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Save reservoir roomfor snowmelt

Re. “Tiny fish hindering water capture,” Page A1, Jan. 14:

Your article on water capture ignores a very obvious reason for not filling the reservoirs at this point, and it has nothing to do with tiny fish. It’s called the snowpack.

If we fill our reservoirs now, and we get a warm atmospheric river in March, and the snowpack melts, then we have no capacity to hold that water back. Look back to the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville. With the volume of the current snowpack it would flood Sacramento, Stockton and the Delta region.

It’s easy to blame a little fish for our water deficit, but what about the expanding planting of almonds and vineyards at the same time we are expanding housing and population in arid regions of the state? Instead, we should be looking to capture water run-off in urban environments. There are 40 million people in the state, but let’s blame a fish.

Peter CalimerisPleasant Hill

Difference between Trump,Biden is obstruction

The big difference between Donald Trump’s documents and Joe Biden’s is the difference between cooperation and obstruction.

If Trump had turned over the documents when asked, several times, Mar-a-Lago would never have been searched.

Frank GrygusSan Ramon

A’s development willadd only empty offices

Re. “Vacancies on offices, rents rise at year end,” Page B1, Jan. 16:

The East Bay Times reports the office vacancy rate for Oakland, including Jack London Square, is 25%. One wonders how many vacant offices the A’s ownership development project will add to Oakland.

Please, do not approve this plan.

Mike TracyOakland

State should not importnon-native animals

California annually imports some 2 million American bullfrogs (commercially raised) and 300,000 freshwater turtles (taken from the wild) for human consumption, non-natives all. All are diseased and/or parasitized, though it is illegal to sell such products. Released into local waters, the non-natives prey upon and displace our native species.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife should cease issuing import permits. The powers-that-be seem more concerned about politics as usual, profits and cultural/racial matters than the real issues here — environmental protection, public health, unacceptable animal cruelty and law enforcement.

The deadline for the introduction of new bills is Jan. 20. Let your representatives hear from you.

Eric MillsOakland

State should not letwater run off to ocean

Re. “Tiny fish hindering water capture,” Page A1, Jan. 14:

If what the Mercury News reported in a recent edition, that “94% of the water that flowed since New Year’s Eve through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta … has continued straight to the Pacific Ocean instead of being captured in the state’s reservoirs,” then we can officially be called the “Most Ignorant Generation” since the “Greatest Generation.”

It seems inconceivable that in the midst of a long-term drought, it makes sense to anyone that with a solution at hand (which may not be at hand next year) we literally toss that solution into the ocean. We argue the necessity of building more reservoirs to store water and yet we won’t fill the reservoirs we currently have. Something is fishy here.

Manny MoralesSan Jose

Sites Reservoir couldguard against floods

California needs to build the Sites Reservoir to store flood waters from the Sacramento River. It is needed both for water storage and protection from the types of catastrophic floods that inundated California in 1861 and 1605. The 1861 megaflood was caused by a 45-day atmospheric river.

The Sites off-stream reservoir is the most cost-effective way to protect against such storms. It would store 1.8 million acre-feet of water for 5 million homes and agricultural water needs. Govs. Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown strongly support the Sites project. While it costs $3.9 billion, it is less expensive per acre-foot than other proposals. Federal funds would be available from recently passed infrastructure bills to reduce the cost. Compared to spending $100 billon on high-speed rail, it’s a no-brainer to build the Sites Reservoir.

Ed KahlWoodside

Runoff is criticalto healthy waterways

Since the rains began we have heard and seen on TV, water from rivers rushing into the ocean. And every time the refrain is, “water wasted.”

But this is not the case.

Free and swift-flowing water is necessary for the health of our rivers and their wildlife. Even more important this rush of fresh water into the ocean is needed to protect the long-neglected health of the ocean.

We simply think of water from the homocentric “me” position. This clouds our judgment and how we manage this life source. Salmon habitat is affected, reservoirs fill with silt, rivers don’t get revitalized, silt does not get evenly distributed to replenish riparian habitats.

This rush of fresh water maintains the balance of the ocean’s salinity. It brings fresh nutrients into the ocean so that ocean plants and fauna can thrive and self-sustain.

John FrancisSan Jose

GOP should take chanceto expel George Santos

The George Santos story seems to get worse by the day. Not only did he lie about his credentials but he also may have violated campaign finance rules. He has the nerve to admit to these exaggerations but says he “did nothing unethical.” One wonders when lying became ethical.

