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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With Western water challenges in mind, Lorelei Cloud has a
message for policymakers: There should be room for partnerships
— not fear — when Native American tribes join the negotiating
table. In March, Cloud became one of the newest members of the
state’s top water agency, the Colorado Water Conservation
Board, when Gov. Jared Polis appointed her to represent the San
Miguel-Dolores-San Juan drainage basin in southwestern
Colorado. She’s also the first known tribal member to hold a
seat on the board since its creation in 1937. … Her
appointment comes at a time when tensions over water in the
West are high. The Colorado River Basin, which spans seven
states in the Southwest and portions of northern Mexico, is two
decades into a severe, prolonged drought.
Lois Henry is the engine behind the small but mighty two-person
journalistic operation that is SJV Water, an independent,
nonprofit news site dedicated to covering water in the San
Joaquin Valley. She and reporting partner Jesse Vad have been
at ground zero for much of the spring flooding that’s already
occurred. We asked her what she’s seen—and what might happen as
the weather heats up. The San Joaquin Valley has already
experienced serious flooding this year. What are you seeing on
the ground? First, I know that some people are cheering on
the return of Tulare Lake. The water is coming back to the
former lake bed, but I want to be clear that it’s not
pretty.
A railway project in Eastern Utah is drawing significant
pushback in Colorado as elected officials voice concerns about
crude oil risks to the Colorado River, which is the West’s
primary freshwater river. The Uinta Basin Railway project
would build around 80 miles of train tracks connecting oil
production to America’s rail network. That would allow
producers to ship crude oil on trains through Colorado to
refineries elsewhere in the country. The U.S. Surface
Transportation Board and the United States Department of
Agriculture have given the project the go-ahead, prompting a
letter from U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse
criticizing the federal review of the project.
Despite the rain-soaked year California has had, the ongoing
issues of drought and limited water remain. Bloomberg reporters
Peter Waldman, Mark Chediak, and Sinduja Rangarajan join this
episode to talk about how farms that grow lucrative cash crops
like almonds and pistachios are digging deeper and deeper wells
to tap the state’s dwindling groundwater supply–leaving people
in some communities with less to drink.
In April 2023, the permitting and design phase began at Big
Chico Creek, or Ótakim Séwi, for the Iron Canyon Fish Passage
Project which will create a path for anadromous and other
migratory native fish to travel beyond Iron Canyon to Big Chico
Creek Ecological Reserve and into critical cold-water habitats.
The project team will approach project permitting and design
simultaneously as we work towards construction in 2025. What
happens during this phase? Before project construction
can begin, the project team must obtain necessary permits to
meet relevant state and federal regulations.
If the Delta Conveyance Project had already been constructed,
in 2023 the project would have provided zero acre feet of
additional water supply, while contractors would have had to
pay as much as $1 billion or more to pay for the project this
year. However, you’d never know this based on DWR’s
latest misinformation about its Delta tunnel project.
… Currently, the State Water Project’s and federal
Central Valley Project’s existing pumping plants in the South
Delta could be diverting a lot more water than they are today
while complying with existing or even stronger environmental
regulations. However, for the past several weeks the SWP
and CVP have been pumping significantly less water than they
are allowed to, because San Luis Reservoir is completely full,
meaning there is no place for the CVP and SWP to store
additional water diversions.
An extra pulse of water has been sent through the Grand Canyon
this week. The Bureau of Reclamation is running a “high-flow
experiment” at Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, which means
a big release of water designed to move and redeposit sand and
sediment will make its way downstream from the dam. This
experiment is the first since 2018, and comes in response to
forecasts for an above average spring snowmelt in the Rocky
Mountains. Sediment carried and moved by high flows helps to
rebuild beaches and sandbars, which provide habitat for
wildlife in the Grand Canyon. The restored beaches are also
important for ensuring enough campsites exist for the canyon’s
many rafters and boaters.
The USGS report, commissioned by the Lahontan Regional Water
Quality Control Board, showed how the valley’s geology affected
background hexavalent chromium concentrations in groundwater.
