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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While western states work to hash out a plan to save the
crumbling Colorado River system, officials from Southern Nevada
are preparing for the worst — including possible water
restrictions in the state’s most populous county. The Nevada
Legislature last week introduced Assembly Bill 220, an omnibus
bill that comes from the minds of officials at the Southern
Nevada Water Authority. Most significantly, the legislation
gives the water authority the ability to impose hefty water
restrictions on individual homes in Southern Nevada, where
three-quarters of Nevada’s 3.2 million residents live and rely
on the drought-stricken Colorado River for 90 percent of their
water. … The bill, if approved and signed into law in its
current form, would stand as another substantial step toward
conserving Nevada’s water …
Winter storms that bolstered the Sierra Nevada snowpack and
added to California reservoirs prompted federal and state water
managers to announce increases in anticipated water allocations
for the 2023 growing season. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
last week announced an initial allocation of 35% of contracted
water supplies for agricultural customers south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The announcement brought a
measure of certainty for farmers, ranchers and agricultural
water contractors, after officials provided zero water
allocations for agriculture from the federal Central Valley
Project in 2021 and 2022.
The Carmel River Watershed has seen record rainfall this winter
beating out 1998 for the wettest year to date and the rain is
not done yet. But most of that water won’t end up in your tap
instead it’s flowing out to the ocean. … That 91,000
acre-feet is equivalent to roughly 29.6 million gallons of
water going out to sea or nine years’ worth of drinking water
for the Peninsula. … Not every drop of rainwater
this winter went out to the Pacific. To date his water year the
Peninsula’s water utility California American Water has banked
about 500 acre-feet of water off the Carmel River, less than a
tenth of what the Peninsula will use in a year, the water’s
been piped to the Seaside Basin and stored in injection wells.
As the effects of heat-trapping pollution continue to raise sea
levels, wetlands dotting American coastlines could drown —
or they could flourish. Their fate will depend upon rates of
sea-level rise, how quickly the plants can grow, and whether
there’s space inland into which they can migrate. Climate
Central modeled how American coastal wetlands will
respond to sea level rise in an array of potential scenarios.
It found that conserving land for wetlands to migrate into is a
decisive factor in whether wetlands will survive or drown.
Wetlands and development have long been in conflict, with
ecological values weighed against waterfront economic
opportunities. As seas rise, benefits of conserving areas
inland for wetland migration are creating new tensions. And as
climate change intensifies storms and elevate high tides and
storm surges, the economic values of wetlands are growing.
Crews with the El Dorado Irrigation District are working to
clear snow and debris from the flumes and canals that deliver
water to its customers throughout the latest round of winter
weather. Matt Heape, a hydro operations and maintenance
supervisor for the district, said the focus Tuesday was taking
care of a 22-mile canal system. … To do that, he
explained, crews used snowcats to get to remote, wooden
locations, sometimes having to snowshoe in further to reach the
canals and the surrounding walkways. Much of the day
included clearing walkways, plowing snow and keeping systems
clear, Heap said.
A well-known Bay Area construction materials firm has unleashed
harmful pollutants into Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek,
threatening sensitive species of fish, frogs and salamanders, a
newly filed lawsuit alleges. The Santa Clara County District
Attorney claims that Graniterock, an over-century-old
Watsonville-based corporation, has discharged stormwater from
two of its San Jose facilities that contain above-level pH
values, cement, sand, concrete, chemical additives and other
heavy metals. Those pollutants have endangered steelhead trout,
the California Tiger Salamander and the California Red Legged
frog — animals that live in and around the South Bay waterways,
the suit alleges. The complaint does not specify when or how
much of the pollutants were apparently found discharged into
the waterways.
From record rain, flooding and snowfall – to chilly
temperatures, hail and windy conditions, it’s been more
“wintery” than some San Diegans would like. So what’s going on?
