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.”
The Biden administration’s ambitions to crack down on “forever
chemicals” — touted as an administration priority — are facing
headwinds from key industries that say they could be unfairly
punished and held liable for contamination they did not create.
Members of the water and waste sectors are ramping up pressure
on Congress and EPA to shield them from an upcoming proposal as
the agency makes progress on addressing PFAS
contamination.
During the 2021 runoff year (April 1, 2021–March 31, 2022), the
Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) was allowed to
export up to 16,000 acre-feet of stream diversions from the
Mono Basin because Mono Lake was above 6380 feet above sea
level on April 1, 2021. Yet, only 13,300 acre-feet of water was
taken, consistent with the low reservoir requirements in DWP’s
water licenses, which were amended last year by the California
State Water Resources Control Board. The new licenses contain
an overall minimum level of 11,500 acre-feet of storage for
Grant Lake Reservoir, with a minimum of 20,000 acre-feet for
July–September.
A well-known Sonoma County vineyard executive is facing a
multi-million-dollar state fine for allegedly removing trees
and destroying a small wetland on a rural patch of land east of
Cloverdale. Hugh Reimers and Krasilsa Pacific Farms could be on
the hook for up to $3.75 million in fines for allegedly cutting
down trees, grading, ripping and other activities near
tributaries to Little Sulphur Creek, Big Sulphur Creek and
Crocker Creek in the Russian River Watershed … In a complaint
filed May 9, the Water Board accused Reimers and Krasilsa
Pacific Farms of also failing to abide by a 2019 cleanup and
abatement order, which required them to restore the streams and
wetlands.
In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order outlining
the temporary strategies for California to manage the ongoing
drought. Within this order, he outlined rules for counties,
cities and other public agencies as it relates to new wells or
alterations to an existing well. One rule requires farmers and
ranchers to get written verification from their local
groundwater sustainability agency that the new well or
alterations “would not be inconsistent with any sustainable
groundwater management program” for the area.
If you think about the pollution your car causes, chances are
you’re not thinking about the tires. And probably even less
about a faraway creek, where a Coho Salmon is dying. But
researchers at the University of Washington and elsewhere
… say as the rubber wears away from car tires during
everyday driving, it spreads tiny micro particles, including a
destructive chemical called 6PPD. … Now, with
information gathered in part by the [San Francisco Estuary]
Institute, the State of California is stepping in, laying the
groundwork for potential regulations to curb the toxic tire
pollution.
A state program aimed at retiring and repurposing farmland
could get $60 million – more than doubling its current funding
– under Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget. The Multibenefit Land
Repurposing Program was created with $50 million from the 2021
state budget. The program helps pay for farmland to be taken
out of production and repurposed to less water intensive uses.
Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley have pumped groundwater for
crops without limits for generations. But groundwater levels
are plummeting …
Tribes and environmental groups are challenging how the state
manages water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a
major source for much of California, arguing the deterioration
of the aquatic ecosystem has links to the state’s troubled
legacy of racism and oppression of Native people. A group of
activists and Indigenous leaders is demanding that the state
review and update the water quality plan for the Delta and San
Francisco Bay, where fish species are suffering, algae blooms
have worsened and climate change is adding to the
stresses.
[On the southeast side of California’s Central
Valley] farmers are pumping unreliable groundwater to make
up the difference, hoping their already struggling wells don’t
go dry … Others will rip up their trees and leave their
fields fallow. … About 100 miles away, on the northwest
side of the Central Valley, the situation could not be more
different. Even during an unprecedented drought, the almond and
pistachio farmers around the city of Los Banos will get around
75 percent of a normal year’s water … The startling contrast
is the result of an obscure and contentious legal agreement
known as the exchange contract …
Old environmental arguments over the consequences of nuclear
power had seemed almost resolved in California. Antinuclear
sentiment was intensified by the 33-year succession of
accidents, from Three Mile Island in 1978 to Chernobyl in 1986
to Fukushima in 2011, severely diminished their appeal.
California was getting ready to wave goodbye to its last
nuclear plant. Up Close We explore the issues, personalities,
and trends that people are talking about around the West. The
political realities of 2022 and the need to reduce carbon
emissions might change things.
California water regulators strengthened the state’s drought
rules this week, ordering local suppliers to take steps to
reduce water usage to stretch limited supplies this summer.
Gov. Gavin Newsom warned that more stringent statewide water
restrictions could come if the state doesn’t make more progress
on conservation soon. … As part of the new rules, the state
also banned the use of drinking water for irrigating grass that
is purely decorative at businesses and in common areas of
subdivisions and homeowners associations. Here is a
breakdown of what is going on:
Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, is maneuvering against a bill
that seeks higher flows on local rivers. Assembly Bill 2639
would set a Dec. 31, 2023, deadline for the State Water
Resources Control Board to complete its plan for tributaries to
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They include the Stanislaus,
Tuolumne and Merced rivers. The decision would follow decades
of wrangling over whether fish should get more water on the
lower rivers at the expense of farms and cities.
Jewish law has a lot to say about what’s supposed to happen
when you die: your lifeless body must be washed and
buried quickly, with a simple headstone to mark your grave. But
nowhere, in 4,000 years of Jewish law, custom or tradition does
it say you need to rest eternally under bright, green grass. As
California struggles with the West’s
longest megadrought in 1,200 years,
emergency water conservation rules are set to take
effect on June 1. Yet cemeteries in L.A., including the three
largest Jewish ones, remain as grassy and green as a Scottish
golf course. -Written by Rob Eshman, national editor of the the
Forward.
Central California Coast steelhead historically thrived in Bay
Area waters, but today, populations are collapsing with only a
fraction of their historical abundance remaining, according to
CalTrout’s SOS II Report. California Trout, along with our
partners at California Department of Fish and Wildlife, San
Mateo Resource Conservation District (RCD), Trout Unlimited,
and others such as California State Parks, private landowners,
and NOAA Fisheries- the federal agency tasked with managing
steelhead and salmon nationwide- are determined to improve this
system for the overall health of the watershed and for its
inhabitants — both fish and people.
With the holiday weekend coming up a lot of people are expected
in Lake Tahoe for boating and other summer activities. But,
there are a few boat ramps that will be closed this weekend
that could impact plans. Because of the lack of precipitation,
a majority of boat ramps in Lake Tahoe will be closed this
summer. Even with the winter weather we had just a few weeks
ago, it only raised the lake about an inch. The boat ramps that
will be closed this season are Sand Harbor, El Dorado, Kings
Beach, and Tahoe Vista Recreation Area.
As drought conditions continue, people who rely on the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are demanding California make sure
their communities are protected. Early Tuesday, a group
gathered in front of the California State Water Resources
Control Board building to demand the state enforce the
Bay-Delta plan. It’s been a long fight and the group said
enough is enough. For many of the tribes, the Delta is an
important lifeline.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture says that
more than 90% of the cotton harvested in California has been
grown in the San Joaquin Valley but continuing dry weather is
posing significant challenges for growers. Consumer demand is
driving the market for cotton, including high-quality Pima
cotton now reaching record levels of more than $3 a pound. But
as California faces another dry year many farmers in Kern
County are impacted not only by an increase in price but also
by a decrease in production.
Four PacifiCorps dams — the J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1 and No. 2,
and Iron Gate — are scheduled to be removed as part of a
controversial effort that advocates have said will restore the
health of the river, fish and communities along the river,
including several in the Upper Klamath Basin. Dam removal is
something that has drawn heated discussion for and against for
decades, highlighted in 2001 when decisions to not release
water to Klamath Basin irrigators resulted in protests and
demonstrations that drew national attention.
Californians responded to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for
voluntary water conservation earlier this year by using more,
not less. … Already, residents face sharp new outdoor water
restrictions June 1, and serious doubts over whether those
limits will be enough to cope with a historic water shortage.
It’s a good time to imagine the ideal California of the future,
in which information technology and rational pricing make water
conservation simple, understandable and a common way of life.
Here’s how it should work, as a resident pulls out his or her
phone and at the touch of a button checks the household’s water
use for that day in real time:
Residents in Santa Clara County could face fines of up to $500
— and in extreme cases, $10,000 — for wasting water, under new
drought rules approved Tuesday afternoon that are among the
toughest of any urban area in California. … The new
rules take effect June 1, but depend largely on citizen
complaints and very few “water cops” to investigate
them. Under the rules, residents who see water being
wasted can notify the district of the address and date of
incident by calling 408-630-2000, or emailing
WaterWise@valleywater.org, or reporting online….
Californians can expect to see more yellow grass around
hospitals, hotels, office parks and industrial centers after
water regulators voted Tuesday to ban watering of
“nonfunctional” turf in commercial areas. The State Water
Resources Control Board also moved to order all the state’s
major urban water providers to step up their conservation
efforts. The moves are the strongest regulatory actions state
officials have taken in the third year of the latest drought.
California’s top water regulators adopted emergency drought
rules Tuesday that scale up conservation requirements for water
suppliers throughout the state and prohibit watering grass that
is purely decorative at businesses and in common areas of
subdivisions and homeowners associations. The regulations
outlaw the use of potable water for irrigating “non-functional”
grass at commercial, industrial and institutional properties.
On March 22, 2022, the Second District Court of Appeal
published its Opinion in Buena Vista Water Storage District v.
Kern Water Bank Authority, upholding the Environmental Impact
Report (EIR) for the Kern Water Bank Authority’s Conservation
and Storage Project (“Project”) and reversing the trial court’s
ruling. The Project proposes to divert up to 500,000
acre-feet-per-year (AFY) from the Kern River for recharge,
storage, and later recovery within the Kern Water Bank.
The California Water Commission approved a white paper that
contains its findings and the potential next steps for State
engagement in shaping well-managed groundwater trading programs
with appropriate safeguards for vulnerable water users: natural
resources, small- and medium-size farms, and water supply and
quality for disadvantaged communities. The white paper will be
shared with the Secretaries for Natural Resources,
Environmental Protection, and Food and Agriculture, who
requested the Commission’s engagement on this topic.
