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 International Boundary and Water Commission is again being
sued over water-quality permit violations that have led to
rampant sewage polluting San Diego County’s southernmost
shoreline. The San Diego Coastkeeper and Coastal Environmental
Rights Foundation on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court
against the U.S. arm of the IBWC and its contractor Veolia
Water North America-West, alleging violations of the Clean
Water Act.
President Biden has approved California’s request for a major
disaster declaration to support recovery efforts from a string
of February storms that drenched much of the state with
historic rainfall and mountain snow and resulted in numerous
deaths, officials announced Sunday. Nine California counties —
Butte, Glenn, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa
Barbara, Santa Cruz, Sutter and Ventura — will receive federal
aid as a result of the declaration, which also includes funding
for statewide hazard mitigation efforts, officials said. “
Each morning is similar, but different. As we approach the pond
on the wooden catwalk, you can hear the birds calling,
eventually you start to smell the freshness of the ecosystem,
the glitters and splashing ahead gives some indication of bird
activity on the water. Sometimes an alligator lizard scoots
past along the floorwork – occasionally even two. Steam rises
from my coffee cup, to varying degrees, depending on how
quickly we got out the door. And then there are my three kids,
also ever changing. Each day, one to three are in-tow, usually
chatting it up about geology, Egypt, space, or the day’s most
pressing sports news. And so it goes on most mornings, ideally
when the mist is still fresh or the winter fog lingering, the
Rypel family ventures to the “the duck pond” aka Julie
Partansky Pond in north Davis.
… The federal government’s current approach to this imbalance
is the equivalent of trying to cure cancer with a Band-Aid.
Instead of pursuing a long-term solution, Washington is using
federal funds to pay states and tribal nations to leave water
in the river instead of taking their full allocation. Mostly,
that means paying farmers to stop farming. That is not a viable
long-term solution, and strategically, we need to be
encouraging MORE local farming and food production, not less.
It does make sense to assist local farmers in switching to
crops that require less water, but it does not make sense to
put American farmers out of business and make us more reliant
on food trucked or shipped thousands of miles before it arrives
on our tables. -Written by Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who is running
for the U.S. Senate.
Near the western tip of the Mojave Desert and a few miles west
of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, fields of
wildflowers painted the landscape yellow in spring 2024. On
April 9, the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 8
satellite acquired this image of fields of yellow wildflowers
blanketing Antelope Valley amid solar and wind farms. The day
after the image was acquired, the Antelope Valley California
Poppy Reserve reported that wildflowers were “popping,” but the
region’s famous poppies were not. Rangers at the reserve said
they also saw very few small poppy plants maturing, suggesting
an impressive poppy bloom is unlikely in the coming weeks.
Four years ago, over 97% of Big Basin Redwoods State Park in
Santa Cruz County burned during the state’s worst wildfire
season in recorded history. Last year, unprecedented winter
storms caused an estimated $190 million in damages to coastal
parks. And at Seacliff State Beach, also in Santa Cruz County,
storms flooded the campground and destroyed the beach’s
historic pier. Climate change and the resulting severe
wildfires, extreme storms and rising sea levels are
increasingly threatening our beloved state parks. … To
address this unprecedented threat, we need to create
climate-resilient state parks that can prepare for, adapt to
and recover from climate impacts. -Written by Rachel Norton, the executive director
of the California State Parks Foundation.
A stretch of California that’s considered one of the
fastest-sinking areas in the nation, where farms have pumped so
much water from the ground that the land has slowly collapsed,
is on the verge of state intervention. In a first-ever move,
California regulators are looking to step in and monitor
groundwater pumping in the Tulare Lake subbasin, an
837-square-mile hydrological region flush with cotton, hay and
almonds between Fresno and Bakersfield. Because of heavy
pumping, some places here are sinking a foot a year, causing
roads to buckle and canals to crack. … The looming
confrontation between the state and water agencies marks the
latest, and one of the most significant, developments with
California’s decade-old groundwater legislation, the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA.
Workers hurriedly tried to shore up a rural Utah dam after a
60-foot crack sent water pouring into a creek and endangering
the 1,800 residents of a downstream town. State and local
leaders don’t think the Panguitch Lake Dam is in imminent
danger of breaking open but have told residents to be prepared
to evacuate if conditions worsen.
Even though Pacific storms have become less frequent, as is
often the case in April, a new storm is brewing and will slice
across California just in time for the weekend, bringing areas
of rain, mountain snow and much cooler air, AccuWeather
meteorologists say. … A storm over the Gulf of Alaska will
drop southward just off the coast into Friday and will swing
toward California this weekend. … A few inches to
perhaps a foot of snow may fall over the high country of the
Sierra Nevada from the weekend storm.
