A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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Does the public sector need the private sector’s help to
address the freshwater crisis? That’s the controversial thesis
of Stanford law and environmental social sciences professor
Barton “Buzz” Thompson’s provocatively titled new book: Liquid
Asset: How Business and Government Can Partner to Solve the
Freshwater Crisis. (Buzz is also a member of the PPIC Water
Policy Center’s research network.) We sat down with him to hear
more. … The private sector is already involved in water in
many ways, some more controversial than others. … We
think of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) as a
public program, and it is. The legislature passed the law, and
public agencies are implementing it. But if you look carefully,
you’ll see private handprints all over SGMA’s success.
Water Audit California has voiced concerns about Napa County in
recent months, appealing two Planning Commission decisions and
calling new county plans for storing paper records a “black
hole.” The environmental advocacy group appealed a Dec. 20
county Planning Commission decision approving a Nova Business
Park project. But its bigger claim is that the county fails to
do adequate due diligence, something the county denies.
A Senate panel voted to shut the public out of the key business
of the state agency tasked with finding new water for Arizona.
HB 2014 authorizes the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority
to enter into agreements to facilitate the construction of a
project that would bring water from outside the state into
Arizona. It also empowers the agency to negotiate deals with
others to agree to purchase the water once it becomes
available. But what HB 2014 also would do is exempt all
communications and information gathered related to water
augmentation from all provisions of the state’s Public Records
Law. And the only time anyone could get information would be
“on the consent of the authority.”
A new research paper published recently in Annual Review of
Earth and Planetary Sciences, coordinated by scientists from
The University of New Mexico and collaborating institutions,
addresses the complex nature and societal importance of Grand
Canyon’s springs and groundwater. The paper,
“Hydrotectonics of Grand Canyon Groundwater,” recommends
sustainable groundwater management and uranium
mining threats that require better monitoring and
application of hydrotectonic concepts. The data suggest an
interconnectivity of the groundwater systems such that uranium
mining and other contaminants pose risks to people, aquifers,
and ecosystems. The conclusion based on multiple datasets is
that groundwater systems involve significant mixing.
The Colorado River is relied upon by roughly 40 million people.
That includes members of 30 federally-recognized tribes, as
well as residents across seven states. Four of those are in the
region known as the Upper Basin – that includes Colorado, Utah,
Wyoming, and New Mexico – and the other three are in the Lower
Basin – California, Arizona, and Nevada. In Colorado alone,
half of Denver’s supply – as well as half of Colorado Springs’
supply – rely on the river. Tribal nations in Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have been left out of key
agreements involving the Colorado River for well over a century
now.
Real estate websites are sharing more climate risk information
with home buyers and sellers. Why it matters: Of roughly 4,600
prospective buyers Zillow surveyed nationwide last spring, over
80% said they considered at least one climate risk when
shopping. State of play: Realtor.com, which was the first major
site to show a home’s flood risk, added heat, wind and
air-quality risks to listings this month. The company added
wildfire risk in 2022. Threat level: Nearly 45% of U.S. homes
face severe or extreme damage from environmental threats,
according to a new report from Realtor.com.
The first publication by the newly renamed California Nature
Art Museum in Solvang (formerly the Wildling Museum of Art &
Nature) builds quite nicely on the institution’s vision to “be
recognized as an exceptional and innovative leader in inspiring
our communities and visitors to value wilderness and other
natural areas through the lenses of a diversity of artists.”
Featuring text and stunning photography by George Rose,
California’s Changing Landscape: The Way of Water is an
expansive large-format documentation of California’s vast
terrain, complicated weather, and extensive biodiversity —
particularly as they relate to water and, as naturally follows,
climate change.
Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) exhibit some of the most
diverse life history traits among all Pacific salmonid species
and play major cultural, economic, and recreational roles
throughout the Pacific Coast. Steelhead are unique from their
resident rainbow trout counterparts in that they follow an
anadromous life-history, meaning they migrate to the ocean as
juveniles and return to spawn in freshwater streams and rivers
as adults. Rainbow trout, on the other hand, remain in
freshwater streams for their entire life. Unlike most of their
Pacific salmonid cousins, steelhead are iteroparous, meaning
that they can spawn more than once in their lifetime. This
adaptation allows steelhead to have a more flexible lifecycle
that can be advantageous during warmer or drier seasons,
especially near the southern end of their distribution in
California’s Central Valley.
California State Parks’ Division of Boating and Waterways is
offering grant funding to prevent the further spread of quagga
and zebra mussels into California’s waterways. Funded by the
California Mussel Fee Sticker (also known as the Quagga
Sticker), the Quagga and Zebra Mussel (QZ) Infestation
Prevention Grant Program expects to award a total of up to $2
million across eligible applicants. Applications will be
accepted from Monday, April 1 through Friday, May 10, 2024.All
applications must be received by 5 p.m. on May 10, 2024. The QZ
grants are available to entities that own or manage any aspect
of water in a reservoir that is open for public recreation, is
mussel-free, and do not have an existing two-year QZ Grant
awarded in 2023.
State officials on Friday doubled the amount of water
California agencies will get this year following some strong
storms that increased the snowpack in the mountains. The State
Water Project is a major source for 27 million people. The
majority of contractors who supply the water are located south
of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Previously, the
Department of Water Resources had told them to expect 15% of
their requests this year. The department increased that to 30%
on Friday. The department said contractors north of the delta
can expect 50% of their requests, while contractors in the
Feather River Settlement can expect 100%.
