Yellow raincoats and rainboots no longer make sense in a San Francisco where rainy seasons are a thing of the past. If you’re anything like me, your memories of childhood include places where the past climate no longer resembles the present. But if Newsom continues to place environmental flows as secondary, it will not take long before this imbalance upends the ability to support our cities, industry, or farmers, let alone our forgotten fisheries. Newsom aims to secure water for three key sectors: people, business, and agriculture. If the administration and legislature continue to ignore the importance of place within the pantheon of success factors within our State, then we are abandoning the balance with our environment that defines California. We have vast public lands and parks that provide camping, hiking, and inspiration to generations of environmentalists and to families that want to feel grass between their toes. We still have estuaries, high mountain lakes, and meadows that provide recreational opportunities for folks in both cities and rural towns. California still has salmon and steelhead migrating hundreds of miles through cities, past hatcheries, and into cold headwaters. If Governor Newsom truly wants to support a broad and inclusive Water Supply Strategy for all Californians then he should not turn his back on the natural resources that make California such an inspiring and desirable place to live. Governor Newsom’s Water Supply Strategy does not offer this recognition. Any solution that highlights a need to create and maintain surface water storage must also come with a recognition of our past failures. Many of these dams cause harmful algae blooms that create toxic, not to mention deadly stream temperatures for fish. These obsolete dams do not supply water storage, do not produce electricity, and are dangerous to populations of both fish and people. However, there are over 1400 major dams throughout California, many of which no longer serve any functional purpose. Dams are necessary to support California’s economy and growing population. Worse than that, this Strategy highlights the need to invest heavily in California’s archaic patchwork dam system without specifically naming those projects.ĬalTrout supports investments in necessary water storage systems and investments in groundwater storage, but we believe there must be a balance. Despite a handful of references to ‘fish and wildlife’, this Strategy firmly places California’s unique geography and freshwater habitat as an afterthought. While it sounds promising, this Strategy fails to outline a plan for our freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes.
This Strategy was pitched as an adaptation plan to prepare California for a hotter, drier future. Within an hour of hearing the news on AB 2451, Governor Newsom released his Water Supply Strategy.
While there is some hope that the legislature can support the funding of AB 2451 through a last-minute budget process, it appears more likely that the State Water Resources Control Board and the legislature have once again failed to meet the needs of Californians. However, because of some short-sighted efforts hidden behind the veil of our legislative process, AB 2451 and California’s chance to prepare for long-term drought and aridification have likely failed. This bill would have created the State of California’s only permanent office that prepares for a drier, more arid future. However, this balance is not reflected in the Governor’s or the State’s drought preparedness, vision for the future, or policies.ĪB 2451 and Governor Newsom's Water Supply StrategyĪssemblymember Jim Wood sought to address California’s lack of drought preparedness in AB 2451. Our work and our vision support clean drinking water for all Californians, a thriving economy, while also allowing wild fish to thrive in our rivers, lakes, estuaries, and headwater habitats. We recognize that the California we know and love is a functionally altered landscape. Here at CalTrout, we balance the needs of fish, water, and people. Drought preparedness bill AB 2451, representing real hope for water scarcity, likely failed, and Governor Newsom introduced a Water Supply Strategy that is an important step but inadequate for the protection of freshwater ecosystems – especially in the face of the ongoing climate crisis. This past month was a major setback for California’s diverse freshwater ecosystems. Written by Redgie Collins, Legal and Policy DirectorĬalifornia is Not Prepared to Protect the Environment from Drought during the Ongoing Climate Crisis
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