“Infrastructure” in general can be defined as the components and
equipment needed to operate, as well as the structures needed
for, public works systems. Typical examples include roads,
bridges, sewers and water supply systems.Various dams and
infrastructural buildings have given Californians and the West
the opportunity to control water, dating back to the days of
Native Americans.
Water management infrastructure focuses on the parts, including
pipes, storage reservoirs, pumps, valves, filtration and
treatment equipment and meters, as well as the buildings to
house process and treatment equipment. Irrigation infrastructure
includes reservoirs, irrigation canals. Major flood control
infrastructure includes dikes, levees, major pumping stations and
floodgates.
California lawmakers representing the state’s Delta area are
calling for Gov. Gavin Newsom to cancel his plan for an
underground tunnel that would reroute water from Northern to
Southern California. Representatives John Garamendi, Josh
Harder, Jerry McNerney and Mike Thompson, all Democrats,
released a joint statement in response to the draft
environmental impact report for the project.
In their pleas to Western states to cut back on water use from
the Colorado River Basin, federal officials are keenly focused
on keeping Lake Powell’s elevation at 3,490 feet — the minimum
needed to keep hydropower humming at Glen Canyon Dam. But if
federal efforts can’t stop the reservoir from shrinking to new
lows — its elevation is 3,536 feet as of Monday — the lights
going out might not even be the worst problem. If it dips 60
feet below its current level, the already dwindling Colorado
River could trickle down into a fraction of what is expected
for states below the dam, a new analysis by conservation groups
found.
The forests and meadows of the Sierra Nevada, Coast Range, and
Cascade Mountains are the source waters for much of the
Sacramento River Basin and the State of California. Healthy
headwaters ensure increased water supply reliability and
reduced flooding risks, improved water quality, reduced impacts
from catastrophic wildfires, increased renewable energy
supplies, enhanced habitat, and improved response to climate
change and extreme weather.
For generations, the 21-mile route linking Marin County and
Vallejo has been essential for commuters and travelers. Now
Highway 37 has become something more — a centerpiece in a
growing debate on how the Bay Area and California should
respond to climate change and when politicians should bite the
bullet to spend the billions of dollars needed to deal with it.
Caltrans is studying a plan to widen a traffic-prone, 10-mile
stretch of the highway at a cost of nearly half a billion
dollars while it comes up with a longer-term fix. But some
advocates say they should skip that step while significant
funding is available and do what all parties agree will
eventually need to be done by elevating the road.
A key priority of the Newsom Administration – the Delta
Conveyance Project – has officially entered its next chapter.
On July 22, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) released
its draft environmental impact report (Draft EIR) for the Delta
Conveyance Project. The Delta Conveyance Project is DWR’s and
Governor Newsom’s plan to build an underground tunnel to bring
water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the State Water
Project pumps near Tracy in order to reduce the risk from
earthquakes and climate change to the State’s water supplies.
In California’s Eastern Coachella Valley, some of the state’s
poorest workers toil in fields and groves of date palms.
… Three times a week, Pascual Campos Ochoa, 26, loads up
a duffel bag with a brown fleece blanket and a plastic
container of oatmeal. A van picks him up from the dusty trailer
park where he lives — where stray dogs wander among the
carcasses of old cars and working electricity is not a given —
and takes him to a clinic for kidney dialysis. Still, it
was not until recently, he said, that he considered that his
health problems may be tied to … the water tainted with high
levels of arsenic that spewed for years from its aging pipes.
Climate change has had a major impact across the world,
specifically in California, one example of it has been the
increasingly disastrous wildfires and drought issues we see
today. With aridification, or the gradual change to a drier
climate, changing the state, it does leave many wondering what
can be done to limit its effects on Californians. The stricter
statewide regulations on water, the state has shown a
willingness to take the situation seriously–but the recent
resignation of a California drought official did put into
question just how urgent California officials are viewing
aridification.
Will the fifth time be the charm for California’s decades-long
effort to replumb the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta so that more
Northern California water can be transported to Southern
California? Don’t count on it. Last week, the state Department
of Water Resources released a draft environmental impact report
on the latest iteration of the 57-year-long effort to change
the Delta’s role in water supply, a 45-mile-long tunnel
officially named the “Delta Conveyance.” The 3,000-page
document immediately drew the responses that have accompanied
past versions — big municipal and agricultural water agencies
were in favor of it because it would, they hope, increase water
deliveries south of the Delta, and environmentalists were
against it, saying it would further damage the Delta’s already
bruised ecosystem. -Written by Dan Walters, columnist for CalMatters.
Drought conditions gripping the U.S. are shining a bright light
on a severe and emerging risk to the nation’s long-term power
supply: water scarcity…. The danger is most glaring on the
parched West Coast where California, plagued by climbing
temperatures, saw hydroelectric generation fall 48 percent
below a 10-year average last year, and output was likewise
curbed across the Pacific Northwest. The current dry spell —
considered one of the worst on record — will likely take a
bigger chunk of California’s hydropower out of commission….
Utah’s main crop is a thirsty one and with water becoming more
limited, some are wondering if farmers should consider a crop
that uses less, according to a report released by Gov. Spencer
Cox Wednesday. The report, the third in Cox’s “Utah’s
Coordinated Action Plan for Water,” calls for new strategies
such as split stream leases and water banking. The 20-page
report focuses on agriculture. The previous reports highlighted
infrastructure investments and communities.
