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.
Advocates for public water systems on Tuesday jumped quickly on
a request by a Monterey County supervisor to consider amending
a law that currently allows only public ownership and operation
of desalination facilities. The request came in the form of a
board referral, an instrument allowing members of the Board of
Supervisors to make requests to the county’s chief
administrative officer for work by staff or additional
information on a specific topic.
As more communities impose water use restrictions because of
the drought, the California Coastal Commission is likely to
vote on a controversial proposal later this year that could
ease water worries for millions of Orange County residents.
After decades of debate, Poseidon Water just needs approval
from the commission to begin the construction of a desalination
facility in Huntington Beach that would produce 50 million
gallons of drinking water per day.
Google is expanding its campus in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The company is planning to build offices as well as housing and
green space near the shoreline, which is at risk from rising
sea levels. And that’s raising the question of whether building
there should happen at all. NPR’s Lauren Sommer has the story.
One of the greatest lessons of the pandemic is that we can meet
the challenges of existential threats when we combine the
collective power of our creativity, innovation and industry. As
the climate crisis worsens, we need to address protecting and
preserving water with the same urgency that we put into
creating vaccines. We need to act like lives are hanging in the
balance—because they are. Water is already shaping our
politics, our economy and our national security too. - Written by José Andrés, a chef, activist and creator of
the documentary Undiscovered Haiti, and Caryl Stern, executive
director of the Walton Family Foundation
New research says extreme weather events like the recent surge
of summer heat waves across the U.S. are being spurred by the
planet’s ongoing battle with climate change. In recent decades,
many have become all too acquainted with record shattering heat
waves that have put serious — and often deadly — pressure on
communities around the world. … New research explores this
new reality that many experts have been warning about for
years.
American culture is reckoning with some of the negative impacts
of our history. … In the past few weeks alone, St. Paul,
Nashville, and St. Louis governments and activists are having
substantive policy discussions about making reparations –
including direct payouts of money – to African Americans, to
atone for the historic sin of slavery. Reparations
discussions also have included making necessary amends to
indigenous people. … The concept of “ecological
reparations” takes the conversation another step forward.
– Written by Gary Wockner, who lives in Colorado and
is active in river protection around the world.
How are we messaging to our summer guests about our Climate
Emergency? About our town’s precious, empty Russian River
watershed? Is this a teachable moment for these privileged
travelers who come from places of Water Security? We should all
be True Believers in Climate Change. Effective June 8, 2021,
Healdsburg’s Stage Three mandatory conservation seeks a 40%
reduction in water use citywide with additional, restrictive
rules: 74 gallons per resident per day; No
irrigation; Hand watering only; Planting is
prohibited; $1,000 fine per day…the city means business!
-Written by Brigette Mansell, former Healdsburg
mayor.
The drought in California isn’t quite fathomable to all. In
efforts to showcase the harsh reality producers are
experiencing, Western Growers has a new campaign called “No
water= No Crops.” In a series of videos, the campaign focuses
on a few California producers who are struggling with the water
shortages. Joe Del Bosque of Del Bosque Farms is one of the
farmers in the campaign. He started out his planting year
thinking he’d have enough water but that quickly changed as the
dry water year encroached.
With temperatures in Dubai regularly surpassing 115 degrees
Fahrenheit, the government has decided to take control of the
scorching weather. Scientists in the United Arab Emirates
are making it rain — artificially — using electrical charges
from drones to manipulate the weather and force rainfall across
the desert nation. Meteorological officials released video
footage this week showing a downpour over Ras al Khaimah, as
well as several other regions. The new method
of cloud seeding shows promise in helping to mitigate
drought conditions worldwide …
More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will
begin meeting today to finalize a landmark report summarizing
how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can
expect for the rest of the century. … The urgency of
addressing global warming has never been more clear. The
two-week virtual meeting of IPCC scientists coincides with a
raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the
world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to
intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat
waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the
U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.
Environmental lawyers are urging a California appellate court
to overturn a pair of district court rulings that handed
significant victories to the Squaw Valley ski resort as it
moves forward with expansion plans critics say will
dramatically increase traffic in the area and harm Lake Tahoe’s
air and water quality. Justice Vance W. Raye, chief of the
Third District Court of Appeals, appeared sympathetic to their
arguments this week that Placer County may have violated a
public records law in approving part of an environmental
analysis and mitigation plan at the home of the 1960 Winter
Olympics.
Water could be one of the biggest investing themes over the
next several decades. An increasing global population is only
going to cause demand for water to rise in the future. And,
given the fact that water is a necessity of human life, demand
for water should hold up extremely well, even during the worst
recessions. Therefore, investors with a longer time horizon
should consider water stocks.
New development projects in most of Marin won’t have new
landscaping irrigated with drinking water under drought
restrictions imposed by Marin Municipal Water District this
week. The Board of Directors voted Tuesday to approve the
ban aimed at preserving the district’s dwindling reservoir
supplies in the Mount Tamalpais watershed amid severe drought
conditions.
Manufacturing jobs in California have migrated overseas for
years in a race to the bottom on wages and regulations. But now
many industries face a new challenge: They depend on access to
cheap endless water, and California’s future looks increasingly
dry. Textile factory owners like [Sean] Zahedi are among the
first to ask: Will we adapt or call it quits? Eighty-five
percent of California is experiencing either extreme or
exceptional drought conditions, the highest level there is on
the U.S. Drought Monitor scale. Without water, Zahedi
says, there’s no fabric.
Surrounded on three sides by the San Francisco Bay, residents
of Richmond are used to being near the ocean. But as rising
seas threaten to bring it even closer, Mayor Tom Butt is candid
about the risks. … Parts of Richmond are estimated to be
at risk from a three-foot increase in sea levels, even as the
waters of the Pacific Ocean along California’s coast are
projected to rise by more than twice that due to climate change
this century.
To grow up in the American West in the 20th century was to
swing between inferiority and hubris. Our history books
taught us that all great and elevated events happened back
east. We should go there someday and study the monuments. At
the same time, there was a sense — an understanding, as it
turned out — that the East might be the past but the West was
the future. … The Achilles’ heel, the hard ceiling
on Western ambitions, was water, and everyone knew
it. -Written by David von Drehle, Washington Post
columnist.
The mountain spring that pioneers used to water their hayfields
and now fills people’s taps flowed reliably into the old cowboy
town of Oakley for decades. So when it dwindled to a trickle in
this year’s scorching drought, officials took drastic action to
preserve their water: They stopped building. During the
coronavirus pandemic, the real estate market in their
1,750-person city boomed as remote workers flocked in from the
West Coast and second homeowners staked weekend ranches. But
those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a
megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the
West.
Desalination is the process of converting seawater into potable
water by removing salt and other minerals. Although rudimentary
forms of desalination have been used since antiquity, only in
the mid-20th century did industrial-scale desalination methods
become widely available for water-insecure coastal communities
around the world. Today, about 300 million people in more than
150 countries get water every day from some 16,000 desalination
plants.
Marin water managers’ strategy to suspend most new water
service hookups during the historic drought is drawing
criticism from some who say little water will be saved with a
policy that comes at the expense of the county’s poorest
residents. Such a tradeoff would impact everyone from service
workers to businesses to the elderly on fixed incomes, critics
say. … Proponents of the hookup moratoriums say the
county must live within its means with regards to water supply
especially given the uncertainty of how long this drought could
last.
Climate change is forcing our state to reimagine our water
supply future. How do we do that? Easy — we reuse
water. Just like recycling a plastic bottle, we can
safely use recycled water to drink, irrigate parks, support
environmental uses, grow crops, produce energy, and much more.
More than just a new source of water, water recycling projects
provide a degree of local water independence. -Written by Jennifer West, managing director of
WateReuse California.
The American West was once seen as a place of endless
possibilities: grand vistas, bountiful resources and cities
that somehow grew out of deserts. Now, manifest destiny has
become a manifest emergency. A scorching drought made worse by
climate change is draining reservoirs at an alarming pace,
fueling massive wildfires and deadly heat waves and withering
one of the most important agricultural economies in the
country.
The shade in Cesar Chavez Plaza provides a refuge for people
during the rising, record-breaking heat in downtown Sacramento.
Staying cool is critical during a heat wave — as is staying
hydrated. But for Sacramento’s over 5,000 unhoused
people, accessing that drinking water isn’t always
straightforward. And while Sacramento has 297 drinking
fountains, they don’t always provide cold water, for
example. Jeffrey Milner, who is unhoused, said he’s
gotten water from people near the downtown library branch and
from people giving away water at Cesar Chavez.
On the surface, the city of Folsom would seem to be water rich.
Perched at the foot of Folsom Lake, where snowmelt funnels into
the Sacramento Valley, the city taps into large intake pipes
plumbed deep into Folsom Dam’s inner face to send cool water to
nearby homes and businesses. That easy access is turning
into a mirage. After two dry winters, the reservoir has
shriveled to its second-lowest level for July in nearly 50
years. It’s lower than it was in July 2014 and July 2015, when
the last drought was raging, California ordered mandatory water
cutbacks, and Folsom residents had to swallow a 32% reduction
in usage.
Temperatures are up, and Stanford researchers are worried the
record highs don’t bode well for the future of wildfire and
drought in California. Though mitigating the effects of climate
change is the only long-term solution, the researchers said
there are short-term adaptations communities can make to stay
safe. This June, Stanford reached a high of 103 degrees
Fahrenheit, with the Pacific Northwest recording widespread
average highs over 100 degrees in the recent, record-breaking
heatwave that enveloped the West.
Every coast in the U.S. is facing rapidly increasing high tide
floods. NASA says this is due to a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit
working in tandem with climate change-fueled rising sea levels.
