Posts Tagged: standards

News

DWR: Progress on delta tunnels

Islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an aerial view. The Delta is home to about half of California's drinking water. (Photo: Worldislandinfo.com

California’s top water official told a key gathering of south state water interests that “hard-earned progress” is being made on the Brown administration’s controversial plan to build twin tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The comments by Mark Cowin, director of the state Department of Water Resources, were aimed in part at dispelling rumors that the project had run aground, perhaps permanently.

Opinion

Captive orcas: Proposed ban is ill-advised, anti-science

Orcas perform at SeaWorld in San Diego. Photo: Cunimedia Photography

OPINION: More than 9 million students and teachers have participated in SeaWorld’s formal education programs. SeaWorld scientists have published more than 30 studies specific to killer whales, and the park’s successful care and husbandry of its population of killer whales – supported by a three-year, $70-million investment in their habitat – allows them to manage a healthy population of animals, while keeping young calves with their mothers and respecting the whales’ social structure.

News

Legal questions trail pension ruling

But a series of state court rulings are widely believed to mean that the pension offered current workers on the date of hire becomes a vested right, protected by contract law, that can only be cut if offset by a new benefit of comparable value. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas said in her ruling the question before her court is “one of law, not of policy,” referring to a state Supreme Court response to city and county briefs on an Orange County attempt to cut retirement costs.

News

Pressures mount on California ports

Giant crane handles a ship's cargo at the Port of Long Beach. (Photo:

From Humboldt Bay in the north to San Diego in the south, California’s 11 ports generate more than $40 billion in annual economic activity. The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles provide most of it — together, they represent the nation’s largest cargo container port and the world’s sixth busiest harbor. But new pressures, including a revamped Panama Canal, are clouding California’s picture. (Photo: Port of Long Beach)

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