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 Vik Jolly.
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Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services lifted
harmful algal bloom advisories in Humboldt County and recapped
the year’s toxic growths — with eight recorded HAB incidents
between late July and Mid-September in waters people swim and
play in. This year’s blooms are believed to have caused one
dog’s death and one possible human illness. … Health
advisories this summer at Big Lagoon (the only water body
routinely monitored for harmful toxins via the Big Lagoon
Rancheria) were issued after water was found with
concentrations exceeding state safety standards at three
separate locations on July 22.
… [W]ith Newsom’s signature on SB 765 this week, another
animal can now claim to also be an official part of the state
identity: the giant garter snake. A semi-aquatic species that
is considered one of North America‘s largest native snakes,
with a maximum length of 64 inches, the nonpoisonous striped
snake has historically thrived in natural wetlands along
California’s Central Valley, from Chico down to
Fresno. Unfortunately, the giant garter snake is becoming
a casualty of California’s brutal cycle of droughts and habitat
destruction — as much of the Central Valley converts to
agriculture or infrastructure development. … To this point,
it has managed to survive by inhabiting artificial waterways
like irrigation, canals and rice fields.
Federal scientists on Thursday announced that La Niña — the
phenomenon where Pacific Ocean waters off South America are
cooler than normal — has officially begun and is likely to
continue into winter. From social media to coffee shops and
even some TV weather reports, a common claim is that La Niña
means a dry winter is coming for California, and in years when
the opposite occurs, El Niño, a wet winter is on the
way. But don’t fret just yet about water shortages, brown
lawns, and wildfires. The reality, history shows, is that a lot
depends on where you live.
Utah’s expansion of cloud seeding is starting to provide a
return on investment, water policymakers were told Thursday.
“Statewide average is 10.4% increase in snowpack,” said Jake
Serago, an engineer with the Utah Division of Water Resources,
during a presentation to the state’s water resources board on
Thursday. … The Utah State Legislature pumped a massive
amount of cash into cloud seeding earlier this year in an
effort to help mitigate impacts from drought.
The state’s cloud seeding budget went from roughly $200,000 in
2022 to nearly $16 million this year.
Farmers, ranchers and other water users in four Western states,
including Colorado, are cutting back on water use because of
low flows through the Colorado River Basin. Less than half
the normal amount of water flowed into Lake Powell from the
Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming —
this summer. Farmers in the four-state region fallowed fields
and changed their crop plans to adapt to a smaller water
supply. The dry summer conditions coincided with high-stakes
negotiations over how the water supply for 40 million people
will be managed starting in August 2026.
One year after the final piece of concrete was removed from the
last of four dams on the Klamath River in northern California,
tribes and environmentalists say the river, the fish and other
species that depend on the Klamath’s health are recovering and
tribes continue to reclaim their lands and waters. Barry
McCovey, Yurok Tribe’s fisheries director, said during a news
conference Oct. 9 that the river is much clearer than it used
to be.
Moisture from what remains of a hurricane will hang over the
Southwest United States like a wet sponge this weekend,
bringing a chance of significant heavy rainfall and flash
flooding to some places. … Flood
watches have already been issued for parts of
southeast California and eastern Nevada, much of Arizona, the
southern half of Utah and the southwest corner of Colorado.
… An area of Arizona that includes Phoenix falls within
the bull’s-eye of a region most at risk for heavy rain and
flash flooding.
Initial arguments have wrapped up in a Ventura County
groundwater rights case – litigation that Camarillo officials
have argued could undermine the city’s water supply. A group of
agricultural property owners called the OPV
Coalition filed the lawsuit in 2021. Pending in Santa
Barbara Superior Court, it seeks to determine groundwater
rights in two basins that include areas in Oxnard,
Camarillo, Port Hueneme, Ventura and nearby unincorporated
communities. The goal was to resolve all competing demands for
groundwater in the Oxnard and Pleasant Valley basins, according
to O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, the law firm representing
the coalition.
… Amid the silver-lined shores, one fish washed up that no
one had known to be a resident: a dead seven-foot-long white
sturgeon. It was Clear Lake’s first on record. … They
became a candidate for listing as a threatened species under
the California Endangered Species Act after a 2022 harmful
algal bloom that killed hundreds of them. … This fall’s fish
die-off is the lake’s largest since at least 2017, according to
records from the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians. … Now,
scientists are uncovering the exact cause of the die-off—and
analyzing the sturgeon for more answers.
A new California law will allow hunters to kill nonnative
swans. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill, Assembly Bill 764,
into law on Tuesday. The bill adds mute swans — the iconic
white swan brought to the United States to decorate parks and
estates — to the list of invasive birds that can be hunted with
few restrictions. … They’ve spread to lakes and
reservoirs across Northern California; however, [UC Davis
Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology curator Andrew] Engilis
said they especially enjoy the open water in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where
researchers have observed flocks as large as 400 birds.
