Drought— an extended period of
limited or no precipitation— is a fact of life in California and
the West, with water resources following boom-and-bust patterns.
No portion of the West has been immune to drought during the last
century and drought occurs with much greater frequency in the
West than in other regions of the country.
Most of the West experiences what is classified as severe to
extreme drought more than 10 percent of the time, and a
significant portion of the region experiences severe to extreme
drought more than 15 percent of the time, according to the
National Drought Mitigation Center.
Experts who have studied recent droughts say a drought occurs
about once every 10 years somewhere in the United States.
Droughts are believed to be the most costly of all natural
disasters because of their widespread effects on agriculture and
related industries, as well as on urbanized areas. One of those
decennial droughts could cost as much as $38 billion, according
to one estimate.
Because droughts cannot be prevented, experts are looking for
better ways to forecast them and new approaches to managing
droughts when they occur.
The visible signs of America’s lingering drought are obvious at
reservoirs across the American West. Drive from Las Vegas and
step out of your car at Hoover Dam and Lake Mead in Nevada or
peek out at Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, and you’ll
see the stone-stained “bathtub rings” indicating the high-water
marks of better times. … [A]s water levels drop, the unseen
effect of these drastic reservoir declines is
that hydroelectric power is decreasing.
We all know it’s important to conserve water, but are we still
in a drought? California water officials say “no!” But a number
of residents in Selma got a notice on their door telling them
we are in a drought and that’s why stage 3 water restrictions
are in place.
Facebook announced plans Thursday to restore more water than it
consumes by the year 2030, the company’s latest initiative
targeting climate change. The company mostly uses water for
cooling the banks of computers that run in its data centers. In
2020, Facebook withdrew 3.7 million cubic meters of water for a
total consumption of 2.2 million cubic meters. Facebook intends
to focus its efforts in regions where it uses local water
resources, but it will also look at high-risk areas that face
the most challenges in terms of their water supply…
Both the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers shrunk in 2021, another
bad water year in a two-decade megadrought brought on by a
warming Western United States. Demands on the rivers —
from growing cities, agriculture, wildlife and international
treaties — are hitting the reality of a reduced supply of water
in both rivers. In August, federal officials declared the
first-ever shortage on the Colorado River lower basin,
triggering a plan to reduce water usage in several states and
Mexico.
After a wildfire, soils in burned areas often become water
repellent, leading to increased erosion and flooding after
rainfall events – a phenomenon that many scientists have
attributed to smoke and heat-induced changes in soil chemistry.
But this post-fire water repellency may also be caused by
wildfire smoke in the absence of heat, according to a new paper
from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Nevada.
Sacramento-area residents were urged Thursday to cut water
usage by 10% as much of the state has been plunged into another
severe drought. Just three days after Gov. Gavin Newsom
declared the area officially in a drought, the Sacramento
Regional Water Authority asked for voluntary conservation
measures as its member agencies scramble to cope with drought
conditions that seemingly worsen by the day.
Santa Maria Rec and Parks crews are digging up the grass near
Seward Drive. … They’re renovating city landscapes in light
of the state-wide drought. … The project on Seward Drive of
26 other locations where crews will be renovating the
landscapes throughout the year. By replacing some of the grass
with more drought tolerant landscaping, the expectation is to
use less water.
California farmers and ranchers have no shortages of stress
this year. They face drought and water supply cuts, devastating
wildfires and pandemic impacts. There are also labor shortages
and financial pressures from fluctuating commodity prices or
trade disruptions. These impacts inspire serious discussions in
agricultural communities about looking after farmers’ mental
health.
The Department of Water Resources and the State Water Resources
Control Board have developed draft groundwater management
principles and strategies to better anticipate and minimize the
impacts of drought on drinking water wells. Developed in
response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s April Executive Drought
Proclamation, the principles and strategies provide a framework
for State actions to proactively address impacts on
groundwater-dependent communities as droughts become more
frequent and intense as a result of climate change.
San Francisco, along with a handful of Central Valley
irrigation districts, is suing the state for enacting drought
restrictions that are keeping thousands of landowners and
suppliers from drawing water from rivers and creeks. The
lawsuit, filed late last week in Fresno County Superior Court,
claims that the State Water Resources Control Board — drought
or no drought — does not have the authority to suspend the
draws of those with the most senior claims to California’s
water.
On June 9, as California’s historic drought deepened, the
largest water agency in Santa Clara County declared a drought
emergency and asked the county’s 2 million residents to cut
water use by 15% from 2019 levels to preserve dwindling
supplies. … But three months later, the public isn’t heeding
the call. New water use numbers show that overall, Santa Clara
County residents reduced water use by just 6% in July, compared
with July 2019 — well short of the 15% target.
Dangerously low water levels at Shasta Lake were captured on
drone video by ABC10 reporter John Bartell and photojournalist
Tyler Horst on Tuesday. Shasta Lake is California’s
largest reservoir, capable of holding 4,552,000 acre feet of
water. Right now, it has 1,186,057 acre feet of water stored.
Breaking that down into percentages, the reservoir is at 26%
capacity and 42% of average for this date.
A brutal summer of record heat and punishing drought has
claimed yet another California victim: the majestic,
snow-covered slopes of Mt. Shasta. Just as the impacts of
global warming have revealed themselves in extreme wildfire
behavior and plunging reservoir levels, climate change is now
altering the skyline of far Northern California and wreaking
havoc on communities surrounding the dormant volcano.
A federal judge has blocked a Northern California county’s ban
on trucks delivering water to Hmong cannabis farmers, saying it
raises “serious questions” about racial discrimination and
leaves the growers without a source of water for basic
sanitation, vegetable gardens and livestock. On Friday, Chief
U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller issued a temporary
injunction against Siskiyou County’s prohibition on trucked-in
water deliveries to Hmong farmers growing marijuana in the
Mount Shasta Vista subdivision in the Big Springs area north of
Weed.
The city of Ukiah has been relying primarily on groundwater,
recycled water and conservation to get through the drought and
hasn’t been exercising its right to water from the Russian
River, which is experiencing historic low flows. That’s about
to change now that the city has agreed to help the coast
through the drought.
Some San Joaquin Valley farmers could someday have a new “crop”
to sell — their groundwater. In the face of looming
groundwater pumping restrictions, some groundwater agencies are
looking at internal markets to give growers a way to save water
and still earn a profit.
The past week brought much-needed showers to Tulare County —
but not enough to catch up to the amount of rain the area
should have by this time in the water year. … The past week
brought about .78 inches, a decent amount, considering the
average rainfall over the past 30 years for the entire
month of March is 1.9 inches. But the rainfall broke an
all-time record dry period for the season, as not a drop fell
in February.
With much of California and other western U.S. states
experiencing significant drought, the need to pursue further
advancements in desalination has never been greater. This was a
central theme of an Aug. 11 webinar, titled “Discussion on
Desalination — Treatments, Research, and the Future,” conducted
by the WateReuse Association. Historically, desalination
has been viewed as a separate component within the water
sector, but that perception is changing, said Peter Fiske,
Ph.D., the executive director for the National Alliance for
Water Innovation and one of three presenters featured during
the webinar.
While residents of the Southeast clean up from floods and a
hurricane, meteorologists are warning that Northern California
should be prepared for a third year of drought. … The
biggest immediate concern is the upper Russian River, which is
fed by Lake Mendocino and provides water for Cloverdale,
Healdsburg and some prime Wine Country agricultural areas.
Storage in the lake dipped below 20,000 acre-feet last week
… Lake Sonoma, the region’s other major reservoir, is in
a little better shape with 116,500 acre-feet of
water.
The Bureau of Land Management is rounding up more than 700
horses living on public land in northwest Colorado, a sharp
reduction of a herd that officials say is too large and roaming
in dangerously dry conditions. Over the last week, contractors
have used helicopters to corral mustangs living in the Sand
Wash Basin, which includes 155,000 acres of public land managed
by the federal agency in the northwest corner of the state.
While California will not receive a soaking rain similar to
what occurred at the beginning of the week, residents across
the state can expect unsettled weather to stick around through
Wednesday.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently declared a water shortage on
the Colorado River, but that hasn’t stopped states from
proposing new water projects. Just about every drop on the
Colorado River is accounted for. But climate change has reduced
the amount of water in the system. Gary Wockner is with
Save the Colorado, a conservation group that is tracking new
projects.
If you could save gallons of water, improve your health, and
leave our Earth a little healthier, would you do it? If your
diet is mainly meat-focused, you can effect big changes by
beginning to transition to a diet that is plant-based. This is
because pound for pound, meat has a much higher water footprint
than vegetables and legumes. -Written by Georgi LaBerge, board member of
Sustainable San Mateo County and CityTrees and the former mayor
of Redwood City.
The Central Valley’s rice fields and wetlands are widely
heralded as key rest and refuel stops for millions of migratory
birds traveling along the Pacific Flyway. The rice fields
provide more than 50% of the diet for the ducks and geese
during their fall and winter migration. To view rafts of
waterfowl feeding on public wildlife areas or seeing thousands
of geese taking flight from a rice field are indicators of a
healthy environment and visual examples of how vital the
Central Valley is to the Flyway. -Written by Jeff McCreary, director of operations for the
Western Region, Ducks Unlimited, and Tim Johnson, president and
CEO of the California Rice Commission.
