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 Vik Jolly.
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The long-anticipated expansion of Monte Rio Redwoods Regional
Park took a major step forward this week. The Sonoma County
Board of Supervisors approved Regional Parks’ application for
an $8 million state grant—key funding toward the $24 million
needed to acquire 1,517 acres of forestland near Monte
Rio. Save the Redwoods League plans to purchase the
property, currently owned by Mendocino Redwood Co., and
transfer it to Sonoma County Regional Parks by summer 2025. The
acquisition will expand the current 515-acre park to more than
2,000 acres, connecting protected land from the Russian River
to the Pacific Ocean. … The land includes young-growth
redwoods, Douglas fir, oak woodlands, and essential watershed
areas feeding the Russian River—habitat crucial for endangered
coho salmon and steelhead trout.
Clean water and scenic beauty for Santa Barbara’s creeks may
come at a cost to the city’s homeowners. At least, that’s how
creekside residents see it. Many are not happy about the city’s
proposed creek buffer ordinance, which would require any and
all new developments to stay away from a creek’s edge.
The city has 16 creeks. They zigzag through neighborhoods,
showing off bare bottoms that host only a trickle of water for
most of the year. Right now, the city is working on a
draft ordinance that prohibits new development within 50 feet
of any of these creeks. That includes buildings, patios, and
non-native gardens (yes, even tomato plants). The only
development that would be allowed in buffer zones without city
approval would be the planting of native vegetation and debris
removal for flood control purposes. Existing development would
be allowed to stay where it is, as well as be repaired and
remodeled without city approval.
… A decade ago, California led the nation by creating a
suite of state programs that help farmers transition to
climate-friendly methods, many of which also improve farm
resilience to extreme weather. These methods include strategies
like planting perennials at the field edge or using cover crops
in the off-season, both of which boost soil carbon and improve
farmers’ ability to capture and store winter moisture for our
increasingly long dry seasons. The problem, however, is
that the California legislature hasn’t funded these programs
adequately or consistently. In recent grant cycles, farmer
demand for these incentives has outstripped available funding
by two or three times. –Written by Liz Carlisle, a public voices fellow of the
OpEd Project and an associate professor of environmental
studies at UC Santa Barbara.
There’s no doubt that customers of Padre Dam Water District,
already paying among the highest rates in the nation, will pay
even more for the coming year. It’s just a matter of how much.
At its April 2 meeting, PDWD’s board of directors heard from
the San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham
about all the various reasons his agency will probably increase
what it charges for the water it imports from the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California (Metro), the Los
Angeles-based agency that transfers water south from both the
Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. … For
the coming fiscal year, Denham said the CWA board hasn’t set
the figure yet (some reports put it at 14 percent), but he
expects the increase to be in “the double-digit range” and the
following year to be in the single digits.
California’s Los Angeles River was once a free-flowing river
that frequently flooded. It was the primary source of
freshwater for the City before the opening of the Los Angeles
Aqueduct in 1913. Starting in the late 1930s, this urban
corridor was channelized and lined with concrete to efficiently
convey floods and minimize erosion. Today, high-velocity and
uniform flow depths degrade habitat conditions for native
aquatic species, and do not provide refugia during floods. This
study examined how to redesign the channel bed to provide
increased flow complexity and habitat heterogeneity within this
confined urban stream and restore fish passage by providing
lower velocities suitable for migration. This study evaluated
methods that could be implemented within confined urban
channels to improve ecosystem function without significantly
raising the flood stage at high flows. Additional goals include
improving recreation and aesthetics, for example adding bike
paths and improved access to the river.
Nearly 60 years ago, a self-described “awkward” teenager from
Sacramento, California, named Mark Dubois, met the most
powerful teacher of his life–the Stanislaus River. Mark’s
relationship with the river and the influence of river
defenders worldwide would ultimately help inspire the founding
of International Rivers and galvanize a global movement to
protect and celebrate our planet’s vital arteries and veins and
challenge what Dubios refers to as “outdated neocolonial
development models.” … Mark slowly got involved in efforts
to save the Stanislaus. By 1973, he joined Jerry Meral, David
Kay, and the public relations team Roanoke to form Friends of
the River (FOR) to speak for the river and oppose the project.
For Mark, his deep love affair with the life of the river was
teaching him about the antiquated paradigm behind large-scale
development that only values nature when it’s extracted and
converted into a commodity.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
A steady stream of water spilled from Lake Casitas Friday, a
few days after officials declared the Ojai Valley reservoir had
reached capacity for the first time in a quarter century. Just
two years earlier, the drought-stressed reservoir, which
provides drinking water for the Ojai
Valley and parts of Ventura, had dropped under 30%.
The Casitas Municipal Water District was looking at emergency
measures if conditions didn’t improve, board President Richard
Hajas said. Now, the lake is full, holding roughly 20 years of
water.
After nearly a century of people building dams on most of the
world’s major rivers, artificial reservoirs now represent an
immense freshwater footprint across the landscape. Yet, these
reservoirs are understudied and overlooked for their fisheries
production and management potential, indicates a study from the
University of California, Davis. The study, published
in the journal Scientific Reports, estimates that U.S.
reservoirs hold 3.5 billion kilograms (7.7 billion pounds) of
fish. Properly managed, these existing reservoir ecosystems
could play major roles in food security and fisheries
conservation.
California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the
worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its
land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform
more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit
landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release,
officials announced Monday. … The plan also calls for
11.9 million acres of forestland to be managed for biodiversity
protection, carbon storage and water supply protection by 2045,
and 2.7 million acres of shrublands and chaparral to be managed
for carbon storage, resilience and habitat connectivity, among
other efforts.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife recommended
Alternative 3 – Salmon Closure during the final days of the
Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) meeting mirroring
the opinions of commercial and recreational charter boat
anglers. The department’s position is a significant change from
early March. The PFMC meetings are being held in Seattle from
April 6 to 11, and the final recommendations of the council
will be forwarded to the California Fish and Game Commission in
May.
Sustaining the American Southwest is the Colorado River. But
demand, damming, diversion, and drought are draining this vital
water resource at alarming rates. The future of water in the
region – particularly from the Colorado River – was top of mind
at the 10th Annual Eccles Family Rural West Conference, an
event organized by the Bill Lane Center for the American West
that brings together policymakers, practitioners, and scholars
to discuss solutions to urgent problems facing rural Western
regions.
Today, Congresswoman Norma Torres and Congressman David Valadao
– members of the House Appropriations Committee – announced the
introduction of the bipartisan Removing Nitrate and Arsenic in
Drinking Water Act. This bill would amend the Safe Drinking
Water Act to provide grants for nitrate and arsenic reduction,
by providing $15 million for FY25 and every fiscal year
thereafter. The bill also directs the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to take into consideration the needs of
economically disadvantaged populations impacted by drinking
water contamination. The California State Water Resources
Control Board found the Inland Empire to have the highest
levels of contamination of nitrate throughout the state
including 82 sources in San Bernardino, 67 sources in Riverside
County, and 123 sources in Los Angeles County.
Catastrophic weather events wreaked havoc on U.S. agriculture
last year, causing nearly $22 billion in crop and rangeland
losses, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
California accounted for $1.14 billion of that figure,
including nearly $880 million in damages from severe storms and
flooding. The figures represent a significant shift from
previous years, when drought and wildfires were California’s
biggest challenges. Since then, atmospheric rivers, Tropical
Storm Hilary and other weather events battered our farming
communities. - Written by Matthew Viohl, director of federal
policy for the California Farm Bureau
