“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.
Confronting the rise of attacks on major American
infrastructure and industry, the White House released an
executive order Wednesday in which President Joe Biden will ask
companies to layer on more cybersecurity protections. The order
follows up on a series of cybersecurity directives prompted
this year when the nation suffered a series of fuel shortages
after Russian-tied cybercriminals launched a ransomware attack
on Colonial Pipeline.
President Joe Biden’s latest leap into the Senate’s up-and-down
efforts to clinch a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure deal
comes with even more at stake than his coveted plans for
boosting road, rail and other public works projects. The
outcome of the infrastructure deal, which for weeks has
encountered one snag after another, will affect what could be
the crown jewel of his legacy. That would be his hopes for a
subsequent $3.5 trillion federal infusion for families’
education and health care costs, a Medicare expansion and
efforts to curb climate change.
Senators ran into new problems Monday as they raced to seal a
bipartisan infrastructure deal, with pressure mounting on all
sides to show progress on President Joe Biden’s top priority.
Heading into a make-or-break week, serious roadblocks remain.
Disputes have surfaced over how much money should go to public
transit and water projects.
The House of Representatives approved a $715 billion
infrastructure plan, and if the Senate passes it, it will mean
$20 million for the Valley Link project to connect Bay Area
Rapid Transit to the Altamont Corridor Express commuter train.
… California would be a big winner under the proposed
law. The bill includes more than $900 million for projects
throughout the Golden State. They include bridges, bike lanes
and express lanes … wastewater and drinking water
projects and other infrastructure to prepare for rising sea
levels.
On July 2, 2021, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
issued an important decision regarding Section 401 of the Clean
Water Act, overturning an Order by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC’s Order had found that
the state of North Carolina had unlawfully “coordinated” with
the license applicant to delay the state’s certification that a
new FERC license for the Bynum hydroelectric project complied
with state water quality laws. FERC found that North
Carolina’s participation in the delay meant that the state had
“waived” its authority under Section 401 to issue the
certification.
Rural communities suffering from failing infrastructure and low
capacity often miss out on important funding opportunities
because the methods used by state agencies to determine
eligibility are inadequate for rural forested areas, new study
finds. Pockets of wealth (around a lake shore or golf-course
development, for example) raise the median household income
(MHI), which can mask the poverty of nearby communities.
With rural wells running dry and reservoir levels dwindling
amid the Western drought, California senators are pressing
Congress for an infusion of cash to renovate the state’s
collapsing drinking water system. But instead of new dams or
desalination plants, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla
want … to boost stormwater capture, groundwater recharge
and water recycling efforts in the Golden State and throughout
the U.S.
After some negotiation, the Friant Water Authority Board of
Directors will vote on a repayment contract with the Bureau of
Reclamation regarding the repair of a portion of the
Friant-Kern Canal. The Friant Water Authority and the
Bureau of Reclamation held its second round of negotiations
Thursday morning, which was a two-hour process hammering out
contract language in the repayment deal. … At the center
of the issue is a 33-mile stretch of the Friant-Kern Canal that
has lost over half of its original capacity to
subsidence.
Lawmakers and experts on Wednesday warned of gaping
cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the nation’s critical water
sector amid escalating attacks against a number of U.S.
organizations. … [C]oncerns came during a committee
hearing on cybersecurity vulnerabilities in critical
infrastructure that zeroed in on concerns around water and
wastewater treatment facilities. Cyber threats have soared
in recent years, including recent ransomware attacks on
critical infrastructure such as Colonial Pipeline, and the
water sector has not been immune.
A windfall of state funding is coming to San Diego, including
money for Ocean Beach Pier repairs, an energy-storage project
at San Vicente Reservoir, and the city’s Pure Water
program. Money from California’s state budget, signed last
week, will fund the series of San Diego projects and programs.
As California has imposed severe water cutbacks throughout the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s vast watershed, most
growers in the Delta region itself are still getting enough
water to bring their crops to harvest. With a majority of
landowners in the region holding pre-1914 riparian water
rights, the state has not curtailed their ability to pump water
from the Delta’s labyrinth of canals and waterways – at least
yet. In fact, growers whose land is on islands below sea
level have been pumping water off, San Joaquin County
Agricultural Commissioner Tim Pelican said.
Surrounded on three sides by the San Francisco Bay, residents
of Richmond are used to being near the ocean. But as rising
seas threaten to bring it even closer, Mayor Tom Butt is candid
about the risks. … Parts of Richmond are estimated to be
at risk from a three-foot increase in sea levels, even as the
waters of the Pacific Ocean along California’s coast are
projected to rise by more than twice that due to climate change
this century.
U.S. Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) last week introduced three
amendments to the Energy and Water Development Appropriations
fiscal year 2022 bill that aimed to alleviate California’s
ongoing drought, but House Appropriations Committee Democrats
voted down all three of them during a July 16 markup. The
congressman’s first amendment would have extended California
water storage provisions of the Water Infrastructure
Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act for one year …
The House on Wednesday approved a bill setting deadlines for
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement drinking
water regulations for so-called forever chemicals.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly called
PFAS, are widely used, man-made compounds that are found in
manufacturing and consumer products like Scotchguard,
flame-resistant materials, nonstick cooking surfaces and
firefighting foam used on military bases since the 1940s.
California Farm Bureau, as part of a national coalition
representing thousands of western farmers, ranchers, water
providers, businesses and communities, urged leaders of the
U.S. Senate to take action to address the shortcomings of aging
water infrastructure. Citing an “acute and critical need”
magnified by another all-too-familiar drought, the coalition
sent a letter last week to Chairman Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and
Ranking Member John Barrasso, R-Wyo., of the U.S. Senate
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. It called for
increased federal investment in water infrastructure.
A 500 MW pumped energy storage project proposed jointly by the
City of San Diego and the San Diego County Water Authority
received $18 million in the California state budget. The
support will help fund the San Vicente Energy Storage
Facility through initial design, environmental reviews,
and the federal licensing process. The project … could
generate revenue to help offset the cost of water purchases,
storage, and treatment.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced the selection
of Michael Norris as the Area Manager of its Lower
Colorado Basin Region Yuma Area Office. He has served as the
Deputy Area Manager for seven years. In his new capacity,
Norris is responsible for delivery of Colorado River water to
the Yuma area and Mexico, groundwater and salinity management,
resource management, engineering and construction.
It doesn’t look like much now, a dry and dusty valley
surrounded by the modest mountains of California’s Coast Range.
These barren, brown hills an hour northwest of Sacramento will
be the future home of Sites Reservoir, one of the few major
water projects to be built in California since the 1970s.
California taxpayers are helping pay for Sites, which would
hold more water than Folsom Lake, through a $7.1 billion bond
they approved during the 2014 election.
Jet Martin wanted to stop service to a water meter to save
money for the homeowners in his Mira Mesa HOA. It turns out the
city said doing that will cost thousands of dollars. …
Martin’s HOA consists of 15 homes. There used to be sprinklers
that watered a once-grassy area that sits between two houses.
It was a space where residents in the HOA could sit, eat, and
enjoy the outdoors. They stopped watering the grass a couple of
years ago, but still pay a base fee to the city of nearly $30
per month.
A historic drought has desiccated much of the American West,
bringing reservoir levels to record lows and stoking fears of
catastrophic wildfires across the region. We spoke with two
members of the Water Policy Center research network and experts
on the Colorado River: Dr. Bonnie Colby of the University of
Arizona (she’s also a member of the Colorado River Research
Group) and John Fleck of the University of New Mexico. Prepare
to be surprised: we encountered some delightful optimism in
this wide-ranging conversation.
Each day, it seems, a new climate-related catastrophe makes
headlines. Salmon are dying in California, because the water
they inhabit has been heated to the point that it’s
inhospitable to life. The Hoover Dam reservoir is at
record-low levels, potentially affecting the water supply to
the West Coast. And California is, once again, in a drought.
States and municipalities across the country are asking
residents to conserve water as the precious resource is
threatened with impending scarcity. … We asked experts for
some easy ways to cut back on water usage. Here are their
suggestions.
Rick Daniels lies awake at night worrying about a rusty
contraption in a forlorn field, littered with discarded pipes
and fire hydrants. It is the only water pump in Needles that
meets state water quality standards, running 23 hours a day to
keep up with demand, according to Daniels, the city manager.
That’s a thin margin in one of America’s hottest cities, an
urban speck in the desert near California’s border with
Arizona. If this lone pump fails, 5,000 residents face the
ultimate risk of taps running dry, as temperatures soar past
120 degrees …
The Bureau of Reclamation and the Friant Water Authority
scheduled a teleconference contract repayment negotiation
session for costs of extraordinary operation and maintenance
work on the Friant-Kern Canal Middle Reach Capacity Correction
Project. The date and time of
the teleconference-only negotiation session are: July
22, 2021, from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. PDT Call
1-202-640-1187 and, when prompted, type in participant
passcode 523 487 550# The public is welcome to listen during
the session and comment after the negotiations close.
Climate change is forcing our state to reimagine our water
supply future. How do we do that? Easy — we reuse
water. Just like recycling a plastic bottle, we can
safely use recycled water to drink, irrigate parks, support
environmental uses, grow crops, produce energy, and much more.
More than just a new source of water, water recycling projects
provide a degree of local water independence. -Written by Jennifer West, managing director of
WateReuse California.
Several of the state’s key canals will get a sprinkle of state
money this year and next toward fixing more than $2 billion in
damage caused by sinking land from excessive groundwater
pumping. On July 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a massive budget
“trailer” bill, which authorizes actual funding for programs
and services outlined in the state budget that was passed June
15. The trailer bill included $200 million for the Department
of Water Resources to spend over the next two years on the
California Aqueduct, Delta-Mendota Canal and Friant-Kern Canal.
