An ecosystem includes all of the living organisms (plants,
animals and microbes) in a given area, interacting with each
other, and also with their non-living environments (air, water
and soil).
Ecosystems are dynamic and are impacted by disturbances such as a
drought, an extraordinarily freezing winter, and pests.
Longer-term disturbances include climate change effects.
Ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which
people depend. Ecosystem management emphasizes managing natural
resources at the level of the ecosystem itself and not just
managing individual species.
The California Legislature was the first in the country to
protect rare plants and animals through passage of the California
Endangered Species Act in 1970. Congress followed suit in 1973 by
passing the federal Endangered Species Act.
Marin County plans to reroute a Bolinas Lagoon creek as part of
an effort to prevent flooding along Highway 1, prepare for
sea-level rise and restore habitat for threatened species. The
county’s Bolinas Lagoon Wye Wetlands Project aims to redirect
Lewis Gulch Creek closer to its historic route and raise a
nearby road to allow the creek more room to wind and flow
during winter storms. The project would also restore
floodplains at the northern end of the 1,100-acre Bolinas
Lagoon that were lost over more than a century as wetlands made
way for roads and pastures.
It was a Friday in late August when four jet boats made their
way up the Klamath River under a cloudless blue sky. The boats
carried three tribal chairs. From the Karuk Tribe, there was
Russell “Buster” Attebery, who’d found pride as a boy catching
salmon from the river and bringing them home to his family, and
later come to believe some tribal youth’s troubles — from
suicides to substance use — could be traced back to their never
having had that opportunity, growing up alongside a river now
choked with algae and diminishing fish populations.
A mass tree dieback has spread through the East Bay hills and
Peninsula over the last several months, affecting both native
and nonnative trees. … The first eight months of
the 2020-2021 rainfall year constitute one of the driest starts
on record in the Bay Area, and the last two years together are
on track to be the second driest two-year stretch dating back
to 1850 in San Francisco … Last year was also the
warmest ever recorded in California. But the nature and spread
of the tree dieback made researchers suspect more than just
drought as the killer.
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors today approved an
agreement that adds the Cordua Irrigation District to the
historic Lower Yuba River Accord, a model water management
agreement that supports endangered salmon and steelhead,
ensures water supplies for cities and farms and reduces
conflict over water use.
Often the value of a plan or project can best be judged by its
opposition. In the case of the proposed Poseidon desalination
plant in Huntington Beach, the forces lined up against it are
clear indicators that it’s a worthwhile enterprise. The
Sierra Club calls the plant “rather pathetic,” “the most
expensive and environmentally damaging way to secure Orange
County’s future water supply.” -Written by Kerry Jackson, a fellow in the Center
for California Reform at the Pacific Research
Institute.
One of the first two Native American women to be elected to
Congress, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) is well on her way to being
confirmed as the first Native American to serve as secretary of
the Interior. Last week, Haaland went before the U.S.
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for her
confirmation hearing in which she answered questions for two
days. Today the committee will host a business meeting to
consider the nomination of Haaland and members can vote in
person or by proxy.
Experts in coastal science and policy at UC Santa Cruz are
teaming up with researchers at UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego,
and the U.S. Geological Survey to address the many challenges
of adapting to climate change along California’s coast.
… California’s iconic shoreline, from its communities
and beaches to coastal wetlands and intertidal habitats, is
increasingly threatened by coastal hazards such as extreme
flooding and erosion associated with climate change, sea level
rise, storms, and El Niño events.
A man accused of illegally repairing a levee and damaging
sensitive aquatic habitat in the Suisun Marsh is facing a $2.8
million fine following a California appeals court decision last
month. John Sweeney, who ran a kiteboarding club on Point
Buckler Island in Solano County after buying it in 2011, must
also abide by a clean up and abatement order that requires him
to restore the marshlands and tidal channels damaged during the
levee work.
California will face another critically dry year, and residents
will need to adapt quickly to cope with water shortages and a
warmer, drier climate that has helped fuel destructive
wildfires. Officials with the state’s department of water
resources announced on Tuesday they had found that the water
content of the overall snowpack for 2 March amounted to 61% of
the average. The state’s largest reservoirs were storing
between 38% and 68% of their capacity, officials said, meaning
that the state would have a lot less water to carry it through
the rest of the year.
California water has joined gold, energy and bitcoin as a
commodity whose future value can be traded on a financial
exchange and the first market trades on water futures took
place three months ago. The market, based on values determined
by NASDAQ’s Veles Water Market Index, was hailed by some as a
useful tool so California farmers can reduce the risk of
drought-driven escalation in water costs. It was sharply
criticized by others, from a United Nations representative to
racial justice groups as potentially limiting access to
something essential to life.
Human fingerprints are all over the world’s freshwater. A new
study published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that
while human-controlled freshwater sources make up a minimal
portion of the world’s ponds, lakes, and rivers, they are
responsible for more than half of all changes to the Earth’s
water system. … Climate change already looms large over the
world’s freshwater supply. Major sources of drinking water,
like the Colorado River, have less water and are flowing
more slowly due to climate change—even as they face increasing
demand from our water-hungry farms and cities. Rainfall itself
is becoming more erratic in some locations, such as
California…
As climate change brings an increase in the frequency and
severity of droughts, forest dieback is a key cause for
concern: forests act as reservoirs of biodiversity and also
allow vast amounts of carbon to be stored, reducing the
so-called greenhouse effect. Oak trees, iconic veterans of
European and American forests, have previously been thought to
be highly vulnerable to drought. Now, thanks to a novel
non-invasive optical technique, scientists from INRAE and the
University of Bordeaux in France, with their colleagues from
University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University have
studied a range of oak species in North America to find out
more about their resistance to drought.
A recent global assessment, released by 16 conservation
organizations, of the world’s freshwater fish species found
that nearly a third are at risk of extinction. Overfishing and
climate change are the most significant and pervasive drivers
of the global decline in freshwater biodiversity, but the
blockages created by dams and the introduction of non-native
species have also played significant roles. The news is
distressing, yet CalTrout sees this as a call to action. Our
organization works diligently to ensure resilient wild fish
thrive in healthy waters.
A forecast of relatively low numbers of Sacramento and Klamath
River fall Chinook salmon now swimming in the ocean off
the California coast points to restricted ocean and
river salmon fishing seasons in 2021. State and
federal fishery managers during the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s salmon fishery information on-line meeting
on February 25 forecast an ocean abundance this year of 271,000
adult Sacramento Valley fall Chinook salmon, about 200,000 fish
lower than the 2020 estimate.
California’s rivers, wetlands, and other freshwater ecosystems
are in poor health. Water management practices, pollution,
habitat change, invasive species, and a changing climate have
all taken a toll, leaving many native species in dire straits.
And the current approach for managing freshwater ecosystems is
not working. In this video Jeff Mount, senior fellow at the
PPIC Water Policy Center, discusses the many benefits these
ecosystems bring to California, and outlines a path for
improving their condition to secure these benefits for future
generations.
The southern western pond turtle, San Diego’s only native
freshwater turtle, is becoming rarer and rarer in coastal
Southern California. These pond turtles are competing against
other recently introduced animals such as bullfrogs and
largemouth bass, and especially released pets such as other
turtles. Do NOT release pet turtles, or any other type of pet,
into the wild as they often eat the smaller southern western
pond turtle’s natural food and even their hatchlings, said Ms.
Mallory Lindsay of Ms. Mallory Adventures. Other non-native
turtle species can be found in the region such as snapping
turtles, softshell turtles, and red-eared sliders.
Water may be life, but most residents of Southern California do
not often reflect on the complex series of canals, pumps, and
pipelines that connect where they live to water sources like
the Colorado River, the Sierras, or the numerous water basins
under LA County. Even less appreciated is the role water
districts play in combining water sources, treating our water,
and distributing it. Major water districts influence water
quality and rates. They decide how to meet future water needs
in an era of drought and climate change. These agencies
determine if your water comes from sustainable local sources
like conservation and recycling or from desert-damaging water
mining projects like Cadiz.
One of the key issues on the table—highlighted in the CalTrout
and UC Davis Report, SOS II: Fish in Hot Water—is that on our
current trajectory, it’s predicted that 45% of native
California salmonids will face extinction in the next 50
years. When a species faces imminent extinction – there is
a sense of urgency to act, but recovery programs differ
depending on the species. Because steelhead, the ocean-going
form of Oncorhynchus mykiss, use many areas of a watershed from
ocean to headwaters, there are a range of threats to address
and many stakeholder interests to balance. Making things more
complex, Southern steelhead recovery takes place in the middle
of 20 million people – so a pragmatic approach is essential.
The Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Water Resources
plan to allocate approximately 5 million acre feet of water
this year – as long as California allows them to effectively
drain the two largest reservoirs in the state, potentially
killing most or nearly all the endangered winter-run Chinook
salmon this year, threatening the state’s resilience to
continued dry conditions, and maybe even violating water
quality standards in the Delta.
In honor of Black History Month, the Center for Watershed
Sciences would like to highlight the contributions of Black
scientists in our field. These prominent researchers have not
only pushed the social and scientific boundaries of fisheries
biology, but have also acted as dedicated mentors. We recognize
that scientists of color, and women, experience discrimination
and have had more strenuous journeys to succeed in their
fields. Out of respect for their lived experiences, the focus
of this article is to share their important work, not speak on
behalf of their experiences as scientists of color.
