“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.
Set against the context of unprecedented demand for water
supply solutions, Brownstein and WestWater Research brought
together water industry and finance leaders for the second
annual Sustainable Water Investment Summit. The World Resources
Institute’s latest data helps articulate the scale of the
demand for water supply reliability, sustainability and
innovation: by 2050, an additional billion people will be
living in arid areas and regions with high water stress, and by
2050, around 46% of global GDP is expected to come
from areas facing high-water risk (up from 10% currently).
Given these realities, it’s unsurprising that diverse interests
are now converging to meet the challenges of ensuring a
resilient and accessible water future. Polls find that 63% of
global companies now undertake water-related risk assessments,
and 1,100 CEOs have annual performance reviews tied to results
around water goals.
The United States suffers the world’s second-highest toll from
major weather disasters, according to a new analysis — even
when numbers are adjusted for the country’s wealth. The report
released late last month by Zurich-based reinsurance giant
Swiss Re, which analyzed the vulnerability and damages of 36
different countries, suggests that weather disasters may become
a heavy drag on the U.S. economy — especially as insurers
increasingly pull out of hazardous areas. Those disasters are
driving up insurance rates, compounding inflation and adding to
Americans’ high cost of living. … Some insurers have
stopped offering home insurance policies in California, which
has seen numerous large wildfires in the past few years.
The Biden administration will be allocating more than $120
million to tribal governments to fight the impacts of climate
change, the Department of the Interior announced Thursday. The
funding is designed to help tribal nations adapt to climate
threats, including relocating infrastructure. Indigenous
peoples in the U.S. are among the communities most affected by
severe climate-related environmental threats, which have
already negatively impacted water resources, ecosystems and
traditional food sources in Native communities in every corner
of the U.S. “As these communities face the increasing
threat of rising seas, coastal erosion, storm surges, raging
wildfires and devastation from other extreme weather events,
our focus must be on bolstering climate resilience …”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of
Laguna, said in a Wednesday press briefing.
Gavin Newsom’s stealthy divide and conquer tactics are pushing
marginalized communities against each other in a war over
water. Newsom, his administration and State Water Contractors
are appropriating environmental justice language to sway public
opinion in Southern California about the Delta Conveyance
Project – also referred to as the Delta tunnel. They argue that
the Delta tunnel is essential for Southern California’s
disadvantaged communities, yet misrepresent the harm the
project continues to have on the tribal communities along
California’s major rivers and on communities in the Delta
watershed. Pitting disadvantaged communities from different
regions of the state against each other is a cynical strategy,
and is all the more egregious when considering it’s done in the
interest of serving only one sector of California’s economy
that these players have deemed all-important – special
interests in Southern California and portions of Silicon
Valley. -Written by Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director
of Restore the Delta.
The European Commission said on Wednesday it was taking Greece
to the EU’s top court for failing to revise its flood risk
management plans, a key tool for EU countries to prepare
themselves against floods. The action comes five months
after the worst rains in Greece flooded its fertile
Thessaly plain, devastating crops and livestock and raising
questions about the Mediterranean country’s ability to deal
with an increasingly erratic climate. Under EU rules,
countries need to update once in six years their flood
management plans, a set of measures aimed to help them mitigate
the risks of floods on human lives, the environment and
economic activities. Greece was formally notified by the
Commission last year that it should finalise its management
plans but the country has so far failed to review, adopt or
report its flood risk management plans, the Commission said in
a statement.
School-age children affected by the water crisis in Flint,
Mich., nearly a decade ago suffered significant and lasting
academic setbacks, according to a new study released Wednesday,
showing the disaster’s profound impact on a generation of
children. The study, published in Science Advances, found
that after the crisis, students faced a substantial decline in
math scores, losing the equivalent of five months of learning
progress that hadn’t recovered by 2019, according to Brian
Jacob, one of the study’s authors. The learning gap was
especially prevalent among younger students in third through
fifth grades and those of lower socioeconomic status. There was
also an 8 percent increase in the number of students with
special needs, especially among school-age boys.
As floodwaters receded from the streets of southeastern San
Diego on Jan. 22, two things began to happen. Several local
nonprofits — not trained in disaster response — set up a victim
assistance center at the Jackie Robinson Family YMCA. At the
same time, county and city officials had a series of extreme
miscommunications that delayed the opening of a government-run
assistance center within city limits for nearly two weeks,
according to letters obtained by Voice of San Diego.
Normally in the wake of a disaster, government officials open
what they call a Local Assistance Center near the disaster
site. These assistance centers connect survivors with
government and non-government resources. A survivor could get
anything from a new driver’s license to food or unemployment
benefits.
The California State Water Resources Control Board issued a
$6.6 million grant for a city of San Luis Obispo project
intended to clean up contaminated groundwater. Presently, the
city does not use groundwater for its drinking water supply.
SLO’s potable water supply comes from Whale Rock Reservoir,
Santa Margarita Lake and Nacimiento Reservoir. City
officials have sought to diversify the water supply in an
attempt to achieve “greater drought and climate change
resiliency.” Previously, contamination from
tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, served as a barrier to doing so.
PCE is a toxic chemical produced by dry cleaning and industrial
activities, which took place in the city decades ago. The
cleanup project will consist of the city building two new
groundwater supply wells that are expected to be fully
operation in 2026.
The Friant-Kern Canal was called out specifically as one of the
reasons the state should take over pumping in the Tule
groundwater subbasin in Tulare County. The recommendation was
contained in a recently released staff report to the Water
Resources Control Board. While the report stated groundwater
management plans covering the subbasin didn’t adequately
address subsidence and continued depletion of the aquifer and
degradation of water quality in general, it also noted the
significant harm to the Friant-Kern Canal, which brings water
152 miles south from Millerton Lake to Arvin. Excessive
overpumping caused land beneath a 33-mile stretch of the
Friant-Kern Canal to collapse, creating a sag that reduced the
canal’s carrying capacity south of Pixley by 60%.
NID released a notice informing the public of cuts to the Bear
River water flows yesterday afternoon. The district cited
“unexpected maintenance work in the headwaters” in their
release. We can now confirm a shutdown of PG&E’s Spaulding
#1 powerhouse is the cause of what could be a prolonged outage
in water flows. According to a PG&E
spokesperson: During a routine inspection at PG&E’s
Spaulding 1 powerhouse on March 6, a leak was discovered
adjacent to a pressure relief valve. On March 7 a more detailed
inspection was made of the PRV [pressure relief valve] and
PG&E determined that repairs would need to be made before
the powerhouse could be returned to service. The estimated
return to service date is April 30.
In what one Ukiah Valley water leader calls “the next big era
of major water decisions,” the City of Ukiah has joined up with
Redwood Valley and the Millview water district to form a new
water authority. The aim is to qualify for state infrastructure
grants to create a more reliable water supply for small
communities. The new authority has around 8500 to 9000 water
users, with about half of them in the city of Ukiah. That’s
pretty small by state standards, but First District Supervisor
Glenn McGourty, who is retiring this year, thinks the water
authority will help smaller districts comply with
ever-increasing state requirements.
Nearly $20 million in federal community project funds for 14
San Gabriel Valley projects, and $1.67 billion for Southern
California water infrastructure were a step closer to reality
after a House of Representatives vote this week, according to
the Rep. Grace Napolitano’s office. The $19.6 million was money
Napolitano secured in this year’s congressional spending bills,
she said. The 14 projects include: $5,500,000 for the San
Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority’s San Gabriel Basin
Restoration Fund…
With nature providing plenty of water – finally – this year,
and groundwater regulation well underway, water managers,
farmers and others turned their focus to infrastructure at
Thursday’s Water Summit put on by the Water Association of Kern
County. Early in the day’s line up of speakers, Edward Ring,
senior fellow with the California Policy Center, captured the
audience’s attention with an extensive cost-benefit analysis of
the Delta Conveyance project, a tunnel that would take
Sacramento River water beneath the ecologically sensitive
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta 45 miles to be exported south. His
conclusion: the project has a whopping price tag for a
“dribble” of water.
A recent large die-off of young salmon released into the
Klamath River shocked and dismayed state biologists,
reinforcing that human efforts to restore nature and undo
damage can be unpredictable and difficult to
control. The tiny Chinook salmon turned up dead downriver
just two days after they were released from the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife’s brand new Fall Creek Fish
Hatchery, built to supply the Klamath River as it undergoes the
largest dam removal in history. … No wild salmon were
harmed. And the consequences aren’t expected to be catastrophic
for the Klamath hatchery project.
The Pleasanton City Council will be reviewing a staff
presentation on the city’s proposed plan to authorize and
approve a bond sale for as much as $19 million to finance a
portion of planned water infrastructure upgrades during
Tuesday’s meeting. According to the March 5 staff report, staff
will be presenting a debt financing overview and a resolution
for the council to approve, which will declare the city’s
intent to “reimburse expenditures relating to capital
improvement projects from the proceeds of tax-exempt
obligations.”
As salmon and Delta fish populations continue to crash due to
massive water diversions to corporate agribusiness, the
State Water Resources Control Board just issued a public
notice regarding the Delta Conveyance Project Change in Point
of Diversion (CPOD) Petition that was submitted by
the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to the State Water
Board on February 22, 2024. This notice acknowledges receipt of
the change petition and details the process to submit a protest
against the petition. You can expect a wave of formal
protests against the change petition by fishing
groups, Tribes, environmental justice organizations,
conservation groups and Delta region cities and counties.
Protests against the change petition must be filed
by April 29th, 2024, with a copy provided to the petition,
according to the Water Board.
So many hurdles are impacting new home construction, yet one is
quickly growing more urgent and critical—access to water. In
more and more places across the country, access to healthy,
safe, and sustainable water supply is causing restrictions on
new home building permits and challenging current homeowners
with new water use policies. This challenge is triggering
states and municipalities to reconsider new developments,
halting them or shutting them down completely at a time when
housing supply is at critically low levels. Groundwater
shortages have shut down new permits in parts of Arizona where
new homes would rely on wells. A large development with
thousands of homes north of Las Vegas also was shut down due to
concerns over water supply. -By Jennifer Castenson, vice-president of ambassador
and industry partner programs at Buildxact, providing
leadership and collaboration across the various verticals
involved in custom homebuilding and remodeling.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson announced on Tuesday that funding of
$2.3 million for three Solano County projects will be
considered by Congress later this week. Thompson secured nearly
$15 million for projects for his district, California’s Fourth.
… The projects in Solano County are: $959,752 for
the Rio Vista Wastewater Plant Consolidation and Reclaimed
Water Project. The Rio Vista Wastewater Plant Consolidation and
Reclaimed Water Project supports the Clean Water Act standards
by aiming to eliminate the direct discharge of water into the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, recharges the aquifer on
which Rio Vista City relies for drinking water, and mitigates
drought issues by providing a reusable water source.
To adapt to climate extremes and become more water resilient in
California, modernizing the state’s water data—including the
way it is collected, stored, shared and used—may lead to more
informed decisions. Improving data practices to best manage
California’s water resources helped drive discussions last week
as state and local water managers, farmers, environmentalists
and others gathered in Sacramento for the 62nd annual
California Irrigation Institute Conference. … With a
theme of “Fluid Futures: Adapting to Extremes,” the Feb. 26-27
event focused on leveraging information and data technology to
help with water-management decisions. Erin Urquhart, water
resources program manager for the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, offered insights on the benefits of
Earth-observing missions that gather water data from space.
… The American Southwest has become the site of a collision
between two civilization-defining trends. In this desert heat,
the explosive growth of generative AI is pitched against a
changing climate’s treacherous extremes. … Public data
hint at the potential toll of this approach. Researchers at UC
Riverside estimated last year, for example, that
global AI demand could cause data centers to suck up 1.1
trillion to 1.7 trillion gallons of fresh water by 2027.
