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Topic: Ecosystem

Overview April 24, 2014

Ecosystem

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.

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Aquafornia news May 27, 2022 Sonoma Index-Tribune

‘Damtastic!’ Newsom calls for Beaver Restoration Program

Sonoma wildlife conservationists had one word to describe Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed new Beaver Restoration program: “Damtastic!” Newsom floated the program as part of a May 13 presentation of his revised 2022-2023 fiscal budget. Pledging $1.67 million this year and $1.44 million in years thereafter, Newsom said the funds would go toward the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s efforts in developing “a comprehensive beaver management plan.” The North American Beaver is considered a “keystone species” by Fish and Wildlife …

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Aquafornia news May 27, 2022 The Sacramento Bee

Wine executive faces millions in fine over ruined California wetland

A wine executive faces millions in fines after razing dozens of acres of trees for a vineyard in California, water officials said. The clearing of the oak woodlands caused “significant damage to the streams and wetlands” in the former Alexander Valley Ranch in 2018, according to a news release from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. Hugh Reimers and his business Krasilsa Pacific Farms, LLC face a $3.75 million fine from the state board, according to the May 24 news release.

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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 Mono Lake Committee

Blog: Surface water exports curtailed by low Grant Lake Reservoir storage

During the 2021 runoff year (April 1, 2021–March 31, 2022), the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) was allowed to export up to 16,000 acre-feet of stream diversions from the Mono Basin because Mono Lake was above 6380 feet above sea level on April 1, 2021. Yet, only 13,300 acre-feet of water was taken, consistent with the low reservoir requirements in DWP’s water licenses, which were amended last year by the California State Water Resources Control Board. The new licenses contain an overall minimum level of 11,500 acre-feet of storage for Grant Lake Reservoir, with a minimum of 20,000 acre-feet for July–September. 

Related article:

  • Mono Lake Committee: Protecting California Gulls at Mono Lake’s low levels 
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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 CBS San Francisco

Sonoma Co. vineyard exec faces $3.75M fine over alleged environmental violations

A well-known Sonoma County vineyard executive is facing a multi-million-dollar state fine for allegedly removing trees and destroying a small wetland on a rural patch of land east of Cloverdale. Hugh Reimers and Krasilsa Pacific Farms could be on the hook for up to $3.75 million in fines for allegedly cutting down trees, grading, ripping and other activities near tributaries to Little Sulphur Creek, Big Sulphur Creek and Crocker Creek in the Russian River Watershed … In a complaint filed May 9, the Water Board accused Reimers and Krasilsa Pacific Farms of also failing to abide by a 2019 cleanup and abatement order, which required them to restore the streams and wetlands.

Related article: 

  • North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board: Vineyard developers face $3.75 million fine for harming streams, wetlands in Sonoma County
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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 SouthTahoeNow.com

Non-motorized watercraft can still spread invasive species at Lake Tahoe

Everyone boating in Lake Tahoe already goes through a process of “Clean, Drain, Dry” protocols prior to launching to keep invasive species out of the big, beautiful lake. But what about other vessels in the lake like paddle boards, electric surfboards, kayaks, and canoes? … For pristine waters that have no invasive species, such as Echo Lakes, Angora, and Fallen Leaf lakes, even Lake Tahoe is considered a threat from the Eurasian watermilfoil, curlyleaf pondweed, and Asian clams currently found in Big Blue. 

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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 Wild Rivers Outpost

Tar is still leaking into the Smith River after last month’s suspected DUI crash, officials confirm

Gobs of oily tar continue to slip past containment booms and drain into the Smith River, nearly a month after an overturned trailer spilled 2,000 gallons of the hot asphalt binder onto U.S. 199 between Hiouchi and Gasquet. Spokesperson Eric Laughlin with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response confirmed with the Outpost that the toxic goop is actively leaking into the Smith River, and that the agency received new reports of the material traveling downstream on Friday.

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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 ABC7 San Francisco

California moves to curb harmful tire pollutant collecting in Bay, threatening wildlife

If you think about the pollution your car causes, chances are you’re not thinking about the tires. And probably even less about a faraway creek, where a Coho Salmon is dying. But researchers at the University of Washington and elsewhere … say as the rubber wears away from car tires during everyday driving, it spreads tiny micro particles, including a destructive chemical called 6PPD. … Now, with information gathered in part by the [San Francisco Estuary] Institute, the State of California is stepping in, laying the groundwork for potential regulations to curb the toxic tire pollution.

Related article: 

  • Department of Toxic Substances Control: California proposes requiring tiremakers to consider safer alternative to chemical that kills coho salmon  
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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 ProPublica

Salmon hatcheries funded by U.S. government haven’t ended fish’s decline

Today, there are hundreds of hatcheries in the Northwest run by federal, state and tribal governments … The fish they send to the Pacific Ocean have allowed restaurants and grocery seafood counters to offer “wild-caught” Chinook salmon even as the fish became endangered. The hatcheries were supposed to stop the decline of salmon. They haven’t. The numbers of each of the six salmon species native to the Columbia basin have dropped to a fraction of what they once were, and 13 distinct populations are now considered threatened or endangered.

Related articles: 

  • SJV Water: Video - Restoring salmon on the San Joaquin during three years of drought 
  • San Francisco Chronicle: Fresh California king salmon is in limited supply. Here’s where to buy it for Memorial Day
  • California Fisheries Blog: Over-summering spring-run chinook salmon in Mill Creek and Deer Creek
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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Delta water crisis linked to California’s racist past, tribes and activists say

Tribes and environmental groups are challenging how the state manages water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a major source for much of California, arguing the deterioration of the aquatic ecosystem has links to the state’s troubled legacy of racism and oppression of Native people. A group of activists and Indigenous leaders is demanding that the state review and update the water quality plan for the Delta and San Francisco Bay, where fish species are suffering, algae blooms have worsened and climate change is adding to the stresses. 

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Aquafornia news May 26, 2022 Modesto Bee

Assemblyman maneuvers to slow proposed river flow increases

Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, is maneuvering against a bill that seeks higher flows on local rivers. Assembly Bill 2639 would set a Dec. 31, 2023, deadline for the State Water Resources Control Board to complete its plan for tributaries to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They include the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers. The decision would follow decades of wrangling over whether fish should get more water on the lower rivers at the expense of farms and cities.

Related article: 

  • Merced County Times: Assemblyman Gray responds to latest water grab legislation
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Aquafornia news May 25, 2022 California Trout

Blog: Sustaining steelhead populations in the Bay Area’s backyard

Central California Coast steelhead historically thrived in Bay Area waters, but today, populations are collapsing with only a fraction of their historical abundance remaining, according to CalTrout’s SOS II Report. California Trout, along with our partners at California Department of Fish and Wildlife, San Mateo Resource Conservation District (RCD), Trout Unlimited, and others such as California State Parks, private landowners, and NOAA Fisheries- the federal agency tasked with managing steelhead and salmon nationwide- are determined to improve this system for the overall health of the watershed and for its inhabitants — both fish and people. 

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Aquafornia news May 25, 2022 Fox 40 - Sacramento

California Tribal communities ask the State Water Resources Board to protect the Delta

As drought conditions continue, people who rely on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are demanding California make sure their communities are protected. Early Tuesday, a group gathered in front of the California State Water Resources Control Board building to demand the state enforce the Bay-Delta plan. It’s been a long fight and the group said enough is enough. For many of the tribes, the Delta is an important lifeline.

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Aquafornia news May 25, 2022 Congressman John Garamendi

News release: Garamendi secures wins for Bay Area and Delta infrastructure in Water Resources Development Act of 2022

Today, Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), who represents Solano Country and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the 3rd Congressional District, released the following statement on the passage of the “Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2022” (H.R.7776) in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure: “The biennial Water Resources Development Act strengthens flood protection, water resources, precious ecosystems, and more in communities across California and the nation”…

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Aquafornia news May 25, 2022 American Rivers

Blog: The reservoirs under our feet

When you picture water storage, a water tower on slanted stilts imposed upon a blue sky or a concrete reservoir piping water to the city might come to mind. The issue of water storage has become a high priority as regions such as California experience severe multi-year drought and are impacted by overextraction from aquifers. … The most climate resilient and long-term strategies to address water shortage lie at our feet, in the meadows that anchor our rivers headwaters and floodplains that extend across the broad lower river valleys.

Related article :

  • UC San Diego: Water storage - Tracking for Sierra Nevada and Upper Colorado River Basins
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Aquafornia news May 24, 2022 Sacramento Bee

UC Davis creates AI model to predict leptospirosis in dogs

Veterinarians and researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a new way to detect leptospirosis, a life-threatening bacterial disease, in dogs using artificial intelligence. Leptospirosis is caused by the Leptospira bacteria, according to American Veterinary Medical Association, and it is typically found in soil and water. … Infections stem from urine-contaminated soil, food, bedding or from an animal bite. Dogs can be exposed to the bacteria from drinking water in rivers, lakes and streams, or being in contact with infected wildlife, farm animals, rodents and other dogs.

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Aquafornia news May 24, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Trees are critical infrastructure. Water them amid drought

The lowly sidewalk tree often stands invisible. We rest in its shade, bask in the scent of springtime flowers, and we don’t notice it until it’s gone. But the tree works hard. It captures and filters stormwater runoff and helps replenish groundwater. It cleans our air and cools our neighborhoods. It improves our mental health. It saves lives. With Southern California officials clamping down on outdoor water use amid worsening drought, the message is clear: It’s fine for lawns to go brown, but we need to keep trees alive and healthy.

Related article: 

  • Los Angeles Times: Best California native plants for when summer heats up
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Aquafornia news May 24, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

The conservation case for emergency rules on groundwater in the Scott and Shasta basins

The fish need the water, the farmers and ranchers need the water, and the fish win. Because coho salmon are on the Endangered Species List in the region, and the Scott and Shasta Rivers are important to their survival. The State of California put emergency rules in place governing groundwater around those rivers, and the people in agriculture take exception. We hear the environmental side of the issue in this interview. Craig Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate for the Karuk Tribe, lays out the importance of the water for the fish …

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Aquafornia news May 24, 2022 Delta Stewardship Council

Blog: The 2022-2026 Science Action Agenda: Prioritizing integrated science

After nearly two years of a collaborative effort led by the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Science Program, the wait is finally over. We’re excited and proud to present the final 2022-2026 SAA for the Delta. … Scientists, managers, and those with a stake in the Delta were invited to participate in two public workshops, four online surveys, and four review periods and were engaged in various collaborative venues. The collaborative process was a critical component of this SAA and built on the success of the 2017-2021 SAA, which guided over $35 million from the Council and its partners for management-relevant research.

