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 water agencies that serve 27 million people will get
just 5% of what they requested from the state to start 2023,
water officials announced Thursday. The news of limited
water comes as California concludes its driest three-year
stretch on record and as water managers brace for a fourth
year with below-average precipitation. But if the winter is
wetter than expected, the state could boost how much supply it
plans to give out — as it did last year when allocations
started at 0% and ended the winter at 5%. Absent an end to
the drought, water-saving measures are poised to continue,
including calls for people to rip up decorative grass, limit
outdoor watering, take shorter showers and run dishwashers only
when full.
The winter storm that dropped rain across the Bay Area dumped
snow on the Sierras and ski resorts across Tahoe. Heavy snow
and slick roads also made for dangerous driving conditions but
the precipitation is a boon for California’s water
supply. Building on gains during a storm in early
November, this latest storm brought statewide snowpack up to
106% of normal for December 1, according to the California
Department of Water Resources. The snow is beneficial but
it’s still early in the season, said Andrew Schwartz, the lead
scientist at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. The
previous water year, for example, started out with plentiful
rains during October and December 2021 but were followed by
an extremely dry start to 2022.
It’s hard to overstate how crucial this snow season is for the
western United States. Regions such as the West that receive a
great deal of their precipitation in the form of snow face a
number of challenges when snow droughts occur, including
shrinking water supplies. And western water supplies are truly
shrinking as some states are facing their second or third
drought year in a row and a large part of the region is stuck
in a 20+ year megadrought. Hanging over all of this is climate
change–influenced aridification in the Southwest that is
increasing evaporative demand, causing water supplies to
dwindle from rising temperatures even when there is adequate
precipitation.
There is less than a week left to
apply for our 2023 Water Leaders class
and be considered for the new cohort of California’s
preeminent water leadership program. Launched in 1997, the
Water Leaders program is aimed at providing a deeper
understanding of California water issues, building
leadership skills and preparing class members to take an
active, cooperative approach to decision-making about water
resources by studying a water-related topic in-depth
and crafting policy recommendations.
And, if you work for a member of the Association of California
Water Agencies, you can apply to have tuition and some
travel expenses covered under the
John P. Fraser Water Leaders Fellowship.
A bipartisan bill meant to address declining saline lakes in
the West, including the Great Salt Lake, passed the U.S. Senate
with unanimous approval Wednesday. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah,
introduced and co-sponsored the Saline Lake Ecosystems in the
Great Basin States Program Act with Democratic Sens. Jeff
Merkley of Oregon, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Catherine Cortez
Masto of Nevada, Roy Wyden of Oregon and Diane Feinstein of
California. The bill earmarks $5 million each year over five
years for the U.S. Geological Survey to study saline lakes
throughout the Great
Basin…. Owens and Mono lakes in
California are also named, which water diversions have turned
into sources of toxic and dangerous blowing dust.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has
completed the removal of a drought salinity barrier from the
West False River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The
barrier was installed in June 2021 to prevent saltwater
intrusion with less fresh water from upstream reservoirs and
streams flowing into the Delta during California’s ongoing
extreme drought conditions. DWR was required to remove
the structure by November 30 to comply with environmental
permits. … The barrier was initially constructed in response
to Governor Newsom’s April 21, 2021 state of emergency
proclamation directing the Department to initiate actions
necessary to prepare for and address potential Delta salinity
issues during prolonged drought conditions.
The first of seven monthly Kern River Snow and Water reports
put out by water watcher Scott Williams arrived in email boxes
Dec. 1 and the news was, fairly, well – “eh.” The watershed is
below average in terms of precipitation but not that below
average, according to Williams’ report, which uses a
compilation of data from multiple public websites. He typically
publishes the monthly updates based on water data from Nov. 1
through May 31. The North Fork of the Kern has 3.71 inches of
precip, or 86% of average, and the South Fork has 1.82 inches,
or 73 percent of average, according to the report. With storms
arriving this week, there’s a glimmer of hope for more. But
Williams’ report also notes there’s a 76% chance of a La Niña
winter this year, which typically means drier weather.
