Aquafornia

The migrations that make up the well-known salmon life cycle have long been described as one way at a time. Juvenile salmon hatch and swim down rivers to the ocean, where they grow and mature before returning to the same river to spawn the next generation. Turns out that many young salmon do things differently, according to new research by NOAA Fisheries, Tribal, and university scientists. The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. They discovered that as many as 22% of juvenile salmon in California and Washington streams swam downriver to the ocean and then back up other rivers as many as 9 times. They reached rivers as far as 40 miles away along the coast. 

A major earthquake along a West Coast fault could have catastrophic consequences across coastal Washington, Oregon and northern California. Running offshore from northern California to British Columbia, the Cascadia subduction zone marks the boundary where the Juan de Fuca plate dives under the North American plate. It’s also capable of producing one of the most powerful earthquakes on Earth. … According to the study published Monday in the PNAS scientific journal, a quake of that scale today would drastically increase coastal flood risk. Unlike gradual climate-driven sea level rise, this earthquake-driven sea level rise will happen within minutes, leaving no time for adaptation or mitigation, the study said. Flood risk could then persist for decades or longer. 

Related articles:

• Scientific American: How worried should people be about a monster quake and California flooding?
• Redheaded Blackbelt (Humboldt, Calif.): Cal Poly Humboldt research helps reveal rising flood risk in Pacific Northwest

Water agencies up and down California will be getting larger allocations from the state and federal delivery systems this year, water managers announced this week. On Tuesday, the California Department of Water Resources announced it would be increasing deliveries to 50 percent of requested supplies from the State Water Project — that’s up from 40 percent in March. Also, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that deliveries to irrigation systems and other water contractors south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are being increased from 40 percent of requested supplies to 50 percent. Meanwhile, farms north of the Delta, and within the Delta itself, will receive 100 percent of their requested supplies from the federal Central Valley Project.

Other California water supply news:

• Newsweek: Millions in California to get more water
• Newsweek: California reservoirs surge past normal water levels: ‘great news’

Berkeley resident Daniel Fahey, recently hired by the Environmental Protection Agency to administer Bay Area grants aimed at improving water quality and restoring wetlands, is among the thousands of so-called “probationary” federal workers who received an email in mid-February announcing they’d been fired. … The full impacts of the cuts are yet to be seen. Already, the EPA has suspended anticipated grants for North Richmond, putting $19 million in projects meant to improve the environment in limbo. More than 60 California grants are on a list of 400 that the EPA has targeted for termination, according to a list obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Other EPA news:

• Bloomberg Law: EPA will reopen nomination process for science advisory panels
• E&E News by Politico: EPA opens call to fill key scientific advisory panels
• E&E News by Politico: House votes to undo Biden EPA approval of California rules

As droughts worsen and water shortages hit communities worldwide, a new study in the journal Decision Analysis has uncovered a smarter way to get people to save water—without breaking the bank. Researchers found that raising awareness and using social influence can be more powerful than just offering cash incentives. The study, “Differential Game Theoretic Models for Designing Water Conservation Incentives,” shows how conservation groups can cut costs, maximize impact and make water-saving programs way more effective. … Using differential game theory (basically, a way to analyze how people make decisions over time), the researchers developed a model that helps organizations figure out who to incentivize, when and how.

At its April meeting, the California Water Commission received an update from the CIM Group and representatives of the Southern California Water Bank Authority, proponents of the Willow Springs Water Bank Conjunctive Use Project. They sought to assure the Commission that the project was progressing steadily toward meeting the remaining Water Storage Investment Program (WSIP) requirements. … The last time the project proponents were before the California Water Commission, they had just completed an MOU with the Antelope Valley-East Kern (AVEK) Water Agency.  Since then, they have developed plans on how the project will deliver the ecological and emergency benefits as required by Proposition 1 and begun pre-development work focused on turnout options, conveyance capacity, and well fields.

A dust event near Saltair over the weekend highlights how dust is still flying off the Great Salt Lake despite its recent gains, a local environmental group says. … With 8.7 inches of snow-water equivalent still left in the mountains within the lake’s basin, nearly half of its peak this year, the lake could make some additional gains, depending on how much of that water ends up in it. Yet despite its gains, Grow the Flow points out that it remains only about 40% full by volume, leaving hundreds of square miles of lakebed exposed. A cold front that pushed through the region on Sunday visibly kicked up dust, which is often deposited in nearby communities. That’s a problem because — as documented in a Great Salt Lake Strike Team report earlier this year — the dust can create a “health hazard” from increases in particulate matter concentrations, as well as “chronic exposures to carcinogenic elements such as arsenic.”

… The Salton Sea’s eastern shore is home to hundreds of mud pots, though only this one—known as the “Niland Geyser,” “moving mud spring,” and “Mundo”— moves. Scientists can’t figure out why: Some think that a series of earthquakes made the bedrock more permeable and allowed the mud to seep through. But there’s no conclusive link. The region’s unique geology certainly plays a role: a highly faulted area with thick sediment that drains from the Grand Canyon through the Colorado River. A number of forces—tectonic activity, the accumulation of gases, the heat of young magma—conspire to force this sediment upward, resulting in puddles that spit and gargle like a witch’s brew. … Seemingly out of nowhere, the muck started moving southwest at a quick clip, at least as far as puddles go, digging a crater of slurry sediment and water 75 feet wide and 25 feet deep. 

Across the country, the data collected at stream gauges managed by the U.S. Geological Survey are used to implement drought measures when streamflows are low, alert local authorities of floods, help administer water to users on rivers and issue pollution discharge permits required by the Clean Water Act for communities across the country. But more than two dozen USGS Water Science Centers that house the employees and equipment to manage those gauges and equipment will soon have their leases terminated after being targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency. … The Moab (Utah) office operates and monitors more than 30 stream gauges, eight water quality sites, five meteorological sites, two groundwater monitoring sites and one sediment monitoring site. Many of those … send information in real time to federal, tribal, state and local partners about floods and the flows of streams and rivers in the Colorado River Basin.

Other water data news:

• Public Policy Institute of California: Blog: How California partners with the federal government on water and weather forecasts​
• Union of Concerned Scientists: Blog: Ten vital services provided by NOAA (beyond the National Weather Service)