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.
It’s May, but there’s still snow in Colorado’s mountains near
the headwaters of the South Platte River. [Brian] Domonkos, the
Colorado Snow Survey supervisor, gets to work measuring how
much snowpack is left from the winter to runoff into streams,
rivers and reservoirs this summer. These mountains trap snow in
a natural reservoir. As it melts, it becomes the primary source
of water for Colorado and much of the West. Climate change is
disrupting this delicate system in multiple ways. The overall
trend shows less snowpack accumulation due to warmer
temperatures.
Twenty years ago, in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral race, a topic
usually seen as dull became the most lurid issue of the
campaign. The topic was water recycling, and we are still being
hurt by the rhetoric from that election today. Candidate Joel
Wachs, a longtime member of the City Council, didn’t even make
the runoff that year. But during the primary he alarmed voters
across the city by insisting that Los Angeles was furtively
planning to pipe recycled sewage to millions of unsuspecting
Angelenos — without, according to Wachs, adequate public input
or scientific research. The recycling idea became widely known
as “toilet to tap” … -Written by Marc Haefele, a Santa Monica freelance
writer.
We asked some colleagues for lessons that might be useful in
managing the California’s new drought. Here is a first sampling
of thoughts. … Katrina Jessoe. Agricultural and Resource
Economics, UC Davis: Climate models indicate that
California’s droughts will become more frequent and severe.
Warming temperatures will further reduce surface water
availability, by increasing evaporation from soil, reservoirs,
and irrigated land. While reductions in surface water supplies
will be costly to agriculture, residential users and the
environment, these costs could be substantially reduced through
the reallocation of scarce supplies. Supplying water to those
who value it most will not eliminate the costs of drought, but
will make them less painful.
The COVID-19 pandemic encouraged wildlife, looking for easy
food, to visit quiet neighborhoods they normally didn’t. The
drought may now be forcing them to do the same. Experts
say, though you might like to, do not leave food and water out
for wild animals showing up in neighborhoods. … The bear
that showed up in a tree near central San Anselmo this week is
one of several recent North Bay sightings.
It’s only May, and I’m already having to write about wildfires
forcing Californians to evacuate their homes. Around 1,000
people were displaced from their homes Sunday as the Palisades
Fire in Los Angeles County grew to more than 1,300 acres. The
blaze, which was 0% contained as of Sunday afternoon, carved a
path through dense, old-growth chaparral that hadn’t burned in
more than 50 years, the Los Angeles Times reports. As such, it
embodied both California’s worsening drought and the grim
reality that its fire season is starting earlier and earlier
even as its conflagrations get larger and larger.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural
Statistics Service (NASS) is forecasting another record almond
crop for California. The 2021 California Almond Subjective
Forecast estimates a three percent increase from last year’s
3.12-billion-pound crop. According to USDA-NASS, California
growers could be looking at a 2021 crop of 3.2 billion pounds.
If that number comes to fruition, it would be the largest
almond crop on record.
Less than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought
emergency for Northern California, Folsom Lake is standing at
one of its lowest levels ever. … Ryan Ojakian is
with the Regional Water Authority (RWA). Now, there’s a push
from the RWA for its 20 water providers that serve about 2
million people in the Sacramento region to shift to using more
groundwater than surface water to reduce reliance on Folsom
Lake and the Lower American River.
A permit has been granted by Tehama County for the
establishment of a new groundwater monitoring station located
at the Corning Public Works maintenance yard on Gallagher
Avenue near Highway 99W. During a presentation on the project
to the Tehama County Board of Supervisors, county Public Works
Flood Control Manager Ryan Teubert said there will be no cost
to the county as the yard is owned by Tehama County, and
drilling, installation and construction costs will be paid for,
and performed, by the California Department of Water Resources.
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic as federal regulators shut off irrigation
water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would
not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a
half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating
birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the worst water
crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it
will not release water this season into the main canal that
feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project,
marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system.
The Colorado River is flowing again in its delta. This is a big
deal for a river that has not flowed through its delta in most
years since the 1960s, resulting in an ecosystem that is
severely desiccated and devastated. Thanks to commitments from
the United States and Mexico in the Colorado River binational
agreement—Minute 323 – 35,000 acre-feet of water (11.4
billion gallons) dedicated to create environmental benefits
will be delivered to the river from May 1 to October 11. The
expectation is that this will create and support habitat for
birds like the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Yuma Ridgway’s Rail, and
Vermilion Flycatcher, and give life to the many plants and
animals in this ribbon oasis of green in the midst of the
Sonoran Desert.
With shrinking reservoir levels and a summer of water shortages
impending, drought-ridden California on Wednesday pressed the
Biden administration for more control over future
infrastructure projects planned in the Golden State. California
and a collection of states urged the federal government to drop
a Trump-era rule that reduced states’ authority to deny
permitting and licensing for things like new water
infrastructure, oil pipelines, wastewater plants or development
projects in wetland areas. The states claim the rule gives them
little say over projects that could ultimately harm water
quality and the environment.
Rural, low-income Latino communities across California were
hardest hit by the last drought and could see drinking water
shortages again this year as extreme drought spreads across the
state, according to a report released Thursday by non-partisan
advisors to California’s lawmakers. The report from the
Legislative Analyst’s Office warns state officials to prepare
by ramping up monitoring of wells in vulnerable communities and
lining up emergency drinking water supplies to send
there.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced
on Thursday that a key weather feature that affects global
temperature and precipitation has shifted into a “neutral,” or
average, state. La Niña, one of the factors behind last year’s
extremely active Atlantic hurricane season and a contributor to
below-average rainfall in the South and Southwest, has faded
away….In California, any drought relief associated with the
end of La Niña won’t come during the dry season that runs well
into next fall.
In 1980, Arizona began regulating groundwater in the state’s
largest cities and suburbs under a landmark law that
called for most of these areas to achieve an overarching
goal by 2025: a long-term balance between the amount of
water pumped from the ground and the amount seeping back
underground to replenish aquifers. Forty-one years
later … [g]roundwater is still overpumped in most of the
state’s “active-management areas,” or AMAs. And in many places,
aquifer levels continue to decline.
Beavers, known for their work ethic, tenacity and sometimes
destructive instincts, are making a comeback in the worlds of
science and water as researchers look for natural ways to
restore rivers and wetlands and improve the health of
drought-stressed aquifers. … This fall, Colorado Headwaters,
a nonprofit that advocates for protecting and restoring
headwater regions in the state, is sponsoring a beaver summit,
a conference designed to unveil some of the latest ecological
research on creatures once valued only for their glossy fur.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that
more than 1,000 farmers in the Klamath Basin will not receive
any reserved water from Upper Klamath Lake — a devastating
prospect for farmers who have already planted fields, hired
crews and made plans for the growing season ahead. … Farmers
in Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc counties were already reeling
over the prospect of receiving less than 10% of their
allotment, or a total of 33,000 acre-feet of water. The
latest announcement feels “like a punch to the gut,” farmers
said …
California’s water supply is critical to the state’s
agriculture industry. Up to 80% of table olives come from
California, and while olive trees are more drought-tolerant
than other crops, that isn’t stopping Northern California olive
growers from making significant changes to conserve our most
precious resource. Olives are a passion for Dennis Burreson,
who says he’s held just about every job with Musco Family Olive
Company since joining Musco 43 years ago.
During a typical spring, the silver young salmon swimming in
long tanks at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery east of Sacramento would
be released into the American River and then make their way out
to the Pacific Ocean to grow to adulthood. But with extreme
drought now gripping California and much of West Coast, the
rivers are too warm for the salmon to survive. This week, the
3.5-inch (90-mm) smolt, as the young fish are known, embarked
on a much different journey when they were loaded on to trucks
and driven to the San Francisco Bay for release into cooler
waters.
The Salton Sea continues to be a big talker when it comes to
lithium, but a long problem remains in and around the sea when
it comes to toxic air. During our extensive coverage of the
Salton Sea, we learned that toxic air is not only coming from
dried-up parts of the sea, but other parts of the sea are now
contributing to the toxicity. “It is not just the toxic
elements that have been trapped by the water and now exposed as
the sea recedes,” explained Frank Ruiz, Salton Sea Director
with Audubon California. Ruiz has been working with researchers
who have been studying the toxic levels at the Salton Sea.
On its surface, the idea of banking water to bridge the
certainty of future rain-deficient periods seems like an
innovative and non-controversial planning procedure. In the
end, however, it all depends on who holds the keys to the bank.
The notion of water banking has grabbed local attention lately
following a controversial and divided 3-2 vote March 3 by San
Luis Obispo County supervisors, a vote which numerous North
County entities view as opening the door to selling and
exporting county water resources to the highest outside bidder.
A federal agency Wednesday forecast a record harvest of 3.2
billion pounds of almonds in California. That would be a 3%
increase over 2020 for the nuts, the highest-grossing crop in
Stanislaus and several other counties. The report will set the
tone for the global almond trade, since California accounts for
about 80% of the supply. Several thousand people work on farms
and in processing plants in the Central Valley.
May is American Wetlands Month and this year also marks the
50th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of
International Importance. This intergovernmental treaty is
focused on the conservation and wise use of important wetlands
and their resources. … Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine
Research Reserve … provides habitat for a diversity
of wildlife species, including more than 100 species of fish,
500 species of invertebrates, and the region’s iconic southern
sea otters. … Tomales Bay is a marine-coastal
wetland consisting of estuaries, eelgrass beds, sand dune
systems, and tidal marshes.
Ben Tobin has questions about the Grand Canyon’s caves. The
University of Kentucky geologist started learning about caves
as a young man, in part because his mother was a geologist, and
a childhood fascination grew over time. … When he was in
college, an internship in Arkansas doing cave tours got him
hooked, and eventually his work brought him out West, to Grand
Canyon National Park. Tobin specializes in what’s known as
karst hydrology. These are underground systems made up of
soluble rock such as limestone. To Tobin, caves are like
another world, with blind animals, fossils and archeological
finds.
When Sandra Chavez’ mother discovered she had stage four cancer
last year, one of Sandra’s first thoughts was about their
water. Her family’s private well is contaminated with nitrates
and Chavez wondered if years of drinking the water could have
caused her mother’s sickness. Chavez and her family have relied
on bottled water since they found out their well water was
unsafe in 2015. But sometimes they don’t have enough and are
forced to drink the contaminated water. So when Chavez
found out about a new program providing free bottled water
delivery for families with nitrate-contaminated wells, she was
frustrated she hadn’t been contacted.
Only one week remains to register for our May 20 virtual
Lower
Colorado River Tour where you can hear directly
from experts offering a range of perspectives on the most
contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Practically every drop of water in the
Colorado River is already allocated, but pressure on the
hard-working river continues to grow from myriad sources —
increasing population, declining habitat and climate
change.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the
19th century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the
Gila River Indian Community — is now coursing again with water,
luring things like cattails and birds back to its
shores. … The revival of this small segment of the
649-mile (1045-kilometer) Gila River, which has served the
tribes that make up the Gila River Indian Community — the
Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly
2,000 years, was an added benefit of a grassroots
infrastructure overhaul, known as “managed aquifer recharge,”
or MAR, which aimed to restore the local groundwater
basin.
Well owners in Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley are invited to join community meetings on groundwater
conditions and sustainable management of this critical water
source. The Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are nearing
completion of major plans that identify issues with current and
future groundwater resources and that describe how these
challenges will be addressed.
Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson, along with prominent
North Coast water managers and politicians gathered at a
virtual summit yesterday morning to discuss the severe drought
facing the North Coast and the entire state. At the summit (a
recording of which is available on YouTube), State Senator Mike
McGuire stated that the state legislature is moving forward on
a several billion dollar drought relief package, which would
include $1 billion in grants to help ratepayers and utilities
pay off back bills and $500 million to help smaller low income
communities develop enhanced drinking water supplies, among
other things (read the full list below).
As Californians can tell by the already beige hills, the early
fire weather warnings and the dusty umbrellas sitting deep
inside closets, it’s been drier than usual this winter. And
according to decades worth of precipitation data, that’s the
new normal. What’s considered “normal” for baseline rainfall
amounts is determined by a 30-year average that gets
recalculated every decade. The latest recalculation, according
to Jan Null, a forecaster who runs Golden Gate Weather
Services, “show a noticeably drier state” through 2020 compared
to the previous “normal” calculation covering 1981 through
2010.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has
demonstrated its ability to meet expected water demands in the
region for the next quarter century, even under drought
conditions, in a long-term management plan approved Tuesday by
its board of directors. Metropolitan’s Urban Water
Management Plan provides a summary of the agency’s
anticipated water demands and supplies through 2045, and shows
the district will meet demands under normal water years, single
dry-years, and five-year drought sequences.
With the uncertainty of water, some Central Valley farmers are
destroying their crops ahead of the summer season in order to
survive. It’s impacting jobs and soon possibly the grocery
shelves. Every crop at Del Bosque Farms is planted
meticulously, and every drop of water is a precious commodity.
Joe Del Bosque started the family farm in 1985. He grows
melons, asparagus, cherries, almonds, and corn, but the drought
brings a flood of concern.
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well
as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California
fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its
current rate. With state water resources constrained by the
extreme drought, that’s the alarm that environmental, fishing
and tribal groups are sounding after reports show the
Sacramento River will reach dangerous temperatures during
spawning season, based on federal scientific scenarios that
analyze the bureau’s planned water releases.
At the April meeting of the California Water Commission, the
Commission continued examining the state’s role in conveyance
projects by hearing from two experts on flood-managed aquifer
recharge, or Flood MAR. First, Dr. Graham Fogg, UC David
professor emeritus of Hydrogeology, discussed scaling up Flood
MAR and how that will likely present new conveyance
needs. Then, Jenny Marr, Supervising Engineer at the
Department of Water Resources, outlined the state’s approach to
flood Mar.
Among attributes of the controversial Poseidon desalination
plant proposed for Huntington Beach is the $1.5 million or so
it would spend annually to keep the tidal inlet open at the
Bolsa Chica wetlands, five miles up the coast from the project
site. But as much as the money is needed there, the three
non-profit groups dedicated to the wetlands’ preservation clash
when it comes to support for the desalter plant. The state
spent $151 million to create the inlet in 2006, restoring the
estuary’s interaction with the ocean and revitalizing the
wildlife habitat. The work has been a particular boon to the
population and variety of birds.
A San Bernardino Superior Court judge has made a ruling against
the Town of Apple Valley in its attempt to take over its
largest supplier of water. In a tentative decision issued
Friday, Judge Donald Alvarez found that Liberty Utilities had
“disproved” the town’s arguments that its acquisition of the
company’s water system would be in the public’s interest and a
necessity. … The town filed its eminent domain lawsuit
in January 2016 when the system was owned by Ranchos Water
Company in response to what they said was a public outcry over
rising water rates.
You can’t water your lawn more than twice a week in the city or
Sacramento during summer, and never on Thursday or
Friday. For thousands of Sacramento County residents, the
limit is three days a week. In Roseville, there’s no watering
between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Customers of the San Juan Water
District have five days to fix leaks, and hosing down the
driveway or sidewalk is off-limits in Elk Grove. Long
before Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought
emergency for the Sacramento region — and much of the rest
of California — area residents were already dealing with an
assortment of restrictions on water consumption, depending on
their supplier.
I am proud to be a part of California agriculture. Our state
has the impressive responsibility of feeding our country—and
even the world. We have led the nation in agricultural
production for the past 60 years due to our richly productive
land and climate. Yet, our agriculture industry now faces
serious and urgent challenges, from recovering from last year’s
multiple crises to the ever-increasing competition in the
global market. -Written by Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, chair of the
Assembly Agriculture Committee.
Don’t be fooled. Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision Monday to
declare drought in most of California, including here, is no
reason for most farmers in Stanislaus County to break out the
party hats. They know full well that words on a declaration
will not generate an extra drop of water for their orchards and
row crops. They also know that a drought declaration could take
some power over the water we do have from our locally elected
irrigation leaders — who represent institutions guiding us
through periodic droughts for more than 100 years — and hand it
to nonelected Sacramento bureaucrats.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced an expansion of the drought
emergency to 41 of the state’s 58 counties, dedicating $5.1
billion to boost water infrastructure and an additional $1
billion to paying off nearly the entirety of Californian
household water debt. Yet, while the governor’s plan includes
$150 million for groundwater cleanup and water recycling
measures, it does nothing to speed up the process to bring
overdrafted water basins into full and sustainable operation.
The deadline is currently 2040 for critically overdrafted
basins and 2042 for remaining high and medium priority basins.
Spring is generally a time of renewal for the watersheds of the
western United States. Warmed by the lengthening days, the
region’s towering mountain ranges shed their mantle of snow,
releasing freshets of water into welcoming streams and
reservoirs. This year, though, the cycle is in disarray.
Outside of the Olympic and Cascade ranges of Washington state,
winter snows were subpar. The spring melt has been a dud. From
the Klamath to the Colorado and Rio Grande, watersheds are
under stress once again, and water managers face difficult
tradeoffs between farms, fisheries, and at-home uses.
Newly announced state funding for the Salton Sea is expected to
maximize habitat outcomes and provide immediate economic relief
to the community. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $5.1 billion water
infrastructure, drought response and climate resilience
proposal, which he announced Monday as part of his $100 billion
“California Comeback Plan,” includes $220 million for the
Salton Sea. At Tuesday’s Imperial County Board of Supervisors
meeting on Tuesday, District 1 Supervisor Jesus Eduardo Escobar
wanted to know what is meant by providing immediate economic
relief to the community and how this would occur.
State water agencies, the California Water Data Consortium
(Consortium) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced a
new partnership today to make an open-source groundwater
accounting platform freely available to help groundwater
sustainability agencies manage the transition to sustainable
supplies.
The Sierra Nevada snowpack, a crucial water source for
California’s cities and farms, has already dwindled to next to
nothing this year, adding to the state’s worsening drought
situation. The latest data from the state Department of Water
Resources on Tuesday showed California’s snowpack was just 6%
of normal for May 11, and 4% of the normal average for April 1.
That date is typically when California’s snowpack is the
deepest and has the highest snow water equivalent — the depth
of water that would result if the snow melted upon falling …
Amid drought conditions across the Sierra Nevada and
California, Lake Tahoe is 2.5 feet lower than it was at this
time last year, according to water data collected in Tahoe City
on May 11. … Lake Tahoe’s water typically gets a boost
from spring’s snowmelt. But as of May 11, the snowpack in the
Sierra Nevada has virtually melted, and Lake Tahoe’s water
levels are the lowest they’ve been in five
years, according to USGS data. Snow surveys on May 11
indicate California’s snowpack is just 6% of average for this
date. Barring significant precipitation this summer, Tahoe
is on track to reach a critical low point …
The state is facing major water impacts, but for those reliant
on water wells — in mobile home parks, rural communities, and
areas where water district access is limited — the concern is
growing. The Department of Water Resources has created
a website that can help those who rely on well water
to figure out just how much at-risk they are of a water
shortage. The site was created after the last drought, but
with California’s drought only recently worsening, it had not
been widely used or needed until now. The interactive map
allows users to explore their area and keep tabs on their well
water situation.
Arizona legislators are looking eastward to ease the impact of
a two-decade drought in the Colorado River Basin. According to
Arizona Rep. Tim Dunn, who represents the area of Yuma, the
Legislature is asking Congress to fund a technological and
feasibility study for diverting floodwater from the Mississippi
River to replenish the Colorado River. Whether that comes in
the form of a diversion dam or pipeline, Dunn says the plan
would benefit both the Midwestern and Southwestern United
States.
A conflict over access to water in the Klamath Basin is
signaling the way climate change could play out across the
western United States. After a drier-than-normal spring,
farmers and indigenous tribes in the Klamath Basin are at odds
over water in Upper Klamath Lake. According to the U.S. Drought
Monitor, the Klamath Basin is experiencing “extreme drought,”
… Centuries ago, the area was wetlands; but in the early
20th century, the land was opened up to agriculture. Members of
the Klamath Tribes say tree removal and drainage hastened
drying as the climate warmed.
