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Topic: Drought

Overview April 24, 2014 All Things Drought

Drought

Lake Oroville shows the effects of drought in July 2021.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.

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Aquafornia news March 20, 2023 The New York Times

Earth to hit critical warming threshold by early 2030s, climate panel says

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.

Related article: 

  • Bakersfield Californian: Scripps Institution researchers visit Bakersfield College for ag and water study
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Aquafornia news March 20, 2023 Cronkite News

California seeks to store rain runoff amid Colorado River talks

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.

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Aquafornia news March 20, 2023 ABC 10 - Sacramento

El Niño expected to develop later in the year

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.

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Aquafornia news March 20, 2023 The Hill

Could the farm bill save parts of the West from turning into a Dust Bowl? Michael Bennet thinks so

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 20, 2023 Water Talk

Podcast – Episode 45: Atmospheric rivers

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.

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Aquafornia news March 20, 2023 KESQ - Palm Springs

Governor Newsom to visit Salton Sea for update on lithium production

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.

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Aquafornia news March 17, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Friday Top of the Scroll: As drought retreats across California, flood risk rises

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 …

Related articles: 

  • Associated Press: Drought over? Spring outlook finds relief — and flood risk
  • Los Angeles Times: Don’t put away the rain gear quite yet, California
  • Ventura County Star: Southern California’s Lake Piru spills due to rain storms
  • New York Times: A Very Wet Winter Has Eased California’s Drought, but Water Woes Remain
  • CA Department of Water Resources: Update on Lake Oroville Operations – March 16, 2023
  • Porterville Recorder: Ongoing battle - USACE monitoring Success Lake water releases
  • Visalia Times-Delta: Lake Kaweah reaches capacity, no evacuations in Visalia expected
  • Fresno Bee: Evacuation warning due to flooding concerns in new area of Tulare County, sheriff says
  • Mercury-News: “When can we go home?” Pajaro residents agonize as key question remains unanswered
  • Los Angeles Times: Drone photos show sharply higher California reservoirs 
  • ABC 7 – Los Angeles: Only 36% of California remains in drought after series of storms improve conditions statewide
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news March 17, 2023 The Hill

House lawmakers join senators in rallying around Colorado River

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.

Related article: 

  • The Associated Press: Feds spend $2.4 million on cloud seeding for Colorado River
  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Lake Mead may face deeper pumping to protect water quality
  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: 7 facts you may not know about Lake Mead
  • Arizona Republic: Opinion: One state stands in way of fair Colorado River water cuts. (Hint: It isn’t Arizona) 
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Aquafornia news March 17, 2023 Santa Rosa Press-Democrat

Scott Dam gates to stay open, meaning Lake Pillsbury diversions to remain at drought levels

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.

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Aquafornia news March 17, 2023 Courthouse News Service

Western water wars at high court focus on Navajo Nation

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 17, 2023 California Trout

Blog: California salmon ocean fishing season cancelled to help fish recover

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.

Related articles: 

  • ABC 7 – San Francisco: Canceled California salmon season becomes financial burden for fishers
  • KGW 8 – Portland: Imperiled Chinook salmon runs close ocean fishing off California, much of Oregon 
  • KALW – Bay Area: The Spiritual Edge: A Prayer For Salmon Ep. 6
  • California Trout: Field Note - Following Fish Migration Up the Pescadero Creek Watershed
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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Thursday Top of the Scroll: Mandatory water restrictions lifted in Southern California

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.

Related articles: 

  • Washington Post: Water restrictions lifted in Southern California amid rainy winter 
  • Guardian: California water restrictions eased for millions after atmospheric river storms
  • Associated Press: Storms end Southern California water restrictions for millions
  • Metropolitan Water District of Southern California: Metropolitan board rescinds emergency conservation mandate imposed on dozens of communities
  • Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Santa Rosa ends emergency drought declaration following winter storms
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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Nearly two-thirds of California now out of drought

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.

Related articles:

  • WeatherNation: California Snowpack – 223% Percent of Normal with More Snow in the Extended Forecast
  • Bay City News: 2 more atmospheric rivers could hit West Coast in next week, per preliminary forecasts   
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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 Associated Press

Scientists: Largest US reservoirs moving in right direction

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.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: California reservoir levels: Charts show water supply across the state
  • Newsweek: Photos show California reservoir water levels before and after major storm 
  • Fox Weather: What California’s excessive snow, rain mean for state’s reservoirs 
  • Arizona Republic: The Salt River’s flowing. Here’s what to know
  • Jfleck@inkstain: Deadpool Diaries - Colorado River report card
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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 Nevada Current

‘A very political little wildflower’ in danger of extinction in Southern 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. 

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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

Opinion: California must preserve water from Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

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.

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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 North Coast Journal

Sport and commercial ocean salmon season closed statewide

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.

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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 Salt Lake Tribune

LDS Church to permanently donate thousands of acre-feet of water to the Great Salt Lake

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.

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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 Ag Alert

Colorado River crisis tests a proud region

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.

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Aquafornia news March 16, 2023 Northern California Water Association

Blog: Water is life! Exploring modern Water management from ridgetop to river mouth in the Sacramento Valley

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.

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Aquafornia news March 15, 2023 The Washington Post

Nevada considers capping water use in Vegas amid Colorado River drought

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.

Related article: 

  • Associated Press: Nevada considers allowing Las Vegas water agency to limit residential use
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Aquafornia news March 15, 2023 Grist

How rising temperatures are intensifying California’s atmospheric rivers

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 15, 2023 12 News - Phoenix

Nestlé-backed bill may detrimentally change Arizona water law

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.