Nearly a million Californians have unsafe drinking water and
the agency charged with helping them is ill-equipped to do
so. That’s according to a new state audit of the
California Water Resources Control Board, which says 920,000
residents are at increased risk of liver and kidney problems —
and even cancer — because they get water from systems that fail
to meet contaminant standards for safe drinking water. The
auditor says more than 800 water systems in the state are in
that “failing” category, a number that has more than doubled in
the last year.
A recent earthquake in the Oroville area has many wondering how
stable the Oroville Dam is. The Department of Water Resources
told Action News Now the Dam is in good condition and was not
damaged by the 4.2 earthquakes. Many people in Oroville
said they’ve experienced several earthquakes but are always on
alert when a fire or earthquake happens, especially after the
Oroville Spillway Crisis in 2017. The crisis pushed nearly
190,0000 people to evacuate but the DWR said the Dam can
withstand a lot and is constantly being evaluated in case an
emergency breaks out.
A plan to remove a more than 80-year-old bridge in downtown San
Anselmo as part of a key flood control effort in the Ross
Valley has hit a snag. The news came as part of a mandated,
annual report on the use of funds generated by a stormwater
drainage fee presented to the Board of Supervisors earlier this
month. The fee was narrowly approved by voters in 2007 to do
flood prevention projects in the Ross Valley. Its passage
followed destructive storm-driven floods in 1982 and 2005 that
damaged 1,200 homes and 200 businesses.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued guidance July
26 for place-based projects using $132 million in
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds being distributed
via its National Estuary Program. The NEP, which started in
1987, funds water quality and ecological integrity recovery
projects at 28 estuaries along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific
coasts, plus Puerto Rico, considered to be of “national
significance.” … Local program directors detailed
funding plans in a statement, including building defenses in
California’s Santa Monica Bay area against sea level rise …
In his time at the California State Water Resources Control
Board, Max Gomberg has witnessed the state grapple with two
devastating droughts and the accelerating effects of climate
change. Now, after 10 years of recommending strategies for
making California more water resilient, the board’s climate and
conservation manager is calling it quits. The reason: He no
longer believes Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration are
willing to pursue the sorts of transformational changes
necessary in an age of growing aridification.
Farmers and water managers may need to do more to engage with
lawmakers from outside the Central Valley before the state
Legislature can be persuaded to make important investments in
water storage and other infrastructure projects, members of
Kern’s Sacramento delegation told an audience Tuesday of the
Water Association of Kern County. The three locally
elected representatives — Assemblyman Vince Fong and state
Sens. Shannon Grove and Melissa Hurtado — made the request
in the context of their frustration with big-city, coastal
lawmakers they said misunderstand how things work in not only
the water world but in-state energy production as well.
Here we go again. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration revived
the Delta tunnel project Wednesday, unveiling a downsized
version of the controversial, multibillion-dollar plan to
re-engineer the fragile estuary on Sacramento’s doorstep that
serves as the hub of California’s over-stressed water-delivery
network. After three years with little to no public activity,
the state released an environmental blueprint for what’s now
called the Delta Conveyance — a 45-mile tunnel that would
divert water from the Sacramento River and route it under the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta so that it can be shipped to farms
and cities hundreds of miles away.
Three years ago, amid shaky political support and uncertain
funding, Gov. Gavin Newsom killed plans by his predecessor,
Jerry Brown, to build two massive tunnels under the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Delta to more easily move water
south. Now a slimmed down version of the project — which has
been one of the most contentious water issues in California
since the early 1980s — is back. On Wednesday, Newsom’s
administration released details of his new plan, which calls
for building one tunnel instead of two.
On June 8, 2022, DWR’s Director, Karla Nemeth, made a
presentation on the Delta tunnel project to the Delta
Independent Science Board (Delta ISB), with several of the
scientists who had worked on the project. She said that she
supported the Delta ISB’s review of the project. But unlike the
twin tunnels project, the Department of Water Resources did not
release the Administrative Draft EIR for the single tunnel. DWR
is instead planning for the Delta ISB to review the new project
for the first time during the CEQA comment period on the Draft
Delta Conveyance EIR, which could be as short as 90 days.
The California Department of Water Resources has announced
that it will be releasing their Draft Environmental Impact
Report (DEIR) early this week for the Delta Conveyance Project,
AKA the embattled Delta Tunnel. Documents for federal
review of the project will be released later this fall.
… The changes in the plans include changes to the
intakes, the tunnel itself, the power lines, the route and the
operations, according to DWR. Here are some of the highlights
of the proposed changes:
Two agencies in the San Joaquin Valley are closer to funding
water conservation projects thanks to an $800,000 grant from
the Bureau of Reclamation. The money comes from the
Bureau’s Agricultural Water and Conservation Efficiency
grants. About $362,000 will go to the Corcoran Irrigation
District in Kings County and $430,000 will go to the Lost Hills
Water District in Kern County. The money will partially
fund projects aimed at water savings and streamlining water
transportation and storage. The rest of the funding will come
from local contributions.
