Despite droughts, the recession and natural disasters,
California’s urban population continues to grow.
This population growth means increasing demand for water by urban
areas—home to most of California’s population [see also
Agricultural Conservation]. As of 2012, seven of the most
populated urbanized areas in the United States are in California.
Water levels in the world’s ponds, lakes and human-managed
reservoirs rise and fall from season to season. But until now,
it has been difficult to parse out exactly how much of that
variation is caused by humans as opposed to natural cycles.
Analysis of new satellite data published March 3 in Nature
shows fully 57 percent of the seasonal variability in Earth’s
surface water storage now occurs in dammed reservoirs and other
water bodies managed by people. … The western United
States, southern Africa and the Middle East rank among regions
with the highest reservoir variability, averaging 6.5 feet to
12.4 feet.
When [the Colorado River Compact was] signed in 1922,
the Colorado River drainage was divided into two divisions;
Upper: Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah; Lower: Arizona,
California, Nevada. At that time, it was felt the total average
annual flow was 16.4 million acre feet. As a result, each basin
was assigned 50%, or 7.5 million acre feet, with the 1.4
million acre feet surplus allocated to Mexico. … As a
result, the Upper Basin is obligated to provide 7.5M acre feet
to the Lower Basin, regardless of the actual flow of water in
any given year. Obviously, snowpack and the consequent flow is
not a constant and years of drought and low flows create a
problem for the Upper Basin. -Written by Bryan Whiting, a columnist for the
Glenwood Springs (Colo.) Post Independent.
The hot dry conditions that melted strong snowpack early in
2020 and led to severe drought, low river flows and record
setting wildfires across the state could be a harbinger of what
is to come in Colorado. Climate change is likely to drive
“chaotic weather” and greater extremes with hotter droughts and
bigger snowstorms that will be harder to predict, said Kenneth
Williams, environmental remediation and water resources program
lead at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, headquartered in
California.
Much of the western U.S. continues to endure a long-term
drought, one that threatens the region’s water supplies
and agriculture and could worsen wildfires this year. In fact,
some scientists are calling the dryness in the West a
“megadrought,” defined as an intense drought that lasts
for decades or longer. Overall, about 90% of the West is
now either abnormally dry or in a drought, which is among the
highest percentages in the past 20 years, according to this
week’s U.S. Drought Monitor.
Often the value of a plan or project can best be judged by its
opposition. In the case of the proposed Poseidon desalination
plant in Huntington Beach, the forces lined up against it are
clear indicators that it’s a worthwhile enterprise. The
Sierra Club calls the plant “rather pathetic,” “the most
expensive and environmentally damaging way to secure Orange
County’s future water supply.” -Written by Kerry Jackson, a fellow in the Center
for California Reform at the Pacific Research
Institute.
The [Utah] state Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would
establish the so-called Colorado River Authority of Utah, along
with a $9 million “legal defense fund,” intended to ensure that
the state receives its allotted share of the Colorado’s
dwindling flows….Utah has shared the Colorado River’s flow
with six Western states under a century-old agreement, but the
Beehive State has been slow to push its stake, according to
backers of HB297. Accordingly, Utah uses 54% of its share,
Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said…
California water has joined gold, energy and bitcoin as a
commodity whose future value can be traded on a financial
exchange and the first market trades on water futures took
place three months ago. The market, based on values determined
by NASDAQ’s Veles Water Market Index, was hailed by some as a
useful tool so California farmers can reduce the risk of
drought-driven escalation in water costs. It was sharply
criticized by others, from a United Nations representative to
racial justice groups as potentially limiting access to
something essential to life.
Human fingerprints are all over the world’s freshwater. A new
study published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that
while human-controlled freshwater sources make up a minimal
portion of the world’s ponds, lakes, and rivers, they are
responsible for more than half of all changes to the Earth’s
water system. … Climate change already looms large over the
world’s freshwater supply. Major sources of drinking water,
like the Colorado River, have less water and are flowing
more slowly due to climate change—even as they face increasing
demand from our water-hungry farms and cities. Rainfall itself
is becoming more erratic in some locations, such as
California…
In an innovative time where power and energy have evolved
tremendously in the past few decades, efficiency and
conservation have become new focal points, constantly being
optimized in balance with costs. A study conducted by UC Davis’
Center for Water-Energy Efficiency illuminates the possibility
of saving not only water but also energy and greenhouse gas
emissions through water conservation programs.
Despite taking two years off from Congress, David Valadao
(R—Hanford) is getting back to work by introducing new
legislation to help keep water flowing in the Central Valley.
Early this month, Valadao introduced the Responsible, No-Cost
Extension of Western Water Infrastructure Improvements, or
RENEW WIIN, Act, a no-cost, clean extension of operations and
storage provisions of the WIIN Act. The RENEW WIIN Act would
extend the general and operations provisions of Subtitle J of
the WIIN Act and extend the provision requiring consultation on
coordinated operations of the Central Valley Project and State
Water Project.
A forecast of relatively low numbers of Sacramento and Klamath
River fall Chinook salmon now swimming in the ocean off
the California coast points to restricted ocean and
river salmon fishing seasons in 2021. State and
federal fishery managers during the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s salmon fishery information on-line meeting
on February 25 forecast an ocean abundance this year of 271,000
adult Sacramento Valley fall Chinook salmon, about 200,000 fish
lower than the 2020 estimate.
Addressing the San Diego region’s limited local water supplies
with innovative ideas is something the San Diego County Water
Authority has become known for. Using expertise gained from
decades of successful planning and projects, the Water
Authority is developing strategies to reduce the future cost of
water that sustains the economy and quality of life across the
county.
Water may be life, but most residents of Southern California do
not often reflect on the complex series of canals, pumps, and
pipelines that connect where they live to water sources like
the Colorado River, the Sierras, or the numerous water basins
under LA County. Even less appreciated is the role water
districts play in combining water sources, treating our water,
and distributing it. Major water districts influence water
quality and rates. They decide how to meet future water needs
in an era of drought and climate change. These agencies
determine if your water comes from sustainable local sources
like conservation and recycling or from desert-damaging water
mining projects like Cadiz.
One of the key issues on the table—highlighted in the CalTrout
and UC Davis Report, SOS II: Fish in Hot Water—is that on our
current trajectory, it’s predicted that 45% of native
California salmonids will face extinction in the next 50
years. When a species faces imminent extinction – there is
a sense of urgency to act, but recovery programs differ
depending on the species. Because steelhead, the ocean-going
form of Oncorhynchus mykiss, use many areas of a watershed from
ocean to headwaters, there are a range of threats to address
and many stakeholder interests to balance. Making things more
complex, Southern steelhead recovery takes place in the middle
of 20 million people – so a pragmatic approach is essential.
Lake Wohlford Dam is an important water storage, flood control
and recreational facility that has served Escondido for
generations. Restoring storage capacity and making it
earthquake-safe is critically important, which is why I
introduced AB 692. The dam was originally constructed in
1895 to store water transported via a wooden flume from the San
Luis Rey River to Escondido. One of the first rock-fill dams in
California, Lake Wohlford Dam was 76 feet high and had a
storage capacity of about 3500 acre-feet.
-Written by Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron,
R-Escondido.
Monterey One Water just celebrated the one-year anniversary of
delivering recycled wastewater via the Pure Water Monterey
project. The advanced filtration system is used on treated
sewage water, which is then injected deep underground where the
new supply will be mixed with the existing water supply.
Even before phase one of the Pure Water Monterey project was
online, the board of M1W began debating an expansion of the
project. But that expansion has been on ice for months, after
the M1W board voted 11-10 (on a weighted vote) in April of 2020
not to proceed. It’s about to come back.
Southern California’s unarmored three-spine stickleback has
made headlines periodically, most recently over a lawsuit that
was filed on Jan. 18 by the Center for Biological
Diversity against the Trump Administration for allegedly
failing to take measures to protect the endangered fish. What
is the three-spine stickleback and what is going on with the
fish? … The unarmored three-spine stickleback was listed
as endangered in 1970 under the precursor to today’s Endangered
Species Act. Critical habitat was proposed for the species by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1980, but never
designated.
