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Announcement

Speaker List Grows for Oct. 30 Water Summit in Sacramento
Exclusive Sponsorship Opportunities Still Available; Last Call for Northern California Tour

Northern California Tour Nearly Sold Out!

Only a few seats are left on the bus for our Northern California Tour on Oct. 16-18 that explores the Sacramento Valley from Sacramento to Redding with visits to Oroville and Shasta dams!

Don’t miss this scenic journey through riparian woodland, rice fields, nut orchards and wildlife refuges while learning from experts about the history of the Sacramento River. Grab your ticket here before they’re gone!

Announcement

DWR Director Karla Nemeth to Keynote Water Summit; Application Window Opens Soon for 2025 California Water Leaders

Visit Shasta & Oroville Dams; Learn about Park Fire Impacts Firsthand during NorCal Tour

Only a few seats are left on the bus for our Northern California Tour October 16-18 that journeys across the Sacramento Valley from Sacramento to Redding with visits to Oroville and Shasta dams!

New Tour Stop! This year’s tour includes a stop at Battle Creek where participants will learn firsthand how the Park Fire, California’s fourth-largest wildfire on record, could push already threatened Chinook salmon populations closer to extinction by burning through tributaries to the Sacramento River that provide critical spawning habitat.

Don’t miss this scenic journey through riparian woodland, rice fields, nut orchards and wildlife refuges while learning from experts about the history of the Sacramento River. Grab your ticket here before they’re gone!

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news CalMatters

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Is California discriminating against people who fish in the Bay-Delta?

From the Bay Area to Sacramento and Stockton, from Fresno to north of Redding, Californians — particularly low-income immigrants from Asian countries and other people of color — rely on the San Francisco Bay and the rivers that feed it for food. But the vast watershed is in trouble, plagued by low flows, algal blooms, urban and farm runoff and a legacy of mercury contamination that dates back to the Gold Rush.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now investigating claims that California’s management of the state’s largest estuary has “discriminated on the basis of race, color and national origin” with “its failure to update Bay-Delta water quality standards,” which involve how much water is diverted to cities and farms. The investigation also includes allegations that the State Water Resources Control Board “has intentionally excluded tribes and Black, Asian and Latino residents from participation in the policymaking process.”

Aquafornia news Associated Press

Biden sets a 10-year deadline for US cities to replace lead pipes and make drinking water safer

A decade after the Flint, Michigan, water crisis raised alarms about the continuing dangers of lead in tap water, President Joe Biden is setting a 10-year deadline for cities across the nation to replace their lead pipes, finalizing an aggressive approach aimed at ensuring that drinking water is safe for all Americans. Biden is expected to announce the final Environmental Protection Agency rule Tuesday in the swing state of Wisconsin during the final month of a tight presidential campaign. The announcement highlights an issue — safe drinking water — that Kamala Harris has prioritized as vice president and during her presidential campaign. The new rule supplants a looser standard set by former President Donald Trump’s administration that did not include a universal requirement to replace lead pipes.

Other water quality articles:

Aquafornia news SJV Water

Whether pumping cuts come from state or locals, cuts are coming to Tulare County farmers

Water managers in two Tulare County groundwater agencies are scrambling to keep their farmers out of state clutches as much as possible, even knowing the solution will be painful. “As long as we don’t saddle our landowners with another fee and a report to fill out, that’s our goal,” said attorney Alex Peltzer, who represents Lower Tule River Irrigation District and Pixley groundwater sustainability agencies. “That is our attitude and it is doable. It’s going to be unpopular and tough to do, but it’s possible. We think we can help manage landowners into a soft landing.”  The only way to get there, though, is to significantly reduce pumping – and fast.

Related ag and groundwater articles:

Aquafornia news San Francisco Chronicle

San Franciso is at war over an environmental case headed to the Supreme Court

As San Francisco prepares to ask the Supreme Court to ease federal restrictions on sewage pollution into the ocean and the bay, the case has divided the city’s all-Democratic leadership, and put the city in the unusual position of siding with oil companies and business groups and against the state and federal governments. The Board of Supervisors will take up a resolution Tuesday urging city officials to settle the case and avoid a ruling that could harm offshore water quality nationwide.  San Francisco is siding with “the nation’s biggest polluters” in a lawsuit that “has the potential to seriously destabilize Clean Water Act protections at a time when environmental protections are already under serious threat,” said the resolution by Supervisors Myrna Melgar and Aaron Peskin.

Online Water Encyclopedia

Aquapedia background Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Map

Wetlands

Sacramento National Wildlife RefugeWetlands are among the world’s most important and hardest-working ecosystems, rivaling rainforests and coral reefs in productivity. 

They produce high levels of oxygen, filter water pollutants, sequester carbon, reduce flooding and erosion and recharge groundwater.

Bay-Delta Tour participants viewing the Bay Model

Bay Model

Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bay Model is a giant hydraulic replica of San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It is housed in a converted World II-era warehouse in Sausalito near San Francisco.

Hundreds of gallons of water are pumped through the three-dimensional, 1.5-acre model to simulate a tidal ebb and flow lasting 14 minutes.

Aquapedia background Colorado River Basin Map

Salton Sea

As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below sea level.

The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years, creating California’s largest inland body of water. The Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130 miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe

Lake Oroville shows the effects of drought in 2014.

Drought

Drought—an extended period of limited or no precipitation—is a fact of life in California and the West, with water resources following boom-and-bust patterns. During California’s 2012–2016 drought, much of the state experienced severe drought conditions: significantly less precipitation and snowpack, reduced streamflow and higher temperatures. Those same conditions reappeared early in 2021 prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom in May to declare drought emergencies in watersheds across 41 counties in California.