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Aquafornia news May 23, 2022 California WaterBlog

Blog: A conservation bill you’ve never heard of may be the most important in a generation

This blog is a short introduction to a lesser known federal bill that is one of the most significant pieces of fish and wildlife legislation in decades. In Spring of 2021, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) introduced the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. During July 2021, a separate adaptation of the act was also introduced in the Senate (S.2372) by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). At its core, the bipartisan bill seeks to provide $1.39B in annual funding for state and tribal fish and wildlife agencies to protect and conserve declining species.

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Aquafornia news May 23, 2022 Napa Valley Register

New signs near Napa Creek celebrate Napa’s urban beavers

Those who regularly cross the Napa Creek footbridge from Clinton Street to Coombs Street in downtown Napa might be unaware of the beavers that live below. The thick-furred, aqueous mammals are nocturnal, after all, and tend to go about their wood-gnawing, dam-building business when people aren’t around to watch them. They also haven’t been in the Downtown Napa area for all that long, though the increasing presence of them around the city of Napa in recent years has often been heralded as a sign of environmental success connected to the millions spent on flood control projects over the past few decades. 

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Aquafornia news May 23, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle

Monday Top of the Scroll: California is about to begin the nation’s largest dam removal project. Here’s what it means for wildlife

After decades of negotiation, the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history is expected to begin in California’s far north next year. The first of four aging dams on the Klamath River, the 250-mile waterway that originates in southern Oregon’s towering Cascades and empties along the rugged Northern California coast, is on track to come down in fall 2023. Two others nearby and one across the state line will follow. … The native flora and fauna in the region are bound to prosper as algae-infested reservoirs at the dams are emptied, the flow of the river quickens and cools, and river passage swings wide open.

Related article: 

  • CalMatters: Opinion - Klamath Basin dam removal needs a science-driven oversight plan
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Aquafornia news May 23, 2022 Associated Press

Priceless seeds, sprouts in New Mexico key to post-fire future in US West

New Mexico State University’s Forestry Research Center in the mountain community of Mora is one of only a few such nurseries in the country and stands at the forefront of a major undertaking to rebuild more resilient forests as wildfires burn hotter, faster and more often. … With no shortage of burn scars around the West, researchers and private groups such as The Nature Conservancy have been tapping New Mexico State University’s center for seedlings to learn how best to restore forests after the flames are extinguished. The center has provided sprouts for projects in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Texas and California … 

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Aquafornia news May 23, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Plastics industry targets Democrats to head off restrictions

In the current legislative session, lawmakers are working on a bill designed to reduce plastic waste. If they are unable to draft legislation by June 30, the issue will go straight to voters as a ballot measure. The initiative, the California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would require all single-use plastic packaging and food ware used in California to be recyclable, reusable, refillable or compostable by 2030. … Over the last year, research has shown the presence of these particles in human blood, healthy lung tissue and meconium — the first bowel movement of a newborn. They are also found in marine organisms, ocean water, air and soil.

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Aquafornia news May 23, 2022 The Revelator

The fight for an invisible fish

The Clear Lake hitch is one of 13 species endemic to California’s largest, oldest and now most toxic lake. Known as chi to local tribes, the hitch teeter on the edge of extinction, a fate to which their cousins, two other formerly endemic lake species — the thicktail chub (last seen in 1938) and the Clear Lake splittail (last seen in the 1970s) — have already succumbed. Clear Lake hitch are vanishing because of our unabated appetites for fossil fuels, sportfishing, irrigation water and wine. 

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Aquafornia news May 20, 2022 Audubon

Blog: Water for the Colorado River Delta in a dry year

The Colorado River is once again flowing in its delta. The flows, which began on May 1, are the result of binational collaboration and deliberate management. The water is dedicated to supporting the ecosystem and local communities in a landscape where the river has not flowed  for most years in the past half century. It is a heartening bit of good news for the Colorado River, which earlier this year was designated as America’s most endangered river.  

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Aquafornia news May 20, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Northern California’s endangered Chinook salmon trucked to cooler waters

In a stopgap measure to help struggling spring- and winter-run Chinook salmon spawn in the face of rising water temperatures and lower water levels due to climate change, state and federal wildlife officials in Northern California have begun trucking adult fish to cooler waters. The spring- and winter-run salmon are genetically different, with the seasonal labels marking when adult fish travel from the Pacific Ocean back to the Sacramento River to spawn. The spring-run Chinook, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, are being moved from traps at the base of Keswick Dam to Clear Creek in the Sacramento River.

Related article: 

  • California Fisheries: State and federal hatcheries release salmon smolts to rivers, Delta, bay, and coast
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Aquafornia news May 19, 2022 KCBX - San Luis Obispo

Newsom proposes beaver funding

Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing funding to support what he calls a “creative climate solving hero” – the North American Beaver. The rodent is known to help restore drought-stricken areas of California by restoring wetlands and groundwater basins. The governor is initially requesting more than $3 million in the next few fiscal years to support and maintain a beaver restoration program within the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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Aquafornia news May 19, 2022 National Fisherman

Klamath dam removal could offer promise for Oregon commercial salmon fishery

The final hurdle is in sight and expected to be overcome, in the decades-long fight to remove four dams from the Klamath River and hopefully allow restoration of the river’s Chinook salmon population which was once the third-largest in the country, but in recent years has plummeted by as much as ninety-eight percent. The four dams were built between 1903 and 1967 as part of PacifiCorp’s Klamath Hydroelectric Project and are now obsolete. Removing them will provide native migratory fish, like Chinook salmon, access to larger spawning grounds. It will also help restore the natural flow of the river, providing innumerable benefits to the entire ecosystem.

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Aquafornia news May 19, 2022 Public Policy Institute of California

Blog: The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta

The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta lies at the confluence of two of the state’s largest rivers. Forty percent of California’s runoff flows into the Delta, which—together with the San Francisco Bay—forms one of the West Coast’s largest estuaries. The Delta watershed supplies water to roughly 30 million residents and more than 6 million acres of farmland. Water exported from the Delta goes to the Bay Area, the southern San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast, and Southern California (first figure). 

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Aquafornia news May 19, 2022 Pasadena Star News

LA County unveils final LA River Master Plan

Los Angeles County on Tuesday, May 17 unveiled its final Los Angeles River Master Plan, which the county’s Board of Supervisors will consider for adoption on June 14. The plan is aimed at improving water quality, increasing wildlife habitat and biodiversity and creating equitable access to parks. Among its specific goals are: Creating 51 miles of connected open space along the entire river; Building support facilities along the river; … increasing habitat and ecosystem function along the river corridor and using it as a living laboratory … 

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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Study finds mysterious DDT chemicals in California condors

In a sophisticated chemical analysis published Tuesday in Environmental Science & Technology, the team found that DDT-related chemicals were seven times more abundant in coastal condors than condors that fed farther inland. Looking at the birds’ coastal food sources, researchers found that dolphin and sea lion carcasses that washed ashore in Southern California were also seven times more contaminated with DDT than the marine mammals they analyzed along the Gulf of California in Mexico.

Related article: 

  • Audubon: Absent for More Than a Century, California Condors Soar Above the Redwoods Again
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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 San Diego Union-Tribune

East County’s $950M water recycling project could be in jeopardy as San Diego nixes pipeline deal

East County officials fear a $950 million sewage recycling project could get flushed down the drain because of a pipeline deal gone awry. Leaders spearheading the endeavor blame San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria — who signed off on building an eight-mile “brine line” as recently as last year but has since reneged on that commitment. The pipeline would prevent concentrated waste generated by the East County project’s reverse osmosis filtration system from entering into the city’s own $5 billion Pure Water sewage recycling project now under construction.

Related article: 

  • San Diego Union-Tribune: Column: Did wastewater recycling help defeat the Huntington Beach desalination plant? 
  • Nossaman Blog: Poseidon Water’s Coastal Commission application denied – setting up an uncertain future for desalination
  • Associated Press: Environmentalists oppose more life for California nuke plant
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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 ABC7 - Los Angeles

Gov. Newsom pushes need for conservation during visit to SoCal water recycling facility

Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging Californians to find ways to reduce their water use in an effort to combat the historic drought and said upcoming conservation mandates are a priority. The governor visited a water recycling facility Tuesday afternoon in Carson. It was originally built as a demonstration project to recycle household wastewater and replenish groundwater supplies…. Statewide, water consumption is up just 3.7% since July compared to 2020, woefully short of Newsom’s 15% goal. Newsom pledged to spend $100 million on a statewide advertising campaign to encourage water conservation.

Related articles:

  • Capitol Weekly: California’s drought, relentless and inexorable, takes its toll
  • State Water Resources Control Board: State Water Board releases draft emergency water conservation regulation
  • Washington Post: Opinion - Reasons for rising food prices go beyond pandemic and war 
  • Half Moon Bay Review: Let’s think twice before wasting precious water
  • Read more
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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 Record Searchlight

Planned Colusa County reservoir draws concerns of ‘harmful’ water quality

Most people have never heard of Sites, California. It’s just a tiny dot on maps, little more than an intersection in the road on the remote west side of rural Colusa County in Northern California. But the surrounding Antelope Valley, where wildflowers bloom and cattle graze on spring grasses, is one of the next battlegrounds in California’s water wars. Under plans endorsed by state, federal and local officials, the valley would be flooded by the Sites Reservoir, a 14,000-acre lake that would take in water pumped from the Sacramento River and store it for agricultural and municipal use during dry periods.

Related article: 

  • Water and the West: Does drought-prone California need another reservoir?  
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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle

Scientists have just learned an amazing new fact about California redwood trees

California’s towering redwoods have been around for thousands of years, but the trees are still yielding some surprises about what makes them so resilient. UC Davis scientists recently discovered that redwoods have two different types of leaves … The trees’ peripheral leaves, like those on most trees, are food producers that convert sunlight into sugar through photosynthesis. But the axial leaves serve an entirely different role, researchers found — absorbing water. … [T]he study is further evidence of the big trees’ ability to adapt to environmental changes — including drought.

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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 SJV Sun

Lemoore launches salvo against effort to swipe to Kings River floodwater

Lemoore is speaking out against the efforts of an out of town water entity to export water from the Kings River. The Lemoore City Council approved a letter in opposition to a petition to revoke the Fully Appropriated Stream (FAS) status of the Kings River on Tuesday. The letter is directed to the State Water Resources Control Board, which is hearing a petition from Kern County water agency Semitropic Water Storage District to revoke the FAS status.

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Aquafornia news May 18, 2022 The New York Times

Why salmon and rice go so well together

The rice farmer John Brennan … [is] collaborating with the scientist Jacob Katz to turn a piece of the Sacramento Valley, specifically in the Yolo Bypass, into a floodplain that can be home to baby Chinook salmon during the winter months, as they make their way down the river system to the Pacific. Their experiment, aptly named the Nigiri Project (in reference to the beds of seasoned sushi rice draped in little blankets of raw fish), involves flooding Brennan’s rice fields once the grain has been harvested so that the depleted stalks can decompose in the water, thereby making those nutrients available to bugs and plankton, which then serve as food for schools of growing salmon. 

