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.
Earth is likely to cross a critical threshold for global
warming within the next decade, and nations will need to make
an immediate and drastic shift away from fossil fuels to
prevent the planet from overheating dangerously beyond that
level, according to a major new report released on Monday. The
report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a
body of experts convened by the United Nations, offers the most
comprehensive understanding to date of ways in which the planet
is changing. It says that global average temperatures are
estimated to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)
above preindustrial levels sometime around “the first half of
the 2030s,” as humans continue to burn coal, oil and natural
gas.
After watching billions of gallons of rainwater wash away into
the Pacific, California is taking advantage of extreme weather
with a new approach: Let it settle back into the earth for use
another day. As the latest batch of storms lashed the Golden
State, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order
this week to hasten projects that use rainwater to recharge
aquifers, reversing decades of an emphasis on channeling it
into drains and out to sea. … Even apart from the order,
the state had already committed $8.6 billion to the
effort. The order to allow water agencies to do a better
job of capturing runoff came amid a storm season that has
dramatically refilled reservoirs drawn down by a drought that
produced the driest three years on record.
La Niña is finally over after three years, according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This winter
has not acted like a typical La Niña winter with
California getting drenched, especially in Southern California
where La Niña typically signals a drier than average
winter…. Climate models are nearly certain El Niño will
develop later this summer or fall. California is typically
wetter during El Niño conditions, although the signal becomes
murkier from Sacramento northward.
Fine-tuning certain sections of the federal farm bill
could help prevent the U.S. West from decaying into a Great
Depression-era Dust Bowl, according to Sen. Michael Bennet
(D-Colo.). The third-term senator is on a mission to
ensure that the region’s agricultural sector can continue to
thrive amid inhospitable climate conditions, as negotiations
begin on the 2023 federal package of food and farm
legislation. “How do we advance the real challenges that
producers and rural communities are facing in the context of a
1,200-year drought?” Bennet asked, in a recent interview with
The Hill. Bennet has been a prominent voice in
shaping the farm bill, having contributed to the past two
renditions. He’s now working on the upcoming
version.
A conversation with Dr. Katerina Gonzales (EPA Climate
Adaptation Advisor) and Dr. Daniel Swain (UCLA) about
atmospheric rivers, climate extremes and futures, and climate
science communication. Rereleased March 17, 2023 with original
recordings from June 30, 2020.
Governor Gavin Newsom will join local leaders on Monday for a
visit to Imperial Valley. He will get an update on progress
being made toward lithium production. Lithium is the material
essential to battery production. Imperial Valley contains some
of the largest lithium deposits in the world, specifically
underground near the Salton Sea, a region also known as Lithium
Valley. The Salton Sea was once a top tourist destination,
attracting some of old Hollywood’s biggest names, but over the
past few decades, it’s become an ecological disaster.
Evaporation and agricultural runoff have exposed toxins in the
lakebed and created a perfect environment for dangerous algae
blooms and bacteria to thrive.
Though California may be ending its winter with quenched
reservoirs and near record snowpack, meteorologists are warning
that the state will face increased flooding risk in the coming
months as Sierra Nevada snowmelt fills rivers and streams. On
Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
spring flood outlook reported that drought conditions will
continue to improve in much of the state, but the potential for
flooding will worsen in the face of heavy snowpack and elevated
soil moisture. … The severity of that flooding remains
to be seen, however, and depends on a variety of weather
factors, experts say. … Potential triggers for rapid
snowmelt could be an early season heat wave or another series
of warm storms, Swain said …
A bipartisan coalition of House lawmakers are forming a
“Congressional Colorado River Caucus,” with the goal of
collaborating on ways to best address worsening drought
conditions across the seven-state basin. … [Rep. Joe]
Neguse, who serves as ranking member of the House Subcommittee
on Federal Lands, announced the creation of the caucus, which
will include members from six of the seven Colorado River
states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and
Utah. The lawmakers intend to discuss the critical issues
affecting the Colorado River, which provides water for 40
million people across the West. Members of the caucus will work
“together towards our shared goal to mitigate the impacts felt
by record-breaking levels of drought,” according to Neguse.
Pacific Gas & Electric says it intends to keep the gates open
at Scott Dam from now on in deference to seismic safety
concerns, meaning Lake Pillsbury in Lake County will never
completely fill again, even in a wet year like this one. The
utility usually closes the dam gates in April, allowing spring
runoff and snowmelt to raise the water level for summer
recreation and water releases during the later, drier parts of
the year. But the company says updated seismic analysis of the
dam suggested a higher level of risk than previous evaluations,
prompting a change in operations. Instead, more water will be
allowed to flow into the Eel River this spring instead of
keeping it behind the dam.
The fight for water in the West heads to the Supreme Court next
week where the justices will decide if the government has a
duty to give a tribal nation a share of the region’s most
precious resource. For over a century, the Navajo Nation
has been seeking recognition of get their water rights to the
Colorado River. While states like New Mexico and Utah have come
to settlements with the Navajo over water rights, Arizona has
been a holdout in these negotiations. Now the Navajo want the
federal government to step in on its behalf. … Sometimes
called the American Nile, the Colorado River serves around 36
million people, starting in the central Rocky Mountains of
Colorado and flowing for around 1,300 miles through Colorado,
Utah and Arizona. The river also borders the Arizona-Nevada and
Arizona-California borders and passes into Mexico.
On March 10, officials in California made the difficult yet
pragmatic decision to cancel … ocean salmon commercial or
sport fishing off California’s coast until April 2024. In the
Sacramento and Klamath rivers, Chinook salmon numbers have
approached record lows due to recent drought conditions.
… Right now, we believe that the commercial salmon
fishing ban is what our salmon need to ensure population
numbers do not dip to unrecoverable lows. As we look to future
population resiliency, there are so many other things these
fish need, and our teams are working hard to make them
happen. CalTrout works from ridge top to river mouth to
get salmon populations unassisted access to each link in the
chain of habitats that each of their life stages depends on.
Mandatory water restrictions are being lifted for nearly 7
million people across Southern California following winter
storms that have boosted reservoirs and eased the severe
shortage that emerged during the state’s driest three-year
period on record. Citing improvements in available supplies,
the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California has decided to end an emergency conservation mandate
for agencies in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino
counties that rely on water from the State Water Project.
However, officials urged residents and businesses to continue
conserving, and to prepare for expected cuts in supplies from
the Colorado River. The announcement follows an onslaught of
atmospheric rivers that have dumped near-record snowfall in the
Sierra Nevada and pushed the state‘s flood infrastructure to
its limits.
Nearly two-thirds of California is now out of drought,
according to a closely watched map released Thursday by a
consortium of federal and academic experts. The map, which is
updated weekly on Thursday mornings, shows that the entire
central part of the state is clear of drought….And the map
does not even take account of the latest atmospheric river to
soak the state…. Just 8% of the state remains in severe
drought, and none of it is in the extreme or exceptional
categories.
Parts of California are under water, the Rocky Mountains are
bracing for more snow, flood warnings are in place in Nevada,
and water is being released from some Arizona reservoirs to
make room for an expected bountiful spring runoff. All the
moisture has helped alleviate dry conditions in many parts of
the western U.S. Even major reservoirs on the Colorado River
are trending in the right direction. But climate experts
caution that the favorable drought maps represent only a blip
on the radar as the long-term effects of a stubborn drought
persist. Groundwater and reservoir storage levels — which take
much longer to bounce back — remain at historic lows. It could
be more than a year before the extra moisture has an effect on
the shoreline at Lake Mead that straddles Arizona and Nevada.
Like many deserts, lack of rainfall in the Mojave has pushed
life to the furthest limits of adaptation, saturating the
region with rare and unique species found nowhere else in the
world. In fact, one-fourth of plant species growing in the
Mojave Desert—the smallest of four major deserts in North
America—are one of a kind. One of those plants is the
white-margined penstemon, a small pink bell-shaped flower fixed
on long hardy stems with waved oblong leaves. The highly
adapted flower has carved a niche in the Mojave by occupying
sandy desert washes, valley floors, and mountain foot-slopes
where little else grows. … But the imperiled
wildflower faces a number of threats to its survival, including
urban sprawl, climate change, energy development, off-road
recreation, and invasive grasses.
Despite having a comprehensive system of natural reserves and
human ingenuity, conservationists estimated that nearly 95% of
the received rainfall in California was diverted to the Pacific
Ocean. The wanton runoff ignited bipartisan outrage …
Although the runoff can be interpreted as an egregious failure
of bureaucracy, water pumping restrictions are informed by
environmental regulations that preserve the Delta’s ecological
integrity. … In effect, the Delta Smelt’s ecological
significance impedes the amount of water that can be pulled
from the Delta for millions of Californians as well as for the
state’s agricultural complex. And herein lies the crux of
California’s water conservation: the increasing gap between a
substantiating ecological collapse and booming economic
infrastructure. -Written by Jun Park is a candidate for a master of
social work at the University of Southern California.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council on March 10 provided
three options for recreation and commercial salmon fishing from
the California/Oregon border all the way south to the
California/Mexico border. Unfortunately, but not surprising,
all three options included the words “closed.” In an
unprecedented decision, the PFMC was left with little choice
but to close recreational and commercial salmon fishing this
season statewide. Southern Oregon, which also impacts
Sacramento and Klamath River fall Chinook, will also be closed
from Cape Falcon south. The sport fishery had been scheduled to
open off California in most areas on April 1. The closures were
made to protect Sacramento River fall Chinook, which returned
to the Central Valley in 2022 at near-record low numbers,
and Klamath River fall Chinook, which had the second lowest
abundance forecast since the current assessment method began in
1997.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the
wealthiest and most influential institutions in Utah, plans to
donate a pool of water to help save the Great Salt Lake. The
Utah Department of Natural Resources, which helps manage the
lake, announced the gift Wednesday morning. The donation
amounts to about 20,000 acre-feet worth of shares that the
church holds in the North Point Consolidated Irrigation
Co. … Although the lake is the nation’s largest
saline system, it has run a water deficit of about 1.2 million
acre-feet in recent years. This winter’s substantial snowpack,
however, will likely raise its elevation by at least a few
feet. It currently sits at about 4,190 feet above sea level
but needs to rise to around 4,200 feet to reach an
elevation that’s sustainable for wildlife, recreation and
lake-based industries like brine shrimp and mineral harvesting.
Despite its arid climate, California’s Imperial Valley produces
most of the U.S. winter vegetables, providing the lettuce,
celery, cilantro, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, carrots and other
crops that allow people from Seattle to Boston to eat salads
and cook fresh produce year-round. Unlike most agricultural
regions, the Imperial Valley—with little rain and no
groundwater—depends on a single source of water: the Colorado
River. … Now, that lifeblood may be threatened, as
competing interests battle over supplies from the depleted
river and federal officials threaten to intervene. Despite
holding senior water rights, which give them priority in times
of scarcity, [farmer Mark] Osterkamp and other Imperial Valley
growers face an uncertain future.
Last summer Governor Newsom released California’s Water Supply
Strategy–which calls for the modernization of our water
management system. We know that the Sacramento Valley continues
to modernize everything we do, from our farms, communities and
businesses, to the way we approach water. These improvements
include adopting improved water efficiency, irrigation systems,
and tools to measure water use. We are planting new varieties
that are more productive and produce more crop per drop. We are
investing millions to improve water delivery systems for the
environment as well as for farms, cities, and disadvantaged
communities.
Lawmakers in Nevada are considering new rules that would give
water managers the authority to cap how much water residents
could use in their homes, a step that reflects the dire
conditions on the Colorado River after more than two decades of
drought. Among the Western states that rely on the
Colorado River for sustenance, Nevada has long been a leader in
water conservation, establishing laws that limit the size of
swimming pools and ban decorative grass. Residents now consume
less water than they did 20 years ago.
California is no stranger to big swings between wet and dry
weather. The “atmospheric river” storms that have battered the
state this winter are part of a system that has long
interrupted periods of drought with huge bursts of rain —
indeed, they provide somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of all
precipitation on the West Coast. The parade of storms
that has struck California in recent months has dropped more
than 30 trillion gallons of water on the state, refilling
reservoirs that had sat empty for years and burying mountain
towns in snow. But climate change is making these storms
much wetter and more intense, ratcheting up the risk of
potential flooding in California and other states along the
West Coast.
A Nestlé plant in the Valley has an issue: it wants to produce
a lot of “high-quality” creamer. But it might not have enough
water to do so. The company’s solution could allow factories to
drain Arizona’s groundwater and could threaten the quality of
city tap water, according to water experts. The massive food
and drink producer announced last year it would be building a
nearly $700 million plant in Glendale, but has since run into
issues with its water provider EPCOR. The amount of wastewater
Nestlé projected to need turned out to be too much for the
Canada-based utility.
President Joe Biden has given a dire warning that the Colorado
River will dry up if climate change efforts do not ramp up. He
made the comments while speaking to the Democratic National
Committee in Las Vegas, Nevada this week, Fox News reported.
“You’re not going to be able to drink out of the Colorado
River,” Biden said. The president added that climate change was
“serious stuff.” … But is this actually possible? Could
the Colorado River dry up and will it be as bad as Biden
says? Well, the Colorado River has already reached the
lowest water levels seen in a century. Experts believe this is
down to climate change-caused drought which will only get worse
in the coming years.
The San Joaquin Valley in California (southern Central Valley)
is the most profitable agricultural region in the United States
by far with a revenue of $37.1 billion in 2020. The San
Joaquin Valley itself generates more agricultural revenue than
any other state, and more than countries like Canada,
Germany, or Peru. Other agricultural regions of California are
also very profitable, such as the Sacramento Valley (northern
Central Valley), the Salinas Valley, and the Imperial
Valley. However, this economic profit has a steep health
and environmental toll, and that toll is paid for by the
residents of rural communities in California. The three regions
with the worst air quality (by year-round particle
pollution) in the United States are in the San Joaquin Valley,
corresponding to five of its eight counties.
