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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Point Reyes National Seashore’s leadership could have done a
lot better in responding to water tests that show unacceptable
pollution levels. The park declined our request for comment,
citing ongoing litigation seeking to derail the park’s new
ranch and elk management plan. That plan, to its credit,
includes measures to reduce ranches’ possible role in pollution
levels – some of which far exceeded state health standards for
E. coli bacteria – and resumption of regular testing. The
recent report was conducted by an environmental engineering
firm hired by environmental organizations, among them the
Olema-based Turtle Island Restoration Network, part of which
includes the Salmon Protection and Awareness Network, or
SPAWN.
Air pollution in Salt Lake City was so bad last year it set off
the fire alarms in Elizabeth Joy’s clinic. Joy, a family
and sports medicine doctor, said that her patients had to be
evacuated as part of the emergency response. Yet in
sending the patients outside, the alarms actually put people in
an even more dangerous position given the city’s air quality at
the time — which was judged to be the worst in the
world on that particular day. … Cars and wildfires
contribute to Utah’s air pollution, but the Great Salt Lake is
a less obvious but important contributor. Sitting just
northwest of Salt Lake City, the largest saltwater lake in the
Western Hemisphere is drying up because of water use and
drought amid a changing climate, sending dust with toxic metals
— including arsenic — in the air of a metro area with
approximately 1.2 million people.
For a third time, the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation
District (Regional San) has been recognized as a Utility of the
Future Today by a partnership of water sector organizations.
The Utility of the Future Today Recognition Program was
launched in 2016 by a partnership of water sector
organizations, including the National Association of Clean
Water Agencies, the Water Environment Federation, the Water
Research Foundation, and the WateReuse Association. Input was
also provided from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The goal of the program is to guide utilities of all sizes
toward smarter, more efficient operations and resource
recovery.
Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles’ past.
In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative,
low-water landscaping built for the future. … For decades,
[Susan and Steve] Matloff’s Windsor Square neighborhood
has been lined with stately homes bordered by sprawling lawns
and sidewalks wet from sprinkler overspray. You could argue
that the neighborhood is no different from others in Southern
California where lush, green lawns have traditionally been
a statement about pride of place. But the pervasive water
waste involved in tending to a lawn as drought in
California continues prompted the Matloffs to consider
their footprint, as well as L.A.’s future water independence.
California has set an ambitious goal of protecting 30% of the
state’s lands and waters by 2030. We spoke with CalTrout’s
legal and policy director Redgie Collins about a promising but
underutilized tool that could help protect water bodies
throughout the state: The Outstanding Natural Resource Waters
(ONRW) designation. As Collins says, “You can designate all the
land you like, but in order to preserve any ecosystem,
freshwater is critical.” There’s a lot of interest in
identifying and protecting Outstanding National Resource Waters
in the West. What is this designation and what does it
accomplish? Is it the same as Wild and Scenic?
The water scarcity California has been experiencing over the
last two decades is the result of the worst drought to hit the
American Southwest in the past 1,200 years. … [I]ssues
regarding water quality arise due to the state’s high use of
pesticides in agriculture, with several Environmental
Protection Agency-reapproved toxic herbicides not being
regulated by state legislation. From 2004 to 2015, over 2
billion pounds of pesticides have been used in California, with
the most recent numbers indicating an annual use of 209
million pounds. Though it represents only 2-3% of total U.S.
cropland, the Golden State uses up to 20% of all pesticides
employed in the U.S. -Written by Stan Gottfredson, CEO of Atraxia
Law, a San Diego-based firm that helps agricultural workers and
their families affected by paraquat exposure compile the
necessary information to support their Parkinson’s disease
injury claims against liable manufacturers.
Faced with deep cuts to the water supply, and angry that other
states are not doing their share, tribes and local governments
in Arizona are increasingly talking about backing off earlier
offers to give up some water. The Gila River Indian Community
said in August that it will begin storing
water underground “rather than contributing them to system
conservation programs for Lake Mead.” Officials in Phoenix,
Scottsdale, Tucson, Peoria and Glendale are considering
following suit, asking to get their full allotment of water
instead of financial compensation they might have received for
reducing their take from the system…. But a spokesperson
for the California Natural Resources Agency said the state has
long been working for years to conserve Colorado River water
and that it is continuing to do so.
Southwest of Sacramento, the branching arms of waterways reach
into a patchwork of farm fields and pastures. Canals and
wetlands fringed with reeds meet a sunbaked expanse of dry
meadows. These lands on the northwestern edge of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have now been targeted for
restoration following the widespread destruction of estuary
marsh habitats that began over a century ago. But one habitat
restoration project funded by a large agricultural water
district is drawing criticism from environmental advocates.
They say that while the project is based on claims of
ecologically important marsh habitat, a large portion of the
land is a high-and-dry former cattle pasture that does little
to benefit endangered fish.
Mount Shasta, the widely recognizable face of California’s far
north, has lost almost all its defining snow cover for a second
straight year. Another summer of scorching temperatures,
punctuated by the recent heat wave, has melted most of the
mountain’s lofty white crown, typically a year-round symbol of
the north state’s enduring wilds. … While the seven named ice
sheets have been retreating for years, if not decades, the
diminishing snow, which helps insulate the glaciers and keep
them from thawing, has caused an unprecedented melt-off: About
20% of the glaciers’ ice, and possibly more, is expected to
have vanished over the past two summers.