Together, repairs for those canals are estimated at $2.35
billion.
Alex Padilla made his first official visit to the Central
Valley as U.S. Senator, holding several discussions about
water. Padilla, along with other elected officials, held a
media availability at his only public event of the day — a tour
of the Dos Palos water treatment plant. There, he spoke about
the need to upgrade infrastructure for drinking water, as well
as water for farmers. Padilla says the infrastructure bill
being debated in the Senate will help with water, especially in
underserved areas.
Super Bowl weekend was the headline event last winter in Tampa,
Florida, where the mood was giddier than usual, given that the
hometown Bucs had advanced to the championship. But two days
before the big game, an incident just a few miles west of
Raymond James Stadium temporarily stole the show. A hacker
gained remote access to a water treatment plant in the town of
Oldsmar. The intrusion on February 5 lasted only a few minutes
— just long enough for the hacker to raise the concentration of
lye in the water by a factor of 1,000.
Every coast in the U.S. is facing rapidly increasing high tide
floods. NASA says this is due to a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit
working in tandem with climate change-fueled rising sea levels.
The new study from NASA and the University of Hawaii, published
recently in the journal Nature Climate Change, warns that
upcoming changes in the moon’s orbit could lead to record
flooding on Earth in the next decade. … They expect the
flooding to significantly damage infrastructure and displace
communities.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a state bill on July 9 that
will allow Valley Water to use a method known as “best value”
to select a contractor for the Anderson Dam Seismic Retrofit
Project. Under current California law, Valley Water must select
the contractor with the lowest bid, regardless of their
experience. But Assembly Bill 271, signed by Gov. Newsom and
overwhelmingly passed by the California Legislature, authorizes
Valley Water to use a method known as “best value” to select a
contractor for the Anderson Dam Seismic Retrofit Project.
Dear Friends and Supporters of the Water Education Foundation
… we are busy preparing to move to a new office near the
confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers,
planning a blend of virtual and in-person programming for
the fall and offering a sale on our beautiful water maps
and guides so we don’t have to move them. We’re also looking to
hire a programs
and communications manager who is passionate
about all things water in California and across the
West. Resumes are due July 23.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said water infrastructure and
transit investments in Arizona were two key items discussed
during a meeting with President Joe Biden on
Wednesday. Gallego was part of a bipartisan group of three
governors and four other mayors who met with Biden at the White
House to build support for a proposed $1.2 trillion
infrastructure package under consideration in the U.S.
Senate…. The group also talked about… the state’s long-term
drought and its effects on the Colorado River…
The city of Mountain View is planning for a surge in new
offices and homes in North Bayshore, placing dense new
development just a short jaunt away from the baylands. But new
sea level rise estimates show that future development could
very well end up underwater without flood protection, and it’s
unclear who is going to pick up the costly bill. Earlier this
year, Google announced its proposal to build 7,000 homes in
North Bayshore alongside 3 million square feet of offices less
than a mile from the bay.
On July 8, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded two earlier drought
emergency declarations to cover 50 of the state’s 58 counties.
In May, he directed state agencies to consider easing
requirements for reservoir releases to conserve water upstream,
and to make water transfers easier. Both are needed. Notably,
the governor’s emergency proclamation did not impose water
conservation mandates. Instead, Gov. Newsom is leaving water
conservation to each region — a smart and necessary approach
that incentivizes regional investments in water supply. -Written by Sean Bigley, chair of
the Sacramento Regional Water Authority
Board, and Gary Croucher, chair of the San Diego
County Water Authority Board.
Climate change is exacerbating droughts and accelerating the
transformation and decline of California’s native forest and
aquatic ecosystems. As a state, we are poorly organized to
manage these effects, which need extensive focused
preparation. We need to adapt (and we will make mistakes
in doing so). Our human, economic and environmental losses
will be much greater, however, if we manage poorly because of
delay, complacency or panic. -Written by Jay Lund, professor of civil and
environmental engineering at the University of California at
Davis.
With drought on everyone’s mind, city leaders from Palo Alto
and Mountain View held a brief summit on June 18 at the
Regional Water Quality Control Plant to highlight a project
that both cities hope will help make water consumption more
sustainable for decades to come. Mayors Tom DuBois and Ellen
Kamei met with Valley Water board member Gary Kremen at the
Palo Alto facility to accept a $16 million check from the water
district.
Communities trying to fight sea-level rise could inadvertently
make flooding worse for their neighbors, according to a new
study from the Stanford Natural Capital Project. The
research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, shows how seawalls constructed along the San
Francisco Bay shoreline could increase flooding and incur
hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for communities
throughout the region.
For more than 60 years, California officials and experts have
discussed expanding the Sacramento River bypass and levee
system. … In summer 2020, contractors broke ground on
the first project to expand that capacity, the Lower Elkhorn
Basin Levee Setback (LEBLS) project. The California Dept. of
Water Resources is leading the design, construction and
permitting of the $103-million project, which will widen the
Sacramento Bypass and the east side of the Yolo Bypass.
A key message emerged when California water leaders gathered in
Modesto: Stop grumbling about drought, and get cracking on real
fixes. Rep. Josh Harder, R-Turlock, convened the Thursday
afternoon summit at the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau.
Several speakers called for new reservoirs and groundwater
recharge to hold wet-year surpluses for use in dry times
like 2021. The manager of a West Side irrigation district
invited others to follow her lead in using water recycled from
city sewage plants.
Lawmakers in Congress on Friday introduced a bill that would
pump tens of billions of dollars into fixing and upgrading the
country’s dams. The Twenty-First Century Dams Act, introduced
by Democratic U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire, proposes
to spend nearly $26 billion to make the repairs that would
enhance safety and increase the power generation capacity of
the country’s 90,000 dams. It also calls for removing any dams
that have outlived their usefulness.
Southern California’s largest reservoir is filled to more than
80% of its total capacity, despite the fact the state as a
whole is in the second year of a severe drought. And Diamond
Valley Lake near Hemet is proving to be a key asset in making
up for the shortfall in water from other sources after another
year of below-normal precipitation.
While much of California’s earthquake risk has been
historically focused on the San Andreas fault and places like
Los Angeles and San Francisco, quakes are capable of causing
significant destruction in the state’s Sierra Nevada and
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta … UCLA experts warned
in 2014 that a major earthquake sending destructive shaking to
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could potentially destroy
aging levees, causing flooding and drawing in saline water from
San Francisco Bay — which would contaminate one of the state’s
key water supply systems.
California’s fiscal year started more than a week ago, but
lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom still don’t have a budget deal.
They’ve enacted placeholder legislation to keep the government
running while they hash out the final details, but the delay
leaves Californians waiting for details on how money for
critical areas including wildfires and infrastructure will be
spent. It’s a different situation than the budget stalemates of
past decades, when state government had to cut deals with banks
to ensure state workers were paid even as budget negotiations
dragged into the fall.
Slowly but surely, the San Lorenzo Valley community is
rebuilding itself after the CZU Lightning Complex fire. Its
water district is no exception. The San Lorenzo Valley Water
District lost all of its water intake infrastructure at the
Lyon Water Treatment Plant in Boulder Creek, built in 1994 with
the purpose of treating surface water coming from many streams
on the Empire Grade mountain. About 50% of the water stored at
the plant was lost as well. All of the 1,600 acres of the
watershed were affected by the wildfire.
As part of the ongoing initiatives to advance diversity and
equity, Monique Earl has been named to lead the newly-created
Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power. Earl will become part of
the senior management team reporting to General Manager Martin
Adams, and will be responsible for the oversight of policies,
practices and programs designed to improve diversity and
opportunities throughout LADWP and position the agency to
better serve communities with the highest needs.
Dublin San Ramon Services District’s new temporary supplemental
recycled water supply project not only aims to boost their
irrigation water, but it also doesn’t let anything go to waste
— especially human waste. Putting a new spin on the old
adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” DSRSD
recently launched a program to divert one to two million pounds
of sewage a day for three years from its sister agency Central
Contra Costa Sanitary District to the Jeffrey G. Hansen Water
Recycling Plant in Pleasanton, according to a statement from
DSRSD.
How can Marin County effectively address the severe drought
we’re in? Right now, many are reasonably urging the Marin
Municipal Water District to explore desalination and a water
supply line on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Apparently our
water district is proceeding expediently with this
exploration, so they can implement those measures as
quickly as possible if needed. However, we should recognize
that with urgent competition for water throughout the
southwestern U.S., these measures have uncertainties, will take
time and require very large expense and energy use. -Written by Tom Flynn, team lead at
GreenChange.net.
The American west has a sprawling network of dams, reservoirs
and pipelines that brings a supply of water to its cities and
farms. But overexploitation and a two-decade dry spell have put
a severe strain on the resources, with reserves dwindling to
historic lows in some areas. The situation will only get worse
in the coming decades, warn scientists, as surging populations
will boost freshwater demand and a hotter, drier climate will
bring deeper droughts and more erratic precipitation
patterns. …[N]ew water-sourcing approaches are also
needed. One such is rainwater harvesting.
[A]s a result of this year’s harsh drought conditions, we
expect hydroelectric generation in California to be lower in
2021 than it has been in recent years. In the first four months
of 2021, hydroelectric generation in California was 37% less
than in the same four months in 2020 and 71% less than during
those months in 2019. According to our Short-Term Energy
Outlook, hydroelectric generation in California this year will
be 19% less than last year, decreasing from 16.8 million
megawatthours (MWh) in 2020 to 13.6 million MWh in 2021.