The Southern Sierra snowpack is now the biggest on record, at a
whopping 247% of average for April 1, according to charts from
the California Department of Water Resources. “There is a whole
hell of a lot of water up there right now, stored in the
snowpack,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and
the Nature Conservancy, during an online presentation on
Monday. … Late last week, California was on the
receiving end of a warm atmospheric river, a band of
tropical moisture originating from waters near Hawaii. The
event raised concerns of rain-on-snow events, when runoff
from rain combines with snowmelt to overwhelm
watersheds. Such flooding happened over the weekend on the Kern
and Tule rivers, triggering evacuations and badly damaging
homes. But at higher elevations, the precipitation only
added to the Sierra snowpack.
The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has “sharply”
increased over the past 20 years, according to a study
published Monday in the journal Nature Water. These aren’t
merely tough weather events, they are leading to extremes such
as crop failure, infrastructure damage and even humanitarian
crises. The big picture on water comes from data from a pair of
satellites known as GRACE, or Gravity Recovery and Climate
Experiment, that were used to measure changes in Earth’s water
storage — the sum of all the water on and in the land,
including groundwater, surface water, ice, and
snow. … The researchers say the data confirms that
both the frequency and intensity of rainfall and droughts are
increasing due to burning fossil fuels and other
human activity that releases greenhouse gases.
Water policy wonks like us at PPIC spend an extraordinary
amount of time analyzing information from the past, trying to
understand the present, and modeling or speculating about the
future. All this work goes toward identifying policy changes
that might help California better manage its water. But
for all our efforts, nothing improves our understanding of
water like a “stress test,” whether that test is severe drought
or extreme wet. And it is starting to look like we are
going to get one of those stress tests this spring in the San
Joaquin Valley. As news outlets have been reporting for some
time, there is an “epic” snowpack in the central and southern
Sierra Nevada… And while Californians have been laser focused
on managing drought over the past decade, it’s now time to
start thinking about what to do with too much water, at least
in the San Joaquin River and Tulare Lake basins.
It may be hard to believe after all the snow and rain that fell
― and keeps falling ― on the North State this winter, but Lake
Shasta water levels are still lower than normal for this time
of year. That could change with more storms on the way this
week. Predictions about the amount of water released through
Shasta Dam later in the year, as snow melts, could also change.
… So, could it be that Shasta Dam will make history
again? Will it open its gates at the top of the spillway to let
water flow? … There’s plenty of space for more rainwater and
snowmelt, said Donald Bader, area manager for the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam.
Lake Powell is currently close to 180 feet below full pool and
coming off a summer last year where several boat ramps were
closed and owners were advised to retrieve their houseboats
from the docks. Releases from a couple of upstream reservoirs,
including Flaming Gorge, were made last summer to help the
nation’s second largest reservoir and its Glen Canyon Dam,
which provides power generation to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New
Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska. A Monday briefing
from the drought integrated information center of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there is wet relief
on the way for Lake Powell, which typically gets its maximum
flows well into July.
The atmospheric rivers that flowed over California in January
dumped about a foot of rain — equal to an entire year’s average
— in many parts of the state’s parched Central Valley, which
encompasses only 1% of U.S. farmland but produces 40% of the
nation’s table fruits, vegetables, and nuts. With February,
ordinarily the second wettest month, still to be counted, talks
of all the land that will have to fallowed as a result of the
drought have quieted for now. But most Golden State growers
have come to realize that droughts will simply be a part of
farming going forward, and the safety net is gone. That
safety net was groundwater pumping. For more than a
half-century, farmers in the Central Valley, the multi-faceted
state’s chief production area, have been pumping more water
from aquifers than can be replenished, causing wells to be
drilled deeper and deeper.
Mark Sigety has owned land in the Harquahala Valley near
Tonopah since 2003. Since then, he says several investors have
reached out to buy his half-acre plot along with other parcels
in western Maricopa County. … The Harquahala Groundwater
Basin is one of three in rural Arizona set aside specifically
to import water to the Valley once water gets scarce. It’s
known as an Irrigation Non-Expansion Area, or INA. It’s a
place where the state or political subdivisions that own land
eligible to be irrigated can pump groundwater and transport it
into areas where groundwater is regulated in Arizona, known as
AMAs, or Active Management Areas. The Phoenix AMA is one
of them and covers land from west of Buckeye to Superior.
Federal officials have proposed closing commercial chinook
salmon fishing off the coast of California over concerns for
expected low numbers of fall-run chinook salmon returning to
the Sacramento River this year. The Pacific Fishery Management
Council announced its three alternatives for recreational and
commercial fishing Friday. Ocean recreational fishing from the
Oregon-California border to the U.S.-Mexico border will be
closed in all three proposals, “given the low abundance
forecasts for both Klamath and Sacramento River fall chinook.”
the council said in a news release issued Friday. Commercial
salmon fishing off the coast of California also will be closed,
the council said. Ocean fishing restrictions were also
announced for Oregon and Washington.
Some of the tall, stately trees that have grown up in
California’s Sierra Nevada are no longer compatible with the
climate they live in, new research has shown. Hotter, drier
conditions driven by climate change in the mountain range have
made certain regions once hospitable to conifers — such as
sequoia, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir — an environmental
mismatch for the cone-bearing trees. … Although there
are conifers in those areas now, Hill and other researchers
suggested that as the trees die out, they’ll be replaced with
other types of vegetation better suited to the environmental
conditions. The team estimated that about 20% of all
Sierra Nevada conifer trees in California are no longer
compatible with the climate around them and are in danger
of disappearing. They dubbed these trees “zombie forests.”
Regenerative agriculture is a holistic land management approach
with principles that date back to Indigenous
farmers. Instead of letting the land fallow or repeating a
cycle of planting water-intensive crops that cannot survive the
harsh conditions along the lower Gila River, Hansen has worked
to develop strategies to make less water go further. He has
successfully introduced arid-adapted crops, integrated
livestock on his land and used non-traditional farming methods
to improve soil health and biodiversity. While
regenerative agriculture has been a way to conserve water and
grow healthier crops for centuries, the alternate farming
method has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years as a
way to potentially reverse the effects of climate change by
rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil
biodiversity, resulting in both carbon drawdown and
improvements to the water cycle.
California’s severely depleted groundwater basins could get a
boost this spring, after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive
order waiving permits to recharge them. State water leaders
hope to encourage local agencies and agricultural districts to
capture water from newly engorged rivers and spread it onto
fields, letting it seep into aquifers after decades of heavy
agricultural pumping. … To pull water from the state’s
network of rivers and canals for groundwater recharge, state
law requires a permit from the State Water Resources Control
Board and Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many local agencies
lacked the permitting during January storms, but this month’s
atmospheric rivers and near record snowpack promises new
opportunities to put water underground.
The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains has reached
record-breaking levels thanks to the deluge of snow smashing
California this week. According to data from the California
Department of Water Resources (CDWR), the Southern Sierras—from
San Joaquin and Mono counties to Kern county—currently have a
snowpack 257 percent greater than the average for this time of
year, and 247 percent larger than is average for the usual
snowpack peak on April 1. Central Sierra and Northern Sierra
also have hugely inflated snowpacks, at 218 percent and 168
percent of the average for early March, respectively…. “As of
this weekend, the Southern Sierra now appears to have largest
snowpack in recorded history…” tweeted Daniel Swain, a
climate scientist at UCLA and the Nature Conservancy.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is finalizing $250 million in
water-saving deals that are expected to preserve up to 10 feet
of Lake Mead’s declining surface levels this year, agency
Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced Friday in Tempe.
The commissioner attended a discussion of Colorado River water
issues at Arizona State University, organized by Sen. Mark
Kelly, D-Arizona. The money will pay Lower Colorado River Basin
water users, especially farmers, to forego some of their
deliveries this year to help keep the reservoir from sinking
further toward the point where it no longer flows past Hoover
Dam. The initial funding is essentially an emergency measure
that pays people not to use water temporarily.
In another sign that the drought is ending across much of
California, state water officials opened the floodgates at
Oroville Dam on Friday to let water out of the state’s
second-largest reservoir to reduce the risk of flooding to
downstream communities. … At noon, water began
cascading down the huge concrete spillway for the first time in
four years. On Friday, Oroville reservoir was 75% full —
or 115% of its historical average for early March. It has risen
180 feet since Dec. 1, and continued to expand steadily with
millions of gallons of water pouring in from recent storms.
After enduring historic drought conditions exacerbated by three
years of the La Niña weather phenomenon, California is finally
free from her clutches, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration said Thursday. However, El Niño may be looming,
and with it, comes a whole new set of weather and climate
challenges. Unlike the typically dry years La
Niña brings to California, El Niño tends to bring
increased chances of torrential storms, flooding, mudslides and
coastal erosion. It typically occurs every three to five years
when surface water in the equatorial Pacific becomes warmer
than average. This week, the World Meteorological Organization
forecast a 55 percent chance of an El Niño developing heading
into autumn.
As storms swell California’s reservoirs, state water officials
have rescinded a controversial order that allowed more water
storage in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while putting
salmon and other endangered fish at risk. Ten environmental
groups had petitioned the board to rescind its order, calling
it “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and…not
supported by substantial evidence.” The reason for the
state’s reversal, according to the State Water Resources
Control Board, is that conditions in the Delta have changed as
storms boost the snowpack and runoff used to supply water to
cities and farms.
Ornamental lawns are banned in Las Vegas, the size of new
swimming pools is capped and much of the water used in homes is
sent down a wash to be recycled, but Nevada is looking at
another significant step to ensure the water supply for one of
the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S. State lawmakers
on Monday are scheduled to discuss granting the power to limit
what comes out of residents’ taps to the Southern Nevada Water
Authority, the agency managing the Colorado River supply to the
city. If lawmakers approve the bill, Nevada would be the first
state to give a water agency permanent jurisdiction over the
amount of residential use. The sweeping omnibus bill is one of
the most significant to go before lawmakers this year in
Nevada, one of seven states that rely on the Colorado River.
In many ways, Owens Lake — which dried up early last century
when the city of Los Angeles began diverting the lake’s water
supply to a major aqueduct — is a cautionary tale and a
harbinger of disasters to come. Climate change is altering
patterns of drought and rainfall across the world, and demand
for water is growing. Just 500 miles from Owens Lake, Utah’s
Great Salt Lake is drying rapidly and creating another stream
of toxic dust. And while Owens Lake has finally managed to get
its air pollution problems in check, it came at enormous cost.
In a sense, it is lucky that there is such an example already
out there, if only to demonstrate how important it will be to
avoid a similar fate.
Residents in one western Arizona community worry that a clean
energy company, which plans to build nearby, could hog their
groundwater supply. Brenda is a small town located a few miles
north of Interstate 10 in La Paz County. Like nearby
Quartzsite, it caters to RV visitors who are looking for
sunshine and warmth during the winter months. At
Buckaroo’s Sandwich Shop, manager Lisa Lathrop said she has
lived in the area for 13 years because “it’s usually quiet out
here and nobody knows about us.” That’s about to
change. The addition of the Ten West Link, a
high-voltage transmission line currently being built to connect
Tonopah with Blythe, California, is expected to bring multiple
solar power companies to the area.
The nation’s top Western water official visited the Coachella
Valley on Thursday to highlight federal funding for
infrastructure that carries Colorado River water to area farm
fields. The visit comes during a break in heavy winter storms
across the West that are buoying hopes among regional water
officials for a temporary reprieve on potentially huge cuts to
river supply. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille
Touton was mum on whether heavy snowpack in the Rockies and
elsewhere could push back massive reductions she told Congress
last spring were necessary to keep the river and its reservoirs
afloat. But California officials are cautiously optimistic that
major reductions could be averted this year. Noting that
overall river flows this year are now forecast to be 113% of
average thanks to “huge snowpack” in the Rockies and elsewhere
…
After three consecutive years of an unusually stubborn pattern,
La Niña has officially ended and El Niño is on the way, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.
That could mean a less active Atlantic hurricane season, a more
active season in the Pacific – and another spike in global
temperatures, forecasters say. … El Niño also
significantly impacts California’s weather and could mean a
continuation of the current wet pattern already plaguing the
state. Traditionally, El Niño brings increased rain and snow
across the Golden State, especially in the cool season, leading
to flooding, landslides, and coastal erosion.
All this winter weather may seem to be at odds with the hotter,
drier California that scientists expect with climate change, as
greenhouse gas emissions raise global temperatures. But that
trend is taking place over longer timescales, across the entire
planet. What happens in California from year to year — or even
winter to winter — can vary dramatically and still fit into the
bigger story, scientists say. … Some scientists
also think that atmospheric warming can change how air masses
move around the planet by altering jet streams, strong winds
that travel about 5-9 miles above the Earth’s surface. As a
result, cold air masses can move farther south, toward
California.
In January, water policy analysts hoped that the Legislature
would take action on Arizona’s shrinking groundwater supplies.
But it appears that lawmakers will back burner the issue once
more. Groundwater in most of rural Arizona is largely
unregulated. In some counties, large feedlots or farms have
taken advantage of the lack of oversight and sunk deep wells.
But a number of bills that would help manage rural water
supplies have stalled, not on the House or Senate floor but in
committee.
Even though California has been bombarded by snow and rain this
winter, almost half of the state remains in drought, according
to the U.S. Drought Monitor. … The progress is
staggering when compared to the drought picture just three
months ago. In early December, over 99% of the state was in
drought, 85% in severe drought and 40% in
extreme drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor released on
Thursday shows over half of the state not in a drought, for
many places the first time in over three years. Over a quarter
of the Golden State recovered entirely and is no longer
“abnormally dry.” And while no state area is classified
as in “extreme drought,” NOAA still estimates that over 5.5
million Californians are still living with drought.