The new study from NASA and the University of Hawaii, published
recently in the journal Nature Climate Change, warns that
upcoming changes in the moon’s orbit could lead to record
flooding on Earth in the next decade. … They expect the
flooding to significantly damage infrastructure and displace
communities.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a state bill on July 9 that
will allow Valley Water to use a method known as “best value”
to select a contractor for the Anderson Dam Seismic Retrofit
Project. Under current California law, Valley Water must select
the contractor with the lowest bid, regardless of their
experience. But Assembly Bill 271, signed by Gov. Newsom and
overwhelmingly passed by the California Legislature, authorizes
Valley Water to use a method known as “best value” to select a
contractor for the Anderson Dam Seismic Retrofit Project.
The Great Basin Unified Air Polution Control District‘s letter
emphasizes how: The historical water diversions by the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) from Mono Lake
have lowered the lake level and caused the persistent and
continuing violations of law regarding the PM10 standards. The
only feasible solution is to allow the lake level to rise to
inundate the emissive areas of the lake bed. Water savings from
Owens Lake dust mitigation efforts would completely offset
exports from Mono Lake.
The city of Mountain View is planning for a surge in new
offices and homes in North Bayshore, placing dense new
development just a short jaunt away from the baylands. But new
sea level rise estimates show that future development could
very well end up underwater without flood protection, and it’s
unclear who is going to pick up the costly bill. Earlier this
year, Google announced its proposal to build 7,000 homes in
North Bayshore alongside 3 million square feet of offices less
than a mile from the bay.
This could be a good time to downsize the lawn. Thanks to your
water provider, you may get more cash for your grass. The
reason? We’re in a drought – again. But this may be no ordinary
dry spell. … Sacramento’s new rebates, which went
into effect July 1, double the amount available for River
Friendly Landscape conversions. Customers can receive up to $3
per square foot of turfgrass removed. That adds up quickly; a
10- by 10-foot block of gone lawn equals $300.
The worsening drought forced a 13% cut in the projected almond
crop in California. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now
expects about 2.8 billion pounds from the August-October
harvest. The initial estimate in May was for a record 3.2
billion pounds. Some growers have opted to strip nuts from
branches so their trees can get by with less irrigation this
summer, Monday’s report said. Water is especially short in
parts of the western and southern San Joaquin Valley.
Here we are, living 25 miles, five miles, even a scant hundred
feet from that splendid dunk known as the Pacific Ocean, and
what are we known for the world over? Swimming pools. By one
calculation from five years ago, there are a quarter-million
private swimming pools in Los Angeles County. … Our stories
wouldn’t be our stories without swimming pools as image and
metaphor. In “The Graduate,” Benjamin Braddock bastes in his
parents’ pool in Pasadena, worrying about his future. … The
crowded, chlorinated deep-end water in “Boogie Nights”
memorializes porn, pools, and the 1970s San Fernando Valley,
the suburban birthplace of a pool paradise … -Written by Patt Morrison, a Los Angeles Times
columnist.
Thanks to our ever increasing reliance on the Internet, the
amount of data online is skyrocketing. The global data volume
is expected to grow sixfold from 2018 to 2025. It might seem
like that information is swirling in the cloudy sky, but it’s
stored in physical data centers. Landon Marston, an
assistant professor at Virginia Tech, recently noticed news
articles addressing the growing energy requirements of the data
center industry. As an expert in water resources engineering,
he wondered how those energy requirements translated into water
consumption.
The California Endangered Species Act (CESA) is one of the most
impor- tant legal tools available to the Fish and Game
Commission and Department of Fish and Wildlife to protect the
State’s wildlife resources. … Listing decisions can be the
difference between persistence and extinction of a species.
They can also cause severe economic disruption and, for this
reason, should in our view be made with due deliberation and
based on the best available scientific information.
As California enters another period of drought, experts say the
dry spell could make an already difficult housing market even
worse. … Some housing experts say about 20,000 homes
need to be built in San Diego every year. Building more
houses requires more water. … [Dr. Norm Miller, a Real Estate
Professor at USD] believes San Diego already has
enough water to build that many new homes. But he thinks the
State and Federal Governments need to make housing a priority
over other water users, like agriculture.
Development of a sprawling, politically charged Arizona housing
development has been stopped, with the Fish and Wildlife
Service’s newly revealed rescinding of a Trump administration
decision. The agency’s about-face caused the Army Corps of
Engineers to suspend its dredge-and-fill permit for the
28,000-home The Villages at Vigneto project, according to court
documents. … The 2017 document “concurred that the Corps
of Engineers’ granting of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit
for the Villages at Vigneto Development was not likely to
adversely affect threatened and endangered species or their
critical habitat.”
[A]fter years of an unrelenting drought that has quickly
accelerated amid record temperatures and lower snowpack melt,
[Lake Mead] is set to mark another, more dire turning
point. Next month, the federal government expects to declare
its first-ever shortage on the lake, triggering cuts
to water delivered to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico on Jan.
1. If the lake, currently at 1,068 feet, drops 28 more
feet by next year, the spigot of water to California will start
to tighten in 2023.
Although 41 of California’s 58 counties are in drought
conditions, legislators are debating bills, such as Senate Bill
9 and Senate Bill 10, that address the construction of housing
to meet the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation. Between
2023 and 2031, the state mandate for the nine-county Bay Area
is 441,000 units, representing an expected population increase
of 1,102,500. The allocation for Los Angeles County is
1,327,000 housing units to accommodate an expected population
increase of 3,317,500. The state’s propensity to accept the
RHNA numbers ignores our drought conditions. -Written by Rick Johnson, a retired 40-year
veteran of the San Francisco water department.
The confluence of the tiny San Pedro River and the much larger
Gila was once one of the richest locales in one of the most
productive river ecosystems in the American Southwest, an
incomparable oasis of biodiversity. The rivers frequently
flooded their banks, a life-giving pulse … The
confluence now is a very different place, its richness long
diminished. A massive mountain of orange- and dun-colored
smelter tailings, left from the days of copper and lead
processing and riddled with arsenic, towers where the two
rivers meet. Water rarely flows there, with an occasional
summer downpour delivering an ephemeral trickle.
How can Marin County effectively address the severe drought
we’re in? Right now, many are reasonably urging the Marin
Municipal Water District to explore desalination and a water
supply line on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Apparently our
water district is proceeding expediently with this
exploration, so they can implement those measures as
quickly as possible if needed. However, we should recognize
that with urgent competition for water throughout the
southwestern U.S., these measures have uncertainties, will take
time and require very large expense and energy use. -Written by Tom Flynn, team lead at
GreenChange.net.
The Colorado River is tapped out. Another dry year has left the
waterway that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest
parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is
pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows. For
the first time this summer, the federal government will declare
a shortage. Climate change is exacerbating the current drought.
Warming temperatures are upending how the water cycle functions
in the Southwest. The 1,450-mile long river acts as a drinking
water supply, a hydroelectric power generator, and an irrigator
of crop fields across seven Western states and two in Mexico.
The American west has a sprawling network of dams, reservoirs
and pipelines that brings a supply of water to its cities and
farms. But overexploitation and a two-decade dry spell have put
a severe strain on the resources, with reserves dwindling to
historic lows in some areas. The situation will only get worse
in the coming decades, warn scientists, as surging populations
will boost freshwater demand and a hotter, drier climate will
bring deeper droughts and more erratic precipitation
patterns. …[N]ew water-sourcing approaches are also
needed. One such is rainwater harvesting.
[S]ome 95% of the Central Valley’s riparian woodlands, along
with the conditions they evolved in, have already been
sacrificed, mainly to make the Central Valley an agricultural
powerhouse. The scattered remnants face multiple threats,
including droughts and floods intensified by climate change;
manipulated streamflows that favor human over ecological
needs; and shrinking aquifers left critically overdrawn by
decades of unregulated groundwater pumping.
As someone working on water issues in the West for more decades
than I care to admit, I have found myself repeating the same
mantra over and over again: When you’re in a drought, it’s too
late to prepare. Well, we’re in drought, again, and I can’t
help feeling a sense of personal failure for how ill prepared
we are. This time is worse, however — worse because surely, we
should have learned by now to prepare better and worse because
record-breaking heat and early wildfires indicate the climate
change ratchet has clearly clicked several notches tighter. -Written by Maurice Hall, vice president of
Environmental Defense Fund’s Water for the Ecosystems
Program.
Driving through the Sacramento valley an hour north of
California’s capital, most travelers notice nothing but a few
cows grazing on grass scorched brown by the heat. But Jerry
Brown, the executive director of the Sites Reservoir Project,
sees the future of California’s water system….Sites is just
one of hundreds of new projects being urgently pushed by
districts, whose officials see that climate change is
irrevocably changing their water equation.
Lake Mead, which provides water for 25 million people in
the American West, has shrunk to 36 percent of its capacity.
One rural California community has run out of water entirely
after its well broke in early June. Fields are sitting fallow,
as farmers sell their water allotments instead of growing
crops, putting the nation’s food supply in peril. As the West
withers under extreme drought, legislators in the US House of
Representatives have introduced HR 4099, a bill that would
direct the Secretary of the Interior to create a program to
fund $750 million worth of water recycling projects in the 17
western states through the year 2027.
A vision for a “Lithium Valley” around the Salton Sea does
appear to be on its way to reality. The potential of the sea as
a vast untapped and sustainable reserve of lithium for a world
increasingly focused toward renewable — and rechargeable —
sources of power got a shot in the arm last week. News
that automotive giant, General Motors, has invested millions to
be first in line to receive lithium hydroxide and carbonate
from Controlled Thermal Resources’ Hell’s Kitchen project at
the Salton Sea was a welcome development when it hit
business wires and went out in multiple press releases on
Friday morning, July 2.
The United States and Mexico are tussling over their dwindling
shared water supplies after years of unprecedented heat and
insufficient rainfall. Sustained drought on the middle-lower
Rio Grande since the mid-1990s means less Mexican water flows
to the U.S. The Colorado River Basin, which supplies seven U.S.
states and two Mexican states, is also at record low levels. A
1944 treaty between the U.S. and Mexico governs water relations
between the two neighbors.
Drought can gradually parch the coffers of companies, while for
others it’s an economic boom. For some, it’s driving
innovation. One hair salon is using biodegradable towels, water
well drillers are turning away potential clients,
drought-resistant plants are all the rage, and watersports
proprietors are figuring out how to survive with less water to
play in. In spite of this resiliency, things could get worse
before they get better because the rainy season is still months
away.
