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.
Intel’s Sept. 24 groundbreaking ceremony for the $20 billion
expansion of the Ocotillo campus in Chandler brought out all
the top officials. … But it’s unlikely any of them would have
been there until Intel overcame one key issue to doing business
in the desert: Water. It takes a lot of water to run a
manufacturing plant. In addition to the potable water needed
for a workforce of several thousands, they also need a lot of
water for their cooling towers.
On a dusty hilltop in San Diego, the drinking water of the
future courses through a wildly complicated and very loud
jumble of tanks, pipes, and cylinders. Here at the North City
Water Reclamation Plant, very not-drinkable wastewater is
turned into a liquid so pure it would actually wreak havoc on
your body if you imbibed it without further treatment.
Jean Yang, a senior associate at the Los Angeles design firm
Studio-MLA, is a self-described recovering “metrics-aholic.”
… As Studio-MLA’s project manager for the Upper Los Angeles
River and Tributaries plan, Yang is helping apply both
qualitative and quantitative insights to ensure equity in a
massive revitalization plan.
The question of whether private ownership of desalination
plants will be allowed in Monterey County remains unresolved,
but supervisors on Oct. 12 voted 4-1 to direct county staff to
prepare a study on overturning the 32-year prohibition on
private ownership. … The law has been thrust into
the spotlight as Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp., a
publicly traded, $11 billion Canada-based company, has
proposed construction of what could be a massive regional
desalination plant in Moss Landing. The project has the
potential to produce 32,000 acre-feet of drinking water when
built out.
With the population of the United States doubling over the past
50 years, at least 40 states are now anticipating water
shortages by 2024. … Consider the Colorado River basin.
Located in the southwestern U.S. and stretching almost 1,500
miles from the Continental Divide to the Gulf of California,
the Colorado River is a critical municipal water resource for
nearly 40 million people throughout seven states.
Microsoft, Facebook and Google have all pledged to replenish
more water than they use in their direct operations by 2030. BP
has set a target year for 2035, and Gap for 2050. These pledges
are coming at a time of huge pressure on global water
resources, exacerbated by the climate crisis. … The impacts
of the water crisis on business are increasingly clear –
threatening semiconductor production in Taiwan, scuttling plans
for a brewery in Mexico and sending investors competing for
water rights in the Colorado River basin.
California possesses one of the world’s most significant
reserves of lithium. According to some industry estimates, our
state has enough lithium to meet as much as one-third of
today’s global lithium demand. Located in the Imperial Valley,
the giant cache of lithium sits thousands of feet below the
Salton Sea area in naturally heated groundwater tapped by local
geothermal power plants to produce clean electricity. -Written by David Hochschild, chair of the California
Energy Commission; Ben Hueso, a state senator
representing the 40th District, and Silvia Paz, executive
director of Alianza Coachella Valley and chair of the Lithium
Valley Commission.
The 1,657 sloping acres of dry scrub and boulders in Highland
that had been slated for 3,600 houses as part of the Harmony
development is one step closer to being sold. The Orange County
Board of Supervisors on Oct. 5 accepted a high bid of
$31,815,000 from the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water
District. The supervisors made the move on behalf of the Orange
County Flood Control District, which owns the land.
This year witnessed one of the hottest and driest summers in
recent history for Western Canada and the American Southwest.
The resulting droughts adversely affected food supply and
helped send meat prices rising three times faster than
inflation. Despite the severity of these droughts, the worst
may be yet to come. … [L]essons can also be drawn from
low-tech solutions developed by ancient societies that
flourished in arid climates.
The national advocacy organization Food & Water Watch released
“Big Ag, Big Oil and California’s Big Water Problem,” a report
detailing for the first time California’s most egregious
corporate water misuses. The piece pinpoints industrial
agriculture as among the worst offenders, swallowing large
portions of California’s water resources and exporting billions
of gallons of water overseas through heavily irrigated crops
like almond and alfalfa as well as dairy.
In the small city of Oakley, Utah, the drought conditions
parching much of the West have depleted the natural springs
that supply water to the community. During each of the past
several summers, local leaders worried that quenching any major
fire might empty the city’s water tanks. The city issued
water-use restrictions this past April and residents cut back,
but officials heard a consistent message from their
constituents, said Mayor Wade Woolstenhulme. “If you guys are
so low on water, why do you keep giving out building permits?”
Our severe drought prompted the county to lobby the state to
decrease mandated new housing units due to water limitations.
Yet at a recent supervisors hearing, Permit Sonoma identified
no cumulative water impacts from cannabis grows whereas in
reality the county failed to analyze this. The county should
have done this six years ago while developing the original
ordinance. -Written by Deborah Eppstein, a retired scientist
living in Sonoma County, and Craig S. Harrison, a retired
lawyer living in Bennett Valley.
Between Los Angeles’ oil-pumping past and its half-century-plus
as the factory of the world war and the Cold War, we have
spilled and spread so much chemical poison into the earth
beneath our freeways and our feet that by rights each of us
should have two heads. Imagine what the L.A. landscape would
look like if places where the soil or water had been poisoned
were flagged … In some parts of L.A., large areas would be
marked with a skull-and-crossbones sign alerting you that toxic
waste had been manufactured or dumped there over generations,
befouling the soil, befouling the groundwater … -Written by LA Times columnist Patt Morrison.
While California’s severe drought has hit nearly every corner
of the Golden State, it has delivered a crushing toll to
communities that received little bounce back following the last
drought that peaked seven years ago. Case-in-point? Kettleman
City. Kettleman, perhaps best known to Californians as a Kings
County stopover midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles,
serves as the junction of Valley residents traversing to the
Central Coast via Highway 41 and metropolitan drivers roaring
across Interstate 5.
The Los Vaqueros Reservoir Expansion Project (Project) passed a
significant milestone today in officially filing agreements
needed to form a Joint Powers Authority. This important
milestone puts a group of Local Agency Partners one step closer
to Project implementation. Los Vaqueros Reservoir is an
off-stream reservoir that was originally built by Contra Costa
Water District (CCWD) in 1998.
Lake Mead is considered full when its stores reach 1,220 feet
above sea level or more, but the reservoir is projected to sink
to 1,066 feet above sea level by the end of the year, revealing
rock that has been submerged since it began filling in the
1930s. With every foot that Lake Mead falls, the basin comes
closer to triggering substantial cutbacks for certain water
users along the river. … [I]f lake levels continue to
decline, future cutbacks could impact the 30 Native American
tribes with lands in the basin.
