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.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has
announced a series of workshops intended to solicit public
input on the development of a community benefit program
associated with the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). According
to DWR, community benefit programs go beyond traditional
concepts of mitigation. They attempt to provide greater
flexibility in addressing possible community impacts associated
with the major construction projects.
The Vallecitos Water District received two awards for its
innovative use of technology to reduce algae blooms at Mahr
Reservoir, it was announced Thursday. The district received the
“Excellence in Action” national award from the WateReuse
Association and the “Innovation and Resiliency” state award
from the California Association of Sanitation Agencies for its
use of an ultrasound technology to address water quality at the
Stanley A. Mahr Reservoir with a reduced need for chemical
treatment. The most common method of treating algal blooms is
with chemicals. VWD instead uses technology developed by the
international company LG Sonic, which provides an overview of
the water quality allowing identification and treatment of
algal blooms.
Almost half a million COVID infections could have been
prevented last year if there had been a national moratorium on
water service shutoffs, according to new research from Cornell
University and the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
The findings also show that during the same period, from
mid-April through the end of 2020, 9,000 COVID deaths could
have been prevented with a robust moratorium on water shutoffs.
The study found that states that had instituted policies to
prevent water shutoffs reduced the growth rates for COVID
infections and deaths.
A California Court of Appeal recently issued two opinions
affirming a physical solution limiting the right to pump
groundwater by a landowner who has never pumped from the
groundwater basin or who has not established the amount or
reasonableness of pumping. A landowner filed the underlying
lawsuit in 1999 to quiet title to its claimed superior
groundwater rights in a groundwater basin that had been in a
state of overdraft for decades. The lawsuit became a
comprehensive groundwater adjudication involving approximately
70,000 landowners in the Antelope Valley area of California,
including two separate classes and the United States.
Water scarcity is often understood as a problem for regions
experiencing drought, but a new study from Cornell and Tufts
universities finds that not only can localized water shortages
impact the global economy, but changes in global demand send
positive and negative ripple effects to water basins across the
globe. … [I]n the lower Colorado River basin, the worst
economic outcomes arise from limited groundwater availability
and high population growth, but that high population growth can
also prove beneficial under some climatic scenarios.
A series of key decisions await Gov. Gavin Newsom as the state
heads back into a potential drought. So this seems like the
right moment to review what happened last time: Water was
prioritized for big agriculture at the expense of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, endangered species and California
communities. The State Water Board, in a review of the drought
of 2014-15, found operations “not sustainable.” We hope
Newsom will prevent a repeat of that disaster by …
[p]rotecting the human right to water for drinking and
sanitation, protecting public health for those who live
adjacent to our rivers, and protecting endangered species. -Written by Darius Waiters, of Restore the
Delta’s Climate Water Team, and Brandon Dawson, a policy
advocate with Sierra Club California.
Two East County water agencies plan to reduce future water
rates by using millions of dollars they received from the
County Water Authority as part of a legal settlement. The Water
Authority announced a plan Feb. 25 to distribute $44.4 million
to its 24-member agencies — including the Helix Water District
and Padre Dam Municipal Water District — after receiving a
check for that amount from the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California. A San Francisco Superior Court ruled in
favor of the Water Authority in January in two lawsuits against
Metro challenging rates and charges. The money is for legal
damages and interest from the decade-long rate cases.
Last week, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox issued an executive
order declaring a statewide drought emergency. In the
press release that followed, he urged Utahns to “evaluate their
water use and find ways to save not only because of current
drought conditions but also because we live in one of the
driest states in the nation.” The suggested water-saving
recommendations … included
… fixing leaks; running full loads
(dishwashers and washing machines); turning off the water
while brushing teeth, shaving, soaping up, doing dishes or
rinsing vegetables; reducing showers by at least one
minute; waiting to water; and planning now for the irrigation
season by implementing water-wise landscaping or purchasing
a smart irrigation controller. -Written by Joan Meiners, an Environment Reporter
for The Spectrum & Daily News through the Report for America
initiative by The Ground Truth Project.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) took another step in
its ambitious efforts to reduce climate change impacts by
replacing an old electricity-generating turbine with a new,
energy efficient model at the Ronald B. Robie Thermalito
Pumping-Generating Powerplant in Butte County that will help
the Department achieve its goal of using 100 percent
zero-emission resources by 2045.
A water project that would generate revenue, make wise use of
reclaimed water and preserve large tracts of open space in the
city of San Luis Obispo was first made public over 10 years
ago. Since then, the city has made no progress on the proposal
to allow Edna Valley landowners to reuse some of the city’s
treated wastewater to irrigate vineyards and other agricultural
crops. Surplus water already could be assisting growers in Edna
Valley, which is an important part of the city’s
greenbelt.