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Aquafornia news May 17, 2022 CalMatters

Commentary: Four strategies for managing California’s crucial watershed

Conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its watershed are changing as droughts become warmer and more intense. But as our new study highlights, California is not doing a good job of tracking these changes. That’s making it even tougher to manage the water that is available for the benefit of the state’s communities, economy and environment.
-Written by Ellen Hanak, director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, and Greg Gartrell, an independent consulting engineer and an adjunct fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center.

Related article:

  • Public Policy Institute of California: Policy brief – Tracking where water goes in a changing Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta
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Aquafornia news May 17, 2022 Santa Barbara News-Press

$230 million settlement reached in 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill lawsuit

A settlement has finally been reached in the seven year-lawsuit regarding the 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill. Plains All American Pipeline has agreed to pay $230 million to fishers, fish processors and shoreline property residents who are members of two classes in a class-action lawsuit filed against the company.  The lawsuit was filed after a corroded pipeline spilled an estimated 15,000 barrels of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean in 2015. 

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Aquafornia news May 17, 2022 CalMatters

Opinion: Alarming research on pesticide warrants curbs on its use

Even if you’ve never heard of imidacloprid, there’s a good chance the world’s most-used neonicotinoid pesticide is lurking somewhere in your home. Or on your dog. Or maybe even in your groundwater or drinking-water supplies. This insecticide, widely used for decades on fruits, vegetables and many other crops, has triggered growing concerns over its well-documented role in the dramatic declines of birds, bees, butterflies and other insects across the globe. … With imidacloprid being discovered in groundwater and drinking-water supplies across the state, state regulators — and legislators — finally are paying closer attention …
-Written by Jonathan Evans, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program.

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Aquafornia news May 17, 2022 FISHBIO

New research: Worth waiting for – The advantages of late-migrating spring-run Chinook

Rare traits and behaviors within a population often get less attention, but might sometimes be the perfect ingredient to ensure the survival of a species in the face of threats like climate change. A recent article published in the journal Nature revealed the surprising success of a rare life-history strategy for threatened spring-run Chinook salmon. Juveniles that spent the summer in cool, high-elevation habitat and migrated in the fall rather than the spring were found to be crucial to the success of the population, especially in years experiencing stressful environmental conditions.

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  • California Trout: Blog - Walker Creek live stream outing
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Aquafornia news May 17, 2022 The Associated Press

California getting new state park for first time in 13 years

California will acquire a sprawling former farm property in the San Joaquin Valley and create a new state park for the first time in 13 years. The park is planned for Dos Rios Ranch, where the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers meet southwest of Modesto.

Related articles: 

  • Public Policy Institute of California: America’s Public Lands - A Bipartisan Political Success Story
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Aquafornia news May 16, 2022 National Review

California environmentalists battle reservoir project amid drought

Jamie Traynham has spent nearly half a century in and around the lush Northern California valley, about 70 miles north of Sacramento, that is home to her family’s ranch. As a girl, she and her sister rode their horses through Sites Valley, and helped build the barn stalls where they raised livestock to show in local 4-H competitions. As an adult, Traynham and her husband rent the ranch from her mother and use the land — typically a sea of green in the rainy season — as a key winter-feeding location for their cattle.

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Aquafornia news May 16, 2022 Bloomberg

How California can survive another historic drought

There is no end in sight for California’s drought. … I spoke to [professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis Jay Lund] via email this month and last. A lightly edited transcript follows. Francis Wilkinson: When we spoke last summer, you were optimistic about California’s capacity to manage drought and still prosper. Since then, the drought has not gotten better … Are you more worried now or are you still confident that California has enough water for its economy and its people? Jay Lund: Most of California’s economy and people will be fine, despite being affected by this drought. 

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  • California Waterblog: How engineers see the water glass in California 
  • High Country News: Yes, the drought really is that bad
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Aquafornia news May 16, 2022 Mercury News

Cal Am not fazed by rejection of SoCal desal project

A Thursday ruling by the California Coastal Commission denying a Southern California desalination project appears as if it could impact the prospects of California American Water Co.’s plan to construct a desal plant along the Monterey Peninsula. But Cal Am says the Commission’s decision to deny Poseidon Water Co.’s Huntington Beach project and any impacts on Cal Am’s long-proposed desal project on the Monterey Peninsula is comparing apples to oranges.

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  • Stateline: California panel unanimously quashes desalination plant
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Aquafornia news May 13, 2022 San Jose Mercury News

California to open first new state park in 13 years

At a scenic spot where two rivers meet amid sprawling almond orchards and ranchlands between San Jose and Modesto, California’s state park system is about to get bigger. On Friday, as part of his revised May budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom is scheduled to announce that the state is acquiring 2,100 acres near the confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers to become a new state park — an area rich with wildlife and brimming with possibilities to reduce flood risk and restore some of California’s lost natural heritage.

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Aquafornia news May 13, 2022 The Santa Barbara Independent

Blog: Floodplain restoration: In response to climate change, California is looking to nature’s patterns

Water policy in the Western U.S. has always been a contentious issue. Changes in water management, however, are slowly happening. For example, an increasing number of dams are being deconstructed where environmental, safety, and Indigenous-cultural impacts outweigh the benefits of hydropower, flood control, irrigation, or recreation…. More recently, the issues of water wastage and flood control from dam removal are being offset by allowing rivers to return to more natural flow patterns.

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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 Press Democrat

Armstrong Woods, Austin Creek reserve on the road to recovery nearly 2 years after Walbridge fire

The Walbridge fire started in densely forested country just outside the Austin Creek reserve. It started from a dry lightning storm Aug. 16 or 17 — the day it was discovered — spawning flames that roared through the steeply cut, rural landscape between Cazadero and Healdsburg. It burned for most of seven weeks, razing 156 homes and blackening 55,209 acres. But many were riveted by news of its entry into the beloved park near the Russian River town of Guerneville, where between 700,000 and a million visitors a year flock to see ancient coast redwood trees — some well over 1,000 years old.

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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

Endangered fish and waterfowl find refuge at the Klamath Basin’s Lakeside Farms

[A crowd has gathered] to stock the pond with over 1,000 young C’waam and Koptu—Lost River and shortnose suckers, two endangered species that inhabit Upper Klamath Lake and that are at the heart of the area’s water conflicts. … The pond is part of an innovative restoration project at Lakeside Farms, which is just north of Klamath Falls. … Altogether, it’s a hopeful demonstration of cooperation in a region that has seen bitter fights between tribes, farmers, and wildlife advocates over who gets water.

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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 Somach Simmons & Dunn | Attorneys at Law

Blog: Court of Appeal sides with parties seeking attorneys’ fees for challenge to California WaterFix project

Siding with public agencies and environmental groups who filed numerous legal challenges to the “twin tunnel” Delta conveyance project known as California WaterFix, the Third District Court of Appeal today unanimously held that the trial court improperly denied the appellants’ attorneys’ fees motions when it ruled that their legal challenges were not a “catalyst” for the State’s 2019 decision to rescind the WaterFix project approvals and decertify the project environmental impact report (EIR). 

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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 CNN

As water runs short in California, commission will vote on whether to allow another costly desalination plant

As California battles a historic drought and a water crisis looms, the state’s coastline protection agency is poised to vote Thursday on whether it will allow a $1.4 billion desalinization plant in Huntington Beach that would convert ocean water into municipal water for Orange County residents. Poseidon Water, which has been trying to build the plant for decades, says it would be capable of producing up to 50 million gallons of drinking water a day, helping to make the region more drought resilient. But desalination opponents argue less expensive and less harmful conservation tactics should be the first resort.

Related article: 

  • ABC News: Amid drought, California desalination project at crossroads
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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 Patch - Healdsburg

CA drought: Russian River water draws in jeopardy

Thousands of water rights holders in the Russian River watershed could soon lose access to their water after state regulators approved emergency drought rules Tuesday. The State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to reauthorize the Division of Water Rights to issue “curtailment orders” for up to 2,000 rights holders in order to preserve water in Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino and to protect drinking water supplies and fish populations.

Related article: 

  • State Water Resources Control Board: Continuing drought prompts readoption of emergency curtailment regulation in Russian River
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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 Eureka Times-Standard

Documentary highlights Klamath Salmon Run, which starts Thursday

For the 20th year in a row, people from tribal communities along the Klamath River are preparing to run the more than 300 mile length of the river, tracing the route of the salmon that are struggling to survive. … A new 13-minute documentary called “Bring the Salmon Home” by filmmaker Shane Anderson highlights the Klamath Salmon Run, which is set to begin at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. The Salmon Run was started after a historic fish kill in 2002 decimated the Klamath River’s salmon.

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  • Oakdale Leader: State Water Agencies Partner To Support Salmon Population
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Aquafornia news May 12, 2022 The Sacramento Bee

Are there sea lions by the Tower Bridge in Sacramento CA?

Your eyes aren’t playing tricks. That honking blob that looked like a sea lion near Tower Bridge — it probably was one. Sightings of the marine animals often make their rounds on Sacramento social media, and can send the average user down a rabbit hole (if you’re new, or younger than, say, 35 you may also be excited to learn about Humphrey, the vagabond humpback whale). But why are these creatures — who typically spend their time on the coast — appearing so far from the ocean? The answer’s rather simple: They’re are more of them, and they’re hungry.

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Aquafornia news May 11, 2022 California Water Research

Blog: On sowing doubt about extinction risks for Chinook salmon in 2022

A decade ago, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway wrote the seminal book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Oreskes and Conway documented how scientists paid by the tobacco industry sowed doubt about the links between smoking and lung cancer, and how the same strategy has been used with climate change, acid rain, the ozone hole, and asbestos. Similar tactics have been used to sow doubt about the causes of the collapse of native fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its watersheds.

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  • California Fisheries blog: 2022 Sacramento River Operations – Temperature Management Plan
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Aquafornia news May 11, 2022 Ag Alert

Local solutions central to water forum

Facing a third year of drought, leadership from county Farm Bureaus, spanning all regions of California, gathered in Sacramento last week to engage with state water officials about all things water. A changing climate, shrinking snowpack, water rights, aging infrastructure, groundwater regulations and solutions to the state’s water crisis were among the topics discussed at the California Farm Bureau Water Forum. The event brought together state water officials and county Farm Bureau leaders from the Mountain, North Coast, Central Valley, Central Coast and Southern California regions.

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  • Ag Net West: SGMA meeting brings varying interests together to work towards common action
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Aquafornia news May 11, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle

California’s new plan for carbon neutrality will make our lives radically different

More organic farming. Less driving. No more natural gas in new buildings. Electric off-road vehicles. For the first time in five years, California regulators have released an ambitious plan for tackling climate change. … Among the methods: encouraging Californians to eat plant- or cell-based products instead of meat. Doubling the amount of acres of cropland that are certified organic. … Restoring an immense amount of acreage in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — 130,000 acres under one scenario. For context, a state-funded project in the works that will convert 1,200 acres will have taken 20 years and $63 million when it’s complete.