Amid a historic drought, the ever-present threat of wildfires
and worsening heat waves, a little-known controversy is pitting
environmental conservation against housing production,
potentially threatening progress in building a thriving
Southern California that can also withstand the challenges that
are coming with climate change.
Can we live within our watershed? Human beings used to
easily live within their watersheds, only habitating where
there was enough water to sustain themselves. Today, we have
the technology and money to put water where it is needed. But
climate change is forcing a hard truth to seep to the surface:
Water is a limited resource and we may not have enough for
all.
Extended droughts broken up by rainy years are part of a
natural cycle here in California. Our state is once again in
another dry period, with areas of Northern California already
experiencing a significant impact. It is not a question of if,
but when the Coachella Valley faces a similar fate. Thanks to
decades of targeted projects and careful planning, Mission
Springs Water District will have enough water to serve our
40,000 customers in and around Desert Hot Springs. -Written by Arden Wallum, general manager at
Mission Springs Water District.
The San Joaquin Valley is home to some 4 million residents and
growing rapidly: another 1 million residents are expected by
2040. Groundwater is the primary water source for these
communities, yet decades of overpumping have stressed the
region’s groundwater basins, resulting in land subsidence, dry
wells, and falling groundwater reserves. The 2014 Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) seeks to solve this issue by
mandating that water users bring their groundwater basins back
into balance by the 2040s.
Aaron Fukuda admits that the 15-acre sunken field behind his
office doesn’t look like much. It’s basically a big, wide hole
in the ground behind the headquarters of the Tulare Irrigation
District, in the southern part of California’s fertile Central
Valley. But “for a water resources nerd like myself, it’s a
sexy, sexy piece of infrastructure,” says Fukuda, the
district’s general manager. This earthen basin could be the key
to survival for an agricultural community that delivers huge
quantities of vegetables, fruit and nuts to the rest of the
country — but is running short of water. The basin just needs
California’s rivers to rise and flood it.
Ramon Chavez was a 7-year-old in Culiacán, Mexico, when his
parents told him that they were traveling to the United States.
He thought he was going to Disneyland. They ended up in
Stratford. … Land sinks here, sometimes at nearly
historic high rates of more than 1 foot per year, because of
excessive groundwater pumping. Out of its four wells, Stratford
can only rely on one — the others are unreliable and are
unusable.
Skeptics (including me) assembled when Facebook, Google and
Microsoft made respective pledges to replenish more water than
they use within the next fifteen years. The main reason:
private companies are beholden to shareholders, boards, bottom
lines, and customers–not pledges. …For context, Google
accessed 2.3 billion gallons of water for use in three
America-based data centers (out of 21 data centers in operation
total) in 2019 alone. Facebook withdrew roughly 3.7 million
cubic meters of water in 2020, with the majority of that water
applied to cooling data centers and being lost to
evaporation. -Written by David Lynch, CEO of Klir, headquartered in
Reno, Nevada.
Here are the steps — starting with the least intrusive and
least expensive — that state and local government need to take
now to avoid the dystopia that Cape Town, South Africa, endured
in 2018 when the faucets ran dry. … First, we should
make conservation a way of life. Utilities must increase
tried-and-true mandatory 20% conservation and water recycling
from 2019 usage. … We also need to shift water
retailer’s own incentives. While they will never say it
publicly, water utilities do not like conservation, because
selling less water means less revenue. -Written by Steve Westly, a former California
State Controller and founder of The Westly Group; and Gary
Kremen, representing District 7 on the Santa Clara Valley
Water District Board of Directors.
Water scarcity will be the biggest climate-related threat to
corporate assets like factories within the next few decades
… A lack of water is triggering violent conflict in
places like India’s Northern Plains … Sydney will endure
shortfalls within 20 years if the city continues growing at its
current rate, according to a recent estimate, while
residents of San Jose, California, (the “Capital of Silicon
Valley”) are being threatened with penalties if they
don’t cut their water use by 15%. Kenya’s drought has
been declared a national disaster.
The future economic vibrancy of Southern California requires
building an adequate housing supply that accommodates a growing
population. This shouldn’t come at the cost of protecting
natural lands and open spaces. A vibrant future also requires
making sure that residents have the parks and clean air and
water needed to support healthy communities. A project led
by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is
an important step in planning for the region’s future. -Written by Melanie Schlotterbeck, a consultant
for the Friends of Harbors, Beaches and Parks, a conservation
organization based in Orange County.
For the last 30 years, science showed us that climate change
was threatening the planet and our way of life. Despite decades
of warnings, the world has not done enough to stop it. We just
felt the full force of climate change’s impacts here in Tahoe
as the Caldor Fire endangered the lives of firefighters,
thousands of homes and Tahoe’s sensitive ecosystem. Our
recent, tragic experience should serve as a lesson. When
scientific evidence warns of environmental disaster, we need to
listen and take action to prevent it. -Written by Darcie Goodman Collins, chief executive
officer of the League to Save Lake Tahoe.
The “white gold rush” at the Salton Sea is on as the world
market for lithium increases each year. Lithium is called
“white gold” for its silvery color, and the Salton Sea is an
untapped treasure chest of lithium for all the underground
brine flowing through our rocks generated by the 11 geothermal
plants situated around the lake.
Foreign companies … have been increasingly looking to the US
to buy up farmland, often taking advantage of states’ lax
regulations to invest in high-value crops like almonds and
alfalfa and export them to places with limited water or
land.
The project is touted as a first-of-its-kind resort and
recreational experience built around a surfing basin created by
Kelly Slater Wave Company. The end result would be a
master-planned resort community featuring a hotel,
single-family residences, neighborhood and resort commercial
development, and a nearly 17-acre wave pool for surfing.
… At build-out, Coral Mountain Resort would
use approximately 958.63 acre-feet of water — or 312,370,490
gallons — per year based on the residential indoor demand,
non-residential indoor demand, and outdoor demands, according
to city documents.
