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.
Las Vegas visitors can still snap selfies with the mermaids
swimming among tropical fish in the Silverton Casino’s massive
aquarium and gaze at the colorful dancing water displays of the
iconic Bellagio fountains — for now. But southern Nevada and
much of the American West are struggling to cope with a
worsening drought that has strained municipal water supplies,
agricultural operations and wildlife populations.
The Water Education Foundation has a full-time
job opening for a programs and communications
manager interested in educating and informing
the public about our most vital natural resource — water. In
addition, our news and publication team is looking for
freelance writers with deep knowledge and experience covering
water issues in California and the Colorado River Basin.
Curious about the significance of the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta? Looking for the latest information on the drought
hitting California and the West? Want to read up on some of the
historic figures in California water? The Water Education
Foundation has an array of online resources to help you keep up
with what’s new, what you need to know and what you might be
curious about involving water in California and the West.
Water resource problems and management are complex, confusing,
and controversial for participants in technical, policy, and
public water deliberations. A thoughtful planning approach can
reduce confusion and structure controversies. This paper
attempts to summarize and organize various technical approaches
to water resources planning. This paper summarizes the basic
approach of rational planning, followed by brief reviews of
requirements-based, benefit-cost-based, multiobjective,
conflict resolution, market-based, and muddling through
approaches to planning.
The EPA envisions making good on Biden’s pledge to help
communities replace lead drinking water pipes, in part by
bolstering Water Infrastructure and Innovation Act loans to
local water systems. That includes a proposed increase of more
than two and a half times in the budget for the EPA’s grant
program for helping local and tribal governments replace lead
pipes under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Funds for the grant
program would total $81.5 million in fiscal 2022.
Experts say a statewide drought declaration … could bring
significant consequences for the regulatory structure governing
California’s complicated water-delivery system. Many farmers
believe an emergency order could loosen environmental
regulations and free up water supplies for them. Environmental
groups fear the very same thing – that more of California’s
dwindling water supply could be directed to farming at the
expense of fish and wildlife.
A little more than a week ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that
not only would California effectively ban hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, by 2024, but the state also would work to phase
out oil extraction entirely by 2045. … It was — like the
governor’s promise last year that the state would ban the sale
of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — a sweeping pronouncement
meant to show urgency in addressing climate change while the
state he leads struggles with many of its most dire effects.
But meeting those goals requires complex regulatory
maneuvering.
As one of the best-studied estuaries on the planet, San
Francisco Bay and its upstream brackish and freshwater tidal
regions (“Bay–Delta”; Figure1) has an impressive history of
research and scientific progress. The past 2 decades have been
especially eventful
The Program on Water in the West at Stanford University is
pleased to announce that Felicia Marcus, a preeminent water
policy expert and the previous chair of the California State
Water Resources Control Board, is joining the program as this
year’s William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow.
Trump’s deregulatory victories have been shrinking in number as
courts uphold many of the lawsuits filed by states,
environmental groups and others in response to his
administration’s sometimes hastily engineered rollbacks.
Administration officials said the state must make painful
choices to keep funding intact for core environmental
regulatory and safety programs. They also point out that the
governor is proposing to boost spending for wildfire
preparedness by $90 million and would preserve funding to
enforce new clean drinking-water rules.
Gov. Gavin Newsom used his daily coronavirus briefing Thursday
to outline an austerity budget with deep cuts to cover a
massive $54.3 billion deficit. Newsom’s proposal includes major
cuts to environmental programs, including a $681 million slash
in spending for environmental protection compared to last year,
and a $224 million cut to the state’s natural resources
department.
The Delta Science Program and California Sea Grant are pleased
to announce ten recipients of the 2020 Delta Science
Fellowship. Each fellowship provides up to two years of support
to awardees to pursue research on key topics related to water
management and ecosystem health in the San Francisco Bay-Delta.
Over the past several months, the Authority has undertaken a
rigorous Value Planning effort to review the project’s proposed
operations and facilities in an effort to develop a project
that is “right sized” for current participants while still
providing water supply reliability and enhancing the
environment.The process has resulted in a project that includes
facilities and operations that are different than originally
proposed…
California’s win rate shows that lawyers in its attorney
general’s office are bringing strong cases, says legal scholar
Buzz Thompson, founding director of the Stanford Woods
Institute for the Environment.
California’s win rate shows that lawyers in its attorney
general’s office are bringing strong cases, says legal scholar
Buzz Thompson, founding director of the Stanford Woods
Institute for the Environment.
Here is part two of a partial collection of truisms on water
management. These ideas seem obviously true, but still offer
insights and perspective. Original sources are mostly unknown
(but apocryphal citations are common). Any that I think are
original to me, are probably not.
Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted he takes “a back seat to no one” on
environmental advocacy just before he vetoed the most
significant environmental-protection bill of the legislative
session. His rejection of Senate Bill 1 puts Newsom squarely at
odds with just about every major conservation group in the
state in fortifying defenses for endangered species against the
Trump administration’s efforts to weaken federal law.
The Interior Department is forcing key staff responsible for
environmental reviews to move west as part of the Trump
administration’s efforts to shrink the number of federal
workers based in Washington, two people familiar with the plans
told POLITICO.
With every passing week, California American Water clears more
hurdles as it sets out to build a desalination plant near
Marina. The most recent victory for the proponents of the $329
million project came on Aug. 28 at the California Supreme
Court.
Integration is especially hard, and unavoidably imperfect, for
organizing common functions across different agencies with
different missions and governing authorities. … Much of what
is called for in California water requires greater devotion of
leadership, resources, and organization to multi-agency
efforts.
The premise of the Senate Bill 1 is simple: to maintain
environmental and worker safety standards that the state has
had in place for decades, even if the federal government rolls
them back.
For years, bottled water has served as one of the only
dependable options for consumption and sanitary needs, serving
as a simple way for communities to access affordable and
available water. Yet, a proposed bill in the California state
legislature, Assembly Bill 792, has the potential to impose a
de facto tax on bottled water, leading to significant jump in
cost, and making it unaffordable for many disadvantaged
families.
The Aurora ship has been sitting vacant for years in San
Joaquin County. Its owner wants to move it to Isleton’s public
marina, refurbish it and open it up as a business. If it moves
to Isleton’s waterfront, the ship could be used to host
weddings and parties, be a bed and breakfast and provide a home
for the owner’s family to run the business.
For some, like almond grower Jose Robles of Modesto, climate
change was an afterthought, if that. That’s something they talk
about in Sacramento, he says, not where he lives and works. But
in December, the ground under Robles’ almond trees was a carpet
of green, full of mustard plant and clover. … His neighbors
really don’t understand it.
The obvious question is “Why did Prop 3 fail?” Multiple
commentators have suggested answers. But exploring “Where did
Prop 3 fail?” provides additional insights. The results are
sometimes counter-intuitive…and deepen our understanding of how
voters think about water in California.
When you turn on a faucet on the Monterey Peninsula, you’re
consuming water that’s been illegally pumped from Carmel River.
Now, after more than two decades of this, scores of public
officials, utility executives and citizen advocates are working
– and sometimes fighting – to replace the region’s water supply
before state-mandated sanctions kick in. California American
Water is forging ahead with its plan: a desalination plant near
Marina.
Join us May 2 for an open house and reception at our Midtown
Sacramento offices to meet our staff and learn more about what
we do to educate and foster understanding of California’s most
precious natural resource — water. At the open house, you can
enjoy refreshments and chat with our staff about our tours,
conferences, maps, publications and training programs… You’ll
also be able to learn more about how you can support our work.
Paradise Irrigation District general manager Kevin Philips
reiterated to the board of directors on Wednesday night that
the water is clean as is the water coming from the water
treatment plant. … “What we are doing is pulling meters
because we feel meters could have been one of the leading
criteria to the contamination. Plastic meters that got heated
up.”
Timothy Quinn, a California water policy expert, joined
Stanford’s Program on Water in the West as a Landreth Visiting
Fellow this past winter. Quinn, who has been deeply involved in
California water policy for the last thirty years … took time
out for a Q&A with Water in the West on his current and
past work.
Former Interior Secretary and Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt
will be the distinguished speaker at the 2019 Anne J. Schneider
Memorial Lecture on April 3 at the Crocker Art Museum in
downtown Sacramento. Babbitt’s talk is titled “Parting the
Waters — Will It Take a Miracle?”
The new House of Representatives is rolling out its game plan
and strategies for the next two years, and it’s clear which
state holds the most clout: California. … California now has
more Democrats in the lower chamber than the entire
congressional delegations of Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Washington combined. The state’s
power to shape the agenda goes beyond leadership. In the
environment and energy fields, 12 Californians are subcommittee
chairs and vice chairs.
Bill Smallman, an elected director of the San Lorenzo Valley
Water District board, apologized Monday for calling users of an
herbicide “probably gay.” Responding to a post about glyphosate
herbicides on online platform Nextdoor, Smallman wrote Saturday
that a recent water district ban on that class of product is
“leading by example, showing that anyone who uses this crap is
both really stupid and lazy, and probably gay.”
A leader in a grassroots group pushing for interagency
transfers to solve regional water supply shortfalls has filed
an environmental lawsuit against Soquel Creek Water District.
The civil lawsuit … takes aim at the water district’s Pure
Water Soquel project, which its board of
directors approved in December. The suit points to alleged
shortcomings in Pure Water Soquel’s state-mandated
environmental impact report.
A diver in California has stumbled on an unexpected source of
plastic waste in the ocean: golf balls. As the balls degrade,
they can emit toxic chemicals. And there appear to be lots of
them in certain places underwater — right next to coastal golf
courses. … Thus began a Sisyphean task that went on for
months: She and her father would haul hundreds of pounds of
them up, and then of course more golfers would hit more into
the ocean.
Algal blooms in rivers, creeks and
lakes are an increasing
occurrence in California, threatening human health and safety as
well as pets. Blue-green algal blooms (cyanobacteria) occur in
California during the summer months because hot temperatures
combined with low water levels stimulate growth. If there are
excess nutrients present in their environment, especially
nitrogen and phosphorus, algae populations grow at accelerated
rates, creating algal blooms.
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.
This year was supposed to be different. With Northern
California’s reservoirs finally brimming and cities liberated
from stringent conservation rules, farmers were expecting more
water for their crops. The worst of the drought seemed over. Or
maybe not.
“The tribe did not sue a government office in this case; the
tribe sued an individual — Edmund G. Brown Jr.,” Justice Ronald
Robie said in the 3-0 ruling.
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.
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.