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  • Forbes: Opinion - Is California actually embracing energy realism?
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Aquafornia news May 11, 2022 KUOW - Seattle

Seattle fish research could shake up global tire industry

Research in Seattle-area creeks has discovered tire bits shedding lethal amounts of a little-known, salmon-killing chemical called 6PPD-quinone. … In December 2020, 27 coauthors published an article in the journal Science identifying 6PPD-quinone as the coho killer. Within weeks, the U.S Tire Manufacturers Association asked California officials to treat tires with 6PPD as a priority under the state’s toxic-chemical laws. Coho salmon is an endangered species in California. The California rule, once finalized, would give manufacturers of tires sold there 180 days to assess any known or potential alternatives to 6PPD in tire rubber.

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Aquafornia news May 11, 2022 NBC Bay Area

Cleanup complete: Nonprofit removes over 25,000 pounds of trash from Lake Tahoe

Nearly one year ago, a nonprofit launched an unprecedented effort to remove trash from Lake Tahoe’s entire 72-mile-long shoreline. On Tuesday, it completed its mission. Clean Up the Lake ended up removing 24,797 pieces of litter weighing a combined 25,281 pounds from the treasured alpine lake on the California-Nevada border. Since the 72-mile cleanup effort kicked off on May 14, 2021, Clean Up the Lake’s team of staff and volunteers spent dozens of days pulling everything from beer cans and beach towels to engagement rings and a cordless house phone from the water near shore.

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  • Mountain Democrat: Invasive species removal resumes in Tahoe marshes
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Aquafornia news May 11, 2022 KSBY - San Luis Obispo

Carrizo Plain wildflowers severely limited due to ongoing drought

A lack of rainfall across the Golden State and the Central Coast is limiting blooms and leaving some tourists disappointed about what’s missing at Carrizo Plain National Monument. Aside from increasing drought conditions, 2022 started off with the driest first three months of the year in the last century, limiting the number of wildflowers able to germinate. … This lack of blooms is not only due to the dry start to 2022 but also a buildup of several years of drought.

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Aquafornia news May 10, 2022 ABC 10 Sacramento

The tasty fish unique to California

Every year before the opening day of fishing season, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife goes on a fishing trip of their own in Lassen County’s Eagle Lake. Except on this trip, they don’t use fishing poles or bait.  Instead, they use an electric generator and probes that pump around 48 volts of electricity into the water. … Biologist Paul Divine and his team are actually helping to keep one specific kind of fish from going extinct … Eagle Lake Trout 

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Aquafornia news May 10, 2022 NRDC

Blog: Collaborative junk science is the core of the Delta VA

After years of exclusionary backroom negotiations over Bay-Delta voluntary agreements, earlier this week the State made a ham-fisted attempt to greenwash these proposed voluntary agreements, sending this email inviting a handful of people who had participated in VA conversations years ago to participate in “two workshops to finalize the governance and decision-making process for the implementation of the VA program.”  

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Aquafornia news May 9, 2022 The San Diego Union-Tribune

Anza-Borrego park faces claims of neglecting rain ‘guzzlers,’ leading to bighorn sheep deaths

Anza-Borrego park has recently come under fire by Jorgensen, longtime volunteers and others for allegedly neglecting its guzzler systems, which for decades helped the federally endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep rebound from the brink of extinction.  It’s the latest salvo in a fight over whether, and to what extent, the park should prop up one species threatened by climate change. New management has raised concerns about the cost and possible futility of such endeavors.  

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Aquafornia news May 9, 2022 Law Street Media

Blog: Orange County Coastkeeper sues owner of metal finishing facility under Clean Water Act

On Thursday, the Orange County Coastkeeper filed a complaint in the Central District of California against Hixson Metal Finishing, FPC Management, LLC and Reid Washbon alleging violations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and Clean Water Act.  According to the complaint, the Orange County Coastkeeper is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation dedicated to the preservation, protection and defense of the environment, wildlife and natural resources of Orange County. 

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Aquafornia news May 9, 2022 Press Democrat

Volunteers sought to share water with drought-threatened fish

What if you had just enough water to spare to make a life-or-death difference for vulnerable coho salmon or a steelhead trout stranded in a drought-stricken stream? Federal and state fish and wildlife officials hope there may be grape growers or other landowners in key areas of the lower Russian River watershed who might be willing to share some of their water to support endangered coho and threatened steelhead. It doesn’t take much.

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  • CA Department of Water Resources: State Agencies Partner to Support Salmon Populations While Supplying Water to Millions of Californians 
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Aquafornia news May 9, 2022 California WaterBlog

Blog: Five “f”unctions of the Central Valley floodplain

The Yolo Bypass is one of two large flood bypasses in California’s Central Valley that are examples of multi-benefit floodplain projects (Figure 1; Serra-Llobet et al., 2022). Originally constructed in the early 20th century for flood control, up to 75% of the Sacramento River’s flood flow can be diverted through a system of weirs into the Yolo Bypass and away from nearby communities (Figure 2; Salcido, 2012; Sommer et al., 2001). During the dry season, floodplain soils in the bypass support farming of seasonal crops (mostly rice). Today, the bypass is also widely recognized for its ecological benefits.

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Aquafornia news May 6, 2022 Stanford Magazine

Dams help us. Dams harm us. Now, longtime adversaries are coming together to bridge that uncomfortable divide

From its headwaters in the Sierra Nevada, the Feather River flows some 3,600 feet downhill, where, in Oroville, it meets the tallest dam in the nation. Its path shows exactly why California geology is ideal for the production of hydropower. It’s physics. The higher the mountains, the faster the water falls. Hydropower dams capture this power and divert it through spinning turbines in nearby powerhouses that activate generators to produce electricity. But all this hydropower comes at a cost.

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Aquafornia news May 6, 2022 The Nature Conservancy

Blog: Hamilton City

Rivers in California’s Central Valley like to go their own way: they expand, contract, meander and regenerate soil in the process. The historic movement of rivers is what made Central Valley soil so fertile. Naturally flowing rivers recharge and save water for people and nature, providing habitat for many species including four distinct runs of chinook salmon.  Before the early 20th century, the Sacramento River had one of the biggest salmon runs in North America …

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  • California Department of Fish and Wildlife: Endangered California Salmon Returned To Safer Waters After More Than A Century
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Aquafornia news May 6, 2022 Paso Robles Daily News

Land Conservancy completes conservation project near Lake Nacimiento

On Dec. 21, 2021, The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County completed three contiguous conservation easements on the Attiyeh Ranch near Lake Nacimiento. The easements permanently protect a whopping 7,682 acres of oak woodland, annual grasslands, and chaparral, as well as significant freshwater resources and wildlife habitat.

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Aquafornia news May 6, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle

At California’s second-largest lake, fish are dying in dried-up streambeds

At California’s second biggest freshwater lake, the latest fallout of drought is gruesome: dead fish in nearby stream beds that have run dry. Some of the foot-long, silvery Clear Lake hitch have been decapitated by racoons and other varmints, which have had easy pickings of the beached minnow. The grim sightings by Lake County and tribal crews surveying the lake have prompted a rescue effort over the past week to save hitch, a threatened species found only in this region. 

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Aquafornia news May 6, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

California water regulators weigh renewing emergency drought restrictions in the Scott and Shasta rivers

California water regulators hosted a public forum on Wednesday to collect comments about re-adopting drought emergency regulations for Siskiyou County’s Scott and Shasta River watersheds. … In response [to current drought conditions], the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is requesting the re-adoption of a 12-month drought emergency regulation to protect salmon, steelhead and other native fish. 

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Aquafornia news May 5, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Endangered Devil’s Hole pupfish makes a perplexing rebound

How the Devil’s Hole pupfish has survived for centuries in a spa-like cistern cloistered by a barren rock mountain in Death Valley National Park remains a biological mystery. The world’s rarest, most inbred fish clings to existence in the smallest geographic range of any vertebrate: the shallow end of an oxygen-deprived pool 10 feet wide, 70 feet long and more than 500 feet deep. In early 2013, its numbers plunged to 35, and biologists feared the species long regarded as a symbol of the desert conservation movement would be gone within a year.

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Aquafornia news May 5, 2022 Arizona Public Radio

Game and Fish says be on the lookout for hot, thirsty bears as drought continues

State wildlife officials are urging the public to be aware of increased bear activity as dry conditions and hot temperatures persist in the region. The Arizona Game and Fish Department says dry vegetation has reduced bears’ food supply which can force them into urban areas. Residents are advised to make sure pet food and bird seed are inaccessible to bears or other animals and to bring trash cans inside until collection day.

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Aquafornia news May 4, 2022 The San Diego Union-Tribune

New state bill could require ‘blue carbon’ to offset coastal development

Public developments on the California coast would be required to capture carbon in wetlands or other natural systems under an Assembly bill that calls for projects to add “blue carbon” measures to their mitigation plans.  Blue carbon refers to coastal habitat such as wetlands, marshes, kelp forests and eelgrass beds that capture and store carbon in soil, plant matter and the sea floor.  AB 2593, authored by Assemblymember Boerner Horvath, D-Encinitas, would require projects on public lands to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions by building or contributing to blue carbon projects.

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Aquafornia news May 3, 2022 E&E News

‘Enough is enough’: Calif. targets Big Oil over plastics

In a first-of-its-kind legal action, California is interrogating the role of fossil fuel and chemical giants in driving the plastics pollution crisis and deceiving consumers about recycling. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said yesterday that the state is investigating Exxon Mobil Corp. and other companies for “their role in causing and exacerbating” plastics contamination. … “In California and across the globe, we are seeing the catastrophic results of the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deception. Plastic pollution is seeping into our waterways, poisoning our environment, and blighting our landscapes,” said Bonta, a Democrat, in a statement.

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Aquafornia news May 3, 2022 The New Yorker

Can sustainable suburbs save southern California?

The [Tejon Ranch] company’s proposals promise a reprieve from California’s existential crisis about its way of life, suggesting that the environmental consequences of the state’s notorious sprawl can be reformed with rooftop solar panels, induction cooktops, electric cars, and careful bookkeeping. … During the years of litigation surrounding FivePoint Valencia, environmentalists scored a few rare wins. The development had to reduce its footprint to protect the Santa Clara River’s floodplain. It had to conserve land to protect the unarmored threespine stickleback—an endangered fish that lives in the river—and the San Fernando Valley spineflower, a rare plant. 

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Aquafornia news May 3, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Opinion: Kill the Huntington Beach desalination project already

When it comes to wasteful, overpriced and ill-considered proposals to address California’s water supply issues, it’s hard to know where to start. But a good place would be the plan to build a desalination plant on the Pacific coast at Huntington Beach. … As I’ve reported in the past, there isn’t much to recommend the Huntington Beach project. It would seriously damage the marine coastal environment, produce the costliest water of any source available and raise water bills for residents and businesses.
-Written by Michael Hiltzik, LA Times business columnist.

