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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 January 31, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: States miss deadline for agreement on Colorado River water

The seven states that depend on the Colorado River have missed a Jan. 31 federal deadline for reaching a regionwide consensus on how to sharply reduce water use, raising the likelihood of more friction as the West grapples with how to take less supplies from the shrinking river. In a bid to sway the process after contentious negotiations reached an impasse, six of the seven states gave the federal government a last-minute proposal outlining possible water cuts to help prevent reservoirs from falling to dangerously low levels, presenting a unified front while leaving out California, which uses the single largest share of the river. The six states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — called their proposal a “consensus-based modeling alternative” that could serve as a framework for negotiating a solution.

Related articles: 

  • New York Times: How Colorado River cuts could affect California
  • Colorado Sun: Six western states agreed on a plan to dramatically cut their Colorado River use. California is the lone holdout.
  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Most Colorado River states agree on water cuts
  • Ark Valley Voice: Bennet Addresses Colorado Water Congress Amid Critical Colorado River Negotiations
  • The Hill: Why California, other western states face growing pressure to reduce water consumption  
  • KUNC – Greeley, Colo: Federal pressure mounts as states attempt to break Colorado River standoff
  • CNN: A showdown over Colorado River water is setting the stage for a high-stakes legal battle
  • Bloomberg: Opinion: The Colorado River Needs the Feds to Step In ASAP
  • Jfleck@Inkstain: Deadpool Diaries - Trapped, again, in a world we never made
  • Steamboat Pilot: State officials approve 2023 Colorado Water Plan
  • Roll Call: Colorado River states still fractured over water cuts
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news January 31, 2023 Aspen Journalism

What happens to spring runoff in the weeks after peak snowpack? Colorado scientists are trying to find out.

Water managers in the Colorado River basin are gaining a better understanding that what happens in the weeks after peak snowpack — not just how much snow accumulated over the winter — can have an outsize influence on the year’s water supply. Water year 2021 was historically bad, with an upper basin snowpack that peaked around 90% of average but translated to only 36% of average runoff into Lake Powell, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It was the second-worst runoff on record after 2002. One of the culprits was exceptionally thirsty soils from 2020’s hot and dry summer and fall, which soaked up snowmelt before runoff made it to streams. … But according to the paper, in 2021, “rates of snowmelt throughout April were alarming and quickly worsened summer runoff outlooks which underscores that 1 April may no longer be a reliable benchmark for western water supply.”

Related article: 

  • Axios: Colorado’s wet winter is a drop in the drought bucket 
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Aquafornia news January 31, 2023 Arizona Daily Star

Feds may alter Colorado River forecast methods slammed as too rosy

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is considering altering its monthly Colorado River forecasting methods in the face of criticism from experts inside and outside the agency that predictions have been too optimistic. Changing forecast methods could have major ramifications in how the bureau manages the river, water experts say. Larger cutbacks in water deliveries to Arizona, Nevada and California could possibly be triggered, for example. The agency will consider starting to base its forecasts on the past 20 years of flows into Lake Powell, compared to the 30 years it uses now, a bureau official told the Arizona Daily Star.

Related article: 

  • Associated Press: Pressure to count Colorado River water lost to evaporation as drought mounts
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Aquafornia news January 31, 2023 CBS News

New York investors snapping up Colorado River water rights, betting big on an increasingly scarce resource

With the federal government poised to force Western states to change how they manage the alarming shortfall in Colorado River water, there is one constituency with a growing interest in the river’s fate that’s little known to some: Wall Street investors. Private investment firms are showing a growing interest in an increasingly scarce natural resource in the American West: water in the Colorado River, a joint investigation by CBS News and The Weather Channel has found. For some of the farmers and cities that depend on the river as a lifeline, that interest is concerning. … Bernal’s family came to the Grand Valley nearly 100 years ago, and he has lived there his whole life.  But now, he has a new neighbor: a New York-based investment firm called Water Asset Management, which he says bought a farm in the valley around 2017 that Bernal now rents and helps operate.

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Aquafornia news January 31, 2023 Bloomberg

Opinion: Arizona can’t keep growing without finding more water

The 23-year drought that’s parching the Southwest is forcing Arizona to make a bitter choice. Unless developers can find new sources of water, the state’s largest master-planned housing development is going to remain a desert. It’s not just an Arizona problem. Across the American West, demand for housing is increasingly running into water shortages. Surface waters like the Colorado River are drying up, forcing cities and farmers to turn to groundwater. Unfortunately, most groundwater is finite, and once depleted it’s difficult or impossible to replenish.
Written by Bloomberg opinion writer Adam Minter. 

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Aquafornia news January 31, 2023 Patch - Berkeley

Opinion: Sharing water in California: Is there a better way?

We just returned from a drive up and down the San Joaquin Valley. Being reared on a California almond and water ranch, I have a long-standing interest in water and California agriculture. Consequently, I always view our trip as an opportunity to read the pulse of California’s water situation. This year the landscape was fresh and green from recent and abundant rains. … One notable and repeated image during this ride was the number of almond orchards being ripped out, amid vast areas of new plantings. The other notable image was the number of signs complaining about water running out to the ocean instead of being transferred to the Valley’s ranchers.
-Written by UC Berkeley Blog.

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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 Associated Press

Monday Top of the Scroll: As Colorado River talks continue, emails show tension over water use

Competing priorities, outsized demands and the federal government’s retreat from a threatened deadline stymied a deal last summer on how to drastically reduce water use from the parched Colorado River, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. … Reclamation wanted the seven U.S. states that rely on the river to decide how to cut 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water — or up to roughly one-third — on top of already anticipated reductions. … California says it’s a partner willing to sacrifice, but other states see it as a reluctant participant clinging to a water priority system where it ranks near the top. Arizona and Nevada have long felt they’re unfairly forced to bear the brunt of cuts because of a water rights system developed long ago, a simmering frustration that reared its head during talks.

Related articles: 

  • Colorado Springs Gazette: Colorado River states facing new deadline on water usage reduction
  • Coyote Gulch Blog: What’s Up With #Water – January 17, 2023 — Circle of Blue @circleofblue
  • San Diego Union-Tribune: Column - Colorado River and Lake Mead are rising, but don’t get your hopes up
  • KLAS – Las Vegas: Law of the River - How the west was watered 
  • Jfleck at Inkstain: Deadpool Diaries: Can the Colorado River community walk, chew gum, and recite Homer’s Odyssey at the same time?
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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Scientists are worried about a new risk to California’s snowpack

A flurry of storms unloaded historic amounts of rain and snow across California over the past month. The deluges, fueled by a parade of atmospheric rivers, filled reservoirs and have improved drought conditions across large swaths of the state. The Sierra snowpack has ballooned to more than double its usual size for this time of year. The snow will continue to replenish California’s water supplies as it melts during the warmer months. …Picturesque locales where Californians ski and enjoy other snow activities are burning in wildfires more often, undergoing long-lasting changes that make snowpack melt earlier. Snow can even melt in the middle of winter, before reservoir managers are ready to shift from flood control to water storage. 

Related articles: 

  • High Country News: In a warming world, California’s trees keep dying
  • Los Angeles Times: Cold weather arrives in Southern California, bringing snow in the mountains
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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Why desert golf courses and artificial lakes remain untouched by the Colorado River crisis

Golf courses. Ponds. Acres of grass. Cascading waterfalls. Displays of water extravagance zip past each day when Sendy Hernández Orellana Barrows drives to work. She said these views seem like landscapes that have undergone “plastic surgery,” transforming large parts of the Coachella Valley’s desert into scenes of unnatural lushness. From La Quinta to Palm Springs, the area’s gated communities, resorts and golf courses have long been promoted with palm-studded images of green grass, swimming pools and artificial lakes. The entrepreneurs and boosters who decades ago built the Coachella Valley’s reputation as a playground destination saw the appeal of developments awash in water, made possible by wells drawing on the aquifer and a steady stream of Colorado River water.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: How Las Vegas declared war on thirsty grass and set an example for the desert Southwest
  • Western Water Rewind: As Climate Change Turns Up The Heat in Las Vegas, Water Managers Try to Wring New Savings to Stretch Supply
  • Desert Sun: Opinion: The Cotino water project is using outdated water analysis: We are in a drought
  • Desert Sun – Commentary: Coachella Valley’s golf community has done the math on the water it needs
  • Desert Sun: Opinion - Coachella Valley Water district costs continue to increase in my taxes
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 Bay City News

State approves sustainability plans for major North Bay groundwater basins

Plans for ensuring the long-term viability of four major groundwater basins in the North Bay were approved Thursday by state water regulators. The State Department of Water Resources announced that it gave the okay to plans developed for the Napa Valley Subbasin in Napa County and the Santa Rosa Plain Subbasin, the Petaluma Valley Basin and Sonoma Valley Subbasin in Sonoma County. The plans were developed by four different local groundwater sustainability agencies under the requirements of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

Related articles: 

  • Engineering News-Record: Rosemary Knight – Strong believer in value of science and data for sustainably managing California’s groundwater
  • Napa Valley Register: Napa Valley Grapegrowers Report: Investing in the aquifer
  • Forbes: Opinion – Can we store enough extreme rainfall to break droughts?
  • Marin Independent Journal: Marin Independent Journal here:  Marin water district tests supply options against severe drought
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Why forecasts for La Niña turned out to be all wet

The new year started off with a parade of storms, leading to San Francisco and the wider Bay Area seeing one of its rainiest time frames since the Gold Rush era. This onslaught of storms seemed a bit out of place with the trend of La Niña, an outlook that traditionally brings warm, dry conditions to most of California. Instead, the first half of the 2022-23 winter season was marked by atmospheric river-enhanced storms and notable reductions in drought conditions across the state. … For meteorologists in both the Bay Area and across the Western U.S., this January’s shift toward wet and stormy conditions brings with it questions over what other factors might be stomping out the typical La Niña outlook.

Related article: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: It’s about to get extremely cold in the Bay Area and Sierra Nevada
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 The Sentinel

Arizona restricts farming to protect groundwater supply

The dry and empty landscape [around Kingman, AZ] has since morphed into something much more green that supports pistachio and almond orchards, as well as garlic and potato fields, in a climate similar to California’s Central Valley. The crops are fed by groundwater that also serves the city of Kingman. The Arizona Department of Water Resources has put a limit on the amount of land that can be watered, designating the Hualapai Valley as an irrigation non-expansion area. That means anyone who hasn’t farmed more than 2 acres there during the past five years can’t. It’s the first such designation in Arizona in four decades — highlighting struggles around the U.S. as water supplies dwindle and tensions grow between farmers and cities. 

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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 KSBW - Monterey

San Benito County farmers hope for increase in allocations from federal water projects

A day after state water leaders announced they plan to increase water allocations to farmers and cities, some now hope the federal government will follow the lead and allocate more water from their reservoirs. The decision by state leaders follows a series of atmospheric rivers that filled reservoirs and increased the Sierra snowpack. But federal leaders have yet to make a similar decision. In San Benito County, agriculture leaders hope they do because a large source of water for them comes from the San Luis reservoir, a federal water project, and water levels there have increased drastically in the last month. As of Jan. 27 water capacity was at 57 percent, up from just 24 percent, before a series of storms slammed into the Central Coast.

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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 Mendocino Voice

A look at Mendocino County water: Rainfall gives “breathing room,” but only infrastructure, climate solutions can ease drought

Even while power outages, flooding, and downed trees plagued Mendocino County during the first weeks of 2023, we could take comfort in the fact that on California’s drought-ridden soil, rain is good news. Lake Mendocino hit its highest amount of water storage in more than a decade, and our past month of precipitation is on track with or better than “normal” conditions over the past 30 years.  … A high water table and a near-full reservoir can no longer be taken at face value: water managers, well users, and those who watched Governor Gavin Newsom deliver a speech on water rights from the bed of Lake Mendocino in 2021 know better than to expect a couple weeks of rain to reverse decades of water insecurity. According to a table from the California WaterBlog, drought can be considered “over” in only one area of impact this month: soil moisture. 

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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 CNBC

Why desalination won’t save states dependent on Colorado River water

States dependent on the drought-stricken Colorado River are increasingly looking toward desalination as a way to fix the river’s deficit and boost water supplies across the western U.S. The search for alternative ways to source water comes as federal officials continue to impose mandatory water cuts for states that draw from the Colorado River, which supplies water and power for more than 40 million people. Desalination (or desalinization) is a complicated process that involves filtering out salt and bacteria content from ocean water to produce safe drinking water to the tap. While there are more than a dozen desalination plants in the U.S., mostly in California, existing plants don’t have the capacity to replace the amount of water the Colorado River is losing.

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Aquafornia news January 30, 2023 NBC 7 - San Diego

South Bay residents continue to benefit from recent rainstorms

The rain in December and January is still paying off for 200,000 South Bay residents. The Sweetwater Authority, which provides water to customers in Western Chula Vista, Bonita, and National City, just opened a massive valve in the Loveland Dam Thursday to send water to the Sweetwater Reservoir for the second time in two months. “We might be able to capture approximately 1.1 billion gallons of water,” explained Erick Del Bosque, Sweetwater Authority’s Director of Engineering and Operations. Del Bosque said that much water will save customers roughly $5 million. The Loveland Reservoir is only filled with rainwater and water runoff. Sweetwater Authority opened the valve in Loveland Dam in November for more than two weeks to send water to the Sweetwater Reservoir because it was running dangerously low, at only 14% capacity.

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Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 Mercury News

Friday Top of the Scroll: California drought eases as state increases water deliveries to cities, farms

In a major sign that California’s drought conditions are easing after a series of huge storms earlier this month, state water officials on Thursday increased the amount of water that cities and farms will receive this summer from the State Water Project, a series of dams, canals and pumps that provides water to 27 million people from the Bay Area to San Diego. The increased water deliveries — six times the amount promised on Dec. 1 — are made possible by rapidly filling reservoirs and a huge Sierra Nevada snowpack and likely will mean that many communities will ease or lift summer water restrictions if the wet weather continues through the spring.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: California to get major boost in water supplies after January storms
  • CalMatters: State water deliveries to surge — highest in 6 years
  • Associated Press: The winter storms in California will boost water allocations for the state’s cities
  • SJV Sun: Calif. water officials hike state water allocation following storms
  • CA Department of Water Resources: Recent Storms Allow State Water Project to Increase Expected 2023 Deliveries to 1.27 Million Acre-Feet of Water
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 The New York Times

As the Colorado River shrinks, Washington prepares to spread the pain

The seven states that rely on water from the shrinking Colorado River are unlikely to agree to voluntarily make deep reductions in their water use, negotiators say, which would force the federal government to impose cuts for the first time in the water supply for 40 million Americans. The Interior Department had asked the states to voluntarily come up with a plan by Jan. 31 to collectively cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado. … Negotiators say the odds of a voluntary agreement appear slim. It would be the second time in six months that the Colorado River states, which also include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, have missed a deadline for consensus on cuts sought by the Biden administration to avoid a catastrophic failure of the river system.

Related articles: 

  • Roll Call: Colorado River states attempt to reach water-use plan — again
  • Arizona Department of Water Resources: Blog - How a productive burst of winter moisture may (or may not) impact drought in the Southwest
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 Los Angeles Times

California Imperial Valley farmers see less water in future

Just north of the California-Mexico border, the All-American Canal cuts across 80 miles of barren, dune-swept desert. Up to 200 feet wide and 20 feet deep, the canal delivers the single largest share of Colorado River water to the fertile farmlands of the Imperial Valley. It’s more water than what Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas get combined, and it’s used to grow lettuce, broccoli, carrots and spinach, as well as hay to supply beef and dairy operations, wheat, melons, lemons and other crops. … But as the Colorado’s largest reservoir declines closer to “dead pool” levels, politicians and water managers in other states are calling on the IID to make cuts beyond the 250,000 acre-feet, or about 9%, that the agency has pledged to make starting this year. They say that the dire state of Lake Mead warrants larger cuts …

Related article: 

  • CleanTechnica: How The Salton Sea Could Solve Battery Mineral Supply Issues
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

What does California rain, snow mean for drought conditions?

California’s string of heavy rainstorms in January continue to provide temporary relief to the state’s chronically dry land. Drought conditions across the golden state have either improved or remained the same compared to one week ago. The U.S. Drought Monitor, in a weekly update published Thursday, reports the state remains free of both “extreme” or “exceptional” drought for the second week in a row. California’s Central Coast, which was devastated by the severe storms, has exited moderate drought conditions and is now “abnormally dry.” In the northwest corner of the state, the majority of Del Norte County is drought free for at least the second the week in a row.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Major California region now out of drought
  • The Guardian: Storms dumped snow on California. Will it bring a reprieve from the drought?
  • KGET – Bakersfield: This long stretch of California is no longer in a drought
  • Tahoe Daily Tribune: Quick-hitting storm could drop a foot of snow at Tahoe; Frigid temps to follow
  • KCRA: After recent weeks of rain, will Lake Berryessa’s ‘Glory Hole’ be used?
  • Patch: Following storms, San Francisco’s water reservoirs see helpful increases in levels
  • Valley Water News: Water being released from Anderson Dam to maintain 3.7% storage level
  • Stanford Daily: Lake Lag is full, but California’s drought rages on
  • Ventura County Star: Damaging storm temporarily stops diversions to Lake Casitas. Here’s why
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 WIRED

How sensor-dangling helicopters can help beat the water crisis

After weeks of near-constant rain and flooding, California is finally drying out—but hopefully not getting too dry, because the state needs all the rain it can get to pull itself out of a historic drought. This is California at its most frenetic and contradictory: Climate change is making both dry spells and rainstorms more intense, ping-ponging the state’s water systems between critical shortages and canal-topping deluges.  A simultaneous solution to both extremes is right beneath Californians’ feet: aquifers, which are made up of underground layers of porous rock or sediments, like gravel and sand, that fill with rainwater soaking through the soil above. … In paleo valleys, those coarser sediments are topped with perhaps just a few feet of soil, so they readily channel water into the aquifer system—this is where you’d want to refill.

