Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/477727
At the top of his list is Sites Reservoir. Several speakers at the annual meeting brought up Sites Reservoir, which has been talked about since the 1960s, and had renewed momentum beginning in 2001. Read more about the his- tory of plans for Sites Res- ervoir: http://goo.gl/j30atw Today, a Sites Joint Pow- ers Authority, www.sites- jpa.net, is preparing envi- ronmental documents for the next step of the project. If built, the reservoir near Maxwell could store 1.8 million acre-feet of wa- ter. Water available each year could be 400,000- 500,000 acre-feet. The cost would be billions of dollars. Investors in the Sacra- mento Valley are being asked whether they are in- terested. One estimate is that water from the proj- ect would cost $600-$700 an acre-foot. This year is a good exam- ple of how stored water can be used during droughts, said David Guy, president of NCWA. Metropolitan Water Dis- trict in Southern Califor- nia finished Diamond Val- ley Reservoir in 2003. The storage in the lake helped the region get through the 2014 drought year, Guy said. Residents in the East Bay Area received water stored in Lake Pardee and Hetch Hetchy Reservoir provided supplies to San Francisco, Guy added. Last year, Folsom Lake came dangerously close to being inoperable, causing panic in the Sacramento re- gion. Guy said these are all examples of why the state needs another reservoir, specifically Sites. Several speakers dur- ing the meeting said wa- ter storage means water for farms, people, the envi- ronment, water quality and groundwater recharge. Guy focused on salmon, which need water releases at critical times during a drought. If Sites Reservoir had been built, Guy continued, an additional 400,000 acre- feet of water would have been available this year. One acre-foot is 325,851 gallons of water, enough for 1-2 households for a year. One of the state's top wa- ter leaders, Mark Cowin, director of the Depart- ment of Water Resources, said the focus on storage is important right now. "When reservoirs rise again, water will once again slip off the front page of the newspaper. We will start to lose the will to make changes that are so important to our future," Cowin said. "We have a lot of recent momentum," Cowin noted. Cowin also had some advice for Sites Reservoir proponents: They should keep the state's Water Ac- tion Plan in mind, http:// resources.ca.gov/califor- nia_water_action_plan The 30-page docu- ment spells out Gov. Jerry Brown's "playbook" for what he hopes to accom- plish for the remainder of his term, Cowin said. "The plan points out there is no single fix," he continued. More water storage is needed, as well as better water delivery, increased groundwater recharge, storm water capture, and other water strategies. The passage of Proposi- tion 1, the water bond, in November shows that most voters in the state are con- cerned about water, Cowin noted. Within the bond is $2.7 billion for storage projects with public benefits. How- ever, Sites is not the only project with plans on pa- per. If a project like Sites can several key water needs, it will have a better chance of gaining support, he said. Cowin said Sites "can add some much-needed flexibility to our system for managing fish and wildlife and improving water qual- ity reliability. "There have been a lot of complaints for a long time that there has not been new water storage in California. "This is an opportu- nity. But financing is just one part of the equation," Cowin said. "The fact that you all are willing to en- gage and play the role of project proponent is ex- tremely important. "The most important thing you can do right now is organize that informa- tion, continue to be vocal proponents and expand the coalition of folks willing to" provide financial support. A deadline of Decem- ber 2016 is coming up for Proposition 1 proposals, he noted. One of the speakers later in the day was Fritz Durst, chairman of the Sites Joint Powers Authority, (www. sitesjpa.net). He noted current groundwater problems in other areas of the state do not need to be repeated in the Sacramento Valley. If built, about half the water available in Sites would go to the environ- ment, and about half for other water needs. Groundwater recharge will be increasingly impor- tant in the Sacramento Val- ley, Durst reiterated. Hav- ing more surface water available would decrease dependence on ground- water, and would help re- charge groundwater, he said. ContactreporterHeather Hacking at 896-7758. Water FROMPAGE1 restore the theater solely as a cinema, but as a com- munity center, where peo- ple could rent the space for anniversary parties, confer- ences, meetings and other functions. Brewer added that the restoration of the theater is an important part of down- town-area development. Theater-goers, he said, could take in a show, such as a production or staged musical, and then shop at area businesses. About $360,000 has been spent on theater's restora- tion, which has come from various grants, donations, city contributions and a $220,000 state park bond. Brewer also pointed to the Corning Community Foundation, which he said has been instrumental in the restoration process. Further, the city has been working under a deadline to reopen the theater in some way this year. The state has retained about $44,000 of the $220,000 park bond, tying it to the opening of the theater. After holding the event on March 24, which Brewer said the city hopes amounts to an "open house" for the theater, the state may re- lease the retained funds. The city intends to sub- mit documents to the state related to the theater proj- ect at the end of this month, Brewer said. Reopening FROM PAGE 1 DAILYNEWSFILE The Rodgers Theatre in downtown Corning is scheduled to reopen March 24for the first time since it closed in 2006. PHOTOS BY BILL HUSA — ENTERPRISE-RECORD The rolling hills of the Sites Valley, west of Maxwell, would be underwater if a reservoir is constructed there. Mark Cowin, director of the Department of Water Resources, speaks to a nearly full Big Room at Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico on Friday. Cowin talked about a variety of statewide water-related issues and mentioned "the drought will end and water will slip off of