California regulators this week proposed delaying new rules
aimed at reducing how much water people use on their lawns,
drawing praise from agencies that said they needed more time to
comply but criticism from environmentalists who warn that the
delay would damage the state’s already scarce supply. Last
year, California proposed new rules that would, cumulatively,
reduce statewide water use by about 14%. Those rules included
lowering outdoor water use standards below the current
statewide average by 2035. On Tuesday, regulators proposed
delaying that timeline by five years, until 2040. The State
Water Resources Control Board is scheduled to vote on the rules
later this year. The state would not punish people for using
too much water on their lawns.
… A windswept county in the Sacramento Valley — whose
entire population of 22,000 people is just one-third of Palo
Alto’s — may soon be known for something else: the largest new
reservoir anywhere in California in the past 50 years. Last
weekend, President Biden signed a package of bills that
included $205 million in construction funding for Sites
Reservoir, a proposed $4.5 billion project planned for the
rolling ranchlands west of the town of Maxwell, about 70
miles north of Sacramento. … The make-or-break moment
for Sites is a series of hearings scheduled to run from June to
November in which the State Water Resources Control Board will
analyze fisheries studies and other documents and decide
whether to award it the water rights to move forward.
The Sacramento Superior Court has ruled in favor of the State
Water Board’s 2018 Bay Delta Plan update, denying all 116
claims by petitioners. In December 2018, the State Water
Resources Control Plan adopted revised flow
objectives for the San Joaquin River and its three major
tributaries, the Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced rivers. The
new flow objectives provide for increased flows on the three
tributaries to help revive and protect native fall-run
migratory fish populations. The Board also adopted a revised
south Delta salinity objectives, increasing the level of
salinity allowed from April to August. Several petitions
were filed in several counties challenging the Board’s
action.
Sacramento and cities across California caught a break from the
state’s water regulator this week after the agency faced
criticism that its water conservation rules were too
complicated and costly to meet. Regulators at the State Water
Resources Control Board proposed new conservation rules Tuesday
that would ease water savings requirements for urban water
suppliers and will ultimately lead to less long-term water
savings than initially planned. Under the new rules, the city
of Sacramento would have to cut its overall water use by 9% by
2035 and 14% by 2040, far less than an initial proposal that
would have required it to cut back water use by 13% by 2030 and
18% by 2035.
A new recommendation from the California State Water Quality
Control Board in its Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan
(Bay-Delta Plan) for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta Estuary could see Solano County forced to adapt
to a fraction of the water it is currently allocated from Lake
Berryessa. The implications for Solano County cities could be
enormous, leaving Solano County with about 25 percent of its
current allocation. Spanning hundreds of miles from north of
Lake Shasta to Fresno, the tributaries of the Sacramento and
Sac Joaquin rivers that feed into the San Francisco Bay reach
well into the Sierra Nevadas and Central Valley. The State
Water Quality Control Board has noted that diminished river
flows in these areas are harming fish habitats and are
detrimental to the water system as a whole ecologically.
Congress has given the green light for a significant boost to
the Sites Reservoir Project, based on a recommendation from the
Bureau of Reclamation. A total of $205.6 million in federal
funds is being allocated. The money comes from the Water
Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act, which
helps enhance water systems across the country. It marks the
largest single award in the history of the WIIN Act for a
storage project. … The Sites Reservoir aims to bolster
water supplies across California while also supporting native
wildlife during droughts. This project will add 1.5 million
acre-feet of storage, significantly enhancing the state’s water
flexibility and reliability during dry years. Last summer, the
project received $30 million from the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act, making the total federal contribution to date
$439.3 million.
Across the parched West, there are signs the region’s
decades-long population and housing boom is confronting the
realities of dwindling water supplies. These have come in
recent months from court rulings and executive edicts alike, as
states crack down on the potential for new users to draw from
already oversubscribed aquifers and surface waters. The
skeleton of a would-be subdivision outside Las Vegas
illustrates the coming constraints, stymied by a lack of water
to support the new community. Water shortages also forced
difficult decisions in other places, such as new restrictions
in the Phoenix suburbs and a Utah town that halted all new
construction for more than two years until it could secure a
new well.
Monday marked a key cutoff time by which Colorado River states
had been tasked with proposing a consensus-based plant for
long-term water conservation in the overtaxed system. But
with the arrival of that deadline, set by the Department of the
Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, no such agreement was on the
table. Instead, the river system’s two main contingents — the
Upper and Lower basins — submitted their own competing
plans. The proposals pertained to an upcoming update of
the rules — known as the 2007 Interim Guidelines for Lower
Basin Shortages — that govern where, when and how much the
seven basin states must conserve water from the 1,450-mile
river.