Cadiz Inc. is pleased to announce today that it completed
the acquisition of an existing 220-mile pipeline, the Cadiz
“Northern Pipeline,” making final payment of $19 Million to El
Paso Natural Gas. As California continues to address supply
inequalities, infrastructure challenges and intensifying
drought, the Northern Pipeline can provide new water conveyance
access and supplement California’s water infrastructure along
an underserved, growing east-west route with additional
regulatory approvals. The Northern Pipeline extends southeast
from California’s Central Valley near Bakersfield and
terminates at the Company’s Cadiz Ranch agricultural
operations.
As a warming climate reduces the river’s flow, [Utah State
University scientist Jack] Schmidt, 70, is making what could be
his most important push to shape the fate of his beloved
waterway. He and his colleagues are working to inject a dose of
scientific reality into public debate over water resources
that, the team says, is too often clouded by wishful or
outdated thinking. The biggest delusion: that there will be
enough water in a drier future to satisfy all the demands from
cities, farmers, power producers, and others, while still
protecting sensitive ecosystems and endangered species.
Twenty years before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for
climate science to be put on trial, an official from the
powerful pro-business lobby group crafted what would prove to
be a prescient message on global warming. Harvey Alter,
who ran the Chamber’s resources policy department at the time,
said in 1989 there was “broad consensus” that human-made
climate change would likely have a disastrous impact on coastal
communities and farmers. … “Wetlands will flood, salt
water will infuse fresh water supplies, and there will be
changes in the distribution of tree and crop species and
agricultural productivity,” Alter said.
Interest from California growers in the possibility of growing
almonds commercially in Idaho has not waned. In fact, it’s
increasing. University of Idaho fruit researchers have been
conducting a major almond trial at the university’s
agricultural research and extension station in Parma since
2014. … California is the global leader in almond
production but growers there are increasingly concerned about
burdensome regulations, an uncertain water supply and expensive
land prices, Fallahi says.
With nearly 100 years of combined experience working on
important regional issues across San Diego County, we wanted to
share some observations about a proposal currently pending
among our region’s water providers. The Fallbrook Public
Utility District and Rainbow Municipal Water District have
filed applications to leave the San Diego County Water
Authority and instead get their water from an agency in
Riverside County. -Written by Keith Lewinger and Mel
Katz, of the San Diego County Water Authority’s board of
directors
Las Vegas, known for its searing summertime heat and glitzy
casino fountains, is projected to get even hotter in the coming
years as climate change intensifies. As temperatures rise,
possibly as much as 10 degrees by end of the century, according
to some models, water demand for the desert community is
expected to spike. That is not good news in a fast-growing
region that depends largely on a limited supply of water from
an already drought-stressed Colorado River.
Housing advocates and developers are warily watching
California’s intensifying drought and what it may mean in a
state that needs millions of new homes to house its residents.
Eighty-five percent of the state is in extreme drought. And in
coastal Marin County, north of San Francisco, rainfall is at
its lowest levels since records began 140 years ago. It’s here
where the state’s twin issues of housing stock and water
availability are colliding. But it could be a harbinger of
things to come for the rest of the state. Additional housing
puts more stress on water supplies.
The move to end mining in a Tri-Valley lake became official
this week. Alameda County planning commissioners on Monday
approved plans for restoring the Eliot Quarry, where more than
a century of rock mining in the unincorporated area between
Livermore and Pleasanton will eventually be turned into lakes
surrounded by open fields and recreation trails. … [T]he
project will include the planting of native trees and shrubs,
creating passages for fish, and reducing the amount of
groundwater lost to San Francisco Bay by deepening the lake so
it can hold more water.
Marin Municipal Water District will soon study the idea of
returning the long-gone water pipeline to the upper deck of the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. It’s a smart move if the district
can locate another agency to sell them additional water. They
also should understand times have changed in the past 55 years.
Installing a new, hopefully permanent, pipeline won’t be the
snap it was in 1977. -Written by Dick Spotswood.
High temperatures are returning again this week — with the
hottest months still ahead — and that means the demand on
electricity will keep spiking. The answer to our problems is
not in rivers or lakes but in the ocean. Last month, the Biden
administration announced plans to build roughly 380 wind
turbines in federal waters off the California coast.
Eventually, the turbines will generate 4,600 megawatts — enough
to power 1.6 million homes.
San Francisco Bay may be one of the most famous stretches of
waterway in the world, but when it comes to federal spending,
it’s recently been one of the most overlooked. Hundreds of
millions of dollars flowed to other areas like Puget Sound and
the Chesapeake Bay during the Trump years. … This week,
Speier took a big step towards turning the tide. Pushing
through a $125 million Bay Restoration bill in the House. The
money would be spread out over five years, and target projects
that could be key to the Bay’ survival.
Much of Southern California’s water comes from Northern
California, the Sierra snowpack, and the Colorado River. One of
the agencies tasked with making that happen is the Metropolitan
Water District (MWD), headquartered in downtown LA by Union
Station. Nearly 19 million people across Los Angeles, Orange,
Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura counties
depend on MWD for at least some of their water supply. Hundreds
of MWD workers have a new incoming leader: Adel Hagekhalil.
Islais Creek is an unassuming waterway along San Francisco’s
eastern industrial shoreline, meandering its way inland and
providing a natural border between The City’s Bayview and
Dogpatch neighborhoods. There’s a nice little park there,
tucked under a bridge, that locals visit. But it’s not the kind
of place most people think about much. Environmentalists
and urban planners, on the other hand, think about it a lot.
Here’s why: Rising sea levels and flooding.
A few years ago, filmmaker Emmett Brennan discovered that the
once-lush Owens Valley that sources water for Los Angeles is
now mostly a stark desert, and he had to do something. The
result is a meditative new feature-length documentary called
“Reflection: A Walk with Water” that traces a 200-mile trek by
foot along the entire length of the L.A. aqueduct to raise
awareness about the way we use and misuse water. The film, with
original music by Jacob Collier and Justin Kauflin, is
streaming through June 23 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Marin Municipal Water District has taken the first steps
toward building an emergency water pipeline across the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge for the first time in nearly 50
years to avoid potentially running out of water next summer.
The district said Friday that it has hired a consulting firm,
Woodard & Curran, to find potential water rights holders in the
Central Valley willing to sell their allotments. This water
could be pumped across the bridge via the pipeline and into
Marin’s water system should the drought stretch into winter.
After two decades at the helm of the California State Coastal
Conservancy, Sam Schuchat retires on June 25. His
replacement is yet to be named. But the emotional and political
intelligence he brought to the job will be missed. In the
coming years, Schuchat says he hopes to spend more time riding
his bike and playing music, not to mention travelling post
shelter-in-place. But he also expects to keep his finger on the
pulse of the California coast and to delve more deeply into
national climate change work.
Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), a senior member of the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, voted to pass
the “Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021”
(H.R.1915) in the Committee. This legislation reauthorizes the
Clean Water Act’s State Revolving Funds and related U.S. EPA
water programs. The legislation passed the Committee on a
bipartisan vote of 42 to 25 and is expected to be passed by the
U.S. House of Representatives in the coming weeks.
Record-breaking heat and historic drought in the U.S. West are
doing little to discourage cities from planning to welcome
millions of new residents in the decades ahead. From Phoenix to
Boise, officials are preparing for a future both with more
people and less water, seeking to balance growth and
conservation. Development is constrained by the fact that 46%
of the 11-state Western region is federal land, managed by
agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land
Management that are tasked with maintaining it for future
generations.
Mayor London Breed could announce a new city attorney within
weeks, following the San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s
Wednesday decision to formally recommend the city’s top lawyer,
Dennis Herrera, as the agency’s next general manager. Breed
nominated Herrera to the position in April, months after the
FBI charged the previous general manager, Harlan Kelly, with
allegedly accepting bribes from a city contractor and permit
consultant. Kelly resigned in November.
Two more ambitious lawsuits would be hard to image: in 2017 the
cities of Oakland and San Francisco filed separate public
nuisance lawsuits against five of the world’s biggest energy
companies, seeking to hold them responsible for the local
effects of sea level rise. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court
declined to throw the suits out of court, although the cases
still face many daunting obstacles ahead.
Not long after former Gov. Jerry Brown announced the end of a
grueling six-year drought in 2017, the Legislature passed two
controversial water-efficiency laws designed to promote even
more conservation – even though residents have done a
remarkable job reducing their water usage. Those new laws
required utilities to reduce daily water usage by an average of
55 gallons per person by 2023.
The story of Lithium Valley begins in earnest on Sept. 29,
2020. That’s the day when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law
Assembly Bill 1657, sponsored by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia,
creating a “Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in
California.” That commission is now called the Lithium Valley
Commission. What is this all about? Oh, just the fact that up
to 40% of the world’s potential future lithium supply is
located under and near the Salton Sea.
TPR is proud to share this timely interview with Metropolitan
Water District’s newly confirmed General Manager, Adel
Hagekhalil….In this VX Interview, Hagekhalil shares his One
Water agenda for securing water resilience through integration,
innovation, and inclusion and emphasizes his commitment to
bringing all of Met’s member agencies and stakeholders to the
table to enhance local supplies and deliver on Met’s mission to
provide reliable, affordable water to the region.
While water in the West becomes scarcer and droughts more
frequent and more severe — thanks in part to changing weather
patterns and rising temperatures triggered by carbon emissions
— Wall Street views water as an “asset class,” a commodity like
stocks, bonds, and real-estate that can generate enormous
returns for shareholders, even in severe droughts. Or maybe,
especially in water shortages. Institutional investors like One
Rock are snapping up water rights just like others are snapping
up rental properties to lease back to Americans at a profit…
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee last week marked up and advanced H.R.
