Ocean desalination has been named as one of the South Coast
Water District’s top priorities—even more so as California
undergoes an unprecedented water shortage. In 2008, a Pilot
Ocean Desalination Project was first initiated at Doheny State
Beach, and the facility operated successfully for 21 months
between 2010 and 2012. Subsequent to this effort, the District
has proceeded with planning for an Ocean Desalination
Facility.
To expedite the delivery of much-needed drinking water to
coastal Mendocino County residents whose wells have gone dry,
the California State Water Resources Control Board has amended
its previous curtailment orders to allow the city of Ukiah to
draw water from the Russian River for emergency supplies.
The lawsuit Kern County filed this week against Gov. Gavin
Newsom is aimed at not only ending his de-facto ban on fracking
but also at easing state regulatory constraints on at least two
other oilfield techniques common locally. As part of its
larger argument that the Newsom administration has overstepped
its constitutional authority, Monday’s petition for a writ of
mandate in Kern County Superior Court asserts Newsom had no
right in 2019 to place a moratorium on high-pressure cyclic
steaming or require extensive “area of review” analyses prior
to approval of underground injections.
Water has begun trickling from Ukiah to Fort Bragg, and the
county’s main task going forward is to scale up hauling to meet
demand. The city of Fort Bragg announced Sept. 9 that it had
received its first 5,000-gallon delivery of water from Ukiah
and is expected to receive 10,000 gallons per day that will
allow Fort Bragg to resume outside water sales after halting
them in mid-July. The two certified water haulers on the coast
can resume their water sales, too…
The Orange County Water District (OCWD; the District) has been
named an American Academy of Environmental Engineers and
Scientists (AAEES) 2021 award winner in its annual Excellence
in Environmental Engineering and Science competition, for
launching the nation’s largest per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS) pilot testing program. OCWD received an
Honors Award in the research category for advancing state of
the art environmental engineering or science practices.
Thermal’s farmworkers earn, on average, between $15,000 and
$17,499 a year, and they struggle to access clean drinking
water and cool their homes adequately in the 110+ degree summer
heat. Every year the housing authority is on high alert for
heat-related deaths. Pedro Nicolas, a community leader and
undocumented immigrant living in Thermal, told reporters his
family slept in the hallway in the center of their trailer
during the summer; because of the trailer’s lack of insulation,
that was the coolest place in the house.
Construction will start soon on the first of three projects to
increase the reliability of drinking water for Poway water
customers now and generations to come. Two water storage tanks
will be built as part of a temporary bypass project. During
construction access to some amenities at Lake Poway will be
impacted. The ballfield at Lake Poway will be closed beginning
Monday, September 20 for the construction of two tanks, each
with the capacity to store 1.4 million gallons of treated
water.
For years, trucks have hauled thousands of gallons of water
nearly every day to 3,000 water catchments throughout Arizona
to help keep wildlife hydrated during the drought. That work
still continues, but Mother Nature has been a huge help in
recent weeks. … The constant monsoon rains have filled
nearly every Arizona water catchment to its brim.
The longer it takes for two new wells to be dug in Cantua Creek
and El Porvenir in western Fresno County, the deeper in debt
the towns are mired. Now, with the drought, those well projects
are in a race against dropping groundwater levels as farmers,
cut off from surface water supplies, are leaning more heavily
on the aquifer. The well projects started in 2018 and
aren’t scheduled to be completed until sometime next year.
Pleasanton water ratepayers can expect a bigger water bill in
the future after the Pleasanton City Council unanimously
approved a funding plan for final design of the city’s per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) treatment and wells
rehabilitation project on Tuesday. … City officials are
currently proceeding with the estimated $46 million project’s
final design to address the detection of PFAS — synthetic
chemicals found in common household items like paint and known
to be harmful to humans — in the city’s wells.
Emergency water shipments have begun making their way to
desperate consumers on the Mendocino Coast, a result of
collaborative efforts by county and city officials from Ukiah
and Fort Bragg. But the rollout is starting slowly, and
Mendocino County officials are still working to recruit haulers
with the right kind of tankers to meet the demand. Only one
truck hauling 5,000 gallons a trip is working at the moment,
with enough time in a day to make two deliveries from the water
source in Ukiah to Fort Bragg, according to county
Transportation Director Howard Dashiell.
The Department of Water Resources and the State Water Resources
Control Board have developed draft groundwater management
principles and strategies to better anticipate and minimize the
impacts of drought on drinking water wells. Developed in
response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s April Executive Drought
Proclamation, the principles and strategies provide a framework
for State actions to proactively address impacts on
groundwater-dependent communities as droughts become more
frequent and intense as a result of climate change.
The Bureau of Land Management is rounding up more than 700
horses living on public land in northwest Colorado, a sharp
reduction of a herd that officials say is too large and roaming
in dangerously dry conditions. Over the last week, contractors
have used helicopters to corral mustangs living in the Sand
Wash Basin, which includes 155,000 acres of public land managed
by the federal agency in the northwest corner of the state.
The California Legislature took an important step to protect
Californians from toxic, “forever” PFAS chemicals by passing
Assembly Bill 1200 (Ting) today. Having previously passed on
the Senate floor 36-0, the bill now goes to the
Governor. AB 1200 would help make our food and our
environment safer by banning the use of toxic, “forever” PFAS
chemicals in paper-based food packaging.
With much of California and other western U.S. states
experiencing significant drought, the need to pursue further
advancements in desalination has never been greater. This was a
central theme of an Aug. 11 webinar, titled “Discussion on
Desalination — Treatments, Research, and the Future,” conducted
by the WateReuse Association. Historically, desalination
has been viewed as a separate component within the water
sector, but that perception is changing, said Peter Fiske,
Ph.D., the executive director for the National Alliance for
Water Innovation and one of three presenters featured during
the webinar.
The city of Ukiah has been relying primarily on groundwater,
recycled water and conservation to get through the drought and
hasn’t been exercising its right to water from the Russian
River, which is experiencing historic low flows. That’s about
to change now that the city has agreed to help the coast
through the drought.
In the last five years, the environmental problem known as PFAS
has become mainstream public knowledge and a growing public
concern. Aided by popular movies, books, and
environmental advocates, including dozens of recently-formed
citizen action groups, many have now heard of PFAS — shorthand
for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — and are familiar with
one or more potential health consequences from prolonged
exposure to these chemicals — e.g., cancer, immune system
malfunctions, hypertension, thyroid and kidney disease.
[A] day of hiking in the Sierra National Forest, even with the
demanding switchbacks and triple-digit heat, would not have
been unusual for Jonathan Gerrish and Ellen Chung,
husband-and-wife transplants from San Francisco who had
recently become parents to a little girl, Miju, during the
coronavirus pandemic. But the trek would be the family’s
last: Search teams found all three of their bodies on Aug. 17
… The Forest Service had previously posted warning signs
about potentially toxic algae blooms in the area.
For decades, farm labor has kept unincorporated communities
alive throughout the Central Valley. But the drought is making
it hard to stay. The dearth of essential resources — clean
water, adequate housing and fair employment wages — has
crippled towns that are easily overlooked and triggered a slow
exodus to bigger places.
For months, the city of Needles has endured not just scorching
hot weather but the possibility that its single water well
could fail, a potentially life-threatening risk for this Mojave
desert community of 5,000 residents. Yet over recent
weeks, word arrived that state officials — flush with billions
of dollars in surplus tax revenue — intend to hand over $2
million to pay for a new well that could be operational later
this year. City officials are now breathing easier…
Rare earth elements are finding their way into Colorado water
supplies, driven by changes in climate, finds a new study
published in the journal Environmental Science &
Technology. Rare earth elements are necessary components
of many computing and other high-tech devices, like cell phones
and hard drives. But there is growing recognition that they can
be hazardous in the environment even at low levels of
concentration.
The drought emergency in the Bay Area is not only affecting
humans, but also wildlife. From turkeys strolling along
streets, to wild pigs appearing on surveillance video digging
up yards, bone dry conditions in the hills has sent thirsty
wildlife into neighborhoods, particularly in the East Bay.
Other creatures spotted in neighborhoods recently include
mountain lions and even the occasional bear. Wildlife experts
say its the season for these visitors. Dry hillsides causing
wildlife to stroll to low lying areas to find food and precious
water.
Researchers have suspected for years that drought conditions
worsen groundwater quality, but a study published this week
provides strong evidence proving the long-held assumption.
While previous studies have focused on the risk of wells being
overdrawn and run dry during drought, the study from the United
States Geological Survey and the California State Water
Resources Control Board is the first to directly link drought
to deteriorating water quality on a regional scale. The study
looked at 30 years of data from California’s Central Valley.
Leaders from a newly formed revitalization task force joined
California State Parks representatives last week in announcing
a partnership to honor a piece of California Black history in
the Central Valley. Randall Cooper, chief executive officer of
the Global Economic Impact Group, which will lead
revitalization effort, said the once-prosperous community
of Allensworth was devastated by a series of racist
decisions and policies and never was able to recover.
… Water access was another hindrance to the town’s
potential. … [W]hite farmers dammed the river and diverted
the water, leaving Allensworth’s Black farmers high and dry.
Monterey County is the only county is California with a law
that prohibits private companies from operating new
desalination plants. That law, passed in 1989, will be up for a
potential repeal when the county’s supervisors meet on Sept.
21. The law has been thrust into the spotlight as
Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp., a publicly traded, $11
billion Canada-based company, has proposed construction of what
could be a massive regional desalination plant in Moss Landing.
