Hoping to capitalize on the epic drought, the state’s water industry wants to usher in a new era of dam-building in the state. But environmentalists say it would cost billions and do more harm than good. By Will Parrish On the edge of the Yolla Bolly Wilderness, about 15 miles north of the dusty town … Read more
By: Will Parrish October 15, 2014 In roughly three weeks, the relatively slim percentage of Californians who vote in the Nov. 2014 election will decide on a politically contentious (is there any other kind of water politics in California?) $7.5 billion state general obligation bond, Proposition 1, entitled “THE State Water Bond” (emphasis added). A … Read more
by Will Parrish on Sep 28th, 2011 The Anderson Valley Advertiser The primary mandate of the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), a division of the California Environmental Protection Agency, is to ensure adequate water for California’s fish populations. Its actual function, however, has proved to be altogether different. In … Read more
The Great Thirst: Water Wars in Mendo and the North Coast Thursday, September 29 The Spring House 304 Spring St., Ukiah Join local journalist Will Parrish as he leads a discussion on water woes in Mendocino County and the greater California North Coast, from the wine industry’s depletion of creeks, streams, and groundwater to the … Read more
by Darwin Bond-Graham and Will Parrish on Jul 27th, 2011 If you’ve followed the Anderson Valley Advertiser for any length of time, you’re no doubt aware that the wine industry wields inordinate political power, not only here on the North Coast, but at the state-wide level also. Whether they’re fighting to prevent regulation of their enormous appetite for … Read more
Help Support Important Local Reporting, Subscribe Today http://theava.com/ Will Parrish: Laytonville Photo: The North Coast’s biggest forestland to vineyard conversion ever? Courtesy Friends of the Gualala River Spanish wine corporation Grupo Codorníu is accustomed to doing things in a big way. It is reputed to own a greater expanse of vineyard acreage than any wine company … Read more
Help Support Important Local Reporting, Subscribe Today http://theava.com/ by Will Parrish on Apr 27th, 2011 Across recent years, a State of California agency called the the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) has been plodding ahead in its campaign to make freight chug-a-chug down the tracks from the Port of Eureka on down to the San Francisco … Read more
Help Support Important Local Reporting, Subscribe Today http://theava.com/ by Will Parrish on Apr 17th, 2011 For most of the past 150 years, the California North Coast has had a clearly defined role in the state’s political economy. The region was blessed with vast, nearly impenetrable forests of huge redwood trees and accompanying great stands … Read more
Help Support Important Local Reporting, Subscribe Today http://theava.com/ by Will Parrish on Mar 23rd, 2011 In the more than a third of a century since Douglas H. Bosco first carved himself out as a fixture of the California North Coast’s power structure, one of the surest guides to locating systemic corruption across the region’s dominant business … Read more
Help Support Important Local Reporting, Subscribe Today http://theava.com/ From WILL PARRISH Laytonville If you want to mark a point-of-no-return in the Ander son Valley’s transformation into a full-on satellite of the Napa-Sonoma industrial viticulture complex, as good a choice as any is Duckhorn Vineyards’ takeover of three properties outside of Philo and Boonville in the late-’90s. Founded … Read more