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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Water shortages are becoming a way of life in cities across the
globe — Los Angeles; Cape Town, South Africa; Jakarta,
Indonesia; and many more — as climate change worsens and
authorities often pipe in water from ever-more-distant sources.
“Water sources are depleted around the world,” said Victoria
Beard, a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell
University. “Every year, more cities will face ‘Day Zero,’ with
no water in their piped systems.” Mexico City — founded by the
Aztecs on an island amid lakes, with a rainy season that
brought torrents and flooding — might have been an exception.
For decades, the focus has been getting rid of water, not
capturing it. But a grim convergence of factors — including
runaway growth, official indifference, faulty infrastructure,
rising temperatures and reduced rainfall — have left this
mega-city at a tipping point after years of mostly unheeded
warnings.
In 2023, PG&E announced its plans to remove both Scott and
Cape Horn dams on the Eel River as part of its license
surrender and decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project.
CalTrout has long advocated for removing both dams to improve
salmon and steelhead populations in the Eel River by
reconnecting the cold, perennial streams in the headwaters
behind the dams. CalTrout has also been working with water
users in the Russian River basin seeking to maintain the water
supplied by a transbasin diversion tunnel. On Tuesday, March
19, 2023, partners and stakeholders met to select a design
alternative for a potential future diversion from the Eel River
to the Russian River that balances both needs of water users
and fish.
California wineries appear to be complying with the Water
Board’s statewide Winery General Order’s winery wastewater
requirements, but the pace is slow, state statistics reveal.
And many are not in the compliance reporting pipeline at all,
data shows. (An overview page is provided here.) The order was
passed, the water boards said, for two major reasons. One was
because, “Winemakers requested the order to address the
statewide inconsistencies in permitting.” This request was from
large wineries that operate numerous facilities throughout the
state. (Smaller wineries opposed this in the public
hearings.) … As of Feb. 20, 2024, 201 wineries had
begun the process of filing, leaving a gap of 1,449 wineries
(the difference between 1,650 and 201, based on the initial
estimates).
Microplastics are tiny, nearly indestructible fragments shed
from everyday plastic products. As we learn more about
microplastics, the news keeps getting worse. Already
well-documented in our oceans and soil, we’re now discovering
them in the unlikeliest of places: our arteries, lungs and even
placentas. Microplastics can take anywhere from 100 to 1,000
years to break down and, in the meantime, our planet and bodies
are becoming more polluted with these materials every day.
Finding viable alternatives to traditional petroleum-based
plastics and microplastics has never been more important. New
research from scientists at the University of California San
Diego and materials-science company Algenesis shows that their
plant-based polymers biodegrade — even at the microplastic
level — in under seven months. The paper, whose authors are all
UC San Diego professors, alumni or former research scientists,
appears in Nature Scientific Reports.
Even in wet years — like the last two, which saw disastrous
flooding in many parts of the state — Californians need to use
less water. That’s the message the State Water Resources
Control Board conveyed to the public during a workshop as the
agency considers new rules for water conservation in urban
areas. By promoting water conservation as “a California way of
life,” the board’s goal is that the looming regulations will
save enough water for about half a million households annually.
Californians spoke out Tuesday over the state’s plan to rein in
urban water use that is ultimately less drastic than a previous
version of the regulations.
The East Bay Regional Park District’s Water Management
Department has issued an advisory for toxic blue-green algae at
Lake Del Valle in Livermore, Shadow Cliffs in Pleasanton, and
other swimming areas around the East Bay. “Blue-Green Algae
(also called cyanobacteria) are natural organisms that are
present around the world in ocean and fresh water,” the park
district reports on its website. “Certain conditions – low
water levels, limited water circulation, increased temperature
and light, among other factors – can cause blue-green algae to
bloom and, in some cases, release toxins. Scientists do not
know what causes the blue-green algae to become toxic. We do
know that these blooms are increasing around the world.”
Blue-green algae was first detected at an East Bay Regional
park in 2014 and has been a constant threat ever since. In
face, algae blooms and toxins have been observed at all major
Park District water bodies.