National and regional media love a good fight, and lately a day
doesn’t pass without a major news story or op-ed focused on
Colorado River disagreements, particularly amongst the seven
states of the Colorado River Basin (Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). Which state
must bear the brunt of shortages needed as Colorado River flows
decline? Which sector of water users takes the hit as climate
change continues to diminish the river? Should urban water
supplies be protected because that’s where all the people are?
(Municipal water supply representatives will quickly remind us
that if all urban uses of Colorado River water were cut off,
there would still be a shortage). Should agricultural water
supplies be protected because we all need to eat?
Winter storms this year have created hope for many Californians
suffering from years of drought but for agriculture, it’s more
complicated. More water means crops will be well provided for,
but additional weather trends create new hazards for orchards,
especially during this year’s almond bloom which requires some
consistency in temperature and sunlight. Colleen Cecil,
executive director for the Butte County Farm Bureau, said
almonds have likely been impacted the most by the weather
events, especially since the trees are still in bloom.
We have seen the future of water in California this winter and
it does not look good. After 200% rainfall and historic
snowpack, what do we have? They keep saying we are not out of
the drought. But when it starts raining like this, that is — by
definition — the end of a drought. How much rainfall do they
need? Actually, I probably shouldn’t ask that. I probably won’t
like their answer. There are no average rainfall years in
California. There are wet years and dry years. We are idiots
because we do not catch the rainfall from the wet years and
save it for the dry years.
Water is one of the most basic elements of any type of
agriculture production system, and this precious resource is
under more stress than at any time in our history. From a
changing climate and drought to regulation and increasing
expectations for sustainability efforts, the development and
adoption of technologies to use water more efficiently and
effectively is paramount. The new “Water, Technology, and
Sustainability” digital report from the editors at Meister
Media Worldwide, part of the 2023 Global Insight Series, dives
deep into topics such as the California Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, technologies to address drought, digital
modeling for weather, and worldwide market views from companies
on the front lines.
A powerful storm barreling toward California from the tropical
Pacific threatens to trigger widespread river flooding
throughout the state as warm rain melts a record accumulation
of snowpack and sends runoff surging down mountains and into
streams and reservoirs. Although state officials insist they
are prepared to manage runoff from what is now the 10th
atmospheric river of a deadly rainy season, at least one expert
described the combination of warm rain, epic snowpack and moist
soils as “bad news.” … Already, the National Weather
Service is warning residents that a number of rivers could
surge beyond their flood stage, inundating nearby roads and
properties. Likewise, some reservoir managers have already
begun releasing water in anticipation of heavy inflows through
the weekend.
…. On March 20 … the entire Colorado River will be looming
over the [Supreme Court] justices when they hear oral arguments
in Arizona v. Navajo Nation. The case, which dwells at the
intersection of Native treaty rights and water rights, will
mark the court’s latest foray into the byzantine rules and
regulations that govern limited supplies of water in one of the
driest parts of the country. For the Navajo Nation, the court’s
decision on its 19th-century treaty rights could have serious
consequences for its future.
States that use water from the Colorado River are caught in a
standoff about how to share shrinking supplies, and their
statements about recent negotiations send mixed messages.
California officials say they were not consulted as other
states in the region drew up a letter to the federal government
with what they called a “consensus-based” set of
recommendations for water conservation. Leaders in states that
drafted the letter disagree with that characterization. The
reality of what happened during negotiations may lie somewhere
in between, as comments from state leaders hint at possible
differences between their definitions of what counts as
“consultation.” The squabble is a microcosm of larger tensions
between states that use water from the Colorado River.
To capitalize on strong flows resulting from
higher-than-average snowpack, the State Water Resources Control
Board approved a petition by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to
divert over 600,000 acre-feet of San Joaquin River flood waters
for wildlife refuges, underground storage and recharge. With
this approval, the State Water Board has authorized nearly
790,000 acre-feet in diversions for groundwater recharge and
other purposes since late December 2022 – the amount of water
used by at least 1.5 million households in a single year.
Neil McIsaac has something many other dairy farmers here don’t:
a storm-runoff capture system that can provide backup water for
his herd when local reservoirs go dry, as they did last year.
Already, he and others involved in the project say it has
proven its worth. It has captured 670,000 gallons so far this
winter, enough to slake the thirst of his 700 cows for a month,
Mr. McIsaac said.
In Sarge Green’s 40-plus year career, he’s worn an astonishing
number of hats. Now a water management specialist with
California State University, Fresno, Sarge has worked on water
quality issues at the regional water board, served as general
manager of an irrigation district, and managed two resource
conservation districts (RCDs). He’s also a director for the
Tule Basin Land and Water Conservation Trust and the Fresno
Metropolitan Flood Control District. He’s been a long-time
partner with the PPIC Water Policy Center in our San Joaquin
Valley work as a trusted member of our research network. Sarge
remains deeply involved in efforts to help San Joaquin Valley
farms and communities cope with the challenges of implementing
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. We spoke with him
about a pressing issue in the valley: how to manage farmland
that will be transitioning out of intensive irrigation.
A particularly wet season has swept across the southwestern
U.S., a region that has suffered under a severe megadrought for
over two decades. But what has this meant for Colorado River
reservoir Lake Mead? Storms of rain and snow have hit
California particularly badly in recent months, and have spread
into neighboring states like Nevada. Reservoirs like Lake Mead
rely on seasonal snowmelt and rainfall. Because of the drought,
these weather patterns have been less frequent and harder to
predict in recent. This means water levels at the largest
man-made lake in the U.S., Lake Mead, are rapidly declining.
It’s officially the snowiest year to date in Lake Tahoe.
Following a nearly two-week series of storms that dropped more
than 15 feet of snow in parts of the Sierra Nevada, the
official numbers are in. Lake Tahoe has received more snowfall
as of March 6 than in any other season — or at least any season
since 1971-72, the earliest year for which the UC Berkeley
Central Sierra Snow Lab on Donner Summit has daily
measurements. As of March 6, the Snow Lab has measured 580
inches, or just over 48 feet, of snow since Oct. 1.
Yuma, Ariz. may be well known for its unforgiving summer heat,
but did you know that 90% of North America’s leafy greens and
vegetables available from November through April of each year
comes from here? Yuma’s climate, its rich soil birthed from
sediments deposited by the Colorado River for millennia, and
over 300 cloudless days per year coalesce to create one of the
best places in the world to grow such a diverse mix of crops.
… At the crux of this production is water. The Colorado
River ends its U.S. run at Morelos Dam, just a few hundred
yards from the University of Arizona’s Extension research farm
at Yuma. That water no longer makes it to the Sea of Cortez as
Mexico consumes it for urban and agricultural uses. -Written by Todd Fitchette, associate editor
with Western Farm Press.
Weeks of frigid air temperatures in the Sierra have caused Lake
Tahoe’s water to “mix” for the first time since 2019, as cold
water at the surface sinks to the lake’s 1,600-foot depths,
bringing clearer water up. That means that the historically
crystal-clear lake, which has grown murkier over the past
several decades, is the clearest it has been in four years. The
lake’s clarity, which is a sign of its overall health and
typically drops to 60 or 70 feet deep, now goes down to 115
feet. … But it won’t last long, said Geoffrey Schladow,
a professor and director of the UC Davis’ Tahoe
Environmental Research Center. … Water clarity in the
lake was at an average depth of 61 feet in 2021,
compared with 102 feet in 1968, when it was first studied by UC
Davis. It also tends to be clearer in winter than summer, when
there is more algae growth and sediment.
Starting Tuesday, the US Bureau of Reclamation will suspend
extra water releases from Utah’s Flaming Gorge reservoir –
emergency measures that had served to help stabilize the
plummeting water levels downstream at Lake Powell, the nation’s
second largest reservoir. Federal officials began releasing
extra water from Flaming Gorge in 2021 to boost Lake Powell’s
level and buy its surrounding communities more time to plan for
the likelihood the reservoir will eventually drop too low for
the Glen Canyon Dam to generate hydropower. Lake Powell in late
February sank to its lowest water level since the reservoir was
filled in the 1960s, and since 2000 has dropped more than 150
feet.
A few weeks ago, federally threatened coho salmon swam up the
Klamath River, spawned and laid egg nests. But some of these
nests, or redds, holding as many as 4,000 eggs, may never
hatch, owing to reduced water levels in the river. It’s the
result of a severe water management bungling, say critics, by
the Bureau of Reclamation, which controls how much water flows
from Upper Klamath Lake into the river. … Tribal nations and
commercial fishing groups argue the agency violated the
Endangered Species Act when it reduced river flows in mid-March
below a minimum level set in a National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration biological opinion, a series of recommendations
and requirements meant to help the salmon recover and ensure
river management decisions don’t push the species to the brink
of extinction…. The Bureau of Reclamation, which controls
flows and water allocation on the Klamath, says it is caught
between competing priorities.
As still more storms dumped new snow onto California’s
burgeoning snowpack, water managers, farmers and
environmentalists gathered in Sacramento last week to discuss
long-term challenges to secure a more certain water future. The
fresh snowfall contrasted with challenging water realities
discussed at the 61st California Irrigation Institute Annual
Conference. With a theme of “One Water: Partnering for
Solutions,” the event focused on addressing impacts of climate
change, including warming conditions and frequent droughts that
severely diminish the snowpack and state water supplies. The
gathering emphasized solutions that some speakers said could be
aided through partnerships among different water interests.
In light of last week’s decisions regarding the groundwater
sustainability plans, groundwater managers in Fresno County are
celebrating. The backstory: The California Department of
Water Resources announced its decisions for the groundwater
sustainability plans for 10 basins in the Central Valley,
giving the green light to the Kings Subbasin and Westside
Subbasin, both of which are anchored in Fresno
County. Groundwater sustainability plans are required by
2014’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and govern how
agencies in critically overdrafted areas achieve groundwater
sustainability. The big picture: The basins that received
approval from the state will move forward to the implementation
phase while those that were deemed inadequate will face direct
oversight from the State Water Board.
Sara Rubin here, looking at a glass of water on my desk and
appreciating all of the technology and infrastructure and
people behind the scenes who worked to bring me that water.
Specifically, I am thinking about Pure Water Monterey, a
high-tech water recycling system at Monterey One Water in
Marina, that uses a four-step process to treat wastewater—the
same stuff that goes out the drains of our showers and gets
flushed down our toilets. The four-step process includes ozone
pre-treatment, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis and
oxidation with UV light and hydrogen peroxide. Like I said—to
all of you working to build this stuff and get me my glass of
water, thank you. -Written by Sara Rubin, editor of the Monterey County
Weekly.
The winter of 2023 isn’t finished yet. Not by a long
shot. An atmospheric river storm is likely to hit Northern
California late Thursday into Friday, meteorologists and
climate scientists said Monday, bringing high chances of heavy
rain in the Bay Area, 1 to 3 feet of new snow at higher
elevations in the Sierra, and an increased risk of flooding as
the warm rain hits the state’s massive snowpack. Details
about the storm, a classic “pineapple express” event barreling
in more than 2,000 miles from Hawaii, are still not certain.
… [Forecasters] said that the latest storm by itself won’t
likely be enough to cause major melting of the immense Sierra
snowpack — which on Monday was 192% of its historic average,
the most snow in 30 years — because the deep snow can absorb a
fair amount of rain.
The stubborn La Niña climate pattern that gripped the tropical
Pacific for a rare three years in a row is waning, and the odds
of an El Niño system forming later this year are getting
stronger, according to recent meteorological reports. The El
Niño-La Niña Southern Oscillation, sometimes referred to as
ENSO, has a major influence on temperature and rainfall
patterns in different parts of the world, with La Niña often
associated with drier-than-normal conditions in California,
especially the southern part of the state. El Niño, on the
other hand, is linked to an enhanced probability of
above-normal rainfall in California, along with accompanying
landslides, floods and coastal erosion, though it is not a
guarantee.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today kicked
off National Groundwater Awareness Week 2023 with an
engaging educational event held at the California Natural
Resources Agency headquarters in Sacramento. The event featured
an array of groundwater partners who
provided presentations describing their work in
groundwater and why groundwater is such an important water
resource in California. After the presentations, the in-person
audience visited educational stations where they engaged with
the day’s speakers and other groundwater professionals.
A warming climate has left a fifth of the conifer forests that
blanket California’s Sierra Nevada stranded in habitats that no
longer suit them, according to a study published last week by
researchers at Stanford University. In these “zombie forests,”
older, well-established trees — including ponderosa pines,
Douglas firs and sugar pines — still tower overhead, but few
young trees have been able to take root because the climate has
become too warm and dry for them to thrive.
Though recent snow and rainfall have certainly improved drought
conditions, California water officials still want to make every
drop of water count. That means cutting out the watering
of decorative grass — also known as non-functional turf –
frequently landscaped at traffic medians or office parking
lots. Decorative grass is becoming a bigger problem for
Western water agencies to address as policymakers look to cut
back its water usage in statewide bans, proposed legislation
and local ordinances. Right before last summer’s
sweltering heat, the California Water Resources Control Board
set a statewide ban on irrigating non-functional turf with
potable water in commercial, institutional and industrial
sectors, also known as CII sites.
After more than two months of atmospheric rivers and bomb
cyclones, amid a supersized Sierra snowcap, and with more
precipitation forecast for the rest of the month, isn’t
California’s drought over? The U.S. Drought Monitor reports
that yes, 17% of California is now out of drought. Most of the
rest of the state is quite wet as well, although it remains in
some level of “drought” as the term is defined by the Drought
Monitor. Only 17%? How is that possible? …. Drought was
never the right word to apply to this state’s dry streaks.
Californians need a term that describes not just how much water
is coming in, but how much we use every day and how much we
save for later.
