Drought— an extended period of limited or no precipitation— is a
fact of life in California and the West, with water resources
following boom-and-bust patterns.
No portion of the West has been immune to drought during the last
century and drought occurs with much greater frequency in the
West than in other regions of the country.
Most of the West experiences what is classified as severe to
extreme drought more than 10 percent of the time, and a
significant portion of the region experiences severe to extreme
drought more than 15 percent of the time, according to the
National Drought Mitigation Center.
Experts who have studied recent droughts say a drought occurs
about once every 10 years somewhere in the United States.
Droughts are believed to be the most costly of all natural
disasters because of their widespread effects on agriculture and
related industries, as well as on urbanized areas. One of those
decennial droughts could cost as much as $38 billion, according
to one estimate.
Because droughts cannot be prevented, experts are looking for
better ways to forecast them and new approaches to managing
droughts when they occur.
The successful Bakersfield children’s book series “Indy, Oh
Indy” has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund its sixth
upcoming book, titled “The Mighty Kern River.” The book was
inspired by a larger effort from the grassroots group Bring
Back the Kern to raise awareness about Bakersfield’s mostly dry
river and efforts to revive a more regular flow of water
through town.
The worsening drought has canceled a large water sale to West
Side farmers by the Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation
districts. They announced Wednesday that their own
customers will need the water, which had been declared surplus
in early March. A revised forecast of Stanislaus River runoff
scuttled the sale, which could have brought up to $25 million
to the sellers.
Restoration flows will begin tomorrow, April 16, on the Trinity
River to help improve conditions after another critically dry
water year. A flow schedule based on the expected amount of
water available to support salmon restoration efforts on the
Trinity River is brought forward by the Trinity Management
Council each year. This week’s two-day schedule is slated to
increase daily average flows from 300 cubic feet per second to
1,300 cubic feet per second.
While high-profile surface-water initiatives like WaterFix and
the Delta Conveyance Project grab most of the headlines
pertaining to water management in the state, efforts to make
significant changes to the way groundwater is utilized have
been underway since 2014. Now, the state and the local water
agencies are seeking public comment on documents related to the
management of groundwater. In 2014, then-Gov. Jerry Brown
signed a three-bill legislative package collectively known as
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to better
manage groundwater supplies over the long term.
SCV Water, the Santa Clarita Valley’s water
agency, received a nearly $250,000 California Special
Districts Association Public Safety Power Shutoff program
allocation from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency
Services (Cal OES). The allocation will be used to help
fund the installation of a permanent generator at the Earl
Schmidt Filtration Plant on Lake Hughes Road near Castaic.
The addition of this second generator brings the facility up to
100% operational capacity in the event of a power outage.
California was the first U.S. state to legally recognize access
to safe, clean and affordable water as a human right. But
substantial parts of the state lack access to drinking water
that meets those criteria. A new study published by the
California State Water Board and supported by UCLA research
identifies a risk for failure among a significant portion of
the state’s small and medium-sized public water systems.
Congressman Jim Costa (D–Fresno) introduced a bill on Thursday
that would provide over $800 million in funding to water
projects in California. If the Canal Conveyance Capacity
Restoration Act is enacted, $653 million in Federal funds will
go to restore the capacity of three canals in the Central
Valley, and $180 million will be used to restore salmon runs on
the San Joaquin River.
Santa Barbara County’s most depleted water basin, the Cuyama
Valley, is fast becoming the latest battleground in the fight
over how — and whether — to address the negative impacts of the
lucrative cannabis industry on farming and residential
communities. The giant groundwater basin underlying this
sparsely populated, heavily farmed, economically depressed
valley is one of California’s 21 most critically over-drafted
basins and the only one outside the Central Valley.
Monterey County must rescind all approvals of California
American Water’s proposed desalination project, per an order
from a Monterey County Superior Court judge who earlier this
year found the county violated the California Environmental
Quality Act by approving the project without identifying a
water source. The ruling was handed down April 3 by Judge Lydia
Villarreal, who on Jan. 21 granted in part—and denied in part—a
writ requested by the Marina Coast Water District regarding the
2019 approvals of the desal plant component of Cal Am’s
Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project.
The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) today
launched California Nature to engage
Californians in advancing the State’s commitment to conserving
30 percent of lands and coastal waters by 2030 (30×30) and
enlisting nature-based solutions to combat climate change. The
website and a new online questionnaire are aimed at gathering
input from a broad cross-section of Californians.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation delivered a gut-punch to Klamath
Project irrigators Wednesday, announcing a historically low
water allocation as the basin struggles with extreme drought.
Farms and ranches in the Project will receive an initial
allocation of just 33,000 acre-feet — the lowest total since
the shutdown of 2001 and barely 8% of historical demand. That
is dramatically lower than the bureau’s original estimate of
130,000 acre-feet based on hydrological conditions at the
beginning of March.
Shasta Dam, which rises over 600 feet, flooded much of our
tribe’s homeland and inundated dozens of our sacred sites. It
stopped our salmon from reaching their spawning grounds. And by
holding back water when it is needed by the river, Shasta Dam
has driven our salmon to the brink of extinction. That threat
continues in the proposal to raise Shasta Dam. That project
would flood more of our sacred sites and further harm salmon.
The Trump administration made that project their top priority
water infrastructure project in the nation.
-Written by Caleen Sisk, the spiritual leader of the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Southern California, like most of the West, is in the middle of
a record dry season. To combat it and keep the metropolitan
area well-watered, they’re relying more heavily on the Colorado
River, with water pumped directly from the south end of Lake
Havasu. Last Wednesday, the Metropolitan Water District began
pumping from Lake Havasu at full capacity for the first time in
years, drawing water from the Whitsett Intake Pumping Plant
located just north of the Parker Dam. The eight-pump flow is
equivalent to about 3,000 acre feet of water being pumped per
day, according to MWD Manager of Colorado River Resources Bill
Hasencamp.
Hundreds of farmers who rely on a massive irrigation project
that spans the Oregon-California border learned Wednesday they
will get a tiny fraction of the water they need amid the worst
drought in decades, as federal regulators attempt to balance
the needs of agriculture against federally threatened and
endangered fish species that are central to the heritage of
several tribes. Oregon’s governor said the prolonged drought in
the region has the “full attention of our offices,” and she is
working with congressional delegates, the White House and
federal agencies to find relief for those affected.
Water is one of the world’s most vital resources. So is there
reason to freak out now that profit-hungry hedge funds and
other investors can trade it like a barrel of oil or shares of
Apple? That’s exactly what CME Group recently did in California
when it launched the world’s first futures market for water in
December 2020. Put simply, a futures market lets people place
bets on the future price of water.
-Written by Ellen Bruno, of University of
California, Berkeley and Heidi Schweizer, of North
Carolina State University.
Harmful algal blooms (or HABs) occur when colonies of algae,
under the right conditions, grow out of control and produce
toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine
mammals, and birds. Every U.S. coastal and Great Lakes state
experiences harmful algal blooms. In California, reports
of harmful algal blooms have increased from 91 in 2016 to 241
in 2019. In 2020, Stockton experienced a severe harmful
algal bloom; it marked the first year that algal blooms spread
into the San Joaquin and Calaveras Rivers so early in the
summer and fall months. Drought and heat are factors that
increase harmful algal blooms …
The Superior Court of California, County of Monterey has told
Monterey County it must rescind all approvals for the Cal-Am
desalination project. According to the court, the county
violated the California Environmental Quality Act by approving
the desal project with identifying a water source. The court
ruling also means that the county can’t retroactively correct
the issue.
Tule elk are treasured creatures in California, and for years,
animal rights groups have butted heads with the Point Reyes
National Seashore over its practice of keeping elk fenced away
from nearby cattle ranches. Amid a dry 2020, the groups tried
to bring water to the creatures but were rebuffed by the
National Park Service. Now the federal agency has released a
report indicating that more than one third of the 445 elk
fenced in at Tomales Point died this past winter, bringing the
population down to 293.
A new state analysis estimates a $4.6 billion funding gap for
water system infrastructure needed to ensure Californians have
access to safe and affordable drinking water. The State Water
Resources Control Board this month released the first-ever
drinking water needs assessment, showing that approximately 620
public water systems and 80,000 domestic wells are at-risk of
failing to provide a sufficient amount of drinking water that
meets basic health standards.
Drought-riddled California will spend over $500 million in the
coming months cutting fuel breaks, lighting prescribed burns
and conducting other wildfire prevention tactics under
legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. The Democratic
governor said the $536 million budget deal is the first of many
preventative steps he will authorize with the Golden State
careening toward another expected brutal wildfire season.
On Wednesday, March 3rd, the Northern California Water
Association (NCWA) Board of Directors officially adopted our
2021 Priorities. The water leaders in this region look forward
to working with our many partners in 2021 to cultivate a shared
vision for a vibrant way of life in the Sacramento River Basin.
We will continue to re-imagine our water system in the
Sacramento River Basin as we also work to harmonize our water
priorities with state, federal, and other regions’ priorities
to advance our collective goal of ensuring greater water and
climate resilience throughout California for our communities,
the economy, and the environment.
Advocates, such as the Colorado Water Trust, a nonprofit that
spearheaded the new approach, say the tools can be used as
templates across other river basins, where older water rights
are already spoken for. … Across Colorado nearly 40,000
miles of streams flow year-round and, as a result, have the
potential to receive protection under the state’s Instream Flow
Program.
The White House announced the intent to nominate several
officials to serve at the Department of the Interior, including
Tanya Trujillo as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science.
Trujillo is a water lawyer with more than 20 years of
experience working on complex natural resources management
issues and interstate and transboundary water agreements. She
most recently worked as a project director with the Colorado
River Sustainability Campaign. Before then, she served as the
Executive Director of the Colorado River Board of California.
There’s just one week left to register for our Water 101
Workshop, which offers a primer on the things you need to know
to understand California water. One of our most popular events,
this once-a-year workshop will be held as an engaging online
event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday,
April 23.
The San Joaquin Valley’s quest for groundwater sustainability
will result in large amounts of irrigated agricultural lands
being retired. A new book explores how some of these lands
could be restored to natural areas that bring multiple
benefits. We talked to Scott Butterfield, a senior scientist at
The Nature Conservancy and one of the book’s editors, about
this vision.
California households face over $600 million in household water
debt, with some 1.6 million homes — roughly 12 percent of all
state residents — dealing with an average of $500 in arrears.
The findings show clear racial inequities, with households of
color bearing the brunt of this debt. More than 130 smaller
utilities across the state will need federal help in the next
six months if they are to survive. It is clear that we
need a solution now. -Written by Michael Carlin, the acting general
manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
Earlier this month, camera crews once again gathered in the
Sierra Nevada to watch a man plunge a pole through the snow.
The pole was removed and, following a tense few moments,
Californians learned we experienced another dry winter, and we
are plunging further into drought. These snowpack surveys are
quaint rituals, but they’re also a jarring reminder of how
little technological innovation has occurred in California’s
water sector. -Written by Danielle Blacet, deputy executive
director at the California Municipal Utilities Association,
and Adrian Covert, senior vice president of public policy
at the Bay Area Council.