the front pages of newspapers." By Christine Armario The Associated Press LOS ANGELES The Cali- fornia Board of Education suspended the state's school accountability system on Wednesday for one year to give teachers and students time to adjust to new stan- dardized tests aligned with Common Core standards. The board voted at a meeting in Sacramento not to produce an Aca- demic Performance Index for the 2014-15 school year. The index uses student re- sults on statewide tests to rank schools and to iden- tify those that need im- provement. School board President Michael Kirst said the state wants to make sure it is measuring student growth, not just baseline perfor- mance, on the new Smarter Balanced tests. The Common Core benchmarks adopted by a majority of states around the nation have come un- der fire in recent years, largely from conservatives who decry them as a federal infringement on school pol- icy. The standards were ap- proved for implementation by individual states, though the U.S. Department of Ed- ucation encouraged their adoption through initia- tives like Race to the Top. The new tests have an- gered some parents and teachers across the nation who say the exams distract from real learning, put added stress on students and staff members, and waste resources, especially in poor districts. In California, by contrast, the Common Core standards have been largely embraced by district leaders, parents and teacher unions. Kirst said even if the new test results aren't used on the state index, they will still be reported at the school, dis- trict and state level. "They'll be held account- able to the public," Kirst said. Several districts, includ- ing Los Angeles Unified, the nation's second-largest, re- quested that this year's as- sessments not be used for accountability purposes, arguing that students have not had enough time to practice on testing devices and that the new tests could not be reliably compared to the old pencil-and-pa- per standardized tests that California children took to measure growth. "We need that next year to look at this issue of growth," said Edgar Zarzu- eta, LAUSD chief of exter- nal affairs. The Smarter Balanced tests are required to be taken on a computer or tab- let. At LAUSD, there were numerous problems when a practice test was admin- istered, including the web- site crashing and slow con- nectivity. Those issues appear to be resolved: The tests are now being administered in 94 Los Angeles schools, and officials said Tuesday there were no major issues. The tests evaluate stu- dents in grades three through eight and 11 in Common Core-aligned Eng- lish-language arts and math. Suspending the state's evaluation system means scores in the first year won't be used to take any corrective actions. Numer- ous parent, teacher and ed- ucation organizations com- mented in favor of the de- lay at Wednesday's meeting. "We feel that account- ability is very important to the public, but it's sensible to delay because the infor- mation is not all going to be clear and solid and current and we need the transition time," said Celia Jaffe, edu- cation commissioner of the California State PTA. The decision to suspend California's school account- ability system is also part of a larger effort to develop a new framework using mul- tiple measures to evaluate school performance, rather than a single number tied to a test. The board voted in favor of moving forward on a De- partment of Education rec- ommendation to develop a new framework that would replace the one suspended this year. EDUCATION Accountability system on Common Core suspended by board The Associated Press SEATTLE Warm temper- atures and a lack of snow- fall in February have taken a toll on winter snowpack in the Cascade Mountains and other areas in the West, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service said Wednesday. One-third of monitoring sites in the Cascades and Si- erra Nevada reported the lowest snowpack ever mea- sured as of March 1, and some sites don't even have snow, unusual for this time of year. The March forecast also shows that snowpack in Nevada, Utah and Idaho fell farther below normal. "SnowpackalongtheCon- tinental Divide is about nor- mal, but it drops off as you go South and West," said Cara McCarthy, a hydrol- ogist with the service, a branch of the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture. "If the weather doesn't change, we're looking at low-stream flow in a lot of areas." Snow that falls in the mountains during the win- ter typically melts slowly during spring and summer, providing water for much of the region. A lack of snow- pack can lead to drought. Low-flowing rivers in the summer also may affect fish, wildlife,livestock,municipal water supplies and hydro- power production. "The snowpack in the Western U.S. is counted on to be an additional reservoir that holds a whole bunch of water, so that water is re- leased slowly as the snow melts. Westerners count on that snow for spring and summer, for irrigation and other water uses," McCar- thy said. Snow surveyors in many places across the region re- ported seeing little or no snow at sites they visited. In Oregon, for example, about 45 percent of the snow-mon- itoring sites are snow-free. Statewide in Washing- ton, the snowpack was 29 percent of a 30-year median as of March 1. The amounts varied widely by region, from a record low 2 percent of normal in the Olympic Mountains to 85 percent of normal in the Methow ba- sin in north-central Wash- ington. Still, while snowpack has been below normal in Ore- gon and Washington, there has been plenty of rain. Those states have seen near- normal precipitation since fall. Some reservoirs have benefited from the rainy winter. In Montana, the lack of snowfall and rain, as well as warmer than usual tem- peratures, led to a decrease in snowpack. Statewide, the snowpack is at 91 percent of normal as of March 1. In south Idaho, snowpack rangefrom22percentofme- dian in the Owyhee basin to 115 percent in several Snake River headwater drainages in Wyoming. CASCADES, SIERRA NEVADA Warm February takes toll on mountain snowpack We Don'tThink Cr emation Should Cost So much. www.affordablemortuary.net•529-3655 FD1538 LocatedinChico,CA THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM |NEWS | 7 A