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: 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.
Californians live with the specter of the Big One, but many
don’t realize “The One” may not be an earthquake. One
hundred and sixty years ago, the biggest flood in modern
history wiped out California: 4,000 dead, one-third of all
property destroyed, a quarter of the state’s 800,000 cattle
drowned or starved. California went so utterly bankrupt that
its governor, Legislature and state employees didn’t draw a
paycheck for 18 months.
“They will recolonize, if we pave the way for them,” said Damon
Goodman, former biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service’s Arcata office who is now a regional director in
Northern California for CalTrout. If this sounds similar to the
Field of Dreams famous quote: “if you build it, they will
come,” it is. And it is exactly what happened with Pacific
lamprey recolonizing in the Santa Margarita River in Southern
California. Found in the river in August 2019 for the
first time since last documented in 1940, this is now the
furthest south the species has currently recolonized, 260 miles
south of the previous location in San Luis Obispo which
recolonized in 2017.
[Arizona] Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday proposed spending $1
billion from the state’s general fund over three years to help
“secure Arizona’s water future for the next 100 years.” In his
final State of the State address, the governor said the
budget he sends to lawmakers will prioritize water
infrastructure including desalination. … Long discussed as an
idea to deliver some of Mexico’s share of the Colorado River
without drawing down Lake Mead, seawater desalination on the
Sea of Cortez would pump treated water to Morelos Dam near Yuma
for distribution in Mexico. The U.S. parties paying into the
program would then take some of Mexico’s river water as
compensation.
Arizona rivers and reservoirs saw record low water levels last
year as megadrought and rising temperatures continue. The
forecast for 2022 isn’t much better. In this episode of Arizona
in Focus, Nancy Caywood, a farmer in Casa Grande, learns how to
live with less water and what that means for her future and
ours.
A new report examines how erecting a small dam on Dry Creek
might reduce its role in Modesto-area flooding. Stanislaus
County Public Works will hold a Jan. 18 open house on the idea.
It does not have funding yet for the project, which could cost
as much as $48 million based on the consultant’s work. The
report looks at 11 possible sites where Dry Creek might be
impounded, generally in the Waterford area. It recommends four
of them for further study, which the county Board of
Supervisors could consider in the spring, Public Works Director
David Leamon said in an email Friday.
Maybe one of the reasons Harry and Meghan are reportedly
looking to sell their Montecito estate is that they learned
that it’s costly and not environmentally friendly to maintain a
large home and garden during a drought, especially one
featuring rolling lawns, a lush garden, a swimming pool and an
artificial pond. News last week that the couple were
dissatisfied and “not over the moon” with their sprawling $14
million, nine-bedroom, 16-bath mansion came as the State Water
Resources Control Board imposed mandatory restrictions on
Californians’ outdoor water use.
Government officials warding off deadly diseases often praise
the lowly mosquitofish as a public health messiah. But some
environmentalists have dubbed it the “plague minnow” and the
“fish destroyer.” Today, nearly a century after the
finger-sized fish was first introduced to California in a
Sacramento lily pond, it’s arguably the most ubiquitous
freshwater fish in the world. But the mosquitofish also ranks
among the world’s worst invasive species. Balancing the
pest-control prowess and ecological destruction of the fish,
nearly every mosquito and vector control district in
California, including in Marin, now deploys the creature with
varying strategies.
As the world struggles for consensus on climate action and
national policy focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions,
the impacts of climate change occur all around us. … The
San Diego region is a case in point. Its beaches and coastal
bluffs are being eroded by ocean storms and sea level rise. Its
inland valleys and mountains suffer from severe drought,
leaving them vulnerable to wildfires. Long-term drought and
higher temperatures contribute to the loss of natural habitat
and wildlife. Its population, industry and agricultural economy
rely heavily on water from shrinking, faraway sources — the
Sacramento Delta in Northern California and the Colorado
River. -Written by Robert Leiter, former director of land use
and transportation planning for the San Diego Association of
Governments; Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist at
Scripps Institution of Oceanography; and Cary Lowe, a
California land-use attorney who has written widely on
environmental and planning topics.
The Ojai Valley in Ventura County is a magical place. Consider
its elements: the sweet smell of California citrus blossoms in
the spring, the open space preserved by orchards, the seasonal
creeks that run free through the cultivated lands. But the Ojai
Valley is also a place in peril. That’s because the water
source that keeps this inland Ventura hamlet thriving is nearly
dry. Lake Casitas reservoir was built in the late 1950s, when
decades of plentiful rain hid the true nature of California’s
arid climate. Back then, the official projections for
water-resources potential were optimistic. Today, that story
has changed dramatically. -Written by Stephanie Pincetl, a professor at the
UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and
founding director of the California Center for Sustainable
Communities at UCLA.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday will propose spending billions of
additional dollars on drought response, wildfire suppression
and rural workforce development programs, according to budget
documents reviewed by The Sacramento Bee. The governor’s plan
includes $750 million in one-time money to help communities
affected by the drought, including for water conservation,
water efficiency, replenishing groundwater supplies and helping
small farmers.
