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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An exceptional October heat wave is shattering temperature
records and accelerating drought conditions throughout the
Southwest. Phoenix broke another temperature record Wednesday,
the city’s 16th consecutive day with a new record. The hot
weather is causing more evaporation than normal across the
desert, which the U.S. Drought Monitor noted in its weekly
update. … Severe drought or worse plagued 9.9% of the
West last week but expanded to 14.6% this week’s update. Areas
of severe drought recently expanded into California’s Mojave
Desert for the first time since April 2023. Much of the severe
drought is in the Colorado River Basin, which feeds Lake Mead,
the largest reservoir in the United States.
The first thing you notice at Copco Lake is that there’s no
lake here. Yet, in this woodsy Northern California community
just miles from the Oregon border, wooden docks sit oddly in
grassy backyards. Boats lie idle in dirt lots or on parked
trailers. The occasional fishing pole or life vest is strewn
about on a side lawn. These fixtures of boating, swimming and
angling, no longer in use, serve as witness to the ghost of a
reservoir that haunts this rural area. Recently, the community
lost its signature Copco Lake when four hydroelectric dams were
removed on the Klamath River. In what was celebrated as the
largest dam-removal project in U.S. history, the reservoirs
behind the dams emptied of water and the popular aquatic
activities at Copco saw a quick death.
Candidates running to manage Arizona’s largest water provider
want the federal government to take a stronger role in stalled
Colorado River negotiations. Speaking during a candidates’
debate on Tuesday, Heather Macre, one of six people seeking a
seat on the Central Arizona Water Conservation board, argued
that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — the federal agency
responsible for managing dams — should provide “contours” to
guide the seven Colorado River basin states toward a solution
for managing the river’s recent decline. Macre and fellow
board incumbent Terry Goddard said the bureau should at least
clarify that any proposals will have to conform to the
conditions of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, a critical
treaty that divides the river among the seven states.
An agenda
is now posted for Reflecting on
Silver Linings in Western Water, the Water
Education Foundation’s 2024 Water
Summit, set for Wednesday, Oct. 30, in
downtown Sacramento. Tickets to our premier annual event are
going quickly so reserve your spot soon. Foundation
members can take advantage of a $100 discount on registration!
Are you an up-and-coming leader in the water world?
Applications are now available for our 2025 California Water
Leaders cohort,
California’s reputation as a hothouse of progressive politics
is being tested in a string of U.S. House contests that are
again expected to play into which party controls the chamber
next year. …In the 13th District, Republican Rep. John Duarte
is facing Adam Gray, the Democrat he defeated two
years ago by one of the closest margins in the country, 564
votes. Duarte often is listed among the House’s most vulnerable
Republicans, given that narrow victory. Both candidates
have been stressing bipartisan credentials. Duarte, a
businessman and major grape and almond farmer, says his
priorities include curbing inflation and crime and securing
adequate supplies water for farmers, a
perennial issue in the valley. Gray, a former legislator, has
criticized state water management and puts water and
agriculture at the top of his issues list. He also
says he wants improvements in infrastructure, renewable energy
and education.
Nearly 40 years ago, after watching aquifers below Douglas
County plunge amid fast growth and heavy use, Colorado
lawmakers adopted a “sip slowly” management process that
required communities such as Parker and Castle Rock to pump out
fixed amounts of nonrenewable groundwater each year in an
effort to make the resource last at least 100 years. Fast
forward to 2020. That year, the state directed well owners to
sip even more slowly, explicitly stating how much water their
permits entitled them to, and requiring them to stop pumping at
the end of that 100-year period if they have fully used the
water to which they were entitled when the original well
permits were issued. … The high court is expected to
issue a ruling in the case before the end of the year,
according to spokeswoman Suzanne Karrer. Under Colorado’s
so-called 100-year rule, well owners can extract no more than
1% of the water under their lands each year, pumping all the
water within 100 years of the issuance of their permits.
Considering severe storms and flood damage across the country,
Sacramento County officials are urging Northern California
residents to know their home’s flood risk. Sacramento County is
in a flood plain recognized by FEMA and according to the U.S.