ABC 10News sat down with Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist
and Operations Manager for the Center for Western Weather and
Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Aurora Water just issued an urgent reminder that a Westerner’s
outlook can change dramatically just by jumping over into the
next river basin. Skiers can be reveling in ridiculous
powder at Steamboat and feeling good about how much water the
Yampa and White rivers will contribute to the dry Colorado
River come spring. At the same time, Aurora sits with
half-empty reservoirs and a dwindling snowpack in one of its
key resource basins, the Arkansas River watershed. Already
fearing water levels for Colorado’s third-largest city may
approach emergency conditions this summer, the city council
voted Monday to cut one day from allowed lawn watering
schedules and add a surcharge for outdoor use.
Despite the continued heavy winter rain and snow throughout
California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently extended his executive
orders from 2022 that declared a drought emergency statewide.
He also asked the state water board to waive water flow
regulations intended to protect salmon and other endangered
fish species, as well as San Francisco Bay and Delta estuary
overall. Some viewed these moves as pragmatic steps to
avoid “wasting” the bounty of California’s rains out to
sea. Others saw them as a declaration of war against
the health of the bay. In fact, a war against the bay has
been going on for decades. Newsom’s order was merely the latest
skirmish. The war’s primary aggressors are agricultural
interests in the Central Valley. -Written by Howard V. Hendrix, the author of six
novels as well as many essays, poems and short
stories.
Huge blooms of phytoplankton — microscopic algae floating on
the ocean’s surface — have become larger and more frequent
along the world’s coastlines, according to new research,
bringing benefits to fisheries but also potentially causing
harm. Between 2003 and 2020, coastal phytoplankton blooms
increased by about 13% in extent, covering an additional 4
million square kilometres of the global ocean, the Nature study
found. And the blooms occurred more often, up by 59% during
that period. … [Phytoplankton can starve] the ocean of
oxygen and leading to “dead zones” that wreak chaos on the food
chain and fisheries. … While some regions saw weaker
blooms over the past two decades, including the California
Current, blooms strengthened in the northern Gulf of Mexico and
the East and South China Seas. … Fertilizer runoff from
agriculture can spike nutrient loads in the ocean, leading to
blooms.
Soggy, snow-capped California faces the likelihood of yet
another month of wet weather, but what remains uncertain is
whether this late winter precipitation will augment weeks of
record-setting snowpack, or cause it to vanish should warmer
rains arrive. Last week, a frigid storm transformed portions of
the state into a white landscape while toppling trees,
prompting power outages, spurring water rescues and leaving
some residents trapped by heavy snow. Now, with forecasts
calling for more rain and snow in March — including the
potential for at least one more atmospheric river system —
California is girding for what comes next. … Typically,
California’s snowpack provides about one-third of the state’s
water supply and has long been relied upon for its steady, slow
melting during the hot, dry months of summer. A deluge of warm
rain, however, could cause melting snow to fill rivers too
quickly and trigger widespread flooding.
The California State Water Resources Control Board can’t be
forced to evaluate the “reasonableness” of locally issued
permits to discharge treated wastewater, a state appeals court
ruled, because state law doesn’t impose this obligation on the
agency. The Los Angeles-based Second Appellate District on
Monday overturned a trial judge’s order for the agency to
evaluate the reasonableness of the permits that were renewed in
2017 by its regional board in LA, allowing four treatment
plants to discharge millions of gallons of treated wastewater
in the LA River and the Pacific Ocean every day. LA
Waterkeeper, an environmental watchdog, had challenged the
permits arguing the regional board and the state board should
have considered better uses of the water, such as recycling,
rather than dumping it in the ocean.
As drought-weary Californians watched trillions of gallons of
runoff wash into the Pacific Ocean during recent storms, it
underscored a nagging question: Why can’t we save more of that
water for not-so-rainy days to come? But even the rare
opportunity to stock up on the precious resource isn’t proving
enough to unite a state divided on a contentious idea to siphon
water from the north and tunnel it southward, an attempt to
combat the Southwest’s worst drought in more than a millennium.
