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.
Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, is Monday. What’s
in store for the upcoming season of beach days and barbecues in
Southern California? To start with, it will be dry. That’s not
just because California’s Mediterranean climate means rain
mostly falls during a few wet winter months, but because the
state is in its third year of drought…. Major reservoirs
statewide were at 76% of average levels this week, with the
long, hot summer months still ahead….This month, 59.64% of
the state is categorized as being in extreme drought, the
second-worst category, with just 0.18% in exceptional drought —
but then this is May, not July.
California water regulators strengthened the state’s drought
rules this week, ordering local suppliers to take steps to
reduce water usage to stretch limited supplies this summer.
Gov. Gavin Newsom warned that more stringent statewide water
restrictions could come if the state doesn’t make more progress
on conservation soon. … As part of the new rules, the state
also banned the use of drinking water for irrigating grass that
is purely decorative at businesses and in common areas of
subdivisions and homeowners associations. Here is a
breakdown of what is going on:
A state program aimed at retiring and repurposing farmland
could get $60 million – more than doubling its current funding
– under Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget. The Multibenefit Land
Repurposing Program was created with $50 million from the 2021
state budget. The program helps pay for farmland to be taken
out of production and repurposed to less water intensive uses.
Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley have pumped groundwater for
crops without limits for generations. But groundwater levels
are plummeting …
California’s vast network of surface water reservoirs is
designed to hold carryover storage from year to year to ensure
water is available for urban, agricultural and environmental
purposes during dry months and years. But climate change has
begun to affect our reliance on historical weather patterns to
predict California’s water supply, making it even more
difficult for water managers to manage drought conditions and
placing a greater emphasis on better precipitation forecasting
at longer lead times. Learn about efforts being made to
‘get ahead of the storms’ through new science, models and
technology at our special one-day workshop June 9 in
Irvine, Making
Progress on Drought Management: Improvements in Seasonal
Precipitation Forecasting.
The water level in Lake Mead — the nation’s largest reservoir —
dropped below 1,050 feet elevation for the first time last
week, a critical milestone that signals more stringent water
cuts are around the corner for the Southwest…. As of Tuesday,
Lake Mead’s level was around 1,049 feet above sea
level…. If the lake’s water level is expected to stay
below 1,050 feet by January 2023, the more significant Tier 2
shortage would be implemented. Additional cuts — each tier with
rising impact on agriculture and municipal water use — are
expected if Lake Mead continues to fall.
Each year, Lake Shasta brings in locals and tourists from all
over, especially for Memorial Day weekend. Businesses on Lake
Shasta are dealing with low lake levels and short staffing but
despite the challenges, they still expect a good holiday
turnout. … With a three-year drought, lake levels are
front-of-mind for many frequent lake visitors, but
there is good news. Lake levels are currently
about 120 feet below full pool and expected to drop 155 feet
later this summer, but that’s still 30 feet higher than we saw
last year. Matt Doyle, general manager of Lake Shasta Caverns,
said businesses around the lake are very hopeful for this
year’s summer.
Tribes and environmental groups are challenging how the state
manages water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a
major source for much of California, arguing the deterioration
of the aquatic ecosystem has links to the state’s troubled
legacy of racism and oppression of Native people. A group of
activists and Indigenous leaders is demanding that the state
review and update the water quality plan for the Delta and San
Francisco Bay, where fish species are suffering, algae blooms
have worsened and climate change is adding to the
stresses.
[On the southeast side of California’s Central
Valley] farmers are pumping unreliable groundwater to make
up the difference, hoping their already struggling wells don’t
go dry … Others will rip up their trees and leave their
fields fallow. … About 100 miles away, on the northwest
side of the Central Valley, the situation could not be more
different. Even during an unprecedented drought, the almond and
pistachio farmers around the city of Los Banos will get around
75 percent of a normal year’s water … The startling contrast
is the result of an obscure and contentious legal agreement
known as the exchange contract …
It is mid-May, and a couple of days ago, the Hermits Peak Fire
in northern New Mexico reached 299,565 acres in size,
surpassing the 2012 Whitewater-Baldy Fire as the state’s
largest wildfire on record. … It is mid-May, and a dozen
other fires have already charred tens of thousands of acres
across the West … It is mid-May, and the spring winds have
been relentless … It is mid-May, and the temperature in
Phoenix has reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit two days in a row.
In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order outlining
the temporary strategies for California to manage the ongoing
drought. Within this order, he outlined rules for counties,
cities and other public agencies as it relates to new wells or
alterations to an existing well. One rule requires farmers and
ranchers to get written verification from their local
groundwater sustainability agency that the new well or
alterations “would not be inconsistent with any sustainable
groundwater management program” for the area.
During the 2021 runoff year (April 1, 2021–March 31, 2022), the
Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) was allowed to
export up to 16,000 acre-feet of stream diversions from the
Mono Basin because Mono Lake was above 6380 feet above sea
level on April 1, 2021. Yet, only 13,300 acre-feet of water was
taken, consistent with the low reservoir requirements in DWP’s
water licenses, which were amended last year by the California
State Water Resources Control Board. The new licenses contain
an overall minimum level of 11,500 acre-feet of storage for
Grant Lake Reservoir, with a minimum of 20,000 acre-feet for
July–September.
Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, is maneuvering against a bill
that seeks higher flows on local rivers. Assembly Bill 2639
would set a Dec. 31, 2023, deadline for the State Water
Resources Control Board to complete its plan for tributaries to
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They include the Stanislaus,
Tuolumne and Merced rivers. The decision would follow decades
of wrangling over whether fish should get more water on the
lower rivers at the expense of farms and cities.
Californians can expect to see more yellow grass around
hospitals, hotels, office parks and industrial centers after
water regulators voted Tuesday to ban watering of
“nonfunctional” turf in commercial areas. The State Water
Resources Control Board also moved to order all the state’s
major urban water providers to step up their conservation
efforts. The moves are the strongest regulatory actions state
officials have taken in the third year of the latest drought.
Residents in Santa Clara County could face fines of up to $500
— and in extreme cases, $10,000 — for wasting water, under new
drought rules approved Tuesday afternoon that are among the
toughest of any urban area in California. … The new
rules take effect June 1, but depend largely on citizen
complaints and very few “water cops” to investigate
them. Under the rules, residents who see water being
wasted can notify the district of the address and date of
incident by calling 408-630-2000, or emailing
WaterWise@valleywater.org, or reporting online….
For two winters in a row, La Niña has steered desperately
needed rain and snow storms away from the U.S. Southwest,
exacerbating a decades-long drought that has shriveled
reservoirs and spurred horrific wildfires. Now, hopes that the
climate pattern would relent and allow moisture to rebound next
winter have suffered a serious blow. La Niña — Spanish for “the
girl” — persisted through April, and there’s a 61 percent
chance she’ll stick around for a third winter, according to the
latest monthly update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
As drought conditions continue, people who rely on the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are demanding California make sure
their communities are protected. Early Tuesday, a group
gathered in front of the California State Water Resources
Control Board building to demand the state enforce the
Bay-Delta plan. It’s been a long fight and the group said
enough is enough. For many of the tribes, the Delta is an
important lifeline.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture says that
more than 90% of the cotton harvested in California has been
grown in the San Joaquin Valley but continuing dry weather is
posing significant challenges for growers. Consumer demand is
driving the market for cotton, including high-quality Pima
cotton now reaching record levels of more than $3 a pound. But
as California faces another dry year many farmers in Kern
County are impacted not only by an increase in price but also
by a decrease in production.
The California Senate has proposed a $2 billion reconciliation
framework to rebalance water supply and water rights, as part
of proposed investments of $7.5 billion in state and federal
funds spread over three years for climate resiliency. It is the
most sweeping land retirement proposal since the landmark 1992
Central Valley Project Improvement Act.
As drought and climate change tighten their grip on the
American West, the sight of fountains, swimming pools, gardens
and golf courses in cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los
Angeles, Salt Lake City, Boise, and Albuquerque can be jarring
at first glance. Western water experts, however, say they
aren’t necessarily cause for concern. Over the past three
decades, major Western cities — particularly in California and
Nevada — have diversified their water sources, boosted local
supplies through infrastructure investments and conservation,
and use water more efficiently.
Californians responded to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for
voluntary water conservation earlier this year by using more,
not less. … Already, residents face sharp new outdoor water
restrictions June 1, and serious doubts over whether those
limits will be enough to cope with a historic water shortage.
It’s a good time to imagine the ideal California of the future,
in which information technology and rational pricing make water
conservation simple, understandable and a common way of life.
Here’s how it should work, as a resident pulls out his or her
phone and at the touch of a button checks the household’s water
use for that day in real time:
A “Tier 1″ shortage was triggered by Lake Mead falling below
1,075 feet of water this past year. This means less
Colorado River water is flowing into Arizona. Historic drought
conditions are impacting critical infrastructure that provides
water and power to the region, like the Hoover Dam, and Lakes
Mead and Powell…. For now, [Bureau of Reclamation official
Dan] Bunk says Yuma and its agricultural industry remain
unaffected by the tier one shortage. But the future is unknown.
A few months ago, [Paul] Ashcraft and several of his neighbors
at the highest point in Unaweep Canyon saw a plan proposed by
Xcel Energy to build a hydro power plant that will help the
company reach its renewable energy goals. The plan put a
75-foot dam holding back the edge of an 88-acre reservoir in
Ashcraft’s front yard. The proposal also puts his neighbors’
homes and Colorado 141 underwater. The plan would move
water between a reservoir on BLM land on top of the cliffs and
a reservoir on private land on the valley floor.
Jewish law has a lot to say about what’s supposed to happen
when you die: your lifeless body must be washed and
buried quickly, with a simple headstone to mark your grave. But
nowhere, in 4,000 years of Jewish law, custom or tradition does
it say you need to rest eternally under bright, green grass. As
California struggles with the West’s
longest megadrought in 1,200 years,
emergency water conservation rules are set to take
effect on June 1. Yet cemeteries in L.A., including the three
largest Jewish ones, remain as grassy and green as a Scottish
golf course. -Written by Rob Eshman, national editor of the the
Forward.
With the holiday weekend coming up a lot of people are expected
in Lake Tahoe for boating and other summer activities. But,
there are a few boat ramps that will be closed this weekend
that could impact plans. Because of the lack of precipitation,
a majority of boat ramps in Lake Tahoe will be closed this
summer. Even with the winter weather we had just a few weeks
ago, it only raised the lake about an inch. The boat ramps that
will be closed this season are Sand Harbor, El Dorado, Kings
Beach, and Tahoe Vista Recreation Area.