On an early August morning in California’s Imperial Valley,
tractors rumble across verdant fields of alfalfa, mowing down
the tall grass and leaving it to dry in shaggy heaps under the
hot sun. Here, in one of the oldest farming communities in the
Colorado River basin, the forage crop is king. One out of every
three farmed acres in the valley is dedicated to growing
alfalfa … Now, with the basin on the brink of the most
severe water cuts in history, the alfalfa industry has been
propelled to the center of longstanding debates over
sustainable water use and the future of farming in the west.
Meteorologists are pretty confident the La Niña conditions
we’ve seen all year are going to be with us at least a few
months longer. There’s a 91% chance the La Niña conditions last
from September to November, the National Weather Service’s
Climate Prediction Center said in an update Thursday.
Those odds have strengthened since the meteorologists’ last
update in August… California isn’t projected to have a
particularly wet or particularly dry fall, but it’s winter
meteorologists will be keeping an extra close eye on. If
La Niña continues, it’ll be the third La Niña winter in a
row – a rare phenomenon we’ve only seen twice since 1950.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has
thrown out a lawsuit in which Klamath Basin irrigators won an
injunction against federally authorized releases of stored
water from Upper Klamath Lake. The court ruled the lawsuit
shouldn’t have been allowed to proceed because the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation, which is under court orders to protect tribal
water rights and comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA),
wasn’t named as a defendant and can’t be compelled to
participate in state court litigation. The complaint was filed
against the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) for
failing to protect the irrigators’ water rights.
As temperatures took a turn for the sweltering last week,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills intended
to protect state residents from extreme heat. First up was
AB 1643, from possible future Assembly speaker Robert Rivas,
D-Salinas. It creates an advisory committee to study the
effects of extreme heat on workers, businesses and the economy.
Then there was AB 2238 from Assemblywoman Luz Rivas, D-Arleta,
to create a heat warning and ranking system akin to the one
used for measuring hurricanes.
The city of Fresno hadn’t bothered recently with a mound of
groundwater that accumulates beneath its southwest wastewater
treatment plant every year. For decades, it traded a chunk of
the water to the Fresno Irrigation District (FID) for about
half the amount back in Kings River water, but had let that
deal lapse the past two years. Then the state’s groundwater law
cast that percolated sewer water in a much more attractive
light. So attractive, the city and FID are now concerned that
another ag district is getting a little too handsy with it.
Business has been slow at C&S Nursery Inc. in Baldwin
Hills. Cristian Rosales, who owns the company with his brother
Santiago, said the slowdown this summer was due to customers
being reluctant to buy new plants. … The strict restrictions
on outdoor watering have severely pruned business at nurseries
throughout the Los Angeles area with one owner claiming sales
were down 90% in August. They agree their future may lie with
native California plants and growing material that uses less
water. The water restrictions are from the Metropolitan Water
District (MWD), which in April asked its member water agencies
to either go to a one-day a week watering schedule or go on a
water budget – a setting of volumetric limits on the amount of
water used.
Fire clouds that reached altitudes of up to 40,000 feet over
the Mosquito Fire in Northern California over the past week
have left scientists in awe. … The California Department
of Forestry and Fire Protection and U.S. Forest Service
officials say the fire, which started near Oxbow Reservoir in
the Tahoe National Forest on Tuesday, Sept. 6, is now 10%
contained, The Sacramento Bee reported. The fire has torn
through 41,443 acres, or 64.8 square miles, in El Dorado and
Placer counties, and threatens more than 5,000 homes and other
buildings.
California is a hotbed for extreme weather. A historic heat
wave brought a punishing 10 days with record-shattering high
temperatures. The Mosquito Fire in Placer and El Dorado
counties created a huge plume of smoke visible from 60 miles
away. Atmospheric rivers produce torrential downpours and can
cause widespread, damaging floods. Hurricanes — rotating storms
with sustained winds 74 mph and over — typically aren’t a
concern on the West Coast. And history shows that it’s
incredibly rare for a hurricane to get close to California.
[T]he US is far from the only place experiencing extreme
dryness. Countries like China are also struggling, as well as
parts of Europe and Africa. China has turned to
cloud seeding as a potential solution to its drought problems.
It’s also being more regularly utilized in the United
Arab Emirates. Cloud seeding is more or less a
technological way to make it rain, even when the weather is
anything but rainy. Planes fly over a region, releasing a
compound like silver iodide into clouds to cause
condensation. … Cloud seeding already happens
across states like Arizona and California, but interest in
the technology appears to be increasing. But not everyone
is on board. Critics say it’s expensive, and it’s unclear
if it’s that effective.
As soon as the U.S. Department of the Interior last month
announced that Nevada would lose 8% of its water allotment from
the Colorado River next year amid the continuing drought,
officials with the Southern Nevada Water Authority started
fielding questions from concerned residents. And with those
questions came some inaccurate finger-pointing about the water
situation — namely that California is using our water; same
with casinos on the resort corridor. The authority last week,
in an ongoing video series to bring educational awareness for
conservation, addressed those concerns. It’s one of about 12
videos it has done in recent years, stressing that the water
supply here — especially with continued conservation — is
secure.
With water contamination at Point Reyes National Seashore at
dangerous levels, the California Coastal Commission gave the
green light Thursday to a strategy to regulate private ranchers
and require them to stop practices that increase fecal
pollution from cattle. The commission spent hours Thursday
debating a second version of a water-quality strategy from the
National Park Service, to address chronic water pollution
caused by private ranching in the only national seashore on the
West Coast.
