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There are broader consequences to urban containment policy. Research has associated urban containment policy with slower metropolitan area employment growth and slower economic growth. Further, during the last decade there was a pronounced net domestic migration toward lower cost housing metropolitan areas from higher cost areas. With their restrictions on development outside the urban footprint, urban containment policies effectively trap people and businesses into higher cost areas, with unintended consequences for the broader economy. – See more at: http://reason.org/news/show/urban-containment-the-social-travel#sthash.jNKWv3Qp.dpuf

Before raising our glasses to toast this winter’s abundant El Niño rainfall, here’s a sobering thought: Because of deliberate efforts to protect fish by limiting water storage, about half the rain falling on California will wash into the ocean, instead of being stored for the dry, hot summer to come. As for the water now filling the state’s reservoirs, billions of gallons will be flushed down rivers and out to sea in efforts to protect fish, rather than being used to irrigate food crops or provide water for thirsty communities when the drought resumes. Lawsuits and bad policy decisions have created a situation in which the well-being of fish is seemingly valued more than our economy or quality of life.

San Diego has gone from being one of the most vulnerable areas of California during drought to one of the best prepared—and in so doing has become a model for the future of water use in cities. Even as water supplies have dwindled in many other parts of California during the current drought, San Diego has stockpiled enough to help replenish a local reservoir.

While precipitation has been roughly four times heavier than a year ago, the Delta pumps have produced just a 35 percent increase in water shipments. For every gallon that’s been pumped to south-of-Delta water agencies since Jan. 1, 3 1/2 gallons have been allowed to flow out to sea. Pumping activity has decreased considerably the past three weeks, to the rising irritation of south state contractors.

El Niño has doused northern California, but farmers in the state’s Central Valley won’t see much benefit. The Obama Administration is again indulging its progressive friends at the expense of low-income communities.

California needs energy and water equally, and residents are being asked to cut back on both. The state is leading the nation in setting goals for increasing production of renewable-energy sources but has relied on natural gas for the bulk of its energy production.

The key foundation for promoting this new plan, is that ridership will be greatly enhanced with commuters using this High Speed Rail section to commute from the Central Valley to Silicon Valley. The Authority and others are promoting this projection as a major improvement to the jobs / housing imbalance that currently prevails in Silicon Valley. . . The projected HSR fare from Fresno or Bakersfield is $68 each way. For a daily commuter that is $136 per day, or about $34000 per year to pay for the HSR train ride. This does not include other charges like parking or transportation from Diridon to a final working destination.

Now there is a sense that California’s expansion, its ability to create new communities and industries – outside of a few fields, like media and software – faces insurmountable constraints on water and other resources. . . This mindset has been predominant over the past decade, as the state has invested little in new water storage or delivery systems, essentially doing nothing since the late 1970s, when the population was 16 million less. Like the Roman Empire in its dotage, we seem to have decided to live off the blessings of the past, a sure way, it seems, to guarantee a diminished future.

In another sign that California’s drought has eased but the state’s water system is far from fully recovered, federal regulators announced Friday that Sacramento Valley farmers would get full water deliveries for the upcoming growing season, but many San Joaquin Valley growers would face another year of severe shortages.

We are fortunate that so much of this year’s precipitation fell in the form of snow, because the snowpack is, in effect, a natural reservoir that releases water slowly. But if global warming is as real as Gov. Jerry Brown and others contend it is, future precipitation from an El Niño would be more likely rain, rather than snow, and we could see both severe flooding and severe water shortages if we are not prepared to capture it as it falls.

California’s farm industry kept growing in 2015 despite a fourth year of drought, adding 30,000 jobs even as farmers idled huge swaths of land because of water shortages.

The L.A. metro area was ranked as the nation’s most congested region with motorists spending an average of 81 hours sitting still on the road in 2015. . . The study also identified the top 10 worst stretches of roadway across the globe. Four of them are in L.A.

In another sign that a once-promising El Niño weather pattern is proving to be no drought-buster, California officials say an unseasonably warm and dry February shrunk the Sierra snowpack to below average depths.

The Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday that the State Water Project will increase its allocation to an estimated 30 percent of what’s been requested by the project’s customers. A month ago, the allocation was pegged at 15 percent.

While gas taxes raked in 18 cents on the gallon in the recent past, the Times added, last year receipts plunged to 12 cents a gallon — with analysts predicting another drop this summer to just 10 cents.