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 Chris Bowman.
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How Colorado protects wetlands depends on two perspectives: Is
it a water quality issue or a land management issue? Even
assuming it’s a little of both, either answer leads to
different approaches, each to be overseen by a different
agency. And either path offers implications for construction,
permitting and management of habitats. This month,
lawmakers looked at the dueling approaches contained in two
measures seeking to implement a way for the state to manage
“dredge and fill discharge” permits tied to a recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision that redefined how a body of water can
be protected under the Environmental Protection Agency’s
“Waters of the United States” rule.
A major southern Colorado water district voted unanimously last
week to oppose an $80.4 million agricultural water purchase by
Aurora in the Arkansas Valley, saying the deal violates a 2003
agreement that prohibits the fast-growing city from taking more
water out of the valley. Aurora would lease the water back to
Arkansas Valley farmers in most years, using it periodically in
dry periods. During a special meeting April 9, the Southeastern
Colorado Water Conservancy District said it had numerous
concerns with the purchase, which is set to close this month.
Southeastern manages the federally owned Fryingpan-Arkansas
Project, which includes the Pueblo Reservoir.
Ecuador on Tuesday began to ration electricity in the country’s
main cities as a drought linked to the El Niño weather pattern
depletes reservoirs and limits output at hydroelectric plants
that produce about 75% of the nation’s power. The power cuts
were announced on Monday night by the ministry of energy, which
said in a statement that it would review its decision on
Wednesday night. … The power cuts in Ecuador come days after
dry weather forced Colombia’s capital city of Bogotá to ration
water as its reservoirs reached record lows, threatening local
supplies of tap water. In the town of La Calera, on the
outskirts of Bogotá, water trucks visited neighborhoods where
water has been scarce recently because a local stream that
supplies the town with water is drying up.
The sunlight glints off a geometric shape across the glassy
surface of a reservoir in the Golan Heights. This is a solar
array, with panels mounted on floating pontoons, and anchored
to the banks, rising and falling with the water level. The
innovation of “dual use” reservoirs — providing water storage
on the one hand, and “green” energy on the other — is just the
latest advance pioneered by the Jewish National Fund (JNF),
which manages Israel’s forests and farmland. …
California has not seen a major reservoir built since the late
1970s, but Israel built hundreds of small reservoirs from 1990
to 2010, after a water crisis in the 1970s and 1980s prompted
the government to expand the system’s capacity.
Federal officials have discovered damage inside Glen Canyon Dam
that could force limits on how much Colorado River water is
released at low reservoir levels, raising risks the Southwest
could face shortages that were previously unforeseen. The
damage was recently detected in four 8-foot-wide steel tubes —
called the river outlet works — that allow water to pass
through the dam in northern Arizona when Lake Powell reaches
low levels. Dam managers spotted deterioration in the tubes
after conducting an exercise last year that sent large flows
from the dam into the Grand Canyon. To reduce risks of
additional damage, federal Bureau of Reclamation officials have
determined that flows should be reduced in the event of low
reservoir levels.
A new lawsuit filed by public drinking water systems in
California against manufacturers of toxic “forever chemicals”
is among the first to cite new Biden administration regulations
that set strict limits for the chemicals in drinking water. The
Orange County Water District and more than a dozen other
California water utilities filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles
federal court on Friday against seven manufacturers of per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including Dynax America
Corp. and Arkema Inc. The lawsuit accuses the manufacturers of
negligence and of creating a nuisance by contaminating water
with PFAS, and seeks money to remediate that contamination.
One of the biggest battles over Colorado River water is being
staged in one of the west’s smallest rural enclaves.Tucked into
the bends of the lower Colorado River, Cibola, Arizona, is a
community of about 200 people. … Nearly a decade ago,
Greenstone Resource Partners LLC, a private company backed by
global investors, bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land
here in Cibola. In a first-of-its-kind deal, the company
recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of
Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix, for a $14m gross profit. More
than 2,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River that was
once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing, through a canal
system, to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away.
As part of a $250 million commitment to support four water
supply projects in Southern California, Los Angeles will
receive $139 million over 25 years for its Groundwater
Replenishment Project in the San Fernando Valley, officials
announced on Monday, April 15. Earlier this month, the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Board of
Directors approved separate agreements with water agencies,
including the city of Los Angeles, as part of its Local
Resources Program. The Metropolitan Water District is a
state-established wholesaler that provides water for 19 million
people in six counties. The Local Resources Program aims to
provide economic incentives for water developed and produced
from groundwater clean-up, water recycling and seawater
desalination throughout the agency’s six-county service area.
A Supreme Court decision that stripped protections from
America’s wetlands will have reverberating impacts on rivers
that supply drinking water all over the U.S., according to a
new report. The rivers of New Mexico are among the waterways
that will be affected most by the May 2023 Supreme Court
decision in Sackett v. EPA, which rolled back decades of
federal safeguards under the Clean Water Act for about half of
the nation’s wetlands and up to four million miles of streams
that supply drinking water for up to four million people,
according to the report, titled “America’s Most Endangered
Rivers of 2024.” … [The report, issued by the advocacy group
American Rivers, also cited the Trinity River in
California and the Tijuana River in California and Mexico as
among the ten most endangered rivers.]
