With several billion dollars in federal money secured for
drought-stricken western states, managers and officials on the
Rio Grande are hopeful some will reach their communities and
bring attention to the challenges facing one of North America’s
longest rivers. Stretches of the river near Albuquerque went
dry for the first time in 40 years in August, destroying
critical habitat for endangered fish. … A main way the
money will be spent in the Colorado River basin is to pay
farmers to leave fields unplanted and free up the water that
would otherwise be used. Southwestern cities and Native
American tribes, who have their own rights to water, could also
be paid to use less of their supply.
The California Department of Justice on Wednesday issued a
“legal alert” intended to help protect people from water
shutoffs as the state continues to struggle with drought,
rising prices and the lingering economic effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic. State Attorney General Rob Bonta said
he issued the alert partly as a response to an estimated 40%
increase in the price of certain types of water transactions so
far this year and the fact that roughly 1.6 million
Californians have fallen behind on their payments as of January
2021. … The alert was sent to drinking water systems to
remind them of the protections codified in the state’s Water
Shutoff Protection Act.
New Mexico, Texas and Colorado have negotiated a proposed
settlement that they say will end a yearslong battle over
management of one of the longest rivers in North America, but
the federal government and two irrigation districts that depend
on the Rio Grande are objecting. New Mexico Attorney General
Hector Balderas on Tuesday announced that the states
had brokered a deal following months of negotiations.
While the terms remain confidential, his office called it “a
comprehensive resolution of all the claims in the case.”
… Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice and
irrigation districts that serve farmers downstream of Elephant
Butte reservoir argued that the proposal would not be a
workable solution.
Weeks before the November 8 election, national political debate
centers on control of Congress. In rural southeastern Arizona,
however, the kitchen table issue strikes closer to home. Voters
in parts of Cochise and Graham counties will decide whether to
join the state’s more populated districts and regulate
groundwater extraction. Orchards, vineyards, and dairy farms
have moved into this dusty corner of Arizona where large-scale
irrigation has caused drinking water wells to go dry and the
land to subside, damaging highways. … In California and
New York, voters will be asked to approve multibillion-dollar
bond and taxing measures to benefit air, land, and water.
Drought, drought, everywhere and not a drop to drink, to
misquote the Ancient Mariner. It has become increasingly clear
that the world is running short of fresh water. Yet, while
there are many companies addressing carbon — the main culprit
in climate change — few focus on water, and more specifically
how corporations should be monitoring and controlling their use
of it. … Waterplan’s software platform integrates public
watershed data and customer water use data to help companies in
water-intensive industries make sure that their current or
future operations are not affected by drought. … In the
United States, a swath of land from California to Texas was
facing its worst drought in 1,200 years.
A study from the University of California, Berkeley and
Virginia Tech has found high concentrations of arsenic in the
water supply of the Kern Valley State Prison and the
surrounding communities in the California Central Valley. By
looking at 20 years of water quality data, the study found that
for months or even years at a time, arsenic levels in the
prison and the communities exceeded the federal limits.
In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency reduced the
maximum acceptable arsenic level from 50 parts per billion
(ppb) to 10 ppb. The new law did not go into effect until 2006,
yet Kern Valley Prison opened a year before that with no plans
for arsenic remediation, even though data showed the prison
would not meet federal standards.
With two multiyear droughts in a decade and the pace of
human-caused climate change accelerating each year due to the
burning of fossil fuels, agencies across the [San Francisco
Bay] region are finally grappling with the need for more
recycled water and whether to expand the purple pipe systems
that carry it….But most water agencies in the nine Bay Area
counties are cautiously waiting to invest until the
long-awaited, state-approved regulations for mixing toilet
water and tap water — what officials call “direct potable
reuse” — go into effect.
Join a virtual Q&A session on Nov. 9 to get
an overview of our popular but competitive Water
Leaders program and tips on applying for the 2023 cohort.
The Water
Leaders program is aimed at providing a
deeper understanding of California water issues and
building leadership skills with class members by studying a
water-related topic in-depth and working with a mentor.