The 2021 water year ends on Sept. 30, and it was another hot,
dry year in the western U.S., with almost the entire region in
drought. Reservoirs vital for farms, communities and hydropower
have fallen to dangerous lows. … More than 7,000 miles
away, Iran is grappling with water problems that are similar to
the U.S. Southwest’s but more severe. One of the driest years
in the past five decades, on the back of several decades of
mismanaged water resources, brought warnings of water conflicts
between Iranian provinces this year.
It is no secret that in order to tackle its ongoing and future
water challenges spanning drinking water, wastewater, and
stormwater systems, the nation needs to significantly increase
its investments in water infrastructure and management
solutions. Facing ever-increasing stressors on water
systems—aging infrastructure, drought, flooding, contaminated
runoff—communities are looking for ways to build
sustainability, create resilience to climate change, protect
water quality, and equitably secure local water supplies for
everyone.
The Monterey Peninsula’s water supply challenges require
partnership and collaboration to solve. After months of
negotiation, California American Water, Monterey One Water and
the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District have agreed to
terms that enable California American Water to purchase
recycled water from the Pure Water Monterey Expansion project.
This represents a critical step toward the development of a
reliable, long-term water supply for the local community. -Written by Rich Svindland, president of
California American Water
California’s energy future keeps pointing to Kern. The latest
10-figure energy storage proposal in the county is a damlike
“pumped hydro” project connected to the California Aqueduct
that would store and release 3,500 gigawatt-hours of power per
year on or near Tejon Ranch. There’s no money yet for it or a
similar proposal the same Los Angeles County engineering and
development group disclosed in December that would be located
next to Isabella Lake. But the latter has attracted interest
from one of the world’s largest oil producers, the developer’s
managing director said.
Challenging the city of Tehachapi’s Sept. 7 approval of the
Sage Ranch project, the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water
District has filed a petition in Kern County Superior Court,
claiming that the city violated multiple state laws in its
approval of the planned development. … The water district has
asked the court to set aside the city’s approval of the
995-unit residential subdivision near Tehachapi High School —
and possibly some other subdivisions totaling an additional 450
units dating back as far as 2006.
[A]s disastrous as the disappearing Salton Sea is, powerful
people believe that a vast reserve of lithium locked beneath it
and the surrounding area holds the key to flipping the region’s
fortunes. Global demand for lithium, a metal vital for the
batteries in electric cars and computer electronics, is
projected to grow by 40 times in the next 20 years as renewable
technologies become more ubiquitous. The earth deep below the
southern Salton Sea is rich in hot, mineral-abundant brine that
contains some of the world’s largest deposits of lithium…
Why doesn’t L.A. pump its underground water up, process it to
remove the impurities and distribute it locally in the L.A.
area? The answer: L.A. does pump and use local groundwater —
but other water sources are important for replenishing the
supply. Until the first half of the 20th century, some
areas in Los Angeles County had very high groundwater and
springs that residents could use as a water source, said
Madelyn Glickfeld, co-director of the UCLA Water Resources
Group.
The Orange County Water District (OCWD, the District) and
regional water agencies worked together with the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California (MWD) to reach a historic
agreement, the Santa Ana River Conservation and Conjunctive Use
Program (SARCCUP), to better prepare the region for future
droughts and promote water use efficiency in Orange, Riverside
and San Bernardino counties—an area serving millions of
customers.
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on September 21 that his
country would no longer finance coal-fired power plants abroad,
making a high-profile commitment to move away from some forms
of fossil fuel infrastructure less than six weeks before a
pivotal global climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. While
climate campaigners applauded the carbon-reducing benefits of
fewer new coal plants, the move comes with another, less
obvious dividend: less strain on water.
Qatium is pleased to welcome international water experts Newsha
Ajami, Jeffrey Kightlinger and Paul Fleming to its advisory
board. Qatium’s advisory board – composed of policy,
technology and business leaders – is focused on steering and
accelerating the digital transformation of the water industry.
On the northern edge of the Mojave Desert, a new trauma has
awakened old concerns: What happens if a town’s water gets shut
off? …Perched on the edge of a mostly dry salt lake, Trona
has no source of clean water and for at least 70 years has
relied on groundwater pumped from wells 30 miles away in the
Indian Wells Valley….That source of water, however, is in
jeopardy due to legislation passed seven years ago in
Sacramento to protect aquifers throughout the state.
Phoenix is a rapidly growing metropolitan area in a desert. As
the population increases, it will be more and more challenging
to supply water, food and energy — three essential resources
that are interconnected in complex and competing ways.
NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with author Giulio Boccaletti about
his new book Water: A Biography, which takes readers through
the complex and surprising history of humanity and
water. What is the one thing that has shaped the course of
human civilization more than any other? Well, according to the
author Giulio Boccaletti, the answer is water. The title of his
new book is “Water: A Biography.” It travels over centuries,
across continents to show how humans have built their lives
around this fickle, precious resource.
Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), which arguably has one
of the world’s most mature water markets, serves as a useful
case study to identify some complexities of a market-based
approach to governing water. While it is a mature market on
account of some two decades of implementation, this is not to
imply that it is perfect – just that it is quite sophisticated
in its governance arrangements. There remains much room for
improvement however (see ACCC 2021). Its technical nature means
that some nuances of how it operates cannot be fully explained
in a brief article of this nature.
Removing salt and other impurities from sea-, ground- and
wastewater could solve the world’s looming freshwater crisis.
And yet, while industrial-scale seawater desalination plants do
exist in coastal areas where the freshwater challenge is most
acute, the process of making undrinkable water drinkable is
largely out of reach for inland water sources due to the high
cost of concentrate disposal.
In 2013 the El Dorado Irrigation District Board of Directors
adopted an Integrated Water Resources Master Plan, since
updated in 2015 and 2020. Meanwhile water demand has declined
since 2013. Three factors affected that: 1. New conservation
trends; 2. The 2014-16 drought; 3. Slower development growth.
In 2013 the master plan predicted water demand of 50,000-59,000
acre-feet of water. However, the most current estimate for 2025
is 34,740 acre-feet of demand.
As Arizona’s population continues to swell by record numbers,
cities and towns housing the transplants are looking for ways
to increase their water supply. That search has pitted the
growing Town of Queen Creek against counties along the Colorado
River. Cibola, Arizona in La Paz County sits near the
border with California directly on the river. The population
ranges from 250 to 350 people depending on the time of year
according to La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin. She
said the river gives life to the town’s two main industries of
recreation and farming.