As I drive across my family’s farm in the San Joaquin Valley,
it feels as if I’m traveling on a chessboard. I cross one
square with crops and then another without crops — our fields
that must lay fallow. Our farm’s crops have been decimated by
the drought. Last year, reduced water deliveries in the state
led to 395,000 acres of cropland being idled, according to UC
Merced researchers, and about 8,750 agricultural workers lost
their jobs. … Without enough water, farmers in
California can’t survive. The state’s aging water supply
infrastructure has not kept up with the growth of the
state. -Written by Joe L. Del Bosque, CEO and president
of the family-owned Del Bosque Farms in the San Joaquin
Valley.
People often have strange ideas about how water works.
Even simple water systems can be confusing. When water
systems become large complex socio-physical-ecological systems
serving many users and uses, opportunities for confusion become
extreme, surpassing comprehension by our ancient Homo sapien
brains. When confused by conflicting rhetoric, using numbers to
“follow the water” can be helpful. The California Water
Plan has developed some such numbers. This essay presents
their net water use numbers for 2018, by California’s
agricultural, urban, and environmental uses by hydrologic
region.
The drought in the west has gotten so bad that bodies, World
War II boats and other artifacts have resurfaced at Lake Mead,
about 30 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. As the water dries up,
so-called “water cops” are going after anybody who’s wasting
it. Water waste investigators with the Las Vegas Valley Water
District patrol the roads and neighborhoods every day to hunt
for violations like broken sprinklers and excess watering.
California is currently suffering through its worst drought in
over 1,200 years, a fact painfully illustrated by a hot, dry
summer, nearly empty reservoirs, and a historically diminished
Colorado River. New water restrictions have gone into effect
across the state. As California scrambles to conserve water,
desalination plants, facilities that use reverse osmosis
filters to purify seawater and transform it into drinking
water, have increasingly become part of the discussion.
Marin Municipal Water District officials, continuing their
quest to boost supply, met this week for a detailed cost
assessment on expanding reservoirs and connecting to new
sources. District staff stressed to the board that — unlike
other options under review such as desalination and recycled
water expansion that can produce a continual flow of water —
enlarging reservoirs or building pipelines to outside suppliers
does not guarantee water will be available when needed.
With three consecutive years of drought reducing state and
federal water project reservoirs to historic lows, the State
Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday readopted measures
for the Delta to protect drinking water supplies, prevent
salinity intrusion and minimize impacts to fish and the
environment. The State Water Board decision updating an
emergency curtailment and reporting regulation authorizes staff
to determine the amount of water available to certain right
holders during the drought, preserving drinking water for 27
million Californians and the irrigation supply for more than
three million acres of farmland.
There we were, 19 of us on the stony shore of the Tuolumne
River, feeling a bit stranded like the crew of Gilligan’s
Island. Our “Finding Common Water” rafting excursion was
planned around “no water Wednesday,” when river releases are
held back for water conservation and infrastructure
maintenance. The trip’s goal: Get off our desk chairs and onto
rafts, out of the ordinary and into an extraordinary setting —
a hot, highly regulated, wild and scenic river — to push
us out of our comfort zone and get to work on addressing real
water problems.
The House will vote this week on legislation to boost wildfire
fighter pay, make federal forests more fire resilient and help
communities in the West conserve water in the face of long-term
drought. The package, called the “Wildfire Response and Drought
Resiliency Act,” combines 48 previously introduced bills on
related issues, a move that sparked Republican complaints that
majority Democrats are trying to ram them through with scant
consideration and little GOP involvement.
There has not been much good news about California’s water
supply lately, but there could be some relief on the way. The
North-of-Delta Offstream Storage project, often referred to as
the planned Sites Reservoir, was authorized by Congress in
2003. The long delayed project got a financial boost in March
when the federal government signaled its intent to loan the
project nearly $2.2 billion — about half of the cost to design,
plan and build it. … The new reservoir could increase
Northern California’s water storage capacity by up to 15% and
would hold enough water to supply about 1.5 million to 3
million households for one year — although much of the water
would be for agricultural purposes.
With hundreds of full-time employees, the Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources is one of the state’s
largest agencies, responsible for a wide array of activities,
from overseeing state parks and wildland fire crews to
regulating industrial pollution and managing water rights.
Earlier this month, the agency got a new leader. Gov. Steve
Sisolak appointed Jim Lawrence, who has worked at the agency
since 1998, to serve as the acting director. … The leadership
change comes at a time when the state — and the region
— face a number of ongoing interconnected environmental
issues, including a prolonged drought that has strained water
supplies, pressures on public land, increasingly risky wildfire
behavior and extreme heat.
Water has always been recycled. The water molecules in your
shower or cup of coffee might just be the same molecules that
rained on dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago. With the
technological advancements in water recycling, however, the
water that went down your sink this morning might be back in
your tap sooner than you think. The city of Los Angeles and
agencies across Southern California are looking into what’s
known as “direct potable reuse,” which means putting purified
recycled water directly back into our drinking water systems.
…. Their efforts hinge on the State Water Resources Control
Board, which has been tasked by legislators to develop a set of
uniform regulations on direct potable reuse by Dec. 31, 2023.
As water in the North Fork of the Kern River dwindles,
controversy over its diminished flows is ramping up. At least
some river watchers are accusing Southern California Edison of
misusing a portion of the flows by continuing to divert water,
ostensibly, for a state-owned fish hatchery that has been
closed since 2020. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife
(CDFW) even sent a letter to Edison in January 2022 directing
the utility to stop taking water out of the river for the
hatchery, saying the facility and its pipeline are
inoperable.