Last week, the State Water Board finally intervened in the
unincorporated area of Tooleville’s 20-year struggle to obtain
the basic human right to clean drinking water with a letter to
the city of Exeter and the Tooleville Mutual Nonprofit Water
Association, giving the two parties six months to hash out
terms for a voluntary consolidation of Tooleville to Exeter’s
water system or face a mandatory order with much less
cooperation.
As wildfires tear across America’s West, the immediate risk is
to life and property, but they will eventually affect water
supplies. That’s one reason large corporations are beginning to
help fund forest restoration in order to mitigate their water
risk. The water supply for many communities, including
large cities, starts in mountains and national forests. In
California, about 70% of the water either starts or flows
through national forests, according to Forest Service
estimates.
Trump-era EPA appointees engaged in “considerable political
level interference” on an assessment for a controversial
“forever chemical,” documents obtained by E&E News
indicate. But the Biden administration wasted no time in
yanking that document, moving to scrub the assessment of
alterations made by political appointees and restore language
advocated by EPA career scientists shortly after the
president’s inauguration. At issue is a toxicity assessment for
PFBS, part of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances family.
The historic drought in Marin County continues to affect a rare
species of elk. Last weekend, nearly a hundred people carried
water to replenish the drinking supply for tule elk at Point
Reyes National Seashore that are dying in the drought
conditions. Volunteers hiked six miles round trip on Saturday,
carrying gallon jugs of water to provide the animals at Tomales
Point with more to drink. The water drop was organized in part
by TreeSpirit Project, Save The Elk, and In Defense of Animals.
The City of Santa Monica’s Department of Public Works, Water
Resources and Engineering Divisions have successfully secured
multiple grants, totaling over $45 million, to fund various
water self-sufficiency projects to diversify and increase Santa
Monica’s local water supplies.
Life in Tooleville wasn’t easy before the latest
drought. Residents of this tiny, two-road farmworker
community, tucked into the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills
in eastern Tulare County, have been living on bottled water
since 2014 because its two wells are contaminated with
hexavalent chromium. Then in July, one of those wells
started to dry up, thanks to plummeting groundwater levels.
State Water Resources Control Board officials agree
Tooleville’s other well will likely hit sand in a matter of
months.
After the Ukiah City Council held a special meeting Monday,
City of Ukiah officials announced Tuesday that they are
preparing to deliver water to coastal communities such as the
village of Mendocino. In a press release, Deputy City Manger
said that the city staff are “working out planning, contracts
and logistics to begin delivering water supplies by truck to
coastal areas of Mendocino County.”
Right now, Congress is debating needed investments in our water
system decades in the making. While the Senate’s compromise
bill passed earlier this month includes billions for lead pipe
replacement and helping communities prepare for future drought
and floods, the bill falls short of ensuring all families can
turn their tap on and access safe, affordable water.
… Some utilities are stepping up to help (both San
Francisco Public Utilities and East Bay Municipal
Utilities District have customer assistance programs)
… -Written by Michael McAfee, president and CEO of
PolicyLink, a national research and action institute focused on
advancing racial and economic equity, and Susana De
Anda, co-founder and executive director of the Community
Water Center, a nonprofit environmental justice organization
based in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
Nicole Horseherder lives in Hard Rock, Ariz., population 53.
Hard Rock sits on the Black Mesa, which takes its name from the
numerous coal seams running through the plateau in western
Arizona. Horseherder’s home has no running water, as it
is prohibitively expensive to drill down to the nearest aquifer
that has potable water. Twice a week, she drives her
20-year-old, three-quarter-ton GMC pickup—towing a 500-gal.
tank mounted on a flatbed trailer—to a community well 25 miles
away. Coal and water have dominated
Horseherder’s life and work for the past decade.
The Marin Municipal Water District has decided against
switching from bimonthly to monthly billing cycles as a way to
promote water conservation. At a meeting on Thursday, the
district’s board decided the nearly $1.2 million in added costs
yearly that would result from the change would be better spent
on a larger effort to install wireless meters for all of its
customers. … The idea to switch to monthly billing is not
new, having been proposed and rejected in 2017 because of the
costs.
Volunteers carried out an emergency water drop this weekend,
trying to help the rare tule elk that have been dying in
drought conditions on the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Saturday afternoon, nearly a hundred people carried water three
miles to a pond that is on the verge of drying up. The National
Park Service is embroiled in a lawsuit over the elk, one third
of the herd has died in the past year from lack of water or
sufficient foliage to eat.
The Santa Cruz Water Department has the responsibility for
providing clean safe water for all of its 96,000 customers
located both inside and outside of the city limits, and also
for planning ahead for future needs. Most readers will recall
that about 15 years ago, in the wake of earlier droughts and
water rationing, the City of Santa Cruz initiated an evaluation
of a joint desalination project with the Soquel Creek Water
District. -Written by Gary Griggs, Santa Cruz Sentinel
columnist.
Few people visit a public garden bearing their own name, but
that was what Bette Boatmun experienced as she strolled through
the drought-resistant, waterwise and blooming plants in the
Bette Boatmun Conservation Garden last month. The Concord
resident left more than her name when she retired from the
Contra Costa Water District board of directors in December. Her
legacy includes the historic Los Vaqueros Reservoir, guiding a
community through two severe droughts, and nearly a half
century of local and statewide governance.
John Carroll, the City of San Diego’s Pure Water Treatment
Plant superintendent, received the 2021 Robert O. Vernon
Membrane Plant Operator of the Year Award from the American
Membrane Technology Association and the American Water Works
Association. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to
water supply improvement by an individual working at a membrane
filtration, desalination, and/or water reuse facility.
One fifth of electrical output in California is consumed by
pumping and processing water. By collecting rainwater, we can
reduce our carbon footprint, conserve California’s water
resources, and decrease our water bill. … In Bermuda,
every residence is required by law to have and maintain a
cistern capable of storing enough rainwater to sustain a family
of four for a year. The states of New South Wales and Victoria
in Australia require all new construction to be plumbed for
rainwater catchment and grey water recycling. As of 2017, 26
percent of the homes in Australia capture rainwater.
Some activists claim the county is no longer providing them
water to take to homeless encampments—a service offered over
the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gail Osmer, an advocate
for houseless communities, said throughout the pandemic she’s
gotten multiple cases of water from the county Office of
Supportive Housing to distribute. But earlier this month, she
says the county refused to give her water, citing too many
requests. In an email to Osmer, a county worker said water is
only being given out during “inclement weather
activations”—such as certain days with extremely hot
temperatures.
The California State Water Resources Board (SWRCB) has given
the city of Needles $3 million for drinking water
infrastructure, according to a press release. The funding will
support a new drinking well and booster station. The City of
Needles worst fears were realized In July when the only well
that supplies the community with portable drinking water
failed. The city was able to identify the replacement
part and repaired the well within 24 hours.
Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, partnered with a
coalition of community health experts Thursday, Aug. 26 to
garner support for a proposed law that would cut the legal
limit of lead leaching from plumbing fixtures for sale by more
than half. Lead is a highly toxic metal especially dangerous to
kids and youth whose body and brains are still growing. Even
low levels can stunt children’s physical, intellectual and
behavioral development, according to Alice Kuo, a professor of
Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at UCLA.
High schooler Eshani Jha from [Lynbrook High School in San
José, California] received the prestigious 2021 Stockholm
Junior Water Prize for research on how to remove contaminants
from water. …. Stockholm Junior Water Prize is an
international competition where students between the ages of 15
and 20 present solutions to major water challenges.
A drought in California has led to a spike in the state’s water
prices, nearly doubling the value of futures contracts for the
essential commodity this year and creating opportunities in
water-related investments. As of Aug. 24, the Nasdaq Veles
California Water Index, which represents the weighted average
price of water-rights transactions across five major markets in
California and is published weekly, has climbed by roughly 87%
year to date to $923.54 per one-acre foot.
Maria Olivera’s house sits on a dirt road that dead-ends at the
Friant Kern Canal, the 152-mile aqueduct quenching the endless
thirst of the San Joaquin Valley crops that feed the country.
She’s called Tooleville home since 1974, where residents have
been fighting to attain the basic human right to clean drinking
water for the better part of two decades.
The heightened need for handwashing during the pandemic posed a
challenge for the many homes without water. For many years, the
rugged topography and remoteness of the Navajo Nation made
piping water to homes challenging. Since 2003, IHS and a
network of partners have reduced the number of Navajo homes
without water access from 30 percent to 20 percent. New funding
from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)
Act provided the Navajo Area IHS with $5.2 million, targeted
specifically to increasing water access on the Navajo Nation.
Monterey Peninsula water officials filed an appeal Friday with
the full Public Utilities Commission after a single PUC judge
dismissed a complaint filed against California American Water
Co. asking the regulator to force the water retailer to
purchase water from the Pure Water Monterey Expansion project.
The state of California took the first step to order and
potentially pay for the city of Exeter in Tulare County to
extend water service to hundreds of homes in a nearby town
without safe and stable drinking water. For decades, the 340
residents of Tooleville have relied on contaminated groundwater
as their main source of tap water….
California’s ecosystems play an essential role in protecting
the state’s water supply, minimizing unwanted flooding, and
sequestering carbon—among many other benefits. But the
unintended consequences of more than a century of water and
land development—compounded by the impacts of a changing
climate—are pushing many of these ecosystems to the breaking
point.