First came the asparagus field. Then came the melons. And now
Joe Del Bosque is considering the unthinkable: tearing out a
sprawling almond orchard bursting with healthy, nut-producing
trees. … Two decades of almost unrelenting growth
vaulted almonds into the upper ranks of California agriculture.
Now, though, the state’s $6 billion-a-year industry is
being humbled by a devastating drought. Farmers have
slowed the pace of new orchard plantings and, in a few cases,
have plowed up trees still capable of bearing almonds.
The city of Antioch’s water supply has been challenged in
recent years by a variety of factors. But the Brackish Water
Desalination Project, the first desalination project of its
kind in the five-county Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, is
intended to improve the reliability of the city’s water. The
city filed its notice of preparation for the project just over
four years ago and then broke ground on the plant in February
of this year.
A 20-year, climate change-fueled megadrought has dealt a double
blow to Blue Mesa this summer. The dry conditions have led to
lower levels directly, but the lake is also hurting from
drought problems in other states. For the first time, the
federal government is taking emergency action by taking water
from Blue Mesa to help out another reservoir — Lake Powell on
the Utah-Arizona border….The water taken from Blue Mesa is
being used to make sure hydroelectric power turbines at Lake
Powell can keep spinning and generating electricity for
millions of people in the West…
Water year 2021-22 begins on Oct. 1 and the stakes are whether
Napa County escapes having one the deepest droughts in its
recorded history. The county has been hit by a devastating
one-two drought punch. Rainfall at Napa State Hospital for
2020-21 is about 10 inches, following a season of 12.19 inches.
The average annual rainfall there is about 26 inches. A third
consecutive rainfall year with a total barely denting double
digits would be unprecedented in weather records dating back to
1877-78.
The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the
social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has
outlined his vision for a 5-million-person “new city in
America” and appointed a world-famous architect to design it.
Now, he just needs somewhere to build it — and $400 billion in
funding. The former Walmart executive last week unveiled plans
for Telosa, a sustainable metropolis that he hopes to create,
from scratch, in the American desert. The ambitious
150,000-acre proposal promises eco-friendly architecture,
sustainable energy production and a purportedly
drought-resistant water system.
For decades, farm labor has kept unincorporated communities
alive throughout the Central Valley. But the drought is making
it hard to stay. The dearth of essential resources — clean
water, adequate housing and fair employment wages — has
crippled towns that are easily overlooked and triggered a slow
exodus to bigger places.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Northern
California county from enforcing water permit laws aimed at
cracking down on illegal marijuana farms, finding the
restrictions might be intended to drive a minority Asian
community out of their homes. … Siskiyou County passed two
ordinances in May 2021 requiring permits to extract and move
groundwater off site and to transport water by truck.
For much of California, the arrival of September has brought
extreme, scalding temperatures. Sunday was the hottest day in
Los Angeles in nearly 11 months, according to AccuWeather.
Temperatures in the Inland Empire and the Sacramento region
soared into the triple-digits over the long weekend. And in the
next few days, dangerous heat waves are projected for large
swaths of the state, weather officials warn.
Officials say residents of a California community where
hundreds of home wells have run dry can now take hot showers in
portable facilities set up in a church parking lot.
The Bureau of Reclamation began releasing water from the
Klamath River to Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge on
Friday afternoon. Advocates hope it will improve wetland
habitat on the refuge for migrating birds this fall. Last
week, California Waterfowl Association officially purchased
approximately 3,750 acre-feet of water from Agency Ranch in the
Wood River Valley, above Upper Klamath Lake, having announced
the purchase and fundraising effort this spring.
Almost everything about a sequoia tree is giant: It can
grow to more than 200 feet tall and live longer than 3,000
years. Yet the sequoia’s footprint is shrinking, as
human-induced climate change threatens this ancient tree’s
survival. … There are only around 48,000 acres of sequoia
groves left in the world, and the trees are now facing threats
from human-made climate change in several ways.
For months, the city of Needles has endured not just scorching
hot weather but the possibility that its single water well
could fail, a potentially life-threatening risk for this Mojave
desert community of 5,000 residents. Yet over recent
weeks, word arrived that state officials — flush with billions
of dollars in surplus tax revenue — intend to hand over $2
million to pay for a new well that could be operational later
this year. City officials are now breathing easier…
As reservoirs across California meet historic lows, we are
again faced with the reality of not enough water for the
environment, farms and people. … As our climate
continues to change, we can expect more of the same, and
possibly worse if we don’t make some meaningful changes to how
we manage water in California. We need to advance water
recycling projects, increase conservation and develop more
capacity to store water. One key part of the solution is the
construction of Sites Reservoir.
California regulators began cracking down on water use in the
sprawling Sacramento River and San Joaquin River watersheds on
Friday, ordering 4,500 farmers, water districts and other
landowners, including the city of San Francisco, to stop
drawing water in the basins — or face penalties of up to
$10,000 a day. The move comes as the state slides deeper
into an extraordinary two-year drought. Lakes, streams and
rivers no longer have enough water for everyone who is taking
it, and dwindling supplies must be rationed, state regulators
say.
When Cupertino residents Sherri Stein and her husband planted a
victory garden, it wasn’t to grow food but to help fight the
California drought. The Steins took advantage of a pilot
project by the City of Cupertino to help residents establish
Climate Victory Gardens in their front yards. These gardens are
drought-tolerant and can be irrigated with laundry-to-landscape
graywater systems.
The Guidebook is designed to assist urban water suppliers with
preparing UWMPs that are due to DWR on July 1. DWR also
released its draft 2020 Agricultural Water Management Plan
Guidebook related to long-term water supply and demand
strategies for agricultural water planning.
On Monday morning, the Caldor fire had been 44% contained, the
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said,
nearly double what the agency reported Thursday. Authorities
said lower temperatures, slowing winds and rises in humidity
allowed firefighters to take advantage of the slowed pace of
the wildfire to focus on mitigation efforts to keep the blaze
from spreading further.
Record dry conditions once again in the West have led the
federal and state governments to declare water supply
shortages. California’s governor has declared that 50 counties,
in which approximately 41% of the state’s population exists,
are now under a drought state of emergency. This prompted the
adoption of emergency regulations ordering water rights holders
to curtail their water diversions on numerous northern
California rivers.
Earlier this summer, the Santa Clara Valley Water District
declared a water shortage emergency and told its 13 retailers,
including their largest retailer the San Jose Water Company, to
cut water use 15% from 2019 levels, the most recent non-drought
year…. The [San Jose Water] company has since
submitted a plan to the California Public Utilities
Commission that would require each of its residential customers
to officially cut monthly water use by 15% from their 2019
levels, or face fines of $7.13 in surcharges for every
additional unit of water used. The move could make San Jose the
first major California city with water allotments and drought
penalties.
As we all know, Los Angeles and the surrounding areas have had
lots and lots and lots of rain this winter. So much rain, in
fact, that this week, Southern California Edison announced
they’re lifting mandatory conservation requirements for
residents and businesses on Catalina Island. … Water
rationing on Catalina Island began in 2014, when residents were
asked to adopt mandatory conservation efforts.
Kelly O’Brien’s drinking water well had been in its death
throes for days before its pump finally gave out over Memorial
Day weekend. … Soon O’Brien learned that other wells
were failing around her. She heard about one neighbor to the
north, another to the east. The list kept growing: She started
a Facebook group for owners of dry wells to share their woes
and resources, and it grew to more than 665 members.
Ural Federal University (UrFU) engineers have developed a new
desalination technology. It will significantly reduce the cost
of desalination and quadruple the volume of production. The
results of the research are published in the journal Case
Studies in Thermal Engineering. Today one of the most popular
and simple ways of desalination is the distillation of water
with the help of solar energy. UrFU scientists, together with
colleagues from Iraq, have developed a hybrid technology to
increase the efficiency of evaporation inside a solar distiller
by means of a rotating hollow cylinder and a solar collector.
Maria Olivera’s house sits on a dirt road that dead-ends at the
Friant Kern Canal, the 152-mile aqueduct quenching the endless
thirst of the San Joaquin Valley crops that feed the country.
She’s called Tooleville home since 1974, where residents have
been fighting to attain the basic human right to clean drinking
water for the better part of two decades.
Founded on a lush plain of the largest estuary on the West
Coast of North America shortly after gold was discovered,
Antioch’s fortunes have always risen and fallen with the delta
tides. One of California’s oldest settlements, what started as
a ranch town morphed decades ago into an industrial city due to
its riverside locale and proximity to San Francisco. Family
farms gave way to coal and copper mines, mills and warehouses
took over downtown and the city steadily grew into one of the
Bay Area’s largest.
A bust of an illegal cannabis grow site within Sonoma Coast
State Park has weeded out an even bigger problem for the North
Bay suffering from a drought year — water theft. “Cannabis
plants require so much water to grow,” California State Parks
Cannabis Watershed Protection Program Assistant Chief Jeremy
Stinson told the Business Journal, following his team
uncovering the illegal grow site in Bodega Bay that netted two
arrests, 1,500 plants, 1,000 pounds of trash, pollutants and
water diversion lines.
The Klamath River flows some 250 miles from southern Oregon to
Northern California. From its headwaters at Upper Klamath Lake,
east of Medford, Oregon, the river rushes through trout
habitat, forested mountains, farmland and salmon nurseries as
it makes its way to the Pacific Ocean. Rather, the river
usually rushes. But now, drought is desiccating almost the
entire Klamath River basin, some 12,000 to 15,000 square miles.
That’s an area approaching the size of the entirety of
Massachusetts and Connecticut combined.
When Jenny Hess visited her sister in Healdsburg, Calif., in
May of 2020 to get out of New York City during Covid, she was
entranced by the area’s temperate weather, natural beauty and
sophisticated food and wine culture. The attraction
endured—even when she had to flee for 12 days due to a raging
wildfire right behind her sister’s house.
One hundred and eighty-two days. That’s how long I went without
swimming during this never-ending pandemic. My last swim before
the big COVID-19 surge last year winter was October 20, 2020,
in the Salmon Falls River in my hometown in southern Maine. I
swam quickly (frantically) from a little pebbly beach, across
the brackish brown water, to New Hampshire and back.
As Tropical Storm Ida cripples New York City and flooding takes
dozens of lives along the East Coast, California suffers from a
two-year drought that has curtailed water supplies and spawned
wildfires scorching nearly 1,000 square miles. One side of the
nation gets far too much water, the other side far too little,
The common element is climate change and it would be folly for
Californians to yearn — even with flames approaching Lake
Tahoe, the jewel of the Sierra — for a portion of the rain
falling 3,000 miles away.
The drought emergency in the Bay Area is not only affecting
humans, but also wildlife. From turkeys strolling along
streets, to wild pigs appearing on surveillance video digging
up yards, bone dry conditions in the hills has sent thirsty
wildlife into neighborhoods, particularly in the East Bay.
Other creatures spotted in neighborhoods recently include
mountain lions and even the occasional bear. Wildlife experts
say its the season for these visitors. Dry hillsides causing
wildlife to stroll to low lying areas to find food and precious
water.
Researchers have suspected for years that drought conditions
worsen groundwater quality, but a study published this week
provides strong evidence proving the long-held assumption.
While previous studies have focused on the risk of wells being
overdrawn and run dry during drought, the study from the United
States Geological Survey and the California State Water
Resources Control Board is the first to directly link drought
to deteriorating water quality on a regional scale. The study
looked at 30 years of data from California’s Central Valley.
California’s wildfire season started early again this year and
its destruction already for the record books with the Dixie
fire currently the second largest in the state’s history and
growing while the Caldor fire has caused the evacuation of
residents from the iconic South Lake Tahoe communities.
Here, Stanford Law School’s Professor Buzz Thompson, one of the
country’s leading water law experts, discusses California’s
wildfires, drought, water, and climate change with Stanford
Legal on SiriusXM co-hosts Professors Joseph Bankman and
Richard Thompson Ford.
Freshly cut off from their chief water supply, a group of
California water agencies in one of the state’s most fertile
farming areas sued on Wednesday to freeze the latest round of
emergency drought rules. In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento
County Superior Court, the suppliers argue they were denied due
process when state regulators ordered thousands of landowners
last month to cease diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta due to drought conditions.
Lawmakers accused almond growers of over-planting and livestock
ranchers of unsustainable practices, while others sought policy
ideas to help small family farmers.
A pipeline stretching all the way across the Richmond-San
Rafael Bridge could partly address the water shortage. It
hasn’t been fully approved, but millions of dollars are being
spent to see if it could be a viable solution. Nearly
200,000 Marin County residents rely on the Mount Tamalpais
watershed for drinking water and other needs. But lack of
rainfall for years, and maybe many more, is drying up its
reservoirs.
Monterey County is the only county is California with a law
that prohibits private companies from operating new
desalination plants. That law, passed in 1989, will be up for a
potential repeal when the county’s supervisors meet on Sept.
21. The law has been thrust into the spotlight as
Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp., a publicly traded, $11
billion Canada-based company, has proposed construction of what
could be a massive regional desalination plant in Moss Landing.
A record hot summer has laid bare a stark new reality for many
states on America’s West Coast: Amid rising temperatures and
worsening droughts, many will need to systematically rethink
the way they manage limited water supplies. … Washington
state’s official climatologist, Nicholas Bond told Zenger
that rising temperatures were impacting year-round water supply
levels by melting the state’s mountain snowpack earlier than in
past years.
Pack a few extra water bottles the next time you head to Mount
Diablo State Park. Due to the drought, faucets, showers and
flushing toilets have been turned off at various parts of the
mountain. The California Department of Parks and Recreation
says water springs on Mount Diablo State Park have been reduced
to a trickle and the water storage tanks are close to empty.
California grape growers in coastal areas can use less water
during times of drought and cut irrigation levels without
affecting crop yields or quality, according to a new study out
of the University of California, Davis. The findings, published
today (Sept. 1) in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, show
that vineyards can use 50% of the irrigation water normally
used by grape crops without compromising flavor, color and
sugar content.
An ongoing fish kill has been plaguing the Klamath River since
early May. The Klamath flows through Oregon and northern
California, and like many water sources in the West, has seen
water levels drop considerably due to extreme drought. A lower
river means a slower and warmer river, which is what some
parasites need to thrive. The parasite C.Shasta is expected to
kill off nearly all of this year’s juvenile Chinook salmon in
the Klamath.
The federal agency that distributes electricity from hydropower
plants in the Upper Colorado River Basin will ask its
customers, including more than 50 here in Colorado, to help
offset rising costs linked to Lake Powell’s inability to
produce as much power due to drought. The Western Area Power
Administration (WAPA), which distributes Lake Powell’s
electricity, is gathering public comments and asking its
customers how best to cope with long-term drought conditions
that have pushed Powell and other reservoirs to historically
low levels.
After the Ukiah City Council held a special meeting Monday,
City of Ukiah officials announced Tuesday that they are
preparing to deliver water to coastal communities such as the
village of Mendocino. In a press release, Deputy City Manger
said that the city staff are “working out planning, contracts
and logistics to begin delivering water supplies by truck to
coastal areas of Mendocino County.”
Like many farmers across California, Zack Andrade’s business is
being choked by an extraordinary two-year drought. Water cuts
could soon erase about a quarter of the irrigation he depends
on to grow leafy greens, carrots and beets on his family’s farm
in the rolling hills south of Silicon Valley, near Morgan
Hill. Andrade said the crisis has been made worse by
successive governors, including Gavin Newsom, who he says have
punted on damming rivers and building new reservoirs to help
California store more water during wet years.
La Niña, the climate event that causes water to be colder than
normal in the eastern Pacific, has now been shown by new
research released Monday to be responsible for simultaneous
megadroughts in the North and South American Southwest over the
past 1,000 years. Megadroughts are extended periods of
drought that last at least 20 years. In a study published in
the journal Nature, researchers found that these megadroughts
occurred simultaneously in the North American and South
American Southwest “regularly” and often during a La Niña
event.
Life in Tooleville wasn’t easy before the latest
drought. Residents of this tiny, two-road farmworker
community, tucked into the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills
in eastern Tulare County, have been living on bottled water
since 2014 because its two wells are contaminated with
hexavalent chromium. Then in July, one of those wells
started to dry up, thanks to plummeting groundwater levels.
State Water Resources Control Board officials agree
Tooleville’s other well will likely hit sand in a matter of
months.
For the first time in history, the federal government has
declared a water shortage on the Colorado River, which serves
as a lifeline to more than 40 million people in western states
like Arizona and California. States that are used to
receiving substantial amounts of water from the river are going
to be receiving considerable cuts in water availability. The
river has served as a source of affordable hydraulic power and
provides water for irrigation systems to countless farms in the
region.
There is hope that the unfortunate conditions of California’s
water supply this year will prompt decisive action on water
management and storage. President and CEO of Western Growers,
Dave Puglia noted that his conversations with growers have been
disheartening. There is significant concern that if California
gets another dry year, many farmers will not be able to
recover. The dire circumstances of the current water year
underscore the imperative need for an updated approach to water
management.
The City of Santa Monica’s Department of Public Works, Water
Resources and Engineering Divisions have successfully secured
multiple grants, totaling over $45 million, to fund various
water self-sufficiency projects to diversify and increase Santa
Monica’s local water supplies.
Upper Klamath Lake is once again turning toxic for the summer.
On July 30, the Oregon Health Authority issued a recreational
use advisory for Eagle Ridge County Park and Shoalwater Bay due
to a cyanobacteria bloom present on the lake’s western shore.
OHA expanded the advisory to Howard’s Bay, south of Spence
Mountain, on August 30. The bloom, comprised of Microcystis
aeruginosa, produces the liver toxin microcystin, which can
cause skin rashes, stomach issues, diarrhea and vomiting if
ingested.
The historic drought in Marin County continues to affect a rare
species of elk. Last weekend, nearly a hundred people carried
water to replenish the drinking supply for tule elk at Point
Reyes National Seashore that are dying in the drought
conditions. Volunteers hiked six miles round trip on Saturday,
carrying gallon jugs of water to provide the animals at Tomales
Point with more to drink. The water drop was organized in part
by TreeSpirit Project, Save The Elk, and In Defense of Animals.
Smoke and ash from wildfires near Lake Tahoe — one of the
deepest lakes in the world — is already clouding the lake’s
famously clear water, researchers say. While the long-term
effects are unclear, ash and soot are now coating the surface
of the High Sierra lake and veiling the sun, which can disrupt
the lake’s ecosystem and its clarity. More debris and sediment
are likely to wash into the lake from runoff and rain this fall
and winter.
Madera County is running out of time as groundwater levels
plummet to new depths. Wells are going dry everywhere. Drillers
have months-long waitlists. Residents are scrambling for water
tanks. And farmers will soon face a reckoning after
agriculture’s footprint, particularly nut trees, has more than
doubled in the past 50 years — far outpacing irrigation
supplies.
In 2014, in the middle of a severe drought that would test
California’s complex water storage system like never before,
voters told the state to borrow $7.5 billion and use part of it
to build projects to stockpile more water. Seven years later,
that drought has come and gone, replaced by an even hotter and
drier one that is draining the state’s reservoirs at an
alarming rate. But none of the more than half-dozen water
storage projects scheduled to receive that money have been
built.
As unprecedented drought conditions plague much of the West,
reservoirs are running dry. Communities reliant on these
sources for drinking water are tightening restrictions to
preserve adequate supplies. … Located in California’s
Wine Country, the city [of Healdsburg] implemented water
restrictions in June to maintain its drinking water supply
through 2021. The mandate cut water use by 40 percent,
limiting individuals to 74 gallons a day. It also banned the
use of sprinklers and drip irrigation.
During another terrible drought year, it may come as a shock to
hear that rafting prospects are spectacular for the rest of
summer on Northern California’s top rafting rivers, the
Tuolumne and American. In fact, those two rivers have attracted
an unusually high number of rafters with a thirst for cool,
clean water on hot days. … A key reason why outfitters
are able to keep operations running during such a dry year is
that regional water agencies are helping them.
Right now, Congress is debating needed investments in our water
system decades in the making. While the Senate’s compromise
bill passed earlier this month includes billions for lead pipe
replacement and helping communities prepare for future drought
and floods, the bill falls short of ensuring all families can
turn their tap on and access safe, affordable water.
… Some utilities are stepping up to help (both San
Francisco Public Utilities and East Bay Municipal
Utilities District have customer assistance programs)
… -Written by Michael McAfee, president and CEO of
PolicyLink, a national research and action institute focused on
advancing racial and economic equity, and Susana De
Anda, co-founder and executive director of the Community
Water Center, a nonprofit environmental justice organization
based in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
The climate crisis is making wild weather much more common.
Since Sunday evening, we’ve seen all kinds of destruction in
New Orleans as Hurricane Ida hit – winds, flooding, way too
much water. And meanwhile, in America’s West, they’re dealing
with fires and a historic drought – not enough water. And as
the West gets drier and drier, how water is used attracts a lot
of controversy.
Scientists and conservation groups including NRDC have been
warning for years that farms and cities in California need to
plan to divert less water from the Bay-Delta watershed, and the
2009 enactment of the Delta Reform Act established that it is
State policy to reduce reliance on water supplies from the
Bay-Delta through investments in local and regional water
supplies like water recycling (Cal. Water Code § 85021). The
current drought is an unwelcome reminder that we are not
prepared for drought, leading to the State Water Board ordering
curtailments of some water diversions…
Expect legislation next winter in the Colorado General Assembly
that would seek to curb potential speculation in Colorado
water. But whether water speculation actually poses a problem
remains hotly debated. A report released Aug. 13 by a state
work group charged with studying how to strengthen Colorado
anti-water-speculation law identifies eight concepts to thwart
possible water hoarding that should be studied further. One
would eliminate or reduce the agricultural tax benefit for
lands from which water is removed following a water rights
purchase and transfer.
They all remember when the San Luis Valley brimmed with water.
South of San Luis, Ronda Lobato raced the rising floodwaters in
San Francisco Creek every spring to fill sandbags that
protected her grandparents’ farm. North of Center, potato
farmer Sheldon Rockey faced so much spring mud that he had to
learn to extract his stuck tractor. Outside Monte Vista,
Tyler Mitchell needed only a hand shovel on the family farm
near Monte Vista to reach shallow underground flows in the
Valley’s once-abundant water table.
Nicole Horseherder lives in Hard Rock, Ariz., population 53.
Hard Rock sits on the Black Mesa, which takes its name from the
numerous coal seams running through the plateau in western
Arizona. Horseherder’s home has no running water, as it
is prohibitively expensive to drill down to the nearest aquifer
that has potable water. Twice a week, she drives her
20-year-old, three-quarter-ton GMC pickup—towing a 500-gal.
tank mounted on a flatbed trailer—to a community well 25 miles
away. Coal and water have dominated
Horseherder’s life and work for the past decade.
Today, the Bureau of Reclamation updated the water supply
allocation for Friant Division Central Valley Project contracts
for the 2020 contract year. The Friant Division provides water
for 15,000 family farms and several cities in the Central
Valley. … Given the current hydrologic conditions,
Reclamation is increasing the Class 1 allocation from 40% to
55%; Class 2 remains at 0%.
Volunteers carried out an emergency water drop this weekend,
trying to help the rare tule elk that have been dying in
drought conditions on the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Saturday afternoon, nearly a hundred people carried water three
miles to a pond that is on the verge of drying up. The National
Park Service is embroiled in a lawsuit over the elk, one third
of the herd has died in the past year from lack of water or
sufficient foliage to eat.
California farmers near the Arizona border with the
oldest rights to Colorado River water will reap $38
million over three years to not plant some of their fields
and leave extra water in the rapidly declining Lake Mead
reservoir.
Driving between her northern Central Valley rice fields with
the family dog in tow, fifth-generation farmer Kim Gallagher
points out the window to shorebirds, egrets and avocets
fluttering across a thousand-acre sea of green flooded in six
inches of water. … The nearly 500,000 acres of sushi
rice grown in the Sacramento Valley each year serve as the
wetland habitat for thousands of migrating birds along the
Pacific Coast. Yet the crop also uses more water than most, and
about half of the product is exported to countries including
Japan and South Korea.
Many farmers probably haven’t read the new report from the
United Nations warning of threats to the global food supply
from climate change and land misuse. But we don’t need to read
the science — we’re living it. Here in the San Joaquin Valley,
one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions,
there’s not much debate anymore that the climate is changing.
[A] new analysis by Redfin, a real estate brokerage,
reveals more Americans are moving into areas that face the
highest climate risks than ever before. … Counties with
homes facing the highest heat risk saw populations increase by
an average of 4.7% over the last five years. Counties with
homes facing high drought risk saw population growth of 3.5%,
fire risk counties grew by 3%, flood 1.9%, and storm 0.4% over
the last five years.
Lake Mead, which serves 20 million people, is at a shocking 40%
of capacity, triggering the first ever shortage declaration. As
the Colorado River crisis demonstrates, drought is pervasive.
Even the mightiest reservoirs do not offer a panacea in the
face of climate change. As we grapple with persistent droughts,
the path to a climate resilient water future in Marin County,
as elsewhere, requires a diverse supply portfolio and culture
change.
It’s been almost nine months since Wall Street turned on the
taps — with the launch of the Nasdaq Veles California Water
Index on December 7th, 2020, investors have been able to bet on
the price movement of water. The real-world droughts that
followed have made for an oasis of opportunity. … As droughts
and wildfires hammered the U.S. West Coast, California declared
a state of emergency in April, and last month asked residents
to cut their water use by 15%. As of July 31, California’s
major reservoirs held just 53% of their historical
averages.
The San Joaquin Valley is quickly become home to another
ignominious superlative: greatest number of water outages per
community. The state’s ever-worsening drought conditions are
pushing Valley communities to the brink on the precipice of a
statewide recall election. As the Sept. 14 election nears,
former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer returned to the San
Joaquin Valley on Friday for a briefing with members of the
Latino Water Coalition, Fresno County Supervisors, and an
assemblage of some of the top water experts in the region.
The Santa Cruz Water Department has the responsibility for
providing clean safe water for all of its 96,000 customers
located both inside and outside of the city limits, and also
for planning ahead for future needs. Most readers will recall
that about 15 years ago, in the wake of earlier droughts and
water rationing, the City of Santa Cruz initiated an evaluation
of a joint desalination project with the Soquel Creek Water
District. -Written by Gary Griggs, Santa Cruz Sentinel
columnist.
