Devastating floods are almost annual
occurrences in the West and in California. With the anticipated
sea level rise and other impacts of a changing climate,
particularly heavy winter rains, flood management is increasingly
critical in California. Compounding the issue are human-made
flood hazards such as levee stability and stormwater runoff.
The Monterey County Board of Supervisors are lobbying state and
federal representatives to step in and pressure the U.S. Army
Corp of Engineers to stop allowing delays on repairs to two of
the three Pajaro River levees that failed during the 2023
winter storms. In a letter dated Wednesday, the Board of
Supervisors laid out their concerns that erosion on a levee
near where Highway 1 crosses the Pajaro River and a break in
the levee downstream from there are not being addressed with
the urgency needed to protect people and property. The
locations have been labeled Site 2 and Site 3. The letter
refers to two earlier letters on Nov. 15 and Nov. 27 from the
Monterey County Water Resources Agency and the Pajaro Regional
Flood Management District expressing worry about delays the
Army Corp is allowing the contractor, SEA Construction.
The chronic flooding that caused tens of thousands of dollars
in damage to Susan and Ora Sherwood’s Anderson home and
property has finally subsided. She only needs to look out into
her yard to see the destruction wrought from six months of
water that she said leaked out of the nearby Anderson
Cottonwood Irrigation District Canal. The landscaping around
her house was inundated with water from the canal, her drinking
water well was swamped, trees were killed, the underside of her
home was damaged and her driveway is “wasted,” she said.
… District officials said they plan to spend millions
this coming winter repairing and lining the canals to prevent
water from flooding nearby property again.
The upcoming winter season is set to be marked by strong
El Niño conditions, which typically bring
wetter-than-average weather to the West Coast and could deliver
significant snowfall to parts of California’s Sierra Nevada. El
Niño conditions are expected to steer the jet stream farther
south than usual by the New Year, resulting in waves of
moisture arriving on the West Coast for long stretches of time.
These so-called Pineapple Expresses can bring storm systems and
heavy precipitation to California’s mountains, particularly in
the southern tier of the state, but there have been years when
winter storms just don’t take off, despite a strong El Niño
pattern.
The U.S. government is entering a new era of collaboration with
Native American and Alaska Native leaders in managing public
lands and other resources, with top federal officials saying
that incorporating more Indigenous knowledge into
decision-making can help spur conservation and combat climate
change. … The agreements cover everything from
fishery restoration projects in Alaska and the Pacific
Northwest to management of new national monuments in the
Southwestern U.S., seed collection work in Montana and plant
restoration in the Great Smoky Mountains. … Tribes in
California and Oregon also were forced to seek disaster
declarations earlier this year after severe storms resulted in
flooding and mudslides.
Matt Lindsey farms almonds in Fresno County. He irrigates with
flood water on his sandy ground, which is good for his almonds
but also with groundwater recharge.
After several meetings and months of waiting, Planada residents
received a better look Tuesday evening at what $20 million in
flood relief might look like for the community. … Under the
proposed draft of the [spending] plan, residents applying for
relief need to file only a single application to receive funds
for home repairs, direct assistance, housing assistance,
vehicle assistance, personal property replacement, and business
support. Financial aid could start in April, and households
within directly water-impacted areas would be given first
priority. Second priority would be given to flood-damaged
vehicles, followed by households in non-water-impacted
areas.
As we enter the critical rainy months of December through
March, we find ourselves in two unusual and conflicting
situations: lack of water and an abundance of it. So far
this rainy season, the Department of Water Resources says
California’s water year is off to a relatively dry start with
October and November. … Last week, the department
announced that its customers who serve 27 million Californians,
will get only ten percent of their water rights. The department
further says it is hopeful that this El Niño pattern will
generate wet weather, but it may not. … ”Now we’ve seen,
so far through the fall, a pretty dry year; only half of the
precip we would expect by now,” said state climatologist
Michael Anderson. UC Merced’s Center of Watershed Sciences
expert agrees. “Average snow water content is much lower.
Precipitation is much lower than average for this time of the
year, so that’s where we are,” Josue Medellin-Azuara said.
Earth’s temperature was off the charts this year, and
scientists just confirmed what much of planet already felt
coming: 2023 will officially be the hottest year on record. The
analysis from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change
Service found this year’s global temperature will be more than
1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels — close
to the 1.5-degree threshold in the Paris climate agreement, and
beyond which scientists say humans and ecosystems will struggle
to adapt. Every month since June has been the hottest such
month on record, and November piled on. … “As long
as greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising, we can’t expect
different outcomes from those seen this year,” Copernicus
Director Carlo Buontempo said. “The temperature will keep
rising and so will the impacts of heatwaves and droughts.”
A new law expanding California’s atmospheric river research
program goes into effect next year. It connects flood and
reservoir control operations with new technologies and
strategies that can help operators accurately predict the
arrival of these storms. California first established the
program in 2015. It’s allowed officials to better understand —
and respond to — the intense storms that are a regular part of
wet years in the state. In January [2015], a series of
atmospheric rivers hit California hard, causing intense
flooding, power outages and evacuations throughout the state.
But although these storms can have devastating effects, they
also crucially feed into California’s water supply.
When we meet with legislators and regulators we talk about the
Pacific Flyway, salmon and the hundreds of species of wildlife
that use rice. We also focus on the rural communities in the
Sacramento Valley that are so closely tied to our industry.
Everyone gets it. They understand that our rice fields are so
much more than the sushi rice they produce. What is harder, is
when we are asked how much rice we need in California to
support all these benefits. That is where the Rice Footprint
comes in. The Rice Footprint, an idea born in our
strategic planning, is a comprehensive effort to answer that
question – how many acres of rice and where, to continue to
provide all the needed habitat for the Pacific Flyway, rearing
and food resources for juvenile salmon and support our rural
communities.
The Kaweah River was reduced to a trickle out of Terminus Dam
in late November, stranding catfish, carp and crawdads in
shallow pools and giving young anglers a rare look at the
critters that travel through the channel. Residents who live
along the riverbank in eastern Tulare County could see — and
smell — the changing river conditions as flows came to a
halt. The reason? Lake Kaweah reached acceptable
levels for this time of year, which translates to about 13
percent full or 24,000 acre-feet of water. That leaves plenty
of room to accommodate runoff from anticipated winter
storms.
A fire hose in the sky, known as an atmospheric river,
will dominate the West Coast weather pattern this week. This
strong atmospheric river-fueled storm is forecast to
bring heavy precipitation totals and major flooding
to the Pacific Northwest, while California remains
comparatively drier. By the time the river
of moisture reaches the Bay Area on Wednesday, it
will fade to the intensity of a stream or creek. San Francisco
should still get a decent soaking, but the North Bay will get
the heaviest precipitation, up to an inch. Showers are forecast
to hang around Thursday and Friday as temperatures trend
downward late in the week.
