The Water Education Foundation’s just-released 2021 Annual Report recaps how,
even amid the ongoing global pandemic, we continued
educating about the most crucial natural resource in California
and the West — water. The annual report takes readers
along to see the array of educational events, trainings and
articles we produced last year, including engaging virtual
water tours that educated participants on pressing water issues
and allowed them to interact with each other and a wide range
of experts offering different viewpoints.
Six students from the University of San Diego spent a week in
the Anza-Borrego desert, looking at how climate change impacts
aquatic insects and their ecosystem. … Braving triple-digit
temperatures, the students collected samples of insects and
brought them back to their lab on campus. They’re now
identifying and cataloging the insects, to compare them to
samples from previous trips. “I think 2019 was a really wet
year for us,” says [USD senior Janelle] Doi. “So there was a
lot of water, there was a lot of flooding, and we can compare
what we see now to that.” Those comparisons will help the team
learn how a prolonged drought is impacting the region.
A recent tour of California’s Central Valley given by the
nonprofit organization Water Education Foundation included a
stop at the USGS California Water Science Center’s extensometer
near Porterville. Tour participants, made up of water
industry professionals, were met by
USGS groundwater scientists Michelle Sneed and Justin
Brandt who showed the extensometer to the group. The
extensometer is one of several that dot the Central Valley.
Extensometers measure compaction and expansion of
an aquifer system, providing depth-specific data that
can help scientists better understand the rate, extent, and at
what depths in the system land subsidence is
occurring.
A former Tuolumne Utilities District general manager on Tuesday
dismissed talk of “secret” water rights that Tuolumne County
acquired in a 1983 purchase agreement with Pacific Gas and
Electric Co., and urged TUD’s elected board of directors to
continue to pursue the “opportunity to get this water” out of
the South Fork Stanislaus River. Tom Scesa, who retired from
TUD as its general manager in June 2015, told the district’s
board in a public meeting that he was speaking based on his 17
years with the water and sewer agency. He said he didn’t want
to talk about “theoretical water” or “sometimes available
water.”
The largest single batch of water-use cuts ever carried out on
the Colorado River is needed in 2023 to keep Lakes Mead and
Powell from falling to critically low levels, the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation commissioner told a congressional hearing
Tuesday. Between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water use
must be cut for 2023 across the river basin to cope with
continued declines in reservoir levels, said Reclamation
Commissioner Camille Touton. This comes as the West continues
to struggle with ongoing conditions of “hotter temperatures,
leading to early snowmelt and dry soils, all translated into
low runoff and the lowest reservoir levels on record,” Touton
said.
In southwestern Colorado, multiple years of hot and dry
conditions have drained many of our reservoirs. This year we
expect that a section of the Pine River, which runs through the
heart of the Southern Ute Reservation, will run completely dry
due to dry conditions and irrigation diversions by Tribal and
non-Tribal irrigators. Unfortunately, what’s happening
with the Pine River is becoming all too common across the
Colorado River Basin and the West. Scientists have
concluded that the ongoing severe drought conditions we’re
facing are primarily due to climate change. -Written by Celene Hawkins, the Colorado and Colorado
River Tribal Engagement Program director for The Nature
Conservancy; and Lorelei Cloud, of the Southern Ute Indian
Reservation and Council Member for the Southern Ute Indian
Tribal Council.
Mark your calendars now for our full schedule of fall programs,
including a reunion of our Water Leaders graduates to celebrate
the 25th anniversary of the program as well as the in-person
return of our 38th annual Water Summit. Our fall programming
also includes tours exploring California’s two largest rivers,
the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, to learn more about
infrastructure, the impacts on farms and habitat from a third
year of drought and salmon restoration efforts. Check out
the details below to learn more about these fall programs.
For more than 20 years scientists have known that the drugs we
take, for maladies ranging from headaches to diabetes,
eventually make their way into our waterways—where they can
harm the ecosystem and potentially promote antibiotic
resistance. … A new paper published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA provides a more comprehensive
look. A network of 127 scientists sampled 258 rivers in 104
countries for 61 different chemicals, producing “a sort of
‘pharmaceutical fingerprint’ of nearly half a billion people
across all the world’s continents,” says study lead author John
L. Wilkinson, an environmental chemist at the University of
York in England.
Our state is widely viewed as a climate leader, but California
never has protected a single plant or animal under its
endangered species law because of the threat of climate change.
That could change today (Wednesday, June 15), when the state’s
Fish and Game Commission is scheduled to decide whether to list
western Joshua trees under the California Endangered Species
Act. Commissioners could decide to safeguard Joshua trees,
offering proof of California’s commitment to fighting climate
change and ensuring that the iconic plant survives for future
generations. -Written by Brendan Cummings, conservation
director at the Center for Biological
Diversity.
The Environmental Protection Agency warned Wednesday that a
group of human-made chemicals found in the drinking water,
cosmetics and food packaging used by millions of Americans pose
a greater danger to human health than regulators previously
thought. The new health advisories for a ubiquitous class
of compounds known as polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl
substances, or PFAS, underscore the risk facing dozens of
communities across the country…. The guidance aims to
prompt local officials to install water filters or at least
notify residents of contamination. But for now, the federal
government does not regulate the chemicals.