It’s too early to say if Sonoma County and surrounding areas
will get enough rain this winter to revive the parched
landscape and replenish dwindling water supplies, but it
doesn’t look good. “The tilt is toward a drier than normal
winter,” said Brian Garcia of the National Weather Service. …
Don’t expect the kind of above-normal rainfall that would be
typical of an El Niño weather pattern. The opposite is
more likely: below normal rainfall common to La Niña conditions
…
As Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge’s last remaining
wetland reduces to a mud puddle, California Waterfowl
Association’s efforts to secure a meager supply of water for
the refuge have cleared a regulatory hurdle. On Thursday, the
Oregon Water Resources Department accepted CWA’s application to
transfer several thousand acre-feet of water from a willing
Wood River Valley rancher to the refuge’s Unit 2.
Few people visit a public garden bearing their own name, but
that was what Bette Boatmun experienced as she strolled through
the drought-resistant, waterwise and blooming plants in the
Bette Boatmun Conservation Garden last month. The Concord
resident left more than her name when she retired from the
Contra Costa Water District board of directors in December. Her
legacy includes the historic Los Vaqueros Reservoir, guiding a
community through two severe droughts, and nearly a half
century of local and statewide governance.
Mandatory limits on water use are likely to be imposed in the
near future on California residents, businesses and farms. Get
ready. You can’t change the weather, which has deprived the
state of its necessary rain and snowfall. But you can change
your response. After examining the state’s shockingly low
reservoirs, Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters recently that a
statewide limit on water use may be needed to head off a supply
crisis caused by California’s historic drought, which continues
to worsen.
One fifth of electrical output in California is consumed by
pumping and processing water. By collecting rainwater, we can
reduce our carbon footprint, conserve California’s water
resources, and decrease our water bill. … In Bermuda,
every residence is required by law to have and maintain a
cistern capable of storing enough rainwater to sustain a family
of four for a year. The states of New South Wales and Victoria
in Australia require all new construction to be plumbed for
rainwater catchment and grey water recycling. As of 2017, 26
percent of the homes in Australia capture rainwater.
This summer, tens of millions of salmon have been cooked in
California in their own native habitat. Record-breaking heat
and drought have drawn down the water flows and turned up the
temperatures of the state’s streams and rivers. The heat shock,
along with the impacts of parasites and fungal blights that are
fueled by warmer waters, has decimated the wild salmon
populations. To stem the crisis, scientists have literally
gone above and beyond, hurling salmon over dams via pneumatic
cannons and trucking millions of fish to the Pacific Ocean to
bypass unlivable rivers.
Some activists claim the county is no longer providing them
water to take to homeless encampments—a service offered over
the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gail Osmer, an advocate
for houseless communities, said throughout the pandemic she’s
gotten multiple cases of water from the county Office of
Supportive Housing to distribute. But earlier this month, she
says the county refused to give her water, citing too many
requests. In an email to Osmer, a county worker said water is
only being given out during “inclement weather
activations”—such as certain days with extremely hot
temperatures.
People regularly discuss California when talking about
long-term drought, particularly because the state often
experiences prolonged water shortages. Some experts believe
that rather than going through brief non-drought periods, the
state is actually enduring a so-called emerging megadrought and
has been for the last two decades.
Tucked between two mountain ranges in Northern California’s
Siskiyou County, the Shasta Valley is as complex as it is
impressive. … The dearth of knowledge is perhaps most
pronounced when it comes to what scientists call the
hydrogeology of the groundwater basin –– how exactly water
moves through the volcanic rock below the ground. The movement
of that water is the economic linchpin of the valley, with
cattle ranchers, alfalfa farmers, cannabis growers, and others
all depending on it. And thousands of residents also depend on
the groundwater for their homes.
There was an unusual twist at Wednesday’s gubernatorial recall
debate in Sacramento: A Democrat participated for the first
time. And that Democrat, 29-year-old millionaire Ventura County
real estate investor Kevin Paffrath, jump-started the hour-long
debate with some unusual ideas. Paffrath, who has never held
elective office, proposed to solve California’s water shortages
by building a pipeline to the Mississippi River…. As
California falls deeper into an extraordinary drought, all
three GOP candidates threw shade on Newsom approach of
encouraging conservation. It was one of their most detailed
debate exchanges about water policy to date, yet yielded few
ideas for immediate action.
The award for dumbest idea of the recall election goes to the
rookie Democrat who proposed building a water pipeline from
California to the Mississippi River. It’s nutty economically
and politically. … The wacky proposal seems emblematic of the
nonsensical recall effort itself — the notion of wasting $276
million in tax money on a special election because
opportunistic Republicans want to oust the Democratic governor
one year before his term expires and he must run for reelection
anyway. -Written by George Skelton, LA Times columnist.
As climate-driven drought and wildfires rage in California, the
Biden administration is struggling to navigate the hard
politics that come with deciding who gets access to the state’s
precious — and dwindling — water supplies. … Now the Biden
administration is delaying action on the fundamental question
at the heart of California’s long-running water wars: How much
water should be reserved for species protections, at the
expense of the state’s powerful agricultural industry?
Congressional leaders are calling on President Joe Biden to
declare a drought disaster in the West as record temperatures
and historic wildfires batter multiple states. In letter, Reps.
Joe Neguse of Colorado and Jared Huffman of California,
Democrats whose districts have been ravaged by drought and
wildfires, ask Biden and the Federal Emergency Management
Agency to release additional resources to aid Western
communities faced with water cuts as supplies rapidly dwindle.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman says
she’d like to see more cooperation from California officials as
talks aim to resolve a legal dispute over competing biological
opinions governing the management of their respective water
projects.
With the state in the grips of a historic drought, reservoirs
in Santa Clara County are at extremely low levels, as seen in a
new video from the county’s water provider. Santa Clara Valley
Water, which provides for and manages the water needs of two
million people in the county, released a new video illustrating
the dire state of the county’s reservoirs. … After 2017, when
the state saw reservoirs in the county were full, Valley Water
said reservoirs are currently at just 12.5% of capacity.
The Sacramento City Council voted on Tuesday to declare a Stage
2 ‘Water Alert’ meant to help reduce the pressure on the Folsom
Reservoir and Lower American River amid the state’s ongoing
drought. During a meeting Tuesday evening, city council also
voted to support the Regional Water Authority’s resolution
calling for a 15% voluntary water conservation from
residents. The decision is in alignment with Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s request in July for residents and businesses to
voluntarily curb water use as the state’s drought
conditions worsen.
It has been a very active monsoon season, especially in
Arizona. However, here in Southern California, we do not expect
much rain during the summer, and the totals we have seen thus
far will not be a drought buster.
After a year of extreme weather, people in the drylands of
northern California and the hurricane-drenched bayous of
southern Louisiana are brooding on the same question: should we
leave? New global research suggests that one of these “water
shock” scenarios is more likely to result in migration. World
Bank researchers found that people are five times as likely to
move following drought conditions as they are after floods or
periods of excess water.
This small town [Mendota] in California’s agriculture-rich
Central Valley advertises itself as the “Cantaloupe Center of
the World.” But as relentless drought punishes California and
the West, the land is drying up and the cantaloupes are
disappearing. Farmers have let large portions of their melon
fields lie fallow as they struggle to get by on dramatically
curtailed water supplies. Some are giving their vines barely
enough water to stay alive in an effort to conserve. In other
cases, fields that have already been planted will never get
harvested because there’s not enough water for the fruit to
survive.
A drought in California has led to a spike in the state’s water
prices, nearly doubling the value of futures contracts for the
essential commodity this year and creating opportunities in
water-related investments. As of Aug. 24, the Nasdaq Veles
California Water Index, which represents the weighted average
price of water-rights transactions across five major markets in
California and is published weekly, has climbed by roughly 87%
year to date to $923.54 per one-acre foot.
Water wells in the Edna Valley used to be shallow: “You could
put a well to 30 or 40 feet. Well that’s just kind of
unrealistic [now],” Edna Valley Growers Mutual Company
President Bob Schiebelhut said. Some of those shallow wells
didn’t make it through the last drought, drying up and forcing
landowners to drill a little deeper. Now in a new drought, Edna
Valley farmers and residents are once again praying for rain,
Schiebelhut said. But they’re also moving forward with SLO
County and the city of SLO on a plan to make their groundwater
more drought resilient.
It’s been a tough year for the Klamath River. The Klamath,
which flows through Oregon and Northern California and into the
Pacific Ocean, is suffering from drought and infrastructure
problems. That’s caused trouble, not just for the fish in the
river, but also for the tribes and farmers who rely on it for
day-to-day living. Drought conditions are so bad this year that
the U.S. Department of Agriculture allocated $15 million to
support farmers who don’t have enough water for their crops.
Klamath Basin tribes are also struggling to feed their people,
but so far they haven’t received such support.
As drought persists in the state of California, the need to
increase water supply reliability is an essential issue facing
water managers. A new report evaluating a pilot program to use
advanced weather and streamflow forecasts to enhance water
storage capabilities at a Riverside County, California, dam
found that enough water could be conserved to supply an
additional 60,000 people per year.
The California State Water Resources Board (SWRCB) has given
the city of Needles $3 million for drinking water
infrastructure, according to a press release. The funding will
support a new drinking well and booster station. The City of
Needles worst fears were realized In July when the only well
that supplies the community with portable drinking water
failed. The city was able to identify the replacement
part and repaired the well within 24 hours.
