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.
A Native American tribe has agreed to lease more of its water
to help address dwindling supplies in the Colorado River Basin,
officials announced Thursday. The agreement involves the
Jicarilla Apache Nation, the New Mexico Interstate Stream
Commission and The Nature Conservancy. The tribe has agreed to
lease up to 6.5 billion gallons (25 billion liters) of water
per year to the state to bolster flows for endangered species
and increase water security for New Mexico. The water would be
released from the Navajo Reservoir in northwestern New Mexico
to feed the San Juan River, which flows into the Colorado
River.
It’s no accident that both the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and the California Institute of Technology claim the
beaver (Castor canadensis) as their mascots. Renowned
engineers, beavers seem able to dam any stream, building
structures with logs and mud that can flood large areas. As
climate change causes extreme storms in some areas and intense
drought in others, scientists are finding that beavers’
small-scale natural interventions are valuable. In dry areas,
beaver ponds restore moisture to the soil; in wet zones, their
dams and ponds can help to slow floodwaters.
If tree growth and seed production can’t compensate for the
impacts of climate change, California’s trees will face
difficulty filling in gaps left by wildfire and reaching areas
that are becoming climatically suitable, studies now
show. Western trees tend to produce more seed and
seedlings in the northward parts of their geographic ranges,
said UC Merced Professor Emily Moran, with the Department of
Life and Environmental Sciences, but this doesn’t mean they
will be fully able to keep pace with climate change.
Acknowledging that the U.S. Forest Service has fallen short
when it comes to preventing wildfires, the Biden administration
this week said it would spend nearly $3 billion to reduce risk
across the most fire-prone areas of the United States, largely
in the American West. The impact could be significant in
California, where the federal government is the largest
landowner, responsible for nearly half of all land area in the
state, including 20 million acres of federal forests vexed by
an enduring wildfire crisis.
In 2021 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the
federal circuit appeals court for California, Arizona and
Alaska, remained — save only the U.S. Supreme Court — the most
important court in the United States when it comes to
environmental law. This year the 9th Circuit also maintained
its role as the most prodigious source of key environmental
decisions of any federal appellate court — issuing nearly one
per week. … United States v. Walker River Irrigation
District, (Jan. 28).
Whether emblazoned on California’s flag or described in myth,
the bear stands as a potent symbol of courage and strength — a
ferocious embodiment of the North American wilderness. In
reality, however, the bear is vulnerable. Nearly a century
after the California grizzly was hunted to extinction, its less
aggressive cousin, the black bear, is being killed in record
numbers on California highways, experts say. The
unprecedented surge in deadly vehicle strikes is likely the
result of bears fleeing massive wildfires in the Sierra Nevada,
as well as the effects of drought, according to biologists.
CalTrout seeks to outline an Eel River, basin-wide fisheries
Restoration Plan. The Plan consists of four phases: Planning,
Prioritization, Implementation and Adaptive Management, and
Monitoring. The need for a holistic, watershed-wide restoration
program to support the recovery of native anadromous fish
populations in the Eel River is well documented in the Eel
River Action Plan, CDFW South Fork Eel River Watershed
Assessment, Round Valley Indian Tribe’s Eel River Restoration
Strategy, and NMFS Coho and Multispecies Recovery Plans.
High in the San Bernardino Mountains, water seeps from the
ground … Near this dribbling spring, water gushes
through a system of tunnels and boreholes, and flows into a
network of stainless steel pipes that join together in a single
line… to a tank, where some is hauled away in trucks to be
bottled and sold as Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water. Local
environmentalists say the bottled water pipeline doesn’t belong
in the national forest … The latest round in the fight
over bottled water in the San Bernardino Mountains is playing
out in a series of virtual hearings focusing on [Arrowhead
owner] BlueTriton Brands’ water rights claims.
The Northern California Water Association (NCWA) Board of
Directors recently approved its 2022 Priorities. NCWA and the
water leaders in the region continue to re-imagine our water
system in the Sacramento River Basin and we look forward to
working with our many partners in 2022 to cultivate a shared
vision in the region for a vibrant way of life. We will also
work to harmonize our water priorities with state, federal, and
other regions’ priorities to advance our collective goal of
ensuring greater water and climate resilience throughout
California for our communities, the economy and the
environment.
The Teichert Mining and Reclamation project was approved by
Yolo County supervisors following a lengthy presentation,
deliberation and public comment session earlier this week. The
Teichert Shifler Mining and Reclamation project involves an
application to establish a new mining operation to extract sand
and gravel aggregate along lower Cache Creek. Referred to as
the Teichert Shifler operation, the mining would occur on 264.1
acres of a 319.3-acre site, with other project related uses on
the remaining 55 acres.
The heavy rains that soaked California late last year were
welcomed by farmers, urban planners – and endangered coho
salmon. … California received more precipitation from October
to December than in the previous 12 months, according to the
National Weather Service. The abundance of rain and snow
arrived in time for the November-to-January spawning season in
the resource-rich Tomales Bay watershed north of San Francisco,
enabling some fish to reach tributaries to the Lagunitas Creek
at least 13 miles (20 km) inland in Marin County.
Sixth-generation rice grower Jeff Gallagher is perpetually
surrounded by birds on the Sutter County farm that has been in
his family since 1872. The soundtrack of his life is the din
caused by the itinerant visitors—nasal honks of wild geese,
hisses of sandhill cranes and other bird chatter at his
4,000-acre ranch in Rio Oso, a rice-farming region north of
Sacramento. … Gallagher is doing his part to preserve it
by enlisting in a new program to flood rice fields for
wildlife. It is designed to protect bird habitat in
California’s Central Valley over the next 10 years.
Carson Jeffres is a senior researcher and lab director at UC
Davis’s Center for Watershed Sciences. For over 20 years, he’s
studied how native fish utilize and benefit from restored
habitats in both Brazil and California. His current research
focuses on the recovery of salmon populations in California. We
asked him to update us about the effort to save this iconic,
embattled fish.
Fish need water. While minimum flows and other
emergency-response approaches might save some fishes during
crises, such “bucket-based” approaches are insufficient in the
long-term….The current drought underscores the need to
rapidly identify flows that protect fish and other aquatic
species. Although specific instream flow needs of many species
are unknown, managing for a subset of species (the umbrellas
identified by our approach) could speed the process by focusing
attention on the flow needs of a few species that confer
protection to others.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the 19th
century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the Gila River
Indian Community — is now coursing again with water, luring
things like cattails and birds back to its shores. … The
revival of this small segment of the 649-mile (1045-kilometer)
Gila River, which has served the tribes that make up the Gila
River Indian Community — the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the
Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly 2,000 years, was an added
benefit of a grassroots infrastructure overhaul, known as
“managed aquifer recharge,” or MAR, which aimed to restore
the local groundwater basin.
