Last Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein pushed the issue of capturing El Nino water into high gear by publicly calling for federal regulators to increase the pumping of storm pulse flows through the Delta as much as possible within the bounds of existing environmental restrictions. Feinstein’s comments came during the same week that Western Growers launched its new #LostCAWater webpage, which asks the question, “Why are we missing this opportunity to recover from the drought?”

In response to Feinstein’s comments, Western Growers President and CEO Tom Nassif issued a statement praising the senator for raising public awareness about the fact that the state has lost hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water to the ocean during the drought, and called on Senator Barbara Boxer and Governor Jerry Brown to do the same.  

Read the Full Text of Western Growers’ Statement

Last week also saw Democrat California Assemblyman Adam Gray (Merced) send a letter to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner, Estevan Lopez, asking him to rescind failed pumping policies that have allowed “water to flow into the ocean during wet years, while prohibiting pumping for other beneficial reasons.”

Read the Full Text of Assemblyman Gray’s letter

For more information, contact Cory Lunde at (949) 885-2264.