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  • Voice of OC: Opinion – Is Poseidon’s Big Proposal for HB Desal Plant Dead in the Water? 
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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 Lake County News

State, local and tribal officials partner to rescue stranded Clear Lake hitch

Lake County’s drought conditions led this week to the need to rescue hundreds of threatened native fish. Lake County Water Resources staff and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, working alongside of Robinson Rancheria and Habematolel Pomo tribal members, leapt to the rescue on Thursday when it was reported that there were Clear Lake hitch in an isolated pool in Adobe Creek near Soda Bay in Lakeport. The hitch, a large minnow found only in Clear Lake and its tributaries, has been a culturally important fish for the Pomo tribes, which considered it a staple food.

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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 Eureka Times-Standard

McLean grants benefit Eel River watershed

Local watersheds in the Eel River Valley and Southern Humboldt County will benefit from five grants recently awarded by the McLean Foundation. Grant recipients are the Eel River Recovery Project and Friends of the Van Duzen, the Salmonid Restoration Federation, Mattole Restoration Council, Friends of the Eel River, and Friends of the Lost Coast. 

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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 The Washington Post

Monday Top of the Scroll: La Nina may enter rare third year. What that means.

Meteorologists are monitoring the potential for a “triple-dip La Niña,” an unusual resurgence of cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific. While such a phenomenon might seem remote, La Niña plays an enormous role in our weather stateside. In addition to helping juice up tornado season in the spring, La Niña has been known to supercharge Atlantic hurricane season when it sticks around into the summer and fall. La Niña is back. Here’s what that means.

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  • Fox 5 San Diego: What La Niña means for California this summer
  • Oregon Public Broadcasting: Climate scientist says we’re not measuring the right things to predict drought 
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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 Colorado Sun

Additional Flaming Gorge releases could be good for endangered fish

A plan to release an additional 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge reservoir is welcome news to biologists conducting research to recover four species of endangered fish in the Colorado River Basin. … The extra water set to come out of Flaming Gorge reservoir in Wyoming during the next 12 months is part of a 2022 Drought Response Operations Plan agreed on last week by the Upper Basin states — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. The water is intended to help prop up low levels at Lake Powell.

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  • U.S. Bureau of Reclamation: News release - Bug Flow experiment to be conducted this summer under the Glen Canyon Dam Long-Term Experimental and Management Plan
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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 Mercury News

California attorney general subpoenas ExxonMobil, opens major investigation into plastic pollution

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday announced a major investigation into companies that manufacture plastics, the first of its kind in the nation, saying that for 50 years they have been engaged in potentially illegal business practices by misleadingly claiming that plastics products are recyclable, when most are not. Bonta said he issued subpoenas to ExxonMobil, with other companies likely to follow, and said society’s growing plastics pollution problem — particularly in oceans, which are littered by trillions of tiny pieces of plastic — is something they are legally liable for and should be ordered to address.

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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 SF Gate

Truck driver dumped 2,000 gallons of ‘asphalt binder’ in California forest, CHP says

A truck driver who law enforcement believes was driving under the influence dumped 2,000 gallons of “hot asphalt binder” in a California forest this week. … Officials from Six Rivers National Forest said the trailer contained 2,000 gallons of “hot asphalt binder,” which began seeping into the Smith River. … A quick response by forest workers, Caltrans, Del Norte County Office of Emergency Services and other agencies minimized the spread of the chemicals. They believe there are no impacts to water quality.

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  • Associated Press: Truck crash spills hot ‘asphalt binder’ in California forest
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Aquafornia news May 2, 2022 Mercury News

Newsom: $1.4 billion desalination project should be approved by California Coastal Commission

Citing California’s worsening drought conditions, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday made a powerful new push for a controversial $1.4 billion desalination plant on the state’s coastline. The proposed oceanfront facility in Huntington Beach has been under debate for more than 20 years, and its fate could set a course for other desalination plants on the state’s coast. The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to take a final vote on the project in two weeks. … Newsom said a no vote by the full commission to kill the project would be “a big mistake, a big setback.”

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  • CalMatters: Newsom takes stance on prickly enviro issues
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Aquafornia news April 29, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Essential California: As some cities face water restrictions, a desalination debate grows

California’s extreme drought over the last three years has been intensified by hotter temperatures, putting strains on the shrinking reserves in the state’s reservoirs. … Yet even as the northern third of the MWD’s vast service area faces unprecedented water restrictions, a different sort of struggle is underway in Orange County, where a company’s plan to build a large desalination plant is to face a critical vote next month before the California Coastal Commission.

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Aquafornia news April 29, 2022 California Trout

Blog: Trout clout – Victory for protections of southern steelhead

The science and data are clear. Southern California steelhead are on the brink of extinction. Southern steelhead populations have been decimated at the southern end of their native range, plummeting from tens of thousands to a few hundred remaining adults due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation from urbanization. On April 21, an important milestone was achieved to prevent the irreversible loss of this iconic Southern California fish species. The California Fish and Game Commission unanimously voted that the state ESA listing of Southern steelhead may be warranted. 

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Aquafornia news April 29, 2022 High Country News

Siskiyou County’s sheriff is suddenly interested in policing ‘environmental crimes‘ (The rise of the nature cop)

Last summer, Siskiyou County’s recently appointed sheriff, Jeremiah LaRue, released a video on YouTube to explain two controversial new county groundwater laws. The drought was severe that year, he said, and the “wasteful extraction” of water for illegal cannabis cultivation was making it worse. … The environmentalist rhetoric and talk of water policy signaled a shift in how LaRue’s department policed the illicit cannabis industry. 

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Aquafornia news April 29, 2022 The Sacramento Bee

Trucking salmon shows slow pace of California habitat work

Critically endangered adult salmon are again swimming above a century-old dam in this remote corner of far Northern California in the shadow of the Mount Lassen volcano. But this isn’t a habitat-restoration success story — at least not yet. For the past two weeks, state and federal fisheries managers have begun hauling the winter-run Chinook nearly 50 miles by truck from the dangerously warming Sacramento River to a stretch of the north fork of Battle Creek and releasing them, a handful at a time, into the creek’s icy waters.

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  • Water Forum: Blog - How the Water Forum will use fish ear bones to help evaluate flow management
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Aquafornia news April 28, 2022 The Revelator

Author interview: Why we need slow solutions to solve our water problems

What does Slow Water mean? In our attempt to control water we’re often trying to eradicate the slow phases and move it a lot more quickly. We’re putting up levees so that it won’t settle on floodplains. We’re filling in wetlands so that we can build or farm on top of them. We’re cutting down mountain forests that act as water towers, generating water and releasing it slowly. In all of the cases I looked at, the water detectives were trying to give water access to its slow phases again, whether that meant restoring or protecting wetlands, or reclaiming floodplains, or protecting wet meadows, or in a city, creating something like bioswales.

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Aquafornia news April 28, 2022 KRCR

New legislation seeks to return land to Yurok tribe

Congressman Jared Huffman introduced a new bill this week that aims to give land back to the Yurok Tribe. HR7581, known as the Yurok Lands Act, would expand the Yurok reservation boundaries and give the tribe more than 1,229 additional acres of U.S. Forest Service land. … By reclaiming land, the Tribe hopes to help keep local forests and salmon populations healthy.

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Aquafornia news April 28, 2022 The Sacramento Bee

UC Davis research details microplastics in ocean food chain

Germs are hitching rides around the world’s waterways on the tiniest of rafts — microscopic plastic fibers from human clothing and fishing nets — and contaminate the shellfish that consume them, according to research published Tuesday by scientists at the University of California, Davis. These researchers hope to see further study on how the pathogens in these contaminated fish affect the humans and other animals eating them.

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  • USA Today: Deadly pathogens can hitch a ride on ocean microplastics, raising alarm bells
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Aquafornia news April 28, 2022 Spectrum News 1

The heated debate over desalination in Huntington Beach

Growing up in Anaheim, the beach and the ocean served as a place of solace for Orange County Coastkeeper Founder and President Garry Brown, who created the nonprofit to help protect the place he loves most. … In their mission to protect water in Orange County, they’ve taken a stance on a divisive issue affecting their community — whether the region needs desalination, a costly, energy-intensive process that uses reverse osmosis technology to remove salt from seawater to make drinking water.

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  • Israel 21c: How Israel used innovation to beat its water crisis 
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Aquafornia news April 28, 2022 SJV Sun

Blog: Valley’s ‘water blueprint’ makes splash with statewide push for $6.5bil in water funds

A coalition of water stakeholder organizations from across California joined together to send a letter addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom and six key legislators requesting action to address water issues. The nine page document dated April 19, 2022 was signed by 18 organizations and entities including the San Joaquin Valley Water Blueprint and 10 Southern California, four Bay Area and three trade groups. The letter laid out the need to include a $6.5 billion appropriation in the 2022-2023 General Fund budget to strengthen statewide drought and flood resilience.
-Written by Don Wright, a contributor to The San Joaquin Valley Sun. 

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Aquafornia news April 28, 2022 Spectrum News 1

Researchers look at how biofilters can protect waterways

Onja Davidson Raoelison, a doctoral candidate in environmental engineering at UCLA, has been working to keep waterways safe. Her research and studies focus on green infrastructure and how wildfires impact water systems…. Raoelison has been looking at how biofilters can protect water from debris and toxic pollutants such as heavy metals.

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Aquafornia news April 27, 2022 ABC7 San Francisco

California drought: First-of-its-kind project prepares South San Francisco park for drier times CA’s continued drought

You could say that Orange Memorial Park in South San Francisco is about to turn deep green. … [Colma Creek is] an historic, natural waterway that was heavily cemented for flood control in the early days of the area’s development. For decades, the creek has carried runoff from the surrounding watershed straight into San Francisco Bay, along with a significant amount of trash. But that’s about to change.

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Aquafornia news April 27, 2022 Mercury News

Opinion: CEQA attacks come as our planet most needs the law

If the recent attacks on California’s landmark environmental law sound tired, that’s because they are. Ever since the California Environmental Quality Act went into effect in 1970, there have been calls to tweak, reform or completely throw it out. … In Napa, where hillside forests are being razed for vineyards, CEQA was used to limit the size of a massive winery conversion project to save as many carbon-sequestering trees as possible.
-Written by John Buse, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity. 

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Aquafornia news April 27, 2022 NRDC

Blog: 5 takeaways on California 30×30 report: land and freshwater

The state of California has released the final version of its Pathways to 30×30 report. Here are five things to know about the terrestrial conservation elements of this landmark effort: 1. Freshwater Conservation  The Pathways document is explicit about the critical need to expand protection of California’s rivers, streams, wetlands, and other freshwater resources … 

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Aquafornia news April 27, 2022 California Trout

Blog: Women of CalTrout – Ada Fowler

In this new series, our Communications Associate, Kara Glenwright, sits down for conversations with the women on our Conservation and Policy/Legal teams. Follow along as these women share their own stories and experiences as women in conservation and science at CalTrout. 