This winter will be one for the record-books in California. It
looks like the winter I spent playing on 40-feet of snow in
Mammoth Lakes in the mid-1990s will be topped by this year’s
epic snowfall. So where will all that water go when it melts?
Living in Bishop at the time, we had flooding in August as the
runoff came off the mountains and made it to the Owens River –
or as some might call it: the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Here’s my
thought on this. Follow along. Los Angeles gets much of its
water from the Sierra Nevada and runoff in various places in
California. Yes, it gets water too from the State Water
Project, but the mismanagement of that system tends to push
more water out to sea than for human use.
The Western United States is currently battling the most severe
drought in thousands of years. A mix of bad water management
policies and manmade climate change has created a situation
where water supplies in Western reservoirs are so low, states
are being forced to cut their water use. It’s not hard to
find media coverage that focuses on the excesses of residential
water use: long showers, swimming pools, lawn watering, at-home
car washes. Or in the business sector, like irrigating golf
courses or pumping water into hotel fountains in Las
Vegas. But when a team of researchers looked at water
use in the West, they uncovered a very different
story about where most Western water goes. Only 14 percent
of all water consumption in the Western US goes to residential,
commercial, and industrial water use.
Israeli firm IDE Technologies’ proposal to build a US$5.5bn
desalination plant in Puerto Peñasco in northern Mexico’s
Sonora state and then sell the water to Arizona is not a new
idea and was previously rejected due to several problems.
In December, IDE presented Arizona’s Water Infrastructure
Finance Authority (WIFA) with a proposal to supply treated 1
billion cubic meters per year of seawater from the Sea of
Cortez through a 328km system of pumps and pipes. WIFA was
reported to have been analyzing the initiative, but no further
updates have been announced. The project would also
provide water to Sonora state “without impacting the amount of
water committed to Arizona,” according to the proposal.
However, IDE needs a purchasing commitment from the US state’s
authorities before moving forward with the project.
As 5-year-old Stella Penn and her sister, Maxine, 3,
enthusiastically play hide-and-seek in the backyard of their
Eagle Rock home, the girls are accompanied by a merry band of
lizards, butterflies and birds drawn to the yard’s low-water
California natives, abundant fruit trees and the fragrance of
Cleveland sage and Champaca trees. Oblivious to the rainfall on
an overcast morning in Los Angeles, the sisters move to a
chunky wood stump in the front yard where, unprovoked, they
assemble a “pizza” with a large sycamore leaf and locally
sourced bits of gravel, California buckwheat and blue bush
acacia as toppings. … Soon after the two bought the
property, Claire’s father came and laid sod in the backyard so
that his granddaughters would have a place to run around.
Although his heart was in the right place, the couple felt that
it was “ridiculous” to try to keep the lawn alive in the face
of California’s ongoing drought and
eventual water restrictions.
Over the past 10 years, California has seen two of the most
severe droughts in a millennium separated by two of the wettest
years on record. This erratic weather, volatile even by
California standards, shattered heat records, killed millions
of trees, fueled explosive wildfires and caused significant
flooding. As California’s changing climate pushes us deeper
into uncharted climate waters, past records are becoming a less
reliable tool for predicting current and future weather
patterns. That’s why Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent decision to
delay the release of 700,000 acre-feet of water, enough to
supply nearly 7 million people for a year, from state
reservoirs into the Sacramento-San Joaquin-River Delta was the
right call. Snowpack from early storms can be lost to dry, hot
weather later this spring. -Written by Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of
the Bay Area Council.
An invasive fish species could begin swarming more areas of the
Colorado River, officials have warned. In a report released in
February by the Bureau of Reclamation, concerns are raised that
smallmouth bass—an invasive species established in Colorado
River reservoir Lake Powell—could escape into other reaches of
the river, below the dam. Lake Powell, formed by the Glen
Canyon Dam, is seeing some of its lowest water levels ever.
Officials are concerned that the low water levels will cause
the smallmouth bass to escape past the dam, which has so far
served as a barrier for the fish. When water levels are high,
the report said it prevents the fish passing through.
A remarkably wet winter has resulted in some of the deepest
snowpack California has ever recorded, providing considerable
drought relief and a glimmer of hope for the state’s strained
water supply. Statewide snowpack Friday measured 190% of
normal, hovering just below a record set in the winter of
1982-83, officials with the Department of Water Resources said
during the third snow survey of the season…. In the
Southern Sierra, snowpack reached 231% of average for the date,
nearing the region’s benchmark of 263% set in 1969 and trending
ahead of the winter of 1983. With just one month remaining in
the state’s traditional rainy season, officials are now voicing
cautious optimism over the state’s hydrologic prospects.
Northern California could be in for a new atmospheric
river storm by the end of the week, potentially blasting the
Bay Area with substantial rain, and the Sierra with even more
heavy snow, but likely not as fierce as the wet storms that
wreaked damage across the region at the start of the year,
forecasters say…. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at
UCLA and the Nature Conservancy, said Sunday
evening that an atmospheric river could be a concern
regarding the state’s snowpack, which on Friday reached
its highest level this century for the start of
March. Such rain-on-snow events — when heavy rain
falls on snow in higher elevations — could result in
snow melting faster, flooding downstream areas, overwhelming
rivers and overloading buildings with heavy
slush, weather experts say.
Jennifer Peters signed on to have her Madera ranch become the
site of an experiment in replenishing groundwater in
California’s Central Valley. Though this pilot program led by a
subdivision of the United States Department of Agriculture is
far from the first effort to address the depletion of
groundwater stores, it offers farmers like Peters hope for the
future of agriculture in the region. … Peters is a
fourth-generation farmer who operates Markarian Family LP with
her father and son. They cultivate wine grapes and almonds,
crops that require irrigation to grow in the Central Valley.
… The search for water has led growers to dig deep into
underground water supplies. Many aquifers, geological
structures that hold groundwater, are so depleted in the
Central Valley that they are considered at an “all time low” or
“much below normal,” …
Tom Brundy, an alfalfa grower in California’s Imperial Valley,
thinks farmers reliant on the shrinking Colorado River can do
more to save water and use it more efficiently. That’s why he’s
installed water sensors and monitors to prevent waste on nearly
two-thirds of his 3,000 acres. But one practice that’s
off-limits for Brundy is fallowing — leaving fields unplanted
to spare the water that would otherwise irrigate crops. It
would save plenty of water, Brundy said, but threatens both
farmers and rural communities economically. … Many Western
farmers feel the same, even as a growing sense is emerging that
some fallowing will have to be part of the solution to the
increasingly desperate drought in the West, where the Colorado
River serves 40 million people.
The last time the Colorado River Basin agreed to a set of
reductions to address drought conditions and dropping levels at
Lake Mead was in 2019. … Now, states are looking to cut far
more water than the 2019 agreement yielded, and on a much
shorter negotiation timeline. After the seven states that rely
on the Colorado River to provide water to roughly 40 million
Americans missed two deadlines from the federal government to
work out a consensus plan, there are two proposals from the
basin states on the table that offer different paths for how to
meet the target. The two proposals arrive at a similar number
of potential new cuts to water use across the basin, but draw a
clear line in the sand between California’s desire to protect
its senior water rights, much of which are tied up in the
agriculture sector, and the desire of the other six states to
have California, Nevada and Arizona share the cuts more
equitably.
In Washington County, there is a ban on growing grass outside
new businesses. Only 8% of a home’s landscaping can have a
grass lawn in this booming corner of Utah. And if any
developers want to add another country club to this golfing
mecca, “I don’t know where they would get the water from,” said
Zach Renstrom, general manager of the Washington County Water
Conservancy District. … Like lots of spots in the West, the
combination of more people and less water makes for an
uncertain future around St. George. While this winter’s
generous snowpack could buy precious time, the entire Colorado
River system remains in danger of crashing if water gets too
low at Lakes Powell and Mead. But that reality hasn’t stopped
St. George from booming into the fastest-growing metro area in
the U.S. two years running …
It’s going to be a bad year for Sacramento River chinook
salmon. That was the message from this year’s annual Salmon
Information Meeting attended by state and federal fisheries
scientists. State and federal officials announced one of the
lowest adult fall-run chinook salmon population estimates since
2008, according to the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The fall-run chinook is considered the predominant
species of salmon in freshwater and ocean fisheries, the state
said. This year, the state forecast 169,767 adults in the
population.
As western water woes continue, some experts and
authorities say a national-level problem like this
requires an innovative solution. The U.S. has
plenty of drinking water — it’s simply in the wrong
place. That’s a seemingly fixable problem that has
inspired a number of creative ideas. Unfortunately,
everything except conserving water has proven to be a longshot
proposal riddled with logistical, legal or cost problems.
The problem: The Colorado River is drying up from drought and
overuse. It’s the literal lifeblood of the West. A rainy
year doesn’t solve the water crisis: Rain and snow,
particularly in California, has offered temporary relief
to water worries. But experts say the water demand in the west
is set to keep exceeding supply — unless major
conservation efforts successfully roll out.
California water officials on Friday recorded the biggest
accumulation of statewide snow this century for the start of
March, a bounty that is likely to grow with coming storms – and
further ease the state’s drought-time water shortages. The
official March snow survey… tallied the snowpack in the
Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades at 190% of
average…. The March survey results top the big snow year
in 2017, when statewide total snowpack was 184% of average at
the start of the month. The numbers fall short, however, of the
record snow year in 1983, according to state officials….
State water officials on Thursday rejected six local
groundwater plans for the San Joaquin Valley, where basins
providing drinking and irrigation water are severely depleted
from decades of intensive pumping by farms. The plans —
submitted by local agencies tasked with the job of protecting
underground supplies — outline strategies for complying with a
state law requiring sustainable groundwater
management. The Department of Water Resources deemed the
plans inadequate … Groundwater depletion has hurt the San
Joaquin Valley’s small, rural communities, home to many
low-income Latino residents who have been forced to live on
bottled water and drill deeper wells, which can cost tens of
thousands of dollars.
Tremendous rains and snowfall since late last year have freed
half of California from drought, but low groundwater levels
remain a persistent problem, U.S. Drought Monitor data showed
Thursday. The latest survey found that moderate
or severe drought covers about 49% of the state, nearly 17% of
the state is free of drought or a condition described as
abnormally dry. The remainder is still abnormally
dry. “Clearly the amount of water that’s fallen this year
has greatly alleviated the drought,” said Daniel Swain, a
climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“It has not ended the drought completely but we’re in a very
different place than we were a year ago.” California’s
latest drought began in 2020 and no relief appeared in sight
heading into this winter.
California Chinook salmon populations have fallen to their
lowest levels in years, according to new estimates released by
state and federal scientists — a decline that could trigger a
shutdown of the commercial and recreational fishing season
along the coast. … The department said scientists
estimated that the number of 3-year-old fall-run Chinook likely
to return to the Sacramento River this year to spawn would be
fewer than 170,000, one of the lowest forecasts in 15 years.
They also estimated that fewer than 104,000 are likely to
return to the Klamath River, the second-lowest estimate since
1997. In its announcement Wednesday, the department said
returning fall-run Chinook “fell well short of conservation
objectives” in the Sacramento River last year, and may now be
approaching a point of being declared overfished.
The decision by an interstate agency representing the Upper
Basin states to press the federal government to postpone the
release of a portion of 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming
Gorge Reservoir in Utah to Lake Powell isn’t only about the
better snowpack the West is getting this winter. It’s more of a
game of chess between the upper states of the Colorado River
and the Lower Basin states, particularly California, said Gage
Zobell, a water law attorney at Dorsey & Whitney. Zobell
said it’s about “sending a message that [the Upper Basin
states] refuse to continue supplying Lower Basin’s limitless
demands for water.”
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Richmond, on Monday reintroduced
his bipartisan legislation (H.R.1181) to reform permitting for
local wastewater treatment and water recycling projects, with
U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Riverside, as the original
co-sponsor. Garamendi’s legislation (H.R.1181) would
extend the maximum term for National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permits issued under the federal
Clean Water Act from five years to 10 to better reflect the
project construction schedules for public agencies. In October
2019, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
passed Garamendi’s legislation. His reintroduced legislation
awaits action by that same committee.
The western Fresno County community, where nearly half the
residents live in poverty, is already carrying a water debt
of $400,000. That debt has been incurred over the last
few years as El Porvenir has had to buy surface water on the
open market and pay for expensive treatment. The town, along
with nearby Cantua Creek, was supposed to be getting water from
two new groundwater wells by this time. But the well project,
which began in 2018 and was supposed to be completed in 2021,
was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So,
residents have had to continue relying on the expensive surface
water. Fresno County buys about 100 acre feet of water
each year for the towns from Westlands Water District at $432
per acre foot.
The megadrought that’s plagued the US West for years has
impacted everything from the food Americans eat to their
electricity supply. And while extreme weather can sometimes
trigger wet winters like this one, in California and the rest
of the region, the long-term future remains a very dry one. In
this episode of Getting Warmer With Kal Penn, we
explore what the future of water in the West may look
like. In Nevada, Penn investigates the lasting impacts of the
Colorado River Compact, the 1922 agreement that doles out water
rights to the seven states along its path. Overly optimistic
from the start, the system is now on the verge of collapse as
water levels in key reservoirs approach dead pool-status.
Leading environmental engineering and construction services
firm Brown and Caldwell has been hired by the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) to study
alternative water conveyance options to provide supply
diversity to the region during severe droughts. Metropolitan’s
mission is to ensure a safe and reliable water supply for the
19 million people in Southern California in the face of climate
change and extended drought. In response to drought action
planning by Metropolitan in collaboration with its 26 member
agencies, the study will identify and evaluate potential
conveyance options to move primarily Colorado River water and
regional storage supplies from the eastern portion of
Metropolitan’s service area to the western portion.
