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Here Are The Things California Water-Wasters Can Now Be Fined For

by JuliannChristma Posted on July 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published in Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Here’s a list of things that could now get you fined up to $500 a day in California, where a multi-year drought is sucking reservoirs and snowpacks dry:

Spraying so much water on your lawn or garden that excess water flows onto non-planted areas, walkways, parking lots, or neighboring property.
Washing your car with a hose that doesn’t have an automatic shut-off device.
Spraying water on a driveway, a sidewalk, asphalt, or any other hard surface.
Using fresh water in a water fountain—unless the water recirculates.

Those stern emergency regulations were adopted Tuesday by a unanimous vote of the State Water Resources Control Board – part of an effort to crack down on the profligate use of water during critically lean times.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) asked the state’s residents to voluntarily conserve water in January, but they didn’t. Rather, as the San Jose Mercury News reports, “a new state survey released Tuesday showed that water use in May rose by 1 percent this year, compared with a 2011-2013 May average.”

Californians use more water on their gardens and lawns than they use inside their homes, as shown in the following chart from a document prepared for the board members ahead of Tuesday’s vote. So the new rules focus on outdoor use.

Extreme drought is now affecting 80 percent of the Golden State. Some 400,000 acres of farmland could be fallowed due to water shortages, and water customers in the hardest-hit communities are having their daily water supplies capped at less than 50 gallons per person.

The California Landscape Contractors Association sees an upside, though. It expects that the threats of fines could convince Californians to hire its members to replace thirsty nonnative plants in their gardens with drought-hardy alternatives. “If the runoff prohibition is enforced at the local level, we expect it to result in a multitude of landscape retrofits in the coming months,” association executive Larry Rohlfes told the water board in a letter dated Monday, one of a large stack of letters sent by various groups and residents in support of the new rules. “The water efficient landscapes that result will help the state’s long-term conservation efforts—in addition to helping the state deal with a hopefully short-term drought emergency.”

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Here Are The Things California Water-Wasters Can Now Be Fined For

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Why West Nile Virus Is So Scary

by Simone87Lg Posted on May 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the Atlantic website and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The day that everything changed was a broiling Thursday in July—95 degrees, the kind of dry heat that Sacramento Valley residents are used to. If you have to work outside, you do it before noon, swathed in long sleeves and pants to keep the sun at bay and the mosquitoes from eating you alive.

On this day, however, my grandmother, an active and spritely woman even at 80, never made it outside to the garden. She mentioned at breakfast that she wasn’t feeling well, and my grandfather suggested that she take a nap in the sunroom. When he finally woke her up at 4 p.m., she still felt ill and feverish. The nearest emergency room is more than an hour’s drive from their 20-acre farm in rural northern California, but they decided to make the trip. The doctors performed a CAT scan, gave my grandmother some Tylenol, and sent her home.

When my grandparents finally got back at around 11 p.m., my grandfather tried to convince my grandmother to eat something; she said that she could manage a piece of toast. A few days later he found the toast, one bite taken out of it, abandoned in the microwave.

While getting ready for bed, my grandmother went into the bathroom and stood in the dark for 10 minutes. “I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was washing her teeth,” my grandfather recalls. He coaxed her out, and they climbed into bed.

It was around 4 a.m. when the tumult began. “I’m falling out of bed!” my grandmother screamed. Half asleep, my grandfather tried to push her back in, but when he touched her, she shrieked and began sobbing. He rushed down the hallway, phoned the hospital, and was told to call 911. By the time that he could get back to the bedroom, my grandmother was slumped on the floor, her head against the bedside table, babbling incoherently. The paramedics arrived within 15 minutes.

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Why West Nile Virus Is So Scary

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The Idaho GOP Gubernatorial Debate Was Total Chaos

by TommieGrout Posted on May 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Idaho Republican Gov. Butch Otter (no relation) is facing a primary challenge this year from Russ Fulcher, a conservative state senator. Idaho is a really conservative place and Otter has angered his party’s base by supporting the Common Core math and English standards, so the incumbent isn’t taking any chances. When it came time for Otter and Fulcher to debate, the governor insisted on opening up the floor. He argued that all candidates should be allowed on stage, which sounds nice and democratic in theory, but in practice meant that Fulcher had to split time with two people who will never be governor—also-rans Harley Brown and Walt Bayes.

Even before Wednesday’s debate started, Idaho Public Television announced that it would broadcast the event on a 30-second delay in anticipation of rampant cussin’. Brown—who wore his customary leather vest and leather hat, has the presidential seal tattooed on his shoulder, two cigars in his right breast pocket, and is missing several prominent teeth—used his closing argument to wave a signed certificate from a “Masai prophet” that confirmed that he would one day be president of the United States. Brown revealed that he supports gay marriage because as a cab driver in Boise he discovered that gay people “love each other more than I love my motorcycle.” His closing argument was blunt: “You have your choice, folks: A cowboy, a curmudgeon, a biker, or a normal guy. Take your pick… We’re leaving it up to you.”