The California Department of Water Resources said such a tunnel
could have captured a year’s supply of water for more than 2
million people. The proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
administration — one that would cost $16 billion to help 27
million water customers in central and southern California — is
spurring fresh outrage from communities that have fended off
similar plans over four decades, including suggestions to build
other tunnels or a massive canal.
After a winter of epic storms in California, Yosemite National
Park’s famous waterfalls are in full flow, its reservoirs are
brimming, and the snowpack in the surrounding Sierra Nevada
Mountains is well above average. In drought-stricken
California, that is cause for celebration, but wildlife experts
warn that weather extremes driven by climate change can also
change habitats too quickly for wildlife to adapt.
… [Beth Pratt, California regional director for the
National Wildlife Federation] has been studying Yosemite Valley
wildlife for 25 years, including the more than 400 species of
vertebrates that call the 1,200 square-mile (3,100
square-kilometer) park home. … In his 27 years as a
Yosemite park ranger, Scott Gediman has never seen so much
winter snow and water in the park.
The climate shifts that California is experiencing—with warmer
temperatures, less reliable snowpack, and more intense
droughts—have exposed critical weaknesses in the administration
of our water rights system under conditions of scarcity. In
particular, there are challenges curtailing diversions when
supplies are inadequate. And on the flip side, this system also
needs the capacity to better facilitate the management of
abundance, by permitting the capture of more water from large
storms to recharge groundwater basins. In our remarks today we
recap some of the key challenges the changing climate is posing
for California’s water rights system in both dry and wet times,
illustrate how these issues are playing out in the state’s
largest watershed, and offer some recommendations for how the
legislature could help strengthen the water rights system to
better respond to water scarcity and abundance.
More state money is flowing to the valley to take land out of
production in an attempt to ease demand on groundwater. The
state Department of Water Resources (DWR) is starting a new
program called LandFlex which will pay up to $25 million in
incentives to farmers to fallow crops. On February 23,
DWR announced three grants from the program, all of which are
going to San Joaquin Valley groundwater agencies. Madera
County groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) will receive
$9.3 million, Greater Kaweah GSA will receive $7 million and
Eastern Tule GSA will receive $7 million.
Once hailed as the “American Nile,” the Colorado River spans
1,450 miles and supplies nearly 40 million people across seven
states plus northern Mexico with drinking water, irrigation for
farmland and hydroelectric power. But after decades of drought
and overuse, major reservoirs along the river are drying
up. As the Colorado River levels drop to historic lows,
tensions are rising between the seven states that depend on its
flow — Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah
and Wyoming. Their original agreement for distributing the
river water lacked foresight and failed to account for dire
circumstances like long-term drought. The American
Southwest now faces a crisis it knew was coming.
Municipal wastewater treatment plants emit nearly double the
amount of methane into the atmosphere than scientists
previously believed, according to new research from Princeton
University. And since methane warms the planet over 80 times
more powerfully than carbon dioxide over 20 years, that could
be a big problem. … Zondlo led one of two new studies on
the subject, both reported in papers published
in Environmental Science & Technology. One study
performed on-the-ground methane emissions measurements at
63 wastewater treatment plants in the United States;
the other used machine learning methods to analyze published
literature data from methane monitoring studies of various
wastewater collection and treatment processes around the globe.
Meteorologist Bo Svoma hopped down into the 4-foot-deep pit he
had shoveled and grinned like a school kid on a snow day. “Bo
is happy!” shouted one of his Salt River Project colleagues
working snow survey duty on Tuesday. There’s a lot for the
metro Phoenix water supplier to be happy about this winter.
What was supposed to be an unusually dry winter because of the
return of the ocean and atmospheric phenomenon known as La Nińa
has instead shaped up as the Arizona rim country’s
second-snowiest season in 30 years. The ocean conditions that
usually would push the jet stream and its storms toward the
Pacific Northwest instead have driven storm after storm into
the Southwest.
A new winter water flow management project implemented in
California’s Trinity River is best for the region’s fish
populations, the U.S. Department of the Interior and its Bureau
of Reclamation said …