Two-thirds of the tribes with lands and water rights in the
Colorado River Basin are calling for equal status in developing
new river management guidelines and protection of their senior
water rights against proposed cuts or caps on developing their
water. Leaders from 20 tribes, including eight in Arizona, sent
a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation March 11. In the
letter, obtained by The Arizona Republic, the tribes outlined
what they expect in new river management guidelines that will
take effect when the current guidelines expire Dec. 31, 2026.
The two tribes with Arizona’s largest river allocations — the
Colorado River Indian Tribes, which holds senior rights to
720,000 acre-feet of water, mostly in Arizona, and the Gila
River Indian Community, with 653,000 acre-feet of Colorado
River and other waters — did not sign the letter.
… Meanwhile, forecasters were looking ahead to a rare
late-season “high-impact” storm that could reach the area by
Friday, according to Robbie Munroe, a meteorologist with the
NWS in Oxnard. Sunday’s bout of stormy weather was driven
by a cold system moving south across the Southland, Munroe
said. “Early projections place us maybe around an inch to
3 inches for a lot of areas — maybe even locally higher for our
south-facing mountains,” he said.
… The two impacts of data centers drawing the most concern in
Colorado are the growing demand for power and impact it could
have on the power grid and the need for millions of gallons of
water by data centers, primarily for cooling. … While
Colorado and the West have suffered a 20-year drought and there
is haggling over the future of the dwindling Colorado River, a
hyperscale data center with evaporative cooling can, according
to Dglt, use more than 200 million gallons of water a year,
about 550,000 gallons a day — enough to supply 1,200 households
of four to five people for a year.
As global temperatures are expected to rise by at least 2.7
degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, environmental researchers urge a
greater focus on water conservation as the precious resource is
set to become scarcer due to climate change. In a report
released Thursday by the SUREAL Engineering Lab, a
collaboration between the University of Miami and EXP U.S.
Services Inc., researchers urged local leaders to adopt
region-specific conservation plans in favor of centralized
systems. … At a press conference Thursday hosted by the
International Code Council to unveil the findings, Andiroglu
emphasized the need for urgent action, pointing to estimates
that show within 50 years over 40% of the global population are
expected to live in countries facing water scarcity.
Near the California-Oregon border, reservoirs that once
submerged valleys have been drained, revealing a stark
landscape that had been underwater for generations. A thick
layer of muddy sediment covers the sloping ground, where
workers have been scattering seeds and leaving meandering
trails of footprints. In the cracked mud, seeds are sprouting
and tiny green shoots are appearing. With water passing freely
through tunnels in three dams, the Klamath River has returned
to its ancient channel and is flowing unhindered for the first
time in more than a century through miles of waterlogged lands.
A coalition of public interest groups filed a civil rights
complaint against California’s top water board last week,
accusing the agency of perpetuating environmental racism along
the state’s Central Coast. According to the complaint, the
region’s agricultural industry has contaminated Latino
farmworkers’ drinking water with dangerous levels of nitrates,
and the State Water Resources Control…
Today, legislation to protect California’s iconic salmon and
steelhead trout authored by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San
Mateo) was approved by the Assembly Committee on Transportation
with a bipartisan vote. The S.A.L.M.O.N Act (Stormwater
Anti-Lethal Measures for Our Natives Act), would mandate the
development and implementation of a regional strategy by the
Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to eliminate (a
contaminant from tire rubber) from stormwater discharges
into specified salmon and steelhead trout-bearing surface
waters of the state.
A critical set of oral testimonies will help a state regulator
determine whether or not the Monterey Peninsula needs a
desalination project to generate water supply over the next few
decades, or whether the Pure Water Monterey Expansion project
will get the job done. …The testimonies and cross
examinations lasted five days, ending March 15. The testimonies
were heard by California Public Utilities Commission
Administrative Law Judge Robert Haga. Many of the testimonies
… came down to which contrary estimates of water supply
and future demand Judge Haga will believe. Once he’s reached a
decision it will then be taken up by the five-member CPUC
commissioners.
Reclamation today announced a $5.5 million investment from
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to repair the
Willow Creek Dam in Montana and the B.F. Sisk Dam in California
as part of the Investing in America agenda. Willow Creek Dam in
Montana will use $2.1 million to fund temporary spillway
improvements by installing rock in the spillway to reduce risk
of spillway erosion until a permanent dam safety modification
is completed. Construction will include purchase and placement
of 9,100 cubic yards of rock. Reclamation will reserve another
900 cubic yards on site for flood fighting activities.
Reclamation’s project stakeholder, Greenfields Irrigation
District, will perform the work. B.F. Sisk Dam in California
will use $3.4 million to modify the Phase 1 contract, to adapt
to delays caused by high precipitation levels in 2023.
It’s the second straight year of above-average rain and snow in
California, amid the state’s driest period in 1,200 years. The
respite from drought is certainly welcome, despite flooding,
mudslides and associated miseries. Now meteorologists and
oceanographers are watching possible La Niña conditions develop
in the Pacific, perhaps signaling a return to drier times. It’s
an appropriate time to take stock — of how we weathered the
last two winters, what we’ve learned and what’s ahead.
… It’s also important to note that California got a
scary dose of climate change reality early in the winter when
all that precipitation failed to turn into Sierra snowpack. It
does us little good to get lots of rain or even snow if the
weather is too warm to permit snow accumulation on the slopes.
The annual snowpack‘s slow spring-and-summer melt has
historically been the primary source of water for California
cities and farm fields.