Bayes, who has a beard that extends halfway down his ribcage and resembles a 19th-century gold prospector, also wanted to talk about Biblical prophecy, but mostly just abortion. His credentials for governor are that he once went to jail for homeschooling his 16 children, five of whom went on to become rodeo cowboys. “Everybody, thanks everybody, okay?,” he said during his closing statements.

Most of all, he wanted to thank Gov. Otter: “Butch, I want to thank you for making it possible for me to be here tonight. He kind of insisted that me and this other un-normal person could be here tonight.”

This exactly the kind of circus the United States tried to break away from:

Correction: This post misstated the components of the Common Core State Standards.

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The Idaho GOP Gubernatorial Debate Was Total Chaos

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Scott Brown Urged GOP Senators To Kill Jeanne Shaheen’s Energy Efficiency Bill

by FreyaRaysy Posted on May 15, 2014

green4us

The 2014 campaign is already hurting the climate. Jim Cole/AP New Hampshire Senate candidate Scott Brown called Senate Republican leadership to urge them to stop a bipartisan energy efficiency bill, so as not to give Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), the bill’s Democratic sponsor and his Democratic opponent, something to run on. The Huffington Post first reported on Tuesday that Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, lobbied against the bill as recently as last week. The Shaheen-Portman bill failed to clear a procedural hurdle Monday despite enjoying broad bipartisan support. Although the legislation had 14 co-sponsors — seven from each side of the aisle — just two other Republicans ultimately voted with Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) to end debate on the measure: Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Susan Collins (Maine). A spokeswoman for Brown, who did not return HuffPost’s request for comment, did not deny the report in a statement to Politico. “Scott Brown was concerned that Senator Shaheen was refusing to allow a vote on the Keystone pipeline, a commonsense and bipartisan project that would immediately create thousands of jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton said. Brown is running in the New Hampshire GOP primary, set for Sept. 9, for the opportunity to challenge Shaheen in November. Read the rest at The Huffington Post.

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Scott Brown Urged GOP Senators To Kill Jeanne Shaheen’s Energy Efficiency Bill

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Scott Brown Urged GOP Senators To Kill Jeanne Shaheen’s Energy Efficiency Bill

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Californians, stop watering your lawns — for real this time

by RaymondPeningto Posted on April 28, 2014

Californians, stop watering your lawns — for real this time

By

Quinn Dombrowski

With every square foot of California now affected by crippling drought, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has urged residents, yet again, to avoid wasting water – such as by watering their lawns more than twice a week. And in his latest drought-related proclamation, issued on Friday, the governor struck out against homeowners associations that have any problems with pretty green lawns being left to turn brown.

“Homeowners Associations (commonly known as HOAs) have reportedly fined or threatened to fine homeowners who comply with water conservation measures,” says Brown’s proclamation. “I order that any provision of the governing document, architectural or landscaping guidelines, or policies of a common interest development will be void and unenforceable to the extent it has the effect of prohibiting compliance with the water-saving measures contained in this directive, or any conservation measure adopted by a public agency or private water company.”

Brown urged residents to turn off decorative water features, to not use water to clean sidewalks and driveways, and to avoid washing their cars — unless the neighborhood carwash uses recycled water. He even asked restaurants to only offer glasses of water if their customers ask for them.

The proclamation also eased yet more environmental regulations to help boost the amount of water that can be redirected from rivers to farms or faucets. The Sacramento Bee reports:

The governor first proclaimed a drought emergency Jan. 17. This second proclamation goes further by waiving compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and the state water code for a number of actions, including water transfers, wastewater treatment projects, habitat improvements for winter-run Chinook salmon imperiled by the drought and curtailment of water rights. …

Water agencies and some environmental groups praised the order, saying it strikes a proper balance between emergency response and environmental protection.

Others said it goes too far.

The proclamation came a day after the federal government announced that the entire state was in a state of drought. Climate Central explains:

Since mid-March, a sliver of California on its southeastern border was the lone drought holdout for the state. Even then, that section of the state was still considered abnormally dry according to the Drought Monitor. The section finally tipped into drought this week, and for the first time in the 15-year history of the Drought Monitor, the entire state is now in drought.

The U.S. Drought Monitor now shows a quarter of California in “exceptional drought.” Three months ago, no part of the state fell into that dark, dire category.

Drought Monitor

Click to embiggen.