In 2012, one of the driest years in Colorado in recent memory,
the Crystal River practically dried up. Ken Neubecker, a
now-retired Colorado projects director at environmental group
American Rivers and former member of the Pitkin County Healthy
Rivers board, recalls the stream conditions. … These
extremely low-water conditions returned in the drought years of
2018, 2020 and 2021, with river flows near the fish hatchery
just south of Carbondale hovering around 8 to 10 cfs — not
enough to support aquatic life and nowhere near the 100 cfs
that the state of Colorado says is the minimum needed to
maintain a healthy stream.
With climate change compounding the strains on the Colorado
River, seven Western states are starting to consider long-term
plans for reducing water use to prevent the river’s reservoirs
from reaching critically low levels in the years to come. But
negotiations among representatives of the states have so far
failed to resolve disagreements. And now, two groups of states
are proposing competing plans for addressing the river’s
chronic gap between supply and demand. In one camp, the three
states in the river’s lower basin — California, Arizona and
Nevada — say their approach would share the largest-ever water
reductions throughout the Colorado River Basin to ensure
long-term sustainability.
With nature providing plenty of water – finally – this year,
and groundwater regulation well underway, water managers,
farmers and others turned their focus to infrastructure at
Thursday’s Water Summit put on by the Water Association of Kern
County. Early in the day’s line up of speakers, Edward Ring,
senior fellow with the California Policy Center, captured the
audience’s attention with an extensive cost-benefit analysis of
the Delta Conveyance project, a tunnel that would take
Sacramento River water beneath the ecologically sensitive
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta 45 miles to be exported south. His
conclusion: the project has a whopping price tag for a
“dribble” of water.
Facing rising costs and rates, the leaders of San Diego’s water
lifelines are looking to sell some of its most expensive
supply: de-salted ocean water from a massive plant in Carlsbad.
But, at the same time, they’re also trying to make more of
it. Dan Denham, the San Diego County Water Authority’s new
general manager, says he wants to expand seawater desalination
not because he thinks San Diego needs more water, but because
he thinks they can sell it and recoup at least a little of the
massive investment local rate payers have made on the plant.
… “We’re looking to expand the plant as an opportunity for
users, whether that’s in southern California or the lower
Colorado River basin,” Denham said.
The seven U.S. states that draw water from the Colorado
River basin are suggesting new ways to determine how the
increasingly scarce resource is divvied up when the river can’t
provide what it historically promised. The Upper Basin and
the Lower Basin states, as neighbors, don’t agree on the
approach. Under a proposal released Wednesday by Arizona,
California and Nevada, the water level at Lake Mead — one of
the two largest of the Colorado River reservoirs — no longer
would determine the extent of water cuts like it currently
does. The three Lower Basin states also want what they say is a
more equitable way of distributing cuts that would be a 50-50
split between the basins once a threshold is hit.
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.
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 …
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.
For too long, California and other states have viewed
stormwater as either a threat or an inconvenience — something
to be whisked away from cities and communities as quickly as
possible. But as traditional sources of water face worsening
strain from climate change, population growth, agriculture and
other factors, those unused gallons of rainwater pouring across
asphalt or down rain gutters are starting to be viewed as an
untapped resource that can help close the widening gap between
supply and demand. In a report released Thursday,
researchers with the Pacific Institute determined that every
year, 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater go uncaptured across
the United States — or roughly 53 billion gallons per
day.
A Native American tribe with one of the largest outstanding
claims to water in the Colorado River basin is closing in on a
settlement with more than a dozen parties, putting it on a path
to piping water to tens of thousands of tribal members in
Arizona who still live without it. Negotiating terms outlined
late Wednesday include water rights not only for the Navajo
Nation but the neighboring Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute
tribes in the northeastern corner of the state. The water would
come from a mix of sources: the Colorado River that serves
seven western states, the Little Colorado River, and aquifers
and washes on tribal lands. The agreement is decades in the
making and would allow the tribes to avoid further litigation
and court proceedings, which have been costly.
California fails to capture massive amounts of stormwater
rushing off city streets and surfaces that could help supply
millions of people a year, according to a new analysis released
today. The nationwide report, by researchers with the Pacific
Institute, ranks California ninth nationwide among states with
the most estimated urban runoff. … The analysis reports
California sheds almost 2.3 million acre-feet of precipitation
from pavement, roofs, sidewalks and other surfaces in cities
and towns every year. If it were captured and treated, that
would be enough to supply more than a quarter of California’s
urban water use, or almost 7 million Southern California
households each year.
Even before the major storm forecast for this weekend, a wet
February has eased fears that California would end the rainy
season with too little water. In fact, many parts of the state
are now likely to wrap up with average or above-average rain
and snow totals. The state’s March snow survey, taking place
Thursday, will show that snowpack in California’s mountains is
around 80% of average for the date, a substantial leap from the
end of January when it hovered around 50%. Rainfall, meanwhile,
stood at 103% of average statewide Wednesday, up from about 80%
last month. While the numbers are not exceptional, they mark
enough of an improvement since the start of the year —
when some water managers began to talk about drought —
that reservoirs are sufficiently primed with precipitation to
avoid major water shortages in 2024, even if the rest of the
rainy season disappoints.
