator’s unprecedented action.

“The EPA has done nothing at the national level to curb greenhouse gases and now it has wrongfully and illegally blocked California’s landmark tailpipe emissions standards, despite the fact that sixteen states have moved to adopt them.”

So the stage is set for a showdown between states executing their rights, and another government agency seemingly caught up in its arrogance and power. Stay tuned.

Source 

Four years ago, before America was awash in greenwashing, Mothering Magazine featured a great article title "No More Junk Toys: Rethinking Children's Gifts" by Judith Rubin. Rubin writes,

Like junk food, junk toys can be fun but are devoid of nutrition. Buying them requires little forethought. They are excessively commercial, and are often linked to cross-marketing schemes. They excite children at first, but that initial flicker doesn't endure. Also like junk food, junk toys have hidden environmental and social costs for which the consumers pay.

Now comes North Dakota State University, with a current student body of around 12,000, filing an amicus brief in support of the two farmers. And NDSU has its own bone to pick with the DEA: an almost unbelievable snub of the small school.

In 1999, according to a news release from Vote Hemp, the university applied for permission to grow non-drug industrial hemp to create varieties best suited for the North Dakota climate and soil conditions. The DEA, according to the release, has chosen to ignore completely the 8 year old request. How's that for big brother arrogance?

The DEA still holds that industrial hemp, almost completely bereft of the hallucinogenic compound that produces a "high," can be used as a drug. I read somewhere that smoking industrial hemp would produce nothing more than a bad headache.