The San Francisco Bay (Bay) drains water from 40 percent of
California. This includes flows originating from the Sierra
Nevada mountain range and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers
that make their way down through Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta
through the Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
The Bay is the largest harbor on the U.S. Pacific Coast and
covers about 400 square miles with an average depth of 14 feet.
Its deepest point is 360 feet at the Golden Gate.
Every year, more than 67 million tons of cargo pass through the
Golden Gate. The Bay also supports commercial bait shrimp,
herring and Dungeness crab fisheries.
The Bay is a vital estuary and a key link in the Pacific Flyway,
and millions of waterfowl use the shallow portions of the bay as
a refuge each year.
More than 60 elected officials and environmental and community
groups throughout the Bay Area are urging Redwood City
officials to reject proposals to develop the Cargill salt ponds
and rather have them restored as wetlands.
Newly released documents shed light on why a sewage processing
agency, Silicon Valley Clean Water, paid its general manager
$875,000 as part of a severance agreement, and it appears a big
part of that was equity the agency gave him in a $4.5 million,
six-bedroom home in the hills overlooking Redwood City.
Lake Temescal in Upper Rockridge sits atop the Hayward Fault,
which passes underneath the right abutment of the manmade
lake’s aged dam. Experts agree that creep has been observed
near Lake Temescal Dam, but disagree on whether this indicates
the area is at risk of suffering major damage during a strong
quake.
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, the editor in chief of Estuary Magazine
and long-time Bay Area science writer, talks about the
resiliency of the largest estuary on the West Coast, the
challenges facing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, and the
potential impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on the
San Francisco Bay.
California Water Service crews are at work in Los Altos’ Rancho
neighborhood and the surrounding areas, installing a new water
pipeline aimed at strengthening infrastructure reliability and
resiliency for customers and enhancing fire protection in the
area for first responders.
In the past, California city planners have been largely
reactive, reconstructing boardwalks lashed by winter storms.
Now, with the long-term outlook for the coast coming into
focus, the California Coastal Commission is urging communities
from San Diego to Humboldt counties to revise their local
coastal programs to take comprehensive adaptive approaches…
Marin health officials have reopened beaches along Tiburon’s
shoreline after recent water quality tests showed low levels of
bacteria, but the source of contamination that shut those
beaches down for more than two months remains elusive. “I’m
just as confused as I was before,” said Bill Johnson of the San
Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board…
There is hard reality that can’t be dodged in pursuing a dreamy
idea that’s existed as long as the 100-year old water and power
system. Pulling the plug on the watery expanse to expose the
original valley is much more complicated than a sunny study
commissioned by an anti-dam environmental group hoping to pump
up its cause.
Environmentalists have raised concerns about the project’s
costs, and the fact that it would submerge 1,245 acres of oak
woodlands… But the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a San
Jose government agency that provides water to 1.9 million
Silicon Valley residents, says the reservoir is needed to store
more water as insurance against California’s next drought.
There was a glint in Michael Boland’s eyes as he watched cars
zooming along the Presidio Parkway over an ugly panorama of
broken asphalt, weeds and construction debris behind a
chain-link fence next to Crissy Field. The chief of park
development and visitor engagement for the Presidio Trust was
excited as he envisioned what the vacant lot was about to
become — a picturesque lagoon surrounded by walking trails,
vivid greenery and a spectacular view.
With targeted autism/neurodiversity employment programs
emerging regularly now around the country, a small employment
program by a water utility in California would normally not
draw attention. However, this employment program of the San
Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC), has several
distinctive features.
Contractors are busy digging, stockpiling and hauling off an
average of 40 truckloads of contaminated soil a day from the
site of a former wastewater treatment plant at Larkspur
Landing. About 64,000 tons of the mixed soil and demolition
debris, which contains trace amounts of polychlorinated
biphenyls, or PCBs, will be sent to a municipal landfill, while
another 2,600 tons, will be shipped to a hazardous waste
landfill.
To reduce flooding on roads near Novato Creek, a Marin County
flood control agency and a local environmental group are
partnering to upgrade flood control equipment and improve
wetlands in the Simmons Slough basin.
Scientists, water quality experts and lawmakers are learning
more about what microplastics are, the extent of contamination
and how to keep them out of the environment. California aims to
have the beginnings of a control plan in place by 2021.
Blasted by sun and beaten by waves,
plastic bottles and bags shed fibers and tiny flecks of
microplastic debris that litter the San Francisco Bay where they
can choke the marine life that inadvertently consumes it.
When the population collapses, like it did between 2013 to
2016, the effects ripple across the ecosystem. Brown pelicans
struggled to reproduce and those that did abandoned their
chicks. Thousands of sea lion pups were found malnourished and
dehydrated on California’s beaches. These effects may be
exacerbated by humans, especially when high fishing rates
remain when stocks are in decline. California anchovies are
almost exclusively sold abroad as food for fish farms and bait
for tuna.