Now, California is eyeing the benefits derived from several
successful canal installations in India. With the world’s
largest irrigation canal network, and 290 days of average
sunshine, California is uniquely positioned to ease its own
severe water shortages with this emerging innovation of
canal-covering solar farms. UC Santa Cruz has investigated
this method for use in California and estimates that—on top of
generating green energy—it would save 63.5 billion gallons of
water from evaporation annually, a massive windfall for a state
that sometimes rations water and which regularly suffers from
droughts.
Lake Mead, which provides water for 25 million people in
the American West, has shrunk to 36 percent of its capacity.
One rural California community has run out of water entirely
after its well broke in early June. Fields are sitting fallow,
as farmers sell their water allotments instead of growing
crops, putting the nation’s food supply in peril. As the West
withers under extreme drought, legislators in the US House of
Representatives have introduced HR 4099, a bill that would
direct the Secretary of the Interior to create a program to
fund $750 million worth of water recycling projects in the 17
western states through the year 2027.
Major renovations will begin Wednesday on the Anderson Dam
tunnel project in Santa Clara County. The project will
require the reservoir to be drained – and it will be unable to
be used for 10 years. The timing is not great as
California remains in a drought but water officials say this is
a vital project for flood protection that will protect the
public for years to come. The reservoir can hold more than
300,000 gallons of water and is the water district’s largest
drinking water reservoir.
The Long Beach City Council is set to weigh in on the next
phase of the planned Long Beach Municipal Urban Stormwater
Treatment Facility … The project will include both
construction of the facility and a new wetland habitat area,
though the contract with Shimmick will just be for the
stormwater treatment site; a contract to build the wetlands
will come to the panel at a later date.
The Marin Municipal Water District, facing the possibility of
running out of water next summer, is scrambling to plan for two
emergency projects to keep the taps flowing in case of another
dry winter: a temporary desalination plant and a pipeline
across San Francisco Bay. But nearly 11 years ago, the district
chose not to build a desalination plant that could have
supplied as much as 60% of its current yearly potable water
demand — though at a high price. The district, which serves
191,000 residents in central and southern Marin, had been
exploring desalination since the early 1990s and has tested two
pilot desalting sites.
Drought can gradually parch the coffers of companies, while for
others it’s an economic boom. For some, it’s driving
innovation. One hair salon is using biodegradable towels, water
well drillers are turning away potential clients,
drought-resistant plants are all the rage, and watersports
proprietors are figuring out how to survive with less water to
play in. In spite of this resiliency, things could get worse
before they get better because the rainy season is still months
away.
The powerful interests who vie for shares of the state’s
ever-changing water supply — dubbed “water buffaloes” — are
adept at fending off political and legal assaults by their
rivals and the outcomes of their clashes are often stalemates.
That’s why it was surprising in June to see two game-changing
decrees out of Washington, one from the new Biden
administration and another from the Supreme Court, affecting
two of the state’s most prominent water interests, Southern
California’s Imperial Irrigation District and the San Joaquin
Valley’s Westlands Water District. -Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
To understand a sharp-elbows squabble that’s developing behind
the scenes in the state Capitol, one must first understand
“pumped-storage hydro,” a way for electrical energy to be
stored. In its simplest form, water stored in a reservoir is
released to generate power as it flows into a second reservoir
at a lower elevation. Later, when the electrical grid’s need
for power diminishes, the water is pumped back into the upper
reservoir so the cycle can be repeated when demand
increases. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters columnist.
Cadiz Inc. is pleased to announce today that it completed
the acquisition of an existing 220-mile pipeline, the Cadiz
“Northern Pipeline,” making final payment of $19 Million to El
Paso Natural Gas. As California continues to address supply
inequalities, infrastructure challenges and intensifying
drought, the Northern Pipeline can provide new water conveyance
access and supplement California’s water infrastructure along
an underserved, growing east-west route with additional
regulatory approvals. The Northern Pipeline extends southeast
from California’s Central Valley near Bakersfield and
terminates at the Company’s Cadiz Ranch agricultural
operations.
An inter-governmental body wants Monterey Peninsula water
officials to pay for an independent third-party review of costs
associated with a planned takeover of California American Water
Co., a study water officials say they’ve already performed at a
cost of over a half-a-million dollars. A majority of
commissioners with the Local Area Formation Commission for
Monterey County (LAFCO) said Monday night they want the
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District to foot the bill
for an independent review to better establish the financial
wherewithal of the district to operate a water delivery
system…
As California and the West suffer through an epic drought,
President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans and Democrats have
included $5 billion for Western water projects in their
infrastructure deal. The prospect of federal money comes as
several big-ticket water projects are on the drawing boards in
California — although many are still years from completion and
probably wouldn’t get finished in time to help California with
the current drought. But the federal dollars, which are
probably months and several more negotiations away from
possible approval, could enable California to jump-start
projects that have been in the works for years.
Communities may face a range of issues associated with aging
water infrastructure, including elevated lead levels in tap
water. Because of lead’s toxicity, even at low levels, reducing
lead exposures from drinking water and other sources remains a
public health priority. Other sources of lead exposure include
lead-based paint and contaminated soil and dust from
deteriorated lead-based paint. Nationally, the phaseouts of
leaded gasoline and lead-based paint, along with regulatory
controls and technical changes, have reduced lead
exposures.
The time to act is now. Climate change is already altering the
physical environment of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and
Suisun Marsh (Delta), and we will continue to experience its
effects through hotter temperatures, more severe wildfires, and
prolonged droughts. Over the long term, climate change in the
Delta is expected to harm human health and safety, disrupt the
economy, diminish water supply availability and usability,
shift ecosystem function, compromise sensitive habitats, and
increase the challenges of providing basic services. Many of
these impacts will disproportionately affect vulnerable
communities.
U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chair of the House Committee
on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Frank Pallone, Jr.
(D-NJ) announced Thursday new details of the $715 billion
INVEST in America Act, which is scheduled to be sent to the
House floor this week. The bill, the congressmen said, will
create jobs, rebuild and reimagine the country’s roads,
bridges, transit, rail, and wastewater infrastructure, as well
as the drinking water infrastructure.
Record-setting heat and drought gripping the western United
States are exposing a potentially severe risk to the nation’s
long-term power supply, and experts warn that grid operators
lack sufficient tools to plan and carry out a defense.
… Persistent drought also threatens power from
hydroelectric dams in the West, a critical resource for
California during extended heat waves. Water levels are so low
at Lake Oroville, California’s second-largest reservoir, that
officials are considering shutting down a hydroelectric plant
there.
This is how California’s water crisis is going these days: The
only functioning well in the rural community of Teviston broke
in early June, leaving more than 700 residents without running
water as temperatures in the Central Valley soared to
triple-digits in a drought. … Teviston residents are relying
on limited bottled water for necessities such as staying
hydrated, cooking, bathing and flushing toilets. Some
residents, like Galaviz, are traveling to neighboring towns to
stay with family or friends to shower and wash clothes.
Once again, the chest beating for
a sea-to-sea pipeline to “fix” the Salton
Sea has begun. Here are a few facts are often
ignored. The Coachella Canal shows that it is
possible to transport water long distances without
pumping. That canal transports Colorado River water
122 miles to the Coachella Valley, all by gravity. It was
completed in 1948, before current environmental regulations.
According to the CVWD, this canal
delivers about 280,000 acre-feet per year of
water. -Written by Alexander Schriener Jr., a California
registered professional geologist who has lived in the
Coachella Valley for 33 years.
There is no drought – the Los Angeles Times wrote in a recent
editorial. The Times argued “if ‘drought’ means a period of dry
years followed by a return to the norm, California is not in
drought. The current climate is the norm.” That analysis has
important implications for Stockton and other communities along
the San Joaquin River and in the Delta. As our precipitation
increasingly swings between drought and flood, each extreme
challenges our communities. -Written by Douglass Wilhoit, CEO of the Greater
Stockton Chamber of Commerce and a former San Joaquin County
supervisor; and Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, executive
director and co-founder of Restore the Delta.
SCV Water’s response to removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl
(PFAS) chemicals in the local groundwater supply
received top honors as the Best Environmental Project from the
American Public Works Association (APWA) — High
Desert Branch. … PFAS chemicals are manmade and can
cause adverse health effects. Officials recognized the
opening of the plant, which is adjacent to the William S. Hart
Pony Baseball & Softball fields, in early
October. The $6 million facility restores up to 6,250
gallons of water per minute.
Mission Springs Water Districtis facing as much as
$9.4 million in fines from state and regional water
regulators after district officials failed to report
a nearly million-gallon spill from a breached
wastewater percolation pond as required, and failed to
notify state authorities that a temporary holding pond had
been constructed. District officials waited two weeks to
notify state authorities that last Oct. 3,
large amounts of treated wastewater
gushed through Desert Hot Springs residential streets …
President Biden and a bipartisan group of senators agreed on a
nearly $1-trillion infrastructure plan Thursday, the
culmination of months of negotiation over a proposal to fortify
the nation’s roads, bridges and broadband internet
access….The plan calls for $109 billion for road and bridge
projects, $7.5 billion to build a new network of electric
vehicle-charging stations, $55 billion to replace all lead
pipes and upgrade water infrastructure….
