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.”
A key hurdle for a Monterey Peninsula public water agency to
acquire the assets of California American Water Co. was cleared
Friday when a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Cal Am that
the water district chief said was just one of many attempts to
thwart the takeover. Monterey County Superior Court Judge
Thomas Wills denied a lawsuit filed in August by Cal Am
challenging the water district’s certification of a key study —
called an environmental impact report — that the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District prepared as part of its
acquisition effort.
Half a century ago, Congress set loose a torrent of confusion
when it wrote the Clean Water Act to protect the “waters of the
United States.” Lobbyists and lawyers have fought ever since
over the phrase, often dubbed WOTUS. Its meaning seems
grade-school simple but quickly grows as murky as a backwoods
swamp. Into these perilous waters the Biden administration
wades.
The Rosamond Community Services District Board of Directors, on
Thursday, agreed to begin eminent domain proceedings to obtain
water rights from agricultural land owned by the Calandri
family on Rosamond’s west side. The Board unanimously approved
a Resolution of Necessity, which declared it in the public
interest to acquire the property for the water rights. Ed Lear,
a litigation attorney representing the Calandri family, said
they will challenge the action as a violation of the water
basin adjudication.
Amy Cordalis is a fisherwoman, attorney, mother, and member of
the Yurok Tribe, the largest federally recognized Tribe in
California. From 2014-2016, she was General Counsel for the
Tribe, the first woman and first Yurok tribal member to serve
in that position. She is also the principal of the Ridges to
Riffles Conservation Fund, a non-profit fund representing
Native American tribes in natural and cultural resource
matters.
To help agricultural producers improve water quality, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS) has awarded $1.6 million in funding through the
National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI) for three projects in
high priority watersheds in California. … The Clear Lake
project has been selected for funding as a new Source Water
Protection planning watershed, targeting conservation efforts
through the National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI), according
to the release.
As the application window for a near billion-dollar state
program designed to help cash-strapped Californians with
pandemic-related drinking water debt nears its close date,
almost 50% of eligible water systems have fully completed the
application, but nearly one quarter haven’t yet started the
process — a scenario that could see many struggling households
lose the chance to have their financial burdens
alleviated.
On the parched west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the drought
has created a windfall for companies like Big River Drilling. A
water-well contractor based in the Fresno County community of
Riverdale, Big River can hardly keep up with demand for new
wells as farmers and rural residents seek to extract more water
from underground. … But talk about poor timing:
California farmers are supposed to start throttling back their
groundwater pumping to comply with a state law called the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA.
The State Water Resources Control Board today adopted
a resolution affirming its commitment to advancing
racial equity and acknowledging that its programs were
established within a structural framework that perpetuates
inequities based on race. In the resolution, the State Water
Board pledges to express this commitment through
institutionalizing racial equity in its policies, programs and
service to communities while fostering greater workforce
diversity, equity and inclusion within the agency.
I just moved to Lake County and live next to the lake. I heard
the other day that Lake County doesn’t have water rights to
Clear Lake? Is that correct? Can I take water from the lake to
irrigate my garden? I also have a pond on my property and a
well, who has rights to those sources of water? Thanks for
clearing this up! — Wondering about Water Rights Walter Walter,
Thank you for asking these questions. I get asked about water
rights quite a bit actually. You are right about Clear Lake’s
water rights — they actually belong to Yolo County.
At the September meeting of the California Water Commission,
Kealiʻi Bright, Assistant Director of the Division of Land
Resource Protection at the California Department of
Conservation (or DOC), gave a presentation on a new program
being spun up to repurpose farmland being retired due to SGMA
implementation. Mr. Bright began by acknowledging that the
Department of Conservation being at a Water Commission might be
unusual because they are not a groundwater agency or any kind
of water agency, but they are an agency with a suite of
programs that invest in natural and working lands’ land use
…
Faced with the need to reduce the demand on water supplies,
Marin County developers would have to pay thousands of dollars
in new fees, according to a proposal by the Marin Municipal
Water District. The Marin Independent Journal reported that the
water district’s board is considering a new measure which would
require future projects in its jurisdiction to have a net-zero
demand on reservoirs.
Oil companies that blast water and chemicals into the earth to
extract fossil fuels are having trouble getting new permits for
their California operations even sooner than expected. Gov.
Gavin Newsom pledged the state would stop issuing new permits
for fracking by 2024, but California has already begun to ban
the controversial oil extraction method in practice by denying
permits in droves with little fanfare. … [Fracking has]
long been a controversial method because of what climate
activists see as unacceptable dangers, including the
possibility that it can contaminate groundwater.
While the U.S. Forest Service pours resources into a runaway
battle on wildfire, it is losing the
war over water. About half of Western
water supply originates on national forest
land. But before that water reaches the West’s
major cities or great rivers, much
of it has already been claimed. Thousands of
farmers, ranchers, cities, housing developments and
industrial users pump water from the ground, channel
it away from streams into ditches or pipelines, and hold it
back in ponds and reservoirs — all to use public
water, often for private purposes.
The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday
approved a bipartisan bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Blake Moore
(R-UT) to better manage conservation efforts for saline lake
ecosystems and migratory birds in the West. … The Saline
Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act of 2021,
H.R. 5345, which Rep. Moore introduced on Sept. 23 with lead
original cosponsor U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), would
authorize the director of the United States Geological Survey
(USGS) to establish a regional program to assess, monitor and
benefit the hydrology of saline lakes in the Great Basin …
The simple way to think about this crisis: There’s no longer
enough water to go around to meet the needs of farmers and
Native American populations as well as fish and birds. For more
than a century, the federal government has overseen an
intricate and imperfect system of water distribution intended
to sustain an ecosystem and an economy. The whole precarious
balance was based on the assumption that enough snow would
always fall…
When you see a constant stream of water heading into the sewer
drain stemming from a pipe leak, do you ever wonder how much of
it is wasted water? Chances are, the amount of water going down
the drain isn’t being tracked. At the same time, Californians
are being asked to conserve water during a severe
drought.
Signature-gathering has begun to place an initiative on the
2022 ballot that would force the legislature to fund more water
storage in California. But even supporters admit, the success
of the measure may depend on the weather. With many reservoirs
in the state drying up and no guarantee of a wet winter, some
Central Valley farmers and Southern California water districts
are pushing an initiative called the ‘Water Infrastructure
Funding Act of 2022.’
San Francisco’s robust water supply, long unruffled by the
severe dry spell now in its second year, has finally begun to
feel the pinch of drought, and city water managers are
recognizing it may be time to cut back. Officials at the San
Francisco Public Utilities Commission plan to ask city
residents and businesses to reduce water use by 5%, compared to
two years ago, and ask the more than two dozen communities that
buy water from the city to reduce water use nearly 14%….The
planned cutbacks are part of a water shortage emergency that
the SFPUC’s governing board is looking to declare at its
meeting Tuesday.
Crescent City’s water and sewer customers who didn’t pay for
their water over a 15-month period during the pandemic will
likely have those delinquent notices waived. From March 4, 2020
to June of this year, there were 334 accounts past due, for a
total of $71,984.60. … On November 15, the city council
authorized City Manager Eric Wier to apply for funding to pay
off those bills. The funding will come from $985 million that
the State of California received under the American
Rescue Plan Act passed by Congress in March.
Another set of comments critical of how San Joaquin Valley
groundwater plans will impact drinking water wells dropped on
Friday from the powerful State Water Resources Control Board.
The comments focused on plans that cover the City of Fresno and
many surrounding towns as well as Visalia and a number of
smaller towns in Tulare County. Specifically, it commented on
plans covering most of the Kings and Kaweah subbasins.
The Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District has filed a
request for a hearing in its lawsuit against the city of
Tehachapi. But according to its general manager, Tom Neisler,
the filing made in Kern County Superior Court on Nov. 9 is
procedural and does not mean that a hearing is imminent.
Challenging the city of Tehachapi’s Sept. 7 approval of the
Sage Ranch project, the district filed suit on Sept. 16,
claiming that the city violated multiple state laws in its
approval of the planned development.
Droughts come and go routinely in the Golden State, including
the last which stretched from 2012 to 2016, but long-term
solutions rarely seem to follow. Once the atmospheric rivers
finally return to mercifully fill up Shasta Lake and Lake
Oroville, the thirst for change evaporates. … But one thing
is glaringly different this time around: California’s coffers
are overflowing, creating an opportunity for the nation’s most
populous state to renovate and prep its outdated water systems
for climate change.
The West could be facing a water shortage in the Colorado River
that threatens a century-old agreement between states that
share the dwindling resource. That possibility once felt far
off, but could come earlier than expected. One prominent water
and climate scientist is sounding the alarm that the Colorado
River system could reach that crossroads in the next five
years, possibly triggering an unpredictable chain-reaction of
legal wrangling that could lead to some water users being cut
off from the river.
