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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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.
Gov. Gavin Newsom today declared a drought emergency for the
entire state of California, as conservation efforts continue to
fall far short of state targets. Newsom also authorized
California’s water regulators to ban wasteful water use, such
as spraying down public sidewalks, and directed his Office of
Emergency Services to fund drinking water as needed. But he
stopped short of issuing any statewide conservation mandates.
Three successive storms will surge in from the Pacific Ocean
this week, forecasters said Tuesday, bringing what may be the
most rain in nine months to drought-stricken Northern
California and offering a promising start to winter after two
years marked by record wildfires and dry conditions. Two of
those storms look like atmospheric rivers … After
Sunday’s storm, the 7-day rainfall totals could range from 5 to
8 inches over the North Bay, 3 to 5 inches in the Santa Cruz
Mountains, and 1 to 3 inches across the San Francisco Bay Area
down to Big Sur.
A new federal system for projecting Colorado River water flows
in the next two years confirms dire news about drought draining
the West’s key reservoirs, and increases pressure on Colorado
to conserve water immediately to avoid future demands from
down-river states, conservation groups say. …The new
projections for the next two years show that even with federal
officials draining portions of Blue Mesa, Flaming Gorge and
Navajo reservoirs to get more water to Lake Powell’s
hydroelectric generating station, a moderate winter would leave
the Colorado River in the same crisis a year from now.
Don’t miss our Water Summit virtual forum next
week with the theme, Pivoting Today’s Pain into Tomorrow’s
Gain, to examine what’s being done to get through a drought
once again gripping California and explore some of the
creative efforts and collaborations being developed to
address the challenges moving forward.
…In 1950, Littleworth joined Best, Best & Krieger and
launched a career in water law. He represented Riverside in a
contentious dispute that was settled in 1969, providing the
city with much of the water supply it relies on today. In 1987,
he was appointed special master by the nation’s highest court
to resolve a fight between Kansas and Colorado over water in
the Arkansas River.
Vice President Kamala Harris stood before the record-low water
levels of Nevada’s Lake Mead on Monday and made the case for
the Biden administration’s climate change agenda … The
vice president pitched the administration’s infrastructure and
social safety net agenda as critical to tackling the effects of
climate change — which scientists say intensify extreme weather
events such as heatwaves and droughts. … Harris made the
case for the package by connecting human-caused climate change
to the scene she stood near, saying emissions are “part of what
is contributing to these drought conditions.”
On the heels of Governor Newsom’s historic $15 billion climate
investment, the state today released a draft of the 2021
California Climate Adaptation Strategy to continue the state’s
work to confront the climate crisis head-on. The draft strategy
is designed to accelerate climate adaptation action across
regions and sectors in California; identify how key state
agency actions fit together to achieve these priorities; and
build on the successes and lessons learned since the first
climate adaptation strategy in 2009.
Polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a
class of man-made chemicals that break down slowly in the
environment, can accumulate in the human body and have been
linked to all manner of negative health effects from cancer to
high cholesterol. But these “forever chemicals” are nearly
impossible to avoid. They are, quite literally, all around us:
in consumer products, from cosmetics and cookware to food
packaging and firefighting foam; in our food supply; in the
soil, air and water; and even running through our veins.
Last Friday CalTrout and our partners at Ducks Unlimited, the
California Rice Commission, and the Northern California Water
Association gathered in the Central Valley to sign a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) for collaborative work that will
strengthen protections to water ecology throughout the valley.
The MOU formalizes our organizations’ relationships and
reinforces CalTrout’s commitment to ecosystem-level solutions
to salmon recovery.
This measure seeks to increase water supply in the state
through the implementation of new water projects. Specifically,
the measure (1) amends state law to dedicate existing
state General Fund revenues for developing additional water
supply, (2) authorizes the sale of bonds to fund water
supply projects, and (3) makes some changes to existing
environmental review requirements for water supply projects.
