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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California’s string of heavy rainstorms in January continue to
provide temporary relief to the state’s chronically dry land.
Drought conditions across the golden state have either improved
or remained the same compared to one week ago. The U.S. Drought
Monitor, in a weekly update published Thursday, reports the
state remains free of both “extreme” or “exceptional” drought
for the second week in a row. California’s Central Coast, which
was devastated by the severe storms, has exited moderate
drought conditions and is now “abnormally dry.” In the
northwest corner of the state, the majority of Del Norte County
is drought free for at least the second the week in a row.
As California grappled with drought conditions over the past
three years, flooding was the last thing on most people’s
minds. That changed this month when bomb cyclone rainstorms
saturated the state and left communities reeling from rushing
water. Unbeknownst to many, work on flood control progressed
during the dry times. Chico-based River Partners has
supplemented repairs to levies by restoring watersheds in the
Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. … Much of this work is on
hold, however, after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced deep cuts to
the state budget that hit flood plain projects particularly
hard. From funding levels of $250 million a year, the governor
cut flooding mitigation to $135 million — a fraction of the
$360 million to $560 million called for in the Central Valley
Flood Protection Plan adopted in 2012 and updated last year.
After weeks of near-constant rain and flooding, California
is finally drying out—but hopefully not getting too dry,
because the state needs all the rain it can get to pull itself
out of a historic drought. This is California at its most
frenetic and contradictory: Climate change is making both dry
spells and rainstorms more intense, ping-ponging the state’s
water systems between critical shortages and canal-topping
deluges. A simultaneous solution to both extremes
is right beneath Californians’ feet: aquifers, which are
made up of underground layers of porous rock or sediments, like
gravel and sand, that fill with rainwater soaking through the
soil above. … In paleo valleys, those coarser sediments
are topped with perhaps just a few feet of soil, so they
readily channel water into the aquifer system—this is where
you’d want to refill.
The saga over connecting Exeter and Tooleville’s water systems
entered its most important phase to date on Jan. 24., in which
an agreement will now be sent to the state for
review. City manager Adam Ennis said that the approval of
the consolidation agreement between Exeter and Tooleville will
be one of the last steps before they can execute the project.
The agreement outlines the responsibilities of Tooleville
Mutual Non-Profit Water Association (TMNPWA) and Exeter for
making the water connection a reality. Exeter is now awaiting
approval of this agreement from the State Water Board, and if
it is approved, they will finally be allowed to break ground on
the project. This was a long time coming, as the city has spent
years working on a solution to Tooleville’s water woes.
Despite the wet winter, the Department of Interior has
announced plans to cut Klamath River flows up to 30% below the
minimum mandated by the Endangered Species Act to protect
listed coho salmon. River flows will drop below 750 cubic feet
per second (cfs) for the first time in decades. This could
prove disastrous to juvenile coho salmon along with other
species including Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and Pacific
lamprey. The Yurok Tribe and the Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen’s Associations have already filed a 60-day Notice of
Intent to sue the federal government. … In 2002,
similarly low flows led to the infamous Klamath Fish Kill when
tens of thousands of adult salmon died as they tried to make
their way to their spawning grounds. In 2004, similarly
low flows caused a massive juvenile fish kill which in turn led
to a collapse of the entire west coast salmon fishery.
The State Water Resources Control Board on Jan. 1 issued a
“Drought & Conservation Technical Reporting Order” that
requires all water systems, including those operated by urban
water suppliers, to report monthly information on sources,
supply and demand, supply augmentation and demand reduction
actions on a quarterly frequency. The complete submittal of
monthly reports in 2023 will now satisfy the Electronic Annual
Report’s supply and demand reporting, which is collected in
2024. The report covering January, February and March will be
due April 30 and must be submitted using the new web-based
reporting tool, SAFER Clearinghouse. The order also notes that
there may be a change in reporting frequency and public water
agencies may be required to provide addition drought reporting
on a weekly or monthly basis.