Many water management and regulation decisions require an
understanding of current and future hydrology. These
include regulatory decisions on new water rights, plans and
design for habitat restoration projects, long-lived water
infrastructure (conveyance, storage, and levees, etc.), water
demands (orchards and vines), groundwater sustainability plans
and policies, negotiating long-term agreements and contracts
among water agencies and water users, etc.
The Chino Basin Conjunctive Use Environmental Water
Storage/Exchange Program met the statutory deadline to ensure
progress and remain eligible for Water Storage Investment
Program (WSIP) funding. Proposition 1, the Water Quality,
Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, requires
all WSIP applicants to complete their feasibility studies,
release a draft version of their environmental documents for
public review, provide the DWR director documentation of
commitments for at least 75 percent of the non-program funding,
and have the California Water Commission find their project
feasible no later than January 1, 2022.
Say this for Central Valley Republicans and Big Ag backers:
When it comes to proposing water projects that benefit Central
Valley farmers at the expense of urban users and the state’s
fragile environment, they are as persistent as an annoying,
leaky faucet. The most glaring example is the ongoing and
thus-far unsuccessful push for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta tunnels … The latest scheme comes in the form of a
proposed 2022 ballot measure that would require 2% of
California’s general fund — about $4 billion a year — be set
aside to fast-track water projects with limited environmental
review.
Developers in central and southern Marin County could be
required to pay tens of thousands of dollars in new fees or add
water-saving upgrades to their projects under a proposal to
reduce demand on water supplies. After facing the potential of
running out of water during the drought, the Marin Municipal
Water District board is considering requiring future projects
in its jurisdiction to have a net-zero demand on reservoirs.
The Biden administration took action Thursday to restore
federal protections for hundreds of thousands of small streams,
wetlands and other waterways, undoing a Trump-era rule that was
considered one of that administration’s hallmark environmental
rollbacks. At issue is a regulation sometimes referred to as
“waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, that defines the types
of waterways qualifying for federal protection under the Clean
Water Act.
Despite recent rain, California is still in the depths of a
drought. Conditions have improved, but barely. Most of the
state is still in exceptional or extreme drought. In the
South Bay, a million residents will soon be hit with the
toughest water restrictions of any major urban area in
California. Late Wednesday, the state PUC gave final
approval to San Jose Water Company’s plan. Approval
by state regulators means the call to cut water use is no
longer voluntary for South Bay residents.
The state’s water agency lambasted groundwater plans drafted by
some of California’s largest and most powerful agricultural
water suppliers in the San Joaquin Valley, indicating that they
fail to protect drinking water supplies from over-pumping. The
four large groundwater basins at stake underlie stretches of
San Joaquin, Merced, Madera and Fresno counties that are home
to nearly 800,000 people and more than a million acres of
irrigated agriculture.
The Colorado River is a vital lifeline for the arid U.S.
Southwest. … Southwestern states, tribes and Mexico share the
Colorado’s water under the century-old 1922 Colorado Compact
and updates to it. But today, because of climate change and
rapid development, there is an enormous gap between the amount
of water the compact allocates to parties and the amount that
is actually in the river. With users facing unprecedented water
shortages, the compact is hopelessly inadequate to deal with
current and future realities.
-Written by Daniel Craig McCool, Professor Emeritus of
Political Science at the University of Utah.
The recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
(Act) may help ease varied water concerns across the country,
especially in the West in regard to its supply issues.
… Most notably for those in the West, the Act allocates
significant funds to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
(Reclamation) to support and improve the critical water-related
infrastructure on which millions of Americans rely.
Apply by Dec. 7 for our 2022 Water
Leaders class and be part of the cohort that will mark the
25th anniversary of California’s pre-eminent water leadership
program. The Water Leaders class, which started in 1997, is
aimed at providing a deeper understanding of California
water issues and building leadership skills by working with a
mentor, studying a water-related topic in-depth
and crafting policy recommendations on that topic
with your cohort.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the California Public Utilities
Commission gave final approval for San Jose Water Company to
put in place the first drought restrictions in its service area
since 2016, during California’s last major drought, and the
most stringent rules in any major city in California.
Pasadena City officials are suing Caltech over allegations that
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which the university runs,
contaminated the local groundwater supply through its rocket
research, Pasadena Now reported. A test of the city’s
groundwater found it contained toxic chemicals, including
perchlorate and carbon tetrachloride, according to the
magazine. High levels of perchlorate could lead to both thyroid
and lung issues, while carbon tetrachloride is considered a
possible carcinogenic to humans.
Hoori Ajami, groundwater hydrologist Q: What will happen
to the Central Valley, in terms of groundwater and sinkholes,
if farmers continue to grow highly water intensive crops?
A: If farmers continue to pump groundwater at the current rate
and do not implement any conservation measures such as managed
aquifer recharge, the land subsidence issues become worse. The
groundwater levels will drop so far it will not be economically
feasible to pump groundwater anymore. The Central Valley
aquifer system is already amongst the top three highly depleted
aquifer systems in the country.
Earlier this year, a hacker breached a California water
treatment plant and removed programs used to clean water. In
another incident that made national headlines, a hacker gained
remote access to a Florida treatment plant and increased the
amount of lye in the treatment process – a change that a plant
employee fortunately noticed and quickly corrected.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Waterkeeper filed a complaint in
the Central District of California against Senior Operations
LLC for violating the Clean Water Act and California’s Storm
Water Permit. In the complaint, the plaintiff states it is a
California non-profit public benefit corporation dedicated to
the preservation, protection and defense of the environment,
wildlife and natural resources of Los Angeles’ surface
waters.
Californians are still lagging behind Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
drought-emergency plea to use less water. Urban residents
reduced water consumption by just 3.9% in September, compared
with a year earlier, according to data released Tuesday by the
State Water Resources Control Board. The August figure was a
slightly better 5.1%. … The Sacramento area conservation
figures were worse than the statewide average: Residents used
2% less water in September compared with the year before,
according to the Sacramento Regional Water Authority.
Benton Harbor, Mich., recently became the latest community
where persistent lead contamination in drinking water drew
national attention. Media attention to this problem is good,
but when it’s in another community or neighborhood, too many of
us simply shrug. The truth, however, is that such contamination
is much more widespread than the few pockets the public hears
about. It’s a serious problem here in California.
-Written by Jenn Engstrom, director of California
Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG); and Susan
Little, senior advocate for the California Government
Affairs Environmental Working Group.
State officials have a “grim” outlook for California’s
winter-run Chinook salmon along the Sacramento River. The
deepening drought and rising temperatures are exhausting agency
resources for managing the species to prevent extinction, and
with long-term forecasts predicting little precipitation for
Northern California in the months ahead, the state is making
plans for worst-case scenarios and an emergency overhaul of
water management in California.
There are times when the simplest solution to a tight situation
is to simply buy your way out. It doesn’t often present that
way in a public utility project, but when it does, the benefits
can be overwhelmingly persuasive. Such was the case when
Michael Grisso, City of Tustin’s Water Services Manager, joined
OCWA for its October webinar to discuss the Simon Ranch
Reservoir and Pump Station Replacement Project. Accompanied by
Joseph C. Blum, Sr. Project Manager, Butier Engineering, Inc.,
the two discussed at length the unique circumstances they
overcame while upgrading the aged infrastructure.
Three years ago, a 26,600-acre ranch in remote Northern
California, with a 10-bedroom lodge, 16 miles of riverfront and
two herds of Roosevelt elk was drawing attention in the
nation’s luxury real estate market. … As it turns out, the
$25 million plot on the Eel River, which spans both Mendocino
and Trinity counties, will go to a conservation group. The
Wildlands Conservancy closed escrow on the tract Tuesday and
plans to turn this mostly untamed stretch of mountains and
valleys into a preserve open to the public.
Flowserve US Inc., a provider of industrial pumps, seals and
valves, was hit with an environmental lawsuit Monday in
California Central District Court. The complaint, filed by
California Coastkeeper on behalf of Los Angeles Waterkeeper,
accuses the defendant of discharging metal-polluted water into
the Los Angeles River without authorization in violation of the
Clean Water Act. Counsel have not yet appeared for the
defendant. The case is 2:21-cv-08950, Los Angeles Waterkeeper
v. Flowserve US, Inc.
Hailed as a complex and historic step, Sonoma County
supervisors on Tuesday unanimously endorsed plans to guide use
and governance of groundwater relied on by rural residents,
farmers and cities. The plans, required by a 2014 state law
crafted amid California’s past drought, will eventually include
well water use fees in three basins underlying the Santa Rosa
Plain and Sonoma and Petaluma valleys.
Two and a half years after signing a deal aimed at averting a
damaging crisis along the Colorado River, water officials from
California, Arizona and Nevada are discussing plans to take
even less water from the shrinking river and leave it in Lake
Mead in an effort to prevent the reservoir from falling to
dangerously low levels. … For California, the deal would mean
participating in water reductions prior to Lake Mead reaching
levels that would otherwise trigger mandatory cuts.