Though the nonprofit tasked with Klamath River dam removal is
about to submit its definite plan to federal regulators, Del
Norte County and the Crescent City Harbor District are still
worried about potential negative impacts. Harbor commissioners
on Thursday agreed to sign onto a memorandum of understanding
that includes the county and the Klamath River Renewal
Corporation. The MOU contains conditions that ensures the
harbor and county can recover potential damages to the port and
the fishing industry that occur as a result of dam removal and
reservoir drawdown on the Klamath River.
Ninety-nine percent of the state is dry, according to ABC Seven
News Meteorologist Mike Nicco. More than half of the state is
in severe drought mode and 31% is in the extreme drought
conditions which includes part of the North Bay. The Bay
Area is abnormally dry right now, but that should have changed
in January and February as they are typically our wettest
months.
California is spending more than $200 million to keep an
unfolding ecological crisis from getting worse. The state wants
to stabilize habitat along the southern bank of the Salton Sea,
the state’s largest lake. That is good news for nearby
residents concerned about their health, but the restoration
could also affect everyone who draws water from the Colorado
River. At issue is the wide swaths of exposed lakebed that have
been uncovered as the thirsty lake’s water evaporates in the
desert air. The lake bottom is typically a deep layer of fine
silt. When covered by water, it poses no risk. But once exposed
to the air, and whipped up by the region’s strong winds, the
dust becomes a major health risk.
Approximately 62 acres of land in Rio Vista, including the
former Army Reserve Center, have been incorporated into
legislation by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Solano, to increase the
boundaries of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National
Heritage Area. This bill, known as House Resolution 1230,
passed in the U.S. House of Representatives Friday and will
move on to the Senate. The bill is an expansion of bicameral
legislation by Garamendi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
that was signed into law in 2019 to provide $10 million for
community-based efforts to preserve the Delta’s cultural
heritage as well as its historical landmarks.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday abandoned
its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling last year that a
sprawling collection of Redwood City salt ponds is protected
from development under provisions of the Clean Water Act. The
move brings to an end the federal government’s attempts —
started during former President Trump’s administration — to end
protections that could have led to development at the site.
Related article:
Southern California’s unarmored three-spine stickleback has
made headlines periodically, most recently over a lawsuit that
was filed on Jan. 18 by the Center for Biological
Diversity against the Trump Administration for allegedly
failing to take measures to protect the endangered fish. What
is the three-spine stickleback and what is going on with the
fish? … The unarmored three-spine stickleback was listed
as endangered in 1970 under the precursor to today’s Endangered
Species Act. Critical habitat was proposed for the species by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1980, but never
designated.
A wetland enhancement project in south Oceanside has been
selected as the recipient of a $1 million federal grant from
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, it was announced Thursday.
The award was issued through the National Coastal Wetlands
Conservation grant program, which funds projects that protect,
restore and enhance coastal wetland ecosystems. The grant will
go toward construction of the first phase of the Loma Alta
Slough Wetlands Enhancement project, which is intended to
restore and enhance six acres of coastal wetland and upland
habitat near Buccaneer Beach.
How do you factor in climate change? It can be a worrisome
question, yet, it’s one that rightfully so demands an answer. A
question that seems to loom over us, especially those who work
within and on behalf of the environment. Yet, it might be
difficult to notice the effects of climate change on Putah
Creek. A walk along the creek exposes you to native riparian
habitat and birds aplenty. Surely, the Chinook salmon return to
their historic spawning habitat along Putah Creek could only
signal a more healthy and stabilized habitat. -Written by Alli Permann, Putah Creek Council Education
Program Assistant.
Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties could play host to
part of the largest new designation of federal wilderness in a
decade if Democratic sponsors of the land-protection package
can find a way through the divided U.S. Senate. A bill
sponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, would designate
257,797 of new acres of wilderness in Northern California while
placing 480 miles of river in the region under the nation’s
strictest environmental protections for waterways.
Michael Preston grew up in the old village site of the Winnemem
Wintu tribe, along the McCloud River in Northern California
where the Shasta Dam has flooded spiritual and cultural lands.
Since the 1940s, the creation of the dam has also blocked the
usual migration of winter-run salmon, effectively endangering
the species. Now, there are proposals to raise the dam by an
additional 18.5 feet, which will cause further destruction.
“Our tribal goal is to bring the salmon back … ” he said,
adding that it’s more than just the fish. With the lack of
salmon, which is a keystone species, other animals, such as
bears, eagles and mountain lions are being starved.
The organization River Partners teamed up with California State
Parks and Butte County Resource Conservation District on
Thursday to host a flood plain restoration and
reforestation event. The event was called the
Bidwell-Sacramento River State Park Riparian Restoration
Project and was held near the Pine Creek Access point of the
Sacramento River in Chico.
[S]cientists were having a hard time telling delta smelt apart
from a fish species from Japan called wakasagi.
… Wakasagi were introduced by the government in the
1950s. There’s no shortage of them here or in Japan. Especially
when they’re young, to the naked eye they look virtually
identical to deltas. They’re so similar, in fact, to the
nearly extinct fish that scientists were worried about
hybridization — that this plentiful species and the delta smelt
would start hooking up, making mixed-species fish babies.
The Eureka City Council is set to consider a letter from the
mayor to the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control, a
subdivision of the California Environmental Protection Agency,
regarding a potential water contamination hazard. The letter is
on the agenda for the March 2 meeting as a consent calendar
item.
San Francisco has long been an international leader on
environmental issues. However, water policy has been a stain on
that record. … Many California rivers are overtapped by
excessive pumping, but few are in worse condition than the
Tuolumne River. In drier years, more than 90% of the Tuolumne’s
water is diverted. On average, 80 percent of the river’s flow
never makes it to the Bay. It’s not a surprise that the river’s
health has collapsed. …
-Written by Bill Martin, a member of the Sierra Club
Bay Chapter Water Committee, and Hunter Cutting, a member
of the Sierra Club Bay Chapter’s San Francisco Group Executive
Committee.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice of intent
today to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking
Endangered Species Act protection for the Clear Lake hitch, a
large minnow found only in Northern California’s Clear Lake and
its tributaries. The Trump administration denied the fish
protection in a December 2020 determination.
The Department of Justice can proceed with its claims that
California violated state law when it changed its water quality
control plan for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta system in federal court, the Ninth Circuit ruled.
Granting a partial stay of the state law claims in federal
court is allowed in limited circumstances, but the federal
government’s actions here don’t amount to the type of forum
shopping that justifies a stay, according to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Former Assemblymember Christy Smith announced that she has been
appointed by Speaker Anthony Rendon to serve on the Delta
Stewardship Council. … The Council was created to advance the
state’s coequal goals for the Delta – a more reliable statewide
water supply and a healthy and protected ecosystem, both
achieved in a manner that protects and enhances the unique
characteristics of the Delta as an evolving place.
California’s desert is littered with remnants of broken dreams
— hidden ghost towns, abandoned mines and rusty remains of
someone’s Big Idea. But nothing looms larger on an abandoned
landscape than the Salton Sea, which languishes in an
overlooked corner of the state. The water shimmers and broils
in the desert like a rebuke: born of human error, made worse by
100 years of neglect and pollution. California’s largest lake
is also one of its worst environmental blights, presenting a
problem so inverted that its toxic legacy intensifies as its
foul water disappears…. The blue-ribbon commission
members, appointed by state agencies, legislators and the
governor, hold
their first meeting today…
On Jan. 28 Defend Ballona Wetlands filed a lawsuit with the Los
Angeles Superior Court against the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife to stop the restoration project in the
Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve and challenge the
environmental impact report. The proposed project is set to
restore and revitalize 640 acres across the wetlands and create
10 miles of bike and footpaths.
Private landowners interested in enhancing, restoring and
protecting wetlands are encouraged to apply for the Wetland
Reserve Easements in California program facilitated by the
Natural Resource Conservation Service.
The San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has decided
to join them, not fight them. Stymied by environmental barriers
and losses in court for 11 years, the large water wholesaler
serving 700,000 residential and business customers from Fontana
to Yucaipa is on the precipice of releasing an environmentally
based plan that would nearly double its supply of water by
diverting billions of gallons from the Upper Santa Ana River,
while mitigating the effects on 20 indigenous fish and bird
species.
As Executive Officer Jessica R. Pearson identified in her
December blog on the Delta Adapts initiative, “social
vulnerability means that a person, household, or community has
a heightened sensitivity to the climate hazards and/or a
decreased ability to adapt to those hazards.” With an eye
toward social vulnerability and environmental justice along
with the coequal goals in mind, we launched our Delta Adapts
climate change resilience initiative in 2018.
Registration is now open for one of our most popular events,
the Water
101 Workshop, to be held this year virtually on the
afternoons of April 22-23. The annual workshop serves as a
refresher for more veteran water professionals and a good
statewide primer for others. Participants will come away with a
deeper understanding of the state’s most precious natural
resource.
A local environmental group is urging the State Water Board to
investigate alleged water diversion from Gaviota Creek, an
action they assert is being done illegally and threatening the
population of endangered Southern Steelhead fish. Coastal
Ranches Conservancy, an environmental protection group that
operates along the Gaviota Coast, sent a petition to the State
Water Board back in June 2020, requesting that officials
examine water removal from Gaviota Creek. The CRC alleges that
the water diversion is happening illegally to provide water to
Gaviota rest stops.
