Author Archives: Jeff Simonetti

About Jeff Simonetti

Jeff Simonetti is the Vice President of Public Affairs at the Capitol Core Group and provides project management, business development, and policy/lobbying expertise to a variety of federal, state and local clients. During his tenure at Capitol Core, Jeff has among other projects helped a renewable energy company to secure authorizing resolutions in cities across Southern California. Prior to joining Capitol Core Group, Jeff was a Vice President at the Kosmont Companies, a real estate and economic development consulting firm. At Kosmont, Jeff was the project lead for cities looking to implement financing strategies such as Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts (EIFDs) and other post-redevelopment funding mechanisms. He also was the project manager for the Economic Development element of the Fontana General Plan Update. Jeff gained significant state and local government affairs experience as the Government Affairs Director at the Building Industry Association (BIA) of Southern California’s Baldy View Chapter. During his tenure at the BIA, he helped to found the annual San Bernardino County Water Conference, an event that gathers over 400 elected officials and business leaders in the region to discuss the pressing water policy issues that affect the community.

Are There Ways to Pay for Water Infrastructure in California and Conserve Water?

While the traditional calendar may still say that there are three more months left in 2016, water year 2016 is now in the books, ending on September 30th. While some parts of California had an about average winter in terms of precipitation (particularly in northern California), other areas did not fare as well. Unfortunately, the Golden State begins the 2017 water year in a sixth straight year of drought. According to the most recent US Drought Monitor, although levels of exceptional drought have dropped from 44.84% at the start of the calendar year to 21.04% currently, 100% of the state still has some form of drought. California is one of only four states in the US with any exceptional drought conditions. (Interestingly, Georgia, Alabama and a small part of Tennessee are the other states currently experiencing exceptional drought.) Continue reading →

What Lessons from the Long-term Drought in the West Can New England use to address its Current Drought?

Over the last few years, when we think of drought in the United States, the western US and California in particular have taken much of the spotlight for exceptional drought conditions. While California’s drought conditions across the state have not ameliorated significantly, other areas of the country have slipped into severe drought. Parts of New England in particular are facing extreme drought conditions that rival the severity of California. Continue reading →

Is there more water than we thought in California? Part II: Alternatives to deep groundwater extraction and areas of the US that may be able to capture similar supplies

In last week’s post, I wrote about how scientists at Stanford University identified approximately 2.2 billion acre-feet of water deep underground below California’s aquifers. While the “new” find that the Stanford group identified may be interesting, the economic and regulatory challenges surrounding this water supply may make it impractical for widespread use. However, are there alternatives to this water supply in California and other areas of the United States? Could similar projects be brought to bear in these areas? And if not, what are some potential alternatives to provide thirsty California with water supplies during a drought? I will address these issues in this post. Continue reading →

Is there more water than we thought in California? Part I: The “find” and the challenges the state would face to use these resources

Could California have a lot more water supplies than anyone expected? It is an intriguing theory that caught some significant press attention last month, including an in-depth article in The Washington Post. Scientists at Stanford contend that California has vast amounts of water trapped deep underground at depths of 1,000 to 10,000 feet below parts of the Central Valley.  Their calculations estimate that California has approximately 2,700 cubic kilometers of freshwater at these depths, which equates to about 2.22 billion acre-feet! (For conversion of cubic kilometers to acre-feet, each cubic kilometer of water is about 810,714 acre-feet.) Continue reading →