The Trump Administration last year proposed to combine the
responsibilities of both the NMFS and the USFWS under one
federal roof. This would promote more efficient, effective, and
coordinated management of all ESA responsibilities for
anadromous and freshwater fish in Western watersheds, from the
highest reaches of our headwaters to the Pacific Ocean.
Fifty feet below the platform of the Powell Street BART Station
sits the starting point for one of the largest water recycling
projects in San Francisco — one that’s transforming dirty
groundwater into clean steam heat for hundreds of downtown
buildings. In the process, it’s saving tens of millions of
gallons of drinking water annually.
The latest update of the California Water Plan was released
this past week. You may not have heard the news. You may not
even know there is a California Water Plan. And that’s just
fine, because it doesn’t mean a darn thing.
While the local sewerage agencies followed state and federal
law in reporting spills to governmental agencies, the public
wouldn’t necessarily know much about them. In this case, it has
taken Heal the Bay, a statewide environmental organization, to
dig them out of bureaucracies’ files.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District is replacing an aged
and faulty 3,000-foot water pipeline that would most likely
rupture during a major earthquake and cut off water service to
residents for weeks, if not months. The current pipeline has
averaged a major break each year for the last 30 years,
with increasing regularity, as this land has continued to shake
and shift.
Santa Clara Valley Water District (Valley Water) has resumed
pre-construction activities in Alviso, California, delivering
on a long-made promise to protect shoreline communities in
Santa Clara County from devastating flooding.
Utilities, including several in the Bay Area, simply don’t have
the backup power to replace the electricity that Pacific Gas
and Electric Co. normally provides for water delivery and
sewage treatment. The agencies are trying to make their
operations more energy efficient and adding alternative power
sources in case the cord is cut, but it may not be enough.
Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz, Keller
Beach in Richmond and Aquatic Park in San Mateo were announced
as four of the top 10 most polluted in the state, referred to
as “beach bummers.”
A Pleasanton company has an unusual idea to cool data storage
machines that they say uses a fraction of the energy and cuts
greenhouse gasses. But local environmentalists are against the
plan because of the possible impact it could have on San
Francisco Bay.
Before the threat of rising seas was widely understood,
California created an agency to protect its famous beaches from
overdevelopment. Now the state Coastal Commission is pouring
resources into a war against the effects of climate change, and
it could lead toward the removal of oceanfront homes.
An investigation into the Bay Conservation and Development
Commission found mismanagement and disorganization so rampant
that the once-celebrated watchdog agency allegedly neglected
its primary responsibility — to protect San Francisco Bay. A
state audit of the regulatory agency known as the BCDC
describes slow and inefficient enforcement, a huge backlog of
cases and an inability to perform key duties.
While Belvedere officials consider a series of flood control
projects that could cost up to $27.1 million, the city has
appointed a new advisory committee that represents some of the
hillside homeowners who say that money shouldn’t come out of
their pockets. … An engineering consultant has designed
several iterations of the projects, which are meant to
safeguard the community from the forthcoming effects of
sea-level rise.
Coastal communities should not rule out a sea-level rise in
excess of 6.5 feet, according to the study published this week
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. …
Should this worst-case scenario come to pass, good portions of
cities like New York City and Miami on the East Coast and Los
Angeles and San Francisco on the West Coast would be underwater
by 2100.
The combination of droughts and floods has given rise to a
process known as saltwater intrusion — what San Jose Mayor Sam
Liccardo refers to as his city’s greatest climate threat. …
In coastal regions like San Jose, overpumping allows seawater
to seep into the city’s aquifers, exposing local residents to
excess sodium in their drinking water. The problem is
compounded by sea level rise, which pushes seawater inland
toward the city’s filtration system.
According to a new study by Audubon California, the illegal
mooring of private boats has caused significant harm to the
eelgrass bed in that bay, with 25 to 41 percent of the seafloor
habitat suffering damage. … The number of boats moored in
Richardson Bay, known as “anchor-outs,” has increased from
about 90 boats in the early 2000s to as many as 240 in 2016.
A data storage company wants to siphon water from the bay to
cool its equipment, a process it says is greener and more
sustainable than using traditional air cooling. But the idea is
not winning over some environmentalists, because the water will
warm slightly by the time it’s returned to the bay and they say
that could potentially damage marine wildlife.
Tens of thousands of people flooded into San Francisco in the
1850s looking for gold, but there wasn’t nearly enough drinking
water to quench the thirst of the boomtown. So speculators
looked south of the city to San Mateo County in hopes of
delivering clean water to San Francisco and big money to their
own pockets. And they weren’t going to let anything get in
their way.