Source
Governor Brown issues executive order to redouble state drought actions, Office of Gov. Jerry Brown
The Explosive Growth of California’s Drought in 1 Chart, Climate Central

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Californians, stop watering your lawns — for real this time

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Alaska Republican: Birth Control Might Not Work for Women Who Binge Drink

by TawnyaRiddle Posted on March 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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Alaska state Sen. Pete Kelly, a Fairbanks Republican, announced last week that he wants to use state funds to supply bars with pregnancy tests to help combat the state’s epidemic of fetal alcohol syndrome. But Kelly told the Anchorage Daily News he would not support the same measure for birth control, noting that “birth control is for people who don’t necessarily want to act responsibly.” Kelly, who came under fire for his remarks by Democrats, took to the Senate floor Monday to elaborate on why he doesn’t think birth control is an effective way to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome:

If you have people who are binge drinking or chronic drinkers, we’re hesitant to say ‘use birth control as your protection against fetal alcohol syndrome,’ because again, as I say, binge drinking is a problem…If you think you can take birth control and then binge drink and hope not to produce a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome you may be very wrong. Sometimes these things don’t work. Sometimes people forget, sometimes they administer birth control improperly and you might produce a fetal alcohol syndrome baby. That would be irresponsible of us until we get better information on that to say that well, maybe that is a good idea.

When reached by Mother Jones, Kelly said “it’s fine for women both married and unmarried to use contraceptives,” but he reiterated that “people forget, people administer contraception incorrectly, and sometimes the methods simply fail.â&#128;&#139;” He said that if contraceptive measures are found to be effective at reducing fetal alcohol syndrome, lawmakers could pursue using state funds to offer them as well. He did not elaborate on whether he would personally support this, although he told the Anchorage Daily News last week that he would not.

Medical experts say that, in fact, relying on birth control to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome is an excellent idea. The Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone Medical Center says that in order to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome, women should “use birth control until they are able to quit drinking” and “avoid heavy drinking when not using birth control.” The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommends that social workers advise women who are likely to drink if they become pregnant to use birth control.

At the Senate session, Kelly expressed dismay over how people have fixated on his birth control comments. “Because it got kind of caught up in the blogosphere, it got turned into something like a war on women or something like that. That’s not important. What is important…are these pregnancy tests kiosks,” he said. In a Facebook post earlier this week, he criticized Democrats for “turning his attempt to deal with the tragedy of FASD fetal alcohol syndrome into such disgusting politics.”

“Pete Kelly’s going all out with the War on Women, but from his defensive comments it looks like Alaska women may be winning,” Kay Brown, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party, said in a press release on Monday.

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Alaska Republican: Birth Control Might Not Work for Women Who Binge Drink

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Can Bobby Jindal Drive Out the GOP’s Demons?

by huklx2 Posted on March 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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Illustration by Marc Burckhardt

BOBBY JINDAL has never been one to wait. And so in November 2012, just one week after Barack Obama was reelected in a race the conservative establishment had long refused to believe it might lose, the 41-year-old governor of Louisiana stuck a knife in Mitt Romney’s back.

The party’s old guard was reeling and Jindal seemed poised to take advantage and confirm that he was a contender to lead the party in 2016. In winning a second gubernatorial term one year earlier, Jindal had crushed his top Democratic challenger by nearly 50 points, helping Republicans take control of the state Senate for the first time since Reconstruction. As Romney exited the national stage, Jindal was locking down the chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), a perch that is generally considered a steppingstone to bigger things because of its access to a national network of conservative donors. And in his personal story and ethnic heritage, he offered a walking counterpoint to his party’s demographic stagnation.

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Can Bobby Jindal Drive Out the GOP’s Demons?

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PHOTOS: A "Catastrophic…Crippling…Paralyzing" Ice Storm

by ElkeCulpepper Posted on February 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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An ice storm the National Weather Service has called “catastrophic…crippling…paralyzing… choose your adjective” is sweeping across states from Texas to North Carolina, knocking out power in more than 100,000 homes and businesses as it makes its way toward the Northeast. Here are some photos showing the early effects of the storm.

A vehicle drives through the rapidly falling snow on the US 421 Bypass in Sanford, N.C. Chris Seward/Raleigh News & Observer/ZUMA

LORETTA CANTRELL, 75, says ” I feel like a child again playing in the snow,” during a walk on Popular Stump Road in Helen, Ga. Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/ZUMA

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PHOTOS: A "Catastrophic…Crippling…Paralyzing" Ice Storm

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Key enviro law suspended in California under drought emergency

by ConnorWattersto Posted on January 23, 2014

Key enviro law suspended in California under drought emergency

By

Christopher “cricket” Hynes

When California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) declared a drought emergency last week, his administration slipped a bit of legalese into the declaration that has some environmentalists worried.