The deadline to apply for the 2023 class is Dec. 7, 2022, at 5
p.m. The 10-month program starts with a mandatory orientation
on Jan. 26, 2023.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) commemorated
the start of Flood Preparedness Week, which runs October 22
through October 30, by encouraging residents to prepare for
flood season. … More than 7 million California residents
are at risk of flooding, and many don’t realize it. Flooding
happens throughout the state, from rural communities to urban
areas, at the base of hills and along the coast. Every
California county has received a flood-related emergency
declaration in the past 20 years. Flooding can also happen at
any time of year and can still occur during drought.
Water districts get among the least attention among local
governments – yet they control the safety of tap water,
the prices, maintain water delivery infrastructure and
influence conservation efforts. So just where do the current
candidates stand on issues like the drought, climate change,
transparency and term limits? The Voice of OC newsroom set to
find out. Reporters reached out to all 30 water district
candidates and sent them a list of questions, several of which
were submitted by readers in response to a public invitation
for questions.
Coalinga city officials estimate their small town will run out
of water by Dec. 1. The city, which is typically allocated
10,000 acre-feet of water, has only been allocated about 2,000
acre-feet this year, according to Pro-Tem Mayor Ray Singleton.
And that supply is almost gone. … The California valley
city, located inland between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is
home to an estimated 17,465 people. All the people
living in Fresno County, where Coalinga is located, are
experiencing a drought. It is the second driest year to date
over the past 128 years, according to the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
We are in the fourth year of a drought and the second drought
period in the past decade. Remember, however, that one man’s
drought is another man’s monsoon. If that doesn’t make any
sense then you haven’t been paying much attention to the
ultimate recession proof job in California — attorneys
specializing in water issues. -Written by MB editor Dennis Wyatt.
A draft EPA report indicates that the drinking water
contaminant hexavalent chromium can cause cancer when ingested.
The GAO recommends the EPA collect national data on the
demographics of areas with PFAS in drinking water. The EPA
funds a wastewater monitoring research projects intended to
prepare for future pandemics. The Treasury Department charters
an advisory committee for climate-related financial risk.
Several months ago, Rosario Rodriguez faced a financial dilemma
that has become all too common for millions of drought-weary
Californians — either pay the electric bill, which had
skyrocketed to about $300 during a scorching summer in western
Fresno County, or pay the $220 combined water, sewer and trash
bill…. For a family of four living off $25,000 a year, a
water bill of more than $200 a month is an economic burden.
Now, with 1 in 10 California households falling into arrears on
water payments, calls are mounting for the state to step in and
help.
The Water Education Foundation is
mourning the loss of its Board
President Mike Chrisman, the former California Natural
Resources Secretary whose family ties to the Foundation go back
to its founding in 1977.
Mr. Chrisman, of Visalia, died from complications of cancer
Tuesday, Oct. 11. He was 78.
“We are devastated to learn about Mike’s passing,” said Jenn
Bowles, the Foundation’s executive director. “He was a
wonderfully supportive board president who cared deeply about our
mission and was constantly offering to help. Among other things,
he served as a mentor to up-and-coming professionals in our
Water Leaders
program.”
With 25 years of experience working
on the Colorado River, Chuck Cullom is used to responding to
myriad challenges that arise on the vital lifeline that seven
states, more than two dozen tribes and the country of Mexico
depend on for water. But this summer problems on the
drought-stressed river are piling up at a dizzying pace:
Reservoirs plummeting to record low levels, whether Hoover Dam
and Glen Canyon Dam can continue to release water and produce
hydropower, unprecedented water cuts and predatory smallmouth
bass threatening native fish species in the Grand Canyon.
“Holy buckets, Batman!,” said Cullom, executive director of the
Upper Colorado River Commission. “I mean, it’s just on and on and
on.”
As water interests in the Colorado
River Basin prepare to negotiate a new set of operating
guidelines for the drought-stressed river, Amelia Flores wants
her Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) to be involved in the
discussion. And she wants CRIT seated at the negotiating table
with something invaluable to offer on a river facing steep cuts
in use: its surplus water.
CRIT, whose reservation lands in California and Arizona are
bisected by the Colorado River, has some of the most senior water
rights on the river. But a federal law enacted in the late 1700s,
decades before any southwestern state was established, prevents
most tribes from sending any of its water off its reservation.
The restrictions mean CRIT, which holds the rights to nearly a
quarter of the entire state of Arizona’s yearly allotment of
river water, is missing out on financial gain and the chance to
help its river partners.
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.”
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
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.