Drought has drained the three reservoirs that provide about 60%
of the water for the [Monterrey, Mexico] region’s 5 million
residents. Most homes now receive water for only a few hours
each morning. And on the city’s periphery, many taps have run
completely dry. … “It should be a wake-up call,” said
Samuel Sandoval Solis, an expert in water management at UC
Davis who described the situation in Monterrey as a “crystal
ball” for Southern California. Both are densely packed
metropolitan centers that rely heavily on faraway water
sources. … Southern California cities, which import
about 55% of their water from the Colorado River and Northern
California, have already been forced to reduce water usage and
face the prospect of further cuts as drought persists …
The Ramona Municipal Water District board on July 12 adopted
the San Diego Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Plan
as an avenue to $4.8 million in grants. The water district has
already applied for the funds available through IRWM grants.
The source of the funds is Proposition 1 — the Water Quality,
Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act — which was approved
by California voters in 2014 and authorizes $510 million in
IRWM funding. Grants available to the Ramona water district are
nearly $2.43 million for The Acres safe drinking water project
and $2.43 million for the Ramona/Barona recycled water pipeline
project.
Yesterday, Restore the Delta sent the following
scoping comment letter to the Army Corps of Engineers
in response to a “Dredge and Fill (404) Application from
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to construct
North Delta Drought Salinity Barriers Project.” DWR proposes in
its application to add two more temporary rock fill barriers
along Steamboat and Miner sloughs in the North Delta intending
to prevent intrusion of high-salinity tidal waters into the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta should critical drought conditions
persist into 2023 and beyond.
Across the country’s western drylands, a motley group of actors
is responding to the region’s intensifying water crisis by
reviving a well-worn but risky tactic: building water pipelines
to tap remote groundwater basins and reservoirs to feed
fast-growing metropolitan areas, or to supply rural towns that
lack a reliable source. Government agencies, wildcat
entrepreneurs, and city utilities are among those vying to pump
and pipe water across vast distances — potentially at great
economic and environmental cost. Even as critics question the
suitability of the water transfers in a new climate era,
supporters in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, the
federal government, Indian tribes, and other states are
prepared to spend billions on water-supply pipelines.
There’s a lot of big ideas for solving California’s perpetual
water shortages. Desalinate ocean water. Tow giant bags of
water or use a pipeline to pull water out of the mouth of
the Columbia River. But there are also less ambitious and
perhaps more practical ways too. The city of Santa Rosa is
looking to help, one drip at a time. Thomas Hare and Holly
Nadeau are water resource specialists from the Santa Rosa’s
water department, On a recent Wednesday, in the Oakmont
district, they were welcomed to the home of Leslie and Greg
Gossage…ready to get down to some detective work.
According to California’s 4th Climate Change Assessment,
Humboldt Bay has the highest sea level rise rate in California,
surpassing both global and regional averages. This finding
prompted Humboldt County to conduct a grand jury report
regarding the local response to sea level rise, which the
Eureka City Council reviewed during their weekly meeting this
evening. The report identified various local stakeholders
including businesses, residents of the unincorporated coastal
communities in the county, and the many plants and animals that
rely on the Humboldt Bay ecosystem.
An explosion at the Hoover Dam has prompted an emergency
response from a Nevada fire crew, authorities said Tuesday
morning. … Boulder City officials said on Twitter that the
city fire department was heading toward the incident about
10:30 a.m. after video circulated on social media showing an
explosion near the dam. They later said the fire was
extinguished before crews arrived. … A transformer
caught fire at the dam about 10 a.m., the Bureau of
Reclamation said on Twitter. No injuries were reported
among visitors or employees, and the small blaze was
extinguished by a fire brigade run by the bureau.
Pittsburg water customers will soon see a 5% increase in their
water rates for each of the next five years as a result of
council action this week. Paul Rodrigues, city finance
director, cited increases in the cost of energy and raw water,
and the need to make capital improvements – at a $76.5 million
price tag – in the water treatment plant as reasons for the
increases. Both commercial and residential customers will be
affected, but seniors will pay less, seeing only a 2% increase
each year.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) has
recognized the Orange County Water District (OCWD) as a winner
of ACWA’s 2022 “Most Effective Agency on Federal Issues” Award.
… OCWD was recognized for its robust legislative efforts
in 2021 including supporting federal bills that provided
funding for water infrastructure and advocating for two key
per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) priorities: provide
an exemption from PFAS liability for water and wastewater
agencies under Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), and preserve the Safe
Drinking Water Act’s current provisions that include a
cost-benefit analysis in the development of new drinking water
standards.
Yesterday Max Gomberg had his last day at the State Water
Resources Control Board. He sent this on his last day, and
cc’ed me. With his permission: Hello everyone: I am
sharing my parting thoughts because I believe in facing hard
truths and difficult decisions. These are dark and uncertain
times, both because fascists are regaining power and because
climate change is rapidly decreasing the habitability of many
places. Sadly, this state is not on a path towards steep cuts
in greenhouse gas emissions reductions, massive construction to
alleviate the housing crisis, quickly and permanently reducing
agriculture to manage the loss of water to aridification, and
reducing law enforcement and carceral budgets and reallocating
resources to programs that actually increase public health and
safety.