Environmentalists advocating new state restrictions on oil and
gas drilling have seized upon confirmation last week that two
idle wells were leaking methane near a residential area in
northeast Bakersfield decades after they were improperly
abandoned. Details remained sketchy Monday, including how much
gas the wells were emitting and for how long. … Late
last month, California officials outlined plans for doing more
to cap the state’s orphan oil and gas wells using $25 million
in federal money they said will help them prioritize work in
populated areas most vulnerable to methane leaks and
groundwater contamination.
New Melones Reservoir is the proverbial canary in the mine when
it comes to where state water policy wedded with the return of
megadroughts is taking California. Using historical hydrology
data on the Stanislaus River basin between 1922 and 2019:
*Based on current regulatory rules New Melones Reservoir would
fall below 250,000 acre feet of storage in 3 out of the 98
years. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, editor of The Manteca
Bulletin.
The fish need the water, the farmers and ranchers need the
water, and the fish win. Because coho salmon are on the
Endangered Species List in the region, and the Scott and Shasta
Rivers are important to their survival. The State of California
put emergency rules in place governing groundwater around those
rivers, and the people in agriculture take exception. We hear
the environmental side of the issue in this interview. Craig
Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate for the Karuk Tribe,
lays out the importance of the water for the fish …
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday warned major water agencies to show
better conservation results or face mandatory statewide water
restrictions as California heads into its third summer of
severe drought. The threat is a sign of Newsom’s growing
impatience with the state’s failure to reduce urban water use,
as he has requested since last year. In fact, people have been
using more. … Newsom also said the state will closely monitor
the situation over the next 60 days, and he told the agencies
to submit water use data more frequently to the state and to
step up outreach and education efforts to communicate the
urgency of the crisis to the public.
This blog is a short introduction to a lesser known federal
bill that is one of the most significant pieces of fish and
wildlife legislation in decades. In Spring of 2021, Rep. Debbie
Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) introduced
the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. During July 2021, a
separate adaptation of the act was also introduced in the
Senate (S.2372) by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Sen. Roy
Blunt (R-MO). At its core, the bipartisan bill seeks to provide
$1.39B in annual funding for state and tribal fish and wildlife
agencies to protect and conserve declining species.
A Trump era decision has further imperiled endangered fish
species in the Trinity River, and commercial fishermen and
local tribes are demanding the federal government take action.
This week, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s
Associations and its sister organization Institute for
Fisheries Research sent the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation a 60-day
notice of their intention to sue the federal agency for
violating the Endangered Species Act. The amount of water the
bureau is diverting from the Trinity River to the Central
Valley Project has decimated the river’s salmon populations
…
Outdoor watering restrictions area set to take effect in Los
Angeles at the end of the month, and the prospect of an
improvement in drought conditions appears dim. Just how bad is
the drought? According to state figures, the first three months
of the year were the driest in the state’s recorded history.
California is currently in the third year of a
drought. Wade Crowfoot is the state secretary for natural
resources. The one resource he oversees that we all use is
water. According to his agency, the drought is getting worse,
not better.
A ruling by federal regulators has put a damper on plans to
turn 300 miles of rail line from Humboldt County to Marin
County into the Great Redwood Trail. The Surface Transportation
Board issued a decision Tuesday that it will not prioritize
trail use … Maintaining the rail line along the Eel
River is financially infeasible because of landslides and other
risks, but the North Coast Railroad Co. wants to take over that
portion of the line. … U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman and
state Sen. Mike McGuire … issued statements saying they
weren’t surprised by the decision, but that they are taking
steps to ensure the “toxic coal train” doesn’t become a reality
on the North Coast.
For years, plaintiffs’ lawyers suing over health and
environmental damage from so called forever chemicals, known
collectively as PFAS, focused on one set of deep pockets—E. I.
du Pont de Nemours and Co. But over the past two years, there’s
been a seismic shift in the legal landscape as awareness of
PFAS has expanded. Corporations including 3M Co., Chemguard
Inc., Kidde-Fenwal Inc., National Foam Inc., and Dynax Corp.
are now being sued at roughly the same rate as DuPont,
according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of more than 6,400
PFAS-related lawsuits filed in federal courts between July 2005
and March 2022.
In the current legislative session, lawmakers are working on a
bill designed to reduce plastic waste. If they are unable to
draft legislation by June 30, the issue will go straight to
voters as a ballot measure. The initiative, the California
Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would require
all single-use plastic packaging and food ware used in
California to be recyclable, reusable, refillable or
compostable by 2030. … Over the last year, research has
shown the presence of these particles in human
blood, healthy lung tissue and meconium — the
first bowel movement of a newborn. They are also found in
marine organisms, ocean water, air and soil.
Three years ago, when he sank everything he had into 66 acres
of irrigated pasture in Shasta County, [farmer Josh] Davy
thought he’d drought-proofed his cattle operation. He’d been
banking on the Sacramento Valley’s water supply… But this
spring, for the first time ever, no water is flowing through
his pipes and canals or those of his neighbors: The district
won’t be delivering any water to Davy or any of its roughly 800
other customers.
The Clear Lake hitch is one of 13 species endemic to
California’s largest, oldest and now most toxic lake. Known
as chi to local tribes, the hitch teeter on the edge
of extinction, a fate to which their cousins, two other
formerly endemic lake species — the thicktail chub (last seen
in 1938) and the Clear Lake splittail (last seen in the
1970s) — have already succumbed. Clear Lake hitch are
vanishing because of our unabated appetites for fossil fuels,
sportfishing, irrigation water and wine.
City of Porterville Manager John Lollis … announced at
Tuesday’s Porterville City Council meeting the County and State
may exercise its right to take 3 million gallons of
water a month at no charge from a city well as part of the
arrangement the city, county and state reached to supply East
Porterville with water after the 2015 drought. … Lollis
noted the state still hasn’t fulfilled its portion of the
agreement which called for the development of three wells for
the City of Porterville as part of the East Porterville
project.
California cities are enforcing water-saving measures, summer
heat has crept in early and your lush green grass is probably
starting to wither. As reported by the California’s drought
information system, 40% of the state is experiencing extreme
drought. … In response to the record dryness, the city of
Sacramento is under a “Water Alert,” asking residents to cut
back on water use by 15% and to follow a seasonal watering
schedule. Fines for water waste have doubled. … As you
cut back on watering your home’s lawn, there are ways to still
keep it green.
Local and state water leaders were practically upbeat two years
ago at the last in-person Water Summit put on by the Water
Association of Kern County. At least as upbeat as California
water folks typically get. They advocated for new ideas,
radical partnerships and solutions that could benefit both ag
and environmental interests. That was then. Facing a third year
of punishing drought and the bleak realities of new groundwater
restrictions, the vibe at this year’s summit was more “in the
bunker” than “in it together.”
The Interior Department’s internal watchdog on Thursday said it
found no evidence that former secretary David Bernhardt
violated lobbying laws regarding a former client, a California
water district that is the nation’s largest agricultural water
supplier, although he continued to advise them on legislative
matters on occasion after he stopped being their lobbyist.
A proposal apparently headed to the November ballot would have
voters in rural southeastern Arizona decide whether to create a
new regulatory district to manage large-scale groundwater use
for agriculture in an area where aquifer levels have dropped in
recent years. A grassroots group collected sufficient voter
signatures on petitions required under state law for a ballot
measure on creation of an active management area in the Willcox
basin in Cochise and Graham counties, myheraldreview.com
reported. The management area would be Arizona’s first created
through a petition drive.
Petaluma, one of the driest corners of Sonoma County during the
past two years of drought, is making a multimillion-dollar
advance into recycled water. Operator of a wastewater
treatment plant that serves about 65,000 people and treats
about 5 million gallons of effluent a day, Petaluma is seeking
grants for four projects with a total cost of $42
million. Six other North Bay agencies — including Sonoma
Water and the Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District — are
proposing a dozen projects totaling $41.2 million, bringing the
total to $83.2 million, as Gov. Gavin Newsom is backing water
reuse as an antidote to drought.
The Bay Area is often associated with two things – the beauty
of its natural landscape, and the skyrocketing costs of living
in it. Of late those have been seen as being in
tension. … As a planning tool, CEQA has myriad
uses, but its overarching nature also means that it can be used
by just about everyone – which is how its implementation has so
often come to pit environmentalists against
developers … Environmentalists have long wanted to
add Area 4 to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National
Wildlife Refuge as upland migration space – to preserve room
for wetlands to move inland as sea levels rise on the Bay
shoreline.
Blue states, green groups and tribes that are challenging a
Trump-era Clean Water Act rule are trying an unusual procedural
move that could allow them to restart their case in federal
district court and bypass an appeal that’s currently underway
in the Ninth Circuit. The coalition is suing the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to overturn a 2020 rule that
restricted states’ and tribes’ authority to deny permits for
projects such as pipelines under section 401 of the Clean Water
Act.
Illegal pot grows were already a problem in the High Desert,
but during the pandemic, the number increased, and now
officials say with scarce water resources in Southern
California, it’s a drought problem too. The NBC4 I-Team has
been following the efforts to eradicate illegal marijuana
operations in the high desert region of Southern California. On
May 17, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced a
new operation targeting those operations. The problem
exploded during the pandemic with illegal marijuana grow
operations quickly multiplying in High Desert
communities.
The ongoing water feud between two of Kings County’s biggest
farming entities recently spilled into Kern County and up to
Sacramento with allegations on both sides of misuse of water
and other public resources. In a May 12 letter, the Southwest
Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency complains that the J.G.
Boswell Company has been pumping and storing massive amounts of
groundwater for irrigation in a shallow basin, subjecting it to
extreme evaporation and contributing to the area’s already
significant subsidence problems.
