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.”
Brown lawns and dirty cars will soon be the norm in the South
Bay. San Jose’s largest retail water provider on Wednesday
announced new rules aimed at increasing water conservation as
the state’s drought grows more serious — chief among them a
limit on watering lawns and landscaping to no more than two
days a week, and a ban on washing cars at home.
State water officials should approve a plan to sell up to
100,000 acre-feet of Stanislaus River water to thirsty buyers
on the Valley’s west side and south of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta. The $40 million deal could fall apart if the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation succeeds in blocking it. The
California State Water Resources Control Board should reject
the Bureau’s interference for several solid reasons.
The Central Coast Water Authority (CCWA) and its eight member
cities and water districts has filed a significant and
unprecedented lawsuit in Santa Barbara Superior Court against
the County of Santa Barbara regarding management of the State
Water Project. CCWA manages, operates and finances the
portion of the State Water Project in Santa Barbara
County.
Growers are dealing with severe cutbacks in the surface water
deliveries they normally receive from reservoirs. The lack of
steady irrigation has already impacted spring cropping
decisions made by farmers. … A bill introduced by
Republican Congressman David Valadao would allow more water to
be moved south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while
keeping protections in place for fish such as the delta smelt
and salmon.
Forty two percent of shallow wells supplying water to community
water systems in California’s San Joaquin Valley are vulnerable
to going partially or fully dry under the state’s minimum
thresholds, finds a new report from the Pacific Institute. Most
impacted wells are shallower, and tend to be in disadvantaged
communities.
Rich with promise and potential, the grapes that create the
Russian River Valley’s famed wines are ripening in the intense
midday heat. But soon they’ll face the fight of their lives,
deprived of water as the state diverts scarce supplies from
agriculture to the region’s thirsty cities and
subdivisions. … [Last] week, in a contentious step, the
State Water Resources Control Board unanimously approved an
emergency regulation to halt agricultural diversions for up to
2,400 of the region’s water rights holders. Citing state law,
the regulation prioritizes “health and safety,” saying
agricultural use is “an unreasonable use of water and is
prohibited.”
Camille Touton, a veteran congressional water policy adviser,
has been nominated to lead the agency that oversees water and
power in the U.S. West. President Joe Biden on Friday nominated
Touton to be the next commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation. If confirmed, the Nevada native will be a central
figure in negotiations among several states over the future of
the Colorado River.
Salvador Parra, the manager of Burford Ranch in California’s
Central Valley agricultural breadbasket, is worried about the
lack of water. California’s worst drought since 1977 has forced
Parra to leave fallow 2,000 of his 6,000 acres and dig deep for
water to save the crops already planted.
The Senate voted 55-43 Wednesday to confirm Radhika Fox as head
of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Water.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Tom
Carper (D-Del.), in remarks on the Senate floor, praised Fox’s
record and highlighted the organizations endorsing her for the
position. These include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the
Family Farm Alliance and the U.S. Water Alliance, where she
previously served as CEO.
Nichole S. Morgan has been appointed to the State Water
Resources Control Board, where she has been Assistant Deputy
Director of Financial Assistance since 2019 and served in
several positions from 2009 to 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office
announced.
The seriousness of California’s drought is being driven home to
thousands of farmers in the Central Valley. State regulators
warned 6,600 farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
watershed on Tuesday that they’re about to lose the right to
pull water from the estuary’s rivers at some point this summer.
The watershed covers a major swath of the Central Valley.
Not long after former Gov. Jerry Brown announced the end of a
grueling six-year drought in 2017, the Legislature passed two
controversial water-efficiency laws designed to promote even
more conservation – even though residents have done a
remarkable job reducing their water usage. Those new laws
required utilities to reduce daily water usage by an average of
55 gallons per person by 2023.
The Sonoma County water agency received permission Monday to
immediately cut stream flows in the lower Russian River by more
than half in an effort to conserve water stored in Lake
Sonoma. Instream flows in the upper river, above Dry
Creek, which is fed by releases from Lake Sonoma, already are
being maintained at a very low threshold to keep as much water
as possible in Lake Mendocino, the smaller of the two
reservoirs.
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced
selections under two Clean Water Act (CWA) grant programs to
support leadership of Tribes in protecting and restoring water
resources. The agency anticipates awarding approximately $3
million to 18 Tribal nations and one Intertribal organization
under the Tribal Wetland Program Development Grant competition
and an additional $3 million in CWA Section 319 Tribal
Competitive Grants to 32 Tribal nations to support projects to
manage nonpoint source pollution.
Toxic manmade chemicals, like per- and poly-fluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS) and 1,2,3-Tricholoropropane (TCP), are
showing up in water systems across the US. It’s not new, but it
has become more common, as municipalities are now increasing
mandatory testing due to new state and federal
regulations. … TCP was tagged as a carcinogen in
1999 by the state of California which lead to the strictest
state MCL level in the country at 5 ppt. One ppt is the
equivalent of one drop of impurity in 21 million gallons of
water – in other words, TCP is very toxic.
Managers of some Arizona golf courses are fighting a plan that
would cut water use at a time when the state is being
forced to confront shrinking water supplies. A group
representing golf courses has been pushing back against a
proposal by state officials that would reduce overall
water use on courses, instead offering a plan that would entail
less conservation. Opposition to the state’s proposal for
golf courses has emerged over the past several months, aired in
sometimes-tense virtual meetings …
Residents of Healdsburg are under new orders to reduce their
water use by 40% compared to a year ago — a challenging new
threshold that doubles a mandatory 20% conservation level
established in May that the city so far has been unable to
meet. In fact, May 2021 water consumption was 3% higher
than in May 2020, though more recent usage figures demonstrate
a rolling seven-day average reduction of 15%, according to a
city staff report.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of
Engineers announced their intent to revise the reach of the
federal Clean Water Act by changing the definition of “waters
of the United States.” This move, announced yesterday, would
reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule adopted during the
Trump administration, which itself replaced a 2015 revision by
the Obama administration.
Tricia Hill tears up when she talks about the emotional toll
the water shut-off in southern Oregon has had on her family.
Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal
government in May shut down the water supply from the Upper
Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border to protect native
fish species on the verge of extinction. As a result, Hill and
other farmers like her in the region have been cut off from
water they have used for decades.
A Central Valley pistachio processing plant whose wastewater
ponds triggered numerous odor complaints from nearby residents
will pay a $221,440 fine, a portion of which will fund improved
ventilation at two public schools in the area. The Central
Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Central Valley
Water Board) fined Setton Pistachio after determining the
company had violated the terms of an August 2020 cease and
desist order (CDO) directing it to immediately eliminate
objectionable odors coming from ponds at its plant in Terra
Bella in Tulare County.
Higher bills will soon be on the way for the roughly 1.4
million people who get their water from the East Bay Municipal
Utility District, but at least for now they won’t be required
to cut their water use despite the drought. Beginning July 1,
the agency will charge customers 4% more for both water and
sewer services. And a year later, on July 1, 2022, the rate
will climb another 4%. The district’s board of directors
unanimously approved the rate increases at its meeting Tuesday
as part of the $2.25 billion budget it adopted for the next two
fiscal years.
One of the largest water districts in the San Francisco Bay
Area announced mandatory restrictions Wednesday and declared a
water shortage emergency, signaling the seriousness of drought
conditions across the region and state after two consecutive
dry winters. The Board of Directors for Santa Clara
Valley Water District, which serves 2 million customers,
unanimously approved a resolution requiring customers to reduce
water use by 15% compared with 2019 levels. The board is also
urging Santa Clara County to proclaim a local emergency.
The first assessments of groundwater sustainability
plans have been released by the California Department of
Water Resources (DWR). In lieu of waiting until the end of the
two-year review period, DWR has decided to release assessments
as they are completed. Assessments have been completed for the
Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin in Santa Cruz County and 180/400
Foot Aquifer Subbasin in Monterey County. Assessments
for the Cuyama Valley Basin and Paso Robles Subbasin have also
been completed.
The Biden administration began legal action Wednesday to repeal
a Trump-era rule that ended federal protections for hundreds of
thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways,
leaving them more vulnerable to pollution from development,
industry and farms. The rule — sometimes referred to as “waters
of the United States” or WOTUS — narrowed the types of
waterways that qualify for federal protection under the Clean
Water Act. It was one of hundreds of rollbacks of environmental
and public health regulations under President Donald Trump, who
said the rules imposed unnecessary burdens on business.
With California experiencing its second consecutive dry year,
the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the State
Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board), and the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) called on local
and regional water suppliers to increase their conservation
efforts, develop a contingency plan in the event of water
supply problems, and urge Californians to save water amid
ongoing dry conditions.
With the harshest dry year in recent memory, the Sacramento
River Settlement Contractors (Settlement Contractors) are
working closely with federal and state agencies, as well as our
conservation partners, to continually improve our operations
and serve water for multiple benefits, including water for
cities and rural communities, farms, birds, fish, and
recreation.
The state Supreme Court rejected the appeal Wednesday of the
owner of an island in Suisun Bay who has been ordered to pay
millions of dollars in penalties and restore landfill he
discharged into marsh waters to make room for duck hunters and
a kite-surfing club. John Sweeney purchased the 39-acre island,
Point Buckler, on the eastern edge of Grizzly Bay in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in 2011. It had been used by duck
hunters for many decades until the 1990s, but regulatory
agencies said levee breaches and neglect of the site had turned
it into a tidal marsh.
At the Kern County Water Summit held last week, hosted by the
Water Association of Kern County, Acting Deputy Director of the
Department of Water Resources Statewide Groundwater Management
Program Steven Springhorn provided an update on the
Department’s progress on SGMA implementation, including the
Department’s review of the submitted Groundwater Sustainability
Plans and the existing and proposed SGMA-related assistance.