While the county’s Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) has
been monitoring groundwater through residential and commercial
wells volunteered for the program since 2017, four new wells
specifically designed to capture a broad range of information
will soon be expanding the available data. The Sonoma Valley
Fire District approved the installation of the first of four
new groundwater monitoring wells on a small piece of their
property on Felder Road, just off Arnold Drive. It is expected
to be producing results by this year.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors
Thursday announced a plan to distribute a rebate of $44.4
million to its 24 member agencies across the region. They did
so after receiving a check for that amount from the Los
Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California to pay legal damages and interest after a long legal
battle. The money resulted from the water authority’s
decade-long litigation in Superior Court seeking to compel MWD
to set legal rates and repay overcharges.
A Senate committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday to
create Utah’s Colorado River Authority, which would be tasked
with helping the state renegotiate its share of the river.
Originally the bill allowed broad reasons to close meetings and
protect records. It’s since been changed twice to come more
into compliance with the state’s open meeting and record laws.
Critics of the bill said it’s still not enough. Mike O’Brien,
an attorney with the Utah Media Coalition, said having a
narrower scope for open meetings and records exemptions makes
the bill better than when it was first introduced. But he
wishes it would follow laws already there.
Sterling Construction Company, Inc. today announced that its
subsidiary, Road and Highway Builders, LLC, has been awarded a
$135 million heavy civil contract by the City of Los Angeles
for the construction of the North Haiwee Dam No. 2 in Inyo
County, CA. …The project will also involve the rerouting of
the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which supplies clean drinking water
to the city of Los Angeles, to allow for the appropriate
tie-ins for the dam construction.
San Francisco has long been an international leader on
environmental issues. However, water policy has been a stain on
that record. … Many California rivers are overtapped by
excessive pumping, but few are in worse condition than the
Tuolumne River. In drier years, more than 90% of the Tuolumne’s
water is diverted. On average, 80 percent of the river’s flow
never makes it to the Bay. It’s not a surprise that the river’s
health has collapsed. …
-Written by Bill Martin, a member of the Sierra Club
Bay Chapter Water Committee, and Hunter Cutting, a member
of the Sierra Club Bay Chapter’s San Francisco Group Executive
Committee.
Today, Ceres’ Director of Water, Kirsten James is speaking to
Betty Yee, who was first elected as California State Controller
in November 2014 – a position that serves as the state’s chief
fiscal officer. She also chairs the California Franchise Tax
Board and serves as a member of the California Public
Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State
Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) Boards, representing a
combined portfolio of nearly $500bn. She speaks about how her
experience managing the world’s fifth-largest economy has
shaped her thoughts on climate and water risk.
Democratic lawmakers and advocates are urging Joe Biden to back
legislation proposing unprecedented investment in America’s
ailing water infrastructure amid the country’s worst crisis in
decades that has left millions of people without access to
clean, safe, affordable water. Boil advisories, leaky lead
pipes, poisonous forever chemicals, bill arrears and raw sewage
are among the urgent issues facing ordinary Americans and
municipal utilities after decades of federal government
neglect, which has brought the country’s ageing water systems
hurtling towards disaster. … Water supplies and
sanitation have been disrupted over and over in recent decades
– in Louisiana, Puerto Rico, California, Ohio and elsewhere …
Caught between climate change and multi-year droughts,
California communities are tapping groundwater and siphoning
surface water at unsustainable rates. As this year’s
below-average rainfall accentuates the problem, a
public-private partnership in the Monterey/Salinas region has
created a novel water recycling program that could serve as a
model for parched communities everywhere.
Arizona, California, and Nevada will need to cut their use of
Colorado River water by nearly 40 percent by 2050. A
study by researchers at Utah State University, which
the Arizona Daily Star reported this past Sunday, noted
that Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—the Upper Basin
states—will have to reduce their usage, as well, though not by
as much as those pulling water from the Lower Basin.
Those of us in the water industry are always looking for new
ways to ask our customers to save, conserve, and never waste
water. And we do that for good reason. We live in a region
prone to regular periods of drought, punctuated by sudden and
catastrophic floods. Last year we had a very dry year, and this
water year is off to a very dry start as well. Sonoma Water,
which supplies drinking water to 600,000 residents in Sonoma
and Marin counties, relies on rainfall to fill our reservoirs
and consecutive years of below-average rainfall are always
cause for concern. Will this be a two-year dry spell, or the
beginning of a multi-year drought? -Written by Barry Dugan, Senior Programs Specialist in
the Community and Government Affairs Division at Sonoma
Water.
As Executive Officer Jessica R. Pearson identified in her
December blog on the Delta Adapts initiative, “social
vulnerability means that a person, household, or community has
a heightened sensitivity to the climate hazards and/or a
decreased ability to adapt to those hazards.” With an eye
toward social vulnerability and environmental justice along
with the coequal goals in mind, we launched our Delta Adapts
climate change resilience initiative in 2018.
Picture the desert landscape of a Mad Max movie populated with
vigilantes devoted to acquiring not gasoline — but water.
This scenario isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. “Water
wars” describes conflicts between countries, states, or groups
over the right to access water resources, usually
freshwater. … As Los Angeles expanded during the
late 19th century, it outgrew its water supply, and L.A.’s
mayor, Fred Eaton, came up with the plan to divert water from
the Owens Valley to L.A. via an aqueduct.
Conservation groups said 80 species were known to have gone
extinct, 16 in the last year alone. Millions of people rely on
freshwater fish for food and as a source of income through
angling and the pet trade. But numbers have plummeted due to
pressures including pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the
damming and draining of rivers and wetlands. The report said
populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in
the last 50 years. Over the same time period, populations of
larger species, known as “megafish”, have crashed by 94%.
From California’s perspective, the view upriver is not
encouraging. More than half of the upper part of the river
basin is in “exceptional drought,” according to the U.S.
Drought Monitor, while the Lower Basin is even worse off: More
than 60% of it is in the highest drought level. In January,
water levels in Lake Powell, the river’s second-largest
reservoir, dropped to unprecedented depths, triggering a
drought contingency plan for the first time for the Upper Basin
states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. Since
2000, the Colorado River Basin has seen a sustained period of
less water and hotter days. This is, as climate scientists like
to say, the “new normal.”
The state’s Ocean Protection Council has awarded $1.3 million
to preserving and safeguarding estuary habitat at Elkhorn
Slough, which boasts the second-largest tidal salt marsh in
California. The wetland, once degraded by farming activities
such as diking, is at risk of impacts from climate change —
particularly rising sea levels.
The red flags are everywhere for a builder staring out at wide
swaths of Riverside County’s second largest city: grassy lots,
bumpy dirt roads, entire blocks without streetlights and an
unreliable water system where water pressure drops without
warning. … Still, the lack of infrastructure, from roads
and electricity to water and sewer, hasn’t stopped state
housing planners from earmarking some 14,000 low-income units
in Moreno Valley to help address the state’s housing crisis —
even if none of it ever gets built.
On Friday, the City of Antioch, along with local and
State dignitaries, broke ground on their new and historic
Brackish Water Desalination Plant. At a price of $110 million,
the project was made possible with $93 million in funding from
the State, and $17 million from the City of Antioch.
Texas has always seen its share of extreme weather events,
but over the past two decades they have intensified. A few
years ago, after the fifth “ 500-year flood” in five years, I
remarked to a friend, “We’re going to have to stop calling them
that.” … Of course, this uptick in extreme weather is
not limited to Texas. Numerous places across the country—and
indeed the globe—have experienced multiple “historic” weather
events in recent years. Last year, droughts in California led
to six of the largest wildfires in the state’s
history. In 2017 and 2018, British Columbia had two consecutive
record-setting forest fire seasons.
-Written by Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer
with over 25 years of experience in the energy
industry.
“Basic climate science reveals that Lake Powell is not a
reliable water source for this ill-conceived project.” The
reference to ‘basic climate science’ refers to recent computer
models that show a drier climate throughout the American
Southwest over the next few decades, allegedly due to the
continued use of fossil fuels all around the globe. But even
without access to clever computer models, we have all seen Lake
Powell and Lake Mead — America’s two largest water reservoirs —
struggle to remain even half full, as we watch water users
extract more water than nature can replace.