On May 10, the California State Water Resources Control Board
readopted an emergency regulation that stands to force 2,000
water-rights holders to curtail water diversions for another
year. (See related story on Page 10.) The emergency action is
being used to make water available to senior diverters, minimum
instream flows and minimum health and human safety
needs. … As an alternative to a full curtailment action
being applied to a diverter, water-right holders in the upper
watershed (north of Dry Creek in Sonoma County) can instead
voluntarily sign up to participate in the program to receive
some lower percentage of their typical reported water use. -Written by Frost Pauli, a Mendocino County
winegrape and pear grower and is chair of the Mendocino County
Farm Bureau Water Committee.
On Wednesday, State Senator Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger joined
her colleague, Democratic State Senator Dave Cortese in sending
a letter to United States Attorney General Merrick
Garland requesting an investigation into possible drought
profiteering and water rights abuses in the Western
states. The Senators said they’re concerned about the
increasing amount of water rights being purchased by hedge
funds, their potential anti-competitive practices and the
devastating impact that could have on water security.
Steve Bray lives in Monrovia and is already doing what he can
to save water. He has installed Wi-Fi-connected sprinklers.
… The Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District
worries state’s historic drought will get worse. … The
district actually captures 100% of rainwater and is able to
store it in spreading basins. They use that water during dry
years to deliver it into the drinking water system, but it’s
quickly disappearing.
California lawmakers and the governor are hashing out the final
details for investing billions of state dollars into a drought
relief plan with long-term water investments and some benefits
to farmers.
In a sophisticated chemical analysis published Tuesday in
Environmental Science & Technology, the team found that
DDT-related chemicals were seven times more abundant in coastal
condors than condors that fed farther inland. Looking at the
birds’ coastal food sources, researchers found that dolphin and
sea lion carcasses that washed ashore in Southern California
were also seven times more contaminated with DDT than the
marine mammals they analyzed along the Gulf of California in
Mexico.
East County officials fear a $950 million sewage recycling
project could get flushed down the drain because of a pipeline
deal gone awry. Leaders spearheading the endeavor blame San
Diego Mayor Todd Gloria — who signed off on building an
eight-mile “brine line” as recently as last year but has since
reneged on that commitment. The pipeline would prevent
concentrated waste generated by the East County project’s
reverse osmosis filtration system from entering into the city’s
own $5 billion Pure Water sewage recycling project now under
construction.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging Californians to find ways to reduce
their water use in an effort to combat the historic drought and
said upcoming conservation mandates are a priority. The
governor visited a water recycling facility Tuesday afternoon
in Carson. It was originally built as a demonstration project
to recycle household wastewater and replenish groundwater
supplies…. Statewide, water consumption is up just 3.7% since
July compared to 2020, woefully short of Newsom’s 15% goal.
Newsom pledged to spend $100 million on a statewide advertising
campaign to encourage water conservation.
With 60% of the state now in extreme drought conditions, state
officials are warning water-right holders that they should
expect more curtailments during peak irrigation season in June
and July. … Drought emergency curtailment
regulations were issued last fall by the California State Water
Resources Control Board for certain watersheds in response to
persistent dry conditions and spurred by a drought emergency
declaration by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Curtailment orders
adopted last year are effective for up to one year unless
readopted.
As the Western United States endures an ongoing megadrought
that has spanned more than two decades, an increasing number of
cities, towns and water districts are being forced to say no to
new growth. There’s just not enough water to go around. Last
month, the California Coastal Commission urged San Luis Obispo
County to stop all new development requiring water use in the
communities of Los Osos and Cambria.
Lemoore is speaking out against the efforts of an out of town
water entity to export water from the Kings River. The Lemoore
City Council approved a letter in opposition to a petition to
revoke the Fully Appropriated Stream (FAS) status of the Kings
River on Tuesday. The letter is directed to the State Water
Resources Control Board, which is hearing a petition from Kern
County water agency Semitropic Water Storage District to revoke
the FAS status.
A lawsuit over the U.S. government’s refusal to release water
for a Yurok Tribe water ceremony during drought conditions in
2020 will proceed without a local irrigation district, which a
federal judge in California found Monday sought to litigate
issues beyond the scope of that case. In his ruling, U.S.
District Judge William H. Orrick said the Klamath Irrigation
District’s intervention bid …
The Bureau of Reclamation selected 22 projects to share $17.3
million in WaterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grants. These
competitive projects improve water use efficiency, increase
renewable energy production, reduce the risk of water
conflicts, and provide other benefits that will enhance water
supply sustainability in the Western United States…. The Bard
Water District, located in southern California near the Arizona
border, will line a 1/2 mile section of the currently
earthen upper Mohave Canal with concrete….
A California federal judge has declined to lift an injunction
on two Northern California county ordinances that require
strict permits for the transport of water, saying that while
the local laws were enacted to quash illegal cannabis farms,
they’ve caused harm to a group of Hmong farmers. In a decision
handed down Friday, Chief U. S. District Judge Kimberly J.
Mueller found that although Siskiyou County had modified the
ordinances, they were still likely to cut off water to a
community of Hmong farmers within the county’s borders.
A settlement has finally been reached in the seven year-lawsuit
regarding the 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill. Plains All American
Pipeline has agreed to pay $230 million to fishers, fish
processors and shoreline property residents who are members of
two classes in a class-action lawsuit filed against the
company. The lawsuit was filed after a corroded pipeline
spilled an estimated 15,000 barrels of crude oil into the
Pacific Ocean in 2015.
Even if you’ve never heard of imidacloprid, there’s a good
chance the world’s most-used neonicotinoid pesticide is lurking
somewhere in your home. Or on your dog. Or maybe even in your
groundwater or drinking-water supplies. This insecticide,
widely used for decades on fruits, vegetables and many other
crops, has triggered growing concerns over its well-documented
role in the dramatic declines of birds, bees, butterflies and
other insects across the globe. … With imidacloprid being
discovered in groundwater and drinking-water supplies across
the state, state regulators — and legislators — finally are
paying closer attention … -Written by Jonathan Evans, legal director of the
Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health
program.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget proposal would set aside $75
million to aid small agricultural businesses as the drought
deepens. The one-time assistance would provide grants ranging
from $30,000 to $50,000, depending on the amount of lost
revenue. The program would prioritize businesses in the hardest
hit regions, such as the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys….
Newsom’s budget plan would allocate $100 million for repairing
conveyance canals, which was part of a 2021 budget deal. But it
would not add anything further.
If there’s one thing people in the West know how to fight over,
it’s water. California was built on scarcity, whether it
be gold or silver, land or water. In the mid-1800s, when
European Americans arrived to the land where Indigenous people
had lived for at least 10,000 years, they wasted no time
staking their claims. A big head-scratcher for those early
colonizers was how to get water to sustain burgeoning
towns.
California will acquire a sprawling former farm property in the
San Joaquin Valley and create a new state park for the first
time in 13 years. The park is planned for Dos Rios Ranch, where
the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers meet southwest of Modesto.
Two recent moves aim to benefit water access for tribal
communities in the Colorado River basin. One, a bill in the
U.S. Congress, could increase access to clean water. Another,
the release of a “shared vision” statement, outlines the goals
of tribes and conservation nonprofits. Tribes in the basin hold
rights to about a quarter of the river’s flow, but have often
been excluded from negotiations about how the river’s water is
used.
As a young person growing up in Ventura County for the past 19
years, I am no stranger to droughts. Not watering the lawn and
taking shorter showers is simply a part of life in Southern
California. Although water is scarce in Ventura County, there
is currently a direct threat to our drinking water.
Unfortunately, the oil industry wants to profit at the expense
of our precious groundwater that supplies drinking water to
over 400,000 Ventura County residents and irrigation water to
our $2 billion agriculture economy. -Written by Alex Masci, an undergraduate in
environmental studies at UC Berkeley, a coordinator with CA
Youth Vs Big Oil, and a supporter of VC-SAFE.
Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his revised state budget for the
2022-’23 Fiscal Year. The $300.7 billion budget includes
several priorities of interest to ACWA members, including
funding for drought, climate change, forest management and
more. Building upon last year’s three-year, $5.2 billion
allocation to support drought response and long-term water
sustainability, the governor’s revised budget includes an
additional $2 billion for drought response and water
resilience. This is part of the governor’s larger $47.1 billion
climate package.
A federal judge struck down a second attempt by a Northern
California county to dismiss a case against them for water
sanctions that would leave the local Asian community without
water. … In the original complaint, plaintiff Der
Lee compared living in Shasta Vista to his days hiding out in
the Laos jungles — just now without water. Others explained
that they only bathe once a week, are dehydrated and have had
their food sources — crops and livestock — die from the lack of
water access. As a result, many resorted to filling jugs with
water in streams and local parks.
The 1972 Clean Water Act established federal authority over the
“waters of the United States.” Congress did not offer further
explanation of what was covered under that term, but the two
federal agencies given authority by the Clean Water Act
asserted broad power. The federal Environmental Protection
Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers required farmers,
homeowners, commercial and industrial concerns and developers
to obtain permits before digging a ditch for water run-off,
shoring up existing erosion protection structures, or draining
swampy land. -Written by columnist Tom Campbell.
[R]esidents and businesses across the state are also using more
water now than they have in seven years, despite Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s efforts to encourage just the opposite. … Part
of the problem is that the urgency of the
crisis isn’t breaking through to Californians. The
messaging around water conservation varies across different
authorities and jurisdictions, so people don’t have a clear
idea of what applies to whom. And they certainly don’t have a
tangible grasp on how much a 15% reduction is with respect to
their own usage.
After hearing hours of heated debate, the California Coastal
Commission voted against a controversial plan by the company
Poseidon Water to build a huge desalination plant in Huntington
Beach. Despite worsening drought and repeated calls from Gov.
Gavin Newsom to tap the Pacific Ocean as a source of drinking
water, commissioners voted unanimously against the plan
Thursday night. The decision, which was recommended by
commission staff, may end the company’s plans for the
$1.4-billion plant.
