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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There’s a mystery afoot in the upper Colorado River Basin: the
amount of winter snowpack and the resulting spring and summer
runoff haven’t added up in recent years. In 2021, for example,
measurements of the snowpack looked close to normal (80% of
average), but the streamflows in the spring and summer of that
year were only 30% of average, much lower than what was
expected. Where did that water go? In the megadrought-stricken
Western US, understanding the causes of this mismatch is a
question that the 40 million users of water sourced from the
Colorado River urgently need answered.
Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District board of directors and
staff were saddened by the death of Board Director Phil
Williams. Director Phil Williams served on EVMWD’s board of
director since 2001, representing EVMWD’s Division 4, which
includes areas of Corona and western Lake Elsinore, as well as
the unincorporated communities of Horsethief Canyon and
Alberhill. “We have lost an admired and respected member of the
EVMWD family” said Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District
General Manager Greg Thomas. … Williams, a local real estate
broker and licensed general contractor, was a lifelong resident
of Lake Elsinore. As a board member for EVMWD, Williams served
as board president seven times over his 21 year tenure on the
board.
Seeking to modernize aged equipment and cut down on the
nitrogen that flows into the San Francisco Bay, Palo Alto and
its partners are embarking on an ambitious makeover of the
Regional Water Quality Control Plant, a project that will cost
$193 million and take about five years to complete. The City
Council is preparing to approve next month a $161 million
contract with Anderson Pacific Engineering Construction to
upgrade the wastewater treatment system at the regional plant
on Embarcadero Road, near the Baylands. … A key goal of
the upgrade is to reduce this outflow of nitrogen, which causes
algae to bloom in the bay, [plant manager] Jamie Allen
said. Over the summer, the a red algae bloom across
the region killed fish throughout the area.
Recently, researchers from Stanford flew California skies on a
kind of airborne treasure hunt. Probing hundreds of feet into
the ground with electromagnetic signals, they were in search of
liquid gold – water, or more precisely a place to capture and
store it. … [Rosemary Knight, Ph.D., a researcher with
the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability] just released
a new study, confirming the airborne technology’s ability to
locate what is now popularly called “paleo valleys.” They’re
long, buried riverbed pathways created thousands of years ago
by the movement of glaciers that once covered the Sierra.
Filled with porous material, experts believe they could act
like a high-speed express lane to carry diverted flood water
deep into the aquifer.
Get rid of ornamental grass. Recycle more wastewater. Make
indoor and outdoor watering more efficient. Limit outdoor
watering to a few days a week. Create water rate structures
that encourage conservation. Minimize business use of thirsty
swamp cooling. Crack down on water leaks. A group of 30
cities and water districts, including Tucson, committed to
carrying out these water conservation measures in an agreement
signed last week. The measures, described by the agency
officials as unprecedented, are aimed at reducing water demand
by cities across the West to make the region less reliant on
dwindling Colorado River supplies.
An adaption strategy for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta must
address and reduce climate change impacts in a way that meets
the coequal goals, builds resilience for the future, and
prioritizes the most vulnerable communities. Climate change is
already altering the physical environment of the Delta,
resulting in significant impacts on its people and resources
that are only expected to worsen over time. The Delta
Stewardship Council recognized the need to address climate
change and completed the Delta Adapts Vulnerability Assessment
in 2021, which is the first comprehensive study of projected
climate hazards in the Delta and Suisun Marsh, identifying the
people and resources most vulnerable to increased flood risk,
extreme heat, drought, and wildfire smoke.
Sweetwater Authority has begun transferring water between its
two reservoirs in response to drought conditions, the agency
announced. The move has paused access to fishing at Loveland
Reservoir and local anglers fear that continued draining will
result in a permanent end to one of the few, free options to
fish in the region. Tuesday marked the beginning of a water
transfer from Loveland, which is near Alpine, to the Sweetwater
Reservoir south of Spring Valley, where it will be treated by
the agency and then supplied to its 200,000 customers in
Bonita, Chula Vista and National City.