In June, Valley Water will start building a 1,700-foot long
tunnel next to Anderson Dam that will allow us to release more
water safely during major storms or emergencies. This work is a
significant milestone in our efforts to strengthen Anderson Dam
and protect our communities. Before construction on the tunnel
begins, Valley Water will host a virtual community meeting from
6-8pm on May 19. Please join us via a Zoom videoconference
(details below) to learn more about the upcoming work and
impacts on the neighborhood. We will also answer as many of
your questions as possible. -Written by John Varela, representing District 1 on
the Valley Water Board of Directors.
Ed Russo, CEO of RussKap Holdings LLC, announced today that his
company stands ready and able to assist California in its
ongoing quest to fight forest fires. “By using atmospheric
water generators we can have constant water flowing into
traditionally dry parched areas which will help prevent a
simple spark from igniting into a large brushfire.” … In
addition to eliminating the terrible environmental degradation
caused by fires, this solution would cost a tiny fraction of
what the power and insurance companies spend to replace damaged
homes and businesses annually.
Many dryland cities like Los Angeles, Cairo and Tehran have
already outstripped natural water recharge, but are expected to
continue growing, resulting in a deepening arid urban water
crisis. … The situations in arid and semi-arid cities
like Phoenix, Arizona; Bamako, Mali; or Dubai, UAE, differ in
their particulars, but rhyme in their impending disastrous
trajectory. These, and other arid-region cities, are
approaching the edge of an ecological cliff: dependent on
sustaining growth, which itself requires a growth in water
supplied by faraway and finite sources, and delivered by aging
infrastructure. But water in dryland regions is
getting scarcer and supplies
more unpredictable.
In water-stressed farming areas of California, farmers removed
productive trees and idled other land to divert what little
water they have to other crops, as the reality of the 2021
drought became ever more apparent. “We’re removing 15-year-old,
prime-production almond trees,” said Daniel Hartwig of Woolf
Farming in Fresno County. “We’re pulling out almost 400 acres,
simply because there’s not enough water in the system to
irrigate them, and long term, we have no confidence that there
would be water in the future.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $5.1 billion water infrastructure,
drought response, and climate resilience proposal
includes $220 million for the Salton Sea, and Assembly
member Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, applauded the announcement.
Garcia, chair of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and
Wildlife, stated in a press release from his office that the
funding would maximize habitat outcomes and provide immediate
economic relief to the community.
California’s water resources managers are proactively working
with our various partners through the harshest dry year we have
seen in recent memory…. We are encouraged that the
Governor’s drought proclamation will bring important focus on
our precious water resources and inspire balanced approaches
that will allow water resources managers (state, federal and
local) to creatively manage our limited water supplies this
year for multiple benefits.
Today, the Bureau of Reclamation announced a plan to increase
flow releases from New Melones Reservoir to assist with meeting
Delta salinity and outflow requirements. Additional flow
releases will begin on the
lower Stanislaus River
on May 10 and will reach a total
flow of 1,000 cubic feet per second and again
on May 11 to reach 1,500 cfs. This
increased flow of 1,500 cfs will likely
occur for an extended duration. During the increased
releases, water levels will be higher and currents
faster. Visitors should use caution when near or
on the Stanislaus River during these increased
flows.
On May, 4, 2021, the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water
District Board of Directors announced the establishment of a
new, ongoing Headwaters Resilience Partnership (Partnership)
aimed at identifying big solutions to confront the worsening
challenges with water supply and natural resources that we
currently face in our forest headwaters. The Partnership will
also focus on identifying innovative ways to fund proactive
investments in the long-term health of our National Forests.
Well, unfortunately, the overall drought trajectory has not
changed since the last post: it’s still getting worse. And
pretty rapidly worse, at that, across much of NorCal. There,
virtually no precipitation at all has fallen in places that are
usually still pretty wet in April/May, and unusually
persistent/recurrent north/northeast “blow drier” winds have
resulted in even more evaporation and snowmelt across the
landscape.
Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded his drought emergency declaration to
39 more counties Monday, underscoring the rapid deterioration
of California’s water supply in recent weeks. The governor
broadened his earlier drought order, which was limited to two
counties on the Russian River, to cover most of parched
California, which is plunging into its second major drought in
less than a decade. The new order covers the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river watersheds, the Tulare Lake basin region and the
Klamath region in far Northern California. About 30% of the
state’s population is now covered by the declarations…
California is now in its second year of drought, hard on the
heels of the last one in 2012-16. But drought is not an
equal-opportunity crisis; it can be more or less disruptive
depending on geography, storage, how water supplies are
managed—and, of course, precipitation. And some sectors—notably
rural water water systems and the environment—are more
vulnerable.
California is in a serious drought. The National Drought
Mitigation Center’s drought monitor puts most of the state in
extreme drought zones for the first time since 2015. The latest
instance of drought has once again put the state’s water use
under the microscope to identify opportunities for
conservation, a task that’s expected to become more challenging
as the impacts of climate change intensify.
Arizona cities, towns, farmers and ranchers are preparing for
the first-ever cuts to the state’s allotment of Colorado River
water. The cuts are the result of a drought that’s lasted 26
years and will likely take effect in 2022. The so-called “Tier
1″ water shortage will affect some water users more severely
than others. … Farmers and ranchers in Pinal County are
already preparing, but it’s going to be a costly process.
On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups, fishing
organizations, stakeholders in the Delta, and the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe sent this letter to the Biden Administration,
urging the Administration not to endorse the so-called
“Voluntary Agreements” for the Bay-Delta watershed.
Unfortunately, the State of California continues to negotiate
backroom deals with the biggest water users in the State that
fail to protect and restore water quality in the
Bay-Delta, threatening thousands of fishing jobs, farms and
communities in the Delta, and the health of this watershed and
its native fish and wildlife.
The California State Lands Commission properly reviewed a
stalled desalination planned to be built on the coast south of
Los Angeles, a state appeals court says. In a decision filed
Saturday, the appeals court affirmed a lower court’s rejection
of a challenge to the plant by the environmental group
California Coastkeeper Alliance and others. It determined that
a 2017 re-review of the planned desalination plant in
Huntington Beach adequately complied with the requirements of
the California Environmental Quality Act.
Sonoma County supervisors are expected to offer their formal
support Tuesday for a plan to pump 20% less water than normal
from the Russian River for the remainder of the year,
preserving dwindling supplies in local reservoirs but making
less water available to more than 600,000 consumers in Sonoma
…
As California enters what could be a record-breaking drought, a
just-completed nine-year floodplain restoration project at the
confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers offers an
ambitious attempt at one mitigation solution. At a 1,600-acre
former dairy ranch called Dos Rios, the conservation
organization River Partners removed berms that farmers had
originally constructed to protect their alfalfa and wheat crops
from the river. It turned fields into seasonal pools where
endangered baby salmon and migratory birds can rest, and water
can trickle down to refill aquifers.
Most farmers are worried about their crops as they head into
the second straight dry year. Vineyard owners say they may be
the lucky ones because, at this point, grapes don’t need a lot
water — just warm sunshine. That would change with a prolonged
drought. … Kendall Hoxsey-Onysko, owner of the Napa Wine
Company, is a fifth-generation Napa Valley grape grower and her
family knows all about droughts and their impact on the wine
industry. Grapevines can thrive without a lot of water but
productivity depends on how long the drought lasts.
As California slowly emerges from the depths of the COVID-19
pandemic, one remnant left behind by the statewide lockdown
offers a sobering reminder of the economic challenges still
ahead for millions of the state’s residents and the water
agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
… Our latest article in Western Water explores the
hurdles to helping consumers, how some water agencies have
devised workarounds and how far more lasting solutions remain
out of reach.Western Water is just one of the publications
produced by our journalism team…
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) advises
being cautious during visits to Castaic Lake starting this May
during construction on the Castaic Dam in Santa Clarita, which
is expected to include a series of modernizations to prepare
for potential major earthquakes. Intending to reduce risks from
potential major earthquakes, the DWR plans to oversee Castaic
Dam construction in Santa Clarita, but the department also
warns of potential water hazards during the process.
In scale and ambition, California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) has few parallels. And the work becomes
increasingly urgent as the climate crisis makes water shortages
increasingly severe. … This emphasis on local expertise
points to SGMA’s possibilities — and its potential pitfalls —
especially when it comes to deciding what “sustainable” water
management means. Each management body has wide discretion to
define “sustainability” — and the path to
sustainability by 2040 — for its particular basin.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo is pushing back against Santa Clara
Valley Water District’s Pacheco Reservoir Expansion project,
but water district representatives say his concerns are
misleading. On Friday, Liccardo held a news conference where he
emphasized that the $2.5 billion project to boost Pacheco
Reservoir’s operational capacity from 5,500 acre-feet to up to
140,000 acre-feet is not a smart investment. ”The
expansion project) would add no long term drought supply to our
community, it would provide no new water supply to our
community, rather would merely be a receptacle for water,”
Liccardo said.
California’s drought conditions have gone from bad to worse in
scarcely a month. In the weeks following April 1, the
traditional end of the rainy season, warm temperatures have
burned off most of the Sierra Nevada snowpack and left the
state’s water network gasping. Instead of delivering a generous
volume of melted snow into California’s rivers and reservoirs,
the snowpack has largely evaporated into the air or trickled
into the ground.
The Colorado River Basin appears to be out of miracles this
spring. Five years after a “Miracle May” of record rainfall
staved off what had appeared to be the river’s first imminent
shortage in water deliveries, the hope for another in 2021 “is
fading quickly,” says the Colorado Basin River Forecast
Center’s latest report, released Thursday. That’s one more
piece of bad news for the Central Arizona Project. A first-time
shortage is now likely to slash deliveries of river water to
Central Arizona farmers starting in 2022 but won’t affect
drinking water supplies for Tucson, Phoenix and other cities,
or for tribes and industries that get CAP water.
Bakersfield raised a brew, literally, to the State Water
Resources Control Board on Friday in honor of the Kern River.
An iced down package of seven locally made craft beers was
delivered to board members as part of the latest outreach
effort by Bring Back the Kern, a local group advocating for
water to flow through Bakersfield in the Kern River.