Occasionally we read about our community’s comparatively low
education levels and the lack of good high-paying jobs that
require a higher education. Seldom is the connection drawn
between these related facts and the social and cultural
environment where we ask likely candidates to live. My wife,
now retired, was involved in employee recruitment and retention
at the business where she worked. Often in her efforts to
recruit highly educated professionals to fill vacancies at the
firm, the candidate or their spouse would state unequivocally
they have no intention of living in Bakersfield.
-Written by Stephen Montgomery, chairman of the
Sierra Club Kern-Kaweah Chapter.
Surveyors of Marin County’s endangered coho salmon had
something to celebrate this year after heavy downpours allowed
fish to access habitats where they haven’t been seen in nearly
two decades. … Marin County has the largest population of
Central Coast endangered coho salmon from Monterey Bay to the
Sonoma-Mendocino county line. Once believed to number in the
tens of thousands, coho salmon in Marin have dwindled to the
hundreds. The decline is largely attributed to habitat loss
caused by land-use changes and development such as dams, which
blocked access to about half of the salmon’s historic habitat
and caused creeks to fill in with more sediment.
The plan for the Newman Community Conservation Area, south of
Newman, is moving forward, with city officials preparing to bid
out some projects and search for funding on others. The Newman
Community Conservation Area is planned for city-owned property
that is north of Brazo Road and east of Canal School Road in
Merced County. The vision for the property includes wetlands
and a nature park with hiking trails. The plan has four key
components for the property. The first area will be a 21-acre
wetland complex that will be used to treat storm run-off from
the city and surrounding ag lands.
Pacific Gas and Electric could be liable for contamination from
a defunct gas plant that operated more than 100 years ago, a
federal judge has ruled, because evidence suggests its
predecessor dumped hazardous waste at or near the San Francisco
site in 1903. … In a 14-page ruling issued
Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Orrick rejected that
argument, finding the available evidence supports a “reasonable
inference” that SFG&E operated the plant and dismantled its
parts in 1903, two activities that produced toxic waste that
would have been dumped in or near the San Francisco Bay at that
time.
Dr. Flora Cordoleani is a project scientist with UC Santa Cruz
and NOAA fisheries, where she conducts research to understand
better the dynamics of threatened populations of spring-run
chinook salmon in the Central Valley’s highly modified
environment, with the objective of providing management
recommendations for the recovery of the species. At the
2022 Bay-Delta Science Conference, Dr. Cordoleani discussed
research done in collaboration with Dr. Corey Phillis, Dr. Anna
Sturrock, Dr. Rachel Johnson, and George Whitman that studied
fish ear bones, also called otoliths, to look at the life
history strategies of the spring-run Chinook salmon population
in the Central Valley.
A notice for the next round of state hearings on whether
there’s “loose” water on the Kern River prompted exasperation
from one attorney and a letter from a Bakersfield group
beseeching the state to change its focus. Like the last round
held December 9-10, the hearings set for March 15-18 and April
5 and 6, will not consider the public’s needs and how the
diversion of water may impact the environment, recreation,
drinking water, or quality of life – collectively known as the
“public trust.” Instead, the hearing notice states those public
trust issues will be considered at some point in the
future.
A creek rises at my doorstep. My driveway is a spillway washed
by surf I’ve never heard. An estuary of the Pacific Ocean flows
between the basketball courts and the picnic shelter in my
neighborhood park. Where I live is seven miles from the coast,
but the sea laps its streets unseen. The Los Angeles County
Flood Control District manages the network of catch basins,
laterals, conduits and channels that puts my doorstep one step
away from the open ocean. The network is for stormwater, but it
also carries the daily runoff from more than 2,000 square miles
of watershed.
Rivers need water—a fact that may seem ridiculously obvious,
but in times of increasing water development, drought, and
climate change, the quantity of natural streamflow that remains
in river channels is coming into question, especially in the
Colorado River basin. Newly published research poses a tough
question in these days of falling reservoir levels and
high-stakes urban development: whether the continued
development of rivers for water supply can be balanced with
fish conservation.
On most autumn days, David Sopjes can be found in the Eel River
in Northwest California counting fish. As a retired high school
science teacher and citizen scientist, Sopjes has spent the
last 10 years monitoring the Chinook salmon population in the
Eel River, which he says has the third-largest watershed in the
state. Every fall, Sopjes counts the salmon as they wait for
the winter rains to reproduce. … Before getting a drone
three years ago, Sopjes and his colleagues counted the salmon
by snorkeling in the river and standing on paddleboards, both
of which greatly disturbed the fish and weren’t very
accurate.
For thousands of years, the Yurok have gathered along the
Klamath River in northern California to honor the
life-affirming runs of wild salmon. But these days their annual
festivals have come to feel more like funerals than
celebrations. There are so few salmon in these waters that the
Yurok Tribe has had to resort to importing them from Alaska.
… The reasons for the decimation of the salmon runs are
many, climate change among them. But the biggest culprit,
actually the four biggest culprits, are the decrepit
hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) recently released the
long-anticipated proposed rule redefining the scope of waters
protected by the Clean Water Act (CWA). The CWA strictly
prohibits discharges of pollutants into “navigable waters of
the United States” unless specifically permitted; however, the
definition of what constitutes “waters of the United States”
(WOTUS) has evolved over the past five decades, shifting with
the political tides in Washington.
After one of its driest summers in years, satellite images show
that Mount Shasta is blanketed in its signature snow once again
after December storms swept across Northern California. The
images show the mountain nearly entirely devoid of snow in
early September, after a very hot summer for the region
compounded the lack of snowpack after two severely dry winters,
dissipating the snowpack earlier than normal. Just four months
later, the mountain appeared transformed, covered in snow once
again.
The Northern California Water Association (NCWA) Board of
Directors on January 5 adopted our Strategic Planning and 2022
Priorities. On behalf of the water leaders in this region, we
look forward to working with our many partners in 2022 to
cultivate a shared vision for a vibrant way of life in the
Sacramento River Basin. We will continue to re-imagine our
water system in the Sacramento River Basin as we work to
harmonize our water priorities with state, federal, and other
regions’ priorities and to advance ridgetop to river mouth
water management and our collective goal of ensuring
greater water and climate resilience throughout California for
our communities, the economy, and the environment.
A lawsuit brought in federal court on Monday challenges the
National Park Service’s plan for managing agriculture and
wildlife at Point Reyes National Seashore in California. At the
heart of the filing is a claim that the Park Service is
embracing cattle ranches to the detriment of native Tule elk in
the seashore. … According to the plaintiffs, the
management plan violates … the Clean Water Act by allowing
ranches to circumvent water quality standards.
A group of studies released last month paint a clearer picture
of how Sonoma and Mendocino counties can meet future water
needs while reducing environmental impacts in the face of a
decision by PG&E to cease operation of an aging
hydroelectric power project. The Potter Valley Project (PVP) is
located approximately 15 miles north of the City of Ukiah on
the Eel River. The Project’s facilities include two dams, a
diversion tunnel and a hydroelectric plant located in Potter
Valley in the headwaters of the Russian River.
A new report conveys significant progress made in the past 18
months to implement the Water Resilience Portfolio, the Newsom
Administration’s water policy blueprint to build climate
resilience in the face of more extreme cycles of wet and dry.
… Recent progress includes assisting tens of thousands
of Californians who depend on small water systems or domestic
wells that have drinking water supply problems, dedicating
hundreds of millions of dollars to improve streamflow for
salmon and other native fish species, advancing the removal of
four obsolete dams that block salmon passage on the Klamath
River, providing extensive financial and technical assistance
to local sustainable groundwater management agencies, restoring
streams and floodplains, and steadily improving the state’s
ability to manage flood and drought.
Unfortunately, all California coastal communities pump millions
of gallons of “sewage effluent” into the Pacific Ocean daily!
All of these coastal cities are really to blame for the
decrease of flora and fauna in our ocean. Communities in
California who are not near the ocean deal with their sewage
effluent in a far more environmentally sustainable manner. How?
Valley cities and mountain communities rid themselves of their
waste by recycling the effluent, which is used to make compost
or irrigate farmland by growing crops that are not for human
consumption or treating the effluent and recycling water for
domestic needs. -Written by Ed Davis, a professional agronomist,
water science specialist, APCA, CCA and has been a business
owner since 1981.
Walk along Damon Slough in Oakland and you’re likely to see
trash heading towards San Francisco Bay. David Lewis of the
environmental group Save the Bay, says much of it comes from
the nearby 880 freeway and local storm drains. … And
experts say the pollution you can actually see is only part of
the threat. Floating along side, often invisible to the naked
eye, are microplastics. They’re tiny particles, that can come
from clothing, cigarette butts, and even the rubber from car
tires.
At the edge of the American River, the dorsal fins of tired
Chinook salmon breach the surface as the fish tread the slow
currents. They’ve performed their last act: the return to the
streams used by their parents to lay and fertilize their
pea-sized, orange eggs. These kings—the largest of the Pacific
salmon—have nowhere left to go. They’ll soon join the bony
skeletons of their kin beneath the water or those scattered
upon the river’s bank, a feast for turkey vultures, bald eagles
and the surrounding trees—just as their young, called alevin,
hatch in gravel beds and begin the life cycle again.
We’ve all read about glaciers in peril: pieces of ice, the size
of continents, breaking off Antarctica or melting away in the
Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, leaving polar bears starving
and clutching onto remnants of crumbling sea ice. But what do
such tales mean for people in temperate places? Here’s one
answer: Learning about glacier vulnerability can guide our
fight to stop climate change. … There is still plenty of
water left to melt in climate-vulnerable glaciers. … If all
remaining glacier ice melts the sea would rise by about
230 feet! -Written by Jorge Daniel Taillant, founder of
the Center for Human Rights and
Environment and currently climate justice policy
adviser at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable
Development, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C.
“They will recolonize, if we pave the way for them,” said Damon
Goodman, former biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service’s Arcata office who is now a regional director in
Northern California for CalTrout. If this sounds similar to the
Field of Dreams famous quote: “if you build it, they will
come,” it is. And it is exactly what happened with Pacific
lamprey recolonizing in the Santa Margarita River in Southern
California. Found in the river in August 2019 for the
first time since last documented in 1940, this is now the
furthest south the species has currently recolonized, 260 miles
south of the previous location in San Luis Obispo which
recolonized in 2017.
Record-breaking rainfall drenched much of the Bay Area in late
October and again around Christmas, leading to flooding, power
outages, snarled traffic — and a great season for a fish that
has had it rough in recent years. For East-Bay bound, fall-run
Chinook salmon, which rely on continuous pulses of fresh water
to grant them passage to upstream spawning grounds, the October
rain event could not have come at a better time.
Government officials warding off deadly diseases often praise
the lowly mosquitofish as a public health messiah. But some
environmentalists have dubbed it the “plague minnow” and the
“fish destroyer.” Today, nearly a century after the
finger-sized fish was first introduced to California in a
Sacramento lily pond, it’s arguably the most ubiquitous
freshwater fish in the world. But the mosquitofish also ranks
among the world’s worst invasive species. Balancing the
pest-control prowess and ecological destruction of the fish,
nearly every mosquito and vector control district in
California, including in Marin, now deploys the creature with
varying strategies.
The future of a little-known dam on the Eel River in Lake
County may be shaped this year as the license expires on a
broken-down PG&E hydropower project that plays a critical
role in providing water to 600,000 Sonoma and Marin county
residents. Demolition of Scott Dam, a 138-foot concrete
structure built a century ago to impound Lake Pillsbury, is an
“absolute requirement” for a coalition that includes Sonoma,
Mendocino and Humboldt counties interested in picking up the
license, said Rep. Jared Huffman, the North Coast
congressman.
The last seven years have been the hottest on record, with 2021
ranking as the fifth hottest year as the world continues to see
a rise in climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, according
to a report released on Monday. … Extremely dry
conditions also exacerbated wildfires throughout July and
August, especially in several Canadian provinces and the U.S.
West. The Dixie Fire became the second-largest
fire in California’s history, burning nearly 1 million
acres and resulting in poor air quality for thousands of
people across the country.
What a difference six months can make. In July, Marin County
creeks were almost bone dry and now there’s so much water
running through them that salmon are spawning like no one has
seen for decades. It is a testament to the unpredictability of
nature that, after the second driest summer in state history,
the salmon should have such ideal conditions for spawning.
… Todd Steiner, executive director of the Turtle Island
Restoration Network, said so much water is flowing at exactly
the right time that it is making for a perfect set of
conditions for the fish to breed.
Just before the California Department Fish and Wildlife
released a New Year’s Eve letter revealing that only 2.6
percent of juvenile Chinook salmon had
survived lethally warm water conditions on the
Sacramento River, a petition sponsored by Save California
Salmon in opposition to the Sites Reservoir reached 50,000
signatures. … Sites Reservoir is opposed by California Tribal
representatives, environmental justice groups, conservation
organizations and fishing groups …
In the last year, deadly frigid winter temperatures in Texas
gave way to excruciating summer heat in the Northwest.