The commission, created in 1965 and comprised of 27 members
appointed primarily by state and local officials, is supposed
to protect the environmental health of the bay. If they won’t
take their job seriously, Gov. Gavin Newsom, legislative
leaders and local officials should replace them with people up
to the task.
The Mountain View City Council approved the water district’s
18-foot-deep basin project in 2013 in exchange for the park
upgrades. Designed to accommodate a 100-year flood, the
McKelvey Park basin is one of two basin projects of the larger
Permanente Creek Flood Protection Project, which water district
officials claim will provide natural flood protection for
approximately 2,200 properties in Mountain View and Los Altos.
On a former tidal marsh in Corte Madera that’s blanketed with
bay mud and overgrown with invasive grasses, Golden Gate Bridge
officials are planning a $2 million restoration project that
would bolster habitat for an endangered bird species displaced
by the Larkspur Ferry Terminal. The district has released the
results of an environmental study of the proposed project and
is accepting comments on the report until May 26.
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
has “neglected its mission” to protect the bay and surrounding
wetlands, the California state auditor reported Tuesday. The
commission, which issues permits for activities like boating,
dredging and dumping, has a backlog of 230 open enforcement
cases, some decades old.
The water that irrigates Santa Clara Valley’s last farms comes
dirt cheap for growers who pump it out of the ground. They pay
just a fraction — 6 percent — of the amount residents and
businesses in the valley must pony up for their well water. The
rest of the cost for farmers’ water is subsidized, mostly from
revenue the Santa Clara Valley Water District receives through
property taxes.
Once one of most extensive wetland areas in North America, the
edges of the San Francisco Bay have become covered with farms,
industry, and urban areas, squeezing out the marches and their
animal and plant occupants. But at the lower end of the Napa
River, a remarkable effort is underway to undo a century and
half of damage to the once-thriving marshes.
For the third time in the last five years, Phillips 66 plans to
pay to settle accusations that its Rodeo refinery released
chlorine into San Pablo Bay. State water regulators announced
Wednesday that the Houston-based company will pay $80,000 for
violating chlorine limits in water it released into the bay
more than a dozen times over a five-month period last year.
While oysters and sea grasses may not immediately stand out as
defenders against sea level rise, a five-year test run using
oyster reefs and eelgrass beds in the waters off of San Rafael
has shown promising results. … Marshlands, reefs and other
natural habitats have proven to buffer shorelines from erosion
and powerful waves, but human development over the past two
centuries has resulted in a substantial loss of these natural
defenses.
If it doesn’t rain another drop for the rest of this “winter,”
we got exactly 0.13 inches more than an ordinary season,
putting 2018-19 at almost exactly the historical average.
There’s only one San Francisco Bay. But the Bay Area is made up
of nine counties and 101 cities, each with its own politics,
local rules and shorelines, differences that can make it
complicated to figure out how to protect billions of dollars of
highways, airports, sewage treatment plants, homes and offices
from the rising seas, surging tides and extreme storms climate
change is expected to bring in the years ahead. A new report
released Thursday aims to make that gargantuan challenge a
little easier.
The district is proposing to raise rates by about 4 percent
annually over the next four years and to impose a new annual
capital maintenance fee. The fee, which would be based on
customers’ meter size, would switch the district from borrowing
money to a cash-based system for funding repairs and
replacement of pipes, pumps, water tanks and treatment plants.
Unusually high concentrations of carbon dioxide have been
blowing out to sea from Bay Area cities and agricultural areas,
raising concerns that the previously unknown infusions could
increase ocean acidity faster than climate change experts have
predicted, Monterey Bay scientists said this week.
By the 1930s, the Leslie Salt Company had consolidated over a
dozen small producers into the world’s largest industrial salt
production company, and half of the South Bay’s extensive
marshes, whose ducks and salmon once far outnumbered humans,
were gone. Now, the south San Francisco bay shoreline’s next
mammoth transformation is well underway: a 50-year project to
return the salt ponds back to the bay, restoring them once
again into tidal marsh for the first time in 150 years.
In just the past week, water about an inch deep has popped up
out of nowhere in both the northbound and the southbound lanes
just south of the 880 interchange. … Underground aquifers are
full from all the recent rain and pressure is now forcing water
to bubble up in weak spots in the surface.
Every day, 46,000 people drive Highway 37, the scenic route
that connects Marin County with Vallejo, Napa and just about
everywhere east. This thread, though essential, is also tenuous
in that it’s strung atop a berm barely above sea level.
Traversing the vast salt marshes known as the San Pablo
Baylands, the 21-mile stretch is emerging as an early challenge
to planners confronting California’s changing climate.