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Aquafornia news March 15, 2023 Newsweek

Biden says climate change could dry up Colorado River. Is it possible?

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.

Related articles: 

  • Newsbreak: Senator Kelly discusses crucial plan to ensure water access in California and Arizona
  • Water News Network: San Diego County Water Authority hosts Colorado River Board of California
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news March 15, 2023 Union of Concerned Scientists

Blog: California’s agriculture has outstanding economic performance, but at what cost?

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.

Related article: 

  • Daily Democrat: Pistachio growers hopeful about potential record crop
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

This map shows the Sierra snowpack’s record levels

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.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Epic Tahoe snowpack is causing more roofs to collapse — and new storms are on the way
  • Modesto Bee: Is snowpack still near record for Modesto watershed? Numbers to know as storms pause
  • 8 News Now – Las Vegas: Where does the snow go? Historic San Bernardino snow levels pose flooding, increased runoff potential
  • Fox 5 – San Diego: San Diego water reservoirs levels at 128%
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 PBS NewsHour

Scientists confirm global floods and droughts worsened by climate change

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.

Related articles: 

  • NPR: Climate change is moving too fast for these trees to keep up
  • Washington Post: A warmer world causes extreme drought and rain. ‘Indisputable’ new research proves it.
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 Public Policy Institute of California

Blog: An epic snowpack may test water management in the San Joaquin Valley

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.

Related article: 

  • jfleck@inkstain: Does 2023’s “cabin crusher” of a snowpack herald a return of California’s Tulare Lake?
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 Record Searchlight

Will Shasta Dam open spillway gates as more rain, snowmelt raise Lake Shasta water level?

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.

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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 Deseret News

More moisture is headed to Utah, the West. Will it help Lake Powell?

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.

Related articles: 

  • Arizona Family: Salt River flooding to continue around Phoenix-area with more rain on the way
  • Cronkite News: “Where’s The River?” event aims to educate people about Arizona’s depleted waterways
  • Wyo4News: Colorado River Compact of 1922 and the drought conditions in the west
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 Growing Produce

California’s blueprint for ag growth rooted in the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act

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.

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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 ABC 15 - Arizona

What it takes to import Harquahala Valley groundwater during water crisis

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.

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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 Record Searchlight

Low Sacramento River salmon forecast to close ocean salmon fishing

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.

Related articles: 

  • Eureka Times-Standard: California salmon season likely to be canceled
  • The Hill: California cancels rest of salmon season over lingering drought issues
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 NPR

Climate change is moving too fast for these trees to keep up

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.”

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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 Arizona Republic

Arizona rancher takes an old approach to growing crops on Gila River

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.

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  • Arizona Capitol Times: Paid not to farm? Expanded Colorado River program divides farm community 
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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 Sacramento Bee

Gavin Newsom waives permits to put California flood water underground

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.

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  • SJV Water: Regs relaxed for storing flood water
  • Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom: Governor Newsom issues executive order to use floodwater to recharge and store groundwater
  • Community Water Center: New executive order allows groundwater recharge that may pollute sources of drinking water
  • Santa Clara News Online: Lots of rain but groundwater levels remain low
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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 Newsweek

Sierra snowpack hits record levels after recent storms

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.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: As snow records fall along the eastern Sierra Nevada, fears loom over impending snowmelt
  • ABC 10 – Sacramento: Wet winter put the ‘nail in the coffin’ for California drought 
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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 Arizona Republic

Colorado River water-saving deals worth $250M planned by Reclamation

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.

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  • Cronkite News: Colorado River senators meet quietly to facilitate states’ water talks
  • jfleck@inkstain: Deadpool Diaries – A report card on our response to inconvenient science 
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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 Mercury News

Oroville Dam floodgates opened as storms fill massive reservoir

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.

Related articles: 

  • The Sacramento Bee: Central Coast reservoir spills for first time in 18 years 
  • Sacramento Bee: As California gets drenched, officials opening Oroville Dam spillway for first time in 4 years
  • SFist: Some Bay Area Reservoirs Overflowing Amid Recent Rain
  • KRCR – Redding: DWR slightly increases release rate for Oroville Dam
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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 MSN

El Niño queues up as three-peat La Liña ends: What it means to California

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.

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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 CalMatters

State water agency rescinds controversial Delta order that put fish at risk

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.

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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 The Washington Post

Las Vegas water agency seeks power to limit residential use

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.

Related article: 

  • CBS – Las Vegas: Nevada lawmakers could grant water authority power to limit Las Vegas residents’ water usage 
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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 Grid

The Great Salt Lake may turn into a toxic dust bomb. Can we stop it?

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.

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Aquafornia news March 13, 2023 ABC 15 - Arizona

Arizona community worries energy company will hog water supply

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 Desert Sun

Colorado River doomsday averted? Some hopeful but top water official mum

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 …

Related article: 

  • Spokesman Review: The Rockies are brimming with snow. The drought will persist anyway.
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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 CNN

La Niña has ended and El Niño will form during hurricane season, forecasters say

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. 

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  • AP: La Nina, which worsens hurricanes and drought, is gone
  • AccuWeather: It’s over: NOAA declares official end to La Nina
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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Earth is warming. Why is California having a record-breaking winter?

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.

Related article: 

  • Yale Climate Connections: Sharp cold blasts punctuate one of the warmest, wettest U.S. winters on record
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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 KJZZ - Tempe, AZ

Arizona Legislature fails to take up groundwater and other conservation issues

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.