Santa Clara County on Wednesday became the most populous county
in California to impose mandatory water restrictions, saying
that the worsening drought poses a significant threat to the
local groundwater supplies that provide nearly half the
drinking water for 2 million residents. On a 7-0 vote, the
Santa Clara Valley Water District board declared a water
shortage emergency and set a target of reducing water use
33% countywide from 2013 levels, a year the state uses as
baseline.
Against the backdrop of what’s shaping up as a devastating
drought year, the California Department of Water Resources has
released its first assessments of groundwater sustainability
plans developed by local agencies to meet the requirements of
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The department
released reviews of four local plans, approving two but sending
the other two back to local groundwater sustainability
agencies, saying the plans need more work.
For decades, large red-hot furnaces cooked the lead from
smashed batteries at the Exide plant, just seven miles from
Downtown Los Angeles, spouting plumes of toxic air that settled
on and contaminated thousands of homes. … In the years
since, the facility has been cited repeatedly for serious
compliance problems. According to a former DTSC senior
scientist’s review of public records, at least four are
responsible for soil and groundwater contamination that the
department has or should have known about for years or even
decades.
A court of appeal invalidated a water district’s adopted rate
increases, concluding that the district failed to meet its
burden under Proposition 218 of establishing that the increases
did not exceed the cost of providing the water service. …
Following a hearing, the Board of Directors of the Florin
County Water District voted to increase its water rates by 50
percent. Data presented by staff at the hearing showed that
revenues would exceed expenditures in each of the four years
following the rate increase, culminating in a net profit of
almost $1.4 million in the fourth year.
The White House last week announced the official
launch of the Low-Income Household Water Assistance
Program (LIHWAP) housed at the U.S. Department of Health &
Human Services (HHS). This program is the first of its
kind designed to provide funding to help low-income households
affected by the COVID-19 pandemic pay their water and
wastewater bills. According to the National Association of
Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), the available federal funds,
which total $1.138 billion, were secured as part of
the federal COVID-19 relief spending in December 2020 and March
2021.
In a major sign of California’s worsening drought, Santa Clara
County’s largest water provider announced Monday that it is
moving forward with plans to declare a water shortage emergency
and to urge cities and water companies that serve 2 million
residents in and around San Jose to impose mandatory water
restrictions. The move will be the first time since the
historic drought of 2012 to 2016 that Santa Clara County
residents will face mandatory restrictions as the county
becomes the most populous area in California to impose such
severe measures.
Not all farmland in the San Joaquin Valley will survive in a
post-SGMA world. Estimates are that the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act will force between 500,000 to one million acres
of land that’s currently farmed to be taken out of production
to save groundwater. Which lands and what will become of those
lands are major question marks at this point. If Gov. Newsom’s
revised budget is approved as is, those questions could have an
extra $500 million to help find answers.
When the Palo Alto City Council publicly backed the Bay-Delta
Plan in 2018, it was swimming against the political tide. The
plan, formally known as the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta Estuary plan, sets limits on how much water
agencies can siphon from the three tributaries of the San
Joaquin River. While it aims to protect salmon, steelhead and
other river species, it has also attracted intense opposition
and litigation from water districts that claim that the new
restrictions will undermine the reliability of their water
supply.
Fears of a confrontation between law enforcement and rightwing
militia supporters over the control of water in the
drought-stricken American west have been sparked by protests at
Klamath Falls in Oregon. Protesters affiliated with rightwing
anti-government activist Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights Network
are threatening to break a deadlock over water management in
the area by unilaterally opening the headgates of a reservoir.
A proposal that would more than double the cost of sewer
service in the region over the next five years and has drawn
the rage of the area’s hospitality and business interests heads
to a board for final approval on June 7. The board of directors
for Monterey One Water, the regional wastewater management
service, will vote on the proposed schedule of rate increases.
If approved, ratepayers will see a 47-percent jump in their
sewage bills after July 1. By 2025, rates would be 122-percent
higher than they are today. … [T]he increase is needed to
maintain and update the utility’s $750 million infrastructure
assets, some of which are more than 30 years old.
In Sin City, one thing that will soon become unforgivable is
useless grass. A new Nevada law will outlaw about 40% of the
grass in the Las Vegas area in an effort to conserve water amid
a drought that is drying up the region’s primary water source:
the Colorado River. Other cities and states around the US have
enacted temporary bans on lawns that must be watered, but
legislation signed Friday by the state’s governor, Steve
Sisolak, makes Nevada the first in the nation to enact a
permanent ban on certain categories of grass.
The Biden administration is taking aim at Trump-era rollbacks
to endangered species protections, though environmental
advocates have raised concerns about how long their actions
could take. In a statement on Friday, federal agencies said
they would “initiate rulemaking in the coming months” to either
rescind or revise Trump-era rules that lessened protections for
these species, or reinstate pre-Trump language that provided
additional protections for endangered animals and plants.
Citing numerous “concerns” with the Clean Water Act (CWA)
section 401 water quality certification rule enacted by the
Trump Administration in 2020, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has issued a Notice of Intention to
reconsider and revise the rule. EPA’s notice states that
the new rule will be “better aligned with the cooperative
federalism principles that have been central to the effective
implementation of the Clean Water Act” and is “responsive to
the national objectives outlined in President Biden’s Executive
Order 13990.”
As a result of a lawsuit settlement with the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) for not submitting water conservation
reports required by the state for three consecutive years, the
City of Chino Hills has begun filing annual reports on its
website. Beginning March 30, the city also began posting the
annual volumes of potable (drinking) water and recycled water
used by city facilities. The water usage posted for the 2019-20
fiscal year shows the city used 778 acre-feet of potable water
and 243 acre-feet of recycled water for a total of 1021
acre-feet.
Flows into the San Joaquin River under a program to bring back
native salmon will be stopped now through early September to
try and protect fish already upstream. The flow reduction being
instituted by the San Joaquin Restoration Program is in
reaction to rapidly dwindling runoff coming out of the Sierra
Nevada mountains this year.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released its
first assessments of groundwater sustainability plans developed
by local agencies to meet the requirements of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). DWR has completed its
assessment and approved plans for the Santa Cruz Mid-County
Basin in Santa Cruz County and 180/400 Foot Aquifer Subbasin in
Monterey County.
On Thursday, Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) issued the
following statement regarding a
bi-partisan letter she sent that urges the California
Water Commission to prioritize water storage projects in the
Central Valley when assessing how to reallocate funds from
Proposition 1: … California is currently in a state of
emergency due to drought. As a result, the amount of water
allocated to Central Valley farmers has been greatly
reduced.
At the May meeting of the Delta Stewardship Council, Dr. Steve
Brandt, Chair of the Delta Independent Science Board, provided
a brief background on the Delta Independent Science Board,
reported on the Board’s recently completed review on non-native
species in the Delta, and discussed the Board’s approach going
forward in light of the recent compensation issues. Also,
Dr. Laurel Larsen spotlighted a recent study looking at the
effects of the Sacramento Regional Sanitation District plant
upgrade on phytoplankton.
Too often, ocean water is laced with sewage and pollutants,
affecting how safe beaches are for swimming and surfing –
that’s the message of this year’s Clean Water Report released
Tuesday, May 25, by the Surfrider Foundation. …
[T]he report highlights inefficiencies in sewer
infrastructure and a need to stop urban runoff before it
reaches the coast, both main contributors to dirty water that
plagues the country’s coastlines.
While droughts are common in California, this year’s is much
hotter and drier than others, evaporating water more quickly
from the reservoirs and the sparse Sierra Nevada snowpack that
feeds them. The state’s more than 1,500 reservoirs are 50%
lower than they should be this time of year, according to Jay
Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the
University of California-Davis.
Two weeks ago, the “greenest city in America” sued California’s
State Water Board to prevent measures that would restore the
beleaguered San Francisco Bay-Delta. After more than a decade
of studies based on the best available science, the state wants
to require San Francisco to release more water from its dams
into the Tuolumne River — the source of our Hetch Hetchy
drinking water — to benefit fish, wildlife and downstream water
quality. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission,
meanwhile, wants a “voluntary agreement” for the Tuolumne
River. -Written by Peter Drekmeier, policy director of the
Tuolumne River Trust.
Urban water agencies are planning to impose mandatory
conservation orders after federal water managers slashed
deliveries this week amid a rapidly deepening drought. The
Bureau of Reclamation cut water deliveries from the Central
Valley Project by about half. That has prompted the Santa Clara
Valley Water District, which serves 2 million residents in the
Silicon Valley region, to consider a potential conservation
order at its board meeting next month.
As the extreme drought causes various agencies to squabble over
dwindling water supplies, conservationists say the state is
still not doing enough to prevent an endangered run of salmon
from dying in the Sacramento River. At issue is how the federal
Bureau of Reclamation manages water flows from Shasta Lake into
the Sacramento River, which is both the spawning grounds for
chinook salmon and the main water source for Central Valley
farms. If the bureau releases too much water to irrigation
districts, the river level could drop low enough and warm
enough to kill off 50% of the eggs …
According to a flyer put out by the California Water Boards,
anyone who diverts water from a surface stream, lake or pond
into a water hauling truck must have a valid water right and
any unauthorized drafting or hauling of water is subject to
prosecution and fines—up to $500 a day, as high as $1,000 a day
during a drought year, and $2,500 per acre-foot of water
diverted—by the State Water Boards and the Department of Fish &
Wildlife.