It states that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) will not apply to efforts by state agencies to “make water immediately available.”

CEQA, a landmark 1970s environmental statute, requires environmental analyses for major projects, which leads to delays as the studies are conducted and fought over, and as proposals for reducing environmental harm are debated. Brown, who hates the law, once remarked, “I‘ve never seen a CEQA exemption that I don’t like.”

The drought declaration says the limited suspension of CEQA will help “streamline water transfers and exchanges between water users” and help the state change limits on how much water can be diverted from reservoirs and from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta.

That’s important because the Delta, a stressed waterway and estuary that flows from melting snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to San Francisco Bay and into the Pacific Ocean, is at the center of a decades-old fight between farmers on one side and fishermen and environmentalists on the other. Farming corporations that own desert-like land in California’s Central Valley fight tooth-and-nail to be allowed to draw more water from the Delta, which would boost their nut, fruit, and vegetable harvests. Fishermen, who rely on the ecosystem for salmon, and environmentalists fight tooth-and-nail to prevent that from happening.

The drought is ravaging California just as Brown is preparing to ask voters to approve a multi-billion-dollar overhaul of the state’s water system. His plan would, among other things, dig a controversial water tunnel that could be used to boost the amount of water that’s diverted from the Delta for use on Central Valley farms.

So environmentalists are understandably suspicious about Brown’s move to suspend CEQA for water projects during the drought.

“This is, of course, a back-door attempt to sneak through the change of place approval needed to build the peripheral tunnel project, which will divert more water from the Delta,” Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity told Grist. “If the governor was serious about addressing the drought, he would turn off the taps that water lawns in the desert and irrigate luxury crops on selenium-tainted lands in the San Joaquin Valley before killing salmon and smelt.”

Here’s the language from the drought declaration that has some environmentalists worried:

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT: …

5. The Water Board will immediately consider petitions requesting consolidation of the places of use of the State Water Project and Federal Central Valley Project [in the Delta], which would streamline water transfers and exchanges between water users within the areas of these two major water projects.

6. The Department of Water Resources and the Water Board will accelerate funding for water supply enhancement projects that can break ground this year and will explore if any existing unspent funds can be repurposed to enable near-term water conservation projects. …

9. The Department of Water Resources and the Water Board will take actions necessary to make water immediately available, and, for purposes of carrying out directives 5 and 8, Water Code section 13247 and Division 13 (commencing with section 21000) of the Public Resources Code [CEQA] and regulations adopted pursuant to that Division are suspended on the basis that strict compliance with them will prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the effects of the emergency. Department of Water Resources and the Water Board shall maintain on their websites a list of the activities or approvals for which these provisions are suspended.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Key enviro law suspended in California under drought emergency

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Bipartisan Group of 31 Senators Urges EPA To Revise RFS Proposal

by Posted on January 23, 2014

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Bipartisan Group of 31 Senators Urges EPA To Revise RFS Proposal

Posted 23 January 2014 in

National

Yesterday, a bipartisan group of 31 Senators led by Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Al Franken (D-MN), John Thune (R-SD) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, calling on the agency to amend its proposed 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard requirements and reaffirm its commitment to domestically produced renewable fuel.

Cutting across regional and partisan divides, the Senators raised their concerns that the EPA’s proposal would have severe, negative consequences for America’s environment, economy and national security:

Congress passed the RFS to increase the amount of renewable fuel utilized in our nation’s fuel supply. The Administration’s proposal is a significant step backward – undermining the goal of increasing biofuels production as a domestic alternative to foreign oil consumption. Further, the proposed waiver places at risk both the environmental benefits from ongoing development of advanced biofuels and rural America’s economic future. We urge you to modify your proposal.

[…]

If the rule as proposed were adopted, it will:

Replace domestic biofuel production with fossil fuels, contributing to a greater dependence on foreign sources of oil and reduce our energy security.
Increase unemployment as renewable fuel producers cut back production.
Halt investments in cellulosic, biodiesel and other advanced renewable fuels. Rolling back the RFS will, potentially strand billions of dollars of private capital;
Undermine the deployment of renewable fuels infrastructure throughout the country;
Threaten the viability of the RFS, thereby solidifying an oil-based transportation sector and lowering consumer choice at the pump.

The letter was also signed by the following Senators: Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Max Baucus (D-MT), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Dan Coats (R-IN), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), John Hoeven (R-ND), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mark Udall (D-CO), Ed Markey (D-MA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Schatz (D-HI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Click here to read the full letter [PDF].

 

 

 

 

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Bipartisan Group of 31 Senators Urges EPA To Revise RFS Proposal

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