As discussed in our July 28, 2021, Policy Alert, the State
Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) recently adopted the
Draft Emergency Reporting and Curtailment Regulation
(Regulation), to authorize curtailments of water diversions in
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta). The Regulation
was approved by the Office of Administrative Law and became
effective on August 19, 2021.
A drought in California has led to a spike in the state’s water
prices, nearly doubling the value of futures contracts for the
essential commodity this year and creating opportunities in
water-related investments. As of Aug. 24, the Nasdaq Veles
California Water Index , which represents the weighted average
price of water-rights transactions across five major
markets in California and is published weekly, has climbed
by roughly 87% year to date to $923.54 per one-acre foot.
There are a number of ways to analyze the behavior of wildland
fires using data that is easily available. The amount of
moisture in the live and dead vegetation is a critical factor
in determining how readily it will burn, because it has to be
cooked off before the grass, brush, or woody vegetation will
vigorously combust. The amount of precipitation over days,
weeks, months, and years affects how wildfires burn. The map
above depicts precipitation during the 30-day period ending
August 23, 2021.
On Aug. 16, the U.S. federal government declared a Colorado
River water shortage for the first time. This unprecedented
action was triggered by the precipitous drop in Lake Mead’s
water level: It’s at 1,067 feet above sea level, or about 35
percent full. …. The economic impacts to the states that tap
water from the Colorado River are significant, with no relief
in sight.
The heightened need for handwashing during the pandemic posed a
challenge for the many homes without water. For many years, the
rugged topography and remoteness of the Navajo Nation made
piping water to homes challenging. Since 2003, IHS and a
network of partners have reduced the number of Navajo homes
without water access from 30 percent to 20 percent. New funding
from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES)
Act provided the Navajo Area IHS with $5.2 million, targeted
specifically to increasing water access on the Navajo Nation.
The Madera County Department of Public Health issued an
advisory Monday after large amounts of harmful algae blooms
were found in Hensley Lake near Yosemite Lakes. … There
has been renewed interest in the phenomenon after
a Mariposa family was found dead in the Sierra National
Forest. Mariposa County Sheriff’s deputies say they
are looking at all possible causes for their death
including signs of toxic algae.
The growing threat of catastrophic wildfires blazing across the
West and the resulting detrimental effects, such as hazardous
air quality, were top of mind for Nevada and California leaders
gathered on a slightly hazy shore Thursday morning for the 25th
annual Lake Tahoe Summit. Before speakers launched into
remarks on climate change, wildfires, infrastructure and
legislation aimed at preserving the popular year-round tourist
destination, Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California Chairman
Serrell Smokey began with a prayer.
The Solano Resource Conservation District hosted the first
three-day Solano Water Institute for Teachers early this month
at various sites throughout Solano County and at Lake
Berryessa. The new teacher workshop provided 27 Solano County
educators with knowledge, skills and tools to help them teach
watershed science and land preservation from a locally relevant
perspective. The Solano Water Institute featured presentations
from nine local and state experts on water resources, open
spaces and climate change with conversations integrating
Project WET, an award-winning environmental education
curriculum created by the Water Education
Foundation.
After declaring a State 2 water alert, the City of Sacramento
is asking residents to reduce their water usage by 15%. ….The
city’s attempts at decreasing water usage have not only been
aimed at residents. They have decreased use of surface water
from the American River, increased use of groundwater and river
water from the Sacramento River, and increased water patrols to
educate people on water waste.
It’s not a surprise that California has fallen into an even
deeper drought. Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom declared 50
of 58 counties in the state were part of a drastic “drought
emergency.” But history has a way of repeating itself. Do
you know—or remember when— California went through a
historic drought of its own in the late 1970s? In July
1977, ABC7 produced a five-part week-long series that looked
into the state’s drought between 1976 and 1977, and its present
and future impact on the Bay Area and beyond.
California is suffering from extremely dry conditions, so it
stands to reason that the candidates trying to oust and replace
Gov. Gavin Newsom have latched onto persistent but extremely
shallow and woefully outdated claims about the management of
the state’s water supply.
Recently, the Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) — an
interagency consortium charged “to provide and integrate
relevant and timely ecological information for management of
the Bay-Delta” — released a report presenting data and studies
regarding a major conservation action for delta smelt, referred
to as the Fall X2 Action. The Fall X2 Action purports to
benefit the delta smelt during the autumn by increasing outflow
through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during that period in
years where there is above normal precipitation in the
preceding winter and spring.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recall election in
mid-September, should he lose, will very likely terminate the
floundering politician’s career. A late-term gubernatorial
replacement would also mean a potentially major shift in
California environmental policies. … Budget spending
… could be directed away from hundreds of conservation
projects that are tentatively scheduled to begin, and directors
of wildlife, water, and resource agencies who were appointed by
Newsom would almost certainly be replaced.
For those who live on the Klamath River, its health
reflects the people, positioning us on the precipice of life or
death. The Klamath is magical and meandering, a river
surrounded by towering redwoods and mountains. But the
controversy over its water has lasted for decades, and the big
questions — whether to remove four dams, who gets the water
during drought years — often put farmers and Natives at odds.
In his first debate, the top-polling Democrat running in the
recall, Kevin Paffrath, called for filtration systems in
California buildings to protect against COVID-19 and proposed a
pipeline to the Mississippi River to address California’s
drought. Paffrath, who has made his name providing financial
advice on YouTube, argued that vaccine mandate decisions should
be left to individual businesses and schools, and promised to
protect Californians from COVID-19 by increasing availability
of N95 masks and HEPA filtration in schools and buildings.
As extreme drought and water shortages plague the U.S. West and
beyond, water funds have attracted about $35 billion of assets
under management, according to a new Morningstar report. The
trend comes as much of California faces voluntary water
rationing this summer as drought parches the land, forces some
farmers to destroy crops and drains reservoirs. This month, the
U.S. also declared the first-ever water shortage for the
Colorado River, a key supplier of water and hydropower to
households and farms in seven U.S. states and Mexico.
The Santa Clarita Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency
announced it will hold its final in-person workshop on Aug. 25
for residents to provide their input on a draft plan for
long-term management of the local groundwater basin. The
workshop is the last in-person opportunity for the public to
ask questions and weigh in on issues and proposed projects and
management actions designed to protect the basin from overuse.
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a new kind
of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado
River that will help scientists better predict rain and
snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will
flow through the region.
As sweltering drought conditions continue to worsen throughout
California, Ventura and other Southern California counties have
shifted from “extreme” to “exceptional” drought conditions,
according to the U.S. Drought Monitor Report. Along with
Ventura County, northwest Los Angeles County, most of Kern
County and the eastern portion of San Bernardino County are
also in the federal report’s highest range, signifying
“exceptional drought.”
Rain has long signaled the end of a drought, but a new analysis
of Australia’s worst dry spell in a century reveals many water
reservoirs remained low nearly a decade after the rain
returned. Research published in the journal Science on Thursday
studies 15 years of data collected before, during and after the
Millennium Drought dried out Victoria, Australia, from 2001 to
2009 and reveals flaws in the long-held belief that reservoirs
naturally replenish after drought ends.
The state of California took the first step to order and
potentially pay for the city of Exeter in Tulare County to
extend water service to hundreds of homes in a nearby town
without safe and stable drinking water. For decades, the 340
residents of Tooleville have relied on contaminated groundwater
as their main source of tap water….
As drought and climate change strangle the Colorado River, a
small county in Utah nevertheless continues forging ahead with
a billion-dollar pipeline to suck more water from it to sustain
its growing population. The proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, a
140-mile straw from one of the country’s largest reservoirs to
Washington County in southwestern Utah, has sparked backlash
from other states in the Colorado River basin and
environmentalists, and now has the Biden administration in a
difficult position.
In New York City, a tropical storm delivered record-breaking
rains this weekend. Heavy downpours caused devastating flash
floods in central Tennessee, tearing apart houses and killing
more than 20 people. Yet, California and much of the West
remained in the deepest drought in at least two decades, the
product of a long-term precipitation shortfall and temperatures
that are much hotter than usual. This divide, a wetter East and
a drier West, reflects a broader pattern observed in the United
States in recent decades.
Wildfires and declining water levels at reservoirs have
threatened California’s power supply at various points this
summer. Desperate to avoid blackouts amid the compounding
crisis, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is eyeing the
construction of five “temporary” gas-fueled plants in the
coming months. According to Bloomberg, California’s Energy
Commission approved licenses for the emergency gas generators
on Tuesday for up to five years, each of which reportedly has
an individual capacity to generate 30 megawatts of energy.
California farmers are living in the drought future they
thought would take 20 more years to arrive. Last week, for the
first time, federal officials declared a water shortage for the
Colorado River, which provides water to 40 million people in
seven western states and turns dry desert into fertile
farmland, including in California. The situation has
economy-wide ramifications.
