Colorado River crisis is so bad, lakes Mead and Powell are unlikely to refill in our lifetimes
LA Times, RONG-GONG LIN II/IAN JAMES: "The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is the deepest it’s been in decades, but those storms that were a boon for Northern California won’t make much of a dent in the long-term water shortage for the Colorado River Basin — an essential source of supplies for Southern California.
In fact, the recent storms haven’t changed a view shared by many Southern California water managers: Don’t expect lakes Mead and Powell, the nation’s largest reservoirs, to fill up again anytime soon.
“To think that these things would ever refill requires some kind of leap of faith that I, for one, don’t have,” said Brad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University."
PG&E bills have topped $300 per month this winter. Here’s what’s next
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "Pacific Gas and Electric Co. monthly bills have risen to $328 this winter, up from $248 a year earlier.
The increase, an estimate that applies from November of last year to March of this year, reflects in part the chilly winter, which is forcing people to use more energy to heat their homes at the same time that natural gas prices are high."
With nearly half the rain season to go, S.F. has already hit a critical milestone
The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "As of Saturday, seven months into the 2022-23 rain season, San Francisco had received a full season’s worth of rainfall, according to meteorologists.
A quarter of an inch that fell in the morning and early afternoon Saturday put San Francisco over the top by 2 p.m.: It brought the total precipitation during the current rainfall season — July 1 to June 30 — up to 22.89 inches, according to meteorologist Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services."
In wake of Baldwin charges, Cortese to reintroduce film set safety bill
Capitol Weekly, BRIAN JOSEPH: "With news that actor Alec Baldwin will face two counts of involuntary manslaughter over the death of a cinematographer on the set of his film “Rust,” Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese of San Jose has vowed to reintroduce legislation to establish rules for using guns in movies.
Last year, Cortese and Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Burbank, introduced dueling bills in response to the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the October 2021 filming of “Rust” in Albuquerque, N.M.
Portantino’s proposal, Senate Bill 829, was backed by the Motion Picture Association (MPA); Cortese’s SB 831 had the support of film industry unions. Portantino, as chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee, held both bills in committee in May because the competing stakeholders couldn’t reach an agreement."
Who was responsible for livable housing at Half Moon Bay farms? County officials deflect after mass shootings reveal ‘deplorable’ conditions
BANG*Mercury News, JOHN WOOLFOLK/MARISA KENDALL/JAKOB RODGERS/SCOOTY NICKERSON: "There’s no question the employees on two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms lived in desperate circumstances. Many of their homes were flimsy shacks propped up on wooden pallets. The roofs leaked. There was often no running water or kitchens.
But while county and state officials quickly decried the living conditions exposed by the terrible mass shooting that erupted at California Terra Garden farm on January 23, they have mostly deflected when asked why the situation was allowed to persist. Now, a Bay Area News Group review indicates that laws meant to ensure livable farmworker housing often went unenforced in San Mateo County, allowing farm owners to neglect their struggling workforce, including the shooter and his victims.
Neither Terra Garden nor Concord Farms — the second shooting site in a disgruntled worker’s rampage that left seven dead — had permits for their worker housing. County officials say they take action against such illegal housing mainly in response to complaints, and there is no record that workers at either farm ever sounded an alarm."
How are mushrooms grown in farms? Here’s everything you need to know
The Chronicle, TODD TRUMBULL: "Although California isn’t the leader in mushroom farming in the U.S. — that honor goes to Pennsylvania, producing nearly 66% of the nation’s supply in 2022 — the Golden State comes in second, supplying about 11%. Monterey, Santa Clara, Ventura, San Diego and San Mateo are California’s leading counties in mushroom production, according to the Mushroom Council, a trade association. Other top-producing states include Texas, Maryland and Oklahoma.
Mushrooms are unique among the produce found in your average supermarket. Because they’re fungi, they grow under very different conditions than green plants. For one, they don’t need light to grow; in fact, they thrive in dark, damp environments. Also, they are cultivated from microscopic spores rather than seeds. Commercial production of mushrooms involves growing and harvesting them in indoor facilities where temperature and humidity can be carefully controlled. Harvesting is done by hand.
White button mushrooms, by far the most popular variety, represent about 90% of the mushrooms sold in the U.S., accounting for $931 million in sales in the 2021-22 season. (They are known as cremini mushrooms if they have a brown shade and portobello when fully grown.)"
California quietly abandons COVID-19 vaccine mandate for school kids
BANG*Mercury News, JOHN WOOLFOLK: "With the pandemic emergency quickly winding down, California officials appear to have quietly backed away from plans to require COVID-19 vaccinations for K-12 school students, a move that avoids the prospect of barring tens of thousands of unvaccinated children from the classroom.
The shift comes 14 months after Gov. Gavin Newsom visited a San Francisco middle school to declare plans to make California the first state to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for its more than 6 million students.
The vaccine mandate, initially expected to kick in last summer, was put off another 12 months amid flagging youth vaccination rates that opened a debate over how the requirement would disproportionately punish disadvantaged students already struggling to recover academically and emotionally from pandemic school lockdowns."
