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-Daniel
A major blizzard is coming through the western Sierra, creating dangerous driving conditions with low visibility. As I write, there is a severe white out on I-80 across Donner Pass. Extremely-high wind gusts over 100+ mph have been recorded at high elevations. Predictions of up to 12 feet of snow. Utilities and first responders on call.
This winter started off much slower than last year, when back-to-back atmospheric rivers seemed endless. But walking around Reno yesterday, you could feel that what had been several weeks of unseasonably warm weather was turning cold and windy — the kind of deep chill that makes it feel so much colder than it actually is outside.
Again, this storm is forecast to be a big one. And it could push the snowpack to above normal in California and western Nevada. The snowpack on both sides of the Sierra — a critical water supply for communities across the region — is still running below the median for this time of year. But to prepare, federal water officials have started releasing water from Shasta Dam in California to make room for more precipitation.
Emergency managers are preparing for the worst. Road conditions are expected to be dangerous throughout the weekend, and they are advising people to stay at home.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo issued this warning on Friday:
“I am urging Northern Nevadans to take serious precautions as a strong winter storm moves through the region. This storm has the potential for dangerous temperatures, high levels of snowfall, whiteout conditions, and near-zero visibility.
Stay safe out there.
This is only sort of a water story. OK, I’ll admit it’s mostly not a water story. But it’s interesting and worth a mention. Next week, the Nevada Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case captioned Mass Land Acquisition, LLC vs. Dist Ct. (Sierra Pac. Power Co.). Both of the parties involved are subsidiaries of larger entities. Blockchains Inc., which had tried to convince the Nevada Legislature to build a cryptocurrency city in the desert, owns Mass Land Acquisition LLC. NV Energy, the Berkshire Hathaway utility and the state’s largest electric provider, owns Sierra Pacific Power Company.
So what are they fighting over? In 2022, NV Energy filed a court complaint to use the power of eminent domain in building a gas pipeline crossing Mass Land Acquisition’s property. Blockchains contested it, taking the issue to the Nevada Supreme Court.
In their brief, they argues that NV Energy’s use of eminent domain violates the state Constitution, which “expressly prohibits a private party from using the power of eminent domain to transfer interests in property from one private party to another.”
NV Energy argues that state law and the Nevada Constitution actually clearly allows them to use eminent domain because they provide a “public use,” which specifically includes utilities and pipelines for petroleum or natural gas. It says that the court has upheld the principle numerous times, even after a 2008 constitutional amendments passed known as PISTOL (the People’s Initiative to Stop the Taking of Our Land).
Interestingly, other utilities are watching. The Las Vegas Valley Water District and Southern Nevada Water Authority filed amicus briefs (see, there is some water angle here). So did the American Gas Association and the Edison Electric Institute, which said Mass Land’s “unprecedented legal arguments” … “would significantly increase the cost and complexity of constructing much-needed electricity infrastructure…”
What happens on land can affect what happens with water. It’s one of the reasons I’ve closely followed Blockchains and the industrial park that it occupies. It’s home to the Telsa Gigafactory, data centers, and it’s growing quickly. When Blockchains pursued its proposed city, it also purchased faraway water rights (still the subject of litigation).
Some other threads:
“The Navajo Nation is nearing completion of a settlement of water rights claims in Arizona, ending decades of negotiations and giving hope for thousands of people who have long gone without running water,” the Arizona Republic’s Arlyssa D. Becenti and Debra Utacia Krol reported. “The aim of the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement is to affirm and quantify the nation's rights to water in the state and to secure funding to build much needed water delivery infrastructure to homes on the Navajo Nation, according to a summary of the agreement.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is looking to build a $16-billion Delta Conveyance tunnel in the Bay-Delta watershed. But there are major concerns about the impact that such a project, debated for decades, could have on the delta. The L.A. Times’ Hayley Smith and Ian James published a comprehensive and well-reported piece on the project, the justification for it, the concerns about it and everything at stake.
A report from the Pacific Institute finds that California and other states could do more to capture large amounts of stormwater, CalMatters’ Rachel Becker reports.
A profile of a scientist working to save the Great Salt Lake by Louise Boyle of The Independent. “[Dr. Bonnie] Baxter isn’t a climate scientist. Instead, her work focuses on ‘really tiny things’ – microbial communities which form the base of the lake’s entire ecosystem. ‘I think about the life that lives in extreme environments and what kind of secrets can it teach us about surviving environmental damage,’ she says.”
And a test for climate change in the movies, via the L.A. Times’ Sammy Roth.
“Our baseline data allows us to look back on how the river has behaved at certain points in time, and lets us quickly identify anomalies.” Neat story by Western Water’s Nick Cahill on how “streamkeepers” help collect key data and influence policy.