Long Beach residents and business owners could soon get another
one-time credit on their monthly water bills if the Long Beach
Board of Water Commissioners votes Thursday to return upward of
$21.8 million to customers later this year. The vote is looming
because, in March, the city lost an appeal to keep in place the
Measure M charter amendment, which allowed the Water Department
to transfer millions of dollars in excess money to the city’s
general fund each year.
Siding with public agencies and environmental groups who filed
numerous legal challenges to the “twin tunnel” Delta conveyance
project known as California WaterFix, the Third District Court
of Appeal today unanimously held that the trial court
improperly denied the appellants’ attorneys’ fees motions when
it ruled that their legal challenges were not a “catalyst” for
the State’s 2019 decision to rescind the WaterFix project
approvals and decertify the project environmental impact report
(EIR).
Thousands of water rights holders in the Russian River
watershed could soon lose access to their water after state
regulators approved emergency drought rules Tuesday. The State
Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to reauthorize
the Division of Water Rights to issue “curtailment orders” for
up to 2,000 rights holders in order to preserve water in Lake
Sonoma and Lake Mendocino and to protect drinking water
supplies and fish populations.
An online
short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed. The class,
offered by University of California, Davis and several
other organizations in cooperation with the Water Education
Foundation, will be held May 12, 19, 26 and
June 2, 16 from 9 a.m. to noon. If you attended
the Foundation’s Water 101 Workshop in April,
you get a discount on registration! at $60!
Why are Utah water restrictions so confusing and seemingly
unfair to residents in one city yet generous to citizens of
another? For example, different cities in the Weber Water Basin
District have different restrictions: In West Haven, a
homeowner is allowed — beginning in mid-May — to water outside
once a week. But in Roy, homeowners can water their lawns and
plants twice a week. Do the state’s and the West’s
ongoing, historic drought play a major part in today’s water
restrictions?
Facing a third year of drought, leadership from county Farm
Bureaus, spanning all regions of California, gathered in
Sacramento last week to engage with state water officials about
all things water. A changing climate, shrinking snowpack, water
rights, aging infrastructure, groundwater regulations and
solutions to the state’s water crisis were among the topics
discussed at the California Farm Bureau Water Forum. The event
brought together state water officials and county Farm Bureau
leaders from the Mountain, North Coast, Central Valley, Central
Coast and Southern California regions.
California officials are poised to decide the fate of a
controversial desalination plant planned along its southern
coast, in a vote that comes as the American west battles an
increasingly perilous drought. California water use leapt 19%
in March, amid one of the driest months on record. After more
than a decade of debate, the California coastal commission on
Thursday will finally vote on a proposal for a $1.4 bn
desalination plant in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles.
In October, and then again in December 2021, as the third
severe drought this century was entering its third year,
not one but two atmospheric rivers struck California.
Dumping torrents of rain with historic intensity,
from just these two storm systems over 100 million acre feet of
water poured out of the skies, into the rivers, and out to sea.
Almost none of it was captured by reservoirs or diverted into
aquifers. Since December, not one big storm has hit the state.
After a completely dry winter, a few minor storms in April and
May were too little too late. -Written by Edward Ring, a contributing editor
and senior fellow with the California Policy Center.
Two species of endangered sucker fish could face extinction
this year because the federal government let farmers take
irrigation water from Upper Klamath Lake instead of leaving
enough water in the lake for the fish born this year to
survive, the Klamath Tribes claim. … Last year, the fight
over the region’s water risked a standoff between extremist
farmers who threatened to take control of the irrigation system
the government had shut off in an effort to prevent the
extinction of two species of endangered sucker fish sacred to
the Klamath Tribes: the c’waam, or Lost River sucker and koptu,
or shortnose sucker.
Nearly 4 million Angelenos will be reduced to two-day-a-week
watering restrictions on June 1 under drought rules released by
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on
Tuesday. … Under the rules, residents will be
assigned two watering days a week based on their addresses —
Monday and Friday for odd addresses and Thursday and Sunday for
even ones — with watering capped at only eight minutes, or 15
minutes for sprinklers with water-conserving nozzles. No
watering will be allowed between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. regardless
of the watering days.
Despite official calls to increase conservation amid worsening
drought, urban water use across California increased by nearly
19% in March, according to the State Water Resources Control
Board. The startling conservation figure was among a number of
grim assessments water officials offered reporters Tuesday in a
California drought outlook. Others included critically low
reservoir levels and major shifts in the water cycle due to
climate change. … The increase was even greater in the South
Coast Hydrologic Region, which is home to more than half the
state’s population. In this region, which includes Los Angeles,
urban water use increased 26.9%.
A handful of state lawmakers gathered last week on the side of
the Tijuana River Estuary that’s not visibly clogged by
plastics and tires spilling from Mexico down canyon gullies or
down the river itself to ask the governor for money to, well,
stop trash from spilling over the border. Southern
California lawmakers hope Gov. Gavin Newsom will put $100
million in next year’s budget to be split equally between the
Tijuana River and the Mexicali-to-Salton-Sea-flowing New River,
both sewage-plagued water bodies.
Poseidon Water, the company that runs the seawater desalination
facility in Carlsbad, is pushing to build another desalination
plant in Huntington Beach. … Recently a California
Coastal Commission staff report recommended that the project be
denied. The California-based ’Stop Poseidon’
coalition praised that recommendation, but on May 12th,
the commission will have a final vote, deciding if the company
will move forward with construction. The Coastal
Commission Public Hearing is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. Thursday,
in Costa Mesa.
State regulators have fined a Havasu Lake water company that
has failed to provide potable water to its customers for more
than a month and been accused of allowing its equipment to fall
into a state of disrepair. The California State Water Resources
Control Board issued the $1,500 fine on Friday, May 6, after
the Havasu Water Co. failed to meet state-imposed directives
and deadlines. The state has given a new list of directives and
deadlines for the water company to meet by May 20 or it could
face additional penalties. The Havasu Water Co.’s system has
fallen into a state of disrepair over the years …
Throughout the state, water agencies are telling Californians
that they must seriously curtail lawn watering and other water
uses. We can probably scrape through another dry year, but were
drought to persist, its impacts would likely be widespread and
permanent. … It didn’t have to be this way. We could
have built more storage to capture water during wet years, we
could have encouraged more conservation, we could have more
efficiently captured and treated wastewater for re-use and we
could have embraced desalination. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters
columnist.
If you waste water in Santa Clara County, water cops could soon
be on the way. Since last summer, Santa Clara County residents
have been asked to cut water use by 15% from 2019 levels to
conserve as the state’s drought worsens. But they continue to
miss that target — and by a growing amount. In March, the
county’s 2 million residents not only failed to conserve any
water, but they increased use by 30% compared to March 2019,
according to newly released data…. Santa Clara Valley
Water District … is proposing to hire water enforcement
officials to issue fines of up to $500 for residents …
wasting water ….
The rural hillside community of Devore has erupted in a dispute
pitting a tiny local water company against a group of residents
opposed to construction of a potential $7 million reservoir on
a board member’s property. At issue with some residents is a
99-year land lease agreement, ratified in July 2021, between
the Devore Water Co. and Doug Claflin, a member of the
company’s board of directors. It would allow the water company
to build a 610,000-gallon water tank on Claflin’s property
to treat nitrate-contaminated water by blending it with clean
water to reduce nitrate levels.
On Thursday, the Orange County Coastkeeper filed a complaint in
the Central District of California against Hixson Metal
Finishing, FPC Management, LLC and Reid Washbon alleging
violations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and Clean
Water Act. According to the complaint, the Orange County
Coastkeeper is a California nonprofit public benefit
corporation dedicated to the preservation, protection and
defense of the environment, wildlife and natural resources of
Orange County.
It’s not just farmers who get a sinking feeling during the
drought. The local white water rafting industry has bottomed
out as well. Only one local company is left in Three
Rivers offering rafting trips down the Kaweah River in the
scenic southern Sierra Nevadas. Once a beehive of rafting
activity along the middle reach of the river, several years of
drought have dried up interest in what was a spring ritual in
these parts.
Fractures have appeared within Kern County’s largest
groundwater agency as pressure mounts for it to show the state
how it plans to address the region’s massive groundwater
deficit. Four water entities recently notified the Kern
Groundwater Authority they were pulling out of the 16-member
group to write their own groundwater sustainability plan. That
will add a sixth plan covering the Kern subbasin, which extends
across the San Joaquin Valley portion of the county.
In farming areas across the Central Valley, a well-drilling
frenzy has accelerated over the last year as growers turn to
pumping more groundwater during the drought, even as falling
water levels leave hundreds of nearby homes with dry wells.
Counties have continued freely issuing well-drilling permits in
the years since California passed a landmark law, the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 … Some state
legislators are now supporting a bill that they say would
strengthen oversight and limit the well-drilling frenzy by
requiring a review of permits for new wells by the same local
agencies that are charged with managing groundwater.
Amid the historic drought now entering its third painful
summer … the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, has
demanded [millions of homes] cut irrigation by 35 percent
as of June 1. If things don’t improve by September, authorities
say, outdoor water use could be banned entirely. … Since the
restriction warnings began, customers have bombarded the Las
Virgenes water office — one of 26 public water agencies which
operate under the Metropolitan Water District — with angry
phone calls.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has boldly promoted the goal of building more
than 3 million new homes by 2025 to address the significant
supply/demand imbalance and bring down the cost of housing. …
In spite of this, an excessive new proposal by the State Water
Resources Control Board … will further stall new housing
production, as well as the development of public infrastructure
and economic development projects throughout California. The
proposal will require unachievable standards for water quality
compared to alternative enhanced and achievable approaches. -Written by Joseph Cruz, executive director for
the California State Council of Laborers; and Richard J.
Lambros, the managing director for Southern California
Leadership Council.