OPB and ProPublica purchased 50 salmon from Native fishermen
along the Columbia River and paid to have them tested at a
certified lab for 13 metals and two classes of chemicals known
to be present in the Columbia. We then showed the results to
two state health departments, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency officials and tribal fisheries scientists. The
testing showed concentrations of [mercury and polychlorinated
biphenyls, or PCBs]… EPA documents obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act show that even with minimal
data available, agency staff members have flagged the potential
for exposure to chemicals in salmon caught not just in the
Columbia but also Washington’s Puget Sound, British Columbia’s
Skeena and Fraser rivers, and California’s Sacramento and San
Joaquin rivers.
Discussion of restoring Big Canyon, which has long been
impacted by human activity and development as Orange County
grew, started in 2002, according to project manager and Newport
Beach assistant city engineer Bob Stein, but nothing came of it
until about 2015. … That led to Phase I, which cost
roughly $1.6 million and recently concluded its monitoring
period. That phase addressed roughly 6 acres of the park and
focused on the rehabilitation of the creek that runs through it
and riparian restoration. Urban runoff was diverted to a water
treatment center.
The final regular meeting for two members of the Board of
Directors of Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District was a
quick one, with little business conducted. Director James Pack
served eight years on the board and Director Kathy Cassil
served four years. Both opted not to run for reelection. At the
Nov. 16 meeting, board President Robert Schultz and the
district’s General Manager Tom Neisler both thanked the two for
their service on the board. Neisler said he hopes they will
attend the December meeting at which the district will
transition to a new board.
On Friday, November 18, 2022, the Court of Appeal for the Sixth
Appellate District (Sixth District Court) reversed the Santa
Clara County Superior Court’s denial of an attorneys’ fees
award in favor of a group of California irrigation districts
and water agencies (Districts) that successfully challenged the
State Water Resources Control Board’s (State Board) decision to
issue certain water right curtailment notices during the 2015
drought. The Sixth District Court held that the Districts are
entitled to attorneys’ fees incurred prosecuting the Superior
Court litigation against the State Board. The full Opinion is
here.
Federal wildlife officials have declared the boom-or-bust
lesser prairie chicken a threatened species in Colorado, and
endangered in states to the south, a goal of a long
environmental campaign but a disappointment to farmers who fear
new restrictions. … Wildlife scientists and advocates
say the bird is a leading indicator of healthy continuous
grassland and prairies, and the species once ranged across
nearly 100 million acres in the Southwest with a population
possibly in the millions. It’s now limited to a range of a few
million acres broken up by row crops, overgrazing and oil and
gas development, with aerial surveys putting the population at
32,000 across five states. … With a threatened
designation, farmers and ranchers are able to continue most
land uses but face new reviews on significant changes.
The fierce struggle for water in a drought-stricken West
continues to roil politics — and embroil a host of tribal water
claims. The decades-long drought has dried up reservoirs and
forced federal water cutbacks for the 40 million people in
seven states who rely on the Colorado River for water. But it
has also dramatically increased the stakes for the region in
decades-old water claims by a host of tribes — including the
Navajo and the White Mountain Apache. The Tonto Apache Tribe
also has a decades-old claim to water from the Colorado River.
Efforts to settle that claim with water from the C.C. Cragin
Reservoir with a payment from the federal government to buy
into Payson’s pipeline have been stalled for years — and missed
out on a gush of federal pandemic and infrastructure aid to
tribes. -Written by contributor Peter Aleshire.
Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District (Rincon Water)
announced today that it completed an initiative to provide
nearly $1.2 million in rebates to customers and has received
overwhelmingly positive feedback about the program. The rebates
were made possible following years of litigation by the San
Diego County Water Authority against the Metropolitan Water
District for violating existing exchange agreements between the
two agencies. The customer rebates come as residents across the
county prepare for the holiday season, giving Rincon Water
customers a boost to help put food on the Thanksgiving table
and some extra gifts for family members next month.