1915, the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of
2021. … By 2035, the City of Los Angeles expects to
recycle 100 percent of its water supplies and reduce its
reliance on costly imported water from the Colorado
River. Truckee Meadows Water Authority in Reno is planning
13-mile pipeline to provide 1.3 billion gallons of recycled
water annually to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, home to
Tesla, Switch and Google, and ensure 20,000 jobs remain in
Nevada.
The problem, as always, is that water keeps flowing from the
tap. Every other indicator is telling us we should be in red
alert right now about Arizona’s climate and water situation.
But when we turn the valve, even on these blazing days,
drinkable water flows. It’s a luxury in this season and this
place. And it makes it easy to turn away from the news. But we
shouldn’t. -Written by Tim Steller.
Water is increasingly scarce in the Western U.S. — where 72
percent of the region is in “severe” drought, 26 percent is in
exceptional drought, and populations are booming. Insufficient
monsoon rains last summer and low snowpacks over the winter
left states like Arizona, Utah and Nevada without the typical
amount of water they need, and forecasts for the rainy summer
season don’t show promise. … The past two decades have been
the driest or the second driest in the last 1,200 years in the
West, posing existential questions about how to secure a
livable future in the region.
Restoration implies returning to a prior state. A broken cup
carefully glued, might appear nearly as whole as the original,
but will always differ from the original. Ecosystem
restoration attempts to return an evolving web of
interconnected species and physical processes to a prior state.
This endeavor raises complex questions: what prior state should
be the restoration target?
The term buy-and-dry plays to the fears of farm and ranch
communities. Wealthy urban water providers buy up water rights,
dry out farms and ranches, encourage people to retire to Hawaii
or other locales, and export the purchased water out of basin
to growing cities. As more farmers and ranchers sell their
water rights, local businesses—irrigation, farm
equipment, seed, and other agricultural firms—contract. Those
contractions encourage more farmers and ranchers to sell their
water rights and farms. And a negative feedback loop gains
momentum and propels a tragedy where the commons—a functioning
local agricultural community—disappears.
Officials are raising the prospect of a permanent water
pipeline over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge as a potential
drought-fighting strategy for Marin County. … [Ben]
Horenstein, the general manager of the Marin Municipal Water
District, was among the participants of a teleconference on
drought and wildfires organized by Assemblyman Marc Levine on
Wednesday. … For Marin, Horenstein said, the focus now
is on promoting as much conservation as possible through
mandatory water use restrictions and rebates for
water-efficient appliances and landscaping.
During the budget hearings on June 8, the Mendocino County
Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a proposal for a
standalone water agency to combat water insecurity in Mendocino
County. This water agency will immediately focus on the local
drought emergency and work on other water-related projects,
such as water curtailment and groundwater management, in the
future.
With Lake Mead approaching critically-low levels, the Southern
Nevada Water Authority recently turned to the Legislature to
double-down on its existing strategy for using less water: turf
removal. … [Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager
John] Entsminger, in a recent interview, said the prohibition
would result in significant water savings. The removal of an
estimated 3,900 acres of decorative turf could save roughly 9.3
billion gallons of water annually — about 10 percent of the
state’s entire Colorado River allotment.
Among the nearly one hundred development projects pending on
the county of Napa Current Projects website comes a sleeper of
a project likely to go unnoticed by Napa city residents and
businesses who will be most negatively impacted. The remote
vineyard development project, proposed deep in the
headwaters above Lake Hennessey, seeks to clear 156.8 acres of
existing vegetation including oak woodlands, foothill pine
communities, and grasslands in order to construct a vineyard in
the Conn Creek/Lake Hennessey watershed. -Written by Kellie Anderson, resident of Angwin.
Ateam led by UC Riverside engineers has developed a catalyst to
remove a dangerous chemical from water on Earth that could also
make Martian soil safer for agriculture and help produce oxygen
for human Mars explorers. Perchlorate, a negative ion
consisting of one chlorine atom bonded to four oxygen atoms,
occurs naturally in some soils on Earth, and is especially
abundant in Martian soil. As a powerful oxidizer, perchlorate
is also manufactured and used in solid rocket fuel, fireworks,
munitions, airbag initiators for vehicles, matches and signal
flares. It is a byproduct in some disinfectants and
herbicides.
When the Palo Alto City Council publicly backed the Bay-Delta
Plan in 2018, it was swimming against the political tide. The
plan, formally known as the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta Estuary plan, sets limits on how much water
agencies can siphon from the three tributaries of the San
Joaquin River. While it aims to protect salmon, steelhead and
other river species, it has also attracted intense opposition
and litigation from water districts that claim that the new
restrictions will undermine the reliability of their water
supply.
A proposal that would more than double the cost of sewer
service in the region over the next five years and has drawn
the rage of the area’s hospitality and business interests heads
to a board for final approval on June 7. The board of directors
for Monterey One Water, the regional wastewater management
service, will vote on the proposed schedule of rate increases.
If approved, ratepayers will see a 47-percent jump in their
sewage bills after July 1. By 2025, rates would be 122-percent
higher than they are today. … [T]he increase is needed to
maintain and update the utility’s $750 million infrastructure
assets, some of which are more than 30 years old.
In Sin City, one thing that will soon become unforgivable is
useless grass. A new Nevada law will outlaw about 40% of the
grass in the Las Vegas area in an effort to conserve water amid
a drought that is drying up the region’s primary water source:
the Colorado River. Other cities and states around the US have
enacted temporary bans on lawns that must be watered, but
legislation signed Friday by the state’s governor, Steve
Sisolak, makes Nevada the first in the nation to enact a
permanent ban on certain categories of grass.
The most important thing to understand: If you’re reading this,
you live in a desert. And you can live in this desert because
politicians, scientists and engineers have moved mountains,
almost literally, to bring you life-giving water. The latest
brawl in Water World plays out on this backdrop, and what comes
out of your tap may well depend on the result. Will it come
from recycled waste water? Desalination plants? A giant tunnel
or two under the Delta? The answers will, in large part, depend
on who’s chosen to lead the gargantuan Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, which provides water to 19
million people from Ventura County to the Mexican border.
The City of San Diego plans to spend $10 million to carefully
assess the structural needs of its aging dams, which are among
the oldest in California. San Diego has nine dams that play an
important role in the city’s water supply. By 2022, four will
have stood for a century or more. Only three of the nine dams
are rated in “satisfactory” condition by the state. The
comprehensive assessment will span five years, giving city
officials an itemized forecast of future repair needs and
costs.
Yosemite National Park and the Stanislaus National Forest are
seeking commentary from the public on their plan to restore
wetlands in the Ackerson Meadow, which they said have been
drained as a result of a century of domestic water
diversion. The plans include a complete fill of the
gullies developed over the last century by ranchers and
agriculturalists who utilized water flow, or the the
installation of manmade beaver dams to partially restore the
wetlands.
The WCWCD, along with the Utah Division of Water Resources, …
started making plans [in the 1990s] to import Colorado River
water from Lake Powell via a buried pipeline that would stretch
140 miles through rocky desert terrain, crossing some tribal
lands and sensitive habitats. The project has inched its way
forward over the decades since, finally advancing its
federally-required Environmental Impact Statement through the
public review process during the Trump administration, which
identified the pipeline as one of its infrastructure
priorities.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released its
first assessments of groundwater sustainability plans developed
by local agencies to meet the requirements of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). DWR has completed its
assessment and approved plans for the Santa Cruz Mid-County
Basin in Santa Cruz County and 180/400 Foot Aquifer Subbasin in
Monterey County.
Water Audit California is suing to make Napa County increase
oversight of groundwater pumping for vineyards, wineries, and
other uses, claiming that the pumping affects the Napa River.
The lawsuit said the county has a “public trust” duty to care
for the river. The idea is that too much groundwater pumping
from wells can keep groundwater from seeping into the river
during dry months, to the detriment of fish and other aquatic
life.
Adel Hagekhalil is an inspired choice to be the next general
manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, the agency that delivers the water ultimately used
by half of the state’s population. He’s an engineer, a
consensus builder and a champion of the movement to integrate
management of different types of water — drinking water,
wastewater, stormwater, environmental water — in order to
reduce costs and use precious resources more efficiently. He
may be exactly what the MWD needs at this point in its
history…
How long could you last if water supply was cut off in the
event of an emergency? Our region is nearly entirely reliant on
water that is imported from hundreds of miles away. In the
event of a catastrophe that would prevent water delivery from
outside sources, experts recommend that there be at least 60
days’ worth of water supply. As of now, South Coast Water
District could provide roughly 11 days’ worth. -Written by Lillian Boyd.
San Diego is launching a $10 million effort to complete risk
assessments of all nine of the city’s aging dams — only three
of which are considered in satisfactory condition. City
officials say the assessments are expected to reveal problems
that will require an estimated $1 billion in repairs and
upgrades in coming decades — and possibly some replacement dams
in extreme cases. San Diego’s dams are among the oldest in the
state and the nation.
A complex and arcane water banking program in the lower
Colorado River basin, adopted in 2007 and later amended, was
designed to incentivize water conservation, prevent waste, and
boost storage in a waning Lake Mead. The program has already
proved its worth, lifting Lake Mead dozens of feet higher than
it otherwise would have been…In the next two years, the
program will be tested in another way, becoming a small but
important source of water for Arizona and California even as
the lake continues to fall to levels that haven’t been
witnessed in several generations.
In September 2012, California’s transportation agency announced
it was leading a multi-state partnership to buy more than 100
new passenger railcars, each one assembled on American soil.
Funded in part by the Obama administration’s economic stimulus
plan, the cars would start arriving in late 2015. Instead, the
project has gone badly off the rails. … Excessive levels
of lead have been found in some of the cars’ restroom water
supplies, discovered during routine testing last November, said
Caltrans spokesman Christopher Clark.
[D]uring a panel discussion about water issues in the Golden
State hosted by California state Senator Josh Becker… the
discussion was surprisingly upbeat. “We can do this,” said
Felicia Marcus, a fellow at Stanford’s Water in the West
program and former chair of the State Water Resources Control
Board. “We just have to build more efficient communities and
use technology to track every drop.”