Related article: 

  • California Department of Water Resources: News release - DWR approves groundwater sustainability plans for four Northern California basins
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Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 The Sun-Gazette Newspaper

Exeter takes last step to start Tooleville water connection

The saga over connecting Exeter and Tooleville’s water systems entered its most important phase to date on Jan. 24., in which an agreement will now be sent to the state for review. City manager Adam Ennis said that the approval of the consolidation agreement between Exeter and Tooleville will be one of the last steps before they can execute the project. The agreement outlines the responsibilities of Tooleville Mutual Non-Profit Water Association (TMNPWA) and Exeter for making the water connection a reality. Exeter is now awaiting approval of this agreement from the State Water Board, and if it is approved, they will finally be allowed to break ground on the project. This was a long time coming, as the city has spent years working on a solution to Tooleville’s water woes. 

Related article: 

  • Porterville Recorder: Porterville provides water to county residents on provisional basis
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Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 The Guardian

Their Arizona community was ideal. Then their neighbor cut off the water

In the warmth of Arizona’s winter sun, 50 residents gathered in front of neighborhood activist Cody Reim’s house last weekend, eager to discuss a solution to their problem. Despite living a few miles from a river, their community has no water supply services. … In Rio Verde Foothills, an unincorporated community with no municipal government, near Scottsdale, the fashionable, wealthy desert city adjoining the state capital of Phoenix, none of the homes are connected to a local water district. There is only one paved road, no street lights, storm gutters, or pipes in the ground. Instead residents have wells – or water tanks outside their homes, which they used to fill at a local pipe serviced by Scottsdale.

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Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 Colorado Newsline

Opinion: Colorado should kick lawns to the curb

Over the course of the next seven years, an average 35,000 housing units will be built each year in Colorado. If past trends persist, around 70% of those housing units will be single-family homes. From Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, it’s likely that Coloradans will see more single-family suburban developments popping up — and with them, lawns. Conventional grass lawns ornament the vast majority of American homes, covering three times as much surface area as irrigated cornfields in the United States. Although lawns are often purely aesthetic, sometimes they are chosen for their durability; lawns hold up against cleats, dogs and kids. … But there are far too many cropped, green lawns that are neglected until a weed sprouts up or it’s time to mow. Too many lawns exist just for the sake of being maintained.
-Written by Sammy Herdman, a campaign associate for Environment Colorado.

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Aquafornia news January 27, 2023 NRDC

Blog: Fighting a flood of misinformation about CA water

The past weeks following our recent large storms have been awash in misinformation and hypocrisy about operating and permitting water infrastructure in California. Even those who closely follow the news about California water are likely unaware that the data shows that more than half of the runoff from the storms in early January was captured and stored in the Central Valley. Or that the loudest voices criticizing environmental protections for our rivers and fisheries during the storms – which are requirements of the Trump Administration’s 2019 biological opinions – are the very same voices demanding that legislators and the courts keep those biological opinions in place. 

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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 Ag Alert

Thursday Top of the Scroll: Storm deluge stirs hope for water supply

California farmers are encouraged by the series of atmospheric river storms that brought near-record rain and snow, filling depleted reservoirs and bolstering the snowpack. Frost Pauli, vineyard manager for Pauli Ranch in Potter Valley in Mendocino County, said he feels optimistic after three intense years of drought. He said the winter storms “have been excellent for our water supply.” Farmers with water rights along the Russian River in Mendocino and Sonoma counties have been subject to water diversion curtailments since 2021, after the California State Water Resources Control Board adopted actions spurred by a drought emergency declaration by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Other water supply cuts were mandated for watersheds including the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the Scott River and Shasta River watershed.

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  • Newsweek: Lake Oroville water level skyrockets after rain 
  • Sites JPA: Recent near-record storms make the case for Sites Reservoir
  • Antelope Valley Press: Big Rock Creek water storage plan considered
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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Colorado River in crisis – The West faces a water reckoning

Over the last several years, managers of water agencies have reached deals to take less water from the river. But those reductions haven’t been nearly enough to halt the river’s spiral toward potential collapse. As Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, continues to decline toward “dead pool” levels, the need to rein in water demands is growing urgent. Efforts to adapt will require difficult decisions about how to deal with the reductions and limit the damage to communities, the economy and the river’s already degraded ecosystems. Adapting may also drive a fundamental rethinking of how the river is managed and used, redrawing a system that is out of balance. This reckoning with the reality of the river’s limits is about to transform the landscape of the Southwest.

Related articles:

  • Marketplace: Drought threatens hydropower produced by Colorado River
  • The Hill: Why the snowfall in Colorado Rockies isn’t likely to alleviate the drought 
  • Los Angeles Times: Lake Powell’s decline and the Colorado River crisis
  • Arizona Department of Water Resources: How A Productive Spate Of Winter Moisture May (Or May Not) Impact Drought In The Southwest
  • Los Angeles Times: The Colorado River - Where the west quenches its thirst
  • Los Angeles Times: Inside the water crisis - A journey across the Colorado River Basin
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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 Border Report

Tijuana running out of water, turns to California for help

As of Friday morning, more than 600 colonias were without running water in Tijuana and Rosarito, where residents say service has been spotty since last year. Facing the possibility of running out of water, Tijuana’s State Commission for Public Services, CESPT, turned to the San Diego County Water Authority for help. Agreements in place between Mexico and the United States allow for water deliveries in times of emergency or severe drought. So last week, the San Diego-based agency began sending water to Tijuana. Compounding the problem is the deterioration of Tijuana’s main aqueduct that delivers water from the Colorado River, the city’s main source of water. So far, repairs are taking longer than expected.

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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 CBS Colorado - Denver

New rules will expand how water can be reused in Colorado

Water is already a scarce commodity in the West, but if Colorado keeps growing we are going to need even more. One source could be treating reused drinking water. It’s a scenario water providers and the state are already planning for. … It’s not something that will likely happen soon. Direct potable reuse water will need to be treated with state-of-the-art technologies to make it safe to drink and that process is expensive, but providers and the state want to be prepared. That’s why just this month [Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment] implemented new rules to regulate direct potable reuse water. So that way if water providers are going to practice direct potable reuse, they are doing it safely. 

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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 KOMO - Seattle

La Niña weather isn’t done, but ocean temperatures are heading toward a new phase

La Niña brings cooler than normal and wetter than normal winter weather for the Pacific Northwest…usually. Cold storms with high amounts of rain and mountain snow, along with a few more rounds of lowland snow, keep the precipitation above average and temperatures below. Cooler and wetter than the average for the Pacific Northwest, La Niña also creates drier than average winters over the southwest United States; most often, a drought builds. Not this year! Our rare, third-consecutive La Niña winter has been filled with variability.

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  • San Francisco Chronicle: California weather to be shaped by an ‘omega block’ this week. Here’s how it impacts the Bay Area
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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 KSL

Judge to Arizona community: Water not required to flow from Scottsdale

A Maricopa County judge in Arizona denied residents emergency relief over their Scottsdale water source that has been cut off since Jan. 1 because of drought conditions and despite repeated city warnings to find an alternative water source. The action for an emergency stay was brought by some residents of the nearby unincorporated community of Rio Verde Foothills who saw their deliveries of water run dry at the beginning of the year due to action by the city of Scottsdale, whose leaders said they repeatedly warned the community that continued deliveries were unsustainable due to drought.

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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 CBS 8 - San Diego

How golf courses are adapting to a changing world

[S]evere drought, which affected 90% of the state by the end of 2022, led to historic water restrictions in Southern California — impacting millions of people. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says L.A.-based golf courses use about 1.6 billion gallons of drinking water each year, about 1% of the total potable water used in the city. Meanwhile, courses use only about one billion gallons of recycled water. Those restrictions are also pushing golf courses across the region to incorporate new technology to become more efficient with their water usage.

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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 SJV Water

Video: From India to Selma, farming has been a way of life for the Brar family

This is the first in a series of videos we’re calling “Rooted in the Valley.” We hope to highlight family farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, how they came to this area from all over the world and what the future holds as water becomes a key factor in their ability to survive. 

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Aquafornia news January 26, 2023 KBAK - Bakersfield

Bakersfield, Kern River Valley makes Cal Water’s top water-saving districts for Dec. 2022

Bakersfield and the Kern River Valley made the list of Cal Water’s top water-saving districts for December 2022. California Water Service, Cal Water, said customers surpassed the state’s conservation target of 15% in December 2022, saving 16.5% company-wide over December 2020. In a release it said, “This is the eighth month in a row Cal Water customers reduced their water use, with 11 districts saving more than 15%.” The 11 Cal Water districts that surpassed 15% in water-use reductions are …

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  • Legal Planet: Failure to install smart water meters is wasting billions of gallons each year 
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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 KCRA - Sacramento

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: 2 big California reservoirs hit highest levels in 2.5 years

California’s water supply has hit a new milestone for the year in the wake of three weeks of wet weather. Water levels at two of the state’s largest reservoirs are now at their highest point in 2.5 years, Chief Meteorologist Mark Finan said. … Lake Shasta and Oroville have both added more than 1 million acre-feet of water in the past month and the levels continue to rise. Inflow rates into those reservoirs have decreased considerably, which is to be expected during periods of dry weather. As of Tuesday, Lake Shasta is at 55% of its total capacity and Lake Oroville is at 62% of capacity. Last summer, Lake Shasta peaked at about 40% of its total capacity.

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  • Fox 5 – San Diego: 7 billion gallons of water fill up San Diego reservoirs, but what does this mean for the county’s drought levels?
  • Mercury News: Before and after images of Irvine Lake with a billion gallons of new water
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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 Las Vegas Review-Journal

Lake Mead’s decline may slow, thanks to winter’s wet start

Hefty snowfalls from a series of atmospheric rivers have brought a slightly rosier outlook for the beleaguered Colorado River. While not enough to fend off the falling water levels entirely, the snow that has dropped in recent weeks across the mountains that feed the river is expected to slow the decline at Lake Mead, according to the latest federal projections released last week. Forecasters now expect Lake Mead to finish this year around 1,027 feet elevation, about 19 feet lower than its current level. That’s about 7 feet higher than the 2023 end-of-year elevation in the bureau’s forecast from last month. As for Lake Powell, the reservoir located on the Utah-Arizona border is now expected to finish 2023 at 3,543 feet, or 16 feet higher than last month’s forecast and about 19 feet higher than its current level.

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  • Newsweek: Is the Colorado River Drying Up?
  • KSL-Salt Lake City: Here’s how much the drought has weakened so far this winter for Utah, the West
  • Colorado Water Conservation Board: News release: 2023 Colorado Water Plan will inspire action to build stronger water future
  • Water for Colorado: Press Release - Water for Colorado Congratulates State on Release of Updated Water Plan, Looks Forward to Implementation
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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 SJV Sun

Madera Co. ditches plan to tinker with groundwater penalties

Madera County is keeping its recently approved current structure for penalizing farmers who blow past their water allocation, forgoing an option to implement a tiered penalty structure.  The decision came during Tuesday’s Madera County Board of Supervisors meeting and maintains the status quo for the Chowchilla, Delta-Mendota and Madera Subbasins.  The backstory: Last September, the Board adopted a new penalty structure for water overdrafts, setting the 2023 fine at $100 per acre-foot in excess of the allotted amount. The penalty would increase by $100 per year and cap out at $500 in 2027 and beyond.

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  • EOS: Global models underestimated groundwater recharge and discharge
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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 Deseret News

Arizona water shortage clashes with housing needs

Arizona needs tens of thousands of new housing units to meet demand, but first, developers will need to find enough water. The state’s water woes have been on full display this month as it lost 21% of its Colorado River supply to cuts, homes outside Scottsdale, Arizona, had their water cut off by the city, and a recently released model found planned housing units for more than 800,000 people west of Phoenix will have to find new water sources. Arizona is one of the fastest-growing states and short 100,000 housing units, a state Department of Housing report released last year found, but depending on where they’re located, some homes will be more easily built than others.

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  • Deseret News: Judge to Arizona community: Water not required to flow from Scottsdale
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  • Deseret News: A southern Utah mayor’s water warning: ‘We are running out’
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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 Colusa Sun-Herald

New analysis projects capabilities of Sites Reservoir during heavy river flows

The Sites Project Authority released findings from a new analysis that projected Sites Reservoir could have diverted and captured 120,000 acre-feet of water in just two weeks if the reservoir had been operational from Jan. 3 through Jan. 15 and would continue to capture water over the next few weeks as flows continue to run high. … The project, which has been in the works for more than 60 years, hopes to turn the Sites Valley, located 10 miles west of Maxwell where Colusa and Glenn counties meet, into a state-of-the-art off-stream water storage facility that captures and stores stormwater flows in the Sacramento River – after all other water rights and regulatory requirements are met – for release in dry and critical years for environmental use and for communities, farms and businesses statewide to utilize when needed.

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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 Press Democrat

Healdsburg council hears proposal for new Alexander Valley Water District

Organizers behind a proposed water district in the Alexander Valley put forward Monday their vision for a new entity that would seek to safeguard legal standing of agricultural landowners in the famed grape-growing region. They made their presentation at the Healdsburg City Council’s regular meeting where they called for the formation of the Alexander Valley Water District. It would give valley property owners, many of them grape growers, a stronger legal foothold to protect their rights to draw on Russian River flows and connected groundwater. … The move comes in response to a host of factors, such as the multi-year drought that has spurred state regulators in recent years to curtail water rights for thousands of water rights holders along the upper Russian River, forcing some to cut back on irrigation with surface water flows or turn to groundwater.

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Aquafornia news January 25, 2023 Western Farm Press

‘Water-efficient’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘barren’

Good news: roses can be a part of your water-efficient landscape. Lorence Oki, UC Cooperative Extension environmental horticulture specialist in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, identified rose cultivars that remain aesthetically pleasing with little water.   Oki is the principal investigator of the Climate-Ready Landscape Plants project, which may be the largest irrigation trial in the western U.S., and the UC Plant Landscape Irrigation Trials (UCLPIT), the California component of that project. These projects evaluate landscape plants under varying irrigation levels to determine their optimal performance in regions requiring supplemental summer water.

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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 The Hill

La Niña shows signs of ending. Is El Niño next?

The long reign of La Niña may soon be over. According to the latest outlook released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, there’s an 82% chance that by springtime – sometime between March and May – La Niña will have faded away. In the spring, La Niña is most likely to be replaced by conditions meteorologists refer to as “ENSO neutral,” which is when neither La Niña nor El Niño is present. Looking further down the forecast into late summer and early fall and there are signs of something we haven’t seen in years: the return of El Niño. By the August through October timeframe, there’s about a 50% chance El Niño will take hold. Of course, that means there’s also about a 50% chance it won’t.

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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 Salt Lake Tribune

Utah lawmakers pitch tree removal as plan to save Great Salt Lake

Do trees suck? You bet they do, and it’s time we do something about it, according to a group of conservative Utah lawmakers. Claiming “overgrown” forests are guzzling Utah’s water resources dry, rural members are now calling for a major logging initiative as the best hope for saving the shrinking Great Salt Lake and Lake Powell, despite a lack of scientific evidence that tree removal would make a big difference. Water conservation and efficiency are fine, but such measures are not enough to replenish Utah’s drought-depleted reservoirs and avert the ecological disaster unfolding at the Great Salt Lake, according to presentations Thursday before the Legislature’s “Yellow Cake Caucus,” a group of conservative lawmakers organized by Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding.

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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 Science

Can California’s floods help recharge depleted groundwater supplies?

The drenching storms that hit California in recent weeks represented a long-sought opportunity for Helen Dahlke, a groundwater hydrologist at the University of California, Davis. Dahlke has been studying ways to recharge the state’s severely depleted groundwater by diverting swollen rivers into orchards and fields and letting the water seep deep into aquifers. But carrying out such plans requires heavy precipitation—which had been scarce. This week, however, water managers began to turn theory into practice. In the Tulare Irrigation District, which supplies water to more than 200 farms south of Fresno, officials started diverting water from the San Joaquin River into 70 fields as well as specially constructed ponds. 

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  • NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: NASA Measures Underground Water Flowing From Sierra to Central Valley
  • ACWA: Weather Extremes Drive Home The Case For Water Infrastructure
    ABC 10 – Sacramento: The concept of FloodMAR, explained | Q&A
  • Davis Enterprise: Opinion – Rich Rifkin: When it rains, we need to be able to store more water
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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 KTNV - Las Vegas

Water panel talked key issues in Colorado River basin states Monday

We’re getting a peek at the future of our economy. The Las Vegas Chamber hosted Preview Las Vegas Monday. Key Colorado River state leaders address Southern Nevada’s water issues. One of the main focuses of Preview Las Vegas this year was the water supply for Southern Nevada. The biggest take away? Colorado river states are working together as one to combat the water crisis. … At Monday’s panel discussion, talk turned to the importance of a partnership with California’s regional recycling system. The agency is evaluating a restoration process that one day could send water back to Colorado River using states. But for now, the project’s targeted start date isn’t until 2030.

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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 CBS - San Francisco

Despite recent parade of storms, California unveils drought resiliency task force

Though the recent barrage of winter storms has certainly improved California’s drought conditions, state water leaders are making moves to prepare for the inevitable dry season soon to come. On Friday, the California Department of Water Resources kickstarted a partnership between state agencies, local governments, scientists and community members in a new task force, called the Drought Resilience Interagency and Partners Collaborative. The DRIP group was created in part by the 2021 Senate Bill 552, which requires state agencies to take a proactive stance on drought preparedness, especially for smaller rural communities most vulnerable to droughts.

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  • Fox 5 – San Diego: 7 billion gallons of water fill up San Diego reservoirs, but what does this mean for the county’s drought levels?
  • Courthouse News Service: Record rainfall, promising snowpack not enough to end California drought
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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 The Guardian

Oil wells guzzle precious California water. Next door, residents can’t use the tap

Towering refineries and rusty pumpjacks greet visitors driving along the highways of Kern county, California. Oil wells sit in the middle of fields of grapevines and almond trees. The air is heavy with dust and the scent of petroleum.  The energy fields here are some of the most productive in the US, generating billions of barrels of oil annually and more than two-thirds of the state’s natural gas. And in a drought-stricken state, they’re also some of the thirstiest, consuming vast quantities of fresh water to extract stubborn oil.  But in the industry’s shadow, nearby communities can’t drink from the tap. One of those communities is Fuller Acres, a largely Latino town in Kern county where residents must drive to the nearest town to buy safe water. 

