California would not exist as it does today were it not for the
extensive system of levees, weirs and flood bypasses that have
been built through the years, particularly in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta.
As California has imposed severe water cutbacks throughout the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s vast watershed, most
growers in the Delta region itself are still getting enough
water to bring their crops to harvest. With a majority of
landowners in the region holding pre-1914 riparian water
rights, the state has not curtailed their ability to pump water
from the Delta’s labyrinth of canals and waterways – at least
yet. In fact, growers whose land is on islands below sea
level have been pumping water off, San Joaquin County
Agricultural Commissioner Tim Pelican said.
Join us as we guide you on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
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.
On June 24, Yolo County released a report on a recent design
charrette for the Tule Canal in the Yolo Bypass. The two-day
virtual workshop included 71 participants from a wide swath of
stakeholders — farmers, policy makers, landowners, hunters,
conservation scientists, educators, engineers and ecologists.
Led by consultants Robert Suarez and Teal Brown Zimring, with
generous funding from the State Water Contractors and
Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, the executive summary and
full report are now available on Yolo County’s Delta e-library:
Communities trying to fight sea-level rise could inadvertently
make flooding worse for their neighbors, according to a new
study from the Stanford Natural Capital Project. The
research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, shows how seawalls constructed along the San
Francisco Bay shoreline could increase flooding and incur
hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for communities
throughout the region.
For more than 60 years, California officials and experts have
discussed expanding the Sacramento River bypass and levee
system. … In summer 2020, contractors broke ground on
the first project to expand that capacity, the Lower Elkhorn
Basin Levee Setback (LEBLS) project. The California Dept. of
Water Resources is leading the design, construction and
permitting of the $103-million project, which will widen the
Sacramento Bypass and the east side of the Yolo Bypass.
While much of California’s earthquake risk has been
historically focused on the San Andreas fault and places like
Los Angeles and San Francisco, quakes are capable of causing
significant destruction in the state’s Sierra Nevada and
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta … UCLA experts warned
in 2014 that a major earthquake sending destructive shaking to
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could potentially destroy
aging levees, causing flooding and drawing in saline water from
San Francisco Bay — which would contaminate one of the state’s
key water supply systems.
Now, California is eyeing the benefits derived from several
successful canal installations in India. With the world’s
largest irrigation canal network, and 290 days of average
sunshine, California is uniquely positioned to ease its own
severe water shortages with this emerging innovation of
canal-covering solar farms. UC Santa Cruz has investigated
this method for use in California and estimates that—on top of
generating green energy—it would save 63.5 billion gallons of
water from evaporation annually, a massive windfall for a state
that sometimes rations water and which regularly suffers from
droughts.
Excessive groundwater pumping has collapsed the land beneath
several key canals, crimping their ability to move water.
Fixing them will be expensive. There are two bills moving
through the state Legislature and Congress that could provide
some funding. This is the second try for the state bill, Senate
Bill 559 by Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger). …
Representative Jim Costa (D-Hanford) and Senator Diane
Feinstein (D-Ca.) introduced S. 1179, the Canal Conveyance
Capacity Restoration Act, on April 15.
Construction of a temporary salinity barrier on the False River
is underway after an emergency request by the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) was approved by the State Water Resources
Control Board (SWRCB). The barrier, necessitated by worsening
drought conditions, is intended to help preserve water quality
in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by reducing saltwater
intrusion. The declaration of a drought emergency made by Gov.
Gavin Newsom on May 10 suspended the requirement that a project
of this nature complete a California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA) assessment.
A bill aimed at improving the Valley’s two largest canal
systems from continued subsidence-driven damage advanced
through one house of the California State Legislature on
Friday. Senate Bill 559, a top priority for legislators on both
side of the aisle in the San Joaquin Valley and led by Sen.
Melissa Hurtado (D–Sanger), seeks to dedicate $785 million in
spending for improvements to four sets of waterways,
spearheaded by two canals servicing the Central Valley Project:
the Delta-Mendota Canal and the Friant-Kern Canal.
Because Bay Area low-lying sewage treatment plants remain
vulnerable to rising sea levels, government regulators told
sewage facility managers to “provide a written plan for coping
with SLR by the fall of 2021 – or they will be given a
plan.” The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit reached out to
10 “at risk” sewage treatment plants to see those
plans. All except one provided extensive documents of
their proposals, the cost to address them, and even provided
tours of completed work. San Francisco’s Public Utilities
Commission replied to the Investigative Unit’s public records
request that after a “diligent search for records…no records
were found.”
The Mendocino County Farm Bureau encourages local, state and
federal leadership to focus current drought relief measures on
multi-purpose projects that address agricultural, municipal,
environmental, recreational and fire suppression water needs.
… On-stream ponds are created by damning a water course and
off- stream ponds are created by diverting from a river, a well
or a flood control contract.
The state plans to break [a levee at Shag Slough] in nine
locations to create 3,000 acres of tidal wetlands. It has asked
the county to vacate that section of Liberty Island Road that
runs atop the levee. Taylor Dahlke, the leader of a group
fighting to maintain land access to Shag Slough, the Liberty
Island Ecological Reserve and the region in general told the
Delta Stewardship Council on Thursday night that the state
proposal violates the Delta Plan.
In the latest chapter of California’s unfolding drought, state
officials are planning to build a giant rock wall across a
river in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to save the
vital freshwater estuary from San Francisco Bay’s saltwater.
The emergency measure is a page from last decade’s drought when
the delta, a maze of sloughs and man-made channels east of the
Bay Area, was at risk of becoming too salty to provide water to
the nearly 30 million Californians who depend on it. As in
2015, the freshwater rivers that feed the 1,100-square-mile
delta have gotten so low that they no longer counter the
brackish flows that push in from the bay.
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors today approved a $2
million loan to the Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority to
complete the construction of a new levee near the Yuba
Goldfields that will bring a 200-year level of urban flood
protection to southern Yuba County. The 2.5-mile-long levee,
which will be fully complete in June, runs parallel to
Hammonton-Smartsville Road and extends to high ground near
Beale Air Force Base. The 200-year level of protection means
there is a 1-in-200 chance in any given year that a storm could
come along that is bigger than the levee is designed to handle.
The seven members of the Delta Stewardship Council were seated
in 2010. The Council appointed ten prominent scientists to the
Delta ISB. Over the next decade, the Delta ISB produced over 30
scientific reviews, averaging over 3,000 hours of work per
year. But in 2020, the work of the Delta ISB stalled. The Delta
Stewardship Council reduced funding for the Delta ISB by over
90%.
Despite its semi-arid climate, characterized by mild, moist
winters and hot, dry summers, the area in and around Fresno,
California, has experienced numerous flood events. From
elevations reaching 5,000 feet in the Sierra-Nevada mountain
range, streams carry runoff from a 175-square-mile area flow
onto the valley floor, where they periodically inundate
farmland and urban development, including downtown
Fresno. Storm flows have caused local streams and canals
to overflow an average of once every four years since
1953. In the early 1950s, a group of citizens banded
together to find solutions to the area’s increasing storm water
management problems.
As shoreline communities in the San Francisco Bay Area scramble
to prepare for rising seas, they should also be mindful that
protecting themselves could worsen flooding elsewhere. This is
because seawalls can reflect and amplify tides. “Decisions in
one location could affect hazards in another,” said
environmental engineer Michelle Hummel, who began studying the
bay while at UC Berkeley and is now at the University of Texas
at Arlington. Her latest research reveals that building
seawalls along relatively small sections of shore could raise
water levels enough to have far reaching effects, even all the
way across the bay. … But building seawalls in other
places could, especially in the wide alluvial valleys where
rivers flow into the bay.
The Delta Stewardship Council (Council) announced the hiring of
Ryan Stanbra, the Council’s legislative and policy advisor, to
the key post of chief deputy executive officer. … Appointed
by Governor Brown in 2015, Ryan joined the Council in the role
of legislative and policy advisor. He has played a pivotal role
in advising on critical Council initiatives like implementation
of reduced reliance on the Delta, interagency coordination and
outreach for the Delta Levees Investment Strategy, increasing
funding for critical science investments, and more. He has
served in the acting chief deputy executive officer role since
January.
Restoration projects, like species, evolve. The Sonoma Creek
Enhancement Project, originally about mosquito control, has
shown itself to be a boon to special-status tidal marsh
wildlife as well. More than a decade of adaptive management
actions made that happen. The existing marsh, formed
rapidly beginning in the 1960s by deposited sediment, lacked
the dendritic channels of a mature marsh. High tides brought in
water that pooled in a central basin and didn’t drain out,
providing breeding habitat for mosquitos. The disadvantages of
chemical treatment prompted land managers to look for
alternatives.
When the first European explorers arrived in California’s
Central Valley, they found a vast mosaic of seasonal and
permanent wetlands, as well as oak woodlands and riparian
forests. What remains of those wetlands are still the backbone
of the Pacific Flyway; along with flooded agricultural fields,
they support millions of migrating waterbirds each
year. According to a just-released study from Audubon,
tens of millions of land birds rely on the Central Valley as
well… But today, the situation is dire. More than 90% of
wetlands in the Central Valley – and throughout California –
have disappeared beneath tractors and bulldozers.
-Written by Samantha Arthur, the Working Lands Program
Director at Audubon California and a member of the
California Water Commission.
Many of the wetlands in the western United States have
disappeared since the 1700s. California has lost an astonishing
90 percent of its wetlands, which includes streamsides, wet
meadows and ponds. In Nevada, Idaho and Colorado, more than 50
percent of wetlands have vanished. Precious wet habitats now
make up just 2 percent of the arid West — and those remaining
wet places are struggling. Nearly half of U.S. streams are in
poor condition, unable to fully sustain wildlife and people,
says Jeremy Maestas, a sagebrush ecosystem specialist with the
NRCS who organized that workshop on Wilde’s ranch in 2016. As
communities in the American West face increasing water
shortages, more frequent and larger wildfires and unpredictable
floods, restoring ailing waterways is becoming a necessity.
The rivalry between farms and wildlife for water and land was
long seen as a zero-sum game, especially in California where
water is such a precious commodity that the state’s water
futures are traded on the stock exchange. That competition has
been particularly sharp in the Central Valley: 95% of the
region’s historic wetlands have transformed into farmland, and
the region’s increasingly scarce water supply has been
prioritized for farming. As a result, some of the migratory
birds that rely on the Central Valley for habitat, food, and
water sources have seen steep declines in the past
century.
A Biden initiative expected to pour up to $3 trillion into
repairing America’s decrepit infrastructure and funding other
programs has sparked a scramble across the nation for the
federal funds — with California expecting to reap the biggest
piece. …Rep. John Garamendi, a Northern California Democrat
who is a senior member of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee…spent more than an hour with Biden
in recent weeks and came away convinced that the program will
be broad enough to improve most areas of the nation’s
infrastructure: highways, passenger rail, electric grids, dams,
sewers and water systems, ocean terminals and
airports….
As of 2021, California is home to 31 distinct kinds of native
salmon, steelhead and trout species, 20 of which are found only
in our state. These fish are prized for their economic and
cultural significance by local communities, and for their
recreational attributes by anglers from around the world. But
these fish face an alarming threat that can’t be ignored. If
current trends continue, nearly half of these fish will be
extinct within the next 50 years. How do we know this? And
perhaps an even better question: what can be done about
it?
Today, Representative Josh Harder (CA-10) sent a letter with
Rep. Jerry McNerny (CA-9) requesting new federal funds for the
Lower San Joaquin River Flood Risk Management and Feasibility
Study projects. The $36.5 million in requested funds would go
toward the Army Corps of Engineers and San Joaquin Area Flood
Control Agency’s critical flood damage reduction efforts. If
implemented, the project will protect 165,000 Valley residents,
reduce annual property damage by 84%, and increase the
resilience of 262 critical infrastructure sites, 12 of which
are essential to daily life in the Valley. The project is
expected to yield $7 for every $1 of taxpayer money invested.
The Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Endowed Professorship
was established by a group of donors concerned with the
conservation and management of coldwater fishes in California.
The endowed chair honors Peter Moyle and the historical and
productive working relationship between CalTrout and UC Davis,
with an endowment fund resting at over $2 million. Dr. Andrew
L. Rypel was appointed to this professorship as the inaugural
holder in 2017, therefore this report reflects year-3 work on
behalf of the chair. A total of 13 peer-reviewed scientific
publications were produced by the Rypel Lab at UC Davis in
2019-2020.
Through collaborative projects, birds and endangered fish are
returning to areas they once reared in more than 100 years ago.
Partnerships among farmers, conservationists, universities, and
state and federal agencies are proving that by reactivating our
historic floodplains and using our bypasses during key times of
the year, we can create high-quality habitat that produces safe
haven and up to 149 times more food for salmon than the river.
These key projects demonstrate some of the work being done on
the wet-side of the levee.
Our map of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has been
updated with a fresh, new look and new text and images to
better tell the story of one of California’s most important
ecological and water supply resources. The new map
explores the Delta’s importance as a haven for birds, fish and
other wildlife, its vital role in moving water to farms and
cities across California, and the array of challenges facing
the Delta’s present and future.
California’s large reservoirs are currently operated using
historical hydrology and outdated assumptions about the state’s
climate. Many experts are calling for changing how reservoirs
are managed to reflect advances in weather forecasting, which
can help the state adapt to a warmer, more volatile climate. We
talked to Martin Ralph—director of the Center for Western
Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography—about advances in this field.
Today’s road trip features the Delta “super highway” of the
1800s, with plenty of water, quaint river towns, history and
food along the way. From Stockton, you’ll travel a little more
than 100 miles, so plan for a fun day-long outing. You’ll see
every type of agriculture, levees built by Chinese labor after
the early railroads were constructed, and boats and cargo ships
travelling the same sloughs as did old steamboats and sailing
packets.
The U.S. levee system — once considered the second largest
piece of the country’s infrastructure ”rivaled only by the
highway system” — is now nearly a century old and failing
inspections far more often than it passes them. Only one in 25
federal levees are rated Acceptable. … Those systems can
be found nationwide, from the Sacramento region in California
to the south Florida seaboard; from Appalachia to North Dakota
to the Mississippi River Valley. And the people who
maintain those vulnerable levees say their problems are
remarkably similar: systems that are too old and far too
expensive for locals to fix, much less replace.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave America’s
infrastructure a C- grade in its quadrennial assessment issued
March 3. ASCE gave the nation’s flood control infrastructure –
dams and levees – a D grade. This is a highly concerning
assessment, given that climate change is increasingly stressing
dams and levees as increased evaporation from the oceans drives
heavier precipitation events. … Climate scientists at
Stanford University found that between 1988 and 2017, heavier
precipitation accounted for more than one-third of the $200
billion in [flood] damage…
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Sacramento District
selected Kleinfelder and Stantec to provide engineering
services for levee improvements on the Sacramento River in
Northern California. The design project consists of
seepage/stability improvements along the Sacramento River East
Levee (SREL) downstream of the American River confluence in
Sacramento. The project is part of the ongoing modernization of
Sacramento’s aging flood infrastructure system.
A man accused of illegally repairing a levee and damaging
sensitive aquatic habitat in the Suisun Marsh is facing a $2.8
million fine following a California appeals court decision last
month. John Sweeney, who ran a kiteboarding club on Point
Buckler Island in Solano County after buying it in 2011, must
also abide by a clean up and abatement order that requires him
to restore the marshlands and tidal channels damaged during the
levee work.
Today, Ceres’ Director of Water, Kirsten James is speaking to
Betty Yee, who was first elected as California State Controller
in November 2014 – a position that serves as the state’s chief
fiscal officer. She also chairs the California Franchise Tax
Board and serves as a member of the California Public
Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State
Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) Boards, representing a
combined portfolio of nearly $500bn. She speaks about how her
experience managing the world’s fifth-largest economy has
shaped her thoughts on climate and water risk.
Conservation groups said 80 species were known to have gone
extinct, 16 in the last year alone. Millions of people rely on
freshwater fish for food and as a source of income through
angling and the pet trade. But numbers have plummeted due to
pressures including pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the
damming and draining of rivers and wetlands. The report said
populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in
the last 50 years. Over the same time period, populations of
larger species, known as “megafish”, have crashed by 94%.
Home to just under 2,000 people, the history of Hamilton City
includes many flooding events and several near misses. One of
the primary reasons for this susceptibility to flooding has
been the town’s reliance on a substandard and undersized levee
called the “J levee” – a levee that does not meet any USACE
engineering standards.
[FEMA] intends to provide federal financial assistance … to
the Santa Cruz County Flood Control and Water Conservation
District, Zone 7 in Santa Cruz County, California, to install a
sheet pile wall through the center of the existing Pajaro River
levee adjacent to the southern edge of the Watsonville
Wastewater Treatment Plant. The proposed action would protect
the plant flooding if the levee is compromised by river
erosion, slope failure, and seepage.
The Delta Conservancy has launched a new initiative aimed at
fixing all these problems — carbon emissions, soil subsidence,
and water security — at the same time. Called the Delta Carbon
Program, the initiative entails a two-pronged solution. First,
subsided islands are flooded, protecting them from the air and
so arresting further soil and carbon loss. Then the newly
inundated islands are re-vegetated with water-loving plants
that rebuild peat, reversing subsidence and so reducing the
risk of levee failure.
Today, 95% of the Central Valley’s historical floodplains are
cut off from the river by levees. Built in the early 1900s to
combat devastating floods, levees and bypasses were constructed
to corral mighty rivers and push water quickly through the
system. Even before invasive species, large rim dams, and Delta
water export facilities were introduced into the system, salmon
populations started to dramatically decline with the
construction of the levees. Simply put, the levees prevented
Chinook salmon from accessing their primary food source.
If you look deep into the eyes of a fish, it will tell you its
life story. Scientists from the University of California,
Davis, demonstrate that they can use stable isotopic analysis
of the eye lenses of freshwater fish—including threatened and
endangered salmon—to reveal a fish’s life history and what it
ate along the way. They conducted their study, published today
in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, through
field-based experiments in California’s Central Valley. The
study carries implications for managing floodplains, fish and
natural resources; prioritizing habitat restoration efforts;
and understanding how landscape disturbances impact fish.
President Joe Biden has made his priorities clear: subduing the
pandemic, economic recovery, climate action, and racial equity.
… Climate has received top-billing within the president’s
environmental agenda, but water infrastructure and water
systems could also see their status lifted. Some observers are
hopeful that the new administration and the Democratic Congress
will uncork federal water spending that has been steady but
flat in recent years.
Has California overshot the runway? … There was a time
when our dams and aqueducts that allowed us to change the
course plotted by nature by not letting water be restricted to
water basins by physical barriers were considered a candidate
for of their wonders of the world. When it came to freeways, we
were the envy of the land. That was then and this is now. The
list of aging infrastructure that needs addressing is
staggering.
Plans to convert nearly 200,000 acres of Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta farmland into rice production or tule-based carbon farms
are being greeted with skepticism among representatives of
delta farmers. The Delta Conservancy, a state agency, has
partnered with environmental organizations and universities on
pilot projects aimed at stopping or slowing ongoing land
subsidence in the delta under a California Wetland Protocol.
Marin County flood planners are turning to Santa Venetia voters
to help pay for an estimated $6 million project to upgrade the
timber-reinforced berm that protects hundreds of homes from
overtopping tides.
The Kings River Conservation District, along with co-applicant
Tulare Lake RCD, received this grant to help remove invasive
species and debris from levees and riverbank along the Kings
River, improve water flow, strengthen flood protection,
increase carbon capture, and improve delivery of clean water to
downstream users.
The Corcoran-based Tulare Lake RCD and co-applicant Kings River
Conservation District, based in Fresno, were awarded $1,165,644
for the Kings River Conservation District Channel Improvement
Project. With this grant, the partners will remove invasive
species and debris from the 2,500 acres of levees and
riverbank…
“King tides are about one-to-two feet higher than an average
tide, and it turns out that is about what we expect to see in
California in the next few decades from sea level rise,” said
Annie Cohut Frankel of the California Coastal Commission. “We
invite the public to look at how these high tides are impacting
our public beaches, our beach access ways, wetlands, roads and
other coastal infrastructure.”
Scientists expect flooding to get worse because weather
extremes are growing as the climate crisis worsens globally,
said UCLA Climate Scientist Daniel Swain. … Waiting to
systematically address flooding issues, like California’s done
with wildfire, could mean breaching of levees, Central Valley
wide flooding and even flooding in areas like Los Angeles as
the climate crisis worsens, said Swain.
The U.S. Geological Survey announced the completion of a new
mobile tool that provides real-time information on water
levels, weather and flood forecasts all in one place on a
computer, smartphone or other mobile device. The new USGS
National Water Dashboard, or NWD, provides critical information
to decision-makers, emergency managers and the public…
The pesky 3-foot-long, buck-toothed nutria is getting the
better of California. The large rodent is chewing up rivers and
wetlands and threatening to mow down farmland and
infrastructure, and the state is struggling to contain
it. Relief may be on the way.
Radically transformed from its ancient origin as a vast
tidal-influenced freshwater marsh, the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta ecosystem is in constant flux, influenced by factors
within the estuary itself and the massive watersheds that drain
though it into the Pacific Ocean. Lately, however, scientists
say the rate of change has kicked into overdrive…
Now in its second year, a long-term project intends to learn
whether rice farming in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta can
succeed economically while helping to preserve the region’s
uniquely carbon-rich peat soils.
Working over the last year, construction crews expect to
complete a new 2-mile levee near Novato in the coming weeks. It
will allow bay waters to eventually reclaim nearly 1,600 acres,
or about 2.5 square miles, of former tidal marshes that had
been diked and drained for agriculture and development during
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken a dramatic
step to encourage communities to use environmentally friendly
features such as wetlands for flood protection instead of
building sea walls and levees.
A high-stakes Supreme Court confirmation and COVID-19
negotiations may be the focus on Capitol Hill, but a sprawling
water infrastructure bill is still advancing quickly behind the
scenes.
Join us as we guide you on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
A federal judge ruled Monday that a sprawling collage of salt
ponds in Redwood City is subject to protection under the Clean
Water Act — going against a previous decision by the
Environmental Protection Agency that would have eased
development along the bay.
Congress has given final approval to a bill that would take on
nutria, a giant rodent threatening waterways in the Central
Valley and beyond. … The measure, HR 3399, would provide $12
million to California and several other affected states for
nutria control, research and related efforts.
Biologists and engineers are setting the stage for an
environmental recovery effort in downtown Los Angeles that
could rival the return of the gray wolf, bald eagle and
California condor. This time, the species teetering on the edge
of extinction is the Southern California steelhead trout and
the abused habitat is a 4.8-mile-long stretch of the L.A. River
flood-control channel that most people only glimpse from a
freeway.
Californians are understandably focused on the wildfires that
have charred more than 3 million acres and darkened our skies –
forcing us to find masks that protect us from both COVID-19 and
smoke. But Californians should also pay attention to the
multiple hurricanes that have devastated the Gulf Coast this
season. These disasters have much in common.
Assessments of the worst-case scenario predict the Bay may rise
a damaging 1.9 feet by 2050 and as much as nearly 7 feet by
2100. Restoring even a fraction of the Bay’s lost wetlands
would provide long-lasting benefits.
The proposed ecological wetland park at Alameda Point, known as
DePave Park, is another step closer to becoming a reality. On
Sept. 15, four members of the city council gave thumbs up to
moving forward with seeking a $2 million grant to pay for a
master planning process.
No California communities are more shaped by water than those
in the Delta. Water surrounds communities like
Stockton. Water shaped our history and still shapes our
economy, quality of life, culture, and is essential for a
healthy environment. And for our communities,
water-related disasters are devastating. We see proof of that
every day.
The Embarcadero faces severe threats, with regionwide
repercussions from both earthquakes that could undermine the
city’s seawall and a rise in bay waters that could flood
downtown streets and inundate BART and Muni tunnels, according
to an exhaustive new study from the Port of San Francisco.
Zone 7 Water Agency’s failed flood control system needs a total
revamp from the ground up, according to a consultant hired by
the agency. The system can’t be saved by adding touches here
and there. It will need a whole new rethinking, and will be
expensive, said Eric Nagy, a principal with the firm Larsen,
Wurzel & Associates in Sacramento.
Americans support far more aggressive government regulation to
fight the effects of climate change than elected officials have
been willing to pursue so far, new research shows, including
outright bans on building in flood- or fire-prone areas — a
level of restrictiveness almost unheard-of in the United
States…in California and elsewhere, officials continue to
approve development in areas hit by fires.
The owner of a Suisun Bay island violated the federal Clean
Water Act when he destroyed marshland by building a levee and
dumping dredged material while building duck-hunting ponds, a
federal judge ruled Wednesday. The ruling is the latest in a
years-long battle between regulators and John Sweeney, who owns
an island in Suisun Bay, a tidal channel and marsh area
northeast of San Francisco.
On Aug. 7, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a service
contract to Adanta, Inc. of Napa to expand and enhance an
existing wetlands on the Veterans Affairs (VA) property at
Alameda Point. The wetlands project is being implemented to
offset impacts to wetlands areas elsewhere on the VA property
where a health clinic, offices and a columbarium cemetery will
be built.
Residents have until Wednesday to comment on a proposal for
restoring Franks Tract, a 3,000-acre flooded island in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, to marshlands. … The preferred
concept that’s emerged after several public meetings would
restore about 1,000 acres to tidal marsh habitat and deepen
other areas to provide fill for the marsh. Community concerns
regarding navigation and recreation would also be addressed…
This month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency detailed a
new program, worth an initial $500 million, with billions more
to come, designed to pay for large-scale relocation nationwide.
… On the other side of the country, California has told local
governments to begin planning for relocation of homes away from
the coast.
Realtor.com has become the first site to disclose information
about a home’s flood risk and how climate change could increase
that risk in the coming decades, potentially signaling a major
shift in consumers’ access to information about climate
threats.
The San Diego County Water Authority announced Monday it is
partnering with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC
San Diego to better predict atmospheric rivers and improve
water management before, during and after those seasonal
storms. [The other affiliates are: Irvine Ranch Water District,
Orange County Water District, Sonoma Water, Turlock Irrigation
District, and Yuba Water Agency.]
A new Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, has made
headway in Congress, most recently with House passage of a bill
authorizing about $9 billion for Army Corps of Engineers flood
and storm protection, environmental restoration and other
projects. But with time running short before Congress breaks
for the Nov. 3 elections, industry sources say water
infrastructure legislation may be put off until an expected
lame duck session.
Because the invasive 20-pound rodents pose a unique threat to
California’s wetlands, the state has expanded the Nutria
Eradication Program over the past year to a staff of 26 field
operatives 100% dedicated to exterminating the swamp rat.
Unlike just about everything else in the state, the war against
nutria has been almost entirely unaffected by the coronavirus
pandemic.
The San Francisco Estuary is a dynamic and altered estuary that
supports a high diversity of fishes, both native and
non-native. … Since the 1950s, various agencies and UC Davis
have established long-term surveys to track the status of fish
populations. These surveys help scientists understand how
fishes are responding to natural- and human-caused changes to
the Estuary.
Just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, yet a world away from San
Francisco, in an unincorporated and oft-overlooked area known
as Marin City, sea level rise is rarely the first worry that
comes to mind. Traditional flood maps for this predominantly
Black and working-class community suggest that the area is safe
from rising water until 3 feet or more. But sea level rise is a
lot more complicated than just waves breaking over seawalls and
beaches disappearing.
At the July meeting of the Delta Stewardship Council,
councilmembers heard briefings on the activities of the Delta
Protection Commission and the Delta Conservancy, and an update
on the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan.
After years marked by a historic statewide drought and
devastating floods around downtown San Jose, Santa Clara
County’s largest water provider has decided to ask voters to
approve a parcel tax to pay for a wide variety of projects,
from flood control to creek restoration, along with some costs
of rebuilding the county’s largest dam at Anderson Reservoir.
The state will suffer dire long-term consequences if lawmakers
set aside concerns about rising seas to focus solely on
COVID-19, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned
Monday. Sea level rise will likely put at least $8 billion in
property underwater by 2050, and could affect tens of thousands
of jobs and billions in gross domestic product, according to
studies cited by the office. Sea level rise and related
flooding and erosion … also pose threats to water treatment
plants, roads, marinas, ports and railways.
The effort is part of an overall plan to develop a Lower Cache
Creek flood study through the US Army Corps of Engineers, the
Central Valley Flood Protection Board and the California
Department of Water Resources. And despite any objections to
the project, it may be more than five years before the first
spadeful of earth is turned to build the barrier.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) joined Senator John Kennedy
(R-La.) to introduce legislation to amend the Nutria
Eradication and Control Act. The legislation would authorize an
additional $6 million a year to increase assistance for states
that implement initiatives to eradicate the invasive species.
Legislation authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers to boost
the nation’s water infrastructure, protect waterways from
emerging contaminants, and bolster coastal shorelines sailed
through the House Wednesday. On a voice vote, the House used a
procedure reserved for mostly non-controversial legislation to
pass the bipartisan Water Resources Development Act of 2020…
The Senate has confirmed Maj. Gen. Scott A. Spellmon as the
Army’s 55th Chief of Engineers and commanding general of the
Corps of Engineers, elevating him to one of the most crucial
infrastructure-related positions in the federal government.
FEMA maps show that roughly 500,000 California properties are
at substantial likelihood of flooding, with a 1% chance of
being flooded in any given year. The study found that more than
twice that amount—1.1 million properties—are already at this
level of risk, and that an additional 150,000 properties will
join them in the next 30 years, mainly because of rising seas.
“I secured provisions in this bill to authorize and expedite
construction of flood protection and aquatic ecosystem
restoration projects, address harmful algal blooms in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and give local agencies greater
flexibility in using federal Army Corps funds to meet local
needs.”
A multibillion-dollar measure that would help build, repair,
and maintain a wide variety of water infrastructure projects
sailed through the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee Wednesday. Approved unanimously by voice vote, the
Water Resources Development Act of 2020 (H.R. 7575) would
authorize the Army Corps of Engineers every two years to carry
out specific projects and feasibility studies.
For 50 years, Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) have
unintentionally stifled conversations of flood risk. They have
encouraged property-owners and governments at all levels to
dwell on map details for one static event, rather than flood
risks for a range of events… Now, First Street Foundation has
released a new tool that can change how these conversations
develop…
Across much of the United States, the flood risk is far greater
than government estimates show, new calculations suggest,
exposing millions of people to a hidden threat… That new
calculation, which takes into account sea-level rise, rainfall
and flooding along smaller creeks not mapped federally,
estimates that 14.6 million properties are at risk from what
experts call a 100-year flood, far more than the 8.7 million
shown on federal government flood maps. [See the map to explore
county flood risk in California and the West.]
Voters approved a $90 million general obligation bond for the
project in 2018, and construction was supposed to be complete
by December of this year. Now officials are expecting the
project to cost about $109 million and not be complete until
September 2023.
The project — managed jointly by California Division of Fish
and Wildlife, the Department of Water Resources and the
Department of Parks and Recreation — seeks to make changes in
Franks Tract with the goal of improving water quality,
providing enhanced recreational opportunities and improving the
ecology for the benefit of native and desirable wildlife.
Encouraged by a recently vetted new method for creating carbon
offsets from wetlands, a flurry of new climate adaptation
projects on publicly owned islands strewn along the central
Delta corridor aim to defend against sea-level rise, restore
habitat, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As winter rains intensify with climate change, flooding will
worsen in Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s largest by
population… The Coyote Creek system — 1,500 miles of
waterways that drain a 350-square-mile watershed — connects
half a dozen elements that are key to climate adaptation, from
reservoirs to creek confluences to the Bay shore.
Work has started on the Reach O levee improvements! The project
will improve seepage and stability requirements within two
miles of Eastside Bypass levees to allow for higher Restoration
Flows.
Driving on Highway 101 from the South Bay, up the Peninsula,
commuters zoom by nearly invisible infrastructure keeping the
highway and nearby communities dry. Beyond the highway, at the
edge of the San Francisco Bay, are levees and tide gates
protecting roads and neighborhoods against high tides and storm
flooding. Unless you visit the bay lands to walk the levee
trails, you might never know these important structures exist.
Existing residents in the 200-year-flood zone are not off the
hook when it comes to paying for more robust protection. …
That’s because fees assessed on new growth — homes, commercial
and industrial concerns — being built in the flood zone only
will cover a third of the bill.
Hundreds of studies on nature-based solutions to extreme events
show that “green infrastructure” is often cheaper and more
effective than engineered projects like dams, levees and sea
walls, according to a new analysis. Experts say federal and
state governments should heed those findings and increase
funding for natural landscapes and systems to reduce climate
disaster risk. Solutions include floodplain restoration and
“living shorelines” along vulnerable coasts and rivers.
Grimes and Knights Landing are among three projects that have
been selected to receive grant funding under the second phase
of the Small Communities Flood Risk Reduction Program,
according to the California Department of Water Resources.
The likelihood of intense storms is rising rapidly in North
America, and the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, projects big increases in
such deluges. … If the current rate of warming continues,
Earth will heat up 5.4 degrees by 2100. Then, 20, 50 and
100-year extreme rainstorms could happen every 1.5 to 2.5
years, the researchers concluded.
In May, Cyclone Amphan made landfall in Bangladesh and eastern
India. The category 5 storm forced around 3 million people to
flee their homes. With this scenario in mind, a group of
disaster experts published guidelines for political leaders and
emergency managers so that they can prepare before the storms
hit.
The water keeps rising, shrinking the window for implementing
solutions. Sea-level rise already threatens the bay shore,
which, at about 500 miles, is half the length of the entire
California coast. The worst is yet to come: The Bay Area needs
to plan for a 2-foot rise by 2050 and up to 7 feet by 2100.
A marshy tract known as Sherman Island is one of the most
sensitive and geographically important locations for water
conveyance in California. On May 11, DWR began a restoration
project on the southeast side of the island that combats
climate change while protecting statewide water supply.
California has a paradoxical history with its environment. On
one hand, the state boasts incredible natural beauty, along
with a government that is an internationally recognized leader
for strong environmental policies. But the state’s residents
have also caused severe environmental destruction, particularly
in the late nineteenth century — some of which helped spur the
mobilization that led to these environmental successes.
The Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority plans to finish a
levee improvement program at the Goldfields later this year
that has been in the making since 2004 and will have cost
approximately $500 million once all is said and done.
The 2017 Central Valley Flood Protection Plan’s Investment
Strategy looked at … retooling the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Drainage District to provide a small continuous funding stream
for ongoing expenditures of the flood management system. At the
April meeting of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board,
consultants discussed the upcoming feasibility study.
On a recent sunny, windy March day – just before COVID-19 sent
the [San Francisco] Bay Area into lockdown – Dave Halsing stood
on the trails at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve and
pointed out what used to be old industrial salt ponds. He noted
how they’re gradually being restored into a rich mosaic of
tidal wetlands and other ecosystems in the South Bay Salt Pond
Restoration Project.
Dr. Laurel Larsen, an expert in hydroecology, landscape
dynamics, complex environmental systems, and environmental
restoration, was unanimously appointed by the Delta Stewardship
Council on Thursday as lead scientist. Most recently, Dr.
Larsen has served as an associate professor in the Department
of Geography and Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UC
Berkeley.
Lewis MacAdams, a poet and crusader for restoring the concrete
Los Angeles River to a more natural state and co-founder of one
of the most influential conservation organizations in
California, has died. He was 75.
Led by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development
Commission, the report takes study findings from throughout the
region to demonstrate the shared impacts of sea level rise
ranging from 12 to 108 inches on housing, transportation
networks, critical environmental habitat, jobs and
disadvantaged communities.
It’s a simple rule, designed to protect both homeowners and
taxpayers: If you want publicly subsidized flood insurance, you
can’t build a home that’s likely to flood. But local
governments around the country, which are responsible for
enforcing the rule, have flouted the requirements, accounting
for as many as a quarter-million insurance policies in
violation, according to data provided to The New York Times by
the Federal Emergency Management Agency…
In the fall of 2018, a six-member independent Social Science
Task Force was charged by the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta
Science Program to develop a strategy for strengthening and
integrating social sciences into the science, management, and
policy landscape of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This
document summarizes the findings and recommendations of the
Task Force.
While studies attributing flood events to individual drivers
can be valuable, ignoring interdependencies among these drivers
as well as the effects of changing river morphology implicitly
promotes simplified views of the challenges inherent to flood
management. Further research must account for these
interdependencies…
California’s homeless crisis is one of the state’s top issues,
but the least discussed aspect of this broad problem is the
damage these homeless encampments cause to our levees. …
Large trenches dug into the side of levees impact the integrity
and stability of our protective barriers that are engineered to
keep our homes and community from flooding.
Paul Detjens is driving us from his Martinez office to a
restoration site near the mouth of Walnut Creek on Suisun Bay,
a project he spearheads as an engineer for the Contra Costa
County Flood Control District. … The closer we get to our
destination, however, the more industrial the landscape
becomes, and the more improbable it seems that we’re in the
right place to realize this vision.
For decades, the discussion over flood mitigation in Petaluma
has almost exclusively centered around storm surges and heavy
rainfall events. Now, months after the city made its landmark
climate emergency proclamation, attention is shifting to focus
more on sea level rise and scientific projections that offer a
glimpse into what could be a sodden future.
Cindy Messer considers one of her greatest professional
accomplishments also the toughest experience in her 23-year
career. Messer was sworn in as chief deputy director of the
California Department of Water Resources the day after the
Oroville Dam crisis began in February 2017… But within
months, her boss retired, and she became acting interim
director for the recovery phase.
Spurred by a recent change in federal flood zone maps and a
desire to prepare for rising seas, Foster City is in the
process of raising its levees by 1 to 7 feet. Residents voted
in 2018 to tax themselves in order to pay for the estimated $90
million upgrade. When the project breaks ground later this
year, the city of 35,000 people will vault to the forefront of
urban adaptation in the Bay Area to rising waters.
While the bulk of the $175 million goes toward addressing
seepage issues along San Joaquin River levees, a dry levee in
southwest Manteca plays a key role in making sure potential
breaks along the San Joaquin south of RD-17 or levee failures
on the Stanislaus River don’t flood portions of either city.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District awarded a
$64 million construction contract on February 14 … for nearly
three miles of levee improvements along the Sacramento River
East Levee. This project will kick off major construction in
the region to complete approximately $1.5 billion of work to
upgrade levees along the American and Sacramento Rivers as well
as widening the Sacramento Weir and Bypass.
An investigation by NBC Bay Area has found more than two dozen
major construction projects worth billions of dollars – either
recently completed or still in development or – located in
areas along San Francisco Bay that scientific computer models
show will be flooded or surrounded by water by 2050 or earlier.
A long-planned Pajaro River flooding prevention project has
secured its first federal funding for engineering and design.
Earlier this week, Rep. Jimmy Panetta announced that the Pajaro
River Flood Risk Reduction Project had been provided $1.8
million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2020 work plan
budget.
Congressional leaders unveiled a transformative vision of
moving America and the environment forward by investing in 21st
century infrastructure. The Moving Forward Framework outlines a
five-year plan for bold investment in transportation and water
infrastructure.
At a panel discussion hosted by California Natural Resources
Secretary Wade Crowfoot, the panelists discussed how by
spreading out and slowing down water across the landscape can
provide multiple benefits year-round by allowing farmers to
cultivate the land during the spring and summer, and provide
habitat for fish and wildlife in the fall and winter months.
Combined with a safer spillway completed in 2017, federal dam
officials say the flood-prone region is on its way to 300-year
or more flood safety, meaning there will only be a one-in-300
chance in any given year that the combination dam and
downstream levee system will fail.
The main focus of the program are the barriers to fish passage
for salmon from Friant Dam to the ocean and back again. There
are three key barriers: the East Side Bypass Control Structure
which is in the flood bypass; Sack Dam, which is the intake for
Arroyo Canal for Henry Miller irrigation system; and Mendota
Dam which controls Mendota Pool. The program also needs to
ensure enough habitat for the fish when they return to complete
their life cycle,
Response to Wednesday’s action by the California Department of
Water Resources to initiate an environmental impact report for
a tunnel project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta was
not popular with the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors.
Weak and problematic levees are a big reason why there was so
much destruction when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in
2005. It cost Louisiana and Mississippi more than $150 billion
dollars and killed more than 1,800 people. But could something
like this happen in the Sacramento region? The answer CapRadio
heard from levee experts is yes, Sacramento could see that type
of flooding, but there are a lot of things that lower that
risk.
Praising progress on a long-awaited Pajaro River flood
prevention project, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors
reviewed a proposed regional flood prevention agency that would
oversee construction and operation of the $393.7 million
initiative. By a unanimous vote, the county board directed
staff to finalize a joint powers agreement at the center of the
proposed Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency.
Lathrop — like any other community — has a homeless problem.
But unlike other communities, the homeless problem could
imperil the community. That’s because a number of homeless in
the Lathrop area have taken to digging holes into the base of
levees designed to hold back the San Joaquin River at high
water levels.
A climate research organization will offer access to a risk
model that predicts the probability of flooding for homes
across the United States, giving the public a look at the data
institutional investors use to gauge risk.
The river barreled over, sinking the streets of Sacramento in
6-feet of water. It was streaming fast, flooding the hotels and
houses of Gold Rush migrants hoping to find fortune in the
bountiful land of California.
The courtroom battle over 9,000-acre Staten Island is the
latest conflict in the Delta over farming, wetlands and aging
levees that, besides preventing flooding, preserve a way of
life on the man-made islands. The suit, filed in 2018 by a
group called Wetlands Preservation Foundation, accuses the
California Department of Water Resources and the Nature
Conservancy of failing to adequately protect wildlife or employ
sustainable agricultural practices on the property…The stakes
are high because the channels, islands and marshes that make up
the Delta are a catch basin for most of California’s drinking
water.
King tides, a naturally occurring phenomenon that received a
common name only a decade ago, are heading to California
shorelines this weekend — and with them, a series of public
events intended to show people the dangers posed by sea level
rise.
While considerable progress has been made to improve flood
management in the Central Valley, the vast region still faces
significant flood risk. … It has been estimated that
California needs to spend at least $34 billion to upgrade dams,
levees, and other flood management infrastructure.
Accomplishing these upgrades within 25 years would mean
spending $1.4 billion per year—roughly twice the current level
of investment.
These changes will be substantial, multi-faceted, and often
rapid. Some changes will be irreversible. Many changes are
inevitable. Some will say today’s Delta is doomed. It will be
important for California to develop a scientific program that
can help guide difficult policy and management discussions and
decision-making through these challenges.
Site preparation activity for upcoming levee improvements along
the Sacramento River east levee will begin this week, kicking
off a five-year U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project to upgrade
levees throughout the Sacramento region and widen the
Sacramento Weir.
Despite efforts over decades, the Delta’s delicate ecosystem
and species continue to decline. … At the 2019 ACWA Fall
Conference, Vice Chair of the State Water Board DeDe D’Adamo,
Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth, and Delta
Stewardship Council Susan Tatayon gave their thoughts on moving
forward in the Delta in this panel discussion moderated by the
Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Director
Ellen Hanak.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of moisture that
descend from the tropics to higher latitudes like from Hawaii
to California. They used to be referred to mostly as a
pineapple express. … A study by researchers at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography suggests that one of these events
could cause catastrophic damage to California and its economy
and thus the nation’s economy.
Despite efforts over decades, the Delta’s delicate ecosystem
and species continue to decline. … At the 2019 ACWA Fall
Conference, Vice Chair of the State Water Board DeDe D’Adamo,
Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth, and Delta
Stewardship Council Susan Tatayon gave their thoughts on moving
forward in the Delta in this panel discussion moderated by the
Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Director
Ellen Hanak.
The low-lying island, as well as neighboring Yerba Buena
island, are also the site of a multibillion-dollar neighborhood
development. The project calls for 8,000 new homes and condos
that could house more than 20,000 people, 500 new hotel rooms,
and over 550,000 square feet of commercial space. But how will
climate change affect these plans?
During the 2019 Flood Prevention Authority Legislative
Conference, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presented a
cost-benefit analysis in support of what is estimated to be
about a $394 million project, an effort which would reduce
significant flood risk to the city of Watsonville, Pajaro in
Monterey County and adjacent agricultural areas…
We’ve heard this about earthquakes – it’s not a matter of if
but when the big one will hit. Well, some researchers also say
it’s a pretty similar situation for a major flood in the area.
A research project currently being undertaken at SoCal and
NorCal UC campuses is looking at how flooding could impact the
area, including socioeconomic issues.
They’re like a continuous conga line of moisture streaming
across the ocean without interruption until they encounter an
obstacle such as the coast ranges in California. These
obstacles force the atmospheric river to start shedding its
burden of moisture.
There were questions about the gates that release the water
from Lake Oroville, even before the spillways broke up in
February 2017. Those questions never really got answered. The
focus was on fixing the obvious damage. We could get around to
talking about the gates after that. Maybe.
Known as Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO), the
approach centers on using the latest forecast technology to
plan for the arrival of atmospheric rivers. Those are the
torrents of moisture in the sky that barrel into California
from the Pacific Ocean. Atmospheric rivers are critical to the
state’s water supply, accounting for as much as half of its
annual precipitation. But they can also cause catastrophic
flooding.
Many of California’s watersheds are
notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring
flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it
can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines are
strict and unyielding, requiring reservoirs to dump water each
winter to make space for flood flows that may not come.
However, new tools and operating methods are emerging that could
lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water
supply and flood protection capabilities.
Through financial support from various grant funding, CDFA is
implementing a five-phase process for nutria eradication that
consists of survey, knockdown, mop-up, verification, and
surveillance. CDFW staff have been working the landscape by
dividing areas into 40-acre grids to ensure that nothing is
overlooked.
The start of work on the restoration of the Bel Marin Keys
wetlands is another example of efforts to bring back the miles
of wetlands that, over the past century, have been lost to
development, other encroachments and years of sedimentation
buildup.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is hitched to so many things.
Our estuary is a critical habitat for fish and wildlife, home
to millions of people, and the hub of our state’s water
delivery system. From the Sierra Nevada to the mouth of the San
Francisco Bay, what happens in one part of the Delta watershed
affects the entire estuary.
State transportation crews are wrapping up paving and drainage
improvement work along Highway 37 ahead of winter rains in an
attempt to avert flooding, which in two of the past three years
led to multiday closures of the critical North Bay commuter
artery.
A living shoreline is an alternative to ‘hard’ shoreline
stabilization methods like rip rap or seawalls, and can provide
numerous benefits such as nutrient pollution remediation,
habitat, and buffering of shorelines from storm erosion and sea
level rise. … At the 2019 State of the Estuary conference,
Marilyn Latta from the Coastal Consevancy and Katharyn Boyer
from San Francisco State University gave a presentation on
living shoreline projects in the San Francisco Bay.
On Thursday, the East Bay city of Newark will consider
approving 469 single family homes and 2,739 parking spaces at
the edge of the San Francisco Bay shoreline, on a 430-acre
parcel where conservation groups and state and federal agencies
have for decades hoped to restore wetlands. … The proposal
illustrates one way even straightforward and widely agreed-upon
regional climate solutions can fall apart at the local level…
While breaking this levee would seem like a catastrophe, state
and federal agencies intend to do just that. The purpose is not
to unleash some biblical, punishing flood, but rather to allow
nature to reclaim nearly 1,600 acres of wetland habitat.
Woodland city officials are continuing to build the case for
Cache Creek flood control, recently approving $900,000 for
another study that could be yet another downpayment on a
multi-million dollar project ultimately paid for by federal,
state and local governments.
San Marcos will start construction of its Creek District this
year, with a $100 million plan to reduce flooding and improve
habitat and traffic flow, officials said at a public forum
earlier this week.
In order to take care of environmental concerns and maintain
our facilities in a safe and effective manner, we have
identified about 900 encroachments on public lands managed by
Valley Water that require resolution. … Valley Water has
implemented a new process to resolve these encroachments by
working with our community.
Elizabeth Castillo looks on as her daughter Reynata plays with
children at a playground near the Los Angeles River in Long
Beach, California, in mid-October, hoping one day the river
will be clean enough to kayak on. … In the last half-century,
the LA River served primarily as flood control infrastructure,
but open space and wildlife advocates fomented a movement to
make it wild and accessible to all.
The White House has begun reviewing a plan to change the way it
issues environmental permits for infrastructure projects. If
the proposal is finalized, it could speed up National
Environmental Policy Act reviews for roads, bridges, ports,
pipelines, power lines, Internet trunks, and water systems.
Just how far will Gov. Gavin Newsom go in his high-profile
fight with the Trump administration over environmental
protections? The next few months will provide an answer, as
Newsom is forced to take a stand on Trump rollbacks in a
long-contested battleground — the Northern California Delta
that helps supply more than half the state’s population with
drinking water and fills irrigation canals on millions of acres
of farmland.
Russian River communities impacted by the 2019 flood may soon
see some help, as a budget trailer bill signed last week by
Gov. Gavin Newsom promises $1.5 million to the area that
suffered 100 landslides and slipouts and faces at least $155
million in damage.
One of the most recent threats to California’s environment has
webbed feet, white whiskers, shaggy fur and orange buck teeth
that could be mistaken for carrots. … The swamp rodents,
called nutria, are setting off alarms in California.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was once one of the lushest
marshlands in the state. The peat-rich soil made it an ideal
place for some of the state’s first farms to pop up. Today,
scientists are hacking their way through thick brush to see if
restoring these marshes is a way to reduce carbon dioxide in
the air.
At least 85 different federal laws and regulations affecting
California have been weakened or undermined by the Trump
administration since January 2017. … That’s why I, along with
many proponents, believe that Senate Bill 1 would safeguard our
state …
A rookie California lawmaker plans to haul a 20-pound rodent
carcass into Congress on Tuesday to press his colleagues for
money to fight an invasive species wreaking havoc on his
district. Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, hopes a hearing on his
bill will convince his colleagues that funding to stop invasive
nutria in California’s Central Valley is sorely needed …
Before all those thousands of miles of levees went in, the
Central Valley had one of the West Coast’s largest salmon runs,
with a million or more of these mighty fish returning each
year. A big reason for the salmon’s suc-cess was that the
valley was among the most extensive floodplains in the world.
It appears that Woodland is now in the “advancement” stage with
the Army Corps of Engineers willing to work on a plan for
longterm flood protection along the city’s northeast side.
However, the effort could just as quickly be reversed,
according to members of the City Council, if they don’t get
farmers on board with their efforts.
Imperial Beach regularly experiences flooding during high-tides
and storms — climate change and rising oceans are threatening
to make that flooding significantly worse.
The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta has more non-native species
than native ones, and its estuary is considered the most
invaded in the world. We talked to Jim Cloern—an emeritus
scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct fellow
at the PPIC Water Policy Center—about this challenge.
There’s a lot to like about the Bay Area’s efforts to prepare
for sea level rise: the collaborative efforts, the detailed
studies and, laudably, the voters who are willing to tax
themselves with an eye to future needs. But if the long-term
threat is as grim as scientific projections indicate, local
experts say the region needs to respond with increased urgency
— an urgency that is at odds with the Bay Area’s often
cumbersome decision-making processes.
Something is amiss on Sherman Island, a whale-shaped swath of
farm and grazing land at the confluence of the Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers. If you don’t know what ails the place, it
might be hard to pinpoint the problem.
There’s no certain answer as to how the nutria population
re-emerged after being declared eradicated in California
decades ago but the population is spreading and causing serious
concern. The Department of Fish and Wildlife was recently
awarded $10 million to wipe out the large, invasive rodents and
that effort is now well underway.
At the Association of California Water Agencies‘ spring
conference, a panel of lawyers covered the basics of the legal
framework for the Delta. The panel was billed as ‘All the
Acronyms You Need to Know”, but no 1.5 hour panel discussion
could possibly cover all that. However, the panel did a good
job of hitting the main ones and highlighting current issues.
In 2015, the Board of Supervisors gave initial approval to a
$58 million shoreline protection program to protect SFO from
sea-level rise. But on Wednesday, the board’s Budget and
Finance Committee approved an updated program that will now
cost $587.1 million. City officials attributed the increase to
new sea-level rise estimates and guidelines issued by the State
of California…
A Sacramento Bee investigation found high levels of E. coli
bacteria — a sign of fecal contamination — along the lower
stretch of the American, where homeless camps line the banks,
residents walk their dogs, and where thousands of swimmers dip
into the water to escape Sacramento’s summer heat.
We applaud Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts in leading discussions
with the United States Department of the Interior, public water
agencies and environmental groups to craft voluntary agreements
that will restore the ecological health of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta while providing California with clean, reliable
water.
As the old saying goes, if you can’t go through something, go
around it. And at an estimated cost of $357 million, the Friant
Water Authority is contemplating a 30-mile parallel canal to
circumvent the portion of the Friant Kern Canal that has been
negatively affected by subsidence.
After decades of costly floods — and 65 years after Congress
first approved it — construction on Santa Clara Valley Water
District’s flood control project along the Upper Llagas Creek,
is finally happening.
Last week, the Delta Stewardship Council held a public hearing
to review proposed changes to how spending decisions on the
maintenance of Delta levees are made, and the plan — known as
the Delta Levee Investment Strategy — has drawn criticism from
several sources.
Restoration of nearly 1,600 acres of wetlands near Bel Marin
Keys is set to begin this year after the approval of $20
million in funding on Thursday. The state Coastal Conservancy
voted unanimously during its meeting in Sausalito on Thursday
to allocate the money to begin the first phase of
construction…
Nutria, a giant invasive rodent originally from South America,
might be the size of a beagle, but unlike a beagle you can’t
keep them in your home. The California Fish and Game Commission
is looking to correct a gap in the law that restricts what pets
may lawfully be owned by including nutria among the list.
A panel of experts discuss how reactivating the floodplains can
provide habitat and food for native fish and for migrating
birds, and highlights the many projects and opportunities in
the Sacramento Valley.
More than 60 elected officials and environmental and community
groups throughout the Bay Area are urging Redwood City
officials to reject proposals to develop the Cargill salt ponds
and rather have them restored as wetlands.
California’s rivers and streams have experienced enormous
changes over the past 150 years, and a warming climate brings
new challenges. We talked to Ted Grantham—a river scientist at
UC Berkeley and a member of the PPIC Water Policy Center
research network—about the state of the state’s rivers.
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, the editor in chief of Estuary Magazine
and long-time Bay Area science writer, talks about the
resiliency of the largest estuary on the West Coast, the
challenges facing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, and the
potential impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on the
San Francisco Bay.
The study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS
One, documented dramatic decreases in wetland habitat around
San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and
nearly 450 other bays, lagoons, river deltas and coastal creek
mouths throughout the West.
With the last drought in the rearview and the next one
inevitable, the damaging run on groundwater has state water
agencies and lawmakers mulling whether to spend hundreds of
millions to patch up a federally owned canal. But critics say
doing so would amount to a clear bailout for the state’s
largest farmers.
Marin residents living in the Ross Valley will see a 3%
increase in the annual stormwater drainage fee to finance flood
control projects. … Following the 3% increase, homeowners
will be paying $149.28 annually. The Ross Valley has been
dogged by flooding over the past century.
Rep. Josh Harder has focused much of his first year in office
on local issues such as water storage and the effects of almond
tariffs on Central Valley farmers. Now he is training his
attention on the nutria, a semi-aquatic rodent that has drawn
the ire of environmentalists, farmers and local officials
alike.
San Joaquin County has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court asking
the state Department of Water Resources to abide by local
drilling permit requirements to protect wildlife and water
quality in accordance with California law.