“For years wars were fought over oil,” said U.S. Vice President
Kamala Harris earlier this year. “In a short time they will be
fought over water.” Given that more than 70 per cent of our
planet is covered in water — all told that’s more than one
billion trillion liters of the stuff — a short time might sound
a bit dramatic. After all, there’s always been enough to go
around. … While some places are flooding, others are in
near permanent drought — 85 per cent of California is currently
in extreme or “exceptional” drought and towns and agricultural
areas are running out of water.
There’s less water. What do we do? As the reservoirs behind
Hoover and Glen Canyon dams on the Colorado drop to record
lows, as irrigators in central New Mexico struggle to water
crops after an early start and early end to their irrigation
seasons, as I spend countless hours with reporters from across
the country looking for help understanding all of this, as my
own river goes dry, it remains the central question. And I do
not know the answer.
At long last, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
twin-tunnels boondoggle is dead. Good riddance. Gov.
Gavin Newsom made that official Tuesday during his State of the
State address, calling instead for a smaller, single-tunnel
approach that would include a broad range of projects designed
to increase the state’s water supply. Bravo. It’s a
refreshing shift from Gov. Jerry Brown’s stubborn insistence
that California spend $19 billion on a project that wouldn’t
add a drop of new water to the state supply.
In less than a month, a new Pacific Grove ordinance will
prohibit any new water hookups despite having been granted
earlier water entitlements by the state. The ordinance is set
to take effect in mid-September. In 2017 Pacific Grove’s Local
Water Project came online. It processes wastewater to irrigate
the Pacific Grove Golf Links and the El Carmelo Cemetery. In
November 2015 the state water board approved $2.3 million in
grant funding and $5.4 million in low-interest loan financing
for the project.
A state drought curtailment regulation, adopted last week for
the Klamath River watershed, calls for minimum instream flows
but also incorporates potential voluntary actions to achieve
water savings to help fish and keep farmers farming. Montague
rancher Ryan Walker, president of the Siskiyou County Farm
Bureau, said the State Water Resources Control Board took a
balanced approach in making its decision.
It’s been a wet monsoon season. Sky Harbor has seen 3.35
inches of rain so far, which far surpasses the 2020
“non-soon.” So is the long drought in the Southwest
over? Not by a long shot, experts say.
President Donald Trump signed a bill Tuesday authorizing a plan
for Western states to take less water from the overburdened
Colorado River. The president’s signing capped a years-long
process of sometimes difficult negotiations among the seven
states that rely on the river. … Next, representatives from
Arizona and the other Colorado River basin states who had a
hand in crafting the deal are expected to meet for a formal
signing ceremony.
A proposal for a new Butte County water district is wending its
way through the approval process, and not everyone is happy
about that. The Tuscan Water District would cover most of the
northwestern county, excluding Chico. The area is dependent on
well water. Under a recently approved state law, the amount of
groundwater currently being pumped in the area will have to be
reduced. Each well owner is currently on their own. No entity
speaks for them as a group.
Does time travel exist? Probably not, but let’s take a shot.
The California drought may give us a unique chance to go back
to 1955. That’s when the Folsom Dam was built, during they
heydays of dam building from the 1950s to the ’70s. California,
along with the rest of the United States, experienced major
population growth with the “Baby Boomer” era following World
War II. Agencies seeking to meet water demands constructed most
of the major dams in California including Oroville, Don Pedro,
San Luis, and Trinity Dams — all of which are over 2 million
acre-feet. -Written by Tom Frazier, a Merced writer, columnist,
photographer and supporter of the arts.
A scramble is on in the Sierra to seize on favorable weather
conditions and keep the flames of the Caldor Fire out of the
Lake Tahoe basin. The 9-day-old blaze that has already
destroyed 447 homes and consumed more than 114,000 acres is now
the “No. 1 priority in the nation” for firefighting resources,
Cal Fire Director Thom Porter said on Monday. He warned that
the fire was “knocking on the door” of the Lake Tahoe region,
even after crews were encouraged by the progress of getting the
fire 9% contained by Monday evening.
If you’ve had a terrifying run in with a slithery serpent
you’re not alone. There’s a snake invasion in some Southern
California communities. Snakes, like other wildlife, are
starving during this drought and they’re coming into
neighborhoods looking for a meal and water. Eyewitness News
reporter Leo Stallworth happened to come across a snake
underneath his foot at a park Sunday, an experience which left
him petrified.
The City Council Tuesday will discuss whether Corning needs to
declare stage one drought conditions in the city, which would
require asking residents to reduce their everyday water usage
by 15 percent. The city’s staff is asking the council to
implement the voluntary measure. The city will encourage
residents to use native plants or water-conserving vegetation,
use efficient landscaping systems, water during the evening and
early morning to reduce evaporation and practice water-reducing
methods in households.
The front lawn came with the house we moved into a couple years
ago. The patch of Bermudagrass was smaller than an average
putting green and easy to mow. The splash of deep green was
cute as far as that goes, but it was out of place on a street
that had largely made the transition to colored rock and
water-smart landscaping. Beyond the postcard aesthetics, it
made zero sense to continue to water a lawn in the desert.
Setting aside the politics of climate change and our arid land
with its endless water crisis — a basic definition of “desert”
— there were no children at home to play on it. -Written by John L. Smith, an author and Nevada
Independent columnist.
The Colorado River Basin covers more than 246,000 square miles
in seven U.S. states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico,
Arizona, Nevada, and California) and Mexico. Pursuant to
federal law, the Bureau of Reclamation (part of the Department
of the Interior) manages much of the basin’s water supplies.
Colorado River water is used primarily for agricultural
irrigation and municipal and industrial (M&I) uses; it is
also important for hydropower production, fish and wildlife,
and recreational uses.
California’s ecosystems play an essential role in protecting
the state’s water supply, minimizing unwanted flooding, and
sequestering carbon—among many other benefits. But the
unintended consequences of more than a century of water and
land development—compounded by the impacts of a changing
climate—are pushing many of these ecosystems to the breaking
point.
When Bolinas farmer Peter Martinelli decided to help coho
salmon by boosting summer water levels in Pine Gulch Creek,
which runs through his land, he had no idea that the project
would take two decades to complete. Now he’s happy he saw it
through. Coho are endangered in most of their California range,
and droughts like the one we’re experiencing now are among the
biggest threats to these coastal salmon.
Water cuts aimed at farmers amid the West’s megadrought have
set the stage for bitter legal and political fights over one of
the most overlooked water uses—the right of water to remain in
streams to sustain fish and endangered species, lawyers say.
The drought is poised to call that right into question, pitting
drinking water providers and food growers against
conservationists who want to keep streams wet so that fish can
survive. … The Interior Department’s Bureau of
Reclamation this week announced a first-ever water
shortage in the Colorado River Basin …
Nearly 200 people in the Klamath Basin this summer reported
their wells going dry. In response, local and federal emergency
officials have delivered hundreds of the 2,500-gallon,
igloo-shaped storage tanks that can hook up to people’s homes
to get some water flowing through their pipes again. When
someone’s well runs dry, they can first try and drop their pump
deeper into their well. That’s the equipment that pumps water
from the well into pipes that run into a building.
Highlighting the deepening drought, San Jose could soon become
the largest city in California where residents are given
monthly allotments of water with financial penalties for
exceeding them. San Jose Water Company, a private utility that
provides water to 1 million people in and around San Jose, has
filed a plan with state regulators that would require each of
its residential customers to cut monthly water use by 15% from
their 2019 levels and pay $7.13 in surcharges for every unit of
water they use above that amount. The rules are a possible
precursor for similar limits in other communities across the
state, experts said.
Welcome to the summer of climate change. No longer a
distant phenomenon — something to worry about in a few decades
— the consequence of a warming planet has arrived in a
resounding fashion. Most Californians probably didn’t need
to read the recent doomsday report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change to know that their lives are being
upended already by climate change. Now they must fret about
their electricity being shut off, their faucets running dry and
their houses catching fire.
Due to drought and poor water conditions at Lake Sonoma,
thousands of juvenile coho salmon have been relocated from the
Warm Springs Fish Hatchery in Geyserville. The fish were
trucked to a conservation facility at a high school in Petaluma
where they will be reared until conditions improve. Beginning
in late spring, rising water temperatures at Warm Springs
Hatchery increased the risk of heat stress and pathogen
outbreaks. Scientists developed the relocation plan as a
precaution to keep the hatchery coho safe.
Resources are available to help San Joaquin Valley residents
affected by drought maintain access to drinking water. A
group of organizations in the San Joaquin Valley coordinated by
the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley Water
Workgroup have developed an outreach plan and a list of
resources available to private well owners or part of a small
community who have lost or are concerned about losing access to
drinking water due to groundwater level.
A team of scientists at Utah State University has developed a
new tool to forecast drought and water flow in the Colorado
River several years in advance. Although the river’s headwaters
are in landlocked Wyoming and Colorado, water levels are linked
to sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans and the water’s long-term ocean memory.
The Paradise Irrigation District says it will now more closely
monitor its free water fill station to the drought. … The
district says in more closely monitoring the station that is
only open to PID customers, people who are picking up water now
must register inside the office, include their service address
name and vehicle information.