New efforts are underway to help protect communities from the
kinds of record-breaking rainfall we saw in Northern California
last winter. We’re getting answers on what the City of
Vacaville is doing to protect people who live in flood-prone
areas. Vacaville’s Tulare Drive looked more like a lake last
January, with the strong winter storms causing significant
street flooding. “The water in the middle of the street is 3 or
4 feet deep,” said Neil Wakabayashi, a Vacaville homeowner.
Some people stacked sandbags around homes to help hold water
back. It’s not the first time this neighborhood has seen
flooding from nearby Alamo Creek.
State, federal and county agencies worked together on Wednesday
to mitigate the risk of flooding at the Carmel River Lagoon.
Work was done to create what’s called a “pilot channel” which
will connect the lagoon to Monterey Bay — alleviating pressure
from the lagoon. The surrounding neighborhood was hit hard
in 2021 following storms and rising water levels, with homes
being completely flooded. Jamie Adams, a resident who
lives in the area, says his home was a few feet from being
flooded.
Winters in California aren’t as cold as they used to be — and
that’s not a good thing. Temperatures across the Central
Valley, Central Coast and parts of Southern California have
increased at least 2 degrees over the past several decades,
according to Climate Central’s “2023 Winter Package.” Other
parts of the state have warmed at least 1 degree, and the
majority of the U.S. has risen an average of 3.8 degrees,
posing a long-term threat to water supplies, energy use, public
health and agriculture. In California, warm and short-lived
winters could disturb fruit and nut crops. Climate Central
analyzed temperatures and days recorded above normal between
December and February — from 1969-70 to 2022-23 — with data
from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Regional
Climate Centers.
More than 40 people from six local agencies came together this
week to practice flood fighting techniques in Yuba County, the
Yuba Water Agency said on Wednesday. … The training period
covered general flood fighting techniques used during
high-water events and floods. Attendees learned how to create
wave wash protection, which helps prevent erosion when river
waters are high on the levees, how to combat levee boils and
how to effectively fill and place sandbags. … Participants
represented agencies such as Reclamation District 784, Yuba
Water Agency, Yuba County Office of Emergency Services,
Reclamation District 1001, Levee District 1 in Sutter County,
the Marysville Levee Commission and the Plumas Lake community,
officials said.
Nigerian floods last year that claimed hundreds of lives also
caused up to $9 billion in damage, according to a report from
the National Bureau of Statistics. The assessment, conducted in
collaboration with the World Bank, placed the cost of the
destruction in a range of $3.79 billion to $9.12 billion.
According to the American Meteorological Society (AMS), drought
is defined as “a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently
long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance. To
assess “abnormally dry weather,” there needs to be a standard
of “normal” to act as a comparison. However, establishing what
time period should be used to constitute “normal” is not
straightforward. In a changing climate, past human experience
is not always an indication of what to expect in the future.
The changing climate is causing the probability of extreme
events, like drought, to change, a phenomenon known
statistically as “non-stationarity.”
The Zone 7 Water Agency estimates it will cost $41 million over
the next five years to repair 177 flood channel sites that were
damaged during last winter’s heavy storms. The water agency’s
board began to address the issue during its Nov. 15 meeting,
which included a 5-0 vote to spend an initial $6.1 million of
that price tag on design and permitting services to begin the
repair process. … Last year, Zone 7 officials declared
local states of emergency for each of a series of heavy storms
that hit the Bay Area from January through March. Justin
Pascual, a Zone 7 water resources engineer, told the board the
storms’ intensity caused significant damage to Zone 7’s
channels, many of them natural, including failures along banks,
severe erosion, exposure of pipes, damage to concrete, and
endangerment of roads.
… For Californians’ collective mind, [El Nino]
the weather phenomenon, defined by an eastward-moving,
warmer-than-normal sea surface along the equatorial Pacific, is
shaped by those traumatic, potent winters with record
precipitation. But as some earth scientists see a bit of 1983
or 1998 in the coming winter’s strong El Niño, they may be
neglecting a new reality: A stormy, wet El Niño of that vintage
hasn’t struck California this century. University of
California, Irvine, earth system science professor Jin-Yi Yu,
whose doubts about a predicted “Godzilla El Niño” in 2015-16
were confirmed, sees the phenomenon permanently changed.
A string of emails appears to show that one state agency stood
in the way of stream channel maintenance for more than five
years, which may have led to flooding that caused severe damage
in Merced County, according to a recent lawsuit. The
emails begin in 2018 and go back and forth for years between
several Merced agencies – seeking a permit agreement to
clear stream beds of the Black Rascal, Bear and Miles creeks –
and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
(CDFW.) The emails show repeated warnings by CDFW that
maintenance work could not be done without a permit agreement.
Then, after 2023 floods destroyed homes, businesses and
farmland, at least one email suggests staffers at CDFW sought
to shift blame for the delayed channel work onto local
agencies.
In recent decades, as water has grown increasingly precious,
Californians have tried countless ways to find more of it and
make it last longer, including covering agricultural canals
with solar panels to prevent evaporation, building costly
desalination plants and pulling out tracts of water-hungry
grass. … In California’s Pajaro Valley, where floods
last winter breached a levee along a river and submerged parts
of a nearby town, water managers are testing out another idea:
paying farmers for the amount of water they’re able to help
filter back into the earth. Supporters like Bruce say it’s an
idea that could help refill California’s quickly depleting
groundwater supplies, at costs cheaper than many other
water-saving measures.
An interdisciplinary collaboration used 600 years of tree rings
from the San Joaquin Valley to reconstruct plausible daily
records of weather and streamflow scenarios during that period.
Modeling based on those scenarios revealed the region has
experienced vast variability in climate extremes, with droughts
and floods that were more severe and lasted longer than what
has been seen in the modern record. This new approach,
combining paleo information with synthetic weather generation,
may help policymakers and scientists better understand – and
plan for – California’s flood and drought risks and how they
will be compounded by climate change.
Ari Parker’s mother, who passed away earlier this year at 100
years old, often asked her daughter the same question Pajaro
and Watsonville residents have asked since the 1950s: Is the
levee replaced? Parker, a Watsonville City Council member,
represents the northeast corner of the city near where the
Salsipuedes and Corralitos creeks split. Her mother was born
and raised in Pajaro. Both mother and daughter have experienced
more than a lifetime’s share of floods and levee breaches over
the years — two generations whose lives have been shaped under
the constant threat of preventable disaster.
The next chance at showers in the valley will be on Thursday
night and into this weekend as a cold storm system drops
into the region from the north. Valley rain totals will be on
the lighter side (generally 0-0.25″ expected) and Sierra snow
totals will range from 6-12″ above 4,000-5,000 feet. Although
these storms will bring decent snowfall totals, Northern
California has yet to see an atmospheric river system akin to
those last year that dropped multiple feet of snow in the
Sierra. By Sunday, high pressure is set to become the
dominant feature over California, which means dry conditions,
and although this week will bring wet weather to much of the
region, it will be a while longer before a major atmospheric
river slams into the state this far south.