Approximately 40 million people rely on the Colorado River for
water, 5% of them, or 2 million are in Nevada. However, the
state gets only 1.8% of the river’s water. How did this happen?
In 1922, Nevada signed onto the Colorado River Compact. It
divided the river between the upper basin (part of Arizona,
Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the lower basin
(the rest of Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico).
… Nevada getting the least, while more than half of the
water goes to two states: California and Colorado.
Six years ago, I traded a house with a big grassy yard for one
landscaped with gravel and cactuses. I’ve held on to the
memories of tea time on the lawn with my daughter and our
barefoot games of chase on the prickly turf, cool even on the
hottest days in Phoenix. Opinions to start the day, in your
inbox. Sign up. But whenever I feel nostalgic, I think about a
monthly water bill that could push $400. I also think about the
waste. Growing grass in the parched Southwest is an act of
defiance — against nature and common sense. -Written by Fernanda Santos, a Washington Post
contributing columnist and a journalism professor at
Arizona State University.
Despite pleas to conserve water during a historic drought,
Californians have not saved much at all this year. But there
are exceptions. We look at how Healdsburg dramatically cut its
water use.
The Solano Irrigation District is anticipating having less
water – about 1 acre-foot per acre – to deliver to its
agriculture customers in 2022. The SID directors on Tuesday
will receive a presentation on the preliminary agriculture
water allocation for the new season. … Part of the issue, the
report states, is the district’s carryover supply is down, as
well as delivery needs to Maine Prairie during this past
season.
A critical Utah water project will get millions from the
congressional infrastructure spending bill. Sen. Mitt Romney,
R-UT, worked on the bipartisan legislation and received thanks
Friday afternoon in southern Utah County from local officials
and water managers. They met in Spanish Fork and toured a
construction site for a portion of the Central Utah Project — a
decades-long project that pipes Colorado River water to the
Wasatch Front. It’s getting a $50 million boost, but was almost
left out of the final bill, according to Romney.
Countries across the world are coming together in Glasgow for
COP26 to discuss how the world will address our climate crisis.
…The time for action is now, and as the largest historical
contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, the United States has
a moral and practical responsibility to reach net zero
emissions by or before 2050. … In California, we are
facing a nearly year-round threat of wildfires that has been
exacerbated by the effects of climate change. This year, we are
entering a new drought, which will only increase the threat of
these fires. -Written by Assemblymember Richard Bloom, a
Democrat from Santa Monica representing the 50th Assembly
District.
AT&T-owned Pacific Bell will remove two large, defunct
telephone cables from the bottom of Lake Tahoe, following an
agreement reached in federal court in response to a California
environmental nonprofit’s legal complaint. The California
Sportfishing Protection Alliance filed a complaint this January
against Pacific Bell Telephone Co., arguing that the presence
of PacBell submarine telephone lines on the west side of Lake
Tahoe violates federal and state environmental rules.
As the Sacramento River Basin pursues ridgetop to river mouth
water management, the Public Policy Institute of California
(PPIC) Water Policy Center has recently published its
Priorities for California’s Water: Responding to the Changing
Climate. The authors of the new brief have stated that: “the
current drought and a changing climate are affecting
California’s ability to manage water, offering a stark reminder
that we must accelerate our response to the disruptive changes
underway.
There are no shortages of critical issues facing Oakdale
Irrigation District in central California. As the
state looks to take 40% of the district’s springtime river
flows, district directors are searching for their next water
champion. … In October the State of California informed
OID and five other water districts, including the City and
County of San Francisco, that it would no longer negotiate over
stream flow agreements commonly known as “voluntary
agreements.” Under these coerced negotiations, the state seeks
to take 40% of river flows…
As California’s drought continues and temperatures creep up
into the 90s in Northridge and Chatsworth, the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power is sponsoring two free workshops
in Northridge to help residents learn how to reduce their water
usage when landscaping. Two “Lawn Be Gone” workshops on
Saturday, Nov. 13, and Saturday, Nov. 20 will teach residents
how to remove turf without chemicals and install sustainable
landscaping, incorporate low water-use native California
plants, capture and recycle rainwater, install efficient drip
irrigation, mulch to make healthy soil, and more.
In 2014, the California Farm Federation warned of “huge
long-term economic impacts” if Gov. Jerry Brown signed the
package of bills that comprised the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act and put groundwater under state regulation for
the first time in California history. … It’s happening now.
Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are idling so many thousands
of acres that the region is now facing an issue of dust
control.
The beaver in Holsworth’s neighborhood created a habitat that’s
in critical demand in drought-stricken California. Over the
last couple of decades, researchers have amassed evidence of
beaver’ benefits in ecological restoration and of their native
role in the state’s natural landscape. But the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife still operates under beaver
legislation that hasn’t substantially changed since 1981. Under
these regulations, property owners can only remove the dams or
kill the beaver.
Homes of all sizes across Marin reflect investments incurred
over years to create and maintain yards that not only bring
homeowners great pleasure but, importantly, add property
value whether the property is small or large. If the Marin
Municipal Water District Board of Directors has its way, we are
alarmingly close to losing yards and greenery that are a core
part of the beauty of Marin. -Written by Rosy Rogers, of Larkspur, a writer and
editor who worked as a corporate marketing chief in the biotech
space.
An obscure north Sacramento water district has been accused by
a grand jury of neglecting millions of dollars in overdue
repairs, failing to inform customers quickly about chemical
contamination, operating largely in secret and even ignoring a
directive by the county’s top prosecutor on the proper
procedures for awarding an engineering contract. Del Paso Manor
Water District is the subject of a blistering report this week
by the Sacramento County Grand Jury, which said the tiny agency
is “flooded with public safety dangers.”
States in the lower Colorado River basin are developing a $100
million plan that will leave more water in Lake Mead over the
next couple of years. The goal is to keep the lake from hitting
a critical level that would leave the reservoir more vulnerable
to rapid decline. … The negotiations between Nevada,
Arizona, California and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for
additional reductions in water use come just months
after the federal government declared Lake Mead’s
first water shortage.
How much groundwater is rural Arizona using? Good question.
There are basically no regulations on pumping outside of the
state’s five Active Management Areas. So, whoever has the
deepest well wins – an approach that is steadily draining
aquifers all over the state. -Written by Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic
columnist.
California’s largest groundwater agency has sued 3M Co, Corteva
Inc, the Chemours Co and other manufacturers and sellers of
industrial and consumer products over claims they contain a
toxic chemical that polluted drinking water in Los Angeles. The
Water Replenishment District of Southern California (WRD),
which oversees drinking water supplied to 43 cities in Los
Angeles County, alleges in a complaint made public Tuesday that
the companies knew products ranging from firefighting foam to
textiles and non-stick cookware would pollute groundwater …
The Del Paso Manor Water District is under fire by the
Sacramento County Grand Jury due to a wave of concerns ranging
from water contamination to aging infrastructure and even not
complying with California’s monitoring requirements. According
to a Sacramento County’s news release, the formal complaint
comes after a seven-month investigation into the water
district. County officials say that the water district failed
to complete $35 million in repairs and upgrades that could lead
to potential failure for the entire water complex.
A California water district on Monday asked the Ninth
Circuit to reject environmentalist groups’ bid to revive a
suit aimed at securing more water releases from a dam for a
protected trout’s benefit.
Cyberattacks on organizations worldwide surged 40% in 2021.
September 2021 broke records for the number of weekly
cyberattacks, topping all other months since January 2020.
Currently, one out of every 61 organizations worldwide is
impacted by ransomware attacks every week. Given this
ever-increasing threat level, a national law requiring critical
infrastructure organizations to report cybersecurity incidents
to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
is on the horizon.
You turn on the tap and expect clean water. But what exactly is
in that water? Analysts at EWG, a nonprofit environmental
group, found a number of chemicals that are known to cause
cancer. … EWG has a new tap-water database. Analysis of Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power water found the level of
arsenic 430 times its own EWG recommendation. It also found
chromium at 29 times recommended levels, and acids from
disinfectants at 184 times.
If you replaced your grass and switched to a water-resistant
garden, then you can learn Tuesday night about how to take
advantage of savings. Join the West Basin Municipal Water
District at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday for an interactive virtual
discussion with water efficiency experts who will answer your
questions about the district’s grass replacement rebate
application process.
It appears a new Kern River Watermaster will be chosen to
replace Dana Munn, whose contract winds up at the end of this
year. If he’s officially approved by all the voting members of
the “river interests,” Mark Mulkay will likely become the
fourth ever Kern River Watermaster. He said he’s discussed it
with all the parties and let them know he wants the job. Other
sources confirmed that the river interests, entities that hold
rights to the Kern River, have unofficially agreed on Mulkay as
incoming Watermaster.