The Democrats will rightly make a big deal about this, but the Republicans should seize the initiative and throw the bum out. They would gain stature by stepping up quickly and decisively.

Neil BonkeLos Altos

End unnecessary travelto save the planet

We were glad to see Paula Danz’s letter (“We must mitigate weather extremes,” Page A12, Jan. 15), which pointed out that extreme weather fluctuation is not a coincidence, that climate change has been wreaking havoc on our state, and that we need to stop emitting heat-trapping pollution. We know many people who already understand and totally agree with all of this -– yet they continue to plan vacations across the country or abroad. After all, they reason, they’ve saved the money for travel, and this trip or that trip has “always” been on their bucket list.

With each weather extreme we read about or experience, we hope that it will finally sink into our collective conscience that we have no correct choice but to halt all unnecessary travel. Fuel-reducing technologies aren’t enough; we can’t get out of this catastrophic mess we’ve created without immediate and large personal sacrifices.

Martha and Carl PlesciaSunnyvale

Let’s just stickwith standard time

I agree with Margaret Lawson. Keep Standard Time permanent (“If we change time, change to standard,” Page A7, Dec. 30).

Hawaii, most of Arizona, and now Mexico have permanent standard time. California, too, can have permanent standard time.

We are now standard time. Let’s keep it this way. Please, no more messing with the clocks.

Curtis GleasonPalo Alto

Sacramento’s streets were flooded. In fact, much of California was. A 300-mile-long lake was created in the Central Valley from near Bakersfield to Red Bluff. At least 4,000 people were killed.

It was the largest flood in the recorded history of California, Nevada and Oregon, dumping 10 feet of water on this state over a 43-day period.

The Great Flood of 1862 followed a 20-year drought.

Gov. Gavin Newsom seems, in every other sentence, to blame the intensity of our current storms — or any drought or wildfire — on climate change. We’re getting drier and wetter and the cycles are becoming more frequent, he and experts warn.

OK, I’m no climatologist. But I do read history. And you can acknowledge history without being a climate denier. Burning fossil fuel has warmed the planet and appears to have mucked up our climate. But we’d still suffer terrible droughts and disastrous storms even if all the energy we used was carbon free.

Cycles of drought and flooding have been the California way — nature’s way — for eons.

Times columnist Gustavo Arellano recently wrote about the Great Flood of 1938.

“California has lots of extremes. We’ve always had more wet years and drier years than any part of the country,” Jay Lund, vice director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, once told me. “Every year we’re managing for drought and for floods, and we always will.”

Yes, and we’ve got lots of catching up to do on flood management with or without climate change.

But the state has added little to its once-prized water system since approval of Gov. Pat Brown’s then-controversial California Water Project in 1960.

One failure is we’re not capturing and storing nearly as much floodwater as we should. The primary example is in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the source of drinking water for 27 million Californians and irrigation for 3 million acres.

Ideally, we’d be grabbing big pools of nature’s gift and storing it for use in dry years. Instead, it escapes through San Francisco Bay and flows into the ocean.

One immediate reason we’re capturing less water than we could is a regulation agreed to by the former Trump administration.

Under it, the “first flush” of each season’s major storm is reserved for the bay. For two weeks, state and federal pumps at the southern end of the Delta have been permitted to pump at only about half capacity.

The main reason is to protect endangered fish. Aggressive pumping reverses San Joaquin River flow, sucking endangered tiny smelt and little salmon into the pumps or mouths of large predator fish. But fish aside, the reverse flows draw in salt water from the bay. And that gets pumped south into Southern California reservoirs.

“That’s why we’re so focused on the Delta tunnel. It’s going to allow us to pump large amounts of water during big winter storms without an environmental impact,” says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state Natural Resources Agency.

Fresher Sacramento River water from the north Delta would be siphoned into a 45-mile-long, 39-foot-wide tunnel ending near the southbound aqueducts. If it had been in place, Crowfoot estimates that an additional 131,000 acre-feet of floodwater could have been captured during the current storm as of late last week.

But small Delta communities, local farmers and environmentalists worry that if the tunnel existed, water grabbers — meaning San Joaquin agriculture and L.A. — wouldn’t just be taking stormwater. They’d also be seizing water during dry summers and droughts, leaving the Delta saltier.

