(* Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, 2017 – WIIN Act)
“There is no drought….If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that your farmers can survive” – Candidate Donald J. Trump, May 27, 2016, Fresno, California
“If we don’t move now, we run the real risk of legislation that opens up the Endangered Species Act in the future, when Congress will again be under Republican control, this time backed by a Trump administration.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), “Latest Compromise Drought Relief Bill Receives Praise, Opposition”, Capital Press, December 7, 2016.
President-Elect Donald J. Trump is poised to score a win-WIIN deal in the California water war as Congress has passed the bi-partisan Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN Act – Senate Bill 612). …
“Climate change is likely to increase the frequency of warmer winters and low snowpack.”
– Ben Chou (Natural Resources Defense Council), “California Needs Proactive Ways to Deal with Drought,” EnergyNewsData.com, April 3, 2015.
“Nature makes drought; man makes water shortages. Government water conservation policies, misinformed by the environmentalist ideology of the NRDC, are worsening the water shortage.” (below)
Ben Chou’s March 31, 2015 column on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s “Switchboard” website, cross posted on April 3rd at EnergyNewsData.com, requires rebuttal if we are going to deal with the California drought empirically and not ideologically.
Chou correctly writes that California’s April 2015 snowpack is indicative of the amount of water that can be carried forward into the hot summer months. Even so, water supplies are measured in California over a 5- and 10-year meteorological cycle.…
…“After several studies, the conclusion for why birds are drawn to the searing beams of the solar field goes like this: Insects are attracted to the bright light of the reflecting mirrors, much as moths are lured to a porch light. Small birds — insect eaters such as finches, swallows and warblers — go after the bugs. In turn, predators such as hawks and falcons pursue the smaller birds.
But once the birds enter the focal field of the mirrors, called the “solar flux,” injury or death can occur in a few seconds. The reflected light from the mirrors is 800 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Either the birds are incinerated in flight; their feathers are singed, causing them to fall to their deaths; or they are too injured to fly and are killed on the ground by predators, according to a report by the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory.”