Hundreds of thousands of young salmon are believed to have died
this week at the site of a historic dam removal project on
the Klamath River, after an effort to restore salmon runs
on the newly unconstrained river went awry, the Chronicle has
learned. The dead chinook salmon were among the first hatchery
fish released on the Klamath since four hydroelectric dams
were breached near the California-Oregon border, to allow
the river to flow freely again and ultimately help fish
flourish. … The salmon die-off, discovered downstream of the
173-foot Iron Gate Dam, is thought to be the result of trauma
the small fish experienced when they went through a tunnel at
the dam’s base, which had been opened to allow the river to
pass and dam demolition to proceed. … “No one,
especially those in my program who work night and day to keep
fish alive, wants to see something like this happen,” said
Jason Roberts, an environmental program manager for the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We’re going to
learn from it. We need to do better.”
For too long, California and other states have viewed
stormwater as either a threat or an inconvenience — something
to be whisked away from cities and communities as quickly as
possible. But as traditional sources of water face worsening
strain from climate change, population growth, agriculture and
other factors, those unused gallons of rainwater pouring across
asphalt or down rain gutters are starting to be viewed as an
untapped resource that can help close the widening gap between
supply and demand. In a report released Thursday,
researchers with the Pacific Institute determined that every
year, 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater go uncaptured across
the United States — or roughly 53 billion gallons per
day.
The cause of Santa Barbara County’s biggest offshore sewage
spill in recent memory — north of one million gallons — remains
the subject of an ongoing investigation, the county supervisors
were told in an informational briefing this Tuesday
morning. The supervisors were most interested in figuring
out why it took six days for its Department of Public Health to
get the news of a leak that was first detected late Friday,
February 16.
An effort toward a public takeover of the private water utility
California American Water has taken years to get to this point.
Activists asked voters to approve a ballot measure to that end
in 2005, and it failed. They tried again in 2014, and lost
again. They prevailed in 2018 with the passage of Measure J,
which compelled the Monterey Peninsula Water Management
District to acquire Cal Am’s local system “if and when
feasible.” More than five years later, the matter has moved to
the courts. In October 2023, the board of the water district
determined that yes, it was feasible—and that it would pursue
acquisition of Cal Am’s system. Because the utility company had
rejected the public district’s previous offer of $449 million
to buy it, the district would proceed by filing an eminent
domain case.
In the heart of California, at the place where two great rivers
converge beneath the Tule fog, lies the linchpin of one of the
largest water supply systems in the world. [T]he Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta … is also the site of a bitter,
decades-long battle over a proposed plan known as the Delta
Conveyance Project — a 45-mile tunnel that would run beneath
the delta to move more water from Northern California to
thirsty cities to the south. State officials say the
tunnel is a critical piece of infrastructure that would help
protect millions of Californians from losing water supplies in
the event of a major earthquake or levee break.
… Opponents say the tunnel is a boondoggle that would
further imperil the delta’s fragile ecosystem, which has
already been eroded by heavy water withdrawals for agriculture
and cities.
Pacific Coast Highway closing during high tides or heavy
rainstorms near the Bolsa Chica wetlands is a common problem
for drivers in the area, and Caltrans officials say they are
looking to address the flooding problems in the future. When
asked if Caltrans had plans to address the flooding concerns
along that stretch of road at a recent Huntington Beach City
Council meeting, Caltrans District 12 Asset Manager Bassem
Barsoum said officials are working on a plan. Storms earlier
this month forced a 93 hour closure of the road in town to
traffic.
On a mid-winter morning in central California, Alyson Hunter
and Bruce Delgado gathered at the Marina State Beach parking
lot, the sea raging in the distance. Heavy rolling waves gushed
toward shore, crumbling before the dune. The temperature was in
the high 40s, though the morning sun was strong and the air was
nearly still. … Without a coordinated state-wide
plan for sea level rise, however, cities and towns have arrived
at vastly different approaches to their shared problem. This
lack of coordination along the coast could present additional
challenges down the line, sparing certain areas at first but
ultimately worsening the impacts of sea level rise for more
economically and environmentally vulnerable communities.
The controversial Delta Conveyance Project may have bigger
problems than legal action over its recently approved
environmental impact report. Who’s going to pay the
estimated $16 billion price tag? The concept, a tunnel to take
Sacramento River water beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
to thirsty towns and farms further south, relies on the end
users footing the bill. But over the decades that the project
has languished in various iterations, those end users have
become less enthusiastic to open their wallets. In fact,
the single largest recipient of delta water via the State Water
Project – and the single largest payer – the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, has committed only $160
million for project planning this time around.
The Biden administration announced Thursday that it will be
expanding a program offering small disadvantaged communities
help in applying for $50 billion in infrastructure act funding
to improve drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, disadvantaged
and underserved communities often struggle to access federal
funding because they lack the money to do the assessments
required to apply for grants. To try to help, the EPA said it
will now be offering engineering assistance to communities to
identify water challenges, develop plans, build capacity
and develop their application materials through its WaterTA
program. The program is free, and local governments, water
utilities, state and tribal governments, and nonprofits are
eligible for the assistance.
Like a lot of homeowners in neighborhoods with decades-old
plumbing, Ken Hoag experienced a leak in the pipe leading under
his yard from the curbside city meter to his house. Only this
was no trickling stream, but a gusher that would cost him more
than $1,000. City meter readers must check meters manually or,
at homes with updated meters, they must at least drive through
the neighborhood for it to ping their equipment with current
water volumes. In Hoag’s case last fall, that took long enough
that no one from the city alerted him of unusual readings until
160,000 gallons had drained away under his yard over parts of
two billing cycles. He hadn’t noticed so much as a puddle to
suggest a problem and was shocked when he got the first of
those bills on Nov. 22.
The Marin Municipal Water District is planning to replace
several miles of leaking pipes in Marin City at an estimated
cost of about $5.9 million. The district will soon be reviewing
bids for the first phase of the project, which officials say is
needed to reduce water loss and improve the resilience of the
area’s drinking water system. “This is an underserved
community,” said Jed Smith, a district board member, said
during an operations committee meeting on Feb. 16. … The
first phase of project has an estimated cost of $3.8 million.
It would replace approximately 9,200 feet of a 65-year-old
leak-prone cast-iron pipe with welded steel pipe on various
streets. The work would take about 332 days to perform, with
completion scheduled around Jan. 31, 2025. The project also
will replace 197 service laterals — piping owned by the Marin
water district that connects the water main pipeline to the
service meter and customer-owned pipes.
Portions of San Diego’s First Aqueduct will shut down this week
for yearly inspections and maintenance of water supply
pipelines for the region, the San Diego County Water Authority
announced this week. The San Diego County Water Authority’s
historic First Aqueduct delivers treated and untreated water
from just south of the Riverside County/San Diego County border
to the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside, transporting up to
120 million gallons of water per day to the San Diego region.
Portions of the San Diego County Water Authority’s historic
First Aqueduct are scheduled to shut down from Feb. 25 to March
5 as the Water Authority works to maintain a safe and reliable
water supply for San Diegans.
More problems arose on the Central Coast following a
wild storm Monday that flooded the region and transformed
the runways at the Santa Barbara Airport into a flooded
plain. The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
announced Thursday that it was closing two beaches in the
county indefinitely, after waterways were contaminated by
thousands of gallons of sewage spilling from a sewer line and
manhole that were damaged due to the storm. Goleta Beach
is closed from 1 mile east to 0.5 mile west of the Goleta
Slough outfall after “a release of approximately 500,000
gallons of sewage from a damaged force main sewer line near the
Santa Barbara Airport to the Goleta Slough during the
recent rain event,” the department wrote in a media
release.
A local agency has been awarded nearly $1 million in emergency
funding by the state to provide assistance to residents hit
hard by January’s storms, it was announced Thursday. With this
award, from the California Employment Development Department
and Workforce Development System, the San Diego Workforce
Partnership will collaborate with the county, city and San
Diego Labor Council on temporary job-creation projects. San
Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nora Vargas said the
funding will provide “essential aid, including rental
assistance, legal services, transportation and childcare
support” to individuals and businesses in need.
… According to the workforce partnership, an estimated
20,000 employers and 80,000 jobs stand at risk from temporary
or permanent damages, the majority of which was to small
businesses.