[C]onsider the following scenarios: A hurricane blasts Florida.
A California dam bursts because floods have piled water high up
behind it. A sudden, record-setting cold snap cuts power to the
entire state of Texas. These are also emergencies that require
immediate action. Multiply these situations worldwide, and you
have the biggest environmental emergency to beset the earth in
millennia: climate change. Given the circumstances, Scientific
American has agreed with major news outlets worldwide to start
using the term “climate emergency” in its coverage of climate
change.
The San Diego County Water Authority is no stranger to conflict
– virtually all of its dealings over the past decade have been
shaped by its feud with the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California. Now that feud is fueling
fights within the agency itself.
The Colorado River is one of the most highly developed surface
water systems in the world, but demand for the river’s water
continues to exceed supply. University of Arizona geosciences
professor Connie Woodhouse discusses the impact of a warming
climate on the Colorado River. She is the featured speaker for
the annual College of Science lecture series April 15. Connie
Woodhouse spoke with Leslie Tolbert, Regent’s professor emerita
in Neuroscience at the University of Arizona.
Despite bipartisan calls to declare a state of emergency over
California’s deepening drought, Gov. Gavin Newsom sidestepped
questions Tuesday about when he may issue a proclamation. The
governor said his administration is talking with federal
officials daily about the status of the state’s water supply
after two years of minimal rainfall that have dried out much of
California.
It’s that time of year, when we find out it’s that kind of
year. We appear at the doorstep of a “critically dry
year,” and most reservoir levels are significantly below
average. Those conditions bring painfully to mind the awful
drought years of 2014 and 2015, and threaten water supplies for
California farms and cities, and for the protected fish species
that must also get by in these lean years. -Written by Danny Merkley, director of water resources, and
Chris Scheuring, senior counsel for the California Farm
Bureau.
With California in the throes of a second year of drought
conditions, the mega-water agency of Southern California served
notice Tuesday that it’s prepared to spend up to $44 million to
buy water from Northern California to shore up its supplies.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, which serves 19 million urban residents, authorized
its staff to begin negotiating deals with water agencies north
of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where supplies are
generally more plentiful.
Poseidon Water announced that the Third District California
Court of Appeal issued a decision denying the petition by
seawater desalination opponents to overturn the Sacramento
County Superior Court’s 2019 ruling upholding the California
State Lands Commission’s 2017 approval of an amended lease for
the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Project (“Project”).
The Court of Appeal decision reaffirms that the State Lands
Commission correctly analyzed the Project under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and that the Project protects
the state’s Public Trust resources.
Extreme drought conditions throughout the West are lowering
levels in the crucial water reservoir, Lake Mead. Scars of long
years of low precipitation are hard to go unnoticed at Lake
Mead, and the hot, dry summers have been felt for the last
several years in Arizona. 2020 was especially dry, with little
monsoon. Now, the West is in uncharted territory. Lake Mead is
projected to drop by several feet this year, from elevation
1,083 to about 1,068, according to officials with the Central
Arizona Project. The lake is hovering around 39 percent of its
full capacity.
[T]he 800 to 900 people in Tohatchi, and another 600 to 800 in
Mexican Springs, eight miles to the west, all depend on a
single well and single pump. If the pump running it fails,
or if the water level in it drops — both issues that have
troubled nearby Gallup this year — water will cut out for the
homes, the head-start center, the schools, the clinic, the
senior center, five churches, and the convenience store and gas
station. … [T]he Navajo Nation has waited more than a
century for pipes and water treatment plants that would bring
drinking water to all of its people while watching nearby
off-reservation cities and farms grow, swallowing up water from
the Colorado River Basin that the tribe has a claim to.
A new $15 million Marina Coast Water District water storage
project designed to increase water storage by more than 3
million gallons and replace a septuagenarian Army water tank
and other aging infrastructure is moving forward as the
district brings on a new general manager.
Climate change affects our weather patterns, sea levels,
wildlife populations, and global temperatures, but very few
people understand the ramifications it’s had on the human
population. Believe it or not, our food, water, and air quality
have all been seriously affected by climate change, and as a
result, climate change has affected human health in a number of
dangerous and potentially deadly ways. … [D]roughts cause
wildfires, which are contributing to air quality problems.
We’ve already seen what the immense plumes of smoke created by
wildfires can do to air quality
in California and Australia.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack designated 50 California
counties as natural disaster areas last month because of the
drought. And, over the weekend, Fresno Congressman Jim Costa
said on KSEE-24’s Sunday Morning Matters program that Gov.
Newsom should declare a statewide emergency because of the
dangerously dry conditions. …Yet, Newsom… last week
rejected a request from a bipartisan coalition of state
lawmakers from the Valley to declare a statewide drought
emergency.
The Patch reports the Fire Department investigation found the
source of the March 23rd brush fire in the Ballona Wetlands
Ecological Reserve to be a homeless encampment in the area of
origin. The fire was accelerated by strong winds. While the
causes of these incidents are always concerning, there is
another important part of the story: an ecological and
historical one. Why did an intense brush fire burn at all in a
wetland? After all, wetlands are supposed to be wet.
Dozens of people gathered at Point Reyes National Seashore
Saturday to protest after the deaths of more than 100 rare tule
elk. Last week, the National Park Service announced 152 elk in
a fenced preserve died in 2020 because of overpopulation and
drought conditions. The drought has reduced the amount of water
in the area, leading to limited access and malnutrition.
The government of Mexico is on the verge of legalizing cannabis
for industrial, medical, and recreational purposes, legislation
that would make Mexico only the third country to legalize all
aspects of cannabis production and all types of the plant’s
use. … Water theft in California is alleged to be
frequently associated with legal and illegal cultivation of
cannabis. It equally pervades legal and illegal cannabis
cultivation in Oregon and Colorado.
-Written by Vanda Felbob-Brown.
One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural
region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep
cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to
sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes. The
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in
the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce
this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after
delaying the decision a month.
Californians received a double dose of not so happy water news
last month; cutbacks were made to water allocations and a key
water price index surged higher. … The state’s Department of
Water Resources has wasted no time in sounding alarm bells;
officials have already announced 50 percent cutbacks from
December 2020’s projected water allotments to State Water
Project allocations for the 2021 water year. California
residents were warned “to plan for the impacts of limited water
supplies this summer for agriculture as well as urban and rural
water users.”
[S]ome scientists [are] saying the region is on the precipice
of permanent drought. That’s because in 2000, the
Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call
a megadrought — the second worst in 1,200 years —
triggered by a combination of a natural dry cycle and
human-caused climate change. In the past 20 years,
the two worst stretches of drought came in 2003 and 2013 — but
what is happening right now appears to be the beginning stages
of something even more severe. And as we head into the summer
dry season, the stage is set for an escalation of extreme dry
conditions, with widespread water restrictions expected and yet
another dangerous fire season ahead.
California’s shrinking Salton Sea is getting a closer look
scientifically with the state, local air districts, and
community groups examining air, water, and even dust from the
parched shoreline where water was once plentiful. The increased
scrutiny comes as the state has continuously failed to meet
dust suppression and habitat goals set in a 2017 management
plan to restore nearly 30,000 acres of the state’s largest body
of water by 2028. The sea spans Imperial and Riverside counties
near the Mexican border, where disadvantaged communities
breathe some of the nation’s worst air and suffer from high
asthma rates. Chronic nosebleeds are also common.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced today that this year’s
restoration flow schedule for the Trinity River will begin on
April 16. Each year, the Trinity Management Council advances a
flow schedule based on the expected amount of water available
to support salmon restoration efforts on the Trinity River. Due
to lack of precipitation and snowpack in the Trinity Mountains
this winter, the flow schedule for 2021 is scaled to a
critically dry water year. Critically dry is one of five water
year types used by the Trinity River Restoration Program to
decide how much reservoir water will be released in support of
the program’s goals to improve habitat for anadromous fish—fish
that migrate to fresh water from salt water to spawn—like
salmon and steelhead.
In the North Bay, parts of the region are classified under
moderate to extreme drought conditions. The National Park
Service says 152 tule elks have died from these drought
conditions, and the situation is causing controversy over their
habitat. … The National Park Service announced a declining
population in 2020 due to lack of food caused by drought-like
conditions.
The chamise plants that blanket California’s shrubby chaparral
should have grown new sprouts by now, flowering after winter
rains before baking in the arid summer heat. They are highly
flammable and abundant in wildland areas — and, for that
reason, a bellwether to wildfire researchers. This month, a San
Jose State University team analyzing moisture levels was
shocked at what it found at study sites in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. At two locations researchers found no new growth to
cut from the shrubs. It’s an ominous sign of just how dry the
vegetation is around California, where boundless numbers of
plants and trees have been starved of life-sustaining water
thanks to an entire winter of paltry precipitation. Those dry
plants are fuel for wildfires, and they’re primed to burn
explosively.
Another legal challenge has been launched against a project by
downtown-based water infrastructure company Cadiz Inc. to pump
and transport water from its desert aquifer to connect with
existing water conveyance systems. This latest lawsuit was
filed March 23 against the Bureau of Land Management by the
Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice and the Sierra
Club. It asks the federal court to overturn a December BLM
decision to approve the conversion of an idle oil and gas
pipeline to carry water from Cadiz’s desert aquifer. Cadiz is
not a direct party to the lawsuit but would be impacted by a
decision resulting from the suit. The filing marks the third
decade in which Cadiz’ water transfer plan has faced legal
challenges from environmental groups.
A desert city built on a reputation for excess and indulgence
wants to become a model for restraint and conservation with a
first-in-the-nation policy banning grass that nobody walks on.
Las Vegas-area water officials have spent two decades trying to
get people to replace thirsty greenery with desert plants, and
now they’re asking the Nevada Legislature to outlaw roughly 40%
of the turf that’s left. The Southern Nevada Water Authority
estimates there are almost 8 square miles (21 square
kilometers) of “nonfunctional turf” in the metro area — grass
that no one ever walks on or otherwise uses in street medians,
housing developments and office parks.
ACWA staff testified with a support-if-amended position on AB
1500 (E.Garcia) during an Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife
Committee hearing on April 8. The bill is one of two climate
resilience bond proposals that are currently advancing through
the state Legislature and could be headed for the June 2022
ballot. AB 1500 would create a $6.7 billion bond measure. ACWA,
with input from the State Legislative Committee’s Bond Working
Group, is requesting amendments to the bills to add funding for
water-related climate resilience projects that help provide a
reliable water supply during drought and flood. The amendments
propose the bill include funding for conveyance, dam safety,
groundwater protection and sustainable groundwater management,
flood management, integrated regional water management and safe
drinking water for disadvantaged communities, as well as water
quality and water reuse and recycling.