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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 Deseret News

Utah drought: Is the St. George area running out of water?

Utah’s Washington County is one of the fastest growing areas in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, made possible by the Virgin River which supplies the region and its multiplying suburbs with water. But drought and population growth have long plagued the river, and the mayor of Ivins, a small, bedroom community of nearby St. George, did not mince words when addressing constituents this month. … Hart’s message came in the wake of an upscale community near Scottsdale, Arizona, having its water shut off on New Year’s Day. Similar to the St. George area, the fast-growing Scottsdale community received its drinking water from Arizona’s allotment of the Colorado River, and the shutoffs were in part due to shortages in the river’s basin, according to a memo sent to residents of the Rio Verde Foothills neighborhood.

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Aquafornia news January 24, 2023 Arizona Capitol Times

Opinion: Arizona’s alfalfa is essential, water crisis solution that leads to food supply issue is no fix

Concerns over the Colorado River have led the everyday Arizonan to think about water in ways they haven’t before. As a result, much has been made as of late about growing “thirsty crops” in Arizona’s desert climate. It doesn’t take long to find an opinion or editorial about how farming alfalfa is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the water system in Arizona. This rhetoric needs to stop. Here’s why. When you hear that agriculture uses nearly three-fourths of Arizona’s water, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the best way to save water for growing urban populations is to take it from the largest user. In reality, though, that water is already being consumed by that urban population each and every time they sit down for a meal.
-Written by Chelsea McGuire, the Arizona Farm Bureau Government Relations Director.​

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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 Newsweek

Monday Top of the Scroll: How Sierra Nevada record snowpack will impact California drought

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which has continued to increase throughout January as a result of storms battering much of the state since the New Year, might help California combat its ongoing drought. As of January 20, the Sierra snowpack state-wide was at 240 percent of the average for this time of year. The South Sierra stations, located between the San Joaquin and Mono counties through to Kern county, reported snowpacks at 283 percent of the January 20 average. The Sierra Nevada snowpack usually peaks around April 1. Currently, state-wide, the snowpack is at 126 percent of the average for April 1, with the South Sierras in particular at 149 percent.

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  • Mohave Valley Daily News: Snowpack looks promising for Colorado River
  • USA Today: 30 feet of snow? That much has fallen in some places in California as snow blankets huge swaths of state.
  • Washington Post: Before and after - See the impact of California storms from space
  • Spectrum News 1: Hitting the slopes? Winter storms brought record snowpack to California
  • California Drought: Folsom Lake expected to fill this summer, Bureau of Reclamation says
  • NPR: Why heavy winter rain and snow won’t be enough to pull the West out of a megadrought
  • Aspen Journalism: Colorado River Water Conservation District considers criteria for water conservation program
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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 The Hill

How Arizona, California and other states are trying to generate a whole new water supply

Underground storage may be a key for Western states navigating water shortages and extreme weather. Aquifers under the ground have served as a reliable source of water for years. During rainy years, the aquifers would fill up naturally, helping areas get by in the dry years. … But growing demand for water coupled with climate change has resulted in shortages as states pump out water from aquifers faster than they can be replenished…. Municipalities and researchers across the country are working on ways to more efficiently replenish emptied-out aquifers… In California — where 85 percent of the population relies on groundwater for some portion of their supply — more than 340 recharge projects have already been proposed.    

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  • Sonoma Index-Tribune: The drought remaining beneath the surface in Sonoma Valley soil 
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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Storm flooding compounds misery for California farms and workers

The sun was shining again recently when Fidencio Velasquez visited what used to be 90 acres of prime Ventura County strawberry fields. He pointed to a 40-foot storage container that Santa Clara River floodwaters had swept off a neighboring farm and deposited before him. Overturned tractors and fertilizer bins were strewn about like toys, while the deep channels between crop rows were filled with mud. A harvesting machine was damaged beyond repair. Metal pipes, hoses and trash littered the farm’s outskirts. … Velasquez, a supervisor at Santa Clara Farms in Ventura, estimates that the expense of cleaning up and replacing damaged crops, machinery and equipment could run upward of $900,000. 

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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 CA Department of Water Resources

News release: DWR launches interagency task force as part of advance planning for drought conditions

While California’s drought outlook is improving, the State is continuing to proactively prepare for a return to dry conditions amid climate-driven extremes in weather. Today, Department of Water Resources (DWR) is officially launching a standing Drought Resilience Interagency and Partners (DRIP) Collaborative, which will include members of the public. Community members and water users are encouraged to apply. Initiated by Senate Bill 552, the DRIP Collaborative will foster partnerships between local governments, experts, community representatives and state agencies to address drought planning, emergency response, and ongoing management. Members will help ensure support for community needs and anticipate and mitigate drought impacts, especially for small water supplier and rural communities who are often more vulnerable to droughts.

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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 Marketplace

How solar panels might help fix California’s drought

[A] new project aims to shield the flows from the heat and sun and help the state meet its renewable energy goals by covering canals with solar panels. California ships water across more than 700 miles. Most of the state’s water comes from the northern half, but most of it is used in the southern half. So those UC Merced researchers have been studying the idea of putting solar panels atop those canals. “If we put solar panels over all 4,000 miles of California’s open canals, we estimated we could save 65 billion gallons of water annually,” said Brandi McKuin, lead author of a report on the research. “That’s enough for the residential water needs of 2 million people, enough to irrigate 50,000 acres of farmland.”

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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 California WaterBlog

Blog: Is the drought over? Reflections on California’s recent flood-drought combo

Early January was an unusually wild ride of atmospheric rivers. Nine sizable systems produced a train of storms beginning about New Years and lasting for several weeks across almost all of California. After three years of drought, the storms reminded us that California has flood problems similar in magnitude to its drought problems, and that floods and droughts can occur in synchrony. As the dust begins to settle, let’s look at the impacts of these early January floods and examine if the recent three-year drought and its longer-term drought impacts might be ending.

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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 The New York Times

Opinion: My state is 1,000 miles long, and not everyone living in it hates the rain

Here in Fig Garden, a suburb that creeps up to the edge of the San Joaquin River, on land my neighbors prefer not to think of as a floodplain, the rain started falling in late December and didn’t stop for two weeks. My lawn turned into pond. Geese were honking like they haven’t honked in years. As the last big storm was nearing, I got a call from my aunt and uncle, California natives who high-tailed it to Cleveland a half century ago. “You guys all right?” they asked. The pond had yet to reach my front door. “I think we’re going to be OK,” I said. I reminded them that there are seven dams on the San Joaquin. I don’t know of any other river in America that has been more corralled by man. Over 90 percent of its flow is shunted via canals and ditches to farmland that produces almonds, pistachios, table grapes and mandarins.
-Written by Mark Arax, author of “The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California.”

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  • Los Angeles Times: Opinion - As Californians we inherit a dramatic, maybe doomed, relationship with water
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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 Grist

Wastewater recycling combats drought in California wine country

Standing under a shady tree drooping with pomegranates late last year, Brad Simmons, a retired metal fabricator who has lived in Healdsburg, California, for 57 years, showed off his backyard orchard. … Of course, the small grove requires plenty of water — an increasingly scarce resource in a state that continues grappling with a historic drought despite recent torrential rains. Yet Simmons, like many of his fellow 12,000 residents, has managed to keep much of this wine country community north of San Francisco looking verdant while slashing the city’s water use in half since 2020. Healdsburg benefits from an invaluable resource that keeps gardens, trees, and vineyards irrigated: free, non-potable water produced by its wastewater-reclamation facility.

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  • Washington Post: California’s vineyards were thirsty. Historic rains were ‘a dream come true.’
  • BBC: The California storms were great for wine
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Aquafornia news January 23, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Editorial: L.A. doesn’t need a water czar to solve its water woes. It’s already on it

The recent onslaught of storms and the backdrop of relentless drought might make Los Angeles residents wish we had an old-school water czar to tap distant rivers. But the days of having William Mulholland single-mindedly create a system to quench Los Angeles’ perpetual thirst are long gone. … Still, as Los Angeles residents watched the winter storms drench the region with billions of gallons of water — most of which rushed, unused, to the Pacific — it’s natural to wonder why our water systems don’t capture that water to use when we need it. … Adopted by voters in 2018 as Los Angeles County Measure W, the program is building a network of small, local rainwater- and runoff-retention projects, anchored by several larger catch basins that together will increase by at least a third the amount of water that seeps into groundwater basins. 

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Aquafornia news January 20, 2023 KUNC - Greeley, Colo

Friday Top of the Scroll: This winter’s rain and snow won’t be enough to pull the West out of drought

This winter, the West has been slammed by wet weather. An “atmospheric river” has pummeled California with weeks of heavy rain, and the Rocky Mountains are getting buried with snow. That’s good news for the Colorado River, where all that moisture hints at a possible springtime boost for massive reservoirs that have been crippled by drought. Climate scientists, though, say the 40 million people who use the river’s water should take the good news with a grain of salt. The flakes that pile up high in the Rockies are crucial for the Colorado River — a water lifeline for people from Wyoming to Mexico in an area commonly referred to as the Colorado River basin. Before water flows through rivers, pipelines and canals to cities and farms across the region, it starts as high-altitude snow. 

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  • Newsweek: Lake Mead water levels set to reach all time low in 2023
  • Newsweek: Lake Powell Shrinking Water Levels Could Hurt These Areas Next
  • 12 News – Arizona: What do recent storms mean for Arizona drought conditions? 
  • Moab Sun News: Colorado River Authority of Utah opens conservation pilot program
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Aquafornia news January 20, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Environmental rules stoke anger as California lets precious stormwater wash out to sea

Environmental rules designed to protect imperiled fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have ignited anger among a group of bipartisan lawmakers, who say too much of California’s stormwater is being washed out to sea instead of being pumped to reservoirs and aqueducts. In a series of strongly worded letters, nearly a dozen legislators — many from drought-starved agriculture regions of the Central Valley —have implored state and federal officials to relax environmental pumping restrictions that are limiting the amount of water captured from the delta. … Since the beginning of January, a series of atmospheric rivers has disgorged trillions of gallons of much-needed moisture across drought-stricken California, but only a small fraction of that water has so far made it into storage. 

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Aquafornia news January 20, 2023 Sacramento Bee

What does California rain, snow mean for drought conditions?

For the first time in nearly two years, the entire state of California is not experiencing “abnormally dry” conditions — though most of it is. The U.S. Drought Monitor, in a weekly update published Thursday, reports 99.36% of the state in at least an “abnormally dry” status, as of Jan. 17, down from 100% a week ago. Better news: None of the state is in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought. In the northwest corner of the state, the majority of Del Norte County is drought free. A move in the needle, however slight, means the string of heavy rainstorms have temporally improved drought conditions. It does not mean the drought is over.

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  • San Francisco Chronicle: California’s Del Norte County is almost fully out of drought
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Aquafornia news January 20, 2023 Moab Sun News

Colorado River Authority of Utah opens conservation pilot program

At their Jan. 17 meeting, Grand County commissioners heard a presentation from Lily Bosworth, staff engineer for the Colorado River Authority of Utah, on a water conservation pilot program. The Colorado River Authority of Utah was established by the Utah State Legislature in 2021. Ongoing drought and growing evidence that the river cannot support the demand being placed on it by users have strained water infrastructure, policies and agreements across the Southwest; the stated mission of the Colorado River Authority is to “protect, preserve, conserve, and develop Utah’s Colorado River system interests.” The Authority is overseen by a six-member board as well as the governor.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

Thursday Top of the Scroll: California went from drought to ‘epic’ snow. What it could mean for spring flooding

Nearly every square mile of California was in a severe drought four months ago. … Now we’re worrying about whether we have too much water in some places. California, always a state of extremes, rarely faces one quite like this. After three years of drought, the state’s snowpack is suddenly the deepest it’s been on record for mid-January. Most spots in the Sierra already have far more snow today than is usually measured on April 1, the date the snowpack typically peaks. In the central Sierra. The snowpack is 255% of normal for Jan. 17. … The [flooding] concern might increase in April, when the snowpack typically begins to melt, sending water flowing from the mountains and into rivers, streams and reservoirs. Lake Oroville is at just 58% of total capacity, but already has more water than it had in either 2021 or 2022.

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  • The New York Times: Los Angeles County’s Black residents are most at risk in major floods
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Aquafornia news January 20, 2023 Salt Lake Tribune

Skipped showers, paper plates: For one suburb that relies on the Colorado River, water is hard to get

Joe McCue thought he had found a desert paradise when he bought one of the new stucco houses sprouting in the granite foothills of Rio Verde, Arizona. There were good schools, mountain views and cactus-spangled hiking trails out the back door. Then the water got cut off. Earlier this month, the community’s longtime water supplier, the neighboring city of Scottsdale, turned off the tap for Rio Verde Foothills, blaming a grinding drought that is threatening the future of the West. Scottsdale said it had to focus on conserving water for its own residents, and could no longer sell water to roughly 500 to 700 homes — or around 1,000 people. 

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Aquafornia news January 20, 2023 Courthouse News Service

10th Circuit probes Trump-era deal with Utah to ‘exchange’ Green River water

The Trump administration failed to consider the strain of climate change and drought on the Colorado River and tributaries when it agreed to give Utah 52,000 acre-feet of water from a reservoir annually, environmental groups argued Thursday and asked a 10th Circuit panel to order an environmental impact statement for the plan. Forty million Americans depend on the Colorado River for water, along with 5.5 million acres of land, 22 Native American tribes and nearly two-dozen national parks and preserves. One of the Colorado River’s tributaries is the Green River, which winds through Utah and sustains ecosystems in the Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge, Dinosaur National Monument, Ouray National Wildlife Refuge and Canyonlands National Park.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Bloomberg

Colorado River water negotiators optimistic ahead of deadline

Officials involved in the talks over how to cut Colorado River water use amid a historic drought say they’re optimistic a consensus will be reached by states before a Feb. 1 deadline even though the negotiations are in a delicate place. If the seven Western states don’t reach consensus, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation will consider mandating water cuts—a move the states are working feverishly to avoid. More than likely, “we’re going to end up with some kind of hybrid outcome in which we have agreement in part, and some mandatory imposed outcomes from the federal government,” said Tom Buschatzke …

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Los Angeles Times

For all their ferocity, California storms were not likely caused by global warming, experts say

As California emerges from a two-week bout of deadly atmospheric rivers, a number of climate researchers say the recent storms appear to be typical of the intense, periodic rains the state has experienced throughout its history and not the result of global warming. Although scientists are still studying the size and severity of storms that killed 19 people and caused up to $1 billion in damage, initial assessments suggest the destruction had more to do with California’s historic drought-to-deluge cycles, mountainous topography and aging flood infrastructure than it did with climate-altering greenhouse gasses. Although the media and some officials were quick to link a series of powerful storms to climate change, researchers interviewed by The Times said they had yet to see evidence of that connection.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Chico Enterprise-Record

North state rice farmers encouraged by rain

Rainfall from the recent storms in California have been an encouraging sign for rice farmers in the north state. Lake Oroville, which feeds water to farmers along the Feather River, has surpassed its historical average capacity for this time of year with its elevation measured at about 779 feet on Sunday, a rise of more than 100 feet since Dec. 1. The lake is at 56% of its total capacity and carries more water now than last year’s highest recorded capacity of 55% in May 2022… Colleen Cecil, executive director of Butte County Farm Bureau, said conversations about how much water will be allocated to farmers are happening now, but that the area will likely have enough water to produce as much or more than last year.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Agri-Pulse Communications

How government regulations are preventing flood waters from replenishing drought-stricken areas

A chorus of Republicans and moderate Democrats in the San Joaquin Valley has called for the Newsom administration to ease pumping restrictions and export more water to drought-stricken regions of the state. For two weeks a surge of floodwater flowed nearly unimpeded through the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and into the bay. It was another missed opportunity to seize on a wet year to export and store more water, argued the lawmakers. Climate extremes and a lack of preparation underline the challenge. But the fault lies with an inflexible process for updating the pumping permits rather than on water managers, according to a group of irrigation districts and water agencies with contracts for the exports. This week the same regulatory inertia put up another obstacle in the way of Delta pumping.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 The Guardian

Saved by a rainy day? Californians ‘harvest’ water during historic storms

When Kitty Bolte looked at her yard at the start of California’s powerful winter storms, she saw more than half a foot of standing water behind her house. At first Bolte, a horticulturalist by trade, contemplated pumping it out onto the street. But with the historic rains coming in the midst of a historic drought, that seemed oddly wasteful. So instead, she and her boyfriend decided to save it. They found a neighbor selling IBC totes – large 330-gallon plastic containers surrounded by wire – on Craigslist, and filled them up using an inexpensive Home Depot pump. They also dragged some spare garbage cans outside to sit under the downpour, gathering 800 gallons in all. … One inch of rain on a 1,000 sq ft roof can result in 600 gallons of water – enough to water a 4 by 8 ft food garden for 30 weeks. In her cisterns, Dougherty collects much more – 2,000 gallons at a time that are stored in large plastic vessels that can be closed off.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Opinion: GOP claims about Prop. 1 water projects mostly off base

California voters approved a ballyhooed $7.5-billion bond issue eight-plus years ago thinking the state would build dams and other vital water facilities. But it hasn’t built zilch. True or false? That’s the rap: The voters were taken. The state can’t get its act together. Republicans and agriculture interests in particular make that charge, but the complaint also is widespread throughout the state. There’s some truth in the allegation. But it’s basically a bum rap. No dams have been built, that’s true. But one will be and two will be expanded. And hundreds of other smaller projects have been completed.
-Written by LA Times columnist George Skelton.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 California Trout

Blog: New restoration project kicks off on Scott River tributary

As drought persists and future impacts of climate change threaten, salmonids across the state will increasingly seek out refuge from warming waters.  Cold-water streams like Big Mill Creek, a tributary to the East Fork of the Scott River, offer important refuge for these fish including the federal and state threatened coho salmon. In the next few years, CalTrout, with the support of The Wildlands Conservancy and our project partners, will prepare to implement a project to restore fish access to upstream habitat in Big Mill Creek creating impacts that could ripple throughout the whole watershed. … Much of the river is warm, but there are cold-water pockets where thousands of coho salmon can be found. 