Joe Del Bosque is leaving a third of his 2,000-acre farm near
Firebaugh, California, unseeded this year due to extreme
drought. Yet, he hopes to access enough water to produce a
marketable melon crop. Farmers across California say they
expect to receive little water from state and federal agencies
that regulate the state’s reservoirs and canals, leading many
to leave fields barren, plant more drought-tolerant crops or
seek new income sources all-together. … Stuart Woolf,
who operates 30,000 acres, most of it in Western Fresno County
… may fallow 30% of his land.
Can California regions regulate groundwater without destroying
their businesses and communities? That’s the question being
posed as regions and localities implement the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the historic 2014 state law
that brought regulation to California’s diminishing groundwater
supplies. –Written by columnist Joe Matthews
The Imperial Irrigation District has filed its initial response
to Imperial Valley grower, landowner and former elected
official Michael Abatti’s U.S. Supreme Court case.
… Abatti is seeking to overturn a previous appellate
court ruling that asserts Imperial Irrigation District is the
“sole owner” of water rights in the Valley, and farmers do “not
(have) an appurtenant water right” but rather are entitled
merely to “water service” that is subject to modification by
the district at its discretion.
Can California regulate groundwater without destroying its own
communities? That’s the question being posed as regions
implement the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA),
the historic 2014 state law regulating California’s diminishing
groundwater supplies. Groundwater is buried in aquifers,
underground spaces between rocks, soils, and sand. Layers of
aquifers are called groundwater basins. California has hundreds
of them. Eight-five percent of Californians depend on
groundwater …
-Written by Joe Mathews, who writes the Connecting
California column for Zócalo Public Square.
Following recent ordinances from Siskiyou County Board of
Supervisors that prohibit the transfer of water along certain
county roads without a permit, ripple effects have been seen
throughout the community. The emergency ordinances were
passed in an effort to crack down on illegal marijuana grow
operations. … [The conflict] has fanned the flames of racism,
saying they are seeing community members racially profile Asian
Americans in the community because the Shasta Vista subdivision
is known to have a large Asian American population.
The state’s extensive water system supplies cities and farms;
prevents pollution of lakes, rivers, and coastlines; protects
against floods; and supports freshwater ecosystems and the
forested headwaters that are a major source of water supply.
Many local, state, and federal agencies oversee this system and
raise revenues from a variety of sources. California spends
about $37 billion annually, with the lion’s share (84%) coming
from local water bills and taxes. The balance comes from state
(13%) and federal (3%) contributions.
In just a few weeks, California’s water conditions have gone
from bad to terrible. Sacramento residents have been asked to
cut water usage 10%. Their counterparts on the Russian River
are being told to reduce their consumption 20%. Farmers across
the Central Valley are letting fields lie fallow and
dismantling their orchards. Government agencies are warning of
massive fish kills on the Sacramento River. After
a warm spring dried up practically the entire Sierra
Nevada snowpack — and robbed California of enough water to fill
most of Folsom Lake — state and federal officials have been
forced to dramatically ramp up their drought response plans.
Day after day, sheriff’s deputies drive up and down the road
outside Steve Griset’s 600-acre farm, pulling over anyone who
appears to be hauling water for the thousands of marijuana
greenhouses that have taken over the countryside here. Griset
has become a target, even though he grows alfalfa. Last year,
investigators with the Siskiyou County District Attorney’s
Office raided Griset’s house with a search warrant looking for
his business records, and the DA followed up with a lawsuit in
civil court. Griset’s alleged transgressions? He was selling
water from his well to his pot-farming neighbors, immigrants of
Hmong descent …
The [Colorado] state water board is encouraging all nine basin
roundtables to adopt a code of conduct requiring members to
communicate in a professional, respectful, truthful and
courteous way. But some Western Slope roundtables are pushing
back. Over roughly the last month, Colorado Water Conservation
Board Director Rebecca Mitchell has been visiting the remote
roundtable meetings on Zoom, answering questions about the code
of conduct and urging the roundtables to adopt it. The goal of
the document is to make sure everyone feels comfortable
speaking up in meetings.
The notion of access to water for drinking and sanitation as
being a human right – not a privilege or a commodity to be
bought and sold – is based on the understanding that water is
essential for life itself and should not be subject to the
dictates of the market. This understanding parallels other
treatments of vital resources such as housing and healthcare
and has been codified in multiple United Nations frameworks.
Human rights have been less common as a basis for public policy
in the United States, where the more limited concept of civil
rights has predominated. This has begun to change, most notably
with the passage of California’s 2012 Assembly Bill 685 on the
human right to water…
Late Friday the State Water Resources Control Board appeared to
tentatively approve a temperature management plan for Shasta
Dam that sacrifices salmon and fishing jobs for agribusiness
profits this year, violates water quality standards, and leaves
California woefully unprepared if next year is also dry.
Specifically, the State Water Board indicated that they would
approve a temperature management plan if it achieves 1.25
million acre feet of water in Shasta at the end of September.
As the State Water Board knows, allowing storage to drop
that low is estimated to kill more than 50% of the endangered
winter run Chinook salmon and … the vast majority of the
fall run Chinook …
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off
irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said
they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or
to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of
migrating birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the
worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the
main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath
Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old
irrigation system.
The 2021 legislative session is an anomaly. Notwithstanding
COVID, the bad water bills died early and the good ones pressed
on. That is not the norm. But it appears that more folks are
beginning to believe these are not normal times. Indeed,
this year is different. Long-time foes are singing kumbaya in
praise of AB356. The legislation, which passed both
chambers, saves 10 billion gallons of water annually in
Southern Nevada –– defending the dwindling supply of Colorado
River water by mandating the removal of all non-functional turf
by 2027 in Southern Nevada. -Written by Kyle Roerink, executive director of
the Great Basin Water Network.
When Sierra snow seeps into the ground or evaporates before it
can flow downstream into reservoirs, you know California is
facing a severe drought. It’s happening this spring up and down
the mountain range that is a primary water source for the
state. Water from snowmelt that hydrologists had expected only
a few weeks ago to replenish foothill reservoirs is vanishing.
It’s being absorbed by the parched soil or dissipating into the
thin mountain air. -Written by George Skelton, a Los Angeles Times
columnist.
On May 18, 2021, deputies with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s
Office Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) served one search
warrant to investigate illegal cannabis cultivation in the
Blake Mountain area of Eastern Humboldt County. The California
Department of Fish and Wildlife, Humboldt County Department of
Health and Human Services Environmental Health – HazMat Unit,
Humboldt County Code Enforcement and the California State Water
Resources Control Board assisted in the service of the warrant.
The deadline is looming: According to a state law adopted in
2018, the California State Water Resources Control Board has
until July 1 to adopt a standard methodology for testing
drinking water for the presence of microplastics; adopt
requirements for four years of testing and reporting of
microplastics in drinking water, including public disclosure of
the results; and accredit qualified laboratories in California
to analyze microplastics. The problem? Testing for
microplastics … is not quite ready for prime time. It is not
yet precisely clear what effects microplastics have on animals,
including humans, and at what levels they may be harmful.
EPA’s Office of Water is kicking off quarterly meetings with
agricultural and environmental groups to discuss the thorny
issue of which waterways and wetlands qualify for federal
protections.
The Estrella-El Pomar-Creston Water District (EPCWD) has begun
creating a groundwater level monitoring network. Initially, the
district has begun work to add 30 new groundwater level
monitoring sites, using existing wells, throughout the
37,000-acre district. The campaign marks a significant
effort in the basin to move toward groundwater sustainability
in the Paso Robles Subbasin, according to the EPCWD.
As more of California sinks into extreme drought, Gov. Gavin
Newsom has asked the Legislature to appropriate billions of
dollars to address critical water needs. In the “May revise”—an
update to the budget proposal he initially submitted to the
Legislature in January—Newsom proposes to spend nearly $3.5
billion on water supply and resilience projects, with total
investment reaching $5.1 billion over multiple years.
California lawmakers should take prompt action before drought
conditions worsen by sending emergency drinking water to
vulnerable communities in parched regions of the state,
legislative advisers say. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s
Office released a report last week providing recommendations on
how to address increasingly dry conditions throughout the
state. Based on an analysis of the state’s previous efforts for
the last major drought, from 2012 to 2016, analysts said
lawmakers should start sending emergency water supplies to
vulnerable communities in the San Joaquin Valley
region…
A growing number of drought stricken California farmers are
making the painful decision not to plant as much or anything at
all for fear of losing it all. It costs a lot of money to put
seeds or seedlings into the ground. But if a farmer cannot be
reasonably sure of a crop, why do it?
Last week, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA)
held their spring conference virtually. Keynote speakers
included Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of Natural Resources, and
Karla Nemeth, Director of the Department of Water
Resources. In his speech, [Crowfoot] discussed the Newsom
Administration’s priorities, calling this the ‘decade of
resilience’, and giving three principles for going
forward. He also discussed the Voluntary
Agreements. Director Karla Nemeth gave the Thursday
morning keynote speech, touching on the Department’s response
to drought, SGMA implementation, the Delta Conveyance Project,
and the water use efficiency regulations.
Crystal Geyser bought the nearly 145,000 square foot bottling
plant in 2013. Since then, it’s been the target of protests by
local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Opponents say if it ever started operating, it would draw down
too much water, and cause air and noise pollution. … They are
in the midst of suing the beverage company in an effort to get
a new environmental impact report.
What was already forecasted to be a historically bleak water
year in the Klamath Project has quickly become a living
nightmare for farms and ranches fighting for survival in the
drought-stricken basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation shut
down the Project’s A Canal for the entire irrigation season May
12 in response to worsening conditions — allotting zero surface
water from Upper Klamath Lake for thirsty crops and livestock.