Nearly 200 people in the Klamath Basin this summer reported
their wells going dry. In response, local and federal emergency
officials have delivered hundreds of the 2,500-gallon,
igloo-shaped storage tanks that can hook up to people’s homes
to get some water flowing through their pipes again. When
someone’s well runs dry, they can first try and drop their pump
deeper into their well. That’s the equipment that pumps water
from the well into pipes that run into a building.
Summers are getting hotter. Rain and snowpack are disappearing,
and water reserves are shrinking. This reduction of readily
available, adequate water resources is creating a crisis that
directly harms Californians and their environment. Studies have
found that one million Californians do not have safe drinking
water. In addition, during the last drought, about 3,500
domestic wells went dry and about 2,600 households were
negatively affected by the lack of available water.
The Woodville Public Utilities District will receive a state
grant of more than $2.2 million to improve the quality of
drinking water for its community. The grant was recently
announced by the State Department of Water Resources as part of
a program to support communities facing water supply
challenges. The department announced the first round of funding
which will eventually total $200 million through the Small
Community Drought Relief Program. In the first round, 10 small
water systems in Tulare, Siskiyou, Shasta, Lake and Kern
Counties were chosen to receive $25 million.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are toxic chemicals
that have been linked to multiple serious health harms, such as
cancer and developmental and reproductive harm. Unfortunately,
PFAS are widely used in everyday products such as nonstick
cookware, water-resistant clothing, and food packaging. Even
worse, PFAS are very resistant to break down—and can accumulate
to dangerously high levels in the human body. Monitoring shows
that virtually all people residing in the United States have
some level of PFAS in their bodies.
As the drought crisis worsens throughout California, Fresno and
Clovis leaders, as well as residents, are answering the
challenge. Both cities are recycling water through “purple
pipe” systems to offset non-potable usages like landscape
irrigation, cooling towers, and agricultural irrigation.
In addition, they are beginning to investigate “toilet to tap”
systems already in use in Orange and San Diego counties.
According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, in the
1940s, sportsmen built water catchments in the desert in an
effort to stabilize wildlife populations for hunting and
fishing. More than 80 years later, the department now maintains
hundreds of these catchments, filling them with millions of
gallons of water every year, but they are doing so with a
different purpose in mind: to keep wildlife in Arizona alive
through the drought and dry monsoons.
Fourteen years ago, Heriberto Sevilla came across a ranch on
the outskirts of Madera set among fields of stalk grass and
bright wildflowers. Pepper trees dotted the meadow, and
children played in the natural lakes created by heavy rains. It
was the perfect place to raise a big family. … But then
a darkness came over the little Eden the Sevillas had
created. Amid two years of relentless drought, the well’s
output slowly tapered off. The family was forced to buy gallons
of precious water from the grocery store to take showers, clean
dishes and cook.
Tucson Water plans to start discharging water containing low
levels of PFAS compounds from its south-side water treatment
plant into the Santa Cruz River in early October — if it gets a
state permit for the discharge by then. The utility is building
a pipeline to take the water from that treatment plant near
Interstate 10 and Irvington Road to the river near Irvington.
It also has submitted a permit application for the discharge to
the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.
The first thing to know about Thermal, California, is: It’s
really damn hot. Already, at this early date in our planetary
crisis, 139 days a year are over 95 degrees Fahrenheit in
Thermal. Over the next 30 years, temperatures will rise 4 to 5
degrees more, and by the end of the century, more than half the
year there will be hotter than 95 and nearly a quarter will be
hotter than 112. The second thing to know about Thermal,
California, is: It’s a cartoonishly horrible expression of a
moral and practical issue that exists, at some level, in every
society on earth.
An agreement that would turn on the taps for recycled water for
Monterey Peninsula residents hit a speed bump Monday when water
officials balked at a clause that would require the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District to support any California
American Water Co. project, including desalination, should the
recycled water fail to meet a promised amount. For Cal Am to
purchase water from Monterey One Water’s Pure Water Monterey
Expansion project, a water purchase agreement, or WPA, would
need to be signed by Cal Am, Monterey One Water and the water
district.
Kelly O’Brien’s drinking water well had been in its death
throes for days before its pump finally gave out over Memorial
Day weekend. … Soon O’Brien learned that other wells
were failing around her. She heard about one neighbor to the
north, another to the east. The list kept growing: She started
a Facebook group for owners of dry wells to share their woes
and resources, and it grew to more than 665 members.
Oceanside Water Utilities in California was days away from
running out of bleach for its waste- and drinking-water
treatment plants last month, Bloomberg Law reported on Monday.
If chemical shipments didn’t return in time, the water supply
for 170,000 people would be at risk. The Oceanside plant was
one of 10 local systems from California, Utah, New Mexico, and
New York that requested help from the US Environmental
Protection Agency this week, according to
Bloomberg.
The well fixer and I were standing at the edge of an almond
orchard in the exhausted middle of California. It was late
July, and so many wells on the farms of Madera County were
coming up dry that he was running out of parts to fix them. In
this latest round of western drought, desperate voices were
calling him at six in the morning and again at midnight. They
were puzzled why their pumps were coughing up sand, the water’s
flow to their orchards now a trickle.
Benicia residents could see their water and wastewater bills
increase following a recommendation by city staff. City council
would have to ultimately approve it. On Aug. 11, 2021, staff at
the City of Benicia publicly released their recommendations on
the revised draft water and wastewater utility rate study. Of
the four possible funding scenarios for each utility, staff is
recommending city council select Water Scenario 3 and
Wastewater Scenario 3 and is further recommending that Council
consider a public hearing date in November.
Problems at a Los Angeles sewage treatment plant that caused a
massive sewage spill into Santa Monica Bay last month have
severely reduced the region’s water recycling ability, forcing
officials to divert millions of gallons of clean drinking water
at a time of worsening drought conditions. Even as California
Gov. Gavin Newsom urges a voluntary 15% reduction in water
usage, the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant‘s inability to
fully treat sewage has forced local officials to divert clean
drinking water to uses normally served by recycled Hyperion
water.
A proposed management plan for Point Reyes National Seashore,
drafted during Donald Trump’s tenure as president, is
environmentally irresponsible, violates the public trust and
should be rejected by President Joe Biden’s Interior
Department. California tule elk once numbered 500,000 before
being nearly extirpated by hunting, their habitat destroyed for
cattle ranching. Restoring these iconic animals at Point Reyes,
the only National Park where they are found, is a significant
achievement we should celebrate. -Written by Todd Steiner, wildlife ecologist and
executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network.
Congress is preparing to infuse a historic amount of money into
the nation’s drinking water systems — but whether that money
will meet President Biden’s environmental justice goals will
largely fall into the hands of states unlikely to consider race
or how accessible those funds are to struggling communities,
according to a new report. The groundbreaking analysis released
today reveals that, over the past decade, states have been less
likely to spend money from EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving
Fund program on smaller and more diverse communities.
Senators were laboring Sunday toward eventual passage of
a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, resigned
to stay as long as it takes to overcome Republican holdouts who
want to drag out final votes on one of President Joe Biden’s
top priorities. The bill has won widespread support from
senators across the aisle and promises to unleash billions of
dollars to upgrade roads, bridges, broadband internet, water
pipes and other public works systems undergirding the
nation.
California has big environmental problems to address — extreme
drought, wildfires, species extinction — but the fate of a few
herds of tule elk also invokes raw emotions more than four
decades after they were reintroduced to Point Reyes National
Seashore, about 100 miles from Sacramento. Now, climate change
and extreme drought have added urgency to the dispute between
environmentalists, the National Park Service, ranchers and
indigenous tribal interests in this stunning part of the
Northern California coast.
In July, the number of dry wells registered in Klamath County
was at 84. A month later, that number has climbed to 185 as
wells from the California state line all the way to Crescent
and La Pine are getting low and going dry. There are likely
more unregistered dry wells in Klamath County. The county
watermaster’s office said they receive daily calls from well
owners asking how to register. And the Modoc County Sheriff
shared a PSA on Facebook explaining what to do if someone in
that county is without well water.
While recent commentary saddled the state with all the blame
for the lack of drinking water in Teviston, local jurisdictions
in the San Joaquin Valley must also accept responsibility.
Small water systems are caught between the historic legacy of
discriminatory policy, dropping groundwater levels caused by
overpumping, and chronically failing water systems. Local
governments have long resisted providing aid to these
communities or initiating processes that could require nearby
systems to provide water, particularly when those solutions may
impact wealthier neighbors.
In early January 2016, Fresno city officials began picking up
on social media chatter among northeast Fresno residents who
were concerned about rusty, discolored water coming out of
their pipes. Starting Jan. 25, the city began testing the water
in five homes around an area bounded by Chestnut Avenue on the
west, Gettysburg Avenue on the south, Willow Avenue on the east
and Copper Avenue to the north. Test results showed everything
checked out fine, including pipes between the water main and
the homes. However, the tests did find iron, zinc, copper and
in a few of the homes, lead.
A federal judge has denied a request by environmental groups to
require the Biden administration to immediately provide food
and water for the largest herd of tule elk in the Point Reyes
National Seashore. The groups, represented by Harvard Law
School’s Animal Law and Policy Clinic, allege the National Park
Service failed to provide adequate resources at the Tomales
Point Tule Elk Preserve, which lost 152 elk between the winters
of 2019-2020 and 2020-21. The herd is now below 300 animals.
Monterey Peninsula water officials are breathing a sigh of
relief after a monitoring well in the Seaside Basin picked up
increased salt levels, prompting concerns that an underground
reservoir of potable water was being infiltrated by seawater.