Lake Wohlford Dam is an important water storage, flood control
and recreational facility that has served Escondido for
generations. Restoring storage capacity and making it
earthquake-safe is critically important, which is why I
introduced AB 692. The dam was originally constructed in 1895
to store water transported via a wooden flume from the San Luis
Rey River to Escondido. One of the first rock-fill dams in
California, Lake Wohlford Dam was 76 feet high and had a
storage capacity of about 3500 acre-feet.
-Written by Assemblymember Marie Waldron,
R-Escondido
Utah House Bill 297 is a dangerous spending bill that provides
its benefactors with exemptions to conflict-of-interest laws
that raises serious moral questions about what is happening at
the Utah Legislature. The bill creates another heavily-funded
and secretive government agency — the Colorado River Authority
— that would receive an initial $9 million, plus $600,000 per
year thereafter, in addition to collecting unknown sums of
money from other agencies. -Written by Claire Geddes, a consumer advocate and former
director of Utah Legislative Watch.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom was photographed dining at an opulent
Napa Valley restaurant during a surge in coronavirus cases,
many Californians saw it as hypocrisy. For opponents of a
planned $1-billion desalination plant along the Orange County
coast, however, the optics were menacing. The unmasked Newsom
was celebrating the birthday of a lobbyist for Poseidon Water,
which is close to obtaining final government approval for one
of the country’s biggest seawater desalination plants.
The largest dam removal in United States history is set to take
place along the Klamath River by 2023, but getting to this
point was neither easy nor quick. Water management, especially
in densely populated and water-scarce places like California,
is a challenge from practically every aspect: ownership and
operations of water infrastructure, local politics, maintenance
costs, and sustainability concerns.
There are six Mono Lake tributaries to be exact – Rush, Lee
Vining, Parker, Walker, Wilson, and Mill creeks. And the fact
is Mono Lake never had any surplus water; its fullness has
always depended on the amount of water running into it. So as
soon as some of that water was cut off, which began in 1941,
the Lake started to plummet and the entire ecosystem dependent
on those “half a dozen little mountain brooks” soon
followed.
On a bright February morning, Kulwant Singh Johl, a
third-generation Punjabi American farmer, checked the rain
gauge in front of his neat stucco home in Northern California’s
Yuba-Sutter area. Gusts and drizzles had battered his peach
orchard nonstop for a week, but it still wasn’t enough to
quench the recent drought. … And indeed, the
intensifying drought could devastate livelihoods of many
multigeneration Punjabi American farmers in California. This
year, many may have to sell their hard-earned farm plots and
leave an industry that they hold in high esteem.
Climate change is impacting the whole Earth, including the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. There are some big challenges
ahead as the region changes over the next 30 years. In order to
adapt to a world with increased flooding, drought, wildfire and
intense heat, we need to start by understanding what’s going
on. But where to begin? The Delta Stewardship Council is
hosting a climate resilience scavenger hunt as part of its
Delta Adapts initiative…. Now through Feb. 26,
participants can complete as many activities as possible and
submit their findings online.
Bay Area political leaders and organizations have come together
to encourage the new Biden administration to protect Redwood
City’s salt ponds from future development by withdrawing a
Trump era appeal of a federal district court ruling deeming the
wetlands federally protected.
A recent webinar on trading of guaranteed future water prices
on the stock market showed the potential to drive up the price
tag of water for public agencies. During a Feb. 2 California
Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) virtual meeting,
water stock market advocates were clear that prices would rise.
However, they stated that it would be a good thing, because
water has been undervalued and therefore wasted. Their approach
would encourage more efficient use of water, they told the CDFA
board.
The first few months of this rainfall season were below average
across California, with drought conditions evident statewide.
Although the Golden State received a much-needed soaking in
late January, moderate drought conditions remain across Santa
Clara County. Valley Water remains focused on preparing
for future wet and dry years through various projects and
programs, including the proposed expansion of Pacheco Reservoir
in southern Santa Clara County. -Written by Valley Water Directors, Vice Chair Gary
Kremen, John L. Varela, and Richard P. Santos.
Many of today’s under-resourced communities have no more access
to blue gold (scarce water) than the under-resourced white
residents of the Owens Valley have had since the 1920s. In 1924
greedy public and private water interests transformed the lush
Owen’s Lake into a noxious dust bowl. One of the guilty
parties LADWP (Department of Water and Power), recently
celebrated partial restoration of Owens Lake by constructing a
ghostly monument of granite and sculpted earth in the long
desiccated lake bed. … For many indigenous peoples denied
their rights to water for a century, partial restoration of the
lake without full restoration of their water rights is too
little, too late.
There is much to see and appreciate in Arizona’s natural
resources. Water flowing through washes, creeks, rivers and
springs sustains life in this hot, dry state. Protecting these
waterways, crucial to all life in a desert environment, is an
important priority for most Arizonans.
-Written by Kristen Wolfe, a coordinator
with Sustainable Water Network.
A western water conference that draws national speakers each
year — and normally draws Basin irrigators to Reno for the
weekend — is being held virtually this Thursday and Friday due
to COVID precautions. The Family Farm Alliance conference,
organized in part by Klamath Falls-based executive director Dan
Keppen, is themed “A Bridge over Troubled Water” this year. The
alliance advocates for irrigated agriculture in 17 western
states, including in Oregon.
Utah lawmakers say drought and the dwindling Colorado River
make it more important than ever for the state to act now to
safeguard its interest in the river.
The Santa Ana Regional Water Board released a tentative order
Friday detailing proposed revisions to Poseidon Water’s
controversial proposed $1.4-billion water desalination project
in Huntington Beach. The board’s tentative order would make
Poseidon responsible for five mitigation projects, including
four projects within the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and the
restoration of a 41.5-acre rocky reef offshore of Palos
Verdes.
The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District and the Trinidad
Rancheria are moving forward with a feasibility study to
investigate the possibility of extending water service from
McKinleyville up to the Rancheria. The Trinidad City Council
and the Westhaven Community Services District declined to
participate in the study last month, citing risks of
overdevelopment.
A large Canada-based utility service company has unveiled a
proposal to construct and operate a Moss Landing desalination
plant using brackish water from wells at the mouth of the
Salinas Valley. According to a Jan. 28 presentation by Liberty
Utilities official Kim Adamson, the proposal calls for a desal
plant capable of producing up to 32,000 acre-feet of drinking
water per year at a cost of about $1,000 to $1,500 per
acre-foot for Salinas, Castroville and Marina, and perhaps even
eventually the Monterey Peninsula.
The Long Beach Water Department approved an agreement this
month to acquire two properties near an existing well site in
West Long Beach as it aims to build a new potable water
treatment facility that would treat groundwater there.
The San Diego Water Authority thinks the region is going to
need way more water over the next few decades, but the smaller
agencies that buy water from them aren’t so sure. They think
the Water Authority is projecting too much growth in future
water demand, and they’re worried that if they’re right,
residents are going to end up paying for it, even as they
curtail their own water usage.
The City of St. Helena has agreed to monitor local groundwater
levels and stream flows, averting a potential lawsuit from an
environmental advocacy group. Following months of negotiations,
the city and Water Audit California released a joint statement
Friday announcing the city will collect monthly water levels
and annual extraction totals for local wells and provide a
public, “scientifically useful” summary of the data. The city
will conduct a comprehensive review of its water system,
develop new protocols for using the city’s own Stonebridge
wells, and work with Water Audit on the installation of new
stream gauges along the Napa River, York Creek and Sulphur
Creek.
Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson says the state needs to do
everything it can to protect its share of water in the
drought-challenged Colorado River, and the creation of a new
entity would foster that protection. … He and Senate
President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, are sponsors of the Colorado
River Amendments, HB297, which would set up the Colorado River
Authority of Utah with $9 million in one-time money and
$600,000 of ongoing money.
When it comes to water availability in the Santa Clarita
Valley, the issue is not new and has certainly been discussed
“ad nauseam,” but we seem to look on it as a new subject every
couple of years. … The SCV Water team are supposed to be
experts, they have monitored the valley’s water use for years,
they know the differences in water use based on the season and
should have accounted for our water needs. But instead, what
they have done is continually add new users, stretching the
supply over a larger base…
-Written by Alan Ferdman, a Santa Clarita resident and a
member of the Canyon Country Advisory Committee board.
