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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Wyoming may be home to the famous bubbling geothermal features
in Yellowstone National Park, but that doesn’t mean the state
is a hot spot for generating electricity using heat from inside
the earth. A new federal assessment identified Wyoming as
part of a massive underground geothermal energy resource that
could generate electricity equal to 10% of America’s current
power supply, though state-specific research suggests only
modest potential for Wyoming. A May U.S. Geological
Survey’s report on geothermal systems in the Great Basin found
that the arid lands of Nevada and adjoining parts of
California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and a sliver of
Wyoming’s western border with Idaho contain enough
geothermal energy to generate 135 gigawatts of electricity from
the upper 6 kilometers of the Earth’s crust.
Colorado’s Front Range is mostly drought-free following an
above-average rainfall during May, while the Western Slope
continues to deal with persistent drought. The Denver area had
3.57 inches of rain last month, according to National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, with 2.16 inches
being the normal amount for May. … According to the U.S.
Drought Monitor, which was updated last Thursday, most of the
Front Range is not experiencing drought, while parts of
northeastern and southeastern Colorado are “abnormally dry” or
in “moderate drought.” “The much bigger drought concerns right
now are on the Western slope, where mountain snowpack was poor
this winter, and the snow melted out earlier than usual,”
(Colorado state climatologist Russ) Schumacher said.
“Fortunately they will be getting some rain this week, but
flows in the Colorado River system are
expected to be much lower than average.”
More than 90% of popular freshwater fish in Southern California
are carrying human-infecting parasites, researchers say. This
poses a significant danger for those who like to eat freshly
caught freshwater fish. But there are ways to protect yourself.
The parasites are called trematodes. Two species of the
flatworms were discovered in California’s freshwater fish,
according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of
Infectious Diseases. The tiny, flattened and sluglike creatures
can cause gastrointestinal problems, weight loss and lethargy
when a person eats an infected fish. In some rare and
severe cases, the parasites have caused strokes or heart
attacks. … In fact, even when a person has fallen ill
from a locally caught infected freshwater fish, their
healthcare provider will typically ask if the patient has
recently traveled outside of the United States, Hechinger said.
The federal government is awarding Utah $3 million to purchase
conservation easements in southern Utah near Zion National
Park. The funding — awarded to the Utah Division of
Forestry, Fire and State Lands by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture — was announced Monday and will go toward ongoing
forest preservation efforts outside of the national
park. Called the Zion Connectivity Project, the state will
direct the funding at two properties totalling 766 acres near
the north section of the national park. A conservation easement
— a legally binding agreement between a landowner and
government that places restrictions on the land for
environmental purposes — will prevent the land from being
fragmented or developed. … The region contains a number
of springs and streams, including the La Verkin Creek, which
feeds into the Virgin River and eventually the Colorado
River. The creek supports six native species of fish,
like the Virgin River chub and Woundfin, both federally
endangered.
The spot where the Virgin River curves around the Temple of
Sinawava used to be the end of the line for some of Zion
National Park’s native fish. A dam was built here in 1957 to
house a water line. The concrete structure was only a couple of
feet high, but that was more than enough to trap fish
downstream and cut them off from around 80 miles of river.
… Now, fish can swim those miles as they please. After
several years of planning, the park removed the dam this
spring. Fish need to be able to travel freely throughout a
river’s path for a variety of reasons, (park scientist Roby)
Henderek said, and they require different types of habitat at
different life stages. Baby fish prefer calm backwater
sanctuaries. Adults have to swim upstream to lay
eggs. Between cities and farms diverting water and climate
change intensifying drought, native fish across the
Colorado River Basin face a lot of
challenges.
If you have ever questioned how seriously Colorado takes its
water, let attorney Glenn Porzak tell you about the time he
went to the Colorado Supreme Court in 2001. … Porzak, now a
veteran in the Colorado water law scene, was there to push back
on the state’s attempt to outlaw recreational water
rights. … The Colorado Water Conservation Board
(CWCB) was worried that adding recreation into the already
contentious arena of water ownership would upset the status
quo. … Porzak’s side won, enabling a boom of those so-called
whitewater parks. If a Colorado city wants to bring kayakers
and their money to town, they can throw some big rocks in the
river and apply for a recreational in-channel diversion, or
RICD. … These legal rights are limited in their
capacity. They cannot add water to the river. They can tell
other users to stop taking water out of the river. An RICD does
not necessarily improve river conditions for recreational water
users, but it makes sure they don’t get worse in the
future.
