In general, regulations are rules or laws designed to control or
govern conduct. Specifically, water quality regulations under the
federal and state Clean Water Act “protect the public health or
welfare, enhance the quality of water and serve the purposes of
the Act.”
With California enduring record-breaking rain and snow and Gov.
Gavin Newsom recently easing restrictions on
groundwater recharge, interest in “managed aquifer recharge”
has never been higher. This process – by which floodwater is
routed to sites such as farm fields so that it percolates into
the aquifer – holds great promise as a tool to replenish
depleted groundwater stores across the state. But one concern,
in the agricultural context, is how recharge might push
nitrates from fertilizer into the groundwater supply.
Consumption of well water contaminated with nitrates has been
linked to increased risk of cancers, birth defects and other
health impacts.
Nothing says the end of drought like ending water restrictions
— and the pesky drought surcharges on utility bills. On the
heels of California’s remarkably wet winter, the Bay Area’s
biggest water agencies, including the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission and East Bay Municipal Utility District,
have either rescinded their drought policies or are about to do
so. This means, in many places, no more fines for using too
much water, no more limiting outdoor watering to certain days
of the week and no more drought surcharges. The surcharges were
commonly adopted by water agencies to fill gaps in revenue as
water sales dropped amid rising conservation.
At its March 27, 2023, meeting, the Delta Independent Science
Board voted Dr. Inge Werner from its existing membership as
chair-elect. Dr. Werner’s chair-elect duties began immediately.
She will assume chair duties in September 2024. Prior to
joining the Delta ISB in November 2022, Dr. Werner was director
of the Swiss Centre for Applied Ecotoxicology for nine years.
In Switzerland, she worked closely with federal and local
environmental agencies to improve monitoring programs and
cooperated in research projects with academic institutions
throughout Europe and the United States. Projects included
assessments of advanced wastewater treatment technologies and
environmental risks due to pesticides.
Tim Prado … lives in Lamont, a community nestled among the
oil wells and almond orchards of eastern Kern County. This
region has struggled with arsenic and other contaminants in its
groundwater. But recently, a $25 million dollar grant from the
state’s Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund gave Prado a
tool in his fight for drinking water, since he is also the
chair of Lamont Public Utility District. … Joaquin
Esquivel is the chair of the State Water Resources Control
Board and a son of immigrant farm workers himself. He was
recently at a site where a water well will be built in Lamont.
He spoke about the drinking water challenges facing rural
California. … Esquivel says the agency is making strides
in its quest to ensure water access for everyone.
There could be more than just fashion risks involved when
buying a pair of leggings or a raincoat. Just how much risk is
still not clear, but toxic chemicals have been found in
hundreds of consumer products and clothing bought off the racks
nationwide. Thousands of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl
substances, or PFAS, exist since the first ones were invented
in the 1940s to prevent stains and sticking. PFAS chemicals are
used in nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing and
firefighting foam. Their manufacture and persistence in
products have contaminated drinking water nationwide. Also
known as “forever chemicals,” these substances do not break
down in the environment and can accumulate in our bodies over
time. Drinking water is widely considered the greatest source
of potential exposure and harm.
A California appeals court has upheld waste discharge
requirements within the eastern San Joaquin River watershed
that growers say are reasonable, rebuffing challenges from
environmentalists. In its March 17 decision, the Third District
Court of Appeal rejected all arguments brought by environmental
groups and sided with the California State Water Resources
Control Board, the California Farm Bureau and others related to
the Central Valley’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program. The
court addressed three cases brought by environmental plaintiffs
against the water board.
The amount of grazing land being put off limits to development
in the southern Sierra Nevada has expanded with a deal
announced Wednesday adding 65 acres to a swath now 14 times
that size that conservationists say will serve as a permanent
corridor for local wildlife, among other key benefits.
California Rangeland Trust announced the purchase of the
property at Bufford Ranch, owned by Ernest Bufford, who with
this latest addition has agreed to conserve 910 acres on the
north side of Walker Basin. Terms of the transaction were not
disclosed.
Congress on Wednesday approved a resolution to overturn the
Biden administration’s protections for the nation’s waterways
that Republicans have criticized as a burden on business,
advancing a measure that President Biden has promised to veto.
Republicans have targeted the Biden administration’s
protections for thousands of small streams, wetlands and other
waterways, labeling it an environmental overreach that harms
businesses, developers and farmers. They used the Congressional
Review Act that allows Congress to block recently enacted
executive branch regulations. The Senate voted in favor 53 to
43 Wednesday to give final legislative approval to the measure.
Four Democrats and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
joined Republicans to vote in favor of the resolution.
California is easing its drought restrictions after the state
became soaked with several storms in recent months. During a
visit in Yolo County on Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the
state is changing its drought restrictions and water
conversation plans. However, the governor said the state
drought emergency proclamation won’t be lifted, although, half
of the state is no longer in drought conditions, according to
the U.S. Drought Monitor. One of the restrictions Newsom
announced will be lifted is the state’s 15% voluntary reduction
in water use. With the statewide mandate ending, local
water agencies and governments, such as cities and counties,
can implement their own water restrictions.
The Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday water allocations to the
Central Valley Project will increase thanks to the incredible
amount of rain and snow the state has received. The initial
allocation issued Feb. 22 was conservative due to below-average
precipitation in February, according to the Bureau of
Reclamation. The increase is due to the persistent wet
weather that dominated the end of February and almost all of
March. The atmospheric river events have greatly boosted
reservoir levels, including the two main reservoirs in the
state north and south of the delta – Shasta and San Luis,
respectively. … The latest allocations raised
irrigation water service to 80% from 35% of their contract
total, and municipal and industrial water service to 100% from
75% of their historic use.
Tuesday, the House Committee on Natural Resources discussed the
increased need for water storage in California and the rest of
the western United States given the highly above average
precipitation after years of drought. The Subcommittee on
Water, Wildlife and Fisheries held a hearing on long-term
drought and the water storage issues throughout the reasons to
discuss the situation and possible solutions.
… Bourdeau, the Vice Chair of the San Luis and
Delta-Mendota Water Authority … [and] a director for
Westlands Water District … noted that farmers throughout
the Central Valley have spent billions of dollars to put drip
irrigation systems in place, among other water-saving measures,
to go along with the conservation efforts from municipal water
users. But without proper water storage solutions, the
nation’s future could be imperil if the Valley’s food
production wanes.
Kristiana Hansen is an associate professor of agricultural and
applied economics at the University of Wyoming. We spoke with
her about an innovative pilot program that’s finding new ways
to save water in a parched Colorado River basin. How is
climate change putting pressure on the Colorado River basin
states? So, we’re 20-plus years into a long-term drought
in the Colorado River basin. Water levels in Lake Mead and Lake
Powell are the lowest they’ve been since they were filled.
Since 2007, there’s been a new framework to manage the
reservoirs—and drought—given that there’s less water than
expected. In addition to this new framework, the US Bureau of
Reclamation also directed states to formulate drought
contingency plans, which were finalized in 2019.
State officials were supposed to take a conservative approach
to approving salmon fishing season this year — and they did.
California’s fishing season had been scheduled to open April 1.
Instead, as a result of low salmon projections, the season has
been canceled. Salmon provides more to the state than meets the
eye. … According to the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, salmon numbers are irregular during the three
year life cycle. Data has shown that in years following wetter
seasons fish stock has increased. Consequently there has been a
decline in stock for years following drier seasons.
For the first time in 46 years, the United Nations convened a
global conference on water, creating new impetus for
wide-ranging efforts to manage water more sustainably, adapt to
worsening droughts and floods with climate change, and
accelerate solutions for the estimated 2 billion people around
the world who live without access to clean drinking water. The
conference this week in New York brought together about 10,000
participants, including national leaders and scientists, with a
focus on addressing the world’s many water problems and making
progress toward a goal of ensuring clean drinking water and
sanitation for all people.
When Americans turn on their faucets, they shouldn’t have to
think about infrastructure. A well-run system for clean
drinking water ought to be the bare minimum of what the
government delivers. But virtually every part of the country is
struggling with aging pipes, which are wasting billions of
gallons of water every day. Some utilities are losing as much
as half or more of their water supply to leaks. Worse, most
states don’t know the scale of the problem and are doing little
to find out, threatening their residents’ wallets and their
health. This issue is mostly hidden — until there is a serious
problem. Water main breaks, for example, can tear up roads and
damage property. These occur somewhere in the country every two
minutes, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
This winter’s atmospheric river storms, coastal flooding,
erosion, sea level rise, saltwater intrusion into rivers, and
sedimentation dumping thousands of tons of soil into the ocean
were only the most recent of the state’s disasters. The year
2022 alone brought a massive red tide in San Francisco Bay, the
continued die-off of 95% of northern California’s kelp forest
between the Golden Gate and Cape Mendocino, and a spike of gray
whale deaths along the entire coast. Climate impacts threaten
communities, both human and wild, ranging from whales and their
ice-dependent Arctic prey to the 26 million people living in
the state’s 19 coastal counties that, as of 2021, generated
around 85% of the state’s $3.3 trillion dollar GDP. -Written by David Helvarg, author and executive
director of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation and policy
group.
As the rain year continues to look promising, rice farmers are
happy to expect most if not all of their water allocations will
be delivered. This week the Department of Water Resources
announced a 75% water allocation to the irrigation districts
served by the State Water Project. Farmers on the east side of
the valley served by Lake Oroville are expected to receive 100%
of their water rights, according to Louis Espino, rice farming
systems adviser and director at the University of California
Butte County Cooperative Extension. Butte County Ag
Commissioner Louie Mendoza said he expects 100% of the rice
acreage to be planted — about 100,000 acres. Mendoza said
in 2022, around 80-85% of rice acreage was planted.
Ideas flowed at a recent forum on how to manage Napa Valley
water, which is the lifeblood for local cities, world-famous
wine country and the environment. Save Napa Valley Foundation —
formerly Growers/Vintners for Responsible Agriculture — and
other groups put on the Napa Water Forum. It took place Friday,
March 24 in the Native Sons of the Golden West building in
downtown Napa. … [W]ater runs from local mountains in
streams to the Napa River, giving life to fish and other
aquatic life. The Napa River runs for about 50 miles from Mount
St. Helena through the Napa Valley to San Pablo Bay. Some
water is captured behind dams that form reservoirs for local
cities. Some water seeps into the aquifer, becoming groundwater
that feeds streams and the Napa River during the hot summers
and provides well water for vineyards, wineries and homes.
In July 2019 a group of Sacramento firefighters spray painted
the inside of a city water tank, causing “floating debris” and
damage that cost taxpayers over $65,000. As punishment, two of
them received a two-day unpaid suspension. The firefighters had
just graduated from the academy, and spray painted their
academy number on the inside of an East Sacramento water tank,
according to a Dec. 21, 2021, disciplinary letter, obtained
from a California Public Records Act request by The Sacramento
Bee. … But this time the new firefighters, with help from two
captains, spray painted the inside, causing “floating debris”
to surface in the drinking water that serves nearby businesses
and homes. The city did not discover the floating debris until
a year and a half after the fire fighters spray painted it.
Testing found no contamination, city spokesman Tim Swanson
said.
While environmentally-conscious wine producers like Shannon are
making a difference in California, so is the state which
recently announced its long-range commitment to promoting
ecosystem resilience. The sustainable pest management roadmap
for California was released by the Department of Pesticide
Regulation, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and
the California Department of Food and Agriculture. It charts a
course for California’s elimination of high-risk pesticides by
2050. Yet, wine producers like Sam Coturri of Enterprise
Vineyards in Sonoma County, whose family oversees 35 estate
vineyards, and produces their own label, Winery Sixteen 600,
have been farming organically since 1979.
Camp Pendleton leaders on Monday sent a public notice to
thousands of service members and civilians who live and work on
the base’s north end alerting them that recent testing revealed
their drinking water contained a higher-than-desired level of
PFAS, a potentially carcinogenic chemical that has been found
in much of Southern California’s groundwater supply. PFAS, or
per- and polyfluorinated substances, can be found in cleaning
products, water-resistant fabrics, grease-resistant paper and
non-stick cookware, as well as in products such as shampoo,
dental floss and nail polish. The state only set requirements
to test for the chemicals in the last few years and has lowered
the threshold for when their detection needs to be reported to
the public by water agencies. Water districts throughout
Southern California have been struggling to get PFAS levels
down.
Camp Pendleton leaders on Monday sent a public notice to
thousands of service members and civilians who live and work on
the base’s north end alerting them that recent testing revealed
their drinking water contained a higher-than-desired level of
PFAS, a potentially carcinogenic chemical that has been found
in much of Southern California’s groundwater supply. PFAS, or
per- and polyfluorinated substances, can be found in cleaning
products, water-resistant fabrics, grease-resistant paper and
non-stick cookware, as well as in products such as shampoo,
dental floss and nail polish. The state only set requirements
to test for the chemicals in the last few years and has lowered
the threshold for when their detection needs to be reported to
the public by water agencies.