In the past two weeks, iNaturalist users have recorded over
2,000 observations of the California newt, and another 400 of
the similar-looking rough-skinned newt—signaling the start of a
busy breeding season for the golden-eyed amphibians that travel
to and from water bodies. But for Sally Gale, the founder of
the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade, a North Bay volunteer group,
the real surprise has been that nearly all the observations her
team made were babies: newts just one or two inches long,
likely making their life’s first forays outside of their
birthplace of Laguna Lake.
Leigh C. knew that the homeowners insurance on her home in
Black Forest, Colorado, an area just northeast of Colorado
Springs, would be renewing soon. But when she opened her new
bill, she thought she had misread the number. “I called them to
see if that was a mistake,” she told CNBC Select. Looking at
the itemized numbers, Leigh found that her annual property
insurance premium renewal jumped 124% from $3,767 to $8,361.
Even though she volunteers for United Policyholders, a
nonprofit that advocates for homeowners insurance policyholders
after major disasters, Leigh had trouble believing her eyes.
… In its press release, State Farm specifically
cited “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure” as one of the
reasons it would no longer accept new applications for property
insurance. Government officials have also noted the tie between
homeowners insurance availability and climate change.
Imperial Beach wants more residents to start using rain
barrels. That’s the goal behind a new set of guidelines adopted
by the city last week, which officials hope will ultimately
help shore up the city’s aging infrastructure against rising
sea levels. Rain barrels are tanks that collect and store
rainwater for future use. They can help users conserve drinking
water and save money on irrigation. They also have the added
advantage of reducing the amount of rainfall that flows into
the city’s stormwater collection system.
Past El Niño years won’t help meteorologists determine what
this winter will look like, the National Weather Service said
in a Tuesday morning update, because conditions this year are
not typical. An El Niño was declared in May,
meaning sea surface temperatures are warmer than normal in the
equatorial eastern Pacific. This region of the ocean
typically drives large-scale atmospheric patterns that impact
us locally, said Courtney Carpenter, warning coordination
meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento,
in a video update. Here’s what El Niño conditions mean for
California, and what meteorologists predict winter in the
northern parts of the state will be like, as of late November:
… Meteorologist Stephanie Sullivan told CBS8 on Monday that
California is likely to be particularly affected by the wetter
weather. “Water being warmer than normal near the equator can
affect our storm patterns,” she said. “It did start to show
above normal precipitation starting in December.” There is up
to a 50 percent chance of above-normal rainfall she said,
adding that temperatures are likely to be warmer than normal
too. A NASA analysis of the weather patterns also suggests that
El Niño is likely to bring increased rain, and may even cause
high-tide flooding in West Coast cities. “El Niño could result
in up to five instances of a type of flooding called a 10-year
flood event this winter in cities including Seattle and San
Diego,” the agency said.
When Tulare Lake refilled this past spring, the two state
prisons located in the Kings County City of Corcoran escaped
flooding thanks to the levee that surrounds the city. But how
did they even come to be built in the historical lakebed, which
is known to refill every few decades? That was the question
asked by independent journalist Susie Cagle in a recent
investigation for the non-profit newsroom The Marshall Project.
In this interview with KVPR’s Kerry Klein, Cagle begins by
taking us back to conversations that happened 40 years ago.
An agreement signed on Tuesday between local leaders and the
Army Corps of Engineers cleared the way for construction to
begin next year on a replacement for the ailing Pajaro River
levee. The long-awaited project will provide 100-year flood
protection for the communities of Pajaro and Watsonville,
compared to the eight- to 10-year protection of the current
structure. The signing ceremony at Watsonville City Hall
came 57 years after Congress first authorized rebuilding the
inadequate levee system, directing in the Flood Control
Act of 1966 that the work be done “expeditiously.” The
levee’s failure in March, which flooded the town of
Pajaro and drove thousands from their homes, spotlighted a
federal funding system that prioritized flood control projects
in rich communities over disadvantaged ones.
Seven atmospheric rivers classified as strong or
greater dumped rain and snow on California during the
2022-2023 rainy season, lifting the majority of the state out
of drought conditions and causing disastrous flooding.
This duality of promise and peril typifies atmospheric
rivers, which are ribbons of water vapor in the sky that can
deliver massive amounts of precipitation, and makes accurate
forecasting essential to both water managers and public safety
officials. To better understand and forecast atmospheric
rivers, “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft from the U.S. Air Force
Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron have begun
flights over the Pacific Ocean starting this November as part
of Atmospheric River Reconnaissance program (AR Recon), led by
the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) at UC
San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Last winter, residents experienced the second largest flood in
East Palo Alto history. Now Bay Area nonprofits are installing
gardens designed to soak up stormwater and mitigate future
flooding. On Nov. 11, Climate Resilient Communities (CRC),
Fresh Approach, and Grassroots Ecology broke ground on the
first of 25 rain garden systems to be installed for homeowners
at no cost. CRC received nearly $1 million in funding for the
project from Coastal Communities, an organization working to
reduce water pollution. … Efforts to curtail the effects of
flooding are more important than ever as California heads into
an ‘El Nino’ year, a period of cooler and wetter weather. Many
older East Palo Alto residents still remember flooding in 1998
that resulted in $40 million dollars in damages.
Merced and Monterey counties got $20 million each from the
state in October to help the residents of Planada and Pajaro
recover from January floods. But local officials want to
spend at least some of the money on infrastructure, while
residents want all of the money to help relieve debt they’ve
incurred from the natural disaster. That is, after all, what
state lawmakers ostensibly sent the money for. Days of
rain led to a flood of local canals and creeks in the area on
Jan. 9, forcing the complete evacuation of the majority-Latino
community of Planada, population almost 4,000.
Six months after three southwestern states struck a deal to
keep more Colorado River water behind drought-shrunken Hoover
Dam, those states face the first test of whether it’s enough to
keep the region out of crisis. The arrival of the winter snow
season, which sustains the river and last year bailed out water
users facing critically low reservoirs, brings new questions
for water managers: Will El Niño conditions in the Pacific
Ocean produce a wet winter in the Southwest and parts of the
Rockies? And could a second straight wet winter wallop the
region with above-average snowfall and again forestall more
drastic conservation measures?
A stubborn storm well off the California coast
brought rain showers to the state throughout the week
before finally moving across Northern California on Saturday.
It was the first region-wide moderate rainfall of the season
for the Bay Area, while the Sierra Nevada saw some light
snowfall. The North Bay and Central Coast saw
the highest precipitation totals in the past seven
days, with 1.5 to 4 inches of rain in Big Sur and the Marin
Headlands. While accumulations were impressive along the
coastal mountains, seven-day precipitation totals were lower
than originally forecast in the lower elevations due to the
unfavorable position of the storm. San Francisco received 1.27
inches of rain, with 0.88 inches in Oakland and 0.43 inches in
San Jose.
Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells are among the roadside
outposts inside Death Valley National Park, while Dante’s View
draws tourists at sunset and Hell’s Gate greets visitors
arriving from the east. In the summer, it is so hot here, along
California’s southeastern spine, that some of the roughly 800
residents — nearly all of them park employees — bake brownies
in their cars. A large, unofficial thermometer in recent years
has ticked up to 130 degrees, making it a destination for
travelers, and the park has endured some of the highest
temperatures ever recorded on Earth.
