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: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Also, 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.
San Luis Obispo County has been restricting new groundwater
wells in the Paso Robles subbasin for nearly a decade. Now
county supervisors are hoping to tack on a carbon sequestration
mandate.
Maricopa County’s population has more than doubled over the
past 30 years, making it one of the fastest growing regions in
the country. But meanwhile, Arizona’s water supply has become
more and more depleted. So as growth continues, can the state
sustain even more residents? In most areas of central
Arizona, a developer can’t build a new home without first
proving that there’s enough water to last that property 100
years. But there are loopholes for larger lots in rural areas,
like many homes in Rio Verde Foothills. And as water becomes
scarcer, some worry even properties with those 100-year plans
might not all be sustainable.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today announced
awarding $5 million in funding for seven emergency response
agencies within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to increase
their ability to respond to flood emergencies. This funding
will help to improve the emergency response efforts for first
responders and help these communities prepare for threats of
flooding in the Delta, which is increasingly vulnerable to
flooding from storm events and sea level rise.
It’s an October morning at Point Reyes National Seashore and
I’m scooting under barbed wire fences, wary of sliding into cow
pies. My guide on this safari is Jocelyn Knight, wildlife
photographer. We’re stalking a toxic waste dump hidden from
public view behind a hill at “Historic E Ranch, established
circa 1859” land lorded by the National Park Service. Park
regulations require Seashore pastures to remain open to the
public, but the dump is inside the E Ranch “core” of barns and
dwellings, and the public is disallowed. … According to
EHS investigators, a septic tank was installed without the
required permit; its sewage level exceeded the operational
limit; they could not locate a leach field. The ranch land
drains into the Pacific.
John Wesley Powell offered a poignant message for Western U.S.
communities when he was the featured speaker in a room full of
developers and government leaders at a major irrigation
conference held in Los Angeles in October 1893. Powell, then
director of the U.S. Geological Survey, started off strong,
receiving applause from those listening to him, noted Greg
Smoak, a professor of history and director of the American West
Center at the University of Utah. … “There is not enough
water to irrigate all the lands … There is but a small portion
of the irrigable land which can be irrigated when all the
water, every drop of water, is utilized,” Powell warned the
crowd, adding that he foresaw a future filled with battles over
water rights.
Oscar-nominated actor and star of “Succession” spoke in support
of lawsuits aiming to stop a project that plans to bulldoze the
Ballona Wetlands on Sunday. More than 200 residents of Venice,
Culver City, Santa Monica, Marina del Rey and Playa del Rey
attended an event held by Defend Ballona Wetlands where
Cromwell spoke about his support and involvement with the
organization. Cromwell said Marcia Hanscom, Executive Director
of the Ballona Institute, approached him 25 years ago asking
him to visit the wetlands. When he did, Cromwell said it was
moving and he knew he wanted to do whatever it took to support
efforts to protect it.
The San Diego City Council unanimously approved Tuesday a new
funding source to pay for upgrades to the San Diego River,
which officials say could become a regional attraction with
recreational amenities and riverfront dining. The council
voted to create an enhanced infrastructure financing district,
which would generate money any time a parcel within half a mile
of the river sees its property tax go up in the next 45
years. Combined with a separate EIFD the county
government approved in September, the river is expected to get
somewhere between $380 million and $750 million for a wide
variety of projects.
In 1995, Bill Clinton was president, Pixar produced Toy
Story (the first fully computer-animated feature film),
and a NATO offensive ended war in Bosnia. It was also the year
the California State Water Resources Control Board determined
that California American Water was pumping roughly three times
more water from the Carmel River than it is legally entitled
to. The board issued Order 95-10, requiring Cal Am to cut back
its use of river water to the legal limit. Here we are, 27
years later, and the cease-and-desist order is still in effect.
… And that brings us to the issue du jour, a
controversial desalination plant proposed by Cal Am, set to go
before the California Coastal Commission for a vote on
Thursday, Nov. 17. There are a lot of reasons to object to this
project … -Written by Sara Rubin, editor of the Monterey County
Weekly.
The Santa Margarita Water District is getting started on its
first drinking water treatment plant, which will be in Rancho
Mission Viejo. … The [Ranch Water Filtration Plant] will
treat groundwater from the San Juan Basin to supply some 1.6
billion gallons of drinking water per year to customers,
according to SMWD Public Information officer Nicole Stanfield.
Currently, all the district’s water is sourced from Northern
California and the Colorado River. The plant, however, would
establish a local source of drinking water.
A slate of candidates aiming to reform the powerful Westlands
Water District swept into victory on Monday night, cementing a
new board majority and likely spelling the end of the line for
the district’s general manager. The four candidates –
Justin Diener, Ernie Costamagna, Jeremy Hughes, and Ross
Franson – captured the four available seats in preliminary
results. In the process, they are primed to boot the lone
incumbent running for re-election from his seat – current
Westlands board president Ryan Ferguson.
Despite recent rain storms across the state, California’s
historic drought shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
With the lack of meaningful regular precipitation, capacity at
California’s reservoirs continue to decline, putting stress on
the state’s water supply. Across the board, nearly all of
California’s major water supply reservoirs managed by the
California Department of Water Resources are well below
historic averages. … Shasta, the largest state reservoir
with a capacity of 4,552,000 acre-feet of water, is currently
at 31% capacity. Historically, capacity at Shasta Lake is
usually around 57% this time of year. Lake Oroville, which
has a capacity of about 3,537,000 acre-feet of water, is in
even more dire straits. As of Nov. 14, Oroville is at 29%
capacity, almost half of the historic average of 58%.
In the last decade, California—along with the rest of the
world—has entered a new phase of climate change. The changes
that scientists predicted have started to arrive. California’s
already variable climate is growing increasingly volatile and
unpredictable: The dry periods are hotter and drier, and the
wet periods—lately too few and far between—are warmer and often
more intense. … The snowpack—that once-reliable annual source
of water—is diminishing as temperatures rise. Water withdrawals
during multiyear droughts are depleting the state’s reservoirs
and groundwater basins. … This report considers the
state of water in California: What changes are we seeing now,
and what should we expect in the near future?
California is enjoying fewer extreme wildfires than it has in
years, which experts attribute to a combination of summer rain,
calm weather and increased forest management. As of Thursday,
fires had blackened less than 363,000 acres throughout the
Golden State. That’s far less than last year, when 2.5 million
acres burned, and 2020, when fires torched a record 4 million
acres. … But Ferguson and other experts warned that
wildfires are now a year-round threat, largely thanks to
climate change, which dries out vegetation and soil with
record-breaking high temperatures and persistent drought.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-02) isn’t the only one from the North
Coast making the rounds at the United Nations Climate Change
Conference. On Tuesday, Danielle Frank, of Ríos to Rivers and a
youth leader of the Hupa Valley Tribe, and Brook Thompson, who
is a member of the Yurok Tribe and Karuk Tribe, shared the
story of the dams in the Klamath River basin at a panel titled
Centering the Protection of Rivers and Rights in Achieving
Climate Justice in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. They were speaking
alongside Indigenous people from other parts of the world who
have also been fighting to protect rivers in their communities.
… Six dams in the Klamath River basin have severely
impacted water quality, temperatures and flows, which in turn
have led to the degradation of the ecosystem. In 2002, the
river experienced one of the largest fish kills in its history,
leading to a 20-year legal fight to bring the dams down.
Already grappling with drought, lower commodity prices and
higher production costs, more farmers are feeling the added
pinch of groundwater regulations as local agencies implement
plans that include pumping limits and new fees to balance
long-term groundwater resources as required by the
state. … Regulations and fees by local agencies as
part of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA,
affect farmers more directly this year, including farmers in
Madera County. Madera County farmer Jay Mahil said
groundwater sustainability agency fees that are part of his
county property tax bill are “coming at a time when growers are
receiving all-time low returns on commodity prices, and farm
input costs have doubled.”
Modesto Irrigation District, Turlock Irrigation District and
the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have signed a
memorandum of understanding with the state to advance a
voluntary agreement for the Tuolumne River. MID and TID, which
jointly operate the Don Pedro Reservoir on the Tuolumne River,
joined dozens of other California water agencies in committing
to collaborate with the state to finalize agreements that will
provide water supply reliability to communities, while
enhancing river ecosystems. Contra Costa Water District signed
onto the agreement in September. … The action by the
districts signals momentum towards an alternative to
regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board
in 2018, as part of the first phase of the state’s Bay-Delta
water quality control plan.
In just a few months this year, abnormally low water levels in
rivers led China to shut down factories and to floods in
one-third of Pakistan, killing around 1,500 people and grinding
the country to a halt. A dried-up Rhine River threatened to tip
Germany’s economy into recession, because cargo ships could not
carry standard loads. And the Las Vegas strip turned into a
river and flooded casinos, chasing customers away. … With
mounting climate-fuelled weather disasters, social inequality,
species extinctions and resource scarcity, some corporations
have adopted sustainability programmes. One term in this realm
is ‘circular economy’, in which practitioners aim to increase
the efficiency and reuse of resources, including water —
ideally making more goods (and more money) in the process.
The wheels keep turning in the large-scale Glenn County water
project to help those with dry and drying wells connect to the
city of Orland’s water lines. Over the course of the past year,
the city has been working to connect those on wells within city
limits to the source. Orland City Manager Pete Carr said the
city has connected roughly 12 out of 34 of those households so
far. Carr added that the city expects to have all 34 homes
connected within the next couple of months. As part of the
overall project, DWR has provided some additional funding to
help the city drill a second well and put in an additional
water tank to up the storage in anticipation of the new
customers outside of the county, which consists of about 160
households.
Alfalfa is often the target of critics of irrigated agriculture
who frequently rely upon simplistic explanations to heap scorn
upon growing a forage crop in the West during times of drought.
Two Democratic congressmen from Arizona — Ruben Gallego and
Raúl Grijalva — last month introduced the “Domestic Water
Protection Act of 2022” (H.R. 9194), which would impose an
excise tax on the sale of a “water-intensive” crop. The tax is
300% of the price for which the crop is sold and is paid by the
manufacturer, producer, or importer of the crop. The bill
defines water-intensive crop as a crop grown in an area
experiencing prolonged drought at the time such crop is grown,
and by a manufacturer, producer, or importer that is a foreign
corporation or foreign government. -Written by Dan Keppen, executive director of Family
Farm Alliance.
More than half of anchovies and all of the seabirds that feed
on them were found to have microplastic particles in their
digestive tracts, according to a study by researchers at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. The researchers tested 24
anchovy and 19 common murres for microplastic particles and
found particles of at least 5 millimeters in 58 percent of the
fish and all of the birds. The researchers also analyzed
seawater samples from Santa Cruz and Moss Landing, finding a
microplastic concentration of about 2 microparticles per 1,000
liters.