Following a series of winter storms that eased drought
conditions across the state, Southern Californians celebrated a
sight nobody has seen for several punishing years: water
rushing into Diamond Valley Lake. The massive reservoir — the
largest in Southern California — was considerably drained
during the state’s driest three years on record, with nearly
half of the lake’s supply used to bolster minuscule allocations
from state water providers. But an extraordinarily wet winter
allowed officials from the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California to turn on the taps in Hemet once again.
Water transported from Northern California roared out of huge
concrete valves Monday and into the blue lake at 600 cubic feet
per second — marking an incredible turnaround for a region that
only months ago had barely enough supplies to meet the health
and safety needs of 6 million people.
Marin Municipal Water District is seeking a $200,000 federal
grant to study the possibility of building a brackish water
desalination plant on the Petaluma River. The district’s board
voted 4-0 on Tuesday, with Jed Smith abstaining, to
retroactively authorize an application to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation for the study. The district submitted the grant
application in late February. While the district has studied a
desalination plant on San Francisco Bay in the past, officials
said a plant in brackish water on the Petaluma River is a newer
concept that has not been examined.
During a March 14 special meeting, the Yuba City City Council
approved the sale and transfer of up to 3,999 acre feet of
water to the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, a decision which
the city expects to result in as much as $682,500 in revenue.
The water that was authorized for sale and transfer is
considered “surplus carryover water,” the city said.
… Yuba City Public Works and Development Services
Director Ben Moody said during the March 14 meeting that “it’s
been a team effort” to get the deal ready for approval.
In little pockets in the state, people like [Matt Kaminski, a
biologist from Ducks Unlimited] are reworking the land yet
again to bring back a version of California’s past, in service
of the future. By allowing rivers to spread out, flows are
diverted from downstream communities, replenishing groundwater
and staving off unwanted floods. “These wetlands,” Kaminski
likes to say, “act as a sponge.” And the state agreed. In
September, the California Wildlife Conservation Board earmarked
$40 million for the nonprofit River Partners to spend on
similar projects in the San Joaquin Valley. But in the
governor’s proposed budget released in January, that funding
was axed.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday relaxed drought rules in California
amid a winter season filled with atmospheric river storms,
flooding and a massive Sierra Nevada snowpack — and officials
signaled that an end to the declared drought emergency in the
Bay Area and many other regions is coming soon. At an
appearance at a groundwater recharge project in Yolo County,
Newsom announced the end of state regulations he put in place
last March that required cities and water agencies to impose
water restrictions such as limits on the number of days a week
residents could water lawns and landscaping. … Due to
brimming reservoirs and the big snowpack, the state Department
of Water Resources also announced Friday that it will increase
water deliveries through the State Water Project, which serves
27 million people, from 35% of requested amounts to 75%,
a number that could still increase further in May and June.
On the heels of one of California’s wettest winters on
record, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced that he will roll
back some of the state’s most severe drought restrictions and
dramatically increase water supplies for agencies serving 27
million people.
For the first time in decades, Tulare Lake is reappearing in
the [San Joaquin] valley, reclaiming the lowlands at its
historic heart. Once the largest freshwater lake west of the
Mississippi River, Tulare Lake was largely drained in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, as the rivers that fed it were
dammed and diverted for agriculture….Tulare Lake’s sudden
reemergence has fueled conflict in one of California’s richest
agricultural centers, as the spreading waters swallow fields
and orchards and encroach on low-lying towns. In a region where
the major agricultural landowners have a history of water
disputes, the floods streaming into Tulare Lake Basin have
reignited some long-standing tensions and brought accusations
of foul play and mismanagement.
Emeryville is still digging itself out from under its
industrial past. For years, the city has cleaned up vast swaths
of land contaminated by the scores of commercial warehouses
that used to dominate the East Bay shoreline community. By the
early 2000s, Emeryville earned a reputation as “one of the
foulest industrial wastelands in the Bay Area,” according to
one news outlet, which said the soil was “so toxic that anyone
treading it had to wear a moon suit.” ….This week, city
officials kicked off the complex task of cleaning up roughly
78,000 square-feet of contaminated soil on another city-owned
property just across the railroad tracks from the popular Bay
Street Emeryville shopping center — which was also excavated
before construction.
An appeals court in Sacramento on Thursday upheld a California
environmental agency’s standards for limiting the presence of
the chemical perchlorate in the state’s drinking water. In the
appeal brought by plaintiff California Manufacturers and
Technology Association, Judge Elena Duarte ruled the California
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment properly
considered iodide uptake inhibition and established its public
health goal “at the level at which no known or anticipated
adverse effects on health occur, with an adequate margin of
safety.” Perchlorate, a chemical both manufactured and
naturally occurring, is regarded as a potentially serious
threat to human health … It can leach into the ground
and groundwater, remaining there potentially for decades.
Prompted by urgent calls for action from Tribal leaders and
community members, a coalition of Tribal, local, state and
federal entities is taking immediate steps to support the
long-term survival of the Clear Lake hitch. A large minnow
found only in northern California’s Clear Lake and its
tributaries, the hitch, known as Chi to local Tribal members,
migrates into the tributaries to spawn each spring before
returning to the lake. Historically numbering in the millions,
Clear Lake hitch now are facing a tough fight to avoid
extinction. Today, the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife (CDFW) announced a list of commitments designed to
protect spawning and rearing areas, provide appropriate stream
flows, remove barriers to migration and reduce predation.
The president of one of the world’s largest insurance brokers
warned Wednesday that climate change is destabilizing the
insurance industry, driving up prices and pushing insurers out
of high-risk markets. Aon PLC President Eric Andersen told a
Senate committee that climate change is injecting uncertainty
into an industry built on risk prediction and has created “a
crisis of confidence around the ability to predict loss.”
Crews have begun working on removing four dams on the Klamath
River which tribes and other groups have lobbied to take down
for decades. The early removal work involves upgrading bridges
and constructing roads to allow greater access to the remote
dams, which are expected to be fully down by the end of 2024.
The dam removal on the 38-mile stretch of the river comes after
an agreement between the last dam owner PacifiCorp, California,
Oregon, the Yurok Tribe, the Karuk Tribe and a multitude of
environmental organizations, with the goal of restoring salmon
populations. The Klamath River Renewal Corporation held a news
conference on Thursday giving an update on their work in
dismantling the dams and restoring habitats.
Join us May 4 for an open house and reception at our office
near the Sacramento River to meet our team 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 team about our tours,
conferences, maps, publications and training programs for
teachers and up-and-coming water industry professionals. You’ll
also be able to learn more about how you can support our work –
and you’ll have a chance to win prizes! The open house will be
held in the late afternoon on May 4. More details and a
sign-up are coming soon!
Federal researchers have found that two widely used pesticides
significantly harms endangered Northwest salmon and steelhead
species. The opinion could lead to a change in where and how
the pesticides can be used. The National Marine Fisheries
Service issued a draft of its biological opinion Thursday
concluding that continued use of insect-killing chemicals
containing carbaryl or methomyl likely jeopardizes dozens of
endangered fish species — including Chinook salmon, coho
salmon, sockeye, and steelhead in the Columbia, Willamette, and
Snake rivers. Carbaryl and methomyl are insecticides commonly
used on field vegetables and orchard crops. Both are used on
agricultural land across the Willamette Valley, the Columbia
River Gorge, and southeastern Washington, according to federal
data.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on a case that
focuses on water access for the Navajo Nation but could impact
battles for the resource across the West. For 20 years,
the Navajo Nation’s fight for water has been circulating
through lower courts. The foundation of the case reaches back
more than 150 years, involving the treaties that established
the reservation, decades of court decisions and the United
States’ legal responsibilities to the Navajo Nation. The state
of Colorado and other tribes, including those with reservation
land in Colorado, are keeping a watchful eye on the
outcome. … The average person on the Navajo
reservation uses 7 gallons of water a day, Dvoretzky said. The
U.S. average is 80 to 100 gallons. In New Mexico, the average
is 81 gallons; Utah, 169; and Arizona, 146 …
Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the following
appointments: Samantha Arthur, of Sacramento, has been
appointed Assistant Secretary for Salton Sea Policy at the
California Natural Resources Agency. Appointed to the Colorado
River Board were Gloria Cordero, of Long Beach, Jordan D.
Joaquin, of Fort Yuma, Quechan Indian Reservation, and Frank
Ruiz, of Riverside. In addition, Sandra Matsumoto, of Davis,
was reappointed to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Conservancy, where she has served since 2018.
The city of Linsday in eastern Tulare County is one of several
in the region to experience extreme flooding during the recent
storms this month. In the brief pause in rain, the city
declared a state of emergency to prepare for a new storm this
week. But for some residents, the damage is already done. In
this interview, KVPR’s Esther Quintanilla spoke with Lindsay
City Mayor Hipolito Cerros to hear how he’s leading his
community through this time.
The protest encampment was easily visible from Highway 40
going West from Needles, California — a cluster of olive-green
Army tents that stood out from the low-lying creosote bushes
and sagebrush that cover the expanse of Ward Valley. At its
height, the camp held two kitchens (one vegetarian, one not), a
security detail, bathroom facilities and a few hundred people —
a coalition of five tribal nations, anti-nuclear activists,
veterans, environmentalists and American Indian Movement
supporters. They were there to resist a public-lands trade
between the federal government and the state of California that
would allow U.S. Ecology, a waste disposal company, to build a
1,000-acre, unlined nuclear waste dump that threatened both
desert tortoises and groundwater.
The feast or famine nature of California water has never been
more apparent than now. After three years of punishing drought,
the state has been slammed by a dozen atmospheric rivers. On
our Central
Valley Tour next month, you will see the
ramifications of this nature in action. Focusing on the San
Joaquin Valley, the tour will bring you up close to farmers,
cities and disadvantaged communities as well
as managers trying to capture flood waters to augment
overpumped groundwater basins while also protecting communities
from damaging flood impacts. Despite the recent rains, the San
Joaquin Valley most years deals with little to no water
deliveries for agricultural irrigation and wetland habitat
management.
Situated in the Sonoran Desert near the Arizona-California
border is the tiny rural town of Cibola – home to roughly 300
people, depending on the season. Life here depends almost
entirely on the Colorado River, which nourishes thirsty crops
like cotton and alfalfa, sustains a nearby wildlife refuge and
allows visitors to enjoy boating and other recreation. It’s a
place few Americans are likely to have heard of, which made it
all the more surprising when investment firm Greenstone
Management Partners bought nearly 500 acres of land here. On
its website, Greenstone says its “goal is to advance water
transactions that benefit both the public good and private
enterprise.”
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)
announced a proposed rulemaking that would establish legally
enforceable federal primary Maximum Contaminant Levels (“MCLs”)
for six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking
water. In addition to creating enforceable drinking water
standards, these MCLs, if adopted, could be used as a benchmark
for establishing groundwater remediation goals or be used in
other regulatory or litigation contexts. USEPA expects to
finalize the rulemaking by the end of this calendar year.
In furtherance of its efforts to address the considerable
challenges related to water scarcity in the West, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled the Western Water and
Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action (Framework) on
February 13, 2023, a blueprint designed to help individuals and
entities navigate the complexities of resource conservation and
climate change resilience. Developed by the Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS), the Framework provides guidance
and strategic support for programs that address impacts from
drought and climate change, and defines clear goals and
strategies that communities can use to respond to threats to
agricultural productivity and environmental quality.
Atmospheric river-fueled storms have hammered the network of
hundreds of levees in coastal counties near the San Francisco
Bay — from the agricultural fields of Monterey County to urban
places like San Leandro, Walnut Creek and Richmond to more
rural parts of the North Bay. At least two major levees, in
Salinas and Pajaro, have failed since New Year’s Eve. The levee
breach along the Pajaro River, which divides Santa Cruz and
Monterey counties, left the entire town of Pajaro in a deluge
of water. More than 3,000 residents could be displaced for
several weeks. The disastrous flood submerged a significant
acreage of agricultural land there, and the mostly lower-income
Latino community now faces overwhelming economic and housing
uncertainty.
Troy Waters is a fifth-generation farmer in Grand Valley,
Colorado. With a new water conservation program funded by the
Biden administration, he fears his way of life will turn to
dust and blow away in the wind like dried-out topsoil. That’s
because the federal government wants to conserve water in the
drought-ravaged Colorado River by giving farmers and ranchers
cash to let their fields lie fallow, but the interstate agency
running the program isn’t offering these producers enough money
to quit farming voluntarily, Waters said. … Water
conservation is a major political issue in the American
West. Climate change has made the Colorado River the
driest it’s been in more than a thousand years. Chronic
overuse has depleted the reservoirs that sprawling cities
like Los Angeles and Las Vegas depend on.
Images of starving polar bears staggering across the snow
earned the species the dubious honor of being the “poster
child” of climate change. But now another human-caused
environmental danger threatens these apex predators: pollution
from a class of 12,000 chemicals known as per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). And they’re not the only
ones. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group analyzed
hundreds of recent peer-reviewed scientific studies and found
more than 120 different PFAS compounds in wildlife. Some 330
species were affected, spanning nearly every continent — and
that’s just some of what scientists have identified so far.
