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The deadly flash flood along Texas’ Guadalupe River showed the
devastating toll such a disaster can take, and California could
face similar dangers when extreme weather strikes. Low-lying
areas along rivers and creeks can be hazardous when downpours
and torrents come, as shown by past floods in parts of the
state including the Los Angeles area, the Central Valley and
the Central Coast. When a series of extreme winter storms hit
California in 2023, about two dozen people died statewide,
including some who were swept away by floodwaters and others
who were killed by a rock slide, falling trees or car crashes.
… In a 2022 study, researchers, including UC Irvine’s [Brett]
Sanders, estimated that up to 874,000 people and $108 billion
in property could be affected by a 100-year flood in the Los
Angeles Basin, revealing larger risks than previously estimated
by federal emergency management officials.
A newly signed bill giving developers the ability to buy and
retire farmland in favor of subdivisions has been hailed by
supporters as the single biggest improvement in state water law
since the landmark Arizona Groundwater Management Act passed 45
years ago. It’s been promoted as a ticket to water savings,
since homes typically use significantly less water than cotton
fields. It’s also seen as a path to more affordable housing in
the Phoenix area and Pinal County, where the law would have an
impact. … But what’s called the Ag to Urban law comes with a
big question mark that centers on the often downplayed concept
of groundwater replenishment. The law will significantly
increase the amount of water that must be recharged into the
aquifer to compensate for groundwater pumped by new homes that
are built on retired farmland. As of now, it’s not clear
where that extra water will come from.
After months of stalemate, glimmers of hope have emerged for
consensus on a new plan to manage the shrinking Colorado River.
Negotiators from the seven river basin states said in a series
of meetings in recent weeks that they were discussing a plan
rooted in a concept that breaks from decades of management
practice. Rather than basing water releases on reservoir
levels, it would base the amount released from the system’s two
major reservoirs on the amount of water flowing in the river.
The new concept would be more responsive as river flows become
more variable. The comments signal a break in months of
stalemate between the Upper Basin states — Colorado, Utah, New
Mexico and Wyoming — and the three Lower Basin states:
California, Nevada and Arizona. … The new concept for
managing the river reflects an attempt to account for the
reality of the shrinking river and will, if adopted, adjust
releases from the reservoirs based on the amount of water in
the river.
The Trump administration wants to ax about $2.2 billion in NOAA
research endeavors, grant programs and other initiatives under
its proposed 2026 budget, dramatically reshaping one of the
government’s core science agencies. In a recently released
“budget justification” document laying out the full details of
NOAA’s proposed budget, the administration takes aim at the
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which it wants to
dissolve, shifting much of its work to the National Weather
Service and National Ocean Service. Among the largest OAR
programs the budget would terminate are 16 NOAA cooperative
institutes that include 80 universities performing high-level
research on an array of NOAA priorities, from earth systems
modeling to ocean health to advanced weather radar. The
administration would also eliminate the 50-year-old national
Sea Grant program, which is widely supported by both
Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Other weather forecasting and climate science news:
A new federal effort could end Wyoming’s cloud seeding
program. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene,
R-Georgia, announced Saturday her intention to introduce a bill
criminalizing cloud seeding and other “dangerous” weather
modification techniques. Cloud seeding involves
releasing the chemical silver iodide into clouds. The
compound causes ice crystals to form from liquid water within
the clouds, in turn leading to rain or snow. The Wyoming
Water Development Office began winter cloud seeding programs in
2014 after studying it for several years. The office’s first
project was a ground-based effort in the Wind River Range. The
office began aerial operations in the Medicine Bow and Sierra
Madre ranges in 2018. … Silver iodide is toxic enough to
be regulated by the Clean Water Act. However, the effects of
the chemical haven’t been scientifically proven, according to
the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Some studies show the
amount of silver iodide to be harmless while others claim there
could be effects on marine life from accumulation over
time.
It started out like a typical whitewater rafting trip on the
North Fork of the Kern River. Boaters paddled through churning
rapids, gliding past boulders and crashing through breaking
waves. But after a few miles, as they approached a dam, the
group drifted to the bank and lifted their blue raft out of the
water to begin an eight-hour journey on land. Their plan: to
hold an unusual protest by carrying the raft on foot for 16
miles beside a stretch of river that is rendered impassable
where the dam takes much of its water and reroutes it far
downstream. … [W]hitewater enthusiasts, including some who
run rafting businesses, are demanding changes in the [Southern
California Edison’s Kern River No. 3] hydroelectric plant’s
operations to leave more water in the river. They are calling
for measures to ensure flows for boating as Edison seeks to
renew its license for the hydroelectric plant from the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s office will absorb nearly
5,700 employees from various agencies under a reorganization
plan, according to an internal document detailing the shift.