It is the first time in more than a century the A Canal will
deliver no water. Meanwhile, irrigators are left to wonder how
they will pay the bills as fields turn to dust.
Current and future climate change effects are intensifying the
hydrological cycle, leading to increased variability of both
precipitation and runoff. This heightened pattern results in
more frequent and severe droughts and floods, as well as more
recurrent swings between these two extremes. Harvesting
floodwaters using managed aquifer recharge to replenish
depleted groundwater aquifers can simultaneously reduce flood
and drought risks.
A state appeals court has upheld California’s cleanup standards
for a cancer-causing chemical that was added to pesticides and
has polluted groundwater in the Central Valley, rejecting
challenges by manufacturers that may have to pay the costs. The
State Water Resources Control Board’s 2017 mandate for removing
nearly all TCP (1,2,3-trichloropropane) from drinking water was
contested by the California Manufacturers and Technology
Association, representing Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Oil, which
included the chemical in worm-killing fumigants widely used by
farmers through the 1980s.
With very little water to spare this drought year, water
districts struggling with limited or no supplies look to their
counterparts in other districts to negotiate water transfers to
add whatever flexibility they can. Districts on the west side
of the Central Valley, both north and south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, face the prospect of receiving no
water from the Central Valley Project.
Lake Shasta this summer is facing possibly its lowest level in
at least 44 years, and that could be bad news for the people
who rely on it for drinking and irrigation water, as well as
endangered salmon that depend on it to survive. Dam
operators have to go all the way back to 1977 to compare how
bad this year’s water situation is shaping up to be, said Don
Bader, area manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which
manages the dam.
The seven members of the Delta Stewardship Council were seated
in 2010. The Council appointed ten prominent scientists to the
Delta ISB. Over the next decade, the Delta ISB produced over 30
scientific reviews, averaging over 3,000 hours of work per
year. But in 2020, the work of the Delta ISB stalled. The Delta
Stewardship Council reduced funding for the Delta ISB by over
90%.
Delta smelt have nearly ceased to appear in “pelagic” fish
surveys carried out in their narrow geographic range in the
upper San Francisco Estuary. As trawl-generated index values
for delta smelt have declined over the past quarter century –
understand there is no reliable estimate of the size of the
delta smelt population — the chorus of voices advocating for
captive rearing and releases of the species has grown
louder.
When lawyers for the Town of Apple Valley first presented their
arguments in a lawsuit for taking over the water system
owned by Liberty Utilities, they leveled a serious charge.
According to Kendall MacVey, an attorney with Best Best &
Krieger, the firm’s expert who had conducted a three-day
inspection of the system discovered nine out of 10 water
reservoir tanks to be “seismically unsafe.” Some were perched
above homes with no concrete foundation, MacVey said in an
October 2019 court hearing.
A group of protesters gathered at Sugarman’s Corner in downtown
Klamath Falls on Saturday, preparing to welcome a 25-car
caravan of mostly Klamath Tribal members calling for solutions
to the Klamath Basin’s water crisis. A man walked by the
demonstrators, eyeing their signs with statements like “Peace
and Healing in the Klamath Basin,” “Water Justice is Social
Justice” and “Undam the Klamath.”
In California Coastkeeper v. State Lands Commission, the Third
District Court of Appeal upheld the State Lands Commission’s
decision to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report
(EIR) for a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, overturning
an earlier trial court ruling that invalidated the
EIR. Limited changes to a desalination project were
proposed in order to comply with desalination-related
amendments to the State’s Ocean Plan.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on May 14 unveiled
his May budget revision that allocates $200
million to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells, many
located near low-income residential areas where the majority of
residents are Latino and Black. In January
2020, a report by the California Council on
Science & Technology revealed that California taxpayers could
be on the hook for more than $500 million to plug thousands of
“orphan” wells drilled and abandoned by oil and gas companies.
.. Plugging all 107,000 oil and wells in California when
they become idle would cost more than $9 billion, the
report also found.
After seven years of controversy, Crystal Geyser Water Company
announced last week that it has given up on opening its Mount
Shasta facility. A representative for the company said Crystal
Geyser was “challenged every step of the way” since it
purchased the nearly 145,000 square foot facility in 2013.
Nancy Smith remembered that children had called it “the sick
land” — the wedge of property alongside the 110 Freeway where a
dry cleaning facility had laundered aprons and uniforms for
decades across from a Lincoln Heights elementary school.
… Decades after the old Welch’s laundry was shuttered,
California regulators worked to clean up the soil and check the
groundwater for the chemicals used there — volatile
organic compounds such as tetrachloroethylene that could damage
the human liver and nervous system and have
been tied to an increased risk of cancer. The Department
of Toxic Substances Control oversaw a cleanup effort that
lasted for years and has continued to monitor groundwater at
the site.
Last year, for the first time, it became possible to trade
water on Wall Street through futures contracts. Normally
reserved for commodities like oil or precious metals, water
became the latest asset to join the financial market. But how
could this practice impact the planet? The trading in the
future prices of highly-prized commodities, where buyers agree
to purchase an asset at a set date in the future for an agreed
price, began in Japan in the seventeenth century with the
trading in rice futures. The latest commodity to begin trading
in futures is water supplied in American’s most populous state,
California.
As California descends deeper into drought, state regulators
are planning to do something they’ve done few times in modern
history: order thousands of people, farms, and even cities and
towns that hold historic water rights to stop drawing water
from the rivers, lakes and ponds they rely on. The move is
intended to make sure the dwindling flows in California’s
waterways are reserved for those with the most senior water
rights, as well as for fish and other wildlife. Many of those
with lesser rights would have to turn to storage, groundwater
or another source, if they have it.
The city of San Francisco is reviving a long-simmering feud
with the state over water, filing a lawsuit Friday that charges
state regulators with trying to take away the city’s coveted
Sierra Nevada water supplies. The suit claims the state water
board is demanding the city forfeit too much water from the
Tuolumne River as part of a licensing deal for two dams in the
faraway basin. State regulators have said the water is needed
to maintain proper river flows and support struggling salmon,
but city officials contend the demands would leave Bay Area
residents and businesses vulnerable to water shortages.
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to throw $11.8 billion of California’s
money at climate change and the hazards it poses to the state.
The governor’s gargantuan revised budget proposal, released
Friday, includes expenditures to fight and prevent wildfires,
combat sea-level rise, put more Californians behind the wheel
of an electric vehicle and speed up the transition to a
carbon-free electricity grid. Nearly half of his climate change
package — $5.1 billion — would go toward easing the effects of
California’s newly-declared drought and remedying long-term
water supply problems, such as crumbling canals.
A federal appeals court has rebuked the U.S. government for
failing to properly consider the interest of Native American
nations in developing allocation guidelines for the Colorado
River Basin’s waters and ordered it to prioritize obligations
assumed when it signed a treaty with the Navajo Nation in 1868.
The April 28 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
may boost Native American negotiating clout as the basin’s
states ponder how to address impacts of ongoing drought in the
region.
Twenty years ago, in the 2001 Los Angeles mayoral race, a topic
usually seen as dull became the most lurid issue of the
campaign. The topic was water recycling, and we are still being
hurt by the rhetoric from that election today. Candidate Joel
Wachs, a longtime member of the City Council, didn’t even make
the runoff that year. But during the primary he alarmed voters
across the city by insisting that Los Angeles was furtively
planning to pipe recycled sewage to millions of unsuspecting
Angelenos — without, according to Wachs, adequate public input
or scientific research. The recycling idea became widely known
as “toilet to tap” … -Written by Marc Haefele, a Santa Monica freelance
writer.
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic as federal regulators shut off irrigation
water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would
not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a
half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating
birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the worst water
crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it
will not release water this season into the main canal that
feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project,
marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system.
With shrinking reservoir levels and a summer of water shortages
impending, drought-ridden California on Wednesday pressed the
Biden administration for more control over future
infrastructure projects planned in the Golden State. California
and a collection of states urged the federal government to drop
a Trump-era rule that reduced states’ authority to deny
permitting and licensing for things like new water
infrastructure, oil pipelines, wastewater plants or development
projects in wetland areas. The states claim the rule gives them
little say over projects that could ultimately harm water
quality and the environment.
Rural, low-income Latino communities across California were
hardest hit by the last drought and could see drinking water
shortages again this year as extreme drought spreads across the
state, according to a report released Thursday by non-partisan
advisors to California’s lawmakers. The report from the
Legislative Analyst’s Office warns state officials to prepare
by ramping up monitoring of wells in vulnerable communities and
lining up emergency drinking water supplies to send
there.
Sacramento-area residents were urged Thursday to cut water
usage by 10% as much of the state has been plunged into another
severe drought. Just three days after Gov. Gavin Newsom
declared the area officially in a drought, the Sacramento
Regional Water Authority asked for voluntary conservation
measures as its member agencies scramble to cope with drought
conditions that seemingly worsen by the day.
The Biden administration will defend controversial water
delivery contracts to California farmers issued in the Trump
era, according to a court filing Wednesday, rejecting pleas
from a tribe and environmentalists to rescind them.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that
more than 1,000 farmers in the Klamath Basin will not receive
any reserved water from Upper Klamath Lake — a devastating
prospect for farmers who have already planted fields, hired
crews and made plans for the growing season ahead. … Farmers
in Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc counties were already reeling
over the prospect of receiving less than 10% of their
allotment, or a total of 33,000 acre-feet of water. The
latest announcement feels “like a punch to the gut,” farmers
said …
Ben Tobin has questions about the Grand Canyon’s caves. The
University of Kentucky geologist started learning about caves
as a young man, in part because his mother was a geologist, and
a childhood fascination grew over time. … When he was in
college, an internship in Arkansas doing cave tours got him
hooked, and eventually his work brought him out West, to Grand
Canyon National Park. Tobin specializes in what’s known as
karst hydrology. These are underground systems made up of
soluble rock such as limestone. To Tobin, caves are like
another world, with blind animals, fossils and archeological
finds.
