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 Chris Bowman.
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Over the last month, salmon have gathered in clear pools in the
Salmon River as they have returned to their spawning grounds.
This undammed river, a tributary of the Klamath River near the
California-Oregon border, is one of the last remaining
strongholds of a type of salmon that is increasingly at risk of
extinction: spring-run chinook. The salmon population here has
sharply declined in the last decade. But the recent removal of
four dams on the Klamath is bringing new hope among biologists,
environmental activists and Indigenous leaders that the fish
could begin to recover. … Biologists expect that with
the dams now removed and the Klamath flowing freely, all types
of native fish will benefit …
Monday marked the end of the Imperial Irrigation District’s
49-day Deficit Irrigation Program. Since the Imperial
Irrigation District approved and implemented this
additional water conservation program – expected to yield
170,000 acre-feet of water this year (and as much as
500,000 AF over the next two years) – the Salton Sea’s rate of
decline increased 50% relative to the recent average rate,
exposing thousands of additional acres of lakebed, Pacific
Institute and Alianza Coachella Valley said in a joint press
release. … Since August 12, 2024, the surface elevation
of the Salton Sea has fallen by about 10 inches and the Sea has
shrunk by about 3,500 acres, exposing even more dust-emitting
playa, degrading the health of the surrounding communities.
The pipes are in, the filters are primed and the water is
almost ready to flow at the Soquel Creek Water District’s Pure
Water Soquel facility in Live Oak. Although the faucets won’t
be turned on until early next year, the new facility’s nearly
three-year construction effort was capped off Thursday at a
ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by district officials and
featuring keynote addresses from a slough of regional, state
and federal dignitaries. A decade in the making, the roughly
$180 million facility is an integral part of the district’s
effort to bring the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin–the
sole freshwater resource for its 40,600 customers–into
sustainability by 2040.
Our 40ᵗʰ annual Water
Summit, an engaging day of discussions addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West, will
be held on Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Sacramento with the
theme, Reflecting on Silver Linings in Western
Water. Speakers and conversations will highlight
the promising advances in managing the West’s most precious
natural resource. Karla Nemeth, director
of California’s Department of Water Resources, will kick off
the day with an opening keynote. See how our speaker list
is growing and how you can register
here.
Proposition 4 would allow the state to borrow $10 billion by
issuing bonds bonds for natural resources and climate
activities. Individual proposals include efforts to ensure safe
drinking water, strengthen drought, flood and water
“resilience,” increase clean energy production, address sea
level rise, create parks and outdoor access, provide heat
mitigation or fund wildfire prevention programs.
Millions of people in the West are experiencing a dangerous and
historic October heatwave with temperatures so extreme they’d
be considered hot during the peak of summer. The heat has been
so potent the United States soared to and tied the highest
temperature ever seen in the month of October on Tuesday. At
least 125 places from the West Coast to the Rockies have tied
or broken all-time October heat records since the month began.
Many others have set daily high temperature records. It’s
another reminder that extreme heat is no longer confined to the
summer as the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution.
Zooplankton—tiny aquatic animals known to graze on bacteria—are
ineffective at removing fecal microorganisms
from sewage-contaminated water, according to a new
study. The findings challenged the assumptions of the
researchers that these tiny animals could act as natural
cleaners by inactivating harmful pathogens in freshwater and
saltwater environments. The hypothesis was that zooplankton
would consume or neutralize fecal microorganisms, potentially
reducing the risk to human health after water contamination.
But the results told a different story.
Action News Now is learning more about the sites reservoir
project proposed for Colusa County. Two weeks ago, the
developer needed to resubmit its application for a water
quality permit under the Clean Water Act with more information.
The pumping station in Hamilton City is one of the two stations
that will divert water from the Sacramento River to the sites
reservoir. The other station is in Red Bluff. Water is diverted
from the river into the Glenn-Colusa irrigation district’s main
canal. The canal infrastructure is already here, but they must
build a regulating reservoir on site. The sites reservoir
aims to create more water storage for the state to use and to
help in drought years. The general manager for the Glenn-Colusa
Irrigation District told Action News Now that it will be a
great solution to water challenges in California.
… The town of Green River, Emery County — population of about
800 people — is more than just a place along the I-70 corridor
that boasts famous watermelons and some of the most
scenic nearby landscapes in Utah … There is the
Green River itself, with rafting, kayaking … The Green River
is 730 miles long and is the main tributary of the Colorado
River. The Colorado River was once dubbed the country’s most
endangered river by American Rivers because of its many
depletions, the dams it supports in the arid West and a more
than two-decades-long drought that has left a hydrological
imprint that will be hard to overcome. Seven basin states, two
countries and 30 tribes depend on the Colorado River. And for
the Colorado River to be healthy, the Green River has to do its
part.
Construction has officially begun on a $600 million dollar
project to rebuild the troubled Pajaro River levee system,
nearly 60 years after Congress first identified the need. …
[The project] includes more than 10 miles of new and
refurbished levees designed to provide 100-year flood
protection to communities along the Pajaro River watershed
including Pajaro and Watsonville. Officials have estimated that
the current system provides only 8-year protection.
… Congress had already approved $149 million in initial
funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Following
the 2023 flood, the state legislature agreed to fund not only
the state portion of the project, but the local share as well
… Even so, the reconstruction—and the improved flood
protection—are still far from reality.