The global average temperature will rise 2.7 degrees Celsius by
century’s end even if all countries meet their promised
emissions cuts, a rise that is likely to worsen extreme
wildfires, droughts and floods, the United Nations said in a
report on Friday. That level of warming, measured against
preindustrial levels, is likely to increase the frequency of
deadly heat waves and threaten coastal cities with rising sea
levels, the country-by-country analysis concluded.
Water prices are soaring in California’s Central Valley, where
a quarter of the nation’s food is grown. As the West Coast’s
megadrought worsens, one farming company has long been
scrutinized for its outsized role in the arid region’s water
supply. Wonderful, the closely held company owned by
billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, can buy up huge amounts
of water whenever it needs more. Most of the Resnicks’ water
comes from long-term contracts and other water from land rights
they have from the farms they own.
We all can’t live in the garden. This garden, this one in the
heart of California. The one that produces over 300 different
crops, a bounty that produces thousands of jobs, helps to feed
families of the world and make life more enjoyable. … We
do remember the 1997 floods that sent the Tuolumne and
Stanislaus rivers over their banks, destroying homes and
property. Are we to expect that Riverbank officials and the
Army Corps of Engineers will hold back the Stanislaus River as
it floods again within the Riverwalk project? -Written by Denny Jackman is a controlled growth
advocate, a founding member of the Farmland Working Group and a
former Modesto City Council member.
Risk Rating 2.0 has been called the Federal Emergency
Management Agency’s (FEMA)’s most significant reform in 50
years. Roughly 77% of customers of the National Flood
Insurance Program (NFIP) nationwide will see increases in their
premiums, while the other ~23% will see reductions or no
change. FEMA will formally introduce Risk Rating 2.0 on
October 1, 2021, and most premium increases will kick in on
April 1, 2022.
[I]n June 2019, Monterey City Council voted 4-1 to rezone
commercial properties along the south side of Garden Road so
that they can be converted into multifamily residential units.
In so doing, the city would have a better chance of meeting the
state-mandated goal of adding 650 housing units by 2023. But
given the chronic water shortage on the Monterey Peninsula,
that plan has faced a challenge from the start.
Congressional Democrats are moving toward enacting two measures
that could vastly expand access to flood insurance and give
communities a more accurate picture of their flood risk through
better maps. Two provisions in a budget reconciliation bill the
House Financial Services Committee approved Tuesday address
long-standing shortcomings in flood protection as climate
change and coastal development intensify damage from
flooding.
The Two-Basin Partnership, comprised of California Trout,
the County of Humboldt, the Mendocino County Inland Water &
Power Commission, the Round Valley Indian Tribes, and Sonoma
County Water Agency, on September 2 asked the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) to allow additional time to
re-evaluate the proposed plan to take over the Potter Valley
Hydroelectric Project (Project). The Partnership
specifically requested that the time delay continue until May
31, 2022, at which time the Partnership will provide further
notice regarding its plans.
Back when the Colorado River Compact was being negotiated about
100 years ago, water was not viewed as a problem. Officials
deemed there was plenty to go around. Fast forward a century
and the seven Colorado River Basin states – particularly the
three lower basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada –
are using more than the system can sustain….Chris Harris,
executive director of the Colorado River Board of California,
says the basin states must grapple with the “new normal” of
reduced flows in a river system once thought to provide ample
water for the West….Harris says it’s not just the
sustainability of the Colorado River system that needs
addressing, but the wider Western water reliability of the
federal Central Valley Project (CVP) and California’s State
Water Project (SWP).
The availability of potable water is not a reason to oppose
development in drought-threatened California. The view that
water should limit development is one of the false claims made
by Not-In-My-Back-Yard organizations that want to stop the
future. The NIMBY mantra that new development poses risks to
the environment, that we will run out of water, is wrong. Less
than 5 percent of annual water supply is used inside
residences. There are many NIMBY organizations making these
false claims, some with longstanding national stature. -Written by Jim Larimer, a resident
of Miramar.
Almonds in California are no longer sustainable at current
levels. That’s the consensus of recent headlines describing the
prolonged historic drought — and increasing restrictions on
water use — currently impacting the state’s $6 billion industry
and its efforts to produce 80 percent of the world’s
almonds. The U.S. Drought Monitor is showing California
to be slowly approaching 90% of the state categorized as being
in ‘extreme’ drought —especially in the Central Valley.
A month after the Visalia City Council threw out a policy
designed to prevent urban sprawl, the Sierra Club is
threatening to sue the city over the change … requesting
an injunction against implementation of the new policy, which
does not include an ag mitigation policy (AMP). … The
city attorney advised the General Plan could be “modified” due
to changes in case law since 2014, such as the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act which could affect the availability
of water to some farmland within the city’s growth boundaries.
To fill the post of chief agricultural negotiator at the United
States Trade Representative’s office, the Biden administration
dipped into California’s hot, dusty, drought-plagued San
Joaquin Valley and plucked out an almond-industry lobbyist.
… Biden is favoring the $6 billion almond industry at a
particularly fraught time in its history. The ever-expanding
groves of California’s Central Valley churn out nearly 80
percent of the globe’s almonds. -Written by Mother Jones reporter Tom
Philpott.
On Aug. 3, the State Water Resources Control Board completely
eliminated 2021’s surface water supplies for farms in much of
the state. It has impacted farmers like John Moore III, who
grows pistachios at Moore Farms in Arvin. … While
California is prone to drought, the last reservoir in the state
was completed in the 1980s. The state’s population has grown
tremendously since then. Moore says the state wouldn’t be
in this situation if more infrastructure was built.
Historically speaking, corporate action on water-related
environmental issues has been less publicly visible than
strategies for reducing energy usage and related greenhouse gas
emissions. Consider this data point. As of its 2020 water
update, corporate data gatherer CDP reports about two-thirds of
reporting businesses are reducing their water withdrawals;
slightly more than half are monitoring the quality of their
wastewater discharges and just 4 percent are making progress
against water pollution targets. But the tide may be
turning… -Written by Heather Clancy, Greenbiz editorial
director.
Corporate America is making a new kind of climate pledge. In
recent months, multiple tech giants have pledged to use their
reach and resources to join the fight for water conservation.
Facebook made an announcement at the end of August declaring
their efforts to “be water positive by 2030.” And just this
week, Google made a similar announcement to make its data
centers more efficient and support water security in the
communities it operates in.
