“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.
A group of senators has introduced the Support to Rehydrate the
Environment, Agriculture and Municipalities, or STREAM, Act.
The bill would increase water supply and modernize water
infrastructure throughout the West. The three senators, all
from states affected by the current drought, include Sens.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Kyrsten
Sinema (D-Ariz.). … Infrastructure improvements and
additions work toward a long-term solution. And it’s important
to think urgently, said the release.
The ground is sinking in parts of California as the continued
drought strains reservoirs, increasing reliance on the state’s
already precarious groundwater reserves depleted by years of
well-pumping. In just one year, from October 2020 to September
2021, satellite-based estimates showed entire towns in the
Central Valley, including in Kings and Tulare counties, sinking
by nearly a foot. The maximum loss recorded during that time
was 1.1 feet on the northwestern edge of Tulare
County. The sinking, known as land subsidence,
happens when excessive pumping dries out the water reserves
underground and collapses the space where water used to be.
Old environmental arguments over the consequences of nuclear
power had seemed almost resolved in California. Antinuclear
sentiment was intensified by the 33-year succession of
accidents, from Three Mile Island in 1978 to Chernobyl in 1986
to Fukushima in 2011, severely diminished their appeal.
California was getting ready to wave goodbye to its last
nuclear plant. Up Close We explore the issues, personalities,
and trends that people are talking about around the West. The
political realities of 2022 and the need to reduce carbon
emissions might change things.
California’s vast network of surface water reservoirs is
designed to hold carryover storage from year to year to ensure
water is available for urban, agricultural and environmental
purposes during dry months and years. But climate change has
begun to affect our reliance on historical weather patterns to
predict California’s water supply, making it even more
difficult for water managers to manage drought conditions and
placing a greater emphasis on better precipitation forecasting
at longer lead times. Learn about efforts being made to
‘get ahead of the storms’ through new science, models and
technology at our special one-day workshop June 9 in
Irvine, Making
Progress on Drought Management: Improvements in Seasonal
Precipitation Forecasting.
A few months ago, [Paul] Ashcraft and several of his neighbors
at the highest point in Unaweep Canyon saw a plan proposed by
Xcel Energy to build a hydro power plant that will help the
company reach its renewable energy goals. The plan put a
75-foot dam holding back the edge of an 88-acre reservoir in
Ashcraft’s front yard. The proposal also puts his neighbors’
homes and Colorado 141 underwater. The plan would move
water between a reservoir on BLM land on top of the cliffs and
a reservoir on private land on the valley floor.
The California Senate has proposed a $2 billion reconciliation
framework to rebalance water supply and water rights, as part
of proposed investments of $7.5 billion in state and federal
funds spread over three years for climate resiliency. It is the
most sweeping land retirement proposal since the landmark 1992
Central Valley Project Improvement Act.
Today, Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), who represents Solano
Country and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the 3rd
Congressional District, released the following statement on the
passage of the “Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2022”
(H.R.7776) in the House Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure: “The biennial Water Resources Development Act
strengthens flood protection, water resources, precious
ecosystems, and more in communities across California and the
nation”…
As drought and climate change tighten their grip on the
American West, the sight of fountains, swimming pools, gardens
and golf courses in cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los
Angeles, Salt Lake City, Boise, and Albuquerque can be jarring
at first glance. Western water experts, however, say they
aren’t necessarily cause for concern. Over the past three
decades, major Western cities — particularly in California and
Nevada — have diversified their water sources, boosted local
supplies through infrastructure investments and conservation,
and use water more efficiently.
Annette Morales Roe learned how to waterski off the north shore
of the Salton Sea in the 1960s. … Her family stopped visiting
in the early 1970s, around the same time scientists began
warning that the Salton Sea would shrink and become
inhospitable to wildlife without a sustainable water source.
… Now, Roe is certain that she knows how to fix the
problem — and has the team to do it. As managing partner
and chief strategy officer of Online Land Planning LLC,
she is advocating for a plan that would reroute recycled water
that’s currently flowing into the Pacific Ocean to the Salton
Sea …
New Melones Reservoir is the proverbial canary in the mine when
it comes to where state water policy wedded with the return of
megadroughts is taking California. Using historical hydrology
data on the Stanislaus River basin between 1922 and 2019:
*Based on current regulatory rules New Melones Reservoir would
fall below 250,000 acre feet of storage in 3 out of the 98
years. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, editor of The Manteca
Bulletin.
This month’s Reader Photo Challenge assignment was “bridges.”
Being situated in the California Delta, Central Valley
residents know all too well the importance of bridges. Without
them communities would be stranded from each other and cities
would be split into sections by the network of rivers,
canals and sloughs that are ubiquitous to the area. Bridges
help to connect us to our neighbors and to each other. Eight
readers sent in 31 photos. Here are some of the best examples.
When California suffers a heat wave, it leans heavily on
hydropower from the Pacific Northwest to keep the lights on.
But that hydropower may not always be available when it’s most
needed, as climate change is shifting the ground on which the
West’s dams sit. Higher temperatures means snowmelt occurs
earlier in the year and leaves less water available for power
generation during the depths of summer.
California needs more water and renewable energy, and Solar
AquaGrid CEO Jordan Harris is trying to help. … A big
idea is starting with a small stretch of canals in
the Turlock Irrigation District, located just south of
Modesto. This fall, groundbreaking will begin on a pilot
project to build solar panel canopies over existing canals.
… A study from UC Merced concluded that shading all
of the roughly 4,000 miles of California canals with solar
panels could save 63 billion gallons of water every year by
reducing evaporation, while potentially creating about one
sixth of the state’s current power capacity.
From tattoo parlors to senior housing, and ethnic-food vendors
to world-famous record shops, it’s been said that if you can’t
find what you’re looking for on San Pablo Avenue, then it
doesn’t exist. And now, the busy thoroughfare, which runs
north-south through the heart of the East Bay, is also a
testbed for a distributed network of rain gardens. The project,
known as the San Pablo Avenue Green Stormwater “SPINE”, began
nearly ten years ago (the caps are used for emphasis, not as an
acronym). In the fall of 2012, the U.S. EPA issued a $307,000
portion of a larger green-infrastructure grant for the design
of seven garden sites in seven different cities.
Despite two board members expressing doubts that a new spending
measure would be approved by voters, the Mendocino County Board
of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with a
possible sales tax ordinance to fund projects protecting local
water supply and boosting local fire services.
The central and upper Midwest, Texas and Southern California
face an increased risk of power outages this summer from
extreme heat, wildfires and extended drought, the nation’s grid
monitor warned yesterday. In a dire new assessment, the North
American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) described regions of
the country pushed closer than ever toward energy emergencies
by a combination of climate change impacts and a transition
from traditional fossil fuel generators to carbon-free
renewable power.
As the drought deepens and an election nears, Gov. Gavin Newsom
is taking extra steps to increase pressure—and
responsibility—on the Water Commission for the Sites Reservoir
Project proposal. During a Senate budget subcommittee
hearing on Tuesday, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot
said the governor has tasked him with ensuring the commission
“isn’t slowing down the progress of getting those [Proposition
1] projects online.” Newsom also charged Crowfoot with finding
ways to remove regulatory barriers and accelerate the approval
process for those projects.
Petaluma, one of the driest corners of Sonoma County during the
past two years of drought, is making a multimillion-dollar
advance into recycled water. Operator of a wastewater
treatment plant that serves about 65,000 people and treats
about 5 million gallons of effluent a day, Petaluma is seeking
grants for four projects with a total cost of $42
million. Six other North Bay agencies — including Sonoma
Water and the Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District — are
proposing a dozen projects totaling $41.2 million, bringing the
total to $83.2 million, as Gov. Gavin Newsom is backing water
reuse as an antidote to drought.
Blue states, green groups and tribes that are challenging a
Trump-era Clean Water Act rule are trying an unusual procedural
move that could allow them to restart their case in federal
district court and bypass an appeal that’s currently underway
in the Ninth Circuit. The coalition is suing the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to overturn a 2020 rule that
restricted states’ and tribes’ authority to deny permits for
projects such as pipelines under section 401 of the Clean Water
Act.
More reservoirs across Utah may run dry and the Great Salt Lake
will continue to decline, state officials warned lawmakers on
Wednesday. During a briefing before the Utah State
Legislature’s Natural Resources Interim Committee, lawmakers
were told that 99% of Utah remains in severe or extreme
drought…. A legislative commission [is] requesting a
study on the idea of a pipeline to take water from the Pacific
Ocean across California and Nevada into the Great Salt Lake.
The organization responsible for North American electric
reliability warned energy shortfalls were possible this summer
in California, Texas and the U.S. Midwest where extreme heat
from a severe drought could cause power plants to fail.
Most people have never heard of Sites, California. It’s just a
tiny dot on maps, little more than an intersection in the road
on the remote west side of rural Colusa County in Northern
California. But the surrounding Antelope Valley, where
wildflowers bloom and cattle graze on spring grasses, is one of
the next battlegrounds in California’s water wars. Under plans
endorsed by state, federal and local officials, the valley
would be flooded by the Sites Reservoir, a 14,000-acre lake
that would take in water pumped from the Sacramento River and
store it for agricultural and municipal use during dry periods.
Even as President Biden’s signature climate change bill
languishes in the Senate, Congress is poised to spend billions
of dollars on ambitious new projects that would help the U.S.
adapt to climate change. A bill that would authorize the Army
Corps of Engineers to build infrastructure to protect against
climate impacts is quietly sailing through Congress,
demonstrating bipartisan support for measures to protect
against flooding and sea-level rise. … The bill also
allows the Corps to undertake drought response efforts in the
West …
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and
Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) yesterday introduced S.4231, the
Support to Rehydrate the Environment, Agriculture and
Municipalities Act or STREAM Act, a bill that would increase
water supply and modernize water infrastructure in California
and throughout the West.
As the Western United States endures an ongoing megadrought
that has spanned more than two decades, an increasing number of
cities, towns and water districts are being forced to say no to
new growth. There’s just not enough water to go around. Last
month, the California Coastal Commission urged San Luis Obispo
County to stop all new development requiring water use in the
communities of Los Osos and Cambria.
When it comes to finding innovative solutions to drinking water
problems, the tiny community of Allensworth in Tulare county
has long been on the front lines. This spring, community began
testing a new technology that would “jolt” arsenic out of its
groundwater. And since 2021, Allensworth has also been home to
another new technology that “makes” water out of thin air. Both
technologies are currently being field-tested in Allensworth.
If successful, they could become viable paths to clean water
for residents of Allensworth and other small, rural San Joaquin
Valley communities …
A legislative commission is floating the idea of a pipeline to
bring water from the Pacific Ocean into the Great Salt Lake.
“There’s a lot of water in the ocean and we have very little in
the Great Salt Lake,” said Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville,
who co-chairs the Legislative Water Development Commission.
… The study would look at the cost to actually create a
pipeline from the Pacific Ocean, across California and the
Sierra-Nevada mountains, across the deserts of Nevada and
ultimately into the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
The Interior Department is doling out more than $240 million
for repairs to aging water infrastructure in the drought-ridden
West, one of the first investments with ramifications for
agriculture in the $1.5 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
enacted last year.
The Bureau of Reclamation selected 22 projects to share $17.3
million in WaterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grants. These
competitive projects improve water use efficiency, increase
renewable energy production, reduce the risk of water
conflicts, and provide other benefits that will enhance water
supply sustainability in the Western United States…. The Bard
Water District, located in southern California near the Arizona
border, will line a 1/2 mile section of the currently
earthen upper Mohave Canal with concrete….
Mark your calendars now for our upcoming fall 2022
tours exploring California’s two largest rivers – the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers! On our
Northern
California Tour, Oct. 12-14, participants
can learn about key reservoirs and infrastructure that
transports vital water resources statewide.
Our San Joaquin River Restoration Tour
Nov. 2-3 returns this year to tell the
story of bringing back a river’s chinook salmon while
balancing water supply needs. Registration is
coming soon!
If there’s one thing people in the West know how to fight over,
it’s water. California was built on scarcity, whether it
be gold or silver, land or water. In the mid-1800s, when
European Americans arrived to the land where Indigenous people
had lived for at least 10,000 years, they wasted no time
staking their claims. A big head-scratcher for those early
colonizers was how to get water to sustain burgeoning
towns.
Jamie Traynham has spent nearly half a century in and around
the lush Northern California valley, about 70 miles north of
Sacramento, that is home to her family’s ranch. As a girl, she
and her sister rode their horses through Sites Valley, and
helped build the barn stalls where they raised livestock to
show in local 4-H competitions. As an adult, Traynham and her
husband rent the ranch from her mother and use the land —
typically a sea of green in the rainy season — as a key
winter-feeding location for their cattle.
Five months after 8.5 million gallons of raw sewage spilled
from a ruptured mainline in Carson, an independent engineer’s
report has pinpointed its cause and offered practical advice
for the county agency responsible. … The rupture was
primarily caused, the report said, by corrosion of both a
48-inch diameter, 1960s-era concrete pipe and a sewer cover at
the intersection of 212th Street and South Lynton Avenue.
… Another contributing factor in the failure, the report
said, was a rain event on Dec. 30.
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his revised state budget for the
2022-’23 Fiscal Year. The $300.7 billion budget includes
several priorities of interest to ACWA members, including
funding for drought, climate change, forest management and
more. Building upon last year’s three-year, $5.2 billion
allocation to support drought response and long-term water
sustainability, the governor’s revised budget includes an
additional $2 billion for drought response and water
resilience. This is part of the governor’s larger $47.1 billion
climate package.
The 1972 Clean Water Act established federal authority over the
“waters of the United States.” Congress did not offer further
explanation of what was covered under that term, but the two
federal agencies given authority by the Clean Water Act
asserted broad power. The federal Environmental Protection
Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers required farmers,
homeowners, commercial and industrial concerns and developers
to obtain permits before digging a ditch for water run-off,
shoring up existing erosion protection structures, or draining
swampy land. -Written by columnist Tom Campbell.
Mayor Todd Gloria Thursday highlighted infrastructure funding
in his proposed $4.89 billion budget for the city’s 2023 fiscal
year, including major investments in water, sewer and
stormwater infrastructure…. A total of $349 million of the
$808.9 million capital improvements program is earmarked for
Phase 1 of Pure Water — the water recycling program touted by
the city as being able to supply nearly half of San Diego’s
drinking water by 2035 while cutting in half the amount of
treated sewage discharged into the ocean.
Water policy in the Western U.S. has always been a contentious
issue. Changes in water management, however, are slowly
happening. For example, an increasing number of dams are being
deconstructed where environmental, safety, and
Indigenous-cultural impacts outweigh the benefits of
hydropower, flood control, irrigation, or recreation…. More
recently, the issues of water wastage and flood control from
dam removal are being offset by allowing rivers to return to
more natural flow patterns.
Sea levels in San Francisco Bay have risen nearly 8 inches in
the last 100 years and continue to rise. The sea level in this
area could rise as much as 3 feet over the next 50 years, and
this project will help protect future generations. In December
2021, Valley Water and its partners broke ground on the first
portion of the South San Francisco Bay Shoreline Phase 1
Project. … Once completed, this project will help reduce
coastal flood risk for about 5,500 residents, commuters and
businesses within the vicinity of Alviso and North San José.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $441
million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA)
loan to the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (Sanitation
Districts) to support the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant
Effluent Outfall Tunnel Project (“Clearwater Project”). With
this WIFIA loan, EPA is helping modernize infrastructure while
creating local jobs in Los Angeles County.
Siding with public agencies and environmental groups who filed
numerous legal challenges to the “twin tunnel” Delta conveyance
project known as California WaterFix, the Third District Court
of Appeal today unanimously held that the trial court
improperly denied the appellants’ attorneys’ fees motions when
it ruled that their legal challenges were not a “catalyst” for
the State’s 2019 decision to rescind the WaterFix project
approvals and decertify the project environmental impact report
(EIR).
Construction recently began on a well designed to inject water
back into the groundwater basin beneath Long Beach. The
groundbreaking last week took place at the Water Replenishment
District’s advanced water treatment facility, on the
southeastern border of Long Beach, next to the San Gabriel
River. The plant further treats sewer effluent from the Los
Angeles County Sanitation District to create purified recycled
water. Recycled water already is used for irrigation and in
other wells to form a barrier against salt water so it won’t
get into the ground water basin.
The electricity generated [at Flaming Gorge Dam], in northern
Utah near the Wyoming state line, helps keep the lights on
across 10 states. It’s made possible by a dam that interrupts
the Green River, which meanders into the Colorado River at Lake
Powell hundreds of miles downstream before flowing southwest to
Lake Mead — meaning as an Angeleno, I’ve been drinking this
water my whole life. … The Biden
administration said this month it would release an
extra 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir
over the next year, as part of a desperate effort to stop
Powell from falling so low that Glen Canyon Dam can no longer
generate power.
After California saw extended periods of
dry weather in the middle of winter, a series of
late-season storms swept the Golden State in April and May,
dusting the Sierra Nevada with fresh snow. Did those
spring snow showers help bolster the dwindling snowpack that
historically provides about a third of the state’s water
supply? The short answer is that every little bit helps,
but the snow did not come close to making up for almost no
precipitation in January through March …
Facing a third year of drought, leadership from county Farm
Bureaus, spanning all regions of California, gathered in
Sacramento last week to engage with state water officials about
all things water. A changing climate, shrinking snowpack, water
rights, aging infrastructure, groundwater regulations and
solutions to the state’s water crisis were among the topics
discussed at the California Farm Bureau Water Forum. The event
brought together state water officials and county Farm Bureau
leaders from the Mountain, North Coast, Central Valley, Central
Coast and Southern California regions.
The Delta is crucial because, if it ever failed as a hub, the
resulting water crisis in California would increase existing
tensions with the Colorado’s other parched dependents. … The
Delta’s problems are as dire, but they receive far less public
attention. The main threat to the Delta is saltwater
intrusion. If an earthquake caused a major levee failure, the
sunken islands would flood, drawing salt water from the Pacific
into waterways that are now kept fresh by the pressure of
inflows from the Sacramento.
In October, and then again in December 2021, as the third
severe drought this century was entering its third year,
not one but two atmospheric rivers struck California.
Dumping torrents of rain with historic intensity,
from just these two storm systems over 100 million acre feet of
water poured out of the skies, into the rivers, and out to sea.
Almost none of it was captured by reservoirs or diverted into
aquifers. Since December, not one big storm has hit the state.
After a completely dry winter, a few minor storms in April and
May were too little too late. -Written by Edward Ring, a contributing editor
and senior fellow with the California Policy Center.
Central California lawmakers, growers and advocates are calling
on the state to invest in canal repairs that they say will help
improve water security. The call for funding comes as the state
experiences the third year of drought. SB 559, known as
the State Water Resiliency Act, aims to fix canals that deliver
water across Central California fully. Currently, $200 million
has been allocated in the 2021 and 2022 budgets. But the
bill’s author, State Senator Melissa Hurtado of Sanger, said
that funding would only cover limited repairs.
The Water Replenishment District (WRD) of Southern California
celebrated the groundbreaking of its Inland Injection Well
Project at the WRD Leo J. Vander Lans Advanced Water Treatment
Facility in the City of Long Beach. When the WRD Inland
Injection Well Project is complete, it will yield up to 2
million gallons of purified recycled water per day from the WRD
Leo J. Vander Lans Advanced Water Treatment Facility (LVL AWTF)
and inject it into the groundwater aquifers for storage and
future use.
Ventura has struck a 20-year deal with a Riverside County water
wholesaler that would save the city millions of dollars in
costs to maintain its rights to imported state water. Under the
agreement approved last month, the city would lease its share
of imported water to the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency in
Beaumont, an arrangement that would reap $1.1 million this
year and cover nearly half of the $2.27 million it will owe to
keep its state water entitlement. San Gorgonio would
increase its share of the costs starting next year.
State regulators have fined a Havasu Lake water company that
has failed to provide potable water to its customers for more
than a month and been accused of allowing its equipment to fall
into a state of disrepair. The California State Water Resources
Control Board issued the $1,500 fine on Friday, May 6, after
the Havasu Water Co. failed to meet state-imposed directives
and deadlines. The state has given a new list of directives and
deadlines for the water company to meet by May 20 or it could
face additional penalties. The Havasu Water Co.’s system has
fallen into a state of disrepair over the years …
Throughout the state, water agencies are telling Californians
that they must seriously curtail lawn watering and other water
uses. We can probably scrape through another dry year, but were
drought to persist, its impacts would likely be widespread and
permanent. … It didn’t have to be this way. We could
have built more storage to capture water during wet years, we
could have encouraged more conservation, we could have more
efficiently captured and treated wastewater for re-use and we
could have embraced desalination. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters
columnist.
Southern California desert water districts with aging or
failing infrastructure won big federal
funding Monday, with more than $100 million allocated for
major dam and irrigation canal upgrades that will
benefit the Coachella Valley and Imperial County. The
projects are part of $240 million awarded from Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law funds by the U.S. Department of the
Interior on Monday. Among the biggest beneficiaries is the
Coachella Valley Water District, which will get $60
million for lateral replacement irrigation pipelines and
more for work on the Coachella Canal.
The rural hillside community of Devore has erupted in a dispute
pitting a tiny local water company against a group of residents
opposed to construction of a potential $7 million reservoir on
a board member’s property. At issue with some residents is a
99-year land lease agreement, ratified in July 2021, between
the Devore Water Co. and Doug Claflin, a member of the
company’s board of directors. It would allow the water company
to build a 610,000-gallon water tank on Claflin’s property
to treat nitrate-contaminated water by blending it with clean
water to reduce nitrate levels.
On Thursday, the Orange County Coastkeeper filed a complaint in
the Central District of California against Hixson Metal
Finishing, FPC Management, LLC and Reid Washbon alleging
violations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and Clean
Water Act. According to the complaint, the Orange County
Coastkeeper is a California nonprofit public benefit
corporation dedicated to the preservation, protection and
defense of the environment, wildlife and natural resources of
Orange County.
Aging subterranean infrastructure in Sacramento will get a
boost from $3.5 million in federal funding that will pay for
future underground reservoirs to harden parts of the combined
storm and sewage system within the city’s core. The funding was
celebrated Friday during a news conference in Land Park to
outline the project with Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and
city leaders including County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy and
City Councilman Rick Jennings.
Americans wondering whether a nearby dam could be dangerous can
look up the condition and hazard ratings of tens of thousands
of dams nationwide using an online database run by the federal
government. But they won’t find the condition of Hoover Dam,
which impounds one the nation’s largest reservoirs on the
border of Nevada and Arizona. Nor is there any condition listed
for California’s Oroville Dam, the country’s tallest, which
underwent a $1 billion makeover after its spillway failed.
Rising sea levels. Runoff from rapidly melting snow and ice.
Rivers and streams overflowing their banks. As climate change
continues to wreak havoc on the environmental norms humans
widely take for granted, the frequency and severity of extreme
weather has increased on a global scale. Floods, the most
common and fatal natural disasters in the U.S., continue to get
more destructive. Catastrophic flooding events once thought to
occur every 100 years could become annual happenings. And the
nation’s floodplains are projected to grow by roughly 45% by
the end of the century.
California likely will have an energy shortfall equivalent to
what it takes to power about 1.3 million homes when use is at
its peak during the hot and dry summer months, state officials
said Friday. Threats from drought, extreme heat and wildfires,
plus supply chain and regulatory issues hampering the solar
industry will create challenges for energy reliability this
summer, the officials said. … Large hydropower projects
generated nearly 14% of the state’s electricity in 2020,
according to the independent system operator.
For weeks, we’ve been seeing media reports regarding conditions
in the Colorado River Basin – specifically with
regard to our country’s largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and
Lake Mead, which have dropped to record low elevations. The
media have been reporting it accurately. -Written by Tom Buschatzke, director
of Arizona Department of Water Resources; and Ted
Cooke, general manager of Central Arizona
Project.
From its headwaters in the Sierra Nevada, the Feather River
flows some 3,600 feet downhill, where, in Oroville, it meets
the tallest dam in the nation. Its path shows exactly why
California geology is ideal for the production of hydropower.
It’s physics. The higher the mountains, the faster the water
falls. Hydropower dams capture this power and divert it through
spinning turbines in nearby powerhouses that activate
generators to produce electricity. But all this hydropower
comes at a cost.
[D]esalinization … draws in saltwater and, utilizing
reverse osmosis, purifies the water to a consumable standard.
Around the globe, countries have adopted desalinization as a
considerable part of their water portfolio. … California is
shockingly behind the curve when it comes to embracing the
practice. .. Rather than removing [Diablo Canyon Power
Plant] from the region, we should double down on
production and build an additional site to power a mega-sized
desalinization plant. -Written by Assemblymember Devon J. Mathis.
Constructed four generations ago, the massive rock and clay dam
at El Capitan Reservoir is capable of storing over 36 billion
gallons of water, enough to supply every resident in San Diego
for most of a year. Today, it’s three-quarters empty,
intentionally kept low because of concerns it could fail under
the strain of too much water. … Seismic instability and
a spillway in need of “significant repair” led El Capitan
to be added to a growing list of dams rated in poor condition
or worse that would likely cause deaths downstream if they
failed.
Over the past four decades, the Western U.S. has demanded more
water. And the landscapes — the valleys and mountains and
lakes — that make up the region’s arid ecosystems have borne
the impacts of increasing water needs in more ways than one.
It’s not only fast-growing cities, searching for faraway
supplies, that have affected these landscapes. The
atmosphere itself has become thirstier, using up, and
potentially evaporating, more water from the land beneath it.
Researchers describe this as increased evaporative demand …
The San Diego County Water Authority has been granted its first
ever utility patent for a device that inspects interior
sections of water pipelines that are inaccessible or not safe
to inspect without expensive specialized gear and training.
Water Authority Operations and Maintenance Manager Martin
Coghill invented the tool to save time, reduce costs and
improve safety during ongoing aqueduct inspections. The Water
Authority’s industry-leading Asset Management Program includes
a proactive search for pipeline weaknesses that can be
addressed before they become large and costly problems.
With water scarcity increasing around the globe, arid regions
are striving to develop more flexible and diversified water
supplies. For example, California’s 2020 Water Resilience
Portfolio Initiative recommends improving and expanding the
state’s conveyance and storage infrastructure as well as
developing groundwater banking and other means of more flexibly
sharing water. The success of such initiatives depends in large
part upon the ability of water providers to collaboratively
finance and build new infrastructure.
The ongoing drought conditions only continues to make matters
worse for Klamath irrigators and farmers. The Klamath
Irrigation District says the canals it operates and maintains,
haven’t seen water in over 18 months. Executive Director Gene
Souza, says that on March 1st it opened the valve for the A
Canal, a primary diversion point for Upper Klamath Lake. That
allowed water to go into the system very slowly.
Rolf Schmidt-Petersen knows what can happen when a water
shortage hits: Reservoirs shrink and tempers flare. “We
had people literally throwing rocks, tomatoes when Elephant
Butte went down,” recalled Schmidt-Petersen, director of the
New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission. He was talking about a
2003 deal to release water from a reservoir in southern New
Mexico and drop the lake by about 33 feet to assist farmers in
the state and neighboring Texas. … Decades later, the
2.2-million-acre-foot reservoir, part of the Rio Grande Basin,
contains only about 260,000 acre-feet of water, according to
the Bureau of Reclamation.
In the early 1900s, there was plenty of water to go around. But
there weren’t enough dams, canals or pipelines to store, move
or make use of it. Devastating floods in California and Arizona
spurred plans for building dams to hold back high river flows.
… Today the West faces conditions that [water law expert
Delph] Carpenter and his peers did not anticipate. In 1922,
Hoover imagined that the basin’s population, which totaled
about 457,000 in 1915, might quadruple in the future.
Today, the Colorado River supplies some 40 million
people – more than 20 times Hoover’s projection.
State water leaders begin the second day of a three-day
conference to address the drought and lack of water in
California. NBC Bay Area’s Laura Garcia spoke with the
executive director of the Association of California Water
Agencies about the issue.
Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman John Lee visited the
newly-completed Los Angeles Reservoir Ultraviolet Disinfection
Plant in Granada Hills on Monday, May 2, which the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power said will treat up to 650 million
gallons of water each day, more than enough to fill the Los
Angeles Memorial Coliseum twice. The new plant will be the last
stop in a complex water treatment processes. It is the second
ultraviolet facility in the network…
The cost to repair flood-damaged Stern Grove in San Francisco
ballooned to $20 million, according to a recent report from the
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — five times more
than the $4 million city officials initially estimated. The
concert venue’s hillside was washed out after an air release
valve failed during maintenance of a 54-inch diameter water
line last August.
A new estimated cost for the Advanced Water Purification
project, a system of recapturing sewage and transforming it to
drinkable water for about 500,000 East County residents,
escalated to about $850 million, an increase of more than $300
million above the estimate three years ago. Allen Carlisle,
general manager of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District,
revealed the number at a public forum held April 24 in Santee,
saying the project should begin construction this summer.
Congress will consider a bill finalizing a water rights
settlement for the Hualapai Tribe in Arizona. KNAU’s Melissa
Sevigny reports, it will resolve the tribe’s longstanding
claims to the Colorado, Bill Williams, and Verde rivers.
Arizona Representative Tom O’Halleran introduced the bill to a
House committee last week. It allows the Hualapai Tribe to
divert 3,414 acre feet of water from the Colorado River each
year. It also establishes a trust fund of $180 million to
construct a project to convey the water to the Hualapai
Reservation. A separate fund of $5 million will be set aside
for carrying out the terms of the agreement.
A divided Zone 7 Water Agency Board of Directors voted to
continue participating in the planning phase for the ambitious
and long-discussed Delta Conveyance Project, following
discussions about intricacies and concerns related to the
matter last month. The directors’ 5-2 vote on April 20 comes
with an a commitment of an additional $4.75 million in funding
by Zone 7 for environmental planning for the proposed project.
Has a seat on the sleepy Kings County Board of Supervisors
become a proxy fight for control of water flows in the southern
San Joaquin Valley? It sure looks that way as political
youngster Martín Chavez, a member of the Stratford Public
Utilities District, has received unprecedented financial
backing from Bay Area native and controversial water giant John
Vidovich and affiliates. Vidovich … is currently locked
in a fight with the Tulare Lake Canal Company over a water
pipeline that he is trying to construct in Kings County to
connect to a larger interconnected conveyance system.
We are screen to screen – the 21st century twist on
face-to-face interviews. Truth time: What led this UNLV
graduate all the way up to a post requiring an appointment by
the president of the United States and a confirmation by the
Senate? That’s a no-brainer, she said. Mermaids. Of
course.
Water officials believe the past three years could end up as
the driest in California’s history. State reservoir levels are
alarmingly low, and measurements of the Sierra Nevada snowpack
are “grim,” the state’s natural resources secretary tells
Lester Holt. The drought is impacting the water supply for
residents and farms, which supply critical crops for the
nation.
A plan to release an additional 500,000 acre-feet of water from
Flaming Gorge reservoir is welcome news to biologists
conducting research to recover four species of endangered fish
in the Colorado River Basin. … The extra water set to
come out of Flaming Gorge reservoir in Wyoming during the next
12 months is part of a 2022 Drought Response Operations Plan
agreed on last week by the Upper Basin states — Colorado,
Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. The water is intended to help
prop up low levels at Lake Powell.
Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, is drying
up. The situation is critical: If water levels at the lake were
to drop another 32 feet, all hydroelectricity production would
be halted at the reservoir’s Glen Canyon Dam. The West’s
climate change-induced water crisis is now triggering a
potential energy crisis for millions of people in the Southwest
who rely on the dam as a power source. Over the past several
years, the Glen Canyon Dam has lost about 16% of its capacity
to generate power. The water levels at Lake Powell have dropped
around 100 feet in the last three years.
As part of continuing efforts to maintain and invest in City of
San Diego infrastructure, repair work starts within the next
two weeks on Hodges Dam, at the Hodges Reservoir north of
Rancho Bernardo. … During a recent inspection, staff
identified areas in the dam wall that require repair and need
to be sealed. To access these areas, the water level of the
reservoir needs to be lowered by approximately 18 feet from its
current level to an elevation of 275 feet.
Stormwater infrastructure in cities is highly visible and
serves to mitigate flooding and reduce pollution that reaches
local waterbodies. Being so visible, it might be reasonable to
assume that stormwater is adequately funded both in
infrastructure and water quality management. Yet, stormwater
infrastructure and water quality improvement are notoriously
difficult to fund.
A colorful, widely visible, but graffiti-marred mural on a
flood-control dam near Corona that celebrated the nation’s
bicentennial no longer enjoys the protection of a court order.
But officials say a plan is in the works to replace the
patriotic image on Prado Dam, which was originally created with
toxic lead paint. The fate of the mural near the 91 and 71
freeways has been uncertain since the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, which controls the dam, announced plans to begin
removing the gigantic painting in spring 2015.
Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, about 40 miles north of
Los Angeles, one of the biggest dams in the country blew apart,
releasing a wall of water 20 stories high. Ten thousand people
lived downstream. The St. Francis Dam disaster not only
destroyed hundreds of lives and millions of dollars’ worth of
property; it also washed away the reputation of William
Mulholland, the father of modern Los Angeles, and jeopardized
larger plans to transform the West.
Some ideas are so satisfying that you wonder how they haven’t
been done before. Solar canals, which will get their first U.S.
pilot later this year in California, fit that mold. Western
states are crisscrossed by thousands of miles of irrigation
canals, some as wide as 150 feet, others just 10 feet across.
By covering those channels with solar panels, researchers say,
we could produce renewable energy without taking up precious
land. At the same time, the added shade could prevent billions
of gallons of water loss through evaporation.
Two bills authored by Democratic State Senator Melissa Hurtado,
who represents the 14th district that includes Porterville,
advanced in the Senate on Wednesday. SB 1219, Hurtado’s State
Water Resiliency and Modernization Act passed the Senate
Environmental Quality Committee. Hurtado’s bill to
prevent foreign purchases of agricultural property, SB 1064,
the Food and Farm Security Act also passed the Senate
Agricultural Committee 4-0.
Following the driest three-month stretch in the state’s
recorded history and with warmer months ahead, the Department
of Water Resources (DWR) announced its seventh round of grant
awards for local assistance through the Small Community Drought
Relief program. In coordination with the State Water Resources
Control Board, DWR has selected 17 projects … 14 will
directly support disadvantaged communities, including three
Tribes, and will replace aging infrastructure, increase water
storage, and improve drinking water quality and supply.
Justin Seidenfeld’s vineyard ran out of water last year. The
area of Petaluma where his Parliament Hills Vineyard is located
received just 4.5 inches of rain throughout 2021, not nearly
enough sustenance for his vines of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
… This year, however, Seidenfeld’s grapevines are
healthy and happy, with plenty of water to drink. It’s not
because of rainfall, but rather because of a newly constructed
pipeline bringing recycled water from Petaluma’s
water treatment plant to vineyards along Lakeville Highway.
Mark Puchalski is the director of facilities with the
Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. The nonprofit
is integrating a wide range of water-saving technologies into
its buildings, which serve low-income residents in San
Francisco. … “This building uses 50% less water, 51% to be
exact, less water than a building of comparable size and
community … ,” says Puchalski. … Their water
conservation model is so successful it’s being highlighted in a
new sustainability report by the nonprofits SPUR and the
Pacific Institute.
If the recent attacks on California’s landmark environmental
law sound tired, that’s because they are. Ever since the
California Environmental Quality Act went into effect in 1970,
there have been calls to tweak, reform or completely throw it
out. … In Napa, where hillside forests are being razed for
vineyards, CEQA was used to limit the size of a massive winery
conversion project to save as many carbon-sequestering trees as
possible. -Written by John Buse, senior counsel for the
Center for Biological Diversity.
For the first time in half a century, ocean-going fish will
soon be able to migrate up Alameda Creek to spawn, now that a
second fish ladder has been completed in the lower portion of
the creek in Fremont. Alameda County Water District and Alameda
County Flood Control District officials on Monday celebrated
the completion of the fish ladder, which was finished earlier
this month, according to Sharene Gonzales, a water district
spokesperson. The ladder, which consists of a series of
steadily elevating pools, allows migratory fish such as Chinook
salmon and threatened steelhead trout to get around human-made
barriers in the lower creek …
In the rolling hills around San Diego and its suburbs, the
rumble of bulldozers and the whine of power saws fill the air
as a slew of new homes and apartments rise up. The region is
booming, its population growing at a rate of about 1 percent a
year. This, in spite of the fact that Southern California,
along with much of the West, is in the midst of what experts
call a megadrought that some believe may not be a temporary,
one-off occurrence, but a recurring event or even a climate
change-driven permanent “aridification” of the West.