Storing water in reservoirs is important for maintaining
freshwater ecosystem health and protecting native species.
Stored water also is essential for adapting to the changing
climate, especially warming and drought intensification. Yet,
reservoir operators often treat environmental objectives as a
constraint, rather than as a priority akin to water deliveries
for cities and farms.
One key takeaway: The situation around water is dire – more
dire than it has ever been before. Yet, as the Fourth Annual
CSU Spur Water in the West Symposium convened experts from
across the country on Wednesday, the focus was on learning from
one another’s successes and finding solutions at-scale to water
issues. The Water in the West Symposium was launched in
2018 as an early offering of the CSU Spur campus, set
to open its first public-facing building in Denver this
January.
For more than two decades the small Tulare County community of
Tooleville has been without a secure supply of safe drinking
water. The simplest solution would be to connect the town’s
water system to that of its neighbor, the City of Exeter. It
would take less than a mile of pipe to get it done. But years
of red tape and failed negotiations have kept the consolidation
from taking place.
North Bay water suppliers are partnering to create what would
essentially be a water banking system to draw from during times
of drought – and replenish when supplies are ample. The
Sonoma Water agency has already begun the work to bring three
existing wells in the Santa Rosa Plain online to supply another
source of water to Marin and its other customers in response to
the drought. The agency has reactivated these wells for every
drought since 1977, but now plans to upgrade them for the first
time to allow water to be injected back into them.
Pleasanton will officially learn Friday whether it will succeed
in its efforts to lower the number of housing units it must
plan for in the years to come. The odds do not appear to be in
the city’s favor. Pleasanton was one of 27 local governments to
appeal their Regional Housing Needs Allocation to the
Association of Bay Area Governments, a planning agency that
focuses on finding regional solutions to issues such as
housing, water or environmental matters.
Farmer Erik Herman said he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of
remorse as he looked out over the dirt field where an orchard
of 8,000 fig trees stood until earlier this month, when they
were uprooted by bulldozers in the name of conservation. The
orchard, seven miles outside Madera in the sprawling San
Joaquin Valley, is another casualty of the water shortage that
is forcing farmers in the nation’s top-producing agricultural
region to abandon otherwise fertile ground en masse.
In the short span of two years, Kings Subbasin
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies in California’s Central
Valley have invested in 600 acres of prime
groundwater recharge land. This land represents 15 dedicated
basins that are constructed or in development. There are
thousands of landowners and many communities that overlie the
Kings Subbasin that are dependent on the subbasin’s groundwater
supply.
In a lawsuit over century-old pollution from a defunct gas
plant, two lawyers urged a federal judge Wednesday to adopt
their interpretations of what historic business records say
about Pacific Gas and Electric’s liability for potential
groundwater contamination. … [Attorney Stuart] Gross
represents plaintiff Dan Clarke, a former San Francisco
resident seeking a court order that would force PG&E to
investigate and clean up contamination allegedly left by the
Cannery gas plant, which was owned and operated by PG&E’s
predecessors from 1899 to 1903.
The Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District received a
six-figure federal allotment to bolster conservation efforts
involving farmers and ranchers amid the worsening drought in
California, it was announced Wednesday, Oct. 27. … The
WaterSMART Initiative is part of a collaborative strategy by
the NRCS’ parent agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture…
Despite the pre-Halloween “atmospheric river” that dumped
nearly 8 trillion gallons of rain in Northern and Central
California, reservoirs feeding the Las Virgenes Municipal Water
District saw relatively little precipitation. Local communities
got less than 1 inch. As the state endures a second year
of a drought that’s brought below average snowpack, record high
temperatures and lower than expected runoff, the water district
has put a call out to its 75,000 customers telling them they’ll
have to do more with less.
On Oct. 27, in a victory for tribes in Northern California,
Fresno County Superior Court Judge D. Tyler Tharpe rejected a
Trump-era water contract between the federal Bureau of
Reclamation and Westlands Water District, the public entity in
charge of distributing water to farms in California’s San
Joaquin Valley. … The contract would have given
Westlands permanent access to 1.15 million acre-feet of water
from the Trinity River … without ensuring that Westlands paid
an estimated sixth of the $400 million it owed the Bureau of
Reclamation for ecosystem restoration.
Water is central to how California adapts to a changing
climate. To those of us steeped in the complexities of managing
the state’s water resources, the current fast-moving
drought—coming on the heels of the record-breaking 2012–16
drought—is a stark reminder that we must accelerate preparation
for the disruptive changes underway.
State voters broadly approved a constitutional amendment
guaranteeing New Yorkers the right to “clean air and water and
a healthful environment” …. While it mirrors
legislation adopted by Pennsylvania and a handful of other
states, its New York roots are in the Capital
Region: Following the crisis over toxic contamination in
Hoosick Falls, residents and advocacy groups statewide demanded
a constitutional right to clean water.
The California Water Commission staff asked a group of informed
stakeholders and experts about “how to shape well-managed
groundwater trading programs with appropriate safeguards for
communities, ecosystems, and farms.” I submitted the following
essay in response to a set of questions. In general, setting up
functioning and fair markets is a more complex process than
many proponents envision.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration has signaled its desire
to go ahead with rigid fish flow increases despite the
deepening drought and hydrology changes in precipitating
patterns the state’s own experts are anticipating. The state
last week abruptly broke off negotiations with agencies
representing water users on the Stanislaus, Merced, and
Tuolumne watersheds regarding its desire to implement new fish
flows that will essentially reduce water available for urban
and farm uses.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the
largest supplier of treated water in the country, is admitting
to FOX 11 that it wasted hundreds of thousands of gallons of
water or more. … At a time when MWD asked residents to
cut back, FOX 11 learned irrigation just at MWD headquarters
jumped by 854,216 gallons. To be clear, those aren’t massive
numbers, but it is enough to supply dozens of families with a
year’s worth of water.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service today for failing to protect two populations
of imperiled speckled dace under the Endangered Species Act.
The Service failed to make required decisions on protection for
the Santa Ana speckled dace, in Southern California, and the
Long Valley speckled dace in Mono County, which is nearing
extinction in the wild.
Colorado water managers are making more people track and report
how much water they’re using, as decades of drought have
diminished supplies on the Western Slope. For the first time,
the state is also pushing for new rules that spell out how some
rights-holders should measure their water use as each drop of
Colorado River water becomes more valuable. Kevin Rein,
director of the Colorado Division of Water Resources, presented
the rules to a full house at Jackson County’s event center in
Walden.
If Fifth District residents passively let development interests
lead the way, expanded viticulture and associated sales,
planned communities, depletion of groundwater, traffic, gravel
mining, etc, will overtake our landscape. We will lose the
beauty of open space, natural habitat and the bit of solitude
still left to very early risers. The bridge now being built
over Scotty Creek at Gleason Beach is a glaring example of
things to come, as cement and pavement, rather than natural
methods for shoreline stabilization, is apparently the County’s
preferred solution—economically and politically—to sea level
rise. -Written by local activists Richard Retecki and Laura
Morgan.
The Calif. Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced the
release of the program guidelines and proposal solicitation
package to distribute $200 million in funding available through
the Urban and Multibenefit Drought Relief Grant Program.
Designed to help communities facing the loss or contamination
of their water supplies due to drought, the Urban and
Multibenefit Drought Relief Grant Program aims to address
immediate drought impacts on human health and safety, protect
fish and wildlife resources and provide other public benefits,
such as ecosystem improvements.
The Newsom administration has informed regional water districts
that it will move forward with a plan to increase flows from
San Joaquin River tributaries in an action that may create more
water uncertainty for farmers. A notice from the California
Natural Resources Agency and state Environmental Protection
Agency represents a departure from the state’s earlier
willingness to consider voluntary agreements with water
districts, which includes aspects other than just flow
increases.
The Atascadero Mutual Water Company is suing three prominent
companies after chemicals linked to cancer and other health
conditions were found in wells that supply drinking water to
the city. The water utility’s product liability lawsuit, filed
Oct. 15 in San Luis Obispo Superior Court, aims to recover
damages from 3M Co., DuPont and Chemours Co., which use the
chemicals. Known as “forever chemicals,” perfluoroalkyl and
polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in manufacturing and
have appeared in products such as Teflon cookware, firefighting
foam, cosmetics and water- and stain-resistant products since
the 1940s …
On October 27, Fresno Superior Court Judge D. Tyler Tharpe
tossed out the Westlands Water District’s proposed
permanent federal water contract from the Central Valley
Project that would have allocated roughly double the amount of
water from Northern California that Los Angeles residents use
in a year. Tharpe found Westlands, the largest
federal irrigation district in the nation, to have “misled
the court and the public,” according to a statement from
the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations
(PCFFA), one of the organizations that joined in the lawsuit
against Westlands.