Only one week remains to register for our May 20 virtual
Lower
Colorado River Tour where you can hear directly
from experts offering a range of perspectives on the most
contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Practically every drop of water in the
Colorado River is already allocated, but pressure on the
hard-working river continues to grow from myriad sources —
increasing population, declining habitat and climate
change.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) recently announced
its finding that three salamander species do not warrant
listing as endangered or threatened species under the
Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service’s announcement
follows a court-approved settlement agreement in which the
Service agreed to make a 12-month finding for the Shasta
salamander (Hydromantes shastae), Samwel salamander (H.
samweli), and Wintu salamander (H. wintu). The finding comes
despite concerns from some environmental groups that a proposed
project to raise the height of the Shasta Dam and enlarge the
reservoir would impact the three species due to inundation and
loss of habitat.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the
19th century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the
Gila River Indian Community — is now coursing again with water,
luring things like cattails and birds back to its
shores. … The revival of this small segment of the
649-mile (1045-kilometer) Gila River, which has served the
tribes that make up the Gila River Indian Community — the
Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly
2,000 years, was an added benefit of a grassroots
infrastructure overhaul, known as “managed aquifer recharge,”
or MAR, which aimed to restore the local groundwater
basin.
Well owners in Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley are invited to join community meetings on groundwater
conditions and sustainable management of this critical water
source. The Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are nearing
completion of major plans that identify issues with current and
future groundwater resources and that describe how these
challenges will be addressed.
Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson, along with prominent
North Coast water managers and politicians gathered at a
virtual summit yesterday morning to discuss the severe drought
facing the North Coast and the entire state. At the summit (a
recording of which is available on YouTube), State Senator Mike
McGuire stated that the state legislature is moving forward on
a several billion dollar drought relief package, which would
include $1 billion in grants to help ratepayers and utilities
pay off back bills and $500 million to help smaller low income
communities develop enhanced drinking water supplies, among
other things (read the full list below).
With the uncertainty of water, some Central Valley farmers are
destroying their crops ahead of the summer season in order to
survive. It’s impacting jobs and soon possibly the grocery
shelves. Every crop at Del Bosque Farms is planted
meticulously, and every drop of water is a precious commodity.
Joe Del Bosque started the family farm in 1985. He grows
melons, asparagus, cherries, almonds, and corn, but the drought
brings a flood of concern.
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well
as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California
fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its
current rate. With state water resources constrained by the
extreme drought, that’s the alarm that environmental, fishing
and tribal groups are sounding after reports show the
Sacramento River will reach dangerous temperatures during
spawning season, based on federal scientific scenarios that
analyze the bureau’s planned water releases.
Among attributes of the controversial Poseidon desalination
plant proposed for Huntington Beach is the $1.5 million or so
it would spend annually to keep the tidal inlet open at the
Bolsa Chica wetlands, five miles up the coast from the project
site. But as much as the money is needed there, the three
non-profit groups dedicated to the wetlands’ preservation clash
when it comes to support for the desalter plant. The state
spent $151 million to create the inlet in 2006, restoring the
estuary’s interaction with the ocean and revitalizing the
wildlife habitat. The work has been a particular boon to the
population and variety of birds.
A San Bernardino Superior Court judge has made a ruling against
the Town of Apple Valley in its attempt to take over its
largest supplier of water. In a tentative decision issued
Friday, Judge Donald Alvarez found that Liberty Utilities had
“disproved” the town’s arguments that its acquisition of the
company’s water system would be in the public’s interest and a
necessity. … The town filed its eminent domain lawsuit
in January 2016 when the system was owned by Ranchos Water
Company in response to what they said was a public outcry over
rising water rates.
Don’t be fooled. Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision Monday to
declare drought in most of California, including here, is no
reason for most farmers in Stanislaus County to break out the
party hats. They know full well that words on a declaration
will not generate an extra drop of water for their orchards and
row crops. They also know that a drought declaration could take
some power over the water we do have from our locally elected
irrigation leaders — who represent institutions guiding us
through periodic droughts for more than 100 years — and hand it
to nonelected Sacramento bureaucrats.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced an expansion of the drought
emergency to 41 of the state’s 58 counties, dedicating $5.1
billion to boost water infrastructure and an additional $1
billion to paying off nearly the entirety of Californian
household water debt. Yet, while the governor’s plan includes
$150 million for groundwater cleanup and water recycling
measures, it does nothing to speed up the process to bring
overdrafted water basins into full and sustainable operation.
The deadline is currently 2040 for critically overdrafted
basins and 2042 for remaining high and medium priority basins.
Newly announced state funding for the Salton Sea is expected to
maximize habitat outcomes and provide immediate economic relief
to the community. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $5.1 billion water
infrastructure, drought response and climate resilience
proposal, which he announced Monday as part of his $100 billion
“California Comeback Plan,” includes $220 million for the
Salton Sea. At Tuesday’s Imperial County Board of Supervisors
meeting on Tuesday, District 1 Supervisor Jesus Eduardo Escobar
wanted to know what is meant by providing immediate economic
relief to the community and how this would occur.
Newly released emails reveal that lawyers and lobbyists for
mining companies, developers and the agriculture industry had a
hand behind the scenes in shaping Arizona’s newly adopted law
on clean-water rules for rivers and streams. The emails
show the involvement of these influential groups went beyond
their public endorsements of the legislation. Their lawyers and
lobbyists were given access to offer input while the final
legislation was being drafted, and the emails show they
suggested specific language, offered “wordsmithing” tweaks and
requested significant changes that state officials incorporated
into the bill.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $5.1 billion water infrastructure,
drought response, and climate resilience proposal
includes $220 million for the Salton Sea, and Assembly
member Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, applauded the announcement.
Garcia, chair of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and
Wildlife, stated in a press release from his office that the
funding would maximize habitat outcomes and provide immediate
economic relief to the community.
California’s water resources managers are proactively working
with our various partners through the harshest dry year we have
seen in recent memory…. We are encouraged that the
Governor’s drought proclamation will bring important focus on
our precious water resources and inspire balanced approaches
that will allow water resources managers (state, federal and
local) to creatively manage our limited water supplies this
year for multiple benefits.
Today, the Bureau of Reclamation announced a plan to increase
flow releases from New Melones Reservoir to assist with meeting
Delta salinity and outflow requirements. Additional flow
releases will begin on the
lower Stanislaus River
on May 10 and will reach a total
flow of 1,000 cubic feet per second and again
on May 11 to reach 1,500 cfs. This
increased flow of 1,500 cfs will likely
occur for an extended duration. During the increased
releases, water levels will be higher and currents
faster. Visitors should use caution when near or
on the Stanislaus River during these increased
flows.
Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded his drought emergency declaration to
39 more counties Monday, underscoring the rapid deterioration
of California’s water supply in recent weeks. The governor
broadened his earlier drought order, which was limited to two
counties on the Russian River, to cover most of parched
California, which is plunging into its second major drought in
less than a decade. The new order covers the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river watersheds, the Tulare Lake basin region and the
Klamath region in far Northern California. About 30% of the
state’s population is now covered by the declarations…
California is now in its second year of drought, hard on the
heels of the last one in 2012-16. But drought is not an
equal-opportunity crisis; it can be more or less disruptive
depending on geography, storage, how water supplies are
managed—and, of course, precipitation. And some sectors—notably
rural water water systems and the environment—are more
vulnerable.
Arizona cities, towns, farmers and ranchers are preparing for
the first-ever cuts to the state’s allotment of Colorado River
water. The cuts are the result of a drought that’s lasted 26
years and will likely take effect in 2022. The so-called “Tier
1″ water shortage will affect some water users more severely
than others. … Farmers and ranchers in Pinal County are
already preparing, but it’s going to be a costly process.
On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups, fishing
organizations, stakeholders in the Delta, and the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe sent this letter to the Biden Administration,
urging the Administration not to endorse the so-called
“Voluntary Agreements” for the Bay-Delta watershed.
Unfortunately, the State of California continues to negotiate
backroom deals with the biggest water users in the State that
fail to protect and restore water quality in the
Bay-Delta, threatening thousands of fishing jobs, farms and
communities in the Delta, and the health of this watershed and
its native fish and wildlife.
The California State Lands Commission properly reviewed a
stalled desalination planned to be built on the coast south of
Los Angeles, a state appeals court says. In a decision filed
Saturday, the appeals court affirmed a lower court’s rejection
of a challenge to the plant by the environmental group
California Coastkeeper Alliance and others. It determined that
a 2017 re-review of the planned desalination plant in
Huntington Beach adequately complied with the requirements of
the California Environmental Quality Act.
Sonoma County supervisors are expected to offer their formal
support Tuesday for a plan to pump 20% less water than normal
from the Russian River for the remainder of the year,
preserving dwindling supplies in local reservoirs but making
less water available to more than 600,000 consumers in Sonoma
…
Last week, Senator Alex Padilla (D-Ca) announced the
introduction of a bill that will protect special places in the
Los Padres National Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument
for their ecological, cultural, and recreational values. The
bill also prohibits future oil drilling in certain places,
improves equitable access to the outdoors, and benefits local
and statewide economies. The bill is a companion to
Representative Salud Carbajal’s Central Coast Heritage
Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives in
February. It … safeguards about 159 miles of wild and scenic
rivers.
