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 Doug Beeman.
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Please Note: The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here, and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is urging nearly
3 million water customers throughout the Bay Area to cut water
usage by 10%, as it declares a water shortage emergency due to
the ongoing drought. … By declaring the emergency, the agency
would be able to access water reserves and resources only
available during emergencies, officials said. Under the
measure, customers are urged to reduce water usage by 10%
compared to 2019-2020 levels…. Along with providing
water to San Francisco, the agency also has customers in
portions of Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
On the parched west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the drought
has created a windfall for companies like Big River Drilling. A
water-well contractor based in the Fresno County community of
Riverdale, Big River can hardly keep up with demand for new
wells as farmers and rural residents seek to extract more water
from underground. … But talk about poor timing:
California farmers are supposed to start throttling back their
groundwater pumping to comply with a state law called the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA.
Drought has tightened its grip on the Western U.S., as dry
conditions tick on into their second decade and strain a river
that supplies 40 million people. Experts agree that things are
bad and getting worse. But how exactly do you measure a
drought, and how can you tell where it’s going? Brad Udall is
an expert on the subject, studying water and climate at
Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center. Lately, his
forecasts for the basin haven’t been particularly uplifting.
As the application window for a near billion-dollar state
program designed to help cash-strapped Californians with
pandemic-related drinking water debt nears its close date,
almost 50% of eligible water systems have fully completed the
application, but nearly one quarter haven’t yet started the
process — a scenario that could see many struggling households
lose the chance to have their financial burdens
alleviated.
Half a century ago, Congress set loose a torrent of confusion
when it wrote the Clean Water Act to protect the “waters of the
United States.” Lobbyists and lawyers have fought ever since
over the phrase, often dubbed WOTUS. Its meaning seems
grade-school simple but quickly grows as murky as a backwoods
swamp. Into these perilous waters the Biden administration
wades.
The Rosamond Community Services District Board of Directors, on
Thursday, agreed to begin eminent domain proceedings to obtain
water rights from agricultural land owned by the Calandri
family on Rosamond’s west side. The Board unanimously approved
a Resolution of Necessity, which declared it in the public
interest to acquire the property for the water rights. Ed Lear,
a litigation attorney representing the Calandri family, said
they will challenge the action as a violation of the water
basin adjudication.
Consumers should prepare to pay more than usual for live and
fake Christmas trees this year because of climate change and
supply chain issues, according to the American Christmas Tree
Association. The real Christmas tree harvest was impacted by
wildfires, floods and extreme weather in Oregon, which is the
number one producer of Christmas trees in the nation and where
many West Coast sellers buy their trees.
In actions that carry out President Biden’s economic agenda,
the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed two pieces
of significant legislation, including a $1.2 trillion
bipartisan package that includes $8.3 billion for critical
water projects in drought-parched California and the West. On
Friday, the House also passed the president’s social safety-net
bill, the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, on a party-line
vote.
After a year of extreme drought, massive wildfires, and even a
brief spate of record-breaking rainfall, Californians no longer
question whether the climate is changing—climate change is
here. The escalating crises add urgency to the issue of how
Californians manage their water. From November 15–17, the PPIC
Water Policy Center convened three expert panels (as part of
our annual water priorities conference) to discuss how we can
“seize the drought” to meet the challenges we’re already
facing.
High fire danger is forecast for Southern California over the
Thanksgiving holiday, as Santa Ana winds bring dry, gusty
conditions from Ventura to San Diego on Wednesday through
Friday. … [Officials] described the event as the
strongest of the season so far, with gusts of up to 70 mph,
along with humidity percentages into the single digits. Given
the threat, Southern California utilities are considering
cutting power to nearly 200,000 customers to prevent their
equipment from sparking a wildfire.
A key hurdle for a Monterey Peninsula public water agency to
acquire the assets of California American Water Co. was cleared
Friday when a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Cal Am that
the water district chief said was just one of many attempts to
thwart the takeover. Monterey County Superior Court Judge
Thomas Wills denied a lawsuit filed in August by Cal Am
challenging the water district’s certification of a key study —
called an environmental impact report — that the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District prepared as part of its
acquisition effort.
As planning and environmental review efforts continue to
support the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) determination
of whether a single tunnel option to modernize Delta conveyance
should be approved, an important component of the environmental
review process is to assess environmental resource impacts
within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s (Delta) estuary.
To help agricultural producers improve water quality, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS) has awarded $1.6 million in funding through the
National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI) for three projects in
high priority watersheds in California. … The Clear Lake
project has been selected for funding as a new Source Water
Protection planning watershed, targeting conservation efforts
through the National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI), according
to the release.
The mining company, Imperial Gold, is currently in the process
of being approved by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to
create a new gold mine by Black Mountain that would see new
jobs and health benefits introduced into the Imperial Valley.
…. But what was perhaps the most exciting prospect was
how their mine construction could have a direct beneficial
impact on the health crisis at the Salton Sea, according to
[Chief Operating Officer for Imperial Gold, Marc] Leduc.
CalEnviroScreen — short for California Communities
Environmental Health Screening — was developed by the state
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to help
identify communities that are most burdened by environmental
issues. … The methodology behind some measures is
straightforward, like air quality. For air quality, the tool
pulls the annual mean concentration of particulate matter (PM)
2.5 of each census tract from California Air Resources Board
data. Others, such as drinking water contaminants, are more
complicated and involve combining data points from a variety of
sources.
The U.S. and Mexican governments met today in Tijuana to
discuss transboundary water pollution challenges along the
shared border. … Recognizing the critical importance of
addressing water pollution for the benefit of citizens on both
sides of the border, the U.S. and Mexican delegations reviewed
the important progress made toward reducing pollution
levels. Mexico highlighted their $46 million dollars of
investment by local, state, and federal authorities completed
between 2019 to 2021 in water sanitation projects for the
Tijuana River …
Amy Cordalis is a fisherwoman, attorney, mother, and member of
the Yurok Tribe, the largest federally recognized Tribe in
California. From 2014-2016, she was General Counsel for the
Tribe, the first woman and first Yurok tribal member to serve
in that position. She is also the principal of the Ridges to
Riffles Conservation Fund, a non-profit fund representing
Native American tribes in natural and cultural resource
matters.
When farmers turned the San Joaquin Valley into an agricultural
powerhouse in the 20th century, they dammed and drained its
central river … siphoned water from Northern California’s
river systems and brought it south to thirsty farmland.
… Released on streaming platforms earlier this month,
[the documentary film] River’s End is an urgent crash
course on the water wars that are shaping California—and, by
extension, the U.S. food system. Viewers get a primer on
California’s major rivers and salmon runs, then watch as
agribusiness—and the city of Los Angeles—wreak havoc on them,
with moneyed interests seizing water through lobbying
and shady deals. –Written by Teresa Cotsirilos, a staff writer and
producer at FERN, where she covers food systems, labor, and
climate change in the Western US.
As part of an ongoing effort to protect and restore critical
habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) has restored more than half of the 1,187
acres of former grazing and dairy lands into rich habitat for
fish and wildlife as part of the Dutch Slough Tidal Marsh
Restoration Project. The project is one of the largest
multi-benefit freshwater tidal marsh restoration efforts
implemented.