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Aquafornia news April 27, 2022 University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources

Analysis: The Salton Sea – An introduction to an evolving system and the role of science

The Salton Sea, located in Southern California, is a saline terminal lake that has had many identities over the past century or so. Since its reincarnation in 1905 due to lower Colorado River flooding that partially refilled the Salton Sink, it has been California’s largest lake by surface area, covering approximately 350 square miles…. Yet with nearly 90% of its inflow comprised of agricultural drainage waters from the approximately 500,000 acres of irrigated farmland in the Imperial Irrigation District (IID), and exposure to an extremely arid climate that results in excessive evaporation … the Sea’s natural attractions have faded as the lake has become more polluted and nearly twice as saline as the ocean….

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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 Mercury News

New Alameda Creek fish ladder to aid spawning migration

For the first time in half a century, ocean-going fish will soon be able to migrate up Alameda Creek to spawn, now that a second fish ladder has been completed in the lower portion of the creek in Fremont. Alameda County Water District and Alameda County Flood Control District officials on Monday celebrated the completion of the fish ladder, which was finished earlier this month, according to Sharene Gonzales, a water district spokesperson. The ladder, which consists of a series of steadily elevating pools, allows migratory fish such as Chinook salmon and threatened steelhead trout to get around human-made barriers in the lower creek …

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  • 48 Hills: Does SF have enough water to give some back to the salmon—and the ecosystem?
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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 American Rivers

Blog: Untapped beauty in California’s Central Valley

Over the past two centuries, 95% of the Central Valley’s wetlands have been lost to development, landscaped out of existence to satisfy the hunger of an urbanizing, growing nation. But that’s only part of the picture. California’s Central Valley extends far beyond what you can see from the freeways bisecting the belly of the state to connect the Redding to the Bay Area to Los Angeles. The region once boasted one of the largest and most biologically diverse wetlands on earth nourished by the mighty Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers …

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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 UC Davis

New research: Pathogens can hitch a ride on plastic to reach the sea

Microplastics are a pathway for pathogens on land to reach the ocean, with likely consequences for human and wildlife health, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. The study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, is the first to connect microplastics in the ocean with land-based pathogens. It found that microplastics can make it easier for disease-causing pathogens to concentrate in plastic-contaminated areas of the ocean.

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  • National Geographic: Microplastics are in our bodies. How much do they harm us? 
  • Chico State Today: Student Fly-fisherman Casts His Line Into Researching Local Creeks
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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 Stanford News

Blog: Massive conservation effort

One of the most ambitious conservation efforts ever, California’s 30×30 initiative aims to protect plant and animal life across 30 percent of the state’s most critical land and water by 2030. Gov. Gavin Newsom has described the plan as an important step toward ensuring community well-being, equity, and economic sustainability while staving off mega wildfires, droughts, and other climate change-driven threats. Stanford University experts have informed 30×30 through their participation in public outreach sessions, meetings with the plan’s leadership and a letter of support signed by faculty members from all seven of the university’s schools.

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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 NRDC

Blog: Delta voluntary agreements are a “plan to fail” in droughts

Rather than planning for droughts and ensuring that minimum water quality objectives are achieved in critically dry years, the proposed voluntary agreement appears to be a “plan to fail” to protect the Delta in future droughts.  Droughts are a fact of life in California, even as climate change is making them worse.  The Governor’s Water Resilience Portfolio recognizes the need to improve drought preparedness, requiring that the State to be able to protect fish and wildlife during a six year drought …

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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 Reuters

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: California desalination plant hits regulatory hurdle

A proposed California desalination plant that would produce 50 million gallons of drinking water per day failed a crucial regulatory hurdle on Monday, possibly dooming a project that had been promoted as a partial solution for sustained drought. The staff of the California Coastal Commission recommended denying approval of the Huntington Beach plant proposed by Poseidon Water … [and] said the project was more susceptible to sea-level rise than was understood when it was first proposed more than two decades ago.

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  • Orange County Register: Coastal Commission staff says Poseidon’s ocean-to-tap water plant should not be built
  • Associated Press: Report urges California panel to deny desalination plant
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Aquafornia news April 26, 2022 Best Best & Krieger

Blog: White House Council on Environmental Quality finalizes first phase of NEPA regulation revisions

The White House Council on Environmental Quality has reversed three key Trump administration changes that govern how federal agencies implement the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The rule, published on April 20, 2022, finalizes what the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) called “Phase One” of their effort to review and revise the Trump administration’s July 2020 overhaul of the NEPA regulations, and follows a proposed rule that CEQ issued for public comments last fall.

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Aquafornia news April 25, 2022 California WaterBlog

Blog: The Putah Creek fish kill: Learning from a local disaster

In November 2021, salmon entering Putah Creek were part of a large fish kill in the lower creek. The event took everyone familiar with the creek by surprise and prevented successful migration of the creek’s fall salmon. Only 4 or 5 adult Chinook salmon made it upstream to suitable spawning habitat. The result was particularly tragic as it followed on the heels of the restoration of a salmon run in the creek, as well as habitat for other fishes.

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Aquafornia news April 25, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Owens Valley tribes seek historic site nomination

Spirits live here. That’s what Paiute and Shoshone tribal members say about the Owens Lake playa, an arid, eerily flat expanse along the eastern Sierra Nevada range that is prone to choking dust storms. It is best known as the focal point of a historic feud that began in the early 1900s, when Los Angeles city agents quietly bought up ranch lands and water rights for an aqueduct to quench the thirst of the growing metropolis 200 miles to the south.

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Aquafornia news April 25, 2022 Redheaded Blackbelt

Blog: ‘Everyone knew it was coming’: Eel River waters continue to be diverted as PG&E granted annual license for the Potter Valley Project

No one was surprised by Thursday’s letter granting PG&E an annual license to run the Potter Valley Project until April of next year. And, while a last-minute mystery application did provide a few moments of titillating speculation, the enigmatic Antonio Manfredini failed to generate any real suspense. The 50-year license to operate the Potter Valley Project, which diverts water from the Eel River into the east branch of the Russian River to Lake Mendocino by way of a tunnel, a pair of dams and reservoirs, and a small hydropower plant, expired on April 14.

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Aquafornia news April 25, 2022 Mashed

The truth about salmon-safe alcohol

Northern California farmers use pumped river water during freezing spring nights to coat the growing grapes with a protective layer of ice, and without this protection there could be significant losses to crops. That water, however, comes from the homes of the hook-mouthed coho salmon and the threatened steelhead trout. Once plentiful, the coho salmon is now a protected species under threat (via NOAA Fisheries). Salmon-Safe seeks to protect important species in California and beyond, while still supporting the many brewery and winery industries that need water to thrive.

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Aquafornia news April 25, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

Water rights groups win lawsuit in Siskiyou County over environmental review

The group “We Advocate Through Environmental Review” and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe challenged the environmental impact report prepared by the city [of Mt. Shasta] and Siskiyou County. They argued county officials offered a misleading report and failed to properly look at the impacts of the bottling plant on the environment. The groups filed two lawsuits, one against the city and one against the county.

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Aquafornia news April 25, 2022 Delta Stewardship Council

Report: Delta Science Program: 2022 – 2026 Science Action Agenda

The Delta Science Program is excited to release the 2022-2026 Science Action Agenda (SAA). Developed by and for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta science community, the 2022-2026 SAA builds on the progress of the 2017-2021 iteration to prioritize and align science actions to meet management needs, foster collaboration and coordination, and guide science funding. It will serve as a roadmap for the allocation and integration of investments through research, time, and resources. 

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Aquafornia news April 22, 2022 CBS Sacramento

9 arrests made after investigation into Sacramento River sturgeon poaching

A total of nine people have been arrested after an investigation into a large suspected sturgeon poaching operation along Sacramento Valley waterways. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says the investigation started as two separate cases, but a connection between the suspects led them to uncovering the larger operation.

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  • CA Department of Fish and Wildlife: Major Sturgeon Poaching Operation Nets Nine Suspects
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Aquafornia news April 22, 2022 CBS 8 San Diego

Torrey Pine can help solve San Diego water crisis

Emily Tianshi has loved coming to Torrey Pines State Preserve since she was young. The beach and preserve is one of the very few places where its namesake grows. As a curious middle schooler with an interest in biology, she became fascinated with the rarely studied tree. “Because the pine is so rare, nobody had studied its mechanisms before,” she says. “I would observe that the Torrey Pine needles are able to condense water from the marine layer that comes through the State Park and use that to water itself in the midst of drought.”

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Aquafornia news April 22, 2022 The New York Times

How a California disaster inspired the first Earth Day

Happy Earth Day. As you probably know, April 22 is a day set aside for appreciating the environment and demonstrating support for laws that protect it. … But it was a massive oil spill in 1969 off the coast of Santa Barbara that ultimately served as a catalyst for Earth Day…. At the national level, Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, and President Richard M. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. 

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  • E&E News: Research - Insects are dying off because of climate, farming
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Aquafornia news April 22, 2022 Northern California Water Association

Blog: Salmon recovery project to implement voluntary agreements being implemented on the Sacramento River

The Sacramento River Settlement Contractors are currently implementing another project on the Sacramento River just downstream from Keswick Reservoir that will contribute to the habitat targets established by the recently signed Voluntary Agreements Memorandum of Understanding. The 2022 Keswick Gravel Injection Project will provide much needed spawning habitat in the upper Sacramento River for endangered winter-run Chinook salmon.

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Aquafornia news April 22, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Decision looms for controversial Poseidon desalination plant

Among the many complex arguments over water in California, one particularly heated debate centers on whether the state should seek more drinking water from a plentiful but expensive source: the Pacific Ocean. The debate has reached a critical stage in Huntington Beach, where Poseidon Water has been trying for more than two decades to build one of the country’s largest desalination plants. The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to vote next month on whether to grant a permit to build the plant.

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  • NBC LX: Watch - Desalination turns ocean water into drinking water — so why hasn’t it solved droughts?
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Aquafornia news April 21, 2022 Bay Nature

The lamprey, an amazing fish that needs a makeover

To its side is the oldest fish counting station in California, the Van Arsdale Fisheries Station, run by the California Department of Fish and Game since 1922. The station overlooks a fish ladder, built as part of the agreement to allow construction of the Scott Dam, which allows fish like salmon and trout to travel upriver to spawn. Unfortunately, from the beginning it also overlooked, and not in the scenic way, the needs of the lamprey, a much-maligned fish that also needs access to the Eel’s headwaters and unlike its salmonid cousins can’t swim up a ladder.

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Aquafornia news April 21, 2022 San Diego State University

Newsletter: Navigating the San Diego River’s past and its future

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the San Diego River has long been listed as an impaired water body, but SDSU researchers are working to fix it. … In another study, SDSU environmental engineer Natalie Mladenov and her team found that high levels of bacteria correlate with the presence of caffeine and sucralose, found only in human waste. 

