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.
It looks at times as if Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to imitate
Jerry Brown as he tries to gut California’s main environmental
protection law, at least for large infrastructure projects like
reservoirs, road and bridges. Brown certainly did reduce the
clout of the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA,
usually pronounced “see-qua”) during his fourth and final term
as governor, mainly clearing the way for large spectator sports
facilities … Essentially, CEQA would have few teeth if
Newsom gets his way. One pet plan is a long-stymied version of
the old Peripheral Canal project, rejected overwhelmingly 43
years ago by state voters. That has now morphed into a plan to
bring Sacramento River water south to customers of the state
Water Project via a tunnel under the Delta of the Sacramento
and San Joaquin rivers. -Written by Email Thomas Elias, author of ”The
Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and
the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It.”
Arizona will not approve new housing construction on the
fast-growing edges of metro Phoenix that rely on groundwater
thanks to years of overuse and a multi-decade drought that is
sapping its water supply. In a news conference Thursday,
Gov. Katie Hobbs announced the restrictions that could affect
some of the fastest-growing suburbs of the nation’s
fifth-largest city. Officials said developers could still
build in the affected areas but would need to find alternative
water sources to do so — such as surface or recycled water.
The federal government is putting $160 million in public lands
— including over $19 million to two sites in Utah — to restore
the landscapes, restore wildlife habitats and improve water on
public lands. The effort is part of President Joe Biden’s
Investing in America agenda. In a news conference Wednesday,
Bureau of Land Management leaders announced a total of 21 sites
would receive funding for restoration. Among those sites were
two in the Beehive State — the Upper Bear River in northeastern
Utah and for Color Country in southwestern Utah. The Upper Bear
will receive $9.6 million in funding, while Color Country will
receive $9.73 million. … Southwest Utah’s booming
population is in large part why the BLM chose to focus part of
the funding on that region of the country, said BLM Senior
Policy Advisor Tomer Hasson during the news conference.
News of water shortages, exacerbated by climate change,
population growth, mining and other development, is everywhere
these days in the American Southwest. But on the Navajo
Reservation, a sovereign tribal nation that sits on about 16
million acres in northeast Arizona, southern Utah and western
New Mexico, nearly 10,000 homes have never had running
water. How that can and should be resolved is one aspect
of a case brought before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 20,
with the justices’ decision due any day now.
Ranchers and Republican lawmakers are welcoming a Supreme Court
ruling that narrows the range of waters subject to federal
regulation, calling it a win for private property rights that
reins in overeager regulators. … But environmental groups
said the ruling in Sackett v. EPA will be “disastrous for
Arizona, where water is rare and protecting it is critically
important to both people and endangered species.” “It leaves
almost all of Arizona’s creeks, springs and washes without any
federal protections against water pollution.” said Taylor
McKinnon, Southwest director for the Center for Biological
Diversity. … The ruling earlier this month ends a
long-running dispute between Michael and Clara Sackett, who
wanted to build a house on land they bought near Priest Lake,
Idaho, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which said the
property contained wetlands.
The state’s new czar overseeing all things Great Salt Lake has
a lot of work ahead while an environmental time bomb continues
to tick. Last week, Gov. Spencer Cox tapped Brian Steed to fill
a new slot as lake commissioner. If confirmed by the Senate,
Steed will coordinate the many state agencies overseeing the
Great Salt Lake’s water supply, water quality, wildlife and
industries, all while preparing a strategic plan on how to keep
the lake from shriveling up, and delivering it to lawmakers by
November. That’s no small feat for any state employee, and
Steed’s also going to juggle it with his current job as
executive director of the Institute for Land, Water and Air at
Utah State University. Record-breaking snowpack may have bought
Steed a little breathing room — it has already raised the
lake’s elevation more than four feet from its record low in
November.
Instead of helping to tackle the world’s staggering plastic
waste problem, recycling may be exacerbating a concerning
environmental problem: microplastic pollution. A recent
peer-reviewed study that focused on a recycling facility in the
United Kingdom suggests that anywhere between 6 to 13 percent
of the plastic processed could end up being released into water
or the air as microplastics — ubiquitous tiny particles smaller
than five millimeters that have been found everywhere from
Antarctic snow to inside human bodies.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is slowly becoming more emboldened to go
toe-to-toe with some of his closest allies in pursuit of
advancing critical infrastructure forward. The battle centers
on circumventing environmental rules frequently relied upon by
activists to sue and block massive projects. Driving the
News: Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to fast-track
hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of construction projects
throughout the state, including a pair of large water endeavors
that have been delayed for years. California officials
have pursued the water projects in the drought-prone state. One
would construct a giant tunnel to carry large amounts of water
beneath the natural channels of the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta to drier and more populous Southern California.