Wildfires raged across California. In late summer, Hurricane
Ida devastated Louisiana and flooded the Northeast. In
December, an outbreak of nearly 70 tornadoes caused
unprecedented destruction. If you’ve thought headlines
about U.S. weather and climate disasters are becoming more
common: You’re right.
Development of a $1 billion resort and housing project in one
of the state’s most wildfire-prone communities has been placed
on hold after a judge ruled developers didn’t adequately plan
for what might happen when a wildfire erupts and thousands of
people have to run for their lives. The Lake County judge’s
ruling on the Guenoc Valley Resort could have sweeping
ramifications for housing and business developments across a
state where fires are growing in severity and local officials
are under intense pressure to approve new building projects
during a housing crisis.
As 2021 was shaping into the most challenging water year in
recent history—with the driest and hottest conditions anyone
could remember–water resources managers in the Sacramento
Valley developed a “roadmap” in May, outlining plans to
maximize habitat for fish in wildlife with the minimal water
resources that were available. At that time, water
managers in every part of the Valley knew they were going to
see substantial reductions in their water supplies and they
were developing and implementing drought plans to manage the
limited supplies available.
Drought is no stranger to the Klamath Basin. But twenty years
ago, following a century and a half of control by settlers, it
began tearing at the fabric of the watershed. Farmers saw their
water supply cut off for the first time since the Klamath
Project’s inception. Young fish perished up and down the
watershed. Migrating birds’ ancestral rest stops reduced to mud
puddles. Indigenous people saw themselves vilified for seeking
the protection of natural and cultural resources promised to
them by treaties.
[The Great Salt Lake] is in trouble, which is why hundreds
of people representing myriad agencies, advocacy organizations,
industry and sportsmen convened for the half-day summit, making
plain that fixing what ails the lake is a top political, fiscal
and conservation goal for all. … The lake, drained by
diversions and drought, dropped below its lowest recorded level
logged in 1963 this last summer and continues to remain below
that historic low.
A group of West Marin land managers and conservationists is
exploring the reintroduction of beavers to buffer the impacts
of drought, increase biodiversity and improve salmon habitat. A
steering committee spearheaded by the Occidental Arts and
Ecology Center and made up of representatives of the Marin
Resource Conservation District, Marin Water, the Salmon
Protection and Watershed Network and the Environmental Action
Committee hopes to simulate a beaver dam this summer with
funding from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
USGS scientists, industry engineers, and an innovative NGO are
partnering to map surface soil moisture over 13 km2 of
wildfire-prone grasslands, oak lands, and closed-canopy
forest in Sonoma County, California. The partnership is
exploring how to improve our ability to measure water in ways
that inform land and water resource management practices during
wildfire season and during droughts and floods.
Salmon is the second most consumed seafood in the U.S., and
California is a major salmon contributor. But a new report
shows the drought facing the state is killing a salmon species
in the Sacramento River. A recent report from the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife shows that only 2.6 percent of
the winter-run Chinook salmon juvenile population survived the
brutally hot and dry summer.
We are thrilled to share that Sandra Jacobson, Ph.D., director
of CalTrout’s South Coast and Sierra Headwaters regions, is one
of Orange County’s 125 most influential people for 2021. The
Orange County Register compiled this list which notes
Jacobson’s mission to save the endangered Southern California
steelhead by working to remove disruptive manmade
barriers.
Keep an eye on the American River this time of year in Northern
California. You might see a sea lion. A KCRA 3 viewer passed
along a video she shot of a sea lion swimming upstream Monday
just before 5 p.m. at the William B. Pond Recreation Area in
Carmichael. … Peter Tira with the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife said that sea lions in the American River
are “very common this time of year. The Chinook salmon and
steelhead trout are spawning right now.”
Alarmingly low numbers of baby salmon are surviving their
journey down the Sacramento River to the sea, confirming
conservationists’ fears that low flows and high river
temperatures during the drought would wipe out most of the
endangered winter-run salmon born last year. Only 2.6% of the
eggs that winter-run chinook salmon laid in the Sacramento
River resulted in fry, or inch-long baby salmon … Used to
monitor and project the health of the population, this
“egg-to-fry” survival rate is the first official estimate of
baby salmon born last year and the lowest in the past two
decades.
The Central Valley is known for oil and agriculture, but it’s
also a desired destination for more than 100 million birds.
That is because the wetlands that were here decades ago have
made this area part of their migration pattern. Because of city
growth, and climate change wetlands have almost all
disappeared, but could there be a solution now that several
state organizations are working to protect these bird habitats.
Teichert Construction is applying for a Yolo County permit to
mine gravel on more than 250 acres of land in lower Cache Creek
west of Woodland, which is now being used for
agriculture. This proposal is problematic because the
Cache Creek watershed naturally contains substantial
deposits of mercury ore. It includes a US EPA Superfund site,
Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine, located at the east end of Clear
Lake. -Written by Charles Salocks,
an environmental toxicologist educated at UC
Davis.
Government officials warding off deadly diseases often praise
the lowly mosquitofish as a public health messiah. But some
environmentalists have dubbed it the “plague minnow” and the
“fish destroyer.” Today, nearly a century after the
finger-sized fish was first introduced to California in a
Sacramento lily pond, it’s arguably the most ubiquitous
freshwater fish in the world. But the mosquitofish also ranks
among the world’s worst invasive species. Balancing the
pest-control prowess and ecological destruction of the fish,
nearly every mosquito and vector control district in California
now deploys the creature with varying strategies.
In California, 2021 was the year that climate change hit home.
The increasingly frequent, warmer droughts that climate
scientists have been predicting have arrived. Although this
past December brought some welcome storms, California remains
in the grips of an historic, fast-moving drought that has
followed close on the heels of the last one. The non-partisan
PPIC Water Policy Center tackled the thorny issues of this
moment—as we often do—by providing data and analysis to inform
tough conversations about managing drought today and into the
future.
Amid a brutal heat wave and a worsening drought, California’s
wildlife agency made a dire prediction in July: “Nearly all” of
an endangered salmon species’ juvenile population was likely to
be cooked to death on the Sacramento River in 2021. It turned
out to be true. Only an estimated 2.6% of the winter-run
Chinook salmon juvenile population survived the hot, dry
summer, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife
said. … At the same time, fishermen and
environmentalists say the salmon’s pitiful survival rate, among
the lowest on record, is a disaster that should have been
prevented…
We compiled and analyzed California Waterblog statistics from
2021 to provide some insight as to which blogs viewers found
the most alluring or noteworthy (as measured by total unique
views). As expected perhaps, top blogs tended to focus on
reservoirs, drought, climate and fish, roughly in that order.
And as we descend into a highly uncertain 2022, where our new
drought may tighten or loosen its grip (maybe both), these
topics will continue as critical issues for California – its
ecosystems, egosystems, unique biota, and peoples.
Reclamation and Sites Project Authority announce an extension
of the public comment period on the proposed Sites Reservoir
Project. Public involvement is an important part of the
environmental review process. The extension will allow for
additional opportunity to participate and help inform the
content of the project’s environmental analyses. On Nov. 12,
2021, Reclamation released a Notice of Availability announcing
the public review and comment period for the Sites Reservoir
Project Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report/Supplemental
Draft Environmental Impact Statement and dates of virtual
public meetings.
As invasive plants encroach on the pristine waters of Lake
Tahoe, officials are weighing whether to use aquatic herbicides
for the first time to contain their growth and prevent them
from clouding the waters. Plants like curlyleaf pondweed and
eurasian watermilfoil have long thrived in the Tahoe Keys, a
boating community located on a lagoon off the southern end of
the lake. … Along with some scientists and lake
protection groups, [local property owners are] lobbying
the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board and the
Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board to permit
herbicide use in the Keys.
There’s a water fight brewing on the Kern River. The State
Water Resources Control Board’s handling of the conflict will
be telling for the future of California’s streams and
rivers. If the water board takes seriously its duty to
protect the public interest, this conflict could lead to better
water management statewide. … As with several California
rivers, every drop of water in the Kern River has been diverted
since the mid-to-late 1800s, destroying the wetlands and
draining the river. -Written by Karrigan Bork, an acting professor of
law and an associate director of the Center for Watershed
Sciences at UC Davis.
Wendell Berry famously said that eating is an agricultural act.
That makes all of us into farmers, and nowhere is that more
true than in water terms. For farming is irreducibly the
process of mixing dirt, water and sunshine to bring forth from
the ground what we need to eat. And no matter who you are, it’s
true: somebody, somewhere, must devote a lot of water to
the process of feeding you. Some have been sidestepping this
fact in the ongoing policy evolutions over the way we must
capture, store and move water in California. -Written by Chris Scheuring, senior counsel for
water policy at the California Farm Bureau.
The Coleman National Fish Hatchery, funded by the Bureau of
Reclamation, hatched an additional two million juvenile
fall-run Chinook salmon this past October, successfully
releasing 600,000 fish this past week with the remainder
scheduled to be released the first week of January. The Golden
State Salmon Association proposed the project to U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and NOAA fisheries last spring.
As thousands of cubic feet of water rush down California’s
American River every second, a problem murks the clear waters
of the stream, which cuts through the city of Sacramento.
Fecal contamination in the popular river, used recreationally
by thousands each year, has been studied for years but a new
study released Tuesday sheds more light on the cause of the
contamination.
By October 2017, a handful of desert residents — including
two Mecca high school students — were so fed
up with a dearth of government progress on efforts to
save the shrinking Salton Sea that they took matters into their
own hands. They tried to hand-shovel a ditch to keep water
flowing from the dwindling lake into the once beautiful harbor
in front of the North Shore Yacht Club. “We figured we
could keep water in there for another six months at least,”
said Tom Sephton, a longtime Brawley resident and local
businessman, who like many is captivated by California’s
largest water body.
Photosynthesis involves a tradeoff between the uptake of carbon
and the loss of water. Intrinsic water-use efficiency is an
indicator of this tradeoff that is pivotal for understanding
plant responses to climate change. Global increases in
atmospheric CO2 concentration have increased intrinsic
water-use efficiency, but this relationship is also modulated
by water availability. Here, we have identified that a severe,
multidecadal drought in the American Southwest has caused some
of the largest increases in plant water-use efficiency ever
observed.
To round out this conversation, here are some cold hard facts
on the status of our freshwater fish biodiversity on Earth, and
in California. These species are declining rapidly. ~50% of all
freshwater fishes on Earth are considered threatened or in
decline. In CA, roughly 83% of our native and highly endemic
fish fauna are now in some form of decline (Moyle et al. 2011).
There’s a good chance that delta smelt will become extinct in
the wild this year or next. Winter-run Chinook salmon could be
close behind them. Many other native fishes face listing under
the ESA in coming years.
Here in this forgotten corner of coastal California, nestled
amid a curtain of redwoods so far north it feels otherworldly,
the state’s most pristine river harbors more than a century of
secrets. Its emerald-green water once flowed red with Native
American blood, its wetlands haunted by one of the largest
massacres in U.S. history. Today, the Smith River is the last
major waterway in California that runs freely without a single
dam — a precious refuge for salmon, for steelhead and a bygone
timber community still searching for a future.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating a major
restoration project on the shore of Upper Klamath Lake that
could benefit species both above and below the water’s surface.
If carried out, it would be the largest wetland restoration
effort ever attempted for Upper Klamath Lake …
[and] would reconnect and restore more than 14,000 acres
of historic fringe wetlands back to the lake.
Mountains are the foundation of water in the western United
States, natural infrastructure that captures snowfall during
the winter and releases snowmelt over the spring and summer. In
California, the snowpack holds nearly as much water on average
as all the reservoirs put together, effectively doubling the
state’s surface storage. But, as the world warms, we may not be
able to rely on this ecosystem service much longer. A new study
projects that snowpack shrinkage will likely disrupt the West’s
water system well before the end of the century.
Healthy coastal wetlands can help combat climate change by
absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
and storing it for the long term. Coastal wetlands also provide
habitat for fish and other wildlife, reduce erosion and coastal
flooding, improve water quality, and support recreational uses.
Giving 1,200-pound cows access to one of the West’s most
fragile and biologically rich ecosystems seems a strange way to
protect its threatened and endangered species. But a recently
published study suggests that reintroducing low to moderate
levels of cattle grazing around vernal pools – under certain
conditions – leads to a greater number and greater variety of
native plants.
Many California Indians survived the genocide of
colonial settlement in California but have nonetheless been
deprived of their traditional way of life by being dispossessed
of their lands and culture. Californians now have an
opportunity to begin to repair these historic wrongs through
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initiative known as 30×30.