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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 Fox Weather

Drought marches on for parts of California despite historic rainfall, snow

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.

Related articles: 

  • Washington Post: See where and how much snow fell in California
  • KTLA – Los Angeles: Where does the California drought stand heading into spring?
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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 Audubon

Blog: Who gets harmed as the Colorado River changes?

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? 

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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 Chico Enterprise-Record

Weather provides mixed bag for Butte County agriculture

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.

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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 The Business Journal

Blog: We have seen the future of water in California

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.

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Aquafornia news March 10, 2023 Greenhouse Grower

Blog: New water management tools for an emerging ag landscape

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.

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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Thursday Top of the Scroll: New storm could bring more peril to California rivers already hit by deadly flooding

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.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Are upcoming California storms overhyped? Here’s what meteorologists are actually forecasting
  • Mercury News: Atmospheric river storm: When it’s arriving and which areas will be hit hardest
  • SJV Sun: Evacuation warnings issued for upcoming severe storm
  • Sacramento Bee: Parts of Northern California face flood watch as storm moves in. Here’s when and where
  • CA Department of Water Resources: DWR to Increase Outflows from Lake Oroville
  • Fresno Bee: Fresno County braces for storm conditions ‘that we’ve never experienced before’
  • The Hill: Flood watches issued in California ahead of next atmospheric river
  • New York Times: California Braces for More Heavy Snow and Rain 
  • SLO Tribune: SLO County under flood watch as major storm prepares to hit California
  • SJV Water: Storm could “push the limits” of San Joaquin Valley’s flood response systems
  • Courthouse News Service: Pineapple Express takes aim at snow- and rain-logged California
  • Reuters: California flood watch issued as next atmospheric river looms
  • CalMatters: Opinion: California’s record winter storms could spawn disastrous floods
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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 The New Republic

Navajo Nation is taking on three states and the federal government for the right to Colorado River water

…. 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.

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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 KUNC - Greeley, Colo.

Was California consulted in recent Colorado River negotiations?

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.

Related article: 

  • KUNC – Greeley, Colo.: Feds pause some Flaming Gorge water releases amid a snowy winter for the Colorado River
  • Arizona Republic: Commentary - SRP is releasing precious stored water. But it’s not going to waste
  • AZ Department of Water Resources: Heavy Winter Snowpack Prompting Releases From Salt River Project Reservoirs
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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 State Water Resources Control Board

News release: Petition approved to capture flood flows, recharge groundwater

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.

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  • SLO New Times: State approves Paso Robles basin plan
  • Northern California Water Association: Blog: Celebrating Groundwater Awareness Week - Sustainable groundwater management in the Sacramento Valley
  • CA Department of Water Resources: Video - Integrated Regional Water Management Program – Supporting Groundwater Recharge in Fresno County
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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 Wall Street Journal

In California, a race to capture the water before it escapes

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.

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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 Public Policy Institute of California

Blog: Helping the San Joaquin Valley find new uses for fallowed farmland

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.

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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 Newsweek

Has rain helped Lake Mead water levels?

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.

Related articles: 

  • KLAS: Snowpack update - Water stored for Colorado River at 134% of normal with a month to go
  • Bloomberg: The Rockies Are Brimming With Snow. The Drought Will Persist Anyway
  • Newsweek: How California Atmospheric River Will Impact Colorado River Basin
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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 SF Gate

It’s officially the snowiest season to date in Lake Tahoe

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.

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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 Farm Progress

Opinion: Why the U.S. can’t afford to cut Yuma’s water

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.

​Related article: 

  • KYMA: Hearing over water transfer in La Paz county takes place in Phoenix
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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

How California storms have improved Lake Tahoe’s water clarity

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 8, 2023 CNN

Feds suspend measures that were meant to boost water levels at drought-stricken Lake Powell

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.

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Aquafornia news March 8, 2023 KQED - San Francisco

Threatened coho salmon at risk due to federal mismanagement, groups allege

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.

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Aquafornia news March 8, 2023 Ag Alert

Despite storms, water challenges persist

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.

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Aquafornia news March 8, 2023 SJV Sun

Valley’s water managers celebrate winning key SGMA approval from Calif. regulators

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.

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  • Ag Alert: State declares six aquifer plans as out of compliance
  • Food and Water Watch: Blog: In Spite of Recent Rain, California’s Central Valley Water Wells are Drying Up
  • Porterville Recorder: Eastern Tule groundwater sustainability plan considered inadequate by state
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Aquafornia news March 8, 2023 Monterey County Weekly

Opinion: Cal Am is conspicuously absent as Pure Water Monterey celebrates a milestone

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.

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Mercury News

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Atmospheric river storm this week will bring heavy rain, raise flood concerns with huge Sierra Nevada snowpack

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.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: California forecasters warn of approaching atmospheric river 
  • Sacramento Bee: Sacramento braces for atmospheric river storm as more rain and snow hit Northern California
  • Record Net: Warm storm into the weekend could bring flood risk to San Joaquin County
  • USA Today: Dramatic photos show aftermath of historic snowfall, winter storms blanketing California
  • CalMatters: Opinion - California’s record winter storms could spawn disastrous floods
  • KSBY – Central Coast: Coldest winter on the Central Coast and Los Angeles since 1978-79
  • Washington Post: Storms keep hammering California and this could soon become a problem
  • KRCR – Redding: Why does it keep snowing in the Northstate? A look at Redding’s historical snow trends
  • Scientific American: ‘Pretty Epic’ Mountain Snowfall Stuns Californians
  • Sacramento News and Review: Got Snow? The huge Sierra snow-pack is creating new and future problems
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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Is El Niño returning? What it means for California

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.