For the past three weeks, construction crews working 24 hours a
day have been stacking boulders across a river in eastern
Contra Costa County, building what may be California’s biggest
defense yet against the drought: a nearly 800-foot-long rock
wall. The state’s emergency project, which was wrapping up
Thursday, is designed to prevent San Francisco Bay’s salty
flows from pushing into the coveted freshwater supplies of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Water levels in the delta’s
rivers and sloughs have dropped after two dry years, putting
water for almost 30 million Californians at risk of saltwater
intrusion. The plan is to keep the wall up until November…
In the weekly newsletter sent out by the City of Santa Barbara
on June 14, we are given a peek at how the water policy
followed by the city over the past decade has worked out. The
city provides us with a chart showing that consumers of water
in Santa Barbara pay substantially more for their water than do
Goleta, Carpinteria or Montecito at all but the very least
levels of consumption. Remarkably, huge estates in Montecito
irrigate their grounds at 68 percent of the cost of urban
homesteads in our city! -Written by Glen Mowrer, contributor to the Santa Barbara
Independent.
Marin Municipal Water District will soon study the idea of
returning the long-gone water pipeline to the upper deck of the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. It’s a smart move if the district
can locate another agency to sell them additional water. They
also should understand times have changed in the past 55 years.
Installing a new, hopefully permanent, pipeline won’t be the
snap it was in 1977. -Written by Dick Spotswood.
Using drinking water to keep our parks luscious and green isn’t
uncommon in San Francisco, but it’s something the city is
working to change. Golden Gate Park currently uses its own
groundwater wells to irrigate the park, which has water quality
permitted for drinking water standards. The Panhandle uses
water from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
(SFPUC). By summer 2022, barring any delays, the water used for
irrigation and lake fill would instead come from a recycled
water system that’s currently under construction to replace the
current watering system.
After more than a decade of planning, community meetings — and
more planning — an ambitious $630 million effort to replace two
aging underground wastewater pipes officially launched on
Monday, June 21, as a two-story-high electric tunneling machine
was lowered underground at the sanitation plant on the border
of Carson and Wilmington. The details have been continually
refined since planning began in 2006. The Clearwater Project,
its formal name, was approved in 2012 by the Los Angeles County
Sanitation Districts and was described by engineers involved in
the work as sophisticated, intricate and precise.
The San Elijo Joint Powers Authority’s water reclamation
facility near San Elijo Lagoon on Manchester Avenue in
Encinitas was named “Plant of the Year” by the California Water
Environment Association, the agency announced today. The award
recognizes accomplishments in compliance, innovative practices,
cost-effectiveness and superior plant performance amongst
wastewater agencies across California.
Growers are dealing with severe cutbacks in the surface water
deliveries they normally receive from reservoirs. The lack of
steady irrigation has already impacted spring cropping
decisions made by farmers. … A bill introduced by
Republican Congressman David Valadao would allow more water to
be moved south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while
keeping protections in place for fish such as the delta smelt
and salmon.
In a new symbol of California’s worsening drought, construction
crews are putting the finishing touches on a $10 million
emergency project to build a massive rock barrier through part
of the Delta in Contra Costa County to preserve water supplies
for millions of people across the state. The 800-foot long
barrier — the size of San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid laid
on its side — is essentially a rock wall, 120 feet wide, built
in water 35 feet deep. Its purpose: To block salt water from
the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay from flowing too far
east and contaminating the huge state and federal pumps near
Tracy …
In April of 2017, PGE began moving forward with its plans to
relicense the Potter Valley Project (PVP)—with, as of yet, no
designs to remove any of the infrastructure—and in August of
2019, Congressman Jared Huffman created the PVP Ad Hoc
Committee, a Two Basin Solution for the Eel and Russian River
basins, whose more than 20 members were tasked with the
relicensing process of the PVP to improve fisheries and fish
migration, minimize adverse impacts to water supply
reliability, respect tribal rights and minimize and mitigate
adverse impacts to Lake County including Lake Pillsbury.
While California is known for its world-famous entertainment
industry and ever-transforming tech sector, agriculture is
the often-overlooked backbone of our diverse state
and one of its earliest economic engines.
Our state’s multigenerational farmers and ranchers
not only feed Californians, but also supply one-third of our
country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts,
while also leading the nation in milk production. -Written by Karen Ross, secretary of the
California Department of Food and Agriculture; and David
Shabazian, director of the California Department of
Conservation.
Sea level rise is not some future dystopian fantasy. It is here
on the California coast. At high tide, water gushes over
stairways leading down bluff trails to beaches and up to some
oceanfront homes. Seawater routinely sloshes over Highway 1
between Eureka and Arcata along the northern coast. Homes in
some towns already flood. Others perch precariously on
crumbling bluffs. Sea walls erected to protect oceanfront homes
(for a while) end up accelerating the erosion of public beaches
on the other side of those walls.
Water lines on the banks of Lake Oroville in Butte County have
depleted so rapidly that the reservoir’s hydroelectric power
plant may have to shut down for the first time ever, straining
an already encumbered power grid during the hottest part of the
summer, California officials announced Thursday. Since
1967, the Edward Hyatt Power Plant has been a crucial source of
electricity for the area and usually has the capacity to power
up to 800,000 homes, pumping water from the lake through its
underground facilities, according to CNN.
Zone 7 directors have approved spending $2 million to design a
facility to treat potential human health threats in Cope Lake’s
water should chemicals accumulate above legally acceptable
levels. Those chemicals are called per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAs and PFOAs), which are found in consumer
products, such as cookware, food packaging and stain
repellents. They make their way into drinking water sources.
Routine maintenance repairs on a portion of water system pipes
along Cordilleras Creek left some San Mateo County residents
concerned water was being wasted as the state enters a drought.
… The Cordilleras Creek, one of two creeks running through
Redwood City, also cuts through Redwood High School where
[Redwood City resident Rudy] Tureillo works as a
custodian. Typically the creek is “bone dry,” Tureillo said,
but starting Wednesday, June 9, staff at the school noticed it
was flowing strong.
The Marin Municipal Water District has taken the first steps
toward building an emergency water pipeline across the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge for the first time in nearly 50
years to avoid potentially running out of water next summer.
The district said Friday that it has hired a consulting firm,
Woodard & Curran, to find potential water rights holders in the
Central Valley willing to sell their allotments. This water
could be pumped across the bridge via the pipeline and into
Marin’s water system should the drought stretch into winter.
Camille Touton, a veteran congressional water policy adviser,
has been nominated to lead the agency that oversees water and
power in the U.S. West. President Joe Biden on Friday nominated
Touton to be the next commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation. If confirmed, the Nevada native will be a central
figure in negotiations among several states over the future of
the Colorado River.
When Donald Trump referred to the COVID pandemic as a “plague,”
he was implying that it was an act of God that couldn’t be
blamed on the government. We are now told that the acute water
shortage in California is the result of a “drought” that has,
once again, lead to water restrictions. This biblical term
obscures the responsibility that our local governments bear for
this crisis. Countries facing far harsher climates and much
scarcer water supply, like Israel, have adopted straightforward
policies to avoid such crises. We should learn from their
example. -Written by Ron E. Hassner, the Helen Diller
Family chair in Israel Studies and the co-director of the Helen
Diller Institute for Israel Studies at U.C. Berkeley.
A hacker accessed the computer system of a Bay Area water
treatment plant in January and deleted programs the plant used
to treat drinking water, a senior intelligence official
confirmed Thursday. NBC News
first reported Thursday that the unidentified hacker
used a former plant employee’s username and password to gain
entry to the unidentified Bay Area water treatment facility on
Jan. 15.
Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), a senior member of the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, voted to pass
the “Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021”
(H.R.1915) in the Committee. This legislation reauthorizes the
Clean Water Act’s State Revolving Funds and related U.S. EPA
water programs. The legislation passed the Committee on a
bipartisan vote of 42 to 25 and is expected to be passed by the
U.S. House of Representatives in the coming weeks.
A proposal to bring down four hydroelectric dams near the
California-Oregon border cleared a major regulatory hurdle
Thursday, setting the stage for the largest dam demolition
project in U.S. history to save imperiled migratory salmon.
Los Angeles is a pretty hot and dry place, and in fact,
California is suffering from increasing impacts of drought, so
how does the water we use every day get here? Let’s take the
journey your water takes from the source to your mouth with
these 5 things to know:
President Biden’s “Build Back Better” initiative proposes to
invest $111 billion in rebuilding and modernizing drinking
water and wastewater infrastructure, as well as funding other
water quality-related priorities, including addressing per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water
supplies. Legislation proposed in both the Senate and
House of Representatives in the 117th Congress (2021-2022)
reflects a bipartisan effort to translate the President’s goals
into national policy.
Two more ambitious lawsuits would be hard to image: in 2017 the
cities of Oakland and San Francisco filed separate public
nuisance lawsuits against five of the world’s biggest energy
companies, seeking to hold them responsible for the local
effects of sea level rise. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court
declined to throw the suits out of court, although the cases
still face many daunting obstacles ahead.
In the 1960s, Tulare County Supervisor Dennis Townsend was
working for the water master of the Tule River when the dam at
Success Lake got its first big test. … Starting in early
2024, a similar deluge would be contained because the spillway
is being raised by 10 feet, increasing reservoir storage by a
third. The federally funded project will boost flood
protection for Porterville and the downstream lands from a
50-year flood event to a 100-year flood event, according to the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Verizon and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California were two high-value targets hit by a suspected
Chinese-backed hack that was first brought to the public’s
attention in April, the Associated Press reported. Pulse
Connect Secure networking devices are used by many companies
and governments to allow secure remote access to their networks
and those were the targets of the hacks. The Chinese government
was suspected of backing the hacks, but China has denied any
role.