As the deadline for local agencies to implement plans to reduce
groundwater use approaches, a new study finds California’s
landmark legislation may have less of an impact on the local
agriculture economy than originally predicted. A study
authored by Professor Michael McCullough on the effect of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in the Tule Sub
Basin in the Central Valley … says by 2040, the deadline for
local agencies to reach groundwater sustainability, the 2014
law will likely result in the loss of some crops, but probably
not the more valuable ones, such as fruit and nuts…
California’s inability to meet its long-stated goal of cutting
solid waste by 75 percent by 2020 has prompted
environmentalists to craft a ballot initiative targeting
single-use plastic products – including a sharp limit on their
production. The initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot marks the
second time in six years that California voters have decided on
plastics use. … The latest initiative,
the California Recycling and Plastic Reduction Act, would
require all single-use plastic packaging and foodware to be
recyclable, reusable, refillable, or compostable by 2030.
The Marin Water Board of Directors rescinded the county’s water
shortage emergency declaration and updated its water use rules
this week, adopting new requirements for outdoor irrigation and
swimming pools. …Now that the water emergency has been
canceled, residents are permitted to wash their cars at home,
irrigate golf courses in areas outside of the green or tees,
fill swimming pools but cover them when not in use, and install
new landscaping and irrigation systems. Outdoor irrigation
using overhead spray systems is permitted up to two days per
week; drip irrigation is permitted up to three days per week.
California water regulators hosted a public forum on Wednesday
to collect comments about re-adopting drought emergency
regulations for Siskiyou County’s Scott and Shasta River
watersheds. … In response [to current drought conditions],
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
is requesting the re-adoption of a 12-month drought
emergency regulation to protect salmon, steelhead and
other native fish.
Long Beach Water Department customers will be seeing a small
decrease in their monthly bills after the city’s water
commission voted Wednesday to lower rates after the city’s
legal defeat over transferring excess revenue from the
department into its general fund. The 2.54% decrease will
result in a savings of about $2 per month for most residential
customers for the rest of the fiscal year that ends in
September. Lauren Gold, the department’s public information
officer, said the reduction will result in a loss of about $3
million for the department.
In the midst of a years-long drought, California is
implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
creating even more concerns for the state’s dairy farmers.
… The biggest impact for dairies may be not so much on
the dairy facility but on the feed side. Without adequate water
or certainty of water, the question is where the feed will come
from. The implementation of SGMA is going to impact local
forages, hay, silages and wheat …
Multiple San Joaquin Valley groundwater projects got a
significant shot of state funding this week to kickstart
recharge, and other, projects. On Monday, the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) announced $150 million was awarded to 20
agencies through its first round of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Grant Program. That includes almost $84 million for
11 agencies in the San Joaquin Valley.
Some water use restrictions that were imposed on most Marin
County residents during the drought last year are now set to
become permanent. The Marin Municipal Water District Board of
Directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to continue limiting
sprinkler use to two days per week, which is down from three
days it allowed before it adopted its drought restrictions in
2021. Drip irrigation will be allowed three days a week. All
pool owners in the district must also have a pool cover. These
rules will be part of the district’s list of permanent
conservation rules …
The city of San Diego has won an appeal in its suit challenging
a state mandate that required local water districts to pay for
mandatory lead testing at schools, the San Diego City
Attorney’s Office said Wednesday. The ruling issued Friday
finds that either the state’s Commission on State Mandates must
reimburse San Diego for water testing or the city can impose
fees, charges or assessments to cover testing costs.
More than a week after the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California announced its harshest-ever water
restrictions for millions of residents across the region,
several of the affected water agencies are offering a preview
of how life will change throughout Southland when the rules
kick in June 1. … MWD’s largest member agency, the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power, has so far offered few
details about how the restrictions will be applied to their
customers, but said more information will be provided in the
coming days.
Chances are, you’ll eat something grown in California today.
Its farms churn out a third of US-grown vegetables and
two-thirds of its fruits and nuts, and more milk than any other
state. But as I’ve documented in many articles and in my 2020
book Perilous Bounty—released in paperback today, May 2—its
water resources are dwindling, parched by climate change and a
relentless expansion of thirsty nut groves. ..Where will we get
our fruits and vegetables as California’s farms inevitably
adapt to a hotter, drier new normal? -Written by reporter Tom Philpott.
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted Wednesday to
begin the process to phase out single-use plastics at city
facilities and city-sponsored events, as well as to take steps
toward a potential citywide ban on polystyrene products such as
Styrofoam. … Wednesday’s motion instructed the city
attorney to draft an ordinance banning single-use plastic at
city facilities and at events on city property.
In an effort to boost water supply reliability for millions of
Californians, the California Department of Water Resources
(DWR) has announced its first round of funding to 20 agencies
responsible for managing critically overdrafted groundwater
basins throughout the state. A total of $150 million in funding
is being awarded to regional groundwater agencies through the
Sustainable Groundwater Management (SGM) Grant Program. The
funding will go toward projects focused on water efficiency,
groundwater recharge, feasibility studies for alternative water
supplies, and the installation of monitoring wells.
With little hope of reprieve ahead of the warming summer
months, demand for water in parts of drought-stricken
California is outpacing supply. The Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency last
week for areas that rely on the State Water Project…. The
move is a marked shift in a drought disaster that’s only
expected to deepen with warmer and drier days ahead. Now in the
third year of the drought, supplies across the region are
becoming increasingly strained. Experts say more restrictions
across the state are likely as the effects of climate crisis
unfold faster than expected.
Southern California officials have imposed unusually strict
limits on outdoor water use in response to a water shortage
emergency, effective June 1. So you may need to find an
alternative way to keep your plants from desiccating in the
summer sun. How about irrigating them with grey water instead
of sprinkling them with clean water? Grey water is the water
from faucets, showers, bathtubs, washing machines — anything
that’s not laden with human waste, food or toxic chemicals.
In a first-of-its-kind legal action, California is
interrogating the role of fossil fuel and chemical giants in
driving the plastics pollution crisis and deceiving consumers
about recycling. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said
yesterday that the state is investigating Exxon Mobil Corp. and
other companies for “their role in causing and exacerbating”
plastics contamination. … “In California and across the
globe, we are seeing the catastrophic results of the fossil
fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deception. Plastic
pollution is seeping into our waterways, poisoning our
environment, and blighting our landscapes,” said Bonta, a
Democrat, in a statement.
Under a state law passed last year that is the first of its
kind in the nation, patches of grass like this, found along
streets and at housing developments and commercial sites in and
around Las Vegas, must be removed in favor of more
desert-friendly landscaping. The offense? They are
“nonfunctional,” serving only an aesthetic purpose. Seldom, if
ever, walked on and kept alive by sprinklers, they are wasting
a resource, water, that has become increasingly precious.
A divided Zone 7 Water Agency Board of Directors voted to
continue participating in the planning phase for the ambitious
and long-discussed Delta Conveyance Project, following
discussions about intricacies and concerns related to the
matter last month. The directors’ 5-2 vote on April 20 comes
with an a commitment of an additional $4.75 million in funding
by Zone 7 for environmental planning for the proposed project.
When it comes to wasteful, overpriced and ill-considered
proposals to address California’s water supply issues, it’s
hard to know where to start. But a good place would be the plan
to build a desalination plant on the Pacific coast at
Huntington Beach. … As I’ve reported in the past,
there isn’t much to recommend the Huntington Beach project. It
would seriously damage the marine coastal environment, produce
the costliest water of any source available and raise water
bills for residents and businesses. -Written by Michael Hiltzik, LA Times business
columnist.
California walnut grower Tim McCord is at the dry end of the
spigot, facing a zero-water allocation from the Central Valley
Project, which is supposed to deliver to his local San Benito
County Water District. … The farmer is not just concerned
about his orchard; he’s also frustrated that he owes
substantial water-related taxes to the district, and, if water
is eventually delivered, he’ll be charged $309.75 per acre-foot
— more than in non-drought years. McCord is not alone.
During drought, it’s common for farmers across the West to pay
higher water-related rates, assessments, fees and taxes than
during wet years.
In less than a month, residents in large portions of Southern
California will be under unprecedented water restrictions due
to a worsening drought that has severely limited water
supplies. The biggest change is the requirement from the
Metropolitan Water District that local water suppliers in those
areas, from Ventura County to northwestern L.A. County to parts
of the Inland Empire, limit outdoor watering to once a week.
But behind that is a big cut in water use needed to avoid even
more serious measures. Can we do it? Here’s what we know:
Advocates are sounding the alarm for what they think could be
the collapse of the San Joaquin Valley’s agriculture workforce.
As drought continues to hammer the state and groundwater
pumping restrictions take effect, farmland will need to be
retired en masse. While there have been many
conversations, including legislation, on how to support farmers
during intermittent droughts, advocates say there has been
little to no planning for what will happen to the nearly
167,000 farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley when swaths of
farmland are permanently fallowed.
Susan Tatayon has spent four decades working in California’s
water world, most recently as chair of the Delta Stewardship
Council. (She was appointed by Governor Brown in 2014 and
reappointed in 2018.) She retired from state service in 2022.
We caught up with her to gather a few gems of wisdom, calling
on her unparalleled understanding of water in a state that’s
facing bigger water challenges than ever.
It’s far better to stop a water problem before it starts than
to try to fix it after it appears. We’re seeing that all over
the state, from the rapidly developing Rio Verde Foothills near
Scottsdale to the farming community of Willcox. Those who
thought they could build without water – or who had a well and
surrounding uses sucked it dry – are now in a world of hurt.
Some are hoping that if they create a water improvement
district, it can save the day. This is not a dig on those
efforts, but rather a cautionary tale about what happens when
our development decisions fail to reflect our water
realities. -Written by Arizona Republic columnist Joanna
Allhands.