Negotiations among the seven states that share the
drought-stricken Colorado River have stalled ahead of a March
target date to propose new operating plans for the waterway, as
officials split over which states should absorb the brunt of
cuts triggered by the region’s ongoing drought. The states —
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the Upper Basin and
Arizona, California and Nevada in the Lower Basin — are now
expected to submit separate plans to the Biden administration
early next month, rather than a single cohesive plan, according
to representatives of states from both regions. “If there
is interest in getting to a seven-state consensus compromise,
all seven states have to actually compromise and recognize this
is a massive problem that needs solving, not a party primary or
campaign rally,” J.B. Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board
of California, told E&E News.
One of Colorado’s leading urban water conservation strategies —
turf replacement — could require up to $2.5 billion to save
20,000 acre-feet of water, according to a recent report
commissioned by the state’s top water policy agency. Colorado
communities are facing a drier future with water shortages and
searching for ways to cut down water use. … This
turf-focused strategy has gained new momentum since 2020 and
2021, when the water crisis in the Colorado River Basin became
shockingly apparent (to more than just water experts)
as two enormous reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, fell to
historic lows.
The Colorado River’s water serves 40 million people — including
2 million Utah residents. … The states
are negotiating their preferred plan for those
operations for Reclamation to consider. Their plan has to
consider extreme drought and climate change in the American
West, which make for a shrinking river. Reclamation asked
the states to submit their plan in March so the agency would
have time to analyze it. But now, Amy Haas, executive director
of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, told The Salt Lake
Tribune that she thinks it is unlikely that the seven states
will have a unified plan by then — which means the feds won’t
yet be able to consider their proposal.
For five years, a $24 million water transfer agreement has
threatened to establish a potentially dangerous precedent, and
turn the Colorado River into a commodity. Now that deal will be
put on hold under a decision in U.S. District Court. U.S.
District Judge Michael Liburdi ruled against that water
transfer agreement on Wednesday. It was a decision made on the
grounds that federal Reclamation officials’ approval of the
agreement last year, absent an environmental impact study in
that agreement, may have been “arbitrary and capricious.”
Even after all the rain and snow in California this month,
state and federal water managers announced Wednesday that
they’re planning to limit deliveries from the state’s biggest
reservoirs this year because seasonal precipitation has lagged.
Their plans, however, don’t fully account for the recent
storms. The State Water Project, with Lake Oroville as its
centerpiece, expects to ship 15% of the water that was
requested by the mostly urban water agencies it supplies,
including many in the Bay Area. The estimate is up from 10% in
December but still low. The federally run Central Valley
Project, which counts Shasta Lake among the many reservoirs it
operates primarily for agriculture, expects to send 15% of the
water requested by most irrigation agencies in the San Joaquin
Valley and 75% to most in the Sacramento Valley.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management recently awarded $20.9
million for six projects along the Colorado River aimed at
reducing the costly amount of salt in its water. Five of the
projects are in Colorado. In a Feb. 12 press release, the BLM
estimated economic damages currently caused by excess salinity
in the Colorado River water at about $332 million per year.
That economic damage mostly comes from the inability to plant
certain types of crops which need the river’s water for
irrigation, as well as costs associated with treating the
river’s water for residential and commercial usage, according
to a BLM report released six years ago. ”This funding will
prevent approximately 11,661 tons of salt each year from
entering the Colorado River,” the BLM announced in its press
release.
According to a new analysis by the Sites Project Authority, the
proposed Sites Reservoir would be 80% full after recent storms
had the long-planned project been in place. In development for
several years, Sites Reservoir is considered one of the largest
reservoir projects in California. It is an off-stream water
storage project that will be situated north of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Sites Valley, 10 miles west of
Maxwell where Colusa and Glenn counties meet. Officials said
once built, the reservoir will capture and store a portion of
stormwater from the Sacramento River – after all other water
rights and regulatory requirements are met – and release water
to benefit communities, farms, businesses, and wildlife across
the state during drier years.
CBS 8 is Working for You to investigate the Lake Hodges water
supply, after receiving a huge response to our report on the
release of more than 600 million gallons of water into the
ocean. Now, CBS 8 has learned, the city of San Diego has lost
its access to Lake Hodges water, due to a state order by the
Division of Safety of Dams, which shut down a pipeline operated
by the San Diego County Water Authority. The city of San
Diego is under the state order to keep Lake Hodges water
levels low – at 280 feet – because Hodges Dam
was found to be unsafe. Neighbor Michael Citrin was not
happy to learn that, since January, the city of San Diego
has released 619 million gallons of water from Lake Hodges, and
there is no end in sight as another storm is on its way next
week.