In the five years since Colorado’s Water Plan took effect, the
state has awarded nearly $500 million in loans and grants for
water projects, cities have enacted strict drought plans,
communities have written nearly two dozen locally based stream
restoration plans, and crews have been hard at work improving
irrigation systems and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
But big challenges lie ahead — drought, population growth,
accelerating climate change, budget cuts, wildfires and
competing demands for water, among others.
Water makes the world go ‘round, and a major player in
California’s breadbasket doesn’t want to part with more than
they have already. The city of Bakersfield, and the Kern County
Water Agency are suing nearby water districts over their plan
to skim water from Kern County sources for transport to other
parts of the state — water that county officials say they need
for themselves. The Kern Fan Groundwater Storage Project is a
$246 million dollar water storage project planned for
California’s south San Joaquin Valley.
As long as people have lived in Pasadena, water has been an
essential element for the life-style, health and economy of our
region. Now, however, Pasadena faces a severe water crisis.
This never has been an easy need to resolve, but population,
growth and climate change have made the development of a
sustainable or resilient water program an even greater
necessity for the future. It’s not just a challenge
for Pasadena, but also for all of California, and even the
nation. -Written by Tim Brick, the Managing Director of the Arroyo
Seco Foundation.
The Colorado River supports over 40 million people spread
across seven southwestern states, 29 tribal nations, and
Mexico. It’s responsible for the irrigation of roughly 5.5
million acres of land marked for agricultural use. Local and
regional headlines show the river is in crisis. The nation
mostly isn’t listening.
Environmentalist groups aiming to stop a major controversial
housing development at the edge of Newark’s wetlands are
appealing an Alameda County court decision that would allow the
project to go forward, marking the latest volley in a
decades-long fight over the best use for the land. The Citizens
Committee to Complete the Refuge and the Center for Biological
Diversity … said the development “would contribute to
the loss of Bay wetlands and wildlife habitat,” such as the
endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, and could worsen flooding
in nearby areas.
A concern over a potential lawsuit by state water officials
against the Monterey Peninsula water district could threaten an
affordable housing project in Monterey. In May, the board of
directors of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District
reversed a staff recommendation and approved sending roughly 5
acre-feet of additional water — some 1.7 million gallons — for
one section of a Garden Road project that will be built out by
developer Brad Slama.
Threats associated with global water scarcity are increasingly
making news as continued growth in agricultural production,
expansion of urban boundaries, new industrial facilities, and
increased sensitivity to environmental needs drive increased
water demand. Supply side constraints for water are further
exacerbated by increasingly intense and frequent drought
events, such as the recent four-year (2016 to 2020) California
drought … Thus, a proliferation in wastewater
recycling over the coming decades could support a significant
lessening of water stress in many water-stressed areas.
Much has been said about a “new normal” in the Colorado River
Basin. The phrase describes reduced flows in the 21st century
as compared to those during much of the 20th century. Authors
of a new study contemplate something beyond, what they call a
“new abnormal.” The future, they say, might be far dryer than
water managers have been planning for. … In the 133-page
report, they identified a wide variety of alternative
management ideas, not simple tweaks but “significant
modifications or entirely new approaches.”
Utah legislative leaders on Thursday unveiled plans for a new
$9 million state agency to advance Utah’s claims to the
Colorado River in hopes of wrangling more of the river’s
diminishing flows, potentially at the expense of six
neighboring states that also tap the river. Without any prior
public involvement or notice, lawmakers assembled legislation
to create a six-member entity called the Colorado River
Authority of Utah, charged with implementing “a management plan
to ensure that Utah can protect and develop the Colorado River
system.”
California almond farmers enjoyed record-breaking harvests over
the last five years, after production dipped in the wake of
2014’s historic drought. That year a chorus of headlines
vilified almonds for sucking up a gallon of water per nut,
though irrigation efficiency has been improving. Now, as
global temperatures rise, a caterpillar barely the size of a
paper clip may threaten California’s position as the world’s
leading producer of almonds, walnuts and pistachios.
It would be arguably the most ambitious public works project in
San Diego history. The envisioned pipeline would carry Colorado
River water more than 130 miles from the Imperial Valley —
through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, tunneling under the
Cuyamaca Mountains, and passing through the Cleveland National
Forest — to eventually connect with a water-treatment plant in
San Marcos. An alternative route would run through the desert
to the south, boring under Mt. Laguna before emptying into the
San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside. Estimated cost: roughly $5
billion. New water delivered: None.
If the natural water supply doesn’t meet the water needs of an
increased population, Marin is going to have to revisit the
idea of building a desalination plant. Currently, the largest
U.S. desalination plant in San Diego produces 50 million
gallons daily at a cost of one cent per gallon. That cost is
kept low given the San Diego’s plant is adjacent to a power
station. If Marin had to draw its power from MCE or Pacific Gas
and Electric Co., the cost would rise to 1.33 cents per gallon
or $10 per billing unit over and above normal water
charges. -Written by Rick Johnson, who worked 40 years with the San
Francisco Water Department as a senior inspector and revenue
recovery project manager.
In a flurry of first-week executive orders, President Biden
sent a definitive message that his administration would move
faster on climate change than any before. Now, the question is
whether it will be fast enough. Scientists warn that the
coming decade will be critical for slowing heat-trapping
emissions, potentially keeping average annual global
temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared
to the mid-19th century. Right now, the world is on track
for an increase of 3 degrees Celsius, a level
that ensures more destructive wildfires and hurricanes,
devastation for coral reefs and rising seas flooding the
coastlines.
While wetter streets and a greener White House may offer San
Franciscans some hope for the future, the situation remains
dire for salmon in the Tuolumne River. … [I]t’s hard not to
feel that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s water
policies are partially to blame. Californians are significantly
reducing or eliminating dependence on river water. But the
SFPUC continues to side with agricultural users to fight
limitations on the water it takes from the Tuolumne. -Written by Robyn Purchia, an environmental attorney,
blogger and activist
According to the U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment
of Global Water Security, by 2030 humanity’s “annual
global water requirements” will exceed “current sustainable
water supplies” by 40%, highlighting the importance of building
a water resilient future.
The Pleasanton City Council will revisit the subject of potable
water and the city’s regional efforts to study water supply
alternatives at its Tuesday night online meeting, starting 7
p.m. In November, the council asked city staff to make
recommendations on continuing “to participate with regional
agencies on studies of water supply alternatives including
potable reuse and $300,000 in funding from the city’s Capital
Improvement program.”
In the driest years for Monterey County, the water available in
the Salinas River is not enough to supply a single household.
In the wettest year of the past three decades, 1995, there were
100,000 acre-feet of water available, more than the total urban
usage in the county. Although the flow fluctuates wildly, the
average amount is far more than what is needed, for example,
for thirsty coastal cities desperate for housing. The water has
been available for decades – the right to use it is protected,
encouraged and even required by state law – but it’s been
flowing into the ocean, a casualty of Monterey County’s
political deadlock.
Six years ago, in the middle of a crippling drought,
Californians were ordered to let their lawns turn yellow. They
put buckets in their showers to conserve. Scofflaws had to
attend “drought school.” Meanwhile, farmers throughout the
Central Valley had to idle many of their fields. This week’s
deluge left many Californians shoveling snow and splashing
through puddles as an “atmospheric river” swept the state. More
precipitation is in the forecast for next week. But experts
worry that without repeated downpours over the next two months,
the painful memories of the last drought could become reality
again.
Wildfires and smoke have ravaged large parts of California, sea
level rise is threatening the golden coast’s viability and
drought is looming in the future. … But for the first
time in four years action on climate change is gaining momentum
on the federal level — President Joe Biden signed multiple
executive orders related to the crisis in his first week in
office. Meanwhile California has held ground on climate
policies as the Trump Administration rolled back environmental
rules and regulations.
A Monterey County Superior Court judge has set aside the
county’s approval of California American Water’s desalination
plant project over its rationale for why the project’s benefits
would outweigh environmental impacts in a lawsuit brought by
the Marina Coast Water District. At the same time, the judge
rejected a bid by Marina Coast to require the county to conduct
additional environmental review for the project as a result of
new information and changed circumstances…
As climate change threatens a doubling of the impact of extreme
drought and fire within a generation, researchers are
uncovering the influence of human activity on both these
growing risks. One study has found that human numbers exposed
to the hazard of extreme drought are likely to double in
the decades to come, as global heating bakes away the
groundwater and limits annual snowfall.