All Californians play a role in preserving and enhancing our
water supplies for a drought-resilient future. California again
is in a familiar state of drought, although not all communities
are affected equally. Some regions are in extreme water
shortage; others are not. We must address these differences.
That starts with all Californians understanding where their
water comes from and what they can do to use it wisely. -Written by Steve Welch, general manager of the
Contra Costa Water District; and Sandy Kerl, the
general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority.
A year after receiving funding from the Budget Act of 2021, the
Department of Water Resources (DWR) has successfully awarded
more than $440 million to date in drought relief assistance to
small and urban communities to address water supply challenges
and help build local resilience. The Budget Act of 2021
allocated $500 million in total drought-relief funds to DWR
following extreme dry conditions and Governor Newsom’s
statewide drought emergency declaration.
1795 had been a drought year, as were the years between 1807
and 1809. Drought returned in 1822-1823, followed by floods in
1825, and three years of little rain from 1827 to 1829 and
again in 1844-1846. Travel writer Emma Adams described the
“annual panic” in Los Angeles when winter rains were overdue
and “all classes of businessmen are at a white heat of
anxiety.”
The California Department of Water Resources has begun its
nine-year project to replace the spillway gate hoists at the
Oroville Dam. Workers began the process of reverse-engineering
the hoists Tuesday to open the door for replacing one per year
in a project expected to be complete in 2031. Scott Turnquist,
DWR’s engineering branch manager for the Oroville field
division, said the project is the result of years worth of
planning in an effort to have large-scale maintenance on the
dam.
It was late 2020, less than a year into the pandemic, but Luis
Sinco wasn’t thinking about COVID-19. He was overwhelmed by
catastrophe. Fires were burning, glaciers were melting, and the
West was again in drought. But from talking to his kids and
friends and people around him, the award-winning Times
photographer sensed little dire urgency, little connection
between the climate crisis and the routines of everyday life.
… [Sinco] set off on his own. In between assignments, he
traveled roughly 1,500 miles, from the river’s headwaters in
the Rocky Mountains down to where the Colorado once regularly
reached its terminus, in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
Just days after ordering the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District
(BBID) to shut off its pumps and halt water deliveries at the
height of the growing season, the State Water Resources Control
Board (Board) lifted the curtailments of BBID’s water rights.
At 4:07 on Tuesday, the Board issued a Drought Update advising
that the pre-1914 water right serving much of BBID’s service
area, and the post-1914 water right serving the District’s West
Side Service Area, are no longer curtailed.
Thanks to the 1974 fictionalized movie Chinatown, many
people know the infamous story of the Los Angeles
Aqueduct, built to capture runoff from the Sierra Nevada
in the Owens Valley for delivery to Los
Angeles. Construction of the aqueduct, started in
1908, compared in complexity to the building of the
Panama Canal. It required 3,900 workers at its peak
and involved the digging of 164 tunnels. At the time
it was the longest aqueduct in the world …
There is a state mandate to consolidate [small] water
systems with larger nearby communities by 2024. But that wasn’t
soon enough for East Orosi, an unincorporated Tulare County
hamlet southeast of Fresno. The water went off Tuesday
afternoon. A temporary fix allowed the water to run
sporadically on Wednesday. By then, a family had lost their
home to a fire they had no water to fight. Children had spent a
day scrambling to keep pets and livestock from dying. And in
this community that already depends on bottled water for
drinking, everyone knew the taps could soon go dry again.
The National Weather Service has issued an advisory that King
Tides will cause minor flooding to coastal areas of the San
Francisco shoreline starting Monday night and will continue to
Friday, with the highest tide expected after midnight on
Thursday. The flooding is expected to begin tonight at 8 p.m.
King Tides are the highest predicted tides of the year in a
coastal region and normally occur only once or twice a year –
when the moon is closest to the earth. The event usually takes
place from January to December, but can also take place during
the summer.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed B1740 yesterday, investing
$1.2 billion over three years to fund projects that will bring
additional water to the state to secure Arizona’s water future,
improve existing water infrastructure and implement
effective conservation tools. The projects will help ensure
that Arizona families, businesses and agriculture continue to
have adequate long-term water supplies.
After a decade of immense effort, the New River Project
received $28 million in funding to begin the first phase of
restoration said to bring public health safety and
environmental justice to Calexico, Mexicali, and Baja
California, at a press conference at the Women’s Improvement
Club in Calexico July 7. Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia and
Senator Ben Hueso, along with California Secretary for
Environmental Protection Jared Blumenfeld and his team, were
welcomed to The City of Calexico by the Mayor of Calexico,
Javier Moreno.
On Monday, California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR)
released a draft Environmental Impacts Report, which looked
into the benefits and potential negative impacts of repeated
use of a temporary drought salinity barrier in the delta. This
drought barrier is in the West False River. It is a wall of
earth that helps to keep salt water from the Bay Area from
infiltrating into the freshwater delta system during times of
severe drought…. If the delta were to become
contaminated with saltwater, millions would lose access to
fresh drinking water, including farmers, who rely on the delta
for irrigation.