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 CA Department of Water Resources

News release: DWR and partners promote California’s hidden water resource during Groundwater Awareness Week 2023

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.

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  • Lodi News: Eastern San Joaquin groundwater plan gets a thumbs up
  • Agri-Pulse Communications: California to develop groundwater trading strategy
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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 The New York Times

Mapping California’s ‘zombie’ forests

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.

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  • The Hill: Western forests three times the size of Yellowstone could be transformed by midcentury
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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Bay City News

Water districts aim to go greener by cutting out ornamental grass

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Editorial: All that rain and snow! How can California still be in drought?

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.

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  • Ag Info: Golden State Flooded with Water Opportunity
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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Farm Progress

Editorial: Can the Colorado River be saved without cutting Calif.’s cord?

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.

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  • Legal Planet: Why Can’t We All Get Along On The Colorado River?
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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Vox

Who’s really using up the water in the American West?

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 BNamericas

Blog: Could a new Mexican desal proposal run into old problems?

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.

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Los Angeles Times

This magical garden in L.A. will make you rethink turf

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.

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Mercury News

Opinion: Newsom made the right call on delaying Delta water flows

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. ​

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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 Newsweek

Invasive fish may swarm Colorado River as water levels decline

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.

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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Monday Top of the Scroll: California’s snowpack is approaching an all-time record, with more on the way

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.

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  • Sacramento Bee: Extreme storms have California near an all-time snowpack record set 40 years ago
  • Courthouse News Service: Huge storms leave California mountains buried in snow
  • Washington Post: California was hit with 12 feet of snow. Is it enough to ease the drought?
  • San Francisco Chronicle: California snowpack hits highest level this century for March, could soon become biggest ever
  • CA Department of Water Resources: California’s Snowpack Shows Huge Gains from Recent Storms
  • LAist: Some Of California Is Free Of Drought, But The Climate Crisis Is Changing What That Means
  • Associated Press: Mountain Roads Shut as Another Winter Storm Hits California
  • Fox 40 – Sacramento: ISS flyover shows Sierra Nevada snowpack after blizzard conditions
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Map shows which parts of California exceeded entire year’s worth of rain
  • Press Democrat: You say California’s drought is over? Not so fast, water managers say
  • KCRA: Incredible pictures of South Lake Tahoe as residents try to clear snow, roof ice dams before next storm
  • Fresno Bee: Fresno, Valley likely to lose ‘drought’ label by April. Does that mean it’s really over?
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

California could get hit with new atmospheric river this week, and consequences could be concerning

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.

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  • Bloomberg: California Braces for More Heavy Rains and Flooding
  • Modesto Bee: What might happen if a wet spring follows the Modesto watershed’s plentiful winter?
  • Action News – Chico-Redding: More snow on the way, are people in Paradise feeling snow fatigued?
  • San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego County’s drought level falls to lowest point in 2 years
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

Could feds and farmers join forces to put groundwater back in Central Valley aquifers?

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,” … 

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  • Food and Environment Reporting Network: California again rejects groundwater protection plans as inadequate
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  • East Bay MUD – News release: Regional water partners’ first aquifer recharge and groundwater test a success
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 The Associated Press

In dry West, farmers balk at idling land to save water

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.

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  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Imperial Irrigation District responds to Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial on Colorado River
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 Las Vegas Review-Journal

States struggle to find Colorado River cuts as Lake Mead shrinks

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.

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  • Atlas Obscura: The Return of Glen Canyon
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 KSL.com

St. George, the fastest growing metro in the US, is looking for water to keep the boom going

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 …

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  • Salt Lake Tribune: Here’s what the Legislature did to help arid Utah better manage its water
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 Record Searchlight

Low fall-run chinook salmon expected on Sacramento, Klamath rivers

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.

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  • Lost Coast Outpost: Facing Dismal Salmon Population Forecast, Fishermen’s Groups Call for Immediate Closure of Season, Request Disaster Assistance
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Aquafornia news March 6, 2023 USA Today

What’s the solution to West’s water crisis? Desperate ideas explained

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.

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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

AQUAFORNIA BREAKING NEWS: California snowpack hits highest level this century for March, could soon become biggest ever

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….

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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 CalMatters

Friday Top of the Scroll: State rejects local plans for protecting San Joaquin Valley groundwater

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.

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  • Courthouse News Service: California groundwater management agencies falling behind on conservation goals
  • SJV Water: State rejects six San Joaquin Valley groundwater plans, which could bring enforcement action
  • Community Water Center: Department of Water Resources Rightfully Rejects Six Inadequate Groundwater Plans, While Approving Other Faulty Plans That Leave Drinking Water Users At Risk
  • California Department of Water Resources: California Advances Groundwater Sustainability with Release of Decisions for Management Plans in Critically Overdrafted Basins
  • CBS – Sacramento: Severe storms not enough to recharge California’s groundwater
  • Ridgecrest Independent: Ridgecrest City Council to hear about groundwater less often
  • Ridgecrest Independent: IWVGA enters agreement with Navy, BLM
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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 AP News

Half of California freed from drought thanks to rain, snow

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.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: Winter storms ease drought conditions in California, report shows
  • Mercury News: Drought is now over in more than half of California, including the Bay Area, feds say 
  • Sacramento Bee: Most of California exits drought after latest storms. Interactive map shows where
  • San Francisco Chronicle: California reservoir levels - Here’s where they are after winter storms
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Map shows stunning improvement in California drought
  • Ojai Valley News: Rain drowns drought | Lake Casitas now 50.2% full
  • Forbes: Parts Of California Out Of Drought—But Experts Still Warn Drought Conditions Will Remain
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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Declining salmon population could trigger ban on fishing

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.