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Bakersfield Californian

City of Bakersfield looking to drought-resistant streetscaping in long-range effort to save water

California may be flooding, but the multiyear drought is far from over. It only makes sense that the city of Bakersfield has its eye on reducing water use over the long term on city-owned properties and streetscaping along Bakersfield’s busy avenues and major traffic arteries. It’s why the city has begun taking advantage of incentives offered by California Water Service Co. that have the potential to return hundreds of thousands of dollars to city coffers, while saving millions of gallons of water annually. CalWater has established a program for customers, both big and small, that incentivizes turf replacement with drought-tolerant landscaping, sometimes called xeriscape. The program reimburses CalWater’s account holders up to $3 for each square foot of turf removed.

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Aquafornia news January 19, 2023 Bay Area News Group

Editorial: Steinbeck, rainstorms and California’s water challenges

“During the dry years, the people forgot about the rich years, and when the wet years returned, they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” Sadly, nothing much has changed in California and the Salinas Valley since 1952, when John Steinbeck wrote those words for the opening chapters of his novel, “East of Eden.” As a result, the atmospheric rivers drenching the state have been a decidedly mixed blessing. The rainfall means for the first time in more than two years, the majority of California is no longer in a severe drought. The Sierra snowpack is at 226% of average for this time of year, the largest we’ve seen in more than two decades. Reservoirs are filling at a rapid rate. … Then there’s the bad news, starting of course with the deaths of 17 Californians …

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 CalMatters

Imperial Valley growers brace to give up Colorado River water

Across the sun-cooked flatlands of the Imperial Valley, water flows with uncanny abundance. The valley, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border, is naturally a desert. Yet canals here are filled with water, lush alfalfa grows from sodden soil and rows of vegetables stretch for miles. … But now, as a record-breaking megadrought and endless withdrawals wring the Colorado River dry, Imperial Valley growers will have to cut back on the water they import. The federal government has told seven states to come up with a plan by Jan. 31 to reduce their water supply by 30%, or 4 million acre feet. The Imperial Valley is by far the largest user of water in the Colorado River’s lower basin — consuming more water than all of Arizona and Nevada combined in 2022 — so growers there will have to find ways to sacrifice the most.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 KCRA - Sacramento

Shasta, Oroville, Folsom reservoir levels after weeks of rain

Without a doubt, weeks of rain and snow since late December are absolutely helping with California’s water supply. But how much help exactly is a question many have been asking. KCRA 3 Chief Meteorologist Mark Finan goes over where water reservoirs in Northern California stand. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot of good news. … Shasta is the state’s biggest reservoir, able to hold 4 1/2 million acre-feet of water. As of Jan. 17, it stands at 52% capacity compared to 34% a year ago. … As of Jan. 17, [Folsom] is at 54% capacity compared to 56% a year ago. The thing to understand about Folsom’s capacity right now is that it is already in flood control mode, meaning that water is already being released to balance out the reservoir because there is still plenty of the year to go. And then there’s the snowpack to consider when it melts.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 Public Policy Institute of California

Blog: Can we capture more water in the Delta?

A massive amount of water is moving through the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta in the wake of recent storms, and calls have risen from all quarters to capture more of this bounty while it’s here. We spoke with PPIC Water Policy Center adjunct fellow Greg Gartrell to understand what’s preventing that—and to dispel the myth of “water wasted to the sea.” … People complain that we’re wasting water to the ocean. While it’s true that there are pumping restrictions right now to protect fish, the maximum the projects could be pumping is about 14,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), not quite double what they’re currently pumping (8,000 cfs on Jan 12). With current outflows at about 150,000 cfs, we’d still see 144,000 cfs flowing to the ocean if they were pumping without restrictions.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 The New York Times

Can we talk about how we talk about the weather?

Last week, days after a bomb cyclone (coupled with a series of atmospheric rivers, some of the Pineapple Express variety) took devastating aim at California, a downtown conference center here was inundated by the forces responsible — not for the pounding rain and wind but for the forecast. Scores of the world’s most authoritative meteorologists and weather scientists gathered to share the latest research at the 103rd meeting of the American Meteorological Society. The subject line of an email to participants on the first day projected optimism — “Daily Forecast: A Flood of Scientific Knowledge.” But there were troubling undercurrents. Scientists are in consensus on the increasing frequency of extreme weather events — the blizzard in Buffalo, flooding in Montecito, Calif., prolonged drought in East Africa — and their worrisome impacts. At the Denver meeting, however, there was another growing worry: how people talk about the weather.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 The Business Journal

Westlands told hands off excess river water

As flood flows and dam releases follow a series of atmospheric rivers in California, a sea of bureaucracy complicates the ability of water contractors to make use of runoff. This month, the Bureau of Reclamation began releasing water from Friant Dam into the San Joaquin River. But unlike in 2017, when Californians also experienced a wet year, the Bureau of Reclamation and State Water Resources Control Board made excess water available to growers. Even though the water passes through water infrastructure owned and operated by the federal government, permits to deliver that water are still granted by State Water Resources Control Board. Since 2017, the Control Board changed rules that flows from Friant Dam into Mendota Pool could only be delivered to Friant Division contractors.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 ABC7 - Los Angeles

Recent rain inundates SoCal fields, destroying crops and keeping farmworkers out of work

Some might think that the recent rain would be good for Southern California’s farms. But, water has inundated fields, destroying crops and putting some farmworkers out of work. Some workers were out in the muddy fields Monday trying to pick fruits and vegetables as quickly as possible to get them out to market. Berta Leon works in a strawberry field and says the fruit can get damaged when the fields get too much water. It’s a complete loss for the owner of the field, as well as the workers because they lose out on work. Some workers said while the rain is welcome, some can’t be out in the fields because it’s too dangerous.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 CNBC

Developers lack enough groundwater to build in desert west of Phoenix

Developers planning to build homes in the desert west of Phoenix don’t have enough groundwater supplies to move forward with their plans, a state modeling report found.  Plans to construct homes west of the White Tank Mountains will require alternative sources of water to proceed as the state grapples with a historic megadrought and water shortages, according to the report. Water sources are dwindling across the Western United States and mounting restrictions on the Colorado River are affecting all sectors of the economy, including homebuilding. But amid a nationwide housing shortage, developers are bombarding Arizona with plans to build homes even as water shortages worsen.

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Aquafornia news January 18, 2023 San Diego County Water Authority

News release: Water authority delivers emergency water supply to Tijuana

Emergency water deliveries started last week after a coordinated effort between the Water Authority, Otay Water District, and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The typical multi-month approval process was compressed into a few days to avoid additional water supply shortages in Tijuana. … Cross-border emergency deliveries started more than 50 years ago and are governed by an agreement between the United States and Mexico to provide Tijuana with a portion of Mexico’s Colorado River supply. The Water Authority provides emergency water deliveries to Mexico through a cross-border connection in Otay Mesa.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 Mercury News

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: A 2-inch fish is limiting how much water can be captured for cities and farms

The most drenching storms in the past five years have soaked Northern California, sending billions of gallons of water pouring across the state after three years of severe drought. But 94% of the water that has flowed since New Year’s Eve through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a linchpin of California’s water system, has continued straight to the Pacific Ocean instead of being captured and stored in the state’s reservoirs. Environmental regulations aimed at protecting a two-inch-long fish, the endangered Delta smelt, have required the massive state and federal pumps near Tracy to reduce pumping rates by nearly half of their full limit, sharply curbing the amount of water that can be saved for farms and cities to the south.

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  • CalMatters: Opinion, by Dan Walters: Storms tell California to upgrade its plumbing
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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 The Washington Post

In California, a drought turned to floods. Forecasters didn’t see it coming.

Coming into this winter, California was mired in a three-year drought, with forecasts offering little hope of relief anytime soon. Fast forward to today, and the state is waterlogged with as much as 10 to 20 inches of rain and up to 200 inches of snow that have fallen in some locations in the past three weeks…. The [Climate Prediction Center's] initial outlook for this winter, issued on Oct. 20, favored below-normal precipitation in Southern California and did not lean toward either drier- or wetter-than-normal conditions in Northern California. … The stark contrast between the staggering amount of precipitation in recent weeks and the CPC’s seasonal precipitation outlook issued before the winter, which leaned toward below-normal precipitation for at least half of California, has water managers lamenting the unreliability of seasonal forecasts.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 Western Water

In one of the snowiest places in the West, a scientist hunts for clues to the Sierra snowpack’s future

Growing up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in Antarctica.   Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather, Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West, leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Californians approved billions for new water storage. Where is it?

In 2014, during the throes of last decade’s drought, California voters approved billions of dollars for infrastructure that would catch and store much-needed water from winter storms. The hope was to amass water in wet times and save it for dry times. Nearly 10 years later, none of the major storage projects, which include new and expanded reservoirs, has gotten off the ground. California reservoir levels: Charts show water supply across the state As the state experiences a historic bout of rain and snow this winter, amid another severe water shortage, critics are lamenting the missed opportunity to capture more of the extraordinary runoff that has been swelling rivers, flooding towns and pouring into the sea.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 SJV Water

State laws hamper flood flow storage but one San Joaquin Valley water district cut through the red tape. Can others follow?

It seems like such a no brainer: Grab the floodwater inundating California right now and shove it into our dried up aquifers for later use. But water plus California never equals simple. Yes, farmers and water districts can, legally, grab water from the state’s overflowing rivers, park it on their land and it will recharge the groundwater. But if those farmers and districts want to claim any kind of ownership over that water later, they can’t. Not without a permit. And permits are costly, time consuming and overly complicated, according to critics. Farmers and districts in some areas are taking flood water independently in order to relieve problems for people downstream.  But there just isn’t a large-scale, systematic way for water agencies and farmers to absorb the current deluge and store it for future use, mostly because of regulatory hurdles, critics say.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 The Washington Post

Scottsdale cuts off Rio Verde Foothills water supply amid drought

The survival — or at least the basic sustenance — of hundreds in a desert community amid the horse ranches and golf courses outside Phoenix now rests on a 54-year-old man with a plastic bucket of quarters. John Hornewer picked up a quarter and put it in the slot. The lone water hose at a remote public filling station sputtered to life and splashed 73 gallons into the steel tank of  … Some living here amid the cactus and creosote bushes see themselves as the first domino to fall as the Colorado River tips further into crisis. On Jan. 1, the city of Scottsdale, which gets the majority of its water from the Colorado River, cut off Rio Verde Foothills from the municipal water supply that it has relied on for decades. … [T]he federal government is now pressing seven states to cut 2 to 4 million acre-feet more, up to 30 percent of the river’s annual average flow.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 Christian Science Monitor

Drought, fires, floods: Californians manage amid ‘weather whiplash’

As Wallace Stegner, “the dean of Western writers,” once observed, California is like the rest of America, only more so. It’s a reference to the state’s character, but it could just as easily apply to its weather. Extreme wildfires. Prolonged drought. And now, massive rain and flooding. In a surprise pummeling, along with the new year has come an unusually large number of powerful, back-to-back atmospheric rivers: narrow bands through the atmosphere that carry water vapor. They have flowed the length of the state – and blown destruction eastward across the United States. In the Golden State, they’re dumping rainfall that’s 400% to 600% above average in some places, forcing mass evacuations, closing highways, shutting down power, and killing 19 people.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 California WaterBlog

Blog: Nature’s gift to nature in early winter storms

The current wet spell, made up of a parade of atmospheric rivers, is a welcome change from the last three years of record dry and warm conditions. For very good reasons, the focus during these big, early winter storms is first and foremost on flood management and public safety. There is of course also great interest in the potential of these storms to relieve water shortages for communities and farms. What is not always appreciated is the role of these early winter storms in supporting the health of freshwater ecosystems. For millennia, California’s biodiversity evolved strategies to take advantage of these infrequent, but critical high flow events. Benefits from recent storms are now being realized throughout the state, from temperate rainforests of the North Coast to semi-arid and arid rivers in the south. 

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2023 Northern California Water Association

Blog: Governor’s January budget overview

The Governor’s January Budget forecasts General Fund revenues will be $29.5 billion lower than at the 2022 Budget Act projections, and California now faces an estimated budget gap of $22.5 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24. … Some highlights from the Governor’s January Budget include: The Budget maintains $8.6 billion (98 percent) of previously committed funding to minimize the immediate economic and environmental damage from the current drought and support hundreds of local water projects to prepare for and be more resilient to future droughts. Delta Levees—$40.6 million General Fund for ongoing Delta projects that reduce risk of levee failure and flooding, provide habitat benefits, and reduce the risk of saltwater intrusion contaminating water supplies.

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  • NPR: Heavy storms have been taxing California’s levees. Are they up to the task?
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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Friday Top of the Scroll: In extraordinary move, California mulls crackdown on Los Angeles’ water draws at Mono Lake

Even as a storms shower California with rain and snow, state water regulators announced this week that they’re revisiting their effort to protect Mono Lake from the ravages of drought, agreeing to review how much water the city of Los Angeles is taking from the basin and whether it’s too much. The announcement, which has already begun drawing backlash from Southern California, comes as the giant salt lake and ecological curiosity on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada has becoming increasingly dry in recent years. The freshly exposed lakebed has been sending toxic dust into skies and creating a land bridge to islands where hungry coyotes threaten to prey on nesting birds.

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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 The Nevada Independent

Nevada outlines framework for Colorado River cuts as states show their cards

At the end of last year, the seven states in the Colorado River Basin committed to once again work together and negotiate a consensus framework for making significant cuts to water use, an attempt to stabilize the nation’s two largest reservoirs and avoid an even deeper shortage crisis. The states recommitted to considering a consensus deal, by Jan. 31, after several deadlines passed in 2022 — with seemingly irreconcilable differences over how to make painful cuts in a watershed relied upon by 40 million people who use the river for drinking water and agriculture. …… Of note was the comment letter from Nevada, which outlined a possible framework to achieve consensus. It was the only state-led letter that suggested a comprehensive framework. In fact, two other letters specifically refer to the Nevada plan as a starting point for the state discussions….

Related articles: 

  • Desert Review: IID’s JB Hamby elected to lead California’s Colorado River Board
  • Newsweek: Recent Rain at Lake Mead Gives Respite to Dwindling Water Levels
  • Blog- JFleck at Inkstain: Dead Pool Diaries: Climate change, the doctrine of prior appropriation, and the Colorado River crisis
  • KAWC – Arizona Edition: Director of Arizona Department of Water Resources looking at state’s drought impacts
  • Los Angeles Times: The Times podcast - Colorado River in Crisis, Part 2 - The Source – Los Angeles Times 
  • Fox 10 – Phoenix: Are drought conditions improving in Arizona?
  • U.S. Bureau of Reclamation: News release – Bureau of Reclamation completes project at Glen Canyon Dam to protect local water supply during extremely low lake levels
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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 Courthouse News Service

California drought outlook improves after weeks of historic storms

No, California’s drought is not over, not by a long shot. But weeks of near-constant rainfall have improved the situation considerably, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly report released Thursday. The map updated Thursday shows most of the state in moderate or severe drought after about seven atmospheric river storms swept through the state since Christmas Day. Only a small portion in the extreme northeastern portion of the state remains in extreme drought, while the northwestern corner of the state and much of Imperial County dropped to the lowest level of drought, termed abnormally dry. The Sacramento and Central valleys, which were in extreme and extraordinary drought just three months ago, have seen conditions improve to severe.

Related articles: 

  • Sacramento Bee: California reservoirs and snowpack see big boosts as storms ease drought conditions
  • Los Angeles Times: Nearly all of California exits the worst drought categories in U.S. Drought Monitor
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Is California still in drought after storms? What maps and charts show
  • Los Angeles Times: How California’s slew of storms stack up to previous drought-busters
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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 Desert Sun

Water officials’ message: Golf industry must do more to meet ongoing drought

Even in the middle of a cool and wet winter in the Coachella Valley and California in general, officials of the Coachella Valley Water District have a blunt message for the desert’s golf course industry: Take the ongoing drought seriously, because changes could be coming to water availability sooner rather than later. … Golf course superintendents and general managers from throughout the desert listened to presentations on advances in drought-tolerant grasses and technological advances that can help save water on the desert’s 120 courses. But Cheng and Pete Nelson, a director of the CVWD, made the more important presentation on the state of the Colorado basin and how water from the Colorado River can no longer be counted on as a long-term solution to irrigation needs for golf courses or agriculture in the desert.

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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 Spectrum News 1

State Republican leaders call for more water storage amid record rainfall

A group of Assembly Republican lawmakers gathered on a levee on the American River in Sacramento to call out the state’s Democratic leadership for failing to invest in water infrastructure to aid with flooding and water storage. Around 22 trillion gallons of rain will fall in California according to estimates. However, state Assembly Republicans blame the lack of infrastructure as the root cause for why most of the water will go uncaptured. … In 2014, voters supported a water bond that authorized billions of dollars to go toward state water supply infrastructure and water storage projects. Since then, no new reservoir or other water project has been built. 

Related articles: 

  • Sacramento Bee: California Republicans renew call for quicker movement on water storage projects
  • New York Times: Opinion - In a drought, California is watching water wash out to sea 
  • NPR: Heavy rain is still hitting California. A few reservoirs figured out how to capture more for drought
  • Marketplace: Capturing stormwater to deal with California’s drought is complicated 
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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 Circle of Blue

New Mexico town, still reeling from historic fire, receives federal aid to repair drinking water system

A New Mexico town that is intimately aware of the water supply risks from a drying climate could receive up to $140 million to rebuild its water system after the largest wildfire in state history tore through its watershed last year. Besides being a lifeline, the funds also illustrate the financial and ecological vulnerability of small, high-poverty communities in the face of extreme weather. In the fiscal year 2023 budget that President Joe Biden signed just before the new year, Congress set aside $1.45 billion for post-fire recovery in New Mexico. That’s in addition to $2.5 billion that lawmakers had already directed to the state, bringing the total amount of federal aid after the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire to nearly $4 billion. 