When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was hacked
in 2018, it took a mere six hours. Early this year, an intruder
lurked in hundreds of computers related to water systems across
the U.S. In Portland, Oregon, burglars installed malicious
computers onto a grid providing power to a chunk of the
Northwest. … All three drive home a point long known but,
until recently, little appreciated: the digital security of
U.S. computer networks controlling the machines that produce
and distribute water and power is woefully inadequate, a low
priority for operators and regulators, posing a terrifying
national threat.
Lucía Laguna carries her fate tattooed on her face — from the
corner of her mouth to her chin, black lines surf across her
coppery skin — the tribal art honoring her people will also
serve an important function later on. … But under the
merciless sun, Laguna, 51, worries about the fate of the river
and its impact on the Cucapá, her Indigenous people. A searing
drought is exacerbating the deadly heat in a region that long
ago saw its river flow diminished, after almost a century of
U.S. engineering projects, as well as a focus on water for
agriculture.
The catastrophic drought that’s gripping the U.S. West is
claiming a new victim: the hydropower dams that much of the
region depends on for electricity supplies. Low water levels in
key reservoirs mean that hydropower supplies are declining. One
of the hardest hit areas is California, where output has
tumbled to the lowest in more than five years.
California is known for its history of natural disasters, and
in the Silicon Valley, two potential calamities — drought and
earthquake risk — are converging to dry up water supplies in
the hub of the state’s tech economy. In a meeting on Wednesday,
board members of the Santa Clara Valley Water District voted
unanimously to declare a water shortage emergency — in part
because a key county reservoir had to been drained to reduce
earthquake risks highlighted by federal regulators.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee last week marked up and advanced H.R.
1915, the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of
2021. … By 2035, the City of Los Angeles expects to
recycle 100 percent of its water supplies and reduce its
reliance on costly imported water from the Colorado
River. Truckee Meadows Water Authority in Reno is planning
13-mile pipeline to provide 1.3 billion gallons of recycled
water annually to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, home to
Tesla, Switch and Google, and ensure 20,000 jobs remain in
Nevada.
The water [that Utah] plans to tap for the Lake Powell pipeline
was previously promised to the Ute Indian Tribe, which is now
suing to get back its water and asserting that the
misappropriation is one of a decades-long string of racially
motivated schemes to deprive it of its rights and property.
In the final scene of “Chinatown,” the noir movie version of
Los Angeles’s original water grab, anti-hero Jack Nicholson
confronts the brutal triumph of the film’s “pillar of the
establishment” villain. The cops don’t want to hear his
story. They invoke the racist trope that the law of the
jungle rules in the ethnic enclave where the scene occurs:
“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” The real life water wars
continue, however, and it remains to be seen who will win the
current power struggle at the Metropolitan Water District. -Written by Rick Cole, former mayor of Pasadena, deputy
mayor of Los Angeles and city manager of Azusa, Ventura and
Santa Monica.
Once spanning 100,000 acres at the foot of the Medicine Lake
Volcano, it’s unlikely that Tule Lake has been as low as it is
now for millions of years. What used to be a massive network of
open water and fringe wetlands is now essentially a giant mud
puddle, spelling trouble for migratory birds that have used it
as a rest stop for thousands of years. The solution, at least
for now? Dry it up.
Water is increasingly scarce in the Western U.S. — where 72
percent of the region is in “severe” drought, 26 percent is in
exceptional drought, and populations are booming. Insufficient
monsoon rains last summer and low snowpacks over the winter
left states like Arizona, Utah and Nevada without the typical
amount of water they need, and forecasts for the rainy summer
season don’t show promise. … The past two decades have been
the driest or the second driest in the last 1,200 years in the
West, posing existential questions about how to secure a
livable future in the region.
Excessive groundwater pumping has collapsed the land beneath
several key canals, crimping their ability to move water.
Fixing them will be expensive. There are two bills moving
through the state Legislature and Congress that could provide
some funding. This is the second try for the state bill, Senate
Bill 559 by Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger). …
Representative Jim Costa (D-Hanford) and Senator Diane
Feinstein (D-Ca.) introduced S. 1179, the Canal Conveyance
Capacity Restoration Act, on April 15.
Coachella Valley-based architect Nikola Lakic knows how to fix
the withering Salton Sea. Or, at least he says he does.
Lakic believes it’s possible to import water from Mexico’s Sea
of Cortez — or, perhaps, from the Pacific Ocean off the
California coast — through a multi-billion-dollar system of
pipes. He would construct mangrove habitat for natural water
filtration, send desalinated water to geothermal plants and,
amid all this, restore California’s largest lake.
… Lakic is the author of one of 11 formal proposals for
a “sea-to-sea” solution that the state of California is
currently evaluating.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is
helping advance two local supply projects that will further
diversify and strengthen the region’s water reliability, under
two agreements approved Tuesday by the district’s board of
directors. The board approved an agreement with the Municipal
Water District of Orange County and the Santa Margarita Water
District to provide funding for a recycled water project.
Officials are raising the prospect of a permanent water
pipeline over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge as a potential
drought-fighting strategy for Marin County. … [Ben]
Horenstein, the general manager of the Marin Municipal Water
District, was among the participants of a teleconference on
drought and wildfires organized by Assemblyman Marc Levine on
Wednesday. … For Marin, Horenstein said, the focus now
is on promoting as much conservation as possible through
mandatory water use restrictions and rebates for
water-efficient appliances and landscaping.
We’re moving later this summer to new quarters closer to the
Sacramento River, and we don’t want to haul all of our water
maps, Layperson’s Guides, DVDs and more to the new home. So
we’re making you a limited-time offer we hope you can’t refuse:
Take 30 percent off the price of all of our maps, guides
and more.
For anyone trying to keep up with the unfolding drought in
California and the West, the Water Education Foundation has
created a special
resource page that offers links to real-time
reservoir data and water supply forecasts, an ongoing
newsfeed to help you stay up to date on the latest news
and tips so you can help conserve the region’s most
precious natural resource.
Even as a federal infrastructure bill teeters on the brink of
failure, more than 200 Western farm and water organizations
pushing for canal and reservoir repairs are proposing nearly
$49 billion for projects improving water conveyance, dam
safety and forest health. In a letter June 9 to Chairman
Joe Manchin and Ranking Member John Barrasso of the U.S. Senate
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, organizations
ranging from Western Growers to the Idaho Potato Commission
cited an “acute and critical need” magnified by another
all-too-familiar drought.
A crippling drought in the western US is dropping the water
level at Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam to a historically low
level, putting pressure on the region’s drinking water supply
and the dam’s electric capacity. By Thursday, Lake Mead’s water
level is expected to sink to the lowest it’s been since it
began filling during construction of the Hoover Dam, according
to Bureau of Reclamation spokeswoman Patricia Aaron.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has
hired Adel Hagekhalil as its next general manager, following a
bitter power struggle over the future of an agency that
delivers hundreds of billions of gallons each year from the
Colorado River and Northern California to a region that
otherwise wouldn’t have nearly enough water to support 19
million people.
The Ventura County Public Works Agency commemorated the start
of the Santa Ana Boulevard Bridge replacement project with a
groundbreaking ceremony Monday afternoon. The ceremony took
place at 2 p.m. and was attended by the county supervisor, Matt
LaVere, as well as representatives from the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife and California State Coastal
Conservancy.
Five years ago Bay Area voters wisely approved Measure AA, a
nine-county, 20-year, $12 per parcel annual tax to restore San
Francisco Bay and guard against the threat of rising sea levels
due to global warming. … An estimated 355,000 Bay
Area residents live within a 100-year flood plain that includes
800 miles of roads and highways, 70 miles of critical rail
lines, 46 wastewater plants, 35 schools and 15 hospitals.
As California responds to yet another drought and prepares for
a future of greater climate extremes, securing funding to boost
the water system’s resilience is a top priority. One go-to
funding source over the last two decades has been state general
obligation bonds. In dollar terms, GO bonds play a relatively
small role in water system spending, yet they punch above their
weight when it comes to filling critical gaps.
A punishing drought is gripping much of the western U.S.
Scientists are calling it a “mega-drought” brought on by
climate change. It’s taking a dramatic toll on the Colorado
River system that provides water to 40 million people in seven
states. For more than eight decades, the Hoover Dam has relied
on water from Nevada’s Lake Mead to cover up its backside. But
now at age 85 it finds itself uncomfortably exposed. Much of
the water the dam is supposed to be holding back is gone.
A proposal that would more than double the cost of sewer
service in the region over the next five years and has drawn
the rage of the area’s hospitality and business interests heads
to a board for final approval on June 7. The board of directors
for Monterey One Water, the regional wastewater management
service, will vote on the proposed schedule of rate increases.
If approved, ratepayers will see a 47-percent jump in their
sewage bills after July 1. By 2025, rates would be 122-percent
higher than they are today. … [T]he increase is needed to
maintain and update the utility’s $750 million infrastructure
assets, some of which are more than 30 years old.
In Sin City, one thing that will soon become unforgivable is
useless grass. A new Nevada law will outlaw about 40% of the
grass in the Las Vegas area in an effort to conserve water amid
a drought that is drying up the region’s primary water source:
the Colorado River. Other cities and states around the US have
enacted temporary bans on lawns that must be watered, but
legislation signed Friday by the state’s governor, Steve
Sisolak, makes Nevada the first in the nation to enact a
permanent ban on certain categories of grass.
Drought is taking a dramatic toll on the Colorado River
system that provides water to 40 million people in seven states
– and may force the federal government to make a drastic and
historic decision. For more than eight decades, the
iconic Hoover Dam has relied on water from Nevada’s
Lake Mead to cover up its backside. But now, at age 85, it
finds itself uncomfortably exposed. Much of the water the dam
is supposed to be holding back is gone.