But it turned out the salts were from a failed well casing that
allowed saltier shallow water from the Dune Sands to enter into
the well and cross-contaminate the deeper body of water called
the Paso Robles Aquifer that is tapped for drinking
water.
A “mega-drought” across the Southwest will force the federal
government to declare a water shortage on the Colorado River
this month. The decision would be historic for the watershed,
which serves 40 million people in seven states: California,
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. The
river system provides irrigation that turns desert into
farmland and is an important source of drinking water and
hydroelectric power.
A Spanish company has devised a system to extract drinking
water from thin air to supply arid regions where people are in
desperate need. The machines use electricity to cool air
until it condenses into water, harnessing the same effect that
causes condensation in air-conditioning units.
The bipartisan infrastructure deal struck this week provides
new money for climate resilience unmatched in United States
history: Tens of billions of dollars to protect against floods,
reduce damage from wildfires, develop new sources of drinking
water in areas plagued by drought, and even relocate entire
communities away from vulnerable places. But the bill is
remarkable for another reason. For the first time, both parties
have acknowledged — by their actions, if not their words — that
the United States is unprepared for the worsening effects of
climate change and requires an enormous and urgent infusion of
money and effort to get ready.
San Diego is just one city among many in the country’s most
arid regions facing the ongoing threat of long-term drought.
Western water agencies continue working to not only conserve
water, but to also reuse as much wastewater as possible,
including from the stable supply [Direct Potable Reuse]
promises. As San Diego discovered decades ago, making DPR a
reality entails — along with regulatory and permitting changes
— trying to overcome the “yuck factor.” Today, despite its
“toilet-to-tap” hurdle, San Diego is now intent on becoming the
first city in California to convey treated effluent directly
from factory to faucet.
As the drought deepens across the West, coastal cities are
considering whether or not to filter ocean water as a solution
to their water woes. In the Bay Area, Marin Water is mulling
plans to draw its drinking water from the San Francisco
Bay. Reservoir levels in Marin County are at historic lows this
year, and water leaders are calling for a 40% reduction. So far
the county has reached a 23% reduction, says Cynthia Koehler,
president of the agency’s board of directors.
At least 162 oil refineries and other petroleum-holding
facilities in California have likely stored or used materials
containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class
of synthetic chemicals that persist indefinitely in the
environment and are linked to severe illnesses, according to
state water regulators. The California State Water Resources
Control Board sent a letter to facility operators in March
ordering them to submit work plans evaluating the presence of
the toxic compounds at their facilities, including areas where
PFAS are stored or disposed of and the potential ways the
chemicals could have contaminated soil, surface water, storm
water and groundwater …
Even after the pandemic subsides, the San Lorenzo Valley Water
District (SLVWD) will not turn off customer’s water supply for
nonpayment. SLVWD Manager Rick Rogers in an interview said the
board has “a strong position that we should not be turning
people’s water off for nonpayment. It’s a fundamental right,
but we also have to pay our bills.” SLVWD, Rogers said, will no
longer issue a 48-hour tag for nonpayment. Instead, the
district will, once a year, move any outstanding bills onto
residents’ property tax bills.
Thirty-five years ago, California voters approved a landmark
law meant to halt exposure to dangerous chemicals in drinking
water and everyday products like food, flip-flops, and face
shields. Decades later, the water cases are few and far
between—while hundreds of product lawsuits bring in millions of
dollars annually for plaintiffs’ attorneys, some of whom
represent environmental groups focused only on this law.
Last week, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
(OEHHA) released draft public health goals (PHGs) for
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid
(PFOS) in drinking water. OEHHA’s announcement is several years
in the making and is relevant for water purveyors and
municipalities providing other related services such as
wastewater treatment because PHGs are used to create
enforceable drinking water standards and remediation goals for
groundwater contamination.
At the monthly Mendocino City Community Services District
meeting the board discussed the ground water management
ordinance penalty options for constituents who do not comply to
the permitting and monitoring requirements. The board also
continued to discuss options for drought mitigations. The
Ground Water Extraction Permit Ordinance 2020-1 that passed in
April of 2020 reiterated the district’s authority to compel any
property owner within district boundaries to obtain a ground
water extraction permit and install a meter, monitor their
water usage and report it monthly to MCCSD.
California’s courts routinely impose punitive damages awards
against polluters that knowingly release hazardous substances
which contaminate groundwater. But California has been slow to
follow the nationwide trend favoring punitive damages awards
against polluters that knowingly fail to remediate their past
hazardous releases before those releases spread and cause
greater harm.
A bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate aims to provide
billions of dollars to improve access to clean water in tribal
lands. One of the senators who introduced the bill, Sen.
Michael Bennet, D-Colo., wrote in the foreword of a report
about tribal water access within the Colorado River Basin that
one estimate states 48% of households within tribal lands lack
clean water or sufficient sanitation.
Last week, the House of Representatives approved legislation
that would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to establish national drinking water standards for
regulating harmful forever chemicals, known as per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), that are linked to kidney,
liver and other health problems. … The bill now awaits
consideration in the U.S. Senate. There’s just one problem,
however, as the collective water sector opposes the bill.
How are we messaging to our summer guests about our Climate
Emergency? About our town’s precious, empty Russian River
watershed? Is this a teachable moment for these privileged
travelers who come from places of Water Security? We should all
be True Believers in Climate Change. Effective June 8, 2021,
Healdsburg’s Stage Three mandatory conservation seeks a 40%
reduction in water use citywide with additional, restrictive
rules: 74 gallons per resident per day; No
irrigation; Hand watering only; Planting is
prohibited; $1,000 fine per day…the city means business!
-Written by Brigette Mansell, former Healdsburg
mayor.
Today we launch Drought Week, a five-part series looking at how
water shortages across the West are profoundly changing life.
We’ll swoop around, from Oregon to the Sonoran Desert, from
cities to national parks, from Joshua trees to lawns. To start
Drought Week, it’s only natural — pardon the pun — that we take
the bigger view first with our Masters of Disasters, the L.A.
Times reporters who focus on natural calamities. So get your
five-gallon buckets and put them next to you when you shower,
’cause things are serious right now.
The small, rural community of Tooleville is on the brink of
going dry after one of its two wells went down Friday morning.
It’s the second community in Tulare County to suffer water
problems in the last two months as California struggles through
the grip of a devastating drought. The only well in the town of
Teviston, also in rural Tulare County, broke down June 9
leaving residents there dry until the pump was fixed July 16.
Helix Water District, which provides water for much of East
County, will reinstate late fees starting in August and renew
water shutoffs on Oct. 1. The utility’s governing board voted
4-1 on Wednesday to support staff’s decision to bring back late
fees and shutoffs for nonpayment. Customers suffering financial
hardship had been given a grace period during the pandemic. The
district currently has 546 accounts in arrears for a total of
more than $470,000. Helix officials say that 475 of those
accounts are residential.
In a draft report, California says only extremely low levels of
two toxic “forever chemicals” are safe for humans to drink in
water. A July 22 draft report from the California Environmental
Protection Agency would set a science-based safe level—called
a public health goal—of 0.007 part per trillion for
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and 1 ppt for
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in drinking water. The two
compounds are the two most common per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS)—a group of environmentally persistent
synthetic molecules—found as contaminants in drinking water.
Forced to reckon with a worsening drought, California’s water
regulators are preparing to forbid thousands of farmers from
tapping into the state’s major rivers and streams. It’s an
extraordinary step — and one that regulators didn’t take during
the last drought, which was considered one of the worst on
record. The State Water Resources Control Board on Friday
released an “emergency curtailment” order that would cut
thousands off from rivers and streams in the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river watersheds.
Lawmakers and experts on Wednesday warned of gaping
cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the nation’s critical water
sector amid escalating attacks against a number of U.S.
organizations. … [C]oncerns came during a committee
hearing on cybersecurity vulnerabilities in critical
infrastructure that zeroed in on concerns around water and
wastewater treatment facilities. Cyber threats have soared
in recent years, including recent ransomware attacks on
critical infrastructure such as Colonial Pipeline, and the
water sector has not been immune.
A class action lawsuit was filed against San Diego and its
public utilities department on Wednesday, alleging that
residential and commercial customers were overcharged in fees
to make up for shortfalls from industrial wastewater
dischargers.
As humans struggle with the drought, wildlife has an even
harder time adapting. Siskiyou County’s deer, elk, bear,
bobcat, mountain lion and bird populations are in danger
as creeks dry up and lakes evaporate into hot
air. That’s where guzzlers come in. These
large plastic or aluminum water collection devices – 240
of them – are scattered throughout the Klamath and
Shasta-Trinity national forests in Siskiyou County. When it
rains, water is collected in the tanks … which
allows thirsty wildlife to step down and reach the water.
A lot of the fruits, vegetables and nuts that you see in
grocery stores come from California. Growing them takes a huge
amount of water, which is a huge problem when the state is in
the middle of a drought. California’s farmers are pumping most
of that water from underground aquifers. They can’t keep doing
that, though, especially as the climate changes. NPR’s Dan
Charles has the story.
California took a major step towards regulating dangerous
“forever chemicals” in drinking water by proposing new health
limits for two of the most pervasive contaminants. State
environmental health officials recommended goals of
one part per trillion and less — a minuscule amount 70 times
smaller than the federal government’s non-binding guideline for
drinking water nationwide.