People who live and work near the U.S.-Mexico border have
complained for years about the ill effects from the
cross-border pollution: noxious odors, headaches, breathing
difficulties, nausea, stomach ailments. They now will have a
face-to-face opportunity to tell the nation’s public health
agency how the toxic mix of sewage and other contaminants that
spill into the Tijuana River Valley affects them. The effort
kicks off Thursday with a large team from San Diego County and
San Diego State University notifying more than 6,000 homes of
an upcoming visit by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and the possibility that their household may be
selected for an interview, county public health officials said
Wednesday.
… Rancho Palos Verdes is caught in a series of slow-moving
landslides that are wreaking havoc in this coastal
community—roads are buckling, utilities are being shut off, and
some people have been forced to leave their homes. … The
culprit, most researchers believe, is water underground:
Record-setting levels of rain fell over much of California in
2022 and 2023. As all that precipitation infiltrated into the
ground, it raised the water table. Subsurface water exerts
pressure upward and can predispose the ground to moving.
“Those back-to-back wet years caused the majority of this big
acceleration that we’ve seen,” said Mike Phipps, a
geologist employed by the consulting firm Cotton, Shires and
Associates Inc. and a contractor for the city of Rancho Palos
Verdes.
The California Water Institute at Fresno State announces its
first formal partnership with Sustainable Conservation on a
$498,423 grant-funded project from the California Department of
Food and Agriculture aimed at enhancing aquifer replenishment
in the San Joaquin Valley. … Dr. Sangeeta Bansal,
assistant professor of soil health at Fresno State and
co-principal investigator of the project, will study the
effects of cover crops on soil health and the outcomes of
on-farm recharge including nutrient cycling and soil hydraulic
function.
The Arizona neighborhood that made national news when it lost
its primary water source will soon have a new standpipe at its
eastern edge — but not everyone will be able to use it. … the
utility [Epcor] will soon be holding a lottery to determine who
gets water — and who doesn’t. … The announcement comes
nearly two years after the community, located just east of
Scottsdale in unincorporated Maricopa County, first lost its
reliable water supply. It is partly dependent on hauled water
and was left without a regular source after Scottsdale
officials cut off its access to a city standpipe in January
2023, citing concerns about ongoing drought conditions on the
Colorado River.
The health benefits of fluoridated drinking water may be waning
as Americans increasingly turn to using toothpastes and
mouthwashes that already contain fluoride, a new review
suggests. The research, published Thursday in the Cochrane
Database of Systematic Reviews, came to that conclusion after
analyzing more than 157 studies that compared tooth decay in
kids living in communities that added fluoride to their water
supply with communities that didn’t.
Several days after potentially hundreds of gallons of oil
spilled into the Smith Canal in Stockton, the acting director
of the San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services declared
a local emergency due to property and environmental impacts.
Acting Director Paul Canepa made the declaration since county
supervisors are not in session, and it will last for seven days
unless the board meets and decides to extend it. The
declaration will help impacted community members have
access to resources and services related to the spill, the
county said.
The Bureau of Reclamation [Oct. 1] announced a $9.2 million
investment supported by President Biden’s Investing in America
agenda to support Tribal efforts to develop, manage and
protect water and related resources, and mitigate drought
impacts and the loss of Tribal trust resources. The
25 projects selected through the Native American Affairs
Technical Assistance Program, with funding from the Inflation
Reduction Act and annual appropriations will benefit 18
federally recognized Tribes across 11 western states.
State and federal officials have decided to curtail additional
water flows intended to support endangered fish in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta this fall — a controversial
step that is being praised by major California water districts
but condemned by environmental groups as a significant
weakening of protections for imperiled fish. The debate centers
on a measure that calls for prioritizing additional flows for
endangered delta smelt, a species that has suffered major
declines and is thought to be nearing extinction in
the wild. The step of releasing a pulse of water through the
delta in September and October is typically triggered when the
state experiences relatively wet conditions, as it has during
the last two years. A coalition of environmental and fishing
groups said that these flows — called “Fall X2” water releases
— are vital for delta smelt, and that the decision by state and
federal officials to suspend the measure this year poses an
added threat to the fish.
Over a year and a half after the Pajaro River levee burst,
inundating nearly 300 homes in Monterey County with chocolate
milk-colored water, flood agencies broke ground on Wednesday on
a massive levee project to protect the river valley from future
storms. … The nearly 14-mile levee project, managed by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with the Pajaro
Regional Flood Management Agency, is expected to be finished
early next decade. It will improve flood risk in Watsonville,
Pajaro and surrounding agricultural areas. The agencies will
construct and enhance levees along the lower Pajaro River and
its tributaries. However, the agencies won’t begin on the
groundwork in the area for several winters, and residents fear
another flood could interrupt their lives.
The largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed
Wednesday, marking a major victory for tribes in the region who
fought for decades to free hundreds of miles of the Klamath
River near the California-Oregon border. Through protests,
testimony and lawsuits, local tribes showcased the
environmental devastation due to the four towering
hydroelectric dams, especially to salmon, which are are
culturally and spiritually significant to tribes in the region.
The dams cut salmon off from their historic habitat and caused
them to die in alarming numbers because of bad water-quality
conditions.