Along a hot, dusty stretch of freeway in California’s Coachella
Valley, a green rush is booming that not even the coronavirus
pandemic can slow. Desert Hot Springs, once a sleepy retirement
community overshadowed by its more glamorous neighbor, Palm
Springs, to the south, is transforming into a cannabis-growing
capital as businesses lured by tax incentives and a
420-friendly local government pour into the small city.
… With constant sun and almost no rain, growing cannabis
in the desert requires a mammoth water and power supply to keep
indoor operations going when outside temperatures soar.
The North Marin Water District failed to adequately study
whether there will be enough water for endangered fish in
Lagunitas Creek if it builds a new well in West Marin, an
environmental group alleges. The well is intended to address
worsening saltwater contamination in the water supply. Save Our
Seashore, a nonprofit in Inverness, filed an appeal against the
project with the Marin County Planning Commission. … The
commission is expected to hold a hearing on the issue on May
24.
In scale and ambition, California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) has few parallels. And the work becomes
increasingly urgent as the climate crisis makes water shortages
increasingly severe. … This emphasis on local expertise
points to SGMA’s possibilities — and its potential pitfalls —
especially when it comes to deciding what “sustainable” water
management means. Each management body has wide discretion to
define “sustainability” — and the path to
sustainability by 2040 — for its particular basin.
The Colorado River Basin appears to be out of miracles this
spring. Five years after a “Miracle May” of record rainfall
staved off what had appeared to be the river’s first imminent
shortage in water deliveries, the hope for another in 2021 “is
fading quickly,” says the Colorado Basin River Forecast
Center’s latest report, released Thursday. That’s one more
piece of bad news for the Central Arizona Project. A first-time
shortage is now likely to slash deliveries of river water to
Central Arizona farmers starting in 2022 but won’t affect
drinking water supplies for Tucson, Phoenix and other cities,
or for tribes and industries that get CAP water.
The dispute between Imperial Valley farmer Mike Abatti and the
Imperial Irrigation District over water rights entered a new
chapter last month. Mr. Abatti filed a petition for certiorari
to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to review last
year’s California appellate court’s ruling in the IID’s favor.
Our local Imperial County Farm Bureau and the California Farm
Bureau, along with some individual valley farmers, then filed
amicus briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Mr. Abatti’s
petition for review. Mr.
Anyone who lived through California’s last big drought from
2012 to 2016 remembers the rules. You couldn’t water your
yard so much that the water ran off into the street or
sidewalk. Or hose down a driveway. Hotels had to put up signs
telling customers they could choose not to have sheets and
towels washed every day. Ornamental fountains were prohibited
unless they recycled water. Watering landscaping within 48
hours of rain was forbidden. … Now California is entering a
new drought with dwindling reservoir levels. But so far, there
are no statewide prohibitions against wasting water.
A U.S. District Court judge has ordered McKinleyville-based
construction firm Kernen Construction Co. to pay over
$2,087,750 in civil penalties after it was found to have
violated the Clean Water Act by discharging contaminated storm
water into a nearby tributary creek of the Mad River. The order
was issued by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on May 2 after the
company was found to have discharged storm water without
engaging in pollution control measures mandated by the
CWA.
At a rare joint meeting between all three of their leadership
boards, Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc Counties discussed ways to
support agricultural communities during the Klamath Basin’s
historic drought this year. Farmers and ranchers in the Klamath
Project will receive 33,000 acre-feet of water, less than 10%
of their normal allocation, more than a month later than
normal. Irrigators on tributaries to the Lower Klamath River,
like the Scott River, are also expecting water deliveries to be
curtailed during the summer.
At the April meeting of the California Water Commission, as
part of their continuing work on examining the state’s role in
financing conveyance projects that could help meet needs in a
changing climate, the Commissioners heard from a panel of
speakers about state policy considerations for conveyance and
the cross-cutting issues of flood-managed aquifer recharge
(flood-MAR), green infrastructure, collaborative partnerships
and governance, and innovation. … Michael George, Delta
Watermaster, … pointed out that it’s physically,
ecologically, and economically impossible to squeeze water out
of the Delta for export.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a landmark water protection bill
Wednesday to ensure clean water in nearly 800 Arizona streams,
lakes and rivers that are critical for everyday use. The
legislation will preserve water quality, list protected Arizona
waters and develop management practices that will protect the
waterways.
California gubernatorial candidate John Cox swung through
Fresno on Thursday as part of his “Meet the Beast” campaign
tour, holding a press conference at Machado Farms.
… With the state once again in the midst of another
drought, Cox said he would do something that Newsom has so far
refused to: declare a state-wide emergency. Instead of a
state-wide declaration, Newsom enacted an emergency in
Mendocino and Sonoma Counties.
Residents in northern California rallied outside of Yreka City
Hall Thursday to protest the County’s new ordinance aimed at
curtailing illegal marijuana grow. On Tuesday, the Siskiyou
County Board of Supervisors amended Chapter 4 of Title 3 –
adding restrictions on water trucks using specific County
highways. The restrictions largely target streets in the
unincorporated communities of Butte Valley and Big Springs.
… Protesters of the affected areas voiced their
opposition to the bill – stating the Water Trucks are critical
for their survival.
It’s that time of drought again. During one of the driest years
on record, once again curtailing water deliveries to local
farms, Fresno-area lawmakers wasted little time trotting out
one of their favorite falsehoods. That every year, including
the parched ones like 2021, California “wastes” millions of
gallons of water by “flushing it to the ocean.” Central San
Joaquin Valley residents have heard this declaration so often
and for so long, from the mouths of politicians and parroted on
talk radio, that many of us believe it’s true.
Arizona is gearing up for the first-ever “Tier 1” shortage on
the Colorado River in 2022, which will trigger significant cuts
to the state’s annual allocation from its most important water
resource. As daunting as it sounds, the vast majority of
citizens and businesses will not be affected, state water
leaders said during a Colorado River Preparedness briefing last
week. Arizona is also well prepared to weather expected
shortages the next few years, and is in the process of
developing the next steps to protect and augment the river’s
supplies as the drought persists, said the state’s top two
water leaders.
A new groundwater monitoring station is coming to Corning’s
public works yard on Gallagher Avenue just across from a
warehouse that stores various road signs and equipment. Public
Works Flood Control Manager Ryan Teubert presented the project
Tuesday to the Tehama County Board of Supervisors. It consists
of construction at the yard, which will be funded and performed
by the California Department of Water Resources.
On Monday May 3rd, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s
Associations (PCFFA), the West Coast’s largest trade
organization of small-scale commercial fishermen and women,
signed on to a letter asking Representative Katie Porter (D –
Ca 45th) in her capacity as Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on
Government Operations and Chair of the Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations, to open an investigation into
Reclamation’s manipulation of government cost accounting
standards and its own longstanding criteria for allocating
costs owed by Central Valley Project water and power
contractors (Contractors).
The drought situation in the Bay Area has officially gone from
bad to worse. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the entire
Bay Area is now in the “extreme” drought category, along with
nearly three-quarters of California. According to the latest
summary, precipitation in the state for the water year that
began Oct. 1 is well below normal, in the bottom 10th
percentile, and the greater Bay Area is “experiencing record or
near-record dryness.”
The federal government is strictly curtailing irrigation this
year in an attempt to protect endangered fish important to
Indigenous tribes. Farmers say this will make it all but
impossible to farm, while tribal groups say the plan doesn’t go
far enough to save their fisheries. In mid-April, a farming
region in southern Oregon began to release water from the
Klamath River into its irrigation canals. … [A]ccording to
the federal government, it was an illegal maneuver that could
further jeopardize the survival of multiple endangered species
and food sources important to Indigenous tribes and fisheries
in the region.
More than a month after announcing it was suspending water
deliveries to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley, the Bureau of Reclamation delivered equally bad news to
farmers north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Their water
supplies, tabbed at 5 percent of their contracted amount, were
not available for delivery via the Central Valley Project due
to limited supply.
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors sent a letter
to the California Water Resources Control Board on May 4
formally opposing the Shandon-San Juan Water District’s (SSJWD)
two recent applications for water from Lake Nacimiento and
Santa Margarita Lake—a move that puts two partners on the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin at odds with one another.
In many American communities, rivers irrigate the farms that
feed families, quench people’s thirst—rivers are the source of
more than two-thirds of the drinking water in the U.S.—sustain
wildlife habitat, and provide an economic boost for
communities. Yet only a very small portion of those waterways
are protected from threats ranging from pollution to damming,
which would wreck the water’s natural flow.
… California’s Regional Water Quality Control Boards
have authority to designate ONRWs but to date have done so for
only two bodies of water: Lake Tahoe and Mono Lake. However,
the state did initiate an analysis of the Smith River as
an ONRW but has not completed the effort. The Smith is a
Pacific salmon stronghold.
Melting snow and flowing irrigation ditches mean spring has
finally arrived at the base of Grand Mesa in western
Colorado. Harts Basin Ranch, a 3,400-acre expanse of
hayfields and pasture just south of Cedaredge, in Delta County,
is coming back to life with the return of water. … The
ranch has the No. 1 priority water right — meaning the oldest,
which comes with the ability to use the creek’s water first —
dating to 1881. … [The ranch's owners] have been
accused of water speculation — which means buying up the ranch
just for its senior water rights and hoarding them for a future
profit.