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  • Chico Enterprise-Record: Ocean salmon stock forecast for 2023 is grim; fishing could be curtailed or halted
  • Northern California Water Association: Blog - More Sacramento River salmon recovery projects underway 
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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 Colorado Politics

A chess game? Upper Colorado Basin states postpone release of water to Lake Powell

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.” 

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  • Arizona Republic: Salt River Project opens Bartlett Dam floodgates to make room for spring snowmelt
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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 Mercury News

Garamendi’s bill would extend water treatment facility permits

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.

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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 SJV Water

Farm town residents block water rate hike but are still stuck with a massive water debt

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.

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  • Fresno Bee: These Fresno County residents fought 154% water bill rate hike — and won. How it happened
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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 Bloomberg

Video: How to keep the world from running out of drinking water

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.

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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 Brown and Caldwell

Blog: Brown and Caldwell to develop Southern California drought mitigation study

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.

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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 Monterey County Weekly

Opinion: Exploring solutions for the Salinas Valley’s water needs

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.

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  • Monterey Weekly: As the proposed Interlake Tunnel project advances, the question is: Is it worth it? 
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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Thursday Top of the Scroll: California may bar commercial salmon fishing, first time since 2009

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.

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  • Press Democrat: Poor outlook for king salmon could shut down California’s sport and commercial seasons
  • Sierra (Magazine): Can the Northern California Summer Steelhead Be Saved in Time?
  • CalMatters: How will Newsom, Legislature avoid painful cuts in CA budget?
  • Golden State Salmon Association: News release: Low 2023 salmon forecast likely to lead to fishery shutdown 
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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Rain-on-snow could present fresh risks to California’s snowpack. Here’s why

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.

Related articles: 

  • ABC News: California declares emergency in counties buried by snow as latest storm moves east
  • ABC 10 – Sacramento: California snowpack is nearing all-time records
  • The Sacramento Bee: Satellite images show massive Southern California snow fall
  • GV Wire: More Storms for Valley in March. Will They Add to Snowpack or Melt It?
  • New York Times: As Storms Pummel California, Yosemite Valley Is Buried Deep in Snow
  • USA Today: Winter weather still grips the West; severe thunderstorms threaten South: Live updates
  • Spectrum News: Heavy rainfall quenches California but won’t replenish water supplies
  • ABC 7 – San Francisco: Palisades Tahoe reaches 500 inches of snow this season as resorts close for blizzard conditions
  • SF Gate: ‘Storm door’ will likely remain wide open in the Bay Area this March
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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 Newsweek

California reservoir water levels before and after winter storm

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.

Related articles: 

  • Redding Record Searchlight: Lake Shasta rises only 8 feet in February, despite snow and rain
  • ABC 7 – Los Angeles: Parts of California now drought-free after back-to-back storms drench state, report shows
  • Reuters: Drought in California
  • Center for Western Weather and Extremes: Drought attribution studies and water resources management
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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 Water Education Foundation

Announcement: Join groundwater awareness event Monday, read about aquifer recharge & learn about groundwater on Central Valley Tour

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.

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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 KUNC - Greeley, Colo.

Proposed pause on reservoir releases prompts Lower Basin states to respond

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.

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  • Denver’s Mile High Magazine: Documenting 150 Years of Change on the Colorado River System 
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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 Las Vegas Review-Journal

Southern Nevada Water Authority seeks power to limit water use

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 … 

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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 Ag Alert

Farmers expected to get increased water allocations

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.

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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 10 News - San Diego

What’s going on with San Diego? A climate scientist weighs in on winter weather

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.

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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 Colorado Sun

Aurora cuts lawn watering down to two days, adds outdoor surcharge

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 KSBW - Monterey

Record rainfall out to sea has water agencies talking about tapping the potential

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.

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  • Capitol Weekly: Opinion: Solutions for Prioritizing Investment in California’s Critical Water Infrastructure
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  • ERA Economics: Urban stormwater runoff - Waste or resource?
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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: Yet more rain is expected to hit California in March. But warmer storms could melt snow

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.

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  • Courthouse News Service: In like a lion: March to bring fresh snow and rain to California
  • ABC 7 – Bay Area: Live Bay Area weather updates - Massive trees fall onto homes in North Bay
  • ABC 10 – Sacramento: California Winter Storm - Tracking storm pipeline and potential for flooding
  • San Francisco Standard: As California exits a megadrought, are we ready for a megaflood?
  • Los Angeles Times: How the deluge of 1938 changed Los Angeles — and its river
  • The San Diego Union-Tribune: Opinion - We should use technology to improve California’s ability to manage floods, water supplies
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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Courthouse News Service

California ducks demand to review local wastewater discharge permits

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.

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  • JD Supra: California Appeals Court Rules that State Water Board’s Duty to Prevent Waste and Unreasonable Use of Water is “Highly Discretionary”
  • Downey Brand: California Appeals Court Rules that State Water Board’s Duty to Prevent Waste and Unreasonable Use of Water is “Highly Discretionary”
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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 The Washington Post

A California tunnel could save stormwater for millions. Why is it so divisive?

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Reuters

Extreme Yosemite rain eases drought but disrupts wildlife habitats

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.

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Public Policy Institute of California

Testimony: Adapting California’s water rights system to the 21st century climate

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.