The Delta Protection Commission has appointed Amanda Bohl as
its next Executive Director. She is expected to join the
Commission on Oct. 20. Bohl currently serves on the
executive management team of the Delta Stewardship Council,
where she is the Special Assistant for Planning and Science.
There, she leads the Delta Plan Interagency Implementation
Committee (DPIIC) and guides cooperation among the 18 state and
federal agencies – including the Delta Protection Commission –
involved in the Delta Plan. … She is a 2014
Water Education Foundation Water Leader, and serves on
the board of the Sacramento Valley Conservancy.
…[A] potentially giant data center is coming to the
Casper area, announced by Prometheus Hyperscale, in
partnership with Spiritus and Casper Carbon Capture.
… Thornock’s data centers will all use a water frugal
model, though it’s a different approach from the one Related
Digital outlines this week in its groundbreaking ceremony for
its $1.2 billion project in Cheyenne. … [Prometheus CEO
Trenton] Thornock’s system takes a geothermal approach to
cooling. It will pull up non-potable water
from far below the drinking water table for cooling its
systems, then send that water back where it came from.
On Oct. 7, the United States Senate confirmed William “Billy”
Kirkland as the assistant secretary of the Interior for Indian
Affairs with a 51-47 vote. Kirkland’s confirmation makes him
the highest-level Navajo currently serving in the U.S.
government. … Kirkland told the committee that he first
learned first-hand infrastructure struggles of reservation life
while hauling water to his grandmother Susie’s sheep camp in
LeChee. “Like on many reservations even today, water is scarce,
and electricity was just a dream,” he said.
The Trump administration is months behind schedule in
distributing an estimated $3 billion to remove and replace lead
water pipes, delaying infrastructure projects critical to
protecting people from the toxic heavy metal. The 2021
infrastructure law included $15 billion to help fund the
replacement of millions of lead-based drinking water pipes
nationwide. The money has been divvied up and distributed in
tranches to states each year, typically in the spring. But
nearly five months after EPA announced other funding this year
for water projects through the State Revolving Funds, money for
lead pipes remains held up.
A key facility at Southern California’s largest reservoir,
Diamond Valley Lake, was dedicated today in honor of a man who
was instrumental in getting the reservoir built – former
Metropolitan General Counsel N. Gregory Taylor. Current and
former water leaders from across Southern California gathered
to recognize Taylor’s legacy during a ceremony to name the
Inlet/Outlet Tower, which controls the flow of water into and
out of the reservoir, in his honor. Taylor, who passed away in
2023, used his visionary leadership and guidance to secure the
necessary approvals for the reservoir’s construction, ensuring
Southern California has reliable water supplies through
drought, emergencies and other challenges.
Santa Barbara County Public Works has wrapped up the Toro
Canyon Oil Water Separator Project, a multimillion-dollar
effort designed to stop crude oil from seeping into Toro Canyon
Creek and protect the surrounding environment. On October 7,
the Board of Supervisors approved the final accounting for the
$2.5 million project, completed by Innovative Construction
Services, Inc. Records of the Toro Canyon oil seep date back to
1882, when Occidental Mining and Petroleum Corporation (OMPC)
dug into the hillside hoping to strike oil. Instead, they hit a
water source.
As best practice, public water agencies prudently plan for
regional water supply needs and carefully piece together
resilient portfolios of various water supply sources. Zone 7 is
no different. … For these reasons, Zone 7 continues to
support investment in and modernization of the State Water
Project. We are supporters of the Delta Conveyance Project, the
Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program and other efforts to
invest in and modernize the State Water Project. –Written by Valerie Pryor, general manager of the Zone 7
Water Agency.
Lately, the Imperial Valley has been graced by rain. Flooding
streets, darkening the desert floor, and releasing the scent of
desert soil. It has made me reflect on the impact of rain on
the psyche of the Imperial Valley. For us here in the Imperial
Valley, water is scarce and carefully managed; it also shapes
agriculture, daily life, and the way people relate to the land.
In a region defined by extremes, heat, and aridity, rain feels
like a special event.
Nimbus Fish Hatchery releases around 4 to 4.5 million young
salmon and 430,000 yearling steelhead into California waterways
annually. But due to rising costs and limited federal funding,
the hatchery is planning to release half of both numbers, which
is unprecedented. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation funds the
hatchery, which was originally created to mitigate the impacts
of Nimbus Dam [on the American River in the Sacramento region]
on steelhead and salmon runs. Fish raised in hatcheries
like this one are key to keeping their populations alive in
California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 697 into law Wednesday,
allowing expedited construction on a projected $500 million
project to widen part of Highway 37 as it continues to subside
into Bay Area marshland. The bill, authored by
Assemblymember Lori Wilson, D-Suisun City, carves out
exceptions to endangered species law so that construction on
the roadway can have a larger window. … Documents
previously reported on by The Sacramento Bee show that it is
sinking into the marsh and that it’s surrounded by
sinking levees and berms as sea level rises and
threatens to inundate the highway.