The First Descent Expedition of the Klamath River by young
members of Tribes living along the river will begin Thursday,
June 12. Participants in the Ríos to Rivers Paddle Tribal
Waters Program will lead the first-ever 30-day source-to-sea
descent of the newly undammed Klamath River. An opening
celebration marking the beginning of the month-long,
310-plus-miles expedition will be held June 12 at the
headwaters of the Wood River, an invitation-only event. From
the starting point, the kayakers will cross Upper Klamath Lake,
portage around the Link River Dam, and cross Lake Ewauna to the
Klamath River. … Organizers said the event will “explore
the long-awaited return of Chinook salmon to their ancestral
spawning grounds, the far-reaching benefits of dam removal and
the revival of an entire ecosystem. Experts will share
insights on water quality improvements, habitat restoration and
the lasting impacts on wildlife and river communities.”
An Idaho businessman tapped to become the new leader of the
U.S. Forest Service faced little questioning over his past land
disputes with the agency during his confirmation hearing.
Michael Boren, who co-founded the multi-billion dollar
investment firm Clearwater Analytics, has sparred with the
Forest Service in recent years over his ranch in central Idaho.
The property is within the protected Sawtooth National
Recreation Area. Neighbors said he built an airstrip before
getting the required permits, and the Forest Service accused a
company formerly linked to him of building an unauthorized
cabin on federal land. President Donald Trump nominated Boren
to serve as the U.S.D.A undersecretary for natural resources
and environment, which oversees the Forest Service and the 193
million acres of land under its jurisdiction.
Lined up alongside many of the homes inside the Riverview
Mobile Home Estates are five-gallon jugs of water, some full,
some empty. They started piling up in November 2022 when many
of the around 250 residents of the Hughson-area park became
eligible to receive free state-funded water. The mobile home
park, previously known as Pinewood Meadows, is considered a
severely disadvantaged community located near Fox Grove Park,
between a walnut orchard, a honey farm and a defunct landfill.
…The tap water at the park comes from two wells; one
regularly exceeds safe water standards for both uranium and
nitrate. … Nitrate is one of the most prevalent groundwater
issues in Stanislaus County, mostly associated with
agricultural runoff from fertilizer, manure and sewage from
septic tanks.
How trees fare under drought depends heavily on their past
experiences. In some cases, adversity breeds resilience: Spruce
trees that experience long-term droughts are more resistant to
future droughts, owing to an impressive ability to adjust their
canopies to save water, researchers in Germany report May 16 in
Plant Biology. On the other hand, trees may suffer when they’ve
known only wet conditions and are blindsided by droughts.
… Together, the results illustrate how trees can
“remember” times of abundance as well as scarcity. The latter,
as illustrated by the spruce study, bodes well for trees’
ability to cope with a warming world. These findings are among
the first to show that trees can become more drought-resistant
by adjusting their canopy structure.
Having the San Joaquin out of sight and mind is one of Fresno’s
tragic realities. … But hopefully that will change soon.
… The San Joaquin River Conservancy is a state agency whose
mission is to create a 22-mile-long parkway in the floodplain,
from Friant Dam northeast of Fresno to Highway 99. The river is
to be kept in a natural state, but a trail would be constructed
and access points would be made along the river. Work on
creating the parkway is ongoing, but slow. … It is time,
however, for the San Joaquin River to be a more recognized fact
of life in Fresno. City leaders, if you want new energy in
Fresno, prioritize the river and its opportunities. –Written by Tad Weber, opinion writer for The Fresno
Bee.
For the first time in more than 12 years, Rio Vista residents
will see increases in water and sewer rates, after the City
Council Tuesday night approved five years of rate hikes set to
begin July 1. The amount of the increase depends on which
treatment plant serves the neighborhood. Customers served
by the Northwest Wastewater Treatment Plant will
experience the steepest rise of a 55% jump in the first
year, followed by a 35% increase in year two and a 5% increase
in each of the following three years. … City officials
said the increases are necessary to fund long-deferred
infrastructure projects and avoid system failures. Officials
say Rio Vista is facing $23.4 million in capital project needs
at the Northwest Plant and another $27.5 million at the Beach
Plant. … Meanwhile, the 19-year-old Northwest Plant,
which serves the city’s growing residential areas, faces an
annual funding gap of over $300,000.
Water watchers say Great Salt Lake has peaked for the year and
will lose water between now and fall. And with a hot, dry
summer in the forecast, lake levels could take a step
back. Great Salt Lake typically rises and then falls about
2 feet every year, with snow and then summer heat. But
year-over-year, the levels have only gone up since bottoming
out in 2022, thanks to a couple of great winters. It broke even
last year and only went up by about a foot and a half this
winter. Utah Snow Survey Program Supervisor Jordan Clayton said
the lake gets most of its water from the snowpack, which was
hampered a bit by this warm, dry spring. “Our inflow forecast
for how much water we were going to get from all that snow,
which again is the main source for water into the lake, did
decrease as a result of the early melt and the kind of
disappointing April snowpack that we received.”