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 SJV Water

State will pay some valley farmers not to farm in attempt to save groundwater

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 USC News

The water wars of the future are here today

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Arizona Republic

A snowpack to remember is piling up in the Arizona high country

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.

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 CNN

Booming Utah metro wants to pipe in water from Lake Powell so it can keep growing

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.

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Somach Law

Blog: Ninth Circuit revives Clean Water Act rule from the Trump Administration era

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.

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 CBS - Sacramento

California wineries are making changes to battle extreme weather

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. 

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 NBC - Bay Area

‘Things are looking great’: Checking in on South Bay reservoir levels

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.

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Aquafornia news March 1, 2023 Mercury News

Editorial: Newsom takes page out of Trump’s water playbook

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.

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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Is California’s drought finally over? Here’s the impact of the latest storms

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.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Could California snowpack break records?
  • Sacramento Bee: How much rain and snow fell in Northern California storm? Here are the latest totals
  • Washington Post: California snowpack nearing record levels as blizzard batters mountains
  • Los Angeles Times: Before-and-after photos from space show storms’ effect on California reservoirs
  • ABC 7 – Bay Area: CA reservoir levels show signs of improvement after recent winter storms
  • KTLA – Los Angeles: Latest winter storm boosts California’s astounding snowpack; drought conditions improving
  • Forbes: Another ‘Extreme’ Snow Storm To Pummel California Before Moving East—Here’s What To Expect 
  • Yahoo News: How climate change is making California’s weather more extreme
  • KPBS – San Diego: Current rainy season could be a drought buster, forecaster says
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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 Courthouse News Service

Judge extends plan to manage flows to California delta and protect endangered fish

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 KUNC - Greeley, Colo.

Upper Basin states want to pause some releases from a major Colorado River reservoir

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.

Related articles:

  • 8 News – Las Vegas: Will Colorado River return to health this year? Snowpack remains a third above normal 
  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: ‘A nice sign’ - Big Rockies snowpack may boost Lake Mead
  • KSJD – Cortez, Colo.: Paid not to farm? An expanded Colorado River conservation program divides agriculture community
  • Arizona Public Media: Water report suggests diversification for Arizona agriculture
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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 The Guardian

The parched metropolis: can eco architecture save LA from megadrought?

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.

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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Editorial: Unfair plan to cut California’s Colorado River water use

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.

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  • High Country News – Editorial: Water makes the rules
  • Desert Sun: Opinion - Imperial Valley takes its Colorado River senior water rights seriously
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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 NPR

Here’s why Arizona says it can keep growing despite historic megadrought

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.

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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 Rancho Santa Fe Review

Santa Fe Irrigation board to vote on water rate increases this month

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.

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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 Water Talk Podcast

Episode 42: Regenerative Viticulture — Water Talk

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.

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Aquafornia news February 28, 2023 CalMatters

Opinion: Education on water solutions vital for California Latinos

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.

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Monday Top of the Scroll: Epic winter storm turns Southern California snow white; more rain and snow on the way

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.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Here’s how this week’s winter storms added to California’s booming snowpack
  • Mercury News: More rain, wind and snow headed for Bay Area, blizzard expected in Lake Tahoe
  • NPR: Despite historic amounts of rain and snow, California is still in a drought emergency
  • Monterey Herald: It’s officially a ‘wet’ year and that’s good for the Peninsula
  • LAist: Cleanup Continues After Storm Topples Trees, Floods Roads. New Storm System Will Be Far More Mild
  • AccuWeather: California battles record-breaking snow and rain
  • Yale Climate Connections: A rare blizzard hits California as summerlike heat roasts the eastern U.S.
  • The Guardian: ‘Strongest snowstorm in years’ leaves Californians delighted and frozen 
  • Your Central Valley: Storm benefits and fears for farmers in Fresno County
  • SJV Sun: Weekend storm locks up Calif. highways, blocks Sierra access
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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 CalMatters

This reservoir on the Sacramento River has been planned for decades. What’s taking so long?

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.

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  • KQED – San Francisco: The California Report - Raising Shasta Dam could put sacred indigenous sites underwater
  • InMenlo: Stanford proposes improvements to Searsville Dam and Reservoir
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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 E&E News

Who shoulders Mother Nature’s cut of the Colorado River?

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. 

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  • The San Diego Union-Tribune: Opinion – Sens. Padilla & Feinstein: Solving the worsening drought in the western states will require all of us working together
  • Los Angeles Times: Opinion – How California can break the Colorado River stalemate 
  • NBC – Bay Area: Colorado River Issues in California
  • Daily Camera: Water conservation and equity experts discuss flood mitigation, water scarcity
  • Pagosa Daily Post: Upper Colorado River ‘Re-launches’ the System Conservation Program 
  • Grand Junction Sentinel: Water managers set criteria for conservation program participation
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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 The New York Times

The Salton Sea, an accident of history, faces a new water crisis

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.

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 The New York Times

Why it’s hard for California to store more water underground

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 …

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  • ABC 7 – Los Angeles: Orange County Water District looks to replenish groundwater basin for the 2nd time this year
  • CA Natural Resources Agency: 6 ways California is capturing & storing water from storms 
  • KSBW – Monterey: Record rainfall out to sea has water agencies talking about tapping the potential
  • Hanford Sentinel: Kings River runoff estimated at 180%
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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 The Sun-Gazette Newspaper

San Joaquin Valley projected to lose 20% of water by 2040

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…

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 Arizona Capitol Times

Water augmentation tested as Colorado River dwindles

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 CBS - San Francisco

Sonoma supes to hold special meeting over potential water rate hikes

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.