In victories that make the state’s drought even crueler, two
Southern California water districts have won the top prizes for
best tap water in the U.S. at an international tasting contest.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California finished
first and Santa Ana took second place for the nation’s Best
Municipal Water on Saturday at the 31st annual Berkeley Springs
International Water Tasting in West Virginia. Those two
competitors finished first in the category in 2008 and 2018,
respectively. Third place went to the Southwest Water Authority
of Dickinson, in North Dakota.
The City of San Diego plans to spend $10 million to carefully
assess the structural needs of its aging dams, which are among
the oldest in California. San Diego has nine dams that play an
important role in the city’s water supply. By 2022, four will
have stood for a century or more. Only three of the nine dams
are rated in “satisfactory” condition by the state. The
comprehensive assessment will span five years, giving city
officials an itemized forecast of future repair needs and
costs.
The Biden Administration last week released its FY 2022 budget
proposal. The $6 trillion dollar budget includes funding for
several water resources priorities, including PFAS research and
remediation, drought resilience, watershed protection, and
infrastructure improvements. The Biden budget proposes an
increase of 16.5% for discretionary, non-defense spending.
Notably, the budget includes $27.9 billion for the Department
of Agriculture (USDA), $17.4 billion for the Department of
Interior (DOI), $6.8 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers
(Corps), and $11.2 billion for the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
The WCWCD, along with the Utah Division of Water Resources, …
started making plans [in the 1990s] to import Colorado River
water from Lake Powell via a buried pipeline that would stretch
140 miles through rocky desert terrain, crossing some tribal
lands and sensitive habitats. The project has inched its way
forward over the decades since, finally advancing its
federally-required Environmental Impact Statement through the
public review process during the Trump administration, which
identified the pipeline as one of its infrastructure
priorities.
A water war is under way in Sacramento right now that could
have far-reaching impacts on families in the Central Valley.
… Hearings got under way Wednesday, as Semitropic Water
Storage District in Kern County makes its administrative appeal
to the State Water Resources Control Board for water rights to
the Kings River. It filed its first petition in 2017, asking
for access to 1.6 million acre feet of floodwater from the
Kings River.
Construction of a temporary salinity barrier on the False River
is underway after an emergency request by the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) was approved by the State Water Resources
Control Board (SWRCB). The barrier, necessitated by worsening
drought conditions, is intended to help preserve water quality
in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by reducing saltwater
intrusion. The declaration of a drought emergency made by Gov.
Gavin Newsom on May 10 suspended the requirement that a project
of this nature complete a California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA) assessment.
Lake Powell is within just a few feet of its low level ever
observed since it was first filled. Early season fires have
already torched over 400,000 acres in Colorado and California’s
reservoirs are 50 percent lower than they should be at this
time of year before summer has even officially begun. A year
after the skies over San Francisco glowed a hazy red as
wildfires choked the Bay Area, 2021 is shaping up to be the
year of real climate reckoning with drought in the western US
at historic levels.
This May, while collecting live fish for their annual aquatic
pathogen assessment on the Klamath River in Northern
California, Yurok Tribe biologists made a shocking discovery:
over 70 percent of the young, ocean-bound Chinook salmon
captured in their traps were dead. Almost all of the fish
tested upstream were infected with Ceratonova shasta, a
parasite that relies on both fish and annelid worms as hosts.
Barry McCovey, senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe,
expects most of the infected fish to die.
Adel Hagekhalil is an inspired choice to be the next general
manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, the agency that delivers the water ultimately used
by half of the state’s population. He’s an engineer, a
consensus builder and a champion of the movement to integrate
management of different types of water — drinking water,
wastewater, stormwater, environmental water — in order to
reduce costs and use precious resources more efficiently. He
may be exactly what the MWD needs at this point in its
history…
How long could you last if water supply was cut off in the
event of an emergency? Our region is nearly entirely reliant on
water that is imported from hundreds of miles away. In the
event of a catastrophe that would prevent water delivery from
outside sources, experts recommend that there be at least 60
days’ worth of water supply. As of now, South Coast Water
District could provide roughly 11 days’ worth. -Written by Lillian Boyd.
San Diego is launching a $10 million effort to complete risk
assessments of all nine of the city’s aging dams — only three
of which are considered in satisfactory condition. City
officials say the assessments are expected to reveal problems
that will require an estimated $1 billion in repairs and
upgrades in coming decades — and possibly some replacement dams
in extreme cases. San Diego’s dams are among the oldest in the
state and the nation.
The California Urban Water Agencies (CUWA) today announces
Brown and Caldwell’s Wendy Broley will assume the role of
executive director effective July 1, replacing Cindy Paulson
after 10 years in the role. CUWA is a non-profit corporation of
11 major urban water agencies responsible for serving drinking
water to over two-thirds of California’s population.
Having received just 48% of normal rainfall for the water year,
which began Sept. 1 and will end Aug. 31, Santa Barbara County
may be experiencing a bit of déjà vu, having been placed in the
“severe drought” category again by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
But despite a winter that brought less than half the normal
rainfall, the county’s water supply is generally in good shape,
and able to provide enough for drinking, firefighting and
irrigation in the short term, city and county officials said.
Migratory steelhead and Chinook salmon have access to six more
miles of historic spawning sites in a refurbished creek on
California’s Beale Air Force Base. All thanks to a unique
cooperative effort between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (USFWS) and the Air Force Civil Engineer Center
(AFCEC).
It feels like California’s 2011-2016 drought, our worst on
record, had barely ended when the next one began. This is our
second dry year in a row and, according to the state Department
of Water Resources, the past winter tied for the third-driest
on record. … [UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain] calls this
our second major drought within a decade and, if you’re like
me, you’re wondering if we’ve done anything since the last one
to help keep water flowing from our taps. The answer is yes.
Already one of the most productive watersheds in the state in
terms of runoff per square mile, the Yuba River watershed is
especially vulnerable to the impacts of atmospheric rivers and
the heavy, prolonged rainfall they bring. … Recognizing the
central role that atmospheric rivers play in both flood risk
and water supply — two of Yuba Water’s core mission areas –
the agency is investing in new research and tools to better
understand, forecast and manage these powerful storms.
Arizona and other Western states just lived through the driest
year in more than a century, with no drought relief in sight in
the near future, experts told a House panel last week. The
period from April 2020 to March 2021 was the driest in the last
126 years for Arizona and other Western states, witnesses said.
It capped a two-decade stretch that was the driest in more than
100 years that records have been kept – and one of the driest
in the past 1,200 years based on paleohydrology evidence, one
official said.
At the May 20 meeting of the Placer County Water Agency
(“PCWA”) Board of Directors, the Board awarded 12 grants,
totaling over $3.6 million, to seven public water purveyors in
Placer County. The $3.6 million figure is the most ever
granted by PCWA in a single year. This is also the first
instance in which the grants were wholly funded with net
revenues from PCWA’s Middle Fork American River
Project (“Middle Fork Project”).
A bill aimed at improving the Valley’s two largest canal
systems from continued subsidence-driven damage advanced
through one house of the California State Legislature on
Friday. Senate Bill 559, a top priority for legislators on both
side of the aisle in the San Joaquin Valley and led by Sen.
Melissa Hurtado (D–Sanger), seeks to dedicate $785 million in
spending for improvements to four sets of waterways,
spearheaded by two canals servicing the Central Valley Project:
the Delta-Mendota Canal and the Friant-Kern Canal.
Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) released the following
statement after her bill, Senate Bill 559—The State Water
Resiliency Act – passed the Senate 34-1 … The State
Water Resiliency Act of 2021 will allocate $785 million to
repairing vital water delivery systems that provide drinking
water to communities throughout California and water to sustain
the state’s leading agricultural economy. The funds would go to
fixing the Friant-Kern Canal, the Delta-Mendota Canal and major
portions of the California Aqueduct…
Urban water agencies are planning to impose mandatory
conservation orders after federal water managers slashed
deliveries this week amid a rapidly deepening drought. The
Bureau of Reclamation cut water deliveries from the Central
Valley Project by about half. That has prompted the Santa Clara
Valley Water District, which serves 2 million residents in the
Silicon Valley region, to consider a potential conservation
order at its board meeting next month.
As reality plays out, I continue to read how the drought in the
American West is causing levels in Lake’s Mead and Powell to
plummet. I also continue to see no action or accountability to
take bold action to resolve the issue as uncontrolled
development continues in the greater Phoenix and Las Vegas
areas. … There are 17 desalination plants operating in
California and the one in Carlsbad — the Claude Bud Lewis
Desalination Plant — is the largest in the U.S. -Written by R.B. Provencher, a former manager for the
U.S. Department of Energy and retired in Idaho Falls.
Joe Del Bosque is leaving a third of his 2,000-acre farm near
Firebaugh, California, unseeded this year due to extreme
drought. Yet, he hopes to access enough water to produce a
marketable melon crop. Farmers across California say they
expect to receive little water from state and federal agencies
that regulate the state’s reservoirs and canals, leading many
to leave fields barren, plant more drought-tolerant crops or
seek new income sources all-together. … Stuart Woolf,
who operates 30,000 acres, most of it in Western Fresno County
… may fallow 30% of his land.
Between Las Vegas and Arizona, Lake Mead, the body of water
that is fed by the Colorado River, dropped below 1,075 feet on
Tuesday. The low water marks are signaling what could be the
first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, CNN reports.
The lake’s levels show a continuing decline, according to the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), and any hope of recovery
won’t happen until at least the end of 2022.