Lower rainfall and higher temperatures have created ideal
conditions to exacerbate Arizona’s longstanding drought.
Entering 2022, more than half of the state remains in severe
drought status and an additional 10% is enduring extreme
drought. So, what is the impact of the Arizona
drought? These conditions — including the drop in levels
at crucial water sources such as Lake Mead and the Colorado
River — drive the research of doctoral student Zhaocheng Wang,
who is studying hydrosystems engineering in the School of
Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the
seven Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona
State University.
There’s a gap in the latest and tallest version of the
U.S.-Mexico border wall where Tijuana meets San Diego, and
through it flows the sewage- and trash-blighted Tijuana
River. U.S. Homeland Security announced May 27
they’re “closing that gap” by building the border wall across
the river. The federal agency proposed a similar project in
2020 that never moved forward. That project entailed building a
20-foot-wide roadway with a series of gates below, which would
open when the river is raging during the rainy season, or
during an unexpected sewage spill or broken water main in
Mexico.
The Klamath Basin has been plagued by drought and a lack of
water for years. Last year, the region faced one of the worst
droughts on record, and this year Gov. Kate Brown declared a
drought emergency in Klamath County for the third year in a
row. The effects are far-reaching for tribes, ranchers,
farmers, waterfowl advocates and people who rely on residential
wells. OPB spoke to people from the region to hear how they’re
faring as they face another dry year.
An exceptional drought season means California enters the
summer under mandatory water use restrictions for the first
time since 2015. Increasingly light snowfall sends less fresh
water to be treated and distributed as fully drinkable water,
making new methods of purifying water a vital priority. In
fact, nearly 60% of the state is suffering from “extreme
drought” conditions, according to the National Integrated
Drought Information System. Enter Dan McCurry,
assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at
the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. McCurry is an
environmental engineer who specializes in wastewater reuse and
drinking-water treatment.
For firefighters battling California wildfires, these emotional
injuries are a workplace hazard. Longer and more intense fire
seasons have taken a visible toll on the state, leaving a
tableau of charred forests and flattened towns. But they’ve
also fueled a silent mental health crisis, including an
alarming rise in post-traumatic stress disorder among the ranks
of Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting service. Fifty-four
California firefighters have died in the line of duty since
2006, according to the Cal Fire Benevolent Foundation, and
nationally, more than 3,000 firefighters have died from
job-related injuries and illnesses since 1990.
The State Water Board directed the Mono Basin Monitoring
Administration Team (MAT) to collaboratively administer the
Board’s scientific monitoring program. The Mono Lake Committee,
California Trout, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, and
the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) are voting
members and participants in the MAT. The MAT has chosen the
National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to serve as the
fiscal administrator of DWP funds that will be annually
deposited for scientific monitoring. That monitoring includes
continuing waterfowl and limnological monitoring, plus the work
of the Stream Monitoring Directors.
For California’s water experts, months in the air could soon
reveal secrets under the ground, including the remnants of
ancient waterways hidden for thousands of years. It’s a
discovery that could be key to recharging the state’s depleted
groundwater. Katherine Dlubac, Ph.D., is overseeing the
high-tech survey for the California Department of Water
Resources. … [H]elicopters deploy spaceship-sized antennas,
ping the ground with electromagnetic signals, mapping the
geology deep below the surface. The technique was piloted in
California by researchers at Stanford, led by prof. Rosemary
Knight Ph.D.
As the drought in California and across much of the western
United States enters another summer season, several experts
participated in a conference hosted by the California
Department of Water Resources and the Water Education
Foundation on Thursday to discuss issues of how modeling
precipitation can impact decisions made by policymakers. One of
the main takeaways of the conference was that the current
modeling programs are not effective as they should be in
helping water districts, state water agencies and federal
departments in planning water distributions.
Southern California is facing a potentially treacherous
wildfire season this year, as climate change, drought and
extreme heat conspire to bake vegetation and prime the
landscape for burning, officials say. … Officials in
recent years have been sounding the alarm about the state’s
changing conditions, with wildfires across the West
growing hotter, faster and harder to fight due to
increasing heat and dryness. Last year, more than 2.5 million
acres burned in California — including the
960,000-acre Dixie fire, the state’s second-largest blaze
on record. This year, fuel moisture levels — or the amount
of water in the vegetation — is at least four months ahead of
where it should be in terms of dryness …
[T]he California Air Resources Board (CARB) … recommends
converting 20% of California’s agricultural lands to organic
agriculture by 2045 as a way to mitigate climate change. …
Organic farming promotes resiliency by boosting soil’s
ability to retain water and the natural nutrients found in
healthy soils. By increasing organic matter in soil
continuously over time, organic agriculture improves water
percolation by 15-20%, replenishing groundwater and helping
crops perform well in extreme weather like drought and
flooding. A decades-long organic farming trial found that
organic yields can be up to 40% higher than
nonorganic farms in drought years.