California’s water history flows across my farm in the North
State community of Oroville. A canal carved in the early 1990s
passes beneath my olive groves. It was an extension of original
conveyance systems inspired by gold seekers, who fashioned one
of California’s earliest water delivery systems in the 1890s on
the Feather River, near my home. … Now, as president of
the California Farm Bureau, I am fighting to uphold and restore
the promise of sustainable water delivery in my
state. -Written by Jaime Johansson, president of the California
Farm Bureau
Dam owners sometimes consider dam removal as a policy option to
address dam safety, ecosystem restoration, or other concerns.
The National Inventory of Dams (NID) lists more than 90,000
dams in the United States, many of which function as part of
the nation’s water infrastructure and provide benefits (e.g.,
flood control, hydroelectric power, recreation, navigation, and
water supply). Stakeholders may consider the removal of a dam
for various reasons—for example, if a certain dam requires
major dam safety modifications or no longer provides its
intended benefits.
A delegation of 15 state lawmakers is joining a conference of
world leaders in Scotland to discuss climate change solutions.
As leaders of the world’s 5th largest economy, their
participation is important, but it’s more urgent for them to
act once they return. … The climate is already changing.
This summer was California’s hottest on record, after the
2010s were the hottest decade ever. California just
experienced its driest year in a century. Every corner of
the state faces severe drought. -Written by Mike Young, the political and
organizing director for California Environmental
Voters.
The big storm that dumped rain and snow on northern Nevada did
not relieve us from our severe drought. All that rain in Reno
and Sparks quickly filled the Truckee River but most of it is
just surface runoff. Every drop of that water in the Truckee is
already spoken for, no matter how high or low the water levels.
… Jim Litchfield who is a former surface water
hydrologist says not everyone getting a fair cut of the water.
A proposed statewide ballot measure could save a highly
controversial desalination plant proposed in Huntington Beach,
if it gets shot down next year by the California Coastal
Commission — what’s viewed as the project’s tallest regulatory
hurdle. The measure is being pushed by at least two prominent,
Orange County water officials with either past ties to Poseidon
or a history of advocating for desalination in
general.
June Moua started growing cherries, tomatoes and grapes in east
Fresno County 10 years ago. Now she grows a few different types
of crops. But her most profitable are the water-intensive Asian
greens like mustard greens and bok choy. … She says she
learned how to farm from her father when she was younger. Since
then, she’s learned even more through trial and error. She
enjoys bringing these Southeast Asian crops to farmers markets
in Los Angeles, but the drought has put her in a tough
position.
If you want to see the future of California fill up your tank
with $4.80 per gallon gasoline and take the Golden State
autobahn better known as Interstate 5 and head 160
miles south to Kettleman City. It’s slightly bigger than
the proverbial wide spot on the road. It is home to around
1,200 souls of which most are in households where often both
parents toil in fields sometimes along with their teen-age
children who join them during summers, weekends, and even after
school. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, managing editor of the Manteca
Bulletin.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has extended the drought emergency statewide
and called on all Californians to redouble their efforts to
conserve water. His call to action is critical even with the
storms that recently soaked California, because we know that a
lot more rain and snow will be needed to lift the state out of
the drought. The Governor’s approach to statewide conservation
is laudable, as well, because it continues to empower water
managers with matching local water supply conditions with
conservation, rather than relying on statewide mandates. -Written by Steve LaMar, President of the
Association of California Water Agencies; and Sean
Bigley, chair of the Regional Water Authority and
Assistant Environmental Utilities Director for the City of
Roseville.
Exeter, less than a mile away … has refused to connect
Tooleville to its water system. The engineering is simple:
0.7 miles of pipe. The human risk of not doing it is high.
Tooleville water is contaminated with the carcinogen hexavalent
chromium (chrom-6), and sometimes nitrates linked to
agriculture and bacteria….Among a slew of water bills signed
in September was one inspired largely by Tooleville’s struggle.
Called the “proactive water solutions bill,” SB 403 gives the
state the power to mandate and fund consolidation when there is
an at-risk water system.
For nearly three years, some of California’s biggest water
users, including San Francisco, have been quietly meeting with
the state to figure out how much water they should be taking
from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries. The talks were
launched to prevent some of California’s mightiest rivers from
drying up, and keep fish populations from disappearing, while
still allowing cities and farms to draw the supplies they need.
The vision was nothing short of a grand compromise on divvying
up California’s water. But late last week, the state
conceded the negotiations had failed.
A California judge has declined to validate a contract granting
permanent access to federally controlled water for the nation’s
largest agricultural water supplier, a move that means the U.S.
government is not bound by terms of the deal. Environmentalists
had blasted the contract between the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
and the Westlands Water District as a sweetheart arrangement
designed to benefit corporate agricultural interests over
environmental needs and taxpayers. It was crafted during the
Trump administration under then-Interior Secretary David
Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for Westlands …
Re “California should create more water – much more“;
Commentary, Oct. 28, 2021 There is an answer to Jim Wunderman’s
position that “state and federal governments should commit to
creating 1.75 million acre feet – about 25% of California’s
current urban water use – of new water from desalination and
wastewater recycling by the end of this decade”: the Water
Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022, a constitutional initiative
proposed for the November 2022 state ballot. -Written by Shawn Dewane, vice president of the
Mesa Water District; Edward Ring, co-founder of the
California Policy Center; Stephen Sheldon, president
of the Orange County Water District; Geoffrey Vanden
Heuvel, director of regulatory and economic affairs for the
California Milk Producers Council; Wayne Western
Jr., board director of the California Farm Water
Coalition.
A new water management program is being proposed for the
Trinity River to help dwindling salmon populations. The Yurok
Tribe helped develop the plan through its participation in the
Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP), which is comprised of
tribal, state, and federal agencies, and then submitted it to
the Bureau of Reclamation for approval where it currently lies.
The new water release plan will shift some of the water
normally released from Lewiston Dam in late spring to the
winter and early spring, which will create conditions that more
closely mimic a free-flowing river.
The Biden administration today moved to rescind Trump
administration policies that crimped the designation of
critical habitat to protect threatened or endangered species.
In a pair of long-anticipated moves, the Fish and Wildlife
Service and NOAA Fisheries proposed getting rid of a Trump-era
definition of critical habitat under the Endangered Species
Act. FWS is also proposing to end a policy that made it easier
to exclude territory. Taken together, the two proposed rule
changes could significantly alter the much-litigated ESA
landscape and, supporters say, enhance conservation and
recovery of vulnerable animals or plants.
If California American Water Co. was trying to delay an
intergovernmental agency’s vote to allow efforts by the
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District to move forward in
its effort to acquire the assets of Cal Am, as many people
charged on Monday night, it worked. Unanimous votes from
appointed commissioners of the Local Agency Formation
Commission of Monterey County, or LAFCO, continued any decision
on prerequisites needed for a buyout until Dec. 6 following the
submission of hundreds of pages of documents, leaving
commissioners little time to review them before Monday’s
meeting.
The recent storms allowed California to suspend the drought
curtailment orders that had been imposed during the summer.
Cities and irrigation districts now are free to capture river
runoff that had been unavailable because of the orders.
Officials warned that they could fall back into place if the
state gets another stretch of dry weather.
Over the past decades there have been many “Water” initiatives
or propositions presented to California’s voters. Some of them
have included such wet provisions as funding for large public
soccer field complexes and most of them had more to do with
conservation and urban needs than increased storage and
infrastructure. They also relied heavily on bonds to fund
themselves. Two recent water propositions have brought and
dashed hope for Valley water needs: 2014’s Prop. 1 and 2018’s
Prop. 3. -Written by Don Wright, a contributor to The San
Joaquin Valley Sun and the publisher of
WaterWrights.net.
In the seven years Simon Hammel has lived in his Burbank home,
he says he’s replaced at least 60% of the grass that used to be
there. It’s now primarily mulch, drought-tolerant plants and
fruit and veggie trees. Hammel is trying his best to do as much
as he can to conserve water and live eco-friendly. … In July,
Gov. Gavin Newsom asked all Californians to reduce their water
use by 15%. The city of Burbank implemented a Sustainable Water
Use Ordinance, limiting residents outdoor watering systems to
three days a week, for 15 minutes — not including hand
watering.
Despite the rain that drenched central and northern California
recently, drought still casts a long shadow over the state. The
consequences of a multi-year water shortage are dire:
reservoirs that serve millions of people and massive swaths of
farmland are disappearing, hydroelectric dams are in danger of
losing power and wild salmon are facing mass die
outs….Stanford water experts Newsha Ajami, Rosemary
Knight, Felicia Marcus and Barton “Buzz”
Thompson discuss lessons learned from previous droughts,
imperatives for infrastructure investment and reasons for hope
in this arid era.
Wouldn’t you know it? Just like washing your car, almost the
moment I finished writing this article, the skies opened
up. I’d write one every day if it meant ending our water
woes. But it tells you everything you need to know about
California’s dire water situation – that the atmospheric river
that recently pummeled Northern California and other parts of
the state doesn’t even begin to make a dent in our drought. And
it highlights the urgency for California to create more water.