The House on Wednesday approved a bill setting deadlines for
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement drinking
water regulations for so-called forever chemicals.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly called
PFAS, are widely used, man-made compounds that are found in
manufacturing and consumer products like Scotchguard,
flame-resistant materials, nonstick cooking surfaces and
firefighting foam used on military bases since the 1940s.
When it comes to the water year this summer, it could be
referred to as a season on the brink. Tule River Water Master
David De Groot announced on Monday water from the Tule River
began to be run off over this past weekend. … De Groot said
the water runoff will last 30 days through mid-August. He added
the Tule River’s flow was just at 15.6 percent of
normal … the lowest level the lake will be at
since the dire drought of 2014-2015.
The water is back on at a South Bay apartment complex, but a
big question remains: what was in the pipes from which tenants
obtained gallons and gallons of water to use in their bathrooms
and kitchens and possibly to drink? Tenants at the Foxdale
Apartments were without water from Saturday until Monday after
a buried water main broke. During that time, some tenants
tapped into an emergency fire sprinkler supply line to get
water.
One day last month, water in the community of Teviston, about
66 miles south of Fresno, suddenly stopped flowing. The
town’s services office fielded calls from residents who said
their taps ran dry, and when city leaders opened their own
faucets, nothing came out. Soon, officials realized that
the town’s main well had stopped working. … [T]he water
level below the community has been dropping for the last 14
years, and two different wells had already failed.
Officials with the Monterey Peninsula water district
begrudgingly agreed Monday to pay for a feasibility study
requested by an intergovernmental body that has control over
the future of the district’s plan to take over California
American Water Co. The board of directors of the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District during its regular meeting
Monday approved up to $70,000 to pay for a study that was in
effect ordered by the Local Agency Formation Commission…
After over a month of transporting water from nearby towns and
delivering bottled water to residents, the rural Tulare County
community of Teviston had running water again Monday.
Teviston’s only well broke down in early June, leaving hundreds
of residents without running water. Teviston Community Services
District board member, Frank Galaviz, said that the well is
“back online” in an interview on Monday with The Bee. … In
total, Teviston residents went without running water for two to
three weeks, said board President Martin Correa.
Lawmakers and regulators are increasingly mobilizing behind
efforts to crack down on so-called forever chemicals as
pressure to find a solution swells to a fever pitch. At an
inaugural conference pegged to issues around per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances, EPA Administrator Michael Regan
vowed to “follow the science” on the chemicals and offer a
strong federal partner to local governments.
Rick Daniels lies awake at night worrying about a rusty
contraption in a forlorn field, littered with discarded pipes
and fire hydrants. It is the only water pump in Needles that
meets state water quality standards, running 23 hours a day to
keep up with demand, according to Daniels, the city manager.
That’s a thin margin in one of America’s hottest cities, an
urban speck in the desert near California’s border with
Arizona. If this lone pump fails, 5,000 residents face the
ultimate risk of taps running dry, as temperatures soar past
120 degrees …
Marin Municipal Water District announced Friday that it has
found a potential vendor for temporary desalination plants and
four Central Valley water suppliers that could transfer water
to the county through a pipeline across the Richmond-San Rafael
Bridge. The emergency water projects are being explored based
on forecasts that the majority of Marin residents could run out
of water by July 2022 if the upcoming winter is as dry as last
year’s. The district serves about two-thirds of the county
including 191,000 residents in central and southern
Marin.
Official estimates of unpaid water and energy bills accumulated
during the pandemic verge on $2.7 billion, affecting a few
million Californians — and those figures have been
growing rapidly. The state has so far prioritized
rent relief — keeping people housed — over utilities
relief. [O]f the $158 million distributed as of July 16, less
than $40,000 had gone to utilities relief. Utility debt makes
up about 6% of all assistance requested so far. On July
11, lawmakers revealed a plan to use one-time federal relief
money to address the debt. … But it doesn’t extend current
shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30.
The shade in Cesar Chavez Plaza provides a refuge for people
during the rising, record-breaking heat in downtown Sacramento.
Staying cool is critical during a heat wave — as is staying
hydrated. But for Sacramento’s over 5,000 unhoused
people, accessing that drinking water isn’t always
straightforward. And while Sacramento has 297 drinking
fountains, they don’t always provide cold water, for
example. Jeffrey Milner, who is unhoused, said he’s
gotten water from people near the downtown library branch and
from people giving away water at Cesar Chavez.
On the surface, the city of Folsom would seem to be water rich.
Perched at the foot of Folsom Lake, where snowmelt funnels into
the Sacramento Valley, the city taps into large intake pipes
plumbed deep into Folsom Dam’s inner face to send cool water to
nearby homes and businesses. That easy access is turning
into a mirage. After two dry winters, the reservoir has
shriveled to its second-lowest level for July in nearly 50
years. It’s lower than it was in July 2014 and July 2015, when
the last drought was raging, California ordered mandatory water
cutbacks, and Folsom residents had to swallow a 32% reduction
in usage.
Alex Padilla made his first official visit to the Central
Valley as U.S. Senator, holding several discussions about
water. Padilla, along with other elected officials, held a
media availability at his only public event of the day — a tour
of the Dos Palos water treatment plant. There, he spoke about
the need to upgrade infrastructure for drinking water, as well
as water for farmers. Padilla says the infrastructure bill
being debated in the Senate will help with water, especially in
underserved areas.
Super Bowl weekend was the headline event last winter in Tampa,
Florida, where the mood was giddier than usual, given that the
hometown Bucs had advanced to the championship. But two days
before the big game, an incident just a few miles west of
Raymond James Stadium temporarily stole the show. A hacker
gained remote access to a water treatment plant in the town of
Oldsmar. The intrusion on February 5 lasted only a few minutes
— just long enough for the hacker to raise the concentration of
lye in the water by a factor of 1,000.
Extreme heat and wildfires are engulfing the [West] amid a
historic drought that scientists think may be the region’s
worst in at least 1,200 years. In response, some drinking water
systems are beginning to grapple with maintaining both water
supplies and water quality as they deal with potential legal
and regulatory concerns. … California contracted with
the U.S. Geological Survey to study the link between drought
and water quality … Some systems saw increases in nitrates,
arsenic, and uranium …
The Clean Water Act has traveled a successful but tortuous
path. From combustible beginnings on the Cuyahoga River;
through the Lake St. Clair wetlands; to reservoirs near the
Miccosukee; and eventually discharged (or “functionally”
discharged) off the Maui coast. With each bend, the nearly
fifty-year-old Act has proven to be not just resilient, but
among our most successful environmental laws. Much of that
success stems from an effective enforcement structure that
focuses more on treating pollutant sources rather than just
impaired waters. –Written by Sean G. Herman, an attorney with Hanson
Bridgett LLP and an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University
School of Law.
While much of California’s earthquake risk has been
historically focused on the San Andreas fault and places like
Los Angeles and San Francisco, quakes are capable of causing
significant destruction in the state’s Sierra Nevada and
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta … UCLA experts warned
in 2014 that a major earthquake sending destructive shaking to
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could potentially destroy
aging levees, causing flooding and drawing in saline water from
San Francisco Bay — which would contaminate one of the state’s
key water supply systems.
California denied 21 oil drilling permits this week in the
latest move toward ending fracking in a state that makes
millions from the petroleum industry but is seeing widespread
drought and more dangerous fire seasons linked to climate
change. … Fracking involves injecting high-pressure
water deep underground to extract oil or gas from rock. Critics
say it can pollute groundwater and contributes to climate
change.
Slowly but surely, the San Lorenzo Valley community is
rebuilding itself after the CZU Lightning Complex fire. Its
water district is no exception. The San Lorenzo Valley Water
District lost all of its water intake infrastructure at the
Lyon Water Treatment Plant in Boulder Creek, built in 1994 with
the purpose of treating surface water coming from many streams
on the Empire Grade mountain. About 50% of the water stored at
the plant was lost as well. All of the 1,600 acres of the
watershed were affected by the wildfire.
The American west has a sprawling network of dams, reservoirs
and pipelines that brings a supply of water to its cities and
farms. But overexploitation and a two-decade dry spell have put
a severe strain on the resources, with reserves dwindling to
historic lows in some areas. The situation will only get worse
in the coming decades, warn scientists, as surging populations
will boost freshwater demand and a hotter, drier climate will
bring deeper droughts and more erratic precipitation
patterns. …[N]ew water-sourcing approaches are also
needed. One such is rainwater harvesting.
California has a long history of treating public water as a
commodity instead of a human right and entrusting it to
industries that fail to manage it responsibly. Water is a
public trust resource that needs protection. The federal Water
Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act would
put water systems back in the hands of the people who depend on
it for life and livelihood. This bill [S. 11] would set aside
$35 billion annually to shore up drinking and wastewater
systems. It would ensure no one lacks access to water because
they can’t afford it. -Written by Alexandra Nagy, California director
for Food & Water Watch.
Radhika Fox vividly remembers growing up in rural India without
running water or flushing toilets. The newly confirmed head of
EPA’s Office of Water lived with her grandmother while her
parents finished their medical training in New York City. “When
the monsoon season came, the roads flooded because they were
mud,” Fox said in a recent interview. “At least our little
village was an oasis unto its own.” Fox said it’s an
“incredible dream and honor” to serve as the first woman of
color in the role of assistant administrator at EPA’s Office of
Water after such “humble beginnings.”
