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.
Winter weather is finally arriving in Northern California. And
after weeks of dry, warm conditions and growing drought
concerns, it’s coming in hard. Forecasters say a sizable storm
— the first significant atmospheric river event to hit the
greater Bay Area this winter season and likely the biggest
storm in at least 12 months — will soak much of California
starting Tuesday night, continuing Wednesday, and bringing wet
roads, downed trees, power outages and the possibility of
mudslides.
As wildfires, heat waves, water scarcity and threats to
wildlife intensify in the West, California’s effort to confront
these environmental crises now has support in Washington, a
stark change from the past four years. Even as former President
Donald Trump spent his final days in office on the sidelines,
lamenting his election loss, his administration continued to
roll back environmental conservation and gut climate
regulations.
The dry 2020 and the lack of snow this season has water
managers in seven states preparing for the first time for
cutbacks outlined in drought contingency plans drafted two
years ago. A sobering forecast released this week by the
Bureau of Reclamation shows the federally owned Lake Mead and
Lake Powell — the nation’s two largest reservoirs and critical
storage for Colorado River water and its 40 million users —
dipping near-record-low levels.
California water issues are notoriously complicated by a
massive diversity of users, ecosystems, applications and
futures. Indeed, water in the Delta has been described as
a “wicked problem” indicating that these problems cannot
be ignored and defy straightforward characterization and
solutions. Below we highlight how a Swiss cheese model might be
applied to vexing long-term declines in native fish populations
in California.
After 10 days of protests, Britain’s Parliament did a
surprising thing: Its members approved a proposal to declare a
state of emergency in response to the rapidly overheating
planet. And while the U.K. was the first country to do so, it
wasn’t the last. Today, at least 38 countries around the world
— including the whole of the European Union, Japan, and New
Zealand — and thousands of towns, cities, and counties have
issued some kind of resolution declaring climate change a
crisis. … A week into his term, President Joe Biden is
already under pressure to do the same.
Hundreds of California wineries will for the first time be
governed by statewide wastewater processing rules, a change
from the long-held, regional approach that could increase
production costs for wineries and protections for waterways
while providing consistency for vintners across the state. The
move toward a statewide regulatory framework, a five-year
effort championed by industry leaders, was finalized this week
by the State Water Resources Control Board, which approved an
order setting up guidelines for wastewater processing at most
of the more than 3,600 bonded wineries in the state.
Tanya Trujillo, who was appointed to the New Mexico Interstate
Stream Commission in July 2019, has joined the Biden
administration’s Interior Department. The water lawyer and
native New Mexican will serve as the principal deputy assistant
secretary for water and science. The position oversees the work
of the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Federal officials entrusted with managing millions of acres of
forest in Colorado and surrounding states say they’re facing
accelerated decline driven by climate warming, insect
infestation, megafires and surging human incursions. They’ve
been struggling for years to restore resilience and ecological
balance to western forests. But they’re falling further behind
on key tasks…
Oh, that the rain of the past few days would be enough. And,
perhaps it will be, if forecasts for more during the upcoming
week hold true. At the least, however, the rain that does fall
will not dampen the possibility of more fires. Think about
that: Fires in January?
Two out-of-state men were ordered by a judge to pay $117,373 in
restitution for water pollution violations stemming from an
overturned fuel tank that released an estimated 760 gallons of
diesel into Rock Tree Creek, a tributary of the Eel River.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced
the selection of US Water Alliance CEO Radhika Fox as the
Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of
Water. Fox was a Day One Presidential Appointee in the
Biden-Harris Administration. She will serve as the Acting
Assistant Administrator for Water.
In Oregon, the Klamath Basin wildlife refuges have fallen into
their winter silence now. The huge, clamorous flocks of geese
that fill the sky during migration have moved south. This
summer, a different silence gripped the basin. A dead silence.
The 90,000 acres of marshes and open water that make up the
Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges are a
small remnant of vast wetlands that once filled this region on
the Oregon-California border. -Written by Pepper Trail, a contributor to Writers on the
Range and a conservation biologist in Ashland, Ore.
The Regional Water Authority (RWA) is delighted to announce
that Michelle Banonis has been selected as the organization’s
new Manager of Strategic Affairs. Banonis has over two decades
of experience in water, ecosystems, engineering, policy, and
law, and most recently served as the Assistant Chief Deputy
Director of the California Department of Water Resources where
she worked on water-related issues of statewide significance
with multiple interests.
President Joe Biden has made his priorities clear: subduing the
pandemic, economic recovery, climate action, and racial equity.
… Climate has received top-billing within the president’s
environmental agenda, but water infrastructure and water
systems could also see their status lifted. Some observers are
hopeful that the new administration and the Democratic Congress
will uncork federal water spending that has been steady but
flat in recent years.
Former U.S. Rep. Sam Farr is calling for the Marina Coast Water
District to be investigated for fiscal mismanagement and merge
with the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, even as
the district is involved in a lawsuit that has successfully
challenged its water rates and could have implications for the
entire Ord Community.
California’s tussle with federal authorities over water
operations will get a second look under the new administration
of President Joe Biden. The 46th president plans to sign a
number of executive orders, including one that instructs agency
heads to review actions taken under President Donald Trump that
“were harmful to public health, damaging to the environment,
unsupported by the best available science, or otherwise not in
the national interest.” On the list for both the departments of
Commerce and Interior is a review of new biological opinions
adopted in 2019 governing water delivery in California.
California’s wildfire threat could ease over the next few
weeks, with a series of storms bringing much-needed moisture
after heat and drought torched record acreage in the state. The
first downpour is already spreading across Northern California
Friday, and that will be followed by progressively stronger
systems through next week …
3M Co. and E.I. DuPont de Nemours Inc. shook off a California
water utility’s claims that they contaminated the state water
supply with PFAS after the Central District of California found
the utility failed to establish jurisdiction. Golden State
Water Co. alleges that the companies “directed and instructed”
intermediaries and end users of their products to dispose of
them in a way they should have known may cause
contamination.
To help you learn more about the importance of groundwater, the
Water Education Foundation has an array of educational
materials on this vital resource. And next week, the
Foundation’s online magazine, Western Water news, will
publish a special report examining how two local groundwater
agencies are taking different approaches to achieve
sustainability in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the most
critically overdrafted regions in the state.
As the CZU Lightning Complex fire bore down on Gail Mahood’s
tree-shrouded Felton neighborhood last August, she gathered
what possessions she could and fled. … Thankfully, fire crews
saved the little community of 20 or so houses, stopping the
blaze within a half-mile of Mahood’s home in the Santa Cruz
Mountains, but the pipes that delivered drinking water from a
spring just up the hill were completely destroyed.