Multiple earthquakes rattled the Lake Tahoe region on Friday,
the latest in a sequence that began in late April. … Tahoe
sits on major fault lines more than a thousand years overdue to
rupture… A huge shake could even lead to a Tahoe
tsunami, but he says for now – it’s still highly unlikely. But
in the event of something major, Kent recommends not wasting
any time getting away from the water.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Board of
Commissioners approved the renaming of two historically
significant facilities to honor the late 4th District
Councilmember and longtime LADWP supporter, Tom LaBonge on
Tuesday, May 25, 2021. The board authorized renaming the Los
Angeles Aqueduct Centennial Garden and Headworks Water Complex
to The Tom LaBonge Aqueduct Centennial Gardens and the Tom
LaBonge Headworks Water Complex, respectively.
[D]uring a panel discussion about water issues in the Golden
State hosted by California state Senator Josh Becker… the
discussion was surprisingly upbeat. “We can do this,” said
Felicia Marcus, a fellow at Stanford’s Water in the West
program and former chair of the State Water Resources Control
Board. “We just have to build more efficient communities and
use technology to track every drop.”
Back in 1977, President Jimmy Carter wanted to put the Central
Arizona Project on a hit list of 17 water projects he found too
expensive and environmentally destructive. … [N]ow, as CAP’s
first water shortages draw near, a more subtle, long-term
threat to the Tucson area’s water future is emerging because of
climate change.
Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,
NOAA funded 125 habitat restoration projects in coastal areas
throughout the country. Now, more than a decade later, we’re
taking a look back at some of the projects we funded. We’ll
explore the benefits this restoration work continues to bring
to communities and ecosystems across the country. … NOAA
partnered with the Yurok Tribe to restore habitat for
salmon and steelhead in Terwer Creek and McGarvey Creek,
tributaries to the Lower Klamath River.
California’s water woes are severe and worsening. A second dry
year in a row has diminished the state’s water supply, and
almost three-quarters of the state is in “extreme” or
“exceptional” drought, the two highest categories. With the
rainy season over and a hot, dry summer ahead, water shortages
and brushfires are imminent. …
Rosamond Community Services District’s residential and
commercial customers will see their water and sewer rates
increase after the District’s governing Board approved rate
adjustments earlier this month as part of the District’s
efforts to remain fiscally solvent. The average district
residential customer will see a monthly water bill increase of
$6.11. This average represents about 70% of the District’s
residential customer base. The average commercial 1 customer
will see a monthly water bill increase of $20.90, while the
average commercial 2 customer will see an increase of $2.56.
The state’s extensive water system supplies cities and farms;
prevents pollution of lakes, rivers, and coastlines; protects
against floods; and supports freshwater ecosystems and the
forested headwaters that are a major source of water supply.
Many local, state, and federal agencies oversee this system and
raise revenues from a variety of sources. California spends
about $37 billion annually, with the lion’s share (84%) coming
from local water bills and taxes. The balance comes from state
(13%) and federal (3%) contributions.
Every time I write about water, I get a similar email from
different folks. It argues that if we can build pipelines to
move oil, we should be able to capture and pipe enough
floodwater from the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Snake or
(insert your river here) to resolve shortages on the Colorado
River. I appreciate the big thinking. But I wish we could move
past this idea. Because we’ve studied this before, in multiple
iterations. Each solution has been projected to cost multiple
billions of dollars. Most would not produce enough water to fix
our problems. And trust me, someone’s going to fight several
hundred miles of pipe being laid across their land to make this
happen. -Written by Joanna Allhands, an Arizona Republic
columnist.
On the federal government’s drought map, the hardest-hit areas
— the driest of the dry — are shaded in crimson red. Looking at
the current map, the coloring makes it appear that someone
plunged a knife into Southern Nevada, and blood flowed to
portions of California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and even
Texas. One glance at this map and any reasonable person would
understand that the region needs to take its water conservation
efforts up several notches.
Demand for solar power is growing. And recent research suggests
that people should consider installing solar panels not only on
fields and rooftops, but above waterways as well. Brandi McKuin
of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says canopies of
solar panels can be installed over canals. The approach would
generate clean energy, and by shading the water, reduce
evaporation. Her research estimates that covering California’s
4,000 miles of open canals with solar panels could save about
65 billion gallons of water a year.
In just a few weeks, California’s water conditions have gone
from bad to terrible. Sacramento residents have been asked to
cut water usage 10%. Their counterparts on the Russian River
are being told to reduce their consumption 20%. Farmers across
the Central Valley are letting fields lie fallow and
dismantling their orchards. Government agencies are warning of
massive fish kills on the Sacramento River. After
a warm spring dried up practically the entire Sierra
Nevada snowpack — and robbed California of enough water to fill
most of Folsom Lake — state and federal officials have been
forced to dramatically ramp up their drought response plans.
A new local district aimed at combating the effects of sea
level rise and flooding is making waves this year starting with
a series of public meetings as it works to define its budget
and priorities. The San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise
Resiliency District, known as OneShoreline, was founded in
early 2020 by the California Legislature to work to prevent and
to address the effects of flooding and sea level rise
throughout the county and on its shores, both on the Bayside
and the Coastside.
A crippling drought — largely connected to climate change — is
gripping the Western United States, affecting over 70 million
people and around 40% of the U.S. … Farmers,
scientists, tribal officials, foresters and other groups
affected by the worsening drought testified at a House Natural
Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife hearing on
Tuesday, asking lawmakers for both short-term relief and
long-term solutions from the worsening conditions.
Passing President Biden’s infrastructure bill would be the most
significant step we’ve taken as a nation to start to address
climate change head on. Greenbelt Alliance believes this
infrastructure bill is a great start. Yet, so far there is no
path to guide how we can equitably shift away from rebuilding
in the most climate-vulnerable areas and instead build for a
more resilient future. That’s why we’re recommending this
infrastructure bill and related actions adopt these three
principles as a simple yet transformational way forward… -Written by Amanda Brown-Stevens, the San
Francisco-based Greenbelt Alliance.
Poplar is one of hundreds of small community water systems in
the central San Joaquin Valley facing severe challenges in the
task of providing residents with safe and reliable drinking
water, particularly during drought. Some 360,000 people are at
risk, according to a drought-risk analysis by DWR. Water
systems were caught off guard in the last drought, leaving tens
of thousands of people at risk of imminent water shortages.
Because Bay Area low-lying sewage treatment plants remain
vulnerable to rising sea levels, government regulators told
sewage facility managers to “provide a written plan for coping
with SLR by the fall of 2021 – or they will be given a
plan.” The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit reached out to
10 “at risk” sewage treatment plants to see those
plans. All except one provided extensive documents of
their proposals, the cost to address them, and even provided
tours of completed work. San Francisco’s Public Utilities
Commission replied to the Investigative Unit’s public records
request that after a “diligent search for records…no records
were found.”
The Crescent City Council is moving forward with a study on
water and sewer rates, which may result in increased rates for
residents. After receiving a grant from the California State
Water Resources Control Board totaling about $80,000, the city
is pressing on with the overdue rate studies. Typically, rate
studies for water and sewer are completed every five years,
however, the last water rate study came in 2013 and the last
update to wastewater came in 2015, said City Manager Eric Wier.
Wier said these projects are the first-step in maintaining the
overall health of both systems.
California is dry. Bay Area counties have declared drought
emergencies and imposed restrictions. State and federal
officials are trucking baby salmon to the ocean. But San
Franciscans are still using their primary water source, the
Tuolumne River, which feeds the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in
Yosemite National Park. Last week, City Attorney Dennis Herrera
— who Mayor London Breed recently tapped to head San
Francisco’s water agency — filed a lawsuit challenging the
state’s efforts to protect salmon and the overall health of the
river. -Written by Robyn Purchia, an environmental
attorney, environmental blogger and environmental
activist.
In Watsonville, there are big developments for flood prevention
efforts along the Pajaro River. On Monday, local, state
and federal representatives signed a design agreement for the
river levee to prevent flooding for homes and farms. Overall
it’s a $400 million project designed to tame the constant
threat of flooding brought on by heavy rainfall.
Twenty years after a shut-off of most irrigation water in the
parched Klamath Project brought the competing needs of farmers,
fishermen and tribes to a head, a new drought — and a fresh
federally-ordered water shut-off — is triggering a sense
of déjà vu. Now, two Klamath Project irrigators with
ties to radical activist Ammon Bundy have purchased private
property located next to the headgates of the “A” Canal in
Klamath Falls, which would normally deliver water to area
farms. And along with local members of the Oregon chapter of
People’s Rights, a group founded by Bundy in 2020, they’ve set
up an information center and gathering place to talk to the
public about the brewing water crisis in the Klamath Basin.
Infrastructure is rightly enjoying its spot in the national
limelight these days, with the Biden Administration busily
unveiling its plans. However, being well intentioned is as
important as being pragmatic. After all, the warning signs have
been there for all to see when it comes to lack of investment
in infrastructure—impacting communities from Los Gatos to
Washington, D.C. -Written by Andy Gere, president and chief
operating officer of San Jose Water.
The Arizona Legislature wants to look into the feasibility of
pumping water from the Mississippi River to Arizona. But the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has already studied the idea, and
weighed in on the project in 2012. The agency studied factors
such as cost, legal issues, power use and the amount of time
the project would take. A report estimated the project could
cost up to $14 billion; the timetable was around 30
years.
