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Why the Ridge Keeps Coming Back: The Structural Shift Behind Western Heat Domes
Part 2: The leading mode of North American winter circulation has changed, and March 2026 is what the new mode produces In Part 1, I described the diabatic engine behind March 2026's record-shattering western heat dome: upstream precipitation in the Pacific Northwest released latent heat that amplified an extraordinary ridge over the interior West. That post explained the mechanism. This…
The Diabatic Engine Behind March 2026’s Record-Shattering Western Heat Dome
Stretched Thin: Protestant Attorneys Face Overlapping Delta Conveyance Project Hearings
The week of February 23-27 presents attorneys representing Delta communities with an impossible calendar. The State Water Board's Delta Conveyance Project water rights hearing has added February 23, 24, and 25 as hearing days. The Delta Stewardship Council has scheduled its appeal hearing on DWR's certification of consistency with the Delta Plan for February 26 and 27—and has…
The week of February 23-27 presents attorneys representing Delta communities with an impossible calendar. The State Water Board’s Delta Conveyance Project water rights hearing has added Febru…
DWR’s Selective Conflict: It Applies in Court, But Not Before the Agencies
On Monday, February 9, 2026, Administrative Hearing Officer Nicole Kuenzi denied Somach Simmons & Dunn's motion to stay the Delta Conveyance Project water rights hearing pending resolution of DWR's disqualification motion in Sacramento Superior Court. The hearing will continue as scheduled, with most of the protestants' rebuttal case likely to conclude before the March 20 court hearing on DWR's…
Court Grants Stay in Delta Conveyance CEQA Cases — Judge Questions DWR’s Position
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto today granted Somach Simmons & Dunn’s motion to stay the consolidated Delta Conveyance Project CEQA cases through March 27, 2026. He set a hearing on DWR’s motion to disqualify the firm as counsel for Sacramento County and the City of Stockton for March 20, 2026. From the bench, the judge described the potential disqualification as…
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto today granted Somach Simmons & Dunn’s motion to stay the consolidated Delta Conveyance Project CEQA cases through March 27, 2026. He set …
State Tries to Sideline Sacramento & Stockton’s Lawyers — Court Hears Stay Request
On January 23, 2026, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed a motion in Sacramento County Superior Court seeking to disqualify the law firm of Somach Simmons & Dunn, longtime counsel for the County of Sacramento, the City of Stockton, in three of the ten consolidated cases challenging DWR’s approvals of the Delta Conveyance Project. Somach has represented these local…
On January 23, 2026, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed a motion in Sacramento County Superior Court seeking to disqualify the law firm of Somach Simmons & Dunn, longtime …
Response to Jay Lund’s “Nine California Water Rites”
Jay Lund published a clever satire of California water rhetoric today, and he's right that policy-based evidence-making occurs on all sides of our water debates. I worked with Jay and other Delta Independent Science Board members in 2021 to save the Delta Independent Science Board from defunding, and I value his truthtelling. But Jay's framing misses something critical happening right now at the Department of Water…
https://cah2oresearch.com/2025/12/01/response-to-jay-lunds-nine-california-water-rites/
Delta Stewardship Council attempting to empower Chair to “limit or preclude” oral comments at meetings
Save the California Delta Alliance members chartered a bus to the 2017 Delta Stewardship Council meeting considering adoption of regulations amending the Delta Plan to incorporate Delta Conveyance. On Thursday, May 22, the Delta Stewardship Council is planning to adopt regulations on public participation in council meetings. The draft regulations include the…
Save the California Delta Alliance members chartered a bus to the 2017 Delta Stewardship Council meeting considering adoption of regulations amending the Delta Plan to incorporate Delta Conveyance.…
Hearing Officer Blocks DWR’s Attempt to Maintain “Inchoate Right to Object” to Delta Conveyance Proceeding
In what may be the most significant California water rights proceeding since Decision 1275 granted the original State Water Project permits in 1967, Hearing Officer Nicole L. Kuenzi has issued a procedural ruling to protect the integrity of the hearing process. The May 2, 2025 ruling directly addresses the Department of Water Resources' (DWR) attempt to assert a…
In what may be the most significant California water rights proceeding since Decision 1275 granted the original State Water Project permits in 1967, Hearing Officer Nicole L. Kuenzi has issued a pr…
8/ Those who carry light are rarely comfortable.
But they are always essential.
In a time of unmaking, distortion, and forgetting—
they are what remains.
