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.
The Marin Municipal Water District is taking a closer look at
storage expansion projects that could increase capacity for
billions of gallons of additional water to defend against
drought. After several months of study, district officials and
consultants are considering projects that could include raising
dam heights and some possibilities for creating new dams. Each
option would increase the storage capacity by about 20,000
acre-feet. The proposals include expansions of Alpine Lake,
Kent Lake and the Soulajule and Nicasio reservoirs. The
district is also looking at constructing new reservoirs in the
areas of Devil’s Gulch, Halleck Creek and upper Nicasio. The
proposals were presented to the water board at its meeting on
March 19.
Real estate websites are sharing more climate risk information
with home buyers and sellers. Why it matters: Of roughly 4,600
prospective buyers Zillow surveyed nationwide last spring, over
80% said they considered at least one climate risk when
shopping. State of play: Realtor.com, which was the first major
site to show a home’s flood risk, added heat, wind and
air-quality risks to listings this month. The company added
wildfire risk in 2022. Threat level: Nearly 45% of U.S. homes
face severe or extreme damage from environmental threats,
according to a new report from Realtor.com.
… The two impacts of data centers drawing the most concern in
Colorado are the growing demand for power and impact it could
have on the power grid and the need for millions of gallons of
water by data centers, primarily for cooling. … While
Colorado and the West have suffered a 20-year drought and there
is haggling over the future of the dwindling Colorado River, a
hyperscale data center with evaporative cooling can, according
to Dglt, use more than 200 million gallons of water a year,
about 550,000 gallons a day — enough to supply 1,200 households
of four to five people for a year.
Colorado’s “housing crisis” is essentially unsolvable by simply
building more market-rate housing, at least if we care about
our quality of life here in Colorado. … Colorado does,
however, have a real “water crisis.” The arguments between the
seven states working on sharing the Colorado River revolve
around Article III(d) of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which
requires the Upper Basin states to deliver 7.5 million
acre-feet per year on average to the Lower Basin states,
plus multi-million acre-feet/year obligations to Mexico,
Native American tribes, and pre-Compact water rights
holders. There just isn’t enough water for all that, plus
serving many millions more people in the Front Range cities
that depend on trans-mountain diversions of the Colorado
River. -Written by Steve Pomerance, who served 10 years on the
Boulder city council and 6 years on the DRCOG
board.
Across the parched West, there are signs the region’s
decades-long population and housing boom is confronting the
realities of dwindling water supplies. These have come in
recent months from court rulings and executive edicts alike, as
states crack down on the potential for new users to draw from
already oversubscribed aquifers and surface waters. The
skeleton of a would-be subdivision outside Las Vegas
illustrates the coming constraints, stymied by a lack of water
to support the new community. Water shortages also forced
difficult decisions in other places, such as new restrictions
in the Phoenix suburbs and a Utah town that halted all new
construction for more than two years until it could secure a
new well.
Sprawl development built far from city centers carries direct
and indirect costs that pull resources away from existing
neighborhoods, harming communities and natural habitats,
according to a new report published by the Center for
Biological Diversity. The True Cost of Sprawl analyzed the
environmental harms — including pollution, wildfire risks and
public health threats — that come with poor land-use decisions.
It found that suburban and exurban housing developments
increase per capita infrastructure costs by 50%, pulling public
funds from schools, parks, public transportation and other
needs in existing communities for things like new roads and
sewer systems.
So many hurdles are impacting new home construction, yet one is
quickly growing more urgent and critical—access to water. In
more and more places across the country, access to healthy,
safe, and sustainable water supply is causing restrictions on
new home building permits and challenging current homeowners
with new water use policies. This challenge is triggering
states and municipalities to reconsider new developments,
halting them or shutting them down completely at a time when
housing supply is at critically low levels. Groundwater
shortages have shut down new permits in parts of Arizona where
new homes would rely on wells. A large development with
thousands of homes north of Las Vegas also was shut down due to
concerns over water supply. -By Jennifer Castenson, vice-president of ambassador
and industry partner programs at Buildxact, providing
leadership and collaboration across the various verticals
involved in custom homebuilding and remodeling.
California almond farms are struggling to pay the bills with
low prices for their nuts. Trinitas Farm, an almond farm in
Oakdale, filed for bankruptcy in February due to falling almond
prices, rising water rates, and high interest rates making it
impossible to keep up. Almond farmers that CBS13 spoke with
agree but said the biggest driving force of this fallout can be
summed up in one word: inflation. “It has now come to the point
where I see the end of that coming, of that generational
farming,” said Bill Van Ryn, who has an almond farm in San
Joaquin County. He said farmers are simply crippled by costs
and that is causing some California almond farmers to file for
bankruptcy, likely with more to follow.
For much of the last decade, almonds have been such a lucrative
crop that growers and investment firms have poured money into
planting new orchards across vast stretches of California
farmland. Now, the almond boom has fizzled and the industry has
entered a slump. Prices have dropped over the last several
years, and the state’s total almond acreage has started to
decrease as growers have begun to tear out orchards and plant
other crops. … Over the last decade, the almond boom
coincided with growing concerns about water in California. When
growers and investment companies bought land and drilled wells
to pump groundwater in the Central Valley, the expanding nut
orchards locked in long-term water demands and added to
the strains on the state’s declining aquifers. Wenger
said he thinks it’s possible that if some of these orchards
come out of production, groundwater levels could rise in
places.
The environmental impact report prepared by the city of
Tehachapi for the proposed Sage Ranch residential development
made the case that the project would not result in any
significant, unmitigated impacts — and included a water supply
assessment suggesting sufficient water exists for the project
over the required 20-year horizon. The city of Tehachapi and
Sage Ranch developer Greenbriar filed documents they believe
support that position in Sacramento County Superior Court on
Monday, Feb. 26 to defend the EIR approved by the Tehachapi
City Council in September 2021. At the same time, the council
approved a masterplan for the project that would
transform 138 acres near Tehachapi High School by adding 995
residential units over seven years.
One of Colorado’s leading urban water conservation strategies —
turf replacement — could require up to $2.5 billion to save
20,000 acre-feet of water, according to a recent report
commissioned by the state’s top water policy agency. Colorado
communities are facing a drier future with water shortages and
searching for ways to cut down water use. … This
turf-focused strategy has gained new momentum since 2020 and
2021, when the water crisis in the Colorado River Basin became
shockingly apparent (to more than just water experts)
as two enormous reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell, fell to
historic lows.
For five years, a $24 million water transfer agreement has
threatened to establish a potentially dangerous precedent, and
turn the Colorado River into a commodity. Now that deal will be
put on hold under a decision in U.S. District Court. U.S.
District Judge Michael Liburdi ruled against that water
transfer agreement on Wednesday. It was a decision made on the
grounds that federal Reclamation officials’ approval of the
agreement last year, absent an environmental impact study in
that agreement, may have been “arbitrary and capricious.”
… [CEO Jan] Sramek said California Forever has secured
enough water for the 50,000 initial residents of the proposed
community, and maybe even the first 100,000. The water
rights came from the land the company has bought, he said, and
are sourced from groundwater and the Sacramento River. The
company could buy more water to supplement that, but wouldn’t
need it for the first buildout, he said.
Water regulation in Arizona has devolved into a game of
chicken. The governor and farmers are rivals revving their
engines, hoping their opponent will flinch first. Caught
in the middle is Gila Bend, a groundwater basin south of
Buckeye, where the state could decide to impose its most
stringent form of regulation, whether folks like it or not.
Both sides are using Gila Bend as a bargaining chip to win
support for competing legislative proposals. But to what
end? - Written by Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic digital
opinions editor
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! We may conjecture many things.
~John Wesley Powell
Powell scrawled those words in his journal as he and his expedition paddled their way into the deep walls of the Grand Canyon on a stretch of the Colorado River in August 1869. Three months earlier, the 10-man group had set out on their exploration of the iconic Southwest river by hauling their wooden boats into a major tributary of the Colorado, the Green River in Wyoming, for their trip into the “great unknown,” as Powell described it.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
Owens Lake is a dry lake at the terminus of the Owens River
just west of Death Valley and on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. For at least
800,000 years, the lake had a continuous flow of water, until
1913 when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
(LADWP) completed the 233-mile Los Angeles
Aqueduct to supplement the budding metropolis’
increasing water demands.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
Despite droughts, recession and natural disasters, California’s
urban population continues to grow.
This population growth means increasing demand for water by urban
areas—home to most of California’s population [see also Agricultural
Conservation]. As of 2021, three of the nation’s 10 most
populated cities are in California.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed issue of Western Water explores some of the major
challenges facing Colorado River stakeholders: preparing for
climate change, forging U.S.-Mexico water supply solutions and
dealing with continued growth in the basins states. Much of the
content for this issue of Western Water came from the in-depth
panel discussions at the September 2009 Colorado River Symposium.
This issue of Western Water asks whether a groundwater
compact is needed to manage this shared resource today. In the
water-stressed West, there will need to be a recognition of
sharing water resources or a line will need to be drawn in the
sand against future growth.
This issue of Western Water examines the continuing practice of
smart water use in the urban sector and its many facets, from
improved consumer appliances to improved agency planning to the
improvements in water recycling and desalination. Many in the
water community say conserving water is not merely a response to
drought conditions, but a permanent ethic in an era in which
every drop of water is a valuable commodity not to be wasted.
When water and growth was featured in the May/June 1995 Western
Water, the debate in the California Legislature was about whether
a local water district should have any say when it came to
providing water to new developments. Of the four bills before
state lawmakers, it was Sen. Jim Costa’s SB 901 that cleared the
Legislature and was signed into law. The bill established a
voluntary link between water and land-use planning by requiring
planning departments to consult with local water purveyors about
the availability of new supplies.