Expected to temporarily hold excess sewer flows during storms,
a project to build an underground flow equalization system
underneath the San Mateo County Event Center parking lot is one
of several components of San Mateo’s Clean Water Program. …
But for many residents … pile driving and the installation of
dewatering wells included in the project’s construction plans
drew concerns about noise, the structural integrity of nearby
homes and the project’s impact on neighbors’ quality of life.
Climate change is already negatively affecting the health of
Marin residents and within 15 years attendant sea-level rise
could threaten the county’s shoreline buildings, roads and
original utility systems. This was the sobering message Marin
supervisors received after Supervisor Kate Sears requested an
update on the local health impacts of climate change and
efforts to prepare for sea- level rise.
Facing a wave of opposition over proposed fees for using well
water, the directors of a little-known public agency backed
away from a decision Thursday and agreed to consider an
alternative plan that would exempt rural residents and cost
other groundwater users far less overall.
While this season has stood out in many people’s minds as
noteworthy and painstakingly rainy, “it’s just a normal year,”
said Jan Null, a consulting meteorologist with Golden Gate
Weather Services. The city measured similar rainfall totals as
recently as 2016-17.
San Jose Water, the local water company, recently sent out a
public notice saying it wants to impose a year-long surcharge
beginning this summer. The reason? To recover what it described
as an “under-collection” of more than $9 million in fixed
costs. … In other words, thank you for following the rules
and limiting your water usage, but that’s hurt our bottom line,
so we’ll be sending you a bill.
As the Marin Municipal Water District gears up to consider
another rate and fee hike this year, some of the public debate
has turned to whether the district is paying too much in
salaries and benefits to its employees.
Our soggy spring has been a big boost to these so-called
“vernal ponds,” ephemeral bodies of water which play a critical
role in preservation of threatened and endangered creatures…
The team found larvae of the threatened California tiger
salamander in 28 of the 58 pools they monitor. The endangered
vernal pool tadpole shrimp was found in 49 of these pools.
That’s the third-highest tally in recent years.
Almost everyone who flies into San Francisco or San Jose
airport has seen it — a vibrant patchwork quilt of colorful
water. … As part of a huge effort called the South Bay Salt
Pond Restoration Project, the Cargill salt company has freed
almost 16,000 acres of their salt ponds.
A fierce battle by Berkeley firefighters to prevent a gas-tank
explosion succeeded in averting a potential disaster this week
— but an apparently deadly aftereffect is that hundreds of fish
were killed when water and retardant foam from the firefight
flowed into a nearby stream.
Spearheaded by the San Mateo Resource Conservation District,
with additional support from California State Parks and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the project
aims to re-establish more than a mile of the historic creek
channel, remove 45,000 cubic yards of sediment and restore more
than 10 miles of habitat for threatened steelhead trout and
endangered coho salmon.
Too often considered a problem confined to the Central Valley
and agricultural communities, the fact is that lack of access
to safe, clean drinking water in school water fountains and
home faucets affects every region of our state. This is a
situation Gov. Gavin Newsom has rightly called a “disgrace” and
has made it a priority to fix the crisis. In this life-saving
endeavor, he has the support of Silicon Valley’s most
innovative companies.
Five months after voters approved a bond measure to protect the
waterfront from earthquakes and flooding from sea-level rise,
San Francisco plans to start using the first batch of funds.
Next week, The City is expected to introduce to the Board of
Supervisors for approval a proposal to use $50 million of the
$425 million Embarcadero Seawall Earthquake Safety general
obligation bond approved by more than 80 percent of the voters
in November.
This may be the bleakest shoreline in the Bay Area, and it
isn’t just the industrial infrastructure that gives character
to this place. Floating trash has collected along the docks,
and the waters are contaminated by the loading and unloading of
vast amounts of fossil fuels. A sign posted to a piling warns
fishers not to eat anything they catch here.
“The community is miserably divided,” said Napa County
Supervisor Diane Dillon during a meeting on Tuesday. Dillon and
her four fellow board members were tasked with crafting and
approving the Water Quality and Tree Protection Ordinance, a
controversial new law that seeks to conserve trees and forested
areas while improving water quality for the many creeks that
feed the Napa River.
Major new efforts to manage runoff and protect existing homes
and businesses will be needed. Sea level rise will also affect
water management in other ways. One area is wastewater
treatment. Throughout coastal California and particularly in
the San Francisco Bay Area, wastewater and stormwater treatment
takes place in facilities that are currently at or near sea
level. Water supply will also be affected. Many coastal
aquifers will see increases in salinity …
In places like Oakland, flooding will occur not just at the
shoreline, but inland in areas once considered safe from sea
level rise, including the Oakland Coliseum and Jones Avenue,
where [UC Berkeley professor Kristina] Hill and her students
now stood, more than a mile from San Leandro Bay. In fact, she
added, rising groundwater menaces nearly the entire band of
low-lying land around San Francisco Bay, as well as many other
coastal parts of the U.S.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District, Santa Clara County Board
of Supervisors and Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority all
recognize the importance of curbing urban sprawl, encouraging
farm-to-fork enterprises, and providing open space for urban
dwellers through various policies. However, well-meaning
changes may have unintended consequences, putting these goals
in jeopardy.
