A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday by veteran journalist Matt Weiser. Send any comments to Foundation News & Publications Director Doug Beeman.
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Please Note: The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here, and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
Discovery Bay residents are growing irritated with invasive
aquatic plants and the COVID-19 pandemic slowing down weed
abatement. While the town can be the ideal place to enjoy a
vacation lifestyle year-round, this spring’s crop of weeds is
ruining the bays and inhibiting movement around docks on the
west side of town.
A plan to set new restrictions on the levels of bacteria in the
Petaluma River Watershed is nearing the next stage of approval.
At a virtual meeting on Tuesday, the California State Water
Resources Control Board … will consider a plan meant to cap
and reduce the amount of bacteria getting into the Petaluma
River Watershed.
By the thousands, they rolled through the Southern Oregon
countryside in tractors, hay trucks, log trucks, pickups and
minivans, their hand-painted signs greeted by supportive
passers-by who agreed with the message of Friday’s “Shut Down
and Fed Up” rally: the water problems that for decades have
plagued the region and its farmers must be resolved.
Paso Robles has an oversupply of wine grapes, according to
growers and winemakers. That’s an existing problem that’s been
exacerbated by COVID-19. … According to Jerry Lohr, owner of
J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, and some others in the wine
industry, there’s never been a better time to talk about
creating a fallowing program for the North County region, which
overlies the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin.
Westlands Water District sent shockwaves through the Central
Valley water world recently after it alerted several districts
that it intends to apply for rights to flood flows on the San
Joaquin River.
Staring down a $3 billion — and growing — tab to clean up water
sources at military installations across the country that are
contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals linked to
firefighting foam, the Defense Department is now in discussions
with private firms about potential cleanup solutions that might
reduce the cost.
The term “crisis on the border” typically refers to immigration
issues or drugs being smuggled into the country. But it has one
more meaning, as we discovered, when we went to the border in
early February: tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage that
spill every year into the Tijuana River on the Mexican side and
flow across the border right into Southern California,
polluting the land, air, and sea.
On May 21, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
issued another order finding that the California State Water
Resources Control Board waived its authority under Section 401
of the Clean Water Act to issue a water quality certification
in the ongoing relicensing of Yuba Water Agency’s Yuba River
Project.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Institute for Water Resources
released a report on May 14 titled Managed Aquifer Recharge
(MAR) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Water Security
Through Resilience. … The report states USACE and its
partners have engaged, or are considering engaging, in the use
of MAR in a variety of settings and purposes throughout the
United States.
In a stark reminder that drought has once again taken hold on
the North Coast, Sonoma County is preparing to ask state water
regulators for permission to reduce water levels in the Russian
River this summer to conserve water stored in Lake Mendocino
and ensure minimal late-season flows for fish.
This is an excerpt from “Ruling the Waters: California’s Kern
River, the Environment, and the Making of Western Water Law” by
Douglas R. Littlefield, published in May 2020.
With its proposed Doheny desalination plant facing hurdles
because of costs and a lack of partner water districts, the
South Coast Water District board has agreed to spend $73,000 to
study a scaled-down alternative.
California state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) introduced
legislation this week authorizing the Water Replenishment
District of Southern California to take control of the Central
Basin Municipal Water District, a move that would dissolve
Central Basin’s board of directors and put the distressed
agency in receivership.
The park’s 1,900 residents have been without a permanent
drinking water source for months, after the EPA announced last
summer that the park’s well water contained nearly 10 times the
permissible level of arsenic, a toxic metal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $196
million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA)
loan to the Inland Empire Utilities Agency in San Bernardino
County, California. The loan will help finance expanded
wastewater treatment capacity to support public health and the
environment in this growing community.
The National Audubon Society has reached an agreement with the
Arizona Department of Water Resources to help fund the Colorado
River Indian Tribes’ on-going efforts to conserve 150,000
acre-feet of water in Lake Mead over the next three years.
Likely hanging in the balance is the future of artificial water
fluoridation in the U.S. with shock waves possibly to be felt
in countries which still add synthetic fluoride agents to their
drinking water. The plaintiffs comprise a coalition of
citizens’ groups, while the defendant is the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. At issue is the potential health risks posed
by artificial water fluoridation.
The imbalance on the Colorado River needs to be addressed, and
agriculture, as the biggest water user in the basin, needs to
be part of a fair solution. But drying up vital food-producing
land is a blunt tool. It would damage our local food-supply
chains and bring decline to rural communities that have
developed around irrigated agriculture.
The 2008 financial market crash was called a “black swan” event
— an extreme catastrophic event that was not anticipated. We
hope that when a catastrophic dam failure occurs in the United
States it will not be called a black swan, since there is
already strong evidence that the combination of aging and
poorly maintained infrastructure and climate extremes could be
very deadly.
A scientist within the Department of Water Resources’ Division
of Environmental Services has found a way to use gene-editing
technology, most recently used for COVID-19 diagnostic testing,
for ecological monitoring of threatened fish.
