California has pioneered some of the
toughest state environmental legislation to address environmental
issues. For example, laws focused attention on “instream uses” of
water to benefit fish and wildlife, recreation, water quality and
aesthetics. Among water-related issues, in general, are
climate change, toxic waste disposal, pollution and loss of
wildlife and habitat.
Also, the California Legislature was the first in the country to
protect rare plants and animals through passage of the California
Endangered Species Act in 1970.
A collective cheer is in the air as many environmentalists,
wildlife enthusiasts, Alameda County officials and residents
celebrate news that funding to remove the last man-made barrier
to fish passage in Alameda Creek has been secured. Claire
Buchanan, Bay Area Senior Project Manager for California Trout
(CalTrout), a non-profit agency focused on ensuring healthy
waters and resilient fish populations in the state, said a new
$4.3 million grant will be used to lower a PG&E gas
pipeline that spans the creek about 12 miles upstream from the
creek’s terminus into the bay. Known as the Sunol Valley Fish
Passage Project, it is the last of 16 fish passage projects in
the Alameda Creek watershed completed in the last 20 years.
Urbanization in the lower 12 miles of the creek in the Fremont
area has choked portions, preventing native Chinook salmon and
steelhead from traveling to upstream watersheds to spawn.
Previous large fish passage projects on the creek include the
installation of fish ladders at the Fremont BART station weir
and at the inflatable bladder dams near Niles, both done by the
Alameda County Water District (ACWD).
Máyala Wáta, also called Meeks Meadow, is proceeding with
lodgepole pine removal through a grant from the California
Tahoe Conservancy. The conifer thinning will take place over
200 acres of the area, which will help restore the area’s water
levels and culturally significant plants to the Washoe tribe.
Meeks Meadow is the center of the Washoe homelands and was
identified as a priority habitat for protection in the area. In
1997, the U.S. Forest Service and Washoe tribe signed a
memorandum of understanding that expressed a common line of
action—protecting and restoring the area. Since then, different
restoration efforts have been made in the area, but this
promises to be one of the largest thanks to the $600,000 grant
received from the California Tahoe Conservancy. Combined with
$1 million in federal funds, the project will include cutting
down conifers to protect water levels and soil quality for
culturally significant plants, as well as thinning the
surrounding forest for fuel reduction. Overall, the project
spans 283 acres of the land.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city of Pittsburg,
California, Monday for approving a development, including a
massive data center, without considering and planning for its
environmental effects, including greenhouse gas emissions,
water usage, and harms to wildlife and surrounding wetlands.
The project site is on grassland and wetlands habitat with
nearby streams and other waterways. The area serves as an
important wildlife corridor for the region and is home to
red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, white-tailed kites, and other
raptors.
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to slash federal
climate, clean air and clean water regulations during his
second term — an agenda that could target rules governing
everything from auto emissions to power plant pollution to
drinking water standards. … Business groups and many
Republican leaders are cheering Trump’s plan to weaken
environmental protections, arguing they are too strict and harm
the economy. But in states that have focused on tackling
climate change and pollution, attorneys general and lawmakers
are preparing to fight back by filing lawsuits, enacting their
own regulations or staffing up state environmental agencies.
Before leaving office, President Joe Biden could act on two
bids for new national monuments in Northern California: one in
the rugged Sierra Nevada south of Yosemite and another in the
volcanic highlands northeast of Mount Shasta. Doubts are
emerging, though, that Biden will offer the protective and
prestigious status to either of the properties. Not only is
time running out for the administration, but opposition to the
initiatives has recently surfaced, shattering any notion that a
proposed Range of Light Monument in the Sierra or Sáttítla
National Monument near Shasta would be universally popular.
A story of recovery has a spectacle in the South Bay in the
past few days as large salmon have been making their way
through Los Gatos Creek to spawn. Large chinook salmon were
swimming up the Los Gatos Creek in Campbell as they prepare to
spawn in the coming days. There was a large crowd on Monday.