The California Tahoe Conservancy joins with its funding
partners—the California Wildlife Conservation Board, Tahoe
Regional Planning Agency, California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, Tahoe Fund, and League to Save Lake Tahoe—to announce
the Conservancy is acquiring 31 acres of environmentally
sensitive land along the Upper Truckee River in South Lake
Tahoe. “This environmental acquisition may be the most
important in a generation to protect Lake Tahoe,” said
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “By
reconnecting the most important wetland that filters water
flowing into the Lake, this investment protects the Lake’s
precious water quality and also provides an important corridor
for local wildlife. This project demonstrates the great value
of the California Tahoe Conservancy, to work diligently over
years—sometimes decades—to see important environmental
improvements to fruition.”
Members of the state Water Resources Control Board voted
unanimously on Tuesday, March 19, to reduce pumping fees for
groundwater users in subbasins that come under state control,
known as “probationary status.” The controversial fee was
lowered from $40 per-acre-foot of pumped water to $20 per acre
foot. The board will hold its first probationary hearing
on the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers Kings County, on
April 16. … Groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) for
Tulare Lake and five other San Joaquin Valley subbasins were
rejected twice by the state as inadequate, which is why they
are now coming before the Water Board to determine if they
should be put into probationary status.
Colorado lawmakers say they want Congress to do its job and
fund repairs to a deteriorating irrigation system in
southwestern Colorado. The irrigation system, called the Pine
River Indian Irrigation Project, is one of 16 federal projects
in the West that have fallen into disrepair. The maintenance
backlog is extensive and would cost more than $2.3 billion to
address. … Southern Ute representatives focused on the
Indian Irrigation Fund during Colorado River Drought Task Force
meetings in 2023.
California’s Yurok Tribe, which had 90% of its territory taken
from it during the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, will be getting
a slice of its land back to serve as a new gateway to Redwood
National and State Parks visited by 1 million people a year.
The Yurok will be the first Native people to manage tribal land
with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of
understanding signed Tuesday. … Much of the property was
paved over by a lumber operation that worked there for 50 years
and also buried Prairie Creek, where salmon would swim upstream
from the Pacific to spawn. … The ’O Rew property represents
just a tiny fraction of the more than 500,000 acres of the
ancestral land of the Yurok, whose reservation straddles the
lower 44 miles of the Klamath River. The Yurok tribe is
also helping lead efforts in the largest dam removal
project in U.S. history along the California-Oregon border
to restore the Klamath and boost the salmon population.
The deconstruction of Copco Dam Number One is going to get
underway in the next few weeks, and the Klamath River Renewal
Corporation says it’s all going ahead of schedule. Klamath
River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) CEO Mark Bransom says things
are going exceptionally in the progress of undamming the river.
Sharing, with approval to move forward on Copco Dam Number 1,
they’re now looking at a finish by the end of summer, and only
better days for the Klamath River from there. “They will begin
a series of drilling into the top of Copco Number One, packing
those holes with explosives, detonating those explosives and
the idea is to break up that large concrete dam into more
manageable chunks of concrete,” Bransom said.
A court has upheld a key decision by California’s water board
calling for reductions in water diversions from the San Joaquin
River and its tributaries to help revive struggling fish
populations. In his ruling, Sacramento County Superior Court
Judge Stephen Acquisto rejected lawsuits by water districts
serving farms and cities that would be required to take less
water under the standards adopted by regulators. The judge also
rejected challenges by environmental groups that had argued for
requiring larger cutbacks to boost river flows. The judge’s
ruling, issued in a 162-page order last week, supports the
State Water Resources Control Board’s 2018 adoption of a water
quality plan for the lower San Joaquin River and its three
major tributaries — the Tuolumne, Merced and Stanislaus rivers.
Thousands of leaking, idle oil wells are scattered across
California, creating toxic graveyards symbolic of a dying
industry. To tackle this “urgent climate and public
health crisis,” Santa Barbara Assemblymember Gregg Hart
introduced Assembly Bill 1866 last week. The bill would mandate
oil operators to develop plans to plug the 40,000 idle wells
(and counting) in the state within a decade, prioritizing those
within 3,200 feet of vulnerable communities. … Ann
Alexander, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense
Council, calls the system “very badly broken.” Companies “just
sit indefinitely on their defunct wells” as they leak methane
gas, pollute the air, and contaminate groundwater.
… Last fall, the county announced its plan to
spend $3.7 million to repair an “unpluggable” well at
Toro Canyon Creek. Drilled in the 19th century, this idle well
has leaked thousands of gallons of crude oil since
the 1990s, contaminating waterways and killing wildlife as a
result.
Residents in Grover Beach are feeling the pinch as water rates
surged this month, but a new bill could ease their burden. “We
had a rate increase of $26, which we were billed once every two
months,” said Dave Browning, who lives in Grover Beach. “That
was roughly $13 per month.” Grover Beach residents recently
felt the impact of a long-discussed water rate hike. “We did
send a couple of letters, and I know they’ve received quite a
few from what I was being told,” Browning said. And while many
still have strong opinions about it moving forward, those
facing the reality of the hike now are concerned about how
they’ll pay for it.
A nearly $3 billion effort shepherded by the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency during the last two decades to ‘Keep Tahoe
Blue’ has prioritized spending on recreation and transportation
over improving water quality, according to the agency’s own
data. … Water clarity in Lake Tahoe declined from a
visibility level of 105 feet in 1967 to 70 feet in 1999,
according to the Act, which estimated that without remediation,
the lake would “lose its famous clarity in only 30
years.” The federal government owns 77% of the land in
the basin and “has a unique responsibility for restoring
environmental health to Lake Tahoe,” the Act says. It
authorized $300 million in funding “for environmental projects
and habitat restoration around Lake Tahoe.”
Nature is not what comes to mind when an outsider drives
into Bel Marin Keys, a tiny community that begins 1½ miles
east of Highway 101 in Marin County, reached by a single road
that passes a shopping center and small industrial buildings
along the way. The wide streets are monotonous, often lined
with homes that resemble those of countless 1960s subdivisions.
On some blocks, the only hint that creeks and wetlands might be
nearby are the red-winged blackbirds that touch down on utility
poles. … It’s a bucolic scene — and an engineering
landscape that wouldn’t exist if not for the intrusions into
former bay wetlands that now are at risk due to sea level
rise. That’s why residents of Bel Marin Keys voted to
approve a $30 million parcel tax this month aimed at building
stronger and taller levees, plus an improved set of locks to
keep adjacent waters from spilling into one of the lagoons that
give this precarious collection of 700 homes its character.
With only three months left on her contract, the longtime
attorney for the powerful Kern County Water Agency was ousted
Monday, March 18, during a special meeting. Six of the agency’s
seven directors voted in favor of terminating General Counsel
Amelia Minaberrigarai’s contract after a short closed session.
Director Laura Cattani was absent. The contract was terminated
as of March 23. It is set to expire June 30. … The
agency did not respond to questions about whether the
termination was for cause. Nor to questions about
Minaberrigarai’s replacement. It is also unclear why her
contract was terminated with only three months before it
expired. If she was fired without cause, the contract
requires she receive a lump sum equal to her base pay,
plus vacation that would have accrued for the remainder of the
contract’s term.
The California water conservation crisis continues as lawmakers
may delay rules that could significantly help improve
California water. Environmentalists are expressing concerns
after regulators proposed delaying the timeline of implementing
lawn water regulations by five years until 2040. KRCR
spoke with Butte Environmental Council Member, Patrizia
Hironimus, who said despite the delay of California rules, they
are still aiming to educate the community on how to cut down on
their lawn water use. While also collecting local data to give
to the state to help them understand the water crisis even just
in Butte County.
A state policy that seeks to protect California’s major rivers
and creeks by cracking down on how much water is pumped out by
cities and farms can move forward despite widespread
opposition, the Superior Court has ruled. The long-awaited
decision on what’s known as the Bay-Delta Plan denies 116
claims in a dozen separate lawsuits that seek to undo a 2018
update to the policy, most of which are from water agencies
saying the limits on their water draws go too far. The 160-page
verdict, released Friday by Sacramento County Judge Stephen
Acquisto, specifically notes that arguments made by San
Francisco against the regulation fell short.
California officials are trying to boost state wetlands
protections in order to guard against a 2023 Supreme Court
decision that slashed federal oversight of wetlands.
Assemblymember Laura Friedman’s A.B. 2875 would declare it the
state’s policy to ensure long-term gain and no net loss of
California’s wetlands. And Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
administration is proposing to add 38 new positions to enforce
the state’s existing wetlands protection laws and scrutinize
development permits.