Aquafornia

Overview

Aquafornia
Water news you need to know

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.

Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays. Or subscribe via RSS

For breaking news, follow us on Twitter.

Check out our special news feeds devoted to:

Please Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Also, 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.

Aquafornia news AP News

Monday Top of the Scroll: California proposes delaying rules aimed at reducing water on lawns, concerning environmentalists

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. 

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Maven's Notebook

Court upholds State Water Board’s revised flow objectives for the San Joaquin River

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.  

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Mercury News

Largest new reservoir project in 50 years in California gains momentum

… 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.

Aquafornia news 8 News - Las Vegas

Better snowpack for Colorado River may fend off ‘whiplash’ of recent years

Snowfall this week in the Rockies has improved the water picture for the Colorado River, but one expert says she’s not counting her chickens before they’re hatched. Current information on the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s website shows that snowpack levels in the Upper Colorado River Basin are at 110% of normal for this time of year. That’s an improvement over March 1 when it was at 101%. … important weeks are still ahead, even though the snowpack peak is typically measured on April 1 each year. 

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Half Moon Bay Review

Federal Council announces salmon fishing alternatives

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering three options for the ocean salmon season, set to begin May 16. The federal council that manages water from California, Oregon and Washington state came up with two options that would entail a short salmon season, and it’ll come with small harvest limits for both commercial and sport fishing. The last option includes closing off the ocean fisheries for the second consecutive year. Last year, commercial and recreation salmon fleets in California were left anchored following the PFMC’s decision to cancel the 2023 fishing season due to years of drought, low river level and dry conditions affecting the Chinook salmon populations in the Klamath and Sacramento rivers.

Related article: 

Aquafornia news San Francisco Chronicle

Here’s what California’s wet winter means for wildfire season

California enjoyed a second consecutive winter of above-average precipitation this year, and many are hoping that will translate to another relatively calm fire season. But that’s far from a sure thing, even though the outlook for the next few months is good, experts say.  In 2023, about 320,000 acres burned statewide due to wildfires, well below the five-year average of 1.7 million acres. Storms that winter played a part: Rain revitalized a landscape parched by years of drought and a colossal Sierra Nevada snowpack provided additional moisture as it melted through the warmer months. … The Northern California Geographic Area Coordination Center’s four-month outlook issued March 1 calls for minimal fire activity across Northern California from March through May. 

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Oregon Public Broadcasting

Listen: What Klamath dam removal means to tribes

After decades of advocating, tribal members cheered as a blast at JC Boyle Dam this year kicked off the process of drawing down the reservoirs behind three Klamath River dams. The removal is expected to restore the river and reopen spawning habitat that salmon haven’t been able to reach for more than a century. OPB science reporter and editor Cassandra Profita brings us the perspective of the tribes living along the Klamath River: what the country’s largest dam removal project means to them and their hopes for the future.

Aquafornia news NBC - Palm Springs

Restoring the Salton Sea: Lithium, wetlands and the 10-year plan

This half-hour special dives into the troubles and triumphs at the Salton Sea. The sea is the largest body of water in California. It formed after a levee at the Colorado River burst in the early 1900s, and after the levee was fixed, it cut off the flow of fresh water. Since then, the sea has become polluted with chemical runoff from nearby farms. It’s also slowly evaporating. The chemical-filled water releases gases that trigger asthma in nearby communities, and toxic dust from around the shoreline acts as an irritant as well. Despite all of the negatives, there are a few positives. New wetlands are forming as the sea slowly pulls away from the shoreline, playing host to thousands of migrating birds. Developing wetlands make the sea an important stop along the Pacific Flyway.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news The Washington Post

Why the US has the second-highest weather damages in the world

The United States suffers the world’s second-highest toll from major weather disasters, according to a new analysis — even when numbers are adjusted for the country’s wealth. The report released late last month by Zurich-based reinsurance giant Swiss Re, which analyzed the vulnerability and damages of 36 different countries, suggests that weather disasters may become a heavy drag on the U.S. economy — especially as insurers increasingly pull out of hazardous areas. Those disasters are driving up insurance rates, compounding inflation and adding to Americans’ high cost of living. … Some insurers have stopped offering home insurance policies in California, which has seen numerous large wildfires in the past few years. 

Aquafornia news Sacramento Bee

California is digitizing its century-old paper water rights records

In a Sacramento office building, university students carefully scan pieces of paper that underpin California’s most contentious and valuable water disputes. One by one, they’re bringing pieces of history into the digital era, some a century old and thin as onion skin. The student workers are beginning to digitize the state’s water rights records, part of a project launched by the state’s water regulator earlier this year. It may seem simple, but scanning two million musty pages is part of a $60 million project that could take years. The massive undertaking will unmask the notoriously opaque world of California water. Right now, it’s practically impossible to know who has the right to use water, how much they’re taking and from what river or stream at any given time in the state.

Related article:

Aquafornia news The Almanac and Bay City News

The fight to rid the bay of red algae may cost $11B

Ten years. That’s how much time the Bay Area’s 37 wastewater treatment plants will have to reduce fertilizer and sewage in their water by 40%. The estimated price tag for the facility upgrades is $11 billion. The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board plans to adopt the change as part of its new discharge permit requirement beginning June 12. Previous permits did not require reductions …The regulatory change follows a damaging algae bloom in 2022 and 2023. A brown algae species called Heterosigma akashiwo, which feeds off the nitrogen in wastewater, infected the Bay and damaged aquatic ecosystems.