New Frontier Data, the premier data, analytics and technology
firm specializing in the global cannabis industry, in
partnership with Resource Innovation Institute and the Berkeley
Cannabis Research Center, releases Cannabis H2O: Water Use and
Sustainability in Cultivation. The report provides an in-depth
look at water usage in the regulated cannabis cultivation
market and how its use compares to the illicit market and
traditional agricultural sectors. … The report reveals that
the cannabis industry uses significantly less water than other
major agricultural crops in California.
Conservation groups said 80 species were known to have gone
extinct, 16 in the last year alone. Millions of people rely on
freshwater fish for food and as a source of income through
angling and the pet trade. But numbers have plummeted due to
pressures including pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the
damming and draining of rivers and wetlands. The report said
populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in
the last 50 years. Over the same time period, populations of
larger species, known as “megafish”, have crashed by 94%.
The state’s Ocean Protection Council has awarded $1.3 million
to preserving and safeguarding estuary habitat at Elkhorn
Slough, which boasts the second-largest tidal salt marsh in
California. The wetland, once degraded by farming activities
such as diking, is at risk of impacts from climate change —
particularly rising sea levels.
A restoration project for the long-suffering Ballona Wetlands
is moving forward after the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife certified the final Environmental Impact Report for
the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve last year. Years
of neglect, human impact, and development took a toll on the
wetlands for years. The project aims to remove invasive
plants and leftover fill from the development of Marina Del
Rey, re-establish a functioning floodplain, and create natural
levees for flood protection against sea level rise.
Climate change will continue to impact the West, and
particularly its water supply—the many impacts include longer
and more damaging wildfire seasons as well as prolonged
drought. Federal leadership and action are needed to address
the climate crisis. With the 117th Congress now in session,
Audubon is advocating at the federal level for funding and
policy priorities that restore habitat, protect communities,
and support birds through proactive water management and
conservation.
California’s environmental permitting system was developed to
prevent bad things from happening to the environment, but it
often slows efforts to do good things, too. How can California
improve regulatory processes to make them more efficient and
effective? The PPIC Water Policy Center recently discussed
these issues with a group of experts…
Coho salmon have recently been observed higher upstream in
Fortuna’s Rohner Creek than in previous years, thanks in part
to stream and habitat improvements completed last year. Flow
monitoring for fish passage at the 12th Street culvert has been
underway and the results are being finalized according to city
consultant, GHD Civil Engineer Brett Vivyan.
A few weeks after [California's late-January] storm, in early
February, eight scientists with a research consortium called
the Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network, or MARINe, hiked
towards a beach smothered by one of the Big Sur debris flows.
The sour smell of decomposing creatures hit them. A few turkey
vultures nipped at the sand. There were dead sea stars,
chitons, and likely hundreds of dead black abalone. In a
previous visit to this site, scientists were able to count 150
black abalone or “abs” in a small 50-meter area, with hundreds
left uncounted. A fraction of the site’s population remained.
The largest dam removal in United States history is set to take
place along the Klamath River by 2023, but getting to this
point was neither easy nor quick. Water management, especially
in densely populated and water-scarce places like California,
is a challenge from practically every aspect: ownership and
operations of water infrastructure, local politics, maintenance
costs, and sustainability concerns.
Ancient giant redwoods are among the charred survivors in Big
Basin Redwoods State Park after a wildfire last year. Now
rangers and conservationists are developing plans to better
protect them out of fear that the world’s tallest trees may not
survive future blazes that are almost certain to come.
The Department of the Interior today announced additional
members of the agency leadership team working to steward
America’s natural, cultural and historic resources, and honor
our nation-to-nation relationship with Tribes. Among those
named is Daniel Cordalis of Arcata, Calif., who was appointed
Deputy Solicitor, Water.
There are six Mono Lake tributaries to be exact – Rush, Lee
Vining, Parker, Walker, Wilson, and Mill creeks. And the fact
is Mono Lake never had any surplus water; its fullness has
always depended on the amount of water running into it. So as
soon as some of that water was cut off, which began in 1941,
the Lake started to plummet and the entire ecosystem dependent
on those “half a dozen little mountain brooks” soon
followed.
Nearing the 50th anniversary of the federal Clean Water Act,
Assemblyman Robert Rivas held a press conference on Feb. 2 to
discuss the proposed California Clean Water Act, AB 377. The
legislation, co-introduced by Rivas and state Senate Majority
Leader Robert Hertzberg, would work to ensure all rivers,
lakes, oceans and other bodies of water in California are clean
enough for drinking, swimming and fishing purposes by
2050.
The main weather excitement of the season thus far was
certainly the major late January atmospheric event that was the
focus of my last blog post. Despite missing some the details
during the early portion of the event (winds were stronger and
precipitation less intense than originally predicted), the
storm largely evolved as expected–stalling along the Central
Coast and bringing very heavy double-digit rainfall totals
there, as well as extremely heavy snowfall throughout the
Sierra Nevada (on the order of 3-8 *feet* in many places).
Scientists at Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest
Service have demonstrated that DNA extracted from water samples
from rivers across Oregon and Northern California can be used
to estimate genetic diversity of Pacific salmon and trout. The
findings, just published in the journal Molecular Ecology, have
important implications for conservation and management of these
species, which are threatened by human activities, including
those exacerbating climate change.
COVID-19 wasn’t the only thing that made 2020 such a horrific
year. It was also a historically bad year for wildfires across
the United States, to put it mildly. States such as California
and Colorado saw extreme wildfires that lasted for weeks,
turning the sky orange in some of the nation’s largest cities.
In New Mexico, lightning strikes caused a large, out-of-season
fire in the Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF), later named the
Medio Fire, which burned more than 4,000 acres.
Old Man Winter has been busy of late, bringing much-needed
relief to Utah’s dangerously low snowpacks. But don’t let the
piles of fresh snow fool you. After near-record low
precipitation over the past year, Utah water supplies remain in
serious trouble even with the recent return of long-absent wet
weather.
Lower groundwater levels can prevent drainage of water and
salts from a basin and increase aquifer salinity that
eventually renders the groundwater unsuitable for use as
drinking water or irrigation without expensive desalination.
Pauloo et al. (2021) demonstrate this process for the
Tulare Lake Basin (TLB) of California’s Central Valley. Even if
groundwater pumping does not cause overdraft, it can cause
hydrologic basin closure leading to progressive salinization
that will not cease until the basin is opened by allowing
natural or engineered exits for groundwater and dissolved salt.
The process, “Anthropogenic Basin Closure and Groundwater
Salinization (ABCSAL)”, is driven by human water
management.
Less water for the Central Arizona Project — but not zero
water. Even more competition between farms and cities for
dwindling Colorado River supplies than there is now. More
urgency to cut water use rather than wait for seven river basin
states to approve new guidelines in 2025 for operating the
river’s reservoirs. That’s where Arizona and the Southwest are
heading with water, say experts and environmental advocates
following publication of a dire new academic study on the
Colorado River’s future. The study warned that the river’s
Upper and Lower basin states must sustain severe cuts in river
water use to keep its reservoir system from collapsing due to
lack of water. That’s due to continued warming weather and
other symptoms of human-caused climate change, the study said.
Climate change is impacting the whole Earth, including the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. There are some big challenges
ahead as the region changes over the next 30 years. In order to
adapt to a world with increased flooding, drought, wildfire and
intense heat, we need to start by understanding what’s going
on. But where to begin? The Delta Stewardship Council is
hosting a climate resilience scavenger hunt as part of its
Delta Adapts initiative…. Now through Feb. 26,
participants can complete as many activities as possible and
submit their findings online.
Bay Area political leaders and organizations have come together
to encourage the new Biden administration to protect Redwood
City’s salt ponds from future development by withdrawing a
Trump era appeal of a federal district court ruling deeming the
wetlands federally protected.
Wildfires are spreading to fuel-abundant regions of the world
that used to be less prone to burning, according to a new
analysis of 20 years of data by the Guardian. While the overall
area of annual burn in the world has remained relatively static
in this period, the research indicates a shifting regional fire
pattern that is affecting more forests and fewer grasslands. In
recent years, fires have devastated areas of California,
Australia, Siberia and the Pantanal that used to be relatively
unaffected.
Steelhead season is underway in the Central Valley as three
major hatcheries are set to release over 1.1 million fish into
the Feather, American and Mokelumne rivers later this month.
Steelhead are the migratory form of rainbow trout that make
their journey to the Pacific Ocean and return to freshwater
streams.
In two key developments for proposed Lake Nacimiento and Lake
San Antonio water projects, a $17 million state grant for fish
screens as part of the Interlake Tunnel project is in the works
again while a draft engineer’s report for a long list of
maintenance and repair work at the Monterey County-owned
reservoirs has been released.
Despite the challenges of working through a pandemic, river
restoration practitioners continued to pursue dam removal
projects in 2020 to revitalize local economies and communities
and reconnect 624 upstream river miles for fish, wildlife and
river health. Sixty-nine dams were removed in 2020 across 23
states, including: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana,
Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont,
Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
The first few months of this rainfall season were below average
across California, with drought conditions evident statewide.
Although the Golden State received a much-needed soaking in
late January, moderate drought conditions remain across Santa
Clara County. Valley Water remains focused on preparing
for future wet and dry years through various projects and
programs, including the proposed expansion of Pacheco Reservoir
in southern Santa Clara County. -Written by Valley Water Directors, Vice Chair Gary
Kremen, John L. Varela, and Richard P. Santos.
