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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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.
On a dusty hilltop in San Diego, the drinking water of the
future courses through a wildly complicated and very loud
jumble of tanks, pipes, and cylinders. Here at the North City
Water Reclamation Plant, very not-drinkable wastewater is
turned into a liquid so pure it would actually wreak havoc on
your body if you imbibed it without further treatment.
[O]ur drought is indeed affecting bees — but not the urban
garden variety, where people still water their yards. It’s the
feral colonies that live outside the city that are
struggling. … Feral bees are colonies that aren’t being
taken care of. They’re wild and make their hives anywhere and
everywhere, though we often don’t notice them. Without rain or
watering, bees scale back on producing honey to conserve energy
and struggle to keep their hives at the right temperature.
Colonies that are too dehydrated could experience
die-off.
In an effort to expand Corning’s water services, the city is
applying for a Small Community Drought Relief of $22,322,250
through the Department of Water Resources. Corning is applying
for this grant to fund three wells and extend water mains and
laterals within the municipality’s sphere of influence, which
is to Viola Road west across Interstate 5, north to Finnell
Avenue and east across Interstate 5.
In the latest fallout from the worsening drought, residents of
San Jose — which received the lowest rainfall in its recorded
history last year — and surrounding communities are about to be
given tougher water conservation rules than any major city in
California. The San Jose Water Company, a private firm that
provides drinking water to 1 million people in San Jose,
Cupertino, Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno, has
begun sending notices to residents informing them it is moving
forward with mandatory rules to set monthly residential water
budgets with financial penalties for homeowners who exceed
them.
The Northern Hemisphere looks ready to transition into a La
Niña winter in the next month, according to the latest outlook
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
Climate Prediction Center, KTLA sister station WUTR reported.
… Southern California, the southwestern states, Texas,
and the Gulf Coast states through to Florida … are plagued by
drought, and a La Niña year could make that worse. The
opposite is actually true for Northern California and the
Pacific Northwest, where La Nina winters tend to bring more
precipitation, not less.
The nation’s top civilian cybersecurity agency issued a warning
Thursday about ongoing cyber threats to the U.S. drinking water
supply, saying malicious hackers are targeting government water
and wastewater treatment systems. Authorities said they wanted
to highlight ongoing malicious cyber activity “by both known
and unknown actors” targeting the technology and information
systems that provide clean, drinkable water and treat the
billions of gallons of wastewater created in the U.S. every
year.
The Water Education Foundation has won a national award
for its innovative partnership with the California Department
of Water Resources (DWR) to train schoolteachers across the
state on climate science and how they can bring hands-on
activities into their classrooms connected to local examples of
climate change impacts. The award was presented by Center
for Climate and Energy Solutions and The Climate Registry
during their virtual Climate Leadership Series and Awards
Showcase, Oct. 13-15.
A potential mid-October storm could bring rain to Northern
California next week, possibly quelling wildfire risk in the
region, according to forecasters. The National Weather
Service’s Climate Prediction Center said “above-normal
precipitation” for the West Coast could arrive next Thursday,
bringing “possible record-breaking precipitation for late
October” over parts of the region. Forecasters said two inches
of rain over three days could fall over the Pacific Northwest.
This week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation initiated a Folsom
Power Bypass to reduce river water temperatures and protect
salmonids as spawning season begins on the Lower American
River. A power bypass allows Reclamation to access and release
cold water below the power unit penstocks at Folsom Reservoir,
thereby reducing river water temperatures to benefit rearing
steelhead and spawning fall-run Chinook salmon. This is
especially critical given that the LAR this summer was operated
to a temperature of 71° F due to the extremely dry hydrology
and low Folsom Reservoir storage.
Two years ago, this unprecedented megadrought prompted all
seven [Colorado River Basin] states to agree, for the first
time, to a dual drought contingency plan — one for the upper
basin and one for the lower. … But in the upper basin,
though the states agreed to their own drought contingency plan,
they still haven’t agreed on the biggest, most controversial of
the plan’s elements: setting aside up to 500,000 acre-feet of
water in a special, protected drought pool in Lake Powell.
