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.
For many Butte County residents, the Salmon Festival is a
chance to enjoy local vendors and activities. For others, the
festival is an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the
salmon and wildlife culture in the Feather River. To kick off
the festival, the Maidu Konkow Valley Band from the North Fork
of the Feather River performed a series of opening ceremony
dances. Wallace Clark, a member of the Maidu and a “noponi,”
the carrier of traditions, helped host and lead the opening
ceremony alongside the traditional dancers.
Joe was a top-notch engineer and he wanted those he mentored to
be the same. He was known to pull out a report, point to a
number, and ask, “where did this come from?” He was essentially
making sure we understood the information, and could replicate
it in the future. Many times, he would give out an assignment,
knowing we were not aware of all that had to be done, but
making us think through the problem and ask questions in order
to get the job done correctly. … Joe died on September
3, 2021, at the age of 95. His days of working full time were
long behind him, but he never lost sight of his family.
The Water Forum has been working closely with the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation to coordinate a response to drought conditions
and reduce impacts to regional water supplies and the health of
the Lower American River. We recently welcomed Kristin White,
Operations Manager for Reclamation’s Central Valley Project, to
provide an update on drought conditions in California and
across the Western United States at the Water Forum Drought
Plenary. What she shared was both stark and sobering. It was a
glimpse into the problems facing federal and state water
managers during this extraordinarily challenging water year.
If next year is dry in California, modeling from the Bureau of
Reclamation (linked here, dated July 6, 2021) shows that Shasta
Reservoir would store nearly 750,000 acre feet less water in
April 2022 than it did in April 2014 – a year that was an
unmitigated disaster for fish and wildlife. The
operations presented in Reclamation’s modeling could lead to
extinction for winter-run Chinook salmon and other threatened
and endangered fish populations if next year is dry.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provided the public an
opportunity to review and comment on an Environmental
Assessment (EA) for the construction, upgrade, and
maintenance of new and existing monitoring stations in
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta). Public
notifications were posted to this website and distributed via
social media, but USGS received no comments during the review
period.
For the Marin Municipal Water District directors to suggest we
build a $65 million pipeline across the Richmond-San Rafael
Bridge to harvest water from the Central Valley tells me they
are walking around with blinders on. We can’t keep expecting to
get water from somewhere else. You don’t have to go far to see
the impacts of the drought in the Central Valley. The water is
so low at Lake Oroville, the hydro plant may have to close. -Written by independent filmmaker Kristi Denton Cohen, a
Mill Valley resident.
Here we go again. We are being told California water supplies
are at risk and we need to start using less water under threat
of more mandatory water use restrictions. In 2019, we had one
of the wettest years on record. At the end of the 2019 water
year, major water storage reservoirs in California were at 125%
of average capacity. That was just two years ago. In 2019,
California had enough rainfall and snow pack to satisfy several
years of water supply demands if we had dams and reservoirs of
sufficient capacity to capture this life-giving resource. -Written by Steven Smith, Village News contributor.
More than 94 percent of the West is in drought this week,
according to the US Drought Monitor, with six states entirely
in drought status: California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and
Montana. Parts of the West saw record-setting rainfall that
brought some slight relief to the region, but most areas remain
dry. Against the backdrop of climate change-fueled drought,
wildfires have charred nearly 6 million acres of vegetation
across the region. Fire experts say that dry and windy
conditions create a prime environment for wildfires to spark
and spread.
Water resources managers and the leaders in Northern California
continue to advance Ridgetop to River Mouth water management
… There are unique opportunities in the Sacramento River
Basin to advance ridgetop to river mouth water management,
which can best be envisioned by looking holistically at: 1)
headwaters and forest health, 2) floodplain reactivation for
public safety and fish and wildlife, 3) sustainable groundwater
management (including groundwater recharge and banking), 4)
healthy soils and farms; 5) safe drinking water; and 6) vital
rivers and streams.
The Foundation’s virtual journeys will whisk you away to
explore California’s key rivers and water regions this
fall from the Sacramento River to the headwaters in the
Sierras. Plus, our annual Water
Summit will feature water managers and other
water experts who are dealing with the “new normal” as
unprecedented drought and wildfires challenge the status
quo.
Deep in the northern California wilderness, nestled among
rolling hills and magnificent pines, the Mount Shasta volcano
towers above the landscape as a lone sentinel beckoning to
those around it. Rising to 14,179 feet, Shasta is one of the
tallest mountains in the Lower 48. Given its height, snow cover
is common year-round, especially after a snowy season or two.
It is home to some of the largest glaciers in California and
includes at least seven glaciers, some named after Native
Americans in the 1800s. This year is testing the theory that
snow and ice will always be found on Shasta.
A few months before his retirement in October 2021, Ariel
Rubissow Okamoto asked Ted Sommer, lead scientist for the
California Department of Water Resources, to reflect on his
accomplishments and hopes for the future. Sommer is a leading
researcher on native fishes, and has published more than 60
research articles in peer-reviewed scientific publications
since 2001.
For centuries, spring-run Chinook salmon, among California’s
most iconic fish, would rest for weeks in these historically
cold waters after their brutal upstream journey. Then they
would lay eggs and, finally, perish to complete one of nature’s
most improbable life cycles. No longer. What once was a place
where life began is now one of untimely death. The creek is
simply too warm, an astounding 10 degrees warmer than average
in some parts of these spawning grounds.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s California Great-Basin Region
announces the selection of Levi Johnson as the Deputy Manager
for the Central Valley Operations Office. CVO oversees water
and power operations of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project,
one of the world’s largest and most complex water storage and
delivery systems. The CVP comprises 19 dams, 18 reservoirs, 11
powerplants, and over 500 miles of canals and aqueducts within
California’s Central Valley.
James Gilbert, an associate project scientist in the Institute
of Marine Sciences (IMS) at UC Santa Cruz, was recognized by
the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) with its
Staff of the Quarter award for the third quarter of fiscal year
2021. … The award recognizes his work as part of the FCP’s
Central Valley Salmon project.
The Upper Sacramento River was again at risk of devastation
after a Union Pacific train derailed recently at Cantara Loop,
reminding many of the disastrous spill over 30 years ago in the
same location. Luckily this time, no spills of any kind
occurred, but this further strengthens the argument that this
pristine stretch of river requires protection. Disastrous spill
In July 1991, a 97-car Southern Pacific train derailed at the
Cantara Loop near Mt. Shasta and dumped 19,000 gallons of
herbicide metam sodium into the Sacramento River.
A brutal summer of record heat and punishing drought has
claimed yet another California victim: the majestic,
snow-covered slopes of Mt. Shasta. Just as the impacts of
global warming have revealed themselves in extreme wildfire
behavior and plunging reservoir levels, climate change is now
altering the skyline of far Northern California and wreaking
havoc on communities surrounding the dormant volcano.
Dangerously low water levels at Shasta Lake were captured on
drone video by ABC10 reporter John Bartell and photojournalist
Tyler Horst on Tuesday. Shasta Lake is California’s
largest reservoir, capable of holding 4,552,000 acre feet of
water. Right now, it has 1,186,057 acre feet of water stored.
Breaking that down into percentages, the reservoir is at 26%
capacity and 42% of average for this date.
As drought-stricken California considers constructing new dams,
a new study finds that many of the state’s existing structures—
despite efforts to prioritize healthy water temperatures— are
failing the cold-water ecosystems that depend on them. The
study, published in PLOS One, crunched data from 77 cold-water
streams across California to characterize their “thermal
regime” — that is, their annual temperature fluctuations over
an eight- to 12-year period.
Ironic how a whitewater rafting trip can be a great analogy for
water policy work. Collaborating on water policy and water
solution implementations in California is a productive pathway
forward. Be it in a coalition, at your local farm, in your
community, in the Legislature, in the Governor’s office, or
when barreling towards rapids in a raft. Without collaboration,
particularly in a dry year like 2021, we all may fail for fish,
farmers, fowl, floodplains, and for safe drinking water.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service today announced the Notice of Funding Opportunity for
projects that enhance Chinook salmon and steelhead trout
production and associated habitats in the Central Valley,
consistent with the Central Valley Project Improvement Act.
Reclamation and the Service plan to award up to $40 million
(subject to appropriations) in fiscal year 2022 through
multiple grants or cooperative agreements to projects
prioritized by the CVPIA Near-Term Restoration Strategy.
Freshly cut off from their chief water supply, a group of
California water agencies in one of the state’s most fertile
farming areas sued on Wednesday to freeze the latest round of
emergency drought rules. In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento
County Superior Court, the suppliers argue they were denied due
process when state regulators ordered thousands of landowners
last month to cease diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta due to drought conditions.
Given the current drought, it’s no surprise that California’s
dams are struggling to provide cool water habitats to support
native freshwater ecosystems. But what if they were never able
to support them under any conditions? New research shows how
current stream management fails to provide the patterns of cool
water that California’s native ecosystems need. The challenges
stem from two issues: an oversimplification of stream
temperature targets and the assumption that dam regulation can
replicate desirable cold water patterns.
This summer, tens of millions of salmon have been cooked in
California in their own native habitat. Record-breaking heat
and drought have drawn down the water flows and turned up the
temperatures of the state’s streams and rivers. The heat shock,
along with the impacts of parasites and fungal blights that are
fueled by warmer waters, has decimated the wild salmon
populations. To stem the crisis, scientists have literally
gone above and beyond, hurling salmon over dams via pneumatic
cannons and trucking millions of fish to the Pacific Ocean to
bypass unlivable rivers.
Driving between her northern Central Valley rice fields with
the family dog in tow, fifth-generation farmer Kim Gallagher
points out the window to shorebirds, egrets and avocets
fluttering across a thousand-acre sea of green flooded in six
inches of water. … The nearly 500,000 acres of sushi
rice grown in the Sacramento Valley each year serve as the
wetland habitat for thousands of migrating birds along the
Pacific Coast. Yet the crop also uses more water than most, and
about half of the product is exported to countries including
Japan and South Korea.
A drought in California has led to a spike in the state’s water
prices, nearly doubling the value of futures contracts for the
essential commodity this year and creating opportunities in
water-related investments. As of Aug. 24, the Nasdaq Veles
California Water Index , which represents the weighted average
price of water-rights transactions across five major
markets in California and is published weekly, has climbed
by roughly 87% year to date to $923.54 per one-acre foot.
It has been a very active monsoon season, especially in
Arizona. However, here in Southern California, we do not expect
much rain during the summer, and the totals we have seen thus
far will not be a drought buster.
Extreme heat waves have made this a devastating summer for the
endangered salmon species of the U.S. West Coast. In mid July,
California wildlife officials warned that almost all of the
young Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River would likely die
because of lower water levels and higher water temperatures.
… But, amidst all the catastrophic headlines was a cool
spring of good news. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is finally acting to protect more than two dozen
endangered West Coast salmon and steelhead species from
pesticides.
Dams poorly mimic the temperature patterns California streams
require to support the state’s native salmon and trout — more
than three-quarters of which risk extinction. Bold actions are
needed to reverse extinction trends and protect cold-water
streams that are resilient to climate warming, according to a
study published in the journal PLOS ONE by the University of
California, Davis.
As discussed in our July 28, 2021, Policy Alert, the State
Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) recently adopted the
Draft Emergency Reporting and Curtailment Regulation
(Regulation), to authorize curtailments of water diversions in
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta). The Regulation
was approved by the Office of Administrative Law and became
effective on August 19, 2021.
After declaring a State 2 water alert, the City of Sacramento
is asking residents to reduce their water usage by 15%. ….The
city’s attempts at decreasing water usage have not only been
aimed at residents. They have decreased use of surface water
from the American River, increased use of groundwater and river
water from the Sacramento River, and increased water patrols to
educate people on water waste.
The Paradise Irrigation District says it will now more closely
monitor its free water fill station to the drought. … The
district says in more closely monitoring the station that is
only open to PID customers, people who are picking up water now
must register inside the office, include their service address
name and vehicle information.
Water regulators on Friday formally ordered thousands of
farmers across California to cut back their water use this
summer or face fines of up to $10,000 a day. The State Water
Resources Control Board began sending formal “curtailment
notices” to the holders of 4,500 water rights permits that
allow them to pull water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin
rivers and their tributaries.
Sacramento’s American River Parkway gets more than five million
visits a year—that’s even more than Yosemite—but this year, the
nature area has suffered more destructive brush fires than ever
before. Parkway advocates came face to face with politicians,
firefighters and those who manage the area to demand more
protection.
Summer is underway and that means splashing around Putah Creek,
hiking, camping, and… heat domes? With this excessive heat, the
thought on everyone’s minds is likely how does this severe
drought affect water resources throughout California? The
extreme temperatures coupled with the low snowpack in the
Sierra have meant fast evaporation in many of the state’s
reservoirs; not to mention a heat dome that has descended upon
much of the United States bringing record breaking heat to even
the most mild summer climates.
Only one water storage project remains a possibility in
California seven years after voters approved a bond to build
more dams. Sites Reservoir is the last proposed project
standing. State Senator Jim Nielsen of Red Bluff has spent
years fighting to build Sites Reservoir in Northern California.
It’s a $5-billiion project creating 1-point-8 million acres
feet of water storage.
In response to worsening drought conditions, the board of
Southern California’s regional water wholesaler will consider
declaring a Water Supply Alert that calls upon residents to
voluntarily conserve the precious resource. According
to officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California (MWD), Southern California’s water supply has been
severely impacted by extreme drought in both the Northern
Sierra and the Colorado River, saying crucial storage
reservoirs have never been lower.
CalTrout’s Central Valley 2021 field season (Oct 1, 2020 –
April 1, 2021) marked the much-awaited second year study of
large-scale Fish Food export. For some brief background, the
Fish Food export program is CalTrout’s novel management
practice for transferring benefits of winter-flooded habitat
that juvenile salmon can not get to, back to fish wedged
between the river levee system. The Fish Food program is the
compliment to the Nigiri Project. With Nigiri, we bring fish
onto the floodplain, and with Fish Food, we bring the
floodplain back to the fish.
California’s salmon are suffering massive
die-offs this summer because of the excessive,
reservoir-draining water deliveries authorized by these
biological opinions. And Secretary Haaland has now had 90 days
times two for her review. It is time for her to act. Join us
in telling the Secretary that she must no longer
delay reversing the damage done by these Trump biological
opinions by reinitiating consultation now and putting strong
protections in place while new permits are being drafted.
Amid extreme drought, Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking for statewide
conservation of 15%, farmers are facing cutbacks in water
deliveries, and a mass die-off of salmon is expected. Drought
affects us all, so our response must improve the natural
systems that make our water, air and food — our existence —
possible. The State Water Resources Control Board has taken the
rare drastic step of adopting emergency regulations to curtail
diversions of water rights holders when water is not
available. -Written by Sandi Matsumoto, director of The
Nature Conservancy’s California Water Program, and Julie
Zimmerman, the lead freshwater scientist at The Nature
Conservancy in California.
Buried in an hours-long State Water Resources Control Board
hearing recently was the admission that California experts
overestimated the spring inflow by 800,000-acre feet. Put
another way, the state banked on water that never came. That
admission, coupled with public policy that favors environmental
uses of water over human needs, led to California’s recent
curtailment of the most senior of water rights – a private
property right that once had value in California and threatens
to ripple far and wide.
Located in California’s Central Valley, the Sacramento National
Wildlife Refuge Complex is made up of six individual National
Wildlife Refuges including Sacramento, Colusa, Delevan, Butte
Sink, Sutter and a long stretch of the Sacramento River from
Red Bluff south to Princeton. The complex adds up to 10,819
acres and was originally established by Franklin D. Roosevelt
on Feb. 27, 1937, as a Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. Waterfowl
using the Pacific Flyway to migrate currently and historically
used the area as a winter refuge. Written by Kevin
Deacon, a recent graduate of Tuleyome’s California Naturalist
Certification course, and Kristie Ehrhardt, Tuleyome’s
Land Conservation and Stewardship Program Manager.
There will undoubtedly always be some folks who believe the
myth that building new dams and reservoirs will be a silver
bullet that solves California’s water supply challenges.
The reality, of course, is that California already has
constructed nearly 1,400 dams and reservoirs, and compared to
the excessive and unsustainable demand for water in our state,
new dams and reservoirs provide little water – at high
cost. And of course, most dams and reservoirs have had
devastating impacts on our native fish and wildlife, and the
Tribes, fishing jobs, and communities that depend on their
health.
Shasta Lake is at about 30 percent of capacity, the lowest it’s
been at this time of year since 1977. KRCR spoke with Bureau of
Reclamation Area Manager Don Bader on a windy morning on top of
Shasta Dam. He says a water schedule is set in February and
adjusted as necessary. The release from Keswick Dam is about
8,000 cubic feet per second (CFS). Normally it would be 12,000
CFS. The reason that much water is flowing downriver is for
freshwater fish in the delta and agricultural diversions.
California doesn’t have enough water to meet all demands even
in wet years, and when drought strikes the competition becomes,
to put it mildly, intense. State and federal officials who must
ration the restricted supply are beset with pleas from farmers,
municipal water systems and advocates for the environment.
However, water managers must also contend with a bewildering
array of water rights, some of which date to the 19th century,
as well as long-standing contractual obligations and laws, both
statutes and judicial decrees, on maintaining flows for
spawning salmon and other wildlife. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters columnist.
The Redding City Council approved the 2021 Water Transfer
Agreement with the city of Shasta Lake. The approval, given at
the council’s meeting on Tuesday night, paves the way for the
sale of up to 120 acre-feet of Redding’s water to Shasta Lake
at a cost of $328 per acre-foot.
A deeply troubled group of high-ranking state officials, tribal
leaders, environmentalists and fishermen met July 27 to discuss
the triple whammy that is threatening some species of Pacific
salmon with extinction — a combination of record-breaking heat,
drought and disastrous federal water policies — particularly
those of the Trump administration, which drained mountain
reservoirs of cold water, sending it to the Central Valley.
California regulators cut off thousands of farmers from their
main irrigation supplies Tuesday, banning them from pulling
water from the state’s main rivers and streams as the drought
worsens. The State Water Resources Control Board, following
hours of debate and comment, voted 5-0 to impose an “emergency
curtailment” order covering the rivers of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta watershed — essentially the entire Central
Valley. It’s the most dramatic step taken to date by state
regulators since the drought was officially declared in most of
California’s counties — and surpasses any of the moves made
during the previous drought.
As California grapples with the effects of an ongoing drought,
UC Berkeley researchers are studying changes in the magnitude
of streamflows and drought-induced tree mortality in order to
advise climate change policy.
Forest managers, community and environmental stakeholders, and
policymakers alike have called for an increase in the pace and
scale of proactive forest management. This work is essential to
reducing wildfire risk and improving forest health,
… Water agencies may be well placed to take on a leading
role—based on the value they receive from reducing wildfire
risk, their high capacity to manage complex projects, and their
watershed-scale management approach.
As California’s drought worsens, state water officials are
preparing to take emergency action to conserve. The state water
board is voting later this morning on new water restrictions
that could impact thousands of farmers. If passed, the
emergency regulations would restrict anyone from diverting
water out of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and their
tributaries.
California is in the grip of another extreme drought. The
consequences can be seen all over the Sacramento region and,
unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. We expect to see water
levels in the American River this fall that may reach historic
lows. This will be difficult not only for people who enjoy
recreating in our scenic river corridor, but also for the
salmon, steelhead and other native species that need water to
survive and reproduce. That’s why we’re urging everyone in the
Sacramento region to start conserving water in earnest. -Written by Ralph Propper, president of the
Environmental Council of Sacramento, and Tom Gray, general
manager of the Fair Oaks Water District.
How low can Lake Oroville go? While losing over a foot of water
each day, historically low is the answer. The lake is on track
to beat its lowest recorded record: 645 feet above sea level in
September 1977. Friday, it sits at 646.97 feet, just feet away
from a new record. This could drop dramatically further to 620
feet by late October, according to Molly White, Water
Operations Manager for the Department of Water Resources (DWR).
We’re moving! Please update your contact information for the
Water Education Foundation. Starting Aug. 2, our office will be
located near the confluence of the Sacramento and American
rivers, on the fringe of downtown Sacramento. Our new
address is 2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205, Sacramento
CA 95833.
The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District (Regional
San) has completed a significant upgrade to its wastewater
treatment facility that serves the Sacramento region. The new
Biological Nutrient Removal project (BNR) is now operational,
virtually eliminating ammonia from the region’s treated
wastewater.
California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is currently
experiencing one of the driest years in recorded history.
The US Drought Monitor recently classified large portions of
the Delta Watershed as being in a state of “Exceptional
Drought,” while the remaining portions are in a state of
“Extreme Drought.” The California Nevada River Forecast
Center also provides information that the to-date flows in
nearly all streams in the watershed are between 20 and 40
percent of the annual average. As a result, the water
supplies for many users in the region are in jeopardy.
In the state that perfected if not invented the American
summer, the smell of 17 million gallons of spilled sewage
lingered last week on a Southern California beach. There were
bare rocks where snow once capped the Sierra Nevada and bathtub
rings where water once glistened in Shasta Lake. Wildfires
roared across the West, threatening the electrical grid, the
smoke so thick it could be seen from space, pluming into the
jet stream, delaying planes in Denver, turning the sun red in
Manhattan, creating its own weather.
Facing another summer of catastrophic fish kills, California
lawmakers and fisheries managers on Tuesday blamed a Trump-era
water policy and climate change for the sizzling water
temperatures threatening to erase an entire run of Chinook
salmon. … Chinook salmon die-offs on the state’s rivers have
happened routinely over the last two decades. But a pending
disaster on the Sacramento and Klamath rivers has elected
officials, regulators, Native American tribes and fishermen
scrambling to save the keystone species from extinction.
Drought-plagued California is poised to bar thousands of
farmers, landowners and others from pumping water from the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed, a move that irrigation
districts said exceeds the water board’s authority. The
emergency rules would be the first time state regulators have
taken such wide-reaching action during a drought to prevent
diversions from the massive Delta watershed stretching from
Fresno to the Oregon border.
The news reports about the California salmon wipeout got a good
chunk of the story right: Record-breaking heat waves made
Northern California rivers too warm to sustain migrating
Chinook salmon, and virtually all of the salmon in the
Sacramento River this summer have died, or will die, before
reproducing. Any eggs that were successfully laid, or the fry
hatched from those eggs, are also likely doomed. So a
generation of the rare and endangered winter-run Chinook, and
the spring-run as well, are virtually gone.
The drought is taking its toll on dams and rivers throughout
California and there is no clearer example than at Lake
Oroville where water levels have been dropping all year.
… The Oroville Dam is the state water system’s tallest,
but boaters and fishermen have witnessed the water level fall
nearly 250 feet below average. State water regulators are
required to release water to protect fish downstream. They are
trying to preserve as much water as possible, but levels are
dropping a foot a day.
Empty wells. Salmon die-offs. Water thieves. The
uncontrollable flames of monster wildfire. In
California, one of the worst droughts on record has
touched off a kaleidoscopic range of emergencies,
amplifying age-old resource conflicts as leaders
call for conservation by cities, curtailments to
farmers and coordination across the board. The
interconnectedness of the state’s hydrology is
especially apparent in one corner of the Sacramento
Valley, where scarce water for farmers will also mean less
for the migrating birds that make use of the same
land.
On July 2, 2021, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
issued an important decision regarding Section 401 of the Clean
Water Act, overturning an Order by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC’s Order had found that
the state of North Carolina had unlawfully “coordinated” with
the license applicant to delay the state’s certification that a
new FERC license for the Bynum hydroelectric project complied
with state water quality laws. FERC found that North
Carolina’s participation in the delay meant that the state had
“waived” its authority under Section 401 to issue the
certification.
Extreme and prolonged drought in the American west is prompting
water thieves to tap into other people’s scarce supplies. More
than 12bn gallons of water have been stolen in California in
the past eight years, according to state officials, but the
issue has been further exacerbated by the ongoing drought and
recent searing early summer heatwaves. A significant
amount of recent water theft has been blamed by the authorities
on illegal cannabis cultivation in some parts of the state.
Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river,
and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in
another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once
they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as
blistering heat waves and extended drought in the U.S. West
raise water temperatures and imperil fish from Idaho to
California. Hundreds of thousands of young salmon
are dying in Northern California’s Klamath River as
low water levels brought about by drought allow a parasite to
thrive, devastating a Native American tribe whose diet and
traditions are tied to the fish.
The State Water Resources Control Board on Friday released an
“emergency curtailment” order that would cut thousands off from
rivers and streams in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river
watersheds. The five-person board still has to vote on the
order Aug. 3, and it would take effect about two weeks later.
As water resources managers work hard this summer to deliver
limited water supplies to cities, rural communities, farms,
refuges and fisheries–while also providing essential
hydropower for the state’s energy grid–there is increasing
attention to prepare for the next water year. … As we think
about water management opportunities for next year, there is an
increasing focus on groundwater recharge …
Join us as we guide you on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
This tour guided participants on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
As the West descends deeper into drought, climate and water
experts are growing increasingly alarmed by California’s
shriveling reservoirs. Photos of Lake Oroville, Folsom Lake,
Trinity Lake and Lake Shasta, taken by Times photographer Brian
van der Brug using a drone, unveil the harsh reality of the
Golden State’s not-so-golden drought. On Wednesday, Lake Shasta
— the largest reservoir in the state — held a scant 1.55
million acre-feet of water, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, or about 34% of its capacity.
It doesn’t look like much now, a dry and dusty valley
surrounded by the modest mountains of California’s Coast Range.
These barren, brown hills an hour northwest of Sacramento will
be the future home of Sites Reservoir, one of the few major
water projects to be built in California since the 1970s.
California taxpayers are helping pay for Sites, which would
hold more water than Folsom Lake, through a $7.1 billion bond
they approved during the 2014 election.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is asking
recreational anglers to voluntarily change how, when and where
they fish to minimize stress and mortality among fish
populations suffering from drought conditions. CDFW is advising
anglers not to fish past noon on certain inland waters as even
catch-and-release angling during the hottest parts of the day
can greatly increase fish stress and mortality.
… Coldwater species such as trout, salmon and steelhead
have the greatest likelihood of being affected by the drought
this year but low water levels and high-water temperatures can
potentially affect all inland aquatic species.
California’s ongoing drought and predicted heatwave is causing
overly warm and low level waters and threatening to kill off
the entire populations of already endangered species like the
chinook salmon. Negotiations between the State Water Resources
Control Board and the federal Bureau of Reclamation approved a
plan for managing water levels. However, experts predict that
releasing water into the irrigation system this early will
disrupt salmon spawning season and could kill as many as 88% of
the salmon in the river.
The third and final Flood Walk, sponsored by Sustainable
Solano, took 12 participants on a journey through the
marshlands, by the docks and through some residential areas in
Suisun City. All are spots that could be affected by flooding.
… Sustainable Solano is a grassroots movement to unite people
in working toward a future that is ecologically regenerative,
and economically and socially supportive of local
communities.
California’s 2021 water outlook became grimmer this spring as
the state did not get fabulous February or miracle March
precipitation. Unsurprisingly, spring streamflow forecasts from
snowfed basins in the Sierra were far below average. For
example, early April forecasts from California DWR called for
April-July runoff to be between 59-70% of normal. Bad, but not
terrible. Then came April, bringing little additional
precipitation. To compound matters, April brought very warm
temperatures for much of the state that led to rapid ablation
(evaporation) of the Sierra snowpack.
Alex Padilla made his first official visit to the Central
Valley as U.S. Senator, holding several discussions about
water. Padilla, along with other elected officials, held a
media availability at his only public event of the day — a tour
of the Dos Palos water treatment plant. There, he spoke about
the need to upgrade infrastructure for drinking water, as well
as water for farmers. Padilla says the infrastructure bill
being debated in the Senate will help with water, especially in
underserved areas.
Science is about more than data and research, it’s about
teamwork. Collaboration is key, and the State Water Contractors
are committed to working together with our partners in
academia, government, non-profit and the private sectors to
invest in California’s water future. The SWC and
Member Agencies participated in multiple interagency and
stakeholder working groups tasked with determining how to
implement permit requirements, including the Spring-Run Chinook
Salmon Juvenile Production Estimate Core Team and Delta
Coordination Group for summer-fall habitat actions for Delta
Smelt.
For the first time in its 55 year history, the Iron Gate fish
hatchery, which raises salmon and steelhead, will not release
its salmon smolts into the Klamath River this summer. Due to
poor water conditions and an increase in a parasite called C.
Shasta in the river, the hatchery, located in Hornbrook,
California, will keep the tiny fish until fall. Now, the
hatchery is dealing with the logistics of moving millions of
fish to other facilities because they cannot accommodate all of
the growing salmon.
Mountain snow is like a bank account for water across the
western United States. Snow that falls on the Sierra Nevada,
the Rocky Mountains, and other ranges becomes a natural
reservoir that slowly melts each spring and summer and flows
down into the river valleys. The resource managers of western
states count on this allowance from nature to fill reservoirs
with sufficient water for the typically dry months of summer
and autumn. In 2021, those meltwater accounts have been turning
up “insufficient funds.”
Due to drought and poor water conditions in the Klamath River,
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)
successfully relocated 1.1 million juvenile, fall-run Chinook
salmon from its Iron Gate Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County. The
fish were trucked to a nearby satellite facility and to the
Trinity River Hatchery 122 miles away where the fish will
remain until conditions in the Klamath River improve.
California water inspectors have discovered evidence of algae
that could pose a risk to humans and pets at North Natomas
parks, prompting city workers to plant signs warning locals to
steer clear of the water. … The algae bloom coated the
city’s water and flood control basins, which collect and store
water run-off. The presence of algae itself isn’t unusual,
especially during a season of unprecedented droughts and
red-hot temperatures, officials said. But exposure to the
harmful algae toxins can cause vomiting, diarrhea, headaches
and eye irritation.
On June 24, Yolo County released a report on a recent design
charrette for the Tule Canal in the Yolo Bypass. The two-day
virtual workshop included 71 participants from a wide swath of
stakeholders — farmers, policy makers, landowners, hunters,
conservation scientists, educators, engineers and ecologists.
Led by consultants Robert Suarez and Teal Brown Zimring, with
generous funding from the State Water Contractors and
Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, the executive summary and
full report are now available on Yolo County’s Delta e-library:
California officials are warning nearly all juvenile chinook
salmon in the Sacramento River could die due to abnormally hot
underwater conditions as heat waves continue to bake the West.
There could be a “near-complete loss” of the young endangered
species of salmon because temperatures above 100 degrees for
extended periods of time are overheating the river, making it
uninhabitable for the fish to grow beyond their egg stage, the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) confirmed to
CNN on Tuesday.
Climate change is exacerbating droughts and accelerating the
transformation and decline of California’s native forest and
aquatic ecosystems. As a state, we are poorly organized to
manage these effects, which need extensive focused
preparation. We need to adapt (and we will make mistakes
in doing so). Our human, economic and environmental losses
will be much greater, however, if we manage poorly because of
delay, complacency or panic. -Written by Jay Lund, professor of civil and
environmental engineering at the University of California at
Davis.
Farmers are facing a water shortage right as we head into peak
growing season…. Solano County farmer Spencer Bei shows us
one of the wells his family uses to farm 15,000 acres. He says
he is losing pressure now as he is pumping because he is
pulling more from the aquifer due to a lack of surface water
and no rain in sight. He is one of many farmers feeling
the heat after the State Water Resources Board sent out letters
to 4,300 water-right holders saying there was no longer enough
water for them and that the remaining 2,300 with pre-1914
riparian rights could see even more restrictions soon.
[A] long-stalled plan to save Sacramento winter-run chinook
salmon, a critically endangered species, proposes trucking them
twice in their lifetimes. Spawning adults would get a lift from
the too-hot Sacramento River over Shasta Dam and be driven up
Interstate 5 to a cold mountain habitat in the McCloud River.
Later, their offspring would catch a ride back to the
Sacramento and head to the ocean to start the cycle again.
The drought is making the Sacramento River so hot that “nearly
all” of an endangered salmon species’ juveniles could be cooked
to death this fall, California officials warned this week. In a
brief update on the perilous state of the river issued this
week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made a
dire prediction about the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon
and its struggles against consistently hot weather in the
Sacramento Valley.
[S]ome 95% of the Central Valley’s riparian woodlands, along
with the conditions they evolved in, have already been
sacrificed, mainly to make the Central Valley an agricultural
powerhouse. The scattered remnants face multiple threats,
including droughts and floods intensified by climate change;
manipulated streamflows that favor human over ecological
needs; and shrinking aquifers left critically overdrawn by
decades of unregulated groundwater pumping.
City officials have placed warning signs at four North Natomas
parks where California water inspectors have found signs of
algae blooms that can be harmful to people and pets.
Algae blooms are not uncommon during warm spells when there is
stagnant water around, but the toxins in the bacteria
they produce can be harmful.
California’s reservoirs and rivers are startlingly low, forcing
many of the state’s more than 270 hydropower facilities to
generate less power. Lake Oroville, one of the state’s largest
reservoirs, made headlines because its water levels have
dropped so low the power plant may need to shut down for the
first time. While most other hydropower plants aren’t at risk
of shutting down, plants that rely on watersheds up and down
the state are not able to generate normal amounts of power.
Hot temperatures have many headed straight to local waterways
to cool off, but experts say high heat and a bad drought this
year can be ideal conditions for harmful algae. It’s an issue
that’s not always top of mind. … According to state
data, popular waterways in the immediate Sacramento area are
safe. People headed to the American River or Folsom Lake for
the Fourth of July are in the clear. But the state labels
part of Discovery Bay near San Francisco as a danger area, with
a warning not to swim or touch the scum on the water.
Skiers and snowboarders pray for snow so they can shred the
slopes. Climatologists and hydrologists have an entirely
different and more critical reason to cross their fingers for
the “white gold.” The West’s historic drought has many impacts,
including water shortages, more severe wildfire seasons and
unprecedented heat waves, to name a few. Intense droughts are a
result of many factors, one of which scientists have recently
begun to analyze with more scrutiny: snow drought.
To understand a sharp-elbows squabble that’s developing behind
the scenes in the state Capitol, one must first understand
“pumped-storage hydro,” a way for electrical energy to be
stored. In its simplest form, water stored in a reservoir is
released to generate power as it flows into a second reservoir
at a lower elevation. Later, when the electrical grid’s need
for power diminishes, the water is pumped back into the upper
reservoir so the cycle can be repeated when demand
increases. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters columnist.
Earlier posts here like this one by Grant Lundberg and this one
by David Guy have done a great job of describing the virtues of
floodplain restoration. The profound dedication of people
like Julie Rentner and Jacob Katz inform and energize the work
of the entire Floodplain Forward coalition that I’m proud to be
part of. But moving beyond plans to actually get work
done on the ground is a task that needs broad support.
With a record-shattering heat wave suffocating much of the
Pacific Northwest and a drought-fueled wildfire season already
well underway in New Mexico, Arizona and California, President
Biden will attend a virtual meeting with leaders of Western
states on Wednesday to discuss strategies to minimize
weather-related disasters this summer. Jen Psaki, the White
House press secretary, told reporters that the president
planned to bring together members of his cabinet and the
Western governors to assess “the devastating intersection of
drought, heat, and wildfires,” as well as “prevention,
preparedness, and response efforts for this wildfire season.”
Our leaders must take bold action to adapt to our new reality
and create a system that can support healthy rivers and
wildlife, communities with access to safe drinking water and a
thriving agricultural economy. Unfortunately, that’s not what
we’re seeing today. The state’s water regulators are draining
our reservoirs and depleting our rivers to deliver vast volumes
of water to a small number of powerful agricultural interests
during a historically dry year. Protecting fish and
wildlife and water quality for Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta communities does not mean eliminating agriculture in the
Central Valley. -Written by Rachel Zwillinger, water policy advisor
for Defenders of Wildlife in Sacramento.
In America’s fruit and nut basket, water is now the most
precious crop of all. It explains why, amid a historic
drought parching much of the American West, a grower of premium
sushi rice has concluded that it makes better business sense to
sell the water he would have used to grow rice than to actually
grow rice. Or why a melon farmer has left a third of his fields
fallow. Or why a large landholder farther south is thinking of
planting a solar array on his fields rather than the thirsty
almonds that delivered steady profit for years.
Record-setting heat and drought gripping the western United
States are exposing a potentially severe risk to the nation’s
long-term power supply, and experts warn that grid operators
lack sufficient tools to plan and carry out a defense.
… Persistent drought also threatens power from
hydroelectric dams in the West, a critical resource for
California during extended heat waves. Water levels are so low
at Lake Oroville, California’s second-largest reservoir, that
officials are considering shutting down a hydroelectric plant
there.
I was pleased to hear that Governor Newsom has nominated
Nichole Morgan to fill the civil engineering seat on the State
Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board). Ms.
Morgan, a Cal State Sacramento graduate, is currently Assistant
Deputy Director of Financial Assistance at the State Water
Board and previously worked at the Central Valley Regional
Board. The State Water Board is the primary regulatory agency
that is supposed to manage water resources in
California.
Climate change has plunged the Western U.S. into its worst
drought in two decades. And a record-breaking heat wave only
made things worse. In Arizona and Nevada, it’s been so hot that
doctors warned people they could get third-degree burns from
the asphalt. Wildfires raged in Montana and Utah. Power grids
in Texas strained as officials asked residents to limit
appliance use to avoid blackouts. The levels in Lake Mead,
which supplies water for millions of people, are at their
lowest since the 1930s.
A muddy flavor in your tap water lately may not be the product
of your imagination. An algae bloom is causing water
sourced from the Sacramento and American rivers to impart a
“musty” taste to tap water. The bacterial bloom generates
something called geosmin, which is harmless for consumption but
is easily detectable due to its earthy smell and taste.
Something is off about Sacramento’s water. It smells and tastes
a little “earthy,” residents are saying — an effect of
compounding climate change crises: extreme heat, little to no
precipitation and a historic drought that has gripped the
region for the better part of a decade. Up and down the state
of California, rivers, streams and reservoirs are drying up. In
Sacramento, that has led to an increase in the concentration of
geosmin in its drinking water, one of two organic compounds
that give soil its characteristic smell.
Water lines on the banks of Lake Oroville in Butte County have
depleted so rapidly that the reservoir’s hydroelectric power
plant may have to shut down for the first time ever, straining
an already encumbered power grid during the hottest part of the
summer, California officials announced Thursday. Since
1967, the Edward Hyatt Power Plant has been a crucial source of
electricity for the area and usually has the capacity to power
up to 800,000 homes, pumping water from the lake through its
underground facilities, according to CNN.
Several locations along the American River north of Sacramento
are showing above-average levels of E. coli, according to the
Central Valley Water Board. KCRA 3 spoke with health officials
in Sacramento County on Friday about the concerning levels of
E. coli.
The learned doctors attending the bedside of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta agree on one thing: the patient is not
doing well. What ails it, many students of the case suggest, is
dehydration: the perennial artificial drought induced by
withdrawals of water for human use, whether pulled from feeder
rivers or extracted from the Delta itself. … Recently,
though, attention has turned to what might be called a
comorbidity: malnutrition. Delta waters simply don’t generate
enough basic food, in the form of phytoplankton, to sustain the
food chains …
Does your tap water taste a little off right now? Sacramento
city leaders say the drought is probably to blame. The city
says they have been recently getting some calls with people
reporting an “earthy” taste to their tap water. Some people
have also been reporting an off smell as well.
What if we could predict changes to ecosystems in the same way
we can predict the weather? An emerging field of science
is working towards making that a reality. In areas such as
fisheries, wildlife, algal blooms, wildfire, and human disease,
we often need to know how ecosystems and the services they
provide might change in the future and how human activities can
affect those trajectories.
Hot temperatures are drawing people to the cool water of
Tiscornia Beach, but what many there may not know, there are
high levels of E.coli found in the water. … Robert
Metcalf is a retired professor who’s taught microbiology at
Sacramento State University for 42 years. He said finding
E. coli in the water means there is recent fecal
contamination. Mary Beth Metcalf, a retired clinical
professor of pediatrics from UC Davis, said E.coli leads
to other infections.
A heat dome is baking Arizona and Nevada, … At Lake Mead,
which supplies water for 25 million people in three
southwestern states and Mexico, water levels have plunged to
their lowest point since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s.
In California, farmers are abandoning their thirstiest crops to
save others, and communities are debating whether to ration tap
water….And it’s not even summer yet.
Los Angeles is a pretty hot and dry place, and in fact,
California is suffering from increasing impacts of drought, so
how does the water we use every day get here? Let’s take the
journey your water takes from the source to your mouth with
these 5 things to know:
Severe drought highlights the need for greater investment to
improve aging California water facilities, and increases calls
for allocation of federal and state resources to tackle the
problem. A national coalition that includes the California Farm
Bureau urged U.S. Senate leaders last week to take action to
address the shortcomings of aging water infrastructure, and to
include “a broad range of water uses” in any federal
infrastructure legislation.
The seriousness of California’s drought is being driven home to
thousands of farmers in the Central Valley. State regulators
warned 6,600 farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
watershed on Tuesday that they’re about to lose the right to
pull water from the estuary’s rivers at some point this summer.
The watershed covers a major swath of the Central Valley.
The intensive engineering of the river exacted a huge toll on
its native ecosystems. No species suffered more than the
Chinook salmon, whose epic migration from the Pacific Ocean to
its spawning grounds in the High Sierra was cut short by
numerous choke points, not the least of which was Friant’s
impenetrable barrier of concrete. … Rife with
compromises, [a 1988] settlement mandated that a mere half of
the San Joaquin’s original flow be restored. The river’s many
dams would remain, but alternative passages would be built and
new spawning areas added in the lower river.
The California water board has approved a plan for water
releases into the Sacramento River that could kill off an
entire run of endangered chinook salmon and put at risk another
population that is part of the commercial salmon fishery. …
Because the [Bureau of Reclamation’s] plan involves releasing
water to irrigation districts earlier in the season, the river
will be lower and warmer during salmon spawning season and
could result in killing as many as 88% of endangered winter-run
chinook eggs and young fish.
California never has enough water to meet all demands and even
when supplies are relatively robust there’s a triangular
competition over their allocation. Farmers, municipal users and
environmental advocates vie for shares of water that has been
captured by California’s extensive network of dams and
reservoirs. … When California experiences one of its
periodic droughts and reservoirs shrink from scant rain and
snowfall, its perpetual conflict becomes even sharper. -Written by Dan Walters, a CalMatters columnist
In Executive Officer Jessica R. Pearson’s December blog on the
Delta Adapts Initiative, she wrote that “anticipating and
preparing for the climate crisis has always been integral to
pursuing our agency’s mission” and recognized that, due to
socio-economic inequities, not all communities will be impacted
equally by the climate crisis. In phase one of our Delta Adapts
Initiative, the Vulnerability Assessment, we sought to
understand the factors driving increased climate change
vulnerability and to identify the most vulnerable
communities.
California is rolling out a fresh strategy to keep its economy
afloat — releasing 17 million salmon into the San Francisco
Bay. Millions of Chinook salmon raised in hatcheries will
bypass California’s drought-stricken riverbanks to be released
directly into colder, downstream sites in the San Francisco
Bay, in an attempt to maximize their survival rate amid some of
the most extreme environmental conditions the state has ever
faced.
Normally at this time of year, workers at Lake Oroville’s two
marinas are preparing for a deluge of visitors eager to spend
the summer lazing on houseboats, zipping across the water on
speed boats or cruising the sprawling lake’s rocky nooks and
coves in search of salmon. But this spring, after two years of
scant rainfall, they’ve pulled about 130 houseboats out of the
shallower reaches of the marinas and are closing boat launch
ramps as the lake recedes, likely to record-low levels by the
fall…Three of the lake’s five boat launch ramps have already
closed, a fourth may close Monday and the last is expected to
be shut down in weeks…
California’s drought highlights the importance of an
appointment sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk – filling the
final seat on the State Water Resources Control
Board. This is a critical agency appointment at a
critical time. The drought highlights many inequities in
California water policy. Disadvantaged communities in Stockton
face the prospect of a drought summer plagued by harmful algae
blooms in Delta rivers. Those algae outbreaks, which can
harm children and kill pets, are caused by excessive nutrients
and inadequate freshwater flow. -Written by Belinda Faustina, a strategic advisor
with Los Angeles Waterkeeper, and Barbara
Barrigan-Parilla, the executive director of Restore the
Delta.
A Sacramento woman says she nearly drowned and her son was
traumatized when she got stuck in a fish trap while floating on
the American River. A lawsuit filed Friday in Superior Court
seeks damages from state and federal wildlife agencies and
Sacramento County over the incident, on June 10, 2020, just
west of the Watt Avenue bridge in Sacramento. The woman and her
son had been floating on inner tubes for less than a
quarter-mile, the complaint says, when hers was pulled toward a
“rotary screw trap” — a floating device intended to
capture salmon for monitoring purposes.
Adel Hagekhalil, a national water and infrastructure leader,
will take the helm of the nation’s largest drinking water
provider – the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California – following a vote Tuesday evening by the agency’s
board of directors. The 38-member board approved
Hagekhalil’s contract, making him the 14th general manager
in the district’s 93-year history.
Water is like electricity. Most people don’t think about it
much until it’s gone. Now, as California and other Western
states find themselves heading into a severe and worsening
drought, a new interactive map is providing a breathtaking
journey that shows where America’s water comes from and ends
up. The project is called River Runner. It allows anyone to
click on any place where a raindrop would fall in the United
States, and then track its path through watersheds, into
creeks, rivers, lakes and ultimately the ocean.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has
hired Adel Hagekhalil as its next general manager, following a
bitter power struggle over the future of an agency that
delivers hundreds of billions of gallons each year from the
Colorado River and Northern California to a region that
otherwise wouldn’t have nearly enough water to support 19
million people.
Instead of being flush with newly melted snow, Folsom Lake is
the driest it’s been in springtime since the epic drought of
1977. Water levels are so low that temporary pumps probably
will be installed to help move water out of the stricken
reservoir. Water levels at Lake Oroville have plunged to
the point that its giant hydropower plant could be idled for
the first time ever this summer … [C]onditions are so
bad that major cities are drawing up conservation plans,
farmers have scaled back plantings and environmentalists are
angrily warning of massive fish kills.
The most important thing to understand: If you’re reading this,
you live in a desert. And you can live in this desert because
politicians, scientists and engineers have moved mountains,
almost literally, to bring you life-giving water. The latest
brawl in Water World plays out on this backdrop, and what comes
out of your tap may well depend on the result. Will it come
from recycled waste water? Desalination plants? A giant tunnel
or two under the Delta? The answers will, in large part, depend
on who’s chosen to lead the gargantuan Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, which provides water to 19
million people from Ventura County to the Mexican border.
A gene-editing tool that has led to new cancer therapies and a
rapid test for COVID-19 is now helping scientists find
endangered species of salmon in the San Francisco Bay. The
CRISPR-based Sherlock tool can identify four types of Chinook
salmon, including Sacramento winter-run and Central Valley
spring-run, which are both protected under the federal
Endangered Species Act.
Lake Powell is within just a few feet of its low level ever
observed since it was first filled. Early season fires have
already torched over 400,000 acres in Colorado and California’s
reservoirs are 50 percent lower than they should be at this
time of year before summer has even officially begun. A year
after the skies over San Francisco glowed a hazy red as
wildfires choked the Bay Area, 2021 is shaping up to be the
year of real climate reckoning with drought in the western US
at historic levels.
Hidden from view when driving by is the [Rise Gold]
mine that is filled with water contaminated with
byproducts of hard rock mining. The water now forms a murky
lake several hundred yards wide. Rise Gold plans to pump out
3.6 million gallons of water every single day for six months
and after that another 1.2 million gallons a day for up to 80
years from this site. Let that sink in. Get your mind
fully around this. This is real. They will dump this water
into the little creek alongside the site and send it on its way
down Wolf Creek to the Feather River to the Sacramento River to
San Francisco Bay … -Written by Billy Packard.
Climate change has created new “seasons” that challenge
communities across the nation. California now has a “fire
season,” and sadly, we are embarking on harmful algal bloom
(HAB) season again. NRDC has updated its national map of
state-reported freshwater HABs, which tracks the HABs reported
by states from 2008-2020 and shows that these toxic outbreaks
are increasing across the country, making our rivers, lakes,
and beaches unsafe for swimming, boating, and drinking. Between
2008 and 2020, over 44,000 HAB events were recorded across 38
states.
Salmon and steelhead in Northern California have been in
trouble for more than 100 years, primarily because of habitat
damage and loss resulting from human activities. Climate change
has only worsened these habitat problems. For the last 50
years, communities have worked to restore this habitat in hopes
of reversing the fortunes of these fish. Scientists and local
restoration communities are seeking new ways to maximize the
benefits of habitat restoration so that rivers and streams can
support healthy fish populations again.
I am now working through my third drought as the Director of
Water Quality for Northern California Water Association (NCWA),
where I have learned the importance of broadening my
perspective beyond my own tap in Roseville that brings
delicious American River water into my home. A pillar in NCWA’s
Strategic Plan and 2021 Priorities is to advance
multi-benefit water management that supports nature-based
solutions, which provide essential benefits for our economy,
health and quality of life …
Migratory steelhead and Chinook salmon have access to six more
miles of historic spawning sites in a refurbished creek on
California’s Beale Air Force Base. All thanks to a unique
cooperative effort between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (USFWS) and the Air Force Civil Engineer Center
(AFCEC).
The lack of Sierra snowmelt has significantly reduced the size
of Folsom Lake. It’s 68 feet lower that it was last year, the
equivalent of a five-story building. Only one of the
lake’s 13 boat ramps was open over Memorial Day
Weekend. … Besides the lack of snowfall, the ground
has become so dry that, as the snowpack melts, it’s absorbed
into the ground instead of going in the reservoir.
The driest year California has experienced since the 1970s will
have wide-ranging impacts in the West. In the Sacramento
Valley, a reduced water supply will lead to about a 20 percent
reduction in rice plantings. The loss of about 100,000 acres of
rice fields has implications well beyond the farm level. The
reduced plantings will impact rural communities that depend on
agriculture as their foundation. It’s also a concern for
wildlife, which greatly depend on rice fields for their
habitat.
With California’s rivers running low after two consecutive dry
winters, state officials and local water agencies have pumped
out a steady stream of drought declarations and calls for water
conservation in recent weeks. It’s clear the Golden State is in
a drought and it could escalate to a crisis, but, you may be
wondering, just how bad is it?
Nearly half of the country — from the Pacific coast to the
Great Plains and upper Midwest — is experiencing moderate to
exceptional drought conditions. That’s expected to get worse
throughout the summer. … UCLA climatologist Park Williams:
“This drought is far from over. 2021 is shaping up to
potentially be the driest of all of the drought years in the
last century, and definitely one of the driest of the last
millennium.”
As the extreme drought causes various agencies to squabble over
dwindling water supplies, conservationists say the state is
still not doing enough to prevent an endangered run of salmon
from dying in the Sacramento River. At issue is how the federal
Bureau of Reclamation manages water flows from Shasta Lake into
the Sacramento River, which is both the spawning grounds for
chinook salmon and the main water source for Central Valley
farms. If the bureau releases too much water to irrigation
districts, the river level could drop low enough and warm
enough to kill off 50% of the eggs …
In response to the dry conditions in California,
the Regional Water Authority (RWA) Board of Directors
unanimously adopted a resolution on May 13 urging their urban
water providers to take actions, such as asking customers to
voluntary conserve and sustainably shifting to groundwater, to
help the environment of the Lower American River. The RWA
represents twenty (20) water providers serving two million
people in the Sacramento region.
In just a few weeks, California’s water conditions have gone
from bad to terrible. Sacramento residents have been asked to
cut water usage 10%. Their counterparts on the Russian River
are being told to reduce their consumption 20%. Farmers across
the Central Valley are letting fields lie fallow and
dismantling their orchards. Government agencies are warning of
massive fish kills on the Sacramento River. After
a warm spring dried up practically the entire Sierra
Nevada snowpack — and robbed California of enough water to fill
most of Folsom Lake — state and federal officials have been
forced to dramatically ramp up their drought response plans.
The calm water of Tiscornia Beach, where the Sacramento and
American rivers meet, could be deceiving for many swimmers and
boaters and lead to drownings. Even during a drought, the water
in these rivers and others throughout the Sacramento area is
still cold and fast. The water can easily catch anyone off
guard. Sacramento city officials on Tuesday reminded everyone
heading to the water for Memorial Day weekend that wearing a
life jacket is crucial to keeping them safe.
A crippling drought — largely connected to climate change — is
gripping the Western United States, affecting over 70 million
people and around 40% of the U.S. … Farmers,
scientists, tribal officials, foresters and other groups
affected by the worsening drought testified at a House Natural
Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife hearing on
Tuesday, asking lawmakers for both short-term relief and
long-term solutions from the worsening conditions.
California’s water supply got cut again Wednesday, with the
federal government reducing allocations to cities and farms as
the drought intensified. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced that municipal water agencies that rely on the
Central Valley Project will have this year’s allocations
slashed from 55% down to 25% — a level not seen since the
drought of 2015. That could put additional pressure on the
municipalities around greater Sacramento that depend on
supplies from Folsom Lake, whose water levels have sunk
dramatically this spring. The reservoir is at 46% of its usual
capacity for late May.
Late Friday the State Water Resources Control Board appeared to
tentatively approve a temperature management plan for Shasta
Dam that sacrifices salmon and fishing jobs for agribusiness
profits this year, violates water quality standards, and leaves
California woefully unprepared if next year is also dry.
Specifically, the State Water Board indicated that they would
approve a temperature management plan if it achieves 1.25
million acre feet of water in Shasta at the end of September.
As the State Water Board knows, allowing storage to drop
that low is estimated to kill more than 50% of the endangered
winter run Chinook salmon and … the vast majority of the
fall run Chinook …
In wetter times, these feathery beds of asparagus would produce
generations of tender green spears, reaching for the vast San
Joaquin Valley sky. [Last] Monday they were disked into the dry
dirt, their long lives cut short by unreliable and expensive
water. … With no guarantee of irrigation water this
summer, Del Bosque and other California farmers are making
tough choices, sacrificing one crop to save another. The
strategy is part of a larger and longer agricultural shift here
in the heart of California’s $50 billion agriculture industry:
Low-value, high-water crops are disappearing from the Golden
State.
Juvenile salmon migrating to the sea in the Sacramento River
face a gauntlet of hazards in an environment drastically
modified by humans, especially with respect to historical
patterns of stream flow. Many studies have shown that survival
rates of juvenile salmon improve as the amount of water flowing
downstream increases, but “more is better” is not a useful
guideline for agencies managing competing demands for the
available water.
The commercial salmon season has been cut in half this year due
to low numbers of salmon. California’s salmon runs are still
rebuilding after millions of baby salmon died in the last
drought, deprived of the cold water they needed to
survive. That damage is still being felt by salmon fishing
families. Today, water managers are on the verge of repeating
that mistake. - Written by John McManus, president of the
Golden Gate Salmon Association.
As more of California sinks into extreme drought, Gov. Gavin
Newsom has asked the Legislature to appropriate billions of
dollars to address critical water needs. In the “May revise”—an
update to the budget proposal he initially submitted to the
Legislature in January—Newsom proposes to spend nearly $3.5
billion on water supply and resilience projects, with total
investment reaching $5.1 billion over multiple years.
With the driest year in memory, the water resources managers
and landowners in the Sacramento Valley are working hard to
serve multiple benefits throughout the region with limited
water supplies. This has required all hands-on deck and
creative management within the region as all surface water
supplies have been significantly reduced, with hundreds of
thousands of farmland acres idled throughout the region, urban
suppliers working with their citizens to implement various
conservation measures to reduce water use and there will
undoubtedly be challenges for domestic groundwater wells.
In the latest chapter of California’s unfolding drought, state
officials are planning to build a giant rock wall across a
river in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to save the
vital freshwater estuary from San Francisco Bay’s saltwater.
The emergency measure is a page from last decade’s drought when
the delta, a maze of sloughs and man-made channels east of the
Bay Area, was at risk of becoming too salty to provide water to
the nearly 30 million Californians who depend on it. As in
2015, the freshwater rivers that feed the 1,100-square-mile
delta have gotten so low that they no longer counter the
brackish flows that push in from the bay.
A growing number of drought stricken California farmers are
making the painful decision not to plant as much or anything at
all for fear of losing it all. It costs a lot of money to put
seeds or seedlings into the ground. But if a farmer cannot be
reasonably sure of a crop, why do it?
Even as California moves toward a full reopening from pandemic
restrictions next month, many counties are still in danger.
From drought. Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended
emergency drought orders to 41 counties across the state. …
All eyes are on a critical resource that can help fight
the effects of another dry summer: water.
Last week, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA)
held their spring conference virtually. Keynote speakers
included Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of Natural Resources, and
Karla Nemeth, Director of the Department of Water
Resources. In his speech, [Crowfoot] discussed the Newsom
Administration’s priorities, calling this the ‘decade of
resilience’, and giving three principles for going
forward. He also discussed the Voluntary
Agreements. Director Karla Nemeth gave the Thursday
morning keynote speech, touching on the Department’s response
to drought, SGMA implementation, the Delta Conveyance Project,
and the water use efficiency regulations.
Yuba Water Agency’s board of directors today approved a $2
million loan to the Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority to
complete the construction of a new levee near the Yuba
Goldfields that will bring a 200-year level of urban flood
protection to southern Yuba County. The 2.5-mile-long levee,
which will be fully complete in June, runs parallel to
Hammonton-Smartsville Road and extends to high ground near
Beale Air Force Base. The 200-year level of protection means
there is a 1-in-200 chance in any given year that a storm could
come along that is bigger than the levee is designed to handle.
Crystal Geyser bought the nearly 145,000 square foot bottling
plant in 2013. Since then, it’s been the target of protests by
local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Opponents say if it ever started operating, it would draw down
too much water, and cause air and noise pollution. … They are
in the midst of suing the beverage company in an effort to get
a new environmental impact report.
More wildfires. Hotter days. Drought. Sea-level rise. Those
conditions are an increasing reality in California, which is
steadily becoming an altered state. But if the grimmest
predictions of experts about our state and climate change
become true, the conditions will become far worse.
With very little water to spare this drought year, water
districts struggling with limited or no supplies look to their
counterparts in other districts to negotiate water transfers to
add whatever flexibility they can. Districts on the west side
of the Central Valley, both north and south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, face the prospect of receiving no
water from the Central Valley Project.
Despite the dry year, outdoor recreationists who enjoy
California rivers and streams should remain aware of
dangerously cold swiftly moving water. Although California’s
snowpack is about half of normal, rising temperatures are
accelerating the snowmelt. Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(PG&E) urges those who choose to venture near or in water
to take extra precautions, especially around hydroelectric
facilities and dams, where water flows can change rapidly.
Anglers also are encouraged to take precautions as trout season
has opened for most California rivers.
The seven members of the Delta Stewardship Council were seated
in 2010. The Council appointed ten prominent scientists to the
Delta ISB. Over the next decade, the Delta ISB produced over 30
scientific reviews, averaging over 3,000 hours of work per
year. But in 2020, the work of the Delta ISB stalled. The Delta
Stewardship Council reduced funding for the Delta ISB by over
90%.
Delta smelt have nearly ceased to appear in “pelagic” fish
surveys carried out in their narrow geographic range in the
upper San Francisco Estuary. As trawl-generated index values
for delta smelt have declined over the past quarter century –
understand there is no reliable estimate of the size of the
delta smelt population — the chorus of voices advocating for
captive rearing and releases of the species has grown
louder.
After seven years of controversy, Crystal Geyser Water Company
announced last week that it has given up on opening its Mount
Shasta facility. A representative for the company said Crystal
Geyser was “challenged every step of the way” since it
purchased the nearly 145,000 square foot facility in 2013.
California — already in the clutches of another drought
emergency — is looking over its shoulder at what happened
last time, anticipating the worst and evaluating the strategies
that worked and those that failed. So is California in a
better position to weather this drought? Some things are
worse, some better: Groundwater is still being pumped with no
statewide limits, siphoning up drinking water that rural
communities rely on. In northern counties, residents are
reliving the last disaster as water restrictions kick in again,
but in the south, enough water is stored to avoid them for now.
… The upshot is California isn’t ready — again.
As California descends deeper into drought, state regulators
are planning to do something they’ve done few times in modern
history: order thousands of people, farms, and even cities and
towns that hold historic water rights to stop drawing water
from the rivers, lakes and ponds they rely on. The move is
intended to make sure the dwindling flows in California’s
waterways are reserved for those with the most senior water
rights, as well as for fish and other wildlife. Many of those
with lesser rights would have to turn to storage, groundwater
or another source, if they have it.
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to throw $11.8 billion of California’s
money at climate change and the hazards it poses to the state.
The governor’s gargantuan revised budget proposal, released
Friday, includes expenditures to fight and prevent wildfires,
combat sea-level rise, put more Californians behind the wheel
of an electric vehicle and speed up the transition to a
carbon-free electricity grid. Nearly half of his climate change
package — $5.1 billion — would go toward easing the effects of
California’s newly-declared drought and remedying long-term
water supply problems, such as crumbling canals.
We asked some colleagues for lessons that might be useful in
managing the California’s new drought. Here is a first sampling
of thoughts. … Katrina Jessoe. Agricultural and Resource
Economics, UC Davis: Climate models indicate that
California’s droughts will become more frequent and severe.
Warming temperatures will further reduce surface water
availability, by increasing evaporation from soil, reservoirs,
and irrigated land. While reductions in surface water supplies
will be costly to agriculture, residential users and the
environment, these costs could be substantially reduced through
the reallocation of scarce supplies. Supplying water to those
who value it most will not eliminate the costs of drought, but
will make them less painful.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural
Statistics Service (NASS) is forecasting another record almond
crop for California. The 2021 California Almond Subjective
Forecast estimates a three percent increase from last year’s
3.12-billion-pound crop. According to USDA-NASS, California
growers could be looking at a 2021 crop of 3.2 billion pounds.
If that number comes to fruition, it would be the largest
almond crop on record.
Less than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought
emergency for Northern California, Folsom Lake is standing at
one of its lowest levels ever. … Ryan Ojakian is
with the Regional Water Authority (RWA). Now, there’s a push
from the RWA for its 20 water providers that serve about 2
million people in the Sacramento region to shift to using more
groundwater than surface water to reduce reliance on Folsom
Lake and the Lower American River.
A permit has been granted by Tehama County for the
establishment of a new groundwater monitoring station located
at the Corning Public Works maintenance yard on Gallagher
Avenue near Highway 99W. During a presentation on the project
to the Tehama County Board of Supervisors, county Public Works
Flood Control Manager Ryan Teubert said there will be no cost
to the county as the yard is owned by Tehama County, and
drilling, installation and construction costs will be paid for,
and performed, by the California Department of Water Resources.