Despite being surrounded by water, Bay Area residents are
routinely told during dry years to take shorter showers, let
lawns brown and slow the rush of water from their taps. But as
climate change prolongs drought and challenges local water
supply, regional water managers are warning that none of those
actions will be enough. Many say the time has come to invest in
technically feasible, though politically and environmentally
complicated alternatives like purifying wastewater and sucking
salt out of seawater to bolster stores.
Etched in dirt, a narrow furrow is the only clue that the
grasslands of Lime Ridge Open Space will soon be restored to
their original splendor, cleared of dangerous power lines that
could ignite nearby subdivisions. The undergrounding project,
costing $3.75 million a mile, represents the beginning of a
10,000-mile-long effort by Pacific Gas and Electric to bury the
state’s distribution lines to cope with the growing risk of
winds and wildfires linked to global warming. The utility
long resisted calls to bury its power lines as being too
costly.
Today, there are hundreds of hatcheries in the Northwest run by
federal, state and tribal governments … The fish they send to
the Pacific Ocean have allowed restaurants and grocery seafood
counters to offer “wild-caught” Chinook salmon even as the fish
became endangered. The hatcheries were supposed to stop the
decline of salmon. They haven’t. The numbers of each of the six
salmon species native to the Columbia basin have dropped to a
fraction of what they once were, and 13 distinct populations
are now considered threatened or endangered.
When you picture water storage, a water tower on slanted stilts
imposed upon a blue sky or a concrete reservoir piping water to
the city might come to mind. The issue of water storage has
become a high priority as regions such as California experience
severe multi-year drought and are impacted by overextraction
from aquifers. … The most climate resilient and long-term
strategies to address water shortage lie at our feet, in the
meadows that anchor our rivers headwaters and floodplains that
extend across the broad lower river valleys.
California’s top water regulators adopted emergency drought
rules Tuesday that scale up conservation requirements for water
suppliers throughout the state and prohibit watering grass that
is purely decorative at businesses and in common areas of
subdivisions and homeowners associations. The regulations
outlaw the use of potable water for irrigating “non-functional”
grass at commercial, industrial and institutional properties.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday warned major water agencies to show
better conservation results or face mandatory statewide water
restrictions as California heads into its third summer of
severe drought. The threat is a sign of Newsom’s growing
impatience with the state’s failure to reduce urban water use,
as he has requested since last year. In fact, people have been
using more. … Newsom also said the state will closely monitor
the situation over the next 60 days, and he told the agencies
to submit water use data more frequently to the state and to
step up outreach and education efforts to communicate the
urgency of the crisis to the public.
A pre-Memorial Day heat wave will prime the Bay Area for
another dry fire season, roasting the region’s landscape with
some of the hottest weather so far in 2022 and pushing
temperatures in some cities close to 100 degrees. A month ahead
of the official start of summer, high temperatures could climb
5 to 20 degrees above normal on Tuesday and Wednesday for much
of the Bay Area — a pre-Memorial Day blast of hot weather that
prompted a heat advisory for the entire Central Valley and a
red flag warning for a broad swath of Northern California
stretching from Vallejo to Redding…. Already,
California’s drought has depleted reservoirs and contributed to
some of the state’s largest fires on record in recent years.
The California Water Commission approved a white paper that
contains its findings and the potential next steps for State
engagement in shaping well-managed groundwater trading programs
with appropriate safeguards for vulnerable water users: natural
resources, small- and medium-size farms, and water supply and
quality for disadvantaged communities. The white paper will be
shared with the Secretaries for Natural Resources,
Environmental Protection, and Food and Agriculture, who
requested the Commission’s engagement on this topic.
Maria Herrera had about a quarter left in her last five-gallon
water jug. On that April afternoon, though, spotty water
service returned to the 67-year-old woman’s apartment, before
the jug emptied. If it hadn’t, that was all she had left to
bathe, do housework or drink. Herrera lives in Villas de Santa
Fe, a neighborhood of cookie-cutter apartment blocks on the
rapidly growing outskirts of Tijuana. Baja’s state water
agency, called CESPT, shuts off her water at least once a week,
she said. Last summer, Herrera said she went six days with dry
taps.
The lowly sidewalk tree often stands invisible. We rest in its
shade, bask in the scent of springtime flowers, and we don’t
notice it until it’s gone. But the tree works hard. It captures
and filters stormwater runoff and helps replenish groundwater.
It cleans our air and cools our neighborhoods. It improves our
mental health. It saves lives. With Southern California
officials clamping down on outdoor water use amid worsening
drought, the message is clear: It’s fine for lawns to go brown,
but we need to keep trees alive and healthy.
The fish need the water, the farmers and ranchers need the
water, and the fish win. Because coho salmon are on the
Endangered Species List in the region, and the Scott and Shasta
Rivers are important to their survival. The State of California
put emergency rules in place governing groundwater around those
rivers, and the people in agriculture take exception. We hear
the environmental side of the issue in this interview. Craig
Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate for the Karuk Tribe,
lays out the importance of the water for the fish …
After nearly two years of a collaborative effort led by the
Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Science Program, the wait is
finally over. We’re excited and proud to present the final
2022-2026 SAA for the Delta. … Scientists, managers, and
those with a stake in the Delta were invited to participate in
two public workshops, four online surveys, and four review
periods and were engaged in various collaborative venues. The
collaborative process was a critical component of this SAA and
built on the success of the 2017-2021 SAA, which guided over
$35 million from the Council and its partners for
management-relevant research.
In my drought- and fire-plagued home valley, 40 miles north of
San Francisco, a debate has been simmering for decades over a
massive development planned on state-owned property. The
conflict is focused on nearly 1,000 acres of rural and wildland
in Sonoma Valley. The prime wine-country property has been eyed
for development since long before 2018 … Water,
especially, is in short supply. The valley’s 44,000-acre
groundwater basin and recycled water provide only half of the
community’s water. Piped-in supplies make up the other half,
shipped from increasingly drought-stressed river basins farther
north.
Annette Morales Roe learned how to waterski off the north shore
of the Salton Sea in the 1960s. … Her family stopped visiting
in the early 1970s, around the same time scientists began
warning that the Salton Sea would shrink and become
inhospitable to wildlife without a sustainable water source.
… Now, Roe is certain that she knows how to fix the
problem — and has the team to do it. As managing partner
and chief strategy officer of Online Land Planning LLC,
she is advocating for a plan that would reroute recycled water
that’s currently flowing into the Pacific Ocean to the Salton
Sea …
The water crisis in Arizona affects all of us. From our tap
water to our crops, even our electricity. The supply is running
short, so FOX 10’s Steve Nielsen headed to Lake Powell to
investigate our ongoing water crisis and uncover what’s being
done to safeguard our most important resource in the desert.
… Lake Powell historical data in 2011 shows the water
level was at 3,622 feet. It ebbs and flows a little bit every
year, but there’s been a steep drop off the last two
years. As of May 2022, the water level is sitting at
3,522.
For the fourth time in 10 years, farmers I know in California
are facing a harsh reality — they won’t see a drop of water
from federal government reserves to supplement the little bit
they’ll get from Mother Nature. … Precision
agriculture — the use of technology like networked sensors and
artificial intelligence — is helping farmers get by without the
water they once had. The efficiencies are real, and the impact
is tangible. I’ve seen up close how precision agriculture is
making a difference for farms facing extreme drought. -Written by Michael Gilbert, CEO of Semios,
helping farmers use data to optimize every acre.
New Melones Reservoir is the proverbial canary in the mine when
it comes to where state water policy wedded with the return of
megadroughts is taking California. Using historical hydrology
data on the Stanislaus River basin between 1922 and 2019:
*Based on current regulatory rules New Melones Reservoir would
fall below 250,000 acre feet of storage in 3 out of the 98
years. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, editor of The Manteca
Bulletin.
After decades of negotiation, the largest dam-removal project
in U.S. history is expected to begin in California’s far north
next year. The first of four aging dams on the Klamath River,
the 250-mile waterway that originates in southern Oregon’s
towering Cascades and empties along the rugged Northern
California coast, is on track to come down in fall 2023. Two
others nearby and one across the state line will follow.
… The native flora and fauna in the region are bound to
prosper as algae-infested reservoirs at the dams are emptied,
the flow of the river quickens and cools, and river passage
swings wide open.
Outdoor watering restrictions area set to take effect in Los
Angeles at the end of the month, and the prospect of an
improvement in drought conditions appears dim. Just how bad is
the drought? According to state figures, the first three months
of the year were the driest in the state’s recorded history.
California is currently in the third year of a
drought. Wade Crowfoot is the state secretary for natural
resources. The one resource he oversees that we all use is
water. According to his agency, the drought is getting worse,
not better.
Three years ago, when he sank everything he had into 66 acres
of irrigated pasture in Shasta County, [farmer Josh] Davy
thought he’d drought-proofed his cattle operation. He’d been
banking on the Sacramento Valley’s water supply… But this
spring, for the first time ever, no water is flowing through
his pipes and canals or those of his neighbors: The district
won’t be delivering any water to Davy or any of its roughly 800
other customers.
A Trump era decision has further imperiled endangered fish
species in the Trinity River, and commercial fishermen and
local tribes are demanding the federal government take action.
This week, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s
Associations and its sister organization Institute for
Fisheries Research sent the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation a 60-day
notice of their intention to sue the federal agency for
violating the Endangered Species Act. The amount of water the
bureau is diverting from the Trinity River to the Central
Valley Project has decimated the river’s salmon populations
…
When California suffers a heat wave, it leans heavily on
hydropower from the Pacific Northwest to keep the lights on.
But that hydropower may not always be available when it’s most
needed, as climate change is shifting the ground on which the
West’s dams sit. Higher temperatures means snowmelt occurs
earlier in the year and leaves less water available for power
generation during the depths of summer.
Homes and businesses across central Sonoma County generated
more than 5 billion gallons of wastewater last year, enough to
fill more than 7,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. That sewage
flowed into Santa Rosa’s regional treatment plant south of
Sebastopol, where it was cleaned up and nearly all of it put to
a second use. About 4 billion gallons of recycled water was
pumped north from the Llano Road treatment plant in a 41-mile
pipeline and up a steep slope into The Geysers geothermal
fields southeast of Cloverdale.