Tuolumne Utilities District will continue to process
applications for new water hookups because its Board of
Directors failed Thursday to reach a determination on future
supply and availability. The TUD board held a special workshop
Thursday to grapple with the oldest challenge in county history
when it comes to water, but the big picture has not changed.
The district relies on the South Fork Stanislaus River
watershed that still provides a limited amount of runoff, an
average of 104,000 acre-feet annually, and typically has access
to less than one-quarter of that.
There has been recent commentary and discussion around a
commodity futures market for water in California. In the
Sacramento Valley, we are not involved in this process; nor are
we participating in these contracts. Although we are not
entirely clear on this market or what is being traded, it is
clear that this new market does not involve real/wet
water–which is our focus in the Sacramento Valley. We will
continue to focus on serving water for cities and rural
communities, farms, fish, birds, other wildlife and recreation.
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors took bold action to
reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and advance
landscape-scale forest restoration in the Yuba River watershed.
In two separate actions, the board approved $6.5 million in
funding for forest restoration projects as part of the North
Yuba Forest Partnership. The partnership is a diverse group of
nine organizations working collaboratively to plan, finance and
implement forest restoration across 275,000 acres of private
and public land spanning Sierra and Yuba counties and two
national forests.
New legislation would ban all fracking in California by 2027,
taking aim at the powerful oil and gas industry in a state
already planning to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars
by 2035. … Environmental groups say [fracking] can cause
significant harm to air quality and water supplies.
For the better part of the last two centuries, the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has been modified in any number of
ways to meet the demands of Californians. But a new
wide-ranging study looks at what might be the most serious
Delta threat that doesn’t come in the form of an excavator –
global warming.
Imposing hefty taxes on speculative water sales, requiring that
water rights purchased by investors be held for several years
before they can be resold, and requiring special state approval
of such sales are three ideas that might help Colorado protect
its water resources from speculators. The ideas were discussed
Wednesday at a meeting of a special work group looking at
whether Colorado needs to strengthen laws preventing Wall
Street investment firms and others from selling water for
profit in ways that don’t benefit the state’s farms, cities and
streams.
Following a disappointing 2019 adult fall run on the Klamath,
2020 proved to be only slightly better. Unfortunately, the
numbers weren’t enough to get us out of the “overfished”
category, and it’s likely we’ll have some severe
restrictions both in the ocean and in the Klamath and Trinity
rivers in 2021. … According to CDFW, the number of returning
fall run kings in 2020 was 45,407, about half the long-term
average. In 2019 only 37,270 adult kings returned. The return
of fall Chinook jacks was 9,037 fish, which is also below the
long-term average of 17,740.
Many of today’s under-resourced communities have no more access
to blue gold (scarce water) than the under-resourced white
residents of the Owens Valley have had since the 1920s. In 1924
greedy public and private water interests transformed the lush
Owen’s Lake into a noxious dust bowl. One of the guilty
parties LADWP (Department of Water and Power), recently
celebrated partial restoration of Owens Lake by constructing a
ghostly monument of granite and sculpted earth in the long
desiccated lake bed. … For many indigenous peoples denied
their rights to water for a century, partial restoration of the
lake without full restoration of their water rights is too
little, too late.
Modern forecasting methods fueled by advances in understanding
and predicting atmospheric river storms have enabled U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE) operators to better optimize water
resources at Lake Mendocino, a Northern California reservoir. A
multi-agency report issued Feb. 4, 2021, describes how
these forecasting tools have helped operators increase the
lake’s dry season stores of drinking water, improve its ability
to alleviate flood risk, and enhance environmental conditions
in the downstream Russian River to support salmonid
species.
Last month in an announcement on Business Wire, the Klamath
River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) and Resource Environmental
Solutions (RES) announced they have signed a contract for RES
to provide restoration services in connection with the removal
of four dams on the Klamath River. The agreement between RES
and KRRC finalizes habitat restoration, maintenance, and
liability transfer responsibilities for a fixed price, opening
the door to a successful restoration of native vegetation and
anadromous fish habitat along the historical, pre-dam path of
the Klamath River.
There is much to see and appreciate in Arizona’s natural
resources. Water flowing through washes, creeks, rivers and
springs sustains life in this hot, dry state. Protecting these
waterways, crucial to all life in a desert environment, is an
important priority for most Arizonans.
-Written by Kristen Wolfe, a coordinator
with Sustainable Water Network.
A pipeline rupture that gushed hundreds of gallons of oil into
the San Francisco Bay spurred a class action filed Tuesday that
accuses a Chevron refinery of prioritizing profits over safety
and threatening the survival of herring in the area for years
to come. … On Feb. 9, a Chevron refinery in the East Bay
city of Richmond, California, discovered a pipeline leak that
oozed about 700 gallons of a substance described
interchangeably by Chevron as “a mixture of recovered oil and
gasoline”, “petroleum and water mixture” and “hydrocarbons.”
Shallow pools of water on lawns are ideal breeding grounds for
the mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus, the most common
mosquito-borne disease in the United States. A new study by
scientists from UCLA and three other universities found that
reducing shallow pools of water where the insects lay their
eggs is key to preventing the spread of the virus. The study
… found that California’s water-use restrictions during
the statewide drought from 2012 to 2016 led to a decrease in
the number of mosquitoes that carry the virus.
The Santa Ana Regional Water Board released a tentative order
Friday detailing proposed revisions to Poseidon Water’s
controversial proposed $1.4-billion water desalination project
in Huntington Beach. The board’s tentative order would make
Poseidon responsible for five mitigation projects, including
four projects within the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and the
restoration of a 41.5-acre rocky reef offshore of Palos
Verdes.
When a storm pummeled the San Diego-Tijuana region two weeks
ago, hundreds of millions of gallons of water laced with raw
sewage, trash and industrial chemicals flowed over the border,
shuttering beaches as far north as Coronado. The shoreline
stink and closures came as no surprise to residents of Imperial
Beach, a city where swimming was prohibited at its main
oceanfront for nearly half of 2020. The beach along Border
Field State Park was closed for 295 days last year. The South
Bay shoreline was partially opened after the recent rains, only
to be abruptly closed again on Wednesday as polluted water
continued to leak out of Tijuana into the Pacific Ocean.
Federal scientists and regulators repeatedly complained they
were sidelined by Donald Trump’s administration when they
warned of risks to wildlife posed by a California water
management plan, according to newly unveiled documents.
Identifying familiar habitats can be beneficial, but which
habitat traits actually matter? A new study examines this
question for juvenile common loons (Gavia immer) in lakes in
northern Wisconsin. In central California we generally see
loons in the winter, mostly in coastal ocean waters and also at
some large reservoirs in Solano and Yolo County. But in summer,
these large birds are icons of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin,
New England, and Canada.
California is poised to begin the first major restoration
project at the Salton Sea. The state is investing more than
$200 million in a project that will create flooded ponds and
other habitats on the exposed lakebed at the southern edge of
the lake.
Scientists studying annual salmon runs in Putah Creek are still
waiting for the absolute proof that fry born in the creek and
leave for the ocean as juveniles are returning to spawn.
However, since identifying one spawning fish in 2017 that was
identified with a Putah Creek-Feather River origin, the
University of California, Davis, and NOAA scientists have been
collecting additional samples each year for analysis.
The Kern County Farm Bureau issued a “call to action” this week
asking local growers and ranchers to participate in a series of
upcoming meetings that will influence the role California’s
agricultural lands will be expected to play, or continue to
play, in fighting climate change.
Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson says the state needs to do
everything it can to protect its share of water in the
drought-challenged Colorado River, and the creation of a new
entity would foster that protection. … He and Senate
President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, are sponsors of the Colorado
River Amendments, HB297, which would set up the Colorado River
Authority of Utah with $9 million in one-time money and
$600,000 of ongoing money.
Emergency crews in Richmond, California, are rushing to clean
up an estimated 600 gallons of oil that spilled from a Chevron
refinery into the San Francisco Bay. Details on the spill are
still scant, but the emergency has reinvigorated calls from
residents and environmentalists for the city to change its
relationship with the refinery.
In the Pacific Northwest, several species of salmon are in
danger of extinction. The Washington State Recreation and
Conservation Office has released a report on the
state of salmon populations in the state’s watersheds — and the
findings predict a grim future. … The population changes
aren’t surprising to [scientist Daniel] Pauly. “This is what
happens when temperature increases,” he said. “The fish are
looking for the temperatures that they are attuned to, and if
those temperatures are farther north, they move farther north.
If you make a map from high arctic Alaska to California, the
salmon stocks in California are essentially dead.”
Trees benefit residents in communities around the world by
mitigating pollution and other environmental impacts of
contemporary society and by broadly improving livability in
cities and towns. However, many locales are feeling the heat as
urban, or community, forests—defined by the U.S. Forest Service
as “the aggregate of all public and private vegetation and
green space within a community that provide a myriad of
environmental, health and economic benefits”—struggle against a
multitude of stressors stemming from climate change. …
[H]eat, megadroughts, and shifts in the amounts and timing of
precipitation are changing water availability—all contributing
to a looming urban tree crisis.
In the five years since Colorado’s Water Plan took effect, the
state has awarded nearly $500 million in loans and grants for
water projects, cities have enacted strict drought plans,
communities have written nearly two dozen locally based stream
restoration plans, and crews have been hard at work improving
irrigation systems and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
But big challenges lie ahead — drought, population growth,
accelerating climate change, budget cuts, wildfires and
competing demands for water, among others.
There’s a race on in California, and each day matters: the
precipitation during winter that fuels the snowpack in the
Sierra Nevadas and fills groundwater supplies has been slow to
start, and faltering at best. Northern California remains stuck
in one of the worst two-year rainfall deficits seen since the
1849 Gold Rush, increasing the risk of water restrictions and
potentially setting up dangerous wildfire conditions next
summer. The current precipitation is only 30% to 70% of what
the state would expect to have seen during a normal year – with
no more big rainfall events on the horizon for February.
A Northern California water users’ association has filed a
motion against a $450 million plan to tear down four dams on
the Klamath River they claim irrevocably hurts local
homeowners. The motion was filed with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) last Wednesday by the Murphy and
Buchal Law firm on behalf of the Siskiyou County Water Users
Association. It claims the interstate agreement reached by
Oregon and California last year to remove the dams has incurred
“irreparable damage” to lakefront home values in the COPCO Lake
area as water levels are feared to decline.
It might be hard to imagine that it has already been more than
five years since we exited the extreme dry years of 2014 and
2015. At that time, local, state and federal water managers
were taking unprecedented actions in response to the dry
conditions to maximize beneficial uses and every Californian
was feeling the impact of multiple dry years. … In their
blog earlier this year, Fritz Durst and Brent Hastey outlined
much of the work that has occurred since 2015 to prepare
for the next dry year. In addition to those actions, we also
have worked to better identify the timing and quantity of water
needed during dry years to maximize habitat benefits with
limited resources.
Save the Redwoods League today announced the successful
protection of Mailliard Ranch, a 14,838-acre property in
southern Mendocino County and the largest coast redwood forest
left in private family hands. The $24.7 million project secures
three conservation easements across the entire property, which
safeguard the land from subdivision and development, regardless
of future ownership. In addition to protecting sustainable
working forests across nearly 14,000 acres, the easement
protects nearly 1,000 acres of reserves, including old-growth
coast redwoods, mature mixed-conifer forest and salmon-bearing
streams.
As long as people have lived in Pasadena, water has been an
essential element for the life-style, health and economy of our
region. Now, however, Pasadena faces a severe water crisis.
This never has been an easy need to resolve, but population,
growth and climate change have made the development of a
sustainable or resilient water program an even greater
necessity for the future. It’s not just a challenge
for Pasadena, but also for all of California, and even the
nation. -Written by Tim Brick, the Managing Director of the Arroyo
Seco Foundation.
An organic food company has committed $750,000 to studying a
sustainable farming strategy in the Sacramento Valley.
Cascadian Farm, a manufacturer of cereal, granola, granola bars
and frozen vegetables, announced the partnership with The
Nature Conservancy last week. The money will fund a trial on a
strategy that could turn working farmland into wildlife
habitat, regenerate groundwater and reduce flood risk.
The Chevron refinery in Richmond is investigating an oil spill
Tuesday afternoon, according to city and county officials. The
spill happened in what’s called the “Long Wharf” off Point
Richmond, where a sheen can be seen on the top of the water at
Bear Point.
A question I get asked on occasion is: Why all this fuss about
endangered delta smelt when there is another smelt that looks
just the same that can takes its place? The smelt being
referenced is the wakasagi (Hypomesus nipponensis), which is
indeed similar to the delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus).
In fact, both species were once thought to be a single species
(H. olidus), the pond smelt, with populations scattered along
the Pacific Rim, from California to Japan.
The Klamath Basin’s snowpack forecast isn’t looking so hot this
month, but it’s still too early to tell whether water year
2021’s luck will change. The Natural Resources Conservation
Service released its February outlook report last week,
reporting below average precipitation and snowpack in river
basins across Oregon. Though January did bring several winter
storms to the region, warmer-than-normal temperatures caused
them to dump more rain than snow on mountains, melting some of
the powder that had already accumulated in some areas of the
state.
[Professor John] Melack and Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Jeff Dozier of UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science
& Management have released “Lakes and Watersheds in the Sierra
Nevada of California,” which synthesizes over 40 years of
research on the mountains. Along with coauthors James Sickman
and Steven Sadro, at UC Riverside and UC Davis, respectively,
Melack and Dozier set out a comprehensive account of the
hydrology, ecology and biogeochemistry of California’s
snow-capped range.
State Water Board Member Tam Doduc believes the board will
approve a Bay-Delta Plan that includes voluntary agreements
with agricultural water interests.
Environmentalist groups aiming to stop a major controversial
housing development at the edge of Newark’s wetlands are
appealing an Alameda County court decision that would allow the
project to go forward, marking the latest volley in a
decades-long fight over the best use for the land. The Citizens
Committee to Complete the Refuge and the Center for Biological
Diversity … said the development “would contribute to
the loss of Bay wetlands and wildlife habitat,” such as the
endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, and could worsen flooding
in nearby areas.
Forests in the Sierra‒Cascade headwater region have
dramatically changed over the past 150 years. The prohibition
of Indigenous burning, aggressive wildfire suppression, and
early timber harvest practices made these forests denser over
time, increasing their vulnerability to catastrophic wildfires
and widespread tree-die off. These forests are a dominant
feature on the landscape, occupying nearly 40% of the 15
million acre headwater region overall and well over half of
some northern watersheds. Changing the way we manage these
forests can improve their health and make them more resilient
to wildfire, drought, and disease.
With Democratic New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland poised to become
the first Native American Interior secretary, tribal
governments historically marginalized by the agency expect not
only a greater respect for their autonomy, but also a more
significant role in the nation’s land and water management
decisions.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday released the
final rule for its Agricultural Conservation Easement Program,
or ACEP, which enables agricultural producers and private
landowners to protect farmlands, grasslands, and wetlands with
conservation easements. The rule updates ACEP as directed by
the 2018 Farm Bill and incorporates public comments made on an
interim rule.
Shortly after taking office two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom
promised to deliver a massive compromise deal on the water
rushing through California’s major rivers and the
critically-important Delta — and bring lasting peace to the
incessant water war between farmers, cities, anglers and
environmentalists. … [C]oming to an agreement as promised
will require Newsom’s most artful negotiating skills. He’ll
have to get past decades of fighting and maneuvering, at the
same time California is continuing to recover from the worst
wildfire season in modern state history and a pandemic that has
since killed more than 42,000 state residents.
Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop may not see any more rain until
March. The long-range forecast by Accuweather based off of
National Weather Service modeling underscores the fact
California isn’t out of the woods when it comes to the
potential for 2021 being a drought year even with the recent
heavy storms that dumped significant snow in the Sierra. The
rest of the month is expected to see weather that has daily
highs in the mid-60s to the low 40s with no rain anticipated
until March 1.
The Klamath River Renewal Corporation last week signed an
agreement with Resource Environmental Solutions, a Texas-based
ecological restoration company, to provide restoration services
following the removal of four dams on the Klamath River. The
agreement with RES brings North Coast tribes one step closer to
their decades-long goal of dam removal.
During the summer of 2020, American Rivers and partners
completed the restoration of three small meadows in the Upper
West Walker River Watershed. The meadows – Upper Sardine, Lower
Sardine, and Cloudburst – are located at around 8,500 feet in
elevation on the east side of Sonora Pass in the Eastern
Sierra. Historic land use, especially unregulated
grazing, resulted in degradation in these three
meadows. Heavy grazing can result in soil compaction and
erosion that can be self-perpetuating. When meadows
are degraded, they are less resilient and
therefore more prone to further damage.
For years, Gamble Vineyards has worked to create a more
biodiverse habitat on vineyard land, including establishing
animal sanctuaries throughout the property and donating acreage
to the Napa River Restoration project. Now the river’s growing
beaver population is chewing the trees that Gamble has planted
over the last 20 years.
Cascadian Farm, a pioneering brand in the organic movement,
announced its commitment of $750,000 to The Nature Conservancy
to help rebuild farmland in California’s Sacramento Valley. The
two-year investment will focus on partnering with farmers to
rebuild wildlife habitat and regenerate groundwater on more
than 25 million square feet, equal to 600 acres of farmland, in
this key sourcing region for the brand.
The major Northern California waterways may be getting a
renewed lease on their ecological and economic lives, as
federal support for protection and restoration of the San
Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary could nearly double in coming years
following enactment last month of the Protect and Restore
America’s Estuaries Act. As one of 28 “estuaries of national
significance” eligible for funding through the new law, the San
Francisco Estuary and other estuaries along every U.S. coast
each may now receive as much as $1 million a year in federal
aid…
The start of California’s annual rainy season has been pushed
back from November to December, prolonging the state’s
increasingly destructive wildfire season by nearly a month,
according to new research. The study cannot confirm the shift
is connected to climate change, but the results are consistent
with climate models that predict drier autumns for California
in a warming climate, according to the authors.
Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), Senate Majority
Leader Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) and California Coastkeeper
Alliance introduced the California Clean Water Act, Assembly
Bill 377, legislation that will put California back on track to
eliminate impaired waterways and make all waters statewide
suitable for conversion to drinking water, swimming, and
fishing by 2050.
While wetter streets and a greener White House may offer San
Franciscans some hope for the future, the situation remains
dire for salmon in the Tuolumne River. … [I]t’s hard not to
feel that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s water
policies are partially to blame. Californians are significantly
reducing or eliminating dependence on river water. But the
SFPUC continues to side with agricultural users to fight
limitations on the water it takes from the Tuolumne. -Written by Robyn Purchia, an environmental attorney,
blogger and activist
DK Environmental announced its tule removal service for water
systems of all sizes throughout California. The company uses
amphibious aquatic maintenance equipment to clear blocked
waterways. DK Environmental, an aquatic vegetation removal
company based in Los Gatos, California, announced its tule
removal service. … Aimed at responsibly reducing problematic
tule that grows abundantly in California’s marshes, DK
Environmental’s tule removal service relies on its fleet of
amphibious aquatic maintenance equipment to clear tule from
water systems of all sizes, from large lakes to small ponds.
In an act of cultural appreciation, two open spaces in Redding
are being renamed using the native Wintu language. What has
been known as the Henderson Open Space along the bank of the
Sacramento River in the heart of the city will now be known as
“Nur Pon Open Space.” About $5-million have been spent in the
area in the last 10 years, including the construction of a
salmon spawning channel.
A California agricultural developer has agreed to pay a civil
penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act
(CWA) on property near the Sacramento River in Tehama County,
California. The developer must also preserve streams and
wetlands, effect mitigation, and be subject to a prohibitive
injunction, according to the Department of Justice. Roger J.
LaPant Jr. originally purchased the property in 2011 and sold
it in 2012 to Duarte Nursery Inc. which sold it that same year
to Goose Pond Ag Inc.
Sacramento, at least, is excited about Washington’s new climate
direction. Jared Blumenfeld and Wade Crowfoot head California’s
environmental protection and natural resources agencies,
respectively. Last week, they discussed with KQED’s Kevin Stark
what the change from the Trump to Biden administrations might
mean for California. … The president’s order to triple
protected land and waterways across the country should also
infuse the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management with badly needed funds.
Migratory birds have followed the same flight patterns for
millennia, searching for abundant food resources. The journey
is often risky, and birds undergo harsh weather patterns—from
storms that can throw them off course to dry arid landscapes
that provide little to no food resources. A new study published
this week in Ornithological Applications found tens of millions
of birds depend on the river and wetland habitats weaved within
the Colorado River Delta and California’s Central Valley while
they make their journey across the dry western landscapes,
reports Corryn Wetzel for Audubon.
On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we are
speaking with Sacramento Bee environment reporter Ryan Sabalow
about his five part investigation, Nothing Wild: California’s
relationship with the animal kingdom is broken. Can it be
fixed? Invasive grasses are causing fires to explode, thousands
of water birds are dying miserable deaths, and the sage grouse
is at risk of disappearing forever. Sabalow explores
California’s ecological crisis and our relationship with its
wild places.
Flooding rains and record snow in California last week marked
another extreme swing of the state’s climate pendulum. The
widespread downpours triggered mudslides that damaged
homes and roads near some of the huge fire scars from last
summer, and also brought some of the water the state
will need to end a months-long hot and dry streak and
douse a record-setting wildfire season that extended into
January. ….It could get worse. Stronger atmospheric rivers
are part of California’s “whiplash” climate future…
Why should we care about wetlands? Although wetlands
cover less than 4% of the Earth’s surface, 40% of all
animal species live or reproduce in them. One-third of all
organic matter on our planet is stored in places
like the gigantic Pantanal wetland in western
Brazil, the Sudd floodplain in southern Sudan or
the Wasjugan Marsh in western Siberia. Wetlands
filter, store and supply the planet with water and food
— more than a billion people worldwide depend on
them for sustenance. They also play a key role
in regulating the planet’s climate…
Dry conditions are the worst they’ve been in almost 20 years
across the Colorado River watershed, which acts as the drinking
and irrigation water supply for 40 million people in the
American Southwest. As the latest round of federal
forecasts for the river’s flow shows, it’s plausible, maybe
even likely, that the situation could get much worse this year.
Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to
climate scientists throughout the basin. We called several of
them and asked for discrete numbers that capture the current
state of the Colorado River basin.
The organization tasked with removing four dams on the Klamath
River has contracted with Resource Environmental Solutions to
spearhead habitat restoration work. The Bellaire, Texas firm
will be the lead restoration contractor for the project led by
the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. In hiring RES, KRRC
meets federal and state permitting requirements, according to a
Friday news release from Business Wire.
The Delta Conservancy has launched a new initiative aimed at
fixing all these problems — carbon emissions, soil subsidence,
and water security — at the same time. Called the Delta Carbon
Program, the initiative entails a two-pronged solution. First,
subsided islands are flooded, protecting them from the air and
so arresting further soil and carbon loss. Then the newly
inundated islands are re-vegetated with water-loving plants
that rebuild peat, reversing subsidence and so reducing the
risk of levee failure.
Two new lawsuits filed Thursday are challenging the legality of
the State of California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s
approval of a major project that could harm the Ballona
Wetlands and the abundance of diversity of species there.
Additionally, climate impacts and flood risk are significant
issues not adequately addressed by this proposed huge
industrial alteration.
Eight months after a bacterial outbreak in CDFW fish hatcheries
led to the massive depletion of stocks, state fisheries
biologists are still working hard on recovery efforts and a
plan to stock California’s waters for anglers in 2021 and
beyond.
State engineers in the Arkansas River basin are beginning to
crack down on more than 10,000 ponds without legal water
rights, which they say are harming senior rights holders. Last
month, Colorado’s Division of Water Resources in Division 2
rolled out a new pond-management plan, which they say will help
relieve pressure in the over-appropriated basin by restoring
water to senior rights holders. The first step was mailing on
Jan. 14 informational brochures to 317 pond owners. Even though
the ponds targeted in this effort may have existed for many
decades, they don’t have a legal right on the books to divert
and store the water.
Water suppliers along the drought-stricken Colorado River hope
to tackle another tricky issue after the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation installs a new leader: salty water. The river
provides water for 40 million people from Colorado to
California, and helps irrigate 5.5 million acres of farm and
ranchland in the U.S. But all that water also comes with 9
million tons of salt that flow through the system as it heads
to Mexico, both due to natural occurrence and runoff, mostly
from agriculture. Salt can hurt crop production, corrode
drinking water pipes, and cause other damage.
Desert dwellers out for a refreshing splash in Whitewater River
on a hot day may give no thought to the higher source of their
recreation. The headwaters of the river’s South Fork lie a mere
100 feet below the 11,503-foot peak of Mount San Gorgonio in
the Sand to Snow National Monument. … Five years ago
this month, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation
establishing the 154,000-acre Sand to Snow National Monument.
Three years later to the day, the U.S. Senate passed Dianne
Feinstein’s California Desert Protection and Recreation Act,
which added sections of the
snowmelt-and-spring-fed Whitewater River to the
National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug
against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes,
pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay
of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these
orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a
multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But
that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has
depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded
ecosystems. The land is literally sinking…
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) completed its yearly
post-holiday tradition of recycling Christmas trees into prime
habitat for fish species at Lake Oroville and the Thermalito
Afterbay. DWR’s Oroville Field Division and their local
partners collect the trees and bundle them together as habitat
structures that provide juvenile fish shelter to conceal
themselves from predators. Providing these small fish with safe
refuge areas boosts their chance of survival, thereby
increasing fish populations in Lake Oroville and the Thermalito
Afterbay.
The San Bernardino kangaroo rat and the Santa Ana River woolly
star thrive in areas with frequent flooding. But decades of
mining — and the construction of ditches, pipeline crossings,
levees and a bridge — had cut off water flow and made their
environment unlivable.
San Francisco Bay is dwarfed by the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound
and other treasured estuaries when it comes to federal funding,
and California lawmakers want that changed. On Thursday, a
contingent of Bay Area members of Congress introduced
legislation that would boost federal money tenfold for
restoration of the region’s signature waters. Under the
proposal, $50 million a year for five years would flow to bay
projects that reduce water pollution, support wildlife, revive
wetlands and protect shoreline communities from sea level rise.
Acid rain seems to be a thing of the past, yet sulfate
continues to rise in many inland waters worldwide. Researchers
led by the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland
Fisheries (IGB) and the Danish University of Aarhus provide an
overview of the sources of sulfate and its effects on
freshwater ecosystems. They point out that the negative
consequences for ecosystems and drinking water production have
so far only been perceived regionally and recommend that
sulfate be given greater consideration in legal environmental
standards.
As we welcome the Biden and Harris administration to the White
House and a new California legislature into session, CalTrout
has taken some time to reflect and prepare for 2021. … We
have already seen glimpses of changes and good news: the
omnibus bill, passed in late 2020, offered restoration funding
for a key watershed. The executive orders signed on January
20th seek to restore science as our guiding light, and CalTrout
has an ambitious California advocacy agenda for 2021.
Jeff Lukas calls the Colorado the “charismatic megafauna of
Western rivers.” This riverine equivalent of grizzly bears,
bald eagles, and humpback whales gets lots of attention,
including national attention. Some of that attention is
deserved. It has the nation’s two largest reservoirs, among the
nation’s tallest dams, and many of the most jaw-dropping
canyons and eye-riveting national parks in the country. It also
has 40 million to 50 million people in Colorado and six other
southwestern states, plus Mexico, who depend upon its water,
and a history of tensions that have at times verged on the
political equivalent of fist-fights.