There is an adage in California that goes, “Whiskey is for
drinking and water is for fighting over.” But instead of
fighting, the California Water Commission (CWC) is looking for
opportunities to hear from local agencies on water
infrastructure projects. The CWC recently wrapped up a series
of public workshops intended to determine the opportunity for a
state role in financing water conveyance projects that meet the
challenges of a changing climate.
The calls came in shortly after the story in The New York Times
announced Wall Street was on the prowl for “billions in the
Colorado’s water.” … The national story raised hackles
across Colorado. It defined agriculture as a “wrong” use of
Colorado River water and detailed a growing swarm of investors
eager to inject Wall Street’s strategies into the West’s
century-old water laws. The idea of private investment in
public water has galvanized the state’s factious water
guardians.
The largest body of water in Colorado, Blue Mesa Reservoir is
nothing to scoff at. Found in the southern portion of the
state, Blue Mesa Reservoir is 20-miles-long, home to 96 miles
of shoreline, and constrained by a 390-foot-tall dam. However,
before this man-made reservoir and popular outdoor recreation
spot existed, the area was home to a thriving mountain town
that has since been wiped off the map.
The melting of ice across the planet is accelerating at a
record rate, with the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic
ice sheets speeding up the fastest, research has found. The
rate of loss is now in line with the worst-case scenarios of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s
leading authority on the climate, according to a paper
published on Monday in the journal the Cryosphere.
The state’s new groundwater law has prompted a lot of dirt
movement in the Central Valley. The Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act passed in 2014 mandates that overdrafted water
basins get their aquifers in balance — don’t pump out more than
goes back in — by 2040. In order to get there without massive
farmland fallowing, most valley water managers have been adding
as many acres of recharge ground as possible. The
Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District has been particularly
aggressive.
The water crisis is one of the greatest human, environmental,
economic and financial challenges of our time. No person or
business, no matter the industry, can survive without clean
water — and that supply is dwindling and in danger. Scientists
predict by 2030, global water demand will more than double
supply. This growing crisis is playing out here and now. The
largest companies, in particular, have a critical role to play.
It is also in their own interest to act as it has major
financial implications on their bottom line.
An expansion project [at Los Vaqueros Reservoir] started in
2010 and completed in 2012 raised the dam height 34 feet to 224
feet. It increased the storage capacity 60 percent to 160,000
square feet. It also expanded recreational uses and stepped up
habitat protection. The surface covers 1,400 acres and has an
elevation at capacity is 524 feet. Los Vaqueros is also
where the next significant increase in California reservoir
storage could be in place by 2028. The $915 million
project will raise the dam 55 feet to 273 feet. It would
increase storage from 160,000 acre feet to 275,000 acre feet.
Californians have recently endured increasingly aggressive
wildfires, rolling power outages, and smoke-filled air for
days. Unless the state government changes course, we can
add water shortages to this list. … However, the dirty
little secret is that 50 percent of California’s water supply
is used for environmental purposes and is ultimately flushed
out into the Pacific Ocean, 40 percent goes to agriculture, and
only 10 percent goes for residential, industrial, commercial,
and governmental uses. -Written by Daniel Kolkey, a former judge and former
counsel to Governor Pete Wilson and board member of Pacific
Research Institute.
Newly appointed leaders at the California Air Resources Board
began this year with a monumental task ahead of them.
California’s progress on climate change is slipping – and it
will take bold leadership and a visionary approach to put the
state back on track. … For the first time in six years,
California’s greenhouse gas emissions ticked upward in
2018… -Written by F. Noel Perry, businessman and founder of Next
10, and Hoyu Chong, practice lead for sustainable growth
and development at Beacon Economics.
The Trinidad City Council on Tuesday will consider whether to
participate in a feasibility study for a project that would
bring a steady flow of water to the city from the Mad River via
a new pipeline. The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District
(HBMWD), which supplies water to Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville,
Blue Lake and other area communities, is in the early stages of
researching the possibility of expanding its service area north
via a waterline extension at least as far north as the Trinidad
Rancheria…
San Francisco rightly prides itself on being an environmental
leader. Given this deep commitment to protecting the
environment, the city’s water agency — the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission — should be a leader in smart, sustainable
water policy. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. But
Mayor London Breed now has a once-in-a-decade chance to turn
the SFPUC in a new direction by appointing a progressive,
visionary new general manager who reflects the city’s values.
San Francisco’s Bay-Delta ecosystem and the Central Valley
rivers that feed it are in steep decline… -Written by John McManus, president of the Golden State
Salmon Association, and Kate Poole, the water lead for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.
After 10 days of protests, Britain’s Parliament did a
surprising thing: Its members approved a proposal to declare a
state of emergency in response to the rapidly overheating
planet. And while the U.K. was the first country to do so, it
wasn’t the last. Today, at least 38 countries around the world
— including the whole of the European Union, Japan, and New
Zealand — and thousands of towns, cities, and counties have
issued some kind of resolution declaring climate change a
crisis. … A week into his term, President Joe Biden is
already under pressure to do the same.
Rivers may seem like immutable features of the landscape but
they are in fact changing color over time …The overall
significance of the changes are unclear and could reflect
various ways in which humans are impacting the environment,
said lead author John Gardner, an assistant professor of
geology and environmental science at the University of
Pittsburgh. One stark example from the study of rapid color
change is Lake Mead along the Colorado River.
A Fort Collins man is pressing forward with a proposed
325-mile-long pipeline which would transfer water from
northeastern Utah into the northern part of Colorado’s Front
Range. It could cost Aaron Million a billion and a half
dollars to build. He claims to have sufficient support from
private investors to make his pipeline dream a reality.
For almost 230 years, agricultural commodities have been bought
and sold in New York’s finance district. Now the NASDAQ stock
exchange – which celebrates 50 years of activity next month -
has put a price on our most vital substance: water contracts
for five water districts in drought-prone California are being
bought and sold.
A booming agricultural industry in the state’s San Joaquin
Valley, combined with punishing droughts, led to the
over-extraction of water from aquifers. Like huge, empty water
bottles, the aquifers crumpled, a phenomenon geologists call
subsidence. By 1970, the land had sunk as much as 28
feet in the valley, with less-than-ideal consequences for
the humans and infrastructure above the aquifers. … All
over the world—from the Netherlands to Indonesia to Mexico
City—geology is conspiring with climate change to sink the
ground under humanity’s feet.
California is home to over 1,000 golf courses, so when there
was a lack of water and public officials had to decide where to
allocate the water, the choice should have been obvious.
California should have shut down the golf courses and made sure
that every resident had access to clean drinking water.
However, this was not the case. As many as two-thirds of
Californian golf courses stayed open and the average 18-hole
course continued to use 90 million gallons of water each day.
Written by Alex Noble, a columnist for the newspaper
Available freshwater is on track to decline sharply across
two-thirds of Earth’s land surface toward the end of the
century mostly due to climate change, with the number of people
exposed to extreme drought doubling, researchers have reported.
Even under a scenario of moderate decline in greenhouse gas
emissions, land area scorched by extreme to exceptional drought
conditions increases from three to seven percent
… Mexico City is currently facing a water crisis, and
California has been coping with a lack of rain for most of the
last decade.
A national coalition of over 200 agricultural organizations and
urban and rural water districts urged President-elect Joe Biden
and congressional leadership to address aging Western water
infrastructure in any potential infrastructure or economic
recovery package. Kings River Conservation District was among
the organizations to sign on to the letter.
The building of dams on the Colorado River has forever changed
the ebb and flow, flooding, drying and renewal cycle of what
was once Lake Cahuilla, changing its character and changing its
name to the Salton Sea. Entrepreneurs once thought that the
Salton Sea would become a sportsman’s mecca, providing fishing,
boating, and waterskiing experiences like no other. There were
a few decades where that dream seemed to be true. Then it
wasn’t.