Back in 1977, President Jimmy Carter wanted to put the Central
Arizona Project on a hit list of 17 water projects he found too
expensive and environmentally destructive. … [N]ow, as CAP’s
first water shortages draw near, a more subtle, long-term
threat to the Tucson area’s water future is emerging because of
climate change.
The appeal filed by Gordon Bennett of a proposed well outside
of Point Reyes Station was rejected on Monday by planning
commissioners, who said they did not have the expertise to
evaluate it. Mr. Bennett says he will now appeal the
project to the Board of Supervisors, and will keep appealing
until someone addresses his concerns about maintaining a
minimum flow for endangered coho salmon in Lagunitas
Creek.
California’s water woes are severe and worsening. A second dry
year in a row has diminished the state’s water supply, and
almost three-quarters of the state is in “extreme” or
“exceptional” drought, the two highest categories. With the
rainy season over and a hot, dry summer ahead, water shortages
and brushfires are imminent. …
Who has the right to water in the Kern River? It has been the
subject of fierce legal battles throughout Bakersfield’s
history, and on Friday, the Ventura County Superior Court tried
to answer a part of that question. In a court ruling, Judge
Kevin DeNoce found the city of Bakersfield must supply the
North Kern Water Storage District with 20,000 acre feet of
water it owed the district in 2020 and pay the district $2.8
million to reimburse groundwater pumping costs the district
incurred last year. It’s the latest court decision in a
long-running dispute, and it threatens to limit the city’s
ability to use water from the Kern River.
A new local district aimed at combating the effects of sea
level rise and flooding is making waves this year starting with
a series of public meetings as it works to define its budget
and priorities. The San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise
Resiliency District, known as OneShoreline, was founded in
early 2020 by the California Legislature to work to prevent and
to address the effects of flooding and sea level rise
throughout the county and on its shores, both on the Bayside
and the Coastside.
Passing President Biden’s infrastructure bill would be the most
significant step we’ve taken as a nation to start to address
climate change head on. Greenbelt Alliance believes this
infrastructure bill is a great start. Yet, so far there is no
path to guide how we can equitably shift away from rebuilding
in the most climate-vulnerable areas and instead build for a
more resilient future. That’s why we’re recommending this
infrastructure bill and related actions adopt these three
principles as a simple yet transformational way forward… -Written by Amanda Brown-Stevens, the San
Francisco-based Greenbelt Alliance.
The City of Santa Monica could issue revenue bonds that will
allow officials to continue a number of water sustainability
projects in the wake of an $84 million funding gap. In 2018,
Santa Monica City Council approved a Sustainable Water Master
Plan (SWMP) Update in an effort to establish a diverse,
sustainable and drought-resilient local water supply.
Day after day, sheriff’s deputies drive up and down the road
outside Steve Griset’s 600-acre farm, pulling over anyone who
appears to be hauling water for the thousands of marijuana
greenhouses that have taken over the countryside here. Griset
has become a target, even though he grows alfalfa. Last year,
investigators with the Siskiyou County District Attorney’s
Office raided Griset’s house with a search warrant looking for
his business records, and the DA followed up with a lawsuit in
civil court. Griset’s alleged transgressions? He was selling
water from his well to his pot-farming neighbors, immigrants of
Hmong descent …
Southern California’s biggest water supplier has chosen a new
general manager — but the selection isn’t yet final, and the
fiercely contested vote is exposing deep disagreements within
the powerful agency as a severe drought grips the region. The
Metropolitan Water District’s board of directors voted this
month to select Adel Hagekhalil to lead the agency, The Times
has learned, replacing longtime head honcho Jeff Kightlinger,
who is retiring. Hagekhalil runs L.A.’s Bureau of Street
Services and was previously second-in-command at the city’s
sanitation department.
With the current drought already impacting over 90 million
people in the U.S. and with water scarcity likely to get worse
because of population growth and climate change, there is an
urgent need to invest in water efficiency. This threat goes
well beyond the arid west. Thirty-three states have been hit by
drought since 2000, including ones located in the Great Plains,
Midwest, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. And scientists
warn that most of the country is on pace to experience water
shortages if we don’t manage water better. -Written by Ron Burke, president and CEO of the
Alliance for Water Efficiency, and Mary Ann
Dickinson, founding president and CEO of AWE.
Infrastructure is rightly enjoying its spot in the national
limelight these days, with the Biden Administration busily
unveiling its plans. However, being well intentioned is as
important as being pragmatic. After all, the warning signs have
been there for all to see when it comes to lack of investment
in infrastructure—impacting communities from Los Gatos to
Washington, D.C. -Written by Andy Gere, president and chief
operating officer of San Jose Water.
A massive new data center is set to be built in Mesa, Arizona,
after the City Council voted in favor of a controversial
development agreement. Critics noted that the huge facility
would consume millions of gallons of water as the city and
state struggle with dwindling supplies. The company behind the
project has hidden its identity, operating via the pseudonym
Redale LLC.
The Arizona Legislature wants to look into the feasibility of
pumping water from the Mississippi River to Arizona. But the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has already studied the idea, and
weighed in on the project in 2012. The agency studied factors
such as cost, legal issues, power use and the amount of time
the project would take. A report estimated the project could
cost up to $14 billion; the timetable was around 30
years.
The Marin Municipal Water District is considering banning new
water service hookups to homes in response to worsening drought
conditions. But the move could hurt future housing development
in an area already in dire need of more homes. The move would
come amid historic drought conditions in the area, with county
officials declaring a local drought emergency last week in
light of a “grim and deteriorating” situation. The National
Drought Mitigation Center’s drought monitor recently deemed
most of the Bay Area as extreme drought zones for the first
time since 2015.
[On May 20, 2021] Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael)
reintroduced his FUTURE Western Water Infrastructure and
Drought Resiliency Act (FUTURE Act), an ambitious water
infrastructure proposal that is the culmination of months of
public vetting and legislative development. This bill would
develop more resilient water infrastructure, expand the use of
modern water management tools and technologies, and assist
underserved areas in meeting their drinking water needs.
As more of California sinks into extreme drought, Gov. Gavin
Newsom has asked the Legislature to appropriate billions of
dollars to address critical water needs. In the “May revise”—an
update to the budget proposal he initially submitted to the
Legislature in January—Newsom proposes to spend nearly $3.5
billion on water supply and resilience projects, with total
investment reaching $5.1 billion over multiple years.
Tiny structures inspired by the shape of cactus spines allow a
newly created material to gather drinkable water from the air
both day and night, combining two water-harvesting technologies
into one. The material, a micro-architected hydrogel membrane
(more on that later), can produce water through both solar
steam-water generation and fog collection—two independent
processes that typically require two separate devices. A paper
about the material was published in Nature Communications on
May 14.
Facing extended drought, diminishing snowpack, and depleted
aquifers, California water managers face a harsh reality: our
20th century water systems – essentially linear designs in
which fresh water is extracted, centrally treated, distributed
to users, returned as wastewater, and finally treated and
discarded – are breaking down. Although this approach has
served us well for decades, we can no longer sustain ourselves
with a paradigm that uses water once and throws it away. -Written by Peter Fiske, a scientist at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and executive director of
the Department of Energy’s National Alliance for Water
Innovation.
Last week, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA)
held their spring conference virtually. Keynote speakers
included Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of Natural Resources, and
Karla Nemeth, Director of the Department of Water
Resources. In his speech, [Crowfoot] discussed the Newsom
Administration’s priorities, calling this the ‘decade of
resilience’, and giving three principles for going
forward. He also discussed the Voluntary
Agreements. Director Karla Nemeth gave the Thursday
morning keynote speech, touching on the Department’s response
to drought, SGMA implementation, the Delta Conveyance Project,
and the water use efficiency regulations.
Arizona’s drought has lawmakers looking into drawing water from
the Mississippi River to be used here in the desert. “This kind
of project would be looking 20 years down the road,” said
Republican Rep. Tim Dunn from Yuma. Dunn sponsored
House Concurrent Memorial 2004, which got bipartisan support in
the Arizona legislature, and urges Congress to study a plan for
a pipeline that would take water out of the Mississippi River
near Davenport, Iowa.
Crystal Geyser bought the nearly 145,000 square foot bottling
plant in 2013. Since then, it’s been the target of protests by
local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Opponents say if it ever started operating, it would draw down
too much water, and cause air and noise pollution. … They are
in the midst of suing the beverage company in an effort to get
a new environmental impact report.
More wildfires. Hotter days. Drought. Sea-level rise. Those
conditions are an increasing reality in California, which is
steadily becoming an altered state. But if the grimmest
predictions of experts about our state and climate change
become true, the conditions will become far worse.
With very little water to spare this drought year, water
districts struggling with limited or no supplies look to their
counterparts in other districts to negotiate water transfers to
add whatever flexibility they can. Districts on the west side
of the Central Valley, both north and south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, face the prospect of receiving no
water from the Central Valley Project.
Suffering through a prolonged dry period, utilities are
increasingly relying on sewage to generate the state’s water
needs. Known in industry parlance as “recycled wastewater”
and in lay terms as “toilet to tap,” this water source
understandably triggers a gag reflex in some consumers — but it
shouldn’t. Recycled wastewater is quickly becoming the
single most important element of a drought-proof water supply
in the climate-change era, and it happens to be as pure and
delicious as anything you might buy bottled from the Swiss
Alps.
The seven members of the Delta Stewardship Council were seated
in 2010. The Council appointed ten prominent scientists to the
Delta ISB. Over the next decade, the Delta ISB produced over 30
scientific reviews, averaging over 3,000 hours of work per
year. But in 2020, the work of the Delta ISB stalled. The Delta
Stewardship Council reduced funding for the Delta ISB by over
90%.
Millions of people are betting on Arizona. They’re buying
homes, starting businesses, and families. The future of how we
use our water resources may dictate the future of their
success. … That question was addressed four decades earlier
with the Groundwater Management Act of 1980. The idea was the
law would ensure when water was taken out, just as much was put
back in, creating what they called a safe yield goal by
2025. Unfortunately, a new study released by ASU
researchers with the Kyl Center shows the law is not living up
to its promise as deep, thousands of years old aquifers
continue to be over-pumped.