Flooding could affect one out of every 50 residents in 24
coastal cities in the United States by the year 2050, a study
led by Virginia Tech researchers suggests. The study, published
this month in Nature, shows how the combination of land
subsidence—in this case, the sinking of shoreline terrain—and
rising sea levels can lead to the flooding of coastal areas
sooner than previously anticipated by research that had focused
primarily on sea level rise scenarios. … The study
combines measurements of land subsidence obtained from
satellites with sea level rise projections and tide charts,
offering a more holistic projection of potential flooding risks
in 32 cities located along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf
coasts.
The Bureau of Reclamation today announced the initial 2024
water supply allocations for the Klamath Project along with
$8.5 million in immediate funding for the Klamath Basin
communities to support drought resiliency and $5 million for
Klamath Basin tribes impacted by drought. In partnership with
the Klamath Project Drought Response Agency, Reclamation has
secured $8.5 million for administration of specifically
authorized drought resiliency programs targeted for project
contractors who receive a reduced water allocation. Reclamation
is announcing this funding together with an additional $5
million from separate program sources which will be disbursed
through technical assistance agreements with Klamath Basin
Tribal Nations for drought and ecosystem activities.
Shasta Lake is near its capacity for the second straight year,
but officials say there still is plenty of room left to fill.
As of Monday, California’s largest reservoir is just seven feet
from its max capacity of 1,067 feet. This marks the first time
in over a decade that Shasta Lake has remained nearly filled in
back-to-back years, according to the Bureau of Reclamation’s
Don Bader. While less than 10 feet of room may not sound like a
lot, the reservoir still has plenty of storage space.
The governance of San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta water quality falls under the authority of the State
Water Quality Control Board. Among other duties, the Water
Board is responsible for adopting and updating the Bay-Delta
Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco
Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta
Plan). The Bay-Delta Plan’s purpose sets forth measures
and flow requirements to safeguard various water uses within
the watershed, including municipal, industrial, agricultural,
and ecological needs. Comprising five political appointees with
extensive powers, the Water Board plays a pivotal role in
shaping California’s water management policies. -Written by Cary Keaten, the general manager of
the Solano Irrigation District.
Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal. And this season, Tahoe
is witnessing its own rebirth in the form of a species of bird
that had been previously driven out of the region. Sandhill
cranes are making an unexpected return to the Lake Tahoe basin
after a century long hiatus caused by overhunting. The birds
stand at about 4 feet tall with a wingspan of 7 feet and boast
a signature red patch on their head. The sandhill cranes are
often compared to dinosaurs by those lucky enough to witness
them due to their large size and loud croaks.
Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District, which
supplies water to farmers who grow most of the nation’s winter
vegetables, planned to start a conservation program in April to
scale back what it draws from the critical Colorado River. But
a tiny, tough fish got in the way. Now, those plans won’t start
until at least June so water and wildlife officials can devise
a way to ensure the endangered desert pupfish and other species
are protected, said Jamie Asbury, the irrigation district’s
general manager.
Rebuilding beaches after hurricanes is costing U.S. taxpayers
billions of dollars more than expected as the Army Corps of
Engineers pumps mountains of sand onto storm-obliterated
shorelines. Congress approved more than $770 million since 2018
for emergency beach “nourishment” projects after five
megastorms struck Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Those
costs shattered government expectations about the price of
preventing beaches from disappearing through decades-old
programs that in many cases were created before the dangerous
effects of climate change were fully understood. Four of those
storms — Michael, Maria, Irma and Ian — were among the most
powerful to make landfall in the United States, raising
questions about the rising costs of pumping, dumping and
spreading sand onto beaches that are increasingly jeopardized
by the effects of climbing temperatures.
California’s Death Valley, the driest place in North America,
has hosted an ephemeral lake since late 2023. A NASA-led
analysis recently calculated water depths in the temporary lake
over several weeks in February and March 2024, demonstrating
the capabilities of the U.S.-French Surface Water and Ocean
Topography (SWOT) satellite, which launched in December 2022.
The analysis found that water depths in the lake ranged from
about 3 feet (1 meter) to less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) over
the course of about 6 weeks. This period included a series of
storms that swept across California, bringing record amounts of
rainfall.
For the first time in California history, state officials are
poised to crack down on overpumping of groundwater in the
agricultural heartland. The State Water Resources Control
Board on Tuesday will weigh whether to put Kings County
groundwater agencies on probation for failing to rein in
growers’ overdrafting of the underground water supply.
Probation — which would levy state fees that could total
millions of dollars — is the first step that could allow
California regulators to eventually take over management of the
region’s groundwater.
For the second year in a row, there will be no commercial or
recreational salmon fishing in California. … The Golden
State Salmon Association supports the recommendation of the
[Pacific Fishery Management Council], which works closely with
federally recognized West Coast tribes, many who define
themselves as “salmon people” and hold annual ceremonies to
honor their return each year. Bates said $20.6 million has
been allocated from the U.S. Department of Commerce to
compensate for some of the losses caused by last year’s closure
to charter fleets and commercial fleets, buyers and processors.
But the fisheries are calling on the state to allocate water,
not cash. Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden
State Salmon Association, said big agriculture is not limited
in their water use, but fisheries get hit with constraints.
… This year Western Slope leaders, led by the Colorado River
District, struck a $99 million deal to buy a tiny hydro plant’s
water rights from Xcel Energy and lease the water back to Xcel
to generate electricity. As part of the deal, Shoshone’s rights
would become the largest, most influential environmental water
right in state history. The change would protect fish and
habitat, but it would also beef up water security on the
Western Slope by protecting reliable westward flows for farmers
and tourist economies. … The Colorado River District’s
plan has drawn hawk-eyed attention from water players around
the state who are keen on protecting their supplies.