David Schmalz here, thinking about water. More specifically,
I’m thinking about the water supply in the northern Salinas
Valley, which has long been in a critical state of
overdraft. In last week’s issue of the Weekly, I wrote a
story about how seawater intrusion continues to worsen in the
northern part of the valley, which is a result of that
overdraft. In natural conditions, without any pumping, the
water in the aquifers moves downward, toward the Monterey Bay,
but when over-pumping occurs, that pressure differential
reverses as groundwater levels decline—seawater starts to
intrude inland into the aquifers, eventually reaching a point
of salinity to where it can’t be used to irrigate crops. -Written by Weekly columnist David Schmalz.
California commercial and sports fishers are bracing for the
possibility of no salmon season this year after the fish
population along the Pacific Coast dropped to its lowest point
in 15 years. On Wednesday, wildlife officials announced a low
forecast for the number of the wild adult Chinook (or “king”)
salmon that will be in the ocean during the fishing season that
typically starts in May. The final plan for the commercial and
recreational salmon season will be announced in April.
…Salmon are highly dependent on how much water is available
in their native rivers and streams, especially when they are
very young. Even though the state has gotten a lot of rain and
snow this winter, the population that is now in the ocean was
born in 2020, in the beginning of the state’s current
record-breaking drought. … This year, there will be
about 170,000 adult salmon in the ocean from the Sacramento
River fall run Chinook population, the main group that is
fished commercially in the state and the lowest number since
2008.
The gargantuan California snowpack, over twice the normal
size for this time of year in some parts of the Sierra, just
keeps growing. On Tuesday, yet another storm unloaded several
feet of snow in the Lake Tahoe area, completely burying
the Sugar Bowl Resort office. Ideally, the
snowpack gradually melts during the spring and summer,
releasing water when reservoirs aren’t capped by flood control
limitations and can maximize storage. All the snow right now is
fantastic news for the state’s enduring drought.
… But the overabundance also presents potential flood
risks. … A spring heat wave, for example, could drive an
early melt that results in flooding. A warm atmospheric river
aimed at snowcapped mountains could also rapidly melt snow and
overload watersheds.
After another week of severe winter weather, levels in
California’s recovering water reservoirs have continued to
rise, signaling good news for the state’s summer water
supplies. This follows weeks of considerable rain and snowfall
in California since the start of 2023. … At the
beginning of this water year, which started on October 1, 2022,
the state’s largest water reservoir, Lake Shasta, was
a third full, at 33 percent. It was at 60 percent as of
March 1 and rising, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
That puts it at 84 percent of where it would usually be usually
at this time of year.
As we approach next week’s National Groundwater Awareness Week,
we have several groundwater-related events, articles and tours
to share with you. Groundwater Awareness Event: Monday,
March 6 Join the California Department of Water
Resources, the Water Education Foundation and others on Monday
at a special event in Sacramento to kick
off next week’s National Groundwater Awareness
Week. The 9 a.m. to noon event will include
presentations, informational stations and demonstrations. For
those who are unable to attend in person at the California
Natural Resources Building’s Main Auditorium, 715
P St., the presentations will be
available to view remotely.
The three states that comprise the Colorado River’s Lower Basin
– Arizona, California and Nevada – are weighing in on a
proposal to pause some water releases from Flaming Gorge
Reservoir in an effort to prop up Lake Powell. Those states
essentially agreed with the idea of suspending water releases,
but said water managers should wait a few months to see the
full effects of spring runoff, and leave the door open for
additional releases if warranted. They also stressed the need
for input from all of the states which use water from the
Colorado River. On Monday, the four states that make up the
Upper Basin – Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico – voted to
ask the federal government to stop releasing additional water
that would flow downstream as part of the 2019 Drought Response
Operations Agreement.
While western states work to hash out a plan to save the
crumbling Colorado River system, officials from Southern Nevada
are preparing for the worst — including possible water
restrictions in the state’s most populous county. The Nevada
Legislature last week introduced Assembly Bill 220, an omnibus
bill that comes from the minds of officials at the Southern
Nevada Water Authority. Most significantly, the legislation
gives the water authority the ability to impose hefty water
restrictions on individual homes in Southern Nevada, where
three-quarters of Nevada’s 3.2 million residents live and rely
on the drought-stricken Colorado River for 90 percent of their
water. … The bill, if approved and signed into law in its
current form, would stand as another substantial step toward
conserving Nevada’s water …
Winter storms that bolstered the Sierra Nevada snowpack and
added to California reservoirs prompted federal and state water
managers to announce increases in anticipated water allocations
for the 2023 growing season. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
last week announced an initial allocation of 35% of contracted
water supplies for agricultural customers south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The announcement brought a
measure of certainty for farmers, ranchers and agricultural
water contractors, after officials provided zero water
allocations for agriculture from the federal Central Valley
Project in 2021 and 2022.
From record rain, flooding and snowfall – to chilly
temperatures, hail and windy conditions, it’s been more
“wintery” than some San Diegans would like. So what’s going on?
ABC 10News sat down with Julie Kalansky, a climate scientist
and Operations Manager for the Center for Western Weather and
Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Aurora Water just issued an urgent reminder that a Westerner’s
outlook can change dramatically just by jumping over into the
next river basin. Skiers can be reveling in ridiculous
powder at Steamboat and feeling good about how much water the
Yampa and White rivers will contribute to the dry Colorado
River come spring. At the same time, Aurora sits with
half-empty reservoirs and a dwindling snowpack in one of its
key resource basins, the Arkansas River watershed. Already
fearing water levels for Colorado’s third-largest city may
approach emergency conditions this summer, the city council
voted Monday to cut one day from allowed lawn watering
schedules and add a surcharge for outdoor use.
The Carmel River Watershed has seen record rainfall this winter
beating out 1998 for the wettest year to date and the rain is
not done yet. But most of that water won’t end up in your tap
instead it’s flowing out to the ocean. … That 91,000
acre-feet is equivalent to roughly 29.6 million gallons of
water going out to sea or nine years’ worth of drinking water
for the Peninsula. … Not every drop of rainwater
this winter went out to the Pacific. To date his water year the
Peninsula’s water utility California American Water has banked
about 500 acre-feet of water off the Carmel River, less than a
tenth of what the Peninsula will use in a year, the water’s
been piped to the Seaside Basin and stored in injection wells.
Soggy, snow-capped California faces the likelihood of yet
another month of wet weather, but what remains uncertain is
whether this late winter precipitation will augment weeks of
record-setting snowpack, or cause it to vanish should warmer
rains arrive. Last week, a frigid storm transformed portions of
the state into a white landscape while toppling trees,
prompting power outages, spurring water rescues and leaving
some residents trapped by heavy snow. Now, with forecasts
calling for more rain and snow in March — including the
potential for at least one more atmospheric river system —
California is girding for what comes next. … Typically,
California’s snowpack provides about one-third of the state’s
water supply and has long been relied upon for its steady, slow
melting during the hot, dry months of summer. A deluge of warm
rain, however, could cause melting snow to fill rivers too
quickly and trigger widespread flooding.
The California State Water Resources Control Board can’t be
forced to evaluate the “reasonableness” of locally issued
permits to discharge treated wastewater, a state appeals court
ruled, because state law doesn’t impose this obligation on the
agency. The Los Angeles-based Second Appellate District on
Monday overturned a trial judge’s order for the agency to
evaluate the reasonableness of the permits that were renewed in
2017 by its regional board in LA, allowing four treatment
plants to discharge millions of gallons of treated wastewater
in the LA River and the Pacific Ocean every day. LA
Waterkeeper, an environmental watchdog, had challenged the
permits arguing the regional board and the state board should
have considered better uses of the water, such as recycling,
rather than dumping it in the ocean.
As drought-weary Californians watched trillions of gallons of
runoff wash into the Pacific Ocean during recent storms, it
underscored a nagging question: Why can’t we save more of that
water for not-so-rainy days to come? But even the rare
opportunity to stock up on the precious resource isn’t proving
enough to unite a state divided on a contentious idea to siphon
water from the north and tunnel it southward, an attempt to
combat the Southwest’s worst drought in more than a millennium.
The California Department of Water Resources said such a tunnel
could have captured a year’s supply of water for more than 2
million people. The proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
administration — one that would cost $16 billion to help 27
million water customers in central and southern California — is
spurring fresh outrage from communities that have fended off
similar plans over four decades, including suggestions to build
other tunnels or a massive canal.
After a winter of epic storms in California, Yosemite National
Park’s famous waterfalls are in full flow, its reservoirs are
brimming, and the snowpack in the surrounding Sierra Nevada
Mountains is well above average. In drought-stricken
California, that is cause for celebration, but wildlife experts
warn that weather extremes driven by climate change can also
change habitats too quickly for wildlife to adapt.
… [Beth Pratt, California regional director for the
National Wildlife Federation] has been studying Yosemite Valley
wildlife for 25 years, including the more than 400 species of
vertebrates that call the 1,200 square-mile (3,100
square-kilometer) park home. … In his 27 years as a
Yosemite park ranger, Scott Gediman has never seen so much
winter snow and water in the park.
The climate shifts that California is experiencing—with warmer
temperatures, less reliable snowpack, and more intense
droughts—have exposed critical weaknesses in the administration
of our water rights system under conditions of scarcity. In
particular, there are challenges curtailing diversions when
supplies are inadequate. And on the flip side, this system also
needs the capacity to better facilitate the management of
abundance, by permitting the capture of more water from large
storms to recharge groundwater basins. In our remarks today we
recap some of the key challenges the changing climate is posing
for California’s water rights system in both dry and wet times,
illustrate how these issues are playing out in the state’s
largest watershed, and offer some recommendations for how the
legislature could help strengthen the water rights system to
better respond to water scarcity and abundance.
More state money is flowing to the valley to take land out of
production in an attempt to ease demand on groundwater. The
state Department of Water Resources (DWR) is starting a new
program called LandFlex which will pay up to $25 million in
incentives to farmers to fallow crops. On February 23,
DWR announced three grants from the program, all of which are
going to San Joaquin Valley groundwater agencies. Madera
County groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) will receive
$9.3 million, Greater Kaweah GSA will receive $7 million and
Eastern Tule GSA will receive $7 million.
Once hailed as the “American Nile,” the Colorado River spans
1,450 miles and supplies nearly 40 million people across seven
states plus northern Mexico with drinking water, irrigation for
farmland and hydroelectric power. But after decades of drought
and overuse, major reservoirs along the river are drying
up. As the Colorado River levels drop to historic lows,
tensions are rising between the seven states that depend on its
flow — Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah
and Wyoming. Their original agreement for distributing the
river water lacked foresight and failed to account for dire
circumstances like long-term drought. The American
Southwest now faces a crisis it knew was coming.
Meteorologist Bo Svoma hopped down into the 4-foot-deep pit he
had shoveled and grinned like a school kid on a snow day. “Bo
is happy!” shouted one of his Salt River Project colleagues
working snow survey duty on Tuesday. There’s a lot for the
metro Phoenix water supplier to be happy about this winter.
What was supposed to be an unusually dry winter because of the
return of the ocean and atmospheric phenomenon known as La Nińa
has instead shaped up as the Arizona rim country’s
second-snowiest season in 30 years. The ocean conditions that
usually would push the jet stream and its storms toward the
Pacific Northwest instead have driven storm after storm into
the Southwest.
In a bright-red county in a state allergic to regulations,
there is a ban on growing grass outside new businesses. Only 8%
of a home’s landscaping can have a grass lawn in this booming
corner of Utah, about a hundred miles northeast of Las Vegas.
And if any developers want to add another country club to this
golfing mecca, … Like lots of spots in the West, the
combination of more people and less water makes for an
uncertain future around St. George, Utah. While this winter’s
generous snowpack could buy precious time, the entire Colorado
River system remains in danger of crashing if water gets too
low at Lakes Powell and Mead. But that reality hasn’t
stopped St. George from booming into the fastest growing metro
area in the US two years running, according to the US
Census Bureau, and Renstrom says that unless Utah builds a
long-promised pipeline to pump water 140 miles from Lake
Powell, their growth will turn to pain.
On February 21, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) issued its decision in
American Rivers v. American Petroleum Institute, Case No.
21-16958, reversing the federal district court’s order that
vacated a Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 Certification Rule
after the district court had granted a voluntary remand of the
rule requested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). The CWA allows states and tribes to exert
significant oversight on the federal permitting process by
blocking or delaying controversial energy and infrastructure
projects for a multitude of reasons, including impacts on
climate. States and tribes derive their authority to influence
federal permitting from Section 401 of the Act.
In communities across California, a Napa winery is implementing
a strategy to save water and fight against drought
conditions. Reid family winery uses mounds of rice straw
under their grapevines, which they said not only helped double
their yield from the year before, but also produced some of the
winery’s best quality grapes yet. … The owners said that
they were able to water significantly less last year compared
to years prior. Since laying the rice straw, they haven’t seen
rivulets or erosion in their sloping vineyard. They
predict that they will have to replace the rice straw every 4
to 5 years.
South Bay reservoirs are handling the recent rain quite well
due in part to a delicate dance water managers have been doing
to make sure they catch as much water as possible. … To make
room for future storms, Valley Water has been strategically
releasing water from reservoirs, which is part of the reason
why the county average for reservoir capacity right now is only
50%. Valley Water said the winter rain so far still isn’t
enough to call off the drought emergency. … The Sierra
snowpack is also looking robust. Experts say the hope now is
that the Sierra stays cold for the next few weeks to keep the
snowpack intact. The goal is for the snowpack to begin melting
in mid-spring in time for the runoff to refill the reservoirs
again.
Clean water is California’s most vital need. Our lives and the
lives of future generations depend on it. Yet when it comes to
protecting the state’s supply, Gov. Gavin Newsom is failing
California. The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta provides
drinking water to 27 million Californians, or roughly 70% of
the state’s residents. On Feb. 15, the governor signed an
executive order allowing the State Water Resources Control
Board to ignore the state requirement of how much water needs
to flow through the Delta to protect its health. It’s an
outrageous move right out of Donald Trump’s playbook. Big Ag
and its wealthy landowners, including some of Newsom’s
political financial backers, will reap the benefits while the
Delta suffers.
If there’s concern about California’s wet winter turning dry,
consider it shushed. The heaps of snow over the past
week on top of the parade of deluges in early January have been
extraordinary and left much of the state with
well-above-average precipitation for the season. The winter
storms, which account for the bulk of the state’s rain and
snow, are forecast to continue into next month, virtually
ensuring a good water year for California. But just how
far one year will go to relieving what has been one of the
West’s most excruciating droughts is less clear.
While many parts of the state are benefiting from brimming
rivers and reservoirs, the three previous years, which saw
record low precipitation, as well as several painfully dry
years over the past two decades, have burdened the state with a
gaping water deficit.
A judge has extended a temporary settlement of a long-running
dispute over California water rights and how the Central Valley
Project and State Water Project manage the Sacramento River
flows. … The opinions address how the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources’ plan
for operating the Central Valley and State Water Projects
affects fish species. The opinions make it possible to send
more water to 20 million farms, businesses and homes in
Southern and Central California via the massive federal and
state water diversion projects, and eliminate requirements such
as mandating extra flows to keep water temperatures from rising
high enough to damage salmon eggs. … A federal
judge approved plans to allow the biological opinions
to remain in effect over the next three years with added
safeguards.
Four states that use water from the Colorado River are asking
the federal government to pause some water releases from
Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New
Mexico, which make up the river’s Upper Basin, voted to suspend
additional releases starting March 1. Delegates from those
states say the federal government should let heavy winter
precipitation boost water levels in Flaming Gorge. The
reservoir, which straddles the border of Wyoming and Utah, is
the third largest in the Colorado River system, behind only
Lake Mead and Lake Powell. The Bureau of Reclamation, the
federal agency which manages dams and reservoirs in the arid
West, has turned to Flaming Gorge to help prop up Lake Powell,
where record low levels are threatening hydropower production
inside the Glen Canyon Dam.
After weeks of record-breaking rainfall have seen freeways
flood, hillsides collapse and the dry concrete gutter of the
Los Angeles River transform into a raging torrent, you may have
assumed that California’s water-shortage woes were beginning to
ease. With many areas receiving their usual annual rainfall in
just three weeks, surely the multiyear megadrought is finally
abating. Sadly, no. Decades of building concrete gutters –
driven by the mindset that stormwater is a threat to be
banished, not an asset to be stored – have meant that the vast
majority of that rain was simply flushed out into the ocean. Of
the billions of gallons that have fallen on the LA area, only a
tiny fraction were absorbed into the ground.
The immediate question before the seven states that use rapidly
vanishing Colorado River water is not how to renegotiate the
century-old agreement and accompanying laws that divvy up the
supply. California and other states will have to grapple with
that problem soon enough, and it won’t be easy. Those accords
were hammered out in an era when the Western U.S. was lightly
populated, farmland was not yet fully developed and the climate
— although few realized it at the time — was unusually wet.
Now, when the thirst is greatest and still growing, the region
is reverting to its former aridity, exacerbated by higher
temperatures caused by global industrialization. But the
deadline for that reckoning is still nearly four years off.
Drive traffic-clogged Interstate 10 through Phoenix’s West
Valley suburbs and you’d hardly know the Southwest is as dry as
it’s been in 1,200 years. Water gulping data centers, large
warehouses and distribution centers have sprouted in the barren
desert. Housing development after housing development is slated
for construction. … Phoenix is now America’s fifth
largest city. And the growth and economic boom particularly in
its West Valley is continuing unabated despite larger questions
about the future of water supplies amid a 23 year megadrought
on the Colorado River. Winter temperatures at the river’s
headwaters in the Rocky Mountains have risen by an
estimated 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1980, meaning less
water for the region’s snow fed reservoirs.
This month the Santa Fe Irrigation District is preparing to
increase water rate charges for the next three years. The rate
structure approved by the board in late 2022 was for tiered
rates with a meter overlay for residential properties, an
option they believe is unique to accommodate the variations in
the district from small Solana Beach city lots to larger
properties in Rancho Santa Fe. The public is invited to attend
the public hearing on March 28 at 8:30 a.m. at the district
offices. In accordance with Prop 218, notices about the
proposed rate structure were sent out in February giving
customers an opportunity to protest the rate increases up until
the March 28 hearing. If the district receives protest forms
from a majority of its 6,500 customers, the rate plan will not
go forward.
A conversation with UCCE Viticulture Advisor Dr. Chris Chen
(Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino Counties) and soil scientist Noelymar
Gonzalez-Maldonado (UC Davis) about regenerative viticulture,
soils, and climate resilience in vineyards. Released February
24, 2023.
Generations of Californians have taken for granted how water is
engineered to enable the grand agricultural nature of this
state. Now our water system suffers from severe drought and
reduced snowpacks. The Colorado River is in peril. Wells are
going dry. Water is getting contaminated. Land is losing value.
People are losing livelihoods. Such dilemmas are exacerbated in
disadvantaged communities. Large Central Valley growers
overpump water from wells in direct violation of the state’s
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Meanwhile, families in
farmworker towns go without clean and affordable water. They
still pay high water bills while resorting to bottled water to
cook, bathe and drink provided by government, nonprofits and
labor unions. -Written by Victor Griego, founder of Water Education
for Latino Leaders.
Residents across the Southland woke up to an icy wonderland
Sunday morning, the result of an frigid winter storm that broke
rainfall records and scattered fresh powder at elevations as
low as 1,000 feet across the normally warm, sun-drenched
region. Mountain communities were slammed by intense snowfall,
with Mountain High ski resort clocking an impressive 93 inches
of snow… Climatologists say the storms will probably be
beneficial for drought recovery after years of prolonged
dryness. … The storms have also helped bolster the
state’s snowpack, a vital component of the state’s water
supply. As of Friday, the Sierra snowpack was 173% of normal
for the date. It may get another boost this week.
Last century, California built dozens of large dams, creating
the elaborate reservoir system that supplies the bulk of the
state’s drinking and irrigation water. Now state officials and
supporters are ready to build the next one. The Sites Reservoir
— planned in a remote corner of the western Sacramento Valley
for at least 40 years — has been gaining steam and support
since 2014, when voters approved Prop. 1, a water bond that
authorized $2.7 billion for new storage projects. Still,
Sites Reservoir remains almost a decade away: Acquisition of
water rights, permitting and environmental review are still in
the works. Kickoff of construction, which includes two large
dams, had been scheduled for 2024, but likely will be delayed
another year. Completion is expected in 2030 or 2031.
Alongside farmers, ranchers and sprawling urban cities, Mother
Nature has long sipped her share of the Colorado River —
draining away enough water through evaporation and seepage to
support nearly 6 million families each year. But as
decades of drought strain major reservoirs in the Mountain
West, threatening future water supplies and hydropower, states
are divided over who should be picking up nature’s tab for the
huge amount of water lost on the 1,500-mile-long
waterway. The Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico,
Utah and Wyoming — already account for some 468,000 acre-feet
of water that evaporates from its reservoirs each
year.
The drought crisis on the Colorado River looms large in
California’s Imperial Valley, which produces much of the
nation’s lettuce, broccoli and other crops, and now faces water
cuts. But those cuts will also be bad news for the
environmental and ecological disaster unfolding just to the
north, at the shallow, shimmering and long-suffering Salton
Sea. “There’s going to be collateral damage everywhere,” said
Frank Ruiz, a program director with California Audubon. To
irrigate their fields, the valley’s farmers rely completely on
Colorado River water, which arrives by an 80-mile-long canal.
And the Salton Sea, the state’s largest lake, relies on water
draining from those fields to stay full. But it’s been
shrinking for decades, killing off fish species that attract
migratory birds and exposing lake bed that generates dust that
is harmful to human health.
Despite the storms that have deluged California this winter,
the state remains dogged by drought. And one of the simplest
solutions — collecting and storing rainfall — is far more
complicated than it seems. Much of California’s water
infrastructure hinges on storing precipitation during the late
fall and winter for use during the dry spring and summer. The
state’s groundwater aquifers can hold vast quantities of water
— far more than its major reservoirs. But those aquifers have
been significantly depleted in recent decades, especially in
the Central Valley, where farmers have increasingly pumped out
water for their crops. And as Raymond Zhong, a New York Times
climate journalist, recently reported, the state’s strict
regulations surrounding water rights limit the diversion of
floodwaters for storage as groundwater, even during fierce
storms …
An updated report on the San Joaquin Valley’s water crisis
shows the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is not enough
and additional water trading measures will need to be taken in
order to stabilize local agricultural economies. The Public
Policy Institute of California put out a policy brief on the
future of agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley. Its analysis
of the next 20 years indicates that annual water supplies for
the Valley could decline by 10 to 20%. The Valley has been long
understood to be the breadbasket of the United States and is
home to the nation’s top three agricultural counties. However,
without more innovative solutions, the Valley will likely have
to fallow 900,000 acres of farmland and and cost 50,000 jobs
leading to a major loss in the local economies The report
indicates that the loss of almost a million acres is
unavoidable…
While the lack of groundwater regulation plagues rural Arizona,
there are proposed ways to create a larger supply in the region
without depending on dwindling amounts from the Colorado River
and groundwater. The Colorado River and local groundwater
supplies around 40% of Arizona’s water. Lake Powell in northern
Arizona and southern Utah is at record-low levels, as of Feb.
18. It is the lowest level it has been measured at since its
construction in the 1960s. Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl
Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, called the
Colorado River crisis Arizona’s most imminent water
problem.
Sonoma County will be hosting a special public meeting of the
Board of Supervisors on Monday to discuss water infrastructure
and climate change challenges as well as possible water rate
hikes. The county says that its water, wastewater and flood
protection systems are more than a half-century old and are
therefore precarious in the face of a large earthquake, climate
change and wear and tear. Sonoma County Water Agency is
the county’s wholesale supplier of water to communities in both
Sonoma and Marin counties, serving more than 600,000 people,
according to the county. Six water collector wells exist near
the Russian River and three groundwater wells. Water pumped
from these wells goes through 88 miles of aqueducts that are
between 45 and 65 years old.
Morro Bay officials celebrated the start of operation for the
city’s $160 million wastewater treatment facility — months
ahead of a state-imposed deadline — on a chilly, rainy Thursday
morning. The Morro Bay Water Resources Center is the largest
municipal project in the city’s history, Scott Collins, Morro
Bay’s outgoing city manager, said at Thursday’s ceremony.
Located at 555 South Bay Blvd. south of town, the new sewage
treatment facility will use “scientifically proven, advanced
purification processes,” including reverse osmosis and
ultraviolet advanced oxidation, according to a news release.
The plant processes an average of 1 million gallons of
wastewater a day, but can process up to 8.14 million gallons
per day during storm events, according to engineer Erick
Bevington.
U.S. first lady Jill Biden got an up-close look Sunday at the
historic East Africa drought as she walked along arid land and
listened as some Maasai women described how their children and
livestock are going hungry. She appealed for more countries to
join the United States to help alleviate the suffering. Some
areas of the Horn of Africa have endured five consecutive
failed rainy seasons, meaning there was no rainfall or an
insufficient amount to help farmers with their crops and
livestock. An upcoming sixth rainy season, beginning in March,
is expected to be about the same or worse.
Utah’s Great Salt Lake doesn’t look so “great” these days. This
place where tourists once bobbed up and down like corks in
water far saltier than the ocean is now quite literally turning
to dust. … Climate change and the West’s historic
megadrought certainly haven’t done the lake any favors, but
it’s the diversion of water away from the lake that Romney says
is less than divine: “The water in this area helped us bloom
like a rose, as the Scripture says. And yeah, we’ve got trees
and beautiful lawns. But some of that’s gonna have to
change.” Most of the lake’s water is spoken for long
before it gets there. It’s not just those green lawns for
Utah’s exploding population; 70% of the water goes to
agriculture. And then there’s the billion-dollar-a-year mineral
extraction industry. It uses the lake’s water, too.
As Californians braced for record-breaking rain and snowstorms
on Feb. 22, the Department of Water Resources announced what it
called a modest increase in forecast State Water Project
deliveries this year. The SWP now expects to deliver 35 percent
of requested water supplies, up from 30 percent forecast in
January, to the 29 public water agencies that serve 27 million
Californians including residents of Tehachapi-Cummings County
Water District. The district’s general manager, Tom Neisler,
stopped short of calling the increase stingy, but noted that
many water-watchers believe the allocation could be much higher
— particularly since Gov. Gavin Newsom just a week earlier
issued an executive order to suspend environmental laws to
allow state officials to hold more water in reservoirs.
California’s water authorities will spend $15 million in three
crucial water management zones within the drought-ravaged
southern Central Valley. The hub of agricultural
production in the Golden State, the Central Valley has also
faced the most dire impacts from another historic drought, as
thousands of wells went dry last year and many communities
faced a total lack of safe drinking water. The state’s
authorities say they are releasing funds to begin projects to
prevent such hardship in future droughts. The Department of
Water Resources along with California Natural Resources
Secretary Wade Crowfoot came to the small city of Parlier on
Thursday to announce three grants totaling $15 million to
improve water infrastructure in the region.
With the Colorado River teetering on the brink of disaster,
farmers who rely on its life-giving water are preparing to make
significant cuts to their operations. Near the U.S.-Mexico
border, fourth-generation farmer Amanda Brooks grows broccoli,
lettuce, dates, citrus and alfalfa on 6,000 acres. Her family’s
farm in Yuma, Arizona, nearly touches the banks of the troubled
river. … Last year, a top government official warned
Congress the river was running dangerously low. Speaking before
a Senate committee, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille
Touton said the seven Colorado River Basin would need to make
drastic cuts to their water use to keep the reservoirs stable.