With federal and state elected officials listening in,
representatives from 10 Monterey County departments lobbied for
assistance – financially and legislatively – for what they
consider the top priorities for 2023. Homeless funding,
reservoir improvements, clean drinking water, refurbishing all
or parts of the historic jail in Salinas, a new health clinic
in Marina, immigration reform and a reauthorization of the Farm
Bill, a veterans home, and ensuring ongoing flood relief
assistance from the Federal Emergency Management
Administration, or FEMA, were all selected as the most
important projects that will need federal or state assistance,
or both. Last week’s annual workshop was an opportunity for
department heads to outline these needs for elected officials
that included U.S. Congressman Jimmy Panetta, U.S.
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, state Sen. John Laird, state
Assemblyman Robert Rivas and state Assemblywoman Dawn Addis.
On a brisk afternoon in mid-January, Eloy Ortiz is pacing the
back alley behind a white house in Watsonville, California, in
the heart of California’s strawberry industry. The house is
under an evacuation warning after weeks of torrential rain, but
that hasn’t stopped hundreds of women and children from
crowding around the back gate. … Ortiz is a board member
and volunteer with the Center for Farmworker Families, a
nonprofit that assists farmworker communities throughout Santa
Cruz and Monterey Counties on California’s Central Coast. The
group has been distributing food for over a decade, but this is
a big crowd, even by their standards. Many of the women in line
pick strawberries for a living, and the crop has taken a
beating from California’s winter storms. Farmers face up to
$200 million in damages, according to the California Strawberry
Commission.
A study of oil refineries nationwide ranked the Chevron El
Segundo facility on Santa Monica Bay as the largest water
polluter for nitrogen and selenium in 2021, compared to 80
other oil operations. The pollutants, which are byproducts of
the oil refining process, are legally discharged into the
Pacific Ocean. Authors of the report, as well as
conservationists, are calling on federal environmental
officials to revise and tighten regulations that permit such
discharges into water bodies, saying they have the power to do
so but choose not to act. … In an email to The
Times, the oil company said it directly treats all of the
facility’s process wastewater and storm water runoff “under a
rigorous discharge permit …
In the warmth of Arizona’s winter sun, 50 residents gathered in
front of neighborhood activist Cody Reim’s house last weekend,
eager to discuss a solution to their problem. Despite living a
few miles from a river, their community has no water supply
services. … In Rio Verde Foothills, an unincorporated
community with no municipal government, near Scottsdale, the
fashionable, wealthy desert city adjoining the state capital of
Phoenix, none of the homes are connected to a local water
district. There is only one paved road, no street lights, storm
gutters, or pipes in the ground. Instead residents have wells –
or water tanks outside their homes, which they used to fill at
a local pipe serviced by Scottsdale.
Researchers from the University of Arizona are working on
groundwater and agricultural research that could help
sustainable farming practices in central Arizona. The project,
funded with a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and
led by the University of California, Davis, integrates over two
dozen experts from institutions in Arizona, California and New
Mexico. … As a megadrought drains the Colorado River
reservoirs and water cuts are enacted, farmers across the
Southwest are turning to groundwater to sustain their
operations. This has caused unprecedented overdraft in aquifers
in the Central Valley of California, central Arizona and the
Lower Rio Grande basin in New Mexico, according to project
leaders.
The past weeks following our recent large storms have been
awash in misinformation and hypocrisy about operating and
permitting water infrastructure in California. Even those who
closely follow the news about California water are likely
unaware that the data shows that more than half of the runoff
from the storms in early January was captured and stored in the
Central Valley. Or that the loudest voices criticizing
environmental protections for our rivers and fisheries during
the storms – which are requirements of the Trump
Administration’s 2019 biological opinions – are the very same
voices demanding that legislators and the courts keep those
biological opinions in place.
Over the course of the next seven years, an average 35,000
housing units will be built each year in Colorado. If past
trends persist, around 70% of those housing units will be
single-family homes. From Fort Collins to Colorado Springs,
it’s likely that Coloradans will see more single-family
suburban developments popping up — and with them, lawns.