California’s newest member of Congress will be serving on the
House Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Connie Conway, a
Republican who represents the 22nd District in the
agriculture-heavy Central Valley, got assigned to Natural
Resources by House GOP leadership, Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) the
ranking member of the committee, announced today. In a
statement, Conway said that she understood “the diverse water
and energy challenges impacting the livelihoods of Central
Valley residents and farmers.” She added that she looked
forward to “working with my colleagues to address the drought
and rising energy costs by modernizing outdated environmental
laws and improving water storage infrastructure.”
A pair of San Diego Congressional representatives are trying
again to transfer money between the bank accounts of two
federal agencies. Without the legislative fix, most of
$300 million worth of projects to clean-up the polluted Tijuana
River and Southern California beaches cannot be spent. Reps.
Juan Vargas and Sara Jacobs are hopeful the full House and
Senate will OK language introduced in a spending bill that’s
passed a House committee, according to a Thursday press
release.
Summer is here, and water resource managers around the state
are gearing up for another dry season. In Santa Cruz County,
unique geology and three distinct basins make protecting the
water supply a complicated and fractured process involving
multiple water agencies. From the Pajaro Valley to the Santa
Cruz Mountains, here’s what they’re doing.
Petaluma residents neighboring a planned groundwater well
project in the Oak Hill Park area are asking city leaders for
more transparency and review before approving its construction,
following concerns that the area’s foundation may be too
fragile. The Oak Hill Municipal Well Project would install a
well on a 5.58-acre, city-owned property at 35 Park Avenue, as
city officials look to offset the need for purchased water and
increase the reliability and diversity of local water supplies
during the ongoing drought. But neighbors are concerned the
well will have a negative impact on the environment and make
way for sinkholes.
Colorado’s water leaders have released an updated blueprint
detailing how the state will manage and conserve water supplies
as climate change and population growth strain the system in
unprecedented ways. The first Colorado Water Plan was released
in 2015 after back-to-back years of historic drought and sought
to address the possibility that the state might not have enough
water in the next few decades…. The reservoirs on the
Colorado River, which starts in the mountains of Colorado and
supplies more than 40 million people in the West with water,
have hit critically low levels in the last year.
California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced
financial support to four urgent drought relief projects in
Humboldt, Los Angeles, Modoc, Shasta, and Siskiyou counties
through the Small Community Drought Relief Program. In
coordination with the State Water Resources Control Board, DWR
awarded $2 million in funding to support four projects that
will improve drought resilience and address local water needs.
There are two schools of thought on how to navigate the West’s
historic drought: Use less water or find new ways to make more
of it usable. A few cities are trying to do both, and so far,
it’s spared them from some of the most stringent drought
restrictions. In the last drought, Santa Monica used to rely
heavily on water imported from Northern California. But now
less than half of Santa Monica’s water is imported, which
spared them from the mandatory outdoor water restrictions that
began at the beginning of June.
As sea-level rise and flooding threaten to cut off Marin City
from emergency services and block one of the busiest North Bay
highways, the state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have
allocated $30 million in the state budget to begin planning for
defenses. The budget adopted on Tuesday provides $20 million to
begin designing flood protections on Highway 37 and the Novato
Creek Bridge. Another $10 million is for planning defenses for
recurring flooding on Highway 101 that blocks the only road in
and out of Marin City.
East County officials fear a $950 million sewage recycling
project could get flushed down the drain because of a pipeline
deal gone awry. Leaders spearheading the endeavor blame San
Diego Mayor Todd Gloria — who signed off on building an
eight-mile “brine line” as recently as last year but has since
reneged on that commitment. The pipeline would prevent
concentrated waste generated by the East County project’s
reverse osmosis filtration system from entering into the city’s
own $5 billion Pure Water sewage recycling project now under
construction.
California and six other Western states have less than 60 days
to pull off a seemingly impossible feat: Cut a multi-way deal
to dramatically reduce their consumption of water from the
dangerously low Colorado River. If they don’t, the federal
government will do it for them. A federal Bureau of Reclamation
ultimatum last month, prompted by an extreme
climate-change-induced drop in water levels at the nation’s
largest reservoirs, reopens years of complicated agreements and
political feuds among the communities whose livelihoods depend
on the river. The deadline represents a crucial moment for the
arid Southwest, which must now swiftly reckon with a problem
that has been decades in the making.
On June 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly
Bill 205, a legislative effort to bolster the state’s energy
resources and avoid outages like those California experienced
in August 2020. AB 205 creates a Strategic Reliability
Reserve that will secure new emergency and temporary
generators, retain existing resources, and encourage the
development of new clean energy projects and energy storage
systems. To secure the resources needed to maintain the
reliability of electric service, the legislation temporarily
relaxes some of California’s strict environmental
requirements.
California’s water issues may be complicated. But the rainfall
shortage driving the state’s current drought comes down to
basic math. … Over the three-year period that ended June
30, most Northern California cities received only about half to
two-thirds of their historical average rainfall, according to
data that [Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather
Services in Half Moon Bay] compiled. And each passing year
without soaking winter rains has been steadily drying the state
out a little more — further dropping reservoirs, parching soils
and forests and depleting groundwater.
In March the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invited the
backers of Sites Reservoir — a mammoth water storage project in
the Sacramento Valley that’s being personally led by [Fritz
Durst, a farmer in Yolo County] — to apply for a $2.2 billion
construction loan. … But the reservoir, planned for
a spot straddling the Glenn-Colusa county line, 10 miles west
of the Sacramento River, won’t dig California out of its
current mega-drought. Even if all goes according to plan — a
pretty big if — Sites wouldn’t finish construction until 2030.