… Rivers are an intrinsic part of California’s Native
American culture. Many Northern
California tribes define themselves by their
relationship to rivers. The name of the Yurok Tribe, for
example, means the “downriver” people, … Similarly,
the Winnemem Wintu Tribe’s name means the
“middle water” people … -Written by Morning Star Gali, a member of the
Ajumawi band of the Pit River Tribe in Northeastern California;
and Kate Poole, a senior director on the nature team
at Natural Resources Defense Council.
The Sites Project Authority received criticism Thursday as it
conducted a public hearing and presentation on the history and
variations of the Sites Reservoir project planned for Colusa
County. … Once public questions and input began, almost all
of the speakers shared criticism for the project with many
asking that the group not go forward with the project in any
capacity. Two representatives from two different tribes
with land that would be used for the project spoke out against
the project.
The Yurok Tribe recently received a little over a half million
dollars to increase salmonid habitats in two local creeks that
feed into the Klamath River. Hunter and McGarvey Creeks are
important rearing and staging habitats for salmonids, but
historic logging, road building and loss of naturally forming
wood jams have impacted both streams. As a result, Chinook,
Coho, Steelhead, Coastal Cutthroat Trout and other species have
suffered.
A pair of agencies are teaming up to begin the largest invasive
plant removal project at Lake Tahoe, officials announced
Wednesday. The USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management
Unit, in partnership with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency,
are planning to remove 17 acres of invasive plants in the
Taylor and Tallac creeks and marshes as part of a comprehensive
restoration of one of the last natural wetlands in the Lake
Tahoe Basin. Left unchecked, aquatic invasive plants can have
devastating effects on Tahoe’s ecosystem and recreational
resources.
A team of researchers at UC Santa Barbara and the National
Forest Service have spent the past five years researching the
impacts of wildfires and droughts on stream communities and the
wildlife that live in these riparian habitats. The studies were
launched in the wake of the Zaca and Jesusita fires of 2007 and
2009, when the team hoped to document the effects of wildfires
on the plant and animal life that rely on the waterways in the
burn areas 10 years later.
The battle to eliminate a destructive swamp rat in Central
California waterways is showing signs of improvement. However,
a state biologist says declaring victory is still years
away. Since 2017 the State Department of Fish and Wildlife
has tracked the nutria from Stockton to Mendota. It’s a very
destructive rodent that can tunnel through rivers, ponds, and
wetlands creating all kinds of problems. … Twenty nutria
trapped and euthanized in the final months of 2017. A year
later it climbed to 348, 489 in 2019, 1242 in 2020, and this
year the number finally took a downward trend at 674.
In late October, a study spotlighting the migration patterns,
or life-history strategies, of the spring-run Chinook salmon in
California’s Central Valley showed that juveniles that migrate
later in the year may have higher survival rates during years
with unfavorable living conditions, such as drought. This
late-migration strategy, once thought to be a rare behavior
among spring-run Chinook salmon, may in fact prove pivotal for
the fish population facing an increasing warming climate.
Merced Irrigation District General Manager John Sweigard issued
the following open invitation to California Governor Gavin
Newsom on Tuesday: “For years, we have worked in good
faith with the State Water Board, your secretaries and your
staff. Despite our best efforts, and backed by solid science
about salmon and the Merced River, we have not been able to
reach a settlement agreement that would protect our community’s
water supply under the Bay Delta Water Quality Control
Plan. I would like to personally invite you to come to our
community …”
Amid a severe drought, California regulators on Wednesday
advanced what could be the state’s first major new water
storage project in years despite warnings it would hasten the
extinction of an endangered salmon species while disrupting the
cultural traditions of some native tribes. The plan is to build
a new lake in Northern California that, when full, could hold
enough water to supply 3 million households for one year.
Supporters need about $4 billion to build it. Wednesday’s vote
by the California Water Commission means the lake — named Sites
Reservoir — is eligible for about $800 million in taxpayer
money, or about 20% of the project’s price tag.
A divided Napa County Board of Supervisors decided the
controversial Walt Ranch vineyard project found an acceptable
way to address greenhouse gas concerns related to the expected
loss of 14,000 trees. Walt Ranch plans to make up for the loss
of carbon-sequestering trees by preserving 124 acres of
woodlands and planting about 17,000 trees. … The Board
of Supervisors approved the vineyards in 2016 and opponents
sued. The courts upheld the county on issues such as
groundwater availability and rare species protection, but said
the greenhouse gas issue related to expected tree loss needed
more work.
To protect biodiversity, advance equitable access to nature and
combat climate change, the California Natural Resources Agency
(CNRA) today released California’s draft strategy to conserve
30 percent of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030
(30×30). The draft of Pathways to 30×30: Accelerating
Conservation of California’s Nature is now available for public
review and feedback. Input is welcomed through January 28,
2022.
Reclamation District 2035 and the Conaway Preservation Group
are proposing a project to improve and optimize flood plain
rearing habitat, salmonid food production and permanent wetland
restoration for Sacramento Valley salmonids. The project would
involve nearly 5,775-acres of the Conaway Ranch in the Yolo
Bypass, as seen below looking south down the Sacramento Valley,
with the Tule Canal at left of photo.
An ongoing species conservation habitat project at the Salton
Sea’s southwestern shore is serving as a reminder that the
sea’s restoration remains a key priority for Gov. Gavin Newsom.
So, too, is a tour that dozens of state, federal and local
stakeholders took of the project site where the New River
enters the Salton Sea several miles west of Westmorland on
Friday, Dec. 10. Among those present was California Natural
Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who said the tour was
an acknowledgement of the ambitious Salton Sea Management
Program’s progress and the overall work that remains to be
done.
After a six-year process, Bucks Lake now has protection via a
conservation easement courtesy of the Feather River Land Trust.
The lake is a PG&E-run reservoir in Plumas County that has
historically been used recreationally. A conservation easement
grants the site protection from land development while still
allowing for the public to access the body of water. A press
release issued Friday by the land trust said the final papers
were turned in Nov. 23 at the Plumas County Recorder’s Office
at which point the conservation easement was official.
Climate change is unfolding as a water supply crisis in the
Colorado River Basin. Competition over water is on the rise,
but I hold out hope that these extraordinary conditions will
actually increase opportunities for stakeholders whose
interests have historically been set aside. … I’ve spent
decades working in the basin to improve water management,
looking for alignment between solutions for birds and other
wildlife and solutions for people.
Historically, the entire Central Valley of California was a
floodplain. In winter and spring, storm runoff and snowmelt
would spill over riverbanks, creating vast biologically
productive wetlands where aquatic life flourished. This
incredible productivity supported a huge fishery in the Central
Valley, where we once had one of the largest runs of Chinook in
the world. However, as modern day California was developed, the
Central Valley’s waterways were re-engineered and channelized
to control the floods and divert water for human uses.