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Aquafornia news January 13, 2023 CBS News

California’s drought has led to a groundwater overdraft in the San Joaquin Valley

Faced with ongoing drought, farmers in California have sought ways to find a precious natural resource: water. In the San Joaquin Valley, an area in central California known as the breadbasket of the world, people have long bolstered the water supply by pumping from underground basins. But experts say people have been overdrafting groundwater for years. Agriculture is a booming industry in California, employing around 420,000 people across the state and supplying more than 400 different types of crops to consumers around the world. But with limited access to water, and with rain and snow hard to come by, reservoir levels are at record lows. Rivers have even dried up. 

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Mercury News

Thursday Top of the Scroll: California’s drought has eased significantly due to heavy rains, federal government concludes

A series of atmospheric river storms since Christmas has significantly reduced California’s drought, the federal government concluded Thursday. For the first time in more than two years — since Dec. 1, 2020 — the majority of the state is no longer in a severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report put out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Overall, 46% of California’s land area remains in severe drought, the report found, a dramatic improvement over the past month, when it was 85% on Dec. 6.

Related articles: 

  • CalMatters: Is California’s drought over? Here’s what you need to know 
  • New York Times: Will Storms End California’s Drought? That May Be the Wrong Question
  • Associated Press: After the recent California storms, how much will the rain help the state’s long-term drought?
  • Los Angeles Times: California suddenly has so much snow. A ‘great elixir for drought’ but unlikely the cure
  • Berkeleyside: Reservoirs serving Berkeley, Oakland are filling up after consistent rain
  • Reuters: Explainer - Why weeks of rain in California will not end historic drought 
  • The Week: What climate change means for California
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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Association of California Water Agencies

Newsom announces proposed budget with funding for water categories

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Jan. 10 unveiled his proposed budget for the next fiscal year … [T]he governor has proposed timely new funding for flood risk reduction and protection, as well as several other important water management issues. Specifically, the governor’s proposed budget calls for funding in the following categories. Urban Flood Risk Reduction — $135.5 million over two years to support local agencies working to reduce urban flood risk. Delta Levee — $40.6 million for ongoing Delta projects that reduce risk of levee failure and flooding, provide habitat benefits, and reduce the risk of saltwater intrusion contaminating water supplies. Central Valley Flood Protection — $25 million to support projects that will reduce the risk of flooding for Central Valley communities while contributing to ecosystem restoration and agricultural sustainability.

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Courthouse News Service

In a water deficit, Arizona contemplates a future without Colorado River access

Water from the Colorado River covers more than a third of Arizona’s total water usage, but the state is increasingly losing access to that supply. The state is no longer in what Terry Goddard, the president of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board of Directors, called “a fool’s paradise.” Arizona had maintained a surplus of water since the mid-1980s, but that’s not the case today. Now, it’s losing water, and it’s losing it fast. That loss, and potential future loss, was the focal point of Arizona’s state legislature Tuesday, starting with a presentation from the Central Arizona Project on the status of the state’s water supply in which legislators heard about the tensions between Arizona and other Colorado River Basin states over access to groundwater.

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  • Arizona Mirror: Water leaders to lawmakers: No ‘silver bullet’ in Arizona’s water crisis
  • Arizona Republic: Developers must find new water for homes planned west of Phoenix
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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Somach Simmons & Dunn | Attorneys at Law

Blog: SGMA implementation and CEQA: Is now the time to reconsider a statutory exemption?

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which requires local agencies to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to adopt Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) to ensure sustainable groundwater management in all high- and medium-priority groundwater basins, is well into its implementation phase. The deadlines for GSAs to submit GSPs for all high- and medium-priority basins have passed, and the Department of Water Resources continues to issue determinations on submitted GSPs. As GSPs are approved, GSAs have begun to pursue projects to implement their GSPs, primarily comprising groundwater recharge projects. These projects are generally subject to the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which mandates environmental review of discretionary public agency actions.

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 The Nevada Independent

Opinion: Department of Interior needs to review agricultural use of water amid negotiations for Colorado River cuts

As Lake Mead continues to decline toward dead pool, federal officials are requesting the Colorado River states to offer major cuts in water usage. Nevada has responded with a detailed and innovative plan set forth in a December 20, 2022 letter to the Bureau of Reclamation, calling for basic reform of water management throughout the entire Colorado River system. … Arizona and California have not responded in public. They remain on the sidelines, unable to summon the political will to either agree or to propose an alternative. The reason Arizona and California are internally deadlocked can be summed up in one word: agriculture. Irrigated agriculture uses more than 70 percent of the water allocated to the two states from Lake Mead. 
-Written by Bruce Babbitt, an attorney and politician from the state of Arizona, and President Bill Clinton’s secretary of the Interior from 1993 to 2001. 

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 SJV Water

Madera farmers push back on tighter pumping restrictions, county agrees to keep status quo

Facing heated pushback from growers, Madera County officials decided to maintain current groundwater pumping allotments for the next two years rather than reduce allocations over that time. At its Jan. 10 meeting, Board of Supervisors also considered increasing penalties for growers who exceed pumping allocations in the Madera, Chowchilla, and Delta-Mendota subbasins as part of an effort to raise money for projects geared toward bringing more water into the critically over drafted region. Madera County has been the site of an escalating battle over how to reduce groundwater pumping and who should pay for new water projects. 

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 SJV Sun

Valadao rolls out sweeping overhaul of Calif. water policy

A comprehensive overhaul of water policy affecting the San Joaquin Valley is back on the table, courtesy of Rep. David Valadao (R–Hanford). Valadao initially introduced the Working to Advance Tangible and Effective Reforms (WATER) for California Act last September and is bringing it back, this time with a Republican-controlled House. The entire California Republican delegation joined Valadao as co-sponsors on the bill. … What’s in it: If it passes, the act will require the Central Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP) to be operated consistent with the 2019 Trump-era biological opinions, which have been under fire by the Biden administration.

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  • SJV Sun: Calif. flushed 95% of incoming Delta water to Pacific Ocean during Monday’s massive storm
  • Agri-Pulse: Valadao, California GOP members reintroduce WATER bill
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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Chico Enterprise-Record

Editorial: Let’s take action on water supply

As Californians struggled to deal with a grueling drought that has led to water rationing and other extreme water-conservation measures, Mother Nature has this week intervened with an atmospheric river that has led to massive rainfalls and flooding — especially up in our end of the state. This cycle of drought and flooding is nothing new. … Unfortunately, California has left itself dependent on the weather (or climate, if you prefer) because it hasn’t built significant water infrastructure since the time that essay was published — when the state had roughly 18 million fewer residents. Some environmentalists argue against building water storage when there’s little rain, but they only are correct if it doesn’t rain again. History suggests the rains will always come — at least eventually, and this week’s ongoing series of storms is a whopper of an example. 

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 The Confluence - ANR Blogs

News release: Erik Porse named director of California Institute for Water Resources

Erik Porse joined the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) on Jan. 11 as director of the California Institute for Water Resources (CIWR). Porse has built an outstanding career in water as a research engineer with the Office of Water Programs at California State University, Sacramento and an assistant adjunct professor with UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His research focuses on urban and water resources management. He specializes in bringing together interdisciplinary teams to investigate complex environmental management questions.

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 NBC 7 San Diego

San Diego farmers say rain will let them go weeks without irrigation

Vendors at the Ocean Beach farmers market are singing rain’s praises after a series of storms that have passed through San Diego. … While farmers say the rain makes their fruits and vegetables pop, they say it also helps them save money and the environment. … Pasqual said the farm he works for could save a couple grand from being able to turn off the irrigation system. … As California has suffered through a devastating multi-year drought, giving irrigation systems a vacation after the rain is a critical part of much-needed conservation, according to the San Diego County Water Authority.

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  • San Francisco Chronicle: One thing the California storms are good for - vineyards
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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Ag Alert

Opinion: In defense of alfalfa – Important crop gets a bad rap

California is the most populous state in the nation and the nation’s biggest agricultural producer. That combination can occasionally lead to misunderstandings between consumers in cities and suburbs and growers in farming communities. That extends to public perceptions about decisions farmers make to grow crops such as alfalfa. The crop is an important part of our food chain that most of us depend on every day. But very few people understand that. … We see it all the time when water supplies are scarce. Critics emerge, confident that they know how the state should manage water resources and what crops farmers should and shouldn’t be growing.
-Written by Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition.

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Aquafornia news January 12, 2023 Colorado Public Radio

Sports betting, water, education: The issues raised by Colorado’s tribal chairmen in historic speeches at the state Capitol

The chairmen of the Ute Mountain Ute and the Southern Ute tribes spoke in a joint address to the state legislature on Wednesday. It was the first time, under a new state law, that the tribal leaders were invited to address state lawmakers. Over the course of about 30 minutes, the two leaders shared the history of their communities and asked for lawmakers’ help on specific issues. Here are a few. Manuel Heart, chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute, said the tribe needs help to access the water for which it already holds rights. … Heart said the state should partner with the tribe to work on a pipeline from Lake Nighthorse to Montezuma County. The tribes also deserve a greater role in water planning among the Colorado River basin states, he said.

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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Newsom budget plan: Climate, transportation bears the brunt of cuts

As California wrangles with a projected $22 billion budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed cutting most heavily from programs designed to help the state confront the worsening effects of climate change. Newsom’s proposed budget, which he released Tuesday, would cut a net $6 billion from the state’s climate efforts. Among the cuts: subsidies for electric vehicles; funding for clean energy programs, such as battery storage and solar panels; and money for programs to help low-income people deal with extreme heat waves. Climate activists and some progressive legislators said they were wary of the move, particularly as another atmospheric river drenched much of the state and brought flooding to communities from Santa Cruz to San Diego….Among the other proposed cuts to climate programs and projects in Newsom’s budget: … $194 million for drought preparation and response 

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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 KCRA - Sacramento

Reservoirs, snowpack are benefitting big time from California’s stormy pattern

It’s been a wild couple of weeks of weather in Northern California. But there is a rather bright silver lining to this train of storms: our surface water supply is getting a big boost. Here’s a look at some of the highlights. On Oct. 1, 2022, the start of the new water year for California, reservoir levels were woefully low throughout the state. But after an active December and now a very busy January, water levels are rising quickly. Folsom was the fastest reservoir to fill up to the seasonal benchmark. There’s no surprise there, given that it’s one of the smallest in the region. … Reservoirs are steadily filling up with runoff from rainfall and later this season, there will be plenty of snowmelt to look forward to. As of Tuesday, the statewide snowpack is at 214% of average for the date. 

Related articles: 

  • The New York Times: A silver lining of the storms: Mountain snowpack will feed California’s reservoirs.
  • Fox KTVU: California reservoirs filling quickly from storms
  • Newsweek: Is Southern California Still in a Drought?
  • Action News Now: Lakeside Access Road to close this week as Lake Oroville rises
  • KRCR:  Start of 2022-23 Water Year encouraging, not remarkable for California
  • Bloomberg: California storm – Atmospheric rivers aren’t helping the drought problem 
  • LA Magazine: California Storms Are Watery Hell, But Our Reservoirs Need Them Badly
  • Dairy Herd Management: Bomb Cyclone – Not Helpful in Ending California’s Drought
  • Politico: Too much rain, but not enough water
  • Gizmodo: The Year Ahead in Water and Drought
  • South Tahoe Now: Winter Storm Warning in place for Lake Tahoe until Wednesday, new storm by end of week
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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

News release: Metropolitan installs new board chair, welcomes three new directors

Adán Ortega, Jr. took the helm today of Metropolitan Water District’s Board of Directors as the 20th chair and first Latino to lead the board in the district’s 95-year history. In addition to his installation, Ortega welcomed three new directors who took their seats to represent the Calleguas, Central Basin and Eastern municipal water districts on the 38-member board. Ortega, who has represented the city of San Fernando on the board since March 2021, took his oath of office in a boardroom filled with family, elected officials, community leaders, mentors and friends.

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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 The Washington Post

California storms, droughts expected to intensify as planet warms

It wasn’t so long ago that California prayed for rain. Something to quench the climate-change-fueled drought — the worst in at least 1,200 years — that has caused farm fields to wither and wells to run dry…. Now, the water that Californians so desperately wanted is pummeling them like a curse….The recent onslaught of atmospheric rivers has underscored the perils of California’s climate paradox: Rising global temperatures are making the region drier, hotter and more fire-prone, but they also increase the likelihood of sudden, severe rainfall. Experts say the state is not prepared for periods of too much water, even as it struggles to make do without enough.

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  • The Weather Channel: California Storm Siege A Stunning Reversal From Recent Winters
  • Scientific American: Why California Is Being Deluged by Atmospheric Rivers
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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 Colorado Sun

Billion dollar climate change disasters growing in Colorado, West

Record drought in the American West contributes to a growing number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters across the country, and the quickening pace of large-scale events makes recovery slower and pricier, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  Drought covered 63% of the contiguous United States on Oct. 25, the largest such footprint since the severe drought of 2012, according to the report, released Tuesday at Denver’s national convention for the American Meteorological Society.  Forty percent or more of the lower 48 states has been in drought for the past 119 weeks, a record in more than 20 years of the U.S. Drought Monitor reports. That’s approaching double the previous record of 68 weeks begun in 2012’s drought.

Related article: 

  • Newsweek: Lake Mead Water Levels Before and After Drought Is Sobering Shot of Future 
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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 Wyoming Public Media

State legislators look to create a commission for Wyoming’s stake in the Colorado River

The Wyoming State Legislature begins its lawmaking session this week. One bill, called the “Colorado River Authority of Wyoming Act,” would create a board and commissioner to manage Wyoming’s water in the Colorado River Basin. The system drains about 17 percent of the Cowboy State’s land area and is critical for agriculture, energy development and residential use in cities. The entire Colorado River Basin is currently under stress due to drought conditions and human development in the Southwest. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) and Sen. Larry Hicks (R-Baggs) is similar to those previously passed in several other states that depend on the Colorado River.

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Aquafornia news January 11, 2023 FOX31 News - Denver

Which Colorado ski area has seen the most snow this season?

The recent atmospheric river that brought record rainfall and snow to parts of the west coast also boosted Colorado’s mountain snowfall totals. Several rounds of heavy snowfall like the mountains have recently seen is the dream of every skier and snowboarder, and it’s also a big help to the state’s drought conditions. This boost helped Steamboat Springs become the first resort of the season to surpass the benchmark. It now has 225 inches so far this season. Ski areas like Silverton and Winter Park aren’t too far from hitting 200 with about 167 inches so far. Places like Wolf Cree, Breckenridge, and Keystone have also seen some impressive totals for this point in the season.

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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 KTLA - Los Angeles

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: California snowpack soars to nearly 200% of normal

While many areas of California are coping with the destructive impact of relentless rainfall, the news is nothing but good when it comes to the state’s snowpack. As of Monday, California’s snow water equivalent was 199% of normal for the date (January 9), according to the California Department of Water Resources. … Water experts are reluctant to signal too much optimism since last winter California also saw snow accumulate to above-average levels through December, only to see January, February and March become the driest on record.

Related articles: 

  • KRCR – Redding: Bureau of Reclamation encouraged by Shasta Lake’s rising water levels
  • KCRA – Sacramento: Northern California rain, snow: Expect heavy Sierra traffic
  • Spectrum News 1: Despite storms, state reservoirs aren’t likely to return to normal levels this year
  • Newsweek: What it will take to get California completely out of drought?
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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 Newsweek

What Lake Mead needs to get water levels back up at drought-hit reservoir

Lake Mead will need more than just rainfall to replenish itself, an expert has told Newsweek. Spread between Nevada and Arizona—Lake Mead, the largest man-made reservoir in the U.S.—is best known for its rapidly declining water levels due to the ongoing megadrought gripping the western states. The lake is integral to surrounding communities, as it is also formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River—which generates electricity for thousands of people. If the water levels continue to decline, the consequences could be catastrophic. Water levels at the lake have risen slightly thanks to heavy rainfall sweeping across the region.

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  • KJZZ: Brenda Burman begins as new Central Arizona Project general manager amid historic water cuts
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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 CNN

California’s dilemma: How do you harness an epic amount of rain in a water-scarce state? Let it flood, scientists say.

California has gone from extreme drought to extreme flooding in a matter of days. On Monday, 90% of the state’s population was under a flood watch as another round of storms rolled through. Yet it was just last week when several counties in the state were experiencing the exact opposite – exceptional drought, which the US Drought Monitor considers the most severe category. … But the abrupt shift from drought warnings to flood warnings highlights the dilemma California faces: How do you manage an overwhelming amount of rain in a water-scarce state? And is it possible to harness that water so it’s available in the dry summer months? Part of the solution, climate scientists told CNN, is drawing levees back to allow rivers more room to flood safely into surrounding land.

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  • ABC 30 – Fresno: Fresno ponding basins filling up as storm brings steady rain
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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 Public Policy Institute of California

Blog: Adapting to a water-scarce California

With the arrival of a series of atmospheric rivers in recent weeks, drought-weary Californians are now confronting the weather whiplash that is a hallmark of our state’s climate. Flooding, power outages, and downed trees are now dominating the news. It’s a remarkable shift from the past few years, which saw the driest three-year period in the state’s recorded history. And while it’s tempting to think the drought is now over, it’s not—and if anything, the recent shift in conditions highlights just how much Californians need to prepare for wetter wets and drier dries. The past year was very important for California water. Water managers found ways to innovate and adapt. 