The drought has some members of the Arizona Legislature
wondering if the state should look for a new source of water:
the Mississippi River. Conservationists wonder if lawmakers
should try a different approach. As Arizona braces for a
drought contingency plan to kick in, the Legislature has
floated the idea of damming the Mississippi and piping the
water here. The idea received overwhelming support among
lawmakers, though it is unclear if the project is viable. Sandy
Bahr, with the Sierra Club, told KJZZ’s The Show last month the
state needs to adjust its thinking about water, especially in
times of drought.
After seven years of controversy, Crystal Geyser Water Company
announced last week that it has given up on opening its Mount
Shasta facility. A representative for the company said Crystal
Geyser was “challenged every step of the way” since it
purchased the nearly 145,000 square foot facility in 2013.
East Bay Municipal Utility District officials have seen
droughts come and go. But they seem to be coming more
frequently this century. Climate change is stoking devastating
wildfire seasons year after year, drying the state out and just
making it more flammable the following year. State water
officials say that means less water in the Mokelumne River
Watershed, the main source for EBMUD and its 1.4 million
customers. Last winter was the state’s driest since 1977,
prompting the district to officially declare a stage one
drought on April 27 and ask customers to cut ten percent of
their water use. What can the East Bay expect moving forward?
[I]n a new study, UCLA researchers found that nitrogen in
treated sewage is driving a massive growth of oceanic algae and
loss of oxygen, which will likely have lasting effects on the
region’s ecosystem. From 1997 to 2000, for example, the growth
of microscopic marine algae called phytoplankton was 79% higher
than it would have been without nitrogen from human sewage in
the waters along the coast from the Baja California Peninsula
to Santa Barbara. The problem occurs in large part because
freshwater from sewage is less dense than the seawater it’s
injected into, which causes the wastewater to rises to the
surface, where phytoplankton live.
California — already in the clutches of another drought
emergency — is looking over its shoulder at what happened
last time, anticipating the worst and evaluating the strategies
that worked and those that failed. So is California in a
better position to weather this drought? Some things are
worse, some better: Groundwater is still being pumped with no
statewide limits, siphoning up drinking water that rural
communities rely on. In northern counties, residents are
reliving the last disaster as water restrictions kick in again,
but in the south, enough water is stored to avoid them for now.
… The upshot is California isn’t ready — again.
San Diego’s vulnerability to water shortages and drought is
shrinking significantly because residents and businesses are
using less water and city officials are boosting the local
supply. A new city analysis shows local water use dropped
sharply from 81.5 billion gallons in 2007 to about 57 billion
gallons in 2020, even though the city’s population has grown
about 1 percent per year over that time. The new data has
prompted city officials to revise downward long-term
projections of local water use by about 20 percent compared to
their estimates from 2015, the last time the city conducted
such an analysis.
Nancy Smith remembered that children had called it “the sick
land” — the wedge of property alongside the 110 Freeway where a
dry cleaning facility had laundered aprons and uniforms for
decades across from a Lincoln Heights elementary school.
… Decades after the old Welch’s laundry was shuttered,
California regulators worked to clean up the soil and check the
groundwater for the chemicals used there — volatile
organic compounds such as tetrachloroethylene that could damage
the human liver and nervous system and have
been tied to an increased risk of cancer. The Department
of Toxic Substances Control oversaw a cleanup effort that
lasted for years and has continued to monitor groundwater at
the site.
Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power’s St. Francis Dam collapsed,
inundating the canyon below with some 12 billion gallons of
water. The floodwaters, which in the darkness registered first
as a mounting roar to those who were awake, tossed 10,000-ton
fragments of the dam thousands of feet downstream and scoured
the canyon walls to bare rock. More than 400 people in the
flood’s 53-mile path to the sea were drowned or battered to
death as the torrent sheared through orchards, pulverized
buildings, and crumpled bridges.
Last year, for the first time, it became possible to trade
water on Wall Street through futures contracts. Normally
reserved for commodities like oil or precious metals, water
became the latest asset to join the financial market. But how
could this practice impact the planet? The trading in the
future prices of highly-prized commodities, where buyers agree
to purchase an asset at a set date in the future for an agreed
price, began in Japan in the seventeenth century with the
trading in rice futures. The latest commodity to begin trading
in futures is water supplied in American’s most populous state,
California.
Earth’s surface is ever changing. Sinkholes swallow
neighborhoods, river deltas slowly slide beneath the waves, and
fertile fields lose elevation as farmers draw large amounts of
water for irrigation from underlying aquifers. [T]hese
phenomena are known as subsidence … Building heavy
structures such as homes, skyscrapers, and even entire cities
also can trigger subsidence, explains Tom Parsons, a
geophysicist at the US Geological Survey in Moffett Field, CA.
Recently, he used computer simulations to estimate the effect
of San Francisco and its metropolitan area—where he and 7.75
million other people reside—on Earth’s crust.
A federal appeals court has rebuked the U.S. government for
failing to properly consider the interest of Native American
nations in developing allocation guidelines for the Colorado
River Basin’s waters and ordered it to prioritize obligations
assumed when it signed a treaty with the Navajo Nation in 1868.
The April 28 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
may boost Native American negotiating clout as the basin’s
states ponder how to address impacts of ongoing drought in the
region.
Twenty years ago, in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral race, a topic
usually seen as dull became the most lurid issue of the
campaign. The topic was water recycling, and we are still being
hurt by the rhetoric from that election today. Candidate Joel
Wachs, a longtime member of the City Council, didn’t even make
the runoff that year. But during the primary he alarmed voters
across the city by insisting that Los Angeles was furtively
planning to pipe recycled sewage to millions of unsuspecting
Angelenos — without, according to Wachs, adequate public input
or scientific research. The recycling idea became widely known
as “toilet to tap” … -Written by Marc Haefele, a Santa Monica freelance
writer.
El Dorado Irrigation District’s territory extends across the
county line to a small piece of Folsom — a total of 190 acres.
A developer is planning to turn that acreage into a
subdivision. Currently the property is all range land and there
is no request for water service. The earliest that water
service could be requested may not be until 2023. El Dorado
Irrigation District has been a multi-county agency since the
early 1980s, according to Jesse Saich, EID communications
manager.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural
Statistics Service (NASS) is forecasting another record almond
crop for California. The 2021 California Almond Subjective
Forecast estimates a three percent increase from last year’s
3.12-billion-pound crop. According to USDA-NASS, California
growers could be looking at a 2021 crop of 3.2 billion pounds.
If that number comes to fruition, it would be the largest
almond crop on record.
California’s water supply is critical to the state’s
agriculture industry. Up to 80% of table olives come from
California, and while olive trees are more drought-tolerant
than other crops, that isn’t stopping Northern California olive
growers from making significant changes to conserve our most
precious resource. Olives are a passion for Dennis Burreson,
who says he’s held just about every job with Musco Family Olive
Company since joining Musco 43 years ago.
On its surface, the idea of banking water to bridge the
certainty of future rain-deficient periods seems like an
innovative and non-controversial planning procedure. In the
end, however, it all depends on who holds the keys to the bank.
The notion of water banking has grabbed local attention lately
following a controversial and divided 3-2 vote March 3 by San
Luis Obispo County supervisors, a vote which numerous North
County entities view as opening the door to selling and
exporting county water resources to the highest outside bidder.
A federal agency Wednesday forecast a record harvest of 3.2
billion pounds of almonds in California. That would be a 3%
increase over 2020 for the nuts, the highest-grossing crop in
Stanislaus and several other counties. The report will set the
tone for the global almond trade, since California accounts for
about 80% of the supply. Several thousand people work on farms
and in processing plants in the Central Valley.
May is American Wetlands Month and this year also marks the
50th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of
International Importance. This intergovernmental treaty is
focused on the conservation and wise use of important wetlands
and their resources. … Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine
Research Reserve … provides habitat for a diversity
of wildlife species, including more than 100 species of fish,
500 species of invertebrates, and the region’s iconic southern
sea otters. … Tomales Bay is a marine-coastal
wetland consisting of estuaries, eelgrass beds, sand dune
systems, and tidal marshes.
Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla (both D-Calif.)
today joined with Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky
Rosen (both D-Nev.) to introduce bipartisan legislation to
extend authorization of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The
original Lake Tahoe Restoration Act was passed in 2000 and
authorized $300 million for the restoration of the lake and
surrounding basin. The current authorization, which was passed
in 2016, will expire in 2024. Reauthorizing the bill will
prevent an interruption in conservation and restoration
planning.
At a time when California is facing severe drought conditions
that triggered Governor Gavin Newsom’s declaring a state of
emergency and providing more than $5 billion dollars for water
infrastructure and drought response funding, Congressman Jim
Costa (CA-16) introduced bipartisan legislation to address
California water supply and water quality goals…
Ben Tobin has questions about the Grand Canyon’s caves. The
University of Kentucky geologist started learning about caves
as a young man, in part because his mother was a geologist, and
a childhood fascination grew over time. … When he was in
college, an internship in Arkansas doing cave tours got him
hooked, and eventually his work brought him out West, to Grand
Canyon National Park. Tobin specializes in what’s known as
karst hydrology. These are underground systems made up of
soluble rock such as limestone. To Tobin, caves are like
another world, with blind animals, fossils and archeological
finds.
Only one week remains to register for our May 20 virtual
Lower
Colorado River Tour where you can hear directly
from experts offering a range of perspectives on the most
contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Practically every drop of water in the
Colorado River is already allocated, but pressure on the
hard-working river continues to grow from myriad sources —
increasing population, declining habitat and climate
change.
Well owners in Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley are invited to join community meetings on groundwater
conditions and sustainable management of this critical water
source. The Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are nearing
completion of major plans that identify issues with current and
future groundwater resources and that describe how these
challenges will be addressed.
Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson, along with prominent
North Coast water managers and politicians gathered at a
virtual summit yesterday morning to discuss the severe drought
facing the North Coast and the entire state. At the summit (a
recording of which is available on YouTube), State Senator Mike
McGuire stated that the state legislature is moving forward on
a several billion dollar drought relief package, which would
include $1 billion in grants to help ratepayers and utilities
pay off back bills and $500 million to help smaller low income
communities develop enhanced drinking water supplies, among
other things (read the full list below).
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has
demonstrated its ability to meet expected water demands in the
region for the next quarter century, even under drought
conditions, in a long-term management plan approved Tuesday by
its board of directors. Metropolitan’s Urban Water
Management Plan provides a summary of the agency’s
anticipated water demands and supplies through 2045, and shows
the district will meet demands under normal water years, single
dry-years, and five-year drought sequences.
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well
as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California
fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its
current rate. With state water resources constrained by the
extreme drought, that’s the alarm that environmental, fishing
and tribal groups are sounding after reports show the
Sacramento River will reach dangerous temperatures during
spawning season, based on federal scientific scenarios that
analyze the bureau’s planned water releases.
Among attributes of the controversial Poseidon desalination
plant proposed for Huntington Beach is the $1.5 million or so
it would spend annually to keep the tidal inlet open at the
Bolsa Chica wetlands, five miles up the coast from the project
site. But as much as the money is needed there, the three
non-profit groups dedicated to the wetlands’ preservation clash
when it comes to support for the desalter plant. The state
spent $151 million to create the inlet in 2006, restoring the
estuary’s interaction with the ocean and revitalizing the
wildlife habitat. The work has been a particular boon to the
population and variety of birds.
A San Bernardino Superior Court judge has made a ruling against
the Town of Apple Valley in its attempt to take over its
largest supplier of water. In a tentative decision issued
Friday, Judge Donald Alvarez found that Liberty Utilities had
“disproved” the town’s arguments that its acquisition of the
company’s water system would be in the public’s interest and a
necessity. … The town filed its eminent domain lawsuit
in January 2016 when the system was owned by Ranchos Water
Company in response to what they said was a public outcry over
rising water rates.
I am proud to be a part of California agriculture. Our state
has the impressive responsibility of feeding our country—and
even the world. We have led the nation in agricultural
production for the past 60 years due to our richly productive
land and climate. Yet, our agriculture industry now faces
serious and urgent challenges, from recovering from last year’s
multiple crises to the ever-increasing competition in the
global market. -Written by Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, chair of the
Assembly Agriculture Committee.
Arizona legislators are looking eastward to ease the impact of
a two-decade drought in the Colorado River Basin. According to
Arizona Rep. Tim Dunn, who represents the area of Yuma, the
Legislature is asking Congress to fund a technological and
feasibility study for diverting floodwater from the Mississippi
River to replenish the Colorado River. Whether that comes in
the form of a diversion dam or pipeline, Dunn says the plan
would benefit both the Midwestern and Southwestern United
States.
Newly released emails reveal that lawyers and lobbyists for
mining companies, developers and the agriculture industry had a
hand behind the scenes in shaping Arizona’s newly adopted law
on clean-water rules for rivers and streams. The emails
show the involvement of these influential groups went beyond
their public endorsements of the legislation. Their lawyers and
lobbyists were given access to offer input while the final
legislation was being drafted, and the emails show they
suggested specific language, offered “wordsmithing” tweaks and
requested significant changes that state officials incorporated
into the bill.
In June, Valley Water will start building a 1,700-foot long
tunnel next to Anderson Dam that will allow us to release more
water safely during major storms or emergencies. This work is a
significant milestone in our efforts to strengthen Anderson Dam
and protect our communities. Before construction on the tunnel
begins, Valley Water will host a virtual community meeting from
6-8pm on May 19. Please join us via a Zoom videoconference
(details below) to learn more about the upcoming work and
impacts on the neighborhood. We will also answer as many of
your questions as possible. -Written by John Varela, representing District 1 on
the Valley Water Board of Directors.
Many dryland cities like Los Angeles, Cairo and Tehran have
already outstripped natural water recharge, but are expected to
continue growing, resulting in a deepening arid urban water
crisis. … The situations in arid and semi-arid cities
like Phoenix, Arizona; Bamako, Mali; or Dubai, UAE, differ in
their particulars, but rhyme in their impending disastrous
trajectory. These, and other arid-region cities, are
approaching the edge of an ecological cliff: dependent on
sustaining growth, which itself requires a growth in water
supplied by faraway and finite sources, and delivered by aging
infrastructure. But water in dryland regions is
getting scarcer and supplies
more unpredictable.
On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups, fishing
organizations, stakeholders in the Delta, and the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe sent this letter to the Biden Administration,
urging the Administration not to endorse the so-called
“Voluntary Agreements” for the Bay-Delta watershed.
Unfortunately, the State of California continues to negotiate
backroom deals with the biggest water users in the State that
fail to protect and restore water quality in the
Bay-Delta, threatening thousands of fishing jobs, farms and
communities in the Delta, and the health of this watershed and
its native fish and wildlife.
The California State Lands Commission properly reviewed a
stalled desalination planned to be built on the coast south of
Los Angeles, a state appeals court says. In a decision filed
Saturday, the appeals court affirmed a lower court’s rejection
of a challenge to the plant by the environmental group
California Coastkeeper Alliance and others. It determined that
a 2017 re-review of the planned desalination plant in
Huntington Beach adequately complied with the requirements of
the California Environmental Quality Act.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Thursday that her
department is pushing forward with its efforts to conserve 30
percent of U.S. land and waters by 2030, even as the
administration’s own findings highlight the need to define what
it means for an area to be considered conserved. Haaland cited
a recent move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expand
hunting and fishing opportunities and previewed an upcoming
announcement of $150 million for a program that builds parks in
underserved communities.
A water district locked in a long-running legal battle over
residential rates with the city of Ventura recently agreed
to pay $1 million, but the fight does not appear to
be over. City Attorney Gregory Diaz said Friday he
expected the United Water Conservation District to
exercise its option to appeal. Ventura has filed lawsuits every
year against the water district since the agency implemented
increased charges in 2011-12. This settlement is for fiscal
year 2019-20. The district charged residential customers
three times more than agricultural customers for groundwater,
and the city challenged its methodology.
Along a hot, dusty stretch of freeway in California’s Coachella
Valley, a green rush is booming that not even the coronavirus
pandemic can slow. Desert Hot Springs, once a sleepy retirement
community overshadowed by its more glamorous neighbor, Palm
Springs, to the south, is transforming into a cannabis-growing
capital as businesses lured by tax incentives and a
420-friendly local government pour into the small city.
… With constant sun and almost no rain, growing cannabis
in the desert requires a mammoth water and power supply to keep
indoor operations going when outside temperatures soar.
The North Marin Water District failed to adequately study
whether there will be enough water for endangered fish in
Lagunitas Creek if it builds a new well in West Marin, an
environmental group alleges. The well is intended to address
worsening saltwater contamination in the water supply. Save Our
Seashore, a nonprofit in Inverness, filed an appeal against the
project with the Marin County Planning Commission. … The
commission is expected to hold a hearing on the issue on May
24.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) advises
being cautious during visits to Castaic Lake starting this May
during construction on the Castaic Dam in Santa Clarita, which
is expected to include a series of modernizations to prepare
for potential major earthquakes. Intending to reduce risks from
potential major earthquakes, the DWR plans to oversee Castaic
Dam construction in Santa Clarita, but the department also
warns of potential water hazards during the process.
In scale and ambition, California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) has few parallels. And the work becomes
increasingly urgent as the climate crisis makes water shortages
increasingly severe. … This emphasis on local expertise
points to SGMA’s possibilities — and its potential pitfalls —
especially when it comes to deciding what “sustainable” water
management means. Each management body has wide discretion to
define “sustainability” — and the path to
sustainability by 2040 — for its particular basin.
In a hotter climate, dirt is a hot commodity. With sea levels
expected to rise 3 to 6 feet by the end of the century, coastal
communities are moving fast to construct major shoreline
projects to protect themselves. As the size of these projects
expands, the primary building materials — dirt and mud — are
getting scarce. … [Parts of San Francisco Bay
were] once used for industrial salt making, and giant
evaporation ponds were built here more than a century ago. Now,
its marsh habitat is being restored as part of the Eden
Landing Ecological Reserve. The old salt pond levees still
stand between the bay and hundreds of thousands of people on
the shoreline. But waves and weather have eaten away at them.
Conservationists in California and across the West are deeply
skeptical of hydropower, and it’s not hard to see why. There’s
a long history of government agencies damming spectacular
canyons, choking off rivers, obliterating fish populations and
cutting off access to Indigenous peoples. … But despite the
environmental damage they’ve done, many dams also generate
electricity that is free of planet-warming carbon emissions.
Tearing down dams can revitalize ecosystems, but it can also
contribute to a climate crisis that is making rivers around the
world drier in some cases, more prone to flooding in others,
and in many cases hotter and more polluted.
-Written by Sammy Roth, a Los Angeles Times staff
writer.
A big change in drought conditions came out Thursday
morning for all of California. With an update from
the US Drought Monitor, 73% of California is now listed in
Extreme Drought, the second most severe classification the US
Drought Monitor utilizes. So far, 5% of California is
listed as being in Exceptional Drought, which is the US Drought
Monitor’s top-level drought designation. The increase to
73% is a significant jump from 53% in Extreme Drought from last
week. This news comes on the heels of other drought changes,
such as water restrictions for agriculture north of the
Delta.
Farmersville is opening the floodgates for growth upon the
completion of the wastewater treatment facility expansion, the
most expensive public works project in the city’s history. The
newly-updated wastewater treatment facility comes in at about
$23 million, switching from percolating basins to updated
technology like digesters and clarifiers to meet the city’s
growing population and updated state requirements. City manager
Jennifer Gomez said she’s excited to see the project of over 10
years come to completion.
