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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Yes, Northern California received some rain this week, dousing
much of the Mosquito Fire and bringing a light coating of snow
to the Sierra Nevada. But one of the worst droughts in recorded
history remains an everyday reality, and the outlook for winter
is for more of the same, a top official with the state
Department of Water Resources said this week. … On
the other hand, [John Yarbrough, the agency’s assistant deputy
director] said the state will enter the upcoming winter in
better shape than it did a year ago. The flurry of storms last
October and December means California’s major reservoirs are
holding more water than at the same time in 2021.
Over the past two years, Silicon Valley’s largest water
provider, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, has had a long
list of challenges and setbacks. In 2020, the federal
government ordered its largest dam, Anderson, near Morgan Hill,
drained for earthquake repairs. The price tag has since doubled
to $1.2 billion. The district’s plan to build another big dam
near Pacheco Pass also doubled in cost, and that $2.5 billion
project has been hit with a lawsuit and funding shortfalls. As
the drought worsened, the district has pushed for conservation
and spent tens of millions of dollars to buy water from
Sacramento Valley farmers at high prices.
A developer’s proposal to build a surfing lagoon in the
Coachella Valley desert has been rejected by the city of La
Quinta after residents raised concerns about noise, lighting
and the resort’s substantial water footprint in a time of
severe drought. The City Council’s five members voted
unanimously Wednesday night against a zoning change that would
have allowed the developer to build the resort and surf
park. … The wave basin would have stretched across
12 acres and required 18 million gallons to fill. … The
uproar parallels a larger debate over how the Coachella Valley
— with its 120 golf courses, artificial lakes and developments
filled with thirsty grass — should adapt to worsening water
scarcity.
The Six Rivers National Forest Fisheries Program has partnered
with the Klamath Basin Fish Health Assessment Team to monitor
water quality and fish health conditions in the Klamath River.
This is in response to increased mortality and disease rates
among the chinook and steelhead salmon populations in the
river. According to officials, this die-off is a result of poor
fish health conditions in the Klamath River due to changes in
flows, water temperature and fish density. These conditions
began to change in early August due to the nearby McKinney
Fire’s effect on the water.
The devastating drought is continuing to ravage the Central
Valley and is creating more of a water crisis for farmers.
Right along the edge of West Fresno County sits miles and miles
of uprooted almond trees. Farmer Joe Del Bosque says he’s never
seen it like this. … Del Bosque says they’ve done
everything to be efficient with their water. He says every
orchard and field has water-saving technology. But that’s
not enough. Now, he’s calling on lawmakers to increase their
water storage to be able to save more water in the future.
Two companies are teaming up to respond to the drought in
California by turning the water in tomatoes into drinking
water. Los Banos-based Ingomar Packing Company, a tomato
processor, is partnering with Botanical Water Technologies to
make this happen. Tomatoes are made up of about 95% water.
… Despite coming from tomatoes, Rees said the water
doesn’t taste like it. … The plan is for the Los Banos
Ingomar site to create more than 200 million gallons of potable
water per year by 2025.
Firefighters have made substantial progress this week in
containing the Mosquito Fire, as a storm system brought several
inches of rain to the Northern California foothills and allowed
the last remaining mandatory evacuation orders in Placer and El
Dorado counties to be lifted. … The National Weather
Service earlier this week, on Monday and Tuesday, issued a
flash flood watch for the Mosquito Fire zone, advising that
thunderstorms could cause dangerous debris flows. Fortunately,
the advisory expired with no significant flooding reported. The
Mosquito Fire, California’s largest wildfire of 2022, destroyed
78 structures and damaged 13 others, mostly homes in the
Michigan Bluff and Volcanoville communities. Cal Fire says its
damage assessment is complete.
A $10.1 million environmental remediation settlement between
resort owner Citizens Development Corp. and local governments
received approval by a California federal judge. The deal
resolves a decade of litigation over the environmental cleanup
of contaminated surface water and groundwater in and around
Lake San Marcos and San Marcos Creek. The settlement approval
on Wednesday dismissed with prejudice all claims against San
Diego County and the cities of San Marcos and
Escondito. The settlements were fair, reasonable,
adequate, and consistent with the purposes of the Superfund
remediation program under the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the US District
Court.
State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, on Wednesday declared the last
week of September as Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Week in
recognition of the rivers playing a critical role in the
state’s economy and environment. The proclaimed week will kick
off Sunday and was established from Senate Concurrent
Resolution 119. Dodd said the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Conservancy and Delta Protection Commission have both been
vital in protecting the expanse formed by the Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers.
In County of Butte v. Dep’t of Wat. Resources (2022) 13 Cal.5th
612, issued on August 1, 2022, the California Supreme Court
carved out a role for the California Environmental Quality Act
(“CEQA”) even where the project is largely governed by a
federal proceeding. The case arose in connection with the
relicensing of the Oroville Dam by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (“FERC”). The Federal Power Act (“FPA”)
(16 U.S.C. § 791, et seq.) delegates to FERC the authority to
license hydroelectric dams; the FPA has “a significant
preemptive sweep.” Despite a comprehensive federal process for
licensing dams, the Supreme Court held that state agency review
under CEQA was not entirely preempted.