Much more. -Written by Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of
the Bay Area Council, a nonprofit public policy
organization.
World Resources Institute, Blue Forest Conservation, National
Forest Foundation, U.S. Forest Service, Yuba Water Agency and
the North Yuba Forest Partnership are pleased to announce the
launch of the second Forest Resilience Bond (FRB): the Yuba II
FRB. The new FRB on the Tahoe National Forest will finance $25
million in forest resilience and post-fire restoration projects
in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains to restore 48,000
forested acres, protect nearby communities, and enhance water
security.
The state is moving ahead with its proposal to boost flows on
the Tuolumne and nearby rivers, to the dismay of irrigation
districts and San Francisco. The reservoir releases are needed
to help fish and other wildlife on tributaries to the San
Joaquin River, two cabinet secretaries said in a letter
Thursday, Oct. 20. The water users contend that the releases
would take too much from farms and cities supplied by the
Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Merced rivers. They have instead
sought “voluntary agreements” that would increase reservoir
releases to some extent while enhancing fish habitat in other
ways, such as restoring spawning gravel for salmon.
[A] suite of federal, state, and local laws ostensibly
protect California’s watersheds from pollution, and volumes of
codes are dedicated specifically to safeguarding streams and
rivers from cattle. Yet through a variety of loopholes and
exemptions, and possibly agency languor, roaming cows have
access to many of the state’s waterways. Here, the animals
denude riverbanks, eliminate riparian habitat, and degrade
water quality. High concentrations of manure-born bacteria are
known to flow from Marin County cattle ranches into the waters
surrounding Point Reyes.
Despite a wet week so far all signs are pointing to yet another
year of drought, and the governor is putting more effort behind
his water conservation agenda. … Bolstering conservation
efforts, the proclamation enables the State Water Resources
Control Board to ban wasteful water practices, including the
use of potable water for washing sidewalks and driveways. The
governor issued an executive order in July calling on
Californians to voluntarily reduce water use by 15% compared to
2020 to protect water reserves and complement local
conservation mandates.
On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’re
discussing a four-part series by Capital & Main on the
disproportionate impact of California’s worsening drought on
communities of color and low-income people living in rural and
farming areas in California. Nearly 10 years ago, California
enacted the Human Right to Water Act to help beleaguered
communities in the state. This landmark legislation obligates
the state to work towards safe, clean, affordable and
accessible drinking water to the one million residents without
it. What is being done to provide rural communities with
affordable and clean water?
Wherever you get your drinking water, there’s a good chance it
contains some amount of tiny plastic pieces. There aren’t a lot
of rules or regulations around this particular pollutant
because it is considered an emerging contaminant, but that is
changing. Scott Coffin, a research scientist who works for
the State Water Resources Control Board, is proud of a recent
accomplishment: an official, streamlined process to monitor
microplastics in drinking water.
With so many extremes hitting California, the state is now
talking about Climate Insurance. The next disaster – combined
with a lack of insurance that many can’t afford and is getting
even more expensive – has the state considering a new
community-based approach to lower risk, and make sure more
people are protected against catastrophic weather events.
… Ideas to lower risk include building wetlands to store
water in floods, creating statewide hazard maps so residents
are clear on the risks where they live, and naming heatwaves
like hurricanes so people properly prepare.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has granted a
$224 million loan to the City of Los Angeles. The loan will be
used to fund a project that aims to purify wastewater and
replenish the depleted San Fernando Basin. The project, called
The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA),
aims to purify 15.5 million gallons of the city’s wastewater
every day, a move that would replenish both the basin and its
aquifers – a body of rock that can contain or transmit
groundwater.
Congressman David Valadao (R-21) sent a letter signed by
several other congress members requesting federal and state
emergency declarations in the wake of the drought and recent
storms in California. Valadao, with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-23)
and other Republican representatives sent a letter to President
Biden and Governor Newsom requesting that all limitations on
Delta pump operations be lifted to allow water from the recent
storm to be used to help the many farms that have been
devastated by the drought.
Two projects in the Water Storage Investment Program (WSIP),
the Los Vaqueros Reservoir Expansion Project and the Harvest
Water Program, met the statutory deadline to ensure progress
and remain eligible for WSIP funding. Proposition 1, the Water
Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014,
requires all WSIP applicants to complete their feasibility
studies, release a draft version of their environmental
documents for public review, provide the DWR director
documentation of commitments for at least 75 percent of the
non-program funding, and have the California Water Commission
find their project feasible no later than January 1, 2022.
Beginning in 2019, multiple retail water providers in Orange
County, California, elected to shut down several dozen
groundwater wells because they were found to contain low levels
of a class of contaminants known as perfluoroalkyl and
polyfluoroalkyl substances. In a region that depends heavily on
groundwater for its water supplies, the closures have proved
expensive… Following an extensive study of various methods of
removing PFAS from drinking water, the Orange County Water
District recently began operations at the first of more than 30
planned PFAS treatment facilities.
Most Marin County residents will be prohibited from turning on
their sprinklers and drip irrigation systems under new drought
restrictions starting in December. The Marin Municipal Water
District board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance
that bans residents from using outdoor irrigation systems
including overhead sprinklers and drip irrigation from Dec. 1
through May 31. Hand spot watering using a hose and spray
nozzle or a watering can is still allowed.
Local customers of California Water Service may soon face
enforcement actions against their use of outdoor irrigation if
state regulators give the company permission to advance to the
next phase of its water shortage contingency plan.
… Approval of Cal Water’s request would double fines for
customers watering outdoor landscapes more than two days per
week outside the hours of 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., unless local
ordinances say otherwise.
A federal judge on Friday struck down a Trump-era regulation
that limited the ability of states and Native American tribes
to regulate water pollution. For nearly half a century, EPA had
largely given states and tribes the authority to review and
certify Clean Water Act permits for federally approved projects
like dams and pipelines that discharge pollution within their
boundaries.
Between the late 1950s and 2008, Chevron disposed [fracking
wastewater] produced in Lost Hills in eight cavernous
impoundments at its Section 29 facility. Euphemistically called
“ponds,” the impoundments have a combined surface area of 26
acres and do not have synthetic liners to prevent leaking. That
meant that over time, salts and chemicals in the wastewater
could leak into the ground and nearby water sources like the
California Aqueduct, a network of canals that delivers water to
farms in the Central Valley and cities like Los Angeles. And
that’s exactly what happened, according to new research
…
Environmental advocates and a pair of Delta-centric water
agencies launched a suit seeking to halt water transfers to San
Joaquin Valley water users occurring in the late fall. It’s the
latest in a half-decade of litigation aimed at stopping all
water transfers – a key drought-era tool for parched Valley
water users – from water users awash with water north of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
[T]he extreme water scarcity plaguing [Mount Shasta Vista, in]
… far Northern California was not the result of
dwindling snowpack or plummeting reservoir levels. Instead, it
was due to a concerted government effort to “choke out” a
problem that had vexed Siskiyou County officials for years: the
illicit, large-scale cultivation of marijuana in a single
subdivision that is largely Asian. In the spring of this year,
county supervisors effectively outlawed the transportation of
water into a rural tract that had become known for its prolific
cultivation of pot, squalid living conditions and large
population of Hmong farmers.
A judge has vacated a Trump-era rule that limited states’
ability to review federally-permitted water projects. When the
federal government OKs a permit for a project that will
discharge into navigable waters, state governments have the
right to review the project to make sure it complies with state
laws. States can approve, modify or deny the permit. Former
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration issued new
rules that limited states’ ability to review these permits.
Attorneys general in California, Washington and New York led a
coalition of 21 states to sue to block this rule.
The advisory committee, established by the San Diego County
Local Agency Formation Commission to analyze applications from
the Fallbrook and Rainbow water districts to change water
suppliers, is expected to complete its work by the end of this
year and forward its recommendation to the full commission.
After enduring years of soaring water costs from the San Diego
County Water Authority and having to pay for infrastructure
projects that don’t serve the districts and that they don’t
need, Fallbrook Public Utility District and Rainbow Municipal
Water District are seeking to detach from the Water Authority
and begin purchasing their water at a reduced rate from Eastern
Municipal Water District.
A “dirt broker” whose prison sentence for illegally dumping
pollutants into protected wetlands was overturned by a federal
appeals court last year pleaded guilty to one count of
violating the Clean Water Act and agreed to serve one year of
probation, prosecutors confirmed Thursday. For a fee, James
Lucero provided trucking companies and contractors with an open
space to dump dirt and construction debris. Lucero’s dumping
sites were separated from Mowry Slough by a levee made of
packed dirt.
Cutting water use became a bit of a competition for retiree
John Diniakos and his wife Merrilyn Joyce after the city
mandated a 40% water restriction back in June.