The Foundation’s Central Valley
Tour at the end of April is nearing capacity and
while there’s still some space on the tour, there’s
another very exciting opportunity on the horizon this summer
to engage directly with groundwater experts from
California and across the world. Toward Sustainable
Groundwater in Agriculture: June 18-20 The
3ʳᵈ International Groundwater Conference Linking Science &
Policy returns to San Francisco for the first time
since 2016 and you won’t want to miss this opportunity to hear
about the latest scientific, management, legal and policy
advances for sustaining our groundwater resources in
agricultural regions around the world. Learn how you can
attend, sponsor
or
exhibit at this amazing event!
The state water board has begun taking testimony in its long
process to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the
proposed off-stream reservoir.
As the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities
continue to increase the levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, the ocean is absorbing a large portion of the CO2,
which is making seawater more acidic. … And here’s one
important fact about ocean acidification: It’s not happening at
the same rate everywhere. The California coast is one of the
regions of the world where ocean acidification
is occurring the fastest. … In particular, effluent
discharged from coastal sewage treatment plants, which has high
nitrogen levels from human waste, has been shown to
significantly contribute to ocean acidification off the
Southern California coast.
The Upper Truckee River Watershed is the largest contributor of
freshwater to Lake Tahoe. … With fewer floodplains, more fine
sediment and nutrients began flowing in, and the lake’s clarity
declined from more than 130 feet in the 1960s to a low point of
60 feet in 2017. … Once a healthy wetland, the property
is paved with asphalt, housing a defunct Motel 6 and a
long-shuttered restaurant. During the next several years,
the buildings will be razed, the asphalt removed and the
wetland restored, connecting 560 acres of the Upper Truckee
Marsh on the shores of Lake Tahoe to 206-acre Johnson Meadow
across Highway 50 to the south. It’s all part of a bigger
effort to restore the lake’s clarity by reclaiming habitat
around the 9 miles of the river closest to Lake Tahoe, an area
that has seen heavy development.
Erica Gies has always cared deeply about water. … Today, Gies
is an award-winning independent journalist and author who has
covered sustainability and water in outlets like The New York
Times, Scientific American, Nature, The Economist, and National
Geographic … River Partners sat down with Gies recently to
talk about bringing back floodplains, the importance of native
seeds and plants in restoration, what California is doing—and
what it could be doing—in managing water, and how optimistic
she is that we can thrive in an era of weather whiplash.
California fishermen spoke out against state water management
policies Thursday after federal fishing officials canceled
ocean salmon fishing season in the state for the second
consecutive year, delivering a major blow to the fishing
industry. … Salmon stocks have been impacted by the
state’s multi-year drought and climate disruptions, including
wildfires, algal blooms and ocean forage shifts, according to
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The salmon
population has also been impacted by rising river water
temperatures in addition to a rollback of federal
protections for waterways by the Trump administration.
As part of a new survey launched this year, personnel with the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife are visiting various
locations along the Russian River, including at least two in
Ukiah, to collect data regarding the Steelhead trout that local
anglers are catching. One of the main reasons why the survey is
being done in person, according to CDFW staff, is that while
the existing “Steelhead report Card program is meant to collect
similar data,” only about a third of the report cards are
submitted.
A northern Arizona county is getting $15.5 million in federal
funding to mitigate post-wildfire flood damage, the Biden
administration announced Thursday. Coconino County received the
funding to make improvements to the drainage system along U.S.
Highway 89. Wildfires have made the area more susceptible to
flooding that threatens homes and businesses and forces highway
closures. The Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation are
disproportionately impacted by the flood threat, according to
the U.S. Department of Transportation.
… the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [on
Wednesday] announced the final National Primary Drinking Water
Regulation establishing the first national legally enforceable
drinking water standards … for six per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly referred to as
“forever chemicals” …. actions required for public water
systems under the final rule are likely going to require
significant investment of money, time, and human effort.
President Biden plans to expand the perimeters of two national
monuments in California, protecting mountains and meadows in a
remote area between Napa and Mendocino as well as a rugged
stretch east of Los Angeles, two people familiar with the
administration’s plans said Thursday. The San Gabriel Mountains
National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National
Monument will each get new boundaries designed to protect land
of cultural significance to Native American tribes, as well as
biodiversity and wildlife corridors, said the people, who asked
not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the
plans publicly.
In a devastating blow to California’s fishing industry, federal
fishery managers unanimously voted today to cancel all
commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of
California for the second year in a row. The decision is
designed to protect California’s dwindling salmon populations
after drought and water diversions left river flows too warm
and sluggish for the state’s iconic Chinook salmon to
thrive. … Many in the fishing industry say they
support the closure, but urged state and federal officials to
do more to improve conditions in the rivers salmon rely on.
Fishing advocates and environmentalists have lambasted Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s administration for failing to prioritize
water quality and flows to protect salmon in the
vital Bay-Delta watershed.
