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: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Also, 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.
Lake Merritt, in the center of Oakland, California, is a tidal
estuary connected to the Pacific Ocean. It usually teems with
life, both human and marine. In early September, its 3-mile
shoreline was bustling with joggers. But in the
sunset-blackened waters, the gleaming white corpses of
thousands of decaying fish bobbed along in the gentle tide and
piled up in mounds along the lagoon’s edges. In late July, an
algae bloom began spreading in San Francisco Bay, which
stretches 60 miles north to south.
Starting this month, California’s tourism bureau is trying
something it’s never tried before: nudging travelers toward the
state’s tribal lands, many of which haven’t historically hosted
large numbers of sightseers, in hopes of benefiting from a
largely untapped resource of rich cultural history. A new
promotional campaign called “Visit Native California”
represents the bureau’s first effort to spotlight the cultural
heritage of some of the 109 federally recognized tribes here
and help them gain a foothold in the state’s immense tourism
market. It comes at a time when several tribes and Indigenous
communities are just beginning to build new tourism businesses.
Marin Municipal Water District is pushing back on a Marin
County Civil Grand Jury report asserting the agency nearly
faced depleting its reservoirs this year because it had not
taken past steps to build a more resilient water supply. The
grand jury assessment lacked credibility, included factual
errors and is now being used to incite more critique of the
district’s handling of the drought last year, the district
Board of Directors said. The grand jury report came after
two winters of drought in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 threatened to
deplete local reservoirs as soon as mid-2022.
One of the most hotly debated issues in California wine these
days involves a chemical that can be found in every Home Depot
in America: Roundup. Monsanto’s high-profile herbicide is the
go-to method of weed control for many California vineyards. …
But Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is probably a
carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization.
… That revelation has spurred a new outcry in the
California wine industry. Some winegrowers who farm according
to organic, biodynamic or regenerative protocols — which
prohibit the use of glyphosate and other synthetic chemicals —
are speaking out against Roundup with renewed fervor, calling
for an end to its use in vineyards.
The Mosquito Fire burning in Northern California flared up
Tuesday afternoon, charging toward a mountain community and
torching more homes as it burned dangerously close to a high
school. …The Mosquito Fire continues to push steadily to the
east in heavily forested areas with extremely dry vegetation,
officials said…. drought-ravaged Western states are home to
growing areas of easy-to-burn dry brush that can become fuel
for more volatile wildfires. The fires are also burning amid a
water shortage emergency that is forcing residents to limit
outdoor watering as California’s reservoirs shrink.
Agricultural businesses are under growing economic pressures as
drought conditions worsen and inflation continues to climb.
Rising energy costs have been a particularly damaging
repercussion of the drought, with farmers spending more on
electricity in order to keep wells and irrigation systems
pumping water to their crops. California agriculture lost $1.1
billion in 2021 as a direct result of water shortages, and the
Central Valley alone sat on roughly 385,000 acres of idle land.
Unfortunately, intensifying climate change makes this year’s
outlook just as grim. … Saving money on energy bills has
made solar more attractive than ever, especially now
considering the new Inflation Reduction Act offering additional
benefits to renewable energy. -Written by David Field, co-managing partner and
co-founder of solar finance and development
platform Luminia.
California water agencies that depend on Colorado River supply
are quietly negotiating combined reductions of between 320,000
and 400,000 acre-feet from the fast-dwindling Lake Mead
reservoir next year…. California has the largest and oldest
rights to Colorado River water, totaling 4.4 million acre-feet
per year, with the bulk of that piped to farmers served by the
Imperial Irrigation District, at the state’s hot, dry
southeastern end…. It’s unclear if the amounts being
discussed would be enough to assuage harsh criticism from
officials in other river basin states who are already being
forced to make cuts under previous legal agreements, or more
importantly, to satisfy federal officials who say 2 million to
4 million acre-feet in reduced use is needed from seven states
in 2022 to keep the system and its huge, drought-ravaged
reservoirs afloat.
A third consecutive La Niña pattern has taken shape in the
Pacific Ocean, and that’s not excellent news. … The weather
service’s Climate Prediction Center issued a La Niña Advisory
on Thursday, saying that there is a 91% chance of the La Niña
cycle continuing between September and November … In a
typical La Niña, as SFist has discussed in the past, our part
of California is neither guaranteed to see more nor less rain,
though if the patterns of the past two winters holds, signs
point to less-than-average rain and lower-than-average snowpack
in the Sierra — the latter has been the result of early snow
and warm winter months. That all but guarantees us another year
or two of this mega-drought.
The relentless Western drought that is threatening water
supplies in the country’s largest reservoirs is exposing a
reality that could portend a significant shift in electricity:
Hydropower is not the reliable backbone it once was. Utilities
and states are preparing for a world with less available water
and turning more to wind and solar, demand response, energy
storage and improved grid connections. That planning has helped
Western states keep the lights on this summer even in severe
drought conditions. Take California, which experienced record
demand during a heat wave last week but did not have to impose
any rolling blackouts.