Last month, I hung up my yellow vest for the last time. We were
there after wildfires tore through Los Angeles communities,
standing alongside survivors in shelters, donation centers,
disaster recovery centers and scorched neighborhoods. We helped
Californians take their first steps toward rebuilding. And now,
we’re gone. After the federal government cut funding for
AmeriCorps’ disaster relief programs, more than 60 of us in the
California Emergency Response Corps were told our service was
ending early. … At a time when wildfires, floods
and climate-driven disasters are only becoming more frequent,
we need competent and experienced disaster response
professionals. They don’t magically appear. They have to get
their start somewhere. Programs like this are how we grow the
next generation of emergency responders, crisis managers and
community resilience leaders. –Written by Lauren Levitt, an emergency preparedness
outreach lead and California Emergency Response Corps member
with AmeriCorps.
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution
Wednesday that urges the federal government to pressure Mexico
to end the Tijuana River sewage crisis. The resolution, brought
forth by Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond, passed by a vote of
3-1. But it was Desmond who ultimately cast the lone “no” vote
because the amended version officials approved doesn’t go far
enough, he said. … Specifically, the resolution calls on
Congress to pass legislation that would hold Mexico accountable
for failing to prevent sewage from polluting communities in the
county’s southwest region. Some measures suggested include
federal authorization to divert or restrict the Tijuana River
temporarily in south San Diego. It also urges curtailing the
export of potable water to Tijuana or limiting cross-border
activity at U.S. ports of entry during sewage-linked
emergencies that the county declares.
California is facing a growing challenge as climate change
drives more extreme weather, leading to periods of either too
little water or more than we can effectively manage. Rising sea
levels push saltwater further inland, adding pressure to
ecosystems already under strain. With agriculture, cities, and
the environment all relying on California’s water, how can we
prepare for these changes? Two innovative projects are tackling
these questions head-on. The Collaboratory for Equity in Water
Allocations (COEQWAL) is developing tools and strategies to
help communities adapt, while the Just Transitions project is
analyzing the Delta’s salinity changes and exploring ways to
respond. … At the Delta Independent Science Board’s March
meeting, Dr. Brett Milligan, Professor of Landscape
Architecture and Environmental Design at UC Davis, shared an
in-depth look at these initiatives.
… Two proposals have advanced rapidly through the
Legislature: one to wipe away the law (CEQA) for most urban
housing developments, the other to weaken the rules for most
everything else. Legal experts say the efforts would be the
most profound changes to CEQA in generations. Newsom not only
endorsed the bills last month, but also put them on a fast
track to approval by proposing their passage as part of the
state budget, which bypasses normal committee hearings and
means they could become law within weeks. … Nearly the
entire 55-year history of the California Environmental Quality
Act has featured dueling narratives about its effects.
… Many credit CEQA for helping preserve the state’s
scenic vistas and waterways while others decry its ability to
thwart housing and infrastructure projects, including the
long-delayed and budget-busting high-speed rail.
Monitors observing Lake Powell’s water levels are issuing a
dire warning: The second largest reservoir in the country, and
one of the most popular destinations for Arizonans and Western
tourists, will suffer yet another year of
drought and accelerated decline. Hydrologists
say this is the consequence of a lack of winter 2024 runoff,
itself the product of an unseasonably dry cold season. Experts
predict the winter melt, which is responsible for replenishing
the endangered lake, will total just 55% of the annual average.
… As the lake continues to shrink, surrounding states
disagree on how to reduce their 40 million residents’
collective water use to stave off the reservoir’s
total destruction. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah and Wyoming legislators are sparing over which
locales should decrease their residential, commercial, and
agricultural intakes.
A bitter 15-year legal battle over water costs came to an end
Monday, with leaders of the San Diego County Water Authority
and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
signing an agreement establishing the price that will be paid
for delivering supplies. Managers and board members of the two
agencies said that the dispute persisted for years because of
inflexible positions, but that negotiations over the last year
made possible a comprehensive agreement. They said ending the
legal fight will enable greater collaboration among the
agencies to improve their finances and move water where it’s
needed. MWD Board Chair Adán Ortega Jr. said the litigation had
for too long complicated the relationship between his agency,
which delivers water for 19 million people, and the San Diego
County Water Authority, which is a member of MWD and supplies
water for 3.3 million people.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday
it will hire for “mission-critical field positions” amid expert
warnings that the National Weather Service has been cut too
sharply just as hurricane season arrives. An agency
spokesperson said in a statement the positions will be
advertised under a temporary reprieve from the federal
government’s widespread hiring pause “to further stabilize
frontline operations.” NOAA also said they are filling some
field office openings by reassigning staff, including some
temporary hires. The agency didn’t say how many jobs would be
posted and refused to provide more details. Elon Musk’s
Department of Government Efficiency cuts gutted NWS and NOAA —
which provide daily weather forecasts, up-to-the-minute severe
storm warnings, climate monitoring and extreme weather tracking
— earlier this year.