At the Water Education Foundation, we focus on telling the
complex story of water in California and the West because of
its critical role in sustaining our lives, growing our food and
nourishing our environment. As a nonprofit we rely on the
generosity of people who value what we do – enhancing
public understanding of our most important natural
resource and catalyzing critical conversations to inform
collaborative decision-making.
Donate here to help us keep doing what we do, and
join us for a virtual open house at 4:30 p.m. today.
In 2021, access to running water and clean drinking water is a
given for most Americans. The Census Bureau has even considered
dropping a question on plumbing access from the U.S. census
questionnaire. But many of the nation’s tribes still lack
running water, access to clean water, and even flushing
toilets. Native American households are 19 times more likely
than white households to lack indoor plumbing, according to the
U.S. Water Alliance, and more likely to lack piped water
services than any other racial group. That problem is at an
inflection point for the Navajo Nation and 29 other tribes in
the Colorado River Basin, which stretches from the Rocky
Mountains to Mexico.
A recent spate of spring blazes announced an alarmingly early
start to California’s wildfire season, which is fast occupying
too much of the year to fit any conventional understanding of
the word “season.” With historically low moisture measurements
suggesting vegetation is particularly primed to burn, too many
Californians are about to find themselves in wildfires’ way.
… The prospects for a respite aren’t hopeful. Following
California’s third driest rain season on record, Gov. Gavin
Newsom is tiptoeing toward acknowledging a statewide
drought.
Increasingly ominous signs suggest that we are entering another
multiyear drought in California. The State Water Project
recently reduced projected water deliveries for 2021 from 10
percent of requested supplies to 5 percent, and on April 21,
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a regional drought emergency in the
Russian River watershed in Northern California. But it’s a
different story in San Diego County.
-Written by Gary Croucher, chair of the San Diego County
Water Authority’s Board of Directors.
California is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet,
and the San Diego region is one of the most diverse in
California, but we are losing our biodiversity at an alarming
rate. The coming summer months and dry conditions are going to
further hurt that richness of life here. Conserving our water
resources directly and indirectly benefits our wildlife and is
consistent with the overall conservation ethic in San Diego,
which is why we need to prepare in case drought conditions
worsen.
-Written by Chuck Bonham, director of the CA Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
California could get 600,000 new acres of federally protected
wilderness under legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate
recently. The designation would ensure the lands remain free of
development, vehicles and commercial activity. … It
would also designate more than 583 miles of river — including
45 miles of San Gabriel River tributaries, as well as Little
Rock Creek — as “wild and scenic rivers,” a protection that
prohibits dams or new mining.
Rarely has a routine water resources bill generated so much
political buzz, but as senators hoisted the measure to passage
Thursday the bipartisan infrastructure legislation served as a
potential template for building consensus around President Joe
Biden’s ambitious American Jobs Plan. The Drinking Water and
Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 authorizes about $35
billion over five years to improve leaky pipes and upgrade
facilities, and is widely supported by lawmakers and their
states back home. This time, though, it could be so much more —
a building block in Biden’s broader $2.3 trillion proposal to
invest in roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
As demand for electric vehicles heats up, there’s concern about
a shortage of the key minerals needed to make them. The Biden
administration has called for boosting domestic production of
such minerals, including lithium for the lithium-ion batteries
used in electric vehicles. And that has many hoping for big
business in a desolate spot of California’s Imperial Valley. A
few miles from the shores of California’s Salton Sea, a
construction crew is at work on the future site of Hell’s
Kitchen Lithium and Power. It’s a geothermal facility, meaning
it uses Earth’s natural heat to create electricity.
Roseville is the recipient of $33 million in low-interest
financing from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA)
program. This funding will accelerate water supply planning and
implementation under Roseville’s Water Future Initiative. …
WIFIA program funding and utility operation funds will advance
two critical efforts under Water Future. We will increase the
number of groundwater wells and examine how we can expand water
recycling over time.
Little is said about the role of Lake Pillsbury in our
regional water system or the critical water it provides
to fill Lake Mendocino. If anything, its importance
to understated or not referenced at all in most media
articles. Without Lake Pillsbury at the Eel River
headwaters to control downstream flows, both the Eel and
Russian Rivers and surrounding aquifers will intermittently dry
up. … A strong movement is afoot to remove Scott Dam and
eliminate Lake Pillsbury… -Written by Frank Lynch & Carol Cinquini, Directors of
the Lake Pillsbury Alliance.
Swap this year and the period of Marin County’s worst-ever
drought in 1976-77 and it might be hard to tell the difference.
Water suppliers restricting use to conserve reservoirs.
Ranchers preparing to truck in water as creeks and wells dry
up. Talks of a potential water pipeline. And questions about
the resiliency of the county’s water supply. During the 1976-77
drought, the Marin Municipal Water District was within 120 days
of running out of water. The county’s savior was a 6-mile
pipeline over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to pump in water
from the East Bay.
The Senate approved a $35 billion water infrastructure bill
after defeating controversial amendments — marking the
advancement of the first piece of a larger infrastructure
package.
Poseidon Water won a key approval Thursday in its long quest to
build a seawater desalination plant on the Orange County
coastline. But the permit from the Santa Ana Regional Quality
Control Board does not ensure that the $1-billion ocean
desalter will rise on the grounds of an old power plant in
Huntington Beach. Poseidon still needs a construction permit
from the California Coastal Commission and, most critically, a
binding deal with a public agency to buy 50 million gallons a
day of purified seawater.
The Nevada Assembly voted Thursday to approve a non-residential
turf removal proposal brought by Southern Nevada water
regulators, who say it will save the water-shy Las Vegas Valley
12 billion gallons of water per year. With little debate from
lawmakers, the Assembly voted 30-12 on Assembly Bill 356,
sending the proposal to the Senate. Four Republicans — Glen
Leavitt, R-Boulder City, Heidi Kasama, R-Las Vegas, Melissa
Hardy, R-Henderson, and Jill Tolles, R-Reno — crossed party
lines to vote with the 26 Democrats.
Disagreement over restoring the Ballona Wetlands still remains
high. Walter Lamb, president of the Ballona Wetlands Land
Trust, recently held a webinar to discuss why the current
restoration plans are inadequate. The Land Trust disagrees with
the assertions of organizations such as Friends of Ballona
Wetlands, as they aren’t supported by available facts. Lamb
based his talking points around Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive
order made on October 7, 2020, of protecting biodiversity and
an announcement phasing out fossil fuels from September 23,
2020.
The frequency of natural disasters has soared in recent
decades. Total damage topped $210 billion worldwide in 2020.
With climate change, the costs attributed to coastal storms
will increase dramatically. At the same time, coastal habitats
such as wetlands and reefs are being lost rapidly. Some 20% of
the world’s mangroves were lost over the last four decades.
More than half of the Great Barrier Reef was degraded by
bleaching in 2020 alone. In California, we have lost more than
90% of our coastal marshes. -Written by Michael W. Beck, a research professor in
the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz.
Millions of people across our nation, and countless millions
throughout the world depend on California’s farms and ranches
for the food they eat every single day. California leads the
nation as the country’s largest agricultural producer and
exporter and serves as a vital link in the world’s food supply
chain. However, a resilient and reliable water supply is
essential to ensure that California farmers and ranchers can
continue to provide a safe and reliable food supply to our
nation and the world. The state’s water infrastructure is
getting older and stressed beyond its capabilities …
When President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress
tonight a common thread will likely run through much of his
narrative: resilience. Beyond touting his administration’s
accomplishments, Biden is expected to use the spotlight to
pitch his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, a wide-ranging
infrastructure initiative that promises “every dollar” spent on
rebuilding highways, airports, water systems and more will be
used to “prevent, reduce and withstand the impacts of the
climate crisis.”
Today’s commentary breaks my heart. Why? Because
Restore the Delta is focused on water quality issues, flood
control issues, future planning, and training the next
generation of local water experts – for that is where hope
exists. We are focused on the future because in some ways
we have become very cynical about any positive meaningful
change to Delta management presently — from the lack of care at
the highest levels of government, to local pockets of Delta
communities that will not acknowledge the deterioration of the
estuary before their eyes.
-Written by Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, who serves on
the Executive Committee at Large for Restore the
Delta.
Monterey One Water officials on Monday moved closer to its goal
of providing additional water for the Monterey Peninsula when
it unanimously approved a key environmental report for its
expansion project. The 10 members of the board of Monterey One
Water all voted to approve an environmental document called a
supplemental environmental impact report, or SEIR, that
advances closer to the expansion of its regional treatment
plant. … Monday’s action allows Monterey One to move
closer to expanding its treatment facility — Pure Water
Monterey — to increase the amount of treated water reintroduced
to groundwater and consequently dramatically increase the
Peninsula’s supply.
In what may become an iconic image for drought-stricken
California, Gov. Gavin Newsom stood on the parched bed of Lake
Mendocino on April 21 to announce an emergency declaration for
Sonoma and Mendocino counties. … [T]he reservoir was at a
historically low 43% of capacity, the harbinger of what could
be a devastating drought cycle not only for the Northern
California counties that fell within his drought declaration,
but for most of the state — indeed, the American
West. -Written by Michael Hiltzik, a Los Angeles Times
columnist.
Millions of drinking wells around the world may soon be at risk
of running dry. Overpumping, drought and the steady influence
of climate change are depleting groundwater resources all over
the globe, according to new research. As much as 20% of the
world’s groundwater wells may be facing imminent failure,
potentially depriving billions of people of fresh water.
… Residents of California’s Central Valley are preparing
for another arid summer and the rising risk of dry
wells, The Fresno Bee reported yesterday. It’s a
recurring pattern there.
Gov. Doug Ducey on April 21 signed a bill that provides larger
grants for developing water projects in rural areas, but
questions linger on whether there will be any money for
them. House Bill 2388, sponsored by Rep. Gail Griffin,
R-Hereford, expands the amount of a single grant from the Water
Supply Development Revolving Fund from $100,000 to
$250,000. The recipient water provider must be
located in a county with a population of fewer than 1.5 million
people. While Griffin said the fund isn’t just
meant for rural areas, some experts who work with water believe
the benefits can greatly help many rural communities.