Well users around Glenn County are approaching a water crisis
due to ongoing drought conditions. Groundwater supplies are
running lower and lower as many residential wells are drying up
while others are reporting serious water supply issues. In
response, a meeting was held Thursday evening to not only
address the issue but bring forth options for residents in
Orland to connect to a municipal water line.
Jean Yang, a senior associate at the Los Angeles design firm
Studio-MLA, is a self-described recovering “metrics-aholic.”
… As Studio-MLA’s project manager for the Upper Los Angeles
River and Tributaries plan, Yang is helping apply both
qualitative and quantitative insights to ensure equity in a
massive revitalization plan.
Recent rainfall and the arrival of a desalination system are
allowing Fort Bragg to reduce the city’s water emergency from a
Stage 4 water crisis to a Stage 2 water alert. That means
businesses and residents can ease up slightly on their water
conservation efforts. The city was also able to pause receipts
of water from the city of Ukiah since water deliveries were
exceeding demand. Fort Bragg can meet that demand now without
outside help.
Drinking water from this tap makes San Diego County Water
Authority’s General Manager Sandy Kerl smile — and for
good reason. Back in the drought of the ’90s, 95% of San
Diego’s water came from one source, and they faced 30% cuts for
13 months. … Fast-forward 30 years later, and the
San Diego County Water Authority has multiple streams of water
sources in its portfolio, including the groundbreaking Carlsbad
Desalination Plant that utilizes ocean water to provide the
region with about 10% of its drinking water.
A new study by the energy science and policy research
institute, Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for
Healthy Energy shows that the disposal of over 16 billion
barrels of oil and gas wastewater into unlined pits over a
50-year period has introduced salts, carcinogens, and other
toxins into regional aquifers. For decades, California law has
allowed the use of unlined ponds to dispose of water extracted
during oil and gas production.
A celebration event held Wednesday commemorated the recent
completion of a $37 million, three-year construction project at
the Santa Rosa Water Reclamation Facility on Washington Avenue
in Murrieta. Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, Rancho
California Water District, and Western Municipal Water District
hosted the event. The three agencies are partners with the
Santa Rosa Regional Resources Authority, which owns and manages
the reclamation facility that serves portions of Murrieta,
Temecula, Wildomar, and surrounding communities.
It is a painful paradox for California, the world’s
fifth-largest economy: Some of the very same farmworkers who
pick our food can’t drink a glass of clean water — or any water
in some cases — from their kitchen sink. While working on
environmental justice issues at EDF for the past six years, I
have had the opportunity to talk with some of these essential
workers, many of whom come from Spanish-speaking countries like
me.
Farmers in California’s San Joaquin Valley are struggling with
the megadrought. It is the most productive agricultural region
globally, where farms grow 250 different crops on 17% of the
nation’s irrigated land. … California regulators cut
farmers’ water allotments by a third due to low reservoir
levels.
Drought continues to spread back across Colorado after a dry
summer and start to fall, with nearly all the state at least
abnormally dry just three months after more than half the state
was drought-free. This week’s report from the U.S. Drought
Monitor shows 95% of Colorado is abnormally dry or worse,
compared to 45% of the state experiencing those same drought
conditions on July 13. Sixty-six percent of the state is seeing
moderate drought conditions or worse; 29% of Colorado is
experiencing severe drought or worse; and 14% is seeing extreme
drought conditions.
A precedent-setting plan to transfer water rights has set up a
fight between Colorado River communities and a town in central
Arizona. The proposal calls for 2,000 acre feet of Colorado
River water to be transferred 260 miles away to the town of
Queen Creek. The town wants to purchase and transfer
water from a farm in La Paz County. The request has been
approved by the Arizona Department of Water Resources and
awaits a review by the Bureau of Reclamation.