With a salmonella outbreak in eight states already under
investigation by the Centers for Disease Control, officials are
watching in California for another disease that impacts
waterfowl. Botulism killed thousands of waterfowl and other
birds last year on two national wildlife refuges near the
border of California and Oregon. Some estimates were as high as
60,000 dead birds. The Lower Klamath Basin and Tule Lake
national wildlife refuges were among the first created more
than 100 years ago. Millions of waterfowl and shore birds,
along with songbirds, migrated along the Pacific Flyway into
the two refuges and beyond. Today, between severe
restrictions on water flowing into and out of the refuges
and a crippling drought that shows no sign of letting up,
the refuge marshes are going dry.
Groundwater is a key resource for water users in California’s
Central Valley, a major agricultural hub with an economic
output of tens of billions of dollars annually. Surface
deformation in the Central Valley has long been linked to
changes in groundwater storage, but the timing and movement of
water flow beneath the surface has been poorly understood due
to a lack of reliable data. Now, for the first time,
scientists at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and School of Global Policy and
Strategy, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey are using
advanced satellite data to map the “pulse” of groundwater flow
through the San Joaquin Valley, the southern portion of the
Central Valley.
The state is slipping further into more serious levels of
drought as it enters the second year for dry conditions and the
records the third driest rainy season on record. The US
Drought Monitor has downgraded areas in far Northern
California, the Central Coast, and Southern California to
reflect recent drought data. The top level “Exceptional”
(D4) drought remains at 5% in the Owens Valley and Mohave
Desert. Extreme (D3) drought now covers 35% of the state, an
increase from 32% last week. Most of the direct impacts
from various stages of more severe drought impact agriculture
and grazing areas. Many areas have only seen 50% of normal rain
or less. Areas that receive snow have seen well below average
snowpack levels.
After the worst fire season in California history and as
drought conditions raise fears of what’s to come, Gov. Gavin
Newsom and legislative leaders unveiled a $536-million proposal
Thursday to boost efforts at firefighting and a variety of
prevention measures, including vegetation management and the
construction of fire-resistant structures across the state. The
proposal, which the Legislature could send to the governor’s
desk as soon as Monday, marks an early agreement by the
governor and lawmakers to spend more than half of the $1
billion in wildfire funding Newsom called for in his state
budget proposal in January. The gravity of the issue became
clear last week after state officials reported the water
content in the Sierra Nevada snowpack stood at 59% of the
average for early spring.
A tiny silver fish few people in the Bay Area have heard of
could be a new symbol of the state’s continuing battle over
water resources. San Francisco Baykeeper sued the Biden
administration on Thursday to list the local population of
longfin smelt as an endangered species. The environmental
group’s legal action comes nine years after the federal
government first declared that the fish warranted that status.
Once an important source of food for marine mammals, birds and
chinook salmon, the local population of the longfin smelt has
dropped by 99.9% since the 1980s. Scientists and
environmentalists say that reduction is a direct result of too
much water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system being
diverted to farms and other water users rather than flowing
through the bay to the Pacific.
Lack of monsoon rainfall last summer and spotty snowfall this
winter combined to worsen the Western drought dramatically in
the past year, and spring snowmelt won’t bring much relief.
Critical April 1 measurements of snow accumulations from
mountain ranges across the region show that most streams and
rivers will once again flow well below average levels this
year, stressing ecosystems and farms and depleting key
reservoirs that are already at dangerously low levels. As
the climate warms, it’s likely that drought conditions will
worsen and persist across much of the West. Dry spells between
downpours and blizzards are getting longer, and snowpack in the
mountains is starting to melt during winter, new research
shows.
The Rancho California Water District received a nearly $3.5
million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
which will fund up to 75% of Phase 1 of the Vail Dam Hazard
Mitigation Project. Phase 1 has already begun and includes
pre-construction activities such as design, environmental
compliance and permitting to upgrade the dam at Vail Lake,
located east of Temecula. Vail Lake, a reservoir with water
storage capacity of approximately 45,000 acre-feet or 14.7
billion gallons of water, was acquired by Rancho Water in 1978
and is an component of Rancho’s diversified water supply
portfolio for providing water supplies to over 150,000 urban
and agricultural water users in the cities of Temecula and
Murrieta, and the surrounding areas.
California remains far behind its targets for addressing
exposed playa around the Salton Sea, according to data released
in the 2021 Salton Sea Management Program annual report.
But state officials expressed optimism in a public
workshop that they are finally beginning to catch up to those
goals. The state was supposed to implement dust suppression
projects or build wetlands habitat across 3,500 acres of
exposed playa by the end of 2020 to tamp down dust that’s
imbued with a century’s worth of salts, pesticides and other
agricultural runoff.
Chuang Cheng-deng’s modest rice farm is a stone’s throw from
the nerve center of Taiwan’s computer chip industry, whose
products power a huge share of the world’s iPhones and other
gadgets. This year, Mr. Chuang is paying the price for his
high-tech neighbors’ economic importance. Gripped by drought
and scrambling to save water for homes and factories, Taiwan
has shut off irrigation across tens of thousands of acres of
farmland. … Officials are calling the drought Taiwan’s worst
in more than half a century. And it is exposing the enormous
challenges involved in hosting the island’s semiconductor
industry, which is an increasingly indispensable node in the
global supply chains for smartphones, cars and other keystones
of modern life. Chip makers use lots of water to clean
their factories and wafers, the thin slices of silicon that
form the basis of the chips.
If you skip a rock across the surface of the Great Salt Lake,
it will skim and ricochet across the far-reaching, glassy face
for what seems like a mile. It’s as if the waters were never
introduced to the laws of gravity. Or if they were, it didn’t
matter. The lake’s salinity — and in turn, its density — has
increased since the mid-1800s. Today, the tourmaline-colored
water in the north arm is eight times saltier than the ocean.
Rocks, those daring enough to swim and reflections of flushed
sunsets are held at the surface of the water — suspended and
unable to be lost. But in a cruel illustration of irony, we are
losing those waters. As historian Dale Morgan put it in 1947,
“It is a lake of paradoxes.” Today, the Great Salt Lake’s
volume has dropped nearly 50%. The largest saline lake in the
Western Hemisphere is drying up.
While California’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act promised comprehensive protection of the state’s
groundwater, significant gaps remain in its coverage. The
Department of Water Resources now has an opportunity to reduce
or eliminate those gaps and should seize the moment. We know
all Californians will experience another year of water
shortages and warmer, drier conditions that will require
conservation and which are likely to fuel destructive wildfires
in our forests and around our communities. We are all in this
together. Groundwater is critical for California, particularly
in dry years when it provides up to 60% of the water supply for
farms and people.
-Written by Jeanette Howard, director of The
Nature Conservancy’s freshwater science team; Melissa M.
Rohde, a groundwater scientist at The Nature Conservancy;
and Barton H. Thompson, senior fellow of the Woods Institute
for the Environment, and faculty director of Water in the West
at Stanford University.
Scientists have been predicting for years that the Colorado
River would continue to deplete due to global warming and
increased water demands, but according to new studies it’s
looking worse than they thought. That worries rancher Marsha
Daughenbaugh, 68, of Steamboat Springs, who relies on the water
from the Colorado River to grow feed for her cattle.
… Recent reports show that the river’s water flows were
down 20% in 2000 and by 2050 that number is estimated to more
than double.
California’s hottest commodity could become even more scarce as
state and federal officials announce water cutbacks on the
brink of another drought. Now, state legislators are banding
together to ask Governor Newsom to declare a state of emergency
amid what they call a water crisis. … [State Senator Andreas]
Borgeas authored a letter alongside the Assembly agriculture
committee chair and several other state lawmakers to send to
the governor. This comes after the California Department of
Water Resources announced a 5% allocation to farmers and
growers in late March.
In the first episode in the Delta Conveyance Team Spotlight
video series, [DWR] spoke with the project’s Executive
Director Tony Meyers about his long and eventful career in
engineering, including work on some of DWR’s most ambitious and
significant infrastructure projects. In this excerpt, he
reflects on the appeal of large-scale engineering projects and
speaks about the importance of the Delta Conveyance Project in
protecting the security of California’s water supply.
OID and SSJID … have invested considerable money into
improving salmon habitat on the Stanislaus River and as well as
conservation measures aimed at reducing growers’ use of water —
have proposed pushing the spring pulse flow from an anticipated
1,400 cfs at Vernalis to almost 3,000 cfs. … The SSJID and OID
have also worked with the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water
Authority and State Water Contractors that may get only 5
percent of the water they need from the Bureau this year to
purchase the [water] by diverting it once it enters the
Delta.
Rainstorms grew more erratic and droughts much longer across
most of the U.S. West over the past half-century as climate
change warmed the planet, according to a sweeping government
study released Tuesday that concludes the situation is
worsening. The most dramatic changes were recorded in the
desert Southwest, where the average dry period between
rainstorms grew from about 30 days in the 1970s to 45 days
between storms now, said Joel Biederman, a research hydrologist
with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Southwest Watershed
Research Center in Tucson, Arizona.
As we begin spring in the Sacramento Valley, the region
illuminates – we see the brown landscape turn verdant, and the
Valley bustles with activity as people share the hope of a new
year and collectively cultivate a shared vision in the region
for a vibrant way of life. With the dry year in Northern
California, the water resource managers are working overtime to
carefully manage our precious water systems including rivers,
streams, reservoirs and diversions to serve multiple benefits.
To effectively do this, water resources must be managed in an
efficient manner, with the same block of water often used to
achieve several beneficial uses as it moves through the
region’s waterways.
Our two-day Water 101 Workshop begins on Earth Day,
when you can gain a deeper understanding of
California’s most precious natural resource. One of our
most popular events, the once-a-year workshop will be held as
an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April
22 and Friday, April 23. California’s water basics will be
covered by some of the state’s leading policy and legal
experts, including the history, geography, legal and political
facets of water in the state, as well a look at hot topics and
current issues of concern.
For seven days in mid-March 2021, the Bureau of Reclamation
substantially increased Folsom Lake storage releases. Roughly,
the releases tripled in volume (Figure 1). The release of over
20,000 acre-feet of water is significant for a year in which
Folsom storage is not much better than it was in the worst year
on record – 1977 (Figure 2).1 With the release in mid-March,
the lake level dropped 3 feet. Yes, there was rain in the
forecast and a decent snowpack, but certainly no flood
concerns. So why? The reason was to meet state water quality
requirements for Delta outflow. Delta outflow increased from
7,000 cfs to 12,000 cfs for a few days (Figure 3).
Governor Gavin Newsom frequently says California is a leader in
sustainability and the transition away from fossil fuels. The
governor has also issued an executive order to fight climate
change in response to the deadly wildfires that ravaged our
state last year. Despite these public statements and official
efforts, it’s puzzling that his administration has been
promoting the climate-wrecking Poseidon desalination plant in
Huntington Beach as an infrastructure to source additional
water for California. There are plenty of things we can do to
ensure that Southern Californians have enough water to
thrive….