Near downtown Tucson, Arizona, is Dunbar Spring, a neighborhood
unlike any other in the city. The unpaved sidewalks are lined
with native, food-bearing trees and shrubs fed by rainwater
diverted from city streets. One single block has over 100 plant
species, including native goji berries, desert ironwood with
edamame-like seeds and chuparosa bushes with cucumber-flavored
flowers. This urban food forest – which began almost 30 years
ago – provides food for residents and roughage for livestock,
and the tree canopy also provides relief to residents in the
third-fastest warming city in the nation. … The
plan, headed up by Lancaster, was to plant multi-use
drought-tolerant shade trees in street-side basins that could
capture rainwater and create “a more liveable community” …
Most U.S. residents don’t need to worry about the safety of
their tap water, but millions of Americans are still exposed to
contaminants every year. It can take a water crisis to
highlight where drinking water infrastructure is failing. One
of the most devastating water crises in recent memory was the
lead contamination in Flint, Michigan’s drinking water in 2014.
As of January 2023, nine years after the initial contamination,
residents are still dealing with the effects. And last year, a
water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi left many of the city’s
150,000 residents without potable water, a problem that
persists today. Here, drinking water experts from the
EPA, academia, and advocacy groups weigh in on what you need to
know about your tap.
A divided Supreme Court confronted on Monday the question of
whether the government must do more to provide water for the
Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. And the answer, by the
narrowest majority, appeared to be yes. Most of the justices
said they were wary of even considering plans to take more
water from the mainstream of the drought-stricken Colorado
River. But five of them, led by Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and
Elena Kagan, mostly agreed with a lawyer who said there was a
150-year history of broken promises to the Navajo Nation. A
treaty signed in 1868 promised a “permanent home” where Navajo
Nation residents could farm and raise animals.
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.
The drama was high on the Tulare Lake bed Saturday as flood
waters pushed some landowners to resort to heavy handed and, in
one instance, illegal tactics, to try and keep their farm
ground dry — even at the expense of other farmers and some
small communities. Someone illegally cut the banks of Deer
Creek in the middle of the night causing water to rush toward
the tiny town of Allensworth. The levee protecting Corcoran had
its own protection as an armed guard patrolled the structure to
keep it safe. At the south end of the old lake bed, the
J.G. Boswell Company had workers drag a piece of heavy
equipment onto the banks of its Homeland Canal to prevent any
cuts that would drain Poso Creek water onto Boswell land.
Fine-tuning certain sections of the federal farm bill
could help prevent the U.S. West from decaying into a Great
Depression-era Dust Bowl, according to Sen. Michael Bennet
(D-Colo.). The third-term senator is on a mission to
ensure that the region’s agricultural sector can continue to
thrive amid inhospitable climate conditions, as negotiations
begin on the 2023 federal package of food and farm
legislation. “How do we advance the real challenges that
producers and rural communities are facing in the context of a
1,200-year drought?” Bennet asked, in a recent interview with
The Hill. Bennet has been a prominent voice in
shaping the farm bill, having contributed to the past two
renditions. He’s now working on the upcoming
version.
The Supreme Court will hear a major water rights dispute from
Arizona on Monday to decide whether the federal government has
broken its promises to the Navajo Nation for more than 150
years. Nearly a third of the Navajo households do not have
running water and must rely on water that is trucked in. The
Navajo Nation blames the U.S. government for having breached
its duty of trust that came with an 1868 treaty that
established their reservation in what is now northeast Arizona
and smaller portions of southeastern Utah and northeastern New
Mexico. That treaty “promised both land and water sufficient
for the Navajos to return to a permanent home in their
ancestral territory,” attorneys for the Navajo Nation told the
court. “Broken promises. The Nation is still waiting for the
water it needs.”
After watching billions of gallons of rainwater wash away into
the Pacific, California is taking advantage of extreme weather
with a new approach: Let it settle back into the earth for use
another day. As the latest batch of storms lashed the Golden
State, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order
this week to hasten projects that use rainwater to recharge
aquifers, reversing decades of an emphasis on channeling it
into drains and out to sea. … Even apart from the order,
the state had already committed $8.6 billion to the
effort. The order to allow water agencies to do a better
job of capturing runoff came amid a storm season that has
dramatically refilled reservoirs drawn down by a drought that
produced the driest three years on record.
A recent study revealed elevated levels of potentially toxic
chemicals in some species of fish in two Northern California
rivers. The study specifically identified the Feather River and
San Joaquin River, along with hundreds of other waterways in
the United States. The chemicals are scientifically known
as PFAS – poly-and perfluoroalkyl substances – and there are
thousands of different types that are used in manufacturing.
PFAS are commonly used as part of waterproof materials. They
can also be found in food packaging, clothing and certain floor
coatings, as well as firefighting foams.
A bipartisan coalition of House lawmakers are forming a
“Congressional Colorado River Caucus,” with the goal of
collaborating on ways to best address worsening drought
conditions across the seven-state basin. … [Rep. Joe]
Neguse, who serves as ranking member of the House Subcommittee
on Federal Lands, announced the creation of the caucus, which
will include members from six of the seven Colorado River
states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and
Utah. The lawmakers intend to discuss the critical issues
affecting the Colorado River, which provides water for 40
million people across the West. Members of the caucus will work
“together towards our shared goal to mitigate the impacts felt
by record-breaking levels of drought,” according to Neguse.
EPA’s historic move to regulate “forever chemicals” in drinking
water has set the stage for a multi-pronged courtroom slugfest
among the agency, water utilities that must comply with the
rule and multinational conglomerates that have flooded the
environment with the toxicants linked to a long list of health
problems, including cancer. Although lawsuits cannot be filed
until EPA finalizes its PFAS proposal, interested parties will
spend the coming months filling the regulatory docket with
comments that will eventually inform the final rule or shape
opponents’ future legal challenges against the agency — and one
another. Case law on the topic is limited: EPA’s proposal marks
the agency’s first enforceable standard of its kind for PFAS
and its first effort to regulate a drinking water contaminant
in over 25 years.
Two recent watershed decisions in California exemplified how
difficult it is to manage this precious resource. Last month,
many water leaders applauded Gov. Gavin Newsom for taking quick
action to suspend a 1999 environmental regulation and keep more
water in reservoirs on a temporary basis. This was a
commonsense and prudent move to allow California to adapt in
the face of changed climate conditions and severe pressure on
the state’s other main source of supply, the Colorado River.
The thinking: Let’s hold on to this water now in case drier
times are ahead. Then the weather forecast changed. -Written by Charley Wilson is the executive director of the
Southern California Water Coalition.
There has been a lot of attention for Gov. Gavin Newson’s
executive order encouraging California agencies to waive
environmental laws to deliver more water to powerful
agricultural interests. There have also been hearings about
modernizing California’s outdated water rights system. Largely
missing from this discussion is the fact that California still
lets race decide who has access to its most precious resource –
water. -Written by Kasil Willie, staff attorney for Save
California Salmon and a member of Walker River Paiute Tribe,
and Regina Chichizola, executive director of Save California
Salmon. She is based on Karuk land on the Klamath River.
For Brenda Eskenazi, what once seemed merely a rich vein of
epidemiological knowledge has turned out to be a mother lode.
Eskenazi, who runs the Center for the Health Assessment of
Mothers and Children of Salinas study (known as CHAMACOS,
Mexican Spanish slang for “little kids”), has tracked pairs of
mothers and their children for more than 20 years. She’s
collected hundreds of thousands of samples of blood, urine and
saliva, along with exposure and health records. … So
when Charles Limbach, a doctor at a Salinas health clinic, saw
an explosion of fatty liver disease in his young patients and
found a study linking the condition in adults to the
weed killer glyphosate, he contacted Eskenazi.
San Diegans are facing a tidal wave of rate increases in coming
years for so-called drought-proof water — driven in large part
by new sewage recycling projects coupled with the rising cost
of desalination and importing the Colorado River. While many
residents already struggle to pay their utility bills, the
situation now appears more dire than elected leaders may have
anticipated. The San Diego County Water Authority recently
announced that retail agencies should brace for a massive 14
percent spike on the cost of wholesale deliveries next year….
Officials on the wholesaler’s 36-member board are anxiously
exploring ways to temper such double-digit price hikes, even
contemplating the sale of costly desalinated water produced in
Carlsbad.
California’s bedrock environmental law has helped protect
residents, wildlife and natural resources from pollution and
other negative effects of development countless times since
then-Gov. Ronald Reagan put it on the books more than half a
century ago. But the California Environmental Quality Act,
better known as CEQA, sometimes is weaponized by competing
businesses, labor unions and anti-development neighbors who
aren’t necessarily motivated by environmental concerns.
… Supporters say the law has blocked or forced changes
for hundreds of projects that would have worsened air, water
and soil pollution…. Witnesses spelled out those competing
realities during an all-day hearing Thursday before the Little
Hoover Commission which, for the first time, is studying
whether to recommend changes to the environmental law.
After more than a year of wrangling, California American Water
Co. has agreed in principle to sign an agreement to purchase
water from a major expansion of a Monterey Peninsula water
recycling project that when completed will provide for
thousands of acre-feet of additional water. Evan Jacobs,
external affairs manager for Cal Am, confirmed Thursday that
what was agreed upon was a filing made by the state Public
Advocates Office that gave Cal Am a portion of what it wanted.
The filing still must be approved by the California Public
Utilities Commission, or CPUC, but it’s the first time all
sides have agreed in principle since September of 2021. The
Public Advocates Office helps to ensure Californians are
represented at the CPUC by recommending solutions and
alternatives in utility customers’ best interests.
On March 10, officials in California made the difficult yet
pragmatic decision to cancel … ocean salmon commercial or
sport fishing off California’s coast until April 2024. In the
Sacramento and Klamath rivers, Chinook salmon numbers have
approached record lows due to recent drought conditions.
… Right now, we believe that the commercial salmon
fishing ban is what our salmon need to ensure population
numbers do not dip to unrecoverable lows. As we look to future
population resiliency, there are so many other things these
fish need, and our teams are working hard to make them
happen. CalTrout works from ridge top to river mouth to
get salmon populations unassisted access to each link in the
chain of habitats that each of their life stages depends on.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council on March 10 provided
three options for recreation and commercial salmon fishing from
the California/Oregon border all the way south to the
California/Mexico border. Unfortunately, but not surprising,
all three options included the words “closed.” In an
unprecedented decision, the PFMC was left with little choice
but to close recreational and commercial salmon fishing this
season statewide. Southern Oregon, which also impacts
Sacramento and Klamath River fall Chinook, will also be closed
from Cape Falcon south. The sport fishery had been scheduled to
open off California in most areas on April 1. The closures were
made to protect Sacramento River fall Chinook, which returned
to the Central Valley in 2022 at near-record low numbers,
and Klamath River fall Chinook, which had the second lowest
abundance forecast since the current assessment method began in
1997.
The southern Sierra Nevada is covered with the deepest snowpack
in recorded history, and the rest of the range is not far
behind. When all that snow melts, where will it go? You
can read the answer in the landscape of the Central Valley. To
the eye it is nearly flat, covered by layers of gravel, silt
and clay washed from the mountains over the eons by rain and
melting snow. … The solution is shockingly simple,
relatively cheap — compared with the cost of cataclysmic floods
— and surprisingly non-controversial. We just haven’t yet done
it on the scale that’s needed. California needs to restore its
floodplains. Not the whole valley floors, and not as they were
in the pre-development era. But it needs to have many more
acres of land reserved for floodwater.
Mandatory water restrictions are being lifted for nearly 7
million people across Southern California following winter
storms that have boosted reservoirs and eased the severe
shortage that emerged during the state’s driest three-year
period on record. Citing improvements in available supplies,
the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California has decided to end an emergency conservation mandate
for agencies in Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino
counties that rely on water from the State Water Project.
However, officials urged residents and businesses to continue
conserving, and to prepare for expected cuts in supplies from
the Colorado River. The announcement follows an onslaught of
atmospheric rivers that have dumped near-record snowfall in the
Sierra Nevada and pushed the state‘s flood infrastructure to
its limits.
A Nestlé plant in the Valley has an issue: it wants to produce
a lot of “high-quality” creamer. But it might not have enough
water to do so. The company’s solution could allow factories to
drain Arizona’s groundwater and could threaten the quality of
city tap water, according to water experts. The massive food
and drink producer announced last year it would be building a
nearly $700 million plant in Glendale, but has since run into
issues with its water provider EPCOR. The amount of wastewater
Nestlé projected to need turned out to be too much for the
Canada-based utility.
The U.S. government has yet to uphold its end of a deal struck
over 60 years ago, in which the Navajo Nation traded some of
its water rights to divert San Juan River water, a major
tributary to the Colorado River, to the growing urban areas
along the Rio Grande in exchange for irrigation infrastructure
for NAPI. Sixty years later, and as water resources dwindle,
the remaining 40,000 acres of irrigation originally promised to
the farm remain undeveloped….later this month, the Supreme
Court will hear a high-profile case in which the federal
government has decided to push back on its responsibility to
provide tribes with an adequate water supply.