On Friday, October 7th, the California Environmental Law &
Policy Center at U.C. Davis School of Law will convene a major,
day-long conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
federal Clean Water Act. The event will assess the
progress the U.S. has made over the past half-century in
abating water pollution; focus on some of the law’s most
contentious, current features; and predict how the Act will
likely–and should–evolve in the decades to come.
San Diego Coastkeeper announced this week that Phillip Musegaas
will take over in October as the water-quality nonprofit’s new
executive director. He’s moving from Washington, D.C., where he
worked for more than seven years as the Potomac Riverkeeper
Network’s vice president of programs and litigation. He’ll
replace the group’s outgoing leader Matt O’Malley, who took
over in late 2016. The nonprofit has recently focused on
improving the region’s ailing stormwater system, backing water
recycling efforts and calling attention to leaky sewage pipes
linked to beach closures.
Fir trees are dying in the Lake Tahoe Basin at a quicker rate
than in the rest of California. The trees are perishing in
greater numbers and faster than previously seen
before… Four thousand acres of trees in the Lake Tahoe
Basin are affected by mass mortality, according to
an aerial survey by the Forest Service in 2021. The
survey found that around 70,000 trees are dead in Lake Tahoe,
with over a million trees dead across the Tahoe National
Forest. Across the entire state of California, the survey
also found that 9.5 million trees had died. It is thought
that the main driver of these deaths is the scorching
drought that has gripped the state recently, leading to
blisteringly high temperatures, water shortages, wildfires
and other extreme weather.
In 2016, the City of San Francisco was the first American
municipality to ban the sales of water that comes in plastic
bottles. At the time it was called a bold move that was
building on a global movement to reduce the huge amount of
waste from the billion-dollar plastic bottle industry. South
Lake Tahoe was an early adopter of the single-use plastic bag
ban, as well as bans of single-use plastic, styrene, and
straws. … Plastic bottles break down into tiny pieces
(microplastics) that can be found in the lake and water bottles
are the most commonly sold in South Lake Tahoe. At this time,
soda bottles and other beverages sold in plastic will still be
available. Water sold in reusable cans and boxes is becoming
more popular, and they will still be allowed.
In a project some three decades in the making, the first trucks
carrying sediment removed from the reservoir behind Littlerock
Dam moved out, on Wednesday. The Palmdale Water District has
been working on the project to remove years of sediment that
has built up, and restore water storage capacity to the
reservoir. The reservoir collects rain and snow melt from the
watershed in the San Gabriel Mountains and is one of three
sources of water for the District. The others are groundwater
pumped from wells and State Water Project water carried through
the California Aqueduct.
According to a September 15 Environment California press
release, California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR)
data confirm more bad news on neonicotinoid (neonic)
contamination: nearly all urban waterways in three counties
show the presence of the neonic imidacloprid at levels
above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s)
chronic benchmark for harm to aquatic ecosystems; in five other
counties, well over half showed its presence at similar levels.
Neonic use is strongly correlated with die-offs and other harms
to a variety of bees and pollinators, and to other beneficial
organisms.
California’s reservoirs will enter fall in a slightly better
position than last year, but the Golden State should prepare
for more dryness, extreme weather events and water quality
hazards in 2023, officials say. … [S]ome of the state’s
biggest reservoirs, including Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta,
are slightly more full than they were at the same time last
year, but still remain well below average. Water managers are
now preparing for a “fourth dry year,” as well as more
unpredictable weather and wildfires associated with climate
change, DWR Assistant Deputy Director John Yarbrough said
during a meeting of the California Water Commission.
Arizona farmers this year benefitted from mitigation water that
otherwise would have cut their Central Arizona Project
irrigation deliveries to zero. They won’t be so fortunate next
year. When the Bureau of Reclamation issued its first-ever
Tier 1 restriction of Colorado River water from Lake Mead,
Arizona’s farmers faced the elimination of their surface water
supplies from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) for 2022. That
portion of CAP surface water, known as the “ag pool,” is part
of a 512,000-acre-foot cut Arizona faced under the restrictions
as part of the Drought Contingency Plan, an agreement designed
to preserve water in the Colorado River system.
In just the past month, as California temperatures soared
during a drought so severe some experts say it hasn’t been this
parched in 1,200 years, about 250 wells, mostly in the state’s
bread basket, have gone dry. They’re part of the more than
1,100 California wells that have dried up so far this year, a
60% increase from 2021. While that may not seem like a lot,
given that California has 274,000 wells, it’s an ominous sign
and a personal tragedy for the one million Californians who
struggle for clean water. In many cases, it also pits hugely
important agricultural producers, who rely on underground water
for their crops, against their own workers, who need it to
drink.
Colorado and three other Upper Colorado River Basin states
have, for the first time in history, embarked on a series of
formal meetings to find a way to negotiate jointly with some of
the largest owners of Colorado River water rights: tribal
communities. The states, which include New Mexico, Utah,
Wyoming and Colorado, began meeting with six tribes several
weeks ago, according to Rebecca Mitchell, director of the
Colorado Water Conservation Board who also represents Colorado
on the Upper Colorado River Basin Commission.