When a series of atmospheric rivers flowed into California last
January, the Big Sur coastline was quickly swamped, and Highway
1, a lone life raft connecting San Simeon in the south and the
Monterey Peninsula to the north, was overcome. Long vulnerable
to the whims of nature, the iconic serpentine is especially
susceptible to landslides, debris flows and terrain ever bowing
to the weight of water … Ten months later — even with
crews working seven days a week throughout most of the year —
the road is still closed, and holiday travelers, hoping to take
in the broad vistas of sea and sky en route to destinations
north or south, will be frustrated, having to settle for
Highway 101 or even Interstate 5. The effect of last
week’s rain on the construction site is not known, but with an
El Niño-fueled winter ahead, no one is making any predictions.
As forecasts tease California with rainstorms this week, the
state’s reservoirs are already flush with water. It’s a
big departure from a year ago: The state’s major reservoirs —
which store water collected mostly from rivers in the northern
portion of the state — are in good shape, with levels at
124% of average. In late 2022, bathtub rings of dry earth lined
lakes that had collectively dipped to about two-thirds of
average — until heavy winter storms in January filled many of
them almost to the brim. Yet healthy water levels don’t mean
California’s reservoirs are full. Most of California’s large
reservoirs are operated for flood control as well as water
storage, with space kept empty to rein in winter storm runoff.
San Bernardino Mountain residents are used to snow, but the
magnitude of those late-season storms was unlike anything the
region has seen in recent history. Eight months later, recovery
is ongoing. And worry is spreading that a predicted strong El
Niño winter may bring more punishment, along with anxiety about
how the local infrastructure can hold up against climate
whiplash and whether officials can fix the errors that left so
many vulnerable. For weeks last winter, many San
Bernardino Mountains residents remained trapped in
their homes, buried under as much as 12 feet of snow, some
without power for as long as six days.
Global greenhouse gas levels set a record in 2022, keeping the
planet’s temperatures on a rising path set to blow past the
world’s climate goals, the U.N. World Meteorological
Organization said in a report Wednesday. There is “no end in
sight” for growth in greenhouse gas emissions, the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned, reporting that global
concentrations for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide
climbed to new highs last year. The emissions of these
heat-trapping gases broke records as the planet continued on a
trajectory that scientists have said will probably lead
to major and irreversible damage to ecosystems and
communities.
Dangerously hot and dry conditions in Colorado and other
Southwestern states fueled by rising global temperatures are
endangering the health of residents, reducing snowpack and
water supplies, and driving large and more intense wildfires, a
major report from the federal government has found. The
findings were released Tuesday in the National Climate
Assessment, the federal government’s primary compilation of
scientific knowledge on climate change and its effects on
Americans. … Warming temperatures and more intense
periods of drought have depleted water supplies above and below
ground, according to the report. The warming has also
diminished the amount of snowpack and changed the timing of
snowfall in Colorado and other mountain states, imperiling a
flow of runoff that recharges the Colorado River and other
water systems.
An unusual storm system is approaching the California coast,
and its wobbly movement will determine how much rain the Bay
Area sees on Wednesday, with chances for heavy rainfall
increasing as the day goes on. The storm spinning far offshore
split into two eyes on Tuesday in an example of the Fujiwhara
Effect, and it’s expected to move closer to the coast over the
next couple of days. Its front, shown in the image above, will
streamline a series of rain bands across Northern California
starting Wednesday afternoon. Each band will be capable of
producing heavier showers, but the delicate nature of this
meandering system could lead to a range of potential impacts
for Bay Area residents.
As a longtime fan of photographer George Rose’s work,
particularly his keen eye on the vines in his stunning
large-format 2019 book Wine Country Santa Barbara County, I was
excited to hear about his upcoming photography show at the
Wildling Museum in Solvang. On view November 18 through July 8,
2024, California’s Changing Landscape: The Way of Water is the
title of his photo exhibition … Between drought and then
record-setting rain and snowstorms filling reservoirs, he was
able to capture California’s landscapes in a stunning array of
circumstances.
… Nearly every cherished aspect of American life is under
growing threat from climate change and it is effectively too
late to prevent many of the harms from worsening over the next
decade, a major report from the federal government has
concluded. Global warming caused by human activities — mostly
the burning of oil, gas and coal — is raising average
temperatures in the United States more quickly than it is
across the rest of the planet. … Human-driven warming is
intensifying wildfires in the West, droughts in the Great
Plains and heat waves coast to coast. It is
causing hurricanes to strengthen more quickly in the
Atlantic and loading storms of all kinds with more rain.
… Private insurers are already so tired of losing money
in catastrophe-prone places like California that they are
restricting coverage or pulling out.
The Marin County Board of Supervisors has denied efforts to
block a proposed house on the last vacant beachfront property
in Stinson Beach. … The owners of the 15,200-square-foot
property, which has been in their family for almost 90 years,
hope to build the vacation home on the site of a cottage that
burned down in the 1980s. But in the intervening decades,
concerns about environmentally sensitive habitat and sea level
rise have made development more difficult. … Impacts of
flooding from a nearby creek during a 100-year storm, as well
as from sea level rise, would be “less than significant”
because of the site elevation, Taplin said at the meeting. He
also said that inspections two weeks after January’s
destructive winter storms showed no damage to the parcel, while
nearby areas were severely impacted.
In January, hundreds of homes in the San Joaquin County town of
Acampo were underwater due to historic rain that led to
flooding. Now, not even a year since homeowners were evacuated,
neighbors are already looking ahead to winter and the rain that
will come with it. At Arbor Mobile Home Park in Acampo, which
runs along Highway 99, most homeowners used FEMA funds to fix
storm damage. Melissa Youdall fixed the bottom panel of her
home in August, eight months after she said water flooded her
rain boots and she was forced to evacuate. … FEMA funds paid
for her home to be fixed, and although it took months, Youdall
said she is relieved that most of the damage has been taken
care of — but there is still work to do on her home.
The sun had risen above the asthmatic haze of California’s San
Joaquin Valley, and the disaster tourists would soon be
arriving at the edge of Tulare Lake to take their selfies. It
was a Saturday, two days before Memorial Day. County health
authorities had warned the public to stay out of the
contaminated water, an unwholesome brew of pesticides and
animal waste. … Though I had no interest in tangling
with Johnny Law, I recognized this unusual spring for what it
was: a once-in-a-generation opportunity to travel, by way of
the federally navigable waters that all Americans have a stake
in, 200-plus miles from the heart of these floods, a natural
disaster by any measure, to the man-made disaster that is the
Delta of San Francisco Bay.