… Diniakos and Joyce live in Healdsburg, in Sonoma
County. … Just like the rest of the state, Healdsburg is
gripped by drought. But the city is conserving at a much higher
rate than California overall. Healdsburg nearly cut its water
use in half in August, compared to the same time last year.
Californians overall saved just 5% …
Now California almond farmers and electric utilities, both of
which use massive amounts of water, can bet against the future
availability of water. And just last year, the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange started the first-ever futures market for
water, meaning farmers, as well as investors, municipalities
and hedge funds, can buy a legal agreement known as a “futures
contract” that locks in a predetermined price for water that
will be used in the future.
In what could be the final word on a prolonged effort to stop
construction of a new well outside Point Reyes Station, the
California Coastal Commission rejected an appeal by Inverness
Park resident Gordon Bennett. The commission declined to take
jurisdiction over the permit issued by Marin County to North
Marin Water District to build a new well on the Gallagher ranch
that would help make up for salinity intrusion at existing
wells on the former Coast Guard property.
Four states in the drought-wracked West considering whether to
pay farmers to cut their water use see federal infrastructure
legislation as a possible revenue source. The $550 billion
bipartisan legislation approved in the Senate includes $25
million for the four states—Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and
Wyoming…. Paying people to cut water use is an option under a
2019 drought contingency plan the four upper division states
signed with three states in the Lower Colorado River Basin —
Arizona, California and Nevada.
California Democrats and Republicans are pushing back against a
temporary plan to manage the state’s primary water projects as
the Biden administration aims to dismantle Trump-era
environmental rules which increased water delivery throughout
the Central Valley. Last week, a federal judge reviewed an
interim operations plan for the Central Valley Project (CVP)
which was submitted by the California Department of Water
Resources, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation, National Marine Fisheries Service and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Sonoma Water Board of Directors today approved its
first-ever Climate Adaptation Plan (CAP) that … identifies
threats to Sonoma Water’s water supply, flood control, and
sanitation infrastructure and operations and develops
adaptation strategies to reduce vulnerabilities and risks that
will be exacerbated by climate change. Development of the plan
assumes that climate change is inevitable, it is already
occurring, and the agency must adapt quickly to protect its
critical infrastructure.
In one of the final steps to complete a Groundwater
Sustainability Plan (GSP) for the Colusa Subbasin, the Colusa
Groundwater Authority (CGA) and the Glenn Groundwater Authority
(GGA) hosted a virtual public meeting on Wednesday to review
the plan and gather community input. The GSP is a roadmap
for how groundwater will be managed over the next two decades,
according to meeting facilitator Dave Ceppos, and is being
prepared by the CGA and GGA in response to the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 …
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They comprise a
class of heat-resistant chemicals used in various globally
manufactured products such as nonstick pans, adhesives, wire
insulation, food packaging, waterproof clothes and even
spacesuits. House Democrats thrust the PFAS Action Act of 2021
into the NDAA because it likely wouldn’t pass both chambers as
a standalone bill. … Yet, as written, the PFAS verbiage
was so extreme it would derail military procurement. -Written by J.D. Hayworth, a Republican
who represented Arizona in the United States House of
Representatives from 1995-2007.
The Tulare County Board of Supervisors received an update by
their chief lobbying consultant, Paul Yoder, earlier this
month. Out of all the hoopla that comes with policy lobbying in
Sacramento, Yoder was keen to point out that drought
legislation could become a priority in the state capitol. At
least that’s the way it seems according to the state
budget.
Applying insights from the Institutional Analysis and Design
literature, we create and analyze a dataset of California’s
water systems classified into 26 structural types associated
with distinct governance institutions. We document differences
in the number of Safe Drinking Water Act violations among these
types and demonstrate their relevance for implementing
solutions targeting non-compliance. Advancing equitable access
necessitates greater attention to organizational structure and
institutional diversity in drinking water.
A settlement meeting required by the California Environmental
Quality Act may give the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water
District and the city of Tehachapi a chance to resolve their
water supply disagreement. In a nutshell, the city has approved
residential projects that could add 1,400 or more housing units
over the next seven years — and the water district contends
that the city violated CEQA and doesn’t have sufficient water
to serve such development.
Shasta Beverages, the California beverage producer, was sued in
the Northern District of California on Friday by an
environmental group for discharge permit violations. EDEN
Environmental Citizens Group sued nearly a year after providing
notice of the defendant’s Clean Water Act violations to the
relevant state and federal agencies. … The complaint alleged
that Shasta discharges storm water into a municipal drain
system as well as a drainage ditch, both of which drain to the
San Francisco Bay by way of the Alameda River.
Napa River is bone-dry in stretches and some have voiced the
controversial claim that groundwater pumping amid a deep,
two-year drought is partly to blame. That’s the backdrop
against which Napa County is crafting a state-required Napa
Valley groundwater plan. Twenty-five people from the wine
industry, environmental community and other sectors are on an
advisory committee working on the first draft. One thorny issue
is determining if and when too much groundwater pumping for
agriculture dries up the river and streams.
On the heels of Governor Newsom’s historic $15 billion climate
investment, the state today released a draft of the 2021
California Climate Adaptation Strategy to continue the state’s
work to confront the climate crisis head-on. The draft strategy
is designed to accelerate climate adaptation action across
regions and sectors in California; identify how key state
agency actions fit together to achieve these priorities; and
build on the successes and lessons learned since the first
climate adaptation strategy in 2009.
When the State of California issued its water curtailments late
last summer, TID and neighboring districts pushed back. A
coalition of water districts from Modesto, Oakdale, Manteca,
and San Francisco sued the state over its curtailment order.
Michelle Reimers, TID’s general manager and chief executive,
says she understands the idea behind the curtailments. Aside
from the pre-1914 water rights the districts own and what that
means under California law, Reimers says TID is bothered by the
blanket order because it fails to consider how well-managed
irrigation districts like hers operate and manage their
systems.
Polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a
class of man-made chemicals that break down slowly in the
environment, can accumulate in the human body and have been
linked to all manner of negative health effects from cancer to
high cholesterol. But these “forever chemicals” are nearly
impossible to avoid. They are, quite literally, all around us:
in consumer products, from cosmetics and cookware to food
packaging and firefighting foam; in our food supply; in the
soil, air and water; and even running through our veins.
The humpback chub, a rare fish found only in the Colorado River
basin, has been brought back from the brink of extinction after
decades of protection, though work must continue to ensure its
survival, federal authorities said Monday in reclassifying the
species from endangered to threatened status. The fish, which
gets its name from a fleshy bump behind its head, was first
listed as endangered in 1967, its habitat severely disrupted by
dam construction. Its numbers also declined with the
introduction of predatory, non-native aquatic species.
…In 1950, Littleworth joined Best, Best & Krieger and
launched a career in water law. He represented Riverside in a
contentious dispute that was settled in 1969, providing the
city with much of the water supply it relies on today. In 1987,
he was appointed special master by the nation’s highest court
to resolve a fight between Kansas and Colorado over water in
the Arkansas River.
Gov. Gavin Newsom today declared a drought emergency for the
entire state of California, as conservation efforts continue to
fall far short of state targets. Newsom also authorized
California’s water regulators to ban wasteful water use, such
as spraying down public sidewalks, and directed his Office of
Emergency Services to fund drinking water as needed. But he
stopped short of issuing any statewide conservation mandates.
California law enforcement agents have seized more than 1
million illegally grown marijuana plants this year in an
attempt to curb illicit cultivation of the cash crop that
continues to undercut the state’s struggling legal market for
pot, authorities said Monday. … The siphoning of water by
illegal pot farmers increasingly has become an concern amid
California’s worsening drought. The attorney general also
said that insecticides banned in the state were found at grow
sites, some of them so toxic that they kill wildlife and poison
groundwater and public waterways.
A coalition of federal agencies warned that hackers are
targeting the water and wastewater treatment sectors. In a
joint advisory by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the U.S.
EPA, and the National Security Agency (NSA), these
organizations highlighted ongoing malicious cyber
activity. … In August 2021, malicious cyber actors
used Ghost variant ransomware against a California-based WWS
facility.
Forty-nine years ago this week, Congress passed the federal
Clean Water Act, with the goal of restoring America’s
waters. Yet today, 95% of California’s rivers, lakes, bays
and wetlands are plagued by pesticides, metals, pathogens,
trash and sediment, making it unsafe to swim, fish or drink. As
we approach the 50th anniversary of this landmark environmental
legislation, it is time for the state to get on track toward
ensuring swimmable, fishable and drinkable waters for all
Californians. -Written by Sean Bothwell, the executive director
of California Coastkeeper Alliance.