A year-and-a-half after Orange County began shutting down
groundwater wells because of PFAS contamination, the first
treatment plant to remove the carcinogens is up and operating
in Fullerton, with two dozen more to be built throughout the
north and central parts of the county. Miniscule quantities of
PFAS, a family of chemicals used for waterproofing and
stain-proofing among other uses, have been found to be toxic…
Lake Mead, which provides water for 25 million people in
the American West, has shrunk to 36 percent of its capacity.
One rural California community has run out of water entirely
after its well broke in early June. Fields are sitting fallow,
as farmers sell their water allotments instead of growing
crops, putting the nation’s food supply in peril. As the West
withers under extreme drought, legislators in the US House of
Representatives have introduced HR 4099, a bill that would
direct the Secretary of the Interior to create a program to
fund $750 million worth of water recycling projects in the 17
western states through the year 2027.
The expected water cuts from the Colorado River as a result of
the Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) will likely mean higher
water utility rates, according to Fitch Ratings. The U.S.
Congress passed the DCP in 2019 to protect water levels in Lake
Powell and Lake Mead which provide water to Colorado River
basin states. Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and Mexico entered into the DCP,
which mandates how water cuts will occur when the lakes drop to
certain levels, called tiers.
Major renovations will begin Wednesday on the Anderson Dam
tunnel project in Santa Clara County. The project will
require the reservoir to be drained – and it will be unable to
be used for 10 years. The timing is not great as
California remains in a drought but water officials say this is
a vital project for flood protection that will protect the
public for years to come. The reservoir can hold more than
300,000 gallons of water and is the water district’s largest
drinking water reservoir.
If you’re a Sacramento homeowner, the city is now offering
twice as much money for you to conserve water. According
to a press release, the city’s Department of Utilities
announced it is doubling its River Friendly Landscape
rebates while funding is available. The program
includes: Turf conversion, which doubled from $1.50 to $3
per square foot of grass replaced. Irrigation upgrades of up to
$800 for new sprinklers or smart irrigation
controllers. Installing a smart controller in the
home.
The Marin Municipal Water District, facing the possibility of
running out of water next summer, is scrambling to plan for two
emergency projects to keep the taps flowing in case of another
dry winter: a temporary desalination plant and a pipeline
across San Francisco Bay. But nearly 11 years ago, the district
chose not to build a desalination plant that could have
supplied as much as 60% of its current yearly potable water
demand — though at a high price. The district, which serves
191,000 residents in central and southern Marin, had been
exploring desalination since the early 1990s and has tested two
pilot desalting sites.
California is answering the call to keep the tap open to
millions of people who have fallen behind on their water bill
payments through a recent $1 billion investment from Gov. Gavin
Newsom. The timely assistance comes amid serious economic
fallout from the pandemic that caused record unemployment and
left 1.6 million households drowning in water debt. At the same
time, some small water systems are struggling to keep the water
flowing due to lost income from unpaid bills. The governor’s
plan addresses both problems, for now. But what happens next
year? -Written by Sen. Bill Dodd (Napa) and Sen. Lena
Gonzalez (Long Beach).
The epicenter of dry wells during California’s last devastating
drought was undoubtedly Porterville. The small Tulare County
town saw wells go dry en masse in its unincorporated east side.
It became a national headline as the media descended. Amid the
glare of tv cameras, the state pledged to help and agreed to
build three new wells. Five years have gone by, the state is in
the grip of another drought and Porterville is walking a
tightrope as the state connected more than 755 new homes to the
city’s water system but only built one new well.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) published
its first reviews of local groundwater sustainability plans as
part of a 2014 state law regulating groundwater—and two Central
Coast aquifers are included in the initial wave of feedback.
DWR reviewed and found “deficiencies” in the Paso Robles
Groundwater Basin and Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin
sustainability plans—declining to give final approval to
either.
The Santa Rosa City Council approved mandatory water-use
restrictions for its residents and businesses starting
Thursday, becoming the sixth city in Sonoma County to cut back
on water. The motion to approve the water-shortage contingency
plan — which mandates residents and businesses reduce water use
by 20% — passed with five ayes… A persistent lack of
precipitation has put most of the Bay Area in the worst drought
category.
Communities may face a range of issues associated with aging
water infrastructure, including elevated lead levels in tap
water. Because of lead’s toxicity, even at low levels, reducing
lead exposures from drinking water and other sources remains a
public health priority. Other sources of lead exposure include
lead-based paint and contaminated soil and dust from
deteriorated lead-based paint. Nationally, the phaseouts of
leaded gasoline and lead-based paint, along with regulatory
controls and technical changes, have reduced lead
exposures.
With a vast portion of the United States coping with
exceptional drought this summer, conditions are ripe in many
places for harmful algal blooms, bringing additional threats to
already-stressed water systems and increased health risks for
communities. The blooms are in large part fueled by phosphorus
and nitrogen runoff from industrial agricultural operations,
which provide a feast of nutrients for cyanobacteria — a group
of aquatic, photosynthetic bacteria that grow out of control
and overwhelm their ecosystems in the presence of excess
nutrients.
The time to act is now. Climate change is already altering the
physical environment of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and
Suisun Marsh (Delta), and we will continue to experience its
effects through hotter temperatures, more severe wildfires, and
prolonged droughts. Over the long term, climate change in the
Delta is expected to harm human health and safety, disrupt the
economy, diminish water supply availability and usability,
shift ecosystem function, compromise sensitive habitats, and
increase the challenges of providing basic services. Many of
these impacts will disproportionately affect vulnerable
communities.
As drought settles over the San Joaquin Valley, a new report
warns of other circumstances that could result in entire
communities losing drinking water. More than a million Valley
residents could lose their public water in coming decades under
the sweeping groundwater legislation known as the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), according to the paper
published earlier this month by the non-profit Pacific
Institute. Signed into law in 2014, SGMA aims over the next two
decades to reduce California’s groundwater deficit by balancing
water pumped out of the ground with the amount replenished.
U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), chair of the House Committee
on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Frank Pallone, Jr.
(D-NJ) announced Thursday new details of the $715 billion
INVEST in America Act, which is scheduled to be sent to the
House floor this week. The bill, the congressmen said, will
create jobs, rebuild and reimagine the country’s roads,
bridges, transit, rail, and wastewater infrastructure, as well
as the drinking water infrastructure.
This is how California’s water crisis is going these days: The
only functioning well in the rural community of Teviston broke
in early June, leaving more than 700 residents without running
water as temperatures in the Central Valley soared to
triple-digits in a drought. … Teviston residents are relying
on limited bottled water for necessities such as staying
hydrated, cooking, bathing and flushing toilets. Some
residents, like Galaviz, are traveling to neighboring towns to
stay with family or friends to shower and wash clothes.
The Clean Currents Coalition – a global network of local
projects – is on a mission to clean up the world’s rivers,
using scientific solutions to address the problem of plastic
waste … Pollution doesn’t respect international
boundaries, making plastic waste in the Tijuana River Estuary,
which forms the border between the US and Mexico, everyone’s
problem. As the river is the sole source of clean drinking
water for many people, California and Mexico-based
environmental non-profit WILDCOAST, has erected a “Brute
Boom” across the Los Laureles Canyon to collect debris.
SCV Water’s response to removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl
(PFAS) chemicals in the local groundwater supply
received top honors as the Best Environmental Project from the
American Public Works Association (APWA) — High
Desert Branch. … PFAS chemicals are manmade and can
cause adverse health effects. Officials recognized the
opening of the plant, which is adjacent to the William S. Hart
Pony Baseball & Softball fields, in early
October. The $6 million facility restores up to 6,250
gallons of water per minute.
Many water utilities face challenges from a nation-wide
shortage of chlorine and other chemicals for water and
wastewater treatment and are struggling to locate necessary
supplies or alternative sources. The Environmental Protection
Agency administers a program under Safe Drinking Water Act
section 1441 that allows water agencies to obtain priority
access to these chemicals.
For the past three weeks, construction crews working 24 hours a
day have been stacking boulders across a river in eastern
Contra Costa County, building what may be California’s biggest
defense yet against the drought: a nearly 800-foot-long rock
wall. The state’s emergency project, which was wrapping up
Thursday, is designed to prevent San Francisco Bay’s salty
flows from pushing into the coveted freshwater supplies of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Water levels in the delta’s
rivers and sloughs have dropped after two dry years, putting
water for almost 30 million Californians at risk of saltwater
intrusion. The plan is to keep the wall up until November…
East Orosi is one step closer to achieving clean drinking
water, a basic human right that is denied to many of
California’s disadvantaged communities, particularly in the
rural San Joaquin Valley. Last Tuesday, the Tulare County
Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to take steps to become
the manager of the small agricultural community’s water board.
That means the town of about 500 will soon have the financial
resources and technical know-how to gain clean water.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported a
chlorine shortage in California that may affect some ACWA
member agencies’ operations. An electrical failure at Westlake
Chemical in mid-June caused the chlorine supply disruption to
water and wastewater facilities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho
and parts of California. Today, state and local utilities
attended a meeting with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
(EPA) Water Security Division and Region 9 to express their
concerns relating to the chlorine shortage and shipments.
A muddy flavor in your tap water lately may not be the product
of your imagination. An algae bloom is causing water
sourced from the Sacramento and American rivers to impart a
“musty” taste to tap water. The bacterial bloom generates
something called geosmin, which is harmless for consumption but
is easily detectable due to its earthy smell and taste.
Help may be on the horizon for the about 700 residents of East
Orosi dependent on bottled water. The Tulare County Board of
Supervisors has directed county staff to begin negotiating the
scope of work and a budget … to take control of the East
Orosi Community Services District public water system.
