Cadiz, Inc boondoggle is back

CALIFORNIA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed plans by private speculator Cadiz, Inc to tap Mojave ground water, reports the Los Angeles Business Journal. The Cadiz plan, according to a statement from the governor, “will sustainably recover more than one million acre feet of water that would otherwise be lost to evaporation and make it available to help provide a reliable source of water for Southern California.”

The Cadiz project proposes storing Colorado River Water in a Mojave aquifer in wet years and pumping it to Southern Californian communities in dry ones. Among its problems are that it involves taking out far more water from the desert than naturally refills every year and that, cost-wise, experts say it’s a boondoggle.

The Cadiz self-styled “dry year supply project” is best known, however, as a synonym for croneyism. As a succession of Los Angeles Times stories during the last nine …

NOAA moves to avert fish extinction in Bay Delta. “What is at stake here is not just the survival of species but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them.”

NOAA Press release 
NOAA Biological Opinion 
Best of press & reactions from environmentalists, Central Valley farmers and Governor Schwarzenegger: Aquafornia
FROM THE NOAA RELEASE: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  released the final draft of a revised Bay-Delta biological opinion today that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food.

Two independent peer review panels were conducted to ensure the opinion is solidly grounded in the
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California, Nevada, Texas Red on Seasonal Drought Outlook

Issued June 4, 2009 by the National Weather Service

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Weekly Drought Map

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High Good, Low Bad: May Elevations on Mead

Lake Mead is the Colorado River Reservoir holding water supplies for California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The maximum elevation is 1,229 feet. Below, gleaned from US Bureau of Reclamation records, are year-on-year May elevation reports going back to 2004. Also borrowed from Reclamation is a nifty graphic published on Friday, May 8, 2009 showing April and May 2009 elevations. The May elevations were largely estimates (in yellow). Kudos to the graphic artist.  The actual closing elevation for May 31, 2009 was 1,096.92. 

DATE                                     ELEVATION OF LAKE MEAD

May 31, 2009:                                          1,096.92

May 31, 2008:                                          1,107.05

May 31, 2007:                                          1,115.89

May 31, 2006:                                          1,131.14

May 31, 2005:                                          1,141.89

May 31, 2004:                                          1,129.70

For April Elevations, click here

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    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com

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