-Written by Alejandro Sobrera, the Orange County Hub
Coordinator for the Sunrise Movement, a youth led effort to
bring about a just transition to a greener
world.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes will receive $209,000 for
irrigation canal projects, Congressman Paul Gosar announced
Tuesday. The federal funds were awarded by the U.S. Department
of the Interior to help CRIT pay for canal lining. The project
is intended to help stop water seepage from the canal. CRIT
relies on the Colorado River as its primary source of water,
and water conserved with help the Tribes meet existing demand
during times of drought, Gosar said. The project will line
nearly 4,000 feet of the earthen canal with a membrane covered
in sprayed concrete. The stretch of canal has been identified
as having the most significant seepage rate of all 232 miles of
canals in the Colorado River Irrigation Project, according to
the Bureau of Reclamation.
Colorado’s water supply is under threat from climate change and
population growth. Limiting outdoor use is an increasingly
popular approach to conserving water, yet to implement
effective conservation policies, utilities managers need a
better understanding of local outdoor water consumption.
… [Colorado State University’s Melissa McHale] said
trees can provide long-term benefits even if they need to be
watered directly when they are first planted. … The
research team found that residential properties with a higher
ratio of vegetation cover to lot size tended toward less water
consumption.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has marked
2021 as the third-driest water year, a period marked from
October to March, on record for the Golden State, potentially
setting up another deadly wildfire season after last year’s
record setting blazes. The department’s annual snow survey
released this month recorded precipitation levels at 50 percent
the annual average for the water year. The dry conditions
can also be seen in the state’s water supply, with the
department reporting that California’s major reservoirs are at
just 50 percent of overall capacity.
Tractors are working ground in the Sacramento Valley, as the
2021 rice season is underway. Whether it’s farmers, those in
cities or for the environment, this year will pose challenges
due to less than ideal rain and snowfall during the fall and
winter. Jon Munger At Montna Farms near Yuba City, Vice
President of Operations Jon Munger said they expect to plant
about one-third less rice this year, based on water cutbacks.
As water is always a precious resource in this state, rice
growers work hard to be as efficient as they can. Fields are
precisely leveled and will be flooded with just five-inches of
water during the growing season. Rice is grown in heavy clay
soils, which act like a bathtub to hold water in place.
High-tech planting and harvest equipment also help California
rice farms and mills operate at peak efficiency.
One of the California Water Commission’s statutory
responsibilities is to conduct an annual review of the
construction and operation of the State Water Project and make
a report on its findings to the Department of Water Resources
and the Legislature, with any recommendations it may
have. Having just finished the 2020 State Water Project
review, the Commission has launched its 2021 State Water
Project review with a theme focused on creating a resilient
State Water Project by addressing climate change and aging
infrastructure to provide multiple benefits for
California.
Las Vegas water officials want state lawmakers to require the
removal of thirsty grass landscaping that isn’t used for
recreation. Southern Nevada Water Authority lobbyist Andy
Belanger told lawmakers Monday that climate change and growth
in the Las Vegas area would require communities to take more
significant measures to conserve water. The agency estimates
that more than 5,000 acres of “nonfunctional turf” — grass not
used for recreational activities like golf, youth sports or
dog-walking — is spread throughout the region.
More snow is melting during winter across the West, a
concerning trend that could impact everything from ski
conditions to fire danger and agriculture, according to a new
CU Boulder analysis of 40 years of data. Researchers found
that since the late 1970s, winter’s boundary with spring has
been slowly disappearing, with one-third of 1,065 snow
measurement stations from the Mexican border to the Alaskan
Arctic recording increasing winter snowmelt…. Their new
findings, published in Nature Climate Change, have important
implications for water resource planning…
The general manager for a local water utility company joined
the Board for the Delta Conveyance Design Authority. Palmdale
Water District announced on Monday that Dennis LaMoreaux has
been appointed as an alternate director for the Authority.
Unrelenting drought and years of rising temperatures due to
climate change are pushing the long-overallocated Colorado
River into new territory, setting the stage for the largest
mandatory water cutbacks to date. Lake Mead, the
biggest reservoir on the river, has declined
dramatically over the past two decades and now stands at just
40% of its full capacity. This summer, it’s projected to fall
to the lowest levels since it was filled in the 1930s following
the construction of Hoover Dam. The reservoir near Las
Vegas is approaching a threshold that is expected to
trigger a first-ever shortage declaration by the federal
government for next year, leading to substantial cuts in water
deliveries to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico.
For the first time since her historic ascension as the nation’s
first woman vice president, Kamala Harris returned to her
native Oakland on Monday to promote the Biden administration’s
ambitious proposal to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and
create jobs…. Harris toured the East Bay Municipal Utility
District’s water treatment plant, speaking to employees and
touting the district as the kind of operation that should be
emulated. …. Harris highlighted the water portion of the
[Biden] plan, saying the goal is to invest in jobs that can
build up, replace and modernize water infrastructure — all with
the goal of getting clean drinking water to everyone.
Rural water users are panicking over a proposal to create a
market for the sale and purchase of water rights in Nevada,
unconvinced by arguments that the concept would encourage
conservation. Lawmakers on Monday weighed whether so-called
“water banking” would be preferable to prevailing water law
doctrines that govern surface and groundwater rights disputes
in the driest state in the U.S. A legislative hearing about two
proposals to allow water rights holders to sell their
entitlements pitted state water bureaucrats against a coalition
of farmers, conservationists and rural officials.
California is at the edge of another protracted drought, just a
few years after one of the worst dry spells in state history
left poor and rural communities without well water, triggered
major water restrictions in cities, forced farmers to idle
their fields, killed millions of trees, and fueled devastating
megafires. … Just four years since the state’s last
drought emergency, experts and advocates say the state isn’t
ready to cope with what could be months and possibly years of
drought to come.
The idea of cloud seeding and weather modification has been
around since 1940. There were federally funded programs in
the 1960s—one named Project Skywater that ultimately
had mixed results. In the 1970s and 1980s, the US government
began experimenting on how weather modification could be used
as a war tool. But outside of ski resorts like Vail, where the
technology is used to help increase snow during snowstorms,
interest in cloud seeding largely dropped off.
… According to the North American Weather
Modification Council, there are currently several projects
being run in California, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Utah, among
other states with a project here or there.
In this episode John Howard and Tim Foster welcomed the
longtime but soon-to-be-retired Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California head honcho Jeff Kightlinger for a
wide-ranging discussion that covered the status of the Delta
Tunnel Project, climate change and the snow survey, the
drought, working from home, jukeboxes, his punk rock roots and
Dan Walters‘ connection to the Zasu Pitts Memorial
Orchestra.
Is there water available on the Kern River and, if so, how
much? Parties to the long-running river dispute will finally
get a hearing by the State Water Resources Control Board on
those questions, at least. The big question — who should get
the water? — will have to wait. Still, this is the first
significant public movement on the Kern River in the past 11
years.
Perhaps more than any other part of the country, California
stands to benefit from the $2.2 trillion proposal introduced
last week by President Biden…. the sweeping plan would inject
huge sums of money into wider roads, faster internet,
high-speed trains, charging stations for electric cars, airport
terminals, upgraded water pipes and much more. … The
infusion is being seen not only as the path to a long-overdue
upgrade of the freeways, dams and aqueducts that have long been
California’s hallmark but also as a way to scale up and export
the state’s ambitious climate policies.
It was in 2016 that the state of California declared a
four-year drought had finally come to an end. Now, in 2021, it
could be entering another very dry season. It is in the winter
season that folks on the West Coast welcome dreary days packed
with cloud and rain. California usually sees the most rain and
snow in the month of February. This year, however, was
different: It was quite dry all of the winter season, and we
can blame La Niña for this pattern. … Thirty per cent of
California’s water supply comes from the snowpack in the Sierra
Nevada mountain ranges and only 57 per cent of normal
precipitation has fallen this season. This, coupled with lower
than average snowpack for 2020 as well, could spell trouble
down the road when it comes to water supply.
The blizzard that dumped snow along the Front Range in March
helped Colorado nearly reach its average snowpack for the
winter, federal data shows. But last year’s historically dry
weather means that streams are likely to run lower than normal,
potentially restricting the amount of water some consumers can
use, experts said… Areas east of the Continental Divide
had above average snowpack, but the Colorado River Basin on the
west was below average….
A federal judge has thrown out a legal action from multiple
environmental organizations seeking to halt the expansion of a
key Denver Water storage facility, citing no legal authority to
address the challenge. … The expansion of Gross Reservoir in
Boulder County is intended to provide additional water storage
and safeguard against future shortfalls during droughts. The
utility currently serves customers in Denver, Jefferson,
Arapahoe, Douglas and Adams counties. In July 2020, the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission gave its approval for
the design and construction of the reservoir’s expansion. The
project would add 77,000 acre-feet of water storage and 131
feet to the dam’s height for the utility’s “North System” of
water delivery.
State officials are putting farmers in south-central Arizona on
notice that the continuing drought means a “substantial cut” in
deliveries of Colorado River water is expected next year. A
joint statement issued Friday by the state Department of Water
Resources and the Central Arizona Project said an expected
shortage declaration “will result in a substantial cut to
Arizona’s share of the river, with reductions falling largely
to central Arizona agricultural users.” The Central Arizona
Project is an aqueduct system that delivers Colorado River
water to users in central Arizona and southern Arizona,
including farmers, cities and tribes.
In the wake of California’s worst-ever wildfire season,
researchers are exploring how mushrooms can help detoxify
polluted soil and water. Scientists and volunteers at
CoRenewal, a nonprofit dedicated to ecological restoration, are
conducting the experiment in burn zones along high-risk
waterways in Northern California. Burned and melted plastics,
metals, electronics, and building materials leave behind toxic
ash, which then washes into water systems. For instance, in the
months following the Tubbs Fire in 2017 and Camp Fire in 2018,
authorities found toxic levels of benzene—a cancer-causing
chemical—in local drinking water.
Water covers 71% of the earth’s surface, but only about 3%
percent of it is fresh water, making it the planet’s most
precious resource. But what do you do when water is in danger
of going dry? California’s Central Valley is no stranger
to drought, and because of that, farmers and scientists are
joining forces to figure out how to get by with less.
In 2016—after two years of rigorous scientific study by
CalTrout and its partners in the Sierra Meadows Partnership—the
Sierra Meadows Strategy for restoring and protecting our
state’s Sierra Nevada meadows was officially released. A key
piece of CalTrout’s source-waters-to-sea approach to combatting
the effects of drought and climate change, this strategy
developed among a broad coalition of conservation partners aims
to restore and conserve meadows throughout the Sierra Nevada,
protecting a major source of our state’s water supply and
critical habitats to fish and other species.
Placing solar panels atop Central Valley canals could get the
state halfway to its goal for climate-friendly power by 2030, a
new study suggests. And the panels could reduce enough
evaporation from the canals to irrigate about 50,000 acres, the
researchers said. They are from the Merced and Santa Cruz
campuses of the University of California. The idea has
already drawn interest from the Turlock Irrigation District, as
one of several options for boosting the solar part of its
electricity supply.