Today, only 5% of Central Valley floodplains remain intact
and three of the four native Chinook salmon runs are listed as
threatened or endangered.
Dr. Peter Moyle was the main reason that I came to UC Davis
fifteen years ago to study the confusing ecology of the San
Francisco Estuary. Peter is a Distinguished Professor of Fish
Biology, Emeritus, and one of the first people back in the
1970s to seriously study the diversity of California native
fishes. Peter knew aquatic ecosystems from the Sierras to the
sea: he was responsible for petitioning the USFWS to list the
Delta Smelt under the US Endangered Species Act, disentangled
the life history of the Splittail, and was an authority on cold
water salmonids and their complicated life histories.
The issue of water inequality in California is not new.
California’s water rights system is a holdover from the
California gold rush, a time when neither women nor people of
color could own land or vote. During this time, Native people
were not citizens. In fact, California’s first governor
informed the legislature that “a war of extermination will
continue to be waged between races, until the Indian race
becomes extinct.” Now even though Tribal water rights are
encoded in the law, California largely ignores these
rights. -Written by Regina Chichizola, co-director of Save
California Salmon and a resident of the Klamath River.
Biologists have designed a variety
of unique experiments in the past decade to demonstrate the
benefits that floodplains provide for small fish. Tracking
studies have used acoustic tags to show that chinook salmon
smolts with access to inundated fields are more likely than their
river-bound cohorts to reach the Pacific Ocean. This is because
the richness of floodplains offers a vital buffet of nourishment
on which young salmon can capitalize, supercharging their growth
and leading to bigger, stronger smolts.
Water is flowing once again
to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that
was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was
dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially
turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent
down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate
native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated
river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were
brokered under cooperative
efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
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.
This tour guided participants 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.
Radically transformed from its ancient origin as a vast tidal-influenced freshwater marsh, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem is in constant flux, influenced by factors within the estuary itself and the massive watersheds that drain though it into the Pacific Ocean.
Lately, however, scientists say the rate of change has kicked into overdrive, fueled in part by climate change, and is limiting the ability of science and Delta water managers to keep up. The rapid pace of upheaval demands a new way of conducting science and managing water in the troubled estuary.
Out of sight and out of mind to most
people, the Salton Sea in California’s far southeast corner has
challenged policymakers and local agencies alike to save the
desert lake from becoming a fetid, hyper-saline water body
inhospitable to wildlife and surrounded by clouds of choking
dust.
The sea’s problems stretch beyond its boundaries in Imperial and
Riverside counties and threaten to undermine multistate
management of the Colorado River. A 2019 Drought Contingency Plan for the
Lower Colorado River Basin was briefly stalled when the Imperial
Irrigation District, holding the river’s largest water
allocation, balked at participating in the plan because, the
district said, it ignored the problems of the Salton Sea.
Deep, throaty cadenced calls —
sounding like an off-key bassoon — echo over the grasslands,
farmers’ fields and wetlands starting in late September of each
year. They mark the annual return of sandhill cranes to the
Cosumnes River Preserve,
46,000 acres located 20 miles south of Sacramento on the edge of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
High in the headwaters of the Colorado River, around the hamlet of Kremmling, Colorado, generations of families have made ranching and farming a way of life, their hay fields and cattle sustained by the river’s flow. But as more water was pulled from the river and sent over the Continental Divide to meet the needs of Denver and other cities on the Front Range, less was left behind to meet the needs of ranchers and fish.
“What used to be a very large river that inundated the land has really become a trickle,” said Mely Whiting, Colorado counsel for Trout Unlimited. “We estimate that 70 percent of the flow on an annual average goes across the Continental Divide and never comes back.”
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona
governor and secretary of the Interior, has been a thoughtful,
provocative and sometimes forceful voice in some of the most
high-profile water conflicts over the last 40 years, including
groundwater management in Arizona and the reduction of
California’s take of the Colorado River. In 2016, former
California Gov. Jerry Brown named Babbitt as a special adviser to
work on matters relating to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
the Delta tunnels plan.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Water means life for all the Grand Canyon’s inhabitants, including the many varieties of insects that are a foundation of the ecosystem’s food web. But hydropower operations upstream on the Colorado River at Glen Canyon Dam, in Northern Arizona near the Utah border, disrupt the natural pace of insect reproduction as the river rises and falls, sometimes dramatically. Eggs deposited at the river’s edge are often left high and dry and their loss directly affects available food for endangered fish such as the humpback chub.
An hour’s drive north of Sacramento sits a picture-perfect valley hugging the eastern foothills of Northern California’s Coast Range, with golden hills framing grasslands mostly used for cattle grazing.
Back in the late 1800s, pioneer John Sites built his ranch there and a small township, now gone, bore his name. Today, the community of a handful of families and ranchers still maintains a proud heritage.
Farmers in the Central Valley are broiling about California’s plan to increase flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to help struggling salmon runs avoid extinction. But in one corner of the fertile breadbasket, River Garden Farms is taking part in some extraordinary efforts to provide the embattled fish with refuge from predators and enough food to eat.
And while there is no direct benefit to one farm’s voluntary actions, the belief is what’s good for the fish is good for the farmers.
For more than 100 years, invasive
species have made the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta their home,
disrupting the ecosystem and costing millions of dollars annually
in remediation.
The latest invader is the nutria, a large rodent native to South
America that causes concern because of its propensity to devour
every bit of vegetation in sight and destabilize levees by
burrowing into them. Wildlife officials are trapping the animal
and trying to learn the extent of its infestation.
Deep, throaty cadenced calls —
sounding like an off-key bassoon — echo over the grasslands,
farmers’ fields and wetlands starting in late September of each
year. They mark the annual return of sandhill cranes to the
Cosumnes River Preserve,
46,000 acres located 20 miles south of Sacramento on the edge of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
As we continue forging ahead in 2018
with our online version of Western Water after 40 years
as a print magazine, we turned our attention to a topic that also
got its start this year: recreational marijuana as a legal use.
State regulators, in the last few years, already had been beefing
up their workforce to tackle the glut in marijuana crops and
combat their impacts to water quality and supply for people, fish
and farming downstream. Thus, even if these impacts were perhaps
unbeknownst to the majority of Californians who approved
Proposition 64 in 2016, we thought it important to see if
anything new had evolved from a water perspective now that
marijuana was legal.
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
Along the banks of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Oakley, about 50 miles southwest
of Sacramento, is a park that harkens back to the days when the
Delta lured Native Americans, Spanish explorers, French fur
trappers, and later farmers to its abundant wildlife and rich
soil.