Colorado is headwaters to a hardworking river that provides for
40 million people. The importance of the Colorado River to the
state and the nation cannot be overstated, and its recent
hydrology serves as a reminder that we must continue to find
workable solutions that will sustain the river. History shows
that we are up to the challenge. As Colorado’s commissioner and
lead negotiator on Colorado River issues, it is my job to
protect Colorado’s interests in the river. -Written by Rebecca Mitchell, Colorado’s current Colorado
River Commissioner and director of the Colorado Water
Conservation Board.
Major cities across Turkey face running out of water in the
next few months, with warnings Istanbul has less than 45 days
of water left. Poor rainfall has led to the country’s most
severe drought in a decade and left the megacity of 17 million
people with critically low levels of water … and farmers in
wheat-producing areas such as the Konya plain and Edirne
province on the border with Greece and Bulgaria are warning of
crop failure.
Available freshwater is on track to decline sharply across
two-thirds of Earth’s land surface toward the end of the
century mostly due to climate change, with the number of people
exposed to extreme drought doubling, researchers have reported.
Even under a scenario of moderate decline in greenhouse gas
emissions, land area scorched by extreme to exceptional drought
conditions increases from three to seven percent, while the
population at risk jumps from 230 million to about 500 million
… Mexico City is currently facing a water crisis, and
California has been coping with a lack of rain for most of the
last decade.
Large swathes of land in densely populated parts of the world
are subsiding rapidly as a result of groundwater depletion.
Paired with rising sea levels caused by global warming, this
could place many coastal cities at risk of severe flooding by
2040.
The U.S. Department of Energy will soon announce semifinalists
for its Solar Desalination Prize. The goal: a system that
produces 1,000 liters of usable water for $1.50… Such
systems could surmount a big downside of reverse osmosis: it
typically desalinates only half of the input saltwater, and the
solution left behind eventually builds up enough salt to clog
the membrane…
Colorado is no stranger to drought. The current one is closing
in on 20 years, and a rainy or snowy season here and there
won’t change the trajectory. This is what climate change has
brought. “Aridification” is what Bradley Udall formally calls
the situation in the western U.S. But perhaps more accurately,
he calls it hot drought – heat-induced lack of water due to
climate change.
The convergence of a multi-decadal, climate-fueled
drought, a trillion-dollar river-dependent economy, and a
region with growth aspirations that rival any place in the
country has peaked speculative interest in owning and profiting
from Colorado River water.
When ecologist Jackie Charbonneau learned that cattle ponds in
the East Bay hills are vital to rare amphibians, it came as a
surprise. Stock ponds can be so muddy and trampled that “they
can look like a bomb hit them,” said Charbonneau… But the
stock ponds dotting East Bay rangelands are in
trouble…. Today Charbonneau is part of a multi-agency
team that restores these unconventional wildlife habitats.
If an options agreement between the [Ridgecrest] City Council
and Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority comes to
fruition, recycled water from the city’s wastewater facility
could help balance the groundwater basin… Both the council
and the groundwater authorities at their respective meetings
last week approved the option agreement between the two parties
for recycled wastewater.
In September, Tucson declared a climate emergency, setting
the ambitious goal of going carbon neutral by 2030. The desert
city has gradually implemented policies over the past decade to
further rainwater harvesting with the aim of bolstering
conservation, lowering water bills and creating more green
spaces.
The history of our city is one of oil, land and water scandals,
of genocide and segregation. … Should we change the names of
any buildings, streets or charities bearing the names Chandler,
Huntington, Mulholland or Hellman?
Twenty years ago, the Colorado River’s hydrology began tumbling
into a historically bad stretch. … So key players across
seven states, including California, came together in 2005 to
attack the problem. The result was a set of Interim Guidelines
adopted in 2007… Stressing flexibility instead of rigidity,
the guidelines stabilized water deliveries in a
drought-stressed system and prevented a dreaded shortage
declaration by the federal government that would have forced
water supply cuts.
Clear Lake continues to struggle with long-lasting impacts of
nutrient pollution. High concentrations of nutrients such as
nitrogen and phosphorus fuel large algal blooms and contribute
to poor water quality in the lake.
Fewer properties over the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin will be
subject to severe water restrictions after the San Luis Obispo
County Board of Supervisors voted on Nov. 17 to revise the
basin’s “area of severe decline,” eliminating roughly 37,000
acres.
How did two of the most important waterfowl refuges in the
United States reach such a sad state? The decline of the Tule
Lake and Lower Klamath refuges was a hundred years in the
making. There are no villains here; rather it is simply a tale
of too little water to go around on an arid landscape.
For a city built in an arid desert basin in Nevada, the USA’s
driest state with around 10 inches of rainfall a year, this
doesn’t sound too surprising. But the climate emergency and
recent droughts have changed the complexion and urgency of the
problem.
The Kern County Water Agency board of directors voted
unanimously to approve an agreement with the Department of
Water Resources to pay $14 million over 2021 and 2020 as its
initial share of the early planning and design phase for what’s
now being called the Delta Conveyance Facility.
Two key projects that the bond measure was passed to help fund,
Sites Reservoir and Temperance Flat Reservoir, have stalled.
Without the public breathing down their neck in a severe
drought, the state has managed to treat the reservoirs as back
burner issues.
The lower Colorado River Basin, which is primarily in Arizona,
is projected to have as much as sixteen percent less
groundwater infiltration by midcentury compared to the
historical record. That’s because warming temperatures will
increase evaporation while rain- and snowfall are expected to
remain the same or decrease slightly.
Grant Reynolds, a director of Water Audit California, delivered
a letter to the city on Monday criticizing its use of the
Stonebridge wells for municipal use and “a pattern of
exercising no discretion” in issuing permits for new wells.
For decades it’s been an environmental jewel wedged between the
urban sprawl of Marina Del Rey and Playa Del Rey. But now the
Ballona Wetlands State Ecological Reserve, home to diverse
plant and animal wildlife, has become a battleground for
conservationists and other activists.
A helicopter making low-level passes over the Santa Ynez Valley
towing a large hexagonal frame is using a technology first
developed in World War II to peer as far as 1,400 feet below
the surface to map the groundwater basin.
A sewer pipe to Chico as part of a Paradise sewer project is
back on the front burner, just 17 months after it voted to look
to secure funding for preliminary engineering work
(environmental review, project design, and right of way) on a
local treatment plant. The town heard a report from HDR
Engineering on Tuesday night that recommends the Town Council
walk away from its May 2019 decision
Opposition is building against San Diego’s dream of erecting a
$5 billion pipeline to the Colorado River in the name of
resource independence. The pipe, which wouldn’t produce savings
for ratepayers until at least 2063, faces its next trial on
Thursday, when water managers meet to vote on spending another
$1.7 million to do the next planning step.
The Ridgecrest City Council Nov. 18 will discuss entering into
an agreement with the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority
regarding treated wastewater. … The agreement would be for
five years, during which the city would provide for sale to the
IWVGA available recycled water produced at its wastewater
treatment plant upon 30-day notice to the city.
With the future of the much-debated Pure Water Monterey
expansion proposal hanging on a single vote, the hotly
contested Del Rey Oaks City Council race has taken on regional
significance.
Scientists expect flooding to get worse because weather
extremes are growing as the climate crisis worsens globally,
said UCLA Climate Scientist Daniel Swain. … Waiting to
systematically address flooding issues, like California’s done
with wildfire, could mean breaching of levees, Central Valley
wide flooding and even flooding in areas like Los Angeles as
the climate crisis worsens, said Swain.
The creation of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency 50 years ago
challenged us to bring people together to pull this majestic
lake back from the brink. Today, TRPA is the backbone for 80
organizations and thousands of property owners working toward
the common goals of clean water, a healthy watershed and
resilient communities.
Intersecting events such as major floods, decades-long
megadroughts, and economic or governance upheavals could have
catastrophic effects on the water supply for the 40 million
people who live in the southwestern United States and
northwestern Mexico.
The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District agreed on Thursday to
send a draft of an agreement to the Cher-Ae Heights Indian
Community of the Trinidad Rancheria to pursue a feasibility
study for an extension of water service. The tribe made the
request after the California Coastal Commission deemed the
tribe’s water supply inadequate for the proposed multi-story
Hyatt hotel at the Cher-Ae Heights Casino.