Hexavalent chromium occurs naturally in groundwater in the
Mojave Desert. Concentrations increased in Hinkley Valley
beginning in 1952 when the Pacific Gas and Electric Company
discharged it into unlined ponds. From there, hexavalent
chromium entered the aquifer. Once in the ground, a plume of
hexavalent chromium traveled with groundwater away from the
Hinkley compressor station into Hinkley Valley.
Controversy over the Clean Water Act definition of “waters of
the United States” persists as the Biden Administration’s new
rule goes into effect in 24 states, but is enjoined in the
remaining 26 states, continuing the trend of regulatory
uncertainty that has characterized the issue for decades. The
Biden Administration’s definition of “waters of the United
States” (2023 Rule) comes after definitions adopted by the
Obama Administration in 2015 (the 2015 Clean Water Rule) and
the Trump Administration in 2020 (the Navigable Waters
Protection Rule). However, neither the 2015 Clean Water Rule
nor the Navigable Waters Protection Rule were valid at the time
President Biden assumed office.
Rainfall in southern California is highly variable, with some
fluctuations explainable by climate patterns. Resulting runoff
and heightened streamflow from rain events introduces
freshwater plumes into the coastal ocean. Here we use a
105-year daily sea surface salinity record collected at Scripps
Pier in La Jolla, California to show that El Niño Southern
Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation both have
signatures in coastal sea surface salinity. … This
analysis emphasizes the strong influence that precipitation and
consequent streamflow has on the coastal ocean, even in a
region of overall low freshwater input, and provides an
ocean-based metric for assessing decadal rainfall variability.
It’s a good thing for California American Water Co. that rate
increases aren’t determined by a popularity contest, otherwise
state regulators on Tuesday would have sent the Monterey
Peninsula water purveyor packing. Members of the California
Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, held a two-part hearing
at Seaside City Hall Tuesday afternoon and evening to solicit
public viewpoints on an application – called a rate case —
filed by Cal Am to increase water rates over a three-year
period beginning next year. The CPUC got an earful. All but two
of the 17 speakers who testified to the CPUC representatives
were highly critical of Cal Am. One of two who did not lodge
complaints said there was plenty of water in the Carmel River
aquifer, which wasn’t the focus of the hearing.
Since “every drop” of water counts a $2 million grant awarded
to the Lower Tule River and Pixley Irrigation Districts will
help those districts preserve as much of their water as
possible. On Friday the Bureau of Reclamation announced the
districts were awarded the $2 million grant. The funding was
part of $140 million announced by President Joe Biden’s
administration. The Department of the Interior is providing the
funding for water conservation and efficiency projects. There
were 84 projects in 15 western states that received the funding
from the Infrastructure Bill. In addition the Tule
Hydroelectric Rehabilitation Project for a facility above
Springville was awarded a $500,000 grant as part of the $140
million awarded.
Sticker shock at the grocery store has become the norm for many
American families, with food prices increasing by 11.4
percent in 2022. According to the USDA, an average family
of four is paying $131 more per month this year, and groceries
now account for 20 percent of an average household’s income.
Since 1959 the U.S. has been a net food exporter of
agricultural goods, but for the second time in the last three
years, the U.S. will be a net agricultural food importer.
The ongoing war in Ukraine, China’s
growing influence on the U.S. agriculture industry,
and supply chain backlogs should all serve as warning signs
that the security of our domestic food supply is at risk. -Written by David Valadao, a dairy farmer from
the Central Valley and the representative for California’s 22nd
District; and Cliff Bentz, now representing Oregon’s 2nd
District, specialized in ranch reorganization and water law as
an attorney in Eastern Oregon.
Lawmakers want Gov. Gavin Newsom to devote an additional $200
million to flooding in the San Joaquin Valley as their
districts recover from flood damage and face down the new
threat of rapidly melting snow in the southern Sierra Nevada. A
group of 12 bipartisan members of the state assembly requested
the funding for disaster relief in a letter Tuesday, citing the
need for greater emergency response to flooding and more
investment in protection efforts long term. … In his January
budget proposal, Newsom cut $40 million for floodplain
restoration projects in the San Joaquin Valley, which allow for
rivers to flood in strategic places during storms or snowmelt,
reducing the risks downstream and benefiting ecosystems.