California has more hydrologic variability than any state in
the US, meaning that we have more drought and flood years per
average year than any other state. This is a problem, but
has also meant that we have designed for droughts, which are
always testing us. 2021 is the 3rd driest year in more than 100
years of precipitation record. 2020 was the 9th driest
year in the precipitation record.
The way Brigette Mansell sees it, the drastic water
conservation measures already required of those who live in
Healdsburg make it obvious the city needs to stop and think
about how much more it can grow. Development of luxury housing
and hotels that cater to tony visitors and part-time residents
— who may not be as invested in the community’s well-being —
defies logic, she says. Mansell, a former Healdsburg
councilwoman and mayor, and other like-minded residents support
continued efforts to provide affordable housing in the town.
When it comes to water supplies in California and the U.S.
Southwest, the news has been remarkably grim in recent weeks.
One story detailed how inn owners in Mendocino County — which
has no municipal water system — were begging guests not to use
showers because their wells had dried up. Another noted that
for the first time ever, the federal government had declared a
Colorado River water shortage. The river’s large adjacent
reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, provide water to 40
million residents of California and six other Western
states.
“I love the smell of diesel power in the afternoon. It smells
like victory.” The line, a play on the quote from the Vietnam
war movie Apocalypse Now, is the first uttered in a July video
by Doug LaMalfa, the US congressman for Siskiyou county. In the
background, bulldozers are destroying what appears to be a
field with marijuana plants. LaMalfa’s video was a response to
a call from the Siskiyou county sheriff, who had invited
citizens in this remote region in northern California to help
his department in the fight against illegal marijuana grows.
The federal government declared a water shortage on the
Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory
water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest,
as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead
to unprecedented lows. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the
US by volume, has drained at an alarming rate this year. At
around 1,067 feet above sea level and 35% full, the Colorado
River reservoir is at its lowest since the lake was filled
after the Hoover Dam was completed in the 1930s.
The North Marin Water District will explore options for
expanding local water supply in our Novato Service Area. The
district will consider options including expanding recycled
water distribution, capturing stormwater runoff from nearby
areas such as Bowman Canyon, and groundwater banking, in which
the groundwater aquifer can be recharged during wet years and
drawn from during drought years. Local Water Supply Enhancement
Study will cost $150,000, district officials said in a
statement.
The Woodville Public Utilities District will receive a state
grant of more than $2.2 million to improve the quality of
drinking water for its community. The grant was recently
announced by the State Department of Water Resources as part of
a program to support communities facing water supply
challenges. The department announced the first round of funding
which will eventually total $200 million through the Small
Community Drought Relief Program. In the first round, 10 small
water systems in Tulare, Siskiyou, Shasta, Lake and Kern
Counties were chosen to receive $25 million.
As if I’m a thirsty person craving my next drink, I keep
thinking about water. I hear the stories. A 20-acre family farm
sits fallow. Down the road, another piece of land has the same
barren look. Is the problem reasonable crop values or access to
water? Likely, a bucket of both. Fresno averages 11.5
inches of rain per year. Total precipitation from Oct. 1, 2020
to date is 6.59 inches, or 60% of normal — a larger percentage
than most parts of the state. In the canal I floated down
as a kid, not a drop of water has flowed all season.
-Written by Danielle R. Shapazian, a nurse and writer who
lives in Fresno.
Water regulators on Friday formally ordered thousands of
farmers across California to cut back their water use this
summer or face fines of up to $10,000 a day. The State Water
Resources Control Board began sending formal “curtailment
notices” to the holders of 4,500 water rights permits that
allow them to pull water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin
rivers and their tributaries.
The severe drought that has gripped much of the western half of
the United States in spring and summer is likely to continue at
least into late fall, government forecasters said Thursday. The
outlook for September through November, prepared by
meteorologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, suggests that above-average temperatures are
likely across almost all of the West….The drought situation
is particularly dire in California, where 49 percent of the
state is in the most severe drought category.
Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly is calling for a U.S.
Senate subcommittee hearing on this week’s first-ever Colorado
River shortage declaration. It comes as region-wide drought has
heightened stress on western water resources. KNAU’s Ryan
Heinsius reports. Kelly wants the Senate to examine how
the decision could impact Arizona cities, tribal communities
and farmers. As a member of the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, he says he’s concerned about the region’s dwindling
reservoirs.
Prickly pear cactuses used by Indigenous peoples to make the
popular Mexican and Southwestern nopales are shriveling in an
increasingly hot and dry southern Sonoran Desert.
Ancestral lands along the California coast may soon be
underwater, rendering them worthless to many Native peoples,
including the Salinan, Chumash, Tongva and Ajechemem, even
as other lands burn in ever-larger wildfires. Some salmon
species teeter on the brink of extinction due to drought and
diverted water, while elsewhere, people and homes are
swept away on a brown tsunami-like wave of floodwaters.
Jessica Law became executive director of the Water Forum in
January. In 1993, the City and County of Sacramento launched
negotiations to figure out how to ensure reliable water
supplies and safeguard the environmental needs of the Lower
American River. In 2000, 40 different agencies signed the Water
Forum Agreement, which has guided the organization’s work ever
since.
According to the National Integrated Drought Information
System, all of San Luis Obispo County is currently experiencing
severe drought and 17% of San Luis Obispo County is
experiencing exceptional drought. In California, irrigation
systems are a common alternative to relying on rainfall for
agriculture. Since many crops require a certain amount of
water, farms simply can’t depend on rainwater alone in
California’s dry climate.
As California Governor Gavin Newsom asks residents of the state
to cut water usage by 15%, the San Diego County Water Authority
is supporting that request while simultaneously working on
long-term solutions to combat water shortages. Goldy Herbon,
Senior Water Resources Specialist for the Water Resources
Department at San Diego County Water Authority, said there is
no imminent concern over water shortages in San Diego County,
however, it is important for locals to cut back now to set the
area up for success in the future.
Starting in 2023, the state wants Sonoma County to approve over
14,500 new homes for residents of all income levels over the
following eight years. Though no final target has been
approved, officials in some of the county’s largest cities have
made ramping up home construction a priority with the goal of
alleviating the region’s shortage of affordable housing. At the
same time, though, the state is also mandating water cutbacks
across the region during what is shaping up to be the worst
local drought in more than four decades.
Cropless fields, fishless rivers, burning forests, empty
reservoirs and powerless dams — either you’ve seen the
headlines, or you’re living it. America’s West has run out of
water. For most of us, this is a reckoning moment. Water exists
in abundance. It’s cheap, free-flowing and limitless. We’re
quite literally swimming in the stuff. But suddenly, that’s no
longer true. California’s surging population and
farming-dependent economy, coupled with sustained drought,
means that demand has completely drowned out supply.
Toxic algae in Sierra National Forest, now being considered in
the mysterious deaths of a family this week, was being retested
on Thursday by the California State Water Resources Control
Board and Mariposa County. … Mariposa residents John
Gerrish, Ellen Chung, their daughter, Miju, and family dog,
Oski, were found dead in this area on Tuesday after
not returning from a day hike in the Hites Cove area of Devil’s
Gulch, between Mariposa and Yosemite National Park. The
family may have been exposed to cyanobacterial toxins, the
water board said, which can form in algal blooms.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) released the draft
California’s Groundwater – Update 2020, containing information
on the condition of the state’s groundwater, which is
especially important as California faces a critically dry water
year. DWR encourages community members and water managers to
review the publication and provide input.
If you haven’t noticed yet, we are in the middle of a
mega-drought in California. It’s becoming more and more obvious
that water is really our most precious resource. And most of it
is shipped in from elsewhere. But speaking of shipping, there’s
also the other stuff that ships are actually floating in. So
why can’t we just drink that?
California’s fifth largest reservoir — San Luis — is now at 16
percent of capacity. The nation’s largest off-stream reservoir
with the ability to hold 2,041,000 million acre feet exists to
divert excess winter and spring river flows headed for the
Pacific Ocean. As such it underscores the fact the entire
Central Valley, the southern Sierra, the North Bay, and the
East Bay are in exceptional drought — the worst designation of
the United States Department of Agriculture drought monitor.
Historically on Aug. 16 San Luis would be at 36 percent of
capacity.
In the wake of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) declaring
a federal water shortage of the Colorado River Basin, NGWA is
again stressing the need for increased funding for aquifer
recharge and water reuse projects in the western United States.
On August 16, the USBR declared its first-ever water shortage
of the Colorado River Basin, which will trigger a smaller
amount of water distributed from Lake Mead and cuts to
individual state water allocations.
As the drought crisis worsens throughout California, Fresno and
Clovis leaders, as well as residents, are answering the
challenge. Both cities are recycling water through “purple
pipe” systems to offset non-potable usages like landscape
irrigation, cooling towers, and agricultural irrigation.
In addition, they are beginning to investigate “toilet to tap”
systems already in use in Orange and San Diego counties.
When Gov. Jerry Brown ordered that California rip up 50 million
square feet of lawns to conserve water amid the West’s
deadening drought, the Golden State gasped. Meanwhile, the
Silver State yawned.