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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 The Washington Post

How stormwater technology could help California’s rain ease drought

California could get 22 trillion gallons of rain in the coming days. But what does that mean for the state’s drought? In a perennial problem that even when California does get rain, much of it runs off into the ocean or is otherwise uncollected. But there’s new storm water technology that could help change that, scientists say, as the decades-old discipline shifts to help water managers collect rainwater, purify it and store it for times of drought. Much of the new technology is often referred to as “green infrastructure,” … To learn more, The Washington Post talked with Andrew Fisher, a professor of hydrogeology at the University of California in Santa Cruz, and David Feldman, the director of the University of California Irvine’s water institute.

Related article: 

  • Fast Company: How California could save its rainwater to protect from future droughts
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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 Colorado Public Radio

Three things about Colorado Springs’ growth that we’re watching this week

Colorado Springs will be making decisions this week that will impact its growth and development for decades to come. The following issues will be discussed by local leaders this week. Check back here for updates on how they voted. Water supply The city is considering an ordinance that would impact how and where Colorado Springs extends its water service. The city wants to make sure there’s enough water as it continues to grow. Currently, Colorado Springs Utilities is required to maintain a surplus water supply. But there’s no definition of how much extra that actually is. So what they want to do is define it as a 30 percent buffer between supply and demand, calculated on a five-year rolling average. … Half the city’s water comes from the Colorado River Basin, which is threatened by drought and overuse.

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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 ASU News

Study of California groundwater prompts a wake-up call for Arizona

A team of scientists that pioneered methods to observe changes in global groundwater stores over the past two decades using a specialized NASA satellite mission has made a surprising discovery about the aquifers that supply California’s Central Valley region. Despite the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act adopted in 2014 to prevent overpumping and stabilize the aquifers, the groundwater depletion rate has accelerated to a point where groundwater could disappear over the next several decades. The act gives the state’s local groundwater management districts until 2042 to reach sustainability goals. Renowned water scientist Jay Famiglietti is the lead researcher of a scientific team that published a paper in Nature Communications in December 2022 that details their analysis.

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Aquafornia news January 10, 2023 Arizona Daily Star

Water board member with Tucson ties explains desalination plant vote

Tucson Assistant City Manager Tim Thomure joined a unanimous vote last month by a state water board that will allow for state-run discussions with an Israeli firm over its proposal for a $5.5 billion desalination plant in Puerto Peñasco on the Gulf of California. The Water Infrastructure Authority of Arizona voted 9-0 on Dec. 20, following a fierce, afternoon-long debate, to authorize its staff to prepare an analysis of the project. If the analysis finds the proposal meets state requirements, the board chairman can negotiate an agreement with the company to deliver desalted water to Arizona at agreed upon terms including costs.

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Aquafornia news January 31, 2023 Record Searchlight

Lake Shasta water level rises 60 feet during January

Higher-than-normal rainfall during the past month has dramatically changed Lake Shasta, with the water level of California’s largest reservoir rising 60 feet since the end of December. Gone are vast areas of shoreline that became parking lots and campgrounds as the lake dried up and the water level dropped during the past several years of low rainfall in the North State. By Monday, the lake was 56% full, an improvement over the 34% recorded Jan. 3. The California Department of Water Resources said the lake was 87% of normal as of Monday, compared to the 57% of normal at the beginning of January.

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Western Water January 13, 2023 Nick Cahill Layperson's Guide to Water Conservation WESTERN WATER-In One of the Snowiest Places in the West, A Scientist Hunts for Clues to the Sierra Snowpack’s Future By Nick Cahill

In One of the Snowiest Places in the West, A Scientist Hunts for Clues to the Sierra Snowpack’s Future
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Central Sierra Snow Lab Manager Andrew Schwartz Aims to Help Water Managers Improve Tracking of Snowpack Crucial to California's Drought-Stressed Water Supply

Photo of Andrew Schwartz, manager and lead scientist at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory.Growing up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in Antarctica.  

Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather, Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West, leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 The New York Times

How did a normally dry La Niña winter become so rainy?

As rain has deluged our parched state since New Year’s Eve, many Californians have found themselves asking a familiar question: Is this somehow because of El Niño? In the California imagination, the climate pattern known as El Niño has an almost mythological status as a harbinger of prolonged wet spells, while its counterpart, La Niña, is associated with drought. The past three years have been La Niña years. The continuing procession of storms this winter has drawn comparisons to the famed wet winter of 1997-98, when rain driven by El Niño drenched the Golden State. Californians are bracing for one of the season’s most intense storms to date on Monday and Tuesday. But Daniel L. Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that El Niño hasn’t taken over — yet.

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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 NPR

Why we can — and cannot — collect rainwater in places like California

A bomb cyclone hit California this week, knocking out power, downing trees, dumping massive amounts of water. Now, that last one, massive amounts of water – it’s interesting because all that rain is hitting in a state that has been stricken with drought. Some California residents are watching this precious resource wash away and wondering, why can’t we save the water for later, for times when we desperately need it? Well, Andrew Fisher, hydrogeologist and professor at UC Santa Cruz, attempted to answer that question in an op-ed for The LA Times. And we have brought him here to try to answer it for us. Professor Fisher, welcome.

Related articles: 

  • New York Times: Opinion: California Could Capture Its Destructive Floodwaters to Fight Drought
  • Modesto Bee: Can we catch more of this winter’s huge runoff? Two Stanislaus area projects show how
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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 Newsweek

How much rain does California need to get out of drought?

The torrential rainfall across much of central and northern California may have helped to pull a tiny piece of the state out of drought. Data from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that while 97.93 percent of California is experiencing some degree of drought, the remaining 2.07 percent is only classified as “abnormally dry.” … However, a lot more rain would be needed to drag California out of its decades-long megadrought, as short-term fluctuations in how dry an area is at a given time is drastically different to the long-term trend of dryness across the state.

Related articles: 

  • Marin Independent Journal: Marin water reservoir system near capacity amid storms
  • Napa Valley Register: Drought busters? Why Northern California storms could mean temporary relief in 2023
  • Newsweek: California Reservoir Water Levels Before and After Rain
  • Ukiah Daily Journal: Lake Mendocino rising
  • KTLA – Los Angeles: These 2 corners of California are no longer in a drought
  • Marin Independent Journal: Water supply discussion needs to focus on updating infrastructure
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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Colorado River in crisis: A series examining the river’s future

The Colorado River can no longer withstand the thirst of the arid West. Water drawn from the river flows to more than 40 million people in cities from Denver to Los Angeles and irrigates more than 4 million acres of farmland. For decades, the river has been entirely used up, leaving dusty stretches of desert where it once flowed to the sea in Mexico. Now, chronic overuse and the effects of climate change are pushing the river system toward potential collapse as reservoirs drop to dangerously low levels. … Colorado River in Crisis is a series of stories, videos and podcasts in which Los Angeles Times journalists travel throughout the river’s watershed, from the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to the river’s dry delta in Mexico.

Related articles: 

  • Associated Press: Despite shrinking Colorado River volume, Biden signs water bills benefiting 3 tribes in Arizona
  • Newsweek: Are Lake Mead’s Water Levels Rising?
  • Wyoming Public Radio: Mountain West states getting millions in federal funds for drought resilience
  • KOAA – Southern Colorado: 40% of Colorado is now drought free after big December snows
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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 Bloomberg

California rain brings limited relief to dried-out almond farms

Usually, bouts of rain are a good thing for drought-stricken farmers. But in California, where a downpour has triggered widespread flooding, much of the water will end up in the sea rather than helping crops, like the state’s famed almond groves. The recent deluge highlights a decades-long dilemma: A lack of infrastructure to store and shuttle water to growers who produce three-quarters of US fruits and nuts and more than one-third of its vegetables. … While the rain and snow are desperately needed after the driest three-year stretch on record and billions of dollars in crop losses, much of the precipitation will likely end up as runoff.

Related article: 

  • Smithsonian Magazine: California’s Snowpack Is High Above Average—but Its Drought Is Far From Over 
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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 AgNet West

Sites Reservoir receives more funding as California experiences substantial rainstorms

The Sites Reservoir project has received additional funding support from the Bureau of Reclamation. Last week, the project received $80 million through the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN Act). The announcement comes after an additional award of $30 million was provided to the project through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. … The reservoir project will increase water storage capacity in the state by 1.5 million acre-feet by capturing excess stormwater from the Sacramento River. Sites Project Authority has also been invited to apply for a $2.2 billion low-interest loan through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. The entire project is estimated to cost about $5.2 billion.

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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 Monterey Herald

Marina, 3 water agencies sue Coastal Commission

Elected officials in Marina have joined forces with three water agencies in a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission over its tentative permitting in November of California American Water Co.’s desalination project. The lawsuit, filed in Monterey County Superior Court, cites plaintiffs as the city of Marina, the Marina Coast Water District, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District and the Marina Coast Water District Groundwater Sustainability Agency. The complaint alleges the desal project is a “sprawling, expensive and unnecessary” project that the Coastal Commission erroneously and conditionally permitted that would have far-reaching negative impacts on Marina and surrounding ecosystems.

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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 ACWA

ACWA Member Projects Receive Federal Funding Through Infrastructure Law

The Bureau of Reclamation on Jan. 5 announced a $7 million investment from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 82 small-scale water efficiency projects across 14 western states. In California, grant recipients included 17 ACWA member agencies that will be able to apply the federal funding toward total project costs. The grants will support local community projects, including measuring water flow, automating water delivery, or lining canals.

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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 Salt Lake Tribune

Opinion: Humanity and nature can move water to where it is needed

One hundred years ago — little more than a lifetime — nature and the Colorado River conspired almost every spring to ravage soil, rocks, vegetation and anything else in the river’s path on its rapacious way to the Pacific Ocean. The river overran its banks to flood California’s Imperial Valley plus other low-lying ground in Arizona, Mexico and California. It filled those valleys with fertile mountain soil. A few forward-thinking humans dreamed of taming the mighty Colorado River with a dam near Boulder Canyon. At the time, it was the most ambitious and most expensive public works project ever conceived – more ambitious and more expensive, relatively, than rocket trips to the moon half a century later.
-Written by Don Gale, long-time Utah journalist. ​

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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 SJV Water

Storms bring river flows, frustration for San Joaquin Valley water managers

The string of wet storms streaming over California since the end of 2022 have brought the San Joaquin Valley both relief and frustration, depending on location. In the Fresno area, flows out of Millerton Lake into the San Joaquin River have nearly tripled from 600 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 1,600 cfs.  In the coming days the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Millerton’s Friant Dam, expects releases to exceed 4,500 cfs.  That’s great for agricultural water districts that take Millerton water on the northern end of the Friant system. And it’s great for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to bring back native spring Chinook salmon runs. … Meanwhile, water managers on the southern end of the Friant system are watching those flows with more than a little frustration.

Related article: 

  • Bakersfield Californian: Water levels rising in the Kern River, Isabella Lake and small lakes in Bakersfield
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Aquafornia news January 9, 2023 California WaterBlog

Blog: Drought and the Colorado River: Localizing water in Los Angeles

In October 2022, water agencies in Southern California with Colorado River water rights announced plans to reduce water diversions. The agencies offered voluntary conservation of 400,000 acre-feet per year through 2026. This annual total is nearly 10% of the state’s total annual usage rights for the Colorado River. The cutbacks help prepare for long-term implications of climate change for the river’s management, which are starting to be acknowledged. In urban Southern California, an important aspect of this need is reducing imported water reliance through investments in local water resources. … What would happen if Southern California lost access to Colorado River water for an extended period?

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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Friday Top of the Scroll: California storm: ‘Widespread significant flooding’ possible by Tuesday

In a special message about California weather, the National Weather Service said that another atmospheric river would arrive in Northern California Friday night and bring the “threat of heavy rain (and) flooding on Saturday, along with 1-2 feet of snow and “dangerous” mountain travel conditions. But that’s just a warm-up: A “stronger” atmospheric river is expected to arrive Monday and persist into Tuesday, bring more precipitation and gusty winds.

Related articles:

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Several California rivers at increased risk of flooding after major storms
  • CNN: Another storm threatens more heavy rain in California and West Coast areas already reeling from flooding
  • Bloomberg: ‘Hydroclimate Whiplash’ Worsens California’s Storms and Drought
  • E&E News: Lethal storms challenge California’s levees 
  • Los Angeles Times: After storm slams Southern California, here are the risks that remain 
  • Sacramento Bee: Rain, downed trees: Atmospheric river continues as California storms’ death toll reaches 6 
  • Reuters: Explainer: What are atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones?
  • The New York Times: Hell and High Water: California’s Wild Weather Uproots Trees, Strains State
  • San Jose Mercury News: Floods are forecast in the Bay Area. Are any near you? 
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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Recent rains have improved California’s drought. Where do we stand now?

California drought conditions have improved significantly in the past week, after a series of storms drenched the state. The state has received 119% of the precipitation it normally gets by this point in the water year, which begins on Oct. 1. The statewide snowpack is also 179% of average for this time of the year…. According to the map released Thursday morning by the U.S. Drought Monitor, no part of California currently falls under the category of exceptional drought, something that hasn’t been the case since the map released on May 10, 2022. And that update doesn’t include the impact of heavy storms that swept through the Bay Area on Wednesday, downing trees and flooding roadways.

Related articles:

  • San Jose Mercury News: Look at how much California’s snowpack has grown in the last 12 days. Is the drought over yet?
  • San Diego Union-Tribune: Four more storms might soon hit California, but the drought is far from over
  • KCRA – Sacramento: Here’s how much rain is flowing into reservoirs in Northern California
  • Washington Post: California is being inundated with rain. Will it ease the drought?
  • Bay City News Service: State water officials ‘cautiously optimistic’ that atmospheric river could improve drought conditions 
  • Capital Public Radio: What this series of atmospheric rivers says about California’s drought and water future
  • NBC4 – Los Angeles: Map: Here’s What Early Winter Storms Meant for California’s Drought
  • Western Farm Press: Fast start, but how long will it last? 
  • KERO – Bakersfield: Heavy snowpack and recent storms may not translate to more farm water
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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 Las Vegas Review-Journal

Lake Mead may get a boost as Rockies snowpack off to strong start

The Rocky Mountains snow season is off to a well-above-average start thanks to a recent surge of stormy weather across the West. But whether it will be enough to buoy levels at Lake Mead and along the Colorado River remains to be seen. The Upper Colorado River Basin snowpack currently sits at 140 percent of the median over the last 30 years, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. That’s in large part due to a recent series of atmospheric river storm systems that swept across much of the West right after Christmas, dumping ample amounts of snow and rain.

Related articles: 

  • Denver Post: Recent snows pulled a third of Colorado out of drought. Will it be enough?
  • Los Angeles Times: The Times podcast: Colorado River in Crisis, Part 1: A Dying River 
  • Audubon: Blog: Well, the West is getting a lot of snow and rain, but conservation mindset still needed.
  • KUNR – Reno: Mountain West states getting millions in federal funds for drought resilience
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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 Los Angeles Times

L.A. lets rain flow into the Pacific Ocean, wasting a vital resource. Can we do better?

The Los Angeles River roared to life this week as a series of powerful storms moved through the Southland. In Long Beach, 3 feet of water shut down the 710 Freeway in both directions, while flooding in the San Fernando Valley forced the closure of the Sepulveda Basin. It was by all accounts a washout, but despite heaps of water pouring into the area, drought-weary Los Angeles won’t be able to save even half of it. The region’s system of engineered waterways is designed to whisk L.A.’s stormwater out to sea — a strategy intended to reduce flooding that nonetheless sacrifices countless precious gallons.

Related articles:

  • The Conversation: How California could save up its rain to ease future droughts — instead of watching epic atmospheric river rainfall drain into the Pacific​ 
  • Ventura County Star: Editorial: How to make the most of rainfall 
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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 The Associated Press

Biden signs water bills benefiting 3 tribes in Arizona

President Joe Biden has approved three bills that will improve access to water for three tribes in Arizona amid an unrelenting drought. One of the measures that Biden signed Thursday settles longstanding water rights claims for the Hualapai Tribe, whose reservation borders a 100-mile (161-kilometer) stretch of the Colorado River as it runs through the Grand Canyon. Hualapai will have the right to divert up to 3,414 acre-feet of water per year, along with the ability to lease it within Arizona.

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  • Parker Live: President Biden signs CRIT water bill into law 
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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 High Country News

The West’s salt lakes are turning to dust. Can Congress help?

Saline lakes are rapidly losing water to climate change and agricultural and urban uses, becoming some of the West’s most threatened ecosystems. Now, new legislation is offering some support. On Dec. 27, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act, which allocates $25 million in funding for research and monitoring at saline lakes across the Great Basin. While this funding is an important step, it cannot give the lakes what they really need: more water.

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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 Sacramento News & Review

The American River Basin Study: Diversifying where we get our water is key to combating climate change

We don’t always treat water like the life-sustaining resource it is. Instead, we take it for granted: With the turn of a tap, it’s at our fingertips to drink, grow our food and keep our communities clean. But according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, it’s time for changes if we want that to continue. Their recently released American River Basin study highlights the growing imbalance between water supply and consumer demand. With the stresses of population growth, regulatory updates, and the effects of climate change, this disparity will only get worse without new strategies and approaches to keep water flowing.

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  • Western Water Rewind: As Climate Change Erodes Western Snowpacks, One Watershed Tries A ‘Supershed Approach’ To Shield Its Water Supply 
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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 The Hill

Arizona Gov. Hobbs hits the ground running in pivotal year for Arizona water

Arizona’s newly inaugurated Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has no time to waste as she faces the daunting challenge of addressing the state’s use of water from the overallocated Colorado River. Arizona is one of three states in the river’s Lower Basin, along with California and Nevada….last year, the river’s waters dropped to a level that triggers automatic allocation cuts from the federal Bureau of Reclamation…. One of the “first and most important thing[s]” directly under Hobbs’s control is something she’s already done, according to Dave White, director of Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation. Ahead of her inauguration, Hobbs confirmed she’d retain Tom Buschatzke as director of the state Department of Water Resources.  