… [CEO Jan] Sramek said California Forever has secured
enough water for the 50,000 initial residents of the proposed
community, and maybe even the first 100,000. The water
rights came from the land the company has bought, he said, and
are sourced from groundwater and the Sacramento River. The
company could buy more water to supplement that, but wouldn’t
need it for the first buildout, he said.
California is taking advantage of this year’s storms to expand
water supplies, building off of last year’s actions to
capture stormwater. Last year, the Newsom Administration’s
actions resulted in three times more groundwater recharge
capacity than would have otherwise occurred. Since 2019,
the Governor has allocated $1.6 billion for flood preparedness
and response, part of the historic $7.3 billion investment
package and to strengthen California’s water resilience. Here’s
what the state is doing this year to capture water:
Don’t miss a once-a-year opportunity to attend our
Water
101 Workshop on April 5 to gain a deeper
understanding of California’s most precious natural resource.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and really anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to
gain a solid statewide grounding on California’s water
resources. Some of state’s leading policy and legal experts are
on the agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management
in the state.
Twelve years ago, a San Diego County grand jury urged the city
of Encinitas to find a long-term solution to improve the
existing stormwater infrastructure in Leucadia Roadside Park, a
neighborhood in Encinitas. Last month, historic flooding
across San Diego County damaged the homes and businesses of
more than 1,000 residents – Leucadia Roadside Park was one of
the communities hit hard. The area’s inadequate stormwater
infrastructure was a major reason why. … Five of those
businesses had substantial damage, four are still closed for
repairs, she said, and one of those businesses may not be able
to reopen. Repairs are costing some business owners tens of
thousands of dollars.
For the first time in the United States, a tribe in Arizona is
building a solar farm over an irrigation canal to produce clean
energy and save water at a time of unrelenting drought. The
Gila River Indian Community has broken ground on a project to
put solar panels over nearly 3,000 feet of the Casa Blanca
canal south of Phoenix. It’s one phase of a pilot project
designed to eventually help the tribe reach its goal of using
100% renewable power. The idea is modeled after a similar
project in India, says David DeJong, director of the
Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project. … The Turlock
Irrigation District in California’s Central Valley is
expected to start a project of its own soon. DeJong
says money from the Inflation Reduction Act funded
the solar farm, and it will eventually produce enough
electricity to power several thousand homes.
… [F]or those who live and work along the [Delta's] 57,000
acres of waterways, controversy over how to manage the delta’s
levees, land and ecosystems has long been a part of this area’s
legacy. That’s particularly true now, amid big proposed
changes to the area’s land and water use. State officials
recently approved an environmental study on the Delta
Conveyance Project, a plan to add a 35-foot-wide, 45-mile
tunnel to speed up collection of water and add to the state’s
storage following years of drought. Officials hope the project
will improve supplies that have drastically dwindled due to
climate change, but some fear it could draw water from local
farms and further deplete the area’s wetland habitats.
What do Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Tula, Mexico (a city outside
Mexico City), have in common? Both have histories of
communities experiencing unequal flood exposure, unfair
recovery outcomes, and a limited ability to adapt to flooding.
These inequalities represent what we call flood injustice, and
they demonstrate how flood risk is shaped by politics and
policy as much as, or perhaps even more than, by weather and
climate change. Cedar Rapids saw a major flood in 2008 that
displaced more than 18,000 residents and incurred over $3
billion in economic losses. Flooding primarily occurred within
affordable housing and other residential areas west of
downtown.
CBS 8 is Working for You to investigate the Lake Hodges water
supply, after receiving a huge response to our report on the
release of more than 600 million gallons of water into the
ocean. Now, CBS 8 has learned, the city of San Diego has lost
its access to Lake Hodges water, due to a state order by the
Division of Safety of Dams, which shut down a pipeline operated
by the San Diego County Water Authority. The city of San
Diego is under the state order to keep Lake Hodges water
levels low – at 280 feet – because Hodges Dam
was found to be unsafe. Neighbor Michael Citrin was not
happy to learn that, since January, the city of San Diego
has released 619 million gallons of water from Lake Hodges, and
there is no end in sight as another storm is on its way next
week.