The California Coastal Commission wants San Luis Obispo County
to immediately halt all new water-using development, including
housing, in Los Osos and Cambria. … The Coastal Commission
also sent a letter on the same day to the Cambria Community
Services District (CCSD) notifying that it had violated the
California Coastal Act over more than three decades due to its
water extractions from wells in the San Simeon and Santa Rosa
creek aquifers …
Water officials believe the past three years could end up as
the driest in California’s history. State reservoir levels are
alarmingly low, and measurements of the Sierra Nevada snowpack
are “grim,” the state’s natural resources secretary tells
Lester Holt. The drought is impacting the water supply for
residents and farms, which supply critical crops for the
nation.
Wildcat speculators, big oil companies, and state officials
alike have been salivating over the Uinta Basin’s rich oil
deposits for years … In December, the federal Surface
Transportation Board (STB) signed off on a plan to
build an 88-mile railway from the Uinta Basin to a rail
terminal about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City.
… Environmentalists, however, warn that … during
a time of extreme drought, the construction will impact more
than 400 streams, many within the critical watershed of the
Colorado River, which provides drinking water to 40 million
people in the West.
Momentum is building for a unique interstate deal that aims to
transform wastewater from Southern California homes and
business into relief for the stressed Colorado River. The
collaborative effort to add resiliency to a river suffering
from overuse, drought and climate change is being shaped across
state lines by some of the West’s largest water
agencies. Southern California’s giant wholesaler,
Metropolitan Water District, claims a multi-billion-dollar
water recycling proposal will not only create a new local
source for its 19 million customers, but allow it to share part
of its Colorado River supply …
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday announced a
major investigation into companies that manufacture plastics,
the first of its kind in the nation, saying that for 50 years
they have been engaged in potentially illegal business
practices by misleadingly claiming that plastics products are
recyclable, when most are not. Bonta said he issued subpoenas
to ExxonMobil, with other companies likely to follow, and said
society’s growing plastics pollution problem — particularly in
oceans, which are littered by trillions of tiny pieces of
plastic — is something they are legally liable for and should
be ordered to address.
Stormwater infrastructure in cities is highly visible and
serves to mitigate flooding and reduce pollution that reaches
local waterbodies. Being so visible, it might be reasonable to
assume that stormwater is adequately funded both in
infrastructure and water quality management. Yet, stormwater
infrastructure and water quality improvement are notoriously
difficult to fund.
A colorful, widely visible, but graffiti-marred mural on a
flood-control dam near Corona that celebrated the nation’s
bicentennial no longer enjoys the protection of a court order.
But officials say a plan is in the works to replace the
patriotic image on Prado Dam, which was originally created with
toxic lead paint. The fate of the mural near the 91 and 71
freeways has been uncertain since the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, which controls the dam, announced plans to begin
removing the gigantic painting in spring 2015.
California’s housing crisis, with its soaring real estate
prices and 160,000 unhoused people, threatens these hills. It
also threatens the remaining marshes and wetlands, coastal
bluffs and mountain meadows. Any open space not yet protected
by park or preserve is at risk. … Building farther out
from population centers also strains other public
resources. As demand expands for energy, emergency services and
water, so must the infrastructure to provide them. -Written by Nicholas Crane Moore, a writer and
public-interest environmental attorney in Anchorage, Alaska,
and a former California land-use attorney.
The science and data are clear. Southern California steelhead
are on the brink of extinction. Southern steelhead populations
have been decimated at the southern end of their native range,
plummeting from tens of thousands to a few hundred remaining
adults due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation from
urbanization. On April 21, an important milestone was achieved
to prevent the irreversible loss of this iconic Southern
California fish species. The California Fish and Game
Commission unanimously voted that the state ESA listing of
Southern steelhead may be warranted.
Last summer, Siskiyou County’s recently appointed sheriff,
Jeremiah LaRue, released a video on YouTube to explain two
controversial new county groundwater laws. The drought was
severe that year, he said, and the “wasteful extraction” of
water for illegal cannabis cultivation was making it worse.
… The environmentalist rhetoric and talk of water policy
signaled a shift in how LaRue’s department policed the illicit
cannabis industry.
Following the driest three-month stretch in the state’s
recorded history and with warmer months ahead, the Department
of Water Resources (DWR) announced its seventh round of grant
awards for local assistance through the Small Community Drought
Relief program. In coordination with the State Water Resources
Control Board, DWR has selected 17 projects … 14 will
directly support disadvantaged communities, including three
Tribes, and will replace aging infrastructure, increase water
storage, and improve drinking water quality and supply.
Major water restrictions are about to take effect in areas
ranging from Rancho Cucamonga to Thousand Oaks, and Baldwin
Park to North Hollywood. But many nearby areas will escape the
mandatory one-day-a-week watering limits — among them Santa
Monica, Long Beach, Torrance and Beverly Hills. Why? The
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has targeted
these first-ever water restrictions for areas that
rely heavily or entirely on the State Water Project — a
Northern California water supply that officials say faces
a real risk of running dry.
A proposed La Quinta resort with a hotel, homes and a wave
basin — which has brought loud opposition from people saying it
is a poor use of water during a drought
— narrowly won the planning commission’s
endorsement Tuesday and will now move to the city council
for final consideration. The vote for the Coral Mountain
project came in two motions: The first was for
certification of the environmental impact report, which passed
5-2 with Vice Chairperson Loretta Currie and Commissioner
Michael Proctor voting no.
Despite a glut of recent rain descending on Sonoma County in
late spring and ratcheting rainfall totals to more than double
last winter’s paltry numbers, the region remains locked in
drought, and local water experts say residents should prepare
for ongoing restrictions. Since last September, Petaluma has
sought to curb the city’s overall water usage by 30% compared
to 2020 numbers, implementing restrictions on water use to help
the city meet mandatory cutback targets set by Sonoma Water,
the region’s primary supplier.
Right on time, the Monterey Peninsula, along with the rest of
the region, learned on April 21 how many new housing units the
state not only expects, but will require, it to plan to build
between 2023 and 2031. Historically, for the Peninsula, this
has been as awkward as a relationship between local and state
government can get. The local governments here agree they need
to add housing, yet the region, served by water utility
California American Water, remains under a cease and desist
order from the state that has, for years, barred adding new
water connections.
Gov. Newsom’s emergency drought order that singled out
agricultural wells for extra scrutiny is continuing to cause
confusion and angst in some parts of the San Joaquin Valley,
while other areas are stutter-stepping forward. Selma raisin
farmer Tony Panoo was happy to finally have his well drilled on
Monday after several tense weeks when his permit application
was stuck between Fresno County and the Central Kings
Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), which covers his
20-acre vineyard.
California is home to thousands of oil and gas wells abandoned
years ago and never properly sealed — many of them
sitting near homes, schools and businesses from the coast to
the Inland Empire. With no legally responsible party to clean
them up, environmental leaders say that 5,356 abandoned and
deserted wells now sprawl across Southern California and the
state, polluting drinking water and leaking methane, a powerful
greenhouse gas. That is about to change as the state gets
millions of dollars in state and federal funding to safely seal
old wells.
A coalition of water stakeholder organizations from across
California joined together to send a letter addressed to
Gov. Gavin Newsom and six key legislators requesting
action to address water issues. The nine page document dated
April 19, 2022 was signed by 18 organizations and entities
including the San Joaquin Valley Water Blueprint and 10
Southern California, four Bay Area and three trade groups. The
letter laid out the need to include a $6.5 billion
appropriation in the 2022-2023 General Fund budget to
strengthen statewide drought and flood resilience. -Written by Don Wright, a contributor to The San
Joaquin Valley Sun.
The Metropolitan Water District said Wednesday that the
unprecedented decision to reduce outdoor watering to one day a
week for about 6 million Southern Californians could be
followed by even stricter actions in September if conditions
don’t improve, including a total ban in some areas.
… The MWD’s board has never before taken such a step,
but officials said it became an inevitability after
California’s driest ever January, February and March left
snowpacks shrunken and reservoirs drained.
During drought years, California relies heavily on its
groundwater supply. As droughts become longer and more intense
with climate change, it’s becoming more important than ever to
“bank” excess surface water during stormy weather patterns in
order to provide some long-term insurance. … [Dr. Helen
Dahlke, a hydrology expert at UC Davis] and a team of
researchers recently shared findings from their study showing
how California’s 8 million acres of farmland could be tapped as
one way to help get water back into the ground through a
process called ‘Ag-MAR.’
Would it surprise you to know that California could have all
the water anybody could want, but various government officials
refuse to take the actions that would provide it? Consider, for
example, the recent report by the staff of the California
Coastal Commission about the long-suffering proposal for a
desalination plant in Huntington Beach. The staff recommended
that the commissioners vote to kill the project. Poseidon
Water’s project was first proposed in 1998. -Written by Susan Shelley.
The Klamath Basin provides a cautionary tale for Oregon about
the need to plan more intentionally and sustainably with its
shrinking water supply. Though the state and its watersheds
aren’t newcomers to drought, research suggests that climate
change is magnifying the impacts of the region’s natural wet
and dry cycles…. Oregon’s next governor will inherit a
state whose ecosystems, economy and communities are enduring
their driest period in 1,200 years.
If the recent attacks on California’s landmark environmental
law sound tired, that’s because they are. Ever since the
California Environmental Quality Act went into effect in 1970,
there have been calls to tweak, reform or completely throw it
out. … In Napa, where hillside forests are being razed for
vineyards, CEQA was used to limit the size of a massive winery
conversion project to save as many carbon-sequestering trees as
possible. -Written by John Buse, senior counsel for the
Center for Biological Diversity.
The state of California has released the final version of its
Pathways to 30×30 report. Here are five things to know about
the terrestrial conservation elements of this landmark
effort: 1. Freshwater Conservation The Pathways
document is explicit about the critical need to expand
protection of California’s rivers, streams, wetlands, and other
freshwater resources …
A group of Butte County farmers, who rely solely on groundwater
to farm mostly tree crops north of Chico, are one step closer
to finalizing formation of a new water district. They say the
new district will help future generations comply with a state
regulation to bring groundwater supplies into balance in 20
years. … SGMA, signed into law in 2014, establishes a
new structure for managing groundwater in California and
requires groundwater sustainability agencies to manage
groundwater locally and develop and implement plans to achieve
long-term sustainability.