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Aquafornia news April 21, 2022 Cision PR

News release: Senator Paul Simon warned us about a coming shortage of fresh water

With historic droughts strangling the world, from California to Africa, Senator Paul Simon’s book Tapped Out: Water: The Coming Crisis and What We Can Do About it, is now available in paperback and as an eBook published by Inprint Books. … In Brazil, the current drought is one of the worst ever recorded. … In Madagascar, drought has left hundreds of thousands of people malnourished, pushing the country to the edge of famine. In the last two decades alone, the United Nations estimates drought has affected 1.5 billion people and led to economic losses of at least $124 billion.

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Aquafornia news April 20, 2022 Eos

Endangered rivers plagued by pollution, climate change, and outdated management

A leading U.S. environmental conservation group has released its annual list of the country’s most endangered rivers. The Colorado River tops the list, but states across the nation must address polluted, dry, and unhealthy rivers, according to the list and accompanying report published today by American Rivers.

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  • KGET: Report by American Rivers classifies Lower Kern as one of nation’s 10 most endangered rivers
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Aquafornia news April 20, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

Environmental groups intend to sue PG&E over Potter Valley Project

The 100-year-old Potter Valley Project consists of two dams along Northern California’s Eel River. The upstream Scott Dam blocks salmon and steelhead from reaching prime spawning grounds, according to Alicia Hamann, the director of Friends of Eel River. Both fish are threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Friends of the Eel River are one of a handful of environmental groups planning to sue PG&E to seek protections for these dwindling fish populations.

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  • Redheaded Blackbelt: An expired license, a mysterious applicant, and a threat to sue: what else can we expect as the fight to control the waters of the Eel River continues?
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Aquafornia news April 20, 2022 CBS San Francisco

Chinook salmon found in Los Gatos creek could be trapped by drought

Concerns are being raised over what the drought might be doing to an ancient salmon run that goes through the heart of Silicon Valley. Roger Castillo doesn’t look after the rivers and streams and their wildlife in Silicon Valley because it’s his job. He does it because he loves it. … The mostly self-taught citizen-naturalist is a former truck mechanic who just discovered thriving schools of Chinook salmon fry in Los Gatos Creek. But because of reduced water flows due to the drought, they’re likely to become trapped in pools of warm water upstream with no way to swim out to sea when they mature.

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  • Press Democrat: State agency warns dog owners to beware of salmon poisoning disease
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Aquafornia news April 20, 2022 Associated Press

Klamath Tribes: Plan will devastate critically endangered sucker fish

A Native American tribe in Oregon said Tuesday it is assessing its legal options after learning the U.S. government plans to release water from a federally operated reservoir to downstream farmers along the Oregon-California border amid a historic drought. Even limited irrigation for the farmers who use Klamath River water on about 300 square miles of crops puts two critically endangered fish species in peril of extinction because the water withdrawals come at the height of spawning season, The Klamath Tribes said. 

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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 Jefferson Public Radio

Klamath Tribes protest water released from Upper Klamath Lake

Members of the Klamath Tribal community gathered Friday morning in the parking lot next to the headgates to protest the Bureau of Reclamation’s decision to release water from the lake in apparent violation of Endangered Species Act requirements for the fish the tribe calls C’waam and Koptu (Lost River and shortnose suckers), and to call for solutions to the basin’s decades-long water crisis.

Related article: 

  • Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Opinion: Envisioning the Klamath without dams
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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 NOAA Fisheries

Blog: “An era of surprises” – Studying climate change and salmon with Nate Mantua

Growing up in a Northern Californian fishing town, Nate Mantua’s family owned a business connected to the local salmon fishing industry. When one of the worst El Niño events ever recorded hit the West Coast in 1982 and 1983, the salmon fishery his family relied on suffered. Nate would go on to study how to predict El Niño events in graduate school, years later. Now he works to understand the impacts of climate change. Nate leads a team of salmon ecologists, biologists, freshwater and ocean experts at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center. 

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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 Los Angeles Times

Fight brews over California measure to reduce plastic waste

[P]iles of single-use plastics that can’t easily be recycled, pollute roadsides and waterways and add to the garbage that clogs landfills. In November, Californians may get a chance to shrink that waste. An initiative designed to reduce single-use plastics and polystyrene food containers will be on the ballot, a move by environmentalists to bypass the Legislature, where such measures have repeatedly failed in the face of industry lobbying.

Related article: 

  • Deseret News: California ballot bill could reduce single-use plastic products 
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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 Press Democrat

Fishery groups plan to sue PG&E over Potter Valley plant and related Scott, Cape Horn dams

A coalition of fishery groups has formally notified PG&E that it plans to file suit under the Endangered Species Act, alleging the continued injury to once abundant federally protected salmon and steelhead trout as a result of operations at the utility’s aging Potter Valley powerhouse. The legal maneuver is part of an effort to expedite removal of Scott and Cape Horn dams, which pose a threat to vulnerable fish species in the Eel River and block access to hundreds of miles of prime habitat upstream.

Related article: 

  • California Trout News Release: Eel River Dams & Notice Of Intent To Sue  
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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 Associated Press

California gives rivers more room to flow to stem flood risk

Between vast almond orchards and dairy pastures in the heart of California’s farm country sits a property being redesigned to look like it did 150 years ago, before levees restricted the flow of rivers that weave across the landscape. The 2,100 acres (1,100 hectares) at the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers in the state’s Central Valley are being reverted to a floodplain. 

Related article: 

  • Public Policy Institute of California: Blog - California’s rivers could help protect the state from flood and drought
  • Western Water rewind: California Spent Decades Trying to Keep Central Valley Floods at Bay. Now It Looks to Welcome Them Back
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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 NRDC

Blog: Bay-Delta Voluntary Agreements – a sweetheart deal to subsidize agribusiness

Not only does the proposed Bay-Delta voluntary agreement wholly fail to provide the water that the environment needs, but even the woefully inadequate flows and the habitat restoration proposed in the VA would largely come from other water users and taxpayers, rather than the water districts that signed the MOU. … [P]art of the funding supposedly coming from water districts simply redirects existing fees they are required to pay under the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act ($10M/year). 

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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle

A vast California lake is set to run dry. Scientists are scrambling to save its endangered fish

Entering a third year of drought, the once-vast Tule Lake, a vestige of the area’s volcanic past and today a federally protected wetland, is shriveling up. Its floor is mostly cracked mud and tumbleweed. By summer, the lake is expected to run completely dry, a historic first for the region’s signature landmark and the latest chapter in a broader, escalating water war.

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Aquafornia news April 19, 2022 Colorado Public Radio

Colorado River named the most endangered in the U.S. by conservation group

The Colorado River is the epicenter of the nation’s water and climate crisis, according to an annual report from the conservation group American Rivers that ranked the waterway the country’s most endangered. … More than 20 years of record-breaking climate change-driven drought has brought the river and reservoirs Lake Powell and Lake Mead to record lows. Last month, Lake Powell dropped below a critical threshold of 3,525 feet for the first time — a number the states and federal government have worked to avoid to keep enough water in the reservoir for continued hydropower production. 

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  • Arizona Republic: Advocacy group asks Southwest to ‘amp up the urgency’ on protecting Colorado River water
  • American Rivers: Blog: America’s most endangered rivers of 2022 spotlights rivers in crisis mode
  • SJV Water: Kern River among top 10 “most endangered rivers” in the country
  • National Parks Traveler: Colorado River Ranked Nation’s Most Endangered River … Again
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Aquafornia news April 18, 2022 The San Diego Union-Tribune

County exploring ways to use San Diego’s land to fight climate change

With high biodiversity and rich farmland, San Diego County is exploring ways to put the region’s land to use to cut carbon emissions. In an online public workshop Thursday, county officials explained ways to expand the use of wetlands, marshes, forests and agricultural lands to capture and store carbon through the county’s Regional Decarbonization Framework. 

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Aquafornia news April 18, 2022 ABC7 Los Angeles

How environmentalists are working to protect SoCal’s Joshua trees

It’s the proverbial star of the show at Joshua Tree National Park, and while Joshua Trees look peculiar, with ragged scraggly limbs, they’re actually quite special. … But [Dr. Cameron Barrows at UC Riverside] said Joshua Trees are starting to disappear due to climate change. … Barrows said due to climate change, many have stopped reproducing.

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Aquafornia news April 18, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle Datebook

Review: 3 books tackle aspects of climate change, from hard science to the beauty of what’s being lost

As our planet wobbles toward its 52nd Earth Day on Friday, April 22, the global medical report is … not great. This month, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that if we don’t stop pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ASAP, we’ll soon be living in hell. California had its driest first three months of the year in recorded history. Antarctic ice shelves are melting before our eyes. Three new books explore the perilous realities of life on Earth in 2022. 

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Aquafornia news April 18, 2022 The Triplicate

Condors will soon fly over Northern California’s iconic redwoods for the first time in more than a century

The Yurok Tribe and Redwood National Park and State Parks will soon release the first four California condors to take flight in the heart of the bird’s former range since 1892. … Comprised of biologists and technicians from the Yurok Tribe and Redwood National and State Parks, the Northern California Condor Restoration Program will collaboratively manage the flock from a newly constructed condor release and management facility near the Klamath River. 

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Aquafornia news April 18, 2022 Mercury News

San Francisco Bay restoration bolstered by $53 million federal influx

Despite being the largest estuary on the West Coast and supporting both a highly diverse ecosystem and a multi-billion dollar economy, the San Francisco Bay Estuary was not getting its fair share of federal funding for restoration, according to local lawmakers and environmental organizations. That changed this year after Congress and President Joe Biden approved more than $50 million in funding to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for projects to restore lost wetlands, improve water quality, address pollution and bolster sea-level rise defenses throughout San Francisco Bay.

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Western Water November 19, 2021 By Alastair Bland

SIDEBAR: Creating A Floodplain Buffet for Salmon Smolts

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.

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Western Water August 27, 2021 Layperson's Guide to the Colorado River Delta Water-Starved Colorado River Delta Gets Another Shot of Life from the River’s Flows By Gary Pitzer

Water-Starved Colorado River Delta Gets Another Shot of Life from the River’s Flows
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Despite water shortages along the drought-stressed river, experimental flows resume in Mexico to revive trees and provide habitat for birds and wildlife

Water flowing into a Colorado River Delta restoration site in Mexico.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.

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Western Water July 28, 2021 California Water Map By Gary Pitzer

Long Troubled Salton Sea May Finally Be Getting What it Most Needs: Action — And Money
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: California's largest lake could see millions in potential funding to supercharge improvements to address long-delayed habitat and dust suppression needs

A sunset along the shoreline of California's Salton Sea.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. 

