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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The oil and gas industry could be on the hook for billions of
dollars as a growing number of states consider making the
sector pay for climate impacts such as floods and sea-level
rise. At least four states are debating legislation, modeled on
the federal Superfund program for contaminated land, that would
hold major fossil fuel companies liable for damage caused by
the historical emissions of their products. In Vermont, which
saw record flooding last year, a majority of the House and a
supermajority of the Senate have signed onto the proposal, all
but ensuring it will pass. Similar bills have been introduced
in New York — where it already has passed the Senate — as well
as Massachusetts and Maryland.
Sea otters, once hunted to near extinction, are staging a
comeback in California. Their return has revealed the
incredible positive effects these furry apex predators can have
on the state’s coastal ecosystems, including kelp forests and
seagrass meadows. Now, there’s another coastal ecosystem to add
to that list, one that plays an important role in bank
stabilization, water filtration, and carbon storage: the salt
marsh. In a new study in Nature, researchers found that sea
otters have reduced bank erosion rates by 69% in Elkhorn
Slough, a coastal wetland south of San Francisco, in the
decades since their return to the estuary. Their big effect is
due to their big appetites—the Elkhorn Slough salt marsh has
been eroding, in part, because of root-munching shore crabs
that burrow into the soil and destabilize the banks.
After a wet year and a push to conserve water in the Southwest,
federal officials say the risk of the Colorado River’s
reservoirs declining to critically low levels has substantially
eased for the next couple of years. The Biden administration’s
top water and climate officials said the rise in reservoir
levels and the ongoing conservation efforts will provide some
breathing room for the region’s water managers to come up with
new long-term rules to address the river’s chronic
overallocation problem and the worsening effects of climate
change. … The states proposed the short-term cuts to
deal with water shortages through 2026, when the current rules
for managing the river expire. The Bureau of Reclamation
released its final analysis of the water reductions
on Tuesday …
Three weeks after citizens stood up at a public meeting in
Siskiyou County, California, and raised concerns about heavy
metals in the Klamath River, the situation is about as clear as
the river. And the river’s pretty muddy. The breaching of the
Iron Gate, Copco 1 and JC Boyle hydroelectric dams in January
was done to draw down the reservoirs behind the dams as a
prelude to dam removal later this year. But the drawdown
released vast amounts of sediment that had been backed up
behind the dams. And some of those sediments contain metals.
… Only after a year from when drawdown is complete will
the company test for more metals, as directed by the state.
… On Monday, the Upper Colorado River Commission — an
interstate agency composed of one federal representative and
commissioners from the Upper Colorado River Basin states of
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — took a step toward
greater collaboration between the states and the
tribes. The commission unanimously approved
a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with six Colorado
River tribes: the Jicarilla Apache Nation, Navajo Nation, Ute
Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, Southern Ute Indian Tribe, Ute
Indian Tribe and the Shivwits Band of Paiutes. The
agreement states that the Upper Colorado River Commission and
the six tribes will meet about every two months to discuss
shared interests on the Colorado River. Other tribes are
welcome to join the agreement. The MOU does not give the
tribes a permanent seat on the Upper Colorado River Commission,
like the states and federal government.
It’s difficult to build big water infrastructure projects in
California. It takes collaboration and agreement across
geographic and political divides. It takes time, funding, and
the will of diverse stakeholders to advance solutions to
address our state’s biggest water challenges. When you have a
project that boasts all the above, you can get the job done.
For us, that project is Sites Reservoir. Sites Reservoir is a
new way of capturing and storing water – rather than damming a
major river, the proposal involves utilizing existing
infrastructure to convey and store water off-stream and deliver
it back into the system when it’s needed the most. When
flows are high on the Sacramento River – and once all other
senior water rights are met – a portion of the water will be
piped into Sites Reservoir. -Written by Congressman Mike Thompson,
representing California’s 4th Congressional District;
and Congressman Doug LaMalfa, lifelong farmer representing
California’s 1st Congressional District, which includes the
physical footprint of Sites Reservoir.
