Walking the water walk in California Assembly

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California’s Assembly members have a chance to show just how worried they are about the state’s looming water shortages when the Water Efficiency and Security Act comes up for a vote this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. AB 2135, sponsored by Assembly members Loni Hancock and Paul Krekorian, is backed by a coalition of cities, fishing groups and environmental organizations. Citing the closing of the salmon season along the California coast, the decline in water quality of the Sacramento Delta, groundwater contamination and rationing in several communities in the East Bay and Southern California, the Planning and Conservation League is leading a last-minute lobbying effort. The Department of Water Resources has estimated that California could lose up to 4.5 million acre feet of snowpack by 2050 because of global warming.

-- Margot Roosevelt