As the nation learned that the midterm election led to a change
in the balance of power in the next U.S. Congress, a delegation
of California Farm Bureau leaders met with representatives
during an advocacy trip to Washington, D.C., to discuss
pressing issues affecting agriculture. … Farm Bureau
executives, the organization’s Leadership Farm Bureau class and
county leaders were joined by the organization’s federal policy
team and met face to face with lawmakers Nov. 14-17 in the
nation’s capital. Discussions focused on issues including
California’s ongoing drought, water, labor and trade, as well
as the next federal farm bill.
The Colorado River Compact is 100 years old. A University of
Arizona conference and the upcoming Colorado River Water Users
Association will mark the anniversary. But there’s no reason to
celebrate. Twenty-two years into a drought and with reservoirs
at all-time lows, the federal government may soon intervene in
the states’ management of the river. The Compact has failed.
Don’t blame the river. We need a new system that manages with
the river and provides all users with fair shares. In 1922, the
seven Colorado Basin states used an optimistic estimate of the
river’s annual flow to allocate the waters. The states chose
the biggest estimate because that made it easy to agree.
Everyone could pretend the river could satisfy all anticipated
demands. That was the first mistake. -Written by Karl Flessa, an Arizona resident since
1977 and an emeritus professor of geosciences at the
University of Arizona.
A long-standing drought in the American Southwest is getting
worse by the day, threatening reservoirs and groundwater
supplies. And the first sign of “serious damage” could be a
whirlpool, according to the operators of the nation’s
second-largest reservoir, Lake Powell, reports the Washington
Post. Lake Powell is already a quarter of its size and a drop
in the water level of another 38 feet down the concrete face of
the 710-foot Glenn Canyon Dam would put the surface of the
reservoir close to the tops of eight underwater openings that
allow river water to pass through the hydroelectric dam.
Corn goes back to their very creation story. As the Hopi people
emerged into this world, the Creator gave them three things: a
gourd of water, a planting stick and a short ear of blue corn.
… Clark grows heirloom Hopi blue, gray, red and white
corn in the valley between First Mesa and Second Mesa in the
middle of the 2,532 square mile Hopi Reservation in northern
Arizona. The seeds that he plants have been cultivated over
countless generations to grow in this dry climate of the high
desert. He, like most Hopi farmers, uses traditional dryland
farming methods in which, rather than irrigating crops, he
relies solely on snowmelt and the rain that falls directly on
his fields. … But now, more than two decades into the
worst drought in the southwestern United States in a millennia,
making the desert bloom is harder than ever.
Today, during the 2022 White House Tribal Nations Summit, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S.
Regan announced a proposal to revise the federal water quality
standards regulations to better protect Tribal rights under the
Clean Water Act (CWA). With this action, EPA is working to
ensure that state and federal water quality standards will
protect tribal rights such as the right to fish or gather
aquatic plants—that are reserved through treaties, statutes,
executive orders, or other sources of federal law.
One of the most popular places to boat, fish and camp in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has finally reopened after
abruptly closing last spring. Brannan Island State Park, a
336-acre jut of scrubby land across the water from Antioch,
shut down in April nearly overnight after its longtime
concessionaire ended its month-to-month lease with the state
Department of Parks and Recreation to operate the park. Brannan
Island, in Isleton, reopened fully on Thursday after the
department announced it had secured an agreement with a new
concessionaire.
Kelly Gleave converted his grass lawn to xeriscape in April. In
June, he and his wife saw a 3,000 gallon reduction in their
water use. “For me, it was less about maintaining the grass and
it was more about the fact that the Valley is getting a lot of
people and we need to do more to conserve water,” said Gleave,
who’s one of 450 Mesa homeowners who have taken advantage of
the city’s grass-to-xeriscape incentive. The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation announced in August that deliveries of Colorado
River water – the majority of which is used for agriculture –
to Arizona would be cut an additional 21% next year. According
to the bureau, megadrought and low runoff conditions
accelerated by climate change have resulted in record low water
levels in Lakes Powell and Mead, the two largest reservoirs in
the country.