Water releases designed to benefit the critical outmigration of
juvenile salmon on the Stanislaus River as well as assist farms
and communities along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley
already starting to suffer the effects of two consecutive dry
years is languishing in the federal bureaucracy. Up to
100,000 acre feet is proposed to be released that belongs to
the South San Joaquin and Oakdale irrigation districts that
would provide a critical impulse flow from April 15 to May
15. That water based on measurements at Vernalis south of
Manteca where the Stanislaus River joins the San Joaquin River
would significantly improve the survivability of the threatened
salmon.
Preliminary estimates from Utah’s Division of Water Rights show
that the Spanish Valley Watershed, which includes Moab, can
safely withdraw 50-100% more water than it currently uses each
year. The range of uncertainty in part has to do with the
difficulties that come with accounting for groundwater and in
part from the range of possibilities in how much climate change
affects water availability in the valley. State Engineer Teresa
Wilhelmsen praised research by the U.S. Geological Survey that
she said “provides a wealth of information on movement of water
between the various components of the aquifer system” in Moab.
As California emerged from a historically tough five-year
drought in 2017, then-governor Jerry Brown signed two new laws
that required local water agencies to limit water use to 55
gallons per person per day, with water-use allotments dropping
to 50 gallons by 2030. Despite some misreporting to the
contrary, these limits on individuals were not
enforceable. Instead, the state imposed fines on districts
that failed to meet the new targets. It was pretty clear what
direction the state was taking: Since then, California has gone
all in for extreme conservation measures that could eventually
lead to rationing as water-use allotments drop. Unless
something changes, it may be only a matter of time before such
policies lead to personal restrictions on lawn-watering,
car-washing, and even showering.
-Written by Steven Greenhut, the western-region
director for the R Street Institute and a columnist for the
Southern California News Group.
At the March meeting of the Delta Stewardship Council, Dr.
Laurel Larsen discussed a new research paper on the changing
timing of precipitation during California’s wet
season. … She began by noting that precipitation totals
for this water year are now hovering at just around 50% of
typical cumulative precipitation received by this time of year,
and drought has become the main topic of discussion. … [T]he
models used to project these future scenarios also suggest that
even during normal years when the wet season delivers an
average amount of precipitation, that precipitation will fall
during a shorter amount of time, such that the rainy season is
shorter and sharper.
Seven agencies that have been working together to sustain the
groundwater in the Cosumnes Subbasin, which includes the
communities of Galt, Herald, Wilton and Rancho Murieta South,
held a workshop March 24. The presentation was intended to help
residents understand how groundwater will be used in the next
two decades in the Cosumnes Subbasin. The group has until Jan.
31, 2022 to submit its plan to the state on how it intends to
meet its target of replacing 20,000-acre feet per year (AFY) in
underground basins called aquifers to sustain the groundwater.
One of the takeaways from meeting is the plan will cost $2.25
million in the early years.
Drought is returning to California as a second, consecutive
parched winter draws to a close in the usually wet north,
leaving the state’s major reservoirs half empty. But this
latest period of prolonged dryness will probably play out very
differently across this vast state. In Northern
California, areas dependent on local supplies, such as Sonoma
County, could be the hardest-hit. Central Valley growers have
been told of steep cuts to upcoming water deliveries.
Environmentalists too are warning of grave harm to native
fish. Yet, hundreds of miles to the south, the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California reports
record amounts of reserves — enough to carry the state’s most
populous region through this year and even next.
Rain is scarce in much of California, and most of California’s
people live in water-starved regions. And yet the state is, by
some measures, the fifth largest economy in the world. How?
Because during the last century, California has built a complex
network of dams, pumps and canals to transport water from where
it falls naturally to where people live. But climate change
threatens to upend the delicate system that keeps farm fields
green and household taps flowing. In this episode of the UCI
Podcast, Nicola Ulibarri, an assistant professor of urban
planning and public policy who is an expert on water resource
management, discusses how droughts and floods have shaped
California’s approach to water…
California agricultural land values that are rising and falling
the most are doing so under the perception of water
availability – no surprise there. This is putting farmland in
the Fresno Irrigation District (FID) in a positive light as
that agency has done a good job over the years managing
conjunctive use of irrigation water.
Mark Twain is often credited with saying, “Whiskey is for
drinking; water is for fighting over.” This remains true in
California, where drought conditions, climate change, and
population growth throughout the state’s history have made
water an increasingly valuable and regulated resource. The
legal landscape involves complex questions related to water
quality, water sustainability, and competing claims to water
rights. One notable area of controversy involves the adequacy
of water supply for new development projects.
When it comes to water in the West, a lot of it is visible.
Snow stacks up high in the mountains then eventually melts and
flows down into valleys. It’s easy to see how heavy rains and
rushing rivers translate into an abundance of available water.
But another important factor of water availability is much
harder to see. Beneath the surface, the amount of moisture
held in the ground can play a big role in how much water makes
it down to rivers and reservoirs – and eventually into the
pipes that feed homes and businesses. Elise Osenga is a
community science manager for the Aspen Global Change Institute
– a nonprofit focused on expanding scientific understanding of
climate change.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said the state will
hire nearly 1,400 additional firefighters as an unusually dry
winter stokes fears of another devastating wildfire season.
California depends on snowfall in the mountains for much of its
water. But the latest snow survey recorded a statewide “snow
water equivalent” of just 15 inches, or about 54% of average
for April 1, when the state’s snowpack is the deepest. The
state had a similarly dry winter last year. What followed was a
record-setting wildfire season where more than 4% of the
state’s land burned, destroying nearly 10,500 buildings and
killing 33 people.
Local water providers say the current drought is one of the
worst in Colorado history. Mesa County ranges from extreme
drought to exceptional drought in areas and it doesn’t appear
to be improving anytime soon. Below average spring runoff is
anticipated by local water providers as watersheds are working
to be replenished after last year’s drought. … The wildfires
in the Colorado River basin last summer have scarred
significant portions of the Colorado River which may result in
debris, ash, and dense mud flowing into the Colorado River
watershed, which will impact water quality for many water
entities in Mesa County.
California’s wet season is coming to a close without a
much-sought “March miracle” storm, setting the stage for a
painful escalation of drought in the coming months. The April 1
snow survey, which measures the peak accumulation of snow in
the Sierra and southern Cascades just before it melts, will
show only about 60% of average snowpack. … The grim survey
results expected Thursday, which mark a second straight year of
significantly dry conditions, reinforce concerns about a
difficult fire season ahead and bolster the expanding calls for
water conservation.
Now that his massive coronavirus relief package is law,
President Joe Biden is laying out his next big proposal: A
roughly $2 trillion plan for improving the nation’s
infrastructure … Biden’s plan allocates $111
billion to rebuild the country’s water infrastructure. It
would replace all of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines
in order to improve the health of American children and
communities of color. The White House says replacing the pipes
would reduce lead exposure in 400,000 schools and childcare
facilities. The proposal would upgrade the country’s
drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems, tackle new
contaminants and support clean water infrastructure in rural
parts of the country.
Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act established pumping
regulations in the state’s most populous areas but set no such
limits on rural parts of the state. In recent years, some rural
areas have come under increased pressure from agricultural
pumping that has dropped groundwater levels dramatically. …
Lawmakers introduced several bills in the current legislative
session to regulate or provide more options for managing the
state’s groundwater. One would have banned most new wells in
the Upper San Pedro and Verde Valley river basins. Another
would have set spacing limits for new wells in areas that are
overdrawn. Another, introduced by Rep. Regina Cobb of Kingman,
would have given county supervisors the power to establish
groundwater limits or regulations in their area.
San Francisco Bay’s life support systems are unravelling
quickly, and a wealth of science indicates that unsustainable
water diversions are driving this estuary’s demise. Yet,
with another drought looming, federal and state water managers
still plan to divert large amounts of water to their
contractors and drain upstream reservoirs this summer.
Meanwhile, the state’s most powerful water districts are
preparing yet another proposal to maintain excessive water
diversions for the long-term. By delaying reforms that the
law requires and that science indicates are necessary, Gov.
Gavin Newsom encourages wasteful water practices that
jeopardize the Bay and make the state’s water future
precarious. -Written by Jon Rosenfield, a senior scientist for SF
Baykeeper.
The Delta Stewardship Council (Council) announced the hiring of
Ryan Stanbra, the Council’s legislative and policy advisor, to
the key post of chief deputy executive officer. … Appointed
by Governor Brown in 2015, Ryan joined the Council in the role
of legislative and policy advisor. He has played a pivotal role
in advising on critical Council initiatives like implementation
of reduced reliance on the Delta, interagency coordination and
outreach for the Delta Levees Investment Strategy, increasing
funding for critical science investments, and more. He has
served in the acting chief deputy executive officer role since
January.
What do climate change, aging infrastructure, and urban
population growth have in common? They all pose major
challenges – especially for water infrastructure in the United
States. And many utilities are having a hard time keeping up.
Part of the problem is that the industry has relied on the same
handful of technologies for decades. The wastewater sector
sorely needs to adopt new strategies and technologies.
Innovation could serve to improve the ability of utilities to
respond to stressors, increasing resilience and providing
co-benefits.
Arsenic naturally occurs in the region’s groundwater and
Allensworth is served by two groundwater wells that have
contained arsenic levels up to 60 percent higher than state
defined safety levels for drinking water. … To tackle
those challenges in Allensworth, the community is collaborating
with SOURCE to outfit their local community center with two
Hydropanels to sustainably generate drinking water. The
Hydropanels use the warmth of the sun to draw clean,
pollutant-free water vapor out of the air through a patented,
water-absorbing material and into a reservoir inside the
panel.
The Federal government is beginning a program for the
unemployed to retrain as much-needed Delta Smelt.
Following a two-day course, candidates will learn to: Seek out
turbid waters; Spawn in sand at secret locations; Surf the
tides; Make themselves present for counting in mid-water
trawls. Major California water projects and water users
are preparing to hire successful graduates for 1-2 year
non-renewable contracts.
New forest management plans that could be in effect for the
next 15 years in California’s Sierra Nevada are almost complete
– using public comments made prior to the catastrophic Creek
Fire that burned nearly a third of Sierra National Forest. The
aftermath of that wildfire – the largest single fire in
California’s history – isn’t prompting big changes in national
forest plan revisions that have been in the works for years,
federal land managers said. … Aside from air
quality, these forests directly affect the lives of millions of
people in California most prominently via billions of gallons
of water that annually flow from these forests into the central
San Joaquin Valley.
Updated water supply allocations announced last week would
still drain upstream reservoirs in order to deliver 4.5 million
acre feet of water to the contractors of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP), devastating
fish and wildlife. This week, the fisheries biologists at the
National Marine Fisheries Service projected that these planned
operations are likely to result in lethal water temperatures
that will kill 89% of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon
below Shasta Dam this year. This mortality estimate is even
worse than what was observed in 2014 and 2015, when salmon
populations were devastated by warm water in their spawning
grounds.