Governor Newsom’s recent emergency declaration confirms what
California’s agriculture industry has known for months. Drought
has returned to California, in what has become a recurring
theme of growing food in our state. Farmers and ranchers accept
the risks that come with their way of life and have fought hard
to be productive in one of the most heavily regulated
industries in the state. Agriculture continues to adapt to meet
evolving challenges and now more than ever consumers need to
buy California grown produce. -Written by Ian LeMay, president of the California
Fresh Fruit Association.
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off
irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said
they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or
to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of
migrating birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the
worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the
main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath
Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old
irrigation system.
The city of Escondido is moving forward with plans to replace
the Lake Wohlford dam, a structure built of earth and rock that
has stood at its present location since 1895. Lake
Wohlford is about 5 miles northeast of downtown Escondido, just
beyond city limits in the unincorporated area of San Diego
County, and the dam is owned by the city. The lake has long
served the city both as a recreational asset for boaters and
fishing enthusiasts and as an emergency storage reservoir to
supply drinking water in case of a drought.
When hackers penetrated a small water utility in North Carolina
three years ago that debilitated its IT systems, operators
there refused to “bow” to hackers and fork over ransom money to
make the assault stop. That 2018 cyberattack was part of what
experts say is a fast-growing and evolving threat in the water
sector and a glaring example of the type of attack — ransomware
— that earlier this month shut down the East Coast’s largest
fuel supplier, the Colonial pipeline… EPA is in the
process of collecting data from water utilities on their
cyberdefenses to assess hacking risks.
California’s Governor Newsom recently declared a drought
emergency throughout much of California and announced over $5
billion in new water program investments. These twin
emergency and funding announcements are a classic “bad-news
creates good news story” (and potentially vice versa) for
California’s water problems. They are opportunities for
innovation and making long-term improvements for California’s
water problems. They also can reward and entrench less
effective programs and approaches.
[On May 20, 2021] Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael)
reintroduced his FUTURE Western Water Infrastructure and
Drought Resiliency Act (FUTURE Act), an ambitious water
infrastructure proposal that is the culmination of months of
public vetting and legislative development. This bill would
develop more resilient water infrastructure, expand the use of
modern water management tools and technologies, and assist
underserved areas in meeting their drinking water needs.
The seven members of the Board of Directors led a Valley Water
delegation in a series of successful virtual meetings with
federal leaders on April 19-21 to advocate for Santa Clara
County’s priorities. The Valley Water group focused on federal
funding, water supply and flood protection projects in Santa
Clara County with members of the Presidential Administration
and Congress. Among the priorities discussed were the Anderson
Dam Seismic Retrofit Project and the South San Francisco Bay
Shoreline Project.
When Sierra snow seeps into the ground or evaporates before it
can flow downstream into reservoirs, you know California is
facing a severe drought. It’s happening this spring up and down
the mountain range that is a primary water source for the
state. Water from snowmelt that hydrologists had expected only
a few weeks ago to replenish foothill reservoirs is vanishing.
It’s being absorbed by the parched soil or dissipating into the
thin mountain air. -Written by George Skelton, a Los Angeles Times
columnist.
The infrastructure Californians rely on to move water
throughout the state is aging, deteriorating and in desperate
need of repair. The cost of doing nothing will be borne by all
water users — cities, towns, businesses, farms and the
environment. However, the negative impacts from further neglect
will land disproportionately on already disadvantaged
communities. -Written by Ian LeMay, president of the
California Fresh Fruit Association.
In the Bay Area, most people get their water from big utilities
that have lots of water, even during a drought. Your tap is not
at risk of running dry…. The most severe water challenges
will be in rural communities outside the Bay Area, where many
depend on wells.
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.
The California Water Commission is in the process of completing
the task assigned to them in the Water Resilience Portfolio of
examining the state’s role in funding conveyance
projects. At the April meeting, the last two speakers on
the panel discussed governance issues and collaboration.
First, Sharon Farrell … discussed how to build and sustain
integrated regional networks and how they can help advance
state priorities, such as resilient conveyance and water
management.
As more of California sinks into extreme drought, Gov. Gavin
Newsom has asked the Legislature to appropriate billions of
dollars to address critical water needs. In the “May revise”—an
update to the budget proposal he initially submitted to the
Legislature in January—Newsom proposes to spend nearly $3.5
billion on water supply and resilience projects, with total
investment reaching $5.1 billion over multiple years.
With the driest year in memory, the water resources managers
and landowners in the Sacramento Valley are working hard to
serve multiple benefits throughout the region with limited
water supplies. This has required all hands-on deck and
creative management within the region as all surface water
supplies have been significantly reduced, with hundreds of
thousands of farmland acres idled throughout the region, urban
suppliers working with their citizens to implement various
conservation measures to reduce water use and there will
undoubtedly be challenges for domestic groundwater wells.
Beginning next week, the Bureau of Reclamation plans to reduce
overnight releases from Davis Dam on selected dates in an
attempt to decrease the local caddisfly population – following
a request from the cities of Laughlin, Nevada and Bullhead
City, Arizona. The reduced flows along the river reach below
Davis Dam will help with an ongoing pest abatement study being
conducted by the downstream communities to combat this nuisance
species that negatively impacts businesses and visitors to the
area.
Today, modern Peruvians are redeploying that ancient knowledge
and protecting natural ecosystems such as high-altitude
wetlands to help the country adapt to climate change. It’s one
of the world’s first efforts to integrate nature into water
management on a national scale. … Several years ago,
desperate for water security, the country’s leaders did
something radical: they passed a series of national laws
requiring water utilities to invest a percentage of their
customers’ bills in “natural infrastructure”.
In the latest chapter of California’s unfolding drought, state
officials are planning to build a giant rock wall across a
river in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to save the
vital freshwater estuary from San Francisco Bay’s saltwater.
The emergency measure is a page from last decade’s drought when
the delta, a maze of sloughs and man-made channels east of the
Bay Area, was at risk of becoming too salty to provide water to
the nearly 30 million Californians who depend on it. As in
2015, the freshwater rivers that feed the 1,100-square-mile
delta have gotten so low that they no longer counter the
brackish flows that push in from the bay.
A growing number of drought stricken California farmers are
making the painful decision not to plant as much or anything at
all for fear of losing it all. It costs a lot of money to put
seeds or seedlings into the ground. But if a farmer cannot be
reasonably sure of a crop, why do it?
Even as California moves toward a full reopening from pandemic
restrictions next month, many counties are still in danger.
From drought. Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended
emergency drought orders to 41 counties across the state. …
All eyes are on a critical resource that can help fight
the effects of another dry summer: water.
Facing extended drought, diminishing snowpack, and depleted
aquifers, California water managers face a harsh reality: our
20th century water systems – essentially linear designs in
which fresh water is extracted, centrally treated, distributed
to users, returned as wastewater, and finally treated and
discarded – are breaking down. Although this approach has
served us well for decades, we can no longer sustain ourselves
with a paradigm that uses water once and throws it away. -Written by Peter Fiske, a scientist at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and executive director of
the Department of Energy’s National Alliance for Water
Innovation.
Last week, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA)
held their spring conference virtually. Keynote speakers
included Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of Natural Resources, and
Karla Nemeth, Director of the Department of Water
Resources. In his speech, [Crowfoot] discussed the Newsom
Administration’s priorities, calling this the ‘decade of
resilience’, and giving three principles for going
forward. He also discussed the Voluntary
Agreements. Director Karla Nemeth gave the Thursday
morning keynote speech, touching on the Department’s response
to drought, SGMA implementation, the Delta Conveyance Project,
and the water use efficiency regulations.
Arizona’s drought has lawmakers looking into drawing water from
the Mississippi River to be used here in the desert. “This kind
of project would be looking 20 years down the road,” said
Republican Rep. Tim Dunn from Yuma. Dunn sponsored
House Concurrent Memorial 2004, which got bipartisan support in
the Arizona legislature, and urges Congress to study a plan for
a pipeline that would take water out of the Mississippi River
near Davenport, Iowa.
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors today approved a $2
million loan to the Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority to
complete the construction of a new levee near the Yuba
Goldfields that will bring a 200-year level of urban flood
protection to southern Yuba County. The 2.5-mile-long levee,
which will be fully complete in June, runs parallel to
Hammonton-Smartsville Road and extends to high ground near
Beale Air Force Base. The 200-year level of protection means
there is a 1-in-200 chance in any given year that a storm could
come along that is bigger than the levee is designed to handle.
The Shasta-Klamath Region organizes work around protecting
California source water and volcanic aquifers, working with
family farms to improve water management, and protecting legacy
fly-fishing waters like the McCloud River, Hat Creek, and Fall
River. In 2021, we are heavily invested in conservation
projects in the Shasta and Scott watersheds. These key Klamath
tributaries will be critical for recovering salmon populations
in the Mid-Klamath Basin after dam removal.
What was already forecasted to be a historically bleak water
year in the Klamath Project has quickly become a living
nightmare for farms and ranches fighting for survival in the
drought-stricken basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation shut
down the Project’s A Canal for the entire irrigation season May
12 in response to worsening conditions — allotting zero surface
water from Upper Klamath Lake for thirsty crops and livestock.
It is the first time in more than a century the A Canal will
deliver no water. Meanwhile, irrigators are left to wonder how
they will pay the bills as fields turn to dust.
Severe drought — largely connected to climate change — is
ravaging … the entire Western half of the United States, from
the Pacific Coast, across the Great Basin and desert Southwest,
and up through the Rockies to the Northern Plains. In
California, wells are drying up, forcing some homeowners to
drill new ones that are deeper and costlier. Lake Mead, on the
border of Arizona and Nevada, is so drained of Colorado River
water that the two states are facing the eventual possibility
of cuts in their supply.
