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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Although autumn has fallen, some Valley residents are still
cooling off in the San Joaquin River; however, PG&E warns
that visitors should stay out of certain areas as they plan to
release dam water. The utility company says they will be
increasing flows along the 9-mile-long section of river between
the Kerckhoff Dam and Millerton Lake in Fresno County starting
Tuesday. The water releases will increase from about 25 to 500
cubic feet per second (cfs) until Nov. 22, when the releases
will be gradually reduced back to 25 cfs. Due to the often
challenging passage out of the San Joaquin River Gorge,
PG&E advises the public to avoid entering the water during
the high-flow event.
The Smith Canal is back open for fishing activity after a brief
closure due to an oil spill in the area late last week. About a
mile of the canal’s waterway from Yosemite Lake at the American
Legion Park to Mission Road had been off limits since Saturday,
as cleanup and containment efforts were underway. A safety zone
had also been established for the entire canal. State officials
say lifting the closure, which was announced Sunday afternoon,
came on the recommendation of the Office of Environmental
Health Hazard Assessment due to cleanup progress along the
original spill area of the canal. However, officials are
still advising against consuming any fish or shellfish caught
in the canal.
Lying unassumingly between its conical neighbors, Mount Shasta
and Mount Lassen, the Medicine Lake Volcano is a shield
volcano, named after the lake within its caldera. Its periodic
eruptions over the eons have created nearly 850 square miles of
gently-sloped lava beds, layered on top of one another, making
it the Cascade Range’s largest volcano by volume. This unique
structure is collectively called the Medicine Lake Highlands,
and is the secret behind the region’s critical hydrology. I was
there as part of a tour group hosted by Trout Unlimited,
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and California Trout, in
support of a campaign to have the Medicine Lake Highlands
designated as a National Monument. The campaign was launched in
2023 by the Pit River Tribe, to whom the Highlands — or
Sáttítla, as they call it — is ancestral home, and they’ve been
fighting in court to protect the area from geothermal
exploitation for decades. TU, BHA, and CalTrout have added
their voices to the campaign, recognizing the natural and
cultural resources at stake.
Seven states that rely on the Colorado River each got a cut of
its water under a deal struck over a century ago – a deal that
excluded the Hopi, the Navajo and other tribal nations. After
years of pressure and negotiation, Congress is moving to
rectify what the tribes have long seen as an injustice that has
caused enormous hardship. … Representatives from four Arizona
tribes – the Yavapai-Apache Nation, Hopi, San Juan Southern
Paiute and the Navajo Nation – said the settlements, once
approved by Congress, will secure their long-standing claims
and provide more accessible water for their people. Almost a
third of members of the Hopi, Navajo and other tribes have no
running water, and leaders say the water currently available
isn’t sufficient for growing populations.
First their wells went dry. Then this summer’s brutal heat wave
made water in emergency storage tanks so scalding hot, some
valley residents had to siphon it into containers and let it
cool before it could be used. “We’re very grateful to even have
the tanks,” stressed Merideth Moreno, who lives near the small
Tulare County community of Orosi. “But it [heated water] is one
of the things that we have found to be trouble.” The well that
served Moreno’s home and her 80-year-old father’s home went dry
two years ago. They’ve survived ever since on water from two
storage tanks paid for by the state and refilled every two
weeks by the Visalia-based nonprofit Self-Help Enterprises.
That water is just for household use, not drinking. …
Self-Help has 1,244 storage tanks currently deployed in the
valley. It deployed 50 new tanks this summer to families whose
wells went dry. This record-breaking summer made relying
on water from those tanks especially difficult.
Forests are burning more often and especially intense and hot,
which can destroy seeds that normally survive fire, harden the
ground like concrete and leave barren slopes susceptible to
washing away in rainstorms, polluting waterways. … In
California’s Sierra Nevada, where up to 20% of the
world’s mature giant sequoias and their seeds have been killed
by fire in recent years, there are massive
openings without seedlings. A U.S. Geological Survey study
concluded some groves will never recover without
replanting. But researchers say the odds of forests
growing back will worsen regardless of fire intensity because
of more heat and drought. That means burned forest could
convert to shrubland and grassland, leading to loss of snowpack
that provides drinking water and helps irrigate crops.
… California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed new laws
to hold oil companies accountable and protect neighborhoods
from oil development, protections community groups have fought
more than a decade to win. … A.B. 1866 increases fees
for operators who fail to plug and clean up the thousands of
wells that sit idle in California. “There are more than 40,000
idle oil wells that are leaking into our
groundwater and polluting our air, and the oil
companies are not taking responsibility,” said author Gregg
Hart (D-Santa Barbara). “It is not the taxpayers’
responsibility to take care of this pollution.” That these
bills are now state law is “a huge victory for frontline
communities that have been bearing the brunt of oil and gas
pollution for decades,” said Hollin Kretzmann, senior attorney
with the Center for Biological Diversity.