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Aquafornia news January 6, 2023 Public Policy Institute of California

Blog: The promise of a wet January

California is in an impressive wet period.  According to the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, four powerful atmospheric rivers have hit California since Christmas. And their modeling suggests that at least three more significant storms are on their way. It looks like January is going to be a very wet month…. These atmospheric rivers—with their intense low-pressure systems and warm, subtropical moisture—are California’s version of hurricanes. The combination of high rainfall rates and winds causes urban and river flooding, as well as landslides and debris flows (especially in areas that have recently burned), and routinely knocks out power to thousands. But these storms also create an awful lot of benefit for Californians.

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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Thursday Top of the Scroll: Toddler killed, cities evacuated as massive storm lashes Northern California

A powerful winter storm unleashed heavy rain and strong winds across Northern California on Wednesday, triggering evacuations and power outages, and heightening fears of widespread flooding and debris flows. … Wednesday’s storm is the third atmospheric river that’s hit California in the last two weeks. The successive storms have brought a deluge of water to the drought-stricken state, prompting Gov. Newsom to declare a state of emergency to “support response and recovery efforts.” … The series of atmospheric rivers that started toward the end of December was somewhat surprising after one of California’s driest years on record, which left reservoirs drained and soils parched.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Two dead as storm wallops Bay Area, downing trees, flooding roads, cutting electrical service 
  • Los Angeles Times: Storm slams Southern California with heavy rain, flood fears and strong winds
  • CNN: Hurricane-force wind gusts blow through California as part of the ‘bomb cyclone’ hitting the coast
  • California Department of Water Resources: News release: DWR Prepares for More Storms and Potential Flooding
  • Associated Press: Evacuations ordered as California braces for rain, floods
  • Associated Press: Wild weather driven by roiling Pacific, nature and warming
  • USA Today: ‘Rivers in the sky’: Graphics show atmospheric river soaking California’s Bay Area
  • Modesto Bee: Gov. Gavin Newsom declares emergency for major California storm, flooding in forecast
  • Orange County Register: Forecast of 16-foot swells prompts California coast to brace for floods
  • Los Angeles Times: Atmospheric river poses lethal danger for homeless people. California scrambling to help
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Pacheco Reservoir dam spillway fails, San Benito County residents warned to prepare for evacuations
  • The Washington Post: As powerful storms deluge California, a river community evacuates — again
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area storms: What to do if you’re caught in a flood in your car or home
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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 The New York Times

Floods show California’s climate dilemma: Fight the water, or pull back?

As California battles a second week of lashing rain and snow that have flooded communities, broken levees and toppled power lines, the state is facing questions about whether its approach to handling crippling storms is suited to 21st-century climate threats. For decades, federal and state planners built dams and levees in California to store water and keep it at bay. But as climate change increases the risk of stronger and more destructive storms — like the one that was battering Northern California on Wednesday — experts and some policymakers are urging another approach: giving rivers room to overflow.

Related article:

  • Los Angeles Times: California’s aging levees are being pushed to the breaking point by climate whiplash
  • The Sacramento Bee: A Sacramento County levee has a hole the size of a football field — What it will cost to fix it
  • Los Angeles Times: California ‘storm train’ may rival notorious El Niño winter of 1997–98
  • US Geological Survey: News release: USGS crews continue to measure record-high streamflows in California 
  • Fox Weather: See some of the most catastrophic atmospheric rivers and flooding in California history 
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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 Grist

Will California’s ‘atmospheric river’ storms end the drought?

For the past three years, California has been suffering under the worst drought in state history. Key reservoirs have bottomed out, farmers have left their fields unplanted, and cities have forced residents to let their lawns go brown. Now the state’s weather has taken a violent swing in the other direction. A series of powerful “atmospheric river” storms … have brought record-breaking precipitation to the Golden State over the last two weeks…. Even if 2023 does end up a wet year, it won’t prevent an ongoing water crisis, because surface precipitation is only one pillar supporting the state’s water needs. … And the other two pillars ensuring regular water availability in the Golden State — groundwater and the Colorado River — are facing crises that even a wet year won’t fix.

Related articles:

  • Los Angeles Times: Editorial: The drought is over now, right? (Spoiler alert: No)  
  • ABC 7 – Los Angeles: With all this rain, is California still in a drought?
  • Bureau of Reclamation: Reclamation announces the availability of Section 215 water for American River Division
  • Bakersfield Californian: Drought watchers ‘guardedly optimistic’ as rain and snow levels soar 
  • Newsweek: California Drought: Is Current Rain Helping State Reservoir Water Levels?
  • Pasadena Star-News: Editorial: Recent flooding shows the need for water storage 
  • Manteca Bulletin: Opinion: Those who forget California water history are doomed to repeat it 
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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 New Times San Luis Obispo

Morro Bay’s Water Reclamation Facility operational ahead of schedule

After two years of construction, Morro Bay’s Water Reclamation Facility is ahead of schedule. According to Greg Kwolek, director of Public Works, the expected completion date for the facility was March 23, 2023, but the city already hit that deadline set by the Regional Water Quality Control Board…. The new facility … includes two new lift stations as well as 3.5 miles of pipelines and wells that inject purified water into the groundwater aquifer, which can be reused through the city’s existing infrastructure.

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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 Denver Post

Why can’t the West just pipe in water from the Mississippi or Missouri rivers to save the Colorado River?

Engineers and water experts knew for decades that growth in the Colorado River Basin would eventually hit a tipping point. That is, unless the states depending on the river found a new source of water. One way to do that, civil engineer Royce J. Tipton wrote in 1965, would be to pipe water in from somewhere else, also referred to as “importing” water. One scheme considered in the 50s and 60s (but never developed), the North American Water and Power Alliance, proposed to pipe water from rivers in Alaska and Canada south into the Colorado River’s headwaters, among other places. … These canals and pipelines are expensive to build, though, and take years.

Related Articles:

  • Water Education Foundation: Drought FAQs
  • Desert Review: Wyoming: Unhappy in its own way at the top of the Colorado River
  • KJZZ – Phoenix: Groups file complaint over latest proposal for stored hydro projects on Navajo land
  • Daily Independent: Opinion: Protecting our water supply in 2023 is vital
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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 Yuba-Sutter Appeal-Democrat

Sites Reservoir awarded $80 million in federal funds

Officials said Wednesday that the Sites Reservoir project, which could provide 1.5 million acre-feet of additional water storage capacity, was awarded $80 million in federal funding from the Bureau of Reclamation via the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. This federal initiative provides grants for water supply infrastructure that promotes drought resilience for rural communities and agriculture, urban areas, public health and the environment.

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Aquafornia news January 5, 2023 Scripps Institution of Oceanography

News release: Scripps Climate Program renewed with new focus on adaptation

With $5 million in funding from NOAA’s Climate Adaptation Partners (CAP) initiative, the California Nevada Adaptation Program (CNAP), a collaborative initiative between UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the DRI in Reno, Nevada will work to expand climate research and focus on building adaptation strategies. The program will last five years and aim to empower local communities to use this knowledge to make informed decisions in the face of long-term drought, unprecedented wildfires, and extreme heat impacting public health.   

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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: California winter storm brings Sierra snow pack to 10-year-high

After three years of drought, California is beginning 2023 with more snow on the ground than at any start to a year in a decade. State water officials trekked into the Sierra Nevada to conduct the first snow survey of the winter season on Tuesday, reporting 174% of average statewide snowpack for the date. The reams of powder come amid a series of storms that is blasting Northern California and has piled snow onto banks up to 16 feet high at major highway passes through the mountains. Some ski resorts count 18 feet of snow on the slopes. Although responsible for significant flooding, mudslides and even fatalities, the wet weather in recent weeks has been good for drought relief.

Related articles: 

  • Sacramento Bee: California snow survey finds ‘terrific’ start to season. Why drought concerns persist
  • KRCR – Redding: ‘Our snowpack is actually off to one of its best starts in the past 40 years,’ DWR says
  • Los Angeles Times: California snowpack is far above average amid January storms, but a lot more is needed
  • CA Department of Water Resources: Snow Survey Shows December Storms Provided Big Snow Totals with More Systems, Flooding in Forecast
  • CBS – Los Angeles: Recent rain, snow leaves experts cautiously optimistic about drought relief
  • Record Searchlight: California storms - Lake Shasta 34% full could see water level rise way up
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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 Los Angeles Times

String of brutal atmospheric rivers imperils a California already weakened by drought

A successive series of powerful atmospheric river storms poses a growing threat to California as the ground becomes more saturated, river levels rise and heavy winds threaten the power infrastructure. This week’s storms are expected to dump intense levels of rain in a fairly short period of time. The greatest potential for disaster is in Northern California, which has already been battered by several destructive storms — including one this weekend that caused a deadly levee breach. But each new storm, including one set to arrive Wednesday, adds new pressure.

Related articles: 

  • CalMatters: Sacramento Valley, already deluged, braces for more floods
  • New York Times: California Braces for Yet More Rain
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area flood risk - This detailed map shows danger zones
  • Sacramento Bee: Flash flood watch for possible debris flow in Northern California wildfire burn scars
  • Modesto Bee: Officials brace for more storms and flood threat over next 14 days in Modesto area
  • Courthouse News Service: Waterlogged California bracing for another round of storms
  • Bloomberg: California Braces for Its Next Deluge as Pacific Storms Line Up
  • CNN: California braces for more ‘brutal’ flooding and mudslides as experts warn it won’t quench historic drought
  • USA Today: ‘Truly a brutal storm’ heading for California; forecasters predict flooding, landslides, deaths: Updates
  • NASA: Floodwater Inundates North-Central California
  • Los Angeles Times: Massive ‘atmospheric river’ to bring heavy rains, winds, flooding across California
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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 8 News Now - Las Vegas

Snowpack at 142% after week of storms in Upper Colorado River Basin

Snowpack levels crucial to water supplies in the Colorado River basin have been rising over the past week as storms hit the Rocky Mountains. Dec. 27 measurements of 102% snowpack in the region — just above normal — had risen to 142% as of today (Jan. 3) in the Upper Colorado River Basin. That week-to-week change is good news but demonstrates the volatility of snowpack levels. Just as rainfall makes little to no impact on the level of Lake Mead, snowpack levels in early January shouldn’t be seen as a sign that a few snowstorms will erase years of drought, experts say. Kyle Roerink, executive director of the conservation group Great Basin Water Network, said long-term forecasts showed river flows expected to be about 87% between now and April.

Related articles: 

  • Cronkite News: Water reductions for the new year may be just the beginning, experts say
  • Denver Post: Colorado River water crisis - 8 possible solutions to prevent drying up
  • Denver Post: Colorado River water mostly used for agriculture, but that may change 
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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 Salt Lake Tribune

How old is that water underground? Why the answer matters in the thirsty West

It’s not hard to find groundwater. “It’s everywhere,” said Kip Solomon, a geology and geophysics professor at the University of Utah. “There’s no place on earth where you can’t drill a well and hit groundwater.” Groundwater makes up a little more than 30% of the freshwater on earth, while nearly 70% is locked up in glaciers and icecaps. Only a tiny percentage of the planet’s freshwater supply is made up of freely flowing, surface level water. What can be difficult, Solomon said, is finding “water that is of good quality, that’s not too salty. And it’s harder to find water where you can pump out large quantities.” That makes understanding this critical resource all the more important — especially in the drought-stricken West where many communities, from Moab to Cedar City to the Coachella Valley, California, rely on underground aquifers.

Related article: 

  • Mirage News: Using satellites to track groundwater depletion in California
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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 SJV Water

Conditions “significantly improved” for Kern River watershed

Water watcher Scott Williams put out his Kern River Snow and Water Report on Monday and, based on national, statewide and local data, things have gone from “eh…” to fairly promising. Precipitation in the upper Kern basin, which feeds the North Fork of the Kern river was 134% of average for the water year to date. And on the South Fork of the Kern River, precipitation was 116% of average. “Observed water year to date Kern River basin flow is 60% of average,” the report states. Storage in Lake Isabella, however, is still very low. The lake, which can hold a maximum 570,000 acre feet, only had 51,685 acre feet, or 9% of its capacity, according to Williams’ report.

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  • SJV Water: POP QUIZ – How closely have you been reading SJV Water???
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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 ABC 15 - Arizona

Rio Verde Foothills getting creative after losing water source

One Valley community is adjusting to a new reality now that they are without access to a familiar water source. “Really concerned and worried. In fact, I’m happy I have a pool because every time it rains at least I can siphon that,” says Dee Thomas, Rio Verde Foothills resident. Just days into the new year, residents in the Rio Verde Foothills community are getting creative with how they conserve and use water. “We use it mostly for showering. For, you know, washing clothes, the bathroom,” says Thomas. On January 1st, the City of Scottsdale stopped providing the ability for water to be purchased and hauled outside city limits as part of their drought management plan. In a memo, Scottsdale says they have been generous and accommodating for years, but the city cannot be responsible for the water needs of a separate community, especially given its unlimited and unregulated growth.

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Aquafornia news January 4, 2023 Press Democrat

Editorial: Don’t count on a drought-buster

The storm door is open — at least for now. An atmospheric river battered Northern California this past weekend. The North Bay was largely spared, but torrential rain across much of the region lifted streams over their banks, trapped cars as roadways became routes for kayaks and canoes, and flooded homes and businesses from San Francisco to Sacramento. The National Weather Service says another “truly … brutal system” will slam Northern California on Wednesday. This time, Sonoma County appears to be in the path. That could mean fierce wind gusts, intense rain, flooded roads, mudslides and power outages. By Friday, the Russian River is expected to reach flood stage in Guerneville.

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Storm hitting California on Wednesday may be worse than New Year’s deluge

Propelled by a bomb cyclone, the storm expected to barrel into the California coast Wednesday is expected to drop several inches of rain on top of already saturated soil and will probably cause another round of widespread flooding across the northern part of the state. But this storm is projected to bring even more powerful, tree-toppling winds — 50 mph gusts — than seen during the New Year’s Eve deluge…. “To put it simply, this will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a widespread scale that this meteorologist has seen in a long while,” according to a National Weather Service forecast. … “This is truly a brutal system that we are looking at and needs to be taken seriously.”

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Will the Bay Area get hit by the imminent bomb cyclone?
  • Weather West: Major NorCal storm Wed; potentially high impact storm/flood pattern to continue for 10+ days
  • Axios: Atmospheric rivers threaten California as state reels from deadly storm
  • NPR: A third atmospheric river storm is set to add to misery in California’s flooded areas
  • KRCR – Eureka: Strong wind and rain storm headed to North Coast this week
  • CBS – San Francisco: Forecasters warn of ‘brutal,’ potentially deadly storm system arriving Wednesday
  • Associated Press: California braces for more storms following Saturday’s flood
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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Bay Area News Group

California’s snowpack near decade high. What’s it mean for the drought?

As the new year begins, California’s Sierra is closing in on the second-largest snowpack we’ve seen at this time of year in the last two decades, with more snow expected to pummel the mountain range in the coming days. But here’s why it’s far too soon to declare an end to the drought: Last year, we started 2022 with a similar bounty — and then ended the snow season way, way, way below normal. … On Tuesday, state water officials plan to tromp through the snow at Echo Summit, south of Lake Tahoe, for the winter’s first snowpack survey, a monthly ritual that is now mostly for show thanks to more than 100 sensors throughout the Sierra that measure accumulation every day. It’s of vital importance in the drought-stricken Golden State because officials use the measurements to help manage California’s water supply, which relies heavily on melting snow.

Related articles: 

  • San Francisco Chronicle: Tracking atmospheric rivers could transform California reservoir levels
  • CBS – Los Angeles: Recent rain, snow leaves experts cautiously optimistic about drought relief
  • CalMatters: Opinion – What California can learn from wave of storms
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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Los Angeles Times

In Arizona, Colorado River crisis stokes worry over growth and groundwater depletion

Water supplies are shrinking throughout the Southwest, from the Rocky Mountains to California, with the flow of the Colorado River declining and groundwater levels dropping in many areas. The mounting strains on the region’s water supplies are bringing new questions about the unrestrained growth of sprawling suburbs.[Kathleen] Ferris, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, is convinced that growth is surpassing the water limits in parts of Arizona, and she worries that the development boom is on a collision course with the aridification of the Southwest and the finite supply of groundwater that can be pumped from desert aquifers.

Related articles:

  • The New York Times: Thousands will live here one day (as long as they can find water) 
  • Arizona Republic: Opinion: No more Band-Aids: How to make the Colorado River sustainable for the long term 
  • Arizona Department of Water Resources: Blog – Water Year in Review: Sure, It Was Mostly About The Colorado River, But It Wasn’t All About The River​ 
  • The New York Times: Opinion: Arizona Is in a Race to the Bottom of Its Water Wells, With Saudi Arabia’s Help 
  • Arizona Big Media: Arizona water cuts for the new year may be just the beginning, experts say
  • The Arizona Republic: Hobbs retains Arizona water director, appoints new leaders for other natural resources agencies
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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Inside Climate News

When the state cut their water, these California users created a collaborative solution

California Gov. Gavin Newsom stood at a podium placed on the sandy bottom of Lake Mendocino, a basin built to hold more than 20 billion gallons of water. It was spring, which meant that the reservoir should have held water from the winter rains that in past decades provided water to millions of Californians. Instead, on this afternoon in 2021, the ground was dry and cracked. Newsom was there to declare a drought emergency. … Now, the watershed and the reservoir where this drought began have become the proving ground for an innovative water agreement that aims to make more of scarce supplies. Creators say the program could become a prototype for accords elsewhere in the state and in the West, a beacon of collaboration in a place where water can be contentious. 

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 SJV Water

What a year 2022 was for Central Valley water news

Water, or the lack of it, was a major topic in California over 2022 — the third year of exceptional drought throughout the Western United States. In the San Joaquin Valley, drought dried up individual wells and entire towns. But the water news didn’t stop there. Farms and cities were also coming to terms with a new groundwater law that will change the economics and future growth for the entire valley. As if that wasn’t enough, water managers, farmers and others were busy fixing canals, trying to get a new dam approved, fighting over pipelines and more. It was quite a year in water.