In response to crashing Chinook populations, a council of West
Coast fishery managers plans to cancel this year’s salmon
season in California, which will put hundreds of commercial
fishermen and women out of work in Northern California and turn
the summer into a bummer for thousands of recreational anglers.
…The Pacific Fishery Management Council announced March 10
that it is choosing between three fishing season
alternatives. Each would close the 2023 season, with the
possibility of a reopening in 2024. The final decision will
come during a session that begins April 1.
Recently, the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a
concerned citizen against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
(Corps) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) alleging
Endangered Species Act (ESA) violations in connection with the
Corps’ operation of the Coyote Valley Dam on the Russian River
in Northern California. The court opined that federal
defendants cannot avoid having to defend their prior actions
simply by initiating the consultation process under section
7(a)(2) of the ESA, and the equities weighed against a stay of
the litigation while the consultation process unfolds.
Lawmakers in Nevada are considering new rules that would give
water managers the authority to cap how much water residents
could use in their homes, a step that reflects the dire
conditions on the Colorado River after more than two decades of
drought. Among the Western states that rely on the
Colorado River for sustenance, Nevada has long been a leader in
water conservation, establishing laws that limit the size of
swimming pools and ban decorative grass. Residents now consume
less water than they did 20 years ago.
Fresno County’s newest large-scale water storage project is
happening below ground. With California inundated by rain and
snow, state and federal water regulators hatched a plan to help
replenish underground aquifers further depleted by heavy
agriculture pumping during the recent drought. In an agreement
announced last week, more than 600,000 acre-feet of floodwater
from the San Joaquin River system will be diverted and allowed
to soak back into the earth in areas with permeable soils and
wildlife refuges. How much water is 600,000 acre-feet? Enough
to overflow Millerton Lake, which stores 520,000 acre-feet at
capacity. Or enough to meet the annual needs of more than 1
million average households.
The atmospheric rivers that flowed over California in January
dumped about a foot of rain — equal to an entire year’s average
— in many parts of the state’s parched Central Valley, which
encompasses only 1% of U.S. farmland but produces 40% of the
nation’s table fruits, vegetables, and nuts. With February,
ordinarily the second wettest month, still to be counted, talks
of all the land that will have to fallowed as a result of the
drought have quieted for now. But most Golden State growers
have come to realize that droughts will simply be a part of
farming going forward, and the safety net is gone. That
safety net was groundwater pumping. For more than a
half-century, farmers in the Central Valley, the multi-faceted
state’s chief production area, have been pumping more water
from aquifers than can be replenished, causing wells to be
drilled deeper and deeper.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed
limiting the amount of harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking
water to the lowest level that tests can detect, a long-awaited
protection the agency said will save thousands of lives and
prevent serious illnesses, including cancer. The plan marks the
first time the EPA has proposed regulating a toxic group of
compounds that are widespread, dangerous and expensive to
remove from water. PFAS, or per- and polyfluorinated
substances, don’t degrade in the environment and are linked to
a broad range of health issues, including low birthweight
babies and kidney cancer. The agency says drinking water is a
significant source of PFAS exposure for people.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has filed a
complaint against the operator of a mobile home park in Acton,
alleging that the park is using two large unlawful cesspools to
collect untreated raw sewage. The complaint identifies Eric
Hauck as the operator of Cactus Creek Mobile Home Park in
Acton. He’s also identified as a trustee of Acton Holding
Trust. The EPA alleges that Hauck has two illegal cesspools on
the property, despite large capacity cesspools being banned by
the environmental agency more than 15 years ago. Cesspools,
according to the EPA, collect and discharge waterborne
pollutants like untreated raw sewage into the ground. The
practice of using cesspools can lead to disease-causing
pathogens to be introduced to local water sources, including
groundwater, lakes, streams and oceans.
Federal officials have proposed closing commercial chinook
salmon fishing off the coast of California over concerns for
expected low numbers of fall-run chinook salmon returning to
the Sacramento River this year. The Pacific Fishery Management
Council announced its three alternatives for recreational and
commercial fishing Friday. Ocean recreational fishing from the
Oregon-California border to the U.S.-Mexico border will be
closed in all three proposals, “given the low abundance
forecasts for both Klamath and Sacramento River fall chinook.”
the council said in a news release issued Friday. Commercial
salmon fishing off the coast of California also will be closed,
the council said. Ocean fishing restrictions were also
announced for Oregon and Washington.
Legal challenges to a Monterey Peninsula water district’s
ratepayer fee that dates back a least a decade reached fruition
this week when a judge ruled against the district and ordered
it to stop collecting the fee. The ruling could have a huge
impact on district revenues at a time when the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District is partnering with Monterey
One Water to invest in the Pure Water Monterey expansion
project, which the district says could supply enough water to
the Monterey Peninsula for the next few decades. At issue are
two fees. The first is a “user fee” that was collected as a
pass-through charge on California American Water Company’s
bills. But state regulators in 2011 ordered a halt to it, so
the district created another fee called a “water supply fee”
that was collected through property taxes.
As storms swell California’s reservoirs, state water officials
have rescinded a controversial order that allowed more water
storage in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while putting
salmon and other endangered fish at risk. Ten environmental
groups had petitioned the board to rescind its order, calling
it “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and…not
supported by substantial evidence.” The reason for the
state’s reversal, according to the State Water Resources
Control Board, is that conditions in the Delta have changed as
storms boost the snowpack and runoff used to supply water to
cities and farms.
Two Colorado Democrats this week are making a last ditch effort
to block a proposed 88-mile railway in Utah that they say would
drive up climate emissions and could lead to a catastrophic oil
spill in the upper Colorado River, contaminating a vital water
supply for nearly 40 million Americans that’s already
critically threatened by deepening drought. The Uinta Basin
Railway was approved by the Surface Transportation Board in
2021 and received provisional approval by the U.S. Forest
Service last summer to travel through a 12-mile roadless area
of the Ashley National Forest. It would connect the oil fields
of Utah’s Uinta Basin to the national rail network and
refineries on the Gulf Coast.
A Montana-based lawsuit against the United States Forest
Service could bring sweeping changes to how forest fires are
fought in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Such changes could
result in worse wildfire seasons in the future as the lawsuit
aims to prohibit the use of aerial fire retardants. The
backstory: … Chemical retardants that are used by
firefighting agencies such as the USFS are tested and approved
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Missoula Technology and
Development Center. The big picture: Per the lawsuit,
the FSEEE is attempting to require the USFS to obtain a Clean
Water Act permit to use fire retardant from airplanes.
The Biden administration’s move to throw out the Trump-era
biological opinions that govern California’s water flow is
nothing more than a political move to Rep. David Valadao
(R–Hanford). In an upcoming interview on Sunrise FM,
Valadao discussed the history of the biological opinions and
the Congressional investigation into the Biden administration’s
decision. The backstory: The latest biological opinions
which govern the State Water Project and the Central Valley
Project were signed by President Donald Trump in 2019, capping
the process of formulating the new opinions that started under
President Barack Obama. When President Joe Biden took
office two years ago, his administration quickly began the
process of removing the 2019 biological opinions to revert back
to the previous opinions issued in 2008 and 2009.
Residents in one western Arizona community worry that a clean
energy company, which plans to build nearby, could hog their
groundwater supply. Brenda is a small town located a few miles
north of Interstate 10 in La Paz County. Like nearby
Quartzsite, it caters to RV visitors who are looking for
sunshine and warmth during the winter months. At
Buckaroo’s Sandwich Shop, manager Lisa Lathrop said she has
lived in the area for 13 years because “it’s usually quiet out
here and nobody knows about us.” That’s about to
change. The addition of the Ten West Link, a
high-voltage transmission line currently being built to connect
Tonopah with Blythe, California, is expected to bring multiple
solar power companies to the area.
Ornamental lawns are banned in Las Vegas, the size of new
swimming pools is capped and much of the water used in homes is
sent down a wash to be recycled, but Nevada is looking at
another significant step to ensure the water supply for one of
the driest major metropolitan areas in the U.S. State lawmakers
on Monday are scheduled to discuss granting the power to limit
what comes out of residents’ taps to the Southern Nevada Water
Authority, the agency managing the Colorado River supply to the
city. If lawmakers approve the bill, Nevada would be the first
state to give a water agency permanent jurisdiction over the
amount of residential use. The sweeping omnibus bill is one of
the most significant to go before lawmakers this year in
Nevada, one of seven states that rely on the Colorado River.
California’s severely depleted groundwater basins could get a
boost this spring, after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive
order waiving permits to recharge them. State water leaders
hope to encourage local agencies and agricultural districts to
capture water from newly engorged rivers and spread it onto
fields, letting it seep into aquifers after decades of heavy
agricultural pumping. … To pull water from the state’s
network of rivers and canals for groundwater recharge, state
law requires a permit from the State Water Resources Control
Board and Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many local agencies
lacked the permitting during January storms, but this month’s
atmospheric rivers and near record snowpack promises new
opportunities to put water underground.
One doesn’t have to visit bucolic Gold Rush towns like Coloma,
where you can give panning for gold a try, to see the truth.
Before 1975, there was no state or federal law mandating
cleanup of mining operations. Today, California’s Department of
Conservation estimates that there are at least 47,000 abandoned
mines dotted across almost every county in the state.
… And about 5,000 of these mines, according to state
estimates, are also likely contaminated — leaching out harmful
heavy metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury that were dug up
from deep underground or added to the environment in a
desperate attempt to extract every nugget of gold.
In the coming years, Cal Am ratepayers could see a
surcharge on their property tax bills disappear. Or, maybe
not. On March 3, Monterey County Judge Carrie Panetta
ruled that the continued collection of the surcharge—which is
collected by California American Water and then paid to the
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District—violated the
sunset clause in an ordinance MPWMD approved in 2012 to create
that charge. Collectively, it costs Cal Am ratepayers about
$3.4 million annually. The reason that charge might not
go away soon is that on March 20, MPWMD’s board will be meeting
in closed session to decide, among other things, whether or not
to appeal the ruling. If they do appeal, it could take a couple
of years or more before the appeal is decided.
A coalition of environmental groups – the California Water
Impact Network, the California Sportfishing Protection
Alliance, and AquAlliance – have submitted a notice of intent
to sue the State Water Resources Control Board unless it
rescinds an order to suspend water quality and fish protections
in California rivers and the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta,
according to a coalition press release. The Board’s order was
issued following a decision by Governor Gavin Newsom to retain
water in state reservoirs to ensure future deliveries for
Central Valley agriculture. The order constituted an end-run
around state and federal legal requirements to maintain
adequate water quality and temperature conditions for salmon
below dams.
San Diego has a dozen years to cut almost 11 million metric
tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions from its economy to
meet climate goals set by Mayor Todd Gloria last
year. That’s like removing 2.2 million gas-powered cars
from the road. Jumpstarting those emissions cuts will cost the
city $30 million per year through 2028, according to a new cost
analysis produced by the city’s consultant, the Energy Policy
Initiatives Center at University of San Diego Law School. And
then, it’ll be up to the City Council to prioritize that
spending.
National and regional media love a good fight, and lately a day
doesn’t pass without a major news story or op-ed focused on
Colorado River disagreements, particularly amongst the seven
states of the Colorado River Basin (Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). Which state
must bear the brunt of shortages needed as Colorado River flows
decline? Which sector of water users takes the hit as climate
change continues to diminish the river? Should urban water
supplies be protected because that’s where all the people are?
(Municipal water supply representatives will quickly remind us
that if all urban uses of Colorado River water were cut off,
there would still be a shortage). Should agricultural water
supplies be protected because we all need to eat?
The 30×30 initiative is a global effort to set aside 30% of
land and sea area for conservation by 2030, a move scientists
hope will reverse biodiversity loss and mitigate the effects of
climate change. Now adopted by state and national governments
around the world, 30×30 creates an unprecedented opportunity to
advance global conservation. When it comes to the water side of
30×30, most programs focus primarily on conservation of oceans,
but a new study by researchers at the University of California,
Berkeley argues that freshwater ecosystems must not be
neglected. Published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in
Ecology and the Environment, the paper urges policy makers to
explicitly include freshwater ecosystems like rivers, lakes,
and wetlands in 30×30 plans, and outlines how their
conservation will be critical to achieving the initiative’s
broader goals.
The nation’s top Western water official visited the Coachella
Valley on Thursday to highlight federal funding for
infrastructure that carries Colorado River water to area farm
fields. The visit comes during a break in heavy winter storms
across the West that are buoying hopes among regional water
officials for a temporary reprieve on potentially huge cuts to
river supply. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille
Touton was mum on whether heavy snowpack in the Rockies and
elsewhere could push back massive reductions she told Congress
last spring were necessary to keep the river and its reservoirs
afloat. But California officials are cautiously optimistic that
major reductions could be averted this year. Noting that
overall river flows this year are now forecast to be 113% of
average thanks to “huge snowpack” in the Rockies and elsewhere
…
The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed tighter limits
on wastewater pollution from coal-burning power plants that has
contaminated streams, lakes and underground aquifers across the
nation. Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection
Agency sets pollution standards to limit wastewater discharge
from the power industry and other businesses. The Trump
administration rolled back pollution standards so utilities
could use cheaper technologies and take longer to comply with
guidelines for cleaning coal ash and toxic heavy metals such as
mercury, arsenic and selenium from plant wastewater before
dumping it into waterways. The Biden administration’s proposal
for stricter standards at coal-burning plants also encourages
the plants to retire or switch to other fuels such as natural
gas by 2028.