CSU’s housing grants aim to prevent rent crises among students
EdSource, BETTY MARQUEZ ROSALES: "Andrea Ross, a graduate student at San Diego State University, already was worried last year about how she’d make rent payments for the studio apartment she had rented in her first semester.
Then disaster hit when her car suddenly needed a costly repair that ran into the thousands.
Luckily, she had somewhere to turn for help. Ross returned to the support network she’d found during her short time at the San Diego campus: She visited the Basic Needs Center and asked for help."
These Californians must move every school year. Here’s why a law meant to help isn’t working
Sacramento Bee, LINDSEY HOLDEN/MATHEW MIRANDA: "Every year at the end of the work season, thousands of California farmworker families pull their children out of school and move at least 50 miles away.
The annual journey persists, even though the state has fewer and fewer migrants and more and more farmworkers who want to settle permanently.
In 2018, advocates won an exemption from the 50-mile requirement for families with school-age children. Relaxing the rule, they believed, would make it easier for migrant children to stay in one place and improve educational outcomes."
He says he was raped by a Marin tennis coach — and is suing the school district for failing to act
The Chronicle, MATTHIAS GAFNI: "His eyes covered by a blindfold, the Marin County teen lay on the cold Tamalpais High School massage table and allowed his mind to drift. He tried to imagine he was at Stinson Beach, listening to the crash of waves in the distance, his mother and father laughing as the family enjoyed a picnic on the sand.
The image distracted him from the fact that his tennis instructor — the high school’s revered coach and P.E. teacher — was raping and molesting him, he said. Over the course of three years, celebrated Tam High tennis coach Normandie Burgos sexually assaulted the teenager, now a Novato man in his 30s, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Marin County Superior Court."
Warehouse boom transformed Inland Empire. Are jobs worth the environmental degradation?
LA Times, RACHEL URANGA: "For decades, Bosch Dairy in Ontario, where three generations raised cattle, was a bucolic outpost with fields of cows and rows of eucalyptus to cut the driving wind that came down the Cajon Pass.
A few years ago, Bud Bosch noticed semitrailers occasionally rumbling along the two-lane rural road by his property. Soon, dozens were kicking up dust, night and day, plying roads made for tractors.
Bosch thought he had escaped the explosion of warehouse development that has wiped out farmland and open space. But the ecommerce boom of the pandemic accelerated the land grab, and the region became ever more hardscaped into the staging point for trains and trucks carrying goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the rest of the nation."
New CHP commissioner appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom after an unexpected retirement
Sacramento Bee, MAGGIE ANGST: "After the unexpected retirement of the head of the California Highway Patrol, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed Sean Duryee as the agency’s new leader.
“A veteran of the CHP, Commissioner Duryee has dedicated his career to serving the people of California, starting as a Cadet decades ago,” Newsom said in a statement announcing Duryee’s appointment. “His leadership, extensive experience and dedication will continue to serve California well and I thank him for taking on this new role.”
Duryee, 48, of Galt, has served as acting commissioner of the state police force since January and was a deputy commissioner before that. He has been with the agency since 1998 in a variety of positions, including commander of the department’s Commercial Vehicle Section, academy instructor and cadet."
Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong plans to formally request reinstatement Monday
BANG*Mercury News, JAKOB RODGERS: "Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong continued his push to win back his job Sunday — voicing plans to formally request being reinstated this week after spending more than two weeks on administrative leave.
Armstrong said Sunday that he plans to submit a letter Monday to Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao demanding he be allowed to resume his nearly two-year tenure leading the Oakland Police Department. His letter comes several days after his legal team received the supporting evidence of a bombshell independent report made public last month, which alleged numerous problems within the department he led.
The January independent report, which was compiled by an outside law firm and released by a federal judge, found “systemic deficiencies” in how the Oakland Police Department investigates its own officers when they are accused of misconduct. Among them were deep concerns about Armstrong’s handling of a police sergeant’s misconduct case."
Trump, Christie exchange fire after gloomy 2024 prediction
The Hill, JULIA MUELLER: "Former President Trump and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) sparred online Sunday after Christie predicted that Trump couldn't beat President Biden if they run against each other in the 2024 presidential election.
Christie, who endorsed Trump in 2016 after dropping his own campaign for the presidency but has since become a vocal Trump critic, made the 2024 forecast Sunday on ABC News, where he is now a contributor.
Trump fired back on Truth Social. "‘Sloppy' Chris Christie, the failed former Governor of New Jersey, spent almost his entire last year in office campaigning in New Hampshire for the Republican Nomination for President. Much like his term in office, where he left with an Approval Rating of just 9%, his Presidential campaign was a complete disaster," Trump wrote."
Mick Fleetwood on Fleetwood Mac: ‘We’re done’
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "Fleetwood Mac will never perform again without Christine McVie, the group’s singer-songwriter who died last year, drummer Mick Fleetwood announced during a red carpet interview before the Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 5.
Fleetwood said that while he and the other surviving band members — singer Stevie Nicks, bassist John McVie and former singer and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham — will continue to play live dates, it would be “not as Fleetwood Mac.”
“I think right now, I truly think the line in the sand has been drawn with the loss of Chris,” Fleetwood said, speaking to the Los Angeles Times. “I’d say we’re done, but then we’ve all said that before. It’s sort of unthinkable right now.”"