The Army Corps of Engineers … is considering another rule
change that would also shrink federal protection of small
streams, ecologists and lawyers say. The Corps said in its
proposal it is acting in response to the president’s order to
review regulations that burden energy development. Some of the
proposed changes will have essentially the same consequence as
the Trump administration’s contraction of the Clean Water
Act…
This Wednesday, Nov. 11, the Cloverdale City Council’s lone new
agenda item is a costly one to Cloverdale residents — a
proposed hike in the city’s water and sewage rates. The
increases in both water and wastewater rates … is something
that city officials say is needed to help start capital
improvement projects related to the city’s water and wastewater
systems.
The Metropolitan Water District board voted to begin
environmental planning work on what would be one of the largest
advanced purified wastewater treatment plants in the world.
Metropolitan officials said the approval marks a significant
milestone for the Regional Recycled Water Program…
Proposals to divert water in New Mexico, Nevada and Utah have
run up against significant legal, financial and political
roadblocks this year. But while environmental groups have
cheered the setbacks, it’s still unclear whether these projects
have truly hit dead ends or are simply waiting in the wings.
There’s some fascinating tension around a proposed wastewater
reclamation collaboration in Southern California. The project,
if it goes forward, would provide some 150 million gallons per
day (~170,000 acre feet per year) of treated effluent. Water
now being discharged into the ocean would instead be available
for aquifer recharge within Southern California.
Napa County has achieved a degree of peace – at least for now –
over big ideas involving water governance and how possible
changes might affect farmland preservation. Some finessing of
language paved the way for the Local Agency Formation
Commission of Napa County (LAFCO) to adopt a Napa Countywide
Water and Wastewater study.
Private wells in the central San Joaquin Valley are at risk of
water quality issues, failing equipment and declining
groundwater supplies. To help residents address these concerns,
The Fresno Bee contacted public officials, water advocates and
other experts to answer frequently asked questions about common
issues.
The California Coastal Commission has been issuing policy
guidelines for sea level rise for the last six years. … The
commission is now taking the first steps toward rethinking some
of its current policies and looking at the state as a whole,
realizing that one size does not fit all when it comes to ways
of adapting to sea level rise.
Recently the Santa Clarita Planning Commission approved a
project that would qualify as “backward planning”: planning
that pays no attention to modern issues, instead using methods
long abandoned by others. To me, as a member of the local
Groundwater Sustainability Advisory Committee, the worst of
these is the plan to concrete a portion of Bouquet Creek along
with the groundwater recharge areas on the property.
Managing water resources in the Colorado River Basin is not for
the timid or those unaccustomed to big challenges. … For more
than 30 years, Terry Fulp, director of the Bureau of
Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin Region, has been in the
thick of it, applying his knowledge, expertise and calm
demeanor to inform and broker key decisions that have helped
stabilize the Southwest’s major water artery.
In areas where groundwater levels have fallen because of heavy
pumping, people have often responded by drilling deeper wells.
But exactly how much that has occurred on a nationwide scale
wasn’t clear until water experts compiled nearly 12 million
well-drilling records across the country. In a new study,
[UC Santa Barbara] researchers found that Americans in
many areas from coast to coast are drilling deeper for
groundwater….The study confirmed that drilling deeper wells
is common in California’s food-producing Central Valley…and
household wells remain vulnerable to pumping by deeper
agricultural wells.
Years in the works, Menlo Park’s first recycled water system is
up and running, carrying wastewater from local households to
the Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club, where a new treatment
facility cleans the water for irrigation use, keeping the golf
course a lush emerald green.
The Delta Conveyance Project is a necessary investment to
secure California’s water future. Let’s face it, our climate is
changing rapidly and becoming more unpredictable – wildfires
are larger and more frequent, the seas are rising, droughts are
lasting longer and storms are fiercer. The need for this
project has never been clearer.
In their statement, the scientists laid out the grim picture
that has emerged from thousands of peer-reviewed studies:
Climate change is inflicting extensive harm to aquatic
ecosystems, both in freshwater and the oceans. The degradation
of these ecosystems, which are among the most threatened on
Earth, is accelerating.
Kendra Atleework’s new memoir Miracle Country, published in
July by Algonquin Books, maps the region of Eastern California
where William Mulholland stole the water and terraformed the
SoCal landscape into the place we now know.
In a critical step for the proposed public takeover of
California American Water’s Monterey-area water system, the
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s board of
directors on Thursday night certified the final environmental
impact report for the effort.
Climate change, as I’ve often heard Brad Udall point out, is
water change. By that, Brad means that the effect of a changing
climate on people and ecosystems is most clearly felt through
changes in how much water there is.
The San Joaquin Valley and urban Southern California each face
growing water challenges and a shared interest in ensuring
reliable, affordable water supplies to safeguard their people
and economies. Both regions’ water futures could be more secure
if they take advantage of shared water infrastructure to
jointly develop and manage some water supplies.
Lobbing another hurdle at California’s $16 billion plan to
tunnel underneath the West Coast’s largest estuary,
environmentalists on Thursday sued to freeze public funding for
the megaproject championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Led by Sierra
Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, a familiar
coalition of critics claim the cash-strapped state is pursuing
a “blank check” for a project that isn’t fully cooked.
The supply and demand of California water are geographically
and seasonally disconnected, a trend that could be exacerbated
by climate change. Agriculture, urban and environmental use
compete for limited supply in the state’s $1.1 billion water
market.
I can see clearly the challenge ahead for implementation of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Actcal act because I now
have first-hand experience with the kinds of water disputes
that can arise when the local parties involved are not given a
chance to work things out collaboratively.
If all goes according to plan, recycled water from the city’s
planned $45 to $60 million wastewater treatment facility may be
used to help balance the Indian Wells Valley groundwater basin
as mandated by the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act.
The desire for crystal clean water is one that the president
repeats frequently, even dating to his 2016 presidential
campaign. Immaculate water, he has also said. Clear water.
Beautiful water. But the focus on appearances is superficial,
according to a number of water advocates and analysts.
Revisions to environmental rules that the administration has
pursued during the first term of the Trump presidency will be
detrimental to the nation’s waters, they said.
It’s little surprise California American Water’s proposed
desalination project and the fate of a public buyout effort
aimed at acquiring the company’s local water system are at the
core of the contests for two seats on the Monterey Peninsula
Water Management District board of directors…
Del Puerto Water District directors approved a final
environment study Wednesday on a 82,000 acre-foot reservoir
near Patterson. … The reservoir is proposed to increase
reliability of water deliveries to thirsty farms and improve
management of groundwater. The project in a canyon just west of
Patterson has stirred debate. It would inundate part of scenic
Del Puerto Canyon and raises fears the dam near Interstate 5
could fail, flooding the city of 23,000.
My research group published a new paper last week in the
international Water journal that presents some very good news
for water-stressed areas: cities are succeeding in decoupling
their growth from their water needs. Our research – focused on
20 cities in the Western US – revealed some surprising
findings…
Grant funding was just made available to begin to address the
hurdles being faced by Paradise residents trying to rebuild —
due to the lack of a sewer in the town. Residents have
expressed frustrations with the process for approving permits
to move through the septic process in order to rebuild, and a
grant organized by North Valley Community Foundation represents
much-needed funding…
Right now, the Mendocino County Sustainable Groundwater Agency
is writing up a groundwater sustainability plan for the basin.
The plan will regulate groundwater in the Ukiah Valley basin
for the first time ever, and will define how water is managed
in and near Redwood Valley, Calpella, and Ukiah for perpetuity.
A first-of-its-kind study in California has laid bare the
staggering scale of pollution from plastic microfibers in
synthetic clothing – one of the most widespread, yet largely
invisible, forms of plastic waste. The report, whose findings
were revealed exclusively by the Guardian, found that in 2019
an estimated 4,000 metric tons – or 13.3 quadrillion fibers –
were released into California’s natural environment.
The Los Angeles Basin is often thought of as a dry, smoggy,
overdeveloped landscape. But a new study led by NOAA and the
University of Colorado, Boulder shows that the manicured lawns,
emerald golf courses and trees of America’s second-largest city
have a surprisingly large influence on the city’s carbon
emissions…The green spaces within megacities provide numerous
benefits, including improving air quality, capturing runoff,
moderating temperatures and offering outdoor recreation.