The recent series of storms that swept through the region
wrought havoc in many ways, but they did improve water levels
in California. Without minimizing widespread storm damage and
attending hardship, it is nice to see the hills green again and
hope the rainy trend continues. It’s also a great relief to
note that statewide Sierra snowpack was registering at nearly
200% of normal levels at the beginning of February, and that
preliminary reservoir gauge readings published for the Santa
Clara Valley Water District’s 10 local reservoirs at the same
time showed five of those reservoirs at or above 80% capacity.
And as reported in The Mercury News on Jan. 12: “For the first
time in more than two years, the majority of California is in
moderate drought, not severe drought.” -Written by Andy Gere, president and COO of San
Jose Water.
To capitalize on strong flows resulting from
higher-than-average snowpack, the State Water Resources Control
Board approved a petition by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to
divert over 600,000 acre-feet of San Joaquin River flood waters
for wildlife refuges, underground storage and recharge. With
this approval, the State Water Board has authorized nearly
790,000 acre-feet in diversions for groundwater recharge and
other purposes since late December 2022 – the amount of water
used by at least 1.5 million households in a single year.
In Sarge Green’s 40-plus year career, he’s worn an astonishing
number of hats. Now a water management specialist with
California State University, Fresno, Sarge has worked on water
quality issues at the regional water board, served as general
manager of an irrigation district, and managed two resource
conservation districts (RCDs). He’s also a director for the
Tule Basin Land and Water Conservation Trust and the Fresno
Metropolitan Flood Control District. He’s been a long-time
partner with the PPIC Water Policy Center in our San Joaquin
Valley work as a trusted member of our research network. Sarge
remains deeply involved in efforts to help San Joaquin Valley
farms and communities cope with the challenges of implementing
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. We spoke with him
about a pressing issue in the valley: how to manage farmland
that will be transitioning out of intensive irrigation.
States that use water from the Colorado River are caught in a
standoff about how to share shrinking supplies, and their
statements about recent negotiations send mixed messages.
California officials say they were not consulted as other
states in the region drew up a letter to the federal government
with what they called a “consensus-based” set of
recommendations for water conservation. Leaders in states that
drafted the letter disagree with that characterization. The
reality of what happened during negotiations may lie somewhere
in between, as comments from state leaders hint at possible
differences between their definitions of what counts as
“consultation.” The squabble is a microcosm of larger tensions
between states that use water from the Colorado River.
…. On March 20 … the entire Colorado River will be looming
over the [Supreme Court] justices when they hear oral arguments
in Arizona v. Navajo Nation. The case, which dwells at the
intersection of Native treaty rights and water rights, will
mark the court’s latest foray into the byzantine rules and
regulations that govern limited supplies of water in one of the
driest parts of the country. For the Navajo Nation, the court’s
decision on its 19th-century treaty rights could have serious
consequences for its future.
Yuma, Ariz. may be well known for its unforgiving summer heat,
but did you know that 90% of North America’s leafy greens and
vegetables available from November through April of each year
comes from here? Yuma’s climate, its rich soil birthed from
sediments deposited by the Colorado River for millennia, and
over 300 cloudless days per year coalesce to create one of the
best places in the world to grow such a diverse mix of crops.
… At the crux of this production is water. The Colorado
River ends its U.S. run at Morelos Dam, just a few hundred
yards from the University of Arizona’s Extension research farm
at Yuma. That water no longer makes it to the Sea of Cortez as
Mexico consumes it for urban and agricultural uses. -Written by Todd Fitchette, associate editor
with Western Farm Press.
The Santa Fe Irrigation District continues its outreach on its
proposed water rate increases, making a stop at the March 2
Rancho Santa Fe Association board meeting. “It’s a nice sales
presentation but I don’t buy a bit of it,” commented Director
Greg Gruzdowich. The RSF Association has long been in favor of
a uniform rate structure as they believe Rancho Santa Fe
homeowners are unfairly subsidizing smaller lots and users.
… The Santa Fe Irrigation District (SFID) board will
vote on the proposed water rate increases at a public hearing
on March 28. If approved, the new rates would go into
effect on April 1 and impact bimonthly bills in June.
Starting Tuesday, the US Bureau of Reclamation will suspend
extra water releases from Utah’s Flaming Gorge reservoir –
emergency measures that had served to help stabilize the
plummeting water levels downstream at Lake Powell, the nation’s
second largest reservoir. Federal officials began releasing
extra water from Flaming Gorge in 2021 to boost Lake Powell’s
level and buy its surrounding communities more time to plan for
the likelihood the reservoir will eventually drop too low for
the Glen Canyon Dam to generate hydropower. Lake Powell in late
February sank to its lowest water level since the reservoir was
filled in the 1960s, and since 2000 has dropped more than 150
feet.
On February 27, 2023, the Court of Appeal for the Second
Appellate District (Court of Appeal) affirmed in part and
reversed in part the Los Angeles Superior Court’s decision in
Los Angeles Waterkeeper v. State Water Resources Control Board,
et al., Case No. BS171009. Somach Simmons & Dunn filed an amici
curiae brief on behalf of the California Association of
Sanitation Agencies, Association of California Water Agencies,
and WateReuse Association informing the Court of Appeal of the
unintended consequences of the rule issued by the trial court,
which found that California Constitution Article X, section 2
imposed a duty on the State Water Resources Control Board
(State Water Board) to prevent the waste of permitted
wastewater discharges.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget would cut funding for
coastal resilience projects almost in half, eliminating more
than half a billion dollars of state funds this year that would
help protect the coast against rising seas and climate change.
The cuts are part of Newsom’s proposed $6 billion in reductions
to California’s climate change programs in response to a
projected $22.5 billion statewide deficit. California’s coastal
resilience programs provide funding for local governments to
prepare coastal plans and pay for some projects that protect
beaches, homes and infrastructure at risk from rising sea
levels. Greenhouse gases are responsible for warming the
planet, which melts ice and causes sea levels to rise.
In light of last week’s decisions regarding the groundwater
sustainability plans, groundwater managers in Fresno County are
celebrating. The backstory: The California Department of
Water Resources announced its decisions for the groundwater
sustainability plans for 10 basins in the Central Valley,
giving the green light to the Kings Subbasin and Westside
Subbasin, both of which are anchored in Fresno
County. Groundwater sustainability plans are required by
2014’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and govern how
agencies in critically overdrafted areas achieve groundwater
sustainability. The big picture: The basins that received
approval from the state will move forward to the implementation
phase while those that were deemed inadequate will face direct
oversight from the State Water Board.
This winter will be one for the record-books in California. It
looks like the winter I spent playing on 40-feet of snow in
Mammoth Lakes in the mid-1990s will be topped by this year’s
epic snowfall. So where will all that water go when it melts?
Living in Bishop at the time, we had flooding in August as the
runoff came off the mountains and made it to the Owens River –
or as some might call it: the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Here’s my
thought on this. Follow along. Los Angeles gets much of its
water from the Sierra Nevada and runoff in various places in
California. Yes, it gets water too from the State Water
Project, but the mismanagement of that system tends to push
more water out to sea than for human use.
Though recent snow and rainfall have certainly improved drought
conditions, California water officials still want to make every
drop of water count. That means cutting out the watering
of decorative grass — also known as non-functional turf –
frequently landscaped at traffic medians or office parking
lots. Decorative grass is becoming a bigger problem for
Western water agencies to address as policymakers look to cut
back its water usage in statewide bans, proposed legislation
and local ordinances. Right before last summer’s
sweltering heat, the California Water Resources Control Board
set a statewide ban on irrigating non-functional turf with
potable water in commercial, institutional and industrial
sectors, also known as CII sites.
Over the past 10 years, California has seen two of the most
severe droughts in a millennium separated by two of the wettest
years on record. This erratic weather, volatile even by
California standards, shattered heat records, killed millions
of trees, fueled explosive wildfires and caused significant
flooding. As California’s changing climate pushes us deeper
into uncharted climate waters, past records are becoming a less
reliable tool for predicting current and future weather
patterns. That’s why Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent decision to
delay the release of 700,000 acre-feet of water, enough to
supply nearly 7 million people for a year, from state
reservoirs into the Sacramento-San Joaquin-River Delta was the
right call. Snowpack from early storms can be lost to dry, hot
weather later this spring. -Written by Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of
the Bay Area Council.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today kicked
off National Groundwater Awareness Week 2023 with an
engaging educational event held at the California Natural
Resources Agency headquarters in Sacramento. The event featured
an array of groundwater partners who
provided presentations describing their work in
groundwater and why groundwater is such an important water
resource in California. After the presentations, the in-person
audience visited educational stations where they engaged with
the day’s speakers and other groundwater professionals.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose
restrictions on harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking water
after finding they are dangerous in amounts so small as to be
undetectable. But experts say removing them will cost billions,
a burden that will fall hardest on small communities with few
resources. Concerned about the chemicals’ ability to weaken
children’s immune systems, the EPA said last year that PFAS
could cause harm at levels “much lower than previously
understood.”
The Biden administration on Friday said it would require states
to report on cybersecurity threats in their audits of public
water systems, a day after it released a broader plan to
protect critical infrastructure against cyberattacks. The
Environmental Protection Agency said public water systems are
increasingly at risk from cyberattacks that amount to a threat
to public health. … Fox said the EPA would assist states
and water systems in building out cybersecurity programs,
adding that states could begin using EPA’s guidance in their
audits right away. The agency did not respond immediately to
questions about enforcement deadlines. EPA said it would
help states and water systems with technical know-how. The
announcement made no mention of new financial assistance.
Travis Air Force Base officials reported the “petroleum” sheen
that has appeared on Union Creek a number of times, usually
after rain events, has not been seen since December. That
includes after the most recent storm, Capt. Jasmine Jacobs,
with the base Public Affairs Office, said in an email response
to the Daily Republic. Jacobs led a site visit with the Daily
Republic on Feb. 27. Leslie Pena, the civilian environmental
element chief at Travis, was part of the tour. This week the
base confirmed for the first time that testing has shown that
aviation fuel, motor oil, gasoline and diesel have been
present, but the source of the leak is still under
investigation.
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your
Agribusiness Update. **California farmers are expected to see
increased federal water allocations this year, as winter storms
bolster the Sierra Nevada snowpack and water levels rise in
reservoirs. The Bureau of Reclamation has announced an initial
allocation of 35% of contracted water supplies for agricultural
customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The
February 22 announcement was welcome news after officials
provided zero allocations for agriculture in both 2021 and 22.
**The National Association of Conservation Districts released
policy recommendations for the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill.
The last time the Colorado River Basin agreed to a set of
reductions to address drought conditions and dropping levels at
Lake Mead was in 2019. … Now, states are looking to cut far
more water than the 2019 agreement yielded, and on a much
shorter negotiation timeline. After the seven states that rely
on the Colorado River to provide water to roughly 40 million
Americans missed two deadlines from the federal government to
work out a consensus plan, there are two proposals from the
basin states on the table that offer different paths for how to
meet the target. The two proposals arrive at a similar number
of potential new cuts to water use across the basin, but draw a
clear line in the sand between California’s desire to protect
its senior water rights, much of which are tied up in the
agriculture sector, and the desire of the other six states to
have California, Nevada and Arizona share the cuts more
equitably.
Tom Brundy, an alfalfa grower in California’s Imperial Valley,
thinks farmers reliant on the shrinking Colorado River can do
more to save water and use it more efficiently. That’s why he’s
installed water sensors and monitors to prevent waste on nearly
two-thirds of his 3,000 acres. But one practice that’s
off-limits for Brundy is fallowing — leaving fields unplanted
to spare the water that would otherwise irrigate crops. It
would save plenty of water, Brundy said, but threatens both
farmers and rural communities economically. … Many Western
farmers feel the same, even as a growing sense is emerging that
some fallowing will have to be part of the solution to the
increasingly desperate drought in the West, where the Colorado
River serves 40 million people.
It’s an arcane system of water law that dates back to the birth
of California — an era when 49ers used sluice boxes and water
cannons to scour gold from Sierra Nevada foothills and when the
state government promoted the extermination of Native people to
make way for white settlers. Today, this antiquated system of
water rights still governs the use of the state’s supplies, but
it is now drawing scrutiny like never before. In the face of
global warming and worsening cycles of drought, a growing
number of water experts, lawmakers, environmental groups and
tribes say the time has finally come for change. Some are
pushing for a variety of reforms, while others are calling for
the outright dismantling of California’s contentious water
rights system.
In its evolving effort to meet Congress’s directive that
determinations under the federal Endangered Species Act should
be informed by the “best available scientific and commercial
data” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses Species
Status Assessments “to deliver foundational science” to support
its decisions. While this process does not typically
garner much attention beyond that of the agency, the recent
proposal to list longfin smelt as endangered has highlighted
the SSA’s importance and brought to light some assessment
elements that can be improved. By way of background, the
Service intends the Assessments to provide “focused,
repeatable, and rigorous scientific assessment” that results in
“improved and more transparent and defensible decision making,
and clearer and more concise documents.”
Anyone looking for a sequel to the Oscar-nominated film ‘Erin
Brockovich’ needed only to tune into the Feb. 28 meeting of the
Brentwood City Council to watch the city’s presentation on
chromium-6, a water contaminant that has been linked to cancer.
The presentation, which said the city’s water meets state
safety standards, was given by Miki Tsubota, the director of
Public Works, for the city at the request of council members
after citizens expressed their concern late last year. For
scale, Tsubota said, one part per billion is the equivalent of
a single drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The state is
preparing to establish a maximum contaminant level of 10 parts
per billion, which means Brentwood’s drinking water would more
than meet state-level safety standards, according to Tsubota.
The current state standard is 50 parts per billion.
The western Fresno County community, where nearly half the
residents live in poverty, is already carrying a water debt
of $400,000. That debt has been incurred over the last
few years as El Porvenir has had to buy surface water on the
open market and pay for expensive treatment. The town, along
with nearby Cantua Creek, was supposed to be getting water from
two new groundwater wells by this time. But the well project,
which began in 2018 and was supposed to be completed in 2021,
was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So,
residents have had to continue relying on the expensive surface
water. Fresno County buys about 100 acre feet of water
each year for the towns from Westlands Water District at $432
per acre foot.
The decision by an interstate agency representing the Upper
Basin states to press the federal government to postpone the
release of a portion of 500,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming
Gorge Reservoir in Utah to Lake Powell isn’t only about the
better snowpack the West is getting this winter. It’s more of a
game of chess between the upper states of the Colorado River
and the Lower Basin states, particularly California, said Gage
Zobell, a water law attorney at Dorsey & Whitney. Zobell
said it’s about “sending a message that [the Upper Basin
states] refuse to continue supplying Lower Basin’s limitless
demands for water.”
The Provo River Delta Restoration Project broke ground in June
of 2020, and on March 2, 2023 we’ll reach a major milestone:
the Provo River will run into the channels and ponds created
over the past few years, connecting the river with a restored
delta, and with Utah Lake. To mark this achievement, a brief
celebration will be held onsite on Thursday, March 2 at 1:30
PM, as outlined in the event agenda. The celebration will be
held just west of the Lakeshore Bridge Trailhead in Provo.
Please refer to the map below for parking locations and walking
routes to the event location. Given limited space and winter
site conditions, people are encouraged to carpool, walk or ride
to the event and to be prepared for potentially cold and wet
weather.
State water officials on Thursday rejected six local
groundwater plans for the San Joaquin Valley, where basins
providing drinking and irrigation water are severely depleted
from decades of intensive pumping by farms. The plans —
submitted by local agencies tasked with the job of protecting
underground supplies — outline strategies for complying with a
state law requiring sustainable groundwater
management. The Department of Water Resources deemed the
plans inadequate … Groundwater depletion has hurt the San
Joaquin Valley’s small, rural communities, home to many
low-income Latino residents who have been forced to live on
bottled water and drill deeper wells, which can cost tens of
thousands of dollars.
California Chinook salmon populations have fallen to their
lowest levels in years, according to new estimates released by
state and federal scientists — a decline that could trigger a
shutdown of the commercial and recreational fishing season
along the coast. … The department said scientists
estimated that the number of 3-year-old fall-run Chinook likely
to return to the Sacramento River this year to spawn would be
fewer than 170,000, one of the lowest forecasts in 15 years.
They also estimated that fewer than 104,000 are likely to
return to the Klamath River, the second-lowest estimate since
1997. In its announcement Wednesday, the department said
returning fall-run Chinook “fell well short of conservation
objectives” in the Sacramento River last year, and may now be
approaching a point of being declared overfished.
The State Water Resources Control Board named Jay Ziegler,
former external affairs and policy director for the California
Office of The Nature Conservancy, as the new Delta Watermaster.
He succeeds Michael George, who held the position for two
four-year terms. The Watermaster administers water rights
within the legal boundaries of the Sacramento/San Joaquin River
Delta and Suisun Marsh and advises the State Water Board and
the Delta Stewardship Council on related water rights, water
quality and water operations involving the watershed.
… A resident of Davis, Ziegler brings a wealth of
experience to the position. During his 12 years at the
conservancy, he led the agency’s policy engagements on water,
climate and resilience strategies, biodiversity and
environmental and funding initiatives. Previously, he served in
multiple roles at state and federal natural resource
agencies…
As the effects of heat-trapping pollution continue to raise sea
levels, wetlands dotting American coastlines could drown —
or they could flourish. Their fate will depend upon rates of
sea-level rise, how quickly the plants can grow, and whether
there’s space inland into which they can migrate. Climate
Central modeled how American coastal wetlands will
respond to sea level rise in an array of potential scenarios.
It found that conserving land for wetlands to migrate into is a
decisive factor in whether wetlands will survive or drown.
Wetlands and development have long been in conflict, with
ecological values weighed against waterfront economic
opportunities. As seas rise, benefits of conserving areas
inland for wetland migration are creating new tensions. And as
climate change intensifies storms and elevate high tides and
storm surges, the economic values of wetlands are growing.
Aurora Water just issued an urgent reminder that a Westerner’s
outlook can change dramatically just by jumping over into the
next river basin. Skiers can be reveling in ridiculous
powder at Steamboat and feeling good about how much water the
Yampa and White rivers will contribute to the dry Colorado
River come spring. At the same time, Aurora sits with
half-empty reservoirs and a dwindling snowpack in one of its
key resource basins, the Arkansas River watershed. Already
fearing water levels for Colorado’s third-largest city may
approach emergency conditions this summer, the city council
voted Monday to cut one day from allowed lawn watering
schedules and add a surcharge for outdoor use.
The three states that comprise the Colorado River’s Lower Basin
– Arizona, California and Nevada – are weighing in on a
proposal to pause some water releases from Flaming Gorge
Reservoir in an effort to prop up Lake Powell. Those states
essentially agreed with the idea of suspending water releases,
but said water managers should wait a few months to see the
full effects of spring runoff, and leave the door open for
additional releases if warranted. They also stressed the need
for input from all of the states which use water from the
Colorado River. On Monday, the four states that make up the
Upper Basin – Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico – voted to
ask the federal government to stop releasing additional water
that would flow downstream as part of the 2019 Drought Response
Operations Agreement.
While western states work to hash out a plan to save the
crumbling Colorado River system, officials from Southern Nevada
are preparing for the worst — including possible water
restrictions in the state’s most populous county. The Nevada
Legislature last week introduced Assembly Bill 220, an omnibus
bill that comes from the minds of officials at the Southern
Nevada Water Authority. Most significantly, the legislation
gives the water authority the ability to impose hefty water
restrictions on individual homes in Southern Nevada, where
three-quarters of Nevada’s 3.2 million residents live and rely
on the drought-stricken Colorado River for 90 percent of their
water. … The bill, if approved and signed into law in its
current form, would stand as another substantial step toward
conserving Nevada’s water …
A well-known Bay Area construction materials firm has unleashed
harmful pollutants into Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek,
threatening sensitive species of fish, frogs and salamanders, a
newly filed lawsuit alleges. The Santa Clara County District
Attorney claims that Graniterock, an over-century-old
Watsonville-based corporation, has discharged stormwater from
two of its San Jose facilities that contain above-level pH
values, cement, sand, concrete, chemical additives and other
heavy metals. Those pollutants have endangered steelhead trout,
the California Tiger Salamander and the California Red Legged
frog — animals that live in and around the South Bay waterways,
the suit alleges. The complaint does not specify when or how
much of the pollutants were apparently found discharged into
the waterways.
Despite the continued heavy winter rain and snow throughout
California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently extended his executive
orders from 2022 that declared a drought emergency statewide.
He also asked the state water board to waive water flow
regulations intended to protect salmon and other endangered
fish species, as well as San Francisco Bay and Delta estuary
overall. Some viewed these moves as pragmatic steps to
avoid “wasting” the bounty of California’s rains out to
sea. Others saw them as a declaration of war against
the health of the bay. In fact, a war against the bay has
been going on for decades. Newsom’s order was merely the latest
skirmish. The war’s primary aggressors are agricultural
interests in the Central Valley. -Written by Howard V. Hendrix, the author of six
novels as well as many essays, poems and short
stories.
California commercial and sports fishers are bracing for the
possibility of no salmon season this year after the fish
population along the Pacific Coast dropped to its lowest point
in 15 years. On Wednesday, wildlife officials announced a low
forecast for the number of the wild adult Chinook (or “king”)
salmon that will be in the ocean during the fishing season that
typically starts in May. The final plan for the commercial and
recreational salmon season will be announced in April.
…Salmon are highly dependent on how much water is available
in their native rivers and streams, especially when they are
very young. Even though the state has gotten a lot of rain and
snow this winter, the population that is now in the ocean was
born in 2020, in the beginning of the state’s current
record-breaking drought. … This year, there will be
about 170,000 adult salmon in the ocean from the Sacramento
River fall run Chinook population, the main group that is
fished commercially in the state and the lowest number since
2008.
As we approach next week’s National Groundwater Awareness Week,
we have several groundwater-related events, articles and tours
to share with you. Groundwater Awareness Event: Monday,
March 6 Join the California Department of Water
Resources, the Water Education Foundation and others on Monday
at a special event in Sacramento to kick
off next week’s National Groundwater Awareness
Week. The 9 a.m. to noon event will include
presentations, informational stations and demonstrations. For
those who are unable to attend in person at the California
Natural Resources Building’s Main Auditorium, 715
P St., the presentations will be
available to view remotely.
A new winter water flow management project implemented in
California’s Trinity River is best for the region’s fish
populations, the U.S. Department of the Interior and its Bureau
of Reclamation said …
This year, CalTrout is thrilled to co-sponsor three bills. The
team will be collaborating with the legislative authors and our
co-sponsors as the bills move through the legislature in the
2023-24 cycle. The first bill, AB 809, will establish a
dedicated fund to support the long-term monitoring of
California’s native salmon and steelhead trout populations.
Next, AB 460, will empower the State Water Resources Control
Board to act swiftly to prevent harm to the environment, public
health, and water resources caused by illegal water rights
violations. AB 1272 will lay the groundwork for creating a more
climate-resilient future for native fish and for water supplies
in coastal California. Keep scrolling to the bottom of this
page for a deeper dive into each of the three bills.
In a bright-red county in a state allergic to regulations,
there is a ban on growing grass outside new businesses. Only 8%
of a home’s landscaping can have a grass lawn in this booming
corner of Utah, about a hundred miles northeast of Las Vegas.
And if any developers want to add another country club to this
golfing mecca, … Like lots of spots in the West, the
combination of more people and less water makes for an
uncertain future around St. George, Utah. While this winter’s
generous snowpack could buy precious time, the entire Colorado
River system remains in danger of crashing if water gets too
low at Lakes Powell and Mead. But that reality hasn’t
stopped St. George from booming into the fastest growing metro
area in the US two years running, according to the US
Census Bureau, and Renstrom says that unless Utah builds a
long-promised pipeline to pump water 140 miles from Lake
Powell, their growth will turn to pain.
On February 21, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) issued its decision in
American Rivers v. American Petroleum Institute, Case No.
21-16958, reversing the federal district court’s order that
vacated a Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 Certification Rule
after the district court had granted a voluntary remand of the
rule requested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). The CWA allows states and tribes to exert
significant oversight on the federal permitting process by
blocking or delaying controversial energy and infrastructure
projects for a multitude of reasons, including impacts on
climate. States and tribes derive their authority to influence
federal permitting from Section 401 of the Act.
Clean water is California’s most vital need. Our lives and the
lives of future generations depend on it. Yet when it comes to
protecting the state’s supply, Gov. Gavin Newsom is failing
California. The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta provides
drinking water to 27 million Californians, or roughly 70% of
the state’s residents. On Feb. 15, the governor signed an
executive order allowing the State Water Resources Control
Board to ignore the state requirement of how much water needs
to flow through the Delta to protect its health. It’s an
outrageous move right out of Donald Trump’s playbook. Big Ag
and its wealthy landowners, including some of Newsom’s
political financial backers, will reap the benefits while the
Delta suffers.
The California State Water Resources Control Board can’t be
forced to evaluate the “reasonableness” of locally issued
permits to discharge treated wastewater, a state appeals court
ruled, because state law doesn’t impose this obligation on the
agency. The Los Angeles-based Second Appellate District on
Monday overturned a trial judge’s order for the agency to
evaluate the reasonableness of the permits that were renewed in
2017 by its regional board in LA, allowing four treatment
plants to discharge millions of gallons of treated wastewater
in the LA River and the Pacific Ocean every day. LA
Waterkeeper, an environmental watchdog, had challenged the
permits arguing the regional board and the state board should
have considered better uses of the water, such as recycling,
rather than dumping it in the ocean.
The immediate question before the seven states that use rapidly
vanishing Colorado River water is not how to renegotiate the
century-old agreement and accompanying laws that divvy up the
supply. California and other states will have to grapple with
that problem soon enough, and it won’t be easy. Those accords
were hammered out in an era when the Western U.S. was lightly
populated, farmland was not yet fully developed and the climate
— although few realized it at the time — was unusually wet.
Now, when the thirst is greatest and still growing, the region
is reverting to its former aridity, exacerbated by higher
temperatures caused by global industrialization. But the
deadline for that reckoning is still nearly four years off.
Four states that use water from the Colorado River are asking
the federal government to pause some water releases from
Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New
Mexico, which make up the river’s Upper Basin, voted to suspend
additional releases starting March 1. Delegates from those
states say the federal government should let heavy winter
precipitation boost water levels in Flaming Gorge. The
reservoir, which straddles the border of Wyoming and Utah, is
the third largest in the Colorado River system, behind only
Lake Mead and Lake Powell. The Bureau of Reclamation, the
federal agency which manages dams and reservoirs in the arid
West, has turned to Flaming Gorge to help prop up Lake Powell,
where record low levels are threatening hydropower production
inside the Glen Canyon Dam.
The Department of Industrial Relations’ Occupational Safety and
Health Appeals Board (OSHAB) has issued a precedential decision
regarding the provision of water at outdoor worksites,
affirming that it must be as close as practicable to the areas
where employees are working to encourage frequent consumption.
… Cal/OSHA opened a complaint-initiated safety
inspection at the Rios Farming Co. vineyard in St. Helena on
August 6, 2018. Inspectors found some workers had to climb
through multiple grape trellises to access drinking water. On
January 7, 2019, Cal/OSHA cited Rios Farming Co. for a
repeat-serious violation for not having water as close as
practicable for their employees. Rios Farming Co. appealed
the citation and an administrative law judge affirmed the
citation on October 12, 2022, with a modified penalty of
$27,000.
This month the Santa Fe Irrigation District is preparing to
increase water rate charges for the next three years. The rate
structure approved by the board in late 2022 was for tiered
rates with a meter overlay for residential properties, an
option they believe is unique to accommodate the variations in
the district from small Solana Beach city lots to larger
properties in Rancho Santa Fe. The public is invited to attend
the public hearing on March 28 at 8:30 a.m. at the district
offices. In accordance with Prop 218, notices about the
proposed rate structure were sent out in February giving
customers an opportunity to protest the rate increases up until
the March 28 hearing. If the district receives protest forms
from a majority of its 6,500 customers, the rate plan will not
go forward.
A judge has extended a temporary settlement of a long-running
dispute over California water rights and how the Central Valley
Project and State Water Project manage the Sacramento River
flows. … The opinions address how the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources’ plan
for operating the Central Valley and State Water Projects
affects fish species. The opinions make it possible to send
more water to 20 million farms, businesses and homes in
Southern and Central California via the massive federal and
state water diversion projects, and eliminate requirements such
as mandating extra flows to keep water temperatures from rising
high enough to damage salmon eggs. … A federal
judge approved plans to allow the biological opinions
to remain in effect over the next three years with added
safeguards.
An updated report on the San Joaquin Valley’s water crisis
shows the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is not enough
and additional water trading measures will need to be taken in
order to stabilize local agricultural economies. The Public
Policy Institute of California put out a policy brief on the
future of agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley. Its analysis
of the next 20 years indicates that annual water supplies for
the Valley could decline by 10 to 20%. The Valley has been long
understood to be the breadbasket of the United States and is
home to the nation’s top three agricultural counties. However,
without more innovative solutions, the Valley will likely have
to fallow 900,000 acres of farmland and and cost 50,000 jobs
leading to a major loss in the local economies The report
indicates that the loss of almost a million acres is
unavoidable…
Sonoma County will be hosting a special public meeting of the
Board of Supervisors on Monday to discuss water infrastructure
and climate change challenges as well as possible water rate
hikes. The county says that its water, wastewater and flood
protection systems are more than a half-century old and are
therefore precarious in the face of a large earthquake, climate
change and wear and tear. Sonoma County Water Agency is
the county’s wholesale supplier of water to communities in both
Sonoma and Marin counties, serving more than 600,000 people,
according to the county. Six water collector wells exist near
the Russian River and three groundwater wells. Water pumped
from these wells goes through 88 miles of aqueducts that are
between 45 and 65 years old.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is seeking public input on a
plan to prevent smallmouth bass from spawning downstream of
Glen Canyon Dam. Officials say the historically low levels in
Lake Powell result in warm water being released from the dam
which creates ideal spawning conditions for the predatory
invasive species. The bureau wants to prevent the bass from
establishing in the Colorado River between the dam and the
confluence of the Little Colorado River and could try to reduce
the water temperature and change the flow velocity from the
dam. Smallmouth bass are a major threat to native fish
including the federally protected humpback chub that live at
the confluence.
Gov. Gavin Newsom bills himself as a protector of wildlife, so
you wouldn’t think he’d take water from baby salmon and give it
to almonds. Or to pistachios, or cotton or alfalfa. Especially
when California was just drenched with the wettest three-week
series of storms on record and was headed into another powerful
soaking of snow and rain. But Newsom and his water officials
still contend we’re suffering a drought — apparently it’s a
never-ending drought. So, they used that as a reason last week
to drastically cut river flows needed by migrating little
salmon in case the water is needed to irrigate San Joaquin
Valley crops in summer. -Written by columnist George Skelton.
Alongside farmers, ranchers and sprawling urban cities, Mother
Nature has long sipped her share of the Colorado River —
draining away enough water through evaporation and seepage to
support nearly 6 million families each year. But as
decades of drought strain major reservoirs in the Mountain
West, threatening future water supplies and hydropower, states
are divided over who should be picking up nature’s tab for the
huge amount of water lost on the 1,500-mile-long
waterway. The Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico,
Utah and Wyoming — already account for some 468,000 acre-feet
of water that evaporates from its reservoirs each
year.
Marin Municipal Water District officials are proposing rate
increases during drought periods to prevent financial
shortfalls, but say ratepayers shouldn’t expect their bills to
spike if they meet their conservation targets. … In a
presentation, Bret Uppendahl, the district finance director,
said adding drought surcharges to water rates is a common
practice by water agencies throughout the country, including
the North Marin Water District. The surcharges are used to make
up for revenue losses during droughts resulting from reduced
water sales from conservation and mandatory water use
restrictions. The district does not use these surcharges and
instead sets aside its regular water sales revenue into a
reserve fund that it taps when droughts occur.
After the first flush of the year saw as much as 95 percent of
daily incoming water to the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta sent
into the San Francisco Bay, a new decision by the state’s water
board this week will reverse course and allow for more water to
be stored throughout the state’s reservoirs. The State
Water Resources Control Board has temporarily waived rules that
required a certain amount of water to be flushed out to the
bay, a decision that comes after the heavy rains California
experienced to start the year. The backstory: On Feb. 13
the California Department of Water Resources and the Bureau of
Reclamation jointly filed a Temporary Urgency Change Petition.
State and federal water managers announced Wednesday increased
deliveries for millions of Californians in response to hopeful
hydrologic conditions that materialized over the past several
weeks. After a series of powerful storms brought rain and snow
to much of California in December and January, increased
reservoir levels led the state’s Department of Water Resources
to set its delivery forecast at 30 percent of requested water
supplies for the 29 public water agencies that draw from the
State Water Project to serve 27 million people and 750,000
acres of farmland.
An error in paperwork proved to be a costly mistake for Justin
Jenson, who was fined around $30,000 by the Environmental
Protection Agency. According to the EPA, Jenson, in November
2021, conducted bank stabilization activities on his residence
along the shoreline below the ordinary high water mark,
impacting 90 linear feet of the Sacramento River without a CWA
Section 404 permit. … [T]he Corps permit application was
pending because the Corps was in consultation with relevant
federal agencies regarding potential impacts to endangered or
threatened species and their critical habitats. Those species
included Sacramento River Winter-run Chinook Salmon, Central
Valley Spring-run Chinook Salmon, California Central Valley
Steelhead, and the Southern Distinct Population Segment of
North American Green Sturgeon.
CLAIM: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed
information from its toxicological profile for vinyl chloride
about how dangerous the gas is in regards to children, drinking
water and cancer. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While a new
toxicological profile released as a draft this month has been
reformatted from the prior version, it does not omit such
information nor downplay the dangers of vinyl chloride, a
review of the documents by The Associated Press and independent
experts shows. THE FACTS: In the weeks following the Feb. 3
freight train derailment in Ohio that prompted officials to
intentionally release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from five
rail cars, a variety of conspiratorial claims about a
government document on the gas have spread on social media.
Celebrations in a beachside California city will soon have to
take place without an iconic, single-use party favor: balloons.
The city council of Laguna Beach, about 50 miles southeast of
Los Angeles, voted Tuesday to ban the sale and use of all types
of balloons, citing their contribution to ocean litter as well
as health and safety risks from potential fires when they hit
power lines. Starting in 2024, people using balloons on public
property or at city events could incur fines of up to $500 for
each violation. … Balloons, especially those filled with
helium, often become ocean pollution after just a few hours of
use. Those made of latex — a kind of soft, synthetic or natural
material that may take decades to break down — can be
mistaken for food by marine animals and birds. When ingested,
latex can conform to birds’ stomach cavities, causing nutrient
deficiency or suffocation.
California’s water authorities will spend $15 million in three
crucial water management zones within the drought-ravaged
southern Central Valley. The hub of agricultural
production in the Golden State, the Central Valley has also
faced the most dire impacts from another historic drought, as
thousands of wells went dry last year and many communities
faced a total lack of safe drinking water. The state’s
authorities say they are releasing funds to begin projects to
prevent such hardship in future droughts. The Department of
Water Resources along with California Natural Resources
Secretary Wade Crowfoot came to the small city of Parlier on
Thursday to announce three grants totaling $15 million to
improve water infrastructure in the region.
With the Colorado River teetering on the brink of disaster,
farmers who rely on its life-giving water are preparing to make
significant cuts to their operations. Near the U.S.-Mexico
border, fourth-generation farmer Amanda Brooks grows broccoli,
lettuce, dates, citrus and alfalfa on 6,000 acres. Her family’s
farm in Yuma, Arizona, nearly touches the banks of the troubled
river. … Last year, a top government official warned
Congress the river was running dangerously low. Speaking before
a Senate committee, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille
Touton said the seven Colorado River Basin would need to make
drastic cuts to their water use to keep the reservoirs stable.
A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday revived a Trump-era Clean
Water Act regulation, finding the lower court lacked authority
to vacate the rule without finding it unlawful. In 2021, U.S.
District Judge William Alsup vacated a Trump administration
revision of the “Clean Water Act 401 Certification Rule,” which
narrows what issues state and tribal governments can consider
when determining whether a project, particularly one
discharging pollution into a waterway, complies with state
water quality standards. The rule affected the permitting and
relicensing process for thousands of industrial projects,
including natural gas pipelines, hydroelectric plants,
wastewater treatment facilities and construction sites near
sensitive wetlands. Beginning September 2020, states could no
longer consider a project’s effects on air emissions and road
traffic congestion.
If the Colorado River continues to dwindle from the same arid
trend of the last two decades, it could take as little as two
bad drought years to drive the reservoir here on the
Arizona-Nevada border to “dead pool.” That’s the term for
levels so low that water can barely flow out of Hoover Dam.
Mead is already just 29 percent full, its lowest level since it
began filling in the 1930s. But dead pool would be a true
disaster for farms, towns and cities from San Diego to Denver
that depend on water from Mead and other reservoirs in the
Colorado River Basin. Lake Powell, upstream on the Arizona-Utah
border, is 23 percent full, the lowest since it filled in the
1960s. -Written by John Fleck, co-author of “Science Be
Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado
River.”
Life in the southwestern U.S. as we know it exists thanks to
the water of the Colorado River, which flows for approximately
1,450 miles from the Rockies to the Gulf of California. The
river gets its water from the Colorado River drainage basin,
which spreads some 246,000 square miles. A drainage basin is an
area where all precipitation flows to the same river, or set of
streams. The Colorado River basin is made up of all of
Arizona, parts of California, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah,
Nevada, and Wyoming, and two Mexican states—Baja California and
Sonora—although the final two states contribute little runoff
to the river.
California farms and cities that get their water from the
Central Valley Project are due to receive a large increase in
water allocations this year after snowpack and reservoirs were
replenished in winter storms, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced Wednesday. Most recipients of the Central Valley
Projects are irrigation districts that supply farms, and some
are cities, including those served by the East Bay Municipal
Utility District and Contra Costa Water District in the Bay
Area. Farms that received zero initial water allocations last
year, in the third year of the state’s historic drought, are
due to receive 35% of their allocation this year, the most
they’ve gotten since 2019. Others, including the
Sacramento River Settlement Contractors, large shareholders
with senior water rights, will receive 100% of their contracted
water supply.