A $1 trillion infrastructure bill that received bipartisan
support in the Senate last month includes billions of dollars
for Western water projects and programs. The Biden
administration has called the infrastructure bill, which
includes $8.3 billion for Western water infrastructure,
“the largest investment in the resilience of physical and
natural systems in American history.” Of the $8.3 billion
dedicated to Western water, $450 million is set aside for a
competitive grant program to fund large-scale projects that
advance water recycling….That program could help pay for
a massive recycling project in California that would
leave Nevada with access to more water in Lake Mead.
It’s clear the climate crisis is washing away an integral piece
of our California life. Sea level rise, coastal flooding and
erosion pose major threats to our state — where nearly 85% of
people live and work in coastal counties such as San Francisco.
Left unchecked, the climate crisis jeopardizes our health,
homes, safety and economy. In San Francisco alone, for example,
sea levels are projected to rise up to 55 inches by the end of
the century. This increase could put nearly half a million
people at risk of flooding and threaten $100 billion in
property and infrastructure. -Written by Amelia Fortgang, chair of the Bay Area
Youth Climate Summit, a Youth Leadership Council member at
EarthEcho, and a senior at Lick-Wilmerding High
School.
The bustle of birds and insect pollinators is the first thing
you notice at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, about 100 miles
northeast of San Francisco in the Capay Valley, where Judith
Redmond and her partners started farming four decades ago.
… Farmers have always labored at the mercy of the
elements, but climate change has brought overlapping calamities
of wildfires, drought, prolonged heat waves and power
outages.
State Sen. John Laird, the former Secretary of the California
Natural Resources Agency, has been appointed to a state agency
charged with protecting and improving natural coastal lands.
Laird will serve as one of six non-voting representatives of
the state legislature to the Coastal Conservancy, after his
appointment Wednesday by Senate Pro Tempore Toni Atkins. …
Looming threats to the environment such as climate
change-driven sea-level rise, an increasingly threatening
drought cycle and other coastal access issues mean “it is time
to get to work,” Laird is quoted in a release from his office.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently declared a water shortage on
the Colorado River, but that hasn’t stopped states from
proposing new water projects. Just about every drop on the
Colorado River is accounted for. But climate change has reduced
the amount of water in the system. Gary Wockner is with
Save the Colorado, a conservation group that is tracking new
projects.
The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the
social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has
outlined his vision for a 5-million-person “new city in
America” and appointed a world-famous architect to design it.
Now, he just needs somewhere to build it — and $400 billion in
funding. The former Walmart executive last week unveiled plans
for Telosa, a sustainable metropolis that he hopes to create,
from scratch, in the American desert. The ambitious
150,000-acre proposal promises eco-friendly architecture,
sustainable energy production and a purportedly
drought-resistant water system.
The city of Antioch’s water supply has been challenged in
recent years by a variety of factors. But the Brackish Water
Desalination Project, the first desalination project of its
kind in the five-county Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, is
intended to improve the reliability of the city’s water. The
city filed its notice of preparation for the project just over
four years ago and then broke ground on the plant in February
of this year.
First came the asparagus field. Then came the melons. And now
Joe Del Bosque is considering the unthinkable: tearing out a
sprawling almond orchard bursting with healthy, nut-producing
trees. … Two decades of almost unrelenting growth
vaulted almonds into the upper ranks of California agriculture.
Now, though, the state’s $6 billion-a-year industry is
being humbled by a devastating drought. Farmers have
slowed the pace of new orchard plantings and, in a few cases,
have plowed up trees still capable of bearing almonds.
As reservoirs across California meet historic lows, we are
again faced with the reality of not enough water for the
environment, farms and people. … As our climate
continues to change, we can expect more of the same, and
possibly worse if we don’t make some meaningful changes to how
we manage water in California. We need to advance water
recycling projects, increase conservation and develop more
capacity to store water. One key part of the solution is the
construction of Sites Reservoir.
When Jenny Hess visited her sister in Healdsburg, Calif., in
May of 2020 to get out of New York City during Covid, she was
entranced by the area’s temperate weather, natural beauty and
sophisticated food and wine culture. The attraction
endured—even when she had to flee for 12 days due to a raging
wildfire right behind her sister’s house.
The drought emergency in the Bay Area is not only affecting
humans, but also wildlife. From turkeys strolling along
streets, to wild pigs appearing on surveillance video digging
up yards, bone dry conditions in the hills has sent thirsty
wildlife into neighborhoods, particularly in the East Bay.
Other creatures spotted in neighborhoods recently include
mountain lions and even the occasional bear. Wildlife experts
say its the season for these visitors. Dry hillsides causing
wildlife to stroll to low lying areas to find food and precious
water.
Enough water for 60,000 Orange County residents can be
generated by more efficient release of rainwater from the Prado
Dam into the Santa Ana River, according to a new multi-agency
report. During a year of average rainfall, that’s the amount of
water currently flowing into the ocean that could be captured
for urban use, according to the two co-chairmen of the
committee overseeing project.
Lawmakers accused almond growers of over-planting and livestock
ranchers of unsustainable practices, while others sought policy
ideas to help small family farmers.
In the midst of a climate crisis in California, another species
has been added to the endangered species list: the Sierra
Nevada red fox, a subspecies of red foxes found only in
California. With an estimated population of about 18 to 39,
California’s distinct red fox population is now in critical
danger of extinction, joining a list that includes the
California condor and salt-marsh harvest mouse.
The climate crisis is making wild weather much more common.
Since Sunday evening, we’ve seen all kinds of destruction in
New Orleans as Hurricane Ida hit – winds, flooding, way too
much water. And meanwhile, in America’s West, they’re dealing
with fires and a historic drought – not enough water. And as
the West gets drier and drier, how water is used attracts a lot
of controversy.
[A] new analysis by Redfin, a real estate brokerage,
reveals more Americans are moving into areas that face the
highest climate risks than ever before. … Counties with
homes facing the highest heat risk saw populations increase by
an average of 4.7% over the last five years. Counties with
homes facing high drought risk saw population growth of 3.5%,
fire risk counties grew by 3%, flood 1.9%, and storm 0.4% over
the last five years.