A project to move water from the Sacramento region down to
Southern California was recently approved by the California
Department of Water Resources (DWR). The $16 billion Delta
Conveyance Project is causing major controversy around
environmental concerns. This is a very complex issue,
Californians are in need of water all over the state. But with
a project like the delta tunnel, environmentalists say the 50
species of fish in the delta are at risk as well as the
wildlife and people who depend on the fish.
A notoriously flood-prone section of southern Marin could soon
get its own defense against sea-level rise. Caltrans is
proposing protections for the area along Richardson Bay between
Marin City and Tamalpais Valley. The project would include the
Manzanita Park and Ride lot and the Highway 101 interchanges at
Shoreline Highway and Donahue Street. An online public meeting
to introduce the plans is set for 6 p.m. Feb. 29. The webinar
can be accessed at bit.ly/3ud2ovl. … The lower half of
the Manzanita lot is closed an average of seven to 12 weeks out
of the year because of frequent tidal flooding driven by
sea-level rise, according to Caltrans. Intense rains coupled
with high tides also flood the southbound Highway 101 offramp
at the Donahue Street interchange in Marin City, O’Donnell
said.
If the floods, slides and landscape mayhem triggered by the
string of winter storms severely damaged your house in
California, there’s one bit of relief you can claim: a property
tax cut. Under state law, property owners who suffer at least
$10,000 in damage to their home’s current market value can
apply for a reassessment. They have to file an application with
their county assessor’s office within 12 months of the incident
unless their county offers a later deadline. … If your
home was substantially damaged or destroyed in the recent
storms, Proposition 19 from 2020 allows you to transfer the
taxable value to a newly purchased or constructed house
anywhere in the state within two years after you sell the
damaged property.
In Colorado, the water that comes from our taps and keeps our
fields growing can be in limited supply. That means heated
debates over water – who gets to use it and how money should be
spent to keep it flowing – are constant. That is evident right
now, after a Colorado water agency announced plans to buy
nearly $100 million of water from the Colorado River, even
without plans to change how that water is used. “The purchase
represents the culmination of a decades-long effort to keep
Shoshone’s water on the west side of Colorado’s mountains,
settling the region’s long-held anxieties over competition with
the water needs of the Front Range, where fast-growing cities
and suburbs around Denver need more water to keep pace with
development,” explained KUNC reporter Alex Hager. He joined In
The NoCo host Erin O’Toole to tell us more.
California’s public policy issues tend to stretch across
multiple years or even decades, while the attention spans of
politicians are abbreviated by election cycles and term limits.
The short-term mentality of governors and legislators
undermines the continuity that’s needed to deal with long-term
issues. Many examples of the syndrome exist but a classic is a
project that has been kicking around in one form or another,
with multiple name changes, for at least six decades – moving
water from the Sacramento River around, through or under the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the head of the California
Aqueduct. It was touted as the last major link in the state’s
water system, and originally it was to be a 43-mile-long
“peripheral canal” around the Delta when first proposed in the
1960s. -Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
Most people don’t know that California’s largest lake — the
Salton Sea — was a mishap. Birthed in 1905 when the Colorado
River experienced massive floods, the accidental lake soon
became a community commodity. It once was a recreation
destination, filled with fish and migratory birds, that
supported the surrounding agricultural communities throughout
the Imperial and Coachella valleys. … Other than its
origin story, the Salton Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake share
some commonalities. Both are drying terminal lakes hurt by the
West’s drought and where water is siphoned off for human needs
before water levels can replenish. In both places, dust is
a consequence of the exposed lakebeds — and both have
a pungent aroma. The ecological, environmental, and in Utah’s
case, economic, impacts of the lakes’ declines have pushed both
states into varying degrees of action to save them.
Water is flowing unimpeded down the Klamath River to the
Pacific Ocean for the first time in more than a century — and
Rep. Doug LaMalfa is depressed. “It’s our worst defeat since
I’ve been a legislator,” he said in an interview ahead of
PacifiCorp’s emptying of three reservoirs on the Klamath River
in order to demolish the dams that stand in front of them. It’s
the largest dam removal project in the country, and it’s a
harbinger of the shifting politics around rivers in the age of
climate change. The traditional fault lines that have long
pitted anti-dam environmentalists and tribes against pro-dam
farmers and utilities, who benefit from their water and
electricity, are blurring. … LaMalfa knows times are
changing. “I feel like just one anti-aircraft gunner with
10,000 enemy fighter planes coming at you at once,” he said.