California just received more precipitation in the last
three months of 2021 than it got in the previous year. The
mountains are heaped with historic amounts of heavy snow. But
the rain had no sooner given way to sun than state regulators
issued new rules forbidding water-wasting practices such as
hosing down sidewalks and driveways. What’s going on? The
short version is that, although 33.9 trillion gallons of water
have fallen on the state since Oct. 1, that’s not enough to
wash away our tenacious drought. Here are some graphics to
help to tell the story.
In the latest setback for a project that has been fraught with
delays and cost overruns for more than a decade, the price tag
to rebuild Anderson Dam — Santa Clara County’s largest — to
improve earthquake safety is nearly doubling, from $648 million
to $1.2 billion. The news comes one year after the Santa Clara
Valley Water District, the government agency that owns the dam
near Morgan Hill, announced that another of its large
construction plans, a proposal to build a huge new reservoir
near Pacheco Pass, also had doubled in price, from $1.3 billion
to $2.5 billion.
The city of Phoenix last week outlined how it will voluntarily
contribute water to a regional plan to shore up the country’s
largest reservoir that delivers Colorado River water to three
states and Mexico. The river cannot provide seven Western
states the water they were promised a century ago because of
less snow, warmer temperatures and water lost to evaporation.
Water managers repeatedly have had to pivot to develop plans to
sustain it for the long-term.
Within three decades, the San Joaquin Valley’s annual average
temperature could increase by 4 degrees, worsening water
quality and health hazards in the impoverished communities of
California’s agricultural heartland, according to a new
regional climate change report. Those hit hardest by the
increasing heat will be poor farming communities that lack the
resources necessary to adapt, according to the UC Merced
report.
What a difference six months can make. In July, Marin County
creeks were almost bone dry and now there’s so much water
running through them that salmon are spawning like no one has
seen for decades. It is a testament to the unpredictability of
nature that, after the second driest summer in state history,
the salmon should have such ideal conditions for spawning.
… Todd Steiner, executive director of the Turtle Island
Restoration Network, said so much water is flowing at exactly
the right time that it is making for a perfect set of
conditions for the fish to breed.
The last seven years have been the hottest on record, with 2021
ranking as the fifth hottest year as the world continues to see
a rise in climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, according
to a report released on Monday. … Extremely dry
conditions also exacerbated wildfires throughout July and
August, especially in several Canadian provinces and the U.S.
West. The Dixie Fire became the second-largest
fire in California’s history, burning nearly 1 million
acres and resulting in poor air quality for thousands of
people across the country.
There’s the definite possibility the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act could have a negative impact on farmers’
property values. So the question is can farmers affected by the
SGMA receive relief when it comes to the amount of property
taxes they pay. The answer is maybe. The Tulare County
Assessor/Clerk-Recorder’s Office has addressed this issue,
stating farmers affected by the SGMA could possibly receive
relief when it comes to the property taxes they pay.
The Navajo Nation is the size of West Virginia. Throughout the
Nation, the topography, precipitation patterns, and water
recharge are extremely diverse, but not well understood. Here
we talk with principal hydrologist Crystal Tulley-Cordova about
her work with the Navajo Nation Department of Water Resources
and her research around the precipitation, recharge sources,
and opportunities for sustainable water use on the Navajo
Nation.
A project three decades in the making is nearly complete and is
scheduled to deliver a reliable source of drinking water to
Turlock residents by next year. The Regional Surface
Water Supply Project was formed in 2011 as the Cities of
Turlock and Ceres, in cooperation with Turlock Irrigation
District, to start the process of building a plant to deliver
treated Tuolumne River water to residents. The City of Turlock
has been working for 30 years to secure this alternate drinking
source, as its current drinking water supply is 100%
groundwater — and dwindling.
A California district court has sided with the city of Newark
and developer The Sobrato Organization in a lawsuit filed by
environmental groups who challenged a plan to build hundreds of
two-story tract homes along fragile wetlands in Alameda County.
Environmentalists said the dwellings would be built in a
federal flood zone and could succumb to rising seas in coming
decades, arguing that the project’s environmental review was
inadequate.