All that must be negotiated and litigated. If it’s ever built, the $16-billion project probably couldn’t be operational until at least 2040.

There also needs to be more storage room for floodwater. There’s a perpetual cry for additional costly dams. But we’re already dammed to the brim. There are nearly 1,500 dams in California. Practically every good site has been used.

But one sensible dam project is noncontroversial and headed for construction. It’s Sites in Colusa County, an off-stream reservoir that would hold 1.5 million acre-feet of water siphoned off the nearby Sacramento River. Construction on the $4.5-billion project could begin in 2025.

Some existing dams, including San Luis in Merced County and Los Vaqueros in Contra Costa County, probably will be expanded.

But the future of storage is underground in depleted aquifers. That’s a major focus of state and local governments.

Meanwhile, even with climate change, Newsom didn’t need to row a skiff to his recent second inauguration at the Capitol. He was driven to the outdoor ceremony in a big SUV as storm clouds briefly parted.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

Let me fill you in on what the state Legislature accomplished. We set new, ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and made climate-friendly solutions more affordable so every Californian can be a part of the fight against climate change.

First, the Legislature put its money where its mouth is. Last year’s state budget committed nearly $54 billion over the next five years to fight climate change. There is money to accelerate investments in zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) to make cars, trucks and buses more affordable, make the state’s electricity grid more reliable, help prevent wildfires and mitigate the impact of the state’s historic drought – and so much more.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new budget proposes to reduce some of this funding, but it still maintains $48 billion, or 89%, of these investments. As the new chair of the budget subcommittee that oversees energy and natural resources, I will fight to preserve and increase as many of these investments as possible.

California also refined and set major new goals. The landmark AB 1279 (Muratsuchi) creates a legally binding target to achieve net zero emissions by 2045 in all of California. My SB 1203, better known as “California Zero,” requires the state to develop a plan for getting its 24,000 buildings and structures, vehicle fleet, and electricity usage to net zero GHG emissions by 2035.

We’re pushing for more and better electrical vehicle charging stations. The budget set aside over $600 million over the next several years to build out the state’s charging infrastructure and AB 2061 (Ting) requires the state to set standards to ensure drivers are getting what they pay for.

Thousands of more Californians will be able to have climate-friendly homes because of work at the state and federal level. Heat pumps that provide GHG-free heating and air conditioning, electric hot water heaters and other home appliances that replace their natural gas counterparts will reduce our carbon footprint. My SB 1112 will let many people pay for these  climate-friendly improvements and others via an interest-free payment on their monthly utility bill, similar to how many people pay for their mobile phone as part of their monthly phone bill.

The plastic waste crisis has been well-documented and last year, the Legislature passed and the governor signed the most comprehensive measure in the nation to help tackle it. SB 54 (Allen) sets ambitious environmental mandates to ensure single-use plastic packaging and plastic food-related items can be recycled or composted within 10 years. It also calls for a 25% cut in the amount of plastic-covered material sold in California.

Finally, the governor issued an executive order pledging California will conserve 30% of the state’s land and waters by 2030 – better known as “30-by-30.” Given studies showing conservation efforts could soak up a significant amount of the carbon dioxide that has built up over the past 175 years, it’s clear efforts like “30 by 30” will play a major role in our battle against climate change.

The progress we made battling climate change in 2022 was indeed historic and will provide other states and countries with a model on how to best fight climate change. But we have so much more work to do. We need to be just as productive for years to come if we are going to win this fight. I truly believe California is up to the challenge.

Josh Becker D-San Mateo, represents District 13 in the California Senate. He is chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy.

Every flyer over the past two decades knows that airport security procedures involve a lot of unpacking, screening and repacking. This is the price that must be paid for using commercial air travel.

Yet, it does not need to be this way, and the Transportation Security Administration has the right idea in testing and deploying biometrics such as facial identification technology at airport security checkpoints.

Although travelers believe that the most important task undertaken by the TSA is detecting threat items, the true role of airport security screening is ensuring that you are the person you claim to be.

The TSA has been working on moving more passengers from “unknown” to “known” status for more than a decade. The first effort in this regard was the introduction of TSA PreCheck in 2011, which gives travelers the privilege (for a fee) of accessing expedited screening lanes. This means that your shoes can stay on, your computers and electronics can stay in your carry-on bag, and light outerwear can remain in place.

The launch of facial identification technology enhances such efforts and has the potential to revolutionize the way that airport security checkpoints are designed and operated.

