Key water supply hurdle cleared
State water board issues draft permit for off-stream Sites Reservoir that will benefit Zone 7 agency here
A consortium of unions and advocacy groups are mounting a campaign to raise the minimum wage in Alameda County to $30 per hour.
It’s a truly bad idea. This county, with its high sales tax rate, obsessive focus on renters’ rights without any regard for landlords, and pro-union viewpoints among many elected officials, already is a very difficult place to do business.
The absurd minimum wage would make it more difficult as well as encouraging business owners to innovate to lower costs by eliminating employees.
Have you noticed how many fast food restaurants, that now are subject to wage rates set by a state commission, are going to kiosks or other ordering mechanisms that do not involve employees? Or artificial intelligence now being utilized at some drive-through. In either case, they work 24-7 and don’t call in sick.
The “Living Wage For All” initiative is targeted at the city of Oakland and unincorporated Alameda County. It’s driven by the Black Organizing Project of Oakland, Trabajadores Unidoes Workers Unified, One Fair Wage and the United Auto Workers Region 6.
The entire concept is faulty, but don’t bother to tell the organizers. Minimum wage jobs are designed for entry level workers—not to be a career path unless they want to go into management. Take a look at the quality staffers at In-and-Out or Chic-Filet-A and ask yourselves whether you can expect to see any of them there in 10 years.
The signature-gathering campaigns aim to place the measures on the November ballot. They’re initially targeted at large companies with more than 100 employees and revenue of more than $1 billion who would have to hit the mark by 2030. Smaller companies will have to 2037 to raise wages, although they likely would struggle with recruitment and retention against the larger firms.
They want Oakland and the county to start, but organizers made it clear they wanted the measure to go county-wide.
In last week’s post, I wrote about changes coming to the Zone 7 water board in June’s election with only one incumbent filing for re-election. Later in the week, a key cog in the state’s overall water management plan received a key approval.
Zone 7, along with other agencies in the State Water Project, will have an interest in Sites Reservoir, an off-stream facility located in the Colusa area. The plan calls for diverting water from the Sacramento River at high flows and storing it in the Sites Reservoir, which is planned as a 13-mile long lake. If construction moves ahead, it will be the first major reservoir constructed in decades and it does not involve damming any river.
The off-site plan mimics what is used south of the Delta pumping plants where water is pumped from the California aqueduct and then stored in the nearby San Luis Reservoir before it is pumped back into the aqueduct to be used when needed.
It needed approval of the State Water Resources Control Board that issued a draft permit that gives operators the right to pump Sacramento River water. The $6 billion project could start late this year or early in 2027. Incidentally, the project is managed by Pleasanton resident Jerry Brown (no relation to the former governor).
One strength of the high-flow concept is that it will allow storing water in the deep Lake Shasta Reservoir so cooler water can be saved for release during the fall salmon run when the river is low and water is warmer.