Kern County ag producers are making changes big and small —
from redeveloping entire orchards to fine-tuning their
irrigation systems — as they try to adjust to worsening
drought conditions across the Central Valley. Strategies vary
depending on access to water and ability to shift irrigation to
different fields. Some landowners are trying to hold onto as
much water as they can in case prices rise later in the year.
Anyone who lived through California’s last big drought from
2012 to 2016 remembers the rules. You couldn’t water your
yard so much that the water ran off into the street or
sidewalk. Or hose down a driveway. Hotels had to put up signs
telling customers they could choose not to have sheets and
towels washed every day. Ornamental fountains were prohibited
unless they recycled water. Watering landscaping within 48
hours of rain was forbidden. … Now California is entering a
new drought with dwindling reservoir levels. But so far, there
are no statewide prohibitions against wasting water.
At a rare joint meeting between all three of their leadership
boards, Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc Counties discussed ways to
support agricultural communities during the Klamath Basin’s
historic drought this year. Farmers and ranchers in the Klamath
Project will receive 33,000 acre-feet of water, less than 10%
of their normal allocation, more than a month later than
normal. Irrigators on tributaries to the Lower Klamath River,
like the Scott River, are also expecting water deliveries to be
curtailed during the summer.
When it comes to long-term hurricane forecasts, tornado
predictions in the Plains or prospects for winter rain in
California, you’ll often hear meteorologists refer to El Niño
or La Niña. They’re phases in a cycle that starts in the
tropics, spreading an influence across the globe and shaping
weather both close to home and on different
continents. Now there’s emerging research to suggest that
cosmic rays, or positively charged, high-energy particles from
space, might be the mechanism that flips the switch between
phases
At the April meeting of the California Water Commission, as
part of their continuing work on examining the state’s role in
financing conveyance projects that could help meet needs in a
changing climate, the Commissioners heard from a panel of
speakers about state policy considerations for conveyance and
the cross-cutting issues of flood-managed aquifer recharge
(flood-MAR), green infrastructure, collaborative partnerships
and governance, and innovation. … Michael George, Delta
Watermaster, … pointed out that it’s physically,
ecologically, and economically impossible to squeeze water out
of the Delta for export.
A spectacular super bloom of lupine flowers has exploded in and
around Folsom Lake. Lupine flowers, which are native to
California and commonly found around the state, tend to crop up
every year. But this spring, experts say the super bloom that’s
sprouted in the Sierra foothills reservoir 25 miles east of
Sacramento is like nothing they’ve ever seen — and says a lot
about the dire state of California’s deepening drought.
…[B]right purple lupines that now blanket the reservoir in
areas that normally would be underwater but are now fertile
blooming ground because of historically low water levels.
California’s drought is impacting more than how you water your
lawn, but also the way your food is grown on hundreds of
thousands of acres in the Sacramento Valley. Growing rice is a
multi-billion dollar industry that supports 25,00 jobs.
… This year, a third of normal rainfall combined with
hot weather and drying winds have [rice farmers] pumping more
groundwater than usual and fallowing half his rice fields –
meaning Durst won’t plant, and he’s not
alone. … Industry leaders say this is the third
time in forty years this kind of surface water supply reduction
has happened – and it’s happened twice in just the last decade.
More than 58,000 fires scorched the United States last year,
and 2021 is on track to be even drier. What many people don’t
realize is that these wildfires can do lasting damage beyond
the reach of the flames – they can contaminate entire drinking
water systems with carcinogens that last for months after the
blaze. … Since 2017, multiple fires have
impacted drinking water systems … including the CZU
Lightning Complex, Camp and Tubbs fires in California.
Thousands of private wells have been affected too.
California gubernatorial candidate John Cox swung through
Fresno on Thursday as part of his “Meet the Beast” campaign
tour, holding a press conference at Machado Farms.
… With the state once again in the midst of another
drought, Cox said he would do something that Newsom has so far
refused to: declare a state-wide emergency. Instead of a
state-wide declaration, Newsom enacted an emergency in
Mendocino and Sonoma Counties.
Residents in northern California rallied outside of Yreka City
Hall Thursday to protest the County’s new ordinance aimed at
curtailing illegal marijuana grow. On Tuesday, the Siskiyou
County Board of Supervisors amended Chapter 4 of Title 3 –
adding restrictions on water trucks using specific County
highways. The restrictions largely target streets in the
unincorporated communities of Butte Valley and Big Springs.
… Protesters of the affected areas voiced their
opposition to the bill – stating the Water Trucks are critical
for their survival.
It’s that time of drought again. During one of the driest years
on record, once again curtailing water deliveries to local
farms, Fresno-area lawmakers wasted little time trotting out
one of their favorite falsehoods. That every year, including
the parched ones like 2021, California “wastes” millions of
gallons of water by “flushing it to the ocean.” Central San
Joaquin Valley residents have heard this declaration so often
and for so long, from the mouths of politicians and parroted on
talk radio, that many of us believe it’s true.
Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA-03) introduced legislation
(H.R. 2979) making low interest federal financing available for
reservoir and drought resiliency projects, with Congressman Dan
Newhouse (R-WA-04) as the original cosponsor. This bipartisan
legislation (H.R. 2979) would amend the Water Infrastructure
Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) of 2014 to make public water
projects like the off-stream Sites Reservoir Project eligible
for low interest, longer term federal loans from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
San Diego takes droughts very seriously. That’s why the region
is well-positioned to weather an extended dry spell with enough
water. Local officials don’t shrug at the drought
conditions across the state that have triggered emergencies in
a couple of northern counties. For one thing, the wildfire
threat can be as dangerous here as anywhere. San Diego may
be more drought-tolerant than in the past when it comes to
water…
Arizona is gearing up for the first-ever “Tier 1” shortage on
the Colorado River in 2022, which will trigger significant cuts
to the state’s annual allocation from its most important water
resource. As daunting as it sounds, the vast majority of
citizens and businesses will not be affected, state water
leaders said during a Colorado River Preparedness briefing last
week. Arizona is also well prepared to weather expected
shortages the next few years, and is in the process of
developing the next steps to protect and augment the river’s
supplies as the drought persists, said the state’s top two
water leaders.
In a hotter climate, dirt is a hot commodity. With sea levels
expected to rise 3 to 6 feet by the end of the century, coastal
communities are moving fast to construct major shoreline
projects to protect themselves. As the size of these projects
expands, the primary building materials — dirt and mud — are
getting scarce. … [Parts of San Francisco Bay
were] once used for industrial salt making, and giant
evaporation ponds were built here more than a century ago. Now,
its marsh habitat is being restored as part of the Eden
Landing Ecological Reserve. The old salt pond levees still
stand between the bay and hundreds of thousands of people on
the shoreline. But waves and weather have eaten away at them.
Early May water supply volume forecasts are below to much below
normal throughout the Colorado River Basin and Great Basin.
Upper Colorado River Basin water supply forecasts range between
15-75% of the 1981-2010 historical April-July average. Great
Basin water supply forecasts are 10-70% of average. … Many
April-July volume forecasts fall in the bottom (driest) five on
record….The Lake Powell inflow forecast is 2.0 MAF (28% of
average), a 17% decrease from April….
Hear directly from a range of experts offering a variety of
perspectives on our May 20 virtual Lower Colorado River Tour as
they put into context the 20-plus year drought on what is the
most contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Among the experts featured are farmers, tribal
representatives, and managers from wildlife agencies, water
districts, the Bureau of Reclamation and others who will
discuss drought impacts, habitat projects, farming and
restoration efforts at the Salton Sea.
Every year, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) relies on
data from monitoring stations strategically located across
California to provide information that will aid the
decision-making process regarding the flood control and water
supply operations of California’s State Water Project (SWP).
The Feather River watershed, located in Northern California’s
Sierra Nevada mountains south of Mt. Lassen, is a key location
for collecting data. It is the largest watershed in the Sierra
Nevada, covering 2.3 million acres or 3,200 square miles.
The drought situation in the Bay Area has officially gone from
bad to worse. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the entire
Bay Area is now in the “extreme” drought category, along with
nearly three-quarters of California. According to the latest
summary, precipitation in the state for the water year that
began Oct. 1 is well below normal, in the bottom 10th
percentile, and the greater Bay Area is “experiencing record or
near-record dryness.”
After one of the most destructive and extreme wildfire seasons
in modern history last year, a widening drought across
California and much of the West has many residents bracing for
the possibility this season could be worse. Anemic winter rain
and snowfall has left reservoirs and river flows down
significantly, even as the state experiences its driest water
year in more than four decades. Today, wildfire fuels in some
parts of California are at or near record levels of dryness.
The federal government is strictly curtailing irrigation this
year in an attempt to protect endangered fish important to
Indigenous tribes. Farmers say this will make it all but
impossible to farm, while tribal groups say the plan doesn’t go
far enough to save their fisheries. In mid-April, a farming
region in southern Oregon began to release water from the
Klamath River into its irrigation canals. … [A]ccording to
the federal government, it was an illegal maneuver that could
further jeopardize the survival of multiple endangered species
and food sources important to Indigenous tribes and fisheries
in the region.
More than a month after announcing it was suspending water
deliveries to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley, the Bureau of Reclamation delivered equally bad news to
farmers north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Their water
supplies, tabbed at 5 percent of their contracted amount, were
not available for delivery via the Central Valley Project due
to limited supply.
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors sent a letter
to the California Water Resources Control Board on May 4
formally opposing the Shandon-San Juan Water District’s (SSJWD)
two recent applications for water from Lake Nacimiento and
Santa Margarita Lake—a move that puts two partners on the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin at odds with one another.
California’s drought is forcing hatcheries to truck young
salmon to the San Francisco Bay because the fish would
otherwise likely die trying to swim on their own
downstream to the Pacific Ocean. The Coleman National Fish
Hatchery along Battle Creek in Shasta County plans to drive
about 950,000 fall chinook salmon smolts in May to increase
their chances of survival.