– Written by Neil Havlik, who served as San Luis
Obispo’s natural resources manager from 1996 to 2012.
The Water and Land Use Series of videos is now available in
Hmong as well as English and Spanish. The videos provide
insight on how the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA) is taking shape. PhD Candidate at UC Merced, Vicky
Espinoza has been working on the videos for several months. The
series is available on the YouTube Channel CaliWaterAg.
The goal of the project has been to make SGMA information more
accessible and encourage more engagement from community
members.
California’s drought conditions might normally prompt calls for
shorter showers and shutting off sprinklers. But Californians
are in no mood to hear it after a year of pandemic deprivation.
Especially from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing an almost
certain recall election after imposing multiple rounds of
business closures and constantly telling residents to stay
home. … California is particularly parched because 2020
was not only dry, but extremely hot. Experts think the state is
about where it was in 2014, when former Gov. Jerry Brown asked
Californians to reduce their water use by 20 percent.
As California stares down the barrel of yet another dry year,
alarm bells are already ringing over conditions in the Delta.
Environmental groups, fishermen, tribes, and a host of others
are calling on the State Water Resources Control Board to
complete and implement a long-delayed update to the Water
Quality Control Plan for the Bay and Delta (Bay-Delta Plan), to
protect the imperiled ecosystem. At the same time, plans for a
structure with the potential to divert more water than ever to
southern cities and farms are creeping ahead.
An extra dry summer with potential for water shortages – that’s
what state and federal officials are telling Californians to
prepare for. Predictions for 2021 are bleak. Lake levels
are low and the Sacramento region is not getting the spring
showers many hoped for. According to the US drought monitor,
most of the Central Valley is experiencing severe to extreme
drought conditions. This week the Department of Water
Resources lowered its expected forecast of water deliveries
made to cities and farms by half. But any conservation
restrictions would be up to local authorities.
From the very first gold miners making claims to divert streams
in the Sierra Nevada foothills to the later wrangling that
enabled irrigation of Central Valley farmland and drinking
water to be sent to growing cities in California, water rights
are an indispensable cornerstone of the state’s water supply
and delivery system.
Arizona tribal officials told a Senate committee Wednesday that
the federal government can help address a crisis with water
infrastructure on their lands through more funding, and less
meddling. Navajo Department of Water Resources Director Jason
John and Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores
made the comments during a Senate Indian Affairs Committee
hearing on water infrastructure for Native communities. Leaders
of Oregon and Alaska tribes also testified at the
hearing.
A San Diego program that aims to keep toxic sewer water out of
the Pacific Ocean suffers from outdated methods and inadequate
efforts to identify and inspect the business sites of
industrial polluters, a new city audit says. The 56-page audit
says the program, which oversees industrial polluters served by
San Diego and 12 other local sewer districts, needs to step up
efforts to find polluters and modernize its inspection program.
The program – the Industrial Wastewater Control Program – is
also understaffed and not capable of handling the larger
workload it should handle without adding more workers, the
audit says.
The upcoming salmon season doesn’t look promising for
recreational and commercial fishermen on the Coastside. But
environmentalists from the Central Valley are hoping to change
that in the future by easing the movement of salmon between the
Pacific Ocean and inland rivers. One of those rivers is the
Tuolumne River. Its stewards at the Tuolumne River Trust are
sounding the alarm over the river’s health and say that
committing more water to this distant river will help the
salmon populations more than 100 miles away in places like
Coastside fisheries.
Water quality testing commissioned by two groups lobbying for
the end of ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore shows
fecal contamination exceeding federal recreational standards in
several waterways feeding the Pacific Ocean. In response,
seashore personnel point to their nearly finalized general
management amendment, which requires water quality
improvements. The tests from two rainy January days included
samples from and near Kehoe Lagoon, Abbotts Lagoon and Schooner
Creek, and showed exceedances in levels of E. coli and
Enterococcus—bacteria that serve as common indicators for fecal
contamination.
Meager anticipated snowmelt runoff is expected to mean another
challenging year for maintaining even below-optimal levels of
flows in the Colorado River downstream of the Palisade area for
the benefit of endangered fish. … What’s referred to as
the 15-Mile Reach of the river between the Palisade area and
the Gunnison River confluence is of particular concern for the
Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, which
focuses on four endangered fish. The stretch is primarily used
by two of the fish — the razorback sucker and Colorado
pikeminnow. But it’s also used by a third, the bonytail. And a
fourth, the humpback chub, which favors downstream stretches
such as Westwater Canyon, indirectly benefits from efforts to
bolster flows in the 15-Mile Reach.
