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 Chris Bowman.
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Several dozen dams throughout California could store up to 107
billion more gallons of water if they underwent repairs to fix
safety problems. But facing a staggering state deficit, Gov.
Gavin Newsom has proposed cutting funding for a dam repair
grant program in half this year, while state legislators want
the $50 million restored. California has an aging network
of nearly 1,540 dams — large and small, earthen and concrete —
that help store vital water supplies. For 42 of these dams,
state officials have restricted the amount of water that can be
stored behind them because safety deficiencies would raise the
risk to people downstream from earthquakes, storms or other
problems. Owned by cities, counties, utilities, water
districts and others, these dams have lost nearly 330,000
acre-feet of storage capacity because of the state’s safety
restrictions. That water — equivalent to the amount used by 3.6
million people for a year — could be used to supply
communities, farms or hydropower.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California voted to place General Manager Adel Hagekhalil on
leave Thursday while the agency investigates accusations of
harassment against him by the agency’s chief financial officer.
Chief Financial Officer Katano Kasaine made the allegations in
a confidential letter to the board, which was leaked and
published by Politico. She said Hagekhalil has harassed,
demeaned and sidelined her and created a hostile work
environment. MWD Board Chair Adán Ortega Jr. announced the
decision after a closed-door meeting, saying the board voted to
immediately place Hagekhalil on administrative leave and to
temporarily appoint Deven Upadhyay, an assistant general
manager, as interim general manager.
As the drought-strapped Colorado River struggled to feed water
into Lake Powell to keep its massive storage system and power
turbines from crashing in 2021 and 2022, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, its operator, was scrambling to bring in extra
water from Flaming Gorge and Blue Mesa reservoirs. Since the
return of healthier flows in 2023, water levels in Flaming
Gorge and Blue Mesa have been restored, as required under a
2019 Colorado River Basin drought response plan. But the
subsequent shifting of water in 2023 to balance the contents of
lakes Powell and Mead, required under a set of operating
guidelines approved in 2007, resulted in an accidental release
of 40,000 acre-feet of water that will not be restored to the
Upper Basin because it is within the margin of error associated
with such balancing releases, according to Alex Pivarnik,
supervisory hydrologist with Reclamation’s Upper Colorado Basin
Region.
Registration is now open for our popular Northern
California Tour October 16-18, and seats
always fill quickly! This 3-day, 2-night
excursion across the Sacramento Valley travels north from
Sacramento to Oroville, Redding and Shasta Lake. Experts will
talk about the history of the Sacramento River as the tour
winds through riparian woodland, rice fields, wildlife refuges
and nut orchards. …. We’re hiring! Join
the Water Education Foundation as its full-time
operations manager and play a central role in
supporting our operations, programs and fundraising efforts. We
are seeking someone who is organized, detail-oriented and
energetic with the ability to manage changing priorities. See
the
full job posting.
Less than a decade ago, the largest mid-elevation meadow at
Yosemite National Park, nestled in foothills near Hetch Hetchy
Reservoir, was privately owned rangeland. It was widely
trampled on by cattle, dried up and of little or no interest to
visitors. Today, the area is a whole different place. An $18
million makeover of what’s known as Ackerson Meadow, which was
recently acquired by the National Park Service, is transforming
this dusty tract on the park’s western edge into a vibrant hub
of wildflowers, songbirds and water-loving grasses — an effort
billed as the biggest restoration project in Yosemite history.
… The hope is that the revived meadow, like a
sponge, will hold more water for native plants, wildlife and
downstream communities that depend on the region for water
supplies.
Self-Help Enterprises has launched a partnership with three
groundwater sustainability agencies in the Kaweah Subbasin to
expand assistance for rural residents who lose water due to
lowering groundwater levels. The East Kaweah, Greater
Kaweah and Mid-Kaweah groundwater sustainability agencies will
invest up to $5.8 million annually to ensure that water users
in the area will receive emergency water supplies if their
wells go dry. The big picture: Along with the
emergency water supplies, Self-Help Enterprises will also
provide a long-term drinking water solution through its water
support program. Self-Help Enterprises has over a decade
of experience operating its water support program to provide
emergency water supply, interim supply – which includes tanks
and hauled water – and long-term solutions, such as working
with well drillers to replace failed wells.