Unprecedented water restrictions are in store for about 6
million Southern Californians, a sign of deepening drought in
counties that depend on water piped from the state’s parched
reservoirs. The Metropolitan Water District’s board voted
unanimously today to require six major water providers and the
dozens of cities and local districts they supply to impose one
of two options: limit residents to outdoor watering once a week
or reduce total water use below a certain target.
For the first time in half a century, ocean-going fish will
soon be able to migrate up Alameda Creek to spawn, now that a
second fish ladder has been completed in the lower portion of
the creek in Fremont. Alameda County Water District and Alameda
County Flood Control District officials on Monday celebrated
the completion of the fish ladder, which was finished earlier
this month, according to Sharene Gonzales, a water district
spokesperson. The ladder, which consists of a series of
steadily elevating pools, allows migratory fish such as Chinook
salmon and threatened steelhead trout to get around human-made
barriers in the lower creek …
Nine people were arrested by state wildlife police on suspicion
of poaching, selling animals on the black market and other
offenses after a sprawling investigation by the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife, the agency said. Eight men
were arrested on suspicion of poaching white sturgeon from
Sacramento Valley waterways, the department said last week. A
ninth man was arrested on suspicion of selling Dungeness crab
and red abalone on the black market.
A move to dry up water speculation once and for all in Colorado
ended at the legislature despite intense supply pressures from
drought and water developers, as lawmakers said they’re loath
to hurt farmers’ ability to sell their most valuable
asset. The Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources
Committee tabled the anti-speculation bill after first
accepting an amendment to turn it into a between-sessions study
of the problem. Technically, the measure could be revived, but
the bill’s sponsors say the issue is over for this year.
One of the most ambitious conservation efforts ever,
California’s 30×30 initiative aims to protect plant and animal
life across 30 percent of the state’s most critical land and
water by 2030. Gov. Gavin Newsom has described the plan as an
important step toward ensuring community well-being, equity,
and economic sustainability while staving off mega wildfires,
droughts, and other climate change-driven threats. Stanford
University experts have informed 30×30 through their
participation in public outreach sessions, meetings with the
plan’s leadership and a letter of support signed by faculty
members from all seven of the university’s schools.
Rather than planning for droughts and ensuring that minimum
water quality objectives are achieved in critically dry years,
the proposed voluntary agreement appears to be a “plan to fail”
to protect the Delta in future droughts. Droughts are a
fact of life in California, even as climate change is making
them worse. The Governor’s Water Resilience Portfolio
recognizes the need to improve drought preparedness, requiring
that the State to be able to protect fish and wildlife during a
six year drought …
A proposed California desalination plant that would produce 50
million gallons of drinking water per day failed a crucial
regulatory hurdle on Monday, possibly dooming a project that
had been promoted as a partial solution for sustained drought.
The staff of the California Coastal Commission recommended
denying approval of the Huntington Beach plant proposed by
Poseidon Water … [and] said the project was more
susceptible to sea-level rise than was understood when it was
first proposed more than two decades ago.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality has reversed
three key Trump administration changes that govern how federal
agencies implement the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA). The rule, published on April 20, 2022, finalizes what
the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) called “Phase One”
of their effort to review and revise the Trump administration’s
July 2020 overhaul of the NEPA regulations, and follows a
proposed rule that CEQ issued for public comments last fall.
California prohibits farmers from growing crops with
chemical-laced wastewater from fracking. Yet the state still
allows them to use water produced by conventional oil
drilling—a chemical soup that contains many of the same toxic
compounds. When rumors spread several years ago that California
was growing some of the nation’s nuts, citrus and vegetables
with wastewater produced from hydraulic fracturing, known as
fracking, regulators said that would be illegal.
No one was surprised by Thursday’s letter granting PG&E an
annual license to run the Potter Valley Project until April of
next year. And, while a last-minute mystery application did
provide a few moments of titillating speculation, the enigmatic
Antonio Manfredini failed to generate any real suspense. The
50-year license to operate the Potter Valley Project, which
diverts water from the Eel River into the east branch of the
Russian River to Lake Mendocino by way of a tunnel, a pair of
dams and reservoirs, and a small hydropower plant, expired on
April 14.
The Long Beach Water Commission may upgrade the city’s water
shortage level next week, which would bring with it new
restrictions on when residents can water
landscaping. Updating the city’s water shortage stage
comes as California heads toward its third straight year of
drought. The proposal to go to Stage 2, which would limit
landscape irrigation to two days per week year-round, would
take the city back to water conservation rules not seen since
June 2016.
A new bill aimed at bringing relief to farmworkers affected by
the drought is now one step closer to becoming law. The
bill, introduced by Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D–Sanger), aims
to provide financial assistance to farmworkers struggling to
afford basic necessities. Wednesday it passed in a state senate
committee, four to one. Senate Bill 1066 aims to create a
program called the California Farmworkers Drought Resilience
Pilot Project. The project is a state-funded supplemental pay
program that would give eligible farmworkers $1,000 for three
years.
New data and reports now show that the Paso Robles groundwater
basin is being severely depleted — with unsustainable amounts
pumped throughout the entire last decade. As a result, it is
now considered a critically overdrafted groundwater basin in
need of management to ensure the long-term sustainability of
the water source…. Blame for the status of the groundwater
basin is tossed around between lack of regulation from local
politicians and overpumping from vintners…. But vintners
and local industry leaders interviewed by The Tribune said
placing the blame on the wine industry is oversimplifying a
complicated issue.
When overlaid with data about flood and wildfire risk,
Headwaters’ analysis reveals areas with stark capacity
barriers, often exacerbated by historical injustices, as well
as high vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. … In
theory, the $47 billion the infrastructure bill designates for
climate resilience can help communities prepare for floods,
fires, storms and droughts. But Headwaters’ analysis suggests
that areas with low capacity might not submit requests in the
first place.
Heading into another brutally dry summer, struggling cannabis
growers in California could be excluded from the state’s latest
assistance plan to save water. A proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom
would pay farmers to not plant crops, known as fallowing, this
year as drought conditions worsen. The plan with some of
the state’s largest water providers earmarks $268 million in
upfront payments for voluntarily leaving fields uncultivated,
or fallowing.
The group “We Advocate Through Environmental Review” and the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe challenged the environmental impact report
prepared by the city [of Mt. Shasta] and Siskiyou County. They
argued county officials offered a misleading report and failed
to properly look at the impacts of the bottling plant on the
environment. The groups filed two lawsuits, one against the
city and one against the county.
The Delta Science Program is excited to release the 2022-2026
Science Action Agenda (SAA). Developed by and for the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta science community, the 2022-2026
SAA builds on the progress of the 2017-2021 iteration to
prioritize and align science actions to meet management needs,
foster collaboration and coordination, and guide science
funding. It will serve as a roadmap for the allocation and
integration of investments through research, time, and
resources.
Unsafe uranium levels have been detected in more than 14,000
community water systems across the United States, and 63% of
water records reported at least a trace amount of the
contaminant, according to a new nationwide analysis.
Concentrations of uranium, along with arsenic, barium,
chromium, and selenium, were the highest in community water
systems that serve semiurban Latinx communities.
A total of nine people have been arrested after an
investigation into a large suspected sturgeon poaching
operation along Sacramento Valley waterways. The California
Department of Fish and Wildlife says the investigation started
as two separate cases, but a connection between the suspects
led them to uncovering the larger operation.
On April 19, 2022, Clark County District Court Judge Bita
Yeager issued a decision vacating the Nevada State Engineer’s
(State Engineer) June 15, 2020, Order 1309. Under Order 1309,
the State Engineer merged seven independently designated
hydrographic basins into one basin known as the Lower White
River Flow System (LWRFS) to be conjunctively managed. The
State Engineer did so based on scientific evidence as to the
previously delineated basins’ hydrological connection.
Rural residents using well water in the sprawling Santa Rosa
Plain would pay about $20 a year under a state-mandated program
aimed at protecting groundwater for the next 50 years. The
10-member board that governs the agency overseeing Sonoma
County’s largest groundwater basin favors a regulatory fee
structure based on the estimated amount of water well owners
pump from the ground, officials reported at a virtual community
meeting Wednesday night.
A powerful agency that is a vital source of water for millions
of Californians has left its employees exposed to harassment,
engaged in unfair hiring practices and allowed employee housing
in blistering desert outposts to deteriorate, a state audit
found. Auditors launched their review after a Times
investigation last year found a pattern of complaints alleging
harassment and bullying of women at the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, which operates the sprawling
242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct system that delivers drinking
water to households and businesses in Southern California.
New guidelines were released in early April for a federally
funded program meant to help low income families pay their
outstanding water bills. The Low Income Household Water
Assistance Program is part of an emergency effort to respond to
the economic impacts caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In
California, the Department of Community Services and
Development is the designated agency responsible for overseeing
the program. The finalized state plan defines the scope of the
program and how it will be implemented.
Flaming Gorge reservoir in Wyoming will release 500,000
acre-feet of water under a new Drought Operations Plan to help
prop up dangerously low water levels at Lake Powell. The plan,
approved Thursday by the Upper Colorado River Commission, does
not call for any water to be released from Blue Mesa west of
Gunnison, but also does not rule out the possibility of that
being an option in the future.
As California faces a third dry year, the Bay Area’s biggest
water agency may push forward with caps on customer water use,
and fines for those who exceed the limit. The move would put
the East Bay Municipal Utility District among a small, and
perhaps soon-to-grow, number of water suppliers in the region
that have taken the unusual step of compelling households to
cut back, instead of simply encouraging conservation.
Among the many complex arguments over water in California, one
particularly heated debate centers on whether the state should
seek more drinking water from a plentiful but expensive source:
the Pacific Ocean. The debate has reached a critical stage in
Huntington Beach, where Poseidon Water has been trying for more
than two decades to build one of the country’s largest
desalination plants. The California Coastal Commission is
scheduled to vote next month on whether to grant a permit to
build the plant.