California is facing an impending water shortage. With
widespread fires, a COVID-19 provoked economic recession
bringing widespread unemployment and a public health emergency,
it would be easy, but not prudent, to forget that we face a
water crisis around the next corner.
This moment in time provides an opportunity for introspection,
a time to think about our families and friends, what is
essential in our lives, and how we can contribute to population
health and wellness. In the Sacramento Valley … our team is
working hard to envision the role that water suppliers and
local governments can serve to help people live healthier and
more fulfilling lives.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken a dramatic
step to encourage communities to use environmentally friendly
features such as wetlands for flood protection instead of
building sea walls and levees.
After about six months of construction, Morro Bay’s new water
reclamation facility is well underway — and it remains
politically divisive this election season, with three
candidates talking about halting or undoing the project, which
is the largest-ever infrastructure project in city history.
A critical piece of the Clean Water Act, known as Section 401,
allows states and tribes to work with the federal government to
ensure that rivers are protected and that projects meet the
needs of local communities. Unfortunately, the Environmental
Protection Agency recently created new rules for how states and
tribes can use their authority under Section 401.
At a shuttered water park in the desert landscape of Coachella
Valley in Southern California, Tom Lochtefeld has transformed a
pool into a surf spot. For decades, inventors like Lochtefeld
have struggled to mimic the ocean’s swells. In recent years,
commercial projects and proof-of-concept pools have made good
on the dream.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a
$108 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act
(WIFIA) loan to the Stockton Public Financing Authority to help
modernize the city’s wastewater treatment facility and reduce
nitrogen discharges to the San Joaquin River.
Water utilities increasingly face a dilemma in these
recessionary times: the challenge is to take in enough money to
operate and maintain complex water systems while also providing
safe and affordable water to all their customers—even those who
have trouble paying. We talked to Kathryn Sorensen of Phoenix
Water Services about Phoenix’s equity innovations.
Last month, Microsoft announced it would replenish more water
than it consumes by 2030, focusing on 40 “highly stressed”
basins where it operates. … Microsoft has provided a grant to
the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, to work
on software to better predict levels and accessibility in the
drought-threatened Central Valley region of California.
In many areas of the world, there may be no more precious
commodity than water — and that’s especially true in Los
Angeles. So, it’s probably not surprising that L.A. has become
a font of activity for companies looking to tap the water
market in myriad ways. … From established companies to
ambitious startups, water-focused businesses dot the landscape
in a city that funnels in much of its water from outside
sources.
California American Water and Marina city officials are in the
process of setting up talks on the company’s desalination
project after exchanging letters over the past several weeks.
Unbeknownst to many, some voters will pick five new members of
the Board of Directors of the Westlands Water District. GV Wire
had a chance to speak with two of those… Both offered
insights into how Westlands can change its reputation, how
farmers can change their approach, and what their biggest
adversaries are in the fight for water.
If certain hay species retain more nutrients than others when
on low-water diets, then ranchers know their cattle will
continue to eat well as they evaluate whether they can operate
their ranches on less H20…. Any water saved could be left in
the Colorado River, allowing it to become more sustainable,
even as the West’s population grows and drought becomes more
intense.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) recently
launched an environmental justice community survey to gather
input to inform Delta Conveyance Project planning. The survey,
entitled, “Your Delta, Your Voice,” seeks direct input from
communities that may be disproportionately affected by the
proposed project.
Since neither party can deliver life’s essentials; we need a
new political force that can. We need a Water Party. Why Water?
Because it’s something we all require. Because water puts out
fires. And because it defines our state, and its dysfunction.
… But mostly, water is the metaphor that shows the way past
our nasty contradictions.
Despite that reduction in flow, total storage behind Glen
Canyon and Hoover dams has dropped only 2.6 million acre feet.
That is far less than you’d expect from 12 years of 1.2 maf per
year flow reductions alone. That kind of a flow reduction
should have been enough to nearly empty the reservoirs. Why
hasn’t that happened? Because we also have been using less
water.
While use of large seawater desalination plants will continue
to be limited to coastal communities, small-scale, localized
systems for distributed desalination will be essential to
cost-effectively tapping and reusing many of these
nontraditional water sources across the country.
Water providers in California face myriad challenges in
sustainably providing high quality drinking water to their
customers while protecting the natural environment. In this
blog post, I explore the stresses
that surface and
groundwater quality challenges pose for California’s
retail water agencies.
A federal judge ruled Monday that a sprawling collage of salt
ponds in Redwood City is subject to protection under the Clean
Water Act — going against a previous decision by the
Environmental Protection Agency that would have eased
development along the bay.
In the area that the Moapa Valley Water District serves, water
users are facing an uncomfortable future: People are going to
have to use less water than they were once promised. Over the
last century, state regulators handed out more groundwater
rights than there was water available. Today state officials
say that only a fraction of those rights can be used, which
could mean cuts.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority faces two
lawsuits, from a major local farm operation and Searles Valley
Minerals, over water rights filed this week in the aftermath of
the passing of a controversial groundwater replenishment fee
and a fallowing program.
For years, the Orange County Water District has expressed
interest in buying the desalted water, provided Poseidon
receives the necessary regulatory permits. But the water
district’s appetite for the controversial project could be in
jeopardy after Nov. 3, if two board members who support the
project are upset in their reelection bids and replaced by
Poseidon skeptics.
As Arizonans contemplate how to cast their votes on Nov. 3, the
issue of water should be part of the decision. In Arizona we
are in a climate-driven, 20-year drought with no relief in
sight. The aridification of the West coupled with record
temperatures and lack of monsoon this summer should make all of
us aware of the importance of water.
Unfortunately, some Wall Street water companies are trying to
take advantage of California’s drought fears by pushing through
overpriced and unnecessary water projects. Poseidon Water Co.
is one of those companies. Poseidon has been working for years
to build a seawater desalination plant in Orange County,
seeking a deal that would lock the local utility into buying
their water for decades, regardless of need.
A letter posed an excellent question to the Soquel Creek Water
District – a question that comes up often in the community. To
paraphrase: with the Mid-County groundwater basin in a state of
critical overdraft, why is development that adds water users to
the already over-burdened water system allowed to continue?
The recent downgrade in the forecast for the flow of water in
the Colorado River should be a death punch to the proposal to
build a new pipeline out of Lake Powell. The pipeline was
already a major threat to Las Vegas and much of the rest of the
Southwest; now the threat risk is heading off the charts.
The land east of Madera has changed in the 25 years since
Rochelle and Michael Noblett built their home… There are more
houses, more irrigated agriculture and less grazing land.
There’s also been a significant decline in water availability,
as the level of groundwater drops below what some domestic
wells can reach. That’s why the couple was shocked when the
county allowed a new irrigation well and almond orchard … in
the midst of the most recent drought, even as private wells
were going dry…
Participants will pay $1,295 per acre-foot for treated water,
while municipal and industrial users will pay $1,769 per
acre-foot. Farmers who participate will receive a lower level
of water service during shortages or emergencies. That allows
the water authority to reallocate those supplies to commercial
and industrial customers who pay for full reliability benefits.
In exchange, participating farmers are exempt from fixed water
storage and supply reliability charges.
Tensions between Mexico and the United States over water
intensified this month as hundreds of Mexican farmers seized
control of La Boquilla dam in protest over mandatory water
releases. The protesters came from parched Chihuahua state,
nearly 100 square miles of land pressed against the U.S.
border, where farmers are opposing the delivery of over 100
billion gallons of water to the United States by October 24.
Lawyers representing Mineral County and the Walker Lake Working
Group announced this week they intend to take a water rights
case with broad implications back to federal appeals court to
ask whether Nevada can adjust already allocated water rights to
sustain rivers and lakes long-term.
Potentially the most important question popped up roughly
halfway through the Indian Wells Valley Water District Board
candidate forum Wednesday night. Hidden within a longer
question was the key point: how do the candidates think the
local water basin should be balanced and how do they plan to
protect water district ratepayers while doing so?
From the time when the pioneers first arrived, water, or the
lack of it, was a major problem for the valley. The first water
system was started by Reuben Hart, who came to the United
States from Derbyshire, England, first settling in New Jersey
with his brother, Thomas.