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) obtained the
list of the employees who are being reassigned to the
secretary’s office from their individual agencies overseen by
the Interior Department, which the group shared with POLITICO’s
E&E News. The employees work in specific specialties, such
as communications and information technology. The document —
which provides the employees’ emails, duty locations, job areas
and other information — shows Interior moving staffers from the
Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Fish and
Wildlife Service, Interior Business Center, National Park
Service, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement,
Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey,
and Office of the Solicitor.
Virtually all of Utah is in a drought for the first time in
nearly three years. Technically, 99.99% of the state is listed
in moderate or severe drought in the latest U.S. Drought
Monitor report, but it was enough for the National Integrated
Drought Information System to point out Thursday that the
Beehive State is now the only U.S. state entirely in drought at
the moment. Dry conditions and above-normal temperatures
pushed the remaining parts of central and northern Utah that
were still considered “abnormally dry” into moderate drought,
Curtis Riganti, a climatologist for the National Drought
Mitigation Center, wrote in the report. … It comes after
the Utah Division of Water Resources reported earlier this week
that outflows from the state’s reservoirs are outpacing inflows
earlier than usual, which is something that typically happens
later in the summer. Utah’s statewide reservoir system is now
79% full, which is above the July median average of 73% but far
below last year’s average of 91%.
… The odor comes from a toxic gas that’s colorless and smells
like rotten eggs. It’s hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, a byproduct of
the millions of gallons of untreated sewage from Mexico that
regularly chokes one of America’s most endangered rivers, the
Tijuana River. UC San Diego researchers,
led by Kim Prather, recently found that sewage-linked bacteria
and toxic chemicals in the river are airborne. In the past
couple of years, the volume of sewage flows, laced with
contaminated stormwater, noxious chemicals and trash, has been
the highest in the last quarter-century, worsening conditions
for those living and working nearby. … But the data remains
woefully insufficient to conclude what long-term exposure means
for individuals, especially for vulnerable groups such as
children or those with respiratory problems. And there are only
three monitors generating information for a border region that
is home to tens of thousands of residents who have raised
concerns for years.
California gulls that nest at the eastern Sierra’s Mono Lake
suffered a catastrophic breeding failure last year, according
to the latest installment in a four-decade-long series of
reports tracking the birds’ health. Biologists with Point Blue
Conservation Science said in their study of the gulls’ 2024
breeding season that although 20,000 breeding birds built
roughly 10,000 nests at the lake, just 324 chicks survived.
… The report attributed the low survival rate to the
scarcity of the brine shrimp essential to the breeding gulls’
diet. That scarcity, in turn, is the product of an unusual
stratification of lake waters due to its artificially low
levels. … The gulls’ reproductive crash is prompting
calls for state water regulators to reconsider
measures ordered more than three decades ago to restore Mono
Lake’s degraded ecosystems.
… California has a semi-arid climate, with several desert and
desert-like regions, including the southern San Joaquin Valley,
the Mojave Desert, the Mono Lake region, and the Imperial
Valley/Salton Sea area. When these locations experience strong
winds, it mobilizes dust particles, and fallowing facilitates
dust emission by exposing the surface to strong winds. These
events will likely increase with rising temperatures. Human
health is front of mind here: direct exposure to dust causes
respiratory and cardiovascular issues and Valley fever. But
there are other implications as well. We know, for instance,
that dust impacts snowpack. Snow typically reflects a lot of
solar energy back into space. However, any impurities on its
surface can reduce that reflection. Dust-covered snow absorbs
part of the solar energy, and the more that happens, the faster
the snow melts. That can lead to earlier snowmelt and increased
river runoff at the beginning of the season, potentially
increasing water scarcity at the end of the growing season.
… Long before the dams came down, tribal nations in the
Klamath Basin had already developed
sophisticated scientific programmes. … The Yurok Tribal
Fisheries Department tracks water quality and habitat projects,
while the Karuk Department of Natural Resources blends
traditional ecological knowledge with advanced scientific
tools, even modelling cultural fire regimes in partnership with
universities. By 2006, both tribes were already deeply
involved in project planning and managing long-term water
quality data for the Klamath. Today, the Klamath Basin
Monitoring Program continues this model of collaboration, with
water quality data gathered by both USGS scientists and tribal
teams. The more recent Klamath River Monitoring Program,
launched in July 2024, formalises this approach further: tribal
representatives from the Karuk, Yurok and Klamath Tribes appear
alongside federal agencies and NGOs on its leadership
roster.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office will consider
joining a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s
declaration in January of a national energy emergency, he told
Newsline in an exclusive interview on Saturday. Last week, the
Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management invoked the
emergency declaration to complete an accelerated environmental
review of a permit to expand a loading facility near Price,
Utah for oil coming out of the nearby Uinta Basin. … Eagle
County and state officials have long opposed increased oil
trains along the Colorado River. In a
June 27 letter to Jerry Davis, acting Utah state director for
the BLM, Weiser wrote that an expedited environmental
assessment for the proposed Wildcat right-of-way expansion
would be a “violation of applicable laws and regulations” that
would block proper public input and “subject Colorado
communities to significant economic, environmental, and health
and safety risks.”
The Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville has wrapped up its
tagging operations for adult spring-run Chinook salmon.
According to the California Department of Water Resources,
around 7,919 salmon were tagged this season. Officials say the
tagging helps track the success of hatchery operations and
improve fish population management. The DWR and the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife also continued thiamine
treatments to address vitamin deficiencies in Chinook salmon,
enhancing their survival from egg to juvenile. The California
Department of Water Resources reported that more than
17,000 spring-run Chinook salmon returned to spawn this year,
marking the best return since 2013. Despite recent drought
impacts, the hatchery continues to meet and exceed production
goals.
An analysis of US surface water monitoring records has found
that less than 1% of chemicals of potential environmental
concern have suitable monitoring data available. The
researchers said the findings highlighted both the shortcomings
of, and prospects for, macroscale chemical risk evaluations in
the US and globally. The ever-increasing speed with which
new chemicals are entering the environment has created a
significant challenge for the assessment of environmental
risks. To find out how the availability of surface water
monitoring data affects the interpretation of chemical risk,
the researchers compiled 112 million chemical monitoring
records for almost 2000 chemicals, along with 78 million
environmental records collated between 1958 and 2019 from
across the US. They then linked this monitoring data with
established toxicity thresholds collated from regulatory
sources for over 170,000 chemicals.
California Justice Department attorneys pushed a federal judge
Tuesday to reject an industry motion that would immediately
halt the state’s nation-leading climate disclosure laws,
arguing that the rules have not been implemented and are not
placing a burden on businesses. The hearing comes on the same
day that the California Air Resources Board was supposed to
finalize rules implementing SB 253 and SB 261. CARB Chair Liane
Randolph said last week that the agency aims to finish the
rules by the end of this year and did not plan to release any
updates Tuesday. The rules would create the first
emissions disclosure standards in the United States and
potentially offer a model for other states, after the
Securities and Exchange Commission announced in March that it
would stop defending a Biden-era federal disclosure law in
court.
Central Valley farmer, noted horse breeder, and philanthropist
John Harris passed away on Wednesday. He was 81 years old
and just 12 days shy of his 82nd birthday. … He
became the sole shareholder and CEO of Harris Farms in 1981
following the death of his father and led the ranch for
decades, including Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant, Harris Ranch
Beef Company, Harris Feeding Company, Harris Farms Thoroughbred
Division and Harris Fresh. … Harris was also known for
his philanthropic efforts, often supporting his alma mater UC
Davis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Fresno State. At
Fresno State, his philanthropy personally benefited Jordan
College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, the Craig
School of Business, the Bulldog Foundation, the Fresno State
Library and the Kremen School of Education and Human
Development.
… One day, according to a master plan, green spaces that
straddle the water and form the 22-mile San Joaquin River
Parkway will be connected with trails and offer visitors more
ways to safely, legally and comfortably get to the
water. The San Joaquin River Conservancy, formed in the
early 1990s to create the parkway, has acquired some of the
properties it needs to make that possible. But today, many of
the conservancy-owned lands are tagged with “Closed” signs and
closed to the public. … Still, there are a number of spaces
today that provide true public access to people seeking
opportunities for outdoors fun, exercise, education and more
along the river. These spaces — some of them already connected
by trails and offering popular fishing, biking and hiking spots
— signal what could be for the 22-mile stretch of water that
many consider to be the Fresno-Madera region’s hidden gem.
Aquafornia is off for the July 4th holiday and the
following Monday. But we will return with a full slate of news
on Tuesday, July 8.
In the meantime, follow us on X/Twitter where we post
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where we post other water-related news.
The team at the Water
Education Foundation wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable
Independence Day!
… Forecasters say it has been a wet start to this year’s
monsoon season, which officially began June 15 and runs through
the end of September. Parts of New Mexico and West Texas have
been doused with rain, while Arizona and Nevada have been hit
with dust storms, which are a common hazard of the season.
… Just ahead of the monsoon, officials with the Navajo
Nation declared an emergency because of worsening drought
conditions across the reservation, which spans parts of New
Mexico, Arizona and Utah. … Forecasters with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the
National Integrated Drought Information System say monsoonal
rainfall only provides a fraction of the West’s water
supplies, with the majority coming from snowpack.
Still, summer rains can reduce drought impacts by lessening the
demand for water stored in reservoirs, recharging soil moisture
and groundwater, and reducing the risk of wildfires.