California researchers now investigating the source of [the
Sacramento River's Chinook] salmon’s nutritional problems find
themselves contributing to an international effort to
understand thiamine deficiency, a disorder that seems to be on
the rise in marine ecosystems across much of the planet. It’s
causing illness and death in birds, fish, invertebrates, and
possibly mammals, leading scientists from Seattle to
Scandinavia to suspect some unexplained process is compromising
the foundation of the Earth’s food web by depleting ecosystems
of this critical nutrient.
The official salmon count for Putah Creek revealed just 140
individuals for the winter run. That was down from 550 reported
last year and close to the same number the year before that,
and is considerably lower than the peak of nearly 2,000 fish
during the 2017 run. One count put the number for the 2019
report at closer to 1,500 fish.
Today, 95% of the Central Valley’s historical floodplains are
cut off from the river by levees. Built in the early 1900s to
combat devastating floods, levees and bypasses were constructed
to corral mighty rivers and push water quickly through the
system. Even before invasive species, large rim dams, and Delta
water export facilities were introduced into the system, salmon
populations started to dramatically decline with the
construction of the levees. Simply put, the levees prevented
Chinook salmon from accessing their primary food source.
[T]he decades-long effort to remove four hydroelectric dams
that clog the upper Klamath River should be seen not simply
through an environmental and economic lens but also a social
justice one, according to Craig Tucker, a natural resources
consultant for the Karuk Tribe.
If you look deep into the eyes of a fish, it will tell you its
life story. Scientists from the University of California,
Davis, demonstrate that they can use stable isotopic analysis
of the eye lenses of freshwater fish—including threatened and
endangered salmon—to reveal a fish’s life history and what it
ate along the way. They conducted their study, published today
in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, through
field-based experiments in California’s Central Valley. The
study carries implications for managing floodplains, fish and
natural resources; prioritizing habitat restoration efforts;
and understanding how landscape disturbances impact fish.
U.S. Reps. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert, and Juan Vargas,
D-San Diego reintroduced a bill this week that is aimed at
cleaning up the New River, a highly polluted waterway
originating near Mexicali, Mexico that flows
north, emptying into the Salton Sea. The bill, HR491,
would direct the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create
an organization to be called the California New River
Restoration Program, which would coordinate funding and cleanup
projects.
The biologists working in a fish hatchery near Shasta Dam grew
increasingly concerned last year when newly hatched salmon fry
began to act strangely — swimming around and around, in tight,
corkscrewing motions, before spiraling to their deaths at the
bottom of the tanks. … [S]cientists eventually unlocked part
of the mystery: The fish had a deficiency of thiamine, or
vitamin B1.
The Colorado River District will spend the first $1 million in
partner project funds made possible from a recent tax approval
to help pay for a Grand County effort to address environmental
impacts from a reservoir. The district board last week approved
the contribution to a $23.5 million project for a channel to
reconnect the Colorado River where the Windy Gap Reservoir
blocks its flow.
Each spring and fall, an estimated 1 billion birds migrate
through the Pacific Flyway, which snakes down from Alaska,
along the West Coast of the United States and Mexico,
and into South America. … Now new research reveals what
has been long-suspected but never confirmed: California’s
Central Valley and the Colorado River Delta are hotspots for
North America’s migratory landbirds.
Guardians of the River, produced by American
Rivers and Swiftwater Films, focuses on the hard-won
efforts of leaders of the Yuroks. Frankie Joe Myers, vice
chair of the tribe; Sammy Gensaw, director of
the Ancestral Guard; Barry McCovey, fisheries
biologist with the tribe; and members of the Ancestral
Guard and Klamath Justice Coalition share why removing
four dams across southern Oregon and Northern California is
vital to restoring clean water, food
sovereignty, and justice for the Klamath River.
Back in September, while wildfires raged and the pandemic wore
on, California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a virtual press
conference to announce a bold new climate goal. By 2035, he
said, all new cars and trucks sold in California would be
zero-emission, in order to seriously curtail climate
warming-emissions. … But while Newsom has grabbed
attention for his clean car policy … environmental
experts say he hasn’t moved boldly enough on ecological
issues… Last summer, the governor issued a water
resilience portfolio that outlines 142 state
actions to help the state deal with water as the climate
crisis worsens….
Californians have recently endured increasingly aggressive
wildfires, rolling power outages, and smoke-filled air for
days. Unless the state government changes course, we can
add water shortages to this list. … However, the dirty
little secret is that 50 percent of California’s water supply
is used for environmental purposes and is ultimately flushed
out into the Pacific Ocean, 40 percent goes to agriculture, and
only 10 percent goes for residential, industrial, commercial,
and governmental uses. -Written by Daniel Kolkey, a former judge and former
counsel to Governor Pete Wilson and board member of Pacific
Research Institute.
More than 30 states actively regulate oil and gas development
with a variety of practices and rules designed to reduce
health, safety and environmental impacts. …
Colorado approved new, nation-leading well integrity rules
designed to prevent oil and gas wells from leaking methane to
the atmosphere, befouling groundwater resources and causing
explosions that can harm workers and communities.
A federal agency has ruled that the state can continue to seek
higher flows on the Tuolumne River than planned by the Modesto
and Turlock irrigation districts. The Jan. 19 ruling drew
cheers from environmental and fishing groups that have long
sought larger releases from Don Pedro Reservoir into the lower
river.
San Francisco rightly prides itself on being an environmental
leader. Given this deep commitment to protecting the
environment, the city’s water agency — the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission — should be a leader in smart, sustainable
water policy. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. But
Mayor London Breed now has a once-in-a-decade chance to turn
the SFPUC in a new direction by appointing a progressive,
visionary new general manager who reflects the city’s values.
San Francisco’s Bay-Delta ecosystem and the Central Valley
rivers that feed it are in steep decline… -Written by John McManus, president of the Golden State
Salmon Association, and Kate Poole, the water lead for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.
Our 2020 Water Leaders class completed its year with a
report outlining policy recommendations for adapting California
water management to climate change. The class of
23 up-and-coming leaders from various stakeholder groups
and backgrounds – engineers, attorneys, planners, farmers,
environmentalists and scientists - had full editorial
control to choose recommendations.
As wildfires, heat waves, water scarcity and threats to
wildlife intensify in the West, California’s effort to confront
these environmental crises now has support in Washington, a
stark change from the past four years. Even as former President
Donald Trump spent his final days in office on the sidelines,
lamenting his election loss, his administration continued to
roll back environmental conservation and gut climate
regulations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced
the selection of US Water Alliance CEO Radhika Fox as the
Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of
Water. Fox was a Day One Presidential Appointee in the
Biden-Harris Administration. She will serve as the Acting
Assistant Administrator for Water.
Hundreds of California wineries will for the first time be
governed by statewide wastewater processing rules, a change
from the long-held, regional approach that could increase
production costs for wineries and protections for waterways
while providing consistency for vintners across the state. The
move toward a statewide regulatory framework, a five-year
effort championed by industry leaders, was finalized this week
by the State Water Resources Control Board, which approved an
order setting up guidelines for wastewater processing at most
of the more than 3,600 bonded wineries in the state.
In Oregon, the Klamath Basin wildlife refuges have fallen into
their winter silence now. The huge, clamorous flocks of geese
that fill the sky during migration have moved south. This
summer, a different silence gripped the basin. A dead silence.
The 90,000 acres of marshes and open water that make up the
Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges are a
small remnant of vast wetlands that once filled this region on
the Oregon-California border. -Written by Pepper Trail, a contributor to Writers on the
Range and a conservation biologist in Ashland, Ore.
California water issues are notoriously complicated by a
massive diversity of users, ecosystems, applications and
futures. Indeed, water in the Delta has been described as
a “wicked problem” indicating that these problems cannot
be ignored and defy straightforward characterization and
solutions. Below we highlight how a Swiss cheese model might be
applied to vexing long-term declines in native fish populations
in California.
Rivers may seem like immutable features of the landscape but
they are in fact changing color over time …The overall
significance of the changes are unclear and could reflect
various ways in which humans are impacting the environment,
said lead author John Gardner, an assistant professor of
geology and environmental science at the University of
Pittsburgh. One stark example from the study of rapid color
change is Lake Mead along the Colorado River.
California’s tussle with federal authorities over water
operations will get a second look under the new administration
of President Joe Biden. The 46th president plans to sign a
number of executive orders, including one that instructs agency
heads to review actions taken under President Donald Trump that
“were harmful to public health, damaging to the environment,
unsupported by the best available science, or otherwise not in
the national interest.” On the list for both the departments of
Commerce and Interior is a review of new biological opinions
adopted in 2019 governing water delivery in California.
Kevin Kelley, the elegant, whip-smart and fierce former general
manager of the Imperial Irrigation District, who fought to
preserve the Salton Sea and his rural county’s water
rights, died Tuesday at 61. He passed away at home, said his
brother, Ryan Kelley, an Imperial County Supervisor. The cause
of death is still being determined. As top executive from
2011 to January 2019 of the powerful but often
overlooked IID, Kelley regularly took on state, federal
and urban water officials to remind them of the valley’s
importance.