… East Orosi’s water has been plagued with nitrates from
fertilizers and coliform bacteria since at least 2003, for
which their water system has been cited for violating the
Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) both contaminants dozens of
times.
A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday is alleging the Point Reyes
National Seashore was negligent in its wildlife management and
violated federal law after more than 150 tule elk died in a
park preserve last year. … Environmental groups and
activists allege the Tomales Point elk died because of a lack
of drinking water. Park staff said there were adequate water
sources within the enclosure when the population decline
occurred.
Something is off about Sacramento’s water. It smells and tastes
a little “earthy,” residents are saying — an effect of
compounding climate change crises: extreme heat, little to no
precipitation and a historic drought that has gripped the
region for the better part of a decade. Up and down the state
of California, rivers, streams and reservoirs are drying up. In
Sacramento, that has led to an increase in the concentration of
geosmin in its drinking water, one of two organic compounds
that give soil its characteristic smell.
California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes—more than
any other state—and several more are petitioning for federal
recognition. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is
responsible for regulating water quality on tribal lands, while
the State Water Board regulates water quality for other water
systems. According to USEPA’s ECHO database, 88 tribal water
systems in California serve more than 160,000 people.
Unfortunately, some Native American communities lack access to
safe drinking water.
In Los Angeles, people have been hearing about the dangers of
drought for decades. But in this land of infinity pools and
backyard putting greens — better suited for rattlesnakes and
scrub — water never seems to run out. Yet little Redwood Valley
in Mendocino County, which gets a bountiful 38 inches of rain
in an average year and sits near the headwaters of the Russian
River, has been devastated by this year’s drought. Each
resident has been told to use no more than 55 gallons per day —
enough to fill a bathtub and flush a toilet six times.
… When it comes to the impact of drought, location is
key.
The San Elijo Joint Powers Authority’s water reclamation
facility near San Elijo Lagoon on Manchester Avenue in
Encinitas was named “Plant of the Year” by the California Water
Environment Association, the agency announced today. The award
recognizes accomplishments in compliance, innovative practices,
cost-effectiveness and superior plant performance amongst
wastewater agencies across California.
Forty two percent of shallow wells supplying water to community
water systems in California’s San Joaquin Valley are vulnerable
to going partially or fully dry under the state’s minimum
thresholds, finds a new report from the Pacific Institute. Most
impacted wells are shallower, and tend to be in disadvantaged
communities.
Mechanical engineer Brent Yamasaki set out amid the recent
blistering heat wave to take stock of the giant dams, pumps and
pipes that support Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County, the
largest storehouse of water in Southern
California…. water availability in Southern California
“is expected to remain relatively stable over the next few
years,” says Deven Upadhyay, the MWD’s chief operating officer.
“Diamond Valley Lake is a key part of that forecast….”
On Sunday evening, a well motor failed in a Madera Ranchos
community water system that serves around 1,000
homes. Last week, another well pump stopped working in
Parksdale, southeast of Madera. Neither community has lost
water service. Both are experiencing low pressure. Madera
County Public Works runs both water systems. From Madera
Acres to the Bonadelle Ranchos, private wells are running
dry at an alarming rate. Self-Help Enterprises, an
organization that supports communities with water challenges,
has been tracking the problem.
Zone 7 directors have approved spending $2 million to design a
facility to treat potential human health threats in Cope Lake’s
water should chemicals accumulate above legally acceptable
levels. Those chemicals are called per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAs and PFOAs), which are found in consumer
products, such as cookware, food packaging and stain
repellents. They make their way into drinking water sources.
Routine maintenance repairs on a portion of water system pipes
along Cordilleras Creek left some San Mateo County residents
concerned water was being wasted as the state enters a drought.
… The Cordilleras Creek, one of two creeks running through
Redwood City, also cuts through Redwood High School where
[Redwood City resident Rudy] Tureillo works as a
custodian. Typically the creek is “bone dry,” Tureillo said,
but starting Wednesday, June 9, staff at the school noticed it
was flowing strong.
A hacker accessed the computer system of a Bay Area water
treatment plant in January and deleted programs the plant used
to treat drinking water, a senior intelligence official
confirmed Thursday. NBC News
first reported Thursday that the unidentified hacker
used a former plant employee’s username and password to gain
entry to the unidentified Bay Area water treatment facility on
Jan. 15.
In this blistering year in California, drinking water wells are
going dry in increasing numbers, rekindling memories of the
historic drought of 2012 to 2016, when more than 2,600 wells
across the state stopped producing water. So many wells went
dry in 2014 in the town of East Porterville that Tulare County
supplied portable public showers. California is not yet to that
level of emergency…. But because the trend lines do not look
promising, government agencies and nonprofit groups are
preparing for a difficult summer in which thousands of wells
could fail.
Does your tap water taste a little off right now? Sacramento
city leaders say the drought is probably to blame. The city
says they have been recently getting some calls with people
reporting an “earthy” taste to their tap water. Some people
have also been reporting an off smell as well.
Unlike most Bay Area cities, Morgan Hill gets 100 percent of
its water from underground wells. And that’s a big reason why
the city became the first in Santa Clara County to issue
mandatory water use restrictions. … The mayor said he
enjoys his green grass as much as the next person, but said
mandatory watering cutbacks to just two days a week and only in
the early morning or late evening hours mean it won’t look lush
for long.
Legislation from Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, that would help
hundreds of thousands of Californians who have fallen behind on
their water bills and are at risk of being disconnected from
water service cleared a key committee on Wednesday.
… Sen. Dodd’s legislation comes as the State Water
Resources Control Board heard results of a survey that found
water debt in California climbed to about $1 billion. The
survey estimated 12% of California households are behind on
their water bills with an average debt of $500 per
household.
Los Angeles is a pretty hot and dry place, and in fact,
California is suffering from increasing impacts of drought, so
how does the water we use every day get here? Let’s take the
journey your water takes from the source to your mouth with
these 5 things to know:
While the saying, “too much of a good thing,” sounds pleasant
at its core, water managers take that very seriously when it
comes to managing salt, or salinity, in the water supply. Water
managers across California are responsible for providing a
clean and safe drinking water supply, and salinity management
plays a critical role in the quality of water that is provided
to communities. While salt is composed of natural elements
commonly found in soil and water, how is salinity managed to
support a diversified water resource portfolio?
President Biden’s “Build Back Better” initiative proposes to
invest $111 billion in rebuilding and modernizing drinking
water and wastewater infrastructure, as well as funding other
water quality-related priorities, including addressing per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water
supplies. Legislation proposed in both the Senate and
House of Representatives in the 117th Congress (2021-2022)
reflects a bipartisan effort to translate the President’s goals
into national policy.
Instead of turning on the faucet to fill her pots to cook
dinner, Maria Olivera turns to her drums of state issued water
sitting next to the stove at her home in Tooleville.
… Tooleville spans all of two dusty dirt roads at the
edge of the Friant-Kern Canal, where the blue hue of flowing
water is just out of sight over raised levees. Along with it,
the basic human right of having clean drinking water. Nitrates
from farming fertilizers have rendered the water undrinkable in
Tooleville, and the community is dependent on biweekly water
deliveries.
As California suffers from a major drought and enters a climate
change fueled wildfire season, oil and gas operators continue
to use hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater for
drilling operations annually. It’s a vicious symbiotic cycle:
fracking and drilling contribute to climate change and suck up
finite water resources, then drought and wildfires worsen from
climate change.
The drought facing the Western United States is
bad. Really bad. It’s become worse faster than the last
one. As more of the United States suffers from drought
conditions and water supplies are diminishing, water
demands are rising. Smaller water supplies combined with
increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and other effects
of climate change pose an enormous threat by creating a
feedback loop that exacerbates drought conditions and
increases wildfire risk across the United States.
Verizon and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California were two high-value targets hit by a suspected
Chinese-backed hack that was first brought to the public’s
attention in April, the Associated Press reported. Pulse
Connect Secure networking devices are used by many companies
and governments to allow secure remote access to their networks
and those were the targets of the hacks. The Chinese government
was suspected of backing the hacks, but China has denied any
role.
With harmful algal blooms (HABs) being forecast to increase, in
part due to the effects of climate change, more water systems
can expect to face problematic cyanotoxin conditions more
frequently and for more days per year. In its efforts to
mitigate the negative effects of such increases, the U.S. EPA
has enhanced its information resources for water utilities by
issuing a new Cyanotoxins Preparedness and Response Toolkit.
As California plunges into another “historic” drought, people
across the state are worried about water shortages. But the
last drought never really ended for some Californians, like
residents of East Porterville that still have emergency water
storage tanks in their front yards. With the state’s current
financial surplus, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity
to fund drought preparedness and water safety in communities
that have lived for decades with shallow and contaminated
drinking water wells, inadequate water treatment, and other
infrastructure failures… -Written by Carolina Garcia, a resident of Tombstone
Territory, and Sandra Chavez, a member of the
Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER)
Advisory Group.
When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was hacked
in 2018, it took a mere six hours. Early this year, an intruder
lurked in hundreds of computers related to water systems across
the U.S. In Portland, Oregon, burglars installed malicious
computers onto a grid providing power to a chunk of the
Northwest. … All three drive home a point long known but,
until recently, little appreciated: the digital security of
U.S. computer networks controlling the machines that produce
and distribute water and power is woefully inadequate, a low
priority for operators and regulators, posing a terrifying
national threat.