It’s been almost nine months since Wall Street turned on the
taps — with the launch of the Nasdaq Veles California Water
Index on December 7th, 2020, investors have been able to bet on
the price movement of water. The real-world droughts that
followed have made for an oasis of opportunity. … As droughts
and wildfires hammered the U.S. West Coast, California declared
a state of emergency in April, and last month asked residents
to cut their water use by 15%. As of July 31, California’s
major reservoirs held just 53% of their historical
averages.
Mandatory limits on water use are likely to be imposed in the
near future on California residents, businesses and farms. Get
ready. You can’t change the weather, which has deprived the
state of its necessary rain and snowfall. But you can change
your response. After examining the state’s shockingly low
reservoirs, Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters recently that a
statewide limit on water use may be needed to head off a supply
crisis caused by California’s historic drought, which continues
to worsen.
One fifth of electrical output in California is consumed by
pumping and processing water. By collecting rainwater, we can
reduce our carbon footprint, conserve California’s water
resources, and decrease our water bill. … In Bermuda,
every residence is required by law to have and maintain a
cistern capable of storing enough rainwater to sustain a family
of four for a year. The states of New South Wales and Victoria
in Australia require all new construction to be plumbed for
rainwater catchment and grey water recycling. As of 2017, 26
percent of the homes in Australia capture rainwater.
The award for dumbest idea of the recall election goes to the
rookie Democrat who proposed building a water pipeline from
California to the Mississippi River. It’s nutty economically
and politically. … The wacky proposal seems emblematic of the
nonsensical recall effort itself — the notion of wasting $276
million in tax money on a special election because
opportunistic Republicans want to oust the Democratic governor
one year before his term expires and he must run for reelection
anyway. -Written by George Skelton, LA Times columnist.
On Aug. 16, the U.S. federal government declared a Colorado
River water shortage for the first time. This unprecedented
action was triggered by the precipitous drop in Lake Mead’s
water level: It’s at 1,067 feet above sea level, or about 35
percent full. …. The economic impacts to the states that tap
water from the Colorado River are significant, with no relief
in sight.
There was an unusual twist at Wednesday’s gubernatorial recall
debate in Sacramento: A Democrat participated for the first
time. And that Democrat, 29-year-old millionaire Ventura County
real estate investor Kevin Paffrath, jump-started the hour-long
debate with some unusual ideas. Paffrath, who has never held
elective office, proposed to solve California’s water shortages
by building a pipeline to the Mississippi River…. As
California falls deeper into an extraordinary drought, all
three GOP candidates threw shade on Newsom approach of
encouraging conservation. It was one of their most detailed
debate exchanges about water policy to date, yet yielded few
ideas for immediate action.
In his first debate, the top-polling Democrat running in the
recall, Kevin Paffrath, called for filtration systems in
California buildings to protect against COVID-19 and proposed a
pipeline to the Mississippi River to address California’s
drought. Paffrath, who has made his name providing financial
advice on YouTube, argued that vaccine mandate decisions should
be left to individual businesses and schools, and promised to
protect Californians from COVID-19 by increasing availability
of N95 masks and HEPA filtration in schools and buildings.
After a year of extreme weather, people in the drylands of
northern California and the hurricane-drenched bayous of
southern Louisiana are brooding on the same question: should we
leave? New global research suggests that one of these “water
shock” scenarios is more likely to result in migration. World
Bank researchers found that people are five times as likely to
move following drought conditions as they are after floods or
periods of excess water.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recall election in
mid-September, should he lose, will very likely terminate the
floundering politician’s career. A late-term gubernatorial
replacement would also mean a potentially major shift in
California environmental policies. … Budget spending
… could be directed away from hundreds of conservation
projects that are tentatively scheduled to begin, and directors
of wildlife, water, and resource agencies who were appointed by
Newsom would almost certainly be replaced.
“For years wars were fought over oil,” said U.S. Vice President
Kamala Harris earlier this year. “In a short time they will be
fought over water.” Given that more than 70 per cent of our
planet is covered in water — all told that’s more than one
billion trillion liters of the stuff — a short time might sound
a bit dramatic. After all, there’s always been enough to go
around. … While some places are flooding, others are in
near permanent drought — 85 per cent of California is currently
in extreme or “exceptional” drought and towns and agricultural
areas are running out of water.
In less than a month, a new Pacific Grove ordinance will
prohibit any new water hookups despite having been granted
earlier water entitlements by the state. The ordinance is set
to take effect in mid-September. In 2017 Pacific Grove’s Local
Water Project came online. It processes wastewater to irrigate
the Pacific Grove Golf Links and the El Carmelo Cemetery. In
November 2015 the state water board approved $2.3 million in
grant funding and $5.4 million in low-interest loan financing
for the project.
As drought and climate change strangle the Colorado River, a
small county in Utah nevertheless continues forging ahead with
a billion-dollar pipeline to suck more water from it to sustain
its growing population. The proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, a
140-mile straw from one of the country’s largest reservoirs to
Washington County in southwestern Utah, has sparked backlash
from other states in the Colorado River basin and
environmentalists, and now has the Biden administration in a
difficult position.
A proposal for a new Butte County water district is wending its
way through the approval process, and not everyone is happy
about that. The Tuscan Water District would cover most of the
northwestern county, excluding Chico. The area is dependent on
well water. Under a recently approved state law, the amount of
groundwater currently being pumped in the area will have to be
reduced. Each well owner is currently on their own. No entity
speaks for them as a group.
The front lawn came with the house we moved into a couple years
ago. The patch of Bermudagrass was smaller than an average
putting green and easy to mow. The splash of deep green was
cute as far as that goes, but it was out of place on a street
that had largely made the transition to colored rock and
water-smart landscaping. Beyond the postcard aesthetics, it
made zero sense to continue to water a lawn in the desert.
Setting aside the politics of climate change and our arid land
with its endless water crisis — a basic definition of “desert”
— there were no children at home to play on it. -Written by John L. Smith, an author and Nevada
Independent columnist.
The way Brigette Mansell sees it, the drastic water
conservation measures already required of those who live in
Healdsburg make it obvious the city needs to stop and think
about how much more it can grow. Development of luxury housing
and hotels that cater to tony visitors and part-time residents
— who may not be as invested in the community’s well-being —
defies logic, she says. Mansell, a former Healdsburg
councilwoman and mayor, and other like-minded residents support
continued efforts to provide affordable housing in the town.