A big change in drought conditions came out Thursday
morning for all of California. With an update from
the US Drought Monitor, 73% of California is now listed in
Extreme Drought, the second most severe classification the US
Drought Monitor utilizes. So far, 5% of California is
listed as being in Exceptional Drought, which is the US Drought
Monitor’s top-level drought designation. The increase to
73% is a significant jump from 53% in Extreme Drought from last
week. This news comes on the heels of other drought changes,
such as water restrictions for agriculture north of the
Delta.
The City of Paso Robles is turning hungry animals loose in the
Salinas Riverbed to reduce the wildfire risk. Goats will be
grazing over the next month or so. They’re starting from the
north and going south, clearing two to three acres a day. On
Tuesday, there were upwards of 100 goats munching away at the
overgrown, fire-ready grasses in the fire-prone hot spot of the
Salinas Riverbed. … The herd is also chewing through poison
hemlock and other weeds, creating fuel breaks through which
wildfires are less likely to burn.
The fate of Searles Valley Minerals may hinge on a special
virtual meeting of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater
Authority later this week, at least according to SVM’s Camille
Anderson. The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday. At it,
the IWVGA will discuss how to respond to SVM’s non-payment of
the authority’s groundwater replenishment fee. … The
groundwater authority was formed in response to the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014, which requires all
California basins to eventually achieve
sustainability. The replenishment fee is part of the
IWVGA’s long-term plan to reach sustainability, but has proven
wildly controversial for some.
Farmersville is opening the floodgates for growth upon the
completion of the wastewater treatment facility expansion, the
most expensive public works project in the city’s history. The
newly-updated wastewater treatment facility comes in at about
$23 million, switching from percolating basins to updated
technology like digesters and clarifiers to meet the city’s
growing population and updated state requirements. City manager
Jennifer Gomez said she’s excited to see the project of over 10
years come to completion.
If any doubt persisted over the first months of the year, it
has now become clear that this past winter’s dry conditions
will not be reversing anytime soon. With 88% of California
classified as experiencing severe drought and no less than 53%
classified as extreme, according to the California drought
monitor, there is no question that conditions have worsened,
confirming fears that another dangerously dry summer looms on
the horizon. In fact, so troubling is the situation that on
April 21, amid the barren backdrop of a greatly depleted Lake
Mendocino, Governor Newsom issued a state of emergency
declaration for Mendocino and Sonoma counties …
At the Water Education Foundation, we focus on telling the
complex story of water in California and the West because of
its critical role in sustaining our lives, growing our food and
nourishing our environment. As a nonprofit we rely on the
generosity of people who value what we do – enhancing
public understanding of our most important natural
resource and catalyzing critical conversations to inform
collaborative decision-making.
Donate here to help us keep doing what we do, and
join us for a virtual open house at 4:30 p.m. today.
The official “new normal” for the U.S. climate is warmer than
ever before — and the changes are ominous for California,
experts say. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration on Tuesday released its new climate averages,
based on the 30-year period from 1991 to 2020. The averages,
known as “climate normals,” are updated every 10 years, and
they show most of the country, including California, heating
up. “The influence of long-term global warming is obvious,” the
NOAA said in announcing the updates to its averages.
California’s current drought is already off to a strong start,
with some major challenges already looming just two years in.
Compared to the drought of 2012‒16, the normally wetter
Sacramento and North Coast regions have been hit much harder
than the rest of the state. Beyond the local challenges this
poses, drought in the Sacramento region is already having
statewide implications, given its key role in supplying water
to farms and cities further south.
Faith Kearns’ new book, Getting to the Heart of Science
Communication: A Guide to Effective Engagement, out this month,
argues that there’s no one “right” approach to talking about
the climate crisis and other contentious scientific issues. She
collects anecdotes and advice from science communicators who
are wrestling with all of the feelings and opinions that
climate change, genetically modified foods, and vaccines tend
to stir up.
A familiar scene has returned to California: drought. Two
counties are currently under emergency declarations, and the
rest of the state could follow. It was only four years ago when
a winter of torrential rain finally wrestled the state out of
its last major drought, which had dragged on for five years and
left thousands of domestic wells coughing up dust. That
drinking-water crisis made national headlines and helped shine
a light on another long-simmering water crisis in California:
More than 300 communities have chronically unsafe drinking
water containing contaminants that can come with serious health
consequences, including cancer.
In 2021, access to running water and clean drinking water is a
given for most Americans. The Census Bureau has even considered
dropping a question on plumbing access from the U.S. census
questionnaire. But many of the nation’s tribes still lack
running water, access to clean water, and even flushing
toilets. Native American households are 19 times more likely
than white households to lack indoor plumbing, according to the
U.S. Water Alliance, and more likely to lack piped water
services than any other racial group. That problem is at an
inflection point for the Navajo Nation and 29 other tribes in
the Colorado River Basin, which stretches from the Rocky
Mountains to Mexico.
One thing that’s been re-emphasized, time and again, during the
pandemic travails of the past 14 months: Farming is essential.
During the coming few months, as California struggles through
another drought, we’ll learn whether our elected and appointed
public officials feel the same way. [A]n overarching, long-term
problem needs to be solved to make sure farm employees can not
just work safely, but can have jobs, period: water supplies.
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday passed a
resolution proclaiming a local drought emergency. The vote on
the resolution during Tuesday’s special meeting was unanimous.
The resolution comes after Fresno leaders joined officials from
three other Central Valley counties on Friday to declare a
regional drought emergency and urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to do the
same statewide. Fresno County Chairman Steve Brandau said the
drought “is a crisis that we are putting upon ourselves.” He
said he’s not a water expert, but it has been “painful” for him
to watch “as water flows out into the ocean unused for human
resources.”
Experts say a statewide drought declaration … could bring
significant consequences for the regulatory structure governing
California’s complicated water-delivery system. Many farmers
believe an emergency order could loosen environmental
regulations and free up water supplies for them. Environmental
groups fear the very same thing – that more of California’s
dwindling water supply could be directed to farming at the
expense of fish and wildlife.
A recent spate of spring blazes announced an alarmingly early
start to California’s wildfire season, which is fast occupying
too much of the year to fit any conventional understanding of
the word “season.” With historically low moisture measurements
suggesting vegetation is particularly primed to burn, too many
Californians are about to find themselves in wildfires’ way.
… The prospects for a respite aren’t hopeful. Following
California’s third driest rain season on record, Gov. Gavin
Newsom is tiptoeing toward acknowledging a statewide
drought.
Now that Democrats have full control of Washington for the
first time in a decade, Bay Area lawmakers want to make sure
they don’t walk away empty-handed. For many of them, that means
seeing green. After several years of historically severe
wildfires, heat waves and recurring drought conditions, bills
related to climate change are at the top of the agenda for many
lawmakers with local ties. Some of the legislative proposals
… would address the threats of extreme weather by allocating
more money to reduce wildfire risks, strengthen water
infrastructure and upgrade the electric grid.
California Senators have unveiled a $3.4 billion drought relief
package to address the hardships created by ongoing dry
conditions. The Senate Budget Plan on Drought, Safe Drinking
Water, Water Supply Reliability, and Ratepayer Assistance would
be the single largest investment to address drought challenges
in California. During the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review
Subcommittee 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection and
Energy hearing, the proposal was passed by a 4-0 vote. The
proposal offers a comprehensive approach to drought relief,
with funding designated for water supply projects, research,
and water-use efficiency projects.
With drought conditions returning to California, the Department
of Water Resources (DWR) has finalized a tool and
recommendations to support those communities most at risk
during drought. Historically, small water systems and rural
communities that rely on private domestic wells have
been hit the hardest by prolonged periods of dry
conditions. To provide increased state support, DWR led a
two-year process learning from stakeholder experiences about
what puts small water systems and rural communities at higher
risk of water shortages and what is needed to build their
resilience to drought.
Regenerative farming practices integrate the entire ecosystem —
building upon the relationships of the natural world — to
simultaneously produce healthier, more abundant crops and
restore the Earth’s natural resources. … And
restoring soil health and fertility produces more abundant,
nutrient-dense crops that better resist pests and disease. It
increases soil’s ability to filter and store water, reduce
erosion and sequester carbon. And it builds a diversity and
abundance of microbes that drive every function of soil.
Increasingly ominous signs suggest that we are entering another
multiyear drought in California. The State Water Project
recently reduced projected water deliveries for 2021 from 10
percent of requested supplies to 5 percent, and on April 21,
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a regional drought emergency in the
Russian River watershed in Northern California. But it’s a
different story in San Diego County.
-Written by Gary Croucher, chair of the San Diego County
Water Authority’s Board of Directors.
The US Bureau of Reclamation last week warned water users to
brace for a 500,000 acre-foot cut in water from the Colorado
River as a historic drought continues to tighten its grip on
the Southwest. The cutback comes on top of a 200,000 acre-foot
reduction Arizona water users agreed to last year in an effort
to put off this day of reckoning. The Central Arizona Project
provides more than a third of the state’s water. The reductions
will mostly impact farmers. The sparse snowpack this winter
soaked into the ground during the hot, dry spring — producing
little runoff.
The beaver does more to shape its environment than nearly any
other animal on Earth. They can cause incredible amounts of
destruction to infrastructure; downing power lines, and
blocking and rerouting waterways. But their dam-building also
can improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and create the
conditions for complex wetland habitats to form —providing
refuge for wildlife and storing carbon in the process.
California is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet,
and the San Diego region is one of the most diverse in
California, but we are losing our biodiversity at an alarming
rate. The coming summer months and dry conditions are going to
further hurt that richness of life here. Conserving our water
resources directly and indirectly benefits our wildlife and is
consistent with the overall conservation ethic in San Diego,
which is why we need to prepare in case drought conditions
worsen.
-Written by Chuck Bonham, director of the CA Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
Seven years ago, after the fish died, Sarah Ryan decided she
couldn’t wait any longer for help. California at the time
was in the depths of its worst drought in the last millennium
and its ecosystems were gasping. For Ryan, the fish kill in
Clear Lake, the state’s second largest and the centerpiece of
Lake County, was the last straw. Ryan is the environmental
director for Big Valley Rancheria, a territory of the Big
Valley Band of Pomo Indians that sits on the ancient
lake’s western shore. She and others raised alarms for several
years about increasingly dire blooms of toxic
cyanobacteria.