It’s so dry at Joshua Tree National Park in southern California
that a trail has been shut down to make sure bighorn sheep have
access to water. Thirsty bighorn sheep need surface water to
survive. As the drought becomes more extreme in Joshua Tree,
herds have relied more on a spring near 49 Palms Trail. … To
help make sure the bighorn sheep have the access to water they
need, park officials are shutting down the 49 Palms Trail to
all tourists.
Toxic manmade chemicals, like per- and poly-fluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS) and 1,2,3-Tricholoropropane (TCP), are
showing up in water systems across the US. It’s not new, but it
has become more common, as municipalities are now increasing
mandatory testing due to new state and federal
regulations. … TCP was tagged as a carcinogen in
1999 by the state of California which lead to the strictest
state MCL level in the country at 5 ppt. One ppt is the
equivalent of one drop of impurity in 21 million gallons of
water – in other words, TCP is very toxic.
The problem, as always, is that water keeps flowing from the
tap. Every other indicator is telling us we should be in red
alert right now about Arizona’s climate and water situation.
But when we turn the valve, even on these blazing days,
drinkable water flows. It’s a luxury in this season and this
place. And it makes it easy to turn away from the news. But we
shouldn’t. -Written by Tim Steller.
A large oilfield wastewater disposal pond near Buttonwillow
will likely close this summer, and its operator and last
remaining customer will together pay $645,000 in penalties and
fees, under a recent court settlement that further restricts a
decades-old practice that has become a focus of regional water
quality regulators. The accord concludes a 2019 lawsuit that
accused facility owner Valley Water Management Co. and
Colorado-based oil producer Sentinel Peak Resources of dumping
fluid containing harmful chemicals above a reservoir that
provides local drinking and irrigation water.
Creeks and springs at Point Reyes National Seashore haven’t
completely dried up but they’re looking parched enough that
park staff set up three large troughs last week to ensure tule
elk herds get enough water to make it through what could be an
unprecedented drought. The 250-gallon troughs at the south end
of the Tomales Point Tule Elk Reserve will stay in place at
least until rains return next winter, National Park Service
officials said.
Military bases across California, including some in San Diego,
have tested positive for a toxic chemical. A bill sponsored by
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla attempts to find the money to finally
clean up the legacy of PFAS. The Department of Defense has
known for decades that a chemical found in aviation fire
fighting foam contains potentially toxic polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS), which has been linked to cancer when found
in groundwater, Padilla said.
Despite inspiring an Oscar-winning movie, the story of Hinkley,
California, did not have the Hollywood ending viewers may have
expected. Hinkley’s story shot Erin Brockovich to stardom and
she has continued to crusade for access to safe water. Hinkley
is a small southern California community in the Mojave Desert.
Since the 1950s, utility company Pacific Gas & Electric has
operated a natural gas pumping station. Until 1966, the company
used a chemical called chromium 6 to prevent rust. The toxic
chemical eventually seeped into Hinkley’s water supply.
During the budget hearings on June 8, the Mendocino County
Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a proposal for a
standalone water agency to combat water insecurity in Mendocino
County. This water agency will immediately focus on the local
drought emergency and work on other water-related projects,
such as water curtailment and groundwater management, in the
future.
San Luis Obispo’s 2020 Water Quality Report shows zero
violations of health regulations. Jason Meeks is the supervisor
of the city’s water treatment plant. He has been working in
water and wastewater for nearly 22 years. Meeks said one of the
most important things for city residents to know about the 2020
Water Quality Report is that it only shows substances that were
detected in the water.
[During the last drought], small rural communities reliant on
shallow wells — many of them communities of color — were among
the most affected. More than 2,600 households reported losing
access to water because their wells went dry between 2012–16.
(That number is likely an undercount as reporting was
voluntary.) Much has changed however since the 2012–16 drought.
Drought reporting systems such as MyDryWaterSupply are
available today, and better data on domestic well depths and
locations, as well as groundwater levels, aid our understanding
of drought risk. -Written by Rich Pauloo, co-founder of the Water Data
Lab; and Alvar Escriva-Bou, a research fellow at the
Public Policy Institute of California Water.
In unburned forests, the spring runoff is a glorious, annual
event. But not this year. [U.S. Forest service ecologist Liz]
Roberts and other forest experts know that the runoff will
carry an array of frightening heavy metals and ash-laden
sediment generated in the burned soils, posing danger to the
people of Glenwood Springs, who rely on Grizzly Creek and its
neighbor just to the west, No Name Creek, for drinking
water.
For decades, large red-hot furnaces cooked the lead from
smashed batteries at the Exide plant, just seven miles from
Downtown Los Angeles, spouting plumes of toxic air that settled
on and contaminated thousands of homes. … In the years
since, the facility has been cited repeatedly for serious
compliance problems. According to a former DTSC senior
scientist’s review of public records, at least four are
responsible for soil and groundwater contamination that the
department has or should have known about for years or even
decades.
A court of appeal invalidated a water district’s adopted rate
increases, concluding that the district failed to meet its
burden under Proposition 218 of establishing that the increases
did not exceed the cost of providing the water service. …
Following a hearing, the Board of Directors of the Florin
County Water District voted to increase its water rates by 50
percent. Data presented by staff at the hearing showed that
revenues would exceed expenditures in each of the four years
following the rate increase, culminating in a net profit of
almost $1.4 million in the fourth year.
The White House last week announced the official
launch of the Low-Income Household Water Assistance
Program (LIHWAP) housed at the U.S. Department of Health &
Human Services (HHS). This program is the first of its
kind designed to provide funding to help low-income households
affected by the COVID-19 pandemic pay their water and
wastewater bills. According to the National Association of
Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), the available federal funds,
which total $1.138 billion, were secured as part of
the federal COVID-19 relief spending in December 2020 and March
2021.
Ateam led by UC Riverside engineers has developed a catalyst to
remove a dangerous chemical from water on Earth that could also
make Martian soil safer for agriculture and help produce oxygen
for human Mars explorers. Perchlorate, a negative ion
consisting of one chlorine atom bonded to four oxygen atoms,
occurs naturally in some soils on Earth, and is especially
abundant in Martian soil. As a powerful oxidizer, perchlorate
is also manufactured and used in solid rocket fuel, fireworks,
munitions, airbag initiators for vehicles, matches and signal
flares. It is a byproduct in some disinfectants and
herbicides.
In a major sign of California’s worsening drought, Santa Clara
County’s largest water provider announced Monday that it is
moving forward with plans to declare a water shortage emergency
and to urge cities and water companies that serve 2 million
residents in and around San Jose to impose mandatory water
restrictions. The move will be the first time since the
historic drought of 2012 to 2016 that Santa Clara County
residents will face mandatory restrictions as the county
becomes the most populous area in California to impose such
severe measures.
As California responds to yet another drought and prepares for
a future of greater climate extremes, securing funding to boost
the water system’s resilience is a top priority. One go-to
funding source over the last two decades has been state general
obligation bonds. In dollar terms, GO bonds play a relatively
small role in water system spending, yet they punch above their
weight when it comes to filling critical gaps.
San Franciscans are pretty proud of their tap water.
Sourced from the Hetch Hetchy watershed in Yosemite National
Park, the complex supply system of reservoirs, tunnels,
pipelines, and treatment systems stretching from the Sierra to
San Francisco is uniquely almost entirely gravity fed. The San
Francisco Public Utilities Commission even boasts on its site
that their water is “among the purest water in the
world.” So the 2.7 million residents who benefit from the
supposed crème de la crème of tap water may be surprised to
learn that the water coming out of the faucets in SoCal has
been named the best tasting tap water in America, on qualities
including odor and “mouth feel.”
In victories that make the state’s drought even crueler, two
Southern California water districts have won the top prizes for
best tap water in the U.S. at an international tasting contest.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California finished
first and Santa Ana took second place for the nation’s Best
Municipal Water on Saturday at the 31st annual Berkeley Springs
International Water Tasting in West Virginia. Those two
competitors finished first in the category in 2008 and 2018,
respectively. Third place went to the Southwest Water Authority
of Dickinson, in North Dakota.
Recent research from the US Geological Survey (USGS) suggests
that droughts, particularly the prolonged kind happening in
parts of the US, could increase the risk of harmful arsenic
exposure for people that rely on well water. Hundreds of
millions of years ago, the baseline quality of your drinking
water may have been set in stone, literally. Arsenic is a
common groundwater contaminant, largely because of local
geology. In Maine, for instance, the formation of the
Appalachian Mountains and volcanic activity came together to
concentrate arsenic and other metals into cracks inside the
bedrock…
Aiming to inform the general public and stakeholders alike
about its program to bring safe drinking water to the nearly 1
million Californians who lack it, the State Water Resources
Control Board (State Water Board) is launching a series of
virtual workshops called the “SAFER Summer Series” over the
next two months.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released its
first assessments of groundwater sustainability plans developed
by local agencies to meet the requirements of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). DWR has completed its
assessment and approved plans for the Santa Cruz Mid-County
Basin in Santa Cruz County and 180/400 Foot Aquifer Subbasin in
Monterey County.
Adel Hagekhalil is an inspired choice to be the next general
manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, the agency that delivers the water ultimately used
by half of the state’s population. He’s an engineer, a
consensus builder and a champion of the movement to integrate
management of different types of water — drinking water,
wastewater, stormwater, environmental water — in order to
reduce costs and use precious resources more efficiently. He
may be exactly what the MWD needs at this point in its
history…