Arizona State University and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced
Nov. 16 that the university will lead a multi-year Arizona
Water Innovation Initiative to provide immediate, actionable
and evidence-based solutions to ensure that Arizona will
continue to thrive with a secure future water supply, according
to a news release. Ducey has committed resources and has
asked ASU to work with industrial, municipal, agricultural,
tribal and international partners to rapidly accelerate and
deploy new approaches and technology for water conversation,
augmentation, desalination, efficiency, infrastructure, and
reuse.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) Fall
Conference & Exhibition Nov. 29-Dec. 1 will draw local water
agency leaders from throughout California to Indian Wells for
three days of updates, analyses and perspectives on multiple
issues affecting the state’s water community. The event will
also feature an international perspective on water management
and connect attendees with a leader behind a movement to change
policy priorities in addressing catastrophic wildfires.
Delivering the Opening Breakfast keynote on Nov. 30, Ambassador
Marco Sermoneta, Consul General of Israel to the Pacific
Northwest, will share his insights about how Israel has
addressed water management challenges.
100 years ago, Wyoming signed onto a deal to divide the water
that flows through the Colorado River basin among seven
states. It’s based on a formula — one likely based on
mistaken beliefs about the river itself — that did not award
extra credit for living in the mountains where the snow piles
up. Instead, the states signed a compact allocating the
water where it would readily be put to work. It meant the
more populated states of California, Colorado and
Arizona would get the biggest shares.
… But more than two decades into a punishing
drought that climate scientists say will likely intensify with
more warming, the system can no longer supply everything
that some 40 million people in a warming and drying region
desire from it, or that grocers nationwide sell from its
verdant fields.
A lawsuit over groundwater plans in the northern end of the San
Joaquin Valley is being closely watched as it could have
implications for how the state’s groundwater mandate moves
forward, according to a recent briefing on the issue at the
Kern Groundwater Authority. At the Nov. 16 meeting, authority
attorney Valerie Kincaid explained that the lawsuit, filed in
2020, seeks to have a court invalidate six groundwater plans in
the Delta-Mendota Subbasin, which runs along the western edge
of the valley from west of Fresno north to west of Modesto. The
Department of Water Resources filed an amicus brief in the
suit, which was bought by the California Sportfishing
Protection Alliance, Kincaid explained. An amicus, or friend of
the court brief, can be filed by a group that has a strong
interest in a case.
After more than a decade in the trying, a major desalination
plant to serve the Monterey Peninsula has cleared a significant
hurdle—in theory, at least. In a 13-hour meeting that adjourned
just after 10pm on Thursday, Nov. 17, the California Coastal
Commission approved a conditional coastal development permit
for California American Water, the private water utility that
serves the greater Monterey Peninsula, to build a desalination
project in neighboring Marina, a city whose residents are
vehemently opposed to it, and who would not be served by
it. One thing that was continually brought up during the
meeting, and that was acknowledged in the Coastal Commission’s
staff report that recommended approval (with many conditions,
some potentially insurmountable), is that the project is rife
with complexity, both from technical and environmental justice
standpoints. … One question that remained unanswered was
who would pay for the project.
… hundreds of miles of salmon spawning habitat are blocked by
four dams on the lower Klamath River. But an historic decision
made on Thursday in Washington, D.C. holds the promise to
change that. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s
approval of removing those four dams should set free a huge
stretch of one of the West’s most important coastal rivers for
salmon and reopen 400 miles of habitat — much of which salmon
have been unable to reach for more than a century…. Next
year, deconstruction work will begin at JC Boyle, Copco 1,
Copco 2 and Iron Gate dams, with the biggest dams scheduled to
be removed in 2024. Getting to this point has taken decades of
negotiation and planning, and removing the four dams will be a
massive, $500 million undertaking that many in the surrounding
communities still oppose.