The brainchild for fishgate came to River Partners Senior
Restoration Ecologist Michael Rogner, and Co-Founder of
River Partners and Director of Special Projects John Carlon,
over a couple of beers at a bar. Fishgate is an
automated/engineered fish door which helps struggling Chinook
salmon at River Partners’ Willow Bend Preserve near Colusa
return back to their native riverside ranges along the
Sacramento River. The first-of-its-kind fish gate
designed by the Cal Poly Irrigation & Training Research Center
will prevent juvenile salmon from being trapped on the restored
floodplain.
Dry, cracked rice fields can be seen driving along Interstate 5
in Glenn and Colusa counties. This year has been more than
challenging for farmers as California continues its third
consecutive year of extreme drought conditions. KRCR spoke to
fourth generation farmer Chris Johnson on Monday about not
being able to plant crop due to lower water allocation from the
Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (GCID). Chris Johnson’s farms
would only receive an allotment of 7% from the GCID with an
agreement that the water might not even be enough to finish the
year.
Large-scale modern desalination has been around for some 60
years, and huge factory-sized plants are turning seawater into
drinking water, from California (where there are a dozen
desalination facilities) to Spain (where a Barcelona plant,
Europe’s largest, supplies 20% of the metro drinking water) to
the Middle East (where Saudi Arabia produces a fifth of the
world’s desalinated water).
California is at a transformational moment when it comes to
managing water. As aridification of the western United States
intensifies, we have an opportunity to advance a better
approach to flow management in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta and our rivers through a process of voluntary agreements
to update the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. The
agreements, signed by parties from Red Bluff to San Diego,
propose a new structure for managing water resources in the
Delta and beyond in a way that is collaborative, innovative and
foundational for adapting to climate realities while benefiting
communities, farms, fish and wildlife. -Written by Jennifer Pierre, the general manager
of the State Water Contractors, an association of 27
public water agencies; and David Guy, president of
the Northern California Water Association, which
represents Sacramento Valley water interests.
Scuba divers who pulled 25,000 pounds of litter and junk out of
Lake Tahoe last year have just begun a similar cleanup in
Fallen Leaf, a small alpine lake adjacent to Tahoe, and they’re
already surprised by the amount of garbage they’re finding.
… After scouring one mile of the lake’s 7-mile shoreline
down to 25 feet of depth, the crew has pulled out 3,000 pounds
of refuse, including about 100 car tires. … Over three
days this fall, in addition to pulling up countless beer cans
and glass bottles, West’s crew of 16 volunteers also discovered
what they believe to be the remains of a 100-year-old Ford
Model T automobile: four narrow tires, a chassis and an engine
block resting on the silty lake bed.
[Valeria] Contreras lives in Allensworth, a small town of about
500 people an hour’s drive north of Bakersfield, in
California’s Central Valley. She runs her own catering company,
and in her spare time she is also the general manager of the
Allensworth Community Services District, which oversees the
town’s water supply. Back in February, Contreras had no idea
why the water had stopped flowing. And it was her job to fix
it. … Clean, safe and affordable drinking water is
considered a human right under state law, but nearly a million
residents don’t have access to it. Like Contreras, many of them
live in the Central Valley, a patchwork of desert scrub and
irrigated farmland that’s twice the size of Massachusetts and
produces 25% of the nation’s food supply.
Would-be challenger Eric Averett said he is “withdrawing” from
the race for a seat on the powerful Kern County Water Agency
board of directors. His name will still appear on the ballot,
however. Averett said he couldn’t get his name off the ballot
as the deadline to do so had already passed when he decided not
want to run against Incumbent Phil Cerro. … With the drought
and other issues, Averett said, the agency board needs to
maintain “continuity” and he didn’t want an election battle to
become a distraction. Three other agency board members are
running unopposed. Those include Laura Cattani, Ted Page and
Charles Wulff.
Toxic waste lurking in the soil under West Oakland
neighborhoods is the next environmental threat in this
community already burdened by pollution. The stability of
buried contamination from Oakland’s industrial past relies on
it staying in place in the soil. But once the rising waters of
San Francisco Bay press inland and get underneath these pockets
of chemicals and gases, a certain amount of that waste will not
stay in place. Instead, it will begin to move. More than 100
sites — colorless gases in dirt under schools, flammable
chemicals buried in shallow soil near parks, petroleum in
pockets of groundwater from iron manufacturing — lie in wait.
Making good on a promise to replace the word “squaw” from
America’s landmarks and places, the U.S. Board on Geographic
Names has announced the renaming of at least 650 geographic
features. “Squaw,” which originated from the
Algonquian language, was once used to refer to a native woman,
but now is considered derogatory and racist by Native Americans
and others. … Of the 650 new name changes, 80
are in California, at least four are in Fresno County, and one
is in Tulare County. … Five Fresno county lakes and
streams have been changed including “Squaw Valley Basin” which
will now be known as “Yokuts Basin.”
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.