U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, and U.S. Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-CA, called on EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to
explain how the agency determined that the Redwood City salt
plant site was not subject to federal permitting under the
Clean Water Act despite an earlier draft that stated otherwise.
With rising tides threatening to submerge the Palo Alto
Baylands by mid-century, city officials agreed on Monday
they need to explore new barriers — both physical and
legislative — to protect coastal area from sea level rise.
These measures will be approved as part of a new Sea Level Rise
Implementation Plan, a document that Public Works staff are in
the process of putting together and that could have significant
ramification for properties around the Baylands.
Milpitas mayor Rich Tran is following up on a campaign promise
to do something about the bad odor that has drifted over the
city for decades. … The goal is to trace the source of the
stench, which residents have long suspected to come from the
Newby Island landfill, the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional
Wastewater Facility or the Zanker-owned recycling facility.
A move by the Environmental Protection Agency could revive the
contentious plan to develop 1,400 acres of Redwood City
shoreline owned by Cargill Salt, which operates an industrial
plant there. The EPA removed one barrier to development earlier
this month by ruling that the area is not subject to
restrictions in the federal Clean Water Act. That puts the EPA
at loggerheads with environmentalists, who want to convert the
land back to tidal wetlands.
By allocating $1 million last week toward a creek restoration
project set to rejuvenate threatened and endangered species and
reduce flooding in Pescadero, county officials locked in
funding needed to begin a dredging effort experts expect will
give the Butano Creek a chance to reset.
After years of planning, the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary
District is gearing up to break ground on a three-year,
multimillion-dollar renovation of its sewage treatment plant.
Workers were rained out the past couple of months but are now
preparing the work site at the district headquarters at 300
Smith Ranch Road in San Rafael to replace the wastewater
treatment facilities and expand its recycled water capacity.
A sprawling stretch of salt ponds on the western edge of San
Francisco Bay, once eyed for the creation of a virtual
mini-city, is back at the center of debate over regional
development after the Trump administration this month exempted
the site from the Clean Water Act.
One way or another, $53 million of Utahns’ money soon may get
sunk into a deep-water export terminal on the West Coast in an
effort to shore up the state’s fading coal industry. On Monday,
a Senate panel advanced a bill that would transfer a special
fund to the Utah Office of Energy Development… That fund was
set up to legitimize a $53 million CIB loan that four
coal-producing counties hoped to invest in a controversial
export terminal under development in Oakland, Calif.
A long battle over development of the Cargill salt ponds in
Redwood City may soon return after the EPA declared the site
exempt from the federal Clean Water Act — causing concern by
environmentalists and the city’s mayor. The Environmental
Protection Agency announced its decision earlier this month,
effectively removing one of several barriers to development of
the 1,400-acre Bayside property.
Gov. Gavin Newsom should immediately allow the thinning of
vegetation on almost 94,000 acres of state land in a bid to
keep more than 200 communities safe, California fire officials
said Tuesday as they released a list of the state’s 35 most
critical fuel-reduction projects.
For decades, the steelhead trout and Chinook salmon trying to
complete their instinct-driven trip upstream have been blocked
by an impassable concrete structure known as the BART weir,
which supports the trains overhead. Within a few years,
however, this capturing and relocation may not be necessary as
the Alameda County Water District, in conjunction with other
public agencies, is investing nearly $70 million in upgrading
or replacing rubber dams and building fish ladders.
In 70 years, San Francisco as we know it could look drastically
different. Gentrification, development and the other forces of
urban change we fret about may be mere trifles compared to the
drastic effects of climate change, including the rise of sea
levels and erosion, scientists say. By 2100, rising sea
levels could displace more than 480,000 people along the
California coast and result in property losses upwards of $100
billion if no preventative measures are taken, according to a
2009 study by the California Climate Change Center.
A countywide effort to address sea level rise is gaining
momentum after San Mateo County supervisors took steps to form
a new government agency to manage flooding, sea level rise,
coastal erosion and stormwater infrastructure this week. By
expanding the San Mateo County Flood Control District’s
responsibilities … officials have looked to facilitate
coordination between jurisdictions as they set their sights on
a new set of challenges for water infrastructure projects.
