The Sacramento River is California’s
largest river, providing 35 percent of the state’s developed
water supply. The river helps support the valley’s millions of
acres of irrigated agriculture and is home to wildlife and a
range of aquatic species, including rearing habitat for 70
percent of all salmon caught off the California coast.
Once called “the Nile of the West,” the Sacramento River drains
the inland slopes of the Klamath Mountains, the Cascade Range,
the Coast Ranges and the western slopes of the northern Sierra
Nevada. The river stretches some 384 miles from its headwaters
near Mount Shasta to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The Yuba Water Agency manages water storage and deliveries to
downstream customers while having a hand in preserving fish
habitats and recreational areas. Currently, the agency has
already begun doubling its reservoir releases at a time when
visitors to the river are also expected to go up. Due to
the time of year, those releases from upstream reservoirs are
dictated by irrigation needs of downstream growers.
The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) today
launched California Nature to engage
Californians in advancing the State’s commitment to conserving
30 percent of lands and coastal waters by 2030 (30×30) and
enlisting nature-based solutions to combat climate change. The
website and a new online questionnaire are aimed at gathering
input from a broad cross-section of Californians.
President Biden announced Wednesday that he will nominate Tommy
Beaudreau to be deputy secretary of the Interior Department,
ending a standoff between the White House and senators from
fossil-fuel-rich states who derailed the president’s first
choice. The selection of Beaudreau, an energy lawyer who was an
Obama administration official, came after Sens. Joe Manchin III
(D-W. V.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) objected to Elizabeth
Klein because of her past stance against fossil fuels.
Harmful algal blooms (or HABs) occur when colonies of algae,
under the right conditions, grow out of control and produce
toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine
mammals, and birds. Every U.S. coastal and Great Lakes state
experiences harmful algal blooms. In California, reports
of harmful algal blooms have increased from 91 in 2016 to 241
in 2019. In 2020, Stockton experienced a severe harmful
algal bloom; it marked the first year that algal blooms spread
into the San Joaquin and Calaveras Rivers so early in the
summer and fall months. Drought and heat are factors that
increase harmful algal blooms …
On Wednesday, March 3rd, the Northern California Water
Association (NCWA) Board of Directors officially adopted our
2021 Priorities. The water leaders in this region look forward
to working with our many partners in 2021 to cultivate a shared
vision for a vibrant way of life in the Sacramento River Basin.
We will continue to re-imagine our water system in the
Sacramento River Basin as we also work to harmonize our water
priorities with state, federal, and other regions’ priorities
to advance our collective goal of ensuring greater water and
climate resilience throughout California for our communities,
the economy, and the environment.
There’s just one week left to register for our Water 101
Workshop, which offers a primer on the things you need to know
to understand California water. One of our most popular events,
this once-a-year workshop will be held as an engaging online
event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday,
April 23.
California households face over $600 million in household water
debt, with some 1.6 million homes — roughly 12 percent of all
state residents — dealing with an average of $500 in arrears.
The findings show clear racial inequities, with households of
color bearing the brunt of this debt. More than 130 smaller
utilities across the state will need federal help in the next
six months if they are to survive. It is clear that we
need a solution now. -Written by Michael Carlin, the acting general
manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
[C]onsider the following scenarios: A hurricane blasts Florida.
A California dam bursts because floods have piled water high up
behind it. A sudden, record-setting cold snap cuts power to the
entire state of Texas. These are also emergencies that require
immediate action. Multiply these situations worldwide, and you
have the biggest environmental emergency to beset the earth in
millennia: climate change. Given the circumstances, Scientific
American has agreed with major news outlets worldwide to start
using the term “climate emergency” in its coverage of climate
change.
How many salmon populate the Lower Putah Creek? What are the
demographics of these fish? In what ways can their habitat be
preserved so the lower creek remains healthy? Researchers at
the University of California, Davis are researching these
questions, and the Solano County Water Agency (SCWA) has given
them another year of funding to continue their research as part
of the Lower Putah Creek Salmon Study through the rest of the
2021-22 fiscal year.
While the federal government sees the prospect of raising the
height of Shasta Dam as a way to increase water storage for a
thirsty California, the Winnemem Wintu of Shasta County see it
as a threat to their culture. It was a theme picked up
this week by American Rivers, a conservation group that named
the McCloud River one of America’s 10 most endangered rivers
because of the proposal to raise the height of Shasta Dam.
… Raising the height of the dam would raise the level of
the lake about 20 feet when full. It would also further
inundate about a third of a mile of the McCloud River …
For more than 100 years after California’s Gold Rush,
developers and city leaders filled in San Francisco Bay,
shrinking it by one third to build farms, freeways, airports
and subdivisions. All that changed in the 1970s with modern
environmental laws. But now as sea level rise threatens to
cause billions of dollars of flooding in the coming decades,
the bay is going to need to be filled again — but this time in
a different way, according to a new scientific report out
Tuesday.
Despite bipartisan calls to declare a state of emergency over
California’s deepening drought, Gov. Gavin Newsom sidestepped
questions Tuesday about when he may issue a proclamation. The
governor said his administration is talking with federal
officials daily about the status of the state’s water supply
after two years of minimal rainfall that have dried out much of
California.
Protecting the Bay Area from sea level rise may all come down
to mud. That’s the finding of a new report from San Francisco
Estuary Institute that tries to address a two-part problem
related to the looming threat of sea level rise: the lack of
natural sediment coming into the bay and the need to reinforce
its shorelines to protect the region from rising seas. There’s
a fairly straightforward solution, the nonprofit research
organization proposes: Take the sediment that’s dredged from
the bay’s shipping channels and barged out to sea or to deep
parts of the bay — 2½ to 3 million cubic yards of mud a year —
and use it to restore wetlands on the perimeter.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack designated 50 California
counties as natural disaster areas last month because of the
drought. And, over the weekend, Fresno Congressman Jim Costa
said on KSEE-24’s Sunday Morning Matters program that Gov.
Newsom should declare a statewide emergency because of the
dangerously dry conditions. …Yet, Newsom… last week
rejected a request from a bipartisan coalition of state
lawmakers from the Valley to declare a statewide drought
emergency.
The little-known Joint Powers Authority charged with getting
the embattled Delta tunnel across its finish line recently
changed executive directors, marking an exit for Kathryn
Mallon, who had stirred controversy for her exorbitant pay and
alleged pressuring of a citizens advisory committee to work
through the most dangerous part of the
pandemic. Meanwhile, as California Governor Gavin Newsom
begins campaigning against the effort to remove him from
office, he’s soliciting huge donations from the same
south-state barons of agriculture who have promoted the
environmentally fraught tunnel concept for years.
Californians received a double dose of not so happy water news
last month; cutbacks were made to water allocations and a key
water price index surged higher. … The state’s Department of
Water Resources has wasted no time in sounding alarm bells;
officials have already announced 50 percent cutbacks from
December 2020’s projected water allotments to State Water
Project allocations for the 2021 water year. California
residents were warned “to plan for the impacts of limited water
supplies this summer for agriculture as well as urban and rural
water users.”
Here’s a look at the nation’s top 10 cities with the most
properties at risk of flooding, according to 2020 data from the
First Street Foundation’s First National Flood Risk
Assessment. Flooding is a huge problem in America and is
only getting worse as global warming increases the frequency
and strength of tropical storms and hurricanes, and the warmer
atmosphere holds more water, leading to more rainfall. Warmer
temperatures also trigger winter snow to melt faster and
earlier. Flooding in the United States is likely to cause
some $20 billion in damages this year and cost as much as $32
billion by 2051, according to research from First
Street. Sundae took a look at the nation’s top 10
cities with the most properties at risk of flooding… #10. San
Jose … #5. Fresno … #3. Sacramento…
ACWA staff testified with a support-if-amended position on AB
1500 (E.Garcia) during an Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife
Committee hearing on April 8. The bill is one of two climate
resilience bond proposals that are currently advancing through
the state Legislature and could be headed for the June 2022
ballot. AB 1500 would create a $6.7 billion bond measure. ACWA,
with input from the State Legislative Committee’s Bond Working
Group, is requesting amendments to the bills to add funding for
water-related climate resilience projects that help provide a
reliable water supply during drought and flood. The amendments
propose the bill include funding for conveyance, dam safety,
groundwater protection and sustainable groundwater management,
flood management, integrated regional water management and safe
drinking water for disadvantaged communities, as well as water
quality and water reuse and recycling.
A tiny silver fish few people in the Bay Area have heard of
could be a new symbol of the state’s continuing battle over
water resources. San Francisco Baykeeper sued the Biden
administration on Thursday to list the local population of
longfin smelt as an endangered species. The environmental
group’s legal action comes nine years after the federal
government first declared that the fish warranted that status.
Once an important source of food for marine mammals, birds and
chinook salmon, the local population of the longfin smelt has
dropped by 99.9% since the 1980s. Scientists and
environmentalists say that reduction is a direct result of too
much water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system being
diverted to farms and other water users rather than flowing
through the bay to the Pacific.
In June 2017, the California Regional Water Quality Control
Board and the Central Valley Region adopted a Basin Plan
Amendment for the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River Basins
for the control of pyrethroid pesticide discharges. The
amendment establishes controls for pyrethroid discharges,
including prohibition of discharges of pyrethroid pesticides
above certain concentrations, total maximum daily loads (TMDLs)
for pyrethroid pesticides, recommendations for agency
regulation of pyrethroids and potential monitoring
requirements. Synthetic pyrethroids are the most common forms
of commercially available urban pesticides for ants, termites
and flying insects…
Our Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project has just
been updated to reflect the latest developments affecting
California’s largest surface water delivery system. The 24-page
guide explores the history of the Central Valley Project, from
its roots as a state water project that stalled amid the Great
Depression to its development as a federal project that
stretches from Shasta Dam in far Northern California to
Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
California’s hottest commodity could become even more scarce as
state and federal officials announce water cutbacks on the
brink of another drought. Now, state legislators are banding
together to ask Governor Newsom to declare a state of emergency
amid what they call a water crisis. … [State Senator Andreas]
Borgeas authored a letter alongside the Assembly agriculture
committee chair and several other state lawmakers to send to
the governor. This comes after the California Department of
Water Resources announced a 5% allocation to farmers and
growers in late March.
In the first episode in the Delta Conveyance Team Spotlight
video series, [DWR] spoke with the project’s Executive
Director Tony Meyers about his long and eventful career in
engineering, including work on some of DWR’s most ambitious and
significant infrastructure projects. In this excerpt, he
reflects on the appeal of large-scale engineering projects and
speaks about the importance of the Delta Conveyance Project in
protecting the security of California’s water supply.
As we begin spring in the Sacramento Valley, the region
illuminates – we see the brown landscape turn verdant, and the
Valley bustles with activity as people share the hope of a new
year and collectively cultivate a shared vision in the region
for a vibrant way of life. With the dry year in Northern
California, the water resource managers are working overtime to
carefully manage our precious water systems including rivers,
streams, reservoirs and diversions to serve multiple benefits.
To effectively do this, water resources must be managed in an
efficient manner, with the same block of water often used to
achieve several beneficial uses as it moves through the
region’s waterways.
Our two-day Water 101 Workshop begins on Earth Day,
when you can gain a deeper understanding of
California’s most precious natural resource. One of our
most popular events, the once-a-year workshop will be held as
an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April
22 and Friday, April 23. California’s water basics will be
covered by some of the state’s leading policy and legal
experts, including the history, geography, legal and political
facets of water in the state, as well a look at hot topics and
current issues of concern.
Not counting long and ugly court battles, the two most likely
solutions to California water wars are voluntary agreements or
involuntary edicts. Our Modesto Bee Editorial Board long
has favored voluntary agreements, or compromises negotiated
mainly between local irrigation districts (representing our
farmers) and state and federal officials. The other side,
chiefly represented by environmental and fishing interests,
would prefer that the California State Water Board simply take
huge amounts of water from our Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced
rivers, mostly to benefit fish — what could be called
involuntary edicts.
-Written by Garth Stapley, The Modesto Bee’s opinion
editor.
The slide gates at the bottom of the Temperature Control Device
(TCD) on the inside face of Shasta Dam (Figure 1) allow deeper,
colder water in the reservoir to be drawn into the power plant
intake penstocks and released to the river below. Use of the
slide gates allows more colder water to be released for salmon
in the river below in summer and fall in years when reservoir
levels are low and the cold-water-pool is limited. In 2014 and
2015, NMFS and the Bureau of Reclamation learned that when the
reservoir level is low and the slide gates are opened to access
cold water, some warmer surface water is also drawn downward
into the slide gate openings.
The dams that are built in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River
Watershed protect thousands of people and billions of dollar’s
worth of agriculture but they are far too old and far too many
of them need repair. Some unnecessary dams are drying rivers
and putting business in front of the environment.
For seven days in mid-March 2021, the Bureau of Reclamation
substantially increased Folsom Lake storage releases. Roughly,
the releases tripled in volume (Figure 1). The release of over
20,000 acre-feet of water is significant for a year in which
Folsom storage is not much better than it was in the worst year
on record – 1977 (Figure 2).1 With the release in mid-March,
the lake level dropped 3 feet. Yes, there was rain in the
forecast and a decent snowpack, but certainly no flood
concerns. So why? The reason was to meet state water quality
requirements for Delta outflow. Delta outflow increased from
7,000 cfs to 12,000 cfs for a few days (Figure 3).
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has marked
2021 as the third-driest water year, a period marked from
October to March, on record for the Golden State, potentially
setting up another deadly wildfire season after last year’s
record setting blazes. The department’s annual snow survey
released this month recorded precipitation levels at 50 percent
the annual average for the water year. The dry conditions
can also be seen in the state’s water supply, with the
department reporting that California’s major reservoirs are at
just 50 percent of overall capacity.
Tractors are working ground in the Sacramento Valley, as the
2021 rice season is underway. Whether it’s farmers, those in
cities or for the environment, this year will pose challenges
due to less than ideal rain and snowfall during the fall and
winter. Jon Munger At Montna Farms near Yuba City, Vice
President of Operations Jon Munger said they expect to plant
about one-third less rice this year, based on water cutbacks.
As water is always a precious resource in this state, rice
growers work hard to be as efficient as they can. Fields are
precisely leveled and will be flooded with just five-inches of
water during the growing season. Rice is grown in heavy clay
soils, which act like a bathtub to hold water in place.
High-tech planting and harvest equipment also help California
rice farms and mills operate at peak efficiency.
One of the California Water Commission’s statutory
responsibilities is to conduct an annual review of the
construction and operation of the State Water Project and make
a report on its findings to the Department of Water Resources
and the Legislature, with any recommendations it may
have. Having just finished the 2020 State Water Project
review, the Commission has launched its 2021 State Water
Project review with a theme focused on creating a resilient
State Water Project by addressing climate change and aging
infrastructure to provide multiple benefits for
California.
As drought worsens in the West, a coalition of more than 200
farm and water organizations from 15 states that has been
pushing to fix the region’s crumbling canals and
reservoirs is complaining that President Joe Biden’s new
infrastructure proposal doesn’t provide enough funding for
above- or below-ground storage.
California is at the edge of another protracted drought, just a
few years after one of the worst dry spells in state history
left poor and rural communities without well water, triggered
major water restrictions in cities, forced farmers to idle
their fields, killed millions of trees, and fueled devastating
megafires. … Just four years since the state’s last
drought emergency, experts and advocates say the state isn’t
ready to cope with what could be months and possibly years of
drought to come.
Nearly five years ago we brought you the story of a little town
an hour south of the Oregon border that was doing battle with a
big timber company over who owned the rights to a pristine
spring that gurgles in the shadows of Mount Shasta, the
majestic snow-capped dormant volcano. After $1.5 million in
legal fees and countless hours of argument and activism, the
City Council of that town, Weed, Calif., recently approved a
deal securing use of the water in perpetuity. It was a
David-over-Goliath victory for Weed, population 2,700.
In this episode John Howard and Tim Foster welcomed the
longtime but soon-to-be-retired Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California head honcho Jeff Kightlinger for a
wide-ranging discussion that covered the status of the Delta
Tunnel Project, climate change and the snow survey, the
drought, working from home, jukeboxes, his punk rock roots and
Dan Walters‘ connection to the Zasu Pitts Memorial
Orchestra.
With commercial salmon fishing in California likely headed
toward a shortened season starting in late June, fishermen out
of Half Moon Bay remain worried about what a short season means
during an already down year. … The shortened season will
be set based on an estimated low stock of chinook salmon
derived from statistical modeling. An ocean abundance forecast
of adult salmon estimated the Sacramento River in 2021 to have
around 271,000 salmon, while the Klamath River had around
181,500, both lower than their 10-year averages of 487,600 and
449,000, respectively, Morgenstern said.
It was in 2016 that the state of California declared a
four-year drought had finally come to an end. Now, in 2021, it
could be entering another very dry season. It is in the winter
season that folks on the West Coast welcome dreary days packed
with cloud and rain. California usually sees the most rain and
snow in the month of February. This year, however, was
different: It was quite dry all of the winter season, and we
can blame La Niña for this pattern. … Thirty per cent of
California’s water supply comes from the snowpack in the Sierra
Nevada mountain ranges and only 57 per cent of normal
precipitation has fallen this season. This, coupled with lower
than average snowpack for 2020 as well, could spell trouble
down the road when it comes to water supply.
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) filed comments with
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) regarding Sunset
Exploration’s proposal to drill for natural gas in the Suisun
Marsh. Located in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, this 88,000-acre
wetland is home to a number of endangered and threatened
species, including California Ridgway’s rail, black rail, and
Chinook salmon – and is just a few short miles from
environmental justice communities in Solano County…. DOJ
urges the Army Corps to fully consider the proposal’s
significant environmental impacts, including harm to these
communities and protected species, as well as increased
greenhouse gas emissions, before deciding whether to grant the
requested permit.
Water covers 71% of the earth’s surface, but only about 3%
percent of it is fresh water, making it the planet’s most
precious resource. But what do you do when water is in danger
of going dry? California’s Central Valley is no stranger
to drought, and because of that, farmers and scientists are
joining forces to figure out how to get by with less.
In 2016—after two years of rigorous scientific study by
CalTrout and its partners in the Sierra Meadows Partnership—the
Sierra Meadows Strategy for restoring and protecting our
state’s Sierra Nevada meadows was officially released. A key
piece of CalTrout’s source-waters-to-sea approach to combatting
the effects of drought and climate change, this strategy
developed among a broad coalition of conservation partners aims
to restore and conserve meadows throughout the Sierra Nevada,
protecting a major source of our state’s water supply and
critical habitats to fish and other species.
Rain is scarce in much of California, and most of California’s
people live in water-starved regions. And yet the state is, by
some measures, the fifth largest economy in the world. How?
Because during the last century, California has built a complex
network of dams, pumps and canals to transport water from where
it falls naturally to where people live. But climate change
threatens to upend the delicate system that keeps farm fields
green and household taps flowing. In this episode of the UCI
Podcast, Nicola Ulibarri, an assistant professor of urban
planning and public policy who is an expert on water resource
management, discusses how droughts and floods have shaped
California’s approach to water…
San Francisco Bay’s life support systems are unravelling
quickly, and a wealth of science indicates that unsustainable
water diversions are driving this estuary’s demise. Yet,
with another drought looming, federal and state water managers
still plan to divert large amounts of water to their
contractors and drain upstream reservoirs this summer.
Meanwhile, the state’s most powerful water districts are
preparing yet another proposal to maintain excessive water
diversions for the long-term. By delaying reforms that the
law requires and that science indicates are necessary, Gov.
Gavin Newsom encourages wasteful water practices that
jeopardize the Bay and make the state’s water future
precarious. -Written by Jon Rosenfield, a senior scientist for SF
Baykeeper.
The Delta Stewardship Council (Council) announced the hiring of
Ryan Stanbra, the Council’s legislative and policy advisor, to
the key post of chief deputy executive officer. … Appointed
by Governor Brown in 2015, Ryan joined the Council in the role
of legislative and policy advisor. He has played a pivotal role
in advising on critical Council initiatives like implementation
of reduced reliance on the Delta, interagency coordination and
outreach for the Delta Levees Investment Strategy, increasing
funding for critical science investments, and more. He has
served in the acting chief deputy executive officer role since
January.
The Federal government is beginning a program for the
unemployed to retrain as much-needed Delta Smelt.
Following a two-day course, candidates will learn to: Seek out
turbid waters; Spawn in sand at secret locations; Surf the
tides; Make themselves present for counting in mid-water
trawls. Major California water projects and water users
are preparing to hire successful graduates for 1-2 year
non-renewable contracts.
Updated water supply allocations announced last week would
still drain upstream reservoirs in order to deliver 4.5 million
acre feet of water to the contractors of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP), devastating
fish and wildlife. This week, the fisheries biologists at the
National Marine Fisheries Service projected that these planned
operations are likely to result in lethal water temperatures
that will kill 89% of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon
below Shasta Dam this year. This mortality estimate is even
worse than what was observed in 2014 and 2015, when salmon
populations were devastated by warm water in their spawning
grounds.
As the rain season comes to a close across Northern California,
water districts are keeping a close eye on rain totals that are
below average, and water managers are explaining what another
“dry water year” means for our region. According to
California’s Department of Water Resources, or DWR, the state
is well into its second consecutive dry year. That causes
concern among water managers. However, it comes as no surprise.
… With the memory of drought years between 2012 and 2016 not
too distant, [DWR information officer Chris] Orrock explained
how lessons learned from that time period are still being
implemented.
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.
When the first European explorers arrived in California’s
Central Valley, they found a vast mosaic of seasonal and
permanent wetlands, as well as oak woodlands and riparian
forests. What remains of those wetlands are still the backbone
of the Pacific Flyway; along with flooded agricultural fields,
they support millions of migrating waterbirds each
year. According to a just-released study from Audubon,
tens of millions of land birds rely on the Central Valley as
well… But today, the situation is dire. More than 90% of
wetlands in the Central Valley – and throughout California –
have disappeared beneath tractors and bulldozers.
-Written by Samantha Arthur, the Working Lands Program
Director at Audubon California and a member of the
California Water Commission.
The lack of rain and snow during what is usually California’s
wet season has shrunk the state’s water supply. The Sierra
Nevada snowpack, a crucial source of water as it melts over the
spring and summer, is currently at 65 percent of normal. Major
reservoirs are also low. Two state agencies warned last week
that the dry winter is very likely to lead to cuts in the
supply of water to homes, businesses and farmers. The federal
Bureau of Reclamation also told its agricultural water
customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
expect no water this year.
Many of the wetlands in the western United States have
disappeared since the 1700s. California has lost an astonishing
90 percent of its wetlands, which includes streamsides, wet
meadows and ponds. In Nevada, Idaho and Colorado, more than 50
percent of wetlands have vanished. Precious wet habitats now
make up just 2 percent of the arid West — and those remaining
wet places are struggling. Nearly half of U.S. streams are in
poor condition, unable to fully sustain wildlife and people,
says Jeremy Maestas, a sagebrush ecosystem specialist with the
NRCS who organized that workshop on Wilde’s ranch in 2016. As
communities in the American West face increasing water
shortages, more frequent and larger wildfires and unpredictable
floods, restoring ailing waterways is becoming a necessity.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has
announced a series of workshops intended to solicit public
input on the development of a community benefit program
associated with the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP). According
to DWR, community benefit programs go beyond traditional
concepts of mitigation. They attempt to provide greater
flexibility in addressing possible community impacts associated
with the major construction projects.
The second consecutive dry winter has prompted state water
managers to reduce allocations to the state water project that
supplies millions of Californians and 750,000 acres of
farmland. The state Department of Water Resources
announced this week that it will only be able to deliver
5% of the requested allocations following below-average
precipitation across the state. That figure is down from the
initial allocation of 10% announced in December. Many of
the state’s major reservoirs are recording just 50% of average
water storage for this time of year, and won’t see a major
increase due to a snowpack that is averaging just 65% of
normal, according to state statistics..
[F]or those who live in the legal Delta zone – some 630,000
people – the braided weave of the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Rivers and their maze of associated wetlands and levees
provides a place of home, community, and recreation. And, as a
recent study by the Delta Stewardship Council shows, climate
change is tugging on the watery thread holding it all together.
… The council’s overview reveals a grim outlook for the
millions of people that are tethered to the region’s water:
drought similar to that experienced in 2012-2016 will be five
to seven times more likely by 2050. This will result in more
severe and frequent water shortages and, as the report bluntly
states, “lower reliability of Delta water exports.”
The rivalry between farms and wildlife for water and land was
long seen as a zero-sum game, especially in California where
water is such a precious commodity that the state’s water
futures are traded on the stock exchange. That competition has
been particularly sharp in the Central Valley: 95% of the
region’s historic wetlands have transformed into farmland, and
the region’s increasingly scarce water supply has been
prioritized for farming. As a result, some of the migratory
birds that rely on the Central Valley for habitat, food, and
water sources have seen steep declines in the past
century.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) took another step in
its ambitious efforts to reduce climate change impacts by
replacing an old electricity-generating turbine with a new,
energy efficient model at the Ronald B. Robie Thermalito
Pumping-Generating Powerplant in Butte County that will help
the Department achieve its goal of using 100 percent
zero-emission resources by 2045.
California’s drought conditions might normally prompt calls for
shorter showers and shutting off sprinklers. But Californians
are in no mood to hear it after a year of pandemic deprivation.
Especially from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing an almost
certain recall election after imposing multiple rounds of
business closures and constantly telling residents to stay
home. … California is particularly parched because 2020
was not only dry, but extremely hot. Experts think the state is
about where it was in 2014, when former Gov. Jerry Brown asked
Californians to reduce their water use by 20 percent.
The upcoming salmon season doesn’t look promising for
recreational and commercial fishermen on the Coastside. But
environmentalists from the Central Valley are hoping to change
that in the future by easing the movement of salmon between the
Pacific Ocean and inland rivers. One of those rivers is the
Tuolumne River. Its stewards at the Tuolumne River Trust are
sounding the alarm over the river’s health and say that
committing more water to this distant river will help the
salmon populations more than 100 miles away in places like
Coastside fisheries.
As California stares down the barrel of yet another dry year,
alarm bells are already ringing over conditions in the Delta.
Environmental groups, fishermen, tribes, and a host of others
are calling on the State Water Resources Control Board to
complete and implement a long-delayed update to the Water
Quality Control Plan for the Bay and Delta (Bay-Delta Plan), to
protect the imperiled ecosystem. At the same time, plans for a
structure with the potential to divert more water than ever to
southern cities and farms are creeping ahead.
An extra dry summer with potential for water shortages – that’s
what state and federal officials are telling Californians to
prepare for. Predictions for 2021 are bleak. Lake levels
are low and the Sacramento region is not getting the spring
showers many hoped for. According to the US drought monitor,
most of the Central Valley is experiencing severe to extreme
drought conditions. This week the Department of Water
Resources lowered its expected forecast of water deliveries
made to cities and farms by half. But any conservation
restrictions would be up to local authorities.
With World Water Day this week and the dry year emerging
throughout the Sacramento Valley, we take this moment to
reflect on the value of water as we cultivate a shared vision
in the region for a vibrant way of life. We encourage you to
watch and read the following vignettes that all showcase the
value of water.
State and federal water officials have delivered their most
dire warning yet of California’s deepening drought, announcing
that water supply shortages are imminent and calling for quick
conservation. Among a handful of drastic actions this week, the
powerful State Water Board on Monday began sending notices to
California’s 40,000 water users, from small farms to big cities
like San Francisco, telling them to brace for cuts. It’s a
preliminary step before the possibility of ordering their water
draws to stop entirely.
California’s water use varies dramatically across regions and
sectors, and between wet and dry years. With the possibility of
another drought looming, knowing how water is allocated across
the state can make it easier to understand the difficult
tradeoffs the state’s water managers must make in times of
scarcity. The good news is that we’ve been using less over
time, both in cities and on farms. While there are still ways
to cut use further to manage droughts, it won’t always be easy
or cheap to do so. California’s freshwater ecosystems are at
particular risk of drought, when environmental water use often
sees large cuts. Watch the video to learn how Californians use
water.
Nitrogen pollution is one of agriculture’s biggest and most
intractable problems. Crops can’t grow without the critical
nutrient, and because sources of nitrogen are easy to come
by—synthetic fertilizer is cheap and manure from large animal
agriculture operations is plentiful—farmers often apply too
much, to try to ensure the highest yields. Because plants can’t
use it all, the excess makes its way into groundwater and
washes into waterways where it contaminates drinking water and
creates vast dead zones in oceans and lakes.
… California’s largest hotspot unsurprisingly includes
21 counties that cover the Central Valley, America’s produce
capital.
California farmers relying on State Water Project water were
warned Monday to prepare for potential shortages by reducing
water use and adopting practical conservation measures.
The Porter-Cologne Water Quality Act, California’s state clean
water law, passed in 1969 and became the model for the 1972
federal Clean Water Act. Nearly half a century after passage of
the landmark federal law, it is time for both the state and the
nation to assess progress and chart a new course. Once again,
California is leading the way with Assembly Bill 377, a new
bill introduced by Assemblyman Robert Rivas (D-Hollister).
Although new legislation is needed, the existing federal and
California clean water acts have produced successes that should
be celebrated. -Written by Terry Tamminen, president of 7th
Generation Advisors and founder of Santa Monica
Baykeeper.
When Ann Hayden first joined EDF in 2002, shortly after
finishing her own stint in the Peace Corps in Belize and
graduate school where she studied environmental science and
management, she was immediately thrown into one of California’s
thorniest water debates: the restoration of the Sacramento and
San Joaquin Bay-Delta, the hub of the state’s water supply. She
hit the jackpot when she was hired by Tom Graff, founder of
EDF’s California office and a renowned water lawyer, and Spreck
Rosekrans, who garnered the respect of the water community for
his ability to understand the state’s hypercomplex water
operations.
As of 2021, California is home to 31 distinct kinds of native
salmon, steelhead and trout species, 20 of which are found only
in our state. These fish are prized for their economic and
cultural significance by local communities, and for their
recreational attributes by anglers from around the world. But
these fish face an alarming threat that can’t be ignored. If
current trends continue, nearly half of these fish will be
extinct within the next 50 years. How do we know this? And
perhaps an even better question: what can be done about
it?
The Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Endowed Professorship
was established by a group of donors concerned with the
conservation and management of coldwater fishes in California.
The endowed chair honors Peter Moyle and the historical and
productive working relationship between CalTrout and UC Davis,
with an endowment fund resting at over $2 million. Dr. Andrew
L. Rypel was appointed to this professorship as the inaugural
holder in 2017, therefore this report reflects year-3 work on
behalf of the chair. A total of 13 peer-reviewed scientific
publications were produced by the Rypel Lab at UC Davis in
2019-2020.
With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or
worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for
relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought
has taken root and worsened. Weather service and agriculture
officials warned of possible water use cutbacks in California
and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in key
reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell and damage to
wheat crops.
Through collaborative projects, birds and endangered fish are
returning to areas they once reared in more than 100 years ago.
Partnerships among farmers, conservationists, universities, and
state and federal agencies are proving that by reactivating our
historic floodplains and using our bypasses during key times of
the year, we can create high-quality habitat that produces safe
haven and up to 149 times more food for salmon than the river.
These key projects demonstrate some of the work being done on
the wet-side of the levee.
If you were around here in 2014 or 2015, you were likely
inundated with images of dried up reservoirs that looked like
dirt canyons with little ponds in them, when a punishing
drought forced the state to institute restrictions on water
usage. Well, we’re likely headed for another summer of dried-up
lawns (and wildfires) if Mother Nature continues to withhold
the rain and snow that we need to make up for a super-dry
November, December, and February.
Placer County leaders are supporting the removal of a bridge
that collapsed 60 years ago near the confluence of the North
Fork and Middle Fork American River in the Auburn State
Recreation Area. … [Gary Estes, a board member for
Protect American River Canyons,] said the debris poses threats
to swimmers and kayakers. A sign posted on the State Route 49
bridge, where the collapsed bridge used to stand, warns people
to use extreme caution around the steel and concrete debris.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering whether
the spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon that occupy the
rivers of Northern California and southern Oregon are
genetically distinct. The decision … would almost
certainly result in a listing under the Endangered Species Act
if seen as a separate species. … [T]he dams and
reservoirs that have been installed at various points
throughout the rivers of the West Coast create problems for
spring-run Chinook that are unique and separate from their
closely related cousins. It also allows the fall-run
species to outcompete the spring run since they both are able
to reach the same spots in the river to reproduce.
The San Joaquin Valley has begun to grapple with implementing
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Figuring out
the math of balancing water supply and demand in ways that
cause the least economic harm to farmers and local economies is
challenging, and difficult tradeoffs are inevitable. We talked
with Emmy Cattani, a fifth-generation farmer from Kern County,
about some options.
Storm activity has been bittersweet for Valley farmers. In some
cases, hail has damaged crops, making them unusable, while snow
and rainfall are helping Central California recover from a
water deficit. … Eric Engelman inspected his almonds in
Fresno County after the recent back-to-back storms brought
heavy rain and even quarter-sized hail to parts of the Valley.
For foothill communities like Coarsegold, they even brough
snowfall. … It’s a detrimental part of the almond
growing process to experience hail. Any damage that was done
won’t be known until closer to harvest.
We’re facing another very dry year, which follows one of the
driest on record for Northern California and one of the hottest
on record statewide. The 2012-16 drought caused
unprecedented stress to California’s ecosystems and pushed many
native species to the brink of extinction, disrupting water
management throughout the state. Are we ready to manage
our freshwater ecosystems through another drought? -Written by Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow,
and Caitrin Chappelle, associate director, at
the Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy
Center.
As March begins to drag on with little precipitation in the
forecast and few weeks left in California’s traditional wet
season, we are in another dry year. This is California’s second
dry year in a row since the 2012-2016 drought.
Statistically, California has the most drought and flood years
per average year than anywhere in the US. This
statistical fact seems to becoming increasingly extreme, as
predicted by many climate change models.
Dwindling Chinook salmon runs have forced the Pacific Fishery
Management Council to shorten the commercial salmon fishing
season. The Sacramento Valley fall-run Chinook salmon runs are
projected to be half as abundant as the 2020 season while the
Klamath River fall Chinook abundance forecast is slightly
higher than the 2020 but is still significantly lower than the
long-term average. During a press briefing on Friday morning,
John McManus President of the Golden State Salmon Association
said the added restrictions will deal a blow to commercial
fishermen.
In the Capital Region, water determines destinies. The
10-county area is both plagued by drought and one of the
country’s most at-risk regions for catastrophic flooding. The
physical existence of Sacramento and surrounding cities and the
viability of the region’s heavily irrigated agriculture depend
on water resources engineers like Mary Paasch.
The forested watersheds of the Sierra Nevada are the origin of
more than 60 percent of the state’s developed water supply.
Sierra Nevada megafires that kill all, or nearly all,
vegetation across large landscapes pose serious risks to this
system. In the immediate aftermath of a fire, high-severity
burn areas lack vegetation to stabilize soils. … The
resulting sediment enters nearby creeks and rivers, degrading
water quality and adversely affecting regional aquatic
habitats.
The Western US is in the midst of yet another dangerous dry
spell. The drought has been building over the past year, and
since November, a greater stretch of the West has been in the
most severe category of drought than at any time in the 20
years that the National Drought Mitigation Center has been
keeping records. … Ryan Jensen saw the impacts of
California’s last major drought firsthand while working for the
Community Water Center in the San Joaquin Valley. When
residential wells ran dry, students had to shower in their
school locker rooms. To keep toilets running, some rural
households relied on hoses slung over fences from their
neighbors.
At the February meeting of the Delta Stewardship Council, Delta
Watermaster Michael George updated the councilmembers on the
efforts underway at the State Water Board to prepare for the
increasing possibility of 2021 being critically dry. He
also gave an update on the efforts to address the deteriorating
conditions in the south Delta.
As we celebrate National Groundwater Awareness Week, the
Northern California Water Association (NCWA) convened its
groundwater management task force this week to help coordinate
the various Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) in the
Sacramento Valley and to advance groundwater sustainability
throughout the region.
Learn from top water experts at our annual Water 101
Workshop about the history, hydrology and law behind
California water as well as hot topics such as water equity,
the Delta and flows, new federal administration and
more. This year’s workshop, set for April 22-23, will be held
virtually and feature a presentation devoted
solely to groundwater.
Hail and rain blanketed much of the Greater Sacramento Area
this week, though experts say it’s not likely to play a major
role in the state’s drought position. … Having endured
two consecutively dry winters, California’s snowpack in most
areas is less than 75% of normal for this time of year,
according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Many
water agencies in California have discussed water conservation
measures, the center wrote in its latest drought report. The
North Marin Water District in the San Francisco Bay Area has
already considered voluntary and mandatory water conservation
orders.
There’s one type of oyster that’s indigenous to the San
Francisco Bay, and that’s the Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida).
It’s named after Olympia, Washington, though these small, tangy
oysters can be found up and down the west coast from Alaska all
the way down into central Mexico. Olympias — or Olys for short
— can still be found in the San Francisco Bay today. But
scientists say pollution from agricultural runoff is too high
for commercial fishing.
Bad news for salmon lovers: The quantity of fish in Bay Area
coastal waters this year is expected to be far lower than in
2020. And fewer fish means less work for local fishers and
fewer salmon in stores. The number of adult king salmon
from the Sacramento River fall run is projected to be 271,000
this spring and summer, compared with last year’s estimate
of 473,200….The limited season reflects a downward trend in
the population of king salmon, also known as chinook, over the
last decade because of drought and state policies that have
limited the amount of water allotted to the parts of the
Sacramento River basin where the fish spawn and juveniles spend
their early months.
Our map of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has been
updated with a fresh, new look and new text and images to
better tell the story of one of California’s most important
ecological and water supply resources. The new map
explores the Delta’s importance as a haven for birds, fish and
other wildlife, its vital role in moving water to farms and
cities across California, and the array of challenges facing
the Delta’s present and future.
On the tail end of the second dry winter in a row, with water
almost certain to be in short supply this summer, California
water officials are apparently planning to largely drain the
equivalent of the state’s two largest reservoirs to satisfy the
thirst of water-wasting farmers. Gov. Gavin Newsom must stop
this irresponsible plan, which threatens the environmental
health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the water supply
for about one-third of the Bay Area residents. We should be
saving water, not wasting it.
California’s large reservoirs are currently operated using
historical hydrology and outdated assumptions about the state’s
climate. Many experts are calling for changing how reservoirs
are managed to reflect advances in weather forecasting, which
can help the state adapt to a warmer, more volatile climate. We
talked to Martin Ralph—director of the Center for Western
Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography—about advances in this field.
Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the Delta flows
issue has been decades in the making and “it’s going to
take some time to figure this out.”
Today’s road trip features the Delta “super highway” of the
1800s, with plenty of water, quaint river towns, history and
food along the way. From Stockton, you’ll travel a little more
than 100 miles, so plan for a fun day-long outing. You’ll see
every type of agriculture, levees built by Chinese labor after
the early railroads were constructed, and boats and cargo ships
travelling the same sloughs as did old steamboats and sailing
packets.
Zebra mussels — fingernail-sized mollusks named for their
striped shells — are benign in their native Black Sea and
Caspian Sea ecosystems. But they are disastrous almost
everywhere else. Since they were first discovered in the
Great Lakes in 1986, these rapid-spawning animals have
infested every watershed in the Lower 48 except the
Columbia River Basin….The mussel found in [a pet store in]
Seattle came from the California distributor….
In times of drought, California’s Central Valley is full of
farmers hindered by the lack of water. And this region, where
the bulk of the nation’s fruits and vegetables are cultivated,
is driving up the demand for water. Although many farmers
without easy access to water often buy and pump it in from
their neighbors, droughts often fuel massive price increases.
And this often makes water so cost-prohibitive that it can
discourage farmers from even planting crops. This predicament
led a firm to recently list water as the newest commodity on
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Now, water futures are traded
daily. This helps farmers lock in a price for water, so they
have a cushion if a drought threatens their crop revenues.
[A] new 18-chapter book, written by agricultural economists at
UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UC Riverside, addresses issues such
as labor, water, climate and trade that affect all of
California agriculture. … Water, climate and trade pose
challenges and opportunities for California agriculture. In the
last decade, water scarcity and decreased water quality, along
with regulations to address these issues like the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, have prompted farmers to use scarce
water to irrigate more valuable crops, as with the switch from
cotton to almonds.
The U.S. levee system — once considered the second largest
piece of the country’s infrastructure ”rivaled only by the
highway system” — is now nearly a century old and failing
inspections far more often than it passes them. Only one in 25
federal levees are rated Acceptable. … Those systems can
be found nationwide, from the Sacramento region in California
to the south Florida seaboard; from Appalachia to North Dakota
to the Mississippi River Valley. And the people who
maintain those vulnerable levees say their problems are
remarkably similar: systems that are too old and far too
expensive for locals to fix, much less replace.
The Board of Supervisors will hear the latest this week on the
program that aims to prevent destructive mussels from infesting
Clear Lake and will consider a proposal to extend a contract
for using the former juvenile hall as a temporary support
shelter for the county’s homeless residents. The meeting
will begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 9, and will be
available to the public virtually only.
Native fish, including smelt and salmon, in the southern Yolo
Bypass in Yolo County have new sources of food and shelter
thanks to a project that successfully restored more than 1,600
acres of former cattle pasture. The Lower Yolo Ranch Tidal
Restoration Project is a collaboration between multiple
agencies including the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and
Westlands Water District (Westlands) which serves western
Fresno and Kings counties. The agencies are working together to
meet a portion of state and federal requirements to restore
8,000 acres of tidal wetland habitat in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta.
Water levels in the world’s ponds, lakes and human-managed
reservoirs rise and fall from season to season. But until now,
it has been difficult to parse out exactly how much of that
variation is caused by humans as opposed to natural cycles.
Analysis of new satellite data published March 3 in Nature
shows fully 57 percent of the seasonal variability in Earth’s
surface water storage now occurs in dammed reservoirs and other
water bodies managed by people. … The western United
States, southern Africa and the Middle East rank among regions
with the highest reservoir variability, averaging 6.5 feet to
12.4 feet.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave America’s
infrastructure a C- grade in its quadrennial assessment issued
March 3. ASCE gave the nation’s flood control infrastructure –
dams and levees – a D grade. This is a highly concerning
assessment, given that climate change is increasingly stressing
dams and levees as increased evaporation from the oceans drives
heavier precipitation events. … Climate scientists at
Stanford University found that between 1988 and 2017, heavier
precipitation accounted for more than one-third of the $200
billion in [flood] damage…
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors today approved an
agreement that adds the Cordua Irrigation District to the
historic Lower Yuba River Accord, a model water management
agreement that supports endangered salmon and steelhead,
ensures water supplies for cities and farms and reduces
conflict over water use.
The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday to approve an
extension of the county’s state water contract for 50 years,
saying it would ultimately save ratepayers money. … Eight
water agencies in Santa Barbara County, from the Carpinteria
Valley to the City of Santa Maria, presently import water
through the California Aqueduct. By 2035, their ratepayers will
have paid off the $575 million construction debt for the
pipeline that county voters approved in 1991 on the heels of a
six-year drought. It extends from the aqueduct in Kern County
to Lake Cachuma.
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Sacramento District
selected Kleinfelder and Stantec to provide engineering
services for levee improvements on the Sacramento River in
Northern California. The design project consists of
seepage/stability improvements along the Sacramento River East
Levee (SREL) downstream of the American River confluence in
Sacramento. The project is part of the ongoing modernization of
Sacramento’s aging flood infrastructure system.
Sacramento is typically ranked first or second in the country
for the risk of flooding….This year, the California-Nevada
River Forecast Center is forecasting a low potential for
flooding due to spring snowmelt.
Despite taking two years off from Congress, David Valadao
(R—Hanford) is getting back to work by introducing new
legislation to help keep water flowing in the Central Valley.
Early this month, Valadao introduced the Responsible, No-Cost
Extension of Western Water Infrastructure Improvements, or
RENEW WIIN, Act, a no-cost, clean extension of operations and
storage provisions of the WIIN Act. The RENEW WIIN Act would
extend the general and operations provisions of Subtitle J of
the WIIN Act and extend the provision requiring consultation on
coordinated operations of the Central Valley Project and State
Water Project.
A part of the natural water cycle, groundwater is an important
element of California’s water supply, especially in the Central
Valley, where one in four people rely on it entirely. It is an
especially important resource in the Solano Subbasin, a
geographic area that includes Dixon, parts of Vacaville,
Elmira, Rio Vista, unincorporated Winters, Davis, the Montezuma
Hills, Isleton, Sherman Island and Walnut Grove. And every
quarter, the Solano Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Agency
Collaborative, aka the Solano Collaborative, hosts a Community
Advisory Committee meeting and will so again from 3 to 5 p.m.
Wednesday.
The winter storms that dumped heavy snow and rain
across California early in 2021 are likely not enough to negate
what will be a critically dry year, state water officials
believe. California’s Department of Water Resources on
Tuesday recorded a snow depth of 56 inches and water content of
21 inches at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada. The water
content of the overall snowpack was 61% of the average for
March 2 and 54% of the average for April 1, when it is
historically at its maximum.
A disappointingly dry February is fanning fears of another
severe drought in California, and cities and farms are bracing
for problems. In many places, including parts of the Bay Area,
water users are already being asked to cut back. The
state’s monthly snow survey on Tuesday will show only about 60%
of average snowpack for this point in the year, the latest
indication that water supplies are tightening. With the end of
the stormy season approaching, forecasters don’t expect much
more buildup of snow, a key component of the statewide supply
that provides up to a third of California’s water.
The Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Water Resources
plan to allocate approximately 5 million acre feet of water
this year – as long as California allows them to effectively
drain the two largest reservoirs in the state, potentially
killing most or nearly all the endangered winter-run Chinook
salmon this year, threatening the state’s resilience to
continued dry conditions, and maybe even violating water
quality standards in the Delta.
Approximately 62 acres of land in Rio Vista, including the
former Army Reserve Center, have been incorporated into
legislation by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Solano, to increase the
boundaries of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National
Heritage Area. This bill, known as House Resolution 1230,
passed in the U.S. House of Representatives Friday and will
move on to the Senate. The bill is an expansion of bicameral
legislation by Garamendi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
that was signed into law in 2019 to provide $10 million for
community-based efforts to preserve the Delta’s cultural
heritage as well as its historical landmarks.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors
Thursday announced a plan to distribute a rebate of $44.4
million to its 24 member agencies across the region. They did
so after receiving a check for that amount from the Los
Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California to pay legal damages and interest after a long legal
battle. The money resulted from the water authority’s
decade-long litigation in Superior Court seeking to compel MWD
to set legal rates and repay overcharges.
How do you factor in climate change? It can be a worrisome
question, yet, it’s one that rightfully so demands an answer. A
question that seems to loom over us, especially those who work
within and on behalf of the environment. Yet, it might be
difficult to notice the effects of climate change on Putah
Creek. A walk along the creek exposes you to native riparian
habitat and birds aplenty. Surely, the Chinook salmon return to
their historic spawning habitat along Putah Creek could only
signal a more healthy and stabilized habitat. -Written by Alli Permann, Putah Creek Council Education
Program Assistant.
Michael Preston grew up in the old village site of the Winnemem
Wintu tribe, along the McCloud River in Northern California
where the Shasta Dam has flooded spiritual and cultural lands.
Since the 1940s, the creation of the dam has also blocked the
usual migration of winter-run salmon, effectively endangering
the species. Now, there are proposals to raise the dam by an
additional 18.5 feet, which will cause further destruction.
“Our tribal goal is to bring the salmon back … ” he said,
adding that it’s more than just the fish. With the lack of
salmon, which is a keystone species, other animals, such as
bears, eagles and mountain lions are being starved.
The organization River Partners teamed up with California State
Parks and Butte County Resource Conservation District on
Thursday to host a flood plain restoration and
reforestation event. The event was called the
Bidwell-Sacramento River State Park Riparian Restoration
Project and was held near the Pine Creek Access point of the
Sacramento River in Chico.
San Francisco has long been an international leader on
environmental issues. However, water policy has been a stain on
that record. … Many California rivers are overtapped by
excessive pumping, but few are in worse condition than the
Tuolumne River. In drier years, more than 90% of the Tuolumne’s
water is diverted. On average, 80 percent of the river’s flow
never makes it to the Bay. It’s not a surprise that the river’s
health has collapsed. …
-Written by Bill Martin, a member of the Sierra Club
Bay Chapter Water Committee, and Hunter Cutting, a member
of the Sierra Club Bay Chapter’s San Francisco Group Executive
Committee.
The Department of Justice can proceed with its claims that
California violated state law when it changed its water quality
control plan for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta system in federal court, the Ninth Circuit ruled.
Granting a partial stay of the state law claims in federal
court is allowed in limited circumstances, but the federal
government’s actions here don’t amount to the type of forum
shopping that justifies a stay, according to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Former Assemblymember Christy Smith announced that she has been
appointed by Speaker Anthony Rendon to serve on the Delta
Stewardship Council. … The Council was created to advance the
state’s coequal goals for the Delta – a more reliable statewide
water supply and a healthy and protected ecosystem, both
achieved in a manner that protects and enhances the unique
characteristics of the Delta as an evolving place.
Private landowners interested in enhancing, restoring and
protecting wetlands are encouraged to apply for the Wetland
Reserve Easements in California program facilitated by the
Natural Resource Conservation Service.
As Executive Officer Jessica R. Pearson identified in her
December blog on the Delta Adapts initiative, “social
vulnerability means that a person, household, or community has
a heightened sensitivity to the climate hazards and/or a
decreased ability to adapt to those hazards.” With an eye
toward social vulnerability and environmental justice along
with the coequal goals in mind, we launched our Delta Adapts
climate change resilience initiative in 2018.
Many of my best days as a lawyer were spent driving through the
Sacramento Valley and north Delta with George Basye (always in
his Volvo). As George neared his retirement, he wanted to
ensure that I, as the successor to a number of his clients,
understood the foundations of his client relationships.
George seemingly knew the history of every quarter section of
land up and down the Valley. He had a deep affection not
only for the landscape but, most important to George, for the
individuals and families who had settled and reclaimed the land
and built the agricultural economy of the region.
AT FIRST GLANCE, THIS STRUCTURE appears to be an enigma. It’s a
bridge between two granite monoliths, an above-ground tunnel,
and an aqueduct carrying water over a creek. This structure is
actually part of an elaborate water system. The Feather River
Canyon is a scenic wonder. Sheer granite slabs rise hundreds of
feet above the water. Almost equally impressive are the
measures engineers have taken to conquer this rugged terrain.
On Friday, the City of Antioch, along with local and
State dignitaries, broke ground on their new and historic
Brackish Water Desalination Plant. At a price of $110 million,
the project was made possible with $93 million in funding from
the State, and $17 million from the City of Antioch.
Despite objections from some of the same landowners who have
complained for nearly a decade that their property is being put
at risk, the Woodland City Council has advanced its Lower Cache
Creek Flood Feasibility Study. Acting this past week, the
council voted unanimously to put the financial well-being of
residents and businesses first in adopting an environmental
impact report which favors a multi-million dollar project to
divert Cache Creek floodwaters.
Scientists at Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest
Service have demonstrated that DNA extracted from water samples
from rivers across Oregon and Northern California can be used
to estimate genetic diversity of Pacific salmon and trout. The
findings, just published in the journal Molecular Ecology, have
important implications for conservation and management of these
species, which are threatened by human activities, including
those exacerbating climate change.
In 1955 he joined Downey, Brand, Seymour and Rohwer in
Sacramento, becoming a partner in 1958 and specializing in
water and natural resources law. He represented the California
Central Valley Flood Control Association and over 30
reclamation, levee, water, and irrigation districts and mutual
water companies in the Sacramento Valley. He was actively
involved in negotiations leading to the water right settlement
agreements between the Sacramento River water users and the
United States in 1964. He formed the North Delta Water Agency
and negotiated the agreement in 1981 between that Agency and
the State of California, protecting water quality and uses
within the northern half of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Home to just under 2,000 people, the history of Hamilton City
includes many flooding events and several near misses. One of
the primary reasons for this susceptibility to flooding has
been the town’s reliance on a substandard and undersized levee
called the “J levee” – a levee that does not meet any USACE
engineering standards.
Climate change is impacting the whole Earth, including the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. There are some big challenges
ahead as the region changes over the next 30 years. In order to
adapt to a world with increased flooding, drought, wildfire and
intense heat, we need to start by understanding what’s going
on. But where to begin? The Delta Stewardship Council is
hosting a climate resilience scavenger hunt as part of its
Delta Adapts initiative…. Now through Feb. 26,
participants can complete as many activities as possible and
submit their findings online.
California’s Sierra snow pack is 68% of average after a series
of storms in recent weeks. The Department of Water Resources
says the statewide average is down slightly from the 70% number
about two weeks ago during the last monthly snow survey. The
snow pack was sagging at about 40% of normal back in
mid-January.
Steelhead season is underway in the Central Valley as three
major hatcheries are set to release over 1.1 million fish into
the Feather, American and Mokelumne rivers later this month.
Steelhead are the migratory form of rainbow trout that make
their journey to the Pacific Ocean and return to freshwater
streams.
It is the 35th anniversary of one of the costliest and
devastating storms in the history of Northern California. From
Feb. 11 to Feb. 20, 1986, a series of three storms, each
stronger than the previous, brought record-setting rain that,
in some areas, overwhelmed flood control measures. In the end,
the storms claimed 13 lives, and the damage was estimated at
$400 million. The storm also brought eventual changes to
California’s existing flood control system.
There has been recent commentary and discussion around a
commodity futures market for water in California. In the
Sacramento Valley, we are not involved in this process; nor are
we participating in these contracts. Although we are not
entirely clear on this market or what is being traded, it is
clear that this new market does not involve real/wet
water–which is our focus in the Sacramento Valley. We will
continue to focus on serving water for cities and rural
communities, farms, fish, birds, other wildlife and recreation.
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors took bold action to
reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and advance
landscape-scale forest restoration in the Yuba River watershed.
In two separate actions, the board approved $6.5 million in
funding for forest restoration projects as part of the North
Yuba Forest Partnership. The partnership is a diverse group of
nine organizations working collaboratively to plan, finance and
implement forest restoration across 275,000 acres of private
and public land spanning Sierra and Yuba counties and two
national forests.
For the better part of the last two centuries, the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has been modified in any number of
ways to meet the demands of Californians. But a new
wide-ranging study looks at what might be the most serious
Delta threat that doesn’t come in the form of an excavator –
global warming.
A local water utility company is set to share information about
how the Littlerock Creek watershed was adversely affected by
the Bobcat fire. Palmdale Water District will host a free,
virtual event at 3 p.m. on Feb. 24 and provide information to
the public about what steps are being taken to mitigate the
damage. Much of the watershed has been burned and there is
concern that potential heavy debris flow will create excessive
sediment in the Littlerock Reservoir and affect water quality.
Federal scientists and regulators repeatedly complained they
were sidelined by Donald Trump’s administration when they
warned of risks to wildlife posed by a California water
management plan, according to newly unveiled documents.
The process to recoup over $1 billion in repairs to Oroville
Dam’s spillways after the 2017 crisis is receiving more federal
funds. The Department of Water Resources announced Feb. 1 that
the Federal Emergency Management Agency released an additional
approximately $308 million in requested funds for the Oroville
Dam spillways reconstruction and emergency response. These
funds are in addition to over $260 million that FEMA has
already committed to …
Scientists studying annual salmon runs in Putah Creek are still
waiting for the absolute proof that fry born in the creek and
leave for the ocean as juveniles are returning to spawn.
However, since identifying one spawning fish in 2017 that was
identified with a Putah Creek-Feather River origin, the
University of California, Davis, and NOAA scientists have been
collecting additional samples each year for analysis.
The Kern County Farm Bureau issued a “call to action” this week
asking local growers and ranchers to participate in a series of
upcoming meetings that will influence the role California’s
agricultural lands will be expected to play, or continue to
play, in fighting climate change.
In the Pacific Northwest, several species of salmon are in
danger of extinction. The Washington State Recreation and
Conservation Office has released a report on the
state of salmon populations in the state’s watersheds — and the
findings predict a grim future. … The population changes
aren’t surprising to [scientist Daniel] Pauly. “This is what
happens when temperature increases,” he said. “The fish are
looking for the temperatures that they are attuned to, and if
those temperatures are farther north, they move farther north.
If you make a map from high arctic Alaska to California, the
salmon stocks in California are essentially dead.”
It might be hard to imagine that it has already been more than
five years since we exited the extreme dry years of 2014 and
2015. At that time, local, state and federal water managers
were taking unprecedented actions in response to the dry
conditions to maximize beneficial uses and every Californian
was feeling the impact of multiple dry years. … In their
blog earlier this year, Fritz Durst and Brent Hastey outlined
much of the work that has occurred since 2015 to prepare
for the next dry year. In addition to those actions, we also
have worked to better identify the timing and quantity of water
needed during dry years to maximize habitat benefits with
limited resources.
In the latest Delta Conveyance Deep Dive video, we take a look
at the financing mechanisms that make the project possible,
both now, in the initial planning stages, and in the future if
the project is approved. It might not sound like the most
exciting aspect of the project but it’s certainly one area
where there’s a lot of public interest and concern. With a
project of this scale (the most recent estimate of the total
cost is around $16 billion) it’s not surprising that
people want to know who’s footing the bill.
An organic food company has committed $750,000 to studying a
sustainable farming strategy in the Sacramento Valley.
Cascadian Farm, a manufacturer of cereal, granola, granola bars
and frozen vegetables, announced the partnership with The
Nature Conservancy last week. The money will fund a trial on a
strategy that could turn working farmland into wildlife
habitat, regenerate groundwater and reduce flood risk.
State Water Board Member Tam Doduc believes the board will
approve a Bay-Delta Plan that includes voluntary agreements
with agricultural water interests.
Reclamation maintains and operates over 8,000 miles of water
distribution systems that use, among other means, reservoirs
and canals to store and deliver water. Water lost to seepage
reduces the efficiency of the water delivery to the users and
can cause undermining/erosion, subgrade soil migration, adverse
vegetation growth, and even canal failure….This prize
competition seeks innovative solutions that can reduce the
costs and burdens associated with installation and maintenance
of seepage reduction methods, and improve durability in a range
of climatic conditions.
Moving from competition to cooperation can help solve water
problems facing farms in the San Joaquin Valley and cities in
Southern California, and better prepare both for a changing
climate. At a virtual event last week, PPIC research fellow
Alvar Escriva-Bou summarized a new PPIC report showing how
cooperative investments in new supplies and water-sharing
agreements can help address both regions’ needs.
Shortly after taking office two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom
promised to deliver a massive compromise deal on the water
rushing through California’s major rivers and the
critically-important Delta — and bring lasting peace to the
incessant water war between farmers, cities, anglers and
environmentalists. … [C]oming to an agreement as promised
will require Newsom’s most artful negotiating skills. He’ll
have to get past decades of fighting and maneuvering, at the
same time California is continuing to recover from the worst
wildfire season in modern state history and a pandemic that has
since killed more than 42,000 state residents.
Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop may not see any more rain until
March. The long-range forecast by Accuweather based off of
National Weather Service modeling underscores the fact
California isn’t out of the woods when it comes to the
potential for 2021 being a drought year even with the recent
heavy storms that dumped significant snow in the Sierra. The
rest of the month is expected to see weather that has daily
highs in the mid-60s to the low 40s with no rain anticipated
until March 1.
Cascadian Farm, a pioneering brand in the organic movement,
announced its commitment of $750,000 to The Nature Conservancy
to help rebuild farmland in California’s Sacramento Valley. The
two-year investment will focus on partnering with farmers to
rebuild wildlife habitat and regenerate groundwater on more
than 25 million square feet, equal to 600 acres of farmland, in
this key sourcing region for the brand.
Tens of thousands of large dams across the globe are reaching
the end of their expected lifespans, leading to a dramatic rise
in failures and collapses, a new UN study finds. These
deteriorating structures pose a serious threat to hundreds of
millions of people living downstream…. In 2017, a
spillway collapsed at the 50-year-old Oroville Dam in
California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. It caused the evacuation
of around 180,000 people. The 770-foot dam is the highest in
the U.S. and, after repairs to the spillway, remains critical
to the state’s water supply.
In an act of cultural appreciation, two open spaces in Redding
are being renamed using the native Wintu language. What has
been known as the Henderson Open Space along the bank of the
Sacramento River in the heart of the city will now be known as
“Nur Pon Open Space.” About $5-million have been spent in the
area in the last 10 years, including the construction of a
salmon spawning channel.
On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we are
speaking with Sacramento Bee environment reporter Ryan Sabalow
about his five part investigation, Nothing Wild: California’s
relationship with the animal kingdom is broken. Can it be
fixed? Invasive grasses are causing fires to explode, thousands
of water birds are dying miserable deaths, and the sage grouse
is at risk of disappearing forever. Sabalow explores
California’s ecological crisis and our relationship with its
wild places.
The California Department of Water Resources has secured $308
million in funding to pay for reconstruction and repair work
that has been done on the Oroville Dam’s spillways. The funds,
released by FEMA, are in addition to the $260 million that the
agency provided for repairs on the lower portion of the dam’s
main spillway. Repair work on the damaged emergency and main
spillways has been ongoing for nearly four years following
February 2017’s spillway crisis. The $308 million announced
Monday was at first rejected but later approved by FEMA
following an appeal from the DWR last year.
The Delta Conservancy has launched a new initiative aimed at
fixing all these problems — carbon emissions, soil subsidence,
and water security — at the same time. Called the Delta Carbon
Program, the initiative entails a two-pronged solution. First,
subsided islands are flooded, protecting them from the air and
so arresting further soil and carbon loss. Then the newly
inundated islands are re-vegetated with water-loving plants
that rebuild peat, reversing subsidence and so reducing the
risk of levee failure.
While Global Warming only intensifies weather conditions, the
geological record shows that Megafloods have occurred in
California every century or two, likely triggered by
“atmospheric rivers” dumping a conveyor belt of drenching rains
out of the Pacific. The last Megaflood occurred in 1861-62,
flooding all western states, putting vast sections of
California underwater for months, ruining a quarter of the
state’s economy, and pushing California into near-bankruptcy.
The business of water allocations – simply put, who receives
water from the State Water Project (SWP) and who gets to decide
how much – is the subject of two new episodes in the Delta
Conveyance Deep Dive video series. In Part One, State
Water Operations Chief Molly White explains the operations and
regulations that govern the process of allocating water to the
state’s 29 Public Water Agencies and addresses the question of
how the proposed Delta Conveyance Project would affect that
process.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) completed its yearly
post-holiday tradition of recycling Christmas trees into prime
habitat for fish species at Lake Oroville and the Thermalito
Afterbay. DWR’s Oroville Field Division and their local
partners collect the trees and bundle them together as habitat
structures that provide juvenile fish shelter to conceal
themselves from predators. Providing these small fish with safe
refuge areas boosts their chance of survival, thereby
increasing fish populations in Lake Oroville and the Thermalito
Afterbay.
San Francisco Bay is dwarfed by the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound
and other treasured estuaries when it comes to federal funding,
and California lawmakers want that changed. On Thursday, a
contingent of Bay Area members of Congress introduced
legislation that would boost federal money tenfold for
restoration of the region’s signature waters. Under the
proposal, $50 million a year for five years would flow to bay
projects that reduce water pollution, support wildlife, revive
wetlands and protect shoreline communities from sea level rise.
We are now past the halfway mark in California’s normally
wettest winter months, and the wet season to date has been
anything but. Most of the state has received less than half of
its average annual precipitation to date. Coming after a very
dry Water Year 2020 these conditions are concerning. More
precipitation will certainly occur in February and March, but
will it be enough to erase the state’s large
deficit?
California researchers now investigating the source of [the
Sacramento River's Chinook] salmon’s nutritional problems find
themselves contributing to an international effort to
understand thiamine deficiency, a disorder that seems to be on
the rise in marine ecosystems across much of the planet. It’s
causing illness and death in birds, fish, invertebrates, and
possibly mammals, leading scientists from Seattle to
Scandinavia to suspect some unexplained process is compromising
the foundation of the Earth’s food web by depleting ecosystems
of this critical nutrient.
The official salmon count for Putah Creek revealed just 140
individuals for the winter run. That was down from 550 reported
last year and close to the same number the year before that,
and is considerably lower than the peak of nearly 2,000 fish
during the 2017 run. One count put the number for the 2019
report at closer to 1,500 fish.
Today, 95% of the Central Valley’s historical floodplains are
cut off from the river by levees. Built in the early 1900s to
combat devastating floods, levees and bypasses were constructed
to corral mighty rivers and push water quickly through the
system. Even before invasive species, large rim dams, and Delta
water export facilities were introduced into the system, salmon
populations started to dramatically decline with the
construction of the levees. Simply put, the levees prevented
Chinook salmon from accessing their primary food source.
If you look deep into the eyes of a fish, it will tell you its
life story. Scientists from the University of California,
Davis, demonstrate that they can use stable isotopic analysis
of the eye lenses of freshwater fish—including threatened and
endangered salmon—to reveal a fish’s life history and what it
ate along the way. They conducted their study, published today
in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, through
field-based experiments in California’s Central Valley. The
study carries implications for managing floodplains, fish and
natural resources; prioritizing habitat restoration efforts;
and understanding how landscape disturbances impact fish.
The biologists working in a fish hatchery near Shasta Dam grew
increasingly concerned last year when newly hatched salmon fry
began to act strangely — swimming around and around, in tight,
corkscrewing motions, before spiraling to their deaths at the
bottom of the tanks. … [S]cientists eventually unlocked part
of the mystery: The fish had a deficiency of thiamine, or
vitamin B1.
Each spring and fall, an estimated 1 billion birds migrate
through the Pacific Flyway, which snakes down from Alaska,
along the West Coast of the United States and Mexico,
and into South America. … Now new research reveals what
has been long-suspected but never confirmed: California’s
Central Valley and the Colorado River Delta are hotspots for
North America’s migratory landbirds.
San Francisco rightly prides itself on being an environmental
leader. Given this deep commitment to protecting the
environment, the city’s water agency — the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission — should be a leader in smart, sustainable
water policy. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. But
Mayor London Breed now has a once-in-a-decade chance to turn
the SFPUC in a new direction by appointing a progressive,
visionary new general manager who reflects the city’s values.
San Francisco’s Bay-Delta ecosystem and the Central Valley
rivers that feed it are in steep decline… -Written by John McManus, president of the Golden State
Salmon Association, and Kate Poole, the water lead for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.
The Regional Water Authority (RWA) is delighted to announce
that Michelle Banonis has been selected as the organization’s
new Manager of Strategic Affairs. Banonis has over two decades
of experience in water, ecosystems, engineering, policy, and
law, and most recently served as the Assistant Chief Deputy
Director of the California Department of Water Resources where
she worked on water-related issues of statewide significance
with multiple interests.
California water issues are notoriously complicated by a
massive diversity of users, ecosystems, applications and
futures. Indeed, water in the Delta has been described as
a “wicked problem” indicating that these problems cannot
be ignored and defy straightforward characterization and
solutions. Below we highlight how a Swiss cheese model might be
applied to vexing long-term declines in native fish populations
in California.
The Trump administration left President Biden a dilemma in the
California desert: a plan to remove protections from millions
of acres of public lands and open vast areas to solar and wind
farms. Biden’s team could easily block the proposed changes,
which were slammed by conservationists as a last-gasp effort by
the outgoing administration to support private industry at the
expense of wildlife habitat and treasured landscapes….There
are also places to put solar and wind installations besides
intact habitat, including Central Valley farmland with
dwindling water supplies …
California’s tussle with federal authorities over water
operations will get a second look under the new administration
of President Joe Biden. The 46th president plans to sign a
number of executive orders, including one that instructs agency
heads to review actions taken under President Donald Trump that
“were harmful to public health, damaging to the environment,
unsupported by the best available science, or otherwise not in
the national interest.” On the list for both the departments of
Commerce and Interior is a review of new biological opinions
adopted in 2019 governing water delivery in California.
The Colusa and Glenn Groundwater Authorities will host an
online workshop about a Well Monitoring Pilot Program the
agencies are implementing. The voluntary, non-regulatory
program will gather information about groundwater use in the
Colusa Subbasin while also providing participants with
near-real time access to information on well production and
groundwater levels at their wells, according to a press
release.
Recent fish surveys confirm what many biologists, ecologists,
and water experts have known for some time – Delta smelt remain
on the brink of extinction. Zero Delta smelt were found in the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recent Fall
Midwater Trawl Survey. Even the Enhanced Delta Smelt Monitoring
Program, which is specifically designed to capture the tiny
fish, only successfully caught two Delta smelt from September 8
to December 11, 2020.
A California agricultural developer has agreed to pay a civil
penalty, preserve streams and wetlands, effect mitigation, and
be subject to a prohibitory injunction to resolve alleged
violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) on property near the
Sacramento River located in Tehama County, California, the
Justice Department announced today. Roger J. LaPant Jr.
purchased the property in this case in 2011 and sold it in
2012…
While they remain hopeful the rest of winter will provide much
more rain and snow, water resources managers in the Sacramento
Valley are preparing for the potential for a dry year. While
the prospect of a dry year is always jarring and challenging,
we have confidence in the experience and knowledge that our
water resources managers gained in 2014-15, and the strategies
this region has implemented since that time to prepare for a
dry year.
Chinook salmon have spawned for millennia in Auburn
Ravine Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River in
Northern California northeast of Sacramento, but
biologists have been uncertain if salmon could get past the
Chaparral Cascades. … Now there is proof that salmon can
get through the cascades to spawn upstream. A local resident
noticed salmon spawning about 375 yards upstream from the
Chaparral Cascades on November 5, 2016 and preserved video
proof of that…
California has lost more than 90% of its wetlands since the
arrival of European settlers. Wetlands play an increasingly
crucial role in absorbing excess water and protecting coastal
and inland communities from flooding. They also provide
critical habitat for wildlife, including a variety of species
found nowhere else on Earth, some of which are at risk of
blinking out of existence…. we’ve identified three critical
lessons California has to offer the world to improve
restoration on a global scale… -Written by Julie Rentner, president of River Partners, and
Manuel Oliva, CEO of Point Blue Conservation Science.
In the latter part of 2020, various actions were implemented in
the Sacramento Valley to promote salmon recovery that point
positive as we begin 2021. Even during a global pandemic,
partners were working together on efforts to advance science to
inform salmon recovery decisions and tangible projects to
improve habitat for fish
California’s labyrinthine system of dams and levees cut off
once roaring rivers from millions of acres of their
floodplains, drastically reducing the habitat and food salmon
need to thrive. Climate change may hasten extinctions by
raising water temperatures and disrupting flows with bigger
floods and more frequent and severe droughts, which also
threaten to reignite conflicts over increasingly scarce
water. But such dire prospects have inspired a novel
alliance in one of the most productive agricultural valleys in
the country, which has turned adversaries into allies to offer
salmon and other threatened wildlife a lifeline.
The Sites Reservoir was awarded $13.7 million in the 2021
federal spending bill. The 2021 federal spending bill …
included $1.4 trillion to fund government agencies and a $900
billion pandemic relief package. Sites Reservoir is proposed
for construction in remote ranch lands in Colusa County, about
70 miles north of Sacramento. It was originally given a $5.1
billion price tag, but the Sites Project Authority reduced it
to $3 billion in May.
USACE Sacramento District has a proven track record of facing
challenges head-on. When 2020 brought with it the Novel
Coronavirus, the District responded quickly to address the
needs of a rapidly changing work environment…This year marked
the start of major construction on the [American River Common
Features] project, and the pandemic hit just as crews were
mobilizing, meaning both USACE and its contractors faced
unexpected public impacts.
The Water Forum is pleased to announce the selection of Jessica
Law as its new Executive Director. The Water Forum is a diverse
group of local governments, environmentalists, water managers,
businesses and others working together to balance the coequal
goals of providing reliable water supplies for the Sacramento
region and preserving the environment of the Lower American
River.
As we reflect on this tumultuous year, we have much to be
thankful and a lot to learn. Along with the truly special
people that grace our lives, we are all thankful for the
Sacramento Valley’s unique combination of water, land and
sun–the essential ingredients for bountiful life and the
amazing biodiversity of our region.
In California’s contentious water battles, finding points of
agreement is a challenging task as diverse interests compete
for a steadily dwindling, essential natural resource. By
pulling together these diverse interests, we found a way to
make progress towards improving what is arguably California’s
hardest-working floodplain, the 60,000-acre Yolo Bypass. -Written by Jim Provenza and Gary Sandy, Yolo County
Supervisors, and Robin Kulakow, founder of the Yolo Basin
Foundation.
Over the past three years, a team of scientists from
universities, NGOs, and state agencies across California have
been working to provide guidance on how to better manage river
flows for freshwater ecosystems throughout the state. A key
product of this effort is the California Environmental Flows
Framework (Framework), a guidance document and set of tools to
help managers and stakeholders develop environmental flow
recommendations for California’s rivers.
While Republican members of Congress praised the most recent
step toward approving raising the height of Shasta Dam, fishing
and environmental groups criticized it as the illegal actions
of a “lame duck federal agency.”
Why would a public water agency that exists primarily to serve
irrigation water to farmers on the west side of Fresno and
Kings counties undertake an ecosystem restoration project in
the Delta?
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has provided a $10 million grant
to Chico State and its partners to re-establish juvenile salmon
and salmonid habitats along the Sacramento River.
Westlands Water District announced Wednesday that it recently
completed the Lower Yolo Restoration Project, which restored
the habitat for fish and other wildlife species in part of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. … The land had been previously
used for cattle grazing, and now it has transformed into tidal
marsh, riparian and upland buffer habitat.
The California Natural Resources Agency recently announced the
investment of almost $50 million in Proposition 68 funding for
projects to promote salmon recovery. More than $220 million in
Proposition 1 and Proposition 68 funds have also been dedicated
for multi-benefit flood protection projects in the past two
years that will benefit salmon.
The Trump Administration Thursday released the Shasta Lake
Water Resources Investigation Final Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement to increase water storage capacity in the
Shasta Lake reservoir by 634,000 acre-feet,
Work crews have been busy this week along Twin Cities Road near
Courtland. They are conducting core sampling, the first step in
drafting an environmental impact report for a tunnel plan known
as the Delta Conveyance Project.
The Kern County Water Agency board of directors voted
unanimously to approve an agreement with the Department of
Water Resources to pay $14 million over 2021 and 2020 as its
initial share of the early planning and design phase for what’s
now being called the Delta Conveyance Facility.