California may see the first widespread rain event of the water
year, although how much rain and snow will actually fall — and
where — is a question that has so far eluded forecasters. A low
pressure system moving south from the Gulf of Alaska will bring
cooler temperatures and moderate rain Tuesday through Friday
throughout the Golden State, forecasters say. But the
atmospheric river they once thought would set up shop off the
coast of California appears to have fizzled. For the
central and northern coast, the National Weather Service Bay
Area predicts periods of moderate rainfall starting Tuesday
morning. However, the area will likely see 1.5 inches of rain
or less during the week as the system has slowed down and
weakened.
Nearly 10 months after floods devastated parts of Planada and
Woodlake, residents in both small towns have banded together,
hired attorneys and are pursuing legal action. More than 250
households are involved between the two towns. Residents
in the Tulare County town of Springville are also working
toward legal action after flooding knocked out wells and
residents suffered prolonged water shortages. The attorney for
Springville residents did not respond to requests for
comment. It’s early stages for the legal battles, which
aren’t technically lawsuits yet for either Woodlake nor
Planada, said Shant Karnikian, partner at Kabateck LLP who is
representing residents in both towns. Karnikian is also
representing residents in the hard hit town of Pajaro on the
central coast.
California’s agricultural industry – the nation’s largest food
producer — is fighting for its political future. First came the
death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a staunch Democratic ally who
was unafraid of prioritizing farms over endangered fish in the
state’s long-running water wars. Then House Republicans kicked
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a native of the Central Valley’s
agricultural heartland, out of the speakership. The sudden
loss of two of California’s most effective champions for
agriculture has left a political void that the industry is
unsure how to fill. … The loss of congressional
leadership is putting the industry at risk of losing funding
and access to water. The risk is amplified as negotiations over
access to the Colorado River heat up and intensifying drought
and wet years test the state’s aging, oversubscribed water
delivery system.
An analysis by NASA’s sea level change science team finds that
if a strong El Niño develops this winter, cities along the
western coasts of the Americas could see an increase in the
frequency of high-tide flooding that can swamp roads and spill
into low-lying buildings. El Niño is a periodic climate
phenomenon characterized by higher-than-normal sea levels and
warmer-than-average ocean temperatures along the equatorial
Pacific. These conditions can spread poleward along the western
coasts of the Americas. El Niño, which is still developing this
year, can bring more rain than usual to the U.S. Southwest and
drought to countries in the western Pacific like Indonesia.
These impacts typically occur in January through March.
Yuba Water Agency today committed a $1 million grant to further
strengthen a levee on the east bank of the Feather River in
Reclamation District 10 north of Marysville. … The funds will
be used to complete the construction of an elevated access road
on the land side toe of the levee along the Feather River in
Yuba County. A levee toe is the edge of the levee where the
base meets the natural ground. The latest improvements will
focus on increasing access for maintenance, inspections and
flood fight operations during high water events, increased
embankment stability and reducing the risk of levee failure
from underseepage.
Reports of lengthy shipping delays for vessels traveling
through the Panama Canal this year have highlighted the
critical but often overlooked role that fresh water plays
across global supply chains. Drier than normal conditions in
Panama, brought on by El Niño, have left the region
drought-stricken and water levels in the locks that feed the
canal lower than normal. … The Panama Canal is a
freshwater connection between two oceans – not a saltwater
link, as one might assume. A series of locks on each side of
the canal raise cargo freighters nearly 100 feet to human-made
lakes that extend across Panama’s isthmus and lower them down
to sea level on the other side.
The Reedley College Wildland Fire Program has been operating
for three years now. The program gives students hands-on
experience that will help them be successful in their future
careers. This year, the program has partnered with the Kings
River Conservancy to help restore, maintain, and clean the
Kings River. … Currently, they are primarily focused on
reopening different areas of the Kings River for public use.
Earlier this year, the Kings River saw record-breaking water
levels from winter storms flood the river and its surrounding
areas.
Central Sierra runoff delivered over 13.19 million acre/ft of
snowmelt this past water year ending in September. That’s the
arithmetic counting the snowmelt from the five major
rivers from north to south-from the San Joaquin River down to
the Kern near Bakersfield. For some of these watersheds like
the Kings River it was the wettest year ever at 4.5 mil af. The
Tulare Basin’s four rivers – Kings / Kaweah /Tule
/Kern are just a few drops short of the 1983 record
number with a combined runoff of a gushing 8.69 million acre/
feet. That’s what 31 atmospheric rivers that drenched
California will do.
Seawater intrusion is the movement of saline water from the
ocean or estuaries into freshwater systems. The seawater that
has crept up the Mississippi River in the summer and early fall
of 2023 is a reminder that coastal communities teeter in a
fragile land-sea balance. Fresh water is essential for
drinking, irrigation and healthy ecosystems. When seawater
moves inland, the salt it contains can wreak havoc on
farmlands, ecosystems, lives and livelihoods.
… In groundwater basins of central and
southern California, widespread pumping has caused
groundwater levels to drop hundreds of feet in some areas. This
is tipping the seesaw and causing groundwater from the sea to
move far inland. Accessible groundwater has supported irrigated
agriculture in these areas, but now the double hazard of
reduced groundwater availability and seawater
intrusion threatens crops like strawberries and lettuce.
… Maps and tables show that the Golden State has seen a
remarkable turn of events since last November, as an abundance
of rain and snowfall replenished dry landscapes. The most
recent map shows the state officially out of drought
conditions. There are only two small areas with abnormally
dry conditions, places that are in drought recovery. A map
from one year ago is vastly different and shows much of the
state covered in drought. … The latest U.S. Drought
Monitor update ended with 0% of the state afflicted with any
drought conditions: a complete 180 from just one year
ago.
Entire towns flooded last winter because of permit delays,
according to lawmakers and others. Debris from overgrown creeks
and waterways up and down the state hadn’t been cleaned out in
years for lack of proper permits. When water barreled down
those channels, debris piled up, pushing water over levees and
into hundreds of homes and businesses. … The
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), the main
state-level permitting agency, agreed there were past delays,
though it downplayed them as the culprit for last winter’s
floods saying agencies could have gotten “emergency permits” if
needed.
After this year’s historic storms and devastating floods, the
federal government has been swamped with requests from agencies
across the San Joaquin Valley seeking reimbursement for repair
costs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
provided SJV Water a data sheet that enumerates more than 460
such requests from six counties, including Fresno, Madera,
Merced, Kern and Tulare. Agencies in Fresno County have made
requests for about $40 million, combined. Most requests are
self-explanatory, such as $1.45 million for debris removal made
on behalf of the Fresno County Parks Department. … But one
request stood out – $1.23 million for “X-Ray Rooms” made on
behalf of “Fresno Community Hospital and Medical Center,”
according to the FEMA data sheet.
… Soon, snowflakes will begin to pile up, burying alpine
valleys and recharging the Colorado River. The river – which
supplies water to tens of millions of people from Wyoming to
Mexico – gets most of its water from high-altitude snow,
two-thirds of which falls in Colorado. This winter’s forecast
is unclear, but however it unfolds will have an outsized impact
on the next few years of region-wide water
management. Last year’s wet winter may
have created more space for long-term negotiations
about sharing the Colorado River, but if the region sees low
snow totals in the coming months, policy analysts say things
could quickly turn in the wrong direction and reintroduce some
urgency to water management talks.