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Tour October 14, 2021 - 2:30pm - 5:30pm Nick Gray Jenn Bowles

Northern California Tour 2021
A Virtual Journey - October 14

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.

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Western Water October 23, 2020 Layperson's Guide to the Delta By Gary Pitzer

Is Ecosystem Change in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Outpacing the Ability of Science to Keep Up?
WESTERN WATER IN-DEPTH: Science panel argues for a new approach to make research nimbler and more forward-looking to improve management in the ailing Delta

Floating vegetation such as water hyacinth has expanded in the Delta in recent years, choking waterways like the one in the bottom of this photo.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.

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Western Water July 17, 2020 Colorado River Bundle Long Criticized For Inaction At Salton Sea, California Says It’s All-in On Effort To Preserve State’s Largest Lake Gary Pitzer

Long Criticized For Inaction At Salton Sea, California Says It’s All-In On Effort To Preserve State’s Largest Lake
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Dust suppression, habitat are key elements in long-term plan to aid sea, whose ills have been a sore point in Colorado River management

The Salton Sea is a major nesting, wintering and stopover site for about 400 bird species. 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.  

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Western Water February 6, 2020 Water Education Foundation

ON THE ROAD: Cosumnes River Preserve Offers Visitors a Peek at What the Central Valley Once Looked Like
Preserve at the edge of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta includes valley oak forests and wintering grounds for cranes

Sandhill cranes gather at the Cosumnes River Preserve south of Sacramento.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.

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Western Water August 8, 2019 Colorado River Basin Map Gary Pitzer

A Rancher-Led Group Is Boosting the Health of the Colorado River Near Its Headwaters
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: A Colorado partnership is engaged in a river restoration effort to aid farms and fish habitat that could serve as a model across the West

Strategic placement of rocks promotes a more natural streamflow that benefits ranchers and fish. 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.”

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Western Water April 25, 2019 California Water Map Gary Pitzer

California’s New Natural Resources Secretary Takes on Challenge of Implementing Gov. Newsom’s Ambitious Water Agenda
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Wade Crowfoot addresses Delta tunnel shift, Salton Sea plan and managing water amid a legacy of conflict

Wade Crowfoot, California Natural Resources Secretary.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.

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Western Water April 11, 2019 Gary Pitzer

Bruce Babbitt Urges Creation of Bay-Delta Compact as Way to End ‘Culture of Conflict’ in California’s Key Water Hub
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Former Interior secretary says Colorado River Compact is a model for achieving peace and addressing environmental and water needs in the Delta

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt gives the Anne J. Schneider Lecture April 3 at Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum.  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.

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Western Water March 14, 2019 Colorado River Basin Map Gary Pitzer

‘Mission-Oriented’ Colorado River Veteran Takes the Helm as the US Commissioner of IBWC
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Jayne Harkins’ duties include collaboration with Mexico on Colorado River supply, water quality issues

Jayne Harkins, the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission.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.

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Western Water January 4, 2019 Douglas E. Beeman Douglas E. Beeman

Women Leading in Water, Colorado River Drought and Promising Solutions — Western Water Year in Review

Dear Western Water readers:

Women named in the last year to water leadership roles (clockwise, from top left): Karla Nemeth, director, California Department of Water Resources; Gloria Gray,  chair, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; Brenda Burman, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner; Jayne Harkins,  commissioner, International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S. and Mexico; Amy Haas, executive director, Upper Colorado River Commission.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:

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Western Water November 16, 2018 California Water Map Layperson's Guide to the State Water Project Gary Pitzer

As He Steps Aside, Tim Quinn Talks About ‘Adversarialists,’ Collaboration and Hope For Solving the State’s Tough Water Issues
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Tim Quinn, retiring executive director of Association of California Water Agencies

ACWA Executive Director Tim Quinn  with a report produced by Association of California Water Agencies on  sustainable groundwater management.  (Source:  Association of California Water Agencies)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.

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Western Water October 19, 2018 Klamath River Watershed Map Layperson's Guide to Groundwater Gary Pitzer

California Leans Heavily on its Groundwater, But Will a Court Decision Tip the Scales Against More Pumping?
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Pumping near the Scott River in Siskiyou County sparks appellate court ruling extending public trust doctrine to groundwater connected to rivers

Scott River, in Siskiyou County. 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.

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Western Water October 5, 2018 Douglas E. Beeman Douglas E. Beeman

What Would You Do About Water If You Were California’s Next Governor?
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Survey at Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit elicits a long and wide-ranging potential to-do list

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.

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Western Water September 7, 2018 Colorado River Basin Map Layperson's Guide to the Colorado River Gary Pitzer

Can Steadier Releases from Glen Canyon Dam Make Colorado River ‘Buggy’ Enough for Fish and Wildlife?
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Ted Kennedy, U.S. Geological Survey aquatic scientist

U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist Ted Kennedy collects aquatic invertebrates in the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam.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.

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Western Water September 7, 2018 Enhancing California’s Water Supply: The Drive for New Storage Is California's Water Supply Resilient and Sustainable? Water Education Foundation

ON THE ROAD: Picturesque Northern California Valley Could Become the State’s Next Major Reservoir
Sites Reservoir site is a stop on our Northern California Tour Oct. 10-12

The proposed Sites Reservoir is in a rural cattle-grazing area west of the Sacramento Valley town of Maxwell. 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.

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Western Water August 24, 2018 California Water Map Gary Pitzer

When Water Worries Often Pit Farms vs. Fish, a Sacramento Valley Farm Is Trying To Address The Needs Of Both
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: River Garden Farms is piloting projects that could add habitat and food to aid Sacramento River salmon

Roger Cornwell, general manager of River Garden Farms, with an example of a refuge like the ones that were lowered into the Sacramento River at Redding to shelter juvenile salmon.  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.

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Western Water June 1, 2018 Space Invaders Gary Pitzer

It’s Not Just Nutria — Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has 185 Invasive Species, But Tracking Them is Uneven
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Delta science panel urges greater coordination, funding of invasive species monitoring

Water hyacinth choke a channel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.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.

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Western Water June 1, 2018 Water Education Foundation

ON THE ROAD: Cosumnes River Preserve Offers Visitors a Peek at What the Central Valley Once Looked Like
Preserve at the edge of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta includes valley oak forests and wintering grounds for cranes

Sandhill cranes gather at the Cosumnes River Preserve south of Sacramento.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.

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Western Water April 20, 2018 Jenn Bowles Jennifer Bowles

EDITOR’S NOTE: Assessing California’s Response to Marijuana’s Impacts on Water

Jennifer BowlesAs 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.

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Western Water April 6, 2018 California Water Bundle Gary Pitzer

Statewide Water Bond Measures Could Have Californians Doing a Double-Take in 2018
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Two bond measures, worth $13B, would aid flood preparation, subsidence, Salton Sea and other water needs

San Joaquin Valley bridge rippled by subsidence  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.

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Western Water March 23, 2018 Layperson's Guide to the Delta

ON THE ROAD: Park Near Historic Levee Rupture Offers Glimpse of Old Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Big Break Regional Shoreline will be a stop on Bay-Delta Tour May 16-18

Visitors explore a large, three-dimensional map of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta at Big Break Regional Shoreline in Oakley. 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.

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Western Water February 23, 2018 Gary Pitzer

SPOTLIGHT: Putah Creek, Yuba River and environmental water for fish
Two legal settlements are cited as examples where water was set aside for environmental needs

Lower Yuba RiverDespite 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.

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Western Water February 23, 2018 Layperson's Guide to Water Rights Law Gary Pitzer

Does California’s Environment Deserve its Own Water Right?
IN-DEPTH: Fisheries and wildlife face growing challenges, but so do water systems competing for limited supply. Is there room for an environmental water right?

Sunset in Sacramento-San Joaquin DeltaDoes 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.

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Tour October 10, 2018 - October 12, 2018 New Stop Announced for Northern California Tour: Salmon Rearing Structures in the Sacramento River

Northern California Tour 2018

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. 

  • David Guy
  • Christopher Williams
  • Carson Jeffres
  • Curt Aikens
  • Kelly Peterson
  • Mark Oliver
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Aquapedia background August 7, 2017 Layperson's Guide to the Delta

Estuary

Suisun Marsh, part of the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, is the largest contiguous brackish water marsh on the West Coast of North America.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.

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Aquapedia background September 8, 2016

Zooplankton

Examples of zooplanktonZooplankton, 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.

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Aquapedia background August 25, 2016

Tributaries

A tributary of the Feather River.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.”

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Aquapedia background August 25, 2016

Diamond Valley Lake

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.

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Aquapedia background August 25, 2016

Headwaters

Sierra Nevada headwaters streamHeadwaters 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.

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Western Water Excerpt October 21, 2014 Jenn Bowles

Finding the Right Balance: Managing Delta Salinity in Drought
September/October 2014

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.

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Publication August 18, 2014

Looking to the Source: Watersheds of the Sierra Nevada
Published 2011

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.

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Video May 27, 2014

The Klamath Basin: A Restoration for the Ages (20 min. DVD)

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.

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Video May 27, 2014

The Klamath Basin: A Restoration for the Ages (60 min. DVD)

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.

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Video May 27, 2014

A Climate of Change: Water Adaptation Strategies

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.

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Video May 22, 2014

Shaping of the West: 100 Years of Reclamation

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.

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Video May 21, 2014

Two Sides of a River (60-minute DVD)

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.

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Video May 21, 2014

Two Sides of a River (60-minute DVD Spanish)

$25.00

Spanish version of the 60-minute 2004 PBS documentary Two Sides of a River. DVD

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

San Joaquin River Restoration Map
Published 2012

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. 

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

Klamath River Watershed Map
Published 2011

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.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

Carson River Basin Map
Published 2006

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.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

Invasive Species Poster Set

One copy of the Space Invaders and one copy of the Unwelcome Visitors poster for a special price.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

Unwelcome Visitors

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.

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Publication May 20, 2014

Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law
Updated 2020

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.

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Publication April 17, 2014

Layperson’s Guide to the Delta
Updated 2020

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.

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Salton Sea

Salton Sea

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. 

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Pacific Flyway

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.

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Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam

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. 

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California Endangered Species Act

California was the first state in the nation to protect fish, flora and fauna with the enactment of the California Endangered Species Act in 1970. (Congress followed suit in 1973 by passing the federal Endangered Species Act. See also the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.)

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Western Water Magazine May 1, 2013

Meeting the Co-equal Goals? The Bay Delta Conservation Plan
May/June 2013

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.

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Western Water Magazine July 1, 2012

How Much Water Does the Delta Need?
July/August 2012

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.

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Western Water Magazine July 1, 2011

Making the Connection: Sound Science and Good Delta Policy
July/August 2011

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.

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Western Water Magazine March 1, 2009

Delta Conveyance: The Debate Continues
March/April 2009

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

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Western Water Magazine January 1, 2009

Making a Future for Fish: Preserving and Restoring Native Salmon and Trout
January/February 2009

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.

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