Recent fish surveys confirm what many biologists, ecologists,
and water experts have known for some time – Delta smelt remain
on the brink of extinction. Zero Delta smelt were found in the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recent Fall
Midwater Trawl Survey. Even the Enhanced Delta Smelt Monitoring
Program, which is specifically designed to capture the tiny
fish, only successfully caught two Delta smelt from September 8
to December 11, 2020.
The Colorado River Water Conservation District at a board
meeting Tuesday voted to give $1 million of their
taxpayer-raised funds to help construct the Colorado River
Connectivity Channel, which will improve deteriorated
conditions at the headwaters of the Colorado River. … If
built, the channel would mitigate much of the damage to the
Colorado and Fraser rivers that has been caused by the Windy
Gap reservoir in Grand County.
A California agricultural developer has agreed to pay a civil
penalty, preserve streams and wetlands, effect mitigation, and
be subject to a prohibitory injunction to resolve alleged
violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) on property near the
Sacramento River located in Tehama County, California, the
Justice Department announced today. Roger J. LaPant Jr.
purchased the property in this case in 2011 and sold it in
2012…
While they remain hopeful the rest of winter will provide much
more rain and snow, water resources managers in the Sacramento
Valley are preparing for the potential for a dry year. While
the prospect of a dry year is always jarring and challenging,
we have confidence in the experience and knowledge that our
water resources managers gained in 2014-15, and the strategies
this region has implemented since that time to prepare for a
dry year.
Sensational headlines, like those speculating that Wall Street
will make billions off the Colorado River or that West Slope
farmers should pack it in now, certainly attracts readers.
Unfortunately, these articles wholly fail to convey the reality
of the water challenges facing the Colorado River Basin. …
The Colorado River is certainly in bad shape. Last year was
marked by extremely hot temperatures, low flows and massive
fires.
Written by Dan Keppen, executive director of Family
Farm Alliance; Scott Yates, director of Trout Unlimited’s
Western Water & Habitat Program; and Taylor
Hawes, Colorado River Program director for The Nature
Conservancy.
On Jan. 15, State Assemblymembers Robert Rivas and Rudy Salas
introduced Assembly Bill 252, which if approved would help
alleviate the impacts of the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA) on farmers and ensure that farmland taken out of
production due to SGMA is reused to provide conservation,
recreation, or other benefits to local communities.
It’s hard to say what spurred “confidential mediation” over the
Kern River that began last week. Could it be the relentless
“Bring Back the Kern!” campaign by a group of young,
Bakersfield residents? Could it be a sentence in a recent
letter from the State Water Resources Control Board that said,
in part, it “will schedule a hearing in the near future to
address water availability with respect to the Kern River…”?
Could it be both? No one involved in the mediation would say.
On Wednesday, Los Angeles County officials released their
preliminary master plan for the river “reimagined” to
support both ecosystems and people who live along [the LA
River's] 51-mile corridor. … The long-awaited plan
— the result of five years of input from community residents,
organizations and people like renowned architect Frank Gehry —
will provide a foundation as the region balances its duty to
protect properties from flooding with the need for more access
to natural environments.
After years of negotiations and agreements, roadblocks,
renegotiations, and new agreements, dam removal on the Klamath
river is closer than ever to becoming a reality. With almost
all of the bureaucratic hurdles overcome, four of the six dams
on the Klamath are slated to be removed by 2024, restoring fish
access to the entire river. If carried out as planned, it will
be the largest dam removal project in the history of the United
States, opening up 400 river-miles of habitat to
salmon, trout, and eels, for the first time in decades. The
Yurok Tribe and Klamath River Renewal Corporation hope it will
also mean a return to a healthy river…
San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust has purchased
another stretch of riverside land — an important piece of a
puzzle needed for a 22-mile public-access regional park
envisioned in north Fresno. The newly acquired Sumner Peck
Ranch boasts oak forest and riparian vistas alongside acres of
foothill vineyard, citrus, berries and landscaped event space.
… Ranch roads and meandering trails cut through habitat
used by deer, beaver, bobcat and migrating geese…
The building of dams on the Colorado River has forever changed
the ebb and flow, flooding, drying and renewal cycle of what
was once Lake Cahuilla, changing its character and changing its
name to the Salton Sea. Entrepreneurs once thought that the
Salton Sea would become a sportsman’s mecca, providing fishing,
boating, and waterskiing experiences like no other. There were
a few decades where that dream seemed to be true. Then it
wasn’t.
Construction began this week on a 4,110-acre wetlands project
on the Salton Sea’s playa near the mouth of the highly polluted
New River, the California Department of Natural Resources
announced Wednesday. Called the Species Conservation Habitat
Project, the $206.5 million plan will build ponds and wetlands
along the small delta to provide wildlife habitat and suppress
dust. The final design includes 340 additional acres of
coverage as compared to older projections, and work led by
Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. is expected to be finished by
2024.
For the third year in a row, the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife found zero Delta smelt in the
agency’s 2020 Fall Midwater Trawl Survey throughout
the Delta. The 2- to 3-inch-long Delta smelt,
found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, is an indicator
species that reveals the overall health of the San Francisco
Bay-Delta Estuary. It was once the most abundant fish
in the entire estuary, numbering in the millions. Now it’s
on the verge of extinction in the wild.
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)
put tire manufacturers on notice that California wants them to
explore alternatives to using zinc, a toxic chemical that harms
aquatic life and burdens waterways. Zinc helps make rubber
stronger, but also wears off tire tread and washes into storm
drains, streams, rivers and lakes, threatening California fish
and other aquatic organisms.
The regulatory pendulum is expected to swing toward stricter
Clean Water Act enforcement, though experts say the Biden
administration’s changes probably won’t be immediate. Farmers
and environmentalists have been in a political tug-of-war over
the law’s scope for years, largely due to ambiguous legal
interpretations of the statute. While Democrats will now have
power over Congress, their majority is too slim to make changes
to the law, said Don Parrish, the American Farm Bureau
Federation’s senior director of regulatory relations.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has
certified the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for a
project aiming to restore the largest coastal wetlands complex
in Los Angeles County and increase public access to outdoor
recreation and natural spaces in one of the most densely
populated areas in the world. The Ballona Wetlands Ecological
Reserve (BWER) project will enhance and establish native
coastal wetlands and upland habitat…
California has lost more than 90% of its wetlands since the
arrival of European settlers. Wetlands play an increasingly
crucial role in absorbing excess water and protecting coastal
and inland communities from flooding. They also provide
critical habitat for wildlife, including a variety of species
found nowhere else on Earth, some of which are at risk of
blinking out of existence…. we’ve identified three critical
lessons California has to offer the world to improve
restoration on a global scale… -Written by Julie Rentner, president of River Partners, and
Manuel Oliva, CEO of Point Blue Conservation Science.
Colorado is no stranger to drought. The current one is closing
in on 20 years, and a rainy or snowy season here and there
won’t change the trajectory. This is what climate change has
brought. “Aridification” is what Bradley Udall formally calls
the situation in the western U.S. But perhaps more accurately,
he calls it hot drought – heat-induced lack of water due to
climate change.
The Yurok people have lived in the 15,700 square miles Klamath
River Basin, in what is now called Northern California, for
millennia. They are among the key organizers in a coalition of
Indigenous groups, environmentalists, concerned citizens and
commercial fishers that have joined forces in a decades-long
movement to Un-dam the Klamath.
BlueGreen Water Technologies has secured approval from the
California Department of Pesticide Regulation for its
algaecide, Lake Guard Oxy, for commercial application in the US
state. According to the firm, in the past year, there has
been a marked rise in the severity of toxic algal blooms, also
called as ‘blue green algae’ and ‘red tide’ in several of the
state’s lakes as well as on the coasts.
California’s labyrinthine system of dams and levees cut off
once roaring rivers from millions of acres of their
floodplains, drastically reducing the habitat and food salmon
need to thrive. Climate change may hasten extinctions by
raising water temperatures and disrupting flows with bigger
floods and more frequent and severe droughts, which also
threaten to reignite conflicts over increasingly scarce
water. But such dire prospects have inspired a novel
alliance in one of the most productive agricultural valleys in
the country, which has turned adversaries into allies to offer
salmon and other threatened wildlife a lifeline.
Under Proposition One, passed by the voters in 2014, the Delta
Conservancy was allocated $50 million for ecosystem restoration
in the Delta. Currently, the Conservancy has awarded
funding to 29 projects for about $39 million of that $50
million with a potential ecological benefit on up to 8,000
acres as a result.
The Port of San Diego is one step closer to creating a living
shoreline to attract and establish native
oyster populations while also protecting the shoreline
from impacts related to future sea level rise. The first
nature-based solution of its kind in San Diego Bay, the native
oyster living shoreline pilot project and study is in
collaboration with the California State Coastal Conservancy.
For years, pairs of grebes would zoom across the water at Lake
Hodges in a dazzling mating dance, and then build their nests
on mats of dried brush suspended above the waterline. This
year, some of the birds are still pairing up, but their nesting
area near Interstate 15 no longer floods with seasonal rains,
and can’t sustain them. The eastern finger of the lake, which
long alternated between riparian woodland and seasonal ponds,
is permanently drained because of state-ordered changes to the
water level.
A winter storm is expected to blow through Northern California,
bringing much-needed rain to the Valley and snow to the Sierra.
Rain coming in waves like it is this week is huge for
fish. To date, we are really behind in precipitation
across most of the state.