A new report found that over the last two decades, losses tied
to extreme weather triggered over $3 billion in crop insurance
payouts to California farmers. Authors of the report,
which was published by the nonprofit Environmental Working
Group, analyzed payments made to farmers from the Federal
Crop Insurance Program between 2001 and 2022. …
Schechinger said California farmers are top in the country when
it comes to losing crops due to both heat and freeze. She said
payouts for crops lost due to heat alone amounted to over $1.3
billion in California between 2001 and 2022. The majority of
these impacts were felt in Central Valley counties including
Kern, Tulare and Fresno.
With climate-fueled disasters killing hundreds of Americans
annually and costing communities billions of dollars, a growing
number of local governments are asking a basic question: Are
there some places where people shouldn’t build homes? It’s one
of the most difficult choices a community can make.
… But with often deadly extreme-weather disasters on the
rise, the problem can no longer be ignored. In the last five
years, floods, wildfires, severe storms and droughts have
caused more than $580 billion in damage and killed
hundreds of people. And some states are passing laws that put
conditions on future growth.
California has always been an exceptional place. In the 1800s,
the state’s ancient coast redwoods and sequoias generated
disbelief on the East Coast: dwellers there imagined that
photos of these giants were doctored. Our vibrant agriculture,
teeming fisheries, spectacular forests, raging rivers—many of
these wonders must be seen to be believed. And Californians
adore their state: an explosion of wildflowers—like this
spring’s superbloom—is enough to inspire a temporary mass
migration to the state’s most remote corners. Californians care
deeply about protecting the magic of this place we call home.
But a highly engineered water system, heavily transformed
landscapes, and a changing climate mean that much of what we
hold dear is struggling.
The San Mateo County Event Center has received $7.2 million
Thursday to convert the center into an emergency shelter during
emergencies like earthquakes, wildfires and floods. The
money, granted by The California Department of Food and
Agriculture, is meant to improve programs at the center. It
will go towards the construction of a new community kitchen,
shelter for 600 people and feeding thousands during
emergencies. The county said the center is especially important
for financially vulnerable members of the community.
South San Joaquin Irrigation District is expected to be well
positioned for the 2024 irrigation season regardless of what
Mother Nature does this winter. That’s thanks to a wet winter
that left New Melones Reservoir storage at 1.9 million acre
feet when SSJID ended its irrigation season on Oct. 29. That is
within 700,000 acre feet of the highest flood storage level it
can be at for this time of year which is 78 percent of the
reservoir’s 2.4 million acre foot capacity or 1.97 million acre
feet.
Crop insurance payouts surpassed $118 billion between 2001 and
2022 nationally for damage caused by extreme weather like
drought, heat and floods. The report, released this week by the
advocacy organization Environmental Working Group, points to
climate change’s increasing impacts to agriculture. The
findings follow a tumultuous growing season, wrought with
extreme drought ravaging the Midwest and much of the
surrounding Mississippi River basin. … Hail payments
were largely concentrated in the Great Plains and Montana, with
smaller pockets in Iowa and Minnesota. Indemnities related to
heat and freeze were concentrated in California, Texas, Kansas
and Washington.
Mosquito-borne diseases’ impact on human health is among the
most prominent of all communicable diseases.
… Mosquitoes play a major role in transmitting pathogens
to humans, being the vector of very common and geographically
widespread diseases such as Malaria, Yellow Fever, Dengue,
Zika, Chikungunya, and West Nile virus disease. The latter
disease is caused by West Nile virus (WNV): a single-strained
positive-polarity Flavivirus, which is transmitted mostly by
mosquitoes from genus Culex. WNV is maintained in an
enzootic circle between these mosquitoes and birds, with other
vertebrates—especially human and horses—as occasional and
dead-end hosts.
Since about 2020, North America has been in a drought that has
caused water shortages, threatened crop yields, and killed
wildlife. After a wet winter this year, drought conditions have
improved. But that doesn’t mean that water supply woes are
over. Even after rain returns to dried-out areas, the impact of
precipitation drought (also known as meteorological drought)
persists in rivers for months or even years. In new research
published in the Journal of Hydrology, scientists reported that
the lag time between the return of regular rain and the
recovery of a river to its normal conditions can be years long.
… River recovery lag times are increasing as climate
change makes Earth’s atmosphere thirstier, said Jeffrey
Mount, a geomorphologist and senior fellow at the Public
Policy Institute of California.
Debris flows are more powerful and dangerous than mudslides and
slower-moving landslides: They can sweep away boulders, trees
and cars and destroy everything in their path, including roads
and homes and the people who live in them. Last year, in
Washington’s Okanogan County, two residents were rescued from
their home after a debris flow. Another flow destroyed a cabin
and sent a foot of water and mud into more than 30 structures.
And in 2018, 23 people were killed when heavy rains triggered a
debris flow in the burn scar of Southern California’s Thomas
Fire. … In the Northwest, for example, debris flows can
occur several years after a fire, while in
California, they usually happen in the first two rainy seasons
that follow.
A bipartisan congressional delegation led by California
Democrat Senator Alex Padilla and Republican Representative
Doug LaMalfa on Tuesday sent a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers urging them to prioritize “critical emergency
repairs” to levees in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River
watersheds. Months after wet winter storms drenched the Central
Valley, blanketed the Sierra Nevada in record-breaking snowpack
and strained dams and reservoirs, parts of Central California’s
water infrastructure are still in need of repairs. The letter
comes ahead of what is likely to be another wet winter.
California’s newest lake is slowly shrinking, although
officials are unsure when it’ll vanish completely. In August,
Hurricane Hilary brought a deluge of rain to the United States
southwest. The Category 4 storm had weakened considerably
before it hit the U.S., and rain was the biggest concern. The
precipitation was welcome news for many parched lakes and
reservoirs in the region, including Lake Mead, which was
bolstered by the influx of water. However, the
storm also created lakes where they don’t usually
exist—such as Death Valley National Park, the hottest place on
Earth and the driest part of North America.
A Lincoln man has been confirmed as the first West Nile virus
death in Placer County since 2018, health officials said.
Placer County public health officials said Monday that the man
was over the age of 65. While the risk from West Nile is
low, people ages 50 and older have a higher chance of getting
sick and are more likely to develop complications than others,
according to health officials. Less than 1% of people can
develop a serious neurological illness from the
virus. There have been 286 confirmed human cases of the
virus and 10 West Nile virus-related deaths in California so
far this year.
Marin County is facing about $17 billion in expenses to protect
itself from the rising sea, the second highest cost estimate in
the Bay Area, according to a state planner. Dana Brechwald, a
climate official at the San Francisco Bay Conservation and
Development Commission, cited the cost Tuesday while briefing
the Board of Supervisors on Senate Bill 272. The legislation,
which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in July, requires
coastal counties to develop a plan to prepare for sea-level
rise by Jan. 1, 2034. According to the commission, the state
regulatory agency that oversees the bay, it will cost Bay Area
counties $110 billion to protect themselves from the effects of
about 4.9 feet of sea level rise through 2050.