“That’s very unusual. I’ve lived around her my whole life and
this is the first time I’ve seen them this far up,” said Ron
Huffman of Campbell. “If you told me that there was salmon of
that size, I never would have believed it until
yesterday.” The spectacle, which is now drawing crowds,
are the results of the recent rains but also the long running
effort to provide salmon a cleaner place to live in local
creeks.
Smelly and saturated with seawater, the marsh muck sucks at the
waders of UC Santa Cruz graduate student Aliya Khan as she
walks along a channel in Elkhorn Slough. She places a tube into
the water, which will collect samples that will help uncover
the salt marsh’s ability to serve as a carbon dioxide vacuum
and vault. Khan’s research is taking place at an important
time. … Salt marshes, which have historically been drained
and turned into farms or land ripe for real estate development,
are emerging as a powerful tool in the fight against global
warming.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has
seen the first returns of threatened coho salmon to the upper
Klamath River Basin in more than 60 years following
historic dam removal completed last month. Not since the
construction of the former Iron Gate Dam in the early 1960s has
CDFW documented coho salmon occupying their historic habitat in
the upper watershed. On Nov. 13, seven coho salmon entered
CDFW’s new Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County, which
is located on Fall Creek, a formerly inaccessible Klamath River
tributary about 7.5 miles upstream of the former Iron Gate Dam
location.
The Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) approved 24 habitat
protection and restoration projects spanning 25 counties across
more than 21,600 acres at its Nov. 21 quarterly meeting. One of
the grants restores 67 acres of wetland, riparian, and upland
habitat at Carr Lake in the heart of the city of Salinas,
providing much needed open space to a community area with
limited access to parks and nature. The WCB’s $4
million grant to the Big Sur Land Trust—in a cooperative
project with the California Natural Resources Agency, the
California Department of Water Resources, and the State
Coastal Conservancy—increases biodiversity, decreases and
treats stormwater flows and improves public access to
nature.
… “One of the big goals for rebuilding the park is to allow
that natural hydrology to occur as well, and
that means retaining stormwater,” said [Will] Fourt. “So not
conveying it out quickly, but letting it soak in, letting it be
here.” One trail in the old growth forest has already been
rebuilt with this in mind. The trail is completely flat, but
raised on a bed of rocks that allows water to flow under and
pool next to it. Both parks’ utilities and water treatment
systems were also damaged in the fire … Visitors need to plan
on bringing water, especially when visiting Big Basin, said
Fourt. With the canopy gone, Big Basin is a lot warmer
and drier than before.
Many of the estuaries in the United States were once much
larger than previously known, a critical finding as
policymakers work to protect and restore these ecosystems. …
The finding on current and historical estuary size comes from a
study, published in November in the journal Biological
Conservation, exploring how 30 of the country’s estuaries have
changed from as early as 1842 to today. The study determined
that estuaries along the Pacific Coast have lost, on average,
more than 60% of their tidal marshes since mapping began, while
tidal marshes along the East Coast have decreased in size by 8%
over that span. Conversely, some Gulf of Mexico estuaries have
remained stable or grown over time—migrating landward into
adjacent forests—while others in that region have barely shrunk
at all.
… Audubon supports H.R. 9515, the Lower Colorado River
Multi-Species Conservation Program Amendment Act of 2024. The
Program constructs habitats along the Colorado River below
Hoover Dam, and that habitat is essential not only for the 27
species the program targets, but also for many of the 400
species of birds that rely on the Lower Colorado River,
including Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Sandhill Cranes, and Yuma
Ridgway’s Rails. Today, because the Program spending does not
keep pace with the collection of funds from non-federal
partners, about $70 million is held in non-interest-bearing
accounts. If these funds were held in an interest-bearing
account, the Program would have about $2 million in additional
funds per year, and be more able to maintain program
implementation in the face of increasing costs. —Written by Jennifer Pitt, Audubon’s Colorado River program
director
After 13 years of planning and building, the Hester Marsh
Restoration Project had its unofficial “ribbon-cutting” moment
over the weekend of Nov. 15-17. Project researchers, managers
and volunteers gathered at the marsh on the edge of Elkhorn
Slough to observe how the newly completed marsh interacted with
water seeping in with the King Tides. The key question: Were
the final plans for the marsh designed at the correct
elevation? If the marsh was built to plan, observers should see
the water at high tide cover the marsh’s surface – only
slightly. And at 9:35am on Friday, Nov. 15, that is exactly
what they observe.