As the rain season comes to a close across Northern California,
water districts are keeping a close eye on rain totals that are
below average, and water managers are explaining what another
“dry water year” means for our region. According to
California’s Department of Water Resources, or DWR, the state
is well into its second consecutive dry year. That causes
concern among water managers. However, it comes as no surprise.
… With the memory of drought years between 2012 and 2016 not
too distant, [DWR information officer Chris] Orrock explained
how lessons learned from that time period are still being
implemented.
About 40 million Americans in the West and Southwest rely on
the Colorado River for drinking water, as do the region’s
massive agriculture and recreation industries. Water has been
the most valuable commodity in the West since the time of the
pioneers. It became a source of modern political power when the
water of the Colorado River was divvied up among seven Western
States in the 1920s — the Jack Nicholson movie “Chinatown”
dramatized California’s legendary water battles. Today, a
rapidly shrinking Colorado River is forced to support
relentless development in California and across the West — very
thirsty development.
Another advantage to “feeding” the soil in a region plagued
with persistent drought involves the tremendous water savings.
… With below-average precipitation in California,
its reservoirs are showing the impacts of a second dry year.
Lake Oroville stands at 55% of average and Lake Shasta,
California’s largest, now stands at 68%. Most
eco-conscious activists agree that, with the climate’s changing
patterns that lead to decreasing water supplies and die-offs of
pollinators, a lot more needs to be done to help keep our water
and food supplies plentiful.
Over the coming decades, California’s San Joaquin Valley will
transition to sustainable groundwater management under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), ensuring
reliable groundwater supplies for generations to come.
Sustainable groundwater management and a changing climate will
inevitably affect how land is used on a sweeping scale. By some
estimates, the amount of farmland that will have to be taken
out of production to balance groundwater demand and supply is
equivalent to the size of Yosemite National Park — a transition
that could serve a huge blow to the agricultural economy, rural
communities and the environment.
Despite the recent history-making blizzard on Colorado’s Front
Range, statewide snowpack sits at 92 percent of average as of
March 19, down from 105 percent of average at the end of
February, according to the Natural Resources Conservation
Service. Just two river basins, the Arkansas and the Rio
Grande, are registering above average at 101 percent and 106
percent respectively. Among the driest are the Gunnison Basin,
at 86 percent of average, and the San Juan/Dolores, at 83
percent, both in the southwestern part of the state.
As California’s seasons become warmer and drier, state
officials are pondering whether the water rights permitting
system needs revising to better reflect the reality of climate
change’s effect on the timing and volume of the state’s water
supply. A report by the State Water Resources Control Board
recommends that new water rights permits be tailored to
California’s increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable
enough to ensure water exists to meet an applicant’s
demand.
Utah’s winter sports industry may claim the greatest snow on
Earth, but for skiers and water watchers alike, there is hardly
ever enough powder. For nearly 50 years, the second-driest
state in the nation has been giving natural winter storms an
engineered boost to help deepen its snowpack through a program
largely funded by state taxpayers, local governments and water
conservancy districts. More recently, the states that rely on
water from the lower Colorado River — California, Arizona and
Nevada — have been paying for additional cloud seeding in Utah.
The lack of rain and snow during what is usually California’s
wet season has shrunk the state’s water supply. The Sierra
Nevada snowpack, a crucial source of water as it melts over the
spring and summer, is currently at 65 percent of normal. Major
reservoirs are also low. Two state agencies warned last week
that the dry winter is very likely to lead to cuts in the
supply of water to homes, businesses and farmers. The federal
Bureau of Reclamation also told its agricultural water
customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
expect no water this year.
It may surprise you (it surprises me all the time) but a lot of
young people are deeply interested in how our world runs.
Especially young people who also have a passion for journalism.
One of those young people, Jonathan Horwitz, a graduate fellow
at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism, contacted me some months ago
asking about water. He wanted to do a multimedia project on the
subject and eventually settled on the complexities of the Kern
River. Below is a link to his finished product, which I think
deserves an A+.
In the face of climate change and severe weather, there is a
risk of more prolonged droughts in California. Despite recent
storms in March, Santa Clara County is now in a drought and it
is unknown how severe it will get. Valley Water remains focused
on preparing for future dry and wet years through a variety of
projects and programs, including the proposed expansion of
Pacheco Reservoir in southern Santa Clara County. The project
would increase the reservoir’s capacity from 5,500 acre-feet to
up to 140,000 acre-feet, enough water to supply up to 1.4
million residents for one year.
The city is getting ready to impose new penalties for water
customers who exceed their rations during St. Helena’s Phase II
water emergency. On Tuesday the City Council told staff to
bring the recommended penalties back for adoption at the April
13 council meeting. The new penalties would take effect May 1.
Meanwhile, city officials will develop clear conservation
targets and look at adjusting the city’s water management
policies, including how water allocations are calculated.
The Ninth Circuit reversed a conviction for three counts of
violations under the Clean Water Act because the district court
failed to instruct the jury that the defendant needed to
knowingly discharge material “into water” to convict.
… In the summer of 2014, Lucero executed a scheme under
which he charged construction companies to dump dirt and debris
on lands near the San Francisco Bay, including wetlands and a
tributary subject to the Clean Water Act. Although Lucero
admitted to “walking the land” where the dumping happened, the
period when the dumping occurred was unusually dry due to
drought. The trial court found Lucero guilty on two counts of
discharges into wetlands and one count of discharge into a
tributary.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
Many of the wetlands in the western United States have
disappeared since the 1700s. California has lost an astonishing
90 percent of its wetlands, which includes streamsides, wet
meadows and ponds. In Nevada, Idaho and Colorado, more than 50
percent of wetlands have vanished. Precious wet habitats now
make up just 2 percent of the arid West — and those remaining
wet places are struggling. Nearly half of U.S. streams are in
poor condition, unable to fully sustain wildlife and people,
says Jeremy Maestas, a sagebrush ecosystem specialist with the
NRCS who organized that workshop on Wilde’s ranch in 2016. As
communities in the American West face increasing water
shortages, more frequent and larger wildfires and unpredictable
floods, restoring ailing waterways is becoming a necessity.
Last week, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox issued an executive
order declaring a statewide drought emergency. In the
press release that followed, he urged Utahns to “evaluate their
water use and find ways to save not only because of current
drought conditions but also because we live in one of the
driest states in the nation.” The suggested water-saving
recommendations … included
… fixing leaks; running full loads
(dishwashers and washing machines); turning off the water
while brushing teeth, shaving, soaping up, doing dishes or
rinsing vegetables; reducing showers by at least one
minute; waiting to water; and planning now for the irrigation
season by implementing water-wise landscaping or purchasing
a smart irrigation controller. -Written by Joan Meiners, an Environment Reporter
for The Spectrum & Daily News through the Report for America
initiative by The Ground Truth Project.
Water scarcity is often understood as a problem for regions
experiencing drought, but a new study from Cornell and Tufts
universities finds that not only can localized water shortages
impact the global economy, but changes in global demand send
positive and negative ripple effects to water basins across the
globe. … [I]n the lower Colorado River basin, the worst
economic outcomes arise from limited groundwater availability
and high population growth, but that high population growth can
also prove beneficial under some climatic scenarios.
The Vallecitos Water District received two awards for its
innovative use of technology to reduce algae blooms at Mahr
Reservoir, it was announced Thursday. The district received the
“Excellence in Action” national award from the WateReuse
Association and the “Innovation and Resiliency” state award
from the California Association of Sanitation Agencies for its
use of an ultrasound technology to address water quality at the
Stanley A. Mahr Reservoir with a reduced need for chemical
treatment. The most common method of treating algal blooms is
with chemicals. VWD instead uses technology developed by the
international company LG Sonic, which provides an overview of
the water quality allowing identification and treatment of
algal blooms.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has
announced a series of workshops intended to solicit public
input on the development of a community benefit program
associated with the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). According
to DWR, community benefit programs go beyond traditional
concepts of mitigation. They attempt to provide greater
flexibility in addressing possible community impacts associated
with the major construction projects.
The second consecutive dry winter has prompted state water
managers to reduce allocations to the state water project that
supplies millions of Californians and 750,000 acres of
farmland. The state Department of Water Resources
announced this week that it will only be able to deliver
5% of the requested allocations following below-average
precipitation across the state. That figure is down from the
initial allocation of 10% announced in December. Many of
the state’s major reservoirs are recording just 50% of average
water storage for this time of year, and won’t see a major
increase due to a snowpack that is averaging just 65% of
normal, according to state statistics..
[F]or those who live in the legal Delta zone – some 630,000
people – the braided weave of the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Rivers and their maze of associated wetlands and levees
provides a place of home, community, and recreation. And, as a
recent study by the Delta Stewardship Council shows, climate
change is tugging on the watery thread holding it all together.
… The council’s overview reveals a grim outlook for the
millions of people that are tethered to the region’s water:
drought similar to that experienced in 2012-2016 will be five
to seven times more likely by 2050. This will result in more
severe and frequent water shortages and, as the report bluntly
states, “lower reliability of Delta water exports.”
The Water and Land Use Series of videos is now available in
Hmong as well as English and Spanish. The videos provide
insight on how the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA) is taking shape. PhD Candidate at UC Merced, Vicky
Espinoza has been working on the videos for several months. The
series is available on the YouTube Channel CaliWaterAg.
The goal of the project has been to make SGMA information more
accessible and encourage more engagement from community
members.
The rivalry between farms and wildlife for water and land was
long seen as a zero-sum game, especially in California where
water is such a precious commodity that the state’s water
futures are traded on the stock exchange. That competition has
been particularly sharp in the Central Valley: 95% of the
region’s historic wetlands have transformed into farmland, and
the region’s increasingly scarce water supply has been
prioritized for farming. As a result, some of the migratory
birds that rely on the Central Valley for habitat, food, and
water sources have seen steep declines in the past
century.
California’s drought conditions might normally prompt calls for
shorter showers and shutting off sprinklers. But Californians
are in no mood to hear it after a year of pandemic deprivation.
Especially from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing an almost
certain recall election after imposing multiple rounds of
business closures and constantly telling residents to stay
home. … California is particularly parched because 2020
was not only dry, but extremely hot. Experts think the state is
about where it was in 2014, when former Gov. Jerry Brown asked
Californians to reduce their water use by 20 percent.
Arizona tribal officials told a Senate committee Wednesday that
the federal government can help address a crisis with water
infrastructure on their lands through more funding, and less
meddling. Navajo Department of Water Resources Director Jason
John and Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores
made the comments during a Senate Indian Affairs Committee
hearing on water infrastructure for Native communities. Leaders
of Oregon and Alaska tribes also testified at the
hearing.