San Diegans who want to volunteer to help clean and rebuild
homes destroyed by the catastrophic January floods can still
pitch in, including at two restoration efforts happening this
weekend. Since Jan. 22, volunteer groups have stepped in to
provide critical support in mucking out homes, helping with
mold suppression and assisting thousands of displaced residents
rebuild. Volunteer-led cleanups are held just about every week
and weekend in affected neighborhoods. “The community members
who have been doing this work since Jan. 22 deserve
reinforcements, they deserve support from the broader
community… and they deserve for us to do more,” said San Diego
City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, who along with
Councilmembers Henry Foster III and Vivian Moreno put out a
call to action for volunteers ahead of this weekend’s
events.
The Yorba Linda Water District in Orange County, Calif., is so
proud of its $28 million PFAS filtration plant, considered the
largest in the US, that it hosts regular tours of Boy Scouts,
school groups, and on Monday, a group from South
Korea. The need for the filtration plant is representative
of the widespread PFAS contamination in groundwater and stream
water in Southern California, and it symbolizes the costs that
the YLWD and 14 other drinking water utilities in the region
are suing to recoup from manufacturers of PFAS-containing
firefighting foam or its components. Unlike nearby Los
Angeles, the Yorba …
Commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of
California was banned for the second year in a row in April due
to low numbers of salmon. The Chinook salmon, which enter the
Sacramento River system on four runs throughout the year, have
been declining for decades due to pollution, water management,
dams and drought. With salmon decreasing and fishing off the
California coast banned, Save California Salmon is dedicated to
helping restore and protect salmon and rivers. Save California
Salmon is a nonprofit organization built on creating community
power around water issues in Northern California while also
working to save salmon through advocacy for policy change. The
organization is run by Native American people from California
and has an entirely Indigenous board. According to Executive
Director Regina Chichizola, the organization began in 2017 and
was born out of the movement to remove the current dam on the
Klamath River.
Los Osos is one step closer to lifting its 35-year building
moratorium. Since 1988, construction in the coastal town of
15,500 people has been effectively banned due to a limited
water supply, habitat constraints and ineffective wastewater
treatment infrastructure. The Los Osos Community Plan, however,
seeks to solve those challenges by setting rules for
development that protect sensitive habitats and the water
supply. On Thursday, the California Coastal Commission is
poised to approve the Los Osos Community Plan with a handful of
revisions. If the commission supports the plan, the San Luis
Obispo County Board of Supervisors will vote on the
modifications in September or October, according to SLO County
Supervisor Bruce Gibson. After that, the commission would vote
on the plan one last time in December — clearing the way for
the county to start issuing building permits for Los Osos early
next year, Gibson said.
The Salton Sea is a terminal saltwater lake. It’s a flooded
basin with no natural outlet, similar to the Great Salt Lake or
the Aral Sea. And the Salton Sea is shrinking. One of the
reasons for that is the Imperial Water Transfer deal that has
brought hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water to San
Diego over the last two decades. The deal, signed 21 years ago,
meant the Imperial Valley began transferring excess water from
the valley’s farm fields to San Diego’s water taps. That meant
a lot less farm runoff that had been sustaining the Salton
Sea. San Diego State University economics professor Ryan
Abman said the biggest effects of that conservation plan were
seen about eight years into the agreement. “So really, after
2011, we see a noticeable increase in the rate of decline of
the water level and that leads to an increase in the increased
rate of playa exposure. So more of this dust-emitting surface
is being exposed every single year,” Abman said.
The Colorado River and its tributaries—which support 40 million
people, sacred Tribal lands, a $1.4 trillion economy, more than
five million acres of farms and ranches, and thousands of
species of wildlife—are shrinking due to climate change and
overuse. Important habitats exist and have been
intentionally reestablished along more than 400 miles of the
Colorado River as it flows south of Hoover Dam. To raise
awareness of these gems in the desert that support 400 species
of birds, Audubon Southwest launched a visually-appealing
StoryMap website created by Elija Flores and myself called
Lower Colorado River Habitats: Exploring important habitats of
the Lower Colorado River and what they mean for birds and
people.
The wet weather of the past two years has been a stark contrast
to the drought conditions that California has become accustomed
to. Floods, landslides, and overflowing streets were a winter
staple as storms from atmospheric rivers–so named for their
shape and the amount of moisture they carry–dumped buckets of
rain on the Golden State. Now that we’ve moved out of the
rainy season into the drier, warmer summer months, we can begin
to take stock of the effects of the wet years. These include
filled groundwater supplies and lush hills, along with worse
allergies and more fuel for wildfires, to say nothing of the
considerable toll taken on road infrastructure. Here’s a look
at some of the ways that the statewide effects of the rain
might show up for Oakland residents.