Army Corp of Engineers, Sacramento is considered one of the
most at-risk cities in the country for “catastrophic” flooding.
More than 500,000 people are dependent on the levees, a U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson said Thursday.
… almonds are a thirsty crop, which can be problematic under
water shortages in California. So Kind Snacks, a producer of
snack bars and cereal, is delving into the nuts and bolts of
almond farming. Last year, it launched a three-year pilot
program, the Almond Acres Initiative, to test regenerative
agriculture and new technologies in partnership with one of its
top suppliers, Ofi. With a year of promising progress
under their belt, the organizations are expanding the Central
Valley project to include a second, drier site. Undaunted by
dust and dehydration, they’re hoping to make our favorite nut a
little better for everyone.
Long Beach utility officials have lifted a warning residents in
California Heights, Bixby Knolls, Los Cerritos and most of
north Long Beach to avoid drinking or cooking with tap water
after a water main burst late Wednesday. Residents were updated
in an alert that went out about 3:30 a.m. Friday. Long
Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said the city put specialized
water monitoring in place out of an abundance of caution.
As they waited for testing to come back, city officials said
they distributed bottled water to affected residents. The alert
that went out early Friday said city officials had tested
117 water samples from the area and “concluded the water
is safe to drink.”
The U.S. Supreme Court will test how flexible the EPA and
states can be in regulating water pollution under the Clean
Water Act when it hears oral argument in City and County of San
Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 16, 2024.
This case asks the court to decide whether federal regulators
can issue permits that are effectively broad orders not to
violate water quality standards, or instead may only specify
the concentrations of individual pollutants that permit holders
can release into water bodies. My research focuses on water
issues, including the Clean Water Act. This case involves both
federal and state authority to issuing permits, and it will be
interesting to see where the court focuses. While justices have
been willing to limit the EPA’s authority under the act, they
traditionally have allowed states broad authority to protect
water quality. Thus, while some fear that this case is yet
another occasion for the court to limit the EPA’s authority,
California’s involvement may have exactly the opposite effect.
A California lawmaker says Imperial County officials need to
rework their controversial lithium spending plan, or they could
face state intervention. In an interview with KPBS,
Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) said the county was
required by state law to direct significantly more lithium tax
dollars to towns on the north end of the valley. He said the
current spending plan does not comply with those terms. … The
dispute between state and county officials goes back to
a 2022 state law that placed a new lithium tax on
companies hoping to extract the valuable mineral — a key
component in electric cars and other battery technology — in
California.
Two federal buildings in downtown San Diego that house
courthouses and a daycare recently tested positive for the
Legionella bacteria. The bacteria, which lives in water
droplets and commonly grows in cooling towers, can cause
Legionnaires’ disease, a serious type of pneumonia the CDC says
will kill about one in 10. Team 10 has learned Legionella
was found in 13 out of 15 samples taken at the James M. Carter
and Judith N. Keep U.S. Courthouse. Next door in the Edward J.
Schwartz Federal Building and United States Courthouse, 24 out
of 46 samples were positive for Legionella, Christi Chidester
Votisek, a spokesperson for the U.S. General Services
Administration, said.
On Sept. 27, Eric W. Thornburg loaded up into a passenger van
with his coworkers and headed out on a field trip into the
Santa Cruz Mountains just above Lexington Reservoir. The
Saratoga resident just happens to be the CEO of SJW Group, a
utility company that clocked net income of $32.4 million in
just the first six months of 2024. He was joined by Tanya
Moniz-Witten, president of SJ Water Co., and several employees
from different arms of the multi-pronged organization. The goal
was to give workers an on-the-ground look at the
life-sustaining system they use to bring drinking water to
local dining tables—a way to bring spreadsheets and data points
to life. What better way to do that than to head up into the
Santa Cruz Mountains for an overview of the watershed that
supplies Los Gatos and the surrounding areas with drinking
water.