Rain has long signaled the end of a drought, but a new analysis
of Australia’s worst dry spell in a century reveals many water
reservoirs remained low nearly a decade after the rain
returned. Research published in the journal Science on Thursday
studies 15 years of data collected before, during and after the
Millennium Drought dried out Victoria, Australia, from 2001 to
2009 and reveals flaws in the long-held belief that reservoirs
naturally replenish after drought ends.
With shrinking reservoir levels and a summer of water shortages
impending, drought-ridden California on Wednesday pressed the
Biden administration for more control over future
infrastructure projects planned in the Golden State. California
and a collection of states urged the federal government to drop
a Trump-era rule that reduced states’ authority to deny
permitting and licensing for things like new water
infrastructure, oil pipelines, wastewater plants or development
projects in wetland areas. The states claim the rule gives them
little say over projects that could ultimately harm water
quality and the environment.
Rural, low-income Latino communities across California were
hardest hit by the last drought and could see drinking water
shortages again this year as extreme drought spreads across the
state, according to a report released Thursday by non-partisan
advisors to California’s lawmakers. The report from the
Legislative Analyst’s Office warns state officials to prepare
by ramping up monitoring of wells in vulnerable communities and
lining up emergency drinking water supplies to send
there.
Sacramento-area residents were urged Thursday to cut water
usage by 10% as much of the state has been plunged into another
severe drought. Just three days after Gov. Gavin Newsom
declared the area officially in a drought, the Sacramento
Regional Water Authority asked for voluntary conservation
measures as its member agencies scramble to cope with drought
conditions that seemingly worsen by the day.
California’s water supply is critical to the state’s
agriculture industry. Up to 80% of table olives come from
California, and while olive trees are more drought-tolerant
than other crops, that isn’t stopping Northern California olive
growers from making significant changes to conserve our most
precious resource. Olives are a passion for Dennis Burreson,
who says he’s held just about every job with Musco Family Olive
Company since joining Musco 43 years ago.
During a typical spring, the silver young salmon swimming in
long tanks at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery east of Sacramento would
be released into the American River and then make their way out
to the Pacific Ocean to grow to adulthood. But with extreme
drought now gripping California and much of West Coast, the
rivers are too warm for the salmon to survive. This week, the
3.5-inch (90-mm) smolt, as the young fish are known, embarked
on a much different journey when they were loaded on to trucks
and driven to the San Francisco Bay for release into cooler
waters.
A federal agency Wednesday forecast a record harvest of 3.2
billion pounds of almonds in California. That would be a 3%
increase over 2020 for the nuts, the highest-grossing crop in
Stanislaus and several other counties. The report will set the
tone for the global almond trade, since California accounts for
about 80% of the supply. Several thousand people work on farms
and in processing plants in the Central Valley.
Although Indigenous people had, since prehistoric times,
modified the [Sierra Nevada] landscape and caused widespread
ecological change, the arrival of Europeans and Americans for
the gold rush brought a much more invasive level of alterations
with the construction of dams, permanent manipulation of
rivers, clear-cutting of old-growth trees and an ill-advised
practice of fire suppression that makes these forests ripe for
wildfires, especially when compounded by climate change, which
means more heat waves, decreased snowpack and drier conditions
among other impacts.
At a time when California is facing severe drought conditions
that triggered Governor Gavin Newsom’s declaring a state of
emergency and providing more than $5 billion dollars for water
infrastructure and drought response funding, Congressman Jim
Costa (CA-16) introduced bipartisan legislation to address
California water supply and water quality goals…
As Californians can tell by the already beige hills, the early
fire weather warnings and the dusty umbrellas sitting deep
inside closets, it’s been drier than usual this winter. And
according to decades worth of precipitation data, that’s the
new normal. What’s considered “normal” for baseline rainfall
amounts is determined by a 30-year average that gets
recalculated every decade. The latest recalculation, according
to Jan Null, a forecaster who runs Golden Gate Weather
Services, “show a noticeably drier state” through 2020 compared
to the previous “normal” calculation covering 1981 through
2010.
With the uncertainty of water, some Central Valley farmers are
destroying their crops ahead of the summer season in order to
survive. It’s impacting jobs and soon possibly the grocery
shelves. Every crop at Del Bosque Farms is planted
meticulously, and every drop of water is a precious commodity.
Joe Del Bosque started the family farm in 1985. He grows
melons, asparagus, cherries, almonds, and corn, but the drought
brings a flood of concern.
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well
as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California
fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its
current rate. With state water resources constrained by the
extreme drought, that’s the alarm that environmental, fishing
and tribal groups are sounding after reports show the
Sacramento River will reach dangerous temperatures during
spawning season, based on federal scientific scenarios that
analyze the bureau’s planned water releases.
I am proud to be a part of California agriculture. Our state
has the impressive responsibility of feeding our country—and
even the world. We have led the nation in agricultural
production for the past 60 years due to our richly productive
land and climate. Yet, our agriculture industry now faces
serious and urgent challenges, from recovering from last year’s
multiple crises to the ever-increasing competition in the
global market. -Written by Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, chair of the
Assembly Agriculture Committee.
Don’t be fooled. Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision Monday to
declare drought in most of California, including here, is no
reason for most farmers in Stanislaus County to break out the
party hats. They know full well that words on a declaration
will not generate an extra drop of water for their orchards and
row crops. They also know that a drought declaration could take
some power over the water we do have from our locally elected
irrigation leaders — who represent institutions guiding us
through periodic droughts for more than 100 years — and hand it
to nonelected Sacramento bureaucrats.
Spring is generally a time of renewal for the watersheds of the
western United States. Warmed by the lengthening days, the
region’s towering mountain ranges shed their mantle of snow,
releasing freshets of water into welcoming streams and
reservoirs. This year, though, the cycle is in disarray.
Outside of the Olympic and Cascade ranges of Washington state,
winter snows were subpar. The spring melt has been a dud. From
the Klamath to the Colorado and Rio Grande, watersheds are
under stress once again, and water managers face difficult
tradeoffs between farms, fisheries, and at-home uses.
In water-stressed farming areas of California, farmers removed
productive trees and idled other land to divert what little
water they have to other crops, as the reality of the 2021
drought became ever more apparent. “We’re removing 15-year-old,
prime-production almond trees,” said Daniel Hartwig of Woolf
Farming in Fresno County. “We’re pulling out almost 400 acres,
simply because there’s not enough water in the system to
irrigate them, and long term, we have no confidence that there
would be water in the future.”
California’s water resources managers are proactively working
with our various partners through the harshest dry year we have
seen in recent memory…. We are encouraged that the
Governor’s drought proclamation will bring important focus on
our precious water resources and inspire balanced approaches
that will allow water resources managers (state, federal and
local) to creatively manage our limited water supplies this
year for multiple benefits.
Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded his drought emergency declaration to
39 more counties Monday, underscoring the rapid deterioration
of California’s water supply in recent weeks. The governor
broadened his earlier drought order, which was limited to two
counties on the Russian River, to cover most of parched
California, which is plunging into its second major drought in
less than a decade. The new order covers the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river watersheds, the Tulare Lake basin region and the
Klamath region in far Northern California. About 30% of the
state’s population is now covered by the declarations…
California is now in its second year of drought, hard on the
heels of the last one in 2012-16. But drought is not an
equal-opportunity crisis; it can be more or less disruptive
depending on geography, storage, how water supplies are
managed—and, of course, precipitation. And some sectors—notably
rural water water systems and the environment—are more
vulnerable.
On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups, fishing
organizations, stakeholders in the Delta, and the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe sent this letter to the Biden Administration,
urging the Administration not to endorse the so-called
“Voluntary Agreements” for the Bay-Delta watershed.
Unfortunately, the State of California continues to negotiate
backroom deals with the biggest water users in the State that
fail to protect and restore water quality in the
Bay-Delta, threatening thousands of fishing jobs, farms and
communities in the Delta, and the health of this watershed and
its native fish and wildlife.
At the April meeting of the California Water Commission, as
part of their continuing work on examining the state’s role in
financing conveyance projects that could help meet needs in a
changing climate, the Commissioners heard from a panel of
speakers about state policy considerations for conveyance and
the cross-cutting issues of flood-managed aquifer recharge
(flood-MAR), green infrastructure, collaborative partnerships
and governance, and innovation. … Michael George, Delta
Watermaster, … pointed out that it’s physically,
ecologically, and economically impossible to squeeze water out
of the Delta for export.
It’s that time of drought again. During one of the driest years
on record, once again curtailing water deliveries to local
farms, Fresno-area lawmakers wasted little time trotting out
one of their favorite falsehoods. That every year, including
the parched ones like 2021, California “wastes” millions of
gallons of water by “flushing it to the ocean.” Central San
Joaquin Valley residents have heard this declaration so often
and for so long, from the mouths of politicians and parroted on
talk radio, that many of us believe it’s true.
Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA-03) introduced legislation
(H.R. 2979) making low interest federal financing available for
reservoir and drought resiliency projects, with Congressman Dan
Newhouse (R-WA-04) as the original cosponsor. This bipartisan
legislation (H.R. 2979) would amend the Water Infrastructure
Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) of 2014 to make public water
projects like the off-stream Sites Reservoir Project eligible
for low interest, longer term federal loans from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
