desalination plants – California Globe

Ringside: Quantifying the Upside of More Lawns

January 22, 2025 2:47 pmJanuary 22, 2025 2:47 pm

A respected advocate for farming interests in California once explained to me that every acre of lawn requires 5 acre feet of water per year. The unsubtle implication was that the more lawn we kill, the less water we waste....

Ringside: How Much Water Will $30 Billion Buy?

April 10, 2024 2:20 pmApril 10, 2024 2:20 pm

So far this year I had the privilege of attending two water oriented events. The first, in February, was at the annual CalDesal conference in Sacramento. The second, in March, was at the Kern County Water Summit in Bakersfield. I...

Ringside: The Price of Scarcity

December 27, 2023 6:00 pmDecember 27, 2023 6:01 pm

How much water does $7 billion buy? In so many ways that it almost defies description, California’s lawmakers have relied on flawed logic to justify recently passed laws that will impose punitive urban water rationing. Rather than undertake the Sisyphean...

How Do You Solve a Problem Like CEQA?

June 30, 2023 2:30 amJuly 7, 2023 3:32 pm

The following was a three part series on the impact of the California Environmental Quality Act on development in California and ways to potentially improve the law. It is written in response to hearings conducted over the past three months...

How Do You Solve a Problem Like CEQA? Part Two

June 16, 2023 10:00 amJune 19, 2023 7:00 am

This is the second of a three part series on the impact of the California Environmental Quality Act on development in California and ways to potentially improve the law. It is written in response to hearings conducted over the past...

How Do You Solve a Problem Like CEQA? Part One

June 14, 2023 2:45 amJune 14, 2023 6:15 pm

Part One – How CEQA Has Made California Unaffordable The following is the first of a three part series on the impact of the California Environmental Quality Act on development in California and ways to potentially improve the law. It...

California Holds the Key to Western Water Security

May 9, 2023 9:00 amMay 9, 2023 9:01 am

Dams and aqueducts on the Colorado River make civilization possible in the American Southwest. But for the last 20 years, as a prolonged drought has gripped the region, withdrawals from the river have averaged 15 million acre-feet per year, while inflows into...