The seven Colorado River states face a quickly approaching
deadline to present a unified plan for how to manage the
drying river that provides water for 40 million people
across the West. But major disagreements remain ahead of next
month’s target — and the Upper Basin states, including
Colorado, say they may submit their own proposal to the federal
government instead. … The Upper Basin states are
creating their own proposal to present to federal officials in
case a seven-state consensus is not reached in time, according
to the basin’s statement.
Coloradans gunning to join this year’s effort to save water in
the Colorado River Basin could help conserve up to 17,000
acre-feet of water — much more than the 2,500 acre-feet saved
in 2023 — and receive about $8.7 million in return. The
voluntary, multistate program pays water users to temporarily
use less water. … After a stumbling relaunch in 2023,
this year’s program is moving forward with more applications,
more potential water savings and more money for
participants. This year’s application period closed in
December with 124 applications, according to the Upper Colorado
River Commission. Of those, Colorado water users submitted 56;
Utah, 32; New Mexico, one; and Wyoming, 35.
Will seven Western states be able to rapidly craft a voluntary
plan to keep the Colorado River afloat for decades to come?
It’s increasingly unclear, as negotiations have foundered
between two sides, according to key players. There are
sharp differences between northern and southern states’
proposals. … For now, negotiations between the two sides
have ground to a halt, even as a deadline looms to produce a
draft agreement by next month. The last time representatives
from all seven states met face to face was in early January.
… The rain and subsequent flooding [in California] could mean
good things for the water crisis gripping the southwestern
U.S., though—especially the Colorado River and its basin if the
precipitation reaches the upper basin. The Upper Colorado River
basin covers Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, while the
lower basin covers Arizona, California, and Nevada. If the
moisture unleashed from the atmospheric river reaches the Upper
Colorado River Basin, it could improve its flows which have
been incredibly low in recent years.
While this week’s atmospheric river drenched Southern
California with record-breaking rainfall, some water managers
were busy capturing some of that runoff to save for dry days
ahead. Others were busy fending off an environmental disaster.
Los Angeles County Public Works captured 2.7 billion gallons of
stormwater as the rain fell in sheets, public information
officer Liz Vazquez told CNN in an email – enough water for
65,600 residents for a year. In all, stormwater capture
facilities across Southern California snagged around 15,000
acre-feet – or around 4.9 billion gallons – for recharge into
groundwater since Sunday night, according to Rebecca Kimitch, a
spokesperson for Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California.
After a rainy and snowy start of February, California’s water
situation is starting to look promising for the year. All but
one of the major reservoirs are storing in excess of 100% of
their average, and five out of the 12 are nearing capacity,
since they are over 75% full. Also, no part of the state is
currently under drought conditions. But that doesn’t mean
California no longer faces chronic water shortages. Droughts
are becoming more common and more extreme as the climate crisis
intensifies, and communities dependent on depleted underground
aquifers and parched Colorado River supplies do not have enough
water to meet the demands of their farms and cities. . … Last
year’s Sierra Nevada snowpack tied with 1952 for the highest on
record at the end of the snow season. So far this year, on Feb.
5, the snowpack was 72% of average for that date.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water
supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the
numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another
drought. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most
of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project
will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low
number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more
rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather
forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing. The National
Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley will be warm and
windy the next few days, with no rain in the forecast.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
People in California and the
Southwest are getting stingier with water, a story that’s told by
the acre-foot.
For years, water use has generally been described in terms of
acre-foot per a certain number of households, keying off the
image of an acre-foot as a football field a foot deep in water.
The long-time rule of thumb: One acre-foot of water would supply
the indoor and outdoor needs of two typical urban households for
a year.
Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36 inch
poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate
the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of
aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface
water.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Flood Management explains the
physical flood control system, including levees; discusses
previous flood events (including the 1997 flooding); explores
issues of floodplain management and development; provides an
overview of flood forecasting; and outlines ongoing flood control
projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
An acre-foot is a common way in the U.S. to measure water volume
and use. It is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre of
land one foot deep. An acre is about the size of a football
field.
An acre-foot of water equals 325,851 gallons, and historically
that was enough to serve the needs of two families for a
year in California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
agricultural water use – its successes, the planned state
regulation to quantify its efficiency and the potential for
greater savings.
This issue updates progress on crafting and implementing
California’s 4.4 plan to reduce its use of Colorado River water
by 800,000 acre-feet. The state has used as much as 5.2 million
acre-feet of Colorado River water annually, but under pressure
from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and the other six states
that share this resource, California’s Colorado River parties
have been trying to close the gap between demand and supply.