Facial identification technology ensures that you are who you claim to be. When presenting yourself at a checkpoint, your face becomes your entry pass, based on a repository of pictures that you have voluntarily provided in the past. These pictures are assembled from passports or visas.

It is now being tested on a limited scale at 16 airports.

After more than two decades in a post-9/11 world, most travelers believe that airport screening is about stopping threat items from getting onto planes. In reality, the focus on detection is a surrogate for stopping bad people from inflicting harm to the air system. By elevating identity validation, the need for threat item detection is reduced.

Once a person’s identity is confirmed using facial identification technology, they may be subjected to expedited screening, much like those who have been vetted by TSA PreCheck. As more people opt in to the facial identification program, the aggregate air system risk is reduced.

The biggest criticism of facial recognition technology is the perceived invasion of privacy and the security of photos taken at checkpoints. Yet the photos being used to match your identity, like when applying for a passport or participating in the Global Entry program, are those that have already been shared with Customs and Border Protection. New photos taken at airport security checkpoints do nothing more than supplement what has been freely provided.

The long game for facial identification technology is screening in real time. This means that most travelers can pass through checkpoints without stopping, with none of their personal items requiring screening.

This futuristic vision for airport security is a far cry from the physical screening-centered approach travelers endure today. Facial identification technology is a driver to make this future a reality. Such changes will not happen overnight. It will take many years before facial identification technology is sufficiently robust to effect such massive changes.

However, the technology is a game changer. It adds a layer of security that will revolutionize airport screening. Once implemented and perfected, it will create a pathway for an airport screening experience that will be eventually embraced as the new model for airport security.

Sheldon Jacobson is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ©2023 Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

That hasn’t happened.

Putin unleashed missile attacks on Ukraine’s cities and its electrical grid, but the Ukrainians repaired their transformers and fought on.

Putin unleashed a mercenary force, the Wagner Group, which used convicts to try to take the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. They’re still trying.

Putin cut natural gas supplies to the West, hoping to freeze comfortable Europeans into abandoning Ukraine. But Europe’s winter has been one of the warmest on record; gas prices are lower than they were before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Instead of abandoning Ukraine, the United States and its allies are sending more aid: Patriot missiles and Bradley fighting vehicles from the U.S., Challenger tanks from Britain, armored vehicles from Germany and France.

That doesn’t mean Ukraine is winning. The winter war has settled into a stalemate, with little territory changing hands.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s promise that victory is coming may be good for morale, but remains premature.

Putin has told foreign visitors that he’s planning for a two- or three-year war. He says he’s confident his larger forces can outlast Ukraine and its allies.

Both sides are preparing for new offensives this spring.

U.S. officials don’t believe Ukraine is likely to retake all of the land Russia has occupied; they’re not counting on the Russian army to collapse.

Instead, they hope Ukrainian successes on the battlefield will convince Putin that the war has become a losing proposition and that it’s time to negotiate a truce.

But there’s a problem with that optimistic scenario: Neither Russia nor Ukraine appears eager to compromise.

All of which leads some foreign policy experts to conclude that the most likely outcome isn’t military victory or a negotiated peace, but a “frozen conflict.”

“Rather than assuming that the war can be ended through triumph or talks, the West needs to contemplate a world in which the conflict continues with neither victory nor peace in sight,” Ivo Daalder of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and James Goldgeier of American University wrote in Foreign Affairs last week.

“Not all wars end — or end in permanent peace settlements,” they noted.

As examples, they cite the Korean War, which has officially continued despite a 1953 armistice; the 1973 war between Israel and Syria, which produced only “disengagement agreements”; and Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine, a clash that had become largely frozen before last year’s invasion.

It would mean the United States and its allies would need to continue massive support for Ukraine — both to enable it to defend against the next Russian invasion and to rebuild its economy. Daalder and Goldgeier propose a formal NATO security guarantee for Ukraine, even if the country isn’t admitted to the alliance as a member.

Their proposal adds up to a strategy of stabilizing Ukraine and containing Russia, much like the containment policy the United States applied to the Soviet Union during 45 years of Cold War. With luck, Ukraine and the West will be able to wait Putin out and seek a settlement with his successors.

Such a strategy would be costly, and even risky. Frozen conflicts aren’t always trouble-free; just look at Korea, Syria and Crimea.

The plan would ask Americans to support aid to Ukraine for years or decades, even as Republicans, once the party of anti-Soviet resolve, complain about the cost.

But foreign policy is often a choice among options that are less than ideal — and a cold war is less destructive, and probably cheaper, than a hot one.

Doyle McManus is a Los Angeles Times columnist. ©2023 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

Alameda County DAis coddling criminals

It should not surprise anyone that Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price dropped special circumstances against David Misch, one involving his alleged kidnapping and murder of Michaela Garecht in 1988, giving him the possibility of being paroled, instead of serving life in prison.

Soon after Ms. Price was elected, she said she would “seek to remove all 41 local cases from Death Row and to resentence people who were sentenced to life without parole.” She also said her “administration will begin an era of change that ultimately will make us (Alameda County residents) stronger and safer.” I beg to differ, not with the likes of Misch running around.

The voters and residents of Alameda County are being introduced to a new form of criminal justice — one that, in my view, is not going to keep them safe and favors the perpetrator.

Ninfa WoodWalnut Creek

Quarry plan willundermine rural road

The EBMUD plan to fill in the old quarry on Lake Chabot Road, located on county land between San Leandro and Castro Valley, with soil excavated during pipeline maintenance proposes to run 60 to 100 dump trucks a day along Lake Chabot Road for 40 to 80 years.

That’s right. If anybody now alive is here to see it, the site and adjacent hillside will eventually be seeded and planted with native plants.

Lake Chabot Road is currently closed because of landslides and erosion that have undermined the roadbed. It’s doubtful that it will ever be able to support the constant dump truck traffic.

Gary SloaneSan Leandro

Agencies must makebetter use of tax dollars

Re. “Prop. 13 proves costly to government programs,” Page A8, Jan. 13:

I disagree with the notion that local and state governments don’t have enough money already from other taxes and bonds for impoverished schools, understaffed government offices and infrastructure.

Our property taxes are plenty high in California and enough businesses have been run out of the state. We don’t need any more lost jobs and tax base.

The real problem is not a lack of funding but how all of these agencies use the money they have.

Herman BetchartFremont

Recount cost is worthelection integrity

The article “Are Alameda County elections actually headed to a recount?” (Page B1, Jan. 15) regarding “voters confusion about everything from the results of certain races to the future of ranked choice voting” helps me understand why people might question election results.

The District 4 Oakland Unified school board “snafu” demonstrates that our election systems are not infallible. That said, I believe that the seeds of doubt this might have cast is very troubling. The cost of letting any doubts remain will be much more costly to our society in the long run than any monetary cost of a recount now. We should not put a price on maintaining faith in election integrity.

Dennis CarlisleNewark

Predicting climate changeisn’t settled science

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently stated to “Expect record-shattering hot years soon, likely in the next couple years because of ‘relentless’ climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.”

Last October, this same NOAA released its U.S. Winter Outlook. Researchers predicted that through February 2023, “California will still have to contend with the ongoing drought and won’t see much precipitation.” Wrong.

Scientists admittedly can’t predict hurricanes a year out with any accuracy, but they want us to believe they can predict global temperatures and sea levels years out. Real science is never “settled.”

Jon RegoClayton

]]> https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/16/letters-1119/feed/ 0 8717708 2023-01-16T16:30:41+00:00 2023-01-17T03:58:22+00:00 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/16/letters-1118/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/01/16/letters-1118/#respond Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:15 +0000 https://www.eastbaytimes.com/?p=8717680&preview=true&preview_id=8717680 Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

Community college plansmade and abandoned

I was disappointed to read the article on community college enrollment challenges as submitted by Professor Hasan Rahim (“State must reverse community college enrollment decline,” Page A6, Jan. 11) which to me indicates there has been little or no progress since I came on board in 1998.

All of Rahim’s recommendations were certainly discussed administration after administration, semester after semester, during my time. I actually attended these meetings at San Jose City College and participated in the discussions.

Meetings were held with partnering high schools and agreements were made with UCs and CSUs. What happened to all that hard work?

With regard to the Master Plan for Education, at least one SJCC college president participated in a statewide committee to update the plan. Again, what happened to all that work?

Ten years into retirement, I could hardly believe what I read.

Isabel Mota MaciasModesto

CEQA is not the causeof housing crisis

Dan Walters’ scaremongering Jan. 8 column claims that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) “stymie[s] high-density, multi-family projects” (“Environmental law’s misuse blocking housing brings calls for CEQA reform,” Page A9). Walters wields a big bullhorn, but he is sounding a false alarm. Walters never mentions that CEQA actually provides exemptions for such housing, while protecting disadvantaged communities, public health and the climate.

CEQA wisely makes government officials pause and think before approving large development projects. For example, in the UC Berkeley case Walters cites, CEQA required the university to consider alternative housing sites before paving over a historic public park and displacing current residents. That is just smart.

Californians need to know that those seeking to weaken CEQA in the name of housing are promoting arguments that independent experts have resoundingly refuted. High land and construction costs, local zoning and other factors, not CEQA, are the root causes of our housing crisis.

Gary PattonAdjunct professor, UC Santa CruzSanta Cruz

Politicians changingoffice should say so

Politicians should go all in if they seek a new office

Sandra Delvin [“Council replacement process lacks transparency,” Page A6, Jan. 10] brings up some of the shortcomings of the way members of San Jose City Council are appointed.

The two new members would be selected by people who never lived in District 8 and only one lived in District 10. We should change the law in California; any elected officeholder seeking another office must go all in. They must submit a resignation from their current office effective the end of the year no less than two months before the primary election date to be allowed on the primary ballot.

This would enable those who may be interested to jump in, but more importantly, this will ensure continued true representation of the people.

Laith NaamanSan Jose

Legislature must fixsolar payment plan

Utility companies won the jackpot on December 15, 2022, when the California Public Utilities Commission, presumably with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s blessing, passed NEM 3.0, which will force solar-generating households to sell at far below the market rate — 75% below current prices.

Solar has proven to lower electricity costs overall, so this poorly reasoned decision will only make electricity more expensive in the long run. Such a situation is only possible because utilities are given a monopoly in the electricity marketplace — we can buy from only them, rather than any neighbors who have themselves installed solar.

That means it is imperative that governments craft fair rate structures. And they have failed spectacularly with NEM 3.0.

If Newsom cares about his climate legacy, he’ll work with the California Legislature to pass a solar net metering policy that is actually aligned with energy economics and provides fair rates for all electricity consumers.

Jeremy PoindexterSan Mateo

Democrats could havecurtailed GOP concessions

Vanya Matzek (“Democrats wasted votes during speaker battle,” Page A8, Jan. 13) suggested that congressional Democrats wasted their votes during the election of the speaker and should have found a few Republicans willing to vote with them on a better Republican candidate than Kevin McCarthy.

If only 10 Democrats abstained from the vote, Kevin McCarthy would have been elected speaker without having to make all those concessions to the far right. Would that have made him more willing to compromise with Democrats? Probably not, but we would not have had all those horrible rules he had to agree to in order to get those last few votes.

Merlin DorfmanLivermore

The gallery owner, Collier Gwin, semi-apologized later, telling a television interviewer, “I totally understand what an awful thing that is to do, but I also understand what an awful thing it is to leave her on the streets.”

Gwin said he and other business owners complained to police about her blocking the sidewalks and business entrances. Efforts had been made to help her get off the streets, but nothing has worked.

“We called the police. There must be at least 25 calls to police,” Gwin said. “It’s two days in a homeless shelter, it’s two days in jail, and then they drop them right back on the street.”

Finally, after the woman once again refused to move, in frustration Gwin sprayed her down.

Gwin obviously did the wrong thing, but the incident dramatized the frustration that millions of Californians feel about the squalid encampments of homeless people that have become the defining feature of urban California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged the growing resentment as he introduced his new state budget last week. “People have just had it,” he told reporters. “They want the encampments cleaned up.”

“People are dying on the streets all across this state,” Newsom said. “The encampments, we’ve got to clean them up, we’ve got to take ownership, we’ve got to take responsibility.”

In the last two state budgets, Newsom and the Legislature have committed $17.5 billion for housing and services to the estimated 170,000 homeless Californians – about $100,000 each. However, as Newsom’s new budget acknowledges, “Despite unprecedented resources from the state and record numbers of people being served by the homelessness response system, the population of unhoused individuals grows faster than the population exiting homelessness.”

The new budget adds several more billion dollars, but suggests that local governments are still not doing enough – a theme that Newsom has pursued in recent months.

Last year, he rejected all of the plans that local governments had submitted, saying they fell well short of actually making real progress on reducing the upward trend. After a showdown meeting with local officials, he agreed to release more state aid.