A new approach to flood management around the San Francisco Bay
could trim maintenance costs for water agencies, restore
habitat for endangered species, and help protect against rising
seas. What links the three? Sediment. Winter storms push
sediment down creeks that flow into the Bay and, long ago,
these waterways fanned out when they reached the edge. Sediment
settled there, nourishing tidal baylands — salt marshes and
mudflats that are rich in wildlife, and also buffer the shore
from storm surges, the highest tides, and sea level rise. Today
few of these low-lying tidal baylands remain.
What was supposed to be a great flood control project that kept
homes safe in the South Bay has turned into a nightmare for
many homeowners. Repair crews continue to work on Ridgemont
Drive in San Jose, where they are replacing brick pillars
residents claim were damaged by the pounding to the flood
control project along the Silver Creek. Homeowners are footing
the bill for the repairs and say someone else should be paying.
Doing surgery on San Francisco’s water system is no simple
task. Replacing one mile of distribution main costs about $3.8
million dollars. That’s just the direct cost of installing a
section of drinking water pipe. There are also side effects:
disruptions to traffic, sidewalks, and businesses when streets
are pried open. In one of the nation’s densest and highest-cost
cities the expense amounts to an incentive for well-informed
decisions about what to dig up and when.
The rainwater collection system is broken at the environmental
research station on a remote, rocky Pacific island off the
California coast. So is a crane used to hoist small boats in
and out of the water. A two-year supply of diesel fuel for the
power generators is almost gone. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
personnel ordinarily would help with such problems. But they
haven’t been around since the partial federal government
shutdown began a month ago…
In the North Bay, so much runoff from our recent rains has
created some spectacular sights. Waterfalls are becoming big
attractions around Mt. Tamalpais. The sound of rushing water is
everywhere in the lush, emerald green hills below Mt. Tam.
The Alameda County Water District is proposing to raise
customers’ bills 8 percent over the next two years to cover
infrastructure costs as well as salary increases, benefits and
pensions for its employees. The district also wants to
create an emergency pricing schedule that kicks in during water
shortages, such as in droughts.
Top managers of the environmental engineering firm Tetra Tech
directed their employees to commit widespread fraud in the
cleanup of America’s largest Superfund waste site, according to
new legal complaints by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Montgomery is known for fostering collaborative relationships
among stakeholders and as a leader in protecting and restoring
water quality within California and throughout the Southwest
and the Pacific Islands. He is currently serving as the
Assistant Director of the Water Division in the US
Environmental Protection Agency (Region 9).
A state board on Wednesday approved a contentious proposal to
boost water flows through a Central California river, a move
that would increase habitat for salmon but deliver less water
to farmers and cities such as San Francisco. The plan under
consideration by the Water Resources Control Board would alter
management of the Lower San Joaquin River and three tributaries
to address what environmental groups say is a crisis in the
delta that empties into San Francisco Bay.
Del Mar is a picturesque place that’s name means “of the sea,”
in Spanish. That’s becoming increasingly true. Del Mar is one
of countless coastal communities in California and across the
U.S. that is seeing the impacts of climate change and preparing
for worse to come.
The biggest ticket item on California’s November ballot, tucked
between the governor’s race and local elections, is an $8.9
billion bond to help modernize California’s sprawling
waterworks. The measure, which was authored by a former state
water director, would fund scores of projects, from shiny new
desalination plants to upgrades of old dams and aqueducts to
restoration of tainted watersheds, including San Francisco Bay.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has agreed to protect San
Francisco and Humboldt bays from runoff of dangerous chemicals
on utility poles in a settlement with an environmental group.
… The suit said oil and wood waste from poles stored at the
yards washed into the bays, damaging the environment and
endangering human health and wildlife.
Wading into the water along the rocky shore off Aramburu Island
in Richardson Bay, Brian Cheng reached 3 feet under water and
pulled up an algae-covered rock. “Here we go,” he yelled as he
splashed ashore soaking wet and pointed out a tiny snail on the
underside of the rock. “And, we got a bonus,” he said,
gesturing toward a cluster of yellow gelatinous egg capsules.
Following nine years of research, a California agency has
proposed to increase water flows in the San Francisco Bay-Delta
Estuary. But the decision is causing contention between farmers
and fisheries. … The California Water Board is scheduled
to vote on the proposal in August.
The amazing thing about the 35 people who swam for miles in the
San Francisco Bay on Sunday — besides that they swam for miles
in the San Francisco Bay — is that they came out of the water
soiled only by saltwater. Maybe some seaweed. No sewage clung
to their hair.
A final draft plan for the San Joaquin River system has been
released by state water regulators. … But Friday the State
Water Board also released a “framework” for a similar plan
being prepared for the Sacramento River watershed, which would
see even larger reductions of diversions in the north valley.
California water officials on Friday released a plan to
increase flows through a major central California river, an
effort that would save salmon and other fish but deliver less
water to farmers in the state’s agricultural heartland.
State regulators proposed sweeping changes in the allocation of
California’s water Friday, leaving more water in Northern
California’s major rivers to help ailing fish populations — and
giving less to farming and human consumption.
This small rectangle of wetland near the San Francisco Bay in
San Lorenzo doesn’t look particularly visionary. Above ground,
it’s an appealing – if unusually orderly – array of meadows,
cattails and willows. But there’s far more here than meets the
eye. This modest strip of land, just 38 by 150 feet, in the Oro
Loma Sanitary District promises to help solve two of the Bay
Area’s most pressing concerns: sea-level rise and nutrient
pollution.
Proposition 68 was approved with 56 percent of the vote to
authorize the state to borrow $4.1 billion for investments in
outdoor recreation, land conservation and water projects,
according to the latest results Wednesday morning.
In October 2002, the cruise ship Crystal Harmony anchored
outside Monterey Harbor, ferrying more than 900 passengers
ashore for the day before continuing on its way to Acapulco,
Mexico. Later that night, 14 miles off the pristine coastline
of Big Sur, the 790-foot-long ship dumped 36,400 gallons of
sewage, gray water and oily waste into the Monterey Bay
National Marine Sanctuary.
You can shove water back from the land, or let the land flood,
but either way, San Francisco Bay is getting higher. Along more
than 400 miles of bayfront, in at least forty communities that
touch water, the once-sneaky problem of sea level rise is
revealing itself as it accelerates.
Design teams from around the world unveil their visions today
for a ring of ambitious projects circling San Francisco Bay,
all aimed at increasing “resilience” to the challenges of
rising sea levels and other growing threats to communities.
After a year’s worth of ground work, nine teams participating
in the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge take the wraps
off of their various visions.
The city of Oakland and East Bay Municipal Utility District
must pay more than $360,000 for violating the Clean Water Act
by allowing untreated sewage into the San Francisco Bay,
officials said Tuesday. In 2014, EBMUD and seven East Bay
communities it serves, including Oakland and Berkeley, paid
$1.5 million in civil penalties for past sewage discharges.
A local environmental watchdog group says it has reached a
legal settlement with operators of the Newby Island Resource
Recovery Park landfill to curb toxic runoff into local
waterways.
Back in June 2016, Bay Area voters approved Measure AA to raise
$500 million to pay for wetlands restoration, flood control and
wildlife projects around San Francisco Bay. Now the first wave
of that money — nearly $18 million — is about to be put to use.
On Wednesday, the board overseeing the money will vote on
projects in six counties totaling $17.9 million.
A $1.3 trillion spending package approved Thursday by the House
and early Friday by the Senate includes nearly $448 million for
Environmental Protection Agency programs benefiting regional
waters degraded by pollution, overdevelopment and exotic
species invasions. … Aside from the Great Lakes, those
staying at their current levels include Chesapeake Bay, San
Francisco Bay …
A whopping 99 percent of mussels collected from the San
Francisco Bay were contaminated with at least one algal toxin,
while more than a third contained four different kinds of algal
toxins, according to a study published in the March
issue of the scientific journal, Harmful Algae.
It [proposed 2019 budget] would remove all EPA funding of
cleanup programs for the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Champlain, Long
Island Sound, San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound and South Florida,
including the Everglades and Keys.
San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood has been selected as one of 10
Bay Area sites to get attention from a phalanx of architects,
urban planners and environmentalists as part of a competition
to battle sea-level rise. Fueled by an almost $5 million grant
from the Rockefeller Foundation, teams have been formed to
tackle what researchers say is inevitable flooding brought on
by climate change.
Last winter’s drought-busting wet weather was a boon for
reservoirs and parched landscapes, but not so much for some
invasive species in San Francisco Bay, according to a long-term
study by Tiburon-based researchers. All that fresh water
that poured into the bay was bad news for certain invaders,
which have turned up in droves in recent decades from around
the world, often in ships’ ballast water.
Next time you spray Rover or Fluffy for fleas, you may be
harming San Francisco Bay. An insecticide found in commonly
used over-the-counter flea treatments like Frontline Plus and
Pet Armor appears to be washing down pet owners’ drains and
flowing through sewage treatment plants into the bay, new
research shows.
Nutrients – such as nitrogen – are essential to life, but
an overabundance can mean trouble for waterways. Take
Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, which are infamous for
“dead zones” where closely packed bodies of fish float to the
surface or wash ashore by the thousands. These dead
zones are caused by nutrient pollution, which makes
algae grow too fast.
Estuaries are places where fresh and
salt water mix, usually at the point where a river enters the
ocean. They are the meeting point between riverine environments
and the sea, with a combination of tides, waves, salinity, fresh
water flow and sediment. The constant churning means there are
elevated levels of nutrients, making estuaries highly productive
natural habitats.
Last year, on June 7, the nine counties of the Bay Area passed
a ballot measure called Measure AA. The measure placed a $12
per year parcel tax on local landowners to be directed towards
wetlands restoration.
Despite spending millions of dollars over the years on garbage
cleanup, Oakland has the Bay Area’s worst record for limiting
the rubbish that pollutes creeks, lakes and the bay, according
to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.
The flow of waste violates mandates set by the board to reduce
storm drain litter this year by 70 percent compared with 2009,
a goal that Oakland is far from meeting.
Three days after the 112-foot barge Vengeance overturned in
high winds near Yerba Buena Island, the U.S. Coast Guard worked
Sunday to contain the diesel slick spilled from its depths and
walked nearby beaches to check on wildlife.
There were no new signs of fuel leaking into San Francisco Bay
as a Coast Guard helicopter crew carried out an overflight and
divers conducted an underwater assessment Saturday on a freight
barge that sank south of the Bay Bridge.
The Trump administration could eliminate all federal funding
for wetlands restoration in San Francisco Bay, according to a
budget plan that has shocked local and state officials, but is
just one piece of broad changes to federal environmental
programs.
The heavy storms that washed away California’s drought this
season have come with a side effect: large slugs of pollution
and sewage washing into San Francisco Bay and the Delta.
San Francisco voters will be asked to allow $350 million to be
spent on a first round of improvements for the city’s crucial
but fragile Embarcadero seawall, officials said Monday.
Powerful storms often hailed for bringing drought-busting rains
to California also served to virtually wipe out a healthy
growth of native Olympia oysters at China Camp near San Rafael,
raising concerns about climate change, according to a new
study.
Understanding the importance of the Bay-Delta ecosystem and
working to restore it means grasping the scope of what it once
was.
That’s the takeaway message of a report released Nov. 14 by the
San Francisco Estuary Institute.
The report, “A
Delta Renewed,” is the latest in a series sponsored by the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW). Written by
several authors, the report says there is “cause for hope” to
achieving large-scale Delta restoration in a way that supports
people, farms and the environment. SFEI calls itself “one of
California’s premier aquatic and ecosystem science institutes.”
The San Francisco Bay Joint Venture — celebrating its 20th
anniversary this year — has helped coordinate and complete more
than 150 wetland habitat projects, conserving and restoring
about 75,000 acres of habitat in and around the bay since 1996.
High levels of a toxic freshwater algae known to be harmful to
humans have been detected in mussels at several locations in
San Francisco Bay, scientists said Monday.
The Bay Area made history in June 2016 by passing Measure AA, a
wetland restoration parcel tax and the first ballot measure to
include all nine counties. Besides providing wildlife habitat
and flood protection, the measure may hold lessons for future
regional governance. Most of all, however, the measure’s
success underscores how important the Bay is to us.
Evidence of what scientists are calling the planet’s Sixth Mass
Extinction is appearing in San Francisco Bay and its estuary,
the largest on the Pacific Coast of North and South America,
according to a major new study.
Unlike most other microorganisms, zooplankton are
technically heterotrophic animals – meaning they cannot produce
their own food. Instead, they feed upon phytoplankton like algae,
a
process responsible for keeping these populations under
control.
Those small, seemingly insignificant bits of plastic in San
Francisco Bay found at nine local sites last year could end up
being the next major water quality problem. What to do about
them is an important next step, said Rebecca Sutton, senior
scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI).
During a Thursday seminar sponsored by the State Water
Resources Control Board in Sacramento, Sutton said experts are
embarking on a course of better understanding microplastic
contamination and its effect on the environment and human
health.
Today [July 1], the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
proposed a federal Clean Water Act rule to tighten the current
selenium water quality criteria for the waters of San Francisco
Bay and Delta. The proposed change would better protect aquatic
species, including salmon, smelt, and diving ducks, that are
dependent on the Bay and Delta ecosystem, from harmful exposure
to elevated levels of selenium.
Settling a major lawsuit from environmentalists, San Jose city
officials on Tuesday agreed to spend more than $100 million
over the next decade and beyond to reduce tons of trash that
flows into creeks and San Francisco Bay, repair miles of
leaking underground sewage pipes and clean stormwater
contaminated with harmful bacteria.
Thousands of acres of land around the San Francisco Bay will be
returned to wetlands after voters in the nine-county Bay Area
approved a new $12-per-parcel tax that will raise millions of
dollars for bay enhancement and habitat restoration.
The Bay Area’s first-ever nine-county ballot measure — a
20-year parcel tax intended to raise $500 million for marsh
restoration and improved public access along the bay’s
shoreline — was leading comