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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On Sept. 7, 1993, the San Diego City Council declared a state
of emergency regarding the discharge of raw sewage it said was
coming from Tijuana, Mexico, and polluting the international
border. More than 30 years later, the San Diego City Council
renewed the state of emergency on Feb. 27 over an ongoing issue
that has been traced back to 1934. In the past five years, the
International Boundary and Water Commission stated that more
than 100 billion gallons of untreated sewage, industrial waste
and urban runoff have been discharged into the Pacific Ocean
from the Tijuana River.
With a solid winter of rain in the hills, it’s peak waterfall
season in Marin County. The only question is which cascade to
see first. For Ian McLorg, chief park ranger with Marin County
Parks, Dawn Falls is the first that comes to mind. The
approximately three-quarter-mile trail to the falls is in the
Baltimore Canyon Preserve. “Dawn Falls, especially after some
good rain, is a pretty spectacular waterfall,” McLorg said. To
access Dawn Falls Trail, he suggested entering via Crown Road
in Kentfield and hiking the Southern Marin Line Fire Road. “A
short jaunt from the trailhead at Southern Marin Line Fire
Road, you just head as if you’re going towards Corte Madera,
and the Dawn Falls Trail drops off to your left down the fire
road,” McLorg said. “That one is a great one to see this time
of year.”
Hundreds of thousands of young salmon are believed to have died
this week at the site of a historic dam removal project on
the Klamath River, after an effort to restore salmon runs
on the newly unconstrained river went awry, the Chronicle has
learned. The dead chinook salmon were among the first hatchery
fish released on the Klamath since four hydroelectric dams
were breached near the California-Oregon border, to allow
the river to flow freely again and ultimately help fish
flourish. … The salmon die-off, discovered downstream of the
173-foot Iron Gate Dam, is thought to be the result of trauma
the small fish experienced when they went through a tunnel at
the dam’s base, which had been opened to allow the river to
pass and dam demolition to proceed. … “No one,
especially those in my program who work night and day to keep
fish alive, wants to see something like this happen,” said
Jason Roberts, an environmental program manager for the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We’re going to
learn from it. We need to do better.”
For much of the last decade, almonds have been such a lucrative
crop that growers and investment firms have poured money into
planting new orchards across vast stretches of California
farmland. Now, the almond boom has fizzled and the industry has
entered a slump. Prices have dropped over the last several
years, and the state’s total almond acreage has started to
decrease as growers have begun to tear out orchards and plant
other crops. … Over the last decade, the almond boom
coincided with growing concerns about water in California. When
growers and investment companies bought land and drilled wells
to pump groundwater in the Central Valley, the expanding nut
orchards locked in long-term water demands and added to
the strains on the state’s declining aquifers. Wenger
said he thinks it’s possible that if some of these orchards
come out of production, groundwater levels could rise in
places.
One the most closely watched water bills in the Wyoming
Legislature this session moved decisively through committee
this week in a sign of hope for some of the state’s
water-dependent industries. The bill, SF 66, seeks to address
heightened anxiety around the Colorado River, whose diminishing
flows have set off a scramble by its seven user states to draft
new rules and contingency plans ahead of a 2026 deadline from
the Bureau of Reclamation, the agency charged with overseeing
water management in the west. In the meantime, the amendments
aim to provide a sense of security to junior water rights
entities who depend on water transfers, including
municipalities, trona mine operators and oil refineries in the
Green River Basin.
The most powerful California blizzard of the season pounded the
Sierra Nevada with gusts of up to 190 mph, while heavy snow
Sunday forced the closure of key roads to the Lake Tahoe and
Mammoth Mountain areas. A rare blizzard warning was extended
through Monday morning for the Lake Tahoe area, and until
Sunday night for the Mammoth Mountain area. … The crest
of the Sierra overall is expected to get 6 to 10 feet
of snow; Mammoth Lakes, 2 to 4 feet; and the Tahoe Basin, 3 to
6 feet. Snow has been falling steady at about 2 inches per
hour, with intermittent rates of 3 to 4 inches per
hour, the weather service said, which should peak late
Saturday. The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow
Lab had received 3 feet of snow by Saturday morning, and
expected several more feet by Monday morning.
