The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to reduce flows in the river from the current 1,100 cubic feet per second to 800 cfs starting tonight, then in stages each night afterward until flows reach just 500 cfs on Friday, said Tom Gohring, executive director of the Sacramento Water Forum.
The City of Calistoga has pumped the last drop of drinking water it can from its main reservoir. No rain this winter would mean no water at all from behind the Kimball Dam next summer.
The sinuous Colorado River and its slew of man-made reservoirs from the Rockies to southern Arizona are being sapped by 14 years of drought nearly unrivaled in 1,250 years.
Spain has good reason for wanting to take action. It is facing a growing deficit — about $40 billion now — because it has never passed on the true cost of producing energy to its consumers, a problem that has ballooned with the economic crisis. If it does not do something, that deficit will only grow, experts say.
Ecologists warn that economic growth is strangling the natural systems on which life depends, creating not just wealth, but filth on a planetary scale. Carbon pollution is changing the climate. Water shortages, deforestation, tens of millions of acres of land too polluted to plant, and other global environmental ills are increasingly viewed as strategic risks by governments and corporations around the world.
The nation’s factories finished the year on a high note and look to be building momentum heading into 2014.
California reported the largest drop in new jobless claims of 5,429. It attributed the change to fewer layoffs in the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries.
Film industry and union officials are mobilizing to back legislation this year that would substantially increase funding for the state’s film incentive program and lift some restrictions to make the program more competitive with those offered by New York, Georgia and other states and countries.
The first statewide survey of the season Friday will find little snow in the Sierra, sending an ominous warning that California may be headed into a third straight dry year and intensifying pressure to break the political stalemate over rebuilding the state’s antiquated water storage and delivery network.
At least 13,000 Los Angeles city employees received a 5.5% raise Wednesday, the final piece of a salary agreement that became a major financial burden during the recent economic downturn. The pay hike means a majority of workers with the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which represents non-public-safety employees such as clerks, gardeners and mechanics, have received increases totaling 24.5% since 2007, according to city budget officials.
The latest data are, for the most part, positive. A few years ago, the state’s unemployment rate was well over 12 percent, one of the highest in the nation, and it had lost well over a million jobs. But through November, the state Department of Employment Development reported, California had regained over 900,000 jobs, and its jobless rate had dropped to 8.5 percent. The darker side of the data, however, is that California still has more than 1.5 million unemployed workers and the gains have been pretty much confined to a few coastal enclaves, particularly those in the immediate Bay Area.
PG&E said the increase is due to rate changes, effective Wednesday, to pay for higher wholesale energy purchase costs and for work to maintain and modernize the utility’s infrastructure.
. . . Hollywood films, often seen as a risky place to invest money, can be anything but chancy for wealthy investors who have learned that some of those tax breaks can be packaged to generate cash from even mediocre box office results.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced the selection of sites in Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia.
SBE Council has published the state Index for 18 years, which ranks the 50 states according to 47 different policy measures, including a wide array of tax, regulatory and government spending measurements. – See more at: http://www.sbecouncil.org/2013/12/12/sbe-council-ranks-the-50-states-in-small-business-policy-index-2013/#sthash.aygbaj8z.dpuf