High in the Tushar Mountains, with a stunning view of the lake
and rolling hills below, wildlife technicians make their way to
a talus field — a sloping mass of broken rocks.
… Development isn’t much of a threat to the species due
to their preference for harsh, alpine environments, Chipman
said. However, pikas are considered an indicator species due to
their temperature sensitivity. … The Center for
Biological Diversity describes climate change as pikas’
“gravest threat,” not only from the risk that high temperatures
bring, but also due to projected “increases in droughts and
floods, reduced snowpack leading to ‘false spring’ conditions,
and earlier seasonal runoff” that could impact alpine
vegetation.
Alan Mazzotti … received news this spring that his water
delivery would be about half of what it was from the previous
season, so he planted just half of his typical pumpkin crop.
Then heavy rains in May and June brought plenty of water and
turned fields into a muddy mess, preventing any additional
planting many farmers might have wanted to do.
… Mazzotti, for his part, says that with not enough
water, you “might as well not farm” — but even so, he sees
labor as the bigger issue. Farmers in Colorado have been
dealing with water cutbacks for a long time, and they’re used
to it.
Oct. 1 is the beginning of what hydrologists call the “water
year.” Historically, California’s reservoirs are near their
lowest levels by this point after months of being drawn down,
mostly to irrigate fields and orchards, during the state’s
precipitation-free summer. This October is quite different.
Last winter’s heavy rain and snow storms, generated by a series
of atmospheric rivers, filled reservoirs even as dam managers
fully opened their gates to send as much water downstream as
possible. … Hydrologists and meteorologists, moreover,
are telling Californians that they may see a
repeat in the months ahead, thanks to a phenomenon known
as El Niño, and it potentially could surpass last winter’s
storms. -Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
Every five years the California Department of Water Resources
updates its strategic plan for managing the state’s water
resources, as required by state law.
The California Water Plan, or Bulletin 160, projects the
status and trends of the state’s water supplies and demands
under a range of future scenarios.
A new but little-known change in
California law designating aquifers as “natural infrastructure”
promises to unleash a flood of public funding for projects that
increase the state’s supply of groundwater.
The change is buried in a sweeping state budget-related law,
enacted in July, that also makes it easier for property owners
and water managers to divert floodwater for storage underground.
A new underground mapping technology
that reveals the best spots for storing surplus water in
California’s Central Valley is providing a big boost to the
state’s most groundwater-dependent communities.
The maps provided by the California Department of Water Resources
for the first time pinpoint paleo valleys and similar prime
underground storage zones traditionally found with some guesswork
by drilling exploratory wells and other more time-consuming
manual methods. The new maps are drawn from data on the
composition of underlying rock and soil gathered by low-flying
helicopters towing giant magnets.
The unique peeks below ground are saving water agencies’
resources and allowing them to accurately devise ways to capture
water from extreme storms and soak or inject the surplus
underground for use during the next drought.
“Understanding where you’re putting and taking water from really
helps, versus trying to make multimillion-dollar decisions based
on a thumb and which way the wind is blowing,” said Aaron Fukuda,
general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, an early
adopter of the airborne electromagnetic or
AEM technology in California.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries through a scenic landscape while learning 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.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape while learning 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.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Land and waterway managers labored
hard over the course of a century to control California’s unruly
rivers by building dams and levees to slow and contain their
water. Now, farmers, environmentalists and agencies are undoing
some of that work as part of an accelerating campaign to restore
the state’s major floodplains.
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.
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.
USACE Sacramento District has a proven track record of facing
challenges head-on. When 2020 brought with it the Novel
Coronavirus, the District responded quickly to address the
needs of a rapidly changing work environment…This year marked
the start of major construction on the [American River Common
Features] project, and the pandemic hit just as crews were
mobilizing, meaning both USACE and its contractors faced
unexpected public impacts.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
The islands of the western
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are sinking as the rich peat soil
that attracted generations of farmers dries out and decays. As
the peat decomposes, it releases tons of carbon dioxide – a
greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere. As the islands sink, the
levees that protect them are at increasing risk of failure, which
could imperil California’s vital water conveyance system.
An ambitious plan now in the works could halt the decay,
sequester the carbon and potentially reverse the sinking.
Many of California’s watersheds are
notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring
flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it
can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines are
strict and unyielding, requiring reservoirs to dump water each
winter to make space for flood flows that may not come.
However, new tools and operating methods are emerging that could
lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water
supply and flood protection capabilities.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The Colorado River Basin’s 20 years
of drought and the dramatic decline in water levels at the
river’s key reservoirs have pressed water managers to adapt to
challenging conditions. But even more extreme — albeit rare —
droughts or floods that could overwhelm water managers may lie
ahead in the Basin as the effects of climate change take hold,
say a group of scientists. They argue that stakeholders who are
preparing to rewrite the operating rules of the river should plan
now for how to handle these so-called “black swan” events so
they’re not blindsided.
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
Just because El Niño may be lurking
off in the tropical Pacific, does that really offer much of a
clue about what kind of rainy season California can expect in
Water Year 2019?
Will a river of storms pound the state, swelling streams and
packing the mountains with deep layers of heavy snow much like
the exceptionally wet 2017 Water Year (Oct. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30,
2017)? Or will this winter sputter along like last winter,
leaving California with a second dry year and the possibility of
another potential drought? What can reliably be said about the
prospects for Water Year 2019?
At Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine?, a one-day event on Dec. 5 in Irvine,
water managers and anyone else interested in this topic will
learn about what is and isn’t known about forecasting
California’s winter precipitation weeks to months ahead, the
skill of present forecasts and ongoing research to develop
predictive ability.
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 Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
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.
The Colorado River Basin is more
than likely headed to unprecedented shortage in 2020 that could
force supply cuts to some states, but work is “furiously”
underway to reduce the risk and avert a crisis, Bureau of
Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman told an audience of
California water industry people.
During a keynote address at the Water Education Foundation’s
Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento, Burman said there is
opportunity for Colorado River Basin states to control their
destiny, but acknowledged that in water, there are no guarantees
that agreement can be reached.
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.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
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.
Every day, people flock to Daniel
Swain’s social media platforms to find out the latest news and
insight about California’s notoriously unpredictable weather.
Swain, a climate scientist at the Institute of the
Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, famously coined the
term “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” in December 2013 to describe
the large, formidable high-pressure mass that was parked over the
West Coast during winter and diverted storms away from
California, intensifying the drought.
Swain’s research focuses on atmospheric processes that cause
droughts and floods, along with the changing character of extreme
weather events in a warming world. A lifelong Californian and
alumnus of University of California, Davis, and Stanford
University, Swain is best known for the widely read Weather West blog, which provides
unique perspectives on weather and climate in California and the
western United States. In a recent interview with Western
Water, he talked about the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, its
potential long-term impact on California weather, and what may
lie ahead for the state’s water supply.