Jessica Law became executive director of the Water Forum in
January. In 1993, the City and County of Sacramento launched
negotiations to figure out how to ensure reliable water
supplies and safeguard the environmental needs of the Lower
American River. In 2000, 40 different agencies signed the Water
Forum Agreement, which has guided the organization’s work ever
since.
Starting in 2023, the state wants Sonoma County to approve over
14,500 new homes for residents of all income levels over the
following eight years. Though no final target has been
approved, officials in some of the county’s largest cities have
made ramping up home construction a priority with the goal of
alleviating the region’s shortage of affordable housing. At the
same time, though, the state is also mandating water cutbacks
across the region during what is shaping up to be the worst
local drought in more than four decades.
Cropless fields, fishless rivers, burning forests, empty
reservoirs and powerless dams — either you’ve seen the
headlines, or you’re living it. America’s West has run out of
water. For most of us, this is a reckoning moment. Water exists
in abundance. It’s cheap, free-flowing and limitless. We’re
quite literally swimming in the stuff. But suddenly, that’s no
longer true. California’s surging population and
farming-dependent economy, coupled with sustained drought,
means that demand has completely drowned out supply.
Facebook announced plans Thursday to restore more water than it
consumes by the year 2030, the company’s latest initiative
targeting climate change. The company mostly uses water for
cooling the banks of computers that run in its data centers. In
2020, Facebook withdrew 3.7 million cubic meters of water for a
total consumption of 2.2 million cubic meters. Facebook intends
to focus its efforts in regions where it uses local water
resources, but it will also look at high-risk areas that face
the most challenges in terms of their water supply…
In North America, the countries that share the Colorado River
Delta are experiencing a similar reality as their own
diplomatic relationship is shaped by cross-border water
exchanges. And like Israel and Jordan, the U.S. and Mexico are
now considering the role desalination might play in sharing
this vital resource. … Establishing a desalination
facility jointly operated by the U.S. and Mexico could help
“bolster resilience in the Colorado River Basin,” according to
the Binational Study of Water Desalination Opportunities
in the Sea of Cortez.
Only one water storage project remains a possibility in
California seven years after voters approved a bond to build
more dams. Sites Reservoir is the last proposed project
standing. State Senator Jim Nielsen of Red Bluff has spent
years fighting to build Sites Reservoir in Northern California.
It’s a $5-billiion project creating 1-point-8 million acres
feet of water storage.
Pistachios have recently become perhaps the top choice for
institutional investors in Kern County agriculture, apparently
surpassing almonds. Farmland brokers say prices and demand for
local pistachio orchards — the few properties listed for sale,
anyway — have increased since about 2019 because of the
trees’ longevity, crop price stability and higher tolerance for
limited and lower-quality water supplies.
Lists can be very useful. They’re simple. They get to the
point. An all-too-familiar way to recount the past 18
months is by listing off the terrible, unthinkable things our
society and community have been through: a pandemic, economic
hardship, social unrest, historic wildfires, and environmental
damage – even here in our beloved Tahoe Basin. On the eve
of the 25th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit, and with an optimistic
eye, we’re suggesting a different way to read that list. -Written by Darcie Goodman Collins, CEO of the
League to Save Lake Tahoe / Keep Tahoe Blue; Joanne S.
Marchetta, executive director of the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency; and Steve Teshara, CEO of the Tahoe
Chamber.
Included in the sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill
approved by the Senate is funding for Western water projects
that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are
badly needed across the parched region. … The plan would
provide $1.15 billion for improving water storage and transport
infrastructure such as dams and canals. Groundwater storage
projects, which replenish underground aquifers that aren’t
vulnerable to evaporation, would also get funding.
Contra Costa County was hit by two lawsuits Thursday, a month
after the Board of Supervisors approved a boundary change to
allow construction of 125 homes in protected open space near
Danville. In a controversial decision on July 13, the
supervisors voted 4-1 to stretch the urban limit line east of
Blackhawk so developers could build the homes on 30 acres in
the Tassajara Valley. … [East Bay MUD] has
maintained for years that it doesn’t have enough water to
supply the homes…
It’s hard to know how much to panic over California’s dwindling
water supplies. The state has never really had enough water,
after all, yet lawns in Beverly Hills somehow remain
perpetually green. Earlier this month, however, came a sign
that life might soon be getting more uncomfortable for more
Californians. -Written by Francis Wilkinson, Bloomberg opinion
editor.
Like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — arid nations
with limited water supplies — California should consider
banning or limiting the cultivation of water-intensive crops.
At a time of severe water shortages, it makes sense to end the
cultivation for export of crops like almonds and alfalfa, a
plant mostly used to feed cows. Where does the world get 80
percent of its almonds? The Golden State. Where does Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (and Japan and China) get
much of their alfalfa? You guessed it. California. -Written by San Diego U-T columnist Chris Reed.
In the American West, water has always been a challenge. Prior
to the arrival of European explorers and settlers, there’s
broad evidence that droughts and water cycles heavily affected
Native Americans. For example, the people who built the Gila
Cliff Dwellings may have left the area when water supplies
dwindled. Later settlements by the descendants of Europeans
also followed water, with settlements placed near rivers so
there would be something to drink and grow food with.
In part one of this article, I covered the American West’s
water problems, as well as some of the ways they have been
solved with big engineering projects so far. Now, with climate
change and growth both pushing the limits of water supplies,
people are asking for even bigger projects, like a pipeline
from the Mississippi River to somewhere in the Colorado River’s
basin. Let’s talk about those ideas, even bigger ones, and why
none of them might be a good idea. -Written by Jennifer Sensiba, a long time efficient
vehicle enthusiast, writer, and photographer.
On Monday, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change released a report that makes it unequivocally
clear that human beings have locked in a measure of warming for
the planet that will be extraordinarily difficult to endure.
… A 1.5 degree-warmed world means more summers like this
one: more evacuees in California, more intense drought in the
West, more blistering heat waves, more tropical storms that
dump a season’s worth of water in 24 hours. And yet, the
IPCC report makes it clear that this is officially
the best case scenario.
Just as the National Weather Service predicts no relief in
sight, neither do population analysts foresee a reduction of
the numbers of new arrivals that will drink, cook with, bathe
in, irrigate or flush with the increasingly scarce water
normally available for everyday activities. … Whether
California residents heed Newsom or whether visitors pay
attention to their lodgings’ pleas to consume less water is
beyond anyone’s control. But controlling the millions of future
water consumers pouring across the Southwest border is well
within the federal government’s power. -Written by Joe Guzzardi, an analyst with
Progressives for Immigration Reform.
A state that lives by nature, though, risks dying by it, too.
In the last few years, as California battled heat waves and
drought and fire, intensifying as the planet warms, I have
found myself wondering about my home state’s future and, in a
deeper sense, its purpose. Is California still California when
our weather becomes an adversary rather than an ally? What is
California for when summertime, the season in which the Golden
State once found its fullest luster, turns from heaven into
hell? -Written by Farhad Manjoo, NY Times columnist.
Reading projections from the recent United Nations climate
report is a like watching an invading army heading for San
Francisco Bay, with rising tides threatening long sections of
shoreline. … The Institute has produced detailed maps and
projections of what those changes might look like. At a full
five feet, cyclical flooding coupled with other impacts of
climate change could begin to cause havoc in the Bay Area.
The circumstance we find ourselves in today is a prime example
of why we need to build Sites Reservoir now. Just a few years
ago, in 2017 and 2019, we experienced a series of atmospheric
river events that produced so much runoff that it overtopped
our flood control system … If Sites Reservoir had been in
place during that time, not only could we have avoided many of
those flooding impacts, but we also would have captured and
stored much of this excess runoff for use in a dry year like we
are currently experiencing. -Written by Robert Cheng, assistant general
manager of the Coachella Valley Water District, and Charley
Wilson, executive director of the Southern California
Water Coalition.
Nations have delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so
long that they can no longer stop global warming from
intensifying over the next 30 years, though there is still a
short window to prevent the most harrowing future, a major new
United Nations scientific report has concluded. … At 1.5
degrees of warming, scientists have found, the dangers
grow considerably. Nearly 1 billion people worldwide could
swelter in more frequent life-threatening heat waves. Hundreds
of millions more would struggle for water because of severe
droughts.
Virtually all almonds in the U.S. are produced in a 20,000
square mile area in the middle of California. The hot and dry
Mediterranean climate there helps produce $17 billion worth of
crops every year. … Temperatures rarely dip below
freezing and historic rain levels have created rich soil,
providing an environment suitable for almond growth.
… Some researchers are starting to look north and ask:
Could the Potato State become a hub for
almonds? University of Idaho researchers
are finding commercial production could thrive here.
Lawmakers and water utilities in the West are urging residents
to conserve water as reservoirs hit record lows amid climate
change-driven megadrought. Among the calls to action is a
reminder for residents to make choices that lessen use of
municipal water when it comes to maintaining landscaping in
desert surroundings. About 30% of water usage for the
average American family is used for the outdoors, such as
watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
Ural Federal University (UrFU) engineers have developed a new
desalination technology. It will significantly reduce the cost
of desalination and quadruple the volume of production. The
results of the research are published in the journal Case
Studies in Thermal Engineering. Today one of the most popular
and simple ways of desalination is the distillation of water
with the help of solar energy. UrFU scientists, together with
colleagues from Iraq, have developed a hybrid technology to
increase the efficiency of evaporation inside a solar distiller
by means of a rotating hollow cylinder and a solar collector.
In the western United States, water law developed around two
main principles: (l) the goal of full beneficial use of
water, and (2) the need to afford vested water right holders
certainty as to their rights. At the time western water codes
developed, these goals were seemingly in harmony—rewarding
those who needed the water and invested in infrastructure for
water use with rights that were enforceable against subsequent
appropriators.
When Salesforce Tower in San Francisco fully reopens this year
after 16 months of pandemic-induced closure, one of its more
unusual features will be found in the basement. … Taking
up the space of 16 cars, the black-water system, so called
because it treats all wastewater, including from toilets and
showers, will filter an estimated 30,000 gallons per workday,
or 7.8 million a year. [Water recycling efforts
are] gaining traction as a severe drought punishes
industries in
states like California, Montana, New
Mexico and Utah.
The waters of the Tuolumne River flow through Modesto two
ways. One is in the natural riverbed that cuts through the
city just south of downtown. The other is in the original
“Delta bypass tunnel” — the 46.7 mile pipeline across the San
Joaquin Valley beneath the Hetch Hetchy Trail that moves water
diverted from the reservoir the urban trail is named after. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, columnist for the Manteca
Bulletin.
But come back in 40 or 50 years, and most California cities
would look very different if [new housing] bills passed. Cities
would be bigger, housing would be cheaper (after inflation is
factored in), and living conditions would be more crowded than
ever before. Neighborhoods filled with single-family homes on
distinct lots would be far rarer than today. That is, if enough
water and energy can be found to make these changes possible,
two problems that grow larger and less predictable the longer
the current drought continues and the more often dry spells
recur in an era of expanded climate change. Written by Thomas Elias, a syndicated columnist.
Across the U.S. West, shifting climate patterns are wreaking
havoc. An early start to fire season is scorching rural Oregon
and parts of Northern California. Record temperatures have led
to deaths of hundreds of residents of Seattle and Portland,
Ore. Lake Mead, the massive Colorado River reservoir outside
Las Vegas, is at its lowest point since its 1935 federal
construction, threatening water supplies to Arizona, Southern
California, Nevada and Mexico. In Arizona, 99% of the land
is undergoing years-long drought that has accelerated. Large
swaths of the region are now in extreme distress and the
picture may well get worse…
A recent United Nations report on drought says
climate change is increasing the frequency, severity and
duration of droughts, which contribute to food insecurity,
poverty and inequality. … In 2018, Cape Town,
South Africa, narrowly averted a “Day Zero,” when the taps
would have run dry. Indian aquifers are falling fast.
The Colorado River, a water source for 40 million
people, faces dire shortages as the American West
slides deeper into “megadrought.” By 2050, the world’s
population is projected to near 10 billion, increasing
water demand by 55%. And by then, two-thirds of people will
live in cities.
A review of 170 years of water-related successes in California
suggests that most successes can be traced directly to past
mistakes. California’s highly variable climate has made
it a crucible for innovations in water technology and
policy. Similar water imperatives have led to advances in
water management in other parts of the world. A close
look at California’s water model suggests that “far-sighted
incrementalism” is a path to progress.
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.