Related article: 

Aquafornia news NBC - Los Angeles

Beverly Glen woman hit with $9.5k water bill after landslide

Nearly six weeks after a major winter storm led to flooding and landslide throughout Southern California, some homeowners in Beverly Glen are still trying to return home. On Caribou Lane, a landslide knocked a home off its foundation, and the debris slid into the neighbors’ homes. That debris and mud left Samila Bahsoon’s home with a lot of damage. … She has potentially more than $600,000 in damage, and two insurance companies already denied her claims. … She also said when the neighbor’s home was knocked off the foundation, the debris broke her water main. And it led to a massive water bill. “LADWP sent me a $9,500 water bill, which is 6,500% more than average for the last 35 years that this house has been used,” she said.

Aquafornia news Brownstein

Blog: Key takeaways from the Sustainable Water Investment Summit

Set against the context of unprecedented demand for water supply solutions, Brownstein and WestWater Research brought together water industry and finance leaders for the second annual Sustainable Water Investment Summit. The World Resources Institute’s latest data helps articulate the scale of the demand for water supply reliability, sustainability and innovation: by 2050, an additional billion people will be living in arid areas and regions with high water stress, and by 2050, around 46% of global GDP is expected to come from areas facing high-water risk (up from 10% currently). Given these realities, it’s unsurprising that diverse interests are now converging to meet the challenges of ensuring a resilient and accessible water future. Polls find that 63% of global companies now undertake water-related risk assessments, and 1,100 CEOs have annual performance reviews tied to results around water goals. 

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Coastal Commission approves Talbert Marsh restoration project

A restoration project at Talbert Marsh got the go-ahead Thursday after the state Coastal Commission approved a coastal permit application submitted by the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy as part of its consent calendar. The roughly 25 acres of Talbert Marsh stretch between Brookhurst Street to the Santa Ana River Trail and make up one of four wetlands the nonprofit owns and maintains. More than 90 bird species have been observed at the marsh in addition to the adjoining wetlands, according to the organization. The project along the southeastern and western shorelines of South Island will address erosion, which Coastal Commission staff said causes the disappearance of coastal salt marsh vegetation and depletes refuge spaces for sensitive bird species that live there.

Aquafornia news San Francisco Chronicle

Friday Top of the Scroll: California snow defies warming trend in U.S. Experts say the ‘lost winter’ carries a warning

In January, the Sierra Nevada snowfall outlook was bleak. California’s snowpack sat at levels less than half of normal, and more sand than snow lined the shores of Lake Tahoe. Across the West, experts voiced concern about snow drought. But, in California, prospects turned around the following month as a steady stream of storms added to the snowpack, culminating in an epic blizzard. Things played out quite differently in other parts of the country — large swaths of the U.S., including the Midwest, lack healthy snow levels. … In the future, snowy winters producing well above-normal snowpack like last year may still occur, but “those kinds of winters are going to become less common in a warming world,” said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist at the National Weather Service Alaska Region.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Colorado Public Radio

Colorado River states remain divided on sharing water, and some tribes say their needs are still being ignored

The states that use the Colorado River have put out their latest proposals on how to manage the river’s shrinking amount of water, and the two plans reveal that there are still big differences in how upstream and downstream states want to divvy up future cuts to their water consumption. While state water negotiators say they’re committed to figuring out how they can compromise in the age of climate change when there is less water available to the 40 million people who rely on it, the Southern Ute tribal government in southwestern Colorado doesn’t believe either proposal addresses their concerns or helps them secure their water future.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news SJV Water

State board to vote on reducing extraction fees for probationary basins

On the eve of its first subbasin probationary hearing, the state Water Resources Control Board announced it will vote on whether to reduce a controversial groundwater extraction fee.  The board will vote at its March 19 meeting on whether to cut the fee from $40 to $20-per-acre-foot for well owners in a subbasin placed on probation.  It will hold its first probationary hearing on the Tulare Lake subbasin, which covers Kings County, on April 16. Then the Tule subbasin, in the southern half of the valley portion of Tulare County, will come up for hearing Sept. 17. The extraction fee would only be charged if the Water Board had to step in and administer a subbasin in cases where it finds local groundwater agencies aren’t up to the job.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Mystery surrounds sudden increase in steelhead trout deaths

California environmental groups are urging a federal court to intervene amid a “dramatic increase” in the deaths of threatened steelhead trout at pumps operated by state and federal water managers. Since Dec. 1, more than 4,000 wild and hatchery-raised steelhead have been killed at pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, according to public data for the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. The agencies are now at about 90% of their combined seasonal take limit, which refers to the amount of wild steelhead permitted to be killed between January and March under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. A coalition of environmental and fishing groups — including the Golden State Salmon Assn., the Bay Institute and Defenders of Wildlife — are involved in ongoing litigation that seeks to challenge current federal operating plans in the delta, an estuary at the heart of the state’s water supply. 

Related articles:

Aquafornia news E&E News by POLITICO

Conservation groups sue over Calif. lithium project

Environmental groups on Thursday sued officials who signed off on a lithium project in the Salton Sea that a top Biden official has helped advance. Comité Civico del Valle and Earthworks filed the legal complaint in Imperial County Superior Court against county officials who approved conditional permits for Controlled Thermal Resources’ Hell’s Kitchen lithium and geothermal project. The groups argue that the country’s approval of the direct lithium extraction and geothermal brine project near the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea violates county and state laws, such as the California Environmental Quality Act.

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news Reno Gazette-Journal

Tahoe restoration efforts set to lose $301 million; state officials urge Congress to act

With less than seven months remaining before the expiration of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, state and tribal officials gathered in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to urge its renewal before Sept. 30. The federal government authorized $415 million in 2016 to help mitigate fire risk in the Tahoe Basin and preserve the lake’s famous clarity, but only $114 million of that has been appropriated so far. H.R. 1274, the Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act, would extend the expiration of the program another decade until Sept. 30, 2034. But the bill has languished in Congress since its introduction a little over a year ago.

Related article: