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.
California regulators cut off thousands of farmers from their
main irrigation supplies Tuesday, banning them from pulling
water from the state’s main rivers and streams as the drought
worsens. The State Water Resources Control Board, following
hours of debate and comment, voted 5-0 to impose an “emergency
curtailment” order covering the rivers of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta watershed — essentially the entire Central
Valley. It’s the most dramatic step taken to date by state
regulators since the drought was officially declared in most of
California’s counties — and surpasses any of the moves made
during the previous drought.
Scientists largely agree that reducing these fuels is needed to
make our forests and surrounding communities more resilient to
wildfires and climate change. But policy and action have not
kept pace with the problem …. Seeing the urgent need for
change, a team of scientists from leading research
universities, conservation organizations and government
laboratories across the West has produced a synthesis of the
scientific literature that clearly lays out the established
science and strength of evidence on climate change, wildfire
and forest management for seasonally dry forests.
As California grapples with the effects of an ongoing drought,
UC Berkeley researchers are studying changes in the magnitude
of streamflows and drought-induced tree mortality in order to
advise climate change policy.
For over two years, Santa Clara County has been facing
below-average rainfall and extreme weather, causing a decrease
in the reservoirs that keep the creeks full, according to the
Santa Clara Valley Water District. Both the creeks and fish are
suffering as a result. Jae Abel, a biologist at the water
district, said water is stored in the reservoirs during the wet
season and is released during the dry season to maintain steady
streamflow. This has lessened during the drought. … The
water district says that as of now, there is not enough water
to support the fish.
Forest managers, community and environmental stakeholders, and
policymakers alike have called for an increase in the pace and
scale of proactive forest management. This work is essential to
reducing wildfire risk and improving forest health,
… Water agencies may be well placed to take on a leading
role—based on the value they receive from reducing wildfire
risk, their high capacity to manage complex projects, and their
watershed-scale management approach.
Greater buffer zones around bodies of water and more consistent
enforcement of water protection regulations are needed to
reduce agriculture-based pollution in the Western U.S., a
recent review from Oregon State University found. Prior
research has shown that agricultural pollution, both from
croplands and rangelands, is the cause of 48% of water-quality
impairment in U.S. surface waters, which in turn disrupts
habitat for fish and insects and reduces biodiversity in
aquatic environments.
Environmentalists are pressing forward with a fight to
protect a small fish that inhabits desert
springs and streams in California’s Death Valley region. The
Center for Biological Diversity on Friday announced it
has filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service to seek Endangered Species Act protection
for three populations of speckled dace, a minnow-like
species that evolved to live in dry areas. The fish is
threatened by excessive groundwater pumping for farms and
residential development and geothermal energy
development, they say.
California is in the grip of another extreme drought. The
consequences can be seen all over the Sacramento region and,
unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. We expect to see water
levels in the American River this fall that may reach historic
lows. This will be difficult not only for people who enjoy
recreating in our scenic river corridor, but also for the
salmon, steelhead and other native species that need water to
survive and reproduce. That’s why we’re urging everyone in the
Sacramento region to start conserving water in earnest. -Written by Ralph Propper, president of the
Environmental Council of Sacramento, and Tom Gray, general
manager of the Fair Oaks Water District.
Now, with the looming threat of sea level rise and a
state desperate for solutions, conservationists and a
growing movement of researchers say restoring these dunes could
provide a much-needed buffer from the water. These overlooked
features of the coast could help buy communities a bit more
time — before the ocean pushes inland and reclaims
the land. Most of these ideas remain untested in
California. Pilot projects like the one in Malibu are starting
with a concept so simple it seems radical: If these degraded
ecosystems were just given the space to regrow, could they come
back to life?
Seven years ago, a pulse of water on the Colorado River at the
U.S.-Mexico border temporarily reconnected it to the Pacific
Ocean. Scientists used the so-called “pulse flow” to study what
plant and animal life returned to the desiccated delta along
with water. Armed with that knowledge, scientists and
conservation groups are trying a new and more targeted strategy
to bring water back to the final 100 miles of the Colorado
River this year. It’s an attempt to reconnect portions of the
river left dry from decades of overuse, and it’s happening in
one of the driest years the basin has ever seen.
We are excited to introduce Dr. Sarah Null —Associate Professor
of Watershed Sciences at Utah State University — as the latest
appointed Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) CalTrout
Ecosystem Fellow! We recently got to know Sarah through an
interview. Check out her answers in our latest post. Thanks to
the donors that helped us launch this program: Gary Arabian,
the Morgan Family Foundation, Nick Graves, John Osterweis, and
the Rosenberg Ach Foundation.
A review of 170 years of water-related successes in California
suggests that most successes can be traced directly to past
mistakes. California’s highly variable climate has made
it a crucible for innovations in water technology and
policy. Similar water imperatives have led to advances in
water management in other parts of the world. A close
look at California’s water model suggests that “far-sighted
incrementalism” is a path to progress.
The American west has had record-breaking burns in recent
years, blanketing cities in dangerous amounts of smoke and
sending haze across the continent to the east coast. For
smoke’s clearly apparent effects in the sky, new research finds
it changed the ecology of Castle Lake, a freshwater lake in
California, in 2018. … Smoke can alter a lake’s temperature
and primary production. It can even change where fish are.
During a particularly smoky period, rainbow trout that
regularly turn up in shallow water sampling were gone.
The Delta Stewardship Council has sided with a group that
argued the state Department of Water Resources did not
adequately address the issue of public access and recreational
opportunities related to the Lookout Slough Tidal Habitat
Restoration and Flood Management Project. … The group has
been fighting to maintain land access to Shag Slough and the
Liberty Island Ecological Reserve, which they said would be
lost if the project moves forward as planned.
Fish, farms or people? Water managers are facing hard choices
about who gets first dibs on an ever dwindling supply of water
in the state’s reservoirs resulting from severe drought
conditions. Fish have historically been last on the priorities
list in drought years and that’s had negative ripple effects
across tribal and coastal communities, according to testimony
presented July 27 at a Joint Committee on Fisheries and
Aquaculture chaired by North Coast State Sen. Mike McGuire.
A new trend of pool toys containing glitter and microbeads is
complicating the already pervasive environmental problem of
microplastic pollution. University of California, Davis,
scientists studying plastics pollution encourage beach-goers to
take care to leave natural waterways as clean or cleaner than
they found them this summer by reducing their use of all forms
of plastic at the beach and leaving pool toys full of
microbeads and glitter at home.
We are excited to share that the Twenty-First Century Dams Act
was introduced this month on July 15, 2021. This bill would
invest $21.1 billion to enhance the safety, grid resilience
benefits, and power generating capacity of America’s dams and
provide historic funding to remove dams that are no longer
necessary.
On a recent Monday morning, Nick Araya was standing beneath an
exhausted-looking jacaranda tree in the East Los Angeles
neighborhood of Montecito Heights. It was just after 8 a.m.,
and the sun was already blazing. Araya is a master arborist and
the owner of TreeCare LA, a company that services trees around
the city. As the drought continues to wreak havoc on
California, trees are under stress. Araya and his team were
outside a family house to cut down the dead jacaranda and
perform some damage control on a coast live oak.
Once upon a time, a rich wetland flourished, nurtured by the
tidal waters of San Francisco Bay. Sunrise crowned the
glistening shoreline of a pristine channel of water that came
to be known as Yosemite Slough. The word Yosemite originates
from the native Miwok word for grizzly bear. Yosemite
Slough was a marshland, a nesting area for migrating birds
along the Pacific Flyway and a sanctuary for endangered
mammals. … Yosemite Slough originated in the lakes of
McLaren Park streaming east through the Portola and Bayview
Districts to enter San Francisco Bay. This is called a
watershed.
Not a drop of new “moon shoot” water storage has been created
in California for more than 40 years. It’s a point that isn’t
lost on Congressman Josh Harder. Nor is the fact water issues
facing the heart of the Northern San Joaquin Valley are
interconnected with communities often hundreds of miles away
from the 10th District that he represents in Congress. It
is why the Turlock Democrat has pursued do-able water projects
— including those outside of his district that would reduce
efforts to try and commandeer water from the Stanislaus and
Tuolumne watersheds to address fish flow, urban, and irrigation
needs elsewhere — since taking office in 2019.
Immerse yourself in California’s key water sources this fall
with the Foundation’s schedule of engaging virtual tours.
Each tour event will run from 2:30-5:30 p.m. PT and includes:
An overview presentation of the region’s critical topics;
A guided video tour of key locations — farms,
wetlands, dams and reservoirs, wildlife habitats — to
gain a stronger understanding on a variety of water
supply issues and the latest policy developments; Live
Q&A with experts in chat rooms so participants
can dive deeper into the topics, including the drought gripping
California.
It’s sometimes thought that worsening wildfires, droughts and
farming conditions — products of climate change — will lead to
more conflicts and extremism, including in the West. Imagine a
repeat of lawless mobs confronting and terrorizing federal land
managers, as occurred at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
in 2016, and could happen again amid the Klamath Basin water
crisis… -Written by Stuart Leavenworth, LA Times’ California
Enterprise Editor.
The state’s severe drought is transforming the landscape of our
streams, lakes and reservoirs as the supply of water is
depleted day by day. The changes at Uvas Reservoir in the
hills above Morgan are readily apparent. The waterline has
receded significantly as the footprint of the reservoir
shrinks. … According to the Santa Clara County
Water District, Uvas is currently at roughly 20% of its total
capacity – basically 80% empty. And a district spokesperson
says the situation is bad at all of the county’s reservoirs.
The plan to remove four Klamath River dams checked another box
on Tuesday as Oregon utility regulators signed off on
transferring ownership of the dams from Portland-based
PacifiCorp to the nonprofit that will carry out the project.
Oregon Public Utility Commission staff found that a
cost/benefit analysis from 2010 “remains valid, and still
reflects a public interest in the removal of the dams as
compared to the costs and risks of relicensing.” The project,
billed as the largest dam removal in U.S. history, is expected
to cost $450 million…
“Bleak” and “grim” were words frequently used Tuesday morning
as part of a joint legislative hearing on the crisis in
California’s salmon fisheries amid the historic drought. How
bad it is during the current drought in the West, however, was
up for debate. “There is no way that this year isn’t going to
be worse than it was in 2014-15, when we saw 95% (of salmon)
dying off,” said North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire, who was
the chair of the hearing.
It sounds like the plot of a post-apocalyptic movie: Water
thieves roaming scorched terrain in search of nature’s most
precious resource. But in California, water theft is a massive
reality with numbers that are hard to comprehend — and as
droughts increasingly afflict the state, so does the extent of
this illegal activity. Over 12 billion gallons of water have
likely been stolen in California since 2013, John Nores — the
former head of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Marijuana Enforcement Team — recently told CNN.
One of the greatest lessons of the pandemic is that we can meet
the challenges of existential threats when we combine the
collective power of our creativity, innovation and industry. As
the climate crisis worsens, we need to address protecting and
preserving water with the same urgency that we put into
creating vaccines. We need to act like lives are hanging in the
balance—because they are. Water is already shaping our
politics, our economy and our national security too. - Written by José Andrés, a chef, activist and creator of
the documentary Undiscovered Haiti, and Caryl Stern, executive
director of the Walton Family Foundation
State work to improve wildlife habitat and tamp down dust at California’s ailing Salton Sea is finally moving forward. Now the sea may be on the verge of getting the vital ingredient needed to supercharge those restoration efforts – money.
The shrinking desert lake has long been a trouble spot beset by rising salinity and unhealthy, lung-irritating dust blowing from its increasingly exposed bed. It shadows discussions of how to address the Colorado River’s two-decade-long drought because of its connection to the system. The lake is a festering health hazard to nearby residents, many of them impoverished, who struggle with elevated asthma risk as dust rises from the sea’s receding shoreline.
Wild beavers play a critical role in the fight against climate
change by creating wetlands that combat drought and wildfire.
The species is native to California — but unlike beavers in
Oregon and Washington, they aren’t protected from being trapped
and killed in the state. Beavers have existed in North America
for millions of years, with large populations in the American
west.
In the state that perfected if not invented the American
summer, the smell of 17 million gallons of spilled sewage
lingered last week on a Southern California beach. There were
bare rocks where snow once capped the Sierra Nevada and bathtub
rings where water once glistened in Shasta Lake. Wildfires
roared across the West, threatening the electrical grid, the
smoke so thick it could be seen from space, pluming into the
jet stream, delaying planes in Denver, turning the sun red in
Manhattan, creating its own weather.
Today, in Episode 3 of Drought Week, we take a journey through
the American Southwest to Las Vegas, down to Arizona’s Sonoran
Desert and through California’s Mojave Desert. We speak to a
social scientist, a folklorist and a politician about their
efforts to understand the plants and animals affected by this
historic drought. We’ll focus on three iconic plants: Joshua
trees. Saguaro cactuses. And, well, lawn grass.
Facing another summer of catastrophic fish kills, California
lawmakers and fisheries managers on Tuesday blamed a Trump-era
water policy and climate change for the sizzling water
temperatures threatening to erase an entire run of Chinook
salmon. … Chinook salmon die-offs on the state’s rivers have
happened routinely over the last two decades. But a pending
disaster on the Sacramento and Klamath rivers has elected
officials, regulators, Native American tribes and fishermen
scrambling to save the keystone species from extinction.
“Mussel Dogs” are making an appearance at Lake Nacimiento in an
effort to catch aquatic hitchhikers and protect local
ecosystems. During the weekends of the Mid-State Fair,
mussel-sniffing canines are helping public officials inspect
vessels in hopes of spotting invasive species known as quagga
or zebra mussels. The San Luis Obispo County Public Works
Department said zebra and quagga mussels typically “hitch”
rides on boats and travel to other lakes, causing damage to a
lake’s natural environment, boating and water equipment.
Ben DuVal knelt in a barren field near the California-Oregon
state line and scooped up a handful of parched soil as dust
devils whirled around him and birds flitted between empty
irrigation pipes. DuVal’s family has farmed the land for three
generations, and this summer, for the first time ever, he and
hundreds of others who rely on irrigation from a depleted,
federally managed lake aren’t getting any water from it at all.
… [T]his summer there is simply not enough, and the
farmers, tribes and wildlife refuges that have long competed
for every drop now face a bleak and uncertain future together.
The news reports about the California salmon wipeout got a good
chunk of the story right: Record-breaking heat waves made
Northern California rivers too warm to sustain migrating
Chinook salmon, and virtually all of the salmon in the
Sacramento River this summer have died, or will die, before
reproducing. Any eggs that were successfully laid, or the fry
hatched from those eggs, are also likely doomed. So a
generation of the rare and endangered winter-run Chinook, and
the spring-run as well, are virtually gone.
It’s no secret that California’s ecosystems suffer during
droughts. In times of water scarcity, environmental uses are
often low priority, leading to fish die-offs and other negative
outcomes. For the next year, Professor Sarah Null of Utah State
University will be working with a diverse team of experts to
study how to better manage water stored for the environment, to
better protect vulnerable ecosystems during a time of
biodiversity loss and accelerating climate change. Null, an
expert in environmental water management and water systems
modeling, is a PPIC CalTrout Ecosystem Fellow.
Go 120 miles as the crow flies southeast of Manteca and you
will find the headwaters of two of California’s most tormented
rivers — the San Joaquin River and Owens River. The 183-mile
Owens River starts from Glass Creek on the southern face of the
11,597-foot San Joaquin Mountain. Today instead of ultimately
flowing into Owens Lake that just over 100 years ago covered
108 square miles and was teeming with aquatic life and
migratory birds, the lake is a dusty shell of its former self.
Empty wells. Salmon die-offs. Water thieves. The
uncontrollable flames of monster wildfire. In
California, one of the worst droughts on record has
touched off a kaleidoscopic range of emergencies,
amplifying age-old resource conflicts as leaders
call for conservation by cities, curtailments to
farmers and coordination across the board. The
interconnectedness of the state’s hydrology is
especially apparent in one corner of the Sacramento
Valley, where scarce water for farmers will also mean less
for the migrating birds that make use of the same
land.
American culture is reckoning with some of the negative impacts
of our history. … In the past few weeks alone, St. Paul,
Nashville, and St. Louis governments and activists are having
substantive policy discussions about making reparations –
including direct payouts of money – to African Americans, to
atone for the historic sin of slavery. Reparations
discussions also have included making necessary amends to
indigenous people. … The concept of “ecological
reparations” takes the conversation another step forward.
– Written by Gary Wockner, who lives in Colorado and
is active in river protection around the world.
A study tracking regulatory compliance costs in California was
recently released, with striking findings. Researchers looked
at data from 22 different farms of various sizes in the San
Joaquin Valley between 2012 and 2018. During that timeframe,
regulatory costs increased by 265 percent. Professor of
Agribusiness at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and co-author
of the report, Lynn Hamilton said several factors
contributed to the significant increase.
Today we launch Drought Week, a five-part series looking at how
water shortages across the West are profoundly changing life.
We’ll swoop around, from Oregon to the Sonoran Desert, from
cities to national parks, from Joshua trees to lawns. To start
Drought Week, it’s only natural — pardon the pun — that we take
the bigger view first with our Masters of Disasters, the L.A.
Times reporters who focus on natural calamities. So get your
five-gallon buckets and put them next to you when you shower,
’cause things are serious right now.
Extreme and prolonged drought in the American west is prompting
water thieves to tap into other people’s scarce supplies. More
than 12bn gallons of water have been stolen in California in
the past eight years, according to state officials, but the
issue has been further exacerbated by the ongoing drought and
recent searing early summer heatwaves. A significant
amount of recent water theft has been blamed by the authorities
on illegal cannabis cultivation in some parts of the state.
Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river,
and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in
another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once
they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as
blistering heat waves and extended drought in the U.S. West
raise water temperatures and imperil fish from Idaho to
California. Hundreds of thousands of young salmon
are dying in Northern California’s Klamath River as
low water levels brought about by drought allow a parasite to
thrive, devastating a Native American tribe whose diet and
traditions are tied to the fish.
The Delta smelt is either extinct in the wild or close to it
… This coming winter, the UC Davis Fish Conservation and
Culture Laboratory will have as many as 40,000 smelt ready for
release, when temperatures are low and the smelt are likely to
spawn naturally. Such releases will be ‘experimental’ so not
subject to the take provisions of the federal Endangered
Species Act. In this blog, I support the concept that success
of re-establishing smelt in the wild requires using multiple
approaches.
The Klamath water rights issue dates back decades and is as
complex and nuanced as it is lengthy but when boiled down it
seems to come back to one primal animal instinct that all
living beings share: to ensure the survival of our spawn. For
the Lost River and Shortnose Suckerfish in the Klamath basin,
that continuum was disturbed somewhere along the line. The
adult fish are healthy but aging while their spawn has been
failing to thrive. Pending on their survival are the identity,
traditions, culture, and livelihood of the Klamath tribes.
Forced to reckon with a worsening drought, California’s water
regulators are preparing to forbid thousands of farmers from
tapping into the state’s major rivers and streams. It’s an
extraordinary step — and one that regulators didn’t take during
the last drought, which was considered one of the worst on
record. The State Water Resources Control Board on Friday
released an “emergency curtailment” order that would cut
thousands off from rivers and streams in the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river watersheds.
After two consecutive dry winters, Tahoe’s lake level is
sitting a little over 1.5 feet above its natural rim — a
threshold the alpine lake is forecasted to drop below in the
next three months. And while the rise and fall of Lake
Tahoe’s water level is cyclical in the short-term (with
evaporation and downstream flow offsetting spring runoff
filling the lake each year) and the long-term (the lake has
fallen below it’s natural rim over 20 times in the last century
since data collection began), experts are concerned by the
severity of the current drought and its impacts on water
supply, wildfires and wildlife.
As humans struggle with the drought, wildlife has an even
harder time adapting. Siskiyou County’s deer, elk, bear,
bobcat, mountain lion and bird populations are in danger
as creeks dry up and lakes evaporate into hot
air. That’s where guzzlers come in. These
large plastic or aluminum water collection devices – 240
of them – are scattered throughout the Klamath and
Shasta-Trinity national forests in Siskiyou County. When it
rains, water is collected in the tanks … which
allows thirsty wildlife to step down and reach the water.
As the summer grinds on, farms, towns and a critical native
salmon restoration program that all rely on water from
Millerton Lake near Fresno continue to hope their water won’t
be needed to fulfill irrigation contracts further up the San
Joaquin Valley. But in this parched year, nothing is
certain. If water is required out of Millerton, which
happened in drought years 2014 and 2015, that could be
especially detrimental for the San Joaquin River Restoration
Program, which is already taking unprecedented steps to nurture
its endangered spring run Chinook salmon population.
As water resources managers work hard this summer to deliver
limited water supplies to cities, rural communities, farms,
refuges and fisheries–while also providing essential
hydropower for the state’s energy grid–there is increasing
attention to prepare for the next water year. … As we think
about water management opportunities for next year, there is an
increasing focus on groundwater recharge …
Join us as we guide you on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
As if California’s dire dry season wasn’t already difficult,
thieves are making matters even worse. Illegal pot growers are
stealing water anywhere they can get it. That’s why the Nevada
County Sheriff’s Office has a warning that investigators are
cracking down. … But beyond stealing water, the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife is also finding the
illegal grows lead to large environmental impacts due to poor
cultivation practices and waste contaminating water
resources.
It’s a strange place to find fish, deep in the high desert,
where drought-baked earth butts against scrubby mountains. But
water spews from the hot springs on Ron Barnes’ land near the
California-Oregon border, pure and perfect for rearing c’waam
and koptu, two kinds of endangered suckerfish sacred to Native
American tribes. Barnes, who holds an advanced degree in
aquaculture from UC Davis, has dug dozens of ponds on his
property and filled them with thousands of young suckerfish.
Environmentalists say the San Joaquin watershed needs more
water. So do state officials, who in 2018 ordered water users
to give a large share of water back to the San Joaquin and its
tributaries, notably the Tuolumne. But the fight to restore
this ailing ecosystem has turned political, and
environmentalists leading the effort are facing an unlikely foe
the water service provider for one of the most liberal cities
in the country.
The EPA has reported several dog and livestock deaths due to
toxic algae blooms found in riverbeds. A researcher from UNR is
examining what conditions cause these blooms. … [Joanna
Blaszczak, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada,
Reno,] has received a $200,000 grant from the National Science
Foundation. Her research will be focused on three rivers in
Northern California and will be conducted through 2023.
Calling all river-lovers and map enthusiasts! A new web project
called River Runner, created by data analyst Sam Learner,
allows you to follow the path of a raindrop anywhere in the
contiguous United States. Using data from the United States
Geological Survey, Learner mapped the flow of water throughout
all 48 adjoining states. Just click on any spot on the map to
create your raindrop and watch it flow downstream. We are
excited about this tool because it provides you with a bird’s
eye view of the river and its surroundings.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is asking
recreational anglers to voluntarily change how, when and where
they fish to minimize stress and mortality among fish
populations suffering from drought conditions. CDFW is advising
anglers not to fish past noon on certain inland waters as even
catch-and-release angling during the hottest parts of the day
can greatly increase fish stress and mortality.
… Coldwater species such as trout, salmon and steelhead
have the greatest likelihood of being affected by the drought
this year but low water levels and high-water temperatures can
potentially affect all inland aquatic species.
As the West descends deeper into drought, climate and water
experts are growing increasingly alarmed by California’s
severely shriveling reservoirs. On Monday, Shasta Lake — the
largest reservoir in the state — held a scant 1.57 million
acre-feet of water, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, or about 35% of its capacity. A series of
satellite images captured by NASA show just how dramatically
the water level has fallen.
California’s ongoing drought and predicted heatwave is causing
overly warm and low level waters and threatening to kill off
the entire populations of already endangered species like the
chinook salmon. Negotiations between the State Water Resources
Control Board and the federal Bureau of Reclamation approved a
plan for managing water levels. However, experts predict that
releasing water into the irrigation system this early will
disrupt salmon spawning season and could kill as many as 88% of
the salmon in the river.
Each day, it seems, a new climate-related catastrophe makes
headlines. Salmon are dying in California, because the water
they inhabit has been heated to the point that it’s
inhospitable to life. The Hoover Dam reservoir is at
record-low levels, potentially affecting the water supply to
the West Coast. And California is, once again, in a drought.
States and municipalities across the country are asking
residents to conserve water as the precious resource is
threatened with impending scarcity. … We asked experts for
some easy ways to cut back on water usage. Here are their
suggestions.
One day last spring, water pressure in pipelines suddenly
crashed In the Antelope Valley, setting off alarms. Demand had
inexplicably spiked, swelling to three and half times normal.
Water mains broke open, and storage tanks were drawn down to
dangerous levels. … It took a while for officials
to figure out where all that water was going: Water thieves —
likely working for illicit marijuana operations — had pulled
water from remote filling stations and tapped into fire
hydrants, improperly shutting off valves and triggering a chain
reaction that threatened the water supply of nearly
300 homes.
The third and final Flood Walk, sponsored by Sustainable
Solano, took 12 participants on a journey through the
marshlands, by the docks and through some residential areas in
Suisun City. All are spots that could be affected by flooding.
… Sustainable Solano is a grassroots movement to unite people
in working toward a future that is ecologically regenerative,
and economically and socially supportive of local
communities.
A South Carolina federal judge issued an order late last
week allowing the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, the Trump
administration’s “waters of the United States” rule, to remain
in place while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
Army Corps of Engineers work on rulemakings to revoke and
replace it. The final rule was issued in April 2020, redefining
“waters of the United States” and narrowing the scope of Clean
Water Act jurisdiction.
Today, as a water economist, my job is to help customers
stretch their limited water resources. This means managing
supplies wisely and getting a handle on collective demands.
Fortunately, one of our available tools is an old one: water
markets that can help reallocate the resource to the places
it’s needed most. I’ve learned a lot more about water and water
markets since I was a second-grader determined to help fish in
the San Francisco Bay. One lesson is that even well-intentioned
water markets can have bad outcomes if poorly designed or
executed, as was my first water transfer.
A public hearing on an environmental impact report (EIR) on a
controversial project that local preservationists say threatens
fish living in a local stream is scheduled to go before the
City Council on Monday. The Pasadena Water and Power
Department (PWP) 0is seeking two conditional use permits (CUPs)
to repair and replace facilities within the Arroyo Seco Canyon
area that were damaged or destroyed by the Station Fire-related
events of 2009. Preservationists say the project
threatens trout that are swimming in streams
in the area.
For years, petroleum hydrocarbons have been seeping from the
groundwater beneath the old oil tank farm property in Avila
Beach into tide pools below. Much of the source of the
pollution has been cleaned up, but an unknown amount remains.
The question now is, what should be done with it and could
over-aggressive remediation cause more harm than good?
The trickle of hydrocarbons — comprised of a mixture of
diluted, broken-down gas from the tank farm — was discovered in
May 2012 …
Residents, along with the local population of Mallard ducks,
Canada geese and coots will soon get their Legacy Park nature
preserve back. The pond, which is normally kept full most of
the year with storm runoff water, totally dried up this spring
in the middle of duckling season. The statewide drought took
its toll. Meanwhile, the construction of a new office park and
shopping center—the La Paz project—right across the street was
running into difficulties with groundwater as workers excavated
a future underground parking garage.
Millions of waterfowl and other birds are going to have a tough
year due to the ongoing drought in the West. Not only is there
less water for ducks and geese, but the agriculture fields
these migrating birds depend on for food will be significantly
smaller, which means less waste grain. … That
potentially can negatively impact Pacific Flyway waterfowl
flights and hunting this year. Farmers report only 25
percent of the fields usually flooded in autumn will have
water. With reduced water, ducks and geese are impacted. They
concentrate more and diseases and bacteria can spread more
readily, including bird botulism.
Science is about more than data and research, it’s about
teamwork. Collaboration is key, and the State Water Contractors
are committed to working together with our partners in
academia, government, non-profit and the private sectors to
invest in California’s water future. The SWC and
Member Agencies participated in multiple interagency and
stakeholder working groups tasked with determining how to
implement permit requirements, including the Spring-Run Chinook
Salmon Juvenile Production Estimate Core Team and Delta
Coordination Group for summer-fall habitat actions for Delta
Smelt.
Joey Gentry hesitates before she drives through the fields of
alfalfa and wheat that line the roads in the Klamath
Basin. ”It’s not safe for Natives to be out in farmland
during a drought year,” [Gentry said.] Like much of the
American West, this dry, hilly, high-elevation landscape
straddling the California-Oregon border is experiencing a
summer of extreme drought. But when the federal government
announced in May that, for the first time ever, it would cut
irrigation water to about 180,000 acres of agriculture in the
basin, tensions ignited between farmers and the Klamath tribes.
The punishing drought conditions afflicting most of California
are expected to endure for months, climate experts with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association said Thursday.
There is a 60% chance, NOAA experts said, of a La Niña event
this winter — conditions that would likely bring about a cool
and very dry winter. NOAA climatologists presented a stark
portrait of the fiercely dry conditions gripping a huge portion
of the country: 46% of the contiguous U.S. is in a state of
drought, they said.
The North American monsoon has returned to Colorado, and the
rain has brought some much-needed relief to some of the driest
parts of the state — after multiple back-to-back years of
almost no summer rain. … Gov. Jared Polis has recently
declared a drought emergency for the region and the rest of
western Colorado. … The seasonal moisture from the
tropics creates afternoon cloud cover that protects …
drought-stricken creeks from baking in the sun. The rain helps
lower the risk for wildfires. The timing of the monsoon is
vital to Colorado’s ecosystem, which evolved on its schedule.
For the first time in its 55 year history, the Iron Gate fish
hatchery, which raises salmon and steelhead, will not release
its salmon smolts into the Klamath River this summer. Due to
poor water conditions and an increase in a parasite called C.
Shasta in the river, the hatchery, located in Hornbrook,
California, will keep the tiny fish until fall. Now, the
hatchery is dealing with the logistics of moving millions of
fish to other facilities because they cannot accommodate all of
the growing salmon.
While algae growing in our lakes, ponds and reservoirs can be
quite visible, the algae in many of our rivers and their
tributaries is often not so obvious, lurking on the bottom of
the rivers, and clinging to rocks. Yet, some of these riverbed
blue-green algae, referred to as “cyanobacteria,” can create
algal blooms that produce toxins harmful not only to aquatic
life, but also to pets, livestock and humans. University of
Nevada, Reno Assistant Professor Joanna Blaszczak is conducting
research to identify the specific conditions conducive to
producing these blooms and their toxins…
Due to drought and poor water conditions in the Klamath River,
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)
successfully relocated 1.1 million juvenile, fall-run Chinook
salmon from its Iron Gate Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County. The
fish were trucked to a nearby satellite facility and to the
Trinity River Hatchery 122 miles away where the fish will
remain until conditions in the Klamath River improve.
To finally determine a lasting definition of waterways that
qualify for federal protection under the Clean Water Act, the
Environmental Protection Agency’s new water director says
everyone with a stake in the issue will need to be engaged.
Radhika Fox recently spoke to The Associated Press about the
Biden administration’s plan to rewrite the regulation, also
called Waters of the United States. The contentious rule was
scaled back by the Trump administration after being expanded
under President Barack Obama.
California water inspectors have discovered evidence of algae
that could pose a risk to humans and pets at North Natomas
parks, prompting city workers to plant signs warning locals to
steer clear of the water. … The algae bloom coated the
city’s water and flood control basins, which collect and store
water run-off. The presence of algae itself isn’t unusual,
especially during a season of unprecedented droughts and
red-hot temperatures, officials said. But exposure to the
harmful algae toxins can cause vomiting, diarrhea, headaches
and eye irritation.
Southern San Joaquin Valley Rivers are running at near historic
lows — again. In fact, the Bakersfield City Council passed a
resolution Wednesday officially declaring the Kern River as
running at only 17% of normal, it’s second driest year since
record keeping began in 1893. The driest year on record was
2015, the worst year of the 2012-2016 drought. The resolution
notes the river is so low this year, the city won’t have any
“excess” water to sell to local agricultural irrigation
districts. This is the first time the City Water Resources
Department has made such a resolution.
The future of millions of waterfowl that visit the region each
fall could be up in the air if dry conditions continue.
Fourth-generation rice farmer Brian McKenzie farms about 4,000
acres and his fields are filled with wildlife. … This year’s
drought has decreased the number of birds and the number of
acres farmed. … And that has many worried about what
will happen to what is known as the Pacific flyway this fall.
Flora Bella Farms has been a fixture at the Santa Monica
Farmers market since it opened in 1991. James and Dawn Birch
have been a favorite stop for local chefs ever since they made
their first sale to Nancy Silverton. Because of the lack of
water in this year’s drought and the loss of most of their
crops, next Wednesday, July 21 will be their last day at the
market with no return day in sight. We talked to Dawn at the
market Wednesday, who told us that this is just the tip of the
iceberg.
As we careen deeper into drought, California will face
increasing impacts to urban and agricultural economies, rivers
and forests, and wildlife. In response, government agencies
will need to determine how to allocate water among competing
needs. Water users will scramble to buy and sell water — if
they can — or reduce their use. But the current lack of
information hobbles the ability to make difficult decisions
about water management. For California to cope with persistent
shortages, water rights data need to be accessible to
decision-makers and the public. -Written by Michael Kiparsky, director of the
Wheeler Water Institute in the Center for Law, Energy and the
Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Standing at the edge of a precipice, under a scorching sun in
eastern Utah, you can see nothing but the state’s infamous red
rocks and towering buttes for miles. … But if you happen to
glance down at the dizzying depths of the canyon that lies at
the bottom of the desert sandstone mountains, you’d see a lush
oasis, blooming with green vegetation, the Price River snaking
through the rock even on the hottest of summer days. And if you
scrambled down, and watched patiently for long enough, you
might even spot some beavers – the very architects of this
thriving wetland landscape, smack bang in the middle of the
desert.
On June 24, Yolo County released a report on a recent design
charrette for the Tule Canal in the Yolo Bypass. The two-day
virtual workshop included 71 participants from a wide swath of
stakeholders — farmers, policy makers, landowners, hunters,
conservation scientists, educators, engineers and ecologists.
Led by consultants Robert Suarez and Teal Brown Zimring, with
generous funding from the State Water Contractors and
Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, the executive summary and
full report are now available on Yolo County’s Delta e-library:
The following is a press release from the Humboldt County
Department of Health and Human Services: On May 10, 2021,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded the drought emergency
proclamation to 41 counties, including Humboldt. With this
proclamation comes acknowledgment that droughts can cause
changes to communities and the environment that impact public
health. Reduced stream flows increase the concentration of
pollutants in water and cause stagnation and elevated water
temperatures.
Drying juniper berries litter the ground as Rusine Stanley
plunges a water hose into empty tanks in her backyard. As
bubbles begin to gurgle, each tank fills to the brim. …
Brittle branches break at the touch as Stanley runs her hand
through a juniper tree on her 10-acre property. Its
needle-like leaves are yellowing, each more than the last. This
backyard is a microcosm for a phenomenon that
silviculturists and researchers are tracking
across northern and central Arizona, where the
Southwest’s relentless drought is killing juniper
trees across thousands of acres.
California officials are warning nearly all juvenile chinook
salmon in the Sacramento River could die due to abnormally hot
underwater conditions as heat waves continue to bake the West.
There could be a “near-complete loss” of the young endangered
species of salmon because temperatures above 100 degrees for
extended periods of time are overheating the river, making it
uninhabitable for the fish to grow beyond their egg stage, the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) confirmed to
CNN on Tuesday.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, in conjunction
with their state and county partners, are preparing for the
2021 cannabis enforcement season. As authorized by Fish & Game
Code section 12029, CDFW, in coordination with the State Water
Resources Control Board, or SWRCB, and the state licensing
authority, established a watershed enforcement program to
address environmental violations associated with unlicensed
cannabis cultivation. The environmental impacts associated with
illegal cannabis cultivation can have a detrimental effect on
fish and wildlife and their habitats…
Climate change is exacerbating droughts and accelerating the
transformation and decline of California’s native forest and
aquatic ecosystems. As a state, we are poorly organized to
manage these effects, which need extensive focused
preparation. We need to adapt (and we will make mistakes
in doing so). Our human, economic and environmental losses
will be much greater, however, if we manage poorly because of
delay, complacency or panic. -Written by Jay Lund, professor of civil and
environmental engineering at the University of California at
Davis.
Global warming has already left its mark on the backbone of
California’s water supply, and represents a growing threat to
its first developed agricultural region, state experts have
warned in a new study. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
fuels California’s $3 trillion economy, including its $50
billion agricultural industry, sustains more than 750 plant and
animal species and supplies 27 million people with drinking
water. But global warming is likely to destabilize the
landscape that made the delta a biodiversity and agricultural
hotspot …
The Colorado River makes an impressive 1,400-mile journey from
Colorado, all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border. It starts as
snowpack in Rocky Mountain National Park in Northern Colorado
and makes its way westward to Utah. The Utah portion of the
river course starts on the Colorado Plateau before heading to
Moab, where the water sweeps by Arches and Canyonlands national
parks – both amazing landscapes eroded into canyons and mesas
by the Colorado and Green rivers.
Caddisfly swarms along the Colorado River in Laughlin are
annoying most residents, but scientists see them as an
opportunity. Dr. Michael Cavallaro, entomologist and pest
abatement manager for Bullhead City, is working on a project to
find a permanent solution to the swarms, which have become a
nuisance for residents and businesses. He thinks the residents
should feel honored, since caddisflies swarm only in healthy
ecosystems with high-quality, clean water.
For years, the city of Eureka sent treated wastewater directly
into Humboldt Bay from its Elk River processing plant.
But five years ago, the North Coast Regional Water Control
Board ordered the city to “cease and desist” and to move to
ocean discharge by 2030. The city is now seeking a
resolution that would allow wastewater to continue to be
discharged into the bay. The water board will meet in
mid-August to decide. Whether or not the city is granted
the exemption to continue, there are plans in the works to make
upgrades to the Elk River wastewater facility.
In August 2020, the state of California and the US Forest
Service (USFS) agreed to vastly increase the number of forested
acres they treat with mechanical thinning and prescribed
burning each year. The agreement aims to reduce the risk of
wildfire and improve forest health, and it came as California
confronted a record-breaking wildfire year, exacerbated by
drought and a dangerous build-up of fuel in the state’s
forests.
For more than 60 years, California officials and experts have
discussed expanding the Sacramento River bypass and levee
system. … In summer 2020, contractors broke ground on
the first project to expand that capacity, the Lower Elkhorn
Basin Levee Setback (LEBLS) project. The California Dept. of
Water Resources is leading the design, construction and
permitting of the $103-million project, which will widen the
Sacramento Bypass and the east side of the Yolo Bypass.
Climate change and worsening drought could be to blame for …
increased sightings of yellow jackets, a predatory type of wasp
with stingers that can sting repeatedly and even kill people
who are allergic to its venom. When the natural landscape
“turns to toast” as a result of drought conditions, carnivorous
yellow jackets have a harder time finding their primary food
source: insects. In turn, yellow jackets become attracted to
irrigated green gardens and lawns full of insects to hunt…
[The] hot, dry, unforgiving climate [of the Mojave Desert] has
attracted more than a thousand marijuana plantations that fill
the arid expanse between the Antelope Valley and the Colorado
River. It’s an unprecedented siege that has upended life in the
remote desert communities and vast tract developments that
overlook Joshua trees and scrub. Authorities say the boom has
led to forced labor, violence, water theft and the destruction
of fragile desert habitat and wildlife. Longtime residents say
they feel less safe, claiming black-market growers act with
impunity by carrying weapons, trading gunfire with rivals and
threatening those who wander too close to their farms.
The California Endangered Species Act (CESA) is one of the most
impor- tant legal tools available to the Fish and Game
Commission and Department of Fish and Wildlife to protect the
State’s wildlife resources. … Listing decisions can be the
difference between persistence and extinction of a species.
They can also cause severe economic disruption and, for this
reason, should in our view be made with due deliberation and
based on the best available scientific information.
A key message emerged when California water leaders gathered in
Modesto: Stop grumbling about drought, and get cracking on real
fixes. Rep. Josh Harder, R-Turlock, convened the Thursday
afternoon summit at the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau.
Several speakers called for new reservoirs and groundwater
recharge to hold wet-year surpluses for use in dry times
like 2021. The manager of a West Side irrigation district
invited others to follow her lead in using water recycled from
city sewage plants.
The Clean Water Act has traveled a successful but tortuous
path. From combustible beginnings on the Cuyahoga River;
through the Lake St. Clair wetlands; to reservoirs near the
Miccosukee; and eventually discharged (or “functionally”
discharged) off the Maui coast. With each bend, the nearly
fifty-year-old Act has proven to be not just resilient, but
among our most successful environmental laws. Much of that
success stems from an effective enforcement structure that
focuses more on treating pollutant sources rather than just
impaired waters. –Written by Sean G. Herman, an attorney with Hanson
Bridgett LLP and an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University
School of Law.
In the gray light of dawn, hundreds of swallows darted over a
pool of standing water in an irrigated field along the Colorado
River. The birds were attracted to the early-morning mosquitos
swarming the saturated landscape. … Across the Western
Slope, birds and other wildlife have come to depend on these
artificially created wetlands, a result of flood irrigation.
But as the state of Colorado grapples with whether to implement
a demand-management program, which would pay irrigators to
temporarily dry up fields in an effort to send more water
downstream, there could be unintended consequences for the
animals that use irrigated agriculture for their habitat.
Development of a sprawling, politically charged Arizona housing
development has been stopped, with the Fish and Wildlife
Service’s newly revealed rescinding of a Trump administration
decision. The agency’s about-face caused the Army Corps of
Engineers to suspend its dredge-and-fill permit for the
28,000-home The Villages at Vigneto project, according to court
documents. … The 2017 document “concurred that the Corps
of Engineers’ granting of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit
for the Villages at Vigneto Development was not likely to
adversely affect threatened and endangered species or their
critical habitat.”
Every spring, the snow begins to melt and make its way down the
mountains, across marshes and meadows, and through the 63
tributaries flowing into Lake Tahoe. … [T]he route that the
water takes before eventually ending up in the lake is crucial
to maintaining Tahoe’s famed clarity. Why, you might ask? It’s
all about those SEZs. Stream environment zones are a
Tahoe-specific term, meaning “an area that owes its biological
and physical characteristics to the presence of surface or
groundwater,” according to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Meadows, marshes, streams, streambanks, and beaches are all
examples of SEZs…
Yet despite its ecological richness, very little of the land on
either side of the [Eel River] has been protected, as 90
percent of this land remains in private hands, and very little
of it is currently accessible to the public. This could change
soon, however, if two ambitious initiatives to protect this
wild country bisected by the Eel and make it accessible to the
public come to fruition. And both those initiatives received a
boost from the new state budget just passed by the California
Legislature (and, as of this writing, still awaiting Governor
Newsom’s signature).
The rhythmic patter of hooves skimming the earth below was a
sound Amy never tired of when she was young. Whether in the hot
sweat-inducing summer or the bone-chill frost of winter in
upstate New York, the sound was ever-present, because Amy was
always riding. … Now as the Interim Director of the
California Program at American Rivers, one of Amy’s central
goals is to work with agricultural landowners to protect and
improve habitat in wetlands and rivers.
[A] long-stalled plan to save Sacramento winter-run chinook
salmon, a critically endangered species, proposes trucking them
twice in their lifetimes. Spawning adults would get a lift from
the too-hot Sacramento River over Shasta Dam and be driven up
Interstate 5 to a cold mountain habitat in the McCloud River.
Later, their offspring would catch a ride back to the
Sacramento and head to the ocean to start the cycle again.
The confluence of the tiny San Pedro River and the much larger
Gila was once one of the richest locales in one of the most
productive river ecosystems in the American Southwest, an
incomparable oasis of biodiversity. The rivers frequently
flooded their banks, a life-giving pulse … The
confluence now is a very different place, its richness long
diminished. A massive mountain of orange- and dun-colored
smelter tailings, left from the days of copper and lead
processing and riddled with arsenic, towers where the two
rivers meet. Water rarely flows there, with an occasional
summer downpour delivering an ephemeral trickle.
The Salton Sea has been a health problem for decades with
longtime inaction from agencies charged with actually doing
something about it. But there is recent movement on a couple
wetland projects around the lake.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and the United States
Forest Service (USFS) today announced a first-of-its-kind
partnership in the Eastern Sierra dedicated to improving forest
resiliency, increasing carbon capture, decreasing wildfires,
improving wildlife habitats and recreation sites, and enhancing
the Eastern Sierra watershed over the next two and a half
years.
The lower Klamath River and the redwoods, which grow nowhere
else on Earth, are at the heart of Yurok culture. The tribe’s
reservation follows the river for its last 44 miles and extends
one mile from each bank, just broad enough to accommodate
dozens of tiny, remote villages and the modest town of Klamath
along the 101. The west end of the reservation is surrounded
by Redwood National and State Parks. I wanted quality
time on the water and under tall trees, but I also wanted to
learn more about a people who were navigating this river
thousands of years before the first Gold Rush prospectors
reached California.
The drought is making the Sacramento River so hot that “nearly
all” of an endangered salmon species’ juveniles could be cooked
to death this fall, California officials warned this week. In a
brief update on the perilous state of the river issued this
week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made a
dire prediction about the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon
and its struggles against consistently hot weather in the
Sacramento Valley.
Lake Tahoe’s water continues to show some of the murkiest
levels on record, according to a new report from UC Davis.
Readings from 2020 put the average depth of Tahoe’s water
clarity at 62.9 feet, on par with 2019’s average of 62.7 feet
but down a substantial 8 feet from the year before. The 2019
and 2020 data show the lake near its lowest level of clarity
since UC Davis researchers began keeping records 53 years ago.
The worst year was 2017, when lake clarity measured 59.7 feet.
An environmental group dedicated to promoting healthy waterways
around California is taking Sonoma County to court over
permitting policies it says too liberally allow people to drill
groundwater wells, potentially endangering Russian River stream
flows. California Coastkeeper, an affiliate of the locally
based Russian Riverkeeper and a dozen or so other organizations
around the state, filed the first-of-its-kind lawsuit late last
month amid the intensifying drought and a surge in well
drilling around the region.
Today the Karuk Tribe filed a formal petition with the
California State Water Resources Control Board demanding that
it use its emergency powers to curtail water use in the Scott
River to prevent the extinction of the Southern Oregon-
Northern California Coho Salmon (Coho). … The Scott
River is home to most of the native Coho salmon left
in the Klamath Basin. Coho were added to the endangered species
list in 1997. While federal agencies have forced water users on
the federal Klamath Irrigation Project along the
California/Oregon border to allow downstream flows to protect
the fish, other water users’ impacts have been ignored.
[S]ome 95% of the Central Valley’s riparian woodlands, along
with the conditions they evolved in, have already been
sacrificed, mainly to make the Central Valley an agricultural
powerhouse. The scattered remnants face multiple threats,
including droughts and floods intensified by climate change;
manipulated streamflows that favor human over ecological
needs; and shrinking aquifers left critically overdrawn by
decades of unregulated groundwater pumping.
City officials have placed warning signs at four North Natomas
parks where California water inspectors have found signs of
algae blooms that can be harmful to people and pets.
Algae blooms are not uncommon during warm spells when there is
stagnant water around, but the toxins in the bacteria
they produce can be harmful.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it plans to
propose reclassifying a rare Colorado River Basin fish called
the razorback sucker from endangered to threatened status after
a multiyear and multistate effort throughout the Southwestern
U.S. to replenish its populations. A proposed formal relisting,
to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register, would
classify the fish as no longer on the brink of extinction. But
it would require continued management of the razorback’s
survival in the Colorado River and several key tributaries. The
Fish and Wildlife Service first said it would recommend the
change in 2018.
As someone working on water issues in the West for more decades
than I care to admit, I have found myself repeating the same
mantra over and over again: When you’re in a drought, it’s too
late to prepare. Well, we’re in drought, again, and I can’t
help feeling a sense of personal failure for how ill prepared
we are. This time is worse, however — worse because surely, we
should have learned by now to prepare better and worse because
record-breaking heat and early wildfires indicate the climate
change ratchet has clearly clicked several notches tighter. -Written by Maurice Hall, vice president of
Environmental Defense Fund’s Water for the Ecosystems
Program.
Faced with the prospect of another devastating wildfire year,
California policymakers are seeking ways to accelerate the pace
and scale of forest management. Urgency is warranted,
especially in the dry mixed-conifer forests that dominate many
headwater regions of the state. Decades of fire
suppression have left California’s forests too dense and
prone to disease. Two exceptional droughts over the past decade
have turned these forests into tinderboxes, primed for extreme
wildfires. Forest management can mitigate wildfire risk; we
just have to act fast and over much larger areas to
reap the benefits.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to
downgrade a Colorado River fish, the razorback sucker, from
“endangered” to “threatened.” The razorback sucker was listed
as endangered in 1991 due to habitat loss and predation by
introduced exotic species. Wildlife officials say the
population has recovered to tens of thousands of fish in the
Green, San Juan, and Colorado rivers, meeting the criteria for
downlisting. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service
acknowledges many razorback suckers born in the wild do not
reach adulthood.
Hot temperatures have many headed straight to local waterways
to cool off, but experts say high heat and a bad drought this
year can be ideal conditions for harmful algae. It’s an issue
that’s not always top of mind. … According to state
data, popular waterways in the immediate Sacramento area are
safe. People headed to the American River or Folsom Lake for
the Fourth of July are in the clear. But the state labels
part of Discovery Bay near San Francisco as a danger area, with
a warning not to swim or touch the scum on the water.
City officials are now working on a solution to the dry lake at
Legacy Park. Many Malibu residents are bothered by the fact
that the pond at Legacy Park has dried up in the drought, while
at the same time a construction project for a new business park
and shopping center across the street is unloading tens of
thousands of gallons of water that is flowing into their
construction site, channeling it into Malibu Creek…. That led
Council Member Steve Uhring to the logical question: Why not
put some of the water from the La Paz project into the pond
across the street?
In Sept. 2020, the 7-year-old female mountain lion pictured
above was dehydrated and burnt on the bottom of her paw pads.
The pain made it unbearable to walk. According to data
from a satellite tracking collar and camera footage, seven
months later she is chasing deer, mating, and has even
travelled hundreds of miles through the San Gabriel Mountain
wilderness in southern California, on those once lifeless feet.
… She was found at the edge of a Monrovia resident’s
backyard pond, where she crawled in search of water during the
Bobcat Fire …
The San Francisco Estuary (estuary) is sometimes called the
most invaded estuary in the world, and for good reason. Through
many avenues, hundreds, if not thousands, of species have been
introduced to San Francisco Bay, the Delta, and their rivers.
Some introductions were byproducts of human activity and
include organisms that “hitchhiked” on the bottom of boats or
as stowaways in ballast water carried by international shipping
vessels. Others were deliberate and undertaken either legally
by the government or illicitly by individuals for biocontrol,
fisheries, or disposal of unwanted pets.
Earlier posts here like this one by Grant Lundberg and this one
by David Guy have done a great job of describing the virtues of
floodplain restoration. The profound dedication of people
like Julie Rentner and Jacob Katz inform and energize the work
of the entire Floodplain Forward coalition that I’m proud to be
part of. But moving beyond plans to actually get work
done on the ground is a task that needs broad support.
Sprinkled along the foothills of California’s Central Valley
stand the iconic blue oak woodlands. Towering up to 80 feet
tall and some reaching over 400 years old, the trees are home
to one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the
state. But extreme drought and wildfires are forcing the
woodlands into an uncertain future. A new study conducted by
U.S. Geological Survey researchers found that the historic
drought of 2012-2016 alone caused nearly 490 square miles of
tree cover loss — or the reduction of leaves and branches — in
the blue oak woodlands.
We’re in the final weeks of our moving sale as we prepare to
head to new quarters next month, so you still have a little
time left to knock 30 percent off the price of our water maps,
Layperson’s Guides, DVDs and more. Use the code
MOVINGSALE when you check out to claim your 30 percent
discount and get those updated maps, guides and DVDs you’ve
wanted.
Conservationists are now at the $72-million mark of their
$97-million goal to acquire Banning Ranch, a 384-acre property
at the mouth of the Santa Ana River, and turn the oil field
into a public park. The Trust for Public Land announced Monday
that state legislators allocated $8 million to be put toward
the purchase of the property. Assemblywoman Cottie
Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach) said in a Facebook post that she
was “thrilled” to have secured the allocation in this year’s
upcoming state budget. The budget is now on its way to Gov.
Gavin Newsom to sign prior to the start of the new fiscal year
on July 1.
A threatened species of frog have been found to be
independently breeding at two sites severely burned by the 2018
Woolsey Fire, National Park Services biologists said Tuesday.
The California red-legged frog, which are listed as federally
threatened under the Endangered Species Act and are considered
a species of special concern by the state of California, have
not bred in the wild since the 1970s, according to National
Park Services. But a recent stream survey has uncovered egg
masses at two sites – one in Los Angeles County and another in
Ventura County.
Wildfire season came early this year in the Bay Area after a
meager rainy season left the landscape tinder-dry, offering an
abundance of fuel for wildland blazes. In just the past few
years, California has seen some of the largest, deadliest and
most destructive fires in state history. Last year was a
record-buster, with nearly 10,000 blazes burning more than 4
million acres. Meanwhile, most of the state is in extreme or
exceptional drought conditions, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to
declare a drought emergency in a majority of the state’s
counties.
A coalition of Delta-based groups has sent a
formal Petition for Reconsideration to the State
Water Board opposing the Board’s June 1 order to relax water
quality standards for Delta operations of the Central Valley
Project and the State Water Project. The Temporary Urgency
Change Order (TUCO) was issued by the Water Board on June 1,
2021 … The coalition’s petition shows that 4.5
million acre-feet of water will be delivered to state and
federal water contractors (including about 10 percent for
Central Valley wildlife refuges), based on Water Board
information.
Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) is proud to introduce
“Frog and Turtle: Water Escapades” as the newest in its ongoing
series of educational books. The comic book inspired story
details where EMWD’s water supplies come from, with a frog and
a turtle discovering that they are living through an ongoing
drought and learning about their water supplies to better
understand how to use water more efficiently.
With a record-shattering heat wave suffocating much of the
Pacific Northwest and a drought-fueled wildfire season already
well underway in New Mexico, Arizona and California, President
Biden will attend a virtual meeting with leaders of Western
states on Wednesday to discuss strategies to minimize
weather-related disasters this summer. Jen Psaki, the White
House press secretary, told reporters that the president
planned to bring together members of his cabinet and the
Western governors to assess “the devastating intersection of
drought, heat, and wildfires,” as well as “prevention,
preparedness, and response efforts for this wildfire season.”
Our leaders must take bold action to adapt to our new reality
and create a system that can support healthy rivers and
wildlife, communities with access to safe drinking water and a
thriving agricultural economy. Unfortunately, that’s not what
we’re seeing today. The state’s water regulators are draining
our reservoirs and depleting our rivers to deliver vast volumes
of water to a small number of powerful agricultural interests
during a historically dry year. Protecting fish and
wildlife and water quality for Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta communities does not mean eliminating agriculture in the
Central Valley. -Written by Rachel Zwillinger, water policy advisor
for Defenders of Wildlife in Sacramento.
In the drought-stricken Klamath Basin along the
California-Oregon border, water is precious. This year, Native
American tribes and farmers are competing for this shrinking
resource. It’s an indicator of future water wars in the West.
Jefferson Public Radio’s Erik Neumann explains.
An afternoon on the lake unexpectedly turned into a close
encounter with wildlife for beachgoers in California. A large
adult black bear and three cubs took to a South Lake Tahoe
beach on Sunday to run and play in the water as about a dozen
onlookers watched in awe. The cubs wrestled in the lake as they
beat the high temperatures, which hit 90 degrees in South Lake
Tahoe that day. The four bears — along with a few wild geese —
made a day at the lake resemble a spontaneous day at the zoo
for the beachgoers.
The east side of the Sierra Nevada is remote and sparsely
populated. Like many rural places, it has struggled with a lack
of local resources to plan and implement large complex
projects. That is about to change. In 2019, the SNC invested in
the Eastern Sierra Climate & Communities Resilience
Project to engage stakeholders, create a partnership, and
collaboratively develop a needs assessment, project goals, and
proposed actions. Over the past 1.5 years, the project has done
just that with the help of another SNC grant recipient, the
Eastern California Water Association.
A new study released Monday found that recent years of drought
in California devastated the state’s blue oak woodlands,
destroying more than 460 square miles of blue oak, a tree only
found in the Golden State. Named for the color of its leaves,
the blue oak woodlands date back to pre-European settlement and
are considered “one of the most biologically diverse”
ecosystems in the state, according to the study published in
the journal Frontiers in Climate.
The time to act is now. Climate change is already altering the
physical environment of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and
Suisun Marsh (Delta), and we will continue to experience its
effects through hotter temperatures, more severe wildfires, and
prolonged droughts. Over the long term, climate change in the
Delta is expected to harm human health and safety, disrupt the
economy, diminish water supply availability and usability,
shift ecosystem function, compromise sensitive habitats, and
increase the challenges of providing basic services. Many of
these impacts will disproportionately affect vulnerable
communities.
The rise in legal cannabis cultivation in California has
brought a once-clandestine industry out of the shadows.
Legalization has begun to illuminate the industry’s impacts on
ecosystems and water—a particularly fraught issue as the state
confronts a new drought. We spoke with Van Butsic and Ted
Grantham, co-directors of UC Berkeley’s Cannabis Research
Center and adjunct fellows at the PPIC Water Policy Center, to
better understand how cannabis cultivation affects the state’s
water.
The record-breaking heat wave baking the West Coast is another
painful sign that climate change is here, and we have to adapt.
The Pacific Northwest has been sizzling, with conditions
forecasters have described as unprecedented and
life-threatening. Portland, Ore., hit 113 degrees Monday,
breaking the previous all-time high of 112 degrees, set Sunday.
… Seattle hit 107 degrees, also a record high. … And
further north, the town of Lytton in British Columbia hit 116
degrees Sunday, the highest temperature ever recorded in
Canada.
At almost 30 miles long, Upper Klamath Lake is the home to
several types of fish that live only here. Two of them are
called C’waam and Koptu in the Klamath Tribes’ traditional
language or, in English, the Lost River and shortnose sucker.
They have a stubby face and wide lips, and can live to be
50-years-old. … In recent years, the juvenile fish have been
dying, causing the overall population to crash. Five years ago,
when Gonyaw started working for the tribes, there were about
20,000 shortnose suckers in the lake. Estimates today put them
at just 3,400. The Lost River sucker is disappearing at a
similar rate.
Fueled by overzealous fire suppression, drier summers, rising
temperatures and a relentless drought, wildfires across Arizona
and the Southwest have been sparking more frequently,
burning at greater severity and scorching more
land. … This ongoing fire regime, which has intensified
in the last three decades, is transforming the
state’s once-dense forests. The long-term effect of these
wildfires on plant regrowth, wildlife habitat, watershed health
and forest fuels are at the forefront of many ongoing studies.
The effort to change a former military aircraft taxiway along
San Francisco Bay into wetlands has gotten a setback after the
City Council balked at setting aside money to create a master
plan for the $14 million project. Known as “DePave,” the park
is proposed for the former Alameda Naval Air Station. It’s
expected to feature walking paths and overlooks, where people
can watch birds and harbor seals resting on floating platforms.
Last year, the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission
unanimously endorsed a draft “vision plan” for the future
16-acre park. The council also has broadly supported it, at
least vocally.
Much of the Western half of the United States is in the grip of
a severe drought of historic proportions. Conditions are
especially bad in California and the Southwest, but the drought
extends into the Pacific Northwest, much of the Intermountain
West, and even the Northern Plains. Drought emergencies have
been declared. Farmers and ranchers are suffering. States are
facing water cutbacks. Large wildfires burned earlier than
usual with more major fires burning in Arizona, New Mexico and
other states. There appears to be little relief in sight.
California is home to 131 kinds of native fishes that require
freshwater for some or all of their life-cycle. Most of these
fishes are found only in California and most (81%) are in
decline (Moyle et al. 2015, 2020). Thirty-two (24%) are already
listed as threatened or endangered by state and/or federal
governments. Declines are usually the result of fishes losing
the competition with humans for California’s water and habitat
(Leidy and Moyle 2021). This competition is heightened by the
ongoing severe drought.
The Clean Currents Coalition – a global network of local
projects – is on a mission to clean up the world’s rivers,
using scientific solutions to address the problem of plastic
waste … Pollution doesn’t respect international
boundaries, making plastic waste in the Tijuana River Estuary,
which forms the border between the US and Mexico, everyone’s
problem. As the river is the sole source of clean drinking
water for many people, California and Mexico-based
environmental non-profit WILDCOAST, has erected a “Brute
Boom” across the Los Laureles Canyon to collect debris.
This summer, more than $2 billion in state funds will go
towards fighting fires. And even with those record
expenditures, we’re likely to endure a heavy loss. Once again
there is too little water and too much dry fuel. And once again
we continue to ignore or even kill the water-saving firefighter
who would work for free to protect us: the beaver. -Written
by Heidi Perryman, child psychologist and beaver
advocate.
Once again, the chest beating for
a sea-to-sea pipeline to “fix” the Salton
Sea has begun. Here are a few facts are often
ignored. The Coachella Canal shows that it is
possible to transport water long distances without
pumping. That canal transports Colorado River water
122 miles to the Coachella Valley, all by gravity. It was
completed in 1948, before current environmental regulations.
According to the CVWD, this canal
delivers about 280,000 acre-feet per year of
water. -Written by Alexander Schriener Jr., a California
registered professional geologist who has lived in the
Coachella Valley for 33 years.
There is no drought – the Los Angeles Times wrote in a recent
editorial. The Times argued “if ‘drought’ means a period of dry
years followed by a return to the norm, California is not in
drought. The current climate is the norm.” That analysis has
important implications for Stockton and other communities along
the San Joaquin River and in the Delta. As our precipitation
increasingly swings between drought and flood, each extreme
challenges our communities. -Written by Douglass Wilhoit, CEO of the Greater
Stockton Chamber of Commerce and a former San Joaquin County
supervisor; and Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, executive
director and co-founder of Restore the Delta.
Len Ramirez stalked through the dried landscape, scanning the
ground ahead searching for movement. Called out to an estate in
Napa Valley, the owner of Ramirez Rattlesnake Removal company
was finishing up his last job of another busy day wrangling,
removing and relocating snakes from homes across northern
California. He’d found three in just this yard, including one
nestled roughly 1,000 yards from the pool.
California’s existing release reporting requirements, which are
in addition to federal requirements, are viewed by many as
vague and often require companies to make difficult judgment
calls to determine if small spills or threatened releases must
be reported. In workshops held on June 22 and 24, 2021 the
California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) previewed
amendments to its Hazardous Material Release Reporting
regulations that aim to clarify when a release or threatened
release of a hazardous substance must be reported.
Researchers from Oregon State University say ecological data
gathered during a recent low-flow experiment in the Grand
Canyon is a key step toward understanding Colorado River
ecosystems as the amount of water in the river continues to
decline. Dave Lytle, professor of integrative biology, and
Ph.D. students Angelika Kurthen and Jared Freedman teamed with
scientists from the United States Geological Survey during the
March 2021 project to examine the quantity and diversity of
invertebrates in the river.
I was pleased to hear that Governor Newsom has nominated
Nichole Morgan to fill the civil engineering seat on the State
Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board). Ms.
Morgan, a Cal State Sacramento graduate, is currently Assistant
Deputy Director of Financial Assistance at the State Water
Board and previously worked at the Central Valley Regional
Board. The State Water Board is the primary regulatory agency
that is supposed to manage water resources in
California.
The Delta Stewardship Council (Council) and the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation (Reclamation) are pleased to award over $10 million
to fund 16 critical scientific studies in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta and Suisun Marsh over the next three years.
… At its June 24 meeting, the Council voted to approve
$9,611,012.75 to fund 16 projects, with Reclamation
contributing over $3.42 million toward four of these projects.
The State Water Contractors will co-fund one of these 16
projects, pushing the grand total awards to over $10 million.
The diversion of water from the San Francisco Bay Delta, for
example, is one of the forces famously driving the delta smelt
to extinction. Now, a new study published in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences this month shows another
counterintuitive way in which human water use in California is
putting its unique riverside woodlands at risk. By
diverting water in ways it would not otherwise flow, human
management is providing some stream-side, or riparian,
ecosystems with excess water that gives them a short-term
boost, but undermines their long-term sustainability.
Climate change has plunged the Western U.S. into its worst
drought in two decades. And a record-breaking heat wave only
made things worse. In Arizona and Nevada, it’s been so hot that
doctors warned people they could get third-degree burns from
the asphalt. Wildfires raged in Montana and Utah. Power grids
in Texas strained as officials asked residents to limit
appliance use to avoid blackouts. The levels in Lake Mead,
which supplies water for millions of people, are at their
lowest since the 1930s.
We are excited to announce that a CalTrout project to Reconnect
Habitat is moving forward thanks to grant funding from the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)
voter-approved Proposition 1 Watershed Restoration Grant. This
project is part of the South Coast Steelhead Coalition
portfolio to recover this endangered trout from the brink of
extinction.
Competition for the title of most surreal location in America
is hot, but the Salton Sea in California is undoubtedly a
contender. And the eerie, post-apocalyptic feel of this bizarre
body of water and the ghost-town settlements on its shoreline
has been captured in a stunning newly released photo series by
Julian Lennon, the son of Beatles legend John. The landlocked
body of water is one of the world’s biggest inland seas and at
226ft (69m) below sea level one of the lowest places on earth.
As science and policy director for Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
and a 14-year resident of Carpinteria, I appreciated Bob
Franco’s June 16 letter to the editor, “Don’t drink the water,”
for its effectiveness in raising awareness about an important
pollution issue impacting Carpinteria’s local waterways.
Channelkeeper is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to
protecting and restoring the Santa Barbara Channel and its
watersheds. -Written by Ben Pitterle, Channelkeeper’s interim
executive director and science and policy director.
When wildfires blaze across the West, as they have with
increasing ferocity as the region has warmed, the focus is
often on the immediate devastation — forests destroyed,
infrastructure damaged, homes burned, lives lost. But about
two-thirds of drinking water in the United States originates in
forests. And when wildfires affect watersheds, cities can face
a different kind of impact, long after the flames are out.
PG&E will pay the Central Coast Regional Water Quality
Control Board $5.9 million in a landmark settlement that
recognizes the long-term impacts of dumping water used to cool
Diablo Canyon Power Plant back into the Pacific Ocean — but
also the realities of a plant that is expected to close in the
next decade.
An ongoing fish kill has been plaguing the Klamath River since
early May. The Klamath flows through Oregon and northern
California, and like many water sources in the West, has seen
water levels drop considerably due to extreme drought. A lower
river means a slower and warmer river, which is what some
parasites need to thrive. The parasite C.Shasta is expected to
kill off nearly all of this year’s juvenile Chinook salmon in
the Klamath.
Communities surrounding the Salton Sea, the inland body of
water straddling California’s Riverside and Imperial counties,
show high rates of asthma due, possibly, to high aerosol dust
levels resulting from the sea shrinking over time.
Scientists suspect, however, the Salton Sea plays an additional
role in pulmonary health. A University of California, Riverside
study performed on mice has found Salton Sea aerosol turns on
nonallergic inflammation genes and may also promote lung
inflammation.
The dream of turning a 384-acre oil field at the mouth of the
Santa Ana River into a public park and nature preserve grows
closer to a reality by another $8 million, thanks to a grant
from the state’s fish and wildlife department announced earlier
this month. The $8-million grant for the purchase of Banning
Ranch, given to the Trust for Public Land, is one of 28
projects — and one of three acquisition projects — selected to
receive a grant this year.
The move to end mining in a Tri-Valley lake became official
this week. Alameda County planning commissioners on Monday
approved plans for restoring the Eliot Quarry, where more than
a century of rock mining in the unincorporated area between
Livermore and Pleasanton will eventually be turned into lakes
surrounded by open fields and recreation trails. … [T]he
project will include the planting of native trees and shrubs,
creating passages for fish, and reducing the amount of
groundwater lost to San Francisco Bay by deepening the lake so
it can hold more water.
Drought may be the sneakiest of natural disasters. Although
human history teems with people engulfed by abrupt aridity —
the Akkadians of four millenniums ago, the Maya in the ninth
and 10th centuries A.D., the Great Plains farmers of the 1930s
— even today drought is a poorly appreciated phenomenon. …
The American West is once again facing drought, one of the
worst on record. Across a vast region encompassing nine states
and home to nearly 60 million people, the earth is being wrung
dry. -Written by Farhad Manjoo, NY Times opinion columnist.
A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday is alleging the Point Reyes
National Seashore was negligent in its wildlife management and
violated federal law after more than 150 tule elk died in a
park preserve last year. … Environmental groups and
activists allege the Tomales Point elk died because of a lack
of drinking water. Park staff said there were adequate water
sources within the enclosure when the population decline
occurred.
The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) and
Sonoma County Department of Environmental Health Services
advise caution for anyone who boats, fishes or swims after
harmful algal blooms (HABs) were discovered in multiple Sonoma
County rivers. Because children and dogs are most susceptible
to serious health impacts, it is recommended that they avoid
touching any suspicious-looking algal material found in the
water or along river banks.
For decades, an agonizing war over [water] has divided
indigenous people and the descendants of settlers of [the
Klamath basin], which like much of the American West, is now
plagued by drought. Family farmers often describe the conflict
as one that pits them against federal bureaucrats who protect
the suckerfish, imperiled as the lake grows more inhospitable.
That portrayal, say members of the tribes, dismisses a tougher
truth … about race, equity and generational trauma to a
people whose history includes slaughter, forced removal of
children, federal termination of their tribal status and loss
of land …
San Francisco Bay may be one of the most famous stretches of
waterway in the world, but when it comes to federal spending,
it’s recently been one of the most overlooked. Hundreds of
millions of dollars flowed to other areas like Puget Sound and
the Chesapeake Bay during the Trump years. … This week,
Speier took a big step towards turning the tide. Pushing
through a $125 million Bay Restoration bill in the House. The
money would be spread out over five years, and target projects
that could be key to the Bay’ survival.
This report describes the Delta Landscapes Primary Production
project, which quantifies how landscape change in the Delta has
altered the quantity and character of primary production.
Combining historical and modern maps with simple models of
production for five dominant plant and algae groups, we
estimate primary production across the hydrologically connected
Delta. We evaluate changes in primary production over time
(between the early 1800s and early 2000s), between wet and dry
years, and with future targets for landscape-scale
restoration.
As California’s drought worsens, over 93% of all known giant
sequoia trees currently exist in areas experiencing
“exceptional drought” conditions — the most severe drought
classification established by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). … [H]uman activity and
climate change threaten their continued existence. And now with
drought conditions worsening across the West Coast, virtually
every single one of the massive trees is now rooted in an area
under exceptional drought conditions, leaving them prone to
damage from wildfires.
Growers are dealing with severe cutbacks in the surface water
deliveries they normally receive from reservoirs. The lack of
steady irrigation has already impacted spring cropping
decisions made by farmers. … A bill introduced by
Republican Congressman David Valadao would allow more water to
be moved south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while
keeping protections in place for fish such as the delta smelt
and salmon.
I’ve spent my whole life near San Francisco Bay. But the amount
of time that I’ve actually spent out on the water has been
minimal — a few ferry rides, a dinner cruise or two, a trip to
Alcatraz and back in grade school. That’s it. I like to blame
my yacht-less friends, who have been amazingly inconsiderate
over the decades and never bought fancy sailboats to take me
out on the water. The real reason, of course, is that I’d never
explored some relatively inexpensive ways to explore this
area’s most famous feature. Turns out it’s pretty easy to
do, especially if you like to paddle.
In early April, just over 700 Owens pupfish were relocated by
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to River
Spring Lakes Ecological Reserve in Owens Valley. The move is
seen as a significant step forward for the rare North American
fish, once declared extinct in 1940, that has been considered
on “life-support” since it was re-discovered in
1964.
Islais Creek is an unassuming waterway along San Francisco’s
eastern industrial shoreline, meandering its way inland and
providing a natural border between The City’s Bayview and
Dogpatch neighborhoods. There’s a nice little park there,
tucked under a bridge, that locals visit. But it’s not the kind
of place most people think about much. Environmentalists
and urban planners, on the other hand, think about it a lot.
Here’s why: Rising sea levels and flooding.
California is in a megadrought, with its key reservoirs falling
to their lowest points in history. Wildfire season is already
here, and officials are bracing for yet another catastrophic
year. Meanwhile, rural communities remain in desperate need of
viable, sustainable economic futures. One climate-smart
solution that addresses all these needs is watershed
restoration.
In April of 2017, PGE began moving forward with its plans to
relicense the Potter Valley Project (PVP)—with, as of yet, no
designs to remove any of the infrastructure—and in August of
2019, Congressman Jared Huffman created the PVP Ad Hoc
Committee, a Two Basin Solution for the Eel and Russian River
basins, whose more than 20 members were tasked with the
relicensing process of the PVP to improve fisheries and fish
migration, minimize adverse impacts to water supply
reliability, respect tribal rights and minimize and mitigate
adverse impacts to Lake County including Lake Pillsbury.
California, like the rest of the world, must wrestle with a
hard truth: Our climate has changed. As we face another
water-shortage crisis, we must acknowledge a sobering reality:
We’re not in a drought. This is our new normal. And we need to
adapt. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we can’t solve our
drought, or the myriad other environmental crises, without
protecting our ecosystems. And we can’t protect our ecosystems
without acknowledging that this work is globally connected. -Written by Assembly Member Laura Friedman,
D-Glendale; LA-based environmental and social policy
advisor Rosalind Helfand; and Mike Young, political and
organizing director of the California League of Conservation
Voters.
The Bay Area enjoyed a significant cooldown on the first day of
summer as the first major heat wave of the year subsided Sunday
— but forecasters are predicting another record-breaking hot
spell by next weekend. Last week’s heat wave saw a strong area
of high pressure build from the Southwest desert, strengthening
as it baked the central and southern regions of California
… Experts said the heat is likely to
intensify California’s already dire drought
conditions and bring potential wildfire danger.
A few years ago, filmmaker Emmett Brennan discovered that the
once-lush Owens Valley that sources water for Los Angeles is
now mostly a stark desert, and he had to do something. The
result is a meditative new feature-length documentary called
“Reflection: A Walk with Water” that traces a 200-mile trek by
foot along the entire length of the L.A. aqueduct to raise
awareness about the way we use and misuse water. The film, with
original music by Jacob Collier and Justin Kauflin, is
streaming through June 23 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.
Water Audit California sued the City of St. Helena this week
over its management of water. The watchdog group says the city
is violating its “public trust” responsibilities relating to
the Napa River and its aquatic habitat. It cites the city’s
policies on groundwater pumping, well permitting, and water
consumption by vineyards and wineries.
We had been walking for only a few minutes when Scott
Culbertson stopped in front of a field of twisted, blackened
bark. “I haven’t been here since the fire,” the executive
director of the Friends of Ballona Wetlands told me, scowling
at the destruction from behind dark sunglasses. Three months
ago, this spot in the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve in
Playa del Rey had been a stand of native willow trees and other
vegetation where endangered songbirds would nest. Then, one
sunny afternoon, a brush fire broke out and scorched five acres
before firefighters could put it out. -Written by Erika Smith, LA Times columnist.
Several locations along the American River north of Sacramento
are showing above-average levels of E. coli, according to the
Central Valley Water Board. KCRA 3 spoke with health officials
in Sacramento County on Friday about the concerning levels of
E. coli.
Lake Pillsbury… is located in the northeast part of Lake
County. Filled in 1922, impounded by the Scott Dam, it is part
of the Potter Valley Project that assures water security for
hundreds of thousands of people in the three counties of
Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin for drinking, farming, aquifer
replenishment and recreation….On March 17, 2021, FERC issued
a Study Plan Determination and per the order the Two Basin
Solution Partnership must analyze the effects of removing Scott
Dam on the communities around Lake Pillsbury, tribal interests,
recreation and other activities on the Eel River …
Last fall, the Maidu Summit Consortium, a nonprofit composed of
nine Mountain Maidu tribal member groups, installed 73
BDAs—beaver dam analogs—in Yellow Creek, a tributary to the
North Fork Feather River and a state-listed heritage trout
stream. … The idea behind the structures, which mimic beaver
dams, is to slow erosion, catch sediment, and build up the
river bottom to reverse the incised channel—without importing
soil and other materials or emitting carbon from heavy,
diesel-powered equipment.
When Donald Trump referred to the COVID pandemic as a “plague,”
he was implying that it was an act of God that couldn’t be
blamed on the government. We are now told that the acute water
shortage in California is the result of a “drought” that has,
once again, lead to water restrictions. This biblical term
obscures the responsibility that our local governments bear for
this crisis. Countries facing far harsher climates and much
scarcer water supply, like Israel, have adopted straightforward
policies to avoid such crises. We should learn from their
example. -Written by Ron E. Hassner, the Helen Diller
Family chair in Israel Studies and the co-director of the Helen
Diller Institute for Israel Studies at U.C. Berkeley.
The learned doctors attending the bedside of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta agree on one thing: the patient is not
doing well. What ails it, many students of the case suggest, is
dehydration: the perennial artificial drought induced by
withdrawals of water for human use, whether pulled from feeder
rivers or extracted from the Delta itself. … Recently,
though, attention has turned to what might be called a
comorbidity: malnutrition. Delta waters simply don’t generate
enough basic food, in the form of phytoplankton, to sustain the
food chains …
As much as 100,000 acre-feet of water — enough to meet the
annual demand of more than 40,000 Tuolumne County residents for
at least five years — that’s currently stored in New Melones
Reservoir could soon be sent south to aid drought-stricken
farmers under an agreement between the Oakdale and South San
Joaquin irrigation districts.
[T]he problem goes way beyond grazing. Dozens of tributaries
and hundreds of springs feed Upper Klamath Lake, supplying
plenty of good, clean water. A century of mismanagement has
caused erosion of high phosphorus soils that accumulate in the
bottom of Upper Klamath Lake. Now, annual algae blooms kill
entire generations of young endangered fish every year.
… All the problems in the Upper Klamath Lake flow
downstream, affecting endangered salmon in the Klamath River as
it runs to the Pacific Ocean. The Karuk, a Klamath River tribe,
are worried that this could be another year marked by a
historic fish kill.
Water in a key California reservoir will fall so low this
summer that its hydroelectric power plant will be forced to
shut down for the first time, officials said Thursday,
straining the state’s already-taxed electric
grid. An unrelenting drought and record
heat, both worsened by the changing climate, have pushed the
water supply at Northern California’s Lake Oroville to deplete
rapidly. As a result of the “alarming levels,” officials will
likely be forced to close the Edward Hyatt Power Plant for the
first time since it opened in 1967…