The Bureau of Reclamation today announced virtual public
negotiation sessions for a repayment contract with the
Truckee-Carson Irrigation District for extraordinary
maintenance on the Truckee Canal. The extraordinary maintenance
will restore safe long-term operation of the Truckee Canal and
includes lining 3.5 miles of the canal and improvements to two
check structures. The canal is owned by Reclamation as part of
the Newlands Project and operated and maintained by the
Truckee-Carson Irrigation District since 1926.
Miguel Rocha, P.E., was selected as the Bureau of Reclamation’s
chief of dam safety. Rocha will oversee the Dam Safety Program,
which evaluates existing dams for safety concerns and
implements proactive solutions for dams across Reclamation. In
this new role, Rocha oversees responsibility for Reclamation’s
360 high hazard potential dams. Failure or improper operation
of a high hazard potential dam could result in loss of life or
significant economic loss.
For the past 15 years, federal agencies have tried to subdue
growing populations of quagga mussels, an invasive species that
interferes with water infrastructure and threatens ecosystems.
Crews tried scrubbing the mollusks off equipment,
power washing them off boats and deploying chlorine and UV
lights to prevent them from settling in pipes. But the tiny
mussels have not only resisted all deterrents, they’ve clogged
cooling equipment, reduced water flow to hydropower and
even changed the water quality, making it less suitable for
native species.
The city council, Tuesday, April 19, approved amendment
agreement A-8332 with SPI (Separation Processes Inc) for the
Groundwater Desalter Improvement Project. THE approval executes
a first amendment to the agreement in the amount of $263,702
for a new contract not to exceed $1.064 million for additional
design work required for the groundwater desalter improvement
project. The deal also approves a $263,703 budget appropriation
transfer from the Water Appropriations to the Capital Water
Project.
Sea level rise is one of the many threats we face as Earth’s
climate changes. … The worry there is obvious for
coastal communities in California. But the sea-level rise is
something that could affect all Californians because of where
that rising seawater would end up: the Central Delta.
… The Delta’s complex network of waterways is home to a
diverse ecosystem. It also serves 750,000 acres of farmland
with fresh water. Drinking water is also sent through the Delta
to the State Water Project system in Southern California.
The Long Beach Water Commission may upgrade the city’s water
shortage level next week, which would bring with it new
restrictions on when residents can water
landscaping. Updating the city’s water shortage stage
comes as California heads toward its third straight year of
drought. The proposal to go to Stage 2, which would limit
landscape irrigation to two days per week year-round, would
take the city back to water conservation rules not seen since
June 2016.
When overlaid with data about flood and wildfire risk,
Headwaters’ analysis reveals areas with stark capacity
barriers, often exacerbated by historical injustices, as well
as high vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. … In
theory, the $47 billion the infrastructure bill designates for
climate resilience can help communities prepare for floods,
fires, storms and droughts. But Headwaters’ analysis suggests
that areas with low capacity might not submit requests in the
first place.
The Delta Science Program is excited to release the 2022-2026
Science Action Agenda (SAA). Developed by and for the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta science community, the 2022-2026
SAA builds on the progress of the 2017-2021 iteration to
prioritize and align science actions to meet management needs,
foster collaboration and coordination, and guide science
funding. It will serve as a roadmap for the allocation and
integration of investments through research, time, and
resources.
The Colorado River Basin is inching ever closer to “Day Zero,”
a term first used in Cape Town, South Africa when they
anticipated the day in 2018 that taps would run dry. Lakes
Powell and Mead, the Colorado River’s two enormous reservoirs,
were full in 2000, storing more than four years of the river’s
average annual flow. For more than two decades water users have
been sipping at that supply, watching them decline. Long-term
drought and climate change is making this issue potentially
catastrophic.
In a letter sent Friday, the seven states that use the Colorado
River agreed with the U.S. Department of Interior
and recommended that federal water managers take an
emergency action aimed at stabilizing a dwindling Lake Powell,
one of the main storage reservoirs on the river. Earlier
this month, federal water managers warned the states,
including Nevada, that they were considering an emergency
action to hold water back in Lake Powell, an attempt to
stabilize the reservoir at serious risk of losing the ability
to generate hydropower and deliver water to Page, Arizona, a
city with roughly 7,500 residents, and the LeChee Chapter of
the Navajo Nation.
It will be months before Thousand Oaks has full access to its
normal water supply, but the city is one step closer after
raising the roof last week. A 50-year-old reservoir, which held
3.4 million gallons, or roughly 10% of the city’s water storage
capacity, was examined last week for structural soundness.
While members of the city’s public works department await a
final analysis, public works Director Cliff Finley said things
look promising.
Unsafe uranium levels have been detected in more than 14,000
community water systems across the United States, and 63% of
water records reported at least a trace amount of the
contaminant, according to a new nationwide analysis.
Concentrations of uranium, along with arsenic, barium,
chromium, and selenium, were the highest in community water
systems that serve semiurban Latinx communities.
Valley Water is looking for ways to not only conserve but also
reclaim the precious crystal-clear liquid. In December, the
agency’s board of directors approved an agreement to work with
the city of Palo Alto to build an advanced water-purification
facility in Palo Alto. The 6.4-acre plant would be located at
the old Los Altos Regional Wastewater Plant at the eastern end
of San Antonio Road.
The idea of taking water from one community and giving it to
another has some basis in American history. In 1913, Los
Angeles opened an aqueduct to carry water from Owens Valley,
230 miles north of the city, to sustain its growth. …
[B]uilding a pipeline that spanned a significant stretch of the
country would be astronomically more difficult. The distance
between Albuquerque, for example, and the Mississippi River —
perhaps the closest hypothetical starting point for such a
pipeline — is about 1,000 miles, crossing at least three states
along the way.
As Gleason Beach’s last homes cling to the edge of the bluff,
Highway 1 itself is threatened at several other points along
Sonoma County’s 55-mile coastline. Now, after decades of
studies and debates, Gleason Beach has become the guinea pig
for California’s foray into a bold and controversial strategy:
to remove buildings and infrastructure from the coast and
relocate them farther inland. The $26 million project, headed
by Caltrans, involves moving nearly a mile of roadway several
hundred feet inland and erecting a new, 850-foot concrete
bridge.
Climate change is worsening the already significant threat of
flooding in California’s farm country, and state officials said
Thursday that as much as $30 billion may be needed over three
decades to protect the region, an increase from five years ago.