Related article:

  • California WaterBlog: 2022 In Review
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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Lookout Local Santa Cruz

As desalination gains traction in parts of California, Santa Cruz weighs future of its water supply

When it comes to the view of desalination as a tool to drought-proof local water systems in California, 2022 [was] a roller-coaster year. In May, the California Coastal Commission… rejected on environmental grounds a $1.4 billion desalination facility proposed for Huntington Beach…. Six months later, the commission turned around and approved two desalination facilities, one in Orange County and another along Monterey Bay in Monterey County. Then … the Santa Cruz City Council on Nov. 29 approved a water-supply strategy that listed desalination as one of four water-supply projects on the table to secure the city’s water system in an increasingly uncertain climate future…. 2023 will see the Santa Cruz City Council begin the process of vetting the water-supply options in front of the city. 

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Salt Lake Tribune

Nevada calls on Utah and Upper Colorado Basin states to slash water use by 500,000 acre-feet

Nevada water managers have submitted a plan for cutting diversions by 500,000 acre-feet in a last-ditch effort to shore up flows on the Colorado River before low water levels cause critical problems at Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. But the Silver State’s plan targets cuts in Utah and the river’s other Upper Basin states, not in Nevada, whose leaders contend it already is doing what it can to reduce reliance on the depleted river system that provides water to 40 million in the West.

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Inside Climate News

California had a watershed climate year, but time is running out

California made historic investments in climate measures this year, as state leaders warned of current and escalating climate risks. … California is experiencing the driest 22 years in more than a millennium, fueled by warmer, drier conditions that have exposed critical weaknesses in the way the state stores and manages water. … Meanwhile, close to 1,500 wells ran dry this year. And though California became the first state in the nation to recognize the “human right” to water a decade ago, roughly 1 million people, mostly in isolated rural communities, lack access to reliable supplies of safe drinking water. Legislators passed a bill in September to help low-income Californians pay their water bill, but [Gov.] Newsom vetoed it, citing a lack of sustainable, ongoing funding.

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

California to cover canals with solar panels to combat drought, climate change

Two things on California’s wish list — more water and more power — may come soon with a first-in-the-nation plan to cover irrigation canals with solar panels. The project, which aims to save water by reducing evaporation from canals while generating renewable energy, is small, encompassing nearly two miles of waterways in the Central Valley. The hope, though, is to showcase the simple but largely untested concept so that it catches on with agricultural and urban water suppliers across the state, and beyond.

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 AP News

Biden signs bill to study salt lakes in drought-hit US West

Scientists will get $25 million to study salt lake ecosystems in the drought-stricken U.S. West, as President Joe Biden signed legislation Tuesday allocating the funds in the face of unprecedented existential threats caused by the lack of water. The funding allows the United States Geological Survey to study the hydrology of the ecosystems in and around Utah’s Great Salt Lake, California’s Mono Lake, Oregon’s Lake Albert and other saline lakes. Amid a decades long drought, less snowmelt has flowed through the rivers that feed into the lakes, causing shorelines to recede and lake levels to plummet.

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Aquafornia news January 3, 2023 Fresh Water News

Colorado launches $25M, multi-state effort to improve soils, reduce ag water use

This simple statistic may shock you: Each time a farmer plows his or her field, the soil loses three-quarters of an inch of moisture. The solutions? They’re more complicated and part of new and expanding soil health programs that seek to help farmers explore how to retain water, improve fertility, and create greater resilience to buffer weather extremes. Now, with the aid of $25 million in new federal funding, the Colorado Department of Agriculture plans to expand a program called STAR — an acronym for Saving Tomorrow’s Agricultural Resources — from 124 producers, including both farmers and ranchers, to 450. … State officials say that fostering techniques to improve soils, making them more sponge-like, can help Colorado improve water quality and use existing water more efficiently. Agriculture continues to account for more than 80% of Colorado’s water use.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 SJV Water

Thursday Top of the Scroll: Some San Joaquin Valley farmers are rebelling against groundwater measures

As water managers throughout the San Joaquin Valley scramble to reign in groundwater pumping, they’re running into a serious roadblock: angry farmers.  Across the valley, farmers have decried fees and other measures meant to reduce pumping, threatening not to pay, taking agencies to court and protesting groundwater rules.  In some cases, it’s working.  In the Kaweah subbasin in Kings and western Tulare counties, farmers forced a groundwater agency to cut pumping fees by half. In the Chowchilla subbasin farmers voted down groundwater fees and are pursuing creation of their own groundwater agency.  …  The rebellion is a reaction to the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which aims to bring critically overdrafted water subbasins into balance by 2040.

Related articles: 

  • Los Angeles Times: Groundwater depletion is accelerating in the Central Valley
  • CBS – Sacramento: California program pays farmers to fallow fields to preserve water amid drought
  • DWR: California water agencies collaborate on groundwater digital platform to help address dry wells and water supply shortages
  • EDF’s Growing Returns blog: Exciting new partnerships help Groundwater Accounting Platform expand to new regions
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Paso Robles Daily News

SLO City’s water treatment plant gets new Tesla battery

In celebration of National Energy Conservation Day, the City of San Luis Obispo recently highlighted projects that are reducing electrical demands at the city’s water treatment plant and helping the city reach its climate action goals. The city’s water-energy efficiency project and tesla battery project both help to reduce electrical energy used during peak times and increase the water treatment plant’s resiliency to potential disruptions in electricity. Energy-efficient projects like these align with two major city priorities: fiscal sustainability and climate action.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Association of California Water Agencies

News release: DWR still accepting applications for turf replacement and drought relief projects

The Department of Water Resources is accepting applications for approximately $300 million for turf replacement, conservation for urban suppliers and community drought relief projects. The funding is being offered through the 2022 Urban Community Drought Relief Grant. Eligible grant applicants include public agencies, public utilities, special district, mutual water companies, regional water management groups, colleges and universities, non-profit organizations and more. Applications must be submitted by Jan. 31, 2023 and awards will be announced from December 2022 through March 2023.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Sacramento News & Review

Regional tribes, groups file civil rights complaint against State Water Board

As salmon and Delta fish populations continue to plummet, a coalition of California Indian tribes and environmental justice groups filed a Title VI civil rights complaint against the State Water Board on Dec. 16, as well as a petition for rulemaking with the US Environmental Protection Agency. The complaint and petition seek relief for regional tribal nations and disadvantaged Delta communities. This coalition includes the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Little Manila Rising, Restore the Delta and Save California Salmon. The alliance is being represented in court by the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic. 

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Arizona Daily Family

Phoenix city officials celebrate final pipe installation in the Drought Pipeline Project

It’s a construction project that may have caused you traffic headaches near 32nd Street and Shea in north Phoenix. Eventually the Drought Pipeline Project will be able to provide water to more than 400,000 people in the event of shortages of Colorado River water. It will be able to carry water the city of Phoenix has rights to from the Salt and Verde rivers. On Wednesday morning, a number of Phoenix city officials celebrated the installation of the final section of pipe for the Drought Pipeline Project. Construction began in May 2021, and Arizona’s Family did a special report over the summer.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 KBAK - Bakersfield

Lawsuit filed against city of Bakersfield for diverting Kern River

Multiple conservation groups are suing the City of Bakersfield for diverting the Kern River. The Center for Biological Diversity, Bring Back the Kern, the Kern River Parkway Foundation, Kern-Kaweah Chapter Sierra Club, Kern Audubon Society, and Water Audit California filed the lawsuit in late November. In a press release, it says the lawsuit is challenging the city’s diversion of water to agricultural fields. The coalition says the city’s choice have damaged the river’s wildlife and surrounding communities.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Forbes

Resolving the water wars: The 4 key drivers of indoor vertical farming success

Continued droughts and climate change have elevated consumer and government concerns about water consumption, particularly for food production. While nuts might be the thirstiest crop, fruits and vegetables also need a lot of watering. The epicenter of the “water wars” is California, pitting rural against urban, golf courses against grapes and lawns against lettuce. Innovators have sought solutions including micro-irrigation technology, gene-edited crops with lower water footprints and recycling, but none have attracted investor attention like vertical farming. Between 2019 and 2026, indoor farming is predicted to grow to $22 billion. Raises this year include greenhouse Gotham Greens ($310 million) and indoor vertical farm Plenty ($400 million).

Related article: 

  • Ag Week: U.S. carbon farming takes root – but do the economics add up?
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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 ProPublica

Dwindling Colorado River could trigger water war between states

I came to this place because the Colorado River system is in a state of collapse. It is a collapse hastened by climate change but also a crisis of management. In 1922, the seven states in the river basin signed a compact splitting the Colorado equally between its upper and lower halves; later, they promised additional water to Mexico, too. Near the middle, they put Lake Powell, a reserve for the northern states, and Lake Mead, a storage node for the south. Over time, as an overheating environment has collided with overuse, the lower half — primarily Arizona and California — has taken its water as if everything were normal, straining both the logic and the legal interpretations of the compact.

Related articles: 

  • Cowboy State Daily: Wyoming Getting Screwed In Colorado River Pact; Too Many People Using Wyoming Water, Observers Say
  • Las Vegas Review-Journal: Editorial - Nevada water proposal deserves a good long look 
  • Forbes: Too Late For Water Conservation: Bold And Immediate Solutions That Businesses Can Champion
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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Western Farm Press

In search of climate-resilient trees

Washington State University plant pathologist Gary Chastagner has been trotting the globe in an effort to safeguard an important Pacific Northwest crop — the iconic winter evergreen. Dubbed “Dr. Christmas Tree” by his colleagues for a 44-year career studying the decorative conifers, Chastagner traveled to Turkey in 2020 to find mother trees of Turkish and Trojan firs, which are adaptable to the Northwest’s climate and resistant to disease. … In one effort, a multi-state team led by Patrick J. Brown has been awarded nearly $3.8 million over the next four years for a project to improve pistachio production as the industry faces warmer winters and scarcer water.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Associated Press

Arizona restricts farming to protect groundwater supply

The outskirts of Kingman, Arizona … has since morphed into something much more green that supports pistachio and almond orchards, and garlic and potato fields in a climate similar to California’s Central Valley. The crops are fed by groundwater that also serves the city of Kingman. The Arizona Department of Water Resources this week put a limit on the amount of land that can be watered, designating the Hualapai Valley as an irrigation non-expansion area. That means anyone who hasn’t farmed more than 2 acres there during the past five years can’t. It’s the first such designation in Arizona in four decades — highlighting struggles around the U.S. as water supplies dwindle and tensions grow between farmers and cities. 

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 UW Civil & Environmental Engineering

Snow sleuths

The researchers are investigating a phenomenon known as sublimation, which is the transition of snow directly from a solid state into water vapor, skipping the liquid stage. … Currently the largest source of uncertainty in snow modeling, sublimation has the potential to be an important insight for water resources management, especially estimating future water reserves. … In recent years, there have also been unexplainable decreases in the river’s flow, which people in seven states depend upon for drinking water. In 2021, the Colorado River snowpack was estimated at 80% of average, but streamflows ended up being only 30% of average. The researchers speculate that the discrepancy may in part be explained by sublimation.

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Aquafornia news December 22, 2022 Water Education Foundation

Announcement: Hot off the press! Layperson’s Guide to Water Conservation is now available

The Water Education Foundation’s seventh edition of the Layperson’s Guide to Water Conservation is hot off the press and available for purchase. With California and the West in the grip of persistent drought, the guide provides an excellent overview of the forces driving conservation and the measures water users are taking to more efficiently use our most vital natural resource. The 20-page guide covers such topics as how drought and climate change are affecting California and the Colorado River Basin, how some Southwestern cities are stretching supplies, the impact of landscape choices on water use, how farms are changing to more efficient irrigation practices, and what homeowners can to do save water.

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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 Las Vegas Review-Journal

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: Water authority lays out Colorado River plan to protect Lake Mead, Lake Powell

The Southern Nevada Water Authority has a plan for how the seven states that rely on the Colorado River can protect Lake Mead and Lake Powell. But whether the other six states have any interest in backing that plan remains to be seen. The water authority on Tuesday outlined how it thinks the Colorado River basin states and the federal government can drastically cut back on water use along the dwindling Colorado next year in order to keep water levels at its two major reservoirs from crashing further and threatening putting their ability to deliver water downstream and generate hydropower. The plan, submitted to the Department of Interior, calls for significant alterations to the current drought guidelines for the river’s two main storage reservoirs and cuts across the basin of more than 2 million acre feet in water use starting next year.

Related articles: 

  • Opinion – Bruce Babbitt: It’s time for the feds to pull rank and enforce already agreed water cuts
  • Newsweek: Why is the Colorado River drying up?
  • KUTV – Salt Lake City: Draining Lake Powell may eventually be necessary due to drought and design of Glen Canyon
  • Globe St: US May Impose Mandatory Limits on Colorado River Water Use
  • Clean Technica: Crunch Time For Colorado River As Federal Government Ponders Mandatory Cuts
  • Alta: The Drought
  • Deseret News: Take a visual journey down the mighty Colorado River
  • Esquire: The one thing that grows in the West without water: Violence
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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

Feds consider reducing Klamath River flows by up to 40%

According to a draft proposal released by Reclamation on Dec. 9, the Klamath Basin remains in “severe to extreme drought status” and dry weather is expected to continue for a fourth consecutive year. In response, the federal water management agency proposed reducing flows by up to 40% until April. Water is released from Upper Klamath Lake past a series of dams on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The Klamath River will soon be the site of the nation’s largest dam removal and river restoration project. One of its key pillars involves restoring habitat for endangered coho salmon. News of proposed reductions to the river’s flow was met with frustration by members of the Yurok Tribe, who just hours earlier had been joined by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the governors of Oregon and California at a celebration about the dam removal project.

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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 Eos

New research: Groundwater replenishes much faster than scientists previously thought

A large part of the world’s liquid freshwater supply comes from groundwater. These underground reservoirs of water—which are stored in soil and aquifers—feed streams, sustain agricultural lands, and provide drinking water to hundreds of millions of people. For that reason, researchers are keen to understand how quickly surface water replenishes, or “recharges,” groundwater stores. But measuring a vast, fluid, underground resource is easier said than done. In a new study, Berghuijs et al. found that recharge rates might double previous estimates. The research team produced an updated model of groundwater recharge using a recent global synthesis of regional groundwater measurements. They found that a single factor, climate aridity, accurately estimated how much precipitation trickled into groundwater across the globe: Arid locations had lower recharge rates than humid ones. 

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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 Arizona Daily Star

Firm wants to desalt Sonoran seawater, sell it to Arizona cities

A state water board unanimously agreed Tuesday to start discussions with a giant Israeli company over its proposal to build a $5.5 billion seawater desalination plant on the Sonoran coast and sell desalted water to Arizona users. If such a plant were ultimately approved and built, a final signoff by this board, which is a ways off, would commit the state to providing financial backup toward repaying the construction cost if the plant can’t sell enough water to customers in Arizona and Sonora to cover all those costs. Brushing aside complaints from some citizens that it’s moving too fast, the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority’s governing board voted 9-0 to take the first step toward clearing the way for construction of such a plant, while acknowledging that many issues about its cost and potential environmental impacts need further discussion and negotiation.

Related articles: 

  • Arizona Capitol Times: Ducey’s desalination plan clears first hurdle  
  • The Arizona Republic: Arizona considers piping water from Mexico
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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 Office of Senator Alex Padilla

Padilla secures over $54 Million for 24 projects in the Inland Empire

Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced that he secured over $54 million in federal funding for 24 projects across the Inland Empire in the bipartisan FY 2023 appropriations package. The bill now heads to both chambers of Congress for final passage and then on to the President to be signed into law.  “I am proud to have secured funding for projects in the Inland Empire to provide clean drinking water, upgrade roads, and make the region more resilient to flooding and drought,” Senator Padilla said. “This funding will support local governments and community organizations that work to directly benefit our neighborhoods. Federal dollars will create jobs and invest in upgraded infrastructure, community safety, and the removal of harmful chemicals from water supplies to improve the quality of life throughout the Inland Empire.”

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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 Fox 10 - Phoenix

U.S. Senate advances water bills for tribes in Arizona

The U.S. Senate has advanced three bills that would improve access to water for some tribes in Arizona amid an unrelenting drought. One measure approved on Dec. 19 would give the Colorado River Indian Tribes in northwestern Arizona the ability to lease water from the Colorado River. The tribe based in Parker has one of the largest allocations of the Colorado River anywhere, and it’s among the most secure. Another bill would settle the Hualapai Tribe’s claim to water from the Colorado River and give the tribe $180 million for the infrastructure to deliver it to the tribe’s main tourist center at Grand Canyon West and to residents.

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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 The Sun-Gazette Newspaper

Fourth year of drought brings extreme limits to water supply

As California is preparing for their fourth year of drought, the Bureau of Reclamation warns Central Valley Project water contractors of lessened water allocations. Two months after the start of the new water year on Oct. 1, the Shasta Reservoir, the state’s largest reservoir and cornerstone of the Central Valley Project (CVP), is currently at 31% capacity. With the reservoir being so low, the Bureau of Reclamation is asking its contractors who are receiving water from the CVP for municipal and industrial use to begin planning for “potentially extremely limited water supply conditions” after the start of the new year.  

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Aquafornia news December 21, 2022 KPBS Public Media

Upgrade costs for Carlsbad desalination plant will be passed along to San Diego ratepayers

Water bills in San Diego are about to go up, and that increase is due in part to planned upgrades at the Carlsbad Desalination Plant. Those upgrades are estimated to cost $274 million. The San Diego County Water Authority approved the upgrades to the plant’s seawater intakes at a board meeting on Thursday. “This action by the board moves the Carlsbad Desalination Plant one step closer to meeting state marine life mandates,” said Water Authority Board Chair Mel Katz. “Staff has worked diligently to ensure that the costs are as low as possible while continuing to provide our region with a drought-proof source of water. We are thankful to have this resource when so much of the West is suffering from extreme drought, and we expect it will be increasingly valuable as climate change further disrupts California’s hydrology.” 

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