Gov. Doug Ducey has asked the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)
to address groundwater contamination near military
installations in Arizona. In an Apr. 27 letter to Secretary of
Defense Lloyd Austin, Gov. Ducey requested DOD to identify and
treat water in Arizona contaminated in the areas surrounding
four DOD installations and to prevent additional human exposure
to per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from other DOD
facilities in Arizona, which impact the groundwater. … These
bases are located in the two most populous metropolitan areas
in Arizona and each is surrounded by thousands of Arizonans who
rely on clean groundwater for drinking water purposes.
The fate of Searles Valley Minerals may hinge on a special
virtual meeting of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater
Authority later this week, at least according to SVM’s Camille
Anderson. The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday. At it,
the IWVGA will discuss how to respond to SVM’s non-payment of
the authority’s groundwater replenishment fee. … The
groundwater authority was formed in response to the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014, which requires all
California basins to eventually achieve
sustainability. The replenishment fee is part of the
IWVGA’s long-term plan to reach sustainability, but has proven
wildly controversial for some.
When Ramona Hernandez turns on her kitchen faucet in El Adobe,
an unincorporated town just a few miles southeast of
Bakersfield, the water that splashes out looks clean and
inviting. But she doesn’t dare drink it. … Drinking the
tap water in this tiny community of dusty ranches and unpaved
roads could expose Hernandez to arsenic. So, for years, she and
her husband, Gerardo, have shuttled twice a week to the nearby
town of Lamont to load up on bottled water. At a cost of about
$80 a month, it’s enough for drinking and cooking.
At the Water Education Foundation, we focus on telling the
complex story of water in California and the West because of
its critical role in sustaining our lives, growing our food and
nourishing our environment. As a nonprofit we rely on the
generosity of people who value what we do – enhancing
public understanding of our most important natural
resource and catalyzing critical conversations to inform
collaborative decision-making.
Donate here to help us keep doing what we do, and
join us for a virtual open house at 4:30 p.m. today.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said today it will deny federal
protections to three salamander species that environmentalists
fear could be put in danger by a proposed California dam
project. Pressed by a lawsuit to make a decision, the federal
agency concluded the Shasta salamander, Samwel Shasta
salamander and Wintu Shasta salamander don’t need to be listed
under the Endangered Species Act even if plans proceed to
expand the Shasta Dam by raising it.
One thing that’s been re-emphasized, time and again, during the
pandemic travails of the past 14 months: Farming is essential.
During the coming few months, as California struggles through
another drought, we’ll learn whether our elected and appointed
public officials feel the same way. [A]n overarching, long-term
problem needs to be solved to make sure farm employees can not
just work safely, but can have jobs, period: water supplies.
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday passed a
resolution proclaiming a local drought emergency. The vote on
the resolution during Tuesday’s special meeting was unanimous.
The resolution comes after Fresno leaders joined officials from
three other Central Valley counties on Friday to declare a
regional drought emergency and urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to do the
same statewide. Fresno County Chairman Steve Brandau said the
drought “is a crisis that we are putting upon ourselves.” He
said he’s not a water expert, but it has been “painful” for him
to watch “as water flows out into the ocean unused for human
resources.”
Experts say a statewide drought declaration … could bring
significant consequences for the regulatory structure governing
California’s complicated water-delivery system. Many farmers
believe an emergency order could loosen environmental
regulations and free up water supplies for them. Environmental
groups fear the very same thing – that more of California’s
dwindling water supply could be directed to farming at the
expense of fish and wildlife.
In today’s Home Grown, a local lawsuit over ownership of the
Colorado River water might be taken higher to the U.S. Supreme
Court. The Michael Abatti versus the Imperial Irrigation
District (IID) lawsuit has been ongoing in the valley,
disputing over whether water rights belong to the landowners or
if they are controlled by the IID. … Abatti won the lawsuit
in Imperial County Superior Court, but Katie Turner, attorney
with Sutherland and Gerber says it didn’t make it to the
California Supreme Court.
Increasingly ominous signs suggest that we are entering another
multiyear drought in California. The State Water Project
recently reduced projected water deliveries for 2021 from 10
percent of requested supplies to 5 percent, and on April 21,
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a regional drought emergency in the
Russian River watershed in Northern California. But it’s a
different story in San Diego County.
-Written by Gary Croucher, chair of the San Diego County
Water Authority’s Board of Directors.
The US Bureau of Reclamation last week warned water users to
brace for a 500,000 acre-foot cut in water from the Colorado
River as a historic drought continues to tighten its grip on
the Southwest. The cutback comes on top of a 200,000 acre-foot
reduction Arizona water users agreed to last year in an effort
to put off this day of reckoning. The Central Arizona Project
provides more than a third of the state’s water. The reductions
will mostly impact farmers. The sparse snowpack this winter
soaked into the ground during the hot, dry spring — producing
little runoff.
California could get 600,000 new acres of federally protected
wilderness under legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate
recently. The designation would ensure the lands remain free of
development, vehicles and commercial activity. … It
would also designate more than 583 miles of river — including
45 miles of San Gabriel River tributaries, as well as Little
Rock Creek — as “wild and scenic rivers,” a protection that
prohibits dams or new mining.
A little more than a week ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that
not only would California effectively ban hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, by 2024, but the state also would work to phase
out oil extraction entirely by 2045. … It was — like the
governor’s promise last year that the state would ban the sale
of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — a sweeping pronouncement
meant to show urgency in addressing climate change while the
state he leads struggles with many of its most dire effects.
But meeting those goals requires complex regulatory
maneuvering.
Irrigation curbs, car washing restrictions and the shutoff of
fountains may return in the city of Napa amid shrinking water
supplies on the tail of a dry California winter. Tuesday night,
the City Council is scheduled to vote on a “moderate water
shortage” declaration intended to cut consumption by 15%.
Approval would mark the return of water-use restrictions last
rolled out in the mid-2010s when a six-year drought led
California to mandate across-the-board cutbacks statewide.
Napa’s actions would follow mandatory cutbacks imposed upvalley
by the cities of St. Helena and Calistoga.
Climate change and water scarcity are front and center in the
western U.S. The region’s climate is warming, a severe
multi-year drought is underway and groundwater supplies are
being overpumped in many locations. … About 4,000
miles of canals transport water to some 35 million
Californians and 5.7 million acres of farmland across the
state. Covering these canals with solar panels would reduce
evaporation of precious water – one of California’s most
critical resources – and help meet the state’s renewable energy
goals, while also saving money.
On March 24, 2021, the Groundwater Resources Association of
California and California Groundwater Coalition hosted the
virtual 2021 Groundwater Law & Legislation Forum, featuring a
keynote address from California’s Natural Resources Secretary
Wade Crowfoot and updates on pending groundwater legislation,
DWR’s SGMA implementation, and ACWA’s position on potential
bond measures. One panel focused on the intersection of
environmental justice, groundwater management and the role the
legislative process can play…
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.
On the way out the door, the Trump administration committed
many environmental and financial scandals. One can cost
low-income water users while lining the pockets of one of
California’s largest and most powerful water districts. The
focus of one scandal was the failure of the Trump
administration to collect required fish and wildlife mitigation
costs set out in the Central Valley Project Improvement Act.
Passed by Congress in 1992, it established new financing
rules. -Written by Caty Wagner, the Southern California
Water Organizer for Sierra Club California, and Brandon
Dawson, the acting director of Sierra Club California.
A recent report looked into why Indigenous communities within
the Colorado River Basin are struggling to get clean, reliable
running water. A household in tribal lands is 19 times more
likely than a white household to not have indoor plumbing, and
during the pandemic this had catastrophic effects on some
Indigenous communities. According a 2019 report outlining the
action plan for closing the water access gap throughout the
United States, “race is the strongest predictor of water and
sanitation access,” and it’s Indigenous people who face this
problem most.
Little is said about the role of Lake Pillsbury in our
regional water system or the critical water it provides
to fill Lake Mendocino. If anything, its importance
to understated or not referenced at all in most media
articles. Without Lake Pillsbury at the Eel River
headwaters to control downstream flows, both the Eel and
Russian Rivers and surrounding aquifers will intermittently dry
up. … A strong movement is afoot to remove Scott Dam and
eliminate Lake Pillsbury… -Written by Frank Lynch & Carol Cinquini, Directors of
the Lake Pillsbury Alliance.
Water talk will be a big part of Tuesday’s Tehama County Board
of Supervisors meeting as plans for a new groundwater
monitoring site in Corning are coming to fruition. Tehama
County Public Works plans to sign a Permit to Use Land
Agreement for a groundwater station in the Corning Public Works
yard on Gallagher Avenue, should the board approve the request.
Creating and maintaining the station will be a combined effort
of Tehama County Public Works, the Flood Control and Water
Conservation District and the California Department of Water
Resources. According to the related agenda report, the station
is expected to be in use for a minimum of 20 years.
President Biden’s pick this week to oversee the Army’s vast
natural resources operation would bring to the job decades of
water experience at the Interior Department and on Capitol
Hill. The president tapped Michael Connor to be the Department
of Defense’s assistant secretary of the Army for civil works,
which oversees the Army Corps of Engineers and its huge network
of dams and other projects. Connor would play a major role in
some of the most controversial projects facing the Biden
administration in the environmental arena, including the
Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, as well as Clean Water
Act permitting.
British journalist James Bartholomew is widely credited with
creating the phrase “virtue signaling” to describe positioning
oneself on the popular side of an issue without actually doing
anything about it. Politicians are particularly prone to
uttering words or making token efforts on difficult issues to
stave off criticism about their failure to act meaningfully.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is California’s champion virtue-signaler as
he faces a recall election later this year. … There’s no
better example than Newsom’s ever-shifting attitude toward
hydraulic fracturing to increase petroleum production. -Written by Dan Walters
Swap this year and the period of Marin County’s worst-ever
drought in 1976-77 and it might be hard to tell the difference.
Water suppliers restricting use to conserve reservoirs.
Ranchers preparing to truck in water as creeks and wells dry
up. Talks of a potential water pipeline. And questions about
the resiliency of the county’s water supply. During the 1976-77
drought, the Marin Municipal Water District was within 120 days
of running out of water. The county’s savior was a 6-mile
pipeline over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to pump in water
from the East Bay.
More than a dozen Central Valley lawmakers and elected
officials met on Friday to declare a regional drought emergency
and urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to do the same statewide. Three
state senators and three Assembly members joined the chairs of
the boards of supervisors from Fresno, Madera, Tulare and Kings
counties in a bipartisan news conference at Harlan Ranch in
Clovis to call for action that the group said is necessary to
divert a crisis.
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.
San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District supported
construction of Seven Oaks Dam because the district believed it
would not only provide flood control, but would capture
precious drinking water for the benefit of Inland Empire water
agencies. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which completed
construction of the dam in 2000, has never been officially
authorized to use the 550-foot-tall structure for anything
other than flood control purposes. This project, which cost the
tax payers $450 million in the late 1990s, has the capacity to
hold at least 115,000 acre-feet in its reservoir, yet it is
only authorized to provide “incidental water conservation.”
In a note of consolation for the pain some Arizona water users
will feel if Central Arizona Project supplies are cut next
year, state water leaders said Thursday: It will be planned
pain. Federal officials have said it’s likely Lake Mead at the
Nevada border will be low enough at the end of 2021 to trigger
the first major cutback in CAP deliveries to the Arizona’s
parched midsection. Arizona will lose 512,000 acre-feet of its
CAP supply — almost one-third of the $4 billion project’s total
supply, according to a 2019 drought contingency plan.
The Nevada Assembly voted Thursday to approve a non-residential
turf removal proposal brought by Southern Nevada water
regulators, who say it will save the water-shy Las Vegas Valley
12 billion gallons of water per year. With little debate from
lawmakers, the Assembly voted 30-12 on Assembly Bill 356,
sending the proposal to the Senate. Four Republicans — Glen
Leavitt, R-Boulder City, Heidi Kasama, R-Las Vegas, Melissa
Hardy, R-Henderson, and Jill Tolles, R-Reno — crossed party
lines to vote with the 26 Democrats.
Disagreement over restoring the Ballona Wetlands still remains
high. Walter Lamb, president of the Ballona Wetlands Land
Trust, recently held a webinar to discuss why the current
restoration plans are inadequate. The Land Trust disagrees with
the assertions of organizations such as Friends of Ballona
Wetlands, as they aren’t supported by available facts. Lamb
based his talking points around Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive
order made on October 7, 2020, of protecting biodiversity and
an announcement phasing out fossil fuels from September 23,
2020.
While most irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin are enduring a
spring without surface water, canals in Klamath Drainage
District have been flowing since the middle of April. And KDD
says no laws were broken to make deliveries to its customers.
KDD opened the Ady and North canals on April 15, diverting
water from the Klamath River to serve its patrons. The Bureau
of Reclamation, whose operations plan for 2021 emphasized that
no water deliveries be made to the Klamath Project prior to May
15, sent a letter to KDD asking them to immediately cease the
diversions.
Attorneys for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District
filed a complaint with state regulators Tuesday asking that
California American Water Co. be forced to purchase water from
the expansion of a recycling project because Cal Am is failing
to meet a deadline for its part in increasing the local water
supply, according to language in the complaint. Any decision by
regulators is important because it will affect the ability of
the Monterey Peninsula to generate an alternative water source.
Cal Am in 2009 was hit with a state cease-and-desist order to
stop over-pumping from the Carmel River basin.
Does CEQA prevent a Regional Water Quality Control Board from
issuing its own permit under state water quality law? In Santa
Clara Valley Water District v. San Francisco Bay Regional Water
Quality Control Board (2020) 59 Cal.App.5th 199, the First
Appellate District answered “no,” holding that CEQA does not
bar a regional board from imposing additional requirements on a
flood control project, even after the project’s final
environmental impact report (FEIR) was certified.
The West Coast’s most important estuary is dying, and Gov.
Gavin Newsom has hastened its demise. As he took office two
years ago, Newsom promised to generate voluntary agreements
among farmers, environmentalists and government officials on
the rules for allocating water that flows through the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. … [C]onditions in the delta
have grown so dire that in March the National Marine Fisheries
Service estimated that high water temperatures could kill 90%
of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River
this year.
-Written by Jacques Leslie.
Federal dollars are on the table to help farmers and ranchers
during the drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture declared
a drought disaster in 50 California counties last month.
Advertisement Grants are now available to help with costs
associated with the dry conditions. After a winter with little
rain and snow, California is dry. … Nicole Montna Van Vleck
walked between two rice fields on Wednesday. One was newly
planted and covered in water. The other was bone-dry.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday instructed the Imperial
Irrigation District to submit a response to California farmer
Michael Abatti’s request that their longstanding legal battle
be taken up by the nation’s highest court. Scott Harris, clerk
of the Supreme Court, wrote to Jennifer Meeker, an
attorney for the water and power district, to say that even
though IID didn’t feel the need to answer Abatti’s
petition, ”the Court nevertheless has directed this office
to request that a response be filed.” This comes two weeks
after Frank Oswalt, IID’s general counsel, said the district
didn’t need to submit a response …
In mid-April, a farming region in southern Oregon began to
release water from the Klamath River into its irrigation
canals. According to the local water authority, this was a
standard move to jumpstart the farming season during one of the
driest seasons in recent memory. But according to the federal
government, it was an illegal maneuver that could further
jeopardize the survival of multiple endangered species and food
sources important to Indigenous tribes and fisheries in the
region.
Arizona may be facing its first official declaration of water
shortage next year, a move that would trigger water cutbacks of
512,000 acre-feet — almost 20% of Arizona’s Colorado River
entitlement — affecting mainly agricultural users. The
24-Month Study on the Colorado River system, released this
month by the Bureau of Reclamation, projects that in
June water levels in Lake Mead will fall below 1,075 feet
for the first time, which would put the state in a Tier 1
shortage.
CZU Lightning Complex fire survivors who are rebuilding their
homes, are invited to join the Santa Cruz County Office of
Response, Recovery and Resilience on Saturday for a townhall on
the septic and water permitting process. … Attendees can
expect to learn about septic and water system permitting
requirements, but also county and state-level regulations that
apply to their properties. … The Office of Response, Recovery
and Resilience works with fire survivors on an
individual-basis, to help them understand what is needed
to ultimately, get a rebuild permit.
After back-to-back dry winters, two of the Bay Area’s biggest
water agencies on Tuesday moved forward with plans to urge the
public to reduce water use to avoid shortages this year. But
for now, they are using a carrot rather than a stick, saying
they have enough water to get by without resorting to fines,
water cops and strict rules. The Santa Clara Valley Water
District, based in San Jose, voted Tuesday night to double the
amount of money it pays homeowners to replace their lawns with
drought-tolerant landscaping, from $1 a square foot to $2, and
to expand the maximum amount it will pay per household from
$2,000 to $3,000 under the conservation program.
The competing needs of different protected fish species are
pitting the Klamath Tribes against the federal government in a
court battle with legal implications for Oregon irrigators. The
Klamath Tribes are seeking an injunction to scale back how much
water the federal government can release from Upper Klamath
Lake to the detriment of endangered sucker species that inhabit
it. … The bureau has prioritized flows in the Klamath
river to benefit threatened coho salmon, jeopardizing the
survival of the suckers by allowing the lake to fall below
levels needed to sustain them…
On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) unveiled a new
initiative to ban new and future permits for hydraulic fracking
beginning in 2024. The ban is part of California’s effort to
move away from oil extraction to source fuel, focusing on
developing renewable sources such as wind and solar. Fracking,
or hydraulic fracturing, is the sourcing of oil from deep
subterranean rocks, using a high-pressured water mixture
drilled into the earth that releases natural gas and oil.
The State Water Resources Control Board issued investigative
orders on March 11 to over 160 refineries and bulk fuel storage
terminals in over 30 California counties, requiring
environmental investigation and sampling for per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as “PFAS.” This most recent
wave of PFAS investigation orders is consistent with
California’s increasingly aggressive approach to regulating and
investigating PFAS in everything from soil, groundwater, food
packaging, and consumer products.
The Marin Municipal Water District on April 20 enacted a series
of water conservation rules, including banning home car washes,
no watering of outdoor lawns between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., and no
refilling decorative pools or fountains. A day later,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency for
the Russian River watershed in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
Marin County borders Sonoma. Newsom chose to make the
declaration in those two counties only, rather than statewide,
as some officials and farmers in the agricultural-rich Central
Valley had hoped. But Newsom said a broader drought declaration
could come as conditions change.
California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from
siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San
Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead
brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the
state. The draft cease-and-desist order, which still
requires approval from the California Water Resources Control
Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between
the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for
years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the
expense of local communities and ecosystems.
Along the Oregon-California border, the Klamath River Basin is
a crucial water source for Indigenous tribes, endangered
species, and farmers. This year, though, there is simply not
enough to go around. The Western US is enduring another
major drought, and the Klamath River Basin is at a historic
low. This resulted in different groups being forced to compete
and make their case for why water, now precious and scarce,
should be diverted to their needs. It’s a stark reminder of the
tough, no-win decisions that citizens will continue to face
amid the worsening climate crisis.