In 2021, at a Colorado River conference in Las Vegas, the
Southern Nevada Water Authority laid out an ambitious and
detailed plan to lower per capita water use through
conservation. The presentation quantified why deep municipal
conservation — limits on decorative grass, pool sizes, golf
courses, septic tanks and landscaping — was necessary to
adapt to a far drier future. It was a signal that Las
Vegas planned to go all-in on conservation. Part of this was
necessity. Of the seven states that rely on the Colorado River,
Nevada has by far the smallest allocation. It is also one of
the urban centers most reliant on the river, the source of 90
percent of its water supply. Part of the plan was to shore up
water for more growth.
According to a public notice published May 10th,
2023, Hat Creek Construction Company, contractor for
Caltrans, is planning to construct a “temporary” asphalt plant
directly adjacent to the Feather River in Delleker, 2000
feet south (and upwind) of the Delleker residential area, and
only 500 feet from homes in the Iron Horse community across the
river. The operation would run from April to November, from 6am
to 6pm, up to 24 hours/ day for 3 years (but probably longer)
mainly to supply Caltrans with asphalt for its Highway 70
repaving project. The project would generate at least 150
round trip truck trips per day, all crossing the railroad
at an uncontrolled crossing, risking accidents and derailments,
including possible oil spills directly into to the
river. -Written by Feather River Action.
With almond trees bearing fruit and walnut trees blossoming,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture released two reports this
week on nut crops. But an action last week by the Butte County
Agricultural Commissioner’s Office may be a stronger indicator.
For the second straight year, Ag Commissioner Louie Mendoza
filed an emergency declaration with the California Office of
Emergency Services and California Department of Food and
Agriculture due to weather impacts on almonds, covering 40,000
acres in the county. Separate weather conditions affected
walnuts last year, too; that crop’s outlook remains uncertain.
The Hohokam civilization, once the region’s predominant power,
had begun meticulously forging this sinuous system of miles and
miles of waterways across the arid desert as early as the 1st
century C.E. With water sourced from the distant Salt River,
the Hohokam perhaps cultivated more than 10,000 acres of arid
land. … A century and a half later, the American
Southwest is sweltering under another harsh drought. Last year,
1,000-foot wells dug deep underground by residents of Rio
Verde, a community on the outskirts of Phoenix, started coming
up dry. … In the meantime, Phoenix has become one of
America’s fastest-growing cities, a trend bolstered by
preferential tax schemes and the growth of the (very
water-hungry) semiconductor industry.
Out in Utah’s barren West Desert, past the hazardous-waste
landfill and the military bombing range, on the far side of the
Great Salt Lake, sits a silent, mysterious structure that will
make a great ruin someday. Scratch that: it already is one. The
three-story industrial building was hastily erected in the late
1980s, at a cost of $60 million, to house a pumping station
with an urgent task: to suck water out of the Great Salt Lake
and spew it into the desert flats farther west. The lake was
then at record-high levels, threatening to flood railway lines,
interstate highways, and farmland. The pumps were in operation
for about two years before nature took over and the lake
receded on its own. More than three decades later, the Great
Salt Lake has the opposite problem—too little water.
The plastics industry has long hyped recycling, even
though it is well aware that it’s been a failure.
Worldwide, only 9 percent of plastic waste actually gets
recycled. In the United States, the rate is now 5 percent.
Most used plastic is landfilled, incinerated, or winds up
drifting around the environment. Now, an alarming
new study has found that even when plastic makes it to a
recycling center, it can still end up splintering into smaller
bits that contaminate the air and water. This pilot study
focused on a single new facility where plastics are sorted,
shredded, and melted down into pellets. Along the way, the
plastic is washed several times, sloughing off microplastic
particles—fragments smaller than 5 millimeters—into the plant’s
wastewater.
With the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake
Mead, drawn down to historic lows, the seven states that use
water from the Colorado River have failed to agree on how to
adapt to its dwindling flow. The impasse pits California
against everyone else. If California’s political leaders had
the political will, they could solve the problem for every
member of the Colorado River Compact by developing
infrastructure to use untapped sources of water. But to do
that, the state Legislature would have to stand up to a
powerful environmentalist lobby that views humans as parasites
and demands rationing as the only acceptable policy. -Written by Edward Ring, founder and president of the
California Policy Center.
In 2022, California took a bold step to address plastic
pollution by enacting the Plastic Pollution Prevention and
Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (Senate Bill (SB) 54),
which dramatically overhauls how single-use packaging and
single-use plastic foodware will be offered for sale, sold,
distributed, and imported in the state, and tackles plastic
pollution at the source. The problem with plastic An
estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the marine
environment each year with devastating consequences for the
ocean ecosystem. Everywhere we look, we find plastic; it is in
our land, water, air, food, and even in our bodies. And the
problem is expected to get worse as the production and use of
single-use plastic has skyrocketed over the last decade.
Over the last four decades, global water use has increased by
about 1 percent per year. This rise is driven by many factors,
including population growth, changing consumption patterns, and
socioeconomic development. By 2050, the United Nations Water
estimates urban water demand to increase by 80 percent. As
freshwater needs continue to rise in cities, the sustainable
management of urban water supply becomes even more critical.
… In general, Zuniga-Teran says the reasons for urban
water crises are, to an extent, caused by “a consequence of
uncontrolled urban growth and the unsustainable use of water
resources.”
Vidler Water Company, a tiny outfit…in Carson City…is an
unusual company. It doesn’t actually deliver water to people,
nor does it own any facilities for water treatment or
desalination. Instead, the company functions as a broker for
water rights, finding untapped water in rural communities and
marketing it to developers and corporations in fast-growing
cities and suburbs. For 20 years, the company has bought up
remote farmland and drilled wells in bone-dry valleys to amass
an enormous private water portfolio, then made tens of millions
of dollars by selling that portfolio one piece at a time…The
company was the first in the West to make a business model out
of finding and flipping water.
Rare photos show the transformation of Hetch Hetchy Valley from
untouched paradise to home of the O’Shaughnessy Dam, which
supplies some of the country’s cleanest water to 2 million
people in San Francisco and beyond.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things.
~John Wesley Powell
Powell scrawled those words in his journal as he and his expedition paddled their way into the deep walls of the Grand Canyon on a stretch of the Colorado River in August 1869. Three months earlier, the 10-man group had set out on their exploration of the iconic Southwest river by hauling their wooden boats into a major tributary of the Colorado, the Green River in Wyoming, for their trip into the “great unknown,” as Powell described it.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
Owens Lake is a dry lake at the terminus of the Owens River
just west of Death Valley and on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. For at least
800,000 years, the lake had a continuous flow of water, until
1913 when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
(LADWP) completed the 233-mile Los Angeles
Aqueduct to supplement the budding metropolis’
increasing water demands.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
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.
Despite droughts, 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 2021, three of the nation’s 10 most
populated cities are in California.
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 discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed issue of Western Water explores some of the major
challenges facing Colorado River stakeholders: preparing for
climate change, forging U.S.-Mexico water supply solutions and
dealing with continued growth in the basins states. Much of the
content for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the September 2009 Colorado River Symposium.
This issue of Western Water asks whether a groundwater
compact is needed to manage this shared resource today. In the
water-stressed West, there will need to be a recognition of
sharing water resources or a line will need to be drawn in the
sand against future growth.
This issue of Western Water examines the continuing practice of
smart water use in the urban sector and its many facets, from
improved consumer appliances to improved agency planning to the
improvements in water recycling and desalination. Many in the
water community say conserving water is not merely a response to
drought conditions, but a permanent ethic in an era in which
every drop of water is a valuable commodity not to be wasted.
When water and growth was featured in the May/June 1995 Western
Water, the debate in the California Legislature was about whether
a local water district should have any say when it came to
providing water to new developments. Of the four bills before
state lawmakers, it was Sen. Jim Costa’s SB 901 that cleared the
Legislature and was signed into law. The bill established a
voluntary link between water and land-use planning by requiring
planning departments to consult with local water purveyors about
the availability of new supplies.