Replicating a historic survey from 30 years ago, the
Intermountain West Shorebird Survey is a five-year effort to
count shorebirds at more than 200 wetland sites across 11
states in the Intermountain West. The program aims to better
understand shorebirds and their distribution across wetlands,
how that distribution has changed over the past three decades,
and how the wetlands themselves have changed. During peak
migration—a one-to-two-week period in the spring and fall—a
network of volunteers, including state and federal agency
biologists, are on the ground, spotting scopes and binoculars
in hand, counting shorebirds. … This is a photo diary
from two of those survey teams: one on Great Salt Lake, where
over 100 participants surveyed almost the entire lake and its
wetlands in one “Big Day” and the other at Salton Sea, where
surveyors split their survey between three days.
… Near the Oregon border, another coalition is seeking
monument status for an area known as Sáttítla that extends over
parts of the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath and Modoc national
forests. They say local tribes and numerous
Californians depend on the area’s aquifers — which
flow into the Fall River and beyond — for clean drinking water
and renowned fisheries. The geologically unique area is a
spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc tribes and serves
as habitat for protected species, including the bald eagle and
northern spotted owl.
While photos of littered beaches and floating garbage patches
are unsettling, perhaps the most problematic plastic is barely
visible to the naked eye. Called microplastics — chunks less
than 5 millimeters across — these bits have been detected
everywhere from Arctic sea ice to national parks. These
pervasive particles are harder to clean up than larger
plastics, allowing them to accumulate in the environment and
inside living creatures. As their quantities rise, UC Davis
researchers are racing to understand the risks they pose to
ecosystems, animals and humans. “If these things are
getting into our drinking water sources, we
should really care,” said Katie Senft, a staff research
associate at UC Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center,
“especially if they’re not going anywhere and we don’t know the
long-term implications.”
The jewel-like lakes of the High Sierra in Yosemite National
Park are awe-inspiring sights. But for more than a hundred
years they’ve also been biologically disrupted, stocked each
year with non-native fish, which in turn destroyed the
population of Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs that once
covered their shores and filled their depths. With that loss,
the entire ecosystem shifted.
The number was, and is, eye-opening: $10.8 billion. That’s an
estimate issued by city leaders in San Bernardino County for
how much their taxpayers might have to pay, over the next two
decades, to meet possible new standards for cleaning the water
that flows out of their streets and yards and farms and into
the culverts, creeks and tributaries connected to the Santa Ana
River Watershed, a stretch that includes much of San
Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties. Leaders from 17
cities and agencies in San Bernardino County made that $10.8
billion claim during a public hearing in September, in Cypress,
that involved representatives from all three counties. Their
estimate was part of a broader negotiation over the details of
the region’s next MS4 permit, a federally mandated document
that will set limits on how much pollution can legally flow
into local waters and, by extension, the ocean.
The cold, alpine lakes of the high Sierra once hummed with the
splashing and soft, clicking chirp of the yellow-legged frog.
Like many fragile amphibians, however, the small, often darkly
dotted frogs with yellow undersides have seen their numbers
collapse over the years, first when predatory trout were
introduced to lakes for fishing, and then by a menacing fungal
disease. Today, the 2- to 3-inch-long frogs are absent from
about 70% to 90% of their historical range. But the fortunes of
the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog may be turning.
Researchers behind a 15-year effort to revive the endangered
species at Yosemite National Park reported Thursday that the
frog’s population at the park has begun to rebound.
The long-running lawsuit against the City of Bakersfield over
how it operates the Kern River is set to go to trial on Dec. 8,
2025. Kern County Superior Court Judge Gregory Pulskamp set the
trial date before a packed courtroom, though most in attendance
were attorneys on one side of the case or another. This
was the first hearing since the well-known environmental law
firm Morrison Foerster joined the case to work with Attorney
Adam Keats, who represents plaintiffs Bring Back the Kern, Kern
River Parkway Foundation, Sierra Club, Audubon Society and the
Center for Biological Diversity. Morrison Foerster
brought five attorneys (11 others were on hand either in person
or online) to the case management hearing Thursday.
Hikers and Kern River advocates began finding multiple dead
Canada geese in and around Truxtun Lakes starting Thursday.
California State University Biology Professor Rae McNeish
counted at least 10 dead adult birds along the shore and saw
another two on the island, according to an email string SJV
Water was included on. “The birds look like they recently died,
we’re in pretty good condition overall, and were not wounded,”
McNeish wrote in the email string on Thursday. “They look like
they just laid down and died.” She also reported she had spoken
with a woman, apparently from the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, who was at the lake and had bagged a couple of
the birds “for testing.”
Thousands of dead fish have been left behind in the waterbed
where the Kern River sometimes flows through Bakersfield — not
due to drought but to maintenance by the city water department
that added to accusations of mismanagement. Those claims were
brought to Superior Court in a 2022 lawsuit by multiple
environmental advocacy organizations. In October, Bakersfield
argued against the claims, asserting it is not solely
responsible for the dewatering of the Kern River. The recent
fish deaths were “a really tragic situation, both ecologically
and for the community, and of course for the wildlife because
the fish has nowhere to go,” freshwater ecologist Rae McNeish
said.
Thousands of dead fish have been left behind in the waterbed
where the Kern River sometimes flows through Bakersfield – not
due to drought but to maintenance by the city water department
that added to accusations of mismanagement. Those claims were
brought to Superior Court in a 2022 lawsuit by multiple
environmental advocacy organizations. In October, Bakersfield
argued against the claims, asserting it is not solely
responsible for the dewatering of the Kern River. The recent
fish deaths were “a really tragic situation, both ecologically
and for the community, and of course for the wildlife because
the fish has nowhere to go,” freshwater ecologist Rae McNeish
said.
SYRCL, in partnership with the Tahoe National Forest, completed
the second year of project implementation on 229 acres of
meadow, fen, and meadow edge habitat within five high priority
meadows in the North Yuba Watershed: Haskell Headwaters Fen,
Chapman Saddle Meadow, West Church Meadow, Freeman Meadow, and
Bear Trap Meadow. Meadows are important ecosystems for
sequestering carbon, they serve as habitat for threatened
native species, and act as a “water bank” by holding snow water
as it melts then slowly releasing it through the summer.
As temperatures rise and precipitation shifts from snow
dominant to rain dominant, the resiliency of these meadow
ecosystems is increasingly threatened. While existing habitat
degradation in these meadows was initially caused by a variety
of historic human impacts, this degradation is expected to
worsen in response to the impacts of climate change without
intervention.
Delta smelt has cost valley farmers, rural communities, and
residents in Southern California significant quantities of
water. Since water supplies have been restricted to
protect delta smelt starting in 2008, no estimate of the water
cost has been produced, but it is very likely that the total
number exceeds 10-million-acre feet. The cost to replace that
water is in the order of $5 billion. Delta smelt
are a small, native fish, found only in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and westwards to the Napa River in salinity that
ranges from slightly salty to one third that of sea water. They
were listed as threatened in 1993 and the status was later
changed to endangered. Since 2017, they have no longer been
found in long-running fish surveys in which they were once
abundant. Their protection under the Endangered Species Act is
warranted. —Written by Scott Hamilton, president of Hamilton Resource
Economics
… Thanks to its unique geographical intersection of ocean,
mountains, deserts, wetlands and urban development, San Diego
County is recognized as the most biologically diverse county in
the continental United States, according to the Nature
Conservancy. That’s the subject of “Nature — San Diego:
America’s Wildest City,” which premieres at 8 p.m.
Wednesday on PBS stations and the PBS app. A giant-screen
version of the film, titled “Wild San Diego,” will
follow on Nov. 22 for a seven-year engagement at the San Diego
Natural History Museum. … The film looks at a handful of
wildlife species that are not only native to San Diego County
but that also have either adapted to, or been hurt by, the
presence of humans, who arrived in this region 12,000 years ago
and have increased 500-fold in number to 3.3 million over the
past 100 years. The greatest influence humans have had on
wildlife, the documentary says, is how we manage our
water resources.
A new operating permit issued Monday for California’s state
water project is expected to help protect fish and ensure
almost 30 million people can access a reliable water supply.
… The incidental take permit is required under state law to
protect endangered and threatened fish species like the Chinook
salmon. … Composed of over 700 miles of canals, pipelines,
reservoirs and hydroelectric facilities, the state water
project both stores and delivers clean water to some 27 million
Golden State residents, along with 750,000 acres of farmland. A
series of planned actions and tools intended to reduce and
offset potential impacts to fish species are linked to the new
permit. They include tidal marsh and floodplain restoration
projects supporting spawning, better fish passage in essential
migration areas and support for hatchery production
activity.
Former President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom want you to
believe they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum on California
water. But their policies aren’t drastically different — and
both lean toward the Republican-leaning farmers of the Central
Valley. On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to force
Newsom to turn on the faucet for water-strapped farmers if he
is elected. Meanwhile, Newsom finalized rules [on Nov. 4]
that insulate the state’s endangered fish protections from
federal changes. But he’s also advancing controversial
proposals to store and move around more water, a perennial ask
of the agricultural industry, and easing pumping limits meant
to protect an endangered fish in order to send more water south
to parched farms. Newsom’s positioning has put the otherwise
green-leaning governor squarely on the foe list for
environmental groups and garnered him credit from unlikely
sources.
… An estimated eight to ten species of lamprey are native to
California (Auringer et al 2023), providing many ecological and
cultural benefits. … And, like salmon, carcasses of
anadromous species (such as the Pacific lamprey) shuttle marine
nutrients to our freshwater rivers after completing upstream
spawning migration. It is likely that all native species
of lamprey in California are in decline, yet a dearth of
information on their ecology and population status makes it
difficult to know how to conserve them. This is especially true
of the small and often forgotten river resident species like
the endemic Kern brook lamprey pictured below. Indeed, lampreys
are one of the least studied groups of fishes in
California. Without these important ecosystem engineers
and aquatic health indicators, we could miss processes
with big roles in keeping our freshwater systems healthy and
full of life. And importantly, population declines of
Pacific lamprey threaten Indigenous culture and food
sovereignty for tribal communities.
The Biden and Newsom administrations will soon adopt new rules
for California’s major water delivery systems that will
determine how much water may be pumped from rivers while
providing protections for imperiled fish species. But
California environmental groups, while supportive of efforts to
rewrite the rules, are criticizing the proposed changes and
warning that the resulting plans would fail to protect fish
species that are declining toward extinction in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay.
… The rules under revision govern dams, aqueducts and
pumping plants in California’s two main water systems, the
Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, which
deliver water to millions of acres of farmland and more than 25
million people. Pumping to supply farms and cities has
contributed to the ecological degradation of the Delta, where
threatened and endangered fish species include steelhead trout,
two types of Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, Delta smelt and
green sturgeon.
A sprawling ranch that crosses ridgetops, valleys and redwood
forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, formerly eyed for luxury
homes and once part of a still-pending quarry proposal, is
being spared from development and turned into a preserve.
Peninsula Open Space Trust announced Monday that it has paid
$15.65 million for 1,340 acres of ranchlands southwest of
Gilroy with plans to permanently protect the site for wildlife,
clean water, carbon sequestration and tribal
value. Land trust officials say the property became a top
priority for preservation because of its location along a thin
corridor that animals use to get in and out of the Santa Cruz
Mountains from the south. The beneficiaries, they say, include
local mountain lions, which have struggled to find safe ways to
leave the region to breed and stay genetically strong.
A federal judge on Friday granted in part a preliminary
injunction against a Northern California county accused of
discriminating against its Asian American population over
access to water. The plaintiffs live in parts of the county
with no wells or other means of accessing water, and say that a
blanket prohibition on transporting water offsite — which isn’t
enforced across the board — disproportionately hurts Asian
American residents.
When the birds touch down, they have no idea of the danger that
lurks in the water. But soon they feel weak. Their eyes may
close. They struggle to hold up their wings, then their heads.
Eventually, they drown. Over the past three months, nearly
100,000 birds have died in this vicious sequence that
scientists say marks the worst outbreak of avian botulism ever
at the Klamath Basin national wildlife refuges, along the
California-Oregon border. The die-off is centered at Tule
Lake, an ancient, volcanic lake in Siskiyou and Modoc counties.
It’s one of six federal refuges designed to provide sanctuary
for the hundreds of thousands of birds, as well as other
animals, that live and visit the remote region annually. Among
the recent dead are both the local waterfowl, namely ducks, and
the many migratory birds that stop for food and rest on their
often-long journeys up and down the West Coast.
After nearly a century of people building dams on most of the
world’s major rivers, artificial reservoirs now represent an
immense freshwater footprint across the landscape. Yet, these
reservoirs are understudied and overlooked for their fisheries
production and management potential, indicates a study from the
University of California, Davis. The study, published
in the journal Scientific Reports, estimates that U.S.
reservoirs hold 3.5 billion kilograms (7.7 billion pounds) of
fish. Properly managed, these existing reservoir ecosystems
could play major roles in food security and fisheries
conservation.
California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the
worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its
land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform
more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit
landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release,
officials announced Monday. … The plan also calls for
11.9 million acres of forestland to be managed for biodiversity
protection, carbon storage and water supply protection by 2045,
and 2.7 million acres of shrublands and chaparral to be managed
for carbon storage, resilience and habitat connectivity, among
other efforts.
Tiny pieces of plastic waste shed
from food wrappers, grocery bags, clothing, cigarette butts,
tires and paint are invading the environment and every facet of
daily life. Researchers know the plastic particles have even made
it into municipal water supplies, but very little data exists
about the scope of microplastic contamination in drinking
water.
After years of planning, California this year is embarking on a
first-of-its-kind data-gathering mission to illuminate how
prevalent microplastics are in the state’s largest drinking water
sources and help regulators determine whether they are a public
health threat.
Algal blooms are sudden overgrowths
of algae. Their occurrence is increasing in California’s
rivers, creeks and lakes and along the coast, threatening the
lives of people, pets and fisheries.
Only a few types of algae can produce poisons, but even nontoxic
blooms hurt the environment and local economies. When masses
of algae die, the decaying can deplete oxygen in the water to the
point of causing devastating fish kills.
Excess salinity poses a growing
threat to food production, drinking water quality and public
health. Salts increase the cost of urban drinking water and
wastewater treatment, which are paid for by residents and
businesses. Increasing salinity is likely the largest long-term
chronic water quality impairment to surface and groundwater in California’s Central
Valley.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
Stretching 450 miles long and up to
50 miles wide, the Sierra Nevada makes up more than a quarter of
California’s land area and forms its largest watersheds,
providing more than half of the state’s developed water supply to
residents, agriculture and other businesses.*
The California Environmental Quality
Act, commonly known as CEQA, is foundational to the state’s
environmental protection efforts. The law requires proposed
developments with the potential for “significant” impacts on the
physical environment to undergo an environmental review.
Since its passage in 1970, CEQA (based on the National
Environmental Policy Act) has served as a model for
similar legislation in other states.
This issue of Western Water examines that process. Much
of the information is drawn from discussions that occurred at the
November 2005 Selenium Summit sponsored by the Foundation and the
California Department of Water Resources. At that summit, a
variety of experts presented findings and the latest activities
from areas where selenium is of primary interest.