Every five years, flood protection plans are updated for the
Central Valley, where about 1.3 million people live at risk in
floodplains. State officials released a draft of the latest
update that calls for investing in levees, maintenance and
multi-benefit projects that recharge aquifers and support
wildlife while enhancing flood protection.
As part of a broader research effort to conserve California’s
scarce water resources, a $20-million pilot project in the
state will investigate the use of solar canals as a major
source of renewable energy. Known as Project Nexus, the
state-funded venture is expected to demonstrate how covering
canals with solar panels can reduce water delivery system costs
and generate enough electricity to meet ambitious clean power
goals.
California is immersed in a third year of drought, with
January, February and March of 2022 experiencing the lowest
precipitation on record. Weather whiplash of big storms
followed by dry spells makes every drop of rain, every flake of
snow, and every water molecule vital this year for families,
farms, the environment and the economy. But outdated
infrastructure and the orientation of the pumping facilities in
the south Delta limits our ability to capture available water
from storm events. The Delta Conveyance Project would help
resolve this limitation.
A multimillion-dollar construction project is almost done on a
massive water tank in Mission Trails Regional Park. Once
construction is complete, it will likely be forgotten because
no one will be able to see it. The San Diego County Water
Authority is wrapping up construction on its newest flow
regulatory structure on the western edge of the park. Work
began in earnest at the beginning of 2021 on the
five-million-gallon water tank and it’s expected to wrap up
next month.
The Nevada Irrigation District will begin managing the South
Yuba Canal and the Deer Creek Powerhouse this month. The
purchase technically helps NID diversify Nevada County’s energy
sources, but the district’s purchase of the powerhouse is
“ancillary more than anything” to the acquisition of the canal
itself, Hydroelectric Manager Keane Sommers said. The canal
services the residents of Grass Valley, Nevada City, their fire
hydrants, the air attack base and Sierra Nevada Memorial
Hospital — over 30,000 customers.
This Friday marks Earth Day. This year the drought and
dwindling water supplies top the list of environmental
challenges here in the southwest. Scientists remain at odds
over Gov. Doug Ducey’s plan to help solve Arizona’s water
issues by desalinating water from the Sea of Cortez. Ducey
unveiled the idea in his State of the State address earlier
this year. He proposed a $1 billion project to draw treated
water to Morelos Dam near Yuma, but the challenges to the idea
remain difficult to solve.
The controversial Kings County water pipeline saga pitting two
of the region’s largest water players has turned into a
campaign issue for Kings County elections. Water giant
Sandridge Partners, led by John Vidovich, began installing a
sprawling water pipeline system that would be part of a larger
interconnected conveyance system that will run from north of
Highway 198, west of Lemoore, to the Blakeley Canal, south of
Stratford.
Hundreds of millions of new federal dollars are headed to the
region to help fund the massive Natomas levee project.
President Joe Biden has signed legislation that includes $157
million for an existing project in the Natomas Basin, as well
as $17.9 million to begin construction in West Sacramento. In
addition, Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2023, the 12 month
period that begins Oct. 1, includes another $172 million for
the levee project and $79.7 million to help the West Sacramento
project.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
When you oversee the largest
supplier of treated water in the United States, you tend to think
big.
Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California for the last 15 years, has
focused on diversifying his agency’s water supply and building
security through investment. That means looking beyond MWD’s
borders to ensure the reliable delivery of water to two-thirds of
California’s population.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water
supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the
numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another
drought. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most
of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project
will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low
number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more
rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather
forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing. The National
Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley will be warm and
windy the next few days, with no rain in the forecast.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
New water storage is the holy grail
primarily for agricultural interests in California, and in 2014
the door to achieving long-held ambitions opened with the passage
of Proposition
1, which included $2.7 billion for the public benefits
portion of new reservoirs and groundwater storage projects. The
statute stipulated that the money is specifically for the
benefits that a new storage project would offer to the ecosystem,
water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
Get a unique view of the San Joaquin Valley’s key dams and
reservoirs that store and transport water on our March Central
Valley Tour.
Our Central Valley
Tour, March 14-16, offers a broad view of water issues
in the San Joaquin Valley. In addition to the farms, orchards,
critical habitat for threatened bird populations, flood bypasses
and a national wildlife refuge, we visit some of California’s
major water infrastructure projects.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water examines water
infrastructure – its costs and the quest to augment traditional
brick-and-mortar facilities with sleeker, “green” features.
Everywhere you look water infrastructure is working hard to keep
cities, farms and industry in the state running. From the massive
storage structures that dot the West to the aqueducts that convey
water hundreds of miles to large urban areas and the untold miles
of water mains and sewage lines under every city and town, the
semiarid West would not exist as it does without the hardware
that meets its water needs.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
It’s no secret that providing water in a state with the size and
climate of California costs money. The gamut of water-related
infrastructure – from reservoirs like Lake Oroville to the pumps
and pipes that deliver water to homes, businesses and farms –
incurs initial and ongoing expenses. Throw in a new spate of
possible mega-projects, such as those designed to rescue the
ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the dollar amount grows
exponentially to billion-dollar amounts that rival the entire
gross national product of a small country.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
financing of water infrastructure, both at the local level and
from the statewide perspective, and some of the factors that
influence how people receive their water, the price they pay for
it and how much they might have to pay in the future.
They are located in urban areas and in some of the most rural
parts of the state, but they have at least one thing in common:
they provide water service to a very small group of people. In a
state where water is managed and delivered by an organization as
large as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California,
most small water systems exist in obscurity – financed by
shoestring budgets and operated by personnel who wear many hats.
This issue of Western Water looks at water
infrastructure – from the large conveyance systems to the small
neighborhood providers – and the many challenges faced by water
agencies in their continuing mission of assuring a steady and
reliable supply for their customers.
Chances are that deep within the ground beneath you as you read
this is a vast network of infrastructure that is busy providing
the necessary services that enable life to proceed at the pace it
does in the 21st century. Electricity zips through cables to
power lights and computers while other conduits move infinite
amounts of information that light up computer screens and phone
lines.
This issue of Western Water explores the question of whether the
state needs more surface storage, with a particular focus on the
five proposed projects identified in the CALFED 2000 ROD and the
politics and funding issues of these projects.