PG&E will be increasing flows in a portion of the North
Fork Feather River this weekend, they are urging the public to
use extra caution during whitewater recreation. PG&E said
that during the higher flows, the Poe Reach of the river will
contain Class III, IV and V rapids, which they say are only
appropriate for skilled paddlers, and not appropriate for
tubing. The Poe Reach is a 7.6-mile section of the river in the
Plumas National Forest in Butte County, between PG&E’s Poe
Dam near Pulga and the Poe Powerhouse just upstream of Lake
Oroville.
… Colorado wine is climbing, rising in production and
quality, and gaining national attention for doing what the
state does best – pulling off elevated feats. Deeply drawn to
this terrain, it’s no surprise producers across the state join
the broader industry’s conscientious drive to protect natural
resources through land management. … Vineyards have long
relied on flood irrigation, dousing vineyards with thousands of
gallons of water from river canals. For days, the onslaught
soaks the land, but it also loses water to evaporation and
pulls nutrients through erosion. Every drop counts across the
state’s Western Slope, which relies on the precious and
nationally contested Colorado River. Maison La Belle Vie
partnered with the National Resources Conservation Service to
try something different for its 4.5 acres of grapes. This
summer, the family-run vineyard will have a new pump, water
lines, and microjets, preserving the river and land by
targeting vines more efficiently with less water.
To meet budgetary shortfalls for water rights and water quality
programs that require participation by farmers and ranchers,
the California State Water Resources Control Board has approved
rate increases, including for groundwater recharge projects.
The state water board adopted increases for the new 2024-25 fee
schedule at its Sept. 18 meeting. The higher fees come as
California water users and local agencies work to balance
critically overdrafted aquifers under the state’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA. Alexandra Biering, senior
policy advocate for the California Farm Bureau, and others
representing agriculture and water districts emphasized that
higher fees for groundwater recharge permits would prevent
participation by some water users.
In a historical milestone, the first chinook salmon swam past
the former Iron Gate dam site on the Klamath river in over 100
years. Nonprofit, state, and federal scientists collaborated to
study the movement of fish around the former dam site. On the
night of October 3, just past 10 p.m., a sonar camera used
ultra sonic waves to detect a fish swimming upstream.
Biologists with the nonprofit California Trout say their sonar
camera caught what was “almost certainly” a chinook salmon.
… Last year, the West Coast faced Hilary, which strengthened
to a Category 4 hurricane far off southwestern Mexico’s coast
before weakening to a tropical storm when it made landfall in
Baja California, according to a National Hurricane Center
report in February. Hilary flooded parts of Mexico, Southern
California, and Nevada, leaving three people dead and causing
more than $900 million in damage in America. While Hilary’s
impact in the U.S. was that of a tropical storm, it was a
post-tropical cyclone when it reached northern Baja California
— meaning it was no longer considered a tropical cyclone — the
report found. So, why is it that California, also
bordering an ocean, isn’t burdened by hurricanes? Here’s what
to know.
Wildlife populations around the world continue dropping
precipitously, according to an important but limited and often
misinterpreted assessment that’s issued every two years. The
declines reported by the Living Planet Index, a collaboration
between two large conservation organizations, have been so
steep as to feel disorienting. This year is no exception: A
reduction of 73 percent in the average size of monitored
wildlife populations in a mere 50 years, from 1970 to 2020. The
previous figure was similar, a 69 percent decline through
2018. But the findings do not mean that wildlife
in general has dropped by that much. … “Wildlife
population declines can lead to the loss of ecosystem function
and ecosystem services to people such as carbon storage,
water storage, clean air, clean
water, pollination services and protection against
storm surge and flooding, just to name a few,”
said Rebecca Shaw, chief scientist at WWF and the lead author
of a report that accompanies the new figures.
On Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors rejected
a notion that could’ve resulted in millions of dollars and
other resources to clean up the badly-polluted Tijuana River
Valley, a decision that baffled and disappointed Paloma Aguirre
and other political and community leaders in the area. “It’s
frustrating,” said Aguirre, mayor of Imperial Beach. She wanted
the County of San Diego to declare the valley as a “Superfund
Site,” meaning the federal government and Environmental
Protection Agency would have to start an investigation into the
pollution and sewage problems in the Tijuana River Valley.
