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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The atmospheric rivers that flowed over California in January
dumped about a foot of rain — equal to an entire year’s average
— in many parts of the state’s parched Central Valley, which
encompasses only 1% of U.S. farmland but produces 40% of the
nation’s table fruits, vegetables, and nuts. With February,
ordinarily the second wettest month, still to be counted, talks
of all the land that will have to fallowed as a result of the
drought have quieted for now. But most Golden State growers
have come to realize that droughts will simply be a part of
farming going forward, and the safety net is gone. That
safety net was groundwater pumping. For more than a
half-century, farmers in the Central Valley, the multi-faceted
state’s chief production area, have been pumping more water
from aquifers than can be replenished, causing wells to be
drilled deeper and deeper.
Ask any of the wine grape growers planting own-rooted stock why
they’re farming these massively risky grapevines and they’ll
all tell you the same thing: They just want to make really
great wine. But there’s another benefit to the gamble,
too—unlike most American wine grapes, which are overwhelmingly
grown on grafted rootstock, own-rooted vines are especially
drought-tolerant, produce a more predictable crop and use
significantly fewer resources. There’s a huge downside to
using own-rooted vines, though. If they get attacked
by phylloxera, the entire crop will die. It won’t be a
loss of just one season’s grapes—the entire vineyard itself
will be totally destroyed. And the invasive species is present
in the soil in vineyards throughout America.
Mark Sigety has owned land in the Harquahala Valley near
Tonopah since 2003. Since then, he says several investors have
reached out to buy his half-acre plot along with other parcels
in western Maricopa County. … The Harquahala Groundwater
Basin is one of three in rural Arizona set aside specifically
to import water to the Valley once water gets scarce. It’s
known as an Irrigation Non-Expansion Area, or INA. It’s a
place where the state or political subdivisions that own land
eligible to be irrigated can pump groundwater and transport it
into areas where groundwater is regulated in Arizona, known as
AMAs, or Active Management Areas. The Phoenix AMA is one
of them and covers land from west of Buckeye to Superior.
Solano County supervisors are scheduled Tuesday to receive an
update on the latest Delta tunnel project. “The Delta
Conveyance Project is the latest iteration of an isolated
conveyance by the state Department of Water Resources to remove
freshwater flows from the Delta for use in central and Southern
California,” the staff report to the board states. “The (Delta
Conveyance Project) includes constructing a 45-mile long,
39-foot diameter tunnel under the Delta with new diversions in
the North Delta that have a capacity to divert up to 6,000
cubic feet (of water) per second and operating new conveyance
facilities that would add to the existing State Water Project
infrastructure.”
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has filed a
complaint against the operator of a mobile home park in Acton,
alleging that the park is using two large unlawful cesspools to
collect untreated raw sewage. The complaint identifies Eric
Hauck as the operator of Cactus Creek Mobile Home Park in
Acton. He’s also identified as a trustee of Acton Holding
Trust. The EPA alleges that Hauck has two illegal cesspools on
the property, despite large capacity cesspools being banned by
the environmental agency more than 15 years ago. Cesspools,
according to the EPA, collect and discharge waterborne
pollutants like untreated raw sewage into the ground. The
practice of using cesspools can lead to disease-causing
pathogens to be introduced to local water sources, including
groundwater, lakes, streams and oceans.
Some of the tall, stately trees that have grown up in
California’s Sierra Nevada are no longer compatible with the
climate they live in, new research has shown. Hotter, drier
conditions driven by climate change in the mountain range have
made certain regions once hospitable to conifers — such as
sequoia, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir — an environmental
mismatch for the cone-bearing trees. … Although there
are conifers in those areas now, Hill and other researchers
suggested that as the trees die out, they’ll be replaced with
other types of vegetation better suited to the environmental
conditions. The team estimated that about 20% of all
Sierra Nevada conifer trees in California are no longer
compatible with the climate around them and are in danger
of disappearing. They dubbed these trees “zombie forests.”
