A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday by veteran journalist Matt Weiser.
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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.
When the federal government reduced how much arsenic it would allow in drinking water in 2006, the water system in Jim Maciel’s Central Valley community was suddenly considered unsafe to drink. Bringing that arsenic content back down to a safe level required a lot of work, as he explains to a few colleagues at a water leadership institute in Visalia.
Poseidon Water, owner of the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, has received an updated permit from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board (SDRWQCB) governing the desalination plant’s discharges into the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, the permit includes structural and operational changes to provide greater protection for marine life and water quality.
Halting plans to remove four dams on the Klamath River was the theme of a well-attended fundraising event hosted May 4 by the Siskiyou County Water Users Association. Guest speakers, including Congressman Doug LaMalfa, Siskiyou County Supervisor Brandon Criss, former Klamath County Commissioner Tom Mallams and Attorney James Buchal, author of “The Great Salmon Hoax” discussed problems they foresee with dam removal which they believe is far from a done deal.
Tens of thousands of people flooded into San Francisco in the 1850s looking for gold, but there wasn’t nearly enough drinking water to quench the thirst of the boomtown. So speculators looked south of the city to San Mateo County in hopes of delivering clean water to San Francisco and big money to their own pockets. And they weren’t going to let anything get in their way.
The Western-San Bernardino and Orange County judgments, signed April 17, 1969, helped establish five watermasters and settle water rights throughout the watershed that supplies the water agencies within San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties. The agreements settled decades of lawsuits over water rights…
The Mountain View City Council approved the water district’s 18-foot-deep basin project in 2013 in exchange for the park upgrades. Designed to accommodate a 100-year flood, the McKelvey Park basin is one of two basin projects of the larger Permanente Creek Flood Protection Project, which water district officials claim will provide natural flood protection for approximately 2,200 properties in Mountain View and Los Altos.
A well for the Vineyard Avenue Acres Mutual Water Co. tested as having water with more than 10 milligrams of nitrates per liter, the limit set by the California State Water Resources Control Board, according to a letter sent to customers by the utility under state orders. The utility serves a discrete area of El Rio, so the problem does not affect other parts of the Oxnard area.
A nearly four-year investigation into how a chemical known to cause cancer showed up in more than a dozen rural wells by the San Luis Obispo County Airport has finally concluded with an alleged culprit. Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board investigators say that Noll Inc., a machine shop on Thread Lane, is responsible for the trichloroethylene (TCE) leak…
In the ceaseless conflict over how to use the state’s available water — and maybe then some — a varied group of water users and lawmakers sang a refrain older than Nevada: “Everyone is going to court in the end.” … The ghosts of litigation — past, present and future — loomed over the Thursday Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing that stretched until 8 p.m. and offered insight into why it’s so difficult to update Nevada water law.
The commission, created in 1965 and comprised of 27 members appointed primarily by state and local officials, is supposed to protect the environmental health of the bay. If they won’t take their job seriously, Gov. Gavin Newsom, legislative leaders and local officials should replace them with people up to the task.
Arizona relies on groundwater for about 40% of its water supply, yet groundwater resources outside of the state’s biggest urban areas are largely unprotected and unregulated… HB 2467, a bill that passed in the Arizona House and currently awaiting a final vote in the Senate, takes an important step forward to address groundwater challenges in Mohave and La Paz counties.
Although they spend their lives hidden beneath the surface, fish are directly affected by the weather happening outside their aquatic world. This is particularly true of species that rely on watersheds in regions like California, where the availability of water changes dramatically with the seasons.
A Senate budget subcommittee rejected Gov. Gavin Newsom’s water tax plan on Wednesday, instead recommending finding $150 million elsewhere to finance a safe and affordable drinking water fund. … The subcommittee’s decision to lock in funds for future budget cycles could eliminate the challenge of securing votes to pass another tax.
The big conflicts are deeply interconnected and appear to be reaching their climactic phases. How they are resolved over the next few years will write an entirely new chapter in California’s water history, changing priorities and perhaps shifting water from agriculture to urban users and environmental enhancement.
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission has “neglected its mission” to protect the bay and surrounding wetlands, the California state auditor reported Tuesday. The commission, which issues permits for activities like boating, dredging and dumping, has a backlog of 230 open enforcement cases, some decades old.
When it rains, it pours. And the Camp Fire just keeps on pouring. The latest byproduct? Waterways testing positive for heavy metals, from aluminum to selenium, as well as chemical contaminants. And the most recent test results, released last month, show unhealthy levels of both throughout the county, primarily in Paradise and nearby creeks.
The Yurok Tribal Council recently voted in favor of a resolution to establish the Rights of the Klamath River. According to the Yurok Tribe, the resolution “establishes the Rights of the Klamath River to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve; to have a clean and healthy environment free from pollutants; to have a stable climate free from human-caused climate change impacts; and to be free from contamination by genetically engineered organisms.”
Stakeholders throughout the Colorado River Basin just wrapped up arduous negotiations on a drought plan. There’s little time to rest, however. Stakeholders are expected to begin the even more difficult task of hammering out sweeping new guidelines for delivering water and sharing shortages that could re-imagine how the overworked river is managed.
When asked about his priorities, California’s recently appointed Natural Resources Secretary quickly rattles off a range of topics: climate change; strengthening water supply resilience; and building water capacity for communities, agriculture, and the environment, among them.
California Trout, Mendocino County Inland Water & Power Commission, and Sonoma Water have officially put a foot forward to explore a planning agreement for the project’s future. The coalition is championing a “two-basin solution” that could mitigate the effects of the Scott Dam on fish populations in the Eel River while ensuring that the Russian River basin doesn’t lose its water supply, which Potter Valley residents have relied on for over 100 years.