Mired in an extreme drought, California lawmakers on Thursday
took the first step toward lowering the standard for how much
water people use in their homes — a move that won’t be enforced
on individual customers but could lead to higher rates even as
consumption declines. California’s current standard for
residential indoor water use is 55 gallons per person per
day…. The California Senate voted 28-9 on Thursday to
lower the standard to 47 gallons per person per day starting in
2025; and 42 gallons per person per day beginning in
2030. The bill has not yet passed the Assembly, meaning it
is still likely months away from becoming law.
Facing a giant hole in her year-old yard, Tania Weingart’s
dream of summer fun in Novato runs deep. But one thing to fill
it is in short supply these days — water. Her water company,
North Marin Water, along with Marin Water, has imposed
drought-related water restrictions that prohibit the filling of
new pools and refilling existing ones. The mandate comes as the
state is asking water agencies to impose restrictions for
residents and businesses to cut water use by 10% among
California residents and businesses as of March 28.
The ongoing drought and another year of unprecedented low
rainfall have prompted the California State Water Resources
Control Board to push for the consolidation of small public
water systems across the state. In a letter sent on April 4,
the water board asked North Marin Water District to consider
partnerships or consolidations with small systems across West
Marin and beyond.
In March, the water level of Lake Powell declined below a
threshold at which the Glen Canyon Dam’s ability to generate
power becomes threatened, and the Bureau of Reclamation, the
federal agency that oversees the West’s water infrastructure,
is working with the states above Lake Powell to divert more
water to keep its dam operational. Meanwhile, the states around
Lake Mead have been hashing out the details of a plan to
voluntarily curtail their use to prevent even more dramatic
cuts to Arizona and Nevada from going into effect next year.
Some Santa Paula residents with overdue water bills are getting
a break thanks to a state grant for COVID-19 pandemic relief.
The city is using $366,000 in funds from the State Water
Resources Control Board through the California Water and
Wastewater Arrearage Payment Program to cover overdue
residential and commercial water bill payments as a result of
the pandemic, according to a news release.
With three consecutive years of drought reducing water levels
in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed to alarming lows,
the State Water Resources Control Board [Tuesday] released the
draft of an emergency regulation to continue curtailments
adopted last year to preserve water storage in reservoirs,
protect drinking water supplies, prevent salinity intrusion and
minimize impacts to fisheries and the environment…. This
year, water users should expect curtailments to be imposed much
sooner and to affect more senior right holders and claimants
since supplies may be the most limited during the peak
irrigation period of June and July.
As the Ukraine war kindles fears of rising food prices, the
recognition of a secure domestic food supply – driven in large
part by irrigated agriculture in the Western U.S. – is
something we need to talk about. … Government water
policy decisions made in California and Oregon are currently
withholding once-reliable water from farmers in order to meet
perceived environmental priorities. In simple terms, our
own government is actually voluntarily directing measures
that restrict water to farmers. Sadly, this diminishes our
food production capacity, and with it, our national
security. -Written by Paul Orme and Dan Keppen, both of
the Family Farm Alliance.
In the Southwestern U.S., the massive Lake Mead Reservoir near
Las Vegas is not as massive as it used to be. The water level
has dropped to near-record-low levels. Drought has reduced the
flow of water into the river, which has forced communities to
cut back. … The water authority targeted the lush green
grass that’s not native to the desert, encouraging people to
remove it. … At first, residents and businesses were
slow to pull up their lawns.
Napa County has joined an effort to raise an early alarm about
flood control agencies potentially losing out on millions of
dollars if the state doesn’t take action to extend a
deadline. Specifically, a loss of access to reimbursement
funds would happen if the funding from Proposition 1E — a $4.09
billion bond measure for flood control projects passed by
California voters in 2006 — is allowed to expire by its current
deadline of July 1, 2023. The funds come by way of a state
program, managed by the California Department of Water
Resources, that pays back agencies their costs for
federally-required flood control projects.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced this year’s
restoration flow schedule for the Trinity River. … Due to
lack of precipitation and snowpack in the Trinity Mountains
this winter, the flow schedule for 2022 is scaled to a
critically dry water year. Critically dry is one of five water
year types used by the Trinity River Restoration Program to
determine how much reservoir water will be released in support
of the program’s goals to improve habitat for anadromous
fish—fish that migrate to fresh water from salt water to
spawn—like salmon and steelhead.
A leading U.S. environmental conservation group has released
its annual list of the country’s most endangered rivers. The
Colorado River tops the list, but states across the nation must
address polluted, dry, and unhealthy rivers, according to the
list and accompanying report published today by American
Rivers.
The 100-year-old Potter Valley Project consists of two dams
along Northern California’s Eel River. The upstream Scott Dam
blocks salmon and steelhead from reaching prime spawning
grounds, according to Alicia Hamann, the director of Friends of
Eel River. Both fish are threatened under the Endangered
Species Act. Friends of the Eel River are one of a handful of
environmental groups planning to sue PG&E to seek
protections for these dwindling fish populations.
Scattered across California’s San Joaquin Valley are colonias,
the unincorporated communities home to some of the Valley’s
poorest residents in one of the richest agricultural areas in
the world. … Water access is a critical question in
California. Former Governor Jerry Brown declared an official
drought in 2014. The state today is even drier, and the
declaration is still in force. Teviston, a tiny community
established by African Americans in the 1940s, went completely
without water for a month last summer when its only well
stopped working.
During Gov. Gavin Newsom’s visit to Butte County on Tuesday,
Newsom said he will ask the legislature for $750 million to
help with drought conditions. At the Hyatt Powerplant at Lake
Oroville, which shut down last year due to record low lake
levels, Newsom spoke about how the state needs a different
approach to water conservation. Newsom already invested $5.2
billion in the past three years for water security for all
Californians.
$31-million in federal funds planned for forest landscape
restoration include projects in Southern Oregon and Northern
California involving the Rogue Basin, Lakeview and Western
Klamath Mountains. The Biden-Harris Administration and U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service announced the
funding today for 15 projects that “aim to reduce the risk of
severe wildfires, support local economies, create jobs and
enhance forest and watershed health in eight states …
[including] $3 million to the Western Klamath Mountains
Fire and Fire Resiliency Project … [and] $3 million in
the North Yuba River watershed across 356,000 acres.
A Native American tribe in Oregon said Tuesday it is assessing
its legal options after learning the U.S. government plans to
release water from a federally operated reservoir to downstream
farmers along the Oregon-California border amid a historic
drought. Even limited irrigation for the farmers who use
Klamath River water on about 300 square miles of crops puts two
critically endangered fish species in peril of extinction
because the water withdrawals come at the height of spawning
season, The Klamath Tribes said.
In the late 1990s, Steven and Lucia Kisiel bought 20 acres of
land with a new well in Cochise County, a rural area in
southeastern Arizona. The couple built a straw bale house with
their own hands and started growing produce for themselves and
others in the area. In 2013, Kisiel turned on his kitchen
faucet and water sputtered out along with fine sediment, a sign
that his well wasn’t pumping enough water.
Environmentalists are concerned Caltrans isn’t doing enough to
keep trash from washing off its properties into the San
Francisco Bay. The state transportation department has been
under a cease and desist order since 2019 requiring it to
reduce trash over the next seven years. The order
covers more than 8,000 acres of its property in the Bay
Area, including the South Bay. The San Francisco Bay Regional
Water Quality Control Board issued the order following
widespread community outrage about Caltrans failing to pick up
trash polluting local waterways.
Some drought restrictions imposed on most Marin residents last
year could become permanent, while others could be repealed in
the coming weeks. On Friday, the Marin Municipal Water District
proposed keeping a two-day-per-week sprinkler irrigation limit
in place for good but also rescinding some prohibitions to
allow residents to wash their cars at home or refill their
pools.
[P]iles of single-use plastics that can’t easily be recycled,
pollute roadsides and waterways and add to the garbage that
clogs landfills. In November, Californians may get a chance to
shrink that waste. An initiative designed to reduce single-use
plastics and polystyrene food containers will be on the ballot,
a move by environmentalists to bypass the Legislature, where
such measures have repeatedly failed in the face of industry
lobbying.
The Nevada Irrigation District will begin managing the South
Yuba Canal and the Deer Creek Powerhouse this month. The
purchase technically helps NID diversify Nevada County’s energy
sources, but the district’s purchase of the powerhouse is
“ancillary more than anything” to the acquisition of the canal
itself, Hydroelectric Manager Keane Sommers said. The canal
services the residents of Grass Valley, Nevada City, their fire
hydrants, the air attack base and Sierra Nevada Memorial
Hospital — over 30,000 customers.
Throughout western Fresno County, fertile land has been taken
out of production because the irrigation supply isn’t stable
enough to bring a crop to harvest. Many of Joe Del Bosque’s dry
fields in Firebaugh will stay that way this season.
… Without adequate surface water delivered from
reservoirs, some growers must continue to pump groundwater from
their wells. But the California Groundwater Live website
shows 64% of monitored wells are below normal.
This Friday marks Earth Day. This year the drought and
dwindling water supplies top the list of environmental
challenges here in the southwest. Scientists remain at odds
over Gov. Doug Ducey’s plan to help solve Arizona’s water
issues by desalinating water from the Sea of Cortez. Ducey
unveiled the idea in his State of the State address earlier
this year. He proposed a $1 billion project to draw treated
water to Morelos Dam near Yuma, but the challenges to the idea
remain difficult to solve.
The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board)
recently updated the regulated community and the public on the
Board’s statewide investigation to study and sample potential
sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
The State Water Board’s investigation is aimed at public
agencies involved in drinking water and wastewater treatment,
as well as private entities involved in manufacturing or other
industries where PFAS may have been used in various products
and/or processes.