Wildfires signal perhaps the most immediate threat California’s
$43 billion viticulture industry faces from a warming
California. Yet they’re far from the only challenge. Wineries
from the San Joaquin Valley to the Sierra Nevada foothills are
all suffering from intensifying droughts and hot, almost
endlessly dry seasons. Both problems are predicted to get worse
in the coming decades. For grape farmers, that could be
devastating: The rainless skies of the last two years resulted
in highly stressed crops and seriously diminished yields.
Those who regularly cross the Napa Creek footbridge from
Clinton Street to Coombs Street in downtown Napa might be
unaware of the beavers that live below. The thick-furred,
aqueous mammals are nocturnal, after all, and tend to go about
their wood-gnawing, dam-building business when people aren’t
around to watch them. They also haven’t been in the Downtown
Napa area for all that long, though the increasing presence of
them around the city of Napa in recent years has often been
heralded as a sign of environmental success connected to the
millions spent on flood control projects over the past few
decades.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board
announced the appointment of Eileen White as its executive
officer, succeeding Michael Montgomery. Her first day is July
11. White most recently served as director of East Bay
Municipal Utility District’s Wastewater Department, where she
recently led the development of EBMUD’s Integrated Master Plan
for its main wastewater treatment plant, along with EBMUD’s
Climate Action Plan, to guide operations, investments and
priorities for decades to come. White managed a workforce of
280 people.
Summer is just around the corner and it appears Utah is in for
another hot and possibly dry one, but the door is still open
for moisture to return in parts of the state. The National
Weather Service Climate Prediction Center published its
three-month outlook for the meteorological summer months of
June, July and August on Thursday, providing a general overview
of what’s to come. The report lists Utah at the center of
the highest probability for above-average temperatures in the
nation, while the northern portion of the state is leaning
toward a drier-than-average season.
State Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Bakersfield) and state Sen. Dave
Cortese (D-San Jose) are calling for U. S. Attorney General
Merrick Garland to investigate possible drought profiteering
and water rights abuses in the western states. … A
county supervisor in Arizona joined the California state
senators in calling for the investigation. … In addition
to raising anti-trust questions, Hurtado and Cortese expressed
concern about the potential for hedge funds to divert water
intended for food production to cannabis growing operations.
More than half a dozen wildfires broke out across California in
a 48-hour span late last week, an unsettling picture of what’s
to come as temperatures warm and drought conditions worsen this
summer….Today and tomorrow, gusty winds, low humidity and
unseasonably hot temperatures are creating high fire risk
across an inland swath of California between Redding and
Sacramento.
The [discoveries of human remains on the dry bed bed of
Lake Mead] come amid the Southwest’s driest two decades in
more than a thousand years, as drought-starved bodies of water
yield one surprise after another. At Elephant Butte Reservoir
in New Mexico, a bachelor party stumbled across a fossilized
mastodon skull that is millions of years old. In Utah last
year, the receding waters of Lake Powell revealed a car that
had plunged 600 feet off a cliff, killing the driver. And as
Lake Powell dries up, archaeologists are getting a chance to
study newly emerged Indigenous dwellings.
New Mexico State University’s Forestry Research Center in the
mountain community of Mora is one of only a few such nurseries
in the country and stands at the forefront of a major
undertaking to rebuild more resilient forests as wildfires burn
hotter, faster and more often. … With no shortage of
burn scars around the West, researchers and private groups such
as The Nature Conservancy have been tapping New Mexico State
University’s center for seedlings to learn how best to restore
forests after the flames are extinguished. The center has
provided sprouts for projects in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado,
Utah, Texas and California …
The Clear Lake hitch is one of 13 species endemic to
California’s largest, oldest and now most toxic lake. Known
as chi to local tribes, the hitch teeter on the edge
of extinction, a fate to which their cousins, two other
formerly endemic lake species — the thicktail chub (last seen
in 1938) and the Clear Lake splittail (last seen in the
1970s) — have already succumbed. Clear Lake hitch are
vanishing because of our unabated appetites for fossil fuels,
sportfishing, irrigation water and wine.
California needs more water and renewable energy, and Solar
AquaGrid CEO Jordan Harris is trying to help. … A big
idea is starting with a small stretch of canals in
the Turlock Irrigation District, located just south of
Modesto. This fall, groundbreaking will begin on a pilot
project to build solar panel canopies over existing canals.
… A study from UC Merced concluded that shading all
of the roughly 4,000 miles of California canals with solar
panels could save 63 billion gallons of water every year by
reducing evaporation, while potentially creating about one
sixth of the state’s current power capacity.
As the drought deepens and an election nears, Gov. Gavin Newsom
is taking extra steps to increase pressure—and
responsibility—on the Water Commission for the Sites Reservoir
Project proposal. During a Senate budget subcommittee
hearing on Tuesday, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot
said the governor has tasked him with ensuring the commission
“isn’t slowing down the progress of getting those [Proposition
1] projects online.” Newsom also charged Crowfoot with finding
ways to remove regulatory barriers and accelerate the approval
process for those projects.
One hundred years after a landmark agreement divided the waters
of the Colorado River among Western states, the pact is now
showing its age as a hotter and drier climate has shrunk the
river….Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who oversaw
management of the river under President Clinton, said it’s
become clear that the 1922 Colorado River Compact should be
revamped to adapt to the reduced amount of water that is
available as global warming compounds the 22-year megadrought
in the watershed.
In a stopgap measure to help struggling spring- and winter-run
Chinook salmon spawn in the face of rising water temperatures
and lower water levels due to climate change, state and federal
wildlife officials in Northern California have begun trucking
adult fish to cooler waters. The spring- and winter-run salmon
are genetically different, with the seasonal labels marking
when adult fish travel from the Pacific Ocean back to the
Sacramento River to spawn. The spring-run Chinook, listed
as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, are being moved
from traps at the base of Keswick Dam to Clear Creek in the
Sacramento River.
Fire danger is on the rise in California, as warm, dry and
windy weather heralds a potentially long and difficult season.
For several consecutive years, increasingly extreme,
climate-change fueled wildfires have devastated parts of the
state. The area of greatest concern late this week is in
Northern California, where strong northerly winds will combine
with dry vegetation in the Sacramento Valley…. The risk of
fast-spreading blazes may ease this weekend, but officials have
expressed serious concerns about the months ahead as the
entirety of California contends with a historically severe
drought that has turned many areas into a tinderbox.
Much of the western U.S. has been in the grip of an unrelenting
drought since early 2020. The dryness has coincided with
record-breaking wildfires, intense and long-lasting heat waves,
low stream flows and dwindling water supplies in reservoirs
that millions of people across the region rely on. … One
driver of the Western drought has been persistent La Niña
conditions in the tropical Pacific since the summer of 2020.
… The other and perhaps more important part of
the story is the hotter and thirstier atmosphere, caused
by a rapidly warming climate.
San Diego’s top brass offered on Thursday to pony up more than
$33 million to resolve a hotly disputed pipeline deal between
the city and East County concerning two large water recycling
projects. The move comes as the parties inch closer to what
could become a protracted legal battle, with serious
implications for the East County Advanced Water Purification
Project and the city’s massive $5 billion Pure Water sewage
recycling venture.
Local and state water leaders were practically upbeat two years
ago at the last in-person Water Summit put on by the Water
Association of Kern County. At least as upbeat as California
water folks typically get. They advocated for new ideas,
radical partnerships and solutions that could benefit both ag
and environmental interests. That was then. Facing a third year
of punishing drought and the bleak realities of new groundwater
restrictions, the vibe at this year’s summit was more “in the
bunker” than “in it together.”
The central and upper Midwest, Texas and Southern California
face an increased risk of power outages this summer from
extreme heat, wildfires and extended drought, the nation’s grid
monitor warned yesterday. In a dire new assessment, the North
American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) described regions of
the country pushed closer than ever toward energy emergencies
by a combination of climate change impacts and a transition
from traditional fossil fuel generators to carbon-free
renewable power.
City of Porterville Manager John Lollis … announced at
Tuesday’s Porterville City Council meeting the County and State
may exercise its right to take 3 million gallons of
water a month at no charge from a city well as part of the
arrangement the city, county and state reached to supply East
Porterville with water after the 2015 drought. … Lollis
noted the state still hasn’t fulfilled its portion of the
agreement which called for the development of three wells for
the City of Porterville as part of the East Porterville
project.
The Colorado River is once again flowing in its delta. The
flows, which began on May 1, are the result of binational
collaboration and deliberate management. The water is dedicated
to supporting the ecosystem and local communities in a
landscape where the river has not flowed for most years
in the past half century. It is a heartening bit of good news
for the Colorado River, which earlier this year was designated
as America’s most endangered river.
California cities are enforcing water-saving measures, summer
heat has crept in early and your lush green grass is probably
starting to wither. As reported by the California’s drought
information system, 40% of the state is experiencing extreme
drought. … In response to the record dryness, the city of
Sacramento is under a “Water Alert,” asking residents to cut
back on water use by 15% and to follow a seasonal watering
schedule. Fines for water waste have doubled. … As you
cut back on watering your home’s lawn, there are ways to still
keep it green.
For Executive Pastor Mark Spurlock, expanding classroom space
at the Twin Lakes Christian School in Aptos has been addition
by subtraction. At least when it comes to saving water.
Following development offset rules outlined by the Soquel Creek
Water District, the school engineered water-saving solutions to
offset the new space they were building including replacing
lawn areas with a drought-friendly plaza that catches and
diverts water routed from nearby rooftops. … To
better understand seawater intrusion, Duncan says the layman
can think of the Santa Cruz area’s aquifer as a giant bathtub
with mountain watershed on one side, and ocean on the other.
Despite two board members expressing doubts that a new spending
measure would be approved by voters, the Mendocino County Board
of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with a
possible sales tax ordinance to fund projects protecting local
water supply and boosting local fire services.
Discovery Bay’s Willow Lake will be sealed off from water flow
next week for an experiment to reduce the number of blue green
algal blooms. The experiment is being conducted and monitored
by two separate companies and will last approximately three
months. The lake will still be available for residents to use,
officials said. Dave Caron, owner of Aquatic EcoTechnologies,
conducted tests in Discovery Bay waters in 2020 and found
peroxide to be effective in reducing blooms, but not harming
other plant or animal life in the water.