Regenerative agriculture is a holistic land management approach
with principles that date back to Indigenous
farmers. Instead of letting the land fallow or repeating a
cycle of planting water-intensive crops that cannot survive the
harsh conditions along the lower Gila River, Hansen has worked
to develop strategies to make less water go further. He has
successfully introduced arid-adapted crops, integrated
livestock on his land and used non-traditional farming methods
to improve soil health and biodiversity. While
regenerative agriculture has been a way to conserve water and
grow healthier crops for centuries, the alternate farming
method has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years as a
way to potentially reverse the effects of climate change by
rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil
biodiversity, resulting in both carbon drawdown and
improvements to the water cycle.
Even with winter’s remarkable rainfall, Mono Lake will not rise
enough to reduce unhealthy dust storms that billow off the
exposed lakebed and violate air quality standards. Nor will it
offset increasing salinity levels that threaten Mono Lake
Kutzadika’a tribe’s cultural resources and food for millions of
migratory birds. Any gain Mono Lake makes surely won’t last due
to the [Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's] ongoing
diversions….If DWP won’t voluntarily cooperate in finding a
way to protect Mono Lake, then the State Water Board needs to
step up and save Mono Lake – again. -Written by Martha Davis, a board member for the
Mono Lake Committee.
Still reeling from storms that inundated neighborhoods, forced
rescues and damaged roads, storm-battered California is bracing
for another atmospheric river that threatens even more flooding
Monday. More than 17 million people remain under flood watches
across California and Nevada early Monday as the storm makes
its menacing approach – the 11th atmospheric river to hit the
West this winter season. The new storm, arriving on the heels
of another atmospheric river, could exacerbate flooding and
damage in some places. Already, those in the central and
northern parts of California are crowding into shelters and
dealing with flooded neighborhoods, along with mudslides,
dangerous rushing rivers, collapsed bridges and unusable roads.
California’s severely depleted groundwater basins could get a
boost this spring, after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive
order waiving permits to recharge them. State water leaders
hope to encourage local agencies and agricultural districts to
capture water from newly engorged rivers and spread it onto
fields, letting it seep into aquifers after decades of heavy
agricultural pumping. … To pull water from the state’s
network of rivers and canals for groundwater recharge, state
law requires a permit from the State Water Resources Control
Board and Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many local agencies
lacked the permitting during January storms, but this month’s
atmospheric rivers and near record snowpack promises new
opportunities to put water underground.
The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains has reached
record-breaking levels thanks to the deluge of snow smashing
California this week. According to data from the California
Department of Water Resources (CDWR), the Southern Sierras—from
San Joaquin and Mono counties to Kern county—currently have a
snowpack 257 percent greater than the average for this time of
year, and 247 percent larger than is average for the usual
snowpack peak on April 1. Central Sierra and Northern Sierra
also have hugely inflated snowpacks, at 218 percent and 168
percent of the average for early March, respectively…. “As of
this weekend, the Southern Sierra now appears to have largest
snowpack in recorded history…” tweeted Daniel Swain, a
climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is finalizing $250 million in
water-saving deals that are expected to preserve up to 10 feet
of Lake Mead’s declining surface levels this year, agency
Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced Friday in Tempe.
The commissioner attended a discussion of Colorado River water
issues at Arizona State University, organized by Sen. Mark
Kelly, D-Arizona. The money will pay Lower Colorado River Basin
water users, especially farmers, to forego some of their
deliveries this year to help keep the reservoir from sinking
further toward the point where it no longer flows past Hoover
Dam. The initial funding is essentially an emergency measure
that pays people not to use water temporarily.
In another sign that the drought is ending across much of
California, state water officials opened the floodgates at
Oroville Dam on Friday to let water out of the state’s
second-largest reservoir to reduce the risk of flooding to
downstream communities. … At noon, water began
cascading down the huge concrete spillway for the first time in
four years. On Friday, Oroville reservoir was 75% full —
or 115% of its historical average for early March. It has risen
180 feet since Dec. 1, and continued to expand steadily with
millions of gallons of water pouring in from recent storms.