Meager anticipated snowmelt runoff is expected to mean another
challenging year for maintaining even below-optimal levels of
flows in the Colorado River downstream of the Palisade area for
the benefit of endangered fish. … What’s referred to as
the 15-Mile Reach of the river between the Palisade area and
the Gunnison River confluence is of particular concern for the
Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program, which
focuses on four endangered fish. The stretch is primarily used
by two of the fish — the razorback sucker and Colorado
pikeminnow. But it’s also used by a third, the bonytail. And a
fourth, the humpback chub, which favors downstream stretches
such as Westwater Canyon, indirectly benefits from efforts to
bolster flows in the 15-Mile Reach.
The upcoming salmon season doesn’t look promising for
recreational and commercial fishermen on the Coastside. But
environmentalists from the Central Valley are hoping to change
that in the future by easing the movement of salmon between the
Pacific Ocean and inland rivers. One of those rivers is the
Tuolumne River. Its stewards at the Tuolumne River Trust are
sounding the alarm over the river’s health and say that
committing more water to this distant river will help the
salmon populations more than 100 miles away in places like
Coastside fisheries.
Catalina Island residents could see their monthly water bills
will rise more than 150% over the next five years if a state
commission approves a proposal by Southern California Edison.
The utility company, which acquired the electric, water and gas
utilities on the island in 1962, filed a request with the
California Public Utilities Commission in late October seeking
approval for rate increases to offset increased operating
expenses and other costs, some of which are related to past
drought conditions, according to a public notice issued by SCE.
During the most recent California drought, city of Avalon Mayor
Anni Marshall said the island’s businesses and 4,200
residents—like many across the state—reduced water consumption
by 40%, cutting SCE revenue.
Most Californians rely on groundwater in some way, through the
kitchen faucet, when buying food, or at a green local park to
relax and recreate. Those underground aquifers are even more
important during droughts. In California’s Southern San Joaquin
Valley, groundwater pumping more than tripled in the 2012-2016
drought to make up for lost rain. But that over-pumping comes
at a cost, causing land to sink as much as two feet a year,
damaging bridges, roads, and houses, and drying up drinking
water wells and rivers. The people and places most hurt are the
ones without the money to drill down to find diminishing
groundwater.
As California stares down the barrel of yet another dry year,
alarm bells are already ringing over conditions in the Delta.
Environmental groups, fishermen, tribes, and a host of others
are calling on the State Water Resources Control Board to
complete and implement a long-delayed update to the Water
Quality Control Plan for the Bay and Delta (Bay-Delta Plan), to
protect the imperiled ecosystem. At the same time, plans for a
structure with the potential to divert more water than ever to
southern cities and farms are creeping ahead.
An extra dry summer with potential for water shortages – that’s
what state and federal officials are telling Californians to
prepare for. Predictions for 2021 are bleak. Lake levels
are low and the Sacramento region is not getting the spring
showers many hoped for. According to the US drought monitor,
most of the Central Valley is experiencing severe to extreme
drought conditions. This week the Department of Water
Resources lowered its expected forecast of water deliveries
made to cities and farms by half. But any conservation
restrictions would be up to local authorities.
The Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District completed
construction this week on an expansion of its water recycling
system, increasing the district’s recycled water production
capacity nearly fourfold. …The expanded system allows the
district to treat roughly 5.4 million gallons of recycled water
per day at its headquarters at 300 Smith Ranch Road in San
Rafael. That’s up from the district’s previous capacity of 1.4
million daily gallons.
Angelo Spandrio has announced he will resign from the Casitas
Municipal Water District board later this month.
The district, which manages Lake Casitas and supplies
water to the Ojai Valley and parts of Ventura, has a
five-member board. In recent years, it has faced a long stretch
of drought conditions and shrinking water supplies. Spandrio,
of Ojai, announced his decision at a March 10 board
meeting, saying he and his wife plan to move to Arizona.
As a result of increasing demand for water, exacerbated by the
decades-long drought in the Colorado River system, the Colorado
State Engineer is considering a proposal that would impose
stricter limitations on the permitting of new groundwater wells
in the Yampa River Basin upstream of where the Yampa River
meets the Little Snake River. The Yampa River flows west
from its headwaters near Steamboat Springs, in northwest
Colorado. After it is joined by the Little Snake River,
it flows to meet the Green River near the Colorado-Utah state
line. From there, the Green River flows south as a major
tributary of the Colorado River.
With World Water Day this week and the dry year emerging
throughout the Sacramento Valley, we take this moment to
reflect on the value of water as we cultivate a shared vision
in the region for a vibrant way of life. We encourage you to
watch and read the following vignettes that all showcase the
value of water.
Just before the Trump administration headed out the door, a
federal agency this past December cleared the way for a private
company to begin pumping groundwater from under the Mojave
Trails National Monument in Southern California. The Cadiz
water project would extract roughly 16.3 billion gallons of
groundwater every year for 50 years from aquifers north of
Joshua Tree National Park. The project would overtax the
surrounding environment, according to environmentalists
who filed a lawsuit to halt the project Tuesday. The
latest iteration of this project involves repurposing an
existing oil and gas pipeline.
State and federal water officials have delivered their most
dire warning yet of California’s deepening drought, announcing
that water supply shortages are imminent and calling for quick
conservation. Among a handful of drastic actions this week, the
powerful State Water Board on Monday began sending notices to
California’s 40,000 water users, from small farms to big cities
like San Francisco, telling them to brace for cuts. It’s a
preliminary step before the possibility of ordering their water
draws to stop entirely.
Starting Monday, March 22, groundwater users who own property
in the Santa Rosa Plain area will have an opportunity to review
and update their water use information. The new Groundwater
User Information Data Exchange (GUIDE) Program is being
launched by the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability
Agency (GSA) to improve understanding of how groundwater is
used, and the number and types of water wells in the Santa Rosa
Plain basin.
It wipes out entire communities in a matter of moments, weakens
our lungs and even taints our drinking water, yet federal
strategy to combat wildfires remains outdated and largely
ineffective. The Biden Administration has an opportunity to
rewrite the playbook on combatting wildfires, according to
Stanford University science and policy experts whose research
on a range of related issues points toward bipartisan
solutions.
Shading California’s irrigation canals with solar panels could
reduce pollution from diesel irrigation pumps while saving a
quarter of a billion cubic meters of water annually in an
increasingly drought-prone state, a new study suggests. Pilot
studies in India and small simulations have shown that
so-called “solar canals” have lots of potential benefits:
Shading the water with solar panels reduces water loss from
evaporation and keeps aquatic weeds down.
In 2020 wildfires ravaged more than 10 million acres of land
across California, Oregon and Washington, making it the largest
fire season in modern history. Across the country, hurricanes
over Atlantic waters yielded a record-breaking number of
storms. While two very different kinds of natural disasters,
scientists say they were spurred by a common catalyst – climate
change – and that both also threaten drinking water supplies.
As the nation already wrestles with water shortages,
contamination and aging infrastructure, experts warn more
frequent supercharged climate-induced events will exacerbate
the pressing issue of safe drinking water.
While a supermajority of Americans finally believe we are
warming the world, a 2020 Yale Climate Opinion survey shows
that most people still aren’t very worried about it.
… But Californians do. Reeling from a decade of
record-shattering drought, heat waves, and wildfires, people in
the Golden State overwhelmingly tell Public Policy Institute of
California pollsters that the effects of global warming have
already begun. Indeed … researchers can now link climate
change with some of today’s extreme events [including the
wild swings in precipitation that cause intense rainstorms at
one end and severe droughts at the other] beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Water is one of the most valuable resources on the
planet — we need it to survive, to stay clean
and healthy, to grow food, to run businesses, to
support ecosystems, and so much more. And yet clean,
accessible, abundant water is often taken for granted, in
part because its cost rarely reflects its true value. But
anyone who has spent even a day, or a few hours, without
access to water knows its vital importance. Still today
over 2.2 billion people globally lack
access to safe drinking water.
California’s water use varies dramatically across regions and
sectors, and between wet and dry years. With the possibility of
another drought looming, knowing how water is allocated across
the state can make it easier to understand the difficult
tradeoffs the state’s water managers must make in times of
scarcity. The good news is that we’ve been using less over
time, both in cities and on farms. While there are still ways
to cut use further to manage droughts, it won’t always be easy
or cheap to do so. California’s freshwater ecosystems are at
particular risk of drought, when environmental water use often
sees large cuts. Watch the video to learn how Californians use
water.
A showdown is looming on the Colorado River. The river’s
existing management guidelines are set to expire in 2026. The
states that draw water from it are about to undertake a new
round of negotiations over the river’s future, while it’s
facing worsening dry conditions due in part to rising
temperatures. That means everyone with an interest in the
river’s future — tribes, environmentalists, developers,
business groups, recreation advocates — is hoping a new round
of talks will bring certainty to existing water supplies and
demands.
With annual fires in the west, hurricanes and floods in the
east, and extreme colds in the south of the United States,
climate catastrophes seem to occur more frequently and at a
higher caliber each year. … [C[limate disasters have been
increasing since the 1960s, with a steep 35 percent increase
recorded since the 1990s. In 2020 alone, the United States
endured 30 record-breaking named storms during hurricane
season, 4 million acres of California’s land burned by
wildfires during fire season, and the global average surface of
the Earth overall in 2020 tied for the warmest year on record
with 2016.
White River National Forest officials on Monday said Aurora
Water and Colorado Springs Utilities can move ahead with test
drilling to determine whether a controversial dam on Homestake
Creek in Eagle County is technically feasible…. conservation
groups say they are adamantly against any new water transfers
to suburban water users across the Continental Divide and will
oppose every approval step….Environmental groups oppose new
dams on Homestake in part because they would take
water out of tributaries that feed the already-depleted
Colorado River.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Dan Gibbs, executive
director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources, announced
recently the establishment of a Water Equity Task Force to
better understand existing equity, diversity and inclusivity
(EDI) challenges in Colorado water issues and inform the
Colorado Water Plan. … The 2005 Water for the 21st Century
Act (HB 05-1177) ushered in a new area of regionally inclusive
and collaborative water planning. That spirit was further
codified in the 2015 Colorado Water Plan, which ensured that
all water uses in Colorado are interconnected and of equal
value.
With three-quarters of the US west gripped by a seemingly
ceaseless drought, several states are increasingly embracing a
drastic intervention – the modification of the weather to spur
more rainfall. … Cloud seeding experiments have taken
place since the 1940s but until recently there was little
certainty the method had any positive impact.
But research last year managed to pinpoint snowfall
that “unambiguously” came from cloud seeding … Others are now
looking to join in, including the “four corners” states – Utah,
Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico – that have been ravaged by
the most extreme version of the latest drought.
California farmers relying on State Water Project water were
warned Monday to prepare for potential shortages by reducing
water use and adopting practical conservation measures.
In an effort to address drought and increase local groundwater
supply, the Santa Clara County Valley Water District is
fast-tracking a plan to purify and recycle more water in San
Jose. … But city elected leaders — concerned for the
environment and limited staff resources due to COVID-19 — are
pumping the brakes and want more time to negotiate.