The Family Farm Alliance aims to protect water for Western
agriculture and describes itself as a powerful advocate before
the government for family farmers, ranchers, irrigation
districts, and allied industries in 17 Western states. The
drought-stricken Klamath Basin is one area that they’ve
identified as needing legislative change. The alliance says it
has this goal to ensure the availability of reliable and
affordable irrigation water needed to produce the world’s food,
fiber, and fuel.
The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District, also known
as Regional San, completed a $564 million wastewater treatment
project this summer that uses bacteria to remove more than 99%
of ammonia from sewer water. The operation, which is called the
Biological Nutrient Removal project, is a part of a larger
undertaking called the EchoWater project. The EchoWater project
was established by Regional San to comply with regulations and
to ensure clean water quality.
When the State of California issued its water curtailments late
last summer, TID and neighboring districts pushed back. A
coalition of water districts from Modesto, Oakdale, Manteca,
and San Francisco sued the state over its curtailment order.
Michelle Reimers, TID’s general manager and chief executive,
says she understands the idea behind the curtailments. Aside
from the pre-1914 water rights the districts own and what that
means under California law, Reimers says TID is bothered by the
blanket order because it fails to consider how well-managed
irrigation districts like hers operate and manage their
systems.
After years of trucking in water, LARC Ranch residents are
finally set to get a permanent water supply via a pipeline
being built with the help of the Santa Clarita Valley Water
Agency. LARC and other Bouquet Canyon residents were left high
and dry when water stopped being regularly released from the
Bouquet Reservoir nearly a decade ago, reducing their supply to
a trickle over concerns of road flooding.
Napa River is bone-dry in stretches and some have voiced the
controversial claim that groundwater pumping amid a deep,
two-year drought is partly to blame. That’s the backdrop
against which Napa County is crafting a state-required Napa
Valley groundwater plan. Twenty-five people from the wine
industry, environmental community and other sectors are on an
advisory committee working on the first draft. One thorny issue
is determining if and when too much groundwater pumping for
agriculture dries up the river and streams.
The humpback chub, a rare fish found only in the Colorado River
basin, has been brought back from the brink of extinction after
decades of protection, though work must continue to ensure its
survival, federal authorities said Monday in reclassifying the
species from endangered to threatened status. The fish, which
gets its name from a fleshy bump behind its head, was first
listed as endangered in 1967, its habitat severely disrupted by
dam construction. Its numbers also declined with the
introduction of predatory, non-native aquatic species.
The Klamath Tribes recently received 2 separate grants totaling
over $250,000 dollars. They’re coming to the tribes from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. One of the grants will
invest $99,992 into purchasing and installing a solar-powered
water pump. It will help minimize external nutrient loading
from agricultural properties around Upper Klamath Lake. The
other grant, worth around $152,000, will go towards phase 2 of
the groundwater and surface-water monitoring study for the
Klamath Marsh.
A settlement meeting required by the California Environmental
Quality Act may give the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water
District and the city of Tehachapi a chance to resolve their
water supply disagreement. In a nutshell, the city has approved
residential projects that could add 1,400 or more housing units
over the next seven years — and the water district contends
that the city violated CEQA and doesn’t have sufficient water
to serve such development.
Shasta Beverages, the California beverage producer, was sued in
the Northern District of California on Friday by an
environmental group for discharge permit violations. EDEN
Environmental Citizens Group sued nearly a year after providing
notice of the defendant’s Clean Water Act violations to the
relevant state and federal agencies. … The complaint alleged
that Shasta discharges storm water into a municipal drain
system as well as a drainage ditch, both of which drain to the
San Francisco Bay by way of the Alameda River.
While we’re thinking about the drought and environmental
changes, I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the
perils animals face while dealing with our changing climate.
This list is, of course, not comprehensive, but I do think
these examples show how when one organism is affected, others
face consequences too. Baby salmon are dying by the thousands
in one California river. Earlier this year, the Associated
Press reported that the deaths at Northern California’s Klamath
River are being caused by low water levels brought on by
drought. -Written by Justin Ray, staff writer for the LA
Times.