California’s drought-stricken reservoirs have recovered due to
January’s string of “atmospheric river” storms, according to
the U.S. Drought Monitor, but don’t let what seems like copious
amounts of water fool you. The storms were “likely insufficient
to reverse” California’s drought, according to the NASA. Plus
notoriously hot and dry California summers, which typically
fuel worsening drought conditions and breed seasonal wildfires,
is just around the corner. For now, drought statuses remain
relatively the same, compared to one week ago. The U.S.
Drought Monitor — in a weekly update published Thursday —
reports the state’s “abnormally dry” status increased less than
one percentage point to nearly 99.4%. The other conditions
across the Golden State remained the same.
For Patrick Sing, a water manager with the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the deluge was an opportunity to try something that
would be dangerous anywhere else in the country. Sing sits at
the controls of Lake Mendocino, a reservoir on the Russian
River near Ukiah, in northern California. … Researchers
working on the approach in the U.S. say they aren’t aware of
any similar projects in other countries,
but studies suggest that integrating forecasts
has the potential to improve reservoir operations anywhere
weather predictions are sufficiently reliable. The approach
could also help aging dams respond to more variable
precipitation seen with climate change.
Marin Municipal Water District officials are proposing rate
increases during drought periods to prevent financial
shortfalls, but say ratepayers shouldn’t expect their bills to
spike if they meet their conservation targets. … In a
presentation, Bret Uppendahl, the district finance director,
said adding drought surcharges to water rates is a common
practice by water agencies throughout the country, including
the North Marin Water District. The surcharges are used to make
up for revenue losses during droughts resulting from reduced
water sales from conservation and mandatory water use
restrictions. The district does not use these surcharges and
instead sets aside its regular water sales revenue into a
reserve fund that it taps when droughts occur.
What do Bordeaux, Loire, Mosel, Rhine, Rhône, Douro, Napa,
Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Tokaj and the Wachau all have in
common? If you said they are all major wine regions split by
rivers or laced with tributaries, pour yourself a glass of
wine. It may seem obvious, but wine wouldn’t exist without
water. And rivers deliver it. For centuries that has meant
soil, sediment, nutrients, warming and cooling influences and,
of course, water, all traveling along riverbanks. According to
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), today the United
States alone has more than 3 million miles of rivers and
streams—and many of those miles have historically made
agriculture, including viticulture, possible. … Running
around 50 miles from Mt. St. Helena in the north and
spilling into the San Pablo Bay, the Napa River is home to
plants, endangered critters and some of the most valuable
acreage of grapevines in the country.
Come drought or deluge, how can we develop a lasting water
agreement for the greater Sacramento area? That’s the
challenging task before the Water Forum, a unique consortium of
business and agricultural leaders, citizen groups,
environmentalists, water managers and local governments,
including the City of Roseville. With eyes particularly on
Folsom Lake and the Lower American River, as well as weather,
Water Forum members work on water issues both near- and
long-term. Recent winter storms, following years of drought,
added extra complexity to that job.
California farms and cities that get their water from the
Central Valley Project are due to receive a large increase in
water allocations this year after snowpack and reservoirs were
replenished in winter storms, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced Wednesday. Most recipients of the Central Valley
Projects are irrigation districts that supply farms, and some
are cities, including those served by the East Bay Municipal
Utility District and Contra Costa Water District in the Bay
Area. Farms that received zero initial water allocations last
year, in the third year of the state’s historic drought, are
due to receive 35% of their allocation this year, the most
they’ve gotten since 2019. Others, including the
Sacramento River Settlement Contractors, large shareholders
with senior water rights, will receive 100% of their contracted
water supply.
California’s water board decided Tuesday to temporarily allow
more storage in Central Valley reservoirs, waiving state rules
that require water to be released to protect salmon and other
endangered fish. The waiver means more water can be sent to the
cities and growers that receive supplies from the San
Joaquin-Sacramento Delta through the State Water Project and
the federal Central Valley Project. The state aqueduct delivers
water to 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and
750,000 acres of farmland, while the Central Valley Project
mostly serves farms. The flow rules will remain suspended until
March 31. Environmentalists reacted with frustration and
concern that the move will jeopardize chinook salmon and other
native fish in the Delta that are already struggling to
survive…. But water suppliers applauded the decision,
saying the water is needed to help provide enough water to
cities and farms.
Two huge dam projects are being planned in Santa Clara County
at a price tag in the billions. The Biden administration has
decided to help fund one of them but — at least for now — not
the other. At a news conference scheduled for Thursday, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to announce it has
approved $727 million in low-interest loans to the Santa Clara
Valley Water District to help fund the rebuilding of Anderson
Dam near Morgan Hill. The largest reservoir in Santa Clara
County, Anderson has been drained for earthquake repairs since
2020, exacerbating Silicon Valley’s water shortages. Federal
dam safety officials were concerned that its 240-foot earthen
dam, built in 1950, could fail in an earthquake. But the water
district also asked the EPA for twice as much in other
low-interest loans — $1.45 billion — to help fund construction
of a huge new dam near Pacheco Pass and Henry W. Coe State
Park.
Southern California has only gotten a taste of the powerful
winter storm system that forecasters say will bring an extended
period of cold temperatures, high winds and snow, prompting
what officials called the region’s first blizzard warning since
1989. The blizzard warning, which is in effect Friday and
Saturday for Southern California’s highest mountain ranges, is
likely only the second on record for the Los Angeles area,
according to the National Weather Service, Officials initially
called this week’s warning the first on record, then later
confirmed a blizzard warning was also issued in 1989, when a
strong winter storm brought rare snowfall to Southern
California, from Palm Springs to the hillsides of Malibu.
If the Colorado River continues to dwindle from the same arid
trend of the last two decades, it could take as little as two
bad drought years to drive the reservoir here on the
Arizona-Nevada border to “dead pool.” That’s the term for
levels so low that water can barely flow out of Hoover Dam.
Mead is already just 29 percent full, its lowest level since it
began filling in the 1930s. But dead pool would be a true
disaster for farms, towns and cities from San Diego to Denver
that depend on water from Mead and other reservoirs in the
Colorado River Basin. Lake Powell, upstream on the Arizona-Utah
border, is 23 percent full, the lowest since it filled in the
1960s. -Written by John Fleck, co-author of “Science Be
Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado
River.”
Climate change isn’t the only threat facing California’s birds.
Over the course of the 20th century, urban sprawl and
agricultural development have dramatically changed the
landscape of the state, forcing many native species to adapt to
new and unfamiliar habitats. In a new study, biologists at
the University of California, Berkeley, use current and
historical bird surveys to reveal how land use
change has amplified—and in some cases mitigated—the
impacts of climate change on bird populations in Los
Angeles and the Central Valley.
California’s reservoirs may be as full as they’ve been in years
thanks to recent rainfall, but it’s still not enough water to
meet the state’s demands — and it will never be if the state
doesn’t invest in new ways to capture all that precious water.
Not enough of the state’s heavy rainfall is draining into
California’s underground reservoirs to keep us sated, even
through the next summer. January saw torrential downpours.
February has been dry. This week, California will see a blanket
of snow across much of the state, and some forecasters predict
it will even reach coastal communities such as Eureka. -Written by Robin Epley, opinion writer for The
Sacramento Bee.
Life in the southwestern U.S. as we know it exists thanks to
the water of the Colorado River, which flows for approximately
1,450 miles from the Rockies to the Gulf of California. The
river gets its water from the Colorado River drainage basin,
which spreads some 246,000 square miles. A drainage basin is an
area where all precipitation flows to the same river, or set of
streams. The Colorado River basin is made up of all of
Arizona, parts of California, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah,
Nevada, and Wyoming, and two Mexican states—Baja California and
Sonora—although the final two states contribute little runoff
to the river.
After another big storm this week we will see much of the
rainwater flowing out to the ocean instead of being captured
for use. Los Angeles County officials say saving more of this
water will be key for dealing with drought. … Wednesday, the
county broke ground on a new project at Adventure Park in
Whittier. It is building a 6-million gallon underground storage
system that will capture stormwater. … The county has
been working for decades to capture stormwater. The San Gabriel
River has a series of rubber dams that can be inflated when
needed to hold the water. The water is then released slowly
where it seeps into the ground. With projects like this
one the county says in the next five years it will capture 18
billion gallons of water. That’s enough for 500,000 people for
a year.
A shortage on the Colorado River has put tremendous pressure on
the water supply that serves more than 40-million people in the
Western United States. But a punishing drought and the over
allocation of the river have also created an urgent problem for
California’s Salton Sea. The 340-square-mile lake was formed in
1905 when a canal carrying river water to farmers in the
Imperial Valley ruptured. The flood created a desert oasis that
lured tourists and migratory birds to its shore. A century
later, the Salton Sea — California’s largest lake — is
spiraling into an ecological disaster. At 223 feet below
sea level, Bombay Beach occupies a low spot on the
map. Many of the shoreline community’s trailer homes are
rusting into the earth and tagged with graffiti. Artists have
created large pieces of public sculpture, including a vintage
phone booth that stands on the shoreline as a tribute to a
bygone era.
Only weeks after a series of atmospheric rivers deluged
California, the state is once again bracing for powerful winter
weather that could deliver heaps of rain and snow, including
fresh powder at elevations as low as 1,500 feet. But as
worsening climate extremes and water supply challenges continue
to bedevil the state, officials cautioned residents Tuesday not
to assume that the recent moisture signaled an end to the
drought. The entire state remains under a drought emergency
declaration that Gov. Gavin Newsom issued in 2021, with
millions of residents still under strict watering restrictions.
A significant winter storm is expected to deliver heavy rain
and snow to a wide swath of the United States this week, from
the West Coast to the Northeast. Cold air from Canada will
interact with a pair of fronts, causing “numerous weather
hazards” and abnormal temperatures while “almost all of the
country [experiences] some form of notable weather,”
the National Weather Service said. Snow accumulation
of 1 to 2 feet is expected for most mountain ranges across the
West, where the storm is arriving at an ideal time to lift the
region’s already impressive snowpack. As of
Tuesday, snowpack in California was sitting at 174%
of normal for Feb. 21, according to the California Department
of Water Resources. Regionally, the Southern Sierra was at
208%, Central Sierra at 176% and the Northern Sierra/Trinity at
144%.
It sounds like an obvious fix for California’s whipsawing
cycles of deluge and drought: Capture the water from downpours
so it can be used during dry spells. Pump it out of
flood-engorged rivers and spread it in fields or sandy basins,
where it can seep into the ground and replenish the region’s
huge, badly depleted aquifers. … Yet even this winter, when
the skies delivered bounties of water not seen in half a
decade, large amounts of it surged down rivers and out into the
ocean. Water agencies and experts say California
bureaucracy is increasingly to blame — the state tightly
regulates who gets to take water from streams and creeks to
protect the rights of people downriver, and its rules don’t
adjust nimbly even when storms are delivering a torrent of new
supply.
From leaving some farmland fallow, to pressuring cities to
conserve more water, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a
Democrat, says everything should be on the table to use
Colorado River water more efficiently and help it sustain life
in the southwestern U.S. for years to come. Hickenlooper
is helping convene a group of senators to try to broker a
compromise to conserve Colorado River water. The Colorado River
Compact was signed in 1922 and established how much water seven
states, dozens of tribes, and Mexico can use. But between
overuse and a mega drought that has lasted longer than 20
years, the southwest is dangerously close to not being able to
get water where it needs to go.
Not issuing the drought permits could have a significant impact
on agriculture in the region if farmers don’t have access to
irrigation water. …The department usually issues 40 to 50
drought permits per year. A spokesperson for the Klamath Water
Users Association, which lobbies for the basin’s agriculture
community, did not respond to an interview request. Groundwater
levels in the Klamath Basin have declined significantly in
recent years. OWRD said the water level dropped by 20 to 30
feet over the last three years alone, so additional access is
unsustainable. Emergency drought declarations have been made in
Klamath County in 16 of the past 31 years.
The future is now. Governor Newsom’s February 13, 2023
Executive Order ordering the State Water Board to
consider modifying flow and storage requirements for the State
Water Project (SWP) and the Central Valley Project (CVP) is his
blueprint for the Bay-Delta estuary and every river that feeds
it. When requirements to protect water quality, fish, and
wildlife are inconvenient, water managers can ignore them. It’s
all voluntary. For ten-odd years, California’s water managers
have promised “Voluntary Agreements” to replace the Bay-Delta
Water Quality Control Plan. They could never figure out
the details of what to propose.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: We tell stories all the time about
climate-fueled disasters that uproot people’s lives – fires in
California, hurricanes in Louisiana. Well, Jake Bittle’s new
book is about what happens in the years after those events.
It’s called “The Great Displacement: Climate Change And The
Next American Migration.” It goes from drought-hit farms in
Arizona to flooded coastlines in Virginia. Jake Bittle, welcome
to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. … SHAPIRO: Even though the
patterns of displacement are chaotic and unpredictable, there
are certain consistent themes. Like, you say climate
displacement exacerbates income inequality. And one place
that’s really apparent is Northern California. You write about
the Tubbs Fire, which roared through Santa Rosa. What happened
after that?
You see them all over the San Joaquin Valley: Sparkling new
housing developments promising luxury living outside the big
cities. But a recent investigation from our non-profit
reporting partners shows the risks of building communities in
areas with unreliable access to drinking water. Back in the
1980s, county officials knew the risks of building homes in the
Mira Bella development near Millerton Lake in the foothills of
Fresno County, but they greenlit the project anyway—and now
residents and taxpayers are paying the price. In this
interview, KVPR’s Kerry Klein talks with the reporters who
produced this story, Jesse Vad of SJV Water and Gregory Weaver
of Fresnoland, about the lengths Mira Bella residents are going
to to solve their water problems, and what it demonstrates
about who does and does not have access to drinking water in
California.
Downpours or drought, California’s farm belt will need to
tighten up in the next two decades and grow fewer crops. There
simply won’t be enough water to sustain present irrigation in
the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater is dangerously depleted.
Wells are drying up and the land is sinking in many places,
cracking canals. Surface water supplies have been cut back
because of drought, and future deliveries are uncertain due to
climate change and environmental
regulations. … Agriculture is water intensive. And
water is becoming increasingly worrisome in the West,
particularly with overuse of the Colorado River. There’s plenty
of water off our coast, but we’ve only begun to dip our toe
into desalination. -Written by columnist George Skelton.
Honeybees are essential pollinators for our local and global
food supply, and after years of drought and other threats, a
local beekeeper is optimistic about the coming season. Jeremy
Rose teaches beekeeping at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He also
owns a local bee business. He said honeybee colonies managed by
beekeepers live in wooden boxes that stack on top of one
another. The boxes have small openings so the worker bees can
go in and out.
The Butte County Office of Emergency Management applied for a
$17 million grant from the state to help fund projects and
mitigate the impact of the drought in Northern
California. The money will go towards long-term projects
to help the community be more drought resistant. Butte
County Office of Emergency Services Deputy Administrative
Officer Josh Jimerfield said it’s put together a plan with
three different components, including immediate action on
programs like water hauling, temporary tank programs and
bottled water, as well as education and outreach.
The Bakersfield City Council at its meeting Wednesday will
likely approve a $288,350 contract to conduct a detailed study
of the city’s water supplies and demands with a strong focus on
Kern River operations. Though the proposed study, on the
consent agenda, isn’t in direct response to a lawsuit filed
last year against the city by Water Audit of California over
the river, the study could answer some questions posed in the
lawsuit. The Water Audit suit alleges the city has been
derelict by not considering the public in how it operates the
river. The lawsuit doesn’t demand money. Rather it seeks to
stop water diversions from the river temporarily while the
court orders the city to study how river operations have
affected fisheries, the environment and recreational uses.
The desiccation of the Colorado River has left Lake Powell, the
country’s second-largest reservoir, at just 23% of capacity,
its lowest level since it was filled in the 1960s. With the
reservoir now just 32 feet away from “minimum power pool” — the
point at which Glen Canyon Dam would no longer generate power
for six states — federal officials are studying the possibility
of overhauling the dam so that it can continue to generate
electricity and release water at critically low levels. A
preliminary analysis of potential modifications to the dam
emerged during a virtual meeting held by the federal Bureau of
Reclamation, which is also reviewing options for averting a
collapse of the water supply along the river.
After three of the driest years in California history, recent
storms brought some of the wettest and snowiest weeks on record
to parts of the state. Snowpack accumulated during winter is
vital to the state’s water system because the natural form of
water storage melts during the spring and fills reservoirs that
can then distribute water downstream where needed. The
Sierra Nevada snowpack supplies about 30% of California’s water
needs when it melts. How fast that happens can greatly impact
the state’s water supply system.
Winter storms have filled California’s reservoirs and built up
a colossal Sierra snowpack that’s nearly twice its normal size
for this time of year. But years of dry conditions have created
problems far beneath the Earth’s surface that aren’t as easily
addressed. Groundwater — found in underground layers containing
sand, soil and rock — is crucial for drinking water and
sustaining farms. During drought years, 60% of California’s
annual water supply comes from groundwater. … The chart
below shows how water on the surface and underground have
changed over the years in California’s Central Valley — an
agricultural hub that has seen some of the state’s most
pressing issues related to groundwater. Compared with 2004, the
amount of water on and below the ground in 2022 has dropped by
nearly 55 cubic kilometers.
Only weeks ago, Angelenos watched as trillions of gallons of
precious stormwater poured into the region’s concrete
waterways, slid down slick pavement and washed out to sea.
After so many months of drought-related water restrictions, it
seemed to many like a missed opportunity. While officials say
they’re making progress when it comes to capturing more of the
county’s stormwater, a new report from watchdog group Los
Angeles Waterkeeper has focused on the plan’s sluggish progress
so far, and calls for improved metrics and a more proactive
approach, among other recommendations. The Safe Clean
Water Program — passed by Los Angeles County voters in
2018 as Measure W — allocates $280 million annually to
projects aimed at capturing and cleaning stormwater when it
falls.
The time is fast approaching when a native fish species known
as the Clear Lake hitch should begin their yearly run up
tributaries around the lake to produce a new generation of
young. Pomo elders and old-timers say the hitch, or “chi,” as
they are known by the region’s Indigenous people, once spawned
in such abundance that people could practically walk across
their backs in the creeks. For the region’s tribal members, the
spawning time was cause for celebration — a reason for tribal
folk from all around to gather, collect food for the year and
visit. But all that was before expanding development and
agriculture, declining water quality, gravel mining, invasive
species, habitat loss and extended drought took a toll on the
hitch, a species of minnow found nowhere else on earth.
As Prudy Foxx walked through rows of ripening fruit at several
vineyards nestled among the Santa Cruz Mountains last
September, she cringed at the spindly shoots rising from the
stocky grapevine trunks. … A similar scene played out
last fall at many vineyards around the Bay Area: years of
drought taking a destructive toll on the vines, threatening a
billion-dollar industry and putting more stress on California’s
scant stored water resources. Then, like a “godsend,” the
rains came. Over several weeks in December and January,
storms dropped more than a foot of rain on Northern California,
smashing historic records and leaving a wide swath of
devastation in their wake.
When atmospheric rivers drenched the North Bay in December and
January, the Lockharts greeted those heavy rains with open arms
and undisguised relief. Daunting and destructive as those
storms were — causing widespread flooding, downed trees and
mudslides — they brought a bounty that soaked a parched
landscape, easing stress and strain on a wide range of flora
and fauna. Joining the Lockharts’ chorus of hallelujahs were
farmers and ranchers, anxious water supply experts and — if
they could sing — coho salmon and steelhead trout now migrating
up the recharged Russian River and its now-swollen tributaries,
to spawn.
After a mostly dry February, California may see a return of
stormy weather over the next week — a welcome addition to a
snowpack that will bring some relief to the historic
drought. The Western Regional Climate Center reported
Thursday that despite a relatively slow February for snowfall,
a deep snowpack that began accumulating during three weeks of
relentless storms last month has grown stronger in California
and the Great Basin. … The updated
report shows that most of California’s snowpack sites are
now measuring above 150% of the 1991-2020 median for snowpack
levels. This follows a trend the California Department of Water
Resources reported two weeks ago — that statewide snowpack is
at 205% of average, thanks to a winter that is outpacing the
wettest year on record going back to 1982 and boosting
reservoir levels to 9 million acre-feet statewide.
It was exactly the sort of deluge California groundwater
agencies have been counting on to replenish their overworked
aquifers. The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential
Pacific storms to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the
Sierra Nevada at a near-record pace while runoff from the
foothills gushed into the Central Valley, swelling rivers over
their banks and filling seasonal creeks for the first time in
half a decade. Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in
one of the state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an
opportunity to capture stormwater and bank it underground.
… The barrage of water was in many ways the first real
test of groundwater sustainability agencies’ plans to bring
their basins into balance, as required by California’s landmark
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The run of
storms revealed an assortment of bright spots and hurdles the
state must overcome to fully take advantage of the bounty
brought by the next big atmospheric river storm.
As January’s drenching storms have given way to an unseasonably
dry February, Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking to waive
environmental rules in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
in an effort to store more water in reservoirs — a move that is
drawing heated criticism from environmental advocates who say
the action will imperil struggling fish populations. …The
agencies are requesting an easing of requirements that would
otherwise mandate larger flows through the estuary. The aim is
to hold back more water in Lake Oroville while also continuing
to pump water to reservoirs south of the delta that supply
farmlands as well as Southern California cities that are
dealing with the ongoing shortage of supplies from the
shrinking Colorado River.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said there is still a “divide” between
California and the rest of the states that use the Colorado
River; however, he’s also a “little more optimistic” that all
of the Colorado River states can come to an agreement on a plan
to reduce water use from the drought-affected river. The
governor said that there was a “wonderful update” when the
states met about the issue earlier this week, noting that it
appears the biggest divide seems to be between California and
Arizona, not California and the rest of the group, including
Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming. Mexico also has
a share of the river. California is the only state that hasn’t
signed an agreement to cut Colorado River consumption.
L.A. County voters passed Measure W back in 2018. Since then,
the tax on impermeable pavement helps fund stormwater capture
projects across the region. Now, more than four years later, a
new report finds that the Safe Clean Water Program — which is
made up of multiple committees that review and approve funding
for projects — has helped significantly in: Clearing a backlog
of city and county projects to improve local water quality and
infrastructure Distributing more than $1 billion to primarily
fund such projects The report is from environmental non-profit
L.A. Waterkeeper.
A team of researchers at UC Davis this year will study 10
different species of trees in Sacramento to determine which
have the best chance of thriving as global average temperatures
rise. On a hot summer day, highly populated cities can be much
hotter than surrounding rural areas. Suburban neighborhoods
tend to have far more shade-producing trees, which act as
natural air conditioners. Multiple studies have shown that
communities with a healthy tree population can be anywhere from
5 to 12 degrees cooler than more exposed urban centers. As
climate change threatens to make our hottest days even hotter
in the years ahead, scientists want to make sure that people
living in cities have trees that are strong enough to withstand
the challenges of heat waves and intensifying drought.
Across the United States and the world, communities are facing
more severe and frequent extreme weather events. Companies
undertaking new development projects are considering ways to
make their sites more resilient to disruptions caused by these
extreme events. From floods to droughts, fires, heat waves, and
super storms, developers are investing in alternative water and
energy supplies to better prepare for what’s being referred to
as “weather weirdification.” Many are familiar with
distributed strategies for energy— this can include things like
rooftop solar panels, solar battery systems, and backup
generators. When there’s a storm or other extreme weather
event, sites with these systems are better equipped for power
outages, ensuring continuity of operations, which makes them
more resilient.
The fierce storms and heavy rain that have pounded California
in recent weeks could be the lifeline that one industry — and
the communities that rely on it for their own survival —
desperately needs. After years of drought, California has
received an epic amount of rain already in 2023. While it was
much-needed, the back-to-back heavy storms also ravaged the
state for weeks, creating dangerous flooding and mudslides that
led to at least 20 deaths and billions of dollars in economic
losses, by some estimates. But in one part of the state,
anxious communities are ready to embrace more rain.
A bill that will be introduced in the Utah State Legislature
will task one person with overseeing efforts to save the Great
Salt Lake. The position, currently titled the “Great Salt Lake
Commissioner,” will coordinate with government agencies,
environmental, tribal and industry groups and come up with a
master plan for the future of the lake. … The bill is
expected to be made public in the Utah State Legislature soon.
It would be a significant change in approach to how the
state is responding to the lake shrinking to historic lows
and the environmental catastrophe it presents with toxic
dust storms, reduced snowpack and harms to wildlife and public
health.
Maybe cooler heads will prevail in Rio Verde Foothills, after
all. For weeks, Arizona has taken a beating in the national
press over about 500 homes in this unincorporated community
that had lost access to hauled water from neighboring
Scottsdale. Those headlines turned Rio Verde Foothills into a
political football as elected officials publicly blamed each
other for some residents’ dry taps. But behind the scenes, work
was happening on middle ground to help these homeowners without
tying up any of Scottsdale’s existing water resources. -Written by columnist Joanna Allhands.
Weeks after powerful storms dumped 32 trillion gallons of rain
and snow on California, state officials and environmental
groups in the drought-ravaged state are grappling with what to
do with all of that water. State rules say when it rains and
snows a lot in California, much of that water must stay in the
rivers to act as a conveyer belt to carry tens of thousands of
endangered baby salmon into the Pacific Ocean. But this week,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked state regulators to
temporarily change those rules. He says the drought has been so
severe it would be foolish to let all of that water flow into
the ocean and that there’s plenty of water for the state to
take more than the rules allow while still protecting
threatened fish species.
Water levels in Lake Powell dropped to a new record low on
Tuesday. The nation’s second-largest reservoir is under
pressure from climate change and steady demand, and is now the
lowest it’s been since it was first filled in the 1960s. Water
levels fell to 3,522.16 feet above sea level, just below the
previous record set in April 2022. The reservoir is currently
about 22% full, and is expected to keep declining until around
May, when mountain snowmelt will rush into the streams that
flow downstream to Powell. Powell, which straddles the
border of Utah and Arizona, is fed by the Colorado River.
Warming temperatures and abnormally dry conditions have cut
into the river’s supplies, and the seven states that use its
water have struggled to reduce demand.
California authorities face renewed pressure to preserve the
valuable salty waters of the Mono Lake — as despite recent
rainfall, a historic drought and demands from the Los Angeles
area have depleted it. In a workshop Wednesday, the state Water
Resources Control Board discussed Mono Lake’s current
conditions amid the impacts of severe drought and ongoing
diversions. Mono Lake is an ancient, naturally saline lake at
the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada, with a surface area of
70 square miles. It is fed by several rivers and hosts a unique
ecosystem and critical habitat for millions of migratory birds.
That includes California gulls, whose nesting population on
lake islands has steadily declined for the last 40 years due to
low water levels, increasing coyote populations and human
interference.
Ever since the late December and January deluge, California has
been pretty dry. Since the beginning of February,
Sacramento Executive Airport has recorded 0.56″ of rain. The
relatively dry weather since mid-January allowed the state to
dry out and lowered flood risk, but another storm cycle heading
into the dry season would be incredibly beneficial in terms of
breaking out of drought. …There are some signals that a
negative Pacific North American (PNA) pattern may set up
towards the end of the month and into March. This would set the
stage for potentially more rain and heavy snow producing storms
but it’s still too far out to tell specific impacts.