A shortage on the Colorado River has put tremendous pressure on
the water supply that serves more than 40-million people in the
Western United States. But a punishing drought and the over
allocation of the river have also created an urgent problem for
California’s Salton Sea. The 340-square-mile lake was formed in
1905 when a canal carrying river water to farmers in the
Imperial Valley ruptured. The flood created a desert oasis that
lured tourists and migratory birds to its shore. A century
later, the Salton Sea — California’s largest lake — is
spiraling into an ecological disaster. At 223 feet below
sea level, Bombay Beach occupies a low spot on the
map. Many of the shoreline community’s trailer homes are
rusting into the earth and tagged with graffiti. Artists have
created large pieces of public sculpture, including a vintage
phone booth that stands on the shoreline as a tribute to a
bygone era.
California’s water board decided Tuesday to temporarily allow
more storage in Central Valley reservoirs, waiving state rules
that require water to be released to protect salmon and other
endangered fish. The waiver means more water can be sent to the
cities and growers that receive supplies from the San
Joaquin-Sacramento Delta through the State Water Project and
the federal Central Valley Project. The state aqueduct delivers
water to 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and
750,000 acres of farmland, while the Central Valley Project
mostly serves farms. The flow rules will remain suspended until
March 31. Environmentalists reacted with frustration and
concern that the move will jeopardize chinook salmon and other
native fish in the Delta that are already struggling to
survive…. But water suppliers applauded the decision,
saying the water is needed to help provide enough water to
cities and farms.
Not issuing the drought permits could have a significant impact
on agriculture in the region if farmers don’t have access to
irrigation water. …The department usually issues 40 to 50
drought permits per year. A spokesperson for the Klamath Water
Users Association, which lobbies for the basin’s agriculture
community, did not respond to an interview request. Groundwater
levels in the Klamath Basin have declined significantly in
recent years. OWRD said the water level dropped by 20 to 30
feet over the last three years alone, so additional access is
unsustainable. Emergency drought declarations have been made in
Klamath County in 16 of the past 31 years.
Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times article, “LA’s new water war:
Keeping supply from Mono Lake flowing as critics want it cut
off,” on the State Water Board’s Mono Lake workshop left
readers and workshop attendees, well … wondering. Print
space and attention spans are always tight, but the article
missed information key to understanding the issue at Mono
Lake, the diversity of voices calling Mono Lake protection, and
the water supply solutions that are right at hand for Los
Angeles. The State Water Board’s five-hour
workshop was attended by 365 people, and 49 of the 53
public commenters spoke in support of raising Mono Lake.
The future is now. Governor Newsom’s February 13, 2023
Executive Order ordering the State Water Board to
consider modifying flow and storage requirements for the State
Water Project (SWP) and the Central Valley Project (CVP) is his
blueprint for the Bay-Delta estuary and every river that feeds
it. When requirements to protect water quality, fish, and
wildlife are inconvenient, water managers can ignore them. It’s
all voluntary. For ten-odd years, California’s water managers
have promised “Voluntary Agreements” to replace the Bay-Delta
Water Quality Control Plan. They could never figure out
the details of what to propose.
In the absence of an enforceable federal drinking water
standard for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”), many
states have started regulating PFAS compounds in drinking
water. The result is a patchwork of regulations and
standards of varying levels, which presents significant
operational and compliance challenges to impacted
industries. This client alert surveys the maximum
contaminant levels (“MCLs”), as well as guidance and
notification levels, for PFAS compounds – typically
perfluorooctane sulfonate (“PFOS”) and perfluorooctanoic acid
(”PFOA”) – in drinking water across the United States.
You see them all over the San Joaquin Valley: Sparkling new
housing developments promising luxury living outside the big
cities. But a recent investigation from our non-profit
reporting partners shows the risks of building communities in
areas with unreliable access to drinking water. Back in the
1980s, county officials knew the risks of building homes in the
Mira Bella development near Millerton Lake in the foothills of
Fresno County, but they greenlit the project anyway—and now
residents and taxpayers are paying the price. In this
interview, KVPR’s Kerry Klein talks with the reporters who
produced this story, Jesse Vad of SJV Water and Gregory Weaver
of Fresnoland, about the lengths Mira Bella residents are going
to to solve their water problems, and what it demonstrates
about who does and does not have access to drinking water in
California.
Researchers reported finding microplastics in drinking water
nearly 5 years ago, prompting California lawmakers to require
monitoring of the state’s drinking water for the tiny
particles. But in 2018, there were no standard methods for
analyzing microplastics. So California regulators reached out
to chemists and toxicologists from all sectors to develop those
methods. They also sought assistance in developing a
health-based limit to help consumers understand what the
monitoring results mean for their health. In this episode of
Stereo Chemistry, we will hear from some of the scientists
leading those groundbreaking efforts.
An effort that has lasted more than 50 years to secure water
rights for the Tule River Indian Reservation continues. And
it’s hoped the passage of a bill that has been reintroduced can
prevent litigation happening between the Tribe and the U.S.
Government. U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein
both of California have re-introduced legislation to formally
recognize the Tule River Tribe’s reserved water rights to 5,828
acre-feet/year of surface water from the South Fork of the Tule
River, the Tule River Water Rights Settlement Act. For decades,
the Tule River Tribe has worked with the federal government and
downstream water users to enact the settlement agreement. In
introducing the bill, Padilla’s office stated the legislation
would avoid costly and adversarial litigation for the tribe and
the U.S. government.
The Bakersfield City Council at its meeting Wednesday will
likely approve a $288,350 contract to conduct a detailed study
of the city’s water supplies and demands with a strong focus on
Kern River operations. Though the proposed study, on the
consent agenda, isn’t in direct response to a lawsuit filed
last year against the city by Water Audit of California over
the river, the study could answer some questions posed in the
lawsuit. The Water Audit suit alleges the city has been
derelict by not considering the public in how it operates the
river. The lawsuit doesn’t demand money. Rather it seeks to
stop water diversions from the river temporarily while the
court orders the city to study how river operations have
affected fisheries, the environment and recreational uses.
From leaving some farmland fallow, to pressuring cities to
conserve more water, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a
Democrat, says everything should be on the table to use
Colorado River water more efficiently and help it sustain life
in the southwestern U.S. for years to come. Hickenlooper
is helping convene a group of senators to try to broker a
compromise to conserve Colorado River water. The Colorado River
Compact was signed in 1922 and established how much water seven
states, dozens of tribes, and Mexico can use. But between
overuse and a mega drought that has lasted longer than 20
years, the southwest is dangerously close to not being able to
get water where it needs to go.
Downpours or drought, California’s farm belt will need to
tighten up in the next two decades and grow fewer crops. There
simply won’t be enough water to sustain present irrigation in
the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater is dangerously depleted.
Wells are drying up and the land is sinking in many places,
cracking canals. Surface water supplies have been cut back
because of drought, and future deliveries are uncertain due to
climate change and environmental
regulations. … Agriculture is water intensive. And
water is becoming increasingly worrisome in the West,
particularly with overuse of the Colorado River. There’s plenty
of water off our coast, but we’ve only begun to dip our toe
into desalination. -Written by columnist George Skelton.
It sounds like an obvious fix for California’s whipsawing
cycles of deluge and drought: Capture the water from downpours
so it can be used during dry spells. Pump it out of
flood-engorged rivers and spread it in fields or sandy basins,
where it can seep into the ground and replenish the region’s
huge, badly depleted aquifers. … Yet even this winter, when
the skies delivered bounties of water not seen in half a
decade, large amounts of it surged down rivers and out into the
ocean. Water agencies and experts say California
bureaucracy is increasingly to blame — the state tightly
regulates who gets to take water from streams and creeks to
protect the rights of people downriver, and its rules don’t
adjust nimbly even when storms are delivering a torrent of new
supply.
The desiccation of the Colorado River has left Lake Powell, the
country’s second-largest reservoir, at just 23% of capacity,
its lowest level since it was filled in the 1960s. With the
reservoir now just 32 feet away from “minimum power pool” — the
point at which Glen Canyon Dam would no longer generate power
for six states — federal officials are studying the possibility
of overhauling the dam so that it can continue to generate
electricity and release water at critically low levels. A
preliminary analysis of potential modifications to the dam
emerged during a virtual meeting held by the federal Bureau of
Reclamation, which is also reviewing options for averting a
collapse of the water supply along the river.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order this week declaring war on
California’s water scarcity takes a note from the Bush
playbook. The decision to extend his drought emergency
declaration — despite the recent record rains and flooding —
gives carte blanche to state agencies to eviscerate essential
water quality and environmental protections in perpetuity.
Meanwhile, his administration continues to press for the same
kinds of projects and management strategies that helped create
the state’s water problems in the first place. The results
will be catastrophic for the health of San Francisco
Bay. The bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta form one
of the planet’s great estuaries, where salt water and fresh
mix, and the estuarine ecosystem is highly dependent on the
amount of fresh water that flows into it from the
watershed. -Written by Gary Bobker, program director at the Bay
Institute.
With its haunting rock spires and salt-crusted shores, Mono
Lake is a Hollywood vision of the apocalypse. To the city of
Los Angeles, however, this Eastern Sierra basin represents the
very source of L.A.’s prosperity — the right to free water. For
decades, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has
relied on long-standing water rights to divert from the streams
that feed this ancient lake as part of the city’s far-flung
water empire. But in the face of global warming, drought and
lawsuits from environmentalists, the DWP is now facing the
previously unthinkable prospect of ending its diversions there.
In the coming months, the State Water Resources Control Board
will decide whether Mono Lake’s declining water level — and the
associated ecological impacts — constitute an emergency that
outweighs L.A.’s right to divert up to 16,000 acre-feet of
supplies each year.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation … announced last week that it
will cut flows on the [Klamath] river to historic lows, drying
out the river and likely killing salmon farther downstream.
… The basin has more than 200,000 acres of irrigated
farmland, between 10,000 and 14,000 of which are dedicated to
potatoes, an Indigenous food originally engineered from a
toxic wild root by Andean horticulturists. Roughly three
quarters of the basin’s potato yield go to companies like Frito
Lay for potato chips, and In-N-Out Burger for fries, according
to the Klamath Water Users Association.
A new definition of “waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”)
will help drive the regulatory reach of the Federal Water
Pollution Control Act, or Clean Water Act (“CWA”), starting
March 20, 2023. The term WOTUS is used to determine the extent
to which the CWA applies to different types of water bodies,
such as rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and other water
resources. Redefining WOTUS changes the scope of CWA programs
imposing water quality standards, allocating total maximum
daily loads of pollutants to impaired waters, certifying CWA
Section 401 compliance, regulating the discharge of pollutants
through National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
permits, and regulating the discharge of dredged or fill
material under CWA Section 404 permits.
Maybe cooler heads will prevail in Rio Verde Foothills, after
all. For weeks, Arizona has taken a beating in the national
press over about 500 homes in this unincorporated community
that had lost access to hauled water from neighboring
Scottsdale. Those headlines turned Rio Verde Foothills into a
political football as elected officials publicly blamed each
other for some residents’ dry taps. But behind the scenes, work
was happening on middle ground to help these homeowners without
tying up any of Scottsdale’s existing water resources. -Written by columnist Joanna Allhands.
L.A. County voters passed Measure W back in 2018. Since then,
the tax on impermeable pavement helps fund stormwater capture
projects across the region. Now, more than four years later, a
new report finds that the Safe Clean Water Program — which is
made up of multiple committees that review and approve funding
for projects — has helped significantly in: Clearing a backlog
of city and county projects to improve local water quality and
infrastructure Distributing more than $1 billion to primarily
fund such projects The report is from environmental non-profit
L.A. Waterkeeper.
As January’s drenching storms have given way to an unseasonably
dry February, Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking to waive
environmental rules in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
in an effort to store more water in reservoirs — a move that is
drawing heated criticism from environmental advocates who say
the action will imperil struggling fish populations. …The
agencies are requesting an easing of requirements that would
otherwise mandate larger flows through the estuary. The aim is
to hold back more water in Lake Oroville while also continuing
to pump water to reservoirs south of the delta that supply
farmlands as well as Southern California cities that are
dealing with the ongoing shortage of supplies from the
shrinking Colorado River.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Voluntary agreements in California
have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve
environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows
and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be
diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state
regulators.
Our Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the workshop was held as an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday, April 23.
Shortly after taking office in 2019,
Gov. Gavin Newsom called on state agencies to deliver a Water
Resilience Portfolio to meet California’s urgent challenges —
unsafe drinking water, flood and drought risks from a changing
climate, severely depleted groundwater aquifers and native fish
populations threatened with extinction.
Within days, he appointed Nancy Vogel, a former journalist and
veteran water communicator, as director of the Governor’s Water
Portfolio Program to help shepherd the monumental task of
compiling all the information necessary for the portfolio. The
three state agencies tasked with preparing the document delivered
the draft Water Resilience Portfolio Jan. 3. The document, which
Vogel said will help guide policy and investment decisions
related to water resilience, is nearing the end of its comment
period, which goes through Friday, Feb. 7.