Savannah Barteau dropped out of college to become a rancher
nearly nine years ago. Now, the 26-year-old Flagstaff native
runs the beef business at Date Creek Ranch outside Wickenburg
with her husband. … Date Creek Ranch still uses
Knight’s grazing management techniques. It sells beef locally
instead of transporting cattle out of state. It uses water from
the creek instead of relying on groundwater or the Colorado
River. The ranch’s herd is only 120 head because the fewer
cattle on pastures, the better. In addition, Date Creek Ranch
recently installed solar panels that provide power to
structures on the property, irrigation and beef freezers.
Things are popping in Baja’s emerging wine scene. Earlier this
century, there were only a dozen or so wineries. Now, there are
almost 200. By all indications, Valle de Guadalupe is ready to
take its place among the world-class gastronomic
destinations. But, under the surface, there’s something
larger lurking. “The big problem today is lack of water,”
says Camillo Magoni, the 82-year-old winemaker of Casa
Magoni, who’s worked 58 harvests in Baja. … San Diego
County’s own winegrowers are also facing a water crisis.
… With all the crises facing the world, some might
dismiss the issue of growing grapes for premium wine to be a
minor, bougie, first-world problem. But wine has always been a
window into much larger farming issues.
When drought strikes, California farmers often pump water from
underground aquifers to water their crops. But increasingly dry
conditions are straining that resource. … [David
Freyberg of Stanford University] says many people are looking
at ways to replenish the state’s dwindling groundwater
supplies. In California, a lot of water typically comes
from winter snow that falls high in the mountains.
During warmer months, that snow melts and trickles down to
farmland. But as the climate warms, more precipitation is
falling as rain instead of snow. So it rushes into rivers and
runs past many areas where it’s needed.
Each winter, thousands of homes, businesses and schools in
Sunnyvale are susceptible to flooding from the Sunnyvale East
and West channels overtopping during major storms. These
channels were constructed in the 1960s as local storm drains,
but a combination of heavy storm events, land subsidence and
inadequate drainage has caused the area to flood five times in
the last 60 years. That’s why Valley Water is embarking on the
Sunnyvale East and West Channels Flood Protection Project to
provide enhanced flood protection to more than 1,600
neighboring properties and approximately 47 acres of valuable
industrial and government lands. Construction is set to begin
in 2024.
I know a lot of people think of deserts as big, empty, lifeless
wastelands — that’s one of the reasons it can be tough to get
folks to care about protecting them. But when I moved to
Southern California from New England, my desert enchantment was
immediate and deep. One of the things that struck me most about
exploring the deserts here was that the slower I went, the more
I saw. … Take the Amargosa River, which flows for 185
miles and drains a 5,500-square-mile basin in Nevada and
California before feeding the aquifer remnants of ancient Lake
Manly in Death Valley. It’s the seventh-longest river in
California, but you could be forgiven for not noticing it,
since it spends almost all its time underground. Its water
provides habitat for the improbable Devil’s Hole pupfish
… -Written by Casey Schreiner, a writer, producer,
presenter and author who has taken over The Wild newsletter for
the next few months.
It’s looking likely December will bring a series of storms to
Northern California, raising hopes for a wetter winter than
last year. … The southern Cascades including Mount
Shasta could see 10 to 30 inches of snow, while the Sierra
Nevada range could see one to three feet…. The state is
still looking to narrow the gap from the last dismal water
year. The California Drought Monitor map updated Nov.
23 shows most of California in severe drought or worse,
with a significant portion of most of the Central Valley and
Southern California at exceptional drought….[Eric Kurth, a
National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento,] said
compared to last year, when the state had received around 16
inches of total precipitation by this time, this year is very
behind — measuring at just 4.3 inches or half of normal
precipitation as of Wednesday.