“The first iteration of these plans made clear that more ambition is required – and more direction from the state is necessary,” the budget declares. “Accordingly, the administration plans to work with the Legislature this year to advance homeless accountability legislation.”

The budget suggests that cities failing to meet their state quotas for zoning land for new housing might lose state financing for homelessness programs.

“If we can’t clean up the encampments and address what’s happening chronically on our streets, I’m going to be hard-pressed to make a case to the Legislature to provide them one dollar more,” Newsom told reporters.

That threat doesn’t sit well with local government officials. The League of California Cities issued a sharp reaction, saying, “one-time investments will not solve the crisis” and adding, “We need ongoing state funding and a coordinated approach with clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all levels of government that supports long-term solutions.”

The exchanges suggest there is still no consensus on what combination of actions would have a visible impact and all of the politicians involved are engaged in some blame-shifting as the voting public’s patience with the squalor wears thin.

Newsom knows that if the crisis is not resolved, it will leave an indelible mark on his governorship and haunt whatever future political career moves he might make.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Sadly, nothing much has changed in California and the Salinas Valley since 1952, when John Steinbeck wrote those words for the opening chapters of his novel, “East of Eden.”

As a result, the atmospheric rivers drenching the state have been a decidedly mixed blessing.

The rainfall means for the first time in more than two years, the majority of California is no longer in a severe drought. The Sierra snowpack is at 226% of average for this time of year, the largest we’ve seen in more than two decades. Reservoirs are filling at a rapid rate. If the rains continue, it might be possible for Gov. Gavin Newsom to lift the state’s voluntary water restrictions and even consider declaring an end to the drought. That’s the good news.

Then there’s the bad news, starting of course with the deaths of 17 Californians, the forced evacuation of entire communities and the flooding and mudslides that damaged countless roads, bridges, homes and businesses.

Beyond the immediate devastation is the temptation to think the onslaught of storms has ended the drought — that we can return to our old, bad habits such as greening up lawns, taking long showers and slowing water-conservation efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

No rain is in the forecast after Monday. We need to remember that California had a series of major storms in December 2021 only to experience an extended dry period in January, February and March.

Even if we do get enough rain this year to end the drought, it doesn’t change the fact that climate change is exacerbating an ongoing water crisis that should rank as one of the state’s highest priorities. And that California isn’t doing nearly enough to ensure the state can meet its future residential, business and agricultural water needs.

In November 2014, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, believing the $7.5 billion bond measure would significantly upgrade water-storage efforts. Building water storage is admittedly a complex, lengthy process. But of the four Northern California storage projects identified by the state in 2018 for funding, only two — the Los Vaqueros Reservoir expansion and the Harvest Water Program — should definitely continue moving forward. Of the other two, the Pacheco Dam project simply doesn’t pencil out, and Sites Reservoir remains highly questionable.

Los Vaqueros is far and away the best project. The Contra Costa Water District would raise the height of the dam in eastern Contra Costa County by 55 feet to 273 feet. That would expand the reservoir’s capacity from 160,000 acre-feet to 275,000, providing enough water when full for the annual needs of 1.4 million people in the Bay Area. The expansion is scheduled to be completed by 2030.

The Harvest Water Program, formerly known as the South County Ag Program, is a recycling project that would provide 50,000 acre-feet of recycled waste water a year to farmers for irrigation, reducing groundwater pumping in Sacramento County.

The Pacheco Dam project had merit until the price tag nearly doubled a year ago to $2.5 billion. The project called for a 319-foot dam to be built north of Highway 152 near Henry Coe State Park, east of Morgan Hill. It would hold up to 144,000 acre-feet of water, replacing the current earthen dam that holds only 5,500 acre-feet of water.

Building Pacheco would cost $18,800 per acre-foot of water. Compare that to the cost of $8,300 per acre-foot of water of raising the height of Los Vaqueros. There are cheaper ways of storing water, including, for example, constructing new groundwater storage banks in the Central Valley.

Planners in 2020 scaled back the cost and size of the Sites Reservoir project in the west side of the Sacramento Valley amid questions about its environmental suitability, how much water it would actually deliver and who would fund it. Those questions still exist.

California needs to face up to the fact that most of the best sites for dams are already taken and seek other means for storing water.

As Steinbeck would remind us, there is a price to be paid for ignoring our water challenges.