A little more than a week ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that
not only would California effectively ban hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, by 2024, but the state also would work to phase
out oil extraction entirely by 2045. … It was — like the
governor’s promise last year that the state would ban the sale
of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — a sweeping pronouncement
meant to show urgency in addressing climate change while the
state he leads struggles with many of its most dire effects.
But meeting those goals requires complex regulatory
maneuvering.
Dry, hot weather and strong winds have triggered a “red flag”
fire warning for parts of northern California, the first time
the National Weather Service has issued such a warning for the
region in the month of May since 2014. Temperatures in northern
California and the Bay Area are expected to peak 15F above
average on Monday and Tuesday, with 20- to 35mph wind gusts
expected in some parts, prompting the NWS to warn of dangerous
fire conditions in the Sacramento region. The red flag warning
is expected to expire after 11am Tuesday.
Irrigation curbs, car washing restrictions and the shutoff of
fountains may return in the city of Napa amid shrinking water
supplies on the tail of a dry California winter. Tuesday night,
the City Council is scheduled to vote on a “moderate water
shortage” declaration intended to cut consumption by 15%.
Approval would mark the return of water-use restrictions last
rolled out in the mid-2010s when a six-year drought led
California to mandate across-the-board cutbacks statewide.
Napa’s actions would follow mandatory cutbacks imposed upvalley
by the cities of St. Helena and Calistoga.
According to reports collected by Cal DFW, a low amount of Coho
Salmon, age 0+ and 1+, have been trapped this spring while
exiting the Shasta River Basin and Scott
River. … Felice Pace, the Water Chair of the North
Group Redwood Chapter Sierra Club, says … the Shasta and
Scott Rivers should be top producers of Klamath River Coho
Salmon, but links that poor regulated irrigation is preventing
the salmon to reach the best spawning grounds and is killing
juvenile Coho Salmon before they can move out of the Klamath
River.
Climate change and water scarcity are front and center in the
western U.S. The region’s climate is warming, a severe
multi-year drought is underway and groundwater supplies are
being overpumped in many locations. … About 4,000
miles of canals transport water to some 35 million
Californians and 5.7 million acres of farmland across the
state. Covering these canals with solar panels would reduce
evaporation of precious water – one of California’s most
critical resources – and help meet the state’s renewable energy
goals, while also saving money.
California is grappling with drought again, facing many of the
same conditions and challenges that were features of the
2012–16 drought—including stressed ecosystems, depleted
reservoirs, hard-hit farms and rural communities, threats to
urban water supplies, and the potential for extensive
wildfires. Knowing what’s different and what’s similar to our
last major drought can help us better prepare the most
vulnerable sectors for ongoing dry times. To put this drought
in context, this is only its second year. Historically,
droughts have lasted up to six years. Our most recent one
lasted five.
Stop eating meat. Build interstate pipelines. Turn sea water
into drinking water. When our letter writers start making these
suggestions in earnest, that’s how I know we’re beginning to
feel the effects of another drought in California.
-Written and compiled by Paul Thornton, the Los Angeles
Times’ letters editor.
Last year’s devastating wildfire season was barely in the
rear-view mirror when the red flag warning hit Sunday for a
large swath of Northern California. In another example of the
Golden State’s new normal, the National Weather Service issued
a surprisingly early-in-the-year fire alert for the area from
Shasta Dam to just north of Los Banos, touching on the eastern
fringes of the Bay Area. … The state’s persistent
drought, combined with low humidity and strong northeasterly
winds Sunday, signaled an early start to the fire season even
without the triple-digit temperatures of late summer.
Following a winter with extremely low levels of rain, the
area’s main sources of irrigation water, Lake Mendocino and
Lake Sonoma, are in short supply. Drought conditions are not
new for local growers, unfortunately. Many continue to adjust
their viticultural practices to adapt to the ever-changing
climate. … New plantings will have more spacing between rows
to facilitate wider cross-arms, which will help promote shading
… drought-tolerant rootstocks that are more capable
of establishing deeper root systems quicker …
Ever since I started working on Colorado River issues, I have
wanted to travel through the iconic landscape of the Grand
Canyon by boat. I was skeptical of my chances given the highly
coveted and limited number of permits, but this spring I was
lucky enough to be invited on a private trip. For 21 days, we
traveled through this remote stretch where the canyon walls
tower up to 4,000 feet above the river in some places. We
celebrated on the downstream side of big rapids and scrambled
up forgotten side canyons. We spied great blue herons and
merganser ducks on the river’s edge. We saw very few other
people.
With the Colorado River’s largest reservoir just 38% full and
declining toward the threshold of a first-ever shortage,
Arizona water officials convened an online meeting this week to
outline how the state will deal with water cutbacks, saying the
reductions will be “painful” but plans are in place to lessen
the blow for affected farmers next year. Lake Mead’s decline is
expected to trigger substantial reductions in water deliveries
in 2022 for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The largest of those
cuts will affect Arizona, slashing its Colorado River supplies
by 512,000 acre-feet, about a fifth of its total entitlement.
As we rapidly enter another drought, long-standing questions on
ecological impacts of increased temperatures, reduced water
levels and flows re-emerge. This reality recently reminded me
of some of my own previous work looking at growth rate
variations of largemouth bass in response to droughts in the
southeastern USA (Rypel et al. 2009). Results from this work
may be useful/interesting for biologists and managers in
California considering similar questions.
Little is said about the role of Lake Pillsbury in our
regional water system or the critical water it provides
to fill Lake Mendocino. If anything, its importance
to understated or not referenced at all in most media
articles. Without Lake Pillsbury at the Eel River
headwaters to control downstream flows, both the Eel and
Russian Rivers and surrounding aquifers will intermittently dry
up. … A strong movement is afoot to remove Scott Dam and
eliminate Lake Pillsbury… -Written by Frank Lynch & Carol Cinquini, Directors of
the Lake Pillsbury Alliance.
Water talk will be a big part of Tuesday’s Tehama County Board
of Supervisors meeting as plans for a new groundwater
monitoring site in Corning are coming to fruition. Tehama
County Public Works plans to sign a Permit to Use Land
Agreement for a groundwater station in the Corning Public Works
yard on Gallagher Avenue, should the board approve the request.
Creating and maintaining the station will be a combined effort
of Tehama County Public Works, the Flood Control and Water
Conservation District and the California Department of Water
Resources. According to the related agenda report, the station
is expected to be in use for a minimum of 20 years.
Swap this year and the period of Marin County’s worst-ever
drought in 1976-77 and it might be hard to tell the difference.
Water suppliers restricting use to conserve reservoirs.
Ranchers preparing to truck in water as creeks and wells dry
up. Talks of a potential water pipeline. And questions about
the resiliency of the county’s water supply. During the 1976-77
drought, the Marin Municipal Water District was within 120 days
of running out of water. The county’s savior was a 6-mile
pipeline over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to pump in water
from the East Bay.
More than a dozen Central Valley lawmakers and elected
officials met on Friday to declare a regional drought emergency
and urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to do the same statewide. Three
state senators and three Assembly members joined the chairs of
the boards of supervisors from Fresno, Madera, Tulare and Kings
counties in a bipartisan news conference at Harlan Ranch in
Clovis to call for action that the group said is necessary to
divert a crisis.
San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District supported
construction of Seven Oaks Dam because the district believed it
would not only provide flood control, but would capture
precious drinking water for the benefit of Inland Empire water
agencies. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which completed
construction of the dam in 2000, has never been officially
authorized to use the 550-foot-tall structure for anything
other than flood control purposes. This project, which cost the
tax payers $450 million in the late 1990s, has the capacity to
hold at least 115,000 acre-feet in its reservoir, yet it is
only authorized to provide “incidental water conservation.”
In a note of consolation for the pain some Arizona water users
will feel if Central Arizona Project supplies are cut next
year, state water leaders said Thursday: It will be planned
pain. Federal officials have said it’s likely Lake Mead at the
Nevada border will be low enough at the end of 2021 to trigger
the first major cutback in CAP deliveries to the Arizona’s
parched midsection. Arizona will lose 512,000 acre-feet of its
CAP supply — almost one-third of the $4 billion project’s total
supply, according to a 2019 drought contingency plan.
The Senate approved a $35 billion water infrastructure bill
after defeating controversial amendments — marking the
advancement of the first piece of a larger infrastructure
package.
After another dry winter that threatens to worsen water
shortages across California, state officials have accused a
water bottling company of diverting too much water from forests
in the San Bernardino area. The officials issued a draft
cease-and-desist letter to the company last week – the latest
development in a battle that has dragged on for years.
Poseidon Water won a key approval Thursday in its long quest to
build a seawater desalination plant on the Orange County
coastline. But the permit from the Santa Ana Regional Quality
Control Board does not ensure that the $1-billion ocean
desalter will rise on the grounds of an old power plant in
Huntington Beach. Poseidon still needs a construction permit
from the California Coastal Commission and, most critically, a
binding deal with a public agency to buy 50 million gallons a
day of purified seawater.
California officials will again truck millions of young salmon
raised at fish hatcheries in the Central Valley agricultural
region to the Pacific Ocean because projected river conditions
show that the waterways the fish use to travel downstream will
be historically low and warm due to increasing drought.
Officials said the massive trucking operation is aimed at
ensuring “the highest level of survival for the young salmon on
their hazardous journey to the Pacific Ocean.”
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is awarding funding
support for six projects to address the impact of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). A total of $26
million in grant funding is being made available for the SGMA
projects. The funding support comes from the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Grant Program. Sixteen individual
construction projects within Critically Overdrafted Basins will
take place through the six grant awards.
Legislation from Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, to help ensure
low-income and pandemic-strapped Californians struggling to
make water bill payments do not lose access to water service
cleared a key committee hurdle today. … Sen. Dodd has
proposed two bills to ensure access and affordability. Senate
Bill 222 establishes a water assistance fund for low-income
rate payers experiencing economic hardship. And SB 223 expands
protections and protocols for customers who are faced with
having their water shutoff because of an inability to pay their
bills. They were approved today by the Senate Environmental
Quality committee with overwhelming support.
