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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] California officials expect to cut water supplies
  • Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:30:37 -0600


California officials expect to cut water supplies
Wed Sep 5, 2007 7:51pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0543703820070905

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's major urban areas and farmers should
brace for cuts in water supplies following a federal judge's ruling that
limits how much water may be pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River
Delta, water officials from around the state said on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger ruled on Friday that less water must be
pumped from the inland delta system east of San Francisco to protect the
delta smelt fish as it spawns.

Farms throughout California's Central Valley depend on delta water to
irrigate fields and the water is conveyed to cities and towns in the San
Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles region. An estimated 25 million
Californians use delta water.

Cuts in delta water supplies would come on the heels of a winter in
California with little rainfall and as much of the most populous U.S. state
contends with an especially dry summer. At least 15 people have died in Los
Angeles County, the state's biggest county, amid a heat wave this week.

Wanger's ruling will force water agencies to impose unprecedented
conservation programs, said Roger Patterson, an assistant general manager
with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, during a
telephone conference call.

"We have moved into an area of tremendous uncertainty," Patterson said.

Other officials on the conference call also said they were concerned about
potential cuts in water supplies and how drawn down supplies would be
replaced.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, has said Wanger's decision
would have a "devastating impact" on California's economy and that it
strengthens his case for a $5.9 billion water works plan he proposed in
January.




  • [Livingontheland] California officials expect to cut water supplies, Tradingpost, 06/08/2008

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