One water company, its supporters and a host of environmental
activists have traded fire for two decades over seemingly every
aspect of a seawater desalination plant proposed to go on the
Huntington Beach coastline. That fight could soon see some type
of conclusion when the Poseidon Water Co.’s proposed desalting
facility goes before California Coastal Commissioners either
later this year or in 2022, for a decisive vote on whether to
grant the project its needed permit. And regulators have
signaled that the Orange County oil spill this month may
reframe that debate.
In a new push to stop further depletion of California’s
shrinking aquifers, state regulators are turning to technology
once used to count Soviet missile silos during the Cold War:
satellites. Historically, California’s farmers could pump as
much as they wanted from their wells. But as a consequence of
that unrestricted use, the underground water table has sunk by
hundreds of feet in some areas, and the state is now trying to
stabilize those aquifers. Regulators need to calculate just how
much water each farmer is using …
Amid the fallout of California’s worst water year in its
history, the state will find its two primary water arteries
under the management of a temporary, plan tendered to a Federal
judge on Thursday, throwing out 2019 environmental rules that
boosted water supplies to the Central Valley and Southern
California. The plan … comes amid a cacophony of lawsuits
waged both by the Newsom administration and environmental
interest groups…
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, a local nonprofit accused
Sacramento County of violating the Clean Water Act by dumping
raw sewage and other pollutants into local waterways. The
California Coastkeeper Alliance alleges waste has been
illegally dumped into the Mokelumne River, Dry Creek, Morrison
Creek, the American River and the Sacramento River by the
Sacramento Sewer District. The suit claims the dumping is
“ongoing and continuous” and poses health risks to those who
come into contact with sewage.
Tensions rose close to the boiling point early this summer amid
a historic water shutoff in the Klamath Basin. Since then,
irrigators in the Klamath Project have spent the growing season
trying to make the most of a summer with no surface water from
Upper Klamath Lake. Jefferson Public Radio spoke with farmers
leading up to the Klamath Water Users Association’s annual
harvest tour last month. As the town of Merrill hosts the 84th
annual Klamath Basin Potato Festival this weekend, JPR looks at
the harvest for the Project’s driest year on record.
The California Natural Resources Agency in 2009 and again in
2013 issued reports on existing and anticipated climate change
impacts based on peer reviewed science. Assessments from those
reports have become part of the foundation as to why the
California Legislature has established policies aimed at
reducing greenhouse gas emissions and therefore the projected
impacts of climate change. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, Columnist for the Bulletin.
On October 1, the Bureau of Reclamation formally began the
multi-year process to replace the Trump Administration’s
blatantly unlawful biological opinions for the operation of the
State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project in
California’s Bay-Delta watershed by requesting what is known as
“reinitiation of consultation.” This is an important
first step – after all, recognizing and admitting you
have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently
vacated a summary judgment previously granted to the city of
Vacaville, California, in a citizen suit brought under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). California
River Watch v. City of Vacaville questioned whether a
drinking water provider could have RCRA liability as a
transporter of waste due to the presence of a contaminant in
the drinking water which was not introduced by the provider and
which did not cause the drinking water to fail applicable
federal and state drinking water standards.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) made the
County of Madera responsible for groundwater management for the
more than 200,000 acres that are not part of an irrigation or
water district (the “white areas”) in Madera County. Like many
regions in the Central Valley, Madera County is heavily
groundwater dependent. … [T]he Madera County Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) has been implementing a range of
aggressive management actions to reduce water use, implement
projects to increase supply, and take additional measures to
track groundwater use … -Written by Rob Poythress, chair of the Madera
County Board of Supervisors. Supervisors Leticia Gonzalez,
David Rogers, Brett Frazier and Tom Wheeler contributed to this
story.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Voluntary agreements in California
have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve
environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows
and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be
diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state
regulators.
Our Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the workshop was held as an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday, April 23.
Shortly after taking office in 2019,
Gov. Gavin Newsom called on state agencies to deliver a Water
Resilience Portfolio to meet California’s urgent challenges —
unsafe drinking water, flood and drought risks from a changing
climate, severely depleted groundwater aquifers and native fish
populations threatened with extinction.
Within days, he appointed Nancy Vogel, a former journalist and
veteran water communicator, as director of the Governor’s Water
Portfolio Program to help shepherd the monumental task of
compiling all the information necessary for the portfolio. The
three state agencies tasked with preparing the document delivered
the draft Water Resilience Portfolio Jan. 3. The document, which
Vogel said will help guide policy and investment decisions
related to water resilience, is nearing the end of its comment
period, which goes through Friday, Feb. 7.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
The Water Education Foundation’s Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the one-day workshop held on Feb. 20, 2020 covered the latest on the most compelling issues in California water.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
Dates are now set for two key
Foundation events to kick off 2020 — our popular Water 101
Workshop, scheduled for Feb. 20 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, and our Lower Colorado River Tour, which will run
from March 11-13.
In addition, applications will be available by the first week of
October for our 2020 class of Water Leaders, our competitive
yearlong program for early to mid-career up-and-coming water
professionals. To learn more about the program, check out our
Water Leaders program
page.
Californians have been doing an
exceptional job
reducing their indoor water use, helping the state survive
the most recent drought when water districts were required to
meet conservation targets. With more droughts inevitable,
Californians are likely to face even greater calls to save water
in the future.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona
governor and secretary of the Interior, has been a thoughtful,
provocative and sometimes forceful voice in some of the most
high-profile water conflicts over the last 40 years, including
groundwater management in Arizona and the reduction of
California’s take of the Colorado River. In 2016, former
California Gov. Jerry Brown named Babbitt as a special adviser to
work on matters relating to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
the Delta tunnels plan.
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
One of our most popular events, our annual Water 101 Workshop
details the history, geography, legal and political facets
of water in California as well as hot topics currently facing the
state.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the
state, the one-day workshop on Feb. 7 gave attendees a
deeper understanding of the state’s most precious natural
resources.
Optional Groundwater Tour
On Feb. 8, we jumped aboard a bus to explore groundwater, a key
resource in California. Led by Foundation staff and groundwater
experts Thomas
Harter and Carl Hauge, retired DWR chief hydrogeologist, the
tour visited cities and farms using groundwater, examined a
subsidence measuring station and provided the latest updates
on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
We headed into the foothills and the mountains to examine
water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts
downstream and throughout the state.
GEI (Tour Starting Point)
2868 Prospect Park Dr.
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
For decades, cannabis has been grown
in California – hidden away in forested groves or surreptitiously
harvested under the glare of high-intensity indoor lamps in
suburban tract homes.
In the past 20 years, however, cannabis — known more widely as
marijuana – has been moving from being a criminal activity to
gaining legitimacy as one of the hundreds of cash crops in the
state’s $46 billion-dollar agriculture industry, first legalized
for medicinal purposes and this year for recreational use.
As we continue forging ahead in 2018
with our online version of Western Water after 40 years
as a print magazine, we turned our attention to a topic that also
got its start this year: recreational marijuana as a legal use.
State regulators, in the last few years, already had been beefing
up their workforce to tackle the glut in marijuana crops and
combat their impacts to water quality and supply for people, fish
and farming downstream. Thus, even if these impacts were perhaps
unbeknownst to the majority of Californians who approved
Proposition 64 in 2016, we thought it important to see if
anything new had evolved from a water perspective now that
marijuana was legal.
Joaquin Esquivel learned that life is
what happens when you make plans. Esquivel, who holds the public
member slot at the State Water Resources Control Board in
Sacramento, had just closed purchase on a house in Washington
D.C. with his partner when he was tapped by Gov. Jerry Brown a
year ago to fill the Board vacancy.
Esquivel, 35, had spent a decade in Washington, first in several
capacities with then Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and then as
assistant secretary for federal water policy at the California
Natural Resources Agency. As a member of the State Water Board,
he shares with four other members the difficult task of
ensuring balance to all the uses of California’s water.
One of our most popular events, Water 101 details the history,
geography, legal and political facets of water in California
as well as hot topics currently facing the state.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the
state, the one-day workshop gives attendees a deeper
understanding of the state’s most precious natural resource.
McGeorge School of Law
3285 5th Ave, Classroom C
Sacramento, CA 95817
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
Wastewater management in California centers on the collection,
conveyance,
treatment, reuse and disposal of wastewater. This process is
conducted largely by public agencies, though there are also
private systems in places where a publicly owned treatment plant
is not feasible.
In California, wastewater treatment takes place through 100,000
miles of sanitary sewer lines and at more than 900 wastewater
treatment plants that manage the roughly 4 billion gallons of
wastewater generated in the state each day.
As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea
regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its
elevation of 237 feet below sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The federal Safe Drinking Water Act sets standards for drinking
water quality in the United States.
Launched in 1974 and administered by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, the Safe Drinking Water Act oversees states,
communities, and water suppliers who implement the drinking water
standards at the local level.
The act’s regulations apply to every public water system in the
United States but do not include private wells serving less than
25 people.
According to the EPA, there are more than 160,000 public water
systems in the United States.
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
