A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday by veteran journalist Matt Weiser.
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Please Note: The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here, and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
Coastal communities should not rule out a sea-level rise in excess of 6.5 feet, according to the study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. … Should this worst-case scenario come to pass, good portions of cities like New York City and Miami on the East Coast and Los Angeles and San Francisco on the West Coast would be underwater by 2100.
Our Headwaters Tour June 27-28 highlights the connection between fire and water with an up-close look at the critical role healthy Sierra forests play in water supply and quality across California. We will also learn about a new initiative between Yuba Water Agency, the California Department of Water Resources and University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography to study how atmospheric rivers affect the location, duration and intensity of storms.
I ran down a quick summary this morning of the relevant data, comparing recent use with the cuts mandated under the DCP. It shows that, at this first tier of shortage, permitted use is less than the voluntary cuts water users have been making since 2015. In other words, all of the states are already using less water than contemplated in this first tier of DCP reductions.
For more than a century, the zanja system, a series of irrigation ditches that brought water from the Río de Porciúncula (now the LA River) to the homes and fields of Los Angeles, was the lifeblood of the region. At its height in 1888, 52 miles of zanjas, half open earth and half concrete, ran within the city limits. An additional 40 miles of zanjas ran outside the city proper. Controlled by the local government, the water that flowed in these zanjas enabled life, and occasionally death, to flourish in Los Angeles.
In 2016, California became the first state to pass legislation regulating dairy methane, requiring the farms to cut their manure emissions 40% by 2030. … Enter Neil Black. Black’s company builds multimillion-dollar projects at the state’s largest dairies to capture the gas.
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to investigate becoming a stakeholder in the Potter Valley project, a massive water development in the Eel and Russian river basins. … The idea is to protect the Russian River’s water supply for Potter Valley residents while mitigating the effects of the Scott Dam on Eel River fish populations.
City water will be flowing to yet another community living in county jurisdiction with the state forcing the City Council’s Monday action to supply water service to the privately owned Ceres West Mobile Home Park. … The park, which was approved by the county in 1969, had limited options to supply drinking water to its residents because water from an on-site well exceeds state limits for arsenic and nitrates.
As the city considers changes to its wastewater rates, its consultant, Nebraska-based HDR Engineering Inc., suggests users that send “high strength” wastewater to the city’s treatment system pay more because of the additional treatment costs. Domestic septic tank/portable restroom discharges, industrial laundry services and alcohol beverage manufacturers such as breweries, wineries and distilleries could be affected…
While Belvedere officials consider a series of flood control projects that could cost up to $27.1 million, the city has appointed a new advisory committee that represents some of the hillside homeowners who say that money shouldn’t come out of their pockets. … An engineering consultant has designed several iterations of the projects, which are meant to safeguard the community from the forthcoming effects of sea-level rise.
To Eastern Sierra residents, in most years, annual run-off means the streams and canals rise and pasture lands start to green-up. For Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, run-off is the city’s life’s blood… So, how do they figure it out? Eric Tillemans, LADWP engineer, gave the Inyo County Board of Supervisors a beginner’s course in Run-Off 101 at a recent meeting.
The organization best known for backing a public takeover of Cal Am’s local [Monterey Peninsula] water system filed an appeal of the Planning Commission’s narrow approval of a permit for the 6.4-million-gallon-per-day desal plant north of Marina and associated infrastructure. The appeal argues the desal project proposal fails to properly address several key details, including groundwater rights, and calls for the county to require a supplemental environmental review before considering the proposal.
Members of Friends of the River and the Sierra Club are planning a presentation on a controversial episode in Mother Lode history, when activists unsuccessfully tried to prevent flooding of a raftable section of the Stanislaus River by rising water levels in New Melones Reservoir in the 1970s and 1980s. … The event is scheduled at 7 p.m. Wednesday this week at Tuolumne County Library, 480 Greenley Road in Sonora.
The Moulton Niguel Water District has agreed to pay $4.8 million to settle a 3-year dispute with South Orange County Wastewater Authority, which processes a portion of the district’s wastewater, according to a settlement agreement released Monday. … Moulton Niguel stopped paying capital improvement invoices for the plant in 2016, saying it would sign past-due checks only as part of a process to terminate its contract to use the plant.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has declared a drought emergency across nearly half the state. The drought declaration covers the Olympic peninsula, the North Cascades, the eastern Cascades and most of southwest Washington. It allows local governments to tap into $2 million in state funding to respond to hardships caused by the drought. … Snowpack is now at its fourth-lowest level in the past 30 years.
Billions of gallons of treated wastewater is dumped into our California coast each day, and with it, billions of resident dollars are quite literally going to waste. Why aren’t we utilizing available solutions to stop this sewage discharge and capitalize on our people’s investment in clean drinking water?
As part of efforts by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) to assess its 2014-2016 turf replacement program during the California drought, we evaluated how yards changed after converting a lawn through a MWD rebate in LA County. We also evaluated trends in participation across cities.
The Colorado River just got a boost that’s likely to prevent its depleted reservoirs from bottoming out, at least for the next several years. Representatives of seven Western states and the federal government signed a landmark deal on Monday laying out potential cuts in water deliveries through 2026 to reduce the risks of the river’s reservoirs hitting critically low levels.
Water is a currency in California, and the low-income farmworkers who pick the Central Valley’s crops know it better than anyone. They labor in the region’s endless orchards, made possible by sophisticated irrigation systems, but at home their faucets spew toxic water tainted by arsenic and fertilizer chemicals.
The combination of droughts and floods has given rise to a process known as saltwater intrusion — what San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo refers to as his city’s greatest climate threat. … In coastal regions like San Jose, overpumping allows seawater to seep into the city’s aquifers, exposing local residents to excess sodium in their drinking water. The problem is compounded by sea level rise, which pushes seawater inland toward the city’s filtration system.
On our August Edge of Drought Tour, we’re venturing into the Santa Barbara area to learn about the water challenges and the steps being taken to boost supplies. The region’s local surface and groundwater supplies are limited, and its hydrologic recovery often has lagged behind much of the state despite the recent lifting of a drought emergency declaration following this winter’s storms.