One of the nation’s oldest environmental groups is suing
Imperial County’s powerful water agency over a recent deal
meant to help conserve the parched Colorado River. Under the
terms of the deal, the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID,
will try to cut back its consumption of Colorado River water by
750,000 acre feet over the next three years. In return, the
agency and farmers who conserve water could receive more than
$600 million from the federal Bureau of Reclamation. But those
cutbacks will also reduce the amount of water flowing into the
Salton Sea, which is slowly drying up. That could accelerate
the release of harmful particles into the air from the exposed
lakebed, according to the Bureau of Reclamation’s own
environmental assessment of the deal. That’s led the Sierra
Club to challenge the deal, arguing it violates state law and
puts residents along the Salton Sea in greater danger of
breathing in toxic, chemical-laden dust. … The group also
alleges that IID didn’t account for the impact on desert
wildlife.
Climate change is making hurricanes like Hurricane Helene more
intense, scientific research shows. Helene has unleashed
high winds, heavy rain and a dangerous storm surge in the
Southeast after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4
hurricane Thursday night. It follows roughly two and a
half months after Hurricane Beryl — which peaked as a Category
5 storm — tracked destruction across the Caribbean as well
as the United States, killing dozens of people. The proportion
of hurricanes that fall into these more intense categories
4 and 5 are expected to increase as the planet heats
up, according to the most recent report from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a well-respected
climate science authority from the United Nations. Peak
hurricane wind speeds are also expected to rise. “These
hurricanes are getting bigger and stronger and that is due to
simple energy transfer,” said Claudia Benitez-Nelson, a climate
scientist at the University of South Carolina.
Authorities have closed down a large swath of the Smith Canal
in Stockton for fishing activity after an oil spill occurred in
the area earlier this week. A safety zone has also been
established for all of the Smith Canal limiting public access
to the area “for safety and environmental purposes.” On Sunday,
California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife issued the closure
after it was determined “a threat to public health is likely”
for those fishing in the area or consuming fish or shellfish
caught in the vicinity of the spill or anywhere the petroleum
is anticipated to spread. About a mile of the canal’s waterway
from Yosemite Lake at the American Legion Park to Mission Road
are off limits to all fishing activity until further notice as
cleanup and containment efforts are underway.
The City of Paso Robles has completed a significant
rehabilitation project at Centennial Creek, with the trail now
fully open to the public. All barricades and caution tape were
removed on Sept. 24 following the completion of the work, which
aimed to improve flood management and enhance the local
ecosystem. The project included several key updates:
Installation of roughened riffles to slow water flow and
improve aquatic habitats, creation of secondary channels
to enhance the creek’s capacity during heavy rain, removal of
an obstructive chain-link fence to reduce blockage risks during
storms, installation of a new box culvert and pedestrian bridge
to improve water flow and pedestrian access, use of coir and
straw fiber rolls for natural erosion control, recontouring and
widening the channel to improve water flow and flood mitigation
…
The Jurupa Community Services District has lifted a drinking
water warning after tests cleared the water supply for any
remaining presence of E. Coli in Riverside County. On
Wednesday, a water sample “detected E. coli at a water source
before disinfection, not in the distribution system,” district
officials said. “The water source was removed from the system.”
On Sept. 27, a Drinking Water Warning was issued for parts of
Jurupa Valley. Those in affected areas were encouraged to
boil water before consuming. There were also stations where
water bottles were being handed out for free. … Crews
worked to disinfect and flush out the water systems. After
water quality test samples taken on Thursday and Friday came
back negative for contaminants, the Drinking Water
Warning was lifted on Saturday night.
This last Saturday, September 28, 2024, community members
converged on multiple Mendocino County waterways targeting
areas inundated by refuse. Volunteers did not just find simple
trash to pick up but entire makeshift communities built by the
Ukiah Valley’s unhoused population directly in vulnerable
waterways. In the end, thousands of pounds of waste were pulled
from local riparian habitats. Volunteers met at Low Gap Park at
8:30 am to sign in for the Ukiah Valley Russian River Cleanup.
… The Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (MCRCD)
organized the event, along with Redwood Waste Solutions, the
County of Mendocino, and the City of Ukiah. Jessica Reid
of the MCRCD told the volunteers that picking up trash in the
tributaries of the Upper Russian River Watershed is important
in keeping the river clean on its long journey to meet the sea.