As California enjoys a second robust winter in a row, calls for
additional water storage may soon be getting an answer. A new
reservoir is something voters approved funding for years ago,
and while progress has been slow, there are hopes that it may
finally be moving ahead. “Nothing has been built like this in
California for more than 30 years,’ said Executive Director of
the Sites Reservoir Authority Jerry Brown. It’s been nearly 70
years since California took a look at the Sites Valley, and saw
the potential for a reservoir that could have been as large as
Shasta. The plan now is for something not quite that large, but
still massive. … Brown insists the long, slow push to create
new water storage is moving ahead, and the payoffs, he says,
will be as large as the new lake. It will not dam a river,
which is good for fish. Instead, water will be pumped up out of
the valley.
Recently, we dove deep on how every time rain falls in Southern
California, gigantic pieces of infrastructure come to life in
an effort to sequester as much of the stormwater as
possible. Water agencies implement dry wells, dams and
spreading grounds the size of neighborhoods to give each drop a
chance to percolate deep into the soil and refill our overdrawn
reservoirs. The problem is we’ve all but run out of room
for spreading grounds, and while the water agencies are
implementing other options, you can make a difference at the
household level as well. All you need is a shovel, some rocks
and a tiny patch of land. The goal is simple: you want to
slow down water and give it a chance to sink into the earth.
Transitioning towards sustainable groundwater usage is becoming
more accessible for farmers and Groundwater Sustainability
Agencies (GSAs) through involvement in the LandFlex Grant
Program. The Department of Water Resources (DWR), which
developed the program, prioritizes access to those living in
rural areas with critically overdrafted basins. LandFlex
provides farmers with resources to comply with requirements of
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) while
increasing availability of groundwater to surrounding local
communities. With depleting underground water availability, the
DWR hopes to accelerate sustainable groundwater usage
immediately, rather than SGMA’s goal of groundwater
sustainability by 2040.
… [Denise] Moreno Ramírez wasn’t surprised when she heard an
Australian mining company, South32, planned to open a
manganese, zinc, lead and silver operation in the same area
where her family had worked. … The grasslands, woodlands,
swamps and prairies of south-east Arizona’s Sky Islands are
home to more than 100 species of large mammals: the greatest
number north of Mexico. Residents from the borderlands area
have long dealt with the health impacts of pollution linked
with earlier industrial activity, including mining – from lupus
to cancer. And in spite of it all, they have managed to
preserve a patch of one of the most biodiverse, and imperiled,
ecosystems in the world. … The lithium
boom has received the bulk of attention amid calls to
electrify everything – but another mineral, manganese, has
been earmarked by the US as a critical element to ramp up
the production of electric vehicle batteries.
Kevin Guadalupe walked along the banks of the stream as Montana
Stevens, outfitted in snorkel gear, popped his head out of the
water to report how many fish he’d seen. “Two adults, two
juveniles,” … Both were among the group of surveyors from
several different agencies who recently snorkeled while inching
forward in essentially a flat crawl in the warm, shallow
streams and springs that comprise the headwaters of the Muddy
River, about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas near
Moapa. The count showed that the population of the fish,
which only exists in these waters — about six miles worth of
streams and springs in the Southern Nevada desert — appears to
be stable and similar to the numbers over the past few years.
Ocean water desalinated at a controversial plant in Carlsbad
soon could be stabilizing supplies for south Orange County
residents served by Moulton Niguel Water District, who now
depend on fluctuating allotments from the Colorado River and
Northern California to keep their taps flowing. In exchange,
western San Diego County residents could see some relief from
their soaring water bills if south O.C …
The Salton Sea is shrinking. The sea formed about 120 years ago
when a Colorado River levee burst, creating an extremely large
body of water and a thriving resort town. But as agriculture
runoff and evaporation impacted water quality, the sea slowly
became toxic, turning the once vibrant area into a ghost town.
However, local groups are working together to change that
narrative. The Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge is an
example of what life at the sea looks like when its supported
and managed. At sunrise, coyotes run along berms, snowy egrets
forage for food and thousands of snow geese travel as a noisy
flock. Award-winning wildlife photographer Paulette Donnellon
spends her time capturing life at the refuge.
In 2019, the city of Ukiah completed three of the four phases
required to build a water recycling system, often referred to
as the purple pipe project. The fourth phase is currently
underway. As of now, the city produces about 1,000-acre feet of
recycled water annually, which it uses for agricultural
irrigation, parks, the golf course, schools, and industrial
needs (things like dust control). Although it is rare for me to
praise government projects, this one is a good one. The project
reduces the amount of water pumped from aquifers, rivers, and
lakes. It meets state water conservation objectives, promotes a
healthy agriculture sector, and improves fish habitat. It’s a
win all around. -Written by Dick Selzer, a real estate broker who
has been in the business for more than 45
years.
As another winter nears its close, we bid farewell to the
season of merriment, good cheer and inane arguments about
global warming. If you think global warming is nonsense, winter
offers many cold things to gesture at. “Behold,” you will say,
brandishing a snowball, “global warming is a lie.” If, on the
other hand, you’re terrified of global warming, you might
startle at its shadow. A single unseasonably mild day becomes
just more proof that the world is ending. Fortunately, we don’t
need to depend on people’s fears and vague intuitions to know
how winter is changing. For that, we have high-resolution
temperature data. In fact, I can tell you that in 86 percent of
the contiguous United States, winters are trending warmer since
1980.
An extremely-dangerous winter storm has arrived in California
and will unload feet of snow, powerful winds and rare blizzard
conditions in the mountains through the weekend. The storm will
bury California under its biggest snowfall of the year, posing
a significant danger to travelers – but provide a huge boost
for the state’s water supply and tourism. … The storm
currently hitting the Sierra, will be factored into the April
snow survey. The April survey is viewed as the most
consequential since officials use the measurement to forecast
the state’s water resources for the rest of the year. The
survey showed snowpack was 70% of the April average. Millions
of people in the West depend on a melting snowpack in the
warmer months for hydropower, irrigation and drinking
water.
After years of dangerous decline in the nation’s groundwater, a
series of developments in Western states indicate that state
and federal officials may begin tightening protections for the
dwindling resource. In Nevada, Idaho and Montana, a string of
court decisions have strengthened states’ ability to restrict
overpumping of groundwater. California is considering
penalizing local officials for draining their aquifers. And the
White House has asked scientists who focus on groundwater to
advise how the federal government can help.
When residents of the Yuba River watershed northeast of
Sacramento saw a stretch of the emerald-green river suddenly
turn an alarming reddish-brown on a recent winter day, they
knew immediately who to call. Though water quality concerns are
the purview of federal, state and county environmental
agencies, they alerted the local South Yuba River Citizens
League, confident its volunteers could get to the scene quicker
and investigate the discoloration faster than any regulator.
… The league is among dozens of volunteer organizations
that monitor the health of their local waterways and native
fish populations across California and the West.
U.S. utility-scale renewable electricity generation fell in
2023 due to weather patterns that reduced output from wind
farms and drought that affected hydropower. Data released by
the Energy Information Administration shows a decrease of 0.8
percent compared to the prior year. This is a stunning result,
considering that utility-scale renewables have been a
fast-growing part of the electricity mix and are a crucial
resource for the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.
… Hydropower plants generated 239,855 gigawatt-hours,
down 5.9 percent from 2022. The main reason for the decrease
was a drop in water levels at hydroelectric dams in
areas experiencing drought.
… In an effort to demonstrate the power of proper floodplain
management, the Floodplain Forward Coalition came together with
the conservation touring company, EcoFlight, to show media,
legislative staff and California Natural Resources Secretary,
Wade Crowfoot, how the floodplains are working in the
Sacramento Valley and demonstrate how we can provide more
benefits to people and wildlife with an increase in investment
and permitting from state leaders.