Conventional grass lawns ornament the vast majority of American
homes, covering three times as much surface area as irrigated
cornfields in the United States. Although lawns are often
purely aesthetic, sometimes they are chosen for their
durability; lawns hold up against cleats, dogs and kids. …
But there are far too many cropped, green lawns that are
neglected until a weed sprouts up or it’s time to mow. Too many
lawns exist just for the sake of being maintained. -Written by Sammy Herdman, a campaign associate
for Environment Colorado.
California farmers are encouraged by the series of atmospheric
river storms that brought near-record rain and snow, filling
depleted reservoirs and bolstering the snowpack. Frost
Pauli, vineyard manager for Pauli Ranch in Potter Valley in
Mendocino County, said he feels optimistic after three intense
years of drought. He said the winter storms “have been
excellent for our water supply.” Farmers with water rights
along the Russian River in Mendocino and Sonoma counties have
been subject to water diversion curtailments since 2021, after
the California State Water Resources Control Board adopted
actions spurred by a drought emergency declaration by Gov.
Gavin Newsom. Other water supply cuts were mandated for
watersheds including the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and
the Scott River and Shasta River watershed.
Over the last several years, managers of water agencies have
reached deals to take less water from the river. But those
reductions haven’t been nearly enough to halt the river’s
spiral toward potential collapse. As Lake Mead, the nation’s
largest reservoir, continues to decline toward “dead pool”
levels, the need to rein in water demands is growing urgent.
Efforts to adapt will require difficult decisions about how to
deal with the reductions and limit the damage to communities,
the economy and the river’s already degraded ecosystems.
Adapting may also drive a fundamental rethinking of how the
river is managed and used, redrawing a system that is out of
balance. This reckoning with the reality of the river’s limits
is about to transform the landscape of the Southwest.
As of Friday morning, more than 600 colonias were without
running water in Tijuana and Rosarito, where residents say
service has been spotty since last year. Facing the possibility
of running out of water, Tijuana’s State Commission for Public
Services, CESPT, turned to the San Diego County Water Authority
for help. Agreements in place between Mexico and the United
States allow for water deliveries in times of emergency or
severe drought. So last week, the San Diego-based agency began
sending water to Tijuana. Compounding the problem is the
deterioration of Tijuana’s main aqueduct that delivers water
from the Colorado River, the city’s main source of water. So
far, repairs are taking longer than expected.
Don’t miss a once-a-year opportunity at
our Water
101 Workshop to get a primer on California’s
water history, laws, geography and politics. One of our most
popular events, the annual workshop will be hosted at McGeorge
School of Law in Sacramento on Thursday, Feb. 23.
California’s water basics will be covered by some of the
state’s leading policy and legal experts, and participants will
have an opportunity to engage directly with the guest
speakers during Q&A sessions.
Water is already a scarce commodity in the West, but if
Colorado keeps growing we are going to need even more. One
source could be treating reused drinking water. It’s a scenario
water providers and the state are already planning for.
… It’s not something that will likely happen soon.
Direct potable reuse water will need to be treated with
state-of-the-art technologies to make it safe to drink and that
process is expensive, but providers and the state want to be
prepared. That’s why just this month [Colorado Department
of Public Health and Environment] implemented new rules to
regulate direct potable reuse water. So that way if water
providers are going to practice direct potable reuse, they are
doing it safely.
La Niña brings cooler than normal and wetter than normal winter
weather for the Pacific Northwest…usually. Cold storms with
high amounts of rain and mountain snow, along with a few more
rounds of lowland snow, keep the precipitation above average
and temperatures below. Cooler and wetter than the average for
the Pacific Northwest, La Niña also creates drier than average
winters over the southwest United States; most often, a drought
builds. Not this year! Our rare, third-consecutive La Niña
winter has been filled with variability.
Sediment research has found that six storms similar to or even
more severe than the 1861-62 storm hit California in the past
2,000 years, arriving about every 200 to 400 years…. Given
this history, it is inevitable that another great flood will
hit the state someday, and climate change is thought to boost
the odds of such an event. And when the next great flood comes,
the damages could well dwarf those of any previous global
weather disaster, adding up to more than $1 trillion — an
extraordinary catastrophe with triple the cost of the feared
great quake on the San Andreas fault.