From tattoo parlors to senior housing, and ethnic-food vendors
to world-famous record shops, it’s been said that if you can’t
find what you’re looking for on San Pablo Avenue, then it
doesn’t exist. And now, the busy thoroughfare, which runs
north-south through the heart of the East Bay, is also a
testbed for a distributed network of rain gardens. The project,
known as the San Pablo Avenue Green Stormwater “SPINE”, began
nearly ten years ago (the caps are used for emphasis, not as an
acronym). In the fall of 2012, the U.S. EPA issued a $307,000
portion of a larger green-infrastructure grant for the design
of seven garden sites in seven different cities.
New numbers continue to show California Sierra snowpack is
dropping along with the state’s groundwater but why is that
important? Check out this image below and you’ll see all of the
ways we use snowpack. That Spring snowmelt not only fills
our streams, reservoirs and lakes, we also use it for
agriculture, household, ecology and hydropower. In total
providing one-third of the state’s water supply. The
problem lately, we just can’t get enough storms to keep the
snowpack at normal levels. This year only finished at 42%
of normal.
On Wednesday, State Senator Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger joined
her colleague, Democratic State Senator Dave Cortese in sending
a letter to United States Attorney General Merrick
Garland requesting an investigation into possible drought
profiteering and water rights abuses in the Western
states. The Senators said they’re concerned about the
increasing amount of water rights being purchased by hedge
funds, their potential anti-competitive practices and the
devastating impact that could have on water security.
More reservoirs across Utah may run dry and the Great Salt Lake
will continue to decline, state officials warned lawmakers on
Wednesday. During a briefing before the Utah State
Legislature’s Natural Resources Interim Committee, lawmakers
were told that 99% of Utah remains in severe or extreme
drought…. A legislative commission [is] requesting a
study on the idea of a pipeline to take water from the Pacific
Ocean across California and Nevada into the Great Salt Lake.
How can California water managers get ahead of the storms to
improve drought management? A special one-day workshop June 9
in Irvine will highlight some of the latest research on
seasonal precipitation forecasting that could help water
managers across the state plan better for what winter might
bring. The workshop, Making Progress on Drought Management: Improvements in
Seasonal Precipitation Forecasting, is sponsored
by the California Department of Water Resources in partnership
with the Water Education Foundation.
The ongoing water feud between two of Kings County’s biggest
farming entities recently spilled into Kern County and up to
Sacramento with allegations on both sides of misuse of water
and other public resources. In a May 12 letter, the Southwest
Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency complains that the J.G.
Boswell Company has been pumping and storing massive amounts of
groundwater for irrigation in a shallow basin, subjecting it to
extreme evaporation and contributing to the area’s already
significant subsidence problems.
The final hurdle is in sight and expected to be overcome, in
the decades-long fight to remove four dams from the Klamath
River and hopefully allow restoration of the river’s Chinook
salmon population which was once the third-largest in the
country, but in recent years has plummeted by as much as
ninety-eight percent. The four dams were built between 1903 and
1967 as part of PacifiCorp’s Klamath Hydroelectric Project and
are now obsolete. Removing them will provide native migratory
fish, like Chinook salmon, access to larger spawning grounds.
It will also help restore the natural flow of the river,
providing innumerable benefits to the entire ecosystem.
The organization responsible for North American electric
reliability warned energy shortfalls were possible this summer
in California, Texas and the U.S. Midwest where extreme heat
from a severe drought could cause power plants to fail.
Petaluma, one of the driest corners of Sonoma County during the
past two years of drought, is making a multimillion-dollar
advance into recycled water. Operator of a wastewater
treatment plant that serves about 65,000 people and treats
about 5 million gallons of effluent a day, Petaluma is seeking
grants for four projects with a total cost of $42
million. Six other North Bay agencies — including Sonoma
Water and the Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District — are
proposing a dozen projects totaling $41.2 million, bringing the
total to $83.2 million, as Gov. Gavin Newsom is backing water
reuse as an antidote to drought.
Steve Bray lives in Monrovia and is already doing what he can
to save water. He has installed Wi-Fi-connected sprinklers.
… The Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District
worries state’s historic drought will get worse. … The
district actually captures 100% of rainwater and is able to
store it in spreading basins. They use that water during dry
years to deliver it into the drinking water system, but it’s
quickly disappearing.
The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta lies at the confluence of two
of the state’s largest rivers. Forty percent of California’s
runoff flows into the Delta, which—together with the San
Francisco Bay—forms one of the West Coast’s largest estuaries.
The Delta watershed supplies water to roughly 30 million
residents and more than 6 million acres of farmland. Water
exported from the Delta goes to the Bay Area, the southern San
Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast, and Southern California
(first figure).
Illegal pot grows were already a problem in the High Desert,
but during the pandemic, the number increased, and now
officials say with scarce water resources in Southern
California, it’s a drought problem too. The NBC4 I-Team has
been following the efforts to eradicate illegal marijuana
operations in the high desert region of Southern California. On
May 17, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced a
new operation targeting those operations. The problem
exploded during the pandemic with illegal marijuana grow
operations quickly multiplying in High Desert
communities.
California lawmakers and the governor are hashing out the final
details for investing billions of state dollars into a drought
relief plan with long-term water investments and some benefits
to farmers.
Perched along the Russian River, the town of Healdsburg is
mostly known for great wine and weekend getaways. But these
days the sun is doing more than ripening grapes. It’s producing
power in an unusual setting. … Crowley and wastewater
manager Rob Scates are showing off what’s believed to be the
largest floating solar farm in the country. The panels are
anchored on the surface of two ponds at the city’s wastewater
treatment facility. And while they’re floating, the panels are
also supplying roughly 8% of the city’s electrical
needs. C
On May 10, the California State Water Resources Control Board
readopted an emergency regulation that stands to force 2,000
water-rights holders to curtail water diversions for another
year. (See related story on Page 10.) The emergency action is
being used to make water available to senior diverters, minimum
instream flows and minimum health and human safety
needs. … As an alternative to a full curtailment action
being applied to a diverter, water-right holders in the upper
watershed (north of Dry Creek in Sonoma County) can instead
voluntarily sign up to participate in the program to receive
some lower percentage of their typical reported water use. -Written by Frost Pauli, a Mendocino County
winegrape and pear grower and is chair of the Mendocino County
Farm Bureau Water Committee.
With 60% of the state now in extreme drought conditions, state
officials are warning water-right holders that they should
expect more curtailments during peak irrigation season in June
and July. … Drought emergency curtailment
regulations were issued last fall by the California State Water
Resources Control Board for certain watersheds in response to
persistent dry conditions and spurred by a drought emergency
declaration by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Curtailment orders
adopted last year are effective for up to one year unless
readopted.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging Californians to find ways to reduce
their water use in an effort to combat the historic drought and
said upcoming conservation mandates are a priority. The
governor visited a water recycling facility Tuesday afternoon
in Carson. It was originally built as a demonstration project
to recycle household wastewater and replenish groundwater
supplies…. Statewide, water consumption is up just 3.7% since
July compared to 2020, woefully short of Newsom’s 15% goal.
Newsom pledged to spend $100 million on a statewide advertising
campaign to encourage water conservation.
New research predicts that changes in mountain snowmelt will
shift peak streamflows to much earlier in the year for the vast
Colorado River Basin, altering reservoir management and
irrigation across the entire region. … The basin
stretches from sea level at the Gulf of California to higher
than 14,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and
provides critical water to cities and farmers within the basin
and beyond. Significant water is diverted to large population
centers, including Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake
City, San Diego and Santa Fe.
East County officials fear a $950 million sewage recycling
project could get flushed down the drain because of a pipeline
deal gone awry. Leaders spearheading the endeavor blame San
Diego Mayor Todd Gloria — who signed off on building an
eight-mile “brine line” as recently as last year but has since
reneged on that commitment. The pipeline would prevent
concentrated waste generated by the East County project’s
reverse osmosis filtration system from entering into the city’s
own $5 billion Pure Water sewage recycling project now under
construction.
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and
Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) yesterday introduced S.4231, the
Support to Rehydrate the Environment, Agriculture and
Municipalities Act or STREAM Act, a bill that would increase
water supply and modernize water infrastructure in California
and throughout the West.
Most people have never heard of Sites, California. It’s just a
tiny dot on maps, little more than an intersection in the road
on the remote west side of rural Colusa County in Northern
California. But the surrounding Antelope Valley, where
wildflowers bloom and cattle graze on spring grasses, is one of
the next battlegrounds in California’s water wars. Under plans
endorsed by state, federal and local officials, the valley
would be flooded by the Sites Reservoir, a 14,000-acre lake
that would take in water pumped from the Sacramento River and
store it for agricultural and municipal use during dry periods.
Conservation groups are speaking out in support of water rights
in rural Mono County, saying thirsty Los Angeles is endangering
wildlife, ranching and tourism. All parties are awaiting the
judge’s decision after a recent hearing, where the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power (DWP) argued it has the right to
cut off water ranchers use to irrigate Long Valley and Little
Round Valley for cattle grazing near the Crowley Lake
Reservoir. Wendy Schneider, executive director of the nonprofit
Friends of the Inyo, said the DWP bought up water rights 100
years ago, but the Eastern Sierra is getting the short end of
the stick.
The Mojave Water Agency began delivering imported water last
week to a storage aquifer near Barstow, bringing welcome relief
to the water table there that has hit a record low. The MWA
Board of Directors unanimously approved the delivery of
5,000-acre-feet of water to the Centro Basin during its April
28 board meeting. The Centro Basin is one of five subareas
or sub-basins, which are defined and separated in part by
earthquake faults and other geological features but also are
interconnected to some extent, water engineers say.
Even as President Biden’s signature climate change bill
languishes in the Senate, Congress is poised to spend billions
of dollars on ambitious new projects that would help the U.S.
adapt to climate change. A bill that would authorize the Army
Corps of Engineers to build infrastructure to protect against
climate impacts is quietly sailing through Congress,
demonstrating bipartisan support for measures to protect
against flooding and sea-level rise. … The bill also
allows the Corps to undertake drought response efforts in the
West …
As the Western United States endures an ongoing megadrought
that has spanned more than two decades, an increasing number of
cities, towns and water districts are being forced to say no to
new growth. There’s just not enough water to go around. Last
month, the California Coastal Commission urged San Luis Obispo
County to stop all new development requiring water use in the
communities of Los Osos and Cambria.