Tulare Lake, the long dormant lake that made a surprise
comeback in California’s San Joaquin Valley this year, has
gotten so big with the wet weather that water experts say it
won’t drain until at least next year, and maybe well after
that. … While landowners as well as local, state and
federal officials are focused on keeping major towns and
infrastructure dry, the broader issue of whether there’s a
better way to manage water in the basin looms. … the
re-emergence of the lake, for some, has sparked a sense of awe
and enthusiasm, if not the desire for a more natural, more
resilient landscape. Nowhere does this sentiment run
deeper than among the ancestors of the native Yokuts whose
creation story was inspired by the historical waters.
Researchers from NOAA Fisheries and University of California
Santa Cruz will tag several groups of juvenile salmon in the
Sacramento River system. The tags will help us measure the
benefits from the river’s first “pulse flow.” A pulse flow is a
rapid increase and decrease in dam released water designed to
resemble natural spring runoff. The researchers want to know if
the pulse flow increases the survival of juvenile salmon and
improves their chances of returning to the river as an adult to
spawn. They plan on measuring this by implanting tags into
juvenile salmon migrating downriver before, during, and after
the pulse. They will compare their speed and survival on the
way to the ocean.
Following an epic winter that has grown the California snowpack
to historic levels, the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power is preparing for an equally epic runoff season. With the
Eastern Sierra snowpack at 296% of normal, the municipally
owned water agency for the City of Los Angeles is anticipating
runoff to be 225% of normal and is implementing safety
measures. Runoff season, when temperatures increase and snow
melts, typically lasts from May to June, but with an extra 326
billion gallons of water needing to go somewhere, LADWP expects
runoff season to last through August. … Doing so allows LADWP
to use aqueduct water instead of water purchased from other
places. The agency expects 130 billion gallons of water to come
to the city through the LA Aqueduct this spring and summer —
enough to meet 80% of the city’s annual demand.
Most of Yosemite Valley will close to the public this Friday,
through at least Wednesday of next week, because of the
potential for flooding along the Merced River. The
extraordinary snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada this year
is beginning to melt with the warm weather this week, swelling
rivers with runoff and creating the likelihood of high water in
mountain creeks and rivers, including those in
Yosemite. The shutdown at the park will affect
campgrounds, hotels, shops and visitor centers in the valley,
the most popular part of Yosemite. Park officials warn that the
closure will likely mean other parts of Yosemite see much
heavier traffic. Officials say visitors should prepare for
limited parking throughout the park.
A huge amount of the water that flows down from Colorado’s
snowy mountains into the West’s depleted Lake Powell reservoir
is rocketing out of pipes this week to power a massive,
simulated flood through the Grand Canyon — the first one in
five years to try to revitalize canyon ecosystems the way
nature once did. Federal operators of the Glen Canyon Dam atop
the Grand Canyon opened jets to begin this surge before sunrise
Monday, sending what they described as “a pulse” of water
whooshing through the Colorado River as it curves through the
base of the canyon. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said
they’ll maintain the surge until Thursday evening, ensuring a
flow for 72 hours at 39,500 cubic feet per second of
water.
When rain storms pummel Sacramento, a city surrounded by
levees, crews work all hours of the night to prevent
flooding. They monitor, control and maintain the city’s
more than 100 stormwater lift stations, which residents depend
on to pump water into creeks, canals, or the Sacramento or
American Rivers. These stations failing would cause water
to burst out of the city’s gutters, drain inlets and manholes,
said supervising plant operator Philip Myer. … During
power outages in windy downpours, the city sends electricians
to hook up generators to pumping stations. Other crews clear
fallen trees that clog up drainage systems. Rain doesn’t drain
out of Sacramento naturally or for free.