After enduring historic drought conditions exacerbated by three
years of the La Niña weather phenomenon, California is finally
free from her clutches, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration said Thursday. However, El Niño may be looming,
and with it, comes a whole new set of weather and climate
challenges. Unlike the typically dry years La
Niña brings to California, El Niño tends to bring
increased chances of torrential storms, flooding, mudslides and
coastal erosion. It typically occurs every three to five years
when surface water in the equatorial Pacific becomes warmer
than average. This week, the World Meteorological Organization
forecast a 55 percent chance of an El Niño developing heading
into autumn.
Ornamental lawns are banned in Las Vegas, the size of new
swimming pools is capped and much of the water used in homes is
sent down a wash to be recycled, but Nevada is looking at
another significant step to ensure the water supply for one of
the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S. State lawmakers
on Monday are scheduled to discuss granting the power to limit
what comes out of residents’ taps to the Southern Nevada Water
Authority, the agency managing the Colorado River supply to the
city. If lawmakers approve the bill, Nevada would be the first
state to give a water agency permanent jurisdiction over the
amount of residential use. The sweeping omnibus bill is one of
the most significant to go before lawmakers this year in
Nevada, one of seven states that rely on the Colorado River.
Federal dam managers are preparing a springtime assault against
smallmouth bass on the Colorado River, possibly using cool
water from deep in Lake Powell to keep the non-native fish from
getting entrenched in Grand Canyon. Environmental and river
recreation advocates hope the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will
pair cold water with a rush of water from deep behind Glen
Canyon Dam, both disrupting bass reproduction around Lees Ferry
and restoring eroded sandbars farther downstream. That option,
officially under study, is politically sensitive because it
would cost hydropower production and move water out of a
reservoir that has dropped to about a quarter of its storage
capacity. The stakes for humpback chub and other native fishes
are high. Young smallmouth bass, which grow into voracious
warm-water predators, were found between the dam and Lees Ferry
last year…
As storms swell California’s reservoirs, state water officials
have rescinded a controversial order that allowed more water
storage in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while putting
salmon and other endangered fish at risk. Ten environmental
groups had petitioned the board to rescind its order, calling
it “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and…not
supported by substantial evidence.” The reason for the
state’s reversal, according to the State Water Resources
Control Board, is that conditions in the Delta have changed as
storms boost the snowpack and runoff used to supply water to
cities and farms.
It’s March madness once again as we try to explain water
conditions in California to real people in the midst of
additional basketball madness. We all enjoy and suffer with
basketball. This commonality can make it a useful unit of
volume among the many units of volume used for water. A
basketball has the volume of about 1/4 cubic feet (4
basketballs per cubic foot). So a flow of 1,000 cubic
feet per second (cfs) has a volume equivalent of having 4,000
basketballs coming at you every second. An acre-foot (af)
is a volume one foot deep over an acre of area. It has a
volume of 43,560 cubic feet or 325,850 gallons, or 174,240
basketballs. One cfs flowing for one day (24 hours) discharges
almost 2 acre-feet (1.98) of volume (348,480 basketballs/day).
A million gallons per day (mgd) has the same volume as 1.87
million basketballs per day. (There are 7.48 gallons per cubic
foot)
Legal challenges to a Monterey Peninsula water district’s
ratepayer fee that dates back a least a decade reached fruition
this week when a judge ruled against the district and ordered
it to stop collecting the fee. The ruling could have a huge
impact on district revenues at a time when the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District is partnering with Monterey
One Water to invest in the Pure Water Monterey expansion
project, which the district says could supply enough water to
the Monterey Peninsula for the next few decades. At issue are
two fees. The first is a “user fee” that was collected as a
pass-through charge on California American Water Company’s
bills. But state regulators in 2011 ordered a halt to it, so
the district created another fee called a “water supply fee”
that was collected through property taxes.
In many ways, Owens Lake — which dried up early last century
when the city of Los Angeles began diverting the lake’s water
supply to a major aqueduct — is a cautionary tale and a
harbinger of disasters to come. Climate change is altering
patterns of drought and rainfall across the world, and demand
for water is growing. Just 500 miles from Owens Lake, Utah’s
Great Salt Lake is drying rapidly and creating another stream
of toxic dust. And while Owens Lake has finally managed to get
its air pollution problems in check, it came at enormous cost.
In a sense, it is lucky that there is such an example already
out there, if only to demonstrate how important it will be to
avoid a similar fate.