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  • Press Democrat: Close to Home - Investing in our tap water 
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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

Morro Bay wastewater treatment goes online ahead of deadline

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.

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Jill Biden sees East Africa drought up close, seeks more aid

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.

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 CBS News

Will Utah’s Great Salt Lake disappear?

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.

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 Tehachapi News

State Water Project provides ‘modest’ increase in imported water allocation

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.

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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 Courthouse News Service

Friday Top of the Scroll: California invests in critical Central Valley water infrastructure projects

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.

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  • CA Department of Water Resources: DWR Awards $25 Million in LandFlex Grants to Protect Drinking Water Wells 
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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 WBUR

With everything on the line, Arizona and California farmers prepare for fight over Colorado River

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.

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  • Newsweek: Lake Mead - Where Does It Get Its Water and Is It Filling Up?
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  • East Valley Tribune: City’s new water rep meets with Sinema
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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

Interactive map shows latest California drought conditions as winter storms persist

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.

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  • San Francisco Chronicle: California weather - Commuters warned as snow piles up
  • NBC – Bay Area: What to know - How California decides if we’re in a drought
  • Redlands Community News: Despite this year’s storms, California remains in a drought
  • NBC – Bay Area: How Climate Change May Be Impacting California’s Recent Winter Storms 
  • Los Angeles Times: Heavy snow closes freeways as Southern California braces for worst of storm
  • San Diego Union-Tribune: Biggest storm since 2011 has San Diego County in ‘crosshairs’
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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 Yale E360

How weather forecasts can help dams supply more water

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 Marin Independent Journal

Marin Municipal Water District details drought surcharge proposal

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.

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  • Marin Independent Journal: Marin water district adopts new conservation triggers
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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 Wine Enthusiast Magazine

Rivers have sustained vineyards for centuries, now it’s time to return the favor

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.

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Aquafornia news February 24, 2023 Sacramento News & Review

Balancing the water needs of people and the environment: Water Forum brings diverse interests together to tackle tough issues on the Lower American River

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.

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Thursday Top of the Scroll: California farms, cities to get big jump in water from feds after storms

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.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: On eve of storms, California water authorities boost State Water Project allocation to 35%
  • Sacramento Bee: California boosts state water allocation again, as heavy snow returns to the mountains
  • U.S. Bureau of Reclamation: Reclamation announces initial 2023 water supply allocations for Central Valley Project contractors
  • CA Department of Water Resources: DWR Announces Modest Increase in State Water Project Allocation
  • Porterville Recorder: Bureau of Reclamation officially announces 100 percent water allocation
  • CNBC: California water officials raise State Water Project allocation after storms
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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 CalMatters

Water board waives Delta rules that protect salmon

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 Mercury News

Anderson Dam retrofit project receives big federal loan; troubled Pacheco Dam project remains in limbo

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Southern California faces rare blizzard warning

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.

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  • Tahoe Daily Tribune: Storms taking aim at Lake Tahoe; Advisories in place through weekend
  • Newsweek: How the Winter Storm Could Impact California Reservoirs
  • Bloomberg: California’s Big Snowstorm Will Ease But Not End Historic Drought
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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 The New York Times

Opinion: California wants to keep (most) of the Colorado River for itself

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.”

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 Phys.org

Climate change, urbanization drive major declines in L.A.’s birds

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.

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 Sacramento Bee

Opinion: California drought issues aren’t solved by a bit of rain, flooding

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.

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 Newsweek

Colorado River drainage basin explained

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.

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 ABC7 - Los Angeles

LA County breaks ground on new project in Whittier to capture stormwater

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.

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Aquafornia news February 23, 2023 WBUR

Future of the Salton Sea is tied to fate of imperiled Colorado River

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: With all this rain and snow, can California really still be in a drought? Look deeper

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.

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  • USA Today: Before and after photos show recovery at drought-stricken California reservoir
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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 KTLA - Los Angeles

Winter storm to boost California’s snowpack at the right time

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%.

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  • Los Angeles Times: Frigid storm to slam California: Blizzard warning for local mountains, snow at low elevations
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area to experience very unusual snow event in parts of the region
  • Weather West: Substantial (very) low elevation snowfall possible later this week in CA as cold and active weather pattern develops
  • EarthSky blog: Pacific winter snowstorm coming … again
  • USA Today: 23 million Americans under winter storm warnings as blizzards barrel across Midwest, West
  • NBC – Bay Area: Climate in Crisis - Wildfire Impact on Sierra Snowmelt
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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 The New York Times

Parched California misses a chance to store more rain underground

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 Colorado Public Radio

‘Everything should be on the table’: Sen. John Hickenlooper on solving the Colorado River water crisis

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.

Related articles: 

  • 8 News Now – Las Vegas: Nevada uses 8% less Colorado River water in 2022; states continue working toward massive cuts
  • GovTech: The Colorado River and Water Reservoirs in the West
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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 KLCC

Water managers could withhold Klamath County drought permits this year

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 California Sportfishing Protection Alliance

Blog: Water quality, fish and wildlife protection – It’s all voluntary

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.

Related article: 

  • California Fisheries Blog: Smelt Status – Winter 2023
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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 NPR

Climate change has forced thousands to relocate in the U.S.

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? 

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 KVPR - Bakersfield

Breaking down the story of Mira Bella’s drinking water problems

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Opinion: Shrinking water supply will mean more fallow fields in the San Joaquin Valley

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 KCBX - Central Coast

Cal Poly beekeeper optimistic about local honeybees after winter rains

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 Action News Chico

Butte County OEM applies for $17M grant for drought mitigation

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.