Climate change is exacerbating the risk of potentially
dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in California — threatening
to turn more of those annoying-but-harmless bites into severe
illnesses, experts say. … But officials are now warning of a
potential new foe: dengue, a viral infection that in the most
serious cases can also lead to life-threatening complications.
Until last year, all dengue cases reported in California were
associated with people traveling to a country where the disease
is common. But Los Angeles County public health officials are
now warning about the “unprecedented” local transmission of
dengue, which is commonly found in tropical and subtropical
climates. … Climate change is contributing to the spread
of these invasive, non-native mosquito-borne diseases, experts
say. The World Health Organization warned last
year that global warming “marked by higher average
temperatures, precipitation and longer periods of drought,
could prompt a record number of dengue infections worldwide.”
Many Californians are familiar with the water infrastructure
that connects our state. We’ve driven over canals and enjoyed
activities on or near the many reservoirs that supply water to
our crops and homes. Yet, many of us are unfamiliar with the
incredible places where our water originates. In far Northern
California lies one such place where water begins its journey
as snow that seeps into deep aquifers, and eventually emerges
on the surface as springs. This place is known as Sáttítla to
the Pit River Tribe. In the world of conservation, we call
these places where water originates source water areas. In
times of recurring droughts and rising temperatures, these
aquifers and spring systems are becoming even more essential to
our state’s water future – but they are in danger. If we don’t
protect these places, California’s water security, natural
landscapes, and iconic species are at risk. —By Redgie Collins, legal and policy director for
California Trout
Today, Reps. Jimmy Panetta (CA-19) and David G. Valadao (CA-22)
introduced the Agriculture Disaster Relief Supplemental
Appropriations Act. The bill provides an additional $14 billion
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to assist
agriculture producers impacted by losses caused by natural
disasters in 2023. … “Natural disasters like drought and
flooding have caused devastating losses for Central Valley
producers over the last two years,” said Rep.
Valadao. “These extreme weather events negatively affect
the security of our nation’s food supply, prices for consumers,
and jobs throughout our community. My legislation provides USDA
with the funding necessary to assist farmers in California and
across the country who have been impacted by natural disasters.
Producers in the Central Valley have had a difficult and
uncertain couple of years, and I’ll continue working to ensure
they have the resources and support they need to grow the food
that feeds the world.”
Hundreds of North State residents flocked to Oroville Saturday
for the annual Salmon Festival. The annual Salmon Festival in
Oroville captivates the community, drawing people to various
events held throughout the city, with the Feather River Fish
Hatchery being a key attraction. The festival commemorates the
migration of native Chinook salmon in the Northstate. The
hatchery is spawning salmon to hatch the eggs and release the
fish, allowing them to continue their life cycle in the wild.
Local water officials and city leaders invited the public to
Desert Hot Springs Friday morning for a ribbon cutting marking
the completion of a new water reclamation facility. The Mission
Springs Water District’s “Nancy Wright Regional Water
Reclamation Facility” is located on Little Morongo Road, north
of 20th Avenue. Officials with MSWD said the new facility
will help protect groundwater and reduce dependence on the
Colorado River by enabling wastewater treatment and eventually
recycling. “This is almost 100% financed by grants from
the state’s clean water fund, it’s a benefit to
everybody,” said Robert Griffith, MSWD Vice President.
Work is also continuing on a project to bring wastewater flows
from other areas of the district to the new plant as well as a
project connecting about 700 homes currently relying on septic
tanks to the sewage system.
The state agency charged with forecasting water conditions in
California said Thursday residents must be prepared for both
dry conditions and flood risks over the coming
year. The Department of Water
Resources previewed the “water year” beginning Oct. 1 by
drawing attention to both the record hot summer across much of
California and a looming La Niña pattern in the
Pacific Ocean that typically results in drought. The agency
said there is no precipitation in the current forecast, but
what water California does receive will arrive from more
powerful storms, and hotter temperatures will mean less winter
precipitation falls as snow and more will arrive as rain,
increasing the flood risk.
A few days before the Sept. 30 deadline, Calif. Gov. Gavin
Newsom announced Wednesday the signing of dozens of bills and
the veto of several others, including AB 2757 authored by
outgoing Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella). The bill,
coauthored by state Senator Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista)
sought to designate all of Imperial County and parts of
Riverside County adjacent to the Salton Sea as
the Southeast California Economic Region, or SECER, to better
align state and federal programs, services, and funding within
those communities most impacted by the extraction and
processing of lithium and other minerals from the Salton Sea
and additional clean energy development in the surrounding
areas within the region.