Atmospheric rivers are relatively
narrow bands of moisture that ferry precipitation across the
Pacific Ocean to the West Coast and are key to California’s
water
supply.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
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.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
In a state with such topsy-turvy weather as California, the
ability of forecasters to peer into the vast expanse of the
Pacific Ocean and accurately predict the arrival of storms is a
must to improve water supply reliability and flood management
planning.
The problem, according to Jeanine Jones, interstate resources
manager with the state Department of Water Resources, is
that “we have been managing with 20th century
technology with respect to our ability to do weather
forecasting.”
Work crews repairing Oroville Dam’s damaged emergency spillway
are dumping 1,200 tons of rock each hour and using shotcrete to
stabilize the hillside slope, an official with the Department of
Water Resources told the California Water Commission today.
The pace of work is “round the clock,” said Kasey Schimke,
assistant director of DWR’s legislative affairs office.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
A hydrograph illustrates a type of activity of water during a
specific time frame. Salinity and acidity are sometimes measured,
but the most common types
are stage and discharge hydrographs. These graphs show how
surface water flow responds to fluxes in precipitation.
Prado Dam – built in 1941 in
response to the Santa Ana
River’s flood-prone past – separates the river into its
upper and lower watersheds. After the devastation of the
deadly Los
Angeles Flood of 1938 that impacted much of Southern
California, it became evident that flood protection was woefully
inadequate, prompting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to
construct Prado Dam.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
California’s seasonal weather is
influenced by El Niño and La Niña – temporary climatic conditions
that, depending on their severity, make the weather wetter or
drier than normal.
El Niño and La Niña episodes typically last 9 to 12 months,
but some may last for years. While their frequency can be quite
irregular, El Niño and La Niña events occur on average every two
to seven years. Typically, El Niño occurs more frequently than La
Niña, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA).
This 30-minute documentary, produced in 2011, explores the past,
present and future of flood management in California’s Central
Valley. It features stories from residents who have experienced
the devastating effects of a California flood firsthand.
Interviews with long-time Central Valley water experts from
California Department of Water Resources (FloodSAFE), U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Central Valley Flood
Management Program and environmental groups are featured as they
discuss current efforts to improve the state’s 150-year old flood
protection system and develop a sustainable, integrated, holistic
flood management plan for the Central Valley.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
15-minute DVD that graphically portrays the potential disaster
should a major earthquake hit the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Delta Warning” depicts what would happen in the event of an
earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale: 30 levee breaks,
16 flooded islands and a 300 billion gallon intrusion of salt
water from the Bay – the “big gulp” – which would shut down the
State Water Project and Central Valley Project pumping plants.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
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.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Flood Management explains the
physical flood control system, including levees; discusses
previous flood events (including the 1997 flooding); explores
issues of floodplain management and development; provides an
overview of flood forecasting; and outlines ongoing flood control
projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
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.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
With the dual threats of obsolete levees and anticipated rising sea levels,
floodplains—low
areas adjacent to waterways that flood during wet years—are
increasingly at the forefront of many public policy and water
issues in California.
Adding to the challenges, many floodplains have been heavily
developed and are home to major cities such as Sacramento. Large
parts of California’s valleys are historic floodplains as well.
When people think of natural
disasters in California, they typically think about earthquakes.
Yet the natural disaster that residents are most likely to face
involves flooding, not fault lines. In fact, all 58 counties in
the state have declared a state of emergency from flooding at
least three times since 1950. And the state’s capital,
Sacramento, is considered one of the nation’s most flood-prone
cities. Floods also affect every Californian because flood
management projects and damages are paid with public funds.
Flood forecasting allows flood control managers to predict,
with a high degree of accuracy, when local flooding is
likely to take place.
Forecasts typically use storm runoff data, reservoir levels and
releases to predict the rise in river levels.
In Northern California the National Weather Service, in
cooperation with the state’s California-Nevada River Forecast
Center in Sacramento, forecasts flooding.
Yolo Bypass occupies a historic floodplain between Davis and
Sacramento, California.
With the city of Sacramento and other area communities prone to
flooding, the 59,000-acre Yolo Bypass helps offset that risk
while also providing habitat for wildlife. Managed by
California’s Department of Water Resources and a part of the
Sacramento River Flood Control System, bypass boundaries are
defined by constructed levees. The huge floodway is three-miles
wide in some parts.
Liability for levee failure in California took a new turn after a
court ruling found the state liable for hundreds of millions of
dollars from the 1986 Linda Levee collapse in Yuba County. The
levee failure killed two people and destroyed or damaged about
3,000 homes.
The collapse also had long-term legal ramifications.
The Paterno Decision
California’s Supreme Court found that, “when a public entity
operates a flood management system built by someone else, it
accepts liability as if it had planned and built the system
itself.”
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water This issue of Western Water
looks at climate change through the lens of some of the latest
scientific research and responses from experts regarding
mitigation and adaptation.
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the issues
associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the
water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of
whether additional flows are needed for the system, and how they
might be provided.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses several
flood-related issues, including the proposed Central Valley Flood
Protection Plan, the FEMA remapping process and the dispute
between the state and the Corps regarding the levee vegetation
policy.
Levees are one of those pieces of engineering that are never
really appreciated until they fail. California would not exist as
it does today were it not for the extensive system of levees,
weirs and flood bypasses that have been built through the years.
This printed copy of Western Water examines climate change –
what’s known about it, the remaining uncertainty and what steps
water agencies are talking to prepare for its impact. Much of the
information comes from the October 2007 California Climate Change
and Water Adaptation Summit sponsored by the Water Education
Foundation and DWR and the November 2007 California Water Policy
Conference sponsored by Public Officials for Water and
Environmental Reform.
This issue of Western Water examines the extent to
which California faces a disaster equal to or greater than the
New Orleans floods and the steps being taken to recognize and
address the shortcomings of the flood control system in the
Central Valley and the Delta, which is of critical importance
because of its role in providing water to 22 million people.
Complicating matters are the state’s skyrocketing pace of growth
coupled with an inherently difficult process of obtaining secure,
long-term funds for levee repairs and continued maintenance.
Is the devastating flooding that occurred in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast an ominous warning to
California? That’s the question policymakers are facing as they
consider how to best protect lives, property and the integrity of
the state’s water supply from the forces of raging floodwaters.
This issue of Western Water analyzes northern California’s
extensive flood control system – it’ history, current concerns,
the Paterno decision and how experts are re-thinking the concept
of flood management.
Some time in the next month or two, slight, temporal changes in
the upper atmosphere will augur the beginning of the rainy
portion of California’s Mediterranean climate. The high pressure
and sunny days should gradually give way to rain and snow,
replenishing the vast reservoir that is the state’s precious
water supply.
For many of us in northern California, some of the hope and
optimism that fills each New Year’s eve was shattered on New
Year’s Day 1997 when rain from a series of huge tropical storms
began dumping what would eventually be a total of 25 inches of
rain over the region in eight days. People were riveted to their
televisions as the disaster, which took 9 lives, unfolded.