Los Angeles County’s Byzantine flood control system has thus
far absorbed near-record precipitation — a feat that officials
say was made possible by extensive preparations, including the
massive dredging of key debris basins and clearing of storm
drains in areas deemed most susceptible to flooding. But as the
most intense period of rain passed into history Monday, the
concern among local engineers and officials was whether flood
infrastructure built over the last 100 years and based on 20th
century hydrologic records can continue to keep up with
increasingly frequent extreme weather events propelled by
climate change. … From Sunday and into Monday, the
sprawling network of 18 dams, 487 miles of flood-control
channels, 3,300 miles of underground storm drain channels and
dozens of debris basins managed to steer countless gallons of
water and flowing debris away from communities in historic
flood plains.
The Zone 7 Water Agency completed the construction of two new
monitoring wells at the Ken Mercer Sports Park in Pleasanton in
early January that representatives said will help the agency
detect PFAS contamination before it spreads any further. While
there haven’t been any contaminants found in the area around
the sports park along Hopyard Road, having these two wells will
help warn the water agency before any contaminants seep into
any wells with actual drinking water.
As the permitting battle over the proposed Sites Reservoir
Project in Northern California heats up, it’s become clear that
the project would further heat up the atmosphere as well. Just
as California has made bold commitments to achieve carbon
neutrality in the next few decades, the state seems ready to
approve a dam project that would put that progress in jeopardy.
A new report, “Estimate of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the
Proposed Sites Reservoir Project Using the All-Res Modeling
Tool,” created by a science team at my organization, Tell The
Dam Truth, exposes the climate impacts caused by this massive
dam and reservoir system. -Written by Gary Wockner, PhD, who directs Tell The
Dam Truth
Residents living below the Isabella Auxiliary Dam were thrilled
earlier this month with a temporary fix that finally dried up
excessive seepage from the dam that had been swamping septic
systems and breeding forests of mosquito-infested weeds around
their homes. The didn’t realize how temporary the fix would be,
however. After only 12 days without a river cutting through his
land, rancher Gerald Wenstrand woke up to see the seepage back
on Saturday.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
When you oversee the largest
supplier of treated water in the United States, you tend to think
big.
Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California for the last 15 years, has
focused on diversifying his agency’s water supply and building
security through investment. That means looking beyond MWD’s
borders to ensure the reliable delivery of water to two-thirds of
California’s population.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water
supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the
numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another
drought. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most
of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project
will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low
number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more
rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather
forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing. The National
Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley will be warm and
windy the next few days, with no rain in the forecast.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
New water storage is the holy grail
primarily for agricultural interests in California, and in 2014
the door to achieving long-held ambitions opened with the passage
of Proposition
1, which included $2.7 billion for the public benefits
portion of new reservoirs and groundwater storage projects. The
statute stipulated that the money is specifically for the
benefits that a new storage project would offer to the ecosystem,
water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
Get a unique view of the San Joaquin Valley’s key dams and
reservoirs that store and transport water on our March Central
Valley Tour.
Our Central Valley
Tour, March 14-16, offers a broad view of water issues
in the San Joaquin Valley. In addition to the farms, orchards,
critical habitat for threatened bird populations, flood bypasses
and a national wildlife refuge, we visit some of California’s
major water infrastructure projects.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
The proposed Sites Reservoir would be an off-river storage basin
on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, about 78 miles
northwest of Sacramento. It would capture stormwater flows from
the Sacramento River for release in dry and critical years for
fish and wildlife and for farms, communities and businesses.
The water would be held in a 14,000-acre basin of grasslands
surrounded by the rolling eastern foothills of the Coast Range.
Known as Antelope Valley, the sparsely populated area in Glenn
and Colusa counties is used for livestock grazing.
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 the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
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 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.