Councilmembers met Friday with Valley Water’s board of
directors for a special meeting to hash out the issue.
A Biden initiative expected to pour up to $3 trillion into
repairing America’s decrepit infrastructure and funding other
programs has sparked a scramble across the nation for the
federal funds — with California expecting to reap the biggest
piece. …Rep. John Garamendi, a Northern California Democrat
who is a senior member of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee…spent more than an hour with Biden
in recent weeks and came away convinced that the program will
be broad enough to improve most areas of the nation’s
infrastructure: highways, passenger rail, electric grids, dams,
sewers and water systems, ocean terminals and
airports….
Installing solar panels over California’s network of water
canals could save the state an estimated 63 billion gallons of
water and produce 13 gigawatts of renewable power every year,
according to a feasibility study published in Nature
Sustainability. California moves more water than any other
system in the world, with 75% of the state’s available water in
its northern third and the southern two-thirds accounting for
80% of the state’s demand. Covering the canals with solar
panels would reduce evaporation by shading the canals from the
sun (along with the co-benefit of reducing canal-choking plant
growth) and the cooling effects of the water could boost solar
panel efficiency.
Much of the U.S. West is facing the driest spring in seven
years, setting up a climate disaster that could strangle
agriculture, fuel deadly wildfires and even hurt power
production. Across 11 western states, drought has captured
about 75% of the land, and covers more than 44% of the
contiguous U.S., the U.S. Drought Monitor said. While
drought isn’t new to the West, where millions of people live,
grow crops and raise livestock in desert conditions that
require massive amounts of water, global warming is
exacerbating the problem — shrinking snowpack in the Rocky
Mountains and extending the fire season on the West Coast.
While water shortages and lack of access are usually associated
with developing countries, there were more than 2 million
people in the United States without running water or
basic indoor plumbing as of 2019, according to the U.S. Water
Alliance. Among them are members of the Navajo Nation who
drive 40 miles every few days to haul water to their homes;
communities in California dealing with contaminated wells; and
people across the country living with outdated water systems.
Witnessing the devastating effects of drought in rural
California and India at the age of 11 spurred Shreya
Ramachandran to action. She devoted years to researching the
reuse of grey water—lightly used water from sinks, showers, and
laundry—and painstakingly tested the environmental safety of
organic detergents. The nonprofit Ramachandran founded, the
Grey Water Project, has inspired thousands of people to build
their own “laundry to lawn” grey water systems. Now a high
school senior, she’s collaborated with several California water
agencies and the United Nations Global Wastewater Initiative,
and created a grey water curriculum for elementary students to
show them that small actions can make a big difference.
To have enough excess time and energy in your life to spend on
cultivating a lawn means that you are a successful member of
society — not just economically, but in spirit and values. But
where did this obsession come from? A lawn, taken out of
context, is a very peculiar landscaping choice. … There
are tons of alternatives to lawns that can be more appropriate
for the California climate. Xeriscaping, or the practice of
using drought tolerant plants for decorative landscaping, is
rapidly becoming more popular as homeowners are trying to keep
their front yards looking neat and elegant while cutting down
their water costs and environmental impact. -Written by Landon Iannamico, staff writer for the
Daily Californian
As of 2021, California is home to 31 distinct kinds of native
salmon, steelhead and trout species, 20 of which are found only
in our state. These fish are prized for their economic and
cultural significance by local communities, and for their
recreational attributes by anglers from around the world. But
these fish face an alarming threat that can’t be ignored. If
current trends continue, nearly half of these fish will be
extinct within the next 50 years. How do we know this? And
perhaps an even better question: what can be done about
it?
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has announced that Westlands
Water District was awarded a $1,609,000 grant from
Reclamation’s WaterSMART Fiscal Year 2021 Water and Energy
Efficiency Grant Program. The grant was awarded to fund
the District’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Project,
which will retrofit 760 manually read groundwater well meters
with advanced, automated metering devices that can transmit
data over a regional network. By ensuring even greater water
metering precision and eliminating the need to manually read
the meters, the project is expected to save nearly 103 billion
gallons of water and reduce 5.3 metric tons of carbon emission
over 20 years.
Two local water agencies are moving forward with plans to fully
develop a groundwater banking project near Newman. The
groundwater recharge project has exceeded expectations in pilot
studies, said Jarrett Martin, general manager of the Central
California Irrigation District and Anthea Hansen, general
manager of the Del Puerto Water District. They said plans are
in the works to expand the 20-acre pilot project to an 80-acre
recharge zone. Martin said the two agencies have been awarded
grants totaling $6.4 million to expand the recharge project to
its full buildout, which is envisioned at 80 acres.
Acting in advance of its Pure Water Monterey expansion project
partner, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District board
has agreed to spend an additional $180,000 on updating the
project’s environmental document and source water analysis for
the proposal. On Monday, the water district board voted
7-0 to spend $181,125 on work to update the recycled water
expansion project’s supplemental environmental impact report
and conduct source water modeling in an attempt to address an
issue that has drawn heavy criticism and opposition.
When a region’s groundwater is critically depleted and its dirt
as hard as a frying pan, how do you refill the aquifer? Ask a
fifth grader. Actually, ask the fifth and sixth grade
combination class at Bakersfield’s Munsey Elementary School
taught by Barbara Elrod. Elrod’s students discovered a pretty
cool way to both conserve water and recharge aquifers through
“grey water.” That’s water from sinks, showers and washing
machines. Turns out most of that water has soap in it and soap
is a surfactant.
The construction of 8 miles of water pipeline that will be
integral to the Pure Water Soquel project, was approved by
Soquel Creek Water District Board of Directors this week. The
Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Basin, from which at least
50,000 residents depend on for drinking water, has been deemed
critically depleted by the state. Years of intensive pumping
for agriculture and drinking water has drawn out more water
from the aquifer than is being replenished naturally by
rainwater. That’s led to seawater seeping into underground
storage and wells. The Pure Water project aims to bolster
groundwater levels in the aquifer, and prevent seawater
contamination, which has already been detected in some areas.
The Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Endowed Professorship
was established by a group of donors concerned with the
conservation and management of coldwater fishes in California.
The endowed chair honors Peter Moyle and the historical and
productive working relationship between CalTrout and UC Davis,
with an endowment fund resting at over $2 million. Dr. Andrew
L. Rypel was appointed to this professorship as the inaugural
holder in 2017, therefore this report reflects year-3 work on
behalf of the chair. A total of 13 peer-reviewed scientific
publications were produced by the Rypel Lab at UC Davis in
2019-2020.
A new analysis finds that covering water canals in California
with solar panels could save a lot of water and money while
generating renewable energy. Doing so would generate between
20% and 50% higher return on investment than would be achieved
by building those panels on the ground. The paper, published
Thursday in Nature Sustainability, performs what its authors
call a techno-economic analysis, calculating the impacts and
weighing the costs and benefits of potentially covering the
thousands of miles of California’s open irrigation system.
With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or
worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for
relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought
has taken root and worsened. Weather service and agriculture
officials warned of possible water use cutbacks in California
and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in key
reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell and damage to
wheat crops.
Tribal leaders see President Joe Biden’s administration as
an opportunity to increase tribal consultation regarding issues
like water management, oil and gas leasing, and land
conservation. Here, we look at four major projects … that the
new administration is tasked with advancing…. Negotiations
among federal, tribal and state governments on water flows and
allocations in the Colorado River Basin began last year and are
set to conclude by 2026…. After years of political,
social and regulatory barriers, the undamming of the Klamath
River is within sight….
The Bureau of Reclamation is awarding $42.4 million in grants
to 55 projects throughout 13 states. These projects will
improve the water reliability for these communities by using
water more efficiently and power efficiency improvements that
water supply reliability and generate more hydropower…. In
California, near the Arizona border, the Bard Water District
will receive $1.1 million to complete a canal lining and piping
project. The project is expected to result in annual water
savings of 701 acre-feet, which will remain in the Colorado
River system for other uses.
If you were around here in 2014 or 2015, you were likely
inundated with images of dried up reservoirs that looked like
dirt canyons with little ponds in them, when a punishing
drought forced the state to institute restrictions on water
usage. Well, we’re likely headed for another summer of dried-up
lawns (and wildfires) if Mother Nature continues to withhold
the rain and snow that we need to make up for a super-dry
November, December, and February.
[The Salton Sea is] drying up, spewing harmful dust into the
Imperial Valley’s already badly polluted air. There are
countless stories to be told around the Salton Sea. To me, one
of the most fascinating is about lithium. … I wrote
about the increasingly bright prospects for Salton Sea
lithium extraction in October 2019. Today, I’ve got
several updates on the companies trying to make the Imperial
Valley the first major source of North American lithium
production — including the entrance of some powerful new
players.
CalTrout Watershed and Legacy Circle members and partners
joined together last Thursday for an informative discussion on
the visions for the future of California water. With a zoom
room of visionaries themselves, we had a lively time! You
can listen to the interviews with our guests Gia Schneider of
Natel Energy and Felicia Marcus the William C. Landreth
Visiting Fellow Stanford Water in the West in the video …
While most people in Colorado live on the Front Range, most of
the state’s water is on the West Slope. That’s where the
snowpack melts and makes its way into the Colorado River. Much
of that water flows to places like Denver through a series of
dams, reservoirs, pumps and pipes. Aurora and Colorado Springs
want to bring more of that water to their growing cities, which
are the state’s largest after Denver. To do that, they want to
dam up Whitney Creek in Eagle County south of Minturn and
create a reservoir that could supply water for thousands of new
homes.
In the latest effort to protect Coyote Valley, a Palo Alto
environmental group has closed three deals totaling $16.5
million to purchase 331 acres in the scenic expanse of rural
land on San Jose’s southern edges … The three properties
purchased in the most recent deals, left undeveloped, also will
be used to provide natural flood protection for downtown San
Jose. The idea is that when Coyote Creek is flooding, as it did
in 2017, causing $100 million in damage, its waters can be
deliberately spread over the open area to seep into the
groundwater table instead of all rushing downtown into
neighborhoods.
An estimated 4.1 million people in the lower 48 states are
potentially exposed to arsenic levels that exceed EPA’s
drinking water standards A new U.S. Geological Survey study
highlights the importance of homeowners testing their well
water to ensure it is safe for consumption, particularly in
drought-prone areas. … The states with the largest
populations facing elevated arsenic levels in private domestic
well water during the simulated drought conditions are Ohio
(approximately 374,000 people), Michigan (320,000 people),
Indiana (267,000 people), Texas (200,000 people) and California
(196,000 people).
The interplay between surface water and groundwater is often
overlooked by those who use this vital resource due to the
difficulty of studying it. Assistant professors Scott Jasechko
and Debra Perrone, of UC Santa Barbara, and their colleagues
leveraged their enormous database of groundwater measurements
to investigate the interaction between these related resources.
Their results, published in Nature, indicate that many more
rivers across the United States may be leaking water into the
ground than previously realized.