California’s towering redwoods have been around for thousands
of years, but the trees are still yielding some surprises about
what makes them so resilient. UC Davis scientists recently
discovered that redwoods have two different types of leaves
… The trees’ peripheral leaves, like those on most
trees, are food producers that convert sunlight into sugar
through photosynthesis. But the axial leaves serve an entirely
different role, researchers found — absorbing water. … [T]he
study is further evidence of the big trees’ ability to adapt to
environmental changes — including drought.
Tuesday, a study published in the journal The Lancet expanded
on pollution concerns globally, revealing that air and water
pollution causes 1 in 6 deaths worldwide. At more than 9
million deaths per year, such pollution kills more people than
malnutrition, roadway injuries and drug and alcohol use
combined, the study found. … Though the changing climate
is often viewed as the most pressing global environmental
threat, researchers warned that on-the-ground pollution
poses ecological and humanitarian catastrophes of its
own.
When it comes to finding innovative solutions to drinking water
problems, the tiny community of Allensworth in Tulare county
has long been on the front lines. This spring, community began
testing a new technology that would “jolt” arsenic out of its
groundwater. And since 2021, Allensworth has also been home to
another new technology that “makes” water out of thin air. Both
technologies are currently being field-tested in Allensworth.
If successful, they could become viable paths to clean water
for residents of Allensworth and other small, rural San Joaquin
Valley communities …
Lemoore is speaking out against the efforts of an out of town
water entity to export water from the Kings River. The Lemoore
City Council approved a letter in opposition to a petition to
revoke the Fully Appropriated Stream (FAS) status of the Kings
River on Tuesday. The letter is directed to the State Water
Resources Control Board, which is hearing a petition from Kern
County water agency Semitropic Water Storage District to revoke
the FAS status.
A legislative commission is floating the idea of a pipeline to
bring water from the Pacific Ocean into the Great Salt Lake.
“There’s a lot of water in the ocean and we have very little in
the Great Salt Lake,” said Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville,
who co-chairs the Legislative Water Development Commission.
… The study would look at the cost to actually create a
pipeline from the Pacific Ocean, across California and the
Sierra-Nevada mountains, across the deserts of Nevada and
ultimately into the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
The Interior Department is doling out more than $240 million
for repairs to aging water infrastructure in the drought-ridden
West, one of the first investments with ramifications for
agriculture in the $1.5 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
enacted last year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget proposal would set aside $75
million to aid small agricultural businesses as the drought
deepens. The one-time assistance would provide grants ranging
from $30,000 to $50,000, depending on the amount of lost
revenue. The program would prioritize businesses in the hardest
hit regions, such as the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys….
Newsom’s budget plan would allocate $100 million for repairing
conveyance canals, which was part of a 2021 budget deal. But it
would not add anything further.
Two recent moves aim to benefit water access for tribal
communities in the Colorado River basin. One, a bill in the
U.S. Congress, could increase access to clean water. Another,
the release of a “shared vision” statement, outlines the goals
of tribes and conservation nonprofits. Tribes in the basin hold
rights to about a quarter of the river’s flow, but have often
been excluded from negotiations about how the river’s water is
used.
Conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its
watershed are changing as droughts become warmer and more
intense. But as our new study highlights, California is not
doing a good job of tracking these changes. That’s making it
even tougher to manage the water that is available for the
benefit of the state’s communities, economy and
environment. -Written by Ellen Hanak, director of the Public Policy
Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, and Greg
Gartrell, an independent consulting engineer and an adjunct
fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center.
A large provider of Colorado energy says sagging hydropower
production on the Colorado River system, which has raised
concern over the long-term reliability of the power source in
the West, has not had a significant impact here. Tri-State
Generation and Transmission Association, the largest hydropower
customer on the Colorado River system, has received about
two-thirds of its normal hydro supply this year. But only 8% of
Tri-State’s total energy comes from the Colorado River Storage
Project, known as CRSP, and so the reduction only accounts for
about 3% of its total system, according to figures the company
provided.
Folsom Lake is 85% full, and it is once again a welcoming place
for boaters and swimmers. It’s a dramatic turnaround from last
July when boat docks were unusable….“We’re more than double
the storage that we had this day last year,” Drew Lessard said.
Lessard is an area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, the
agency that operates Folsom Dam…. Lessard explains the
impressive lake level is largely the result of gradual snowmelt
from the cold April storms. Those storms were well-positioned
to benefit the American River watershed that flows into the
lake.
If there’s one thing people in the West know how to fight over,
it’s water. California was built on scarcity, whether it
be gold or silver, land or water. In the mid-1800s, when
European Americans arrived to the land where Indigenous people
had lived for at least 10,000 years, they wasted no time
staking their claims. A big head-scratcher for those early
colonizers was how to get water to sustain burgeoning
towns.
Plane-mounted laser imaging has allowed scientists to map the
size, shape, and density of trees in the Sierra Nevada
mountains in California, revealing how low- and
moderate-intensity burns make forests more resilient to larger
blazes. Historically, scientists could only map small plots of
forest in great detail, which limited the scope of studies. But
with high-resolution laser imaging, or “lidar,” scientists can
gather more refined data on a broader swath of woodlands,
offering greater insight into their response to fire, as
scientists detailed in a recent article in Eos.
The Colorado River plays a pivotal role in the American West,
supplying water to more than 40 million people, irrigating 5
million acres of farmland, and providing critical habitat for
rare fish, birds and plants. But demand for the Colorado’s
water far exceeds supply in the fast-growing Southwest, as a
climate change-fueled megadrought and rising temperatures place
an unprecedented strain on the iconic river, The Washington
Post’s Karin Brulliard, Matt McClain and Erin Patrick O’Connor
report.
For something that is so crucial to all aspects of life,
including the most fundamental business operations, water risk
is a blind spot for many investors and businesses. There is
little understanding of how overuse, pollution and increasingly
frequent extreme weather events, such as the years-long drought
in California, the recent heatwave in India and Pakistan, and
last year’s floods in Europe, are affecting water availability,
says Cate Lamb, global director of water security at disclosure
not-for-profit CDP. A third of listed financial institutions do
not assess exposure to water risk in their financial
activities, although 69% of listed equities told CDP in 2021
that they are exposed to water-related risks.
Warmer than average temperatures fill our Bay and Inland
neighborhoods Tuesday through this weekend and with each day
our wildfire risk increases, according to ABC7 News
meteorologist Mike Nicco. Each dry day takes more moisture away
from our vegetation and makes it more susceptible to critical
fire conditions.
A California federal judge has declined to lift an injunction
on two Northern California county ordinances that require
strict permits for the transport of water, saying that while
the local laws were enacted to quash illegal cannabis farms,
they’ve caused harm to a group of Hmong farmers. In a decision
handed down Friday, Chief U. S. District Judge Kimberly J.
Mueller found that although Siskiyou County had modified the
ordinances, they were still likely to cut off water to a
community of Hmong farmers within the county’s borders.
Climate change and water shortages are in large part
responsible for causing the drought within California in the
US, as well as other western states. This has been an ongoing
trend for three years now, and in 2022 alone, California has
experienced 1,402 wildfires that have consumed at least 6,507
acres of land. However, there is also a weather phenomenon
known as La Niña, … This produces little precipitation,
thereby leading to less snowmelt and runoff during the spring
thaw, which then leads into optimal drought conditions.
Naturally, La Niña and exacerbating climate factors would
strain already dwindling water sources.
I don’t think these disasters will convince us to curb fossil
fuel pollution. Let me explain. First, available social science
doesn’t support the notion that climate disasters lead to
widespread changes in public opinion. A 2021 study from the
journal Climate Change found hurricanes provide a modest nudge
in favor of support for reducing carbon dioxide pollution.
Wildfires and floods, the other disasters studied, did not sway
people. -Written by John D. Sutter, CNN contributor,
National Geographic Explorer and MIT science journalism
fellow.
Rare traits and behaviors within a population often get less
attention, but might sometimes be the perfect ingredient to
ensure the survival of a species in the face of threats like
climate change. A recent article published in the journal
Nature revealed the surprising success of a rare life-history
strategy for threatened spring-run Chinook salmon. Juveniles
that spent the summer in cool, high-elevation habitat and
migrated in the fall rather than the spring were found to be
crucial to the success of the population, especially in years
experiencing stressful environmental conditions.
San Anselmo has approved a plan to renovate the playing fields
at Memorial Park with phased-in water conservation upgrades.
After being presented with three project options Tuesday, the
Town Council voted 4-1 to combine elements of two alternatives,
but to do the work in stages. The project calls for new grass
and an upgraded irrigation and drainage system to be installed
as soon as possible. A stormwater and grey water harvesting
system and a 100,000-gallon underground water storage tank will
be added later.
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his revised state budget for the
2022-’23 Fiscal Year. The $300.7 billion budget includes
several priorities of interest to ACWA members, including
funding for drought, climate change, forest management and
more. Building upon last year’s three-year, $5.2 billion
allocation to support drought response and long-term water
sustainability, the governor’s revised budget includes an
additional $2 billion for drought response and water
resilience. This is part of the governor’s larger $47.1 billion
climate package.
Don Bransford has been growing rice in the fertile Sacramento
Valley for 42 years. Not this summer. California’s
worsening drought has cut so deeply into water supplies on the
west side of the Valley that Bransford and thousands of other
farmers aren’t planting a single acre of rice. … It’s
spring in the Sacramento Valley, normally the season for
planting rice. It’s the region’s most important crop, a $900
million-a-year business that employs thousands of workers and
puts Valley agriculture on a global stage.
[R]esidents and businesses across the state are also using more
water now than they have in seven years, despite Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s efforts to encourage just the opposite. … Part
of the problem is that the urgency of the
crisis isn’t breaking through to Californians. The
messaging around water conservation varies across different
authorities and jurisdictions, so people don’t have a clear
idea of what applies to whom. And they certainly don’t have a
tangible grasp on how much a 15% reduction is with respect to
their own usage.
It is a powerhouse: a 1,450-mile waterway that stretches from
the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez, serving 40 million
people in seven U.S. states, 30 federally recognized tribes and
Mexico. It hydrates 5 million acres of agricultural land and
provides critical habitat for rare fish, birds and plants. But
the Colorado’s water was overpromised when it was first
allocated a century ago. Demand in the fast-growing Southwest
exceeds supply, and it is growing even as supply drops amid a
climate change-driven megadrought and rising temperatures.
States and cities are now scrambling to forestall the gravest
impacts to growth, farming, drinking water and electricity,
while also aiming to protect their own interests.
A Thursday ruling by the California Coastal Commission denying
a Southern California desalination project appears as if it
could impact the prospects of California American Water Co.’s
plan to construct a desal plant along the Monterey Peninsula.
But Cal Am says the Commission’s decision to deny Poseidon
Water Co.’s Huntington Beach project and any impacts on Cal
Am’s long-proposed desal project on the Monterey Peninsula is
comparing apples to oranges.
There is no end in sight for California’s drought. … I
spoke to [professor of civil and environmental engineering at
UC Davis Jay Lund] via email this month and last. A
lightly edited transcript follows. Francis Wilkinson: When
we spoke last summer, you were optimistic about California’s
capacity to manage drought and still prosper. Since then, the
drought has not gotten better … Are you more worried now or
are you still confident that California has enough water for
its economy and its people? Jay Lund: Most of California’s
economy and people will be fine, despite being affected by this
drought.
A federal judge struck down a second attempt by a Northern
California county to dismiss a case against them for water
sanctions that would leave the local Asian community without
water. … In the original complaint, plaintiff Der
Lee compared living in Shasta Vista to his days hiding out in
the Laos jungles — just now without water. Others explained
that they only bathe once a week, are dehydrated and have had
their food sources — crops and livestock — die from the lack of
water access. As a result, many resorted to filling jugs with
water in streams and local parks.
The process of connecting Tooleville’s water system to
Exeter’s, which would relieve the small community of longtime
water supply and contamination issues, is expected to take
eight years. Information from the feasibility study
needed to start planning the project has been unfolding bit by
bit, mainly through biweekly meetings held between Exeter city
officials, representatives from Tooleville, staff from Self
Help Enterprises and Provost and Pritchard, the consultants in
charge of the study.
Jamie Traynham has spent nearly half a century in and around
the lush Northern California valley, about 70 miles north of
Sacramento, that is home to her family’s ranch. As a girl, she
and her sister rode their horses through Sites Valley, and
helped build the barn stalls where they raised livestock to
show in local 4-H competitions. As an adult, Traynham and her
husband rent the ranch from her mother and use the land —
typically a sea of green in the rainy season — as a key
winter-feeding location for their cattle.
If you were hoping to go boating on Lopez Lake after Memorial
Day, there might be a small kink to your plans. The San Luis
Obispo County Parks and Recreation Department has announced it
is closing the popular South County lake’s boat launch ramp on
Monday, May 16, due to low lake levels. Park Ranger Miles
Tuinstra told The Tribune on Friday the closure was due to the
lake’s dropping water levels. “We’ve kept it open as long
as we can,” he said. “There’s just no water.”
As a young person growing up in Ventura County for the past 19
years, I am no stranger to droughts. Not watering the lawn and
taking shorter showers is simply a part of life in Southern
California. Although water is scarce in Ventura County, there
is currently a direct threat to our drinking water.
Unfortunately, the oil industry wants to profit at the expense
of our precious groundwater that supplies drinking water to
over 400,000 Ventura County residents and irrigation water to
our $2 billion agriculture economy. -Written by Alex Masci, an undergraduate in
environmental studies at UC Berkeley, a coordinator with CA
Youth Vs Big Oil, and a supporter of VC-SAFE.
John Gamlin’s recent defense of his Coral Mountain wave
basin resort in The Desert Sun (guest column, May 8) fails
to address the main issue. Planning development according to
historic water levels is extremely naive in the desert, and we
have seen this story pan out before. In 1959, the North Shore
Beach and Yacht Club opened on the shore of the Salton
Sea — a massive lake created in the early 1900s when
engineers accidentally flooded the ancient basin with
diverted Colorado River water intended to irrigate the dry,
fertile Imperial Valley. -Written by Sydney Hayes, a student majoring in
environmental studies and economics at Bowdoin
College.
Everything everyone — by which I mean the wrong ones, the
NIMBYs — says about housing in Southern California is always
wrong. … Fact: Take your average Southland single-family
homestead, raze it and replace it with an eight-unit apartment
building, and you’d be … saving water. That’s because,
even in our xeriscaped age, unless you have Astroturfed your
entire yard, your landscaping uses a lot more water than your
sinks, shower and dishwasher do. -Written by Larry Wilson, a member of the Southern
California News Group editorial board.
After hearing hours of heated debate, the California Coastal
Commission voted against a controversial plan by the company
Poseidon Water to build a huge desalination plant in Huntington
Beach. Despite worsening drought and repeated calls from Gov.
Gavin Newsom to tap the Pacific Ocean as a source of drinking
water, commissioners voted unanimously against the plan
Thursday night. The decision, which was recommended by
commission staff, may end the company’s plans for the
$1.4-billion plant.
As drought conditions worsen in California and other western
states, rating analysts are weighing the potential impacts.
California state water officials announced during a media call
Tuesday that the governor plans to increase his budget request
for state conservation efforts after the state’s residents
failed to heed his request in March to reduce consumption,
instead increasing usage by 19% compared to the same month in
2020. Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to add an additional $180 million
for a total of $300 million when he releases his revised
proposed budget on Friday, said Lisa Lien-Mager, a spokeswoman
with the California Department of Water Resources.
In the middle of a parched summer in the arid West, any amount
of rain can feel like a gift. But in reality, those precious
summer showers barely move the needle when it comes to
water…. As a drought-stricken region looks ahead to the
summer, climate scientists are keeping an eye on high-mountain
snowpack and its path to streams and rivers. Snow at high
altitudes makes up the majority of the water in the Colorado
River – where this past winter has left low totals. On top of
that, warm temperatures and dry soil mean that snow is likely
to melt early and soak into the ground before it can get to the
Colorado River.
New legislation introduced in the State Assembly aims to make
the Governor’s March 28 order on new water well permits
permanent. Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) and
representatives from Visalia-based Community Water Center (CWC)
introduced Assembly Bill 2201 on March 31 requiring local
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to evaluate new well
drilling permits to ensure those wells will not negatively
affect domestic wells nearby before the permits can be approved
by county government. The law would codify Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
executive order, which is temporary.
Forested lands across the U.S. provide 83 million people with
at least half of their water, according to a broad new study of
surface water sources for more than 5,000 public water systems.
125 million people, or about 38% of the country’s population,
receive at least 10% of their water from forests. In the arid
western U.S., 39.5 million people get more than half of their
surface drinking water from forests that are increasingly under
threat of wildfires.
On May 17, the Monterey City Council will discuss four
city-owned properties it hopes to turn into affordable housing,
and will be asked to wrestle with some challenging questions
about how to move forward with making them a reality. At the
top of that list is water, or the lack thereof: The city has
5.2 acre-feet of water annually it can allocate to the
projects. But dedicating all the water to one or more of the
projects, City Manager Hans Uslar says, would hinder the city’s
ability to give water to public works projects….
Severe drought is taking a severe toll on California rice crops
as this year, hundreds of thousands of acres won’t be planted.
Some call the impact on farmers and the surrounding communities
catastrophic…. The Northern California Water Association
expects the rice industry to lose more than $250 million
statewide, including more than $70 million in lost wages.
La Niña continued through April, and forecasters estimate a 61%
chance of a La Niña three-peat for next fall and early winter.
Current El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO, the entire El Niño
and La Niña system) conditions, the forecast for the rest of
the year, and some potential impacts are all on the dessert
menu today…. La Niña’s northward-shifted jet
stream is associated with less rain and snow over large
regions of the western and southern US …. This can cause
and exacerbate drought conditions.
The entire West Desert is now about the exact opposite of what
the area once was. The planet warmed as it left the Pleistocene
era and Lake Bonneville receded to what is now the Great Salt
Lake. And as the Great Salt Lake now dries to the lowest level
in its recorded history, there is plenty more moonscape to go
around.
Mandatory water conservation orders in Benicia lifted Thursday
afternoon after a leak inside the city’s water treatment plant
was finally located and repaired. Residents were asked to cut
back on usage by 30% on Sunday, when the leak was detected. A
total of 4.5 million gallons of fresh water was saved over the
four days.
I will attempt to convince you the drought is simply an excuse
to take our water and that farmers are the unfortunate victims,
too. Just ask members of the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation
District (ACID), who thought they were safe from having their
water taken because ACID holds a Sacramento River Settlement
Contract with the United States Bureau of Reclamation. The
contract states the irrigation district… will have their full
supply of 100 percent cut to 25 percent (although some users
say it’s 18 percent) even though their contract states 75
percent during critical years. -Written by Shanna Long, a fourth generation
journalist and former editor of the Corning Daily
Observer.
After California saw extended periods of
dry weather in the middle of winter, a series of
late-season storms swept the Golden State in April and May,
dusting the Sierra Nevada with fresh snow. Did those
spring snow showers help bolster the dwindling snowpack that
historically provides about a third of the state’s water
supply? The short answer is that every little bit helps,
but the snow did not come close to making up for almost no
precipitation in January through March …
The Imperial Irrigation District is preparing a water
apportionment plan for Imperial Valley growers to rein in a
projected water overrun after the federal government declared a
water shortage, reducing the amount of water that Arizona,
Nevada and Mexico can claim from the Colorado River. The IID
holds the largest and most secure federal entitlement on the
Colorado River, but current Bureau of Reclamation projections
show the district exceeding its allocation by more than 92,000
acre-feet of water this year…. IID’s Ag Water Advisory
Committee was scheduled to review the EDP proposal on Thursday,
May 12.
As California battles a historic drought and a water crisis
looms, the state’s coastline protection agency is poised to
vote Thursday on whether it will allow a $1.4 billion
desalinization plant in Huntington Beach that would convert
ocean water into municipal water for Orange County residents.
Poseidon Water, which has been trying to build the plant for
decades, says it would be capable of producing up to 50 million
gallons of drinking water a day, helping to make the region
more drought resilient. But desalination opponents argue less
expensive and less harmful conservation tactics should be the
first resort.
Thousands of water rights holders in the Russian River
watershed could soon lose access to their water after state
regulators approved emergency drought rules Tuesday. The State
Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to reauthorize
the Division of Water Rights to issue “curtailment orders” for
up to 2,000 rights holders in order to preserve water in Lake
Sonoma and Lake Mendocino and to protect drinking water
supplies and fish populations.
The electricity generated [at Flaming Gorge Dam], in northern
Utah near the Wyoming state line, helps keep the lights on
across 10 states. It’s made possible by a dam that interrupts
the Green River, which meanders into the Colorado River at Lake
Powell hundreds of miles downstream before flowing southwest to
Lake Mead — meaning as an Angeleno, I’ve been drinking this
water my whole life. … The Biden
administration said this month it would release an
extra 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir
over the next year, as part of a desperate effort to stop
Powell from falling so low that Glen Canyon Dam can no longer
generate power.
Locals call it May gray and June gloom. … The featureless
marine-layer stratus clouds occur at low levels of the
atmosphere, and they generally don’t produce any rain, although
they’re capable of producing drizzle or mist. More important,
they serve as a natural heat shield for heavily populated
coastal Southern California, efficiently reflecting the sun’s
rays back into space. … Scientists are studying the ways
that climate change may be chipping away at the coastal marine
layer. A study published in 2018 found that the frequency of
coastal stratus clouds had declined by 20% to 50% since the
1970s …
The Woodland City Council received an update on the city’s
planned water supply for 2022 and adopted a resolution
implementing stage two of Woodland’s water shortage contingency
plan. “The state of California is in the third year of a
drought and issued a governor’s executive order in March 2022
requiring urban water suppliers to implement at least stage two
of their water shortage contingency plans,” the city staff
report stated. “Stage two of the WSCP implements a goal of
reducing water use by 20%.”
There’s a city twice the size of Tucson out in the desert south
of Apache Junction. It houses 900,000 people in thousands upon
thousands of homes. But it just hasn’t been built yet.
The area is 276 square miles of empty desert called
Superstition Vistas. It stretches from the southern border of
Apache Junction, down the edge of San Tan Valley, all the way
down to Florence, then across to the US 60 and
beyond. … And for all that area, with all those
people estimated to live there upon completion, there’s not
enough water.
A body in a barrel. Human bones along the shoreline. Ghost
towns. A crashed B-29 Superfortress used to track cosmic rays.
Prehistoric salt mines. What will the rapidly receding waters
of Lake Mead reveal next? “This is just the tip of the
iceberg,” said Travis Heggie, a former National Park Service
official who has studied deaths at Lake Mead Recreation Area.
“I’m expecting all sorts of criminal things to show up, and I
mean a lot.”
The Salton Sea Basin feels almost alien. It lies where two
enormous chunks of the Earth’s crust, the North American Plate
and the Pacific Plate, are very slowly pushing past one another
creating an enormous low spot in the land. It’s a big, flat
gray desert ringed with high mountains that look pale in the
distance. It’s hot and, deep underground, it is literally
boiling. The Salton Sea, which lies roughly in the middle of
the massive geologic low point, isn’t really a sea, at all. The
largest inland lake in California, it’s 51 miles long from
north to south and 17 miles wide, but gradually shrinking as
less and less water flows into it.
[A crowd has gathered] to stock the pond with over 1,000 young
C’waam and Koptu—Lost River and shortnose suckers, two
endangered species that inhabit Upper Klamath Lake and that are
at the heart of the area’s water conflicts. … The pond
is part of an innovative restoration project at Lakeside Farms,
which is just north of Klamath Falls. … Altogether, it’s a
hopeful demonstration of cooperation in a region that has seen
bitter fights between tribes, farmers, and wildlife advocates
over who gets water.
Your eyes aren’t playing tricks. That honking blob that looked
like a sea lion near Tower Bridge — it probably was one.
Sightings of the marine animals often make their rounds on
Sacramento social media, and can send the average user down a
rabbit hole (if you’re new, or younger than, say, 35 you may
also be excited to learn about Humphrey, the vagabond humpback
whale). But why are these creatures — who typically spend their
time on the coast — appearing so far from the ocean? The
answer’s rather simple: They’re are more of them, and they’re
hungry.
Construction recently began on a well designed to inject water
back into the groundwater basin beneath Long Beach. The
groundbreaking last week took place at the Water Replenishment
District’s advanced water treatment facility, on the
southeastern border of Long Beach, next to the San Gabriel
River. The plant further treats sewer effluent from the Los
Angeles County Sanitation District to create purified recycled
water. Recycled water already is used for irrigation and in
other wells to form a barrier against salt water so it won’t
get into the ground water basin.
The Walbridge fire started in densely forested country just
outside the Austin Creek reserve. It started from a dry
lightning storm Aug. 16 or 17 — the day it was discovered —
spawning flames that roared through the steeply cut, rural
landscape between Cazadero and Healdsburg. It burned for most
of seven weeks, razing 156 homes and blackening 55,209 acres.
But many were riveted by news of its entry into the beloved
park near the Russian River town of Guerneville, where between
700,000 and a million visitors a year flock to see ancient
coast redwood trees — some well over 1,000 years old.
For the 20th year in a row, people from tribal communities
along the Klamath River are preparing to run the more than 300
mile length of the river, tracing the route of the salmon that
are struggling to survive. … A new 13-minute documentary
called “Bring the Salmon Home” by filmmaker Shane Anderson
highlights the Klamath Salmon Run, which is set to begin at
7:30 a.m. Thursday. The Salmon Run was started after a historic
fish kill in 2002 decimated the Klamath River’s salmon.
Mark your calendars now for our upcoming fall 2022
tours exploring California’s two largest rivers – the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers! On our
Northern
California Tour, Oct. 12-14, participants
can learn about key reservoirs and infrastructure that
transports vital water resources statewide.
Our San Joaquin River Restoration Tour
Nov. 2-3 returns this year to tell the
story of bringing back a river’s chinook salmon while
balancing water supply needs. Registration is
coming soon!
With the recent news that California has officially
begun 2022 with its lowest January through April
precipitation level since 1895, how reliable are the
historical patterns traditionally used to forecast California’s
water supply? Tomorrow’s weather forecast may be spot on,
but can we ever get accurate precipitation forecasts weeks to
months in advance? To get the answers, register today
for Making
Progress on Drought Management: Improvements in Seasonal
Precipitation Forecasting, a one-day workshop June
9 in Irvine sponsored by the California Department of Water
Resources in partnership with the Water Education Foundation.
Despite official calls to increase conservation amid worsening
drought, urban water use across California increased by nearly
19% in March, according to the State Water Resources Control
Board. The startling conservation figure was among a number of
grim assessments water officials offered reporters Tuesday in a
California drought outlook. Others included critically low
reservoir levels and major shifts in the water cycle due to
climate change. … The increase was even greater in the South
Coast Hydrologic Region, which is home to more than half the
state’s population. In this region, which includes Los Angeles,
urban water use increased 26.9%.
Nearly 4 million Angelenos will be reduced to two-day-a-week
watering restrictions on June 1 under drought rules released by
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on
Tuesday. … Under the rules, residents will be
assigned two watering days a week based on their addresses —
Monday and Friday for odd addresses and Thursday and Sunday for
even ones — with watering capped at only eight minutes, or 15
minutes for sprinklers with water-conserving nozzles. No
watering will be allowed between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. regardless
of the watering days.
California officials are poised to decide the fate of a
controversial desalination plant planned along its southern
coast, in a vote that comes as the American west battles an
increasingly perilous drought. California water use leapt 19%
in March, amid one of the driest months on record. After more
than a decade of debate, the California coastal commission on
Thursday will finally vote on a proposal for a $1.4 bn
desalination plant in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles.
Colorado didn’t see enough snow this winter to fully recover
from the ongoing megadrought and now what snow the state did
see is melting too quickly, experts say. “If we continue on at
the rate we’re at we’re looking at probably a complete meltout
by the end of May or beginning of June,” Becky Bolinger, of the
Colorado Climate Center, told The Denver Post. That’s too soon.
By several weeks, she said. So drought conditions are likely to
worsen, exacerbating what officials are anticipating could be
the worst wildfire year in Colorado’s history. Already fire
restrictions appear to be more common than normal.
The pendulum of Northern California weather is getting ready to
swing once again, from rain, hail, thunderstorms and snow
showers at the start of this week to sunny and much warmer than
average temperatures by the weekend. … The latest
turnaround brings the same pair of questions Californians have
grown used to asking: What do the latest weather trends mean
for the drought, and for wildfire risk? … The anomalies
are impacting reservoir levels as well. Eleven of the state’s
17 reservoirs are below 80% of average, according Department of
Water Resources data updated Tuesday.
The Delta is crucial because, if it ever failed as a hub, the
resulting water crisis in California would increase existing
tensions with the Colorado’s other parched dependents. … The
Delta’s problems are as dire, but they receive far less public
attention. The main threat to the Delta is saltwater
intrusion. If an earthquake caused a major levee failure, the
sunken islands would flood, drawing salt water from the Pacific
into waterways that are now kept fresh by the pressure of
inflows from the Sacramento.
This time of year, the Sacramento Valley should be buzzing with
tractors working the soil and planes dropping rice seed onto
flooded fields as farmers ramp up planting. … There’s a lack
of activity because more rice fields will go unplanted this
season due to the drought and reduced water deliveries to
farms. In its prospective plantings report released at the end
of March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that
California rice acreage will drop to 348,000 this year, the
lowest since 1983-84. That’s compared to 407,000 acres last
year and 517,000 acres in 2020.
The worst fire impacts this year are predicted to hit Northern
California’s higher elevation forests and Southern California’s
chaparral-clad mountainous National Forest lands. To aid
recovery, UC Riverside ecologists are collaborating with the US
Forest Service to target these spots with new post-fire
ecological restoration strategies. Wildfires are becoming
more ferocious, damaging, and expansive in the West. California
just weathered its worst two years ever in terms of total acres
burned. And conditions are no better this year, with the Golden
State having its driest winter on record.
Facing a third year of drought, leadership from county Farm
Bureaus, spanning all regions of California, gathered in
Sacramento last week to engage with state water officials about
all things water. A changing climate, shrinking snowpack, water
rights, aging infrastructure, groundwater regulations and
solutions to the state’s water crisis were among the topics
discussed at the California Farm Bureau Water Forum. The event
brought together state water officials and county Farm Bureau
leaders from the Mountain, North Coast, Central Valley, Central
Coast and Southern California regions.
Central California lawmakers, growers and advocates are calling
on the state to invest in canal repairs that they say will help
improve water security. The call for funding comes as the state
experiences the third year of drought. SB 559, known as
the State Water Resiliency Act, aims to fix canals that deliver
water across Central California fully. Currently, $200 million
has been allocated in the 2021 and 2022 budgets. But the
bill’s author, State Senator Melissa Hurtado of Sanger, said
that funding would only cover limited repairs.
Why are Utah water restrictions so confusing and seemingly
unfair to residents in one city yet generous to citizens of
another? For example, different cities in the Weber Water Basin
District have different restrictions: In West Haven, a
homeowner is allowed — beginning in mid-May — to water outside
once a week. But in Roy, homeowners can water their lawns and
plants twice a week. Do the state’s and the West’s
ongoing, historic drought play a major part in today’s water
restrictions?
A decade ago, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway wrote the seminal
book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured
the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
Oreskes and Conway documented how scientists paid by the
tobacco industry sowed doubt about the links between smoking
and lung cancer, and how the same strategy has been used with
climate change, acid rain, the ozone hole, and asbestos.
Similar tactics have been used to sow doubt about the causes of
the collapse of native fish populations in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and its watersheds.
A lack of rainfall across the Golden State and the Central
Coast is limiting blooms and leaving some tourists disappointed
about what’s missing at Carrizo Plain National Monument. Aside
from increasing drought conditions, 2022 started off with the
driest first three months of the year in the last century,
limiting the number of wildflowers able to germinate.
… This lack of blooms is not only due to the dry start
to 2022 but also a buildup of several years of drought.
The Water Replenishment District (WRD) of Southern California
celebrated the groundbreaking of its Inland Injection Well
Project at the WRD Leo J. Vander Lans Advanced Water Treatment
Facility in the City of Long Beach. When the WRD Inland
Injection Well Project is complete, it will yield up to 2
million gallons of purified recycled water per day from the WRD
Leo J. Vander Lans Advanced Water Treatment Facility (LVL AWTF)
and inject it into the groundwater aquifers for storage and
future use.
In October, and then again in December 2021, as the third
severe drought this century was entering its third year,
not one but two atmospheric rivers struck California.
Dumping torrents of rain with historic intensity,
from just these two storm systems over 100 million acre feet of
water poured out of the skies, into the rivers, and out to sea.
Almost none of it was captured by reservoirs or diverted into
aquifers. Since December, not one big storm has hit the state.
After a completely dry winter, a few minor storms in April and
May were too little too late. -Written by Edward Ring, a contributing editor
and senior fellow with the California Policy Center.
California had its driest start to a year since the late 19th
century, raising drought and wildfire concerns heading into the
summer. In data released Monday, NOAA’s National Centers for
Environmental Information found January through April
precipitation in the state was the lowest on record dating to
1895. The statewide precipitation of 3.25 inches was only 25%
of average, topping the previous record-dry January through
April from 2013, according to NOAA statistics.
Spring snowmelt likely won’t deliver the big water supply bump
the drought-stricken Colorado River and its reservoirs need,
data from the latest federal river forecast shows. The May to
July season is a crucial time for the river, which is
replenished by snowmelt running off the mountains on the
Western Slope, and the system is in need of a major moisture
boost amid a 20-year drought fueled by climate change.
Southern California desert water districts with aging or
failing infrastructure won big federal
funding Monday, with more than $100 million allocated for
major dam and irrigation canal upgrades that will
benefit the Coachella Valley and Imperial County. The
projects are part of $240 million awarded from Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law funds by the U.S. Department of the
Interior on Monday. Among the biggest beneficiaries is the
Coachella Valley Water District, which will get $60
million for lateral replacement irrigation pipelines and
more for work on the Coachella Canal.
If you waste water in Santa Clara County, water cops could soon
be on the way. Since last summer, Santa Clara County residents
have been asked to cut water use by 15% from 2019 levels to
conserve as the state’s drought worsens. But they continue to
miss that target — and by a growing amount. In March, the
county’s 2 million residents not only failed to conserve any
water, but they increased use by 30% compared to March 2019,
according to newly released data…. Santa Clara Valley
Water District … is proposing to hire water enforcement
officials to issue fines of up to $500 for residents …
wasting water ….
Poseidon Water, the company that runs the seawater desalination
facility in Carlsbad, is pushing to build another desalination
plant in Huntington Beach. … Recently a California
Coastal Commission staff report recommended that the project be
denied. The California-based ’Stop Poseidon’
coalition praised that recommendation, but on May 12th,
the commission will have a final vote, deciding if the company
will move forward with construction. The Coastal
Commission Public Hearing is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. Thursday,
in Costa Mesa.
A Democrat lawmaker from the central San Joaquin Valley wants
to put cash in the hands of eligible farmworkers to help them
deal with the devastation of California’s drought. Proposed by
State Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Democrat from Sanger, Senate Bill
1066 would allocate $20 million to create the California
Farmworkers Drought Resilience Pilot Project, a state-funded
project that would provide unconditional monthly cash payments
of $1,000 for three years to eligible farmworkers, with the
goal of lifting them out of poverty.
The implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA) over the next two decades may require taking at
least 500,000 acres of cropland in the San Joaquin Valley out
of irrigated production (about 10%). To soften the blow on jobs
and economic activity, it will be important to identify
alternative land uses that generate income. Solar development
is one of the most promising options.
A plan has been put in place to help replenish
groundwater supplies in Allensworth, a community historically
affected by water supply issues. Led by the Tri-County
Water Authority, the Allensworth Project is a multi-component
plan aimed at replenishing groundwater supplies and mitigating
emergency flood water damage by constructing two gravity-fed
basins to catch flood runoff from the White River. The basins
will divert water from the river for direct use and recharge,
and will be used as a recreational park during dry seasons.
Ventura has struck a 20-year deal with a Riverside County water
wholesaler that would save the city millions of dollars in
costs to maintain its rights to imported state water. Under the
agreement approved last month, the city would lease its share
of imported water to the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency in
Beaumont, an arrangement that would reap $1.1 million this
year and cover nearly half of the $2.27 million it will owe to
keep its state water entitlement. San Gorgonio would
increase its share of the costs starting next year.
Throughout the state, water agencies are telling Californians
that they must seriously curtail lawn watering and other water
uses. We can probably scrape through another dry year, but were
drought to persist, its impacts would likely be widespread and
permanent. … It didn’t have to be this way. We could
have built more storage to capture water during wet years, we
could have encouraged more conservation, we could have more
efficiently captured and treated wastewater for re-use and we
could have embraced desalination. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters
columnist.
But after 5 decades of shepherding countless groups down some
of the world’s most iconic and challenging runs, [river rater
Marty] McDonnell never expected to find himself in a mounting
battle against the changing climate, the solar industry and the
City of San Francisco. Although 2021 marked another dire year
for the dwindling Sierra Nevada snowpack, it’s not California’s
drought that worries McDonnell. Instead, it’s how hydropower is
generated along the Tuolumne River and distributed downstream.
[E]ven Bay Area residents who haven’t suffered such a loss feel
the dread creeping in as the hills turn brown and the Sierra
snowpack shrinks to its lowest level in some 70 years. The
American Psychological Association describes climate anxiety,
or eco-anxiety, as fear of environmental doom. In the Bay Area,
it has become easy to believe in doomsday scenarios on days
when wildfire smoke chokes the air with particulate matter and
turns the sky an apocalyptic orange.
A significant percentage of the world’s population does not
have adequate access to water, food, and energy resources
(WFE). Although efforts to achieve the UN Millennium
Development Goals and later the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) have increased access to scarce resources, still, 25.9%
of the population is affected by moderate or severe food
insecurity in 2019, 2.2 billion people lacked access to potable
water in 2017, and 789 million people lacked electricity
service in 2018. The pressure on WFE resources will increase as
the world’s population grows from 7.4 billion in 2016 to 9.7
billion in 2050.
Las Vegas is being flooded with lore about organized crime
after a second set of human remains emerged within a week from
the depths of a drought-stricken Colorado River reservoir just
a 30-minute drive from the notoriously mob-founded Strip. …
[B]oaters spotted the decomposed body of a man in a rusted
barrel stuck in the mud of newly exposed shoreline. … A
few days later, a second barrel was found by a KLAS-TV news
crew, not far from the first. It was empty. On Saturday,
two sisters from suburban Henderson who were paddle boarding on
the lake near a former marina resort noticed bones on a newly
surfaced sand bar …
At a point in the year when California’s water storage should
be at its highest, the state’s two largest reservoirs have
already dropped to critically low levels — a sobering outlook
for the hotter and drier months ahead. Shasta Lake, which rises
more than 1,000 feet above sea level when filled to the brim,
is at less than half of where it usually should be in early May
— the driest it has been at this time of year since
record-keeping first began in 1976. Lake Oroville, the largest
reservoir in the State Water Project, a roughly 700-mile
lifeline that pumps and ferries water all the way to Southern
California, is currently at 55% of total capacity.
In farming areas across the Central Valley, a well-drilling
frenzy has accelerated over the last year as growers turn to
pumping more groundwater during the drought, even as falling
water levels leave hundreds of nearby homes with dry wells.
Counties have continued freely issuing well-drilling permits in
the years since California passed a landmark law, the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 … Some state
legislators are now supporting a bill that they say would
strengthen oversight and limit the well-drilling frenzy by
requiring a review of permits for new wells by the same local
agencies that are charged with managing groundwater.
While the seven Colorado River Basin states including Arizona
hunt for 500,000 acre-feet a year in water savings in both the
Upper and Lower basins, the biggest problem facing the river
lurks in the shadows: a supply-demand gap that keeps growing.
Over the past five years, the river’s annual water flow,
greatly diminished since 2000 compared to 20th century
averages, has tumbled even faster. Water demands have also
fallen, but not nearly as fast.
California likely will have an energy shortfall equivalent to
what it takes to power about 1.3 million homes when use is at
its peak during the hot and dry summer months, state officials
said Friday. Threats from drought, extreme heat and wildfires,
plus supply chain and regulatory issues hampering the solar
industry will create challenges for energy reliability this
summer, the officials said. … Large hydropower projects
generated nearly 14% of the state’s electricity in 2020,
according to the independent system operator.
Amid the historic drought now entering its third painful
summer … the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, has
demanded [millions of homes] cut irrigation by 35 percent
as of June 1. If things don’t improve by September, authorities
say, outdoor water use could be banned entirely. … Since the
restriction warnings began, customers have bombarded the Las
Virgenes water office — one of 26 public water agencies which
operate under the Metropolitan Water District — with angry
phone calls.