That historical Delta was an enormous marsh linked to the two
freshwater rivers entering from the north and south, and tidal
flows coming from the San Francisco Bay. After the Gold Rush,
settlers began building levees and farms, changing the landscape
and altering the habitat.
Despite the heat that often
accompanies debates over setting aside water for the environment,
there are instances where California stakeholders have forged
agreements to provide guaranteed water for fish. Here are two
examples cited by the Public Policy Institute of California in
its report arguing for an environmental water right.
Does California need to revamp the way in which water is dedicated to the environment to better protect fish and the ecosystem at large? In the hypersensitive world of California water, where differences over who gets what can result in epic legislative and legal battles, the idea sparks a combination of fear, uncertainty and promise.
Saying that the way California manages water for the environment “isn’t working for anyone,” the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) shook things up late last year by proposing a redesigned regulatory system featuring what they described as water ecosystem plans and water budgets with allocations set aside for the environment.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned 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. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Estuaries are places where fresh and
salt water mix, usually at the point where a river enters the
ocean. They are the meeting point between riverine environments
and the sea, with a combination of tides, waves, salinity, fresh
water flow and sediment. The constant churning means there are
elevated levels of nutrients, making estuaries highly productive
natural habitats.
Zooplankton, which are floating
aquatic microorganisms too small and weak to swim against
currents, are are important food sources for many fish species in
the Delta such as salmon, sturgeon and Delta smelt.
A tributary is a river or stream
that enters a larger body of water, especially a lake or river.
The receiving water into which a tributary
feeds is called the “mainstem,” and the point where they come
together is referred to as the “confluence.”
With a holding capacity of more than 260 billion gallons, Diamond
Valley Lake is
Southern California’s largest reservoir. It sits about 90
miles southeast of Los Angeles and just west of Hemet in
Riverside County where it was built in 2000. The offstream
reservoir was created by three large dams that connect the surrounding
hills, costing around $1.9 billion and doubling the region’s
water storage capacity.
Headwaters are the source of a
stream or river. They are located at the furthest point from
where the water body empties or merges with
another. Two-thirds of California’s surface water supply
originates in these mountainous and typically forested regions.
In wet years, dry years and every type of water year in between,
the daily intrusion and retreat of salinity in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta is a constant pattern.
The cycle of ebb and flood is the defining nature of an estuary
and prior to its transformation into an agricultural tract in
the mid-19th century, the Delta was a freshwater marsh with
plants, birds, fish and wildlife that thrived on the edge of the
saltwater/freshwater interface.
This 28-page report describes the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada
region and details their importance to California’s overall water
picture. It describes the region’s issues and challenges,
including healthy forests, catastrophic fire, recreational
impacts, climate change, development and land use.
The report also discusses the importance of protecting and
restoring watersheds in order to retain water quality and enhance
quantity. Examples and case studies are included.
20-minute version of the 2012 documentary The Klamath Basin: A
Restoration for the Ages. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues related to complex water management
disputes in the Klamath River Basin. Narrated by actress Frances
Fisher.
For over a century, the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon and
California border has faced complex water management disputes. As
relayed in this 2012, 60-minute public television documentary
narrated by actress Frances Fisher, the water interests range
from the Tribes near the river, to energy producer PacifiCorp,
farmers, municipalities, commercial fishermen, environmentalists
– all bearing legitimate arguments for how to manage the water.
After years of fighting, a groundbreaking compromise may soon
settle the battles with two epic agreements that hold the promise
of peace and fish for the watershed. View an excerpt from the
documentary here.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
30-minute DVD that traces the history of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and its role in the development of the West. Includes
extensive historic footage of farming and the construction of
dams and other water projects, and discusses historic and modern
day issues.
California’s little-known New River has been called one of North
America’s most polluted. A closer look reveals the New River is
full of ironic twists: its pollution has long defied cleanup, yet
even in its degraded condition, the river is important to the
border economies of Mexicali and the Imperial Valley and a
lifeline that helps sustain the fragile Salton Sea ecosystem.
Now, after decades of inertia on its pollution problems, the New
River has emerged as an important test of binational cooperation
on border water issues. These issues were profiled in the 2004
PBS documentary Two Sides of a River.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, features
a map of the San Joaquin River. The map text focuses on the San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to restore flows
and populations of Chinook salmon to the river below Friant Dam
to its confluence with the Merced River. The text discusses the
history of the program, its goals and ongoing challenges with
implementation.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to
Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of
California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the
authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a
faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of
California water rights.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea
regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its
elevation of 237 feet below sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterfowl, and extends from Alaska and Canada, through
California, to Mexico and South America. Each year, birds follow
ancestral patterns as they travel the flyway on their annual
north-south migration. Along the way, they need stopover sites
such as wetlands with suitable habitat and food supplies. In
California, 90 percent of historic wetlands have been lost.
The construction of Glen Canyon Dam in 1964 created Lake Powell.
Both are located in north-central Arizona near the Utah border.
Lake Powell acts as a holding tank for outflow from the Colorado
River Upper Basin States: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power
generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of
California, Arizona, and Nevada.
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the issues
associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the
water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of
whether additional flows are needed for the system, and how they
might be provided.
This printed issue of Western Water examines science –
the answers it can provide to help guide management decisions in
the Delta and the inherent uncertainty it holds that can make
moving forward such a tenuous task.
This printed issue of Western Water provides an overview of the
idea of a dual conveyance facility, including questions
surrounding its cost, operation and governance
This printed copy of Western Water examines the native salmon and
trout dilemma – the extent of the crisis, its potential impact on
water deliveries and the lengths to which combined efforts can
help restore threatened and endangered species.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Colorado River
Delta, its ecological significance and the lengths to which
international, state and local efforts are targeted and achieving
environmental restoration while recognizing the needs of the
entire river’s many users.
In the world of water, biology and engineering often clash -
especially when it comes to resolving the Delta dilemma. How do
we manage such an altered system to ensure water supply
reliability while restoring the ecosystem? How do we measure the
results of efforts to restore endangered species and habitat? Why
is biodiversity important?
Balance between ecosystem restoration and water supply
reliability is key to a Bay-Delta solution. Everyone agrees on
this concept. But the demands of the competing interests can tilt
the scales. So, too, can the member agencies’ conflicting
missions. For more than three years, the joint state-federal
CALFED Bay-Delta Program has been searching for equilibrium among
the Delta’s complex problems and its contentious stakeholders. In
December, it released its latest blueprint for resolving the
Delta dilemma — the Revised Phase II Report.