… The only way out of this, for the time being, is
conservation, forcing farmers and homeowners alike to make do
with less water.
The Marin Municipal Water District took a first look this week
at how much water it could receive from new sources such as
desalination or expanding reservoirs, and how much they would
cost. On Tuesday, consultants with the Jacobs Engineering firm
provided the district’s board with an overview of the
preliminary cost and water production estimates for several
supply options. More expensive options included desalination,
dredging existing reservoirs, expanding the recycled water
system and building pipelines to connect with other Bay Area
water suppliers.
A record run of wild spring run Chinook salmon on a
Sacramento River tributary turned into a disaster when the
majority of fish perished before spawning last year. In
May, the CDFW published a monitoring report on 2021’s
spring Chinook salmon run on Butte Creek, a Sacramento River
tributary, revealing that 91 percent of the adult fish died
before spawning. … An estimated 19,773 out of the over
21,580 fish total that returned to spawn in the Butte County
stream perished before spawning. Only an estimated 1,807 adults
survived to spawn in a year with a record return of fish.
… The fish perished from disease in the crowded, warm
water conditions on the creek …
If there is a promised land for home developers in San Joaquin
County, it might just be Manteca. Lathrop thanks to the
15,001-home planned River Islands community was — once
aberrations involving Paradise and Santa Cruz growth due to
people returning to rebuilt homes after being burned-out
in a PG&E sparked wildfire and the return to in-person
learning at University of California campuses — the fastest
growing city in California in 2021. … Mountain House
will likely be checked to a large degree by water. It needed a
10,000 acre-foot water transfer from the South San
Joaquin Irrigation District to try and weather the drought this
year after the state cut off their water deliveries.
More than 900 hazardous sites — power plants, sewage treatment
plants, refineries, cleanup areas and other facilities — across
California could be inundated with ocean water and groundwater
by the end of the century, according to climate scientists at
UCLA and UC Berkeley. … [UCLA’s Lara] Cushing and UC
Berkeley’s Rachel Morello-Frosch, both environmental health
scientists, last year launched an interactive tool, Toxic
Tides, mapping California’s hazardous sites that could be
inundated by sea level rise. … The researchers also used
federal groundwater data to examine how rising ocean water
would drive freshwater up from the ground.
U.S. House Appropriations Committee Democrats voted down all
three drought-related amendments offered by U.S. Rep. David
Valadao (R-CA) to the fiscal year 2023 Energy and Water
Appropriations bill during the committee’s June 28 markup of
the legislation. … The first amendment offered by Rep.
Valadao addressed water storage capacity issues. It would have
extended the California storage provisions of the federal Water
Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act through
the end of 2023, as well as the authorization of appropriations
for water storage projects, according to information provided
by the congressman’s staff.
A sliver of state money will help upgrade drinking water
systems in eastern Fresno County mountain communities that have
been plagued by both drought and devastating wildfires. The
money is part of an overall $300 million in Department of Water
Resources funding aimed at drought impacts. In Fresno County,
the Sierra Resource Conservation District was awarded $525,000
to upgrade technology for five community groundwater systems in
the mountains. The five water systems were all impacted
by the 2020 Creek Fire, one of California’s biggest wildfires,
which burned nearly 380,000 acres in the Sierra Nevadas.
Marin Municipal Water District will hold a series of meetings
focused on adding new water sources. The district, which serves
191,000 central and southern Marin residents, launched a water
supply study in March as it faced depleting its local reservoir
supplies after two years of severe drought. On Tuesday, staff
will provide the district Board of Directors a first-time
overview of the various water supply options the agency could
consider as it looks to bolster its supply … desalination,
increasing local reservoir storage, groundwater banking in
Sonoma County, increasing water imports from the Russian River,
expansion of recycled water systems, conservation measures and
a pipeline across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
Jonas Minton, the Senior Water Policy Advisor for Planning and
Conservation League, passed away on June 22, 2022. He was 73. I
had the privilege of serving on an expert panel with Jonas on
April 2, 2018…. Jonas Minton provided many great
observations that day. The observations which most show his
legacy are in his testimony on truly collaborative processes.
In my opinion, Jonas’ ability to facilitate collaborations
between stakeholders in truly fair, equitable, and transparent
processes was his greatest gift to the California water
community. He will be greatly missed.
A controversial plan from Gov. Gavin Newsom would reshape how
business is done on the California power grid…. State
lawmakers could vote as early as Wednesday night on the
polarizing legislation, whose text was revealed late Sunday.
The bill would give the Department of Water Resources
unprecedented authority to build or buy energy from any
facility that can help keep the lights on during the next few
summers — including polluting diesel generators and four
gas-fired power plants along the Southern California coast that
were originally supposed to close in 2020 but were rescued by
state officials.
There’ll be an audit of California’s water supply forecast
after the state overestimated and prematurely released 700,000
acre-feet of water last year, officials announced Monday. A
news release from Assemblymember Adam Gray (D-Merced) announced
that Gray’s request for audit was approved. It aims to examine
the impacts of the flawed forecasts and the Department of Water
Resources (DWR) and State Water Board. … California’s
water operations overestimated the forecast by 68% for the
Sacramento River region, 45% for the San Joaquin River
region and 46% for the Tulare Lake region, according to a
state report. Those overestimations left the operators with
less stored water than was necessary, according to Gray’s news
release.