An honest-to-goodness map of the American West would show
L.A.’s tentacles everywhere. You’d see canals — the Los Angeles
Aqueduct, running along the base of the Sierra Nevada, carrying
water from the Owens River; the State Water Project, meandering
through the San Joaquin Valley, supplying many Southern
California cities and farms; and the Colorado River Aqueduct,
cutting through the desert on its mission to deliver water from
desert to coast. You’d see electric lines too — a sprawling
network of wires that over the decades have furnished Angelenos
with power from coal plants in Nevada, Utah and Montana; from
nuclear reactors in Arizona; and from hydropower dams in the
Pacific Northwest. Los Angeles has reshaped the West. And
the city’s Department of Water and Power has been the agent of
change. Last month, Janisse Quiñones took the helm as
the agency’s new leader, after being recommended by L.A. Mayor
Karen Bass and confirmed unanimously by City Council. -Written by Sammy Roth, climate columnist for the LA
Times.
Mike Shannon’s city hall office is a “war room” for water. Maps
of wells and charts of usage rates cover the beige room’s
meeting table and desk. A large television screen mounted on
the wall displays satellite images of a future groundwater well
project. Coworkers visit throughout the day, often to talk
about those plans to pump more water. As city manager of
Guymon — a town of about 13,000 in the state’s panhandle —
Shannon oversees a network of 17 groundwater wells, all
operating near capacity to draw water from the Ogallala
Aquifer, the only water source in this arid region of
tumbleweeds and sand dunes. … At the top of the
list was Seaboard, a pork processing plant on the north side of
town that slaughtered more than 20,000 hogs daily. The plant
used 3,500 gallons of water a minute, three times the amount
used by all the homes in Guymon combined.
The board of the agency that delivers water to nearly half of
Californians will consider firing its top leader over claims of
retaliation, harassment and cultivating a toxic work
environment at a special meeting Thursday morning, according to
an agenda and three people with knowledge.The Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California plans to consider whether
to discipline or dismiss its general manager and CEO, Adel
Hagekhalil, at a Thursday morning board meeting, according to
an agenda posted Tuesday.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks is killing her proposal to increase
state regulators’ authority over the owners of California’s
oldest, most senior water rights amid intense opposition from
water agencies, farmers and business groups. Wicks’ legislative
director Zak Castillo-Krings confirmed Tuesday that she was
pulling the bill, A.B. 1337, which passed the Assembly last
year but has been awaiting a hearing in the Senate. The
decision comes after water users reached a deal last week with
Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan on a bill, A.B. 460, to
increase fines for water theft. Both bills emerged last year
after three years of historic drought exposed the state’s
limits in overseeing water use.
As climate change unleashes ever-more powerful storms,
worsening floods and rising sea levels, San Francisco remains
woefully unprepared for inundation, a civil grand jury
determined in a report this week. The critical assessment —
written by 19 San Franciscans selected by the Superior Court —
found that the city and county lacked a comprehensive funding
plan for climate adaptation and that existing sewer systems
cannot handle worsening floods. Among other concerns, the
report also concluded that efforts toward making improvements
have been hampered by agency silos and a lack of transparency.
Members of the volunteer jury serve yearlong terms and are
tasked with investigating city and county government by
reviewing documents and interviewing public officials, experts
and private individuals.
Another winter without enough snow and rain has left much of
the western United States parched for water, according to
scientists monitoring a snow drought. Thanks to
below-normal precipitation during the water season, snow
drought conditions persist across most of the West, according
to a June 12 report from scientists at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. While some regions such as the
Sierra Nevada range, improved over the winter, scientists say
many places will see further drought development or
intensification this summer. Many locations in Washington
and the northern Rocky Mountains received less than 15% of the
average rainfall, with eight weather stations in Montana and
two in Washington reporting record low rainfall values. In
Idaho, Montana and Washington, snow drought developed early in
the season and persisted, bringing snow water equivalent — the
water contained in a mountain’s snowpack — to 55 to 75% of the
normal amount.
The billionaire proponents of a brand-new city that would rise
from the rolling prairie northeast of the San Francisco Bay
cleared their first big hurdle Tuesday, when the Solano County
Registrar of Voters certified the group had enough signatures
to put its proposal before local voters in November. The group
backing the measure, called California Forever, must now
convince voters to get behind the audacious idea of erecting a
walkable and environmentally friendly community with tens of
thousands of homes, along with a sports center, parks, bike
lanes, open space and a giant solar farm on what is now
pastureland. … But the proposal faces opposition from
some local leaders, along with environmental groups concerned
about the loss of natural habitat. Project opponents said a
recent poll they conducted found that 70% of the people
surveyed were skeptical.
