A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday by veteran journalist Matt Weiser.
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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 coming winter is likely to be dry in California, and
drought conditions may begin to emerge in the central part of
the state, federal climate experts warned Thursday. But
forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration also said weather patterns are fickle this year,
and there’s no clear sign that another prolonged drought like
the one that squeezed California earlier this decade will
settle in.
The California State Board of Food and Agriculture called out
San Luis Obispo County in a letter expressing concern about
irrigated agriculture’s “limited” involvement in crafting
groundwater plans over the Paso Robles basin.
Audubon California’s Salton Sea Program Director Frank Ruiz
served as the guide for this trip. Ruiz says the Salton
Sea is receding at an alarming rate, about 6-inches a year,
exposing toxic lake bed which is evident from the air.
To survive the next drought and meet the looming demands of the
state’s groundwater sustainability law, California is going to
have to put more water back in the ground. But as other Western
states have found, recharging overpumped aquifers is no easy
task.
A set of water rules that has fueled rapid growth in Arizona’s
suburbs is riddled with weaknesses, according to a new report
by researchers at Arizona State University, who argue the
system needs to be overhauled to protect homeowners from rising
costs and to ensure sufficient water supplies for the future.
Valley of the Moon is a small community of 27,000 people tucked
away not far from Sonoma. It’s quiet normally, but the general
manager of their water district has become quite the opposite.
“I will not be the guy who didn’t say he did everything he
could to get water to his people,” said Alan Gardner, general
manager of Valley of the Moon Water District.
Morro Bay pushed through discussions about 17 possible
locations before it finally pinned down the South Bay Boulevard
and Highway 1 site for its water reclamation facility. But the
location is unacceptable to a group of residents who are
petitioning the city’s decision to purchase the site of the
future facility.
2020 was meant to be the start date for the California Marine
Invasive Species Act (MISA), which would have required a
stricter standard of ballast water treatment than that sought
by IMO or the USCG. Implementation of the Act has now been
delayed until 2030
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a right-of-way grant
(ROW) Wednesday that allows for the construction of various
facilities on 711 acres east of Klamath Falls, according to a
news release. … The ROW grant is part of the Swan Lake North
Hydro LLC proposal to develop a 393.3-megawatt hydropower
generating facility…
Change is hard. It’s human nature to resist it. So it’s not
surprising that some Central Valley farmers and water managers
are raising alarm bells about the most sweeping change to state
water law in a century, saying in a recent Fresno Bee series
that the consequences will be “excruciating” and
“catastrophic.”
The five-year project will research and develop
cost-competitive and energy-efficient technologies to
desalinate nontraditional water sources for diverse end uses
from agriculture to municipal drinking water. “Desalination” in
this project is much broader than removing salt from seawater.
It includes removing contaminants … from industrial
wastewater and sewage, among other sources.
Growing berries can be a water intensive proposition, with the
added challenge that prime growing regions are often located in
areas of high water stress: Eighty percent of Driscoll’s
acreage globally can be found in California and Mexico, regions
which coincide with significant water risks to businesses and
the communities in which they operate.
A decade in the making, regulators on Wednesday approved new
rules that will require the agricultural industry and others to
shield nitrates and salt from seeping into groundwater
supplies. “This is huge,” said Patrick Pulupa, executive
officer of the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board.
When California’s historic five-year drought finally relented a
few years ago the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was
higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. … But some
trees did survive the test of heat and drought. Now, scientists
are racing to collect them, and other species around the globe,
in the hope that these “climate survivors” have a natural
advantage that will allow them to better cope with a warming
world.
The sustainable management of groundwater is an important issue
across California, but water users along the coast also must
deal with seawater intrusion when their basins become
imbalanced. Learn how one water district is working to quantify
the problem and address it on our Central Coast Tour Nov. 6-7.
Under an agreement to “bank” water outside of the Santa Clarita
Valley, local water officials … and their water banking
partners, Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District and Irvine
Ranch Water District, opened six new groundwater wells and a
conveyance system to the Cross Valley Canal in Kern County.
The White House has begun reviewing a plan to change the way it
issues environmental permits for infrastructure projects. If
the proposal is finalized, it could speed up National
Environmental Policy Act reviews for roads, bridges, ports,
pipelines, power lines, Internet trunks, and water systems.
At the spring conference of the Association of California Water
Agencies, a panel discussed three dam removal projects: the
completed San Clemente Dam removal project, the Klamath Dam
removal project set to begin next year, and the Matilija Dam
removal project which is still in the planning phases.
The water quality in Los Angeles is not great, but a new study
shows it is improving. UCLA gave Los Angeles County an overall
C+ grade in its annual water report that was released
Wednesday.
At least 17 wells in Chico and Oroville have traces of toxic
chemicals linked to cancer, according to new state testing
released Monday. The testing is part of a multi-year effort by
California to regulate the class of chemicals, called per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances and perfluorooctanoic acids —
shortened to PFAS and PFOA.