For many decades, the Colorado River was managed with the
attitude that its water levels would remain roughly stable over
time, punctuated by alternating wet and dry periods. But in the
face of possibly the river’s driest period in 1,200 years, a
new approach is now needed to managing the river’s reservoirs —
one that can account for “deep uncertainty” about future
climate and runoff conditions, says the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation. And for the next two months, the bureau wants to
hear from the public about how it should go about operating
reservoirs including Lake Mead, Lake Powell and other parts of
the river system under such conditions.
As the State of California faces a record drought, ocean
desalination has been highlighted as a potentially more
reliable alternative to imported water. Following the
California Coastal Commission’s (CCC) unanimous vote to deny
permits for the Brookfield-Poseidon Desalination plant in
Huntington Beach last month, the South Coast Water District
(SCWD) is working to obtain all major permits for its own
desalination plant near Doheny by the end of the year. The
local water district is looking to produce up to five million
gallons of potable drinking water a day by 2027 through its
proposed Doheny Ocean Desalination project.
Water resource planners regularly rely on computer models to
illuminate relationships between human- and
natural-systems. Anyone who has tinkered with one of
California water supply models knows this is a deeply
left-brained exercise. During Winter 2021, as part of Jay
Lund’s Art and Water class, water resource engineering students
took a break from creating and analyzing mathematical models to
exercise the right side of their brains and enjoy some art.
Please enjoy this collection of art pieces curated by a group
of graduate students who can’t quite figure out how to unplug…
Gov. Doug Ducey is expected to sign legislation as early as
this week to spend $1 billion looking for long-term sources of
new water for Arizona. State lawmakers finally lined up the
votes for the plan Friday, the last day of their 2022 session.
… The plan requires that 75% of the funding be spent to
acquire water from outside of the state, which could include
building a plant to desalinate water from the Sea of Cortez in
Sonora. State officials have also mentioned exploring the
possibility of a pipeline from the Mississippi River.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
When you oversee the largest
supplier of treated water in the United States, you tend to think
big.
Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California for the last 15 years, has
focused on diversifying his agency’s water supply and building
security through investment. That means looking beyond MWD’s
borders to ensure the reliable delivery of water to two-thirds of
California’s population.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water
supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the
numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another
drought. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most
of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project
will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low
number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more
rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather
forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing. The National
Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley will be warm and
windy the next few days, with no rain in the forecast.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
New water storage is the holy grail
primarily for agricultural interests in California, and in 2014
the door to achieving long-held ambitions opened with the passage
of Proposition
1, which included $2.7 billion for the public benefits
portion of new reservoirs and groundwater storage projects. The
statute stipulated that the money is specifically for the
benefits that a new storage project would offer to the ecosystem,
water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
Get a unique view of the San Joaquin Valley’s key dams and
reservoirs that store and transport water on our March Central
Valley Tour.
Our Central Valley
Tour, March 14-16, offers a broad view of water issues
in the San Joaquin Valley. In addition to the farms, orchards,
critical habitat for threatened bird populations, flood bypasses
and a national wildlife refuge, we visit some of California’s
major water infrastructure projects.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water examines water
infrastructure – its costs and the quest to augment traditional
brick-and-mortar facilities with sleeker, “green” features.
Everywhere you look water infrastructure is working hard to keep
cities, farms and industry in the state running. From the massive
storage structures that dot the West to the aqueducts that convey
water hundreds of miles to large urban areas and the untold miles
of water mains and sewage lines under every city and town, the
semiarid West would not exist as it does without the hardware
that meets its water needs.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
It’s no secret that providing water in a state with the size and
climate of California costs money. The gamut of water-related
infrastructure – from reservoirs like Lake Oroville to the pumps
and pipes that deliver water to homes, businesses and farms –
incurs initial and ongoing expenses. Throw in a new spate of
possible mega-projects, such as those designed to rescue the
ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the dollar amount grows
exponentially to billion-dollar amounts that rival the entire
gross national product of a small country.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
financing of water infrastructure, both at the local level and
from the statewide perspective, and some of the factors that
influence how people receive their water, the price they pay for
it and how much they might have to pay in the future.
They are located in urban areas and in some of the most rural
parts of the state, but they have at least one thing in common:
they provide water service to a very small group of people. In a
state where water is managed and delivered by an organization as
large as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California,
most small water systems exist in obscurity – financed by
shoestring budgets and operated by personnel who wear many hats.
This issue of Western Water looks at water
infrastructure – from the large conveyance systems to the small
neighborhood providers – and the many challenges faced by water
agencies in their continuing mission of assuring a steady and
reliable supply for their customers.
Chances are that deep within the ground beneath you as you read
this is a vast network of infrastructure that is busy providing
the necessary services that enable life to proceed at the pace it
does in the 21st century. Electricity zips through cables to
power lights and computers while other conduits move infinite
amounts of information that light up computer screens and phone
lines.
This issue of Western Water explores the question of whether the
state needs more surface storage, with a particular focus on the
five proposed projects identified in the CALFED 2000 ROD and the
politics and funding issues of these projects.