The Nevada Assembly voted Thursday to approve a non-residential
turf removal proposal brought by Southern Nevada water
regulators, who say it will save the water-shy Las Vegas Valley
12 billion gallons of water per year. With little debate from
lawmakers, the Assembly voted 30-12 on Assembly Bill 356,
sending the proposal to the Senate. Four Republicans — Glen
Leavitt, R-Boulder City, Heidi Kasama, R-Las Vegas, Melissa
Hardy, R-Henderson, and Jill Tolles, R-Reno — crossed party
lines to vote with the 26 Democrats.
A lack of wet weather is taking a toll on the state’s water
supply. Chris Orrock, a spokesperson for the California
Department of Water Resources … said while drought-like
conditions are very common for the state, this year is worse
than normal, especially considering back-to-back dry winters
with little snow and rain. It is so dry, in fact, that DWR
canceled Thursday’s snow survey at Phillips Station because
there was not enough snow on the ground.
A North County water district representing irrigated
agriculture near Shandon is asking the state for allocations of
Lake Nacimiento and Santa Margarita Lake water, which it
proposes to pipe into the nearby Paso Robles Groundwater Basin.
While pitched as a potential solution to the Paso basin’s
overdraft, the proposal is already getting blowback from two
county supervisors.
While most irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin are enduring a
spring without surface water, canals in Klamath Drainage
District have been flowing since the middle of April. And KDD
says no laws were broken to make deliveries to its customers.
KDD opened the Ady and North canals on April 15, diverting
water from the Klamath River to serve its patrons. The Bureau
of Reclamation, whose operations plan for 2021 emphasized that
no water deliveries be made to the Klamath Project prior to May
15, sent a letter to KDD asking them to immediately cease the
diversions.
This weekend’s rain in Northern California, while welcome, did
little to address the dry conditions across our state. As the
state’s recent dismal snow survey showed, we are in for tough
times ahead. Less snow means lower reservoirs, less water in
our rivers and streams, and more groundwater pumping. And that
spells trouble, particularly for disadvantaged communities and
sensitive ecosystems, which have historically borne the brunt
of California drought in consequences like dry wells and salmon
die-offs.
Attorneys for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District
filed a complaint with state regulators Tuesday asking that
California American Water Co. be forced to purchase water from
the expansion of a recycling project because Cal Am is failing
to meet a deadline for its part in increasing the local water
supply, according to language in the complaint. Any decision by
regulators is important because it will affect the ability of
the Monterey Peninsula to generate an alternative water source.
Cal Am in 2009 was hit with a state cease-and-desist order to
stop over-pumping from the Carmel River basin.
When President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress
tonight a common thread will likely run through much of his
narrative: resilience. Beyond touting his administration’s
accomplishments, Biden is expected to use the spotlight to
pitch his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, a wide-ranging
infrastructure initiative that promises “every dollar” spent on
rebuilding highways, airports, water systems and more will be
used to “prevent, reduce and withstand the impacts of the
climate crisis.”
The West Coast’s most important estuary is dying, and Gov.
Gavin Newsom has hastened its demise. As he took office two
years ago, Newsom promised to generate voluntary agreements
among farmers, environmentalists and government officials on
the rules for allocating water that flows through the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. … [C]onditions in the delta
have grown so dire that in March the National Marine Fisheries
Service estimated that high water temperatures could kill 90%
of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River
this year.
-Written by Jacques Leslie.
The Navajo Nation can pursue its lawsuit seeking to force the
federal government to secure water from the Colorado River for
the reservation, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday, reversing a
lower court’s dismissal of the tribe’s breach of trust claim.
The tribe doesn’t seek a judge’s determination of its rights to
the river, which the Interior Department says would fall under
the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, according to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Instead, the tribe
seeks an order for Interior to determine the extent to which it
needs water, to develop a plan to secure…
Water officials in Arizona say they are prepared to lose about
one-fifth of the water the state gets from the Colorado River
in what could be the first federally declared shortage in the
river that supplies millions of people in the U.S. West and
Mexico. Arizona stands to lose more than any other state in the
Colorado River basin that also takes in parts of Wyoming, New
Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California. That’s because
Arizona agreed long ago to be the first in line for cuts in
exchange for federal funding for a canal system to deliver the
water to Arizona’s major metropolitan areas.
It’s been another dry year in California. Governor Gavin Newsom
has declared a drought emergency in two northern California
counties and the Sierra snowpack is well below normal. All that
does not bode well for this summer’s wildfire season. To get a
sense of what to expect this year, KAZU’s Doug McKnight spoke
with Cal Fire Battalion Chief Issac Sanchez…
Federal dollars are on the table to help farmers and ranchers
during the drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture declared
a drought disaster in 50 California counties last month.
Advertisement Grants are now available to help with costs
associated with the dry conditions. After a winter with little
rain and snow, California is dry. … Nicole Montna Van Vleck
walked between two rice fields on Wednesday. One was newly
planted and covered in water. The other was bone-dry.
California is once again in a drought, just four years after
the last dry spell decimated ecosystems, fueled megafires and
left many rural communities without well water. Droughts are a
natural part of the landscape in the American west, and the
region has in many ways been shaped by its history of drought.
But the climate scientist Peter Gleick argues that the droughts
California is facing now are different than the ones that have
historically cycled through the Golden State.
Climate change and drought will impact San Diego County’s
climate future, but regional water supply planning and
adaptation measures will ensure a safe, reliable supply for the
region. Water supply strategy was one of the key points
participants learned about during a Monday panel discussion,
“San Diego County’s Climate Future,” hosted online by the San
Diego County Water Authority, Citizens Water Academy, Leaders
20/20 and San Diego Green Drinks.
Amid the extreme aridity of the vast Colorado Desert of eastern
San Diego County, a ribbon of greenery allows life to thrive.
The Sentenac Cienega area inside Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
is more than 100 miles southeast of Irvine. It contains a
desert wetland, which is part of the San Felipe Creek watershed
that is fed by nearby mountains and ultimately flows into the
Salton Sea. But the wetland is sick from invasive, non-native
plants, and its water levels are dangerously low. Researchers
from UCI are trying to figure out why.
Millions of young salmon raised at fish hatcheries in the
Central Valley will be trucked to San Francisco Bay and other
coastal sites for release, because the rivers they’d normally
travel to get to the ocean are drying up, state and federal
officials said Wednesday. The ambitious trucking program, a
response to the state’s escalating drought, is intended to
maximize survival of the hatchery fish that prop up
California’s fall-run of chinook — the mainstay of the state’s
commercial and recreational salmon industries. Officials in
charge of the five major inland hatcheries that rear the fish
say convoys of tanker trucks are the only way to ensure the
3-inch smolts make it to sea.
Stunning drone photographs of Lake Oroville help illustrate the
drought emergency declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom in two Northern
California counties. Water levels at Lake Oroville [the
keystone reservoir of the State Water Project, which supplies
water to 27 million Californians] have dropped to 42% of its
3,537,577 acre foot capacity. Conditions are particularly acute
in Mendocino and Sonoma counties because the local water supply
depends on rainfall in the Russian River watershed.
As water allocations are slashed due to low supplies, what
options do farmers have? California Farm Water Coalition
executive director Mike Wade says thousands of acres are likely
to go fallow, but better solutions are needed. One tool that
has just been created this past year is the Nasdaq Veles
California Water Index. But Wade says it’s still too early to
tell if this is truly going to be effective in helping growers
manage their risk.
Predicting the effects of forest fuel treatments is difficult
and uncertain — it is unclear whether the treatments are more
helpful to forest health or streamflow. According to new
research by disturbance ecohydrologist Ryan Bart and his
colleagues at the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI), the
answer is both, though not at the same time. Fuel
treatments for forest management include prescribed burns, tree
thinning and pruning, for example, each of which are done to
reduce fire risk and severity.
Forecasters look at many factors when they’re predicting how
active a fire season might be, said Nick Nauslar, fire
meteorologist at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise,
Idaho. Here are points taken into consideration when
forecasting a fire season: Long-term drought: Drought
cures vegetation and soils, priming the landscape to
burn; Short-term drought: Spring rain can delay the start
of the fire season, but in some lower-elevation areas, it can
also feed the growth of vegetation that will dry out and fuel
fires later in the summer. …
Today’s commentary breaks my heart. Why? Because
Restore the Delta is focused on water quality issues, flood
control issues, future planning, and training the next
generation of local water experts – for that is where hope
exists. We are focused on the future because in some ways
we have become very cynical about any positive meaningful
change to Delta management presently — from the lack of care at
the highest levels of government, to local pockets of Delta
communities that will not acknowledge the deterioration of the
estuary before their eyes.
-Written by Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, who serves on
the Executive Committee at Large for Restore the
Delta.
Monterey One Water officials on Monday moved closer to its goal
of providing additional water for the Monterey Peninsula when
it unanimously approved a key environmental report for its
expansion project. The 10 members of the board of Monterey One
Water all voted to approve an environmental document called a
supplemental environmental impact report, or SEIR, that
advances closer to the expansion of its regional treatment
plant. … Monday’s action allows Monterey One to move
closer to expanding its treatment facility — Pure Water
Monterey — to increase the amount of treated water reintroduced
to groundwater and consequently dramatically increase the
Peninsula’s supply.
No one will forget the intense challenges that 2020 brought us,
from record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires to a global
pandemic that devastated our economy and public health. As
Congress and the Biden administration look to help our country
rebuild and recover from these compounding crises, investing in
nature presents an opportunity to deliver multiple benefits for
communities, birds, and other wildlife. Audubon presents a new
suite of policy recommendations for making our communities and
wildlife more resilient to climate change, by putting our
wetlands, barrier islands, and other ecosystems to work.
In what may become an iconic image for drought-stricken
California, Gov. Gavin Newsom stood on the parched bed of Lake
Mendocino on April 21 to announce an emergency declaration for
Sonoma and Mendocino counties. … [T]he reservoir was at a
historically low 43% of capacity, the harbinger of what could
be a devastating drought cycle not only for the Northern
California counties that fell within his drought declaration,
but for most of the state — indeed, the American
West. -Written by Michael Hiltzik, a Los Angeles Times
columnist.