To adapt to climate extremes and become more water resilient in
California, modernizing the state’s water data—including the
way it is collected, stored, shared and used—may lead to more
informed decisions. Improving data practices to best manage
California’s water resources helped drive discussions last week
as state and local water managers, farmers, environmentalists
and others gathered in Sacramento for the 62nd annual
California Irrigation Institute Conference. … With a
theme of “Fluid Futures: Adapting to Extremes,” the Feb. 26-27
event focused on leveraging information and data technology to
help with water-management decisions. Erin Urquhart, water
resources program manager for the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, offered insights on the benefits of
Earth-observing missions that gather water data from space.
The impacts to Lake County’s water supply were debated at the
Board of Supervisors meeting February 27 with discussion
centered over the substantial effects on the county’s future
water supply if PG&E’s proposed plans are carried out in
full. Consideration was made of: A. requesting a letter of
support from the State Department of Water Resources, and B,
approval of resolution authorizing the grant application,
acceptance and execution of the Potter Valley Project
de-commissioning. Such action means probable removal of Scott
Dam and maybe elimination of Lake Pillsbury. Asking the Board
chair to sign the letter was Matthew Rothstein, Chief Deputy
County Administrative Officer along with Patrick Sullivan,
treasure/ tax collector.
Wooden fence posts poking just above the surface and tall oaks
with their trunks submerged are sure signs that the land is
flooded. That word, “flooded,” has a negative connotation, an
association with destruction. But here it is positive – even
protective. And if the San Francisco Estuary Institute, Sonoma
County Water Agency, and Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation get
what they want, more water, not less, is destined for this
place. The Laguna de Santa Rosa drains much of urban Sonoma
County, a watershed of 250 square miles, and is the largest
tributary of the mighty Russian River. The more water that this
creek and its floodplain can slow and absorb, the less water
will rush downstream to threaten truly catastrophic flooding in
Guerneville, Monte Rio, and Rio Nido.
The Environmental Protection Agency has granted approval to a
North County tribe to administer a water quality standards
program on its reservation. The Rincon Band of Luiseño
Indians has become the 11th tribe to secure the right to uphold
its own water quality standards out of the 148 federally
recognized tribes in the Pacific Southwest region, which is
comprised of Arizona, California and Nevada. The move
means the tribe can operate in a manner akin to a state,
allowing it to implement and manage specific environmental
regulatory functions and the ability to secure grant funding to
support its programs.
After a series of atmospheric river storms dumped record levels
of rain on Southern California, the region’s largest natural
freshwater lake has recovered in a major way. As of last week,
Lake Elsinore was deeper than it had been since June 2011,
according to data from the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water
District. Years of drought and the occasional wet winter have
caused wide variations in the lake’s depth. At 1,248 feet above
sea level, the lake is now more than 10 feet deeper than it was
in July 2022, and almost 15 feet deeper than at its lowest
recent point, in November 2018.
Clean Up The Lake, the environmental non-profit responsible for
the 72-mile cleanup of Lake Tahoe, has recently completed a
two-year monitoring effort on the lake. CUTL conservation dive
teams revisited 20 litter hotspots in the 0 to 25-foot depths
along the Nevada shoreline that were identified during the
72-mile cleanup of Lake Tahoe in 2021. The primary purpose of
this project was to survey these nearshore zones along the
Nevada shoreline to observe changes in litter accumulation and
perform surveillance for aquatic invasive species (AIS) that
may have progressed since 2021. By revisiting places that were
already cleaned, the data collected helped determine the status
of litter accumulation in Lake Tahoe, its rate of change since
the 72-mile cleanup, and the efficacy of CUTL’s SCUBA-enabled
cleanup methodology.
As salmon and Delta fish populations continue to crash due to
massive water diversions to corporate agribusiness, the
State Water Resources Control Board just issued a public
notice regarding the Delta Conveyance Project Change in Point
of Diversion (CPOD) Petition that was submitted by
the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to the State Water
Board on February 22, 2024. This notice acknowledges receipt of
the change petition and details the process to submit a protest
against the petition. You can expect a wave of formal
protests against the change petition by fishing
groups, Tribes, environmental justice organizations,
conservation groups and Delta region cities and counties.
Protests against the change petition must be filed
by April 29th, 2024, with a copy provided to the petition,
according to the Water Board.
The Pleasanton City Council will be reviewing a staff
presentation on the city’s proposed plan to authorize and
approve a bond sale for as much as $19 million to finance a
portion of planned water infrastructure upgrades during
Tuesday’s meeting. According to the March 5 staff report, staff
will be presenting a debt financing overview and a resolution
for the council to approve, which will declare the city’s
intent to “reimburse expenditures relating to capital
improvement projects from the proceeds of tax-exempt
obligations.”
Sprawl development built far from city centers carries direct
and indirect costs that pull resources away from existing
neighborhoods, harming communities and natural habitats,
according to a new report published by the Center for
Biological Diversity. The True Cost of Sprawl analyzed the
environmental harms — including pollution, wildfire risks and
public health threats — that come with poor land-use decisions.
It found that suburban and exurban housing developments
increase per capita infrastructure costs by 50%, pulling public
funds from schools, parks, public transportation and other
needs in existing communities for things like new roads and
sewer systems.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson announced on Tuesday that funding of
$2.3 million for three Solano County projects will be
considered by Congress later this week. Thompson secured nearly
$15 million for projects for his district, California’s Fourth.
… The projects in Solano County are: $959,752 for
the Rio Vista Wastewater Plant Consolidation and Reclaimed
Water Project. The Rio Vista Wastewater Plant Consolidation and
Reclaimed Water Project supports the Clean Water Act standards
by aiming to eliminate the direct discharge of water into the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, recharges the aquifer on
which Rio Vista City relies for drinking water, and mitigates
drought issues by providing a reusable water source.
So many hurdles are impacting new home construction, yet one is
quickly growing more urgent and critical—access to water. In
more and more places across the country, access to healthy,
safe, and sustainable water supply is causing restrictions on
new home building permits and challenging current homeowners
with new water use policies. This challenge is triggering
states and municipalities to reconsider new developments,
halting them or shutting them down completely at a time when
housing supply is at critically low levels. Groundwater
shortages have shut down new permits in parts of Arizona where
new homes would rely on wells. A large development with
thousands of homes north of Las Vegas also was shut down due to
concerns over water supply. -By Jennifer Castenson, vice-president of ambassador
and industry partner programs at Buildxact, providing
leadership and collaboration across the various verticals
involved in custom homebuilding and remodeling.
For decades, raw sewage from Tijuana, Mexico has, and
continues, to flow across the border into San Diego,
California. This discharge flows into the Tijuana River
Valley, and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. This
pollution has negatively impacted the Tijuana River Valley and
the Tijuana River Estuary, one of the last remaining estuaries
in California, and the beaches. Unhealthy concentrations
of fecal indicator bacteria has forced the County of San Diego
to close 10 miles of beach access from the US-Mexico Border all
the way to the beaches of Coronado. At the urging of
Congressman Scott Peters, the San Diego State University School
of Public Health issued a white paper which details the public
health risks posed by the transborder flow of sewage.
With many areas of Southern California starved for shade, the
region’s largest water supplier has launched a rebate program
offering residents and businesses up to $500 as an incentive to
plant trees. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California on Tuesday announced the addition of the tree
incentive to its long-standing turf-replacement program, which
offers cash to property owners who rip out water-guzzling grass
and replace it with drought-tolerant landscaping. Starting
this week, new applicants can seek a $100 rebate for each
eligible tree planted — up to five trees total — as part of
their turf-replacement project, according to a spokesperson for
the district.
A monster blizzard that blasted California’s Sierra Nevada with
gusts of up to 190 mph and dumped more than 10 feet of snow
over the weekend shattered the state’s “snow
drought” and significantly boosted vital snowpack
levels. The statewide snowpack by Monday had swelled to
104% of normal for the date, with a snow water equivalent of
24.4 inches. On Thursday — hours before the chilly winter
storm was set to hit — the snowpack had measured only
80% of normal. It was an impressive turnaround compared with
the beginning of the year when the snowpack was 32% of
normal. Officials were optimistic the blizzard would offer
a significant snow boost. It ended up being a game-changer.