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 SJV Water

Bakersfield to take a deep dive on the Kern River – supplies, demands and rights

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.

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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: As the Colorado River shrinks, federal officials consider overhauling Glen Canyon Dam

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.

Related articles: 

  • Summit Daily: Wall Street sees profits in dropping Colorado River levels
  • Washington Post: Changes needed to save second-largest U.S. reservoir, experts say
  • Reno Gazette-Journal: Lake Mead vs. California’s water needs
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 The Wall Street Journal

Will California’s excess snow become useable water this year?

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.

Related articles: 

  • CNN: Lake Oroville: Before-and-after photos show remarkable recovery at California’s most beleaguered reservoir
  • Press Democrat: Just because North Bay reservoirs are full, it doesn’t mean the drought is over, experts say
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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Did winter storms replenish California’s depleted groundwater supplies? Here’s what data shows.

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.

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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Progress on L.A. County stormwater capture program slowing

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.

Related article: 

  • Napa Valley Register: Is Napa capturing enough storm runoff for the next drought?
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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 Press Democrat

This spawning season could save the Clear Lake hitch from extinction, but not everyone agrees on how to help

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.

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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 Mercury News

Winter rain thrills winemakers, even amid threats of mudslide, ‘wet vintage’

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 Press Democrat

Benefits of rainstorms in Sonoma County far outweighed damage they caused

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.

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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Courthouse News Service

Friday Top of the Scroll: Storms headed for California to boost already healthy snowpack

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. 

Related articles: 

  • The Hill: Snowpack continues to grow in California, Colorado River Basin
  • Sacramento Bee: How does California drought compare to last week and when will it rain? Maps show latest​
  • Los Angeles Times: California’s frigid February: Beach freeze warnings, record lows, ‘very treacherous’ 
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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Western Water

California water agencies hoped a deluge would recharge their aquifers. but when it came, some couldn’t use it

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.  

Related articles: 

  • Monterey County Weekly: Despite the recent storms, water storage efforts on the Peninsula underperformed. 
  • KCBX – Central California: Winter storms filled Santa Barbara County reservoirs, but groundwater and flooding challenges remain
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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Newsom seeks to waive environmental protections in delta

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.

Related articles: 

  • SJV Sun: After flushing stormwater, Newsom signs order to boost water flow to Valley
  • LA Times: Editorial – Newsom’s drought order amid wet winter threatens iconic California species
  • CBS – Sacramento: California water debate reignites following January’s massive precipitation
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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 KSL.com

Utah Gov. Cox says ‘divide’ exists but he hopes California will join Colorado River agreement

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.

Related articles: 

  • USA Today: Water crisis in West - Massive reservoir Lake Powell hits historic low water level
  • jfleck@inkstain: Deadpool Diaries - The chance of deadpool declines
  • The Washington Post: Editorial – The Colorado River crisis demands smart solutions
  • Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: As Colorado River shrinks, water evaporation becomes critical to California’s future supplies
  • KVPR – Bakersfield: Among the biggest tasks for Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs - addressing the drought
  • Coyote Gulch blog: The latest seasonal outlooks (through May 31, 2023) are hot off the presses from the #Climate Prediction Center: No expectation for #drought to redevelop over the mountains and W. #Colorado
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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 LAist

Stormwater program has helped fight the drought, but there’s a long way to go

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.

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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 KCRA - Sacramento

Trees can help shade Sacramento from climate change, but which are most likely to survive?

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.

Related article:

  • Redlands Community News: Save our trees – Designate Joshua trees as an endangered species and work harder to protect our forests
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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Pacific Institute

Blog: How onsite water systems can contribute to regional water resilience

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. 

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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Mercury News

Satellite photos show hard-hit California sushi rice farms. Are they making a comeback?

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.

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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Utah Public Radio

Utah legislature considers changing approach to saving Great Salt Lake

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.

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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Arizona Republic

Opinion: Can Rio Verde Foothills live with a temporary, imperfect water deal?

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.

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Aquafornia news February 16, 2023 The Associated Press

Thursday Top of the Scroll: California debates what to do with water from recent storms

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.

Related articles: 

  • Natural Resources Defense Council: Blog: A ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card for Stealing the Delta’s Water
  • State Water Contractors: News release: State Water Contractors respond to Governor Newsom’s water resilience order
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Aquafornia news February 16, 2023 KUNC - Greeley, Colo

Lake Powell drops to a new record low as feds scramble to prop it up

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.

Related articles: 

  • Pew Trusts: Can Western States Agree on the Future of the Colorado River?
  • High Country News: Could Arizona’s new governor shift Colorado River politics?
  • Summit Daily: Upper Colorado River states land $125 million for pilot conservation program amid drought crisis
  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Editorial - Feds should force California’s hand on water use
  • KTNV – Las Vegas: Billy Idol to perform ‘once in a lifetime’ show at Hoover Dam to raise drought awareness
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news February 16, 2023 Courthouse News Service

California water board urged to declare emergency at Mono Lake

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.

Related article: 

  • LA Department of Water and Power: News release: LADWP confirms elevation of Mono Lake is rising, no emergency conditions present 
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Aquafornia news February 16, 2023 ABC 10 - Sacramento

Confidence growing in cold, wet weather pattern for California

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. 

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Why California had cold weather while the rest of the world was warm 
  • Drought.gov: Snow Drought Current Conditions and Impacts in the West
  • Foothills Sun-Gazette: Kaweah Lake drained to make room for record snowpack
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