Millions of drinking wells around the world may soon be at risk
of running dry. Overpumping, drought and the steady influence
of climate change are depleting groundwater resources all over
the globe, according to new research. As much as 20% of the
world’s groundwater wells may be facing imminent failure,
potentially depriving billions of people of fresh water.
… Residents of California’s Central Valley are preparing
for another arid summer and the rising risk of dry
wells, The Fresno Bee reported yesterday. It’s a
recurring pattern there.
After 21 vintages of making wine from far-coastal Marin County,
Pey-Marin Vineyards is coming to an end. Wineries rarely close
down entirely; more often, when an owner wants out, they sell.
But Jonathan Pey, who founded Pey-Marin Vineyards with his late
wife, Susan, in 1999, said that the extreme conditions of west
Marin farming have simply gotten too punishing, in part due to
climate change.
It’s been years since the Bay Area has had to deal with drought
conditions. While some counties look to instituting water-use
restrictions, some communities look to creative ways to reuse
water. When Ashley Shannon does a load of laundry, her garden
and fruit trees get a super soaking. … Shannon is a Santa
Clara Valley Water District employee who recently installed a
gray water system on her washing machine. Outlet pipes that
would normally send wash water to the sewer system were
redirected to go outside and around her garden. Valves
installed in the ground let the water seep out to irrigate her
plants and trees.
Gov. Doug Ducey on April 21 signed a bill that provides larger
grants for developing water projects in rural areas, but
questions linger on whether there will be any money for
them. House Bill 2388, sponsored by Rep. Gail Griffin,
R-Hereford, expands the amount of a single grant from the Water
Supply Development Revolving Fund from $100,000 to
$250,000. The recipient water provider must be
located in a county with a population of fewer than 1.5 million
people. While Griffin said the fund isn’t just
meant for rural areas, some experts who work with water believe
the benefits can greatly help many rural communities.
Arizona may be facing its first official declaration of water
shortage next year, a move that would trigger water cutbacks of
512,000 acre-feet — almost 20% of Arizona’s Colorado River
entitlement — affecting mainly agricultural users. The
24-Month Study on the Colorado River system, released this
month by the Bureau of Reclamation, projects that in
June water levels in Lake Mead will fall below 1,075 feet
for the first time, which would put the state in a Tier 1
shortage.
After back-to-back dry winters, two of the Bay Area’s biggest
water agencies on Tuesday moved forward with plans to urge the
public to reduce water use to avoid shortages this year. But
for now, they are using a carrot rather than a stick, saying
they have enough water to get by without resorting to fines,
water cops and strict rules. The Santa Clara Valley Water
District, based in San Jose, voted Tuesday night to double the
amount of money it pays homeowners to replace their lawns with
drought-tolerant landscaping, from $1 a square foot to $2, and
to expand the maximum amount it will pay per household from
$2,000 to $3,000 under the conservation program.
The competing needs of different protected fish species are
pitting the Klamath Tribes against the federal government in a
court battle with legal implications for Oregon irrigators. The
Klamath Tribes are seeking an injunction to scale back how much
water the federal government can release from Upper Klamath
Lake to the detriment of endangered sucker species that inhabit
it. … The bureau has prioritized flows in the Klamath
river to benefit threatened coho salmon, jeopardizing the
survival of the suckers by allowing the lake to fall below
levels needed to sustain them…
Hunter Farms in Atwater is bracing for a second straight year
of drought. Scott Hunter grows almonds and pistachios but won’t
plant as many pumpkins this time around…. Hunter hopes his
surface water deliveries will be enough to keep the crops
going. During the last extended drought, he had to pump
groundwater as deliveries started to dry up. Scott is
frustrated by the state’s inability to establish a stable water
system for farmers and communities….
While a decades-long battle over one major dam and river
diversion in northern Colorado appeared to end last week,
environmental groups signaled another fight will go on longer
as they filed an appeal meant to undermine Denver Water’s Gross
Dam expansion. The environmental coalition Monday asked
the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review a dismissal of
their case by a federal district court and order a trial on the
merits of their claims about the dangers of adding 131 feet to
the height of Gross Reservoir Dam. They argue federal review
agencies neglected species-protection laws and other guidelines
when handing Denver Water a permit for Gross.
At this point, it seems like almost a given that California
will see another historic fire season. A meager rainy season is
in the rearview mirror. Snowpack is depleted. Vegetation and
soils are parched. … But there are still some key variables
that haven’t yet taken shape. Weather events, human behavior
and even luck will dictate whether 2021 goes down in the record
books like 2020, when California wildfires burned an area
larger than the state of Connecticut.
California’s continuing failure to adopt a comprehensive water
strategy is exacerbating its looming drought crisis. For nearly
two decades, the state has put its focus on dam projects and
the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta tunnel fiasco. The
primary aim is creating new ways of diverting additional water
to Central Valley farmers at the expense of the fragile,
over-tapped Delta, which supplies about one-third of the Bay
Area’s fresh water supply. There’s a better approach. President
Biden’s infrastructure plan calls for $50 billion to ease the
West’s drought crisis by heavily investing in water efficiency
and recycling programs.
The Marin Municipal Water District on April 20 enacted a series
of water conservation rules, including banning home car washes,
no watering of outdoor lawns between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., and no
refilling decorative pools or fountains. A day later,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency for
the Russian River watershed in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
Marin County borders Sonoma. Newsom chose to make the
declaration in those two counties only, rather than statewide,
as some officials and farmers in the agricultural-rich Central
Valley had hoped. But Newsom said a broader drought declaration
could come as conditions change.
California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from
siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San
Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead
brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the
state. The draft cease-and-desist order, which still
requires approval from the California Water Resources Control
Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between
the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for
years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the
expense of local communities and ecosystems.
With a snowpack at 20-percent of normal, as of April 1, Inyo
County and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power begin
a month of discussion over the proposed pumping plan for the
2021-22 run-off year. LADWP intends to pump from 64,600 to
78,980 acre-feet of water from well fields in the Owens Valley.
Inyo’s Water Commission will meet this evening at 6 p.m. for
its initial discussion of the plan, laid out with proposed
volumes from Laws to Lone Pine.
Along the Oregon-California border, the Klamath River Basin is
a crucial water source for Indigenous tribes, endangered
species, and farmers. This year, though, there is simply not
enough to go around. The Western US is enduring another
major drought, and the Klamath River Basin is at a historic
low. This resulted in different groups being forced to compete
and make their case for why water, now precious and scarce,
should be diverted to their needs. It’s a stark reminder of the
tough, no-win decisions that citizens will continue to face
amid the worsening climate crisis.
The first automated dust-on-snow monitoring technology in the
mountains of Northwest Colorado is expected to be installed
this fall to study the impact of dust from arid landscapes on
downwind mountain ecosystems in the state and in Utah. McKenzie
Skiles, who is a hydrologist and a University of Utah assistant
professor, will use close to $10,000 from a National Science
Foundation grant to purchase four pyranometers, which measure
solar radiation landing on, and reflected by, snow.
Living in California means living with droughts – there’s no
getting around it. The devastating 2014-15 drought
resulted in water shortages for our communities, farms and the
environment, prompting California’s water leaders and
decision-makers to implement early planning, improved
collaboration, added conservation measures and new local supply
projects to help balance the water needs of people and fish in
preparing for the drought that is currently before us.
… Let’s improve storage and conveyance so we can better
manage our fluctuating and unpredictable climate. -Written by Chandra Chilmakuri, assistant general
manager of the State Water Contractors.
California is in the second year of a drought. Governor Newsom
this week made his first drought declaration. Just how dry is
this drought, so far? What are some likely
implications? And what might State and local governments
do about it?
News of drought and climate change impacts on Arizona’s water
supplies has become more alarming with the release of each new
study. To prepare for a drier future, Arizona will need an
informed public. For help in understanding the state’s water
management situation, a brief new reference work is now
available from the University of Arizona Water Resources
Research Center.
A storm system is bringing rain to the Valley and snow to the
High Sierra. Several inches of snow accumulation are expected
by the time the storm is through. There was light snowfall in
Shaver Lake Sunday evening, but not much was sticking.
… The National Weather Service in Hanford said even
though this storm is bringing in snow in the High Sierra, it
will not make a dent in the precipitation deficit we’ve been
seeing.
As yet another season of drought returns to California, the
mood has grown increasingly grim across the vast and fertile
San Joaquin Valley. Renowned for its bounty of dairies, row
crops, grapes, almonds, pistachios and fruit trees, this
agricultural heartland is still reeling from the effects of the
last punishing drought, which left the region geologically
depressed and mentally traumatized. Now, as the valley braces
for another dry spell of undetermined duration, some are openly
questioning the future of farming here, even as legislative
representatives call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a drought
emergency.
The Colorado River cuts through the Grand Canyon, providing
water for about 40 million people and 5 and a half million
acres of farmland. To some, the water is as valuable as
oil. In 1922, the seven U.S. states through which the
river flows signed onto the Colorado River Compact, a
water-sharing agreement that divvies up the river’s annual
flow. The water must be shared equally between Upper Basin
states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico; and the Lower
Basin: California, Arizona and Nevada. There’s been infighting
ever since.
On Earth Day, the California Coastal Commission conditionally
approved a general management plan for a 28,700-acre federally
owned park in the San Francisco Bay Area — a plan vehemently
opposed by conservationists because it calls for killing native
tule elk in an area where thousands of acres of federal land
are leased to small dairy and cattle beef farmers.
… Last year, an estimated one-third of one the
tule elk herds died due to malnutrition, likely
exacerbated by drought conditions which decimated the animals’
foraging habitat at Point Reyes.
It has taken until the end of the second straight historically
dry winter, but California and its vast network of urban and
agricultural water suppliers, including those on the parched
North Coast, are now ramping up to confront the drought that is
tightening its grip on the state. Sonoma County
supervisors are set on Tuesday to proclaim a drought emergency,
becoming the first local government to take formal action on a
burgeoning water crisis that Gov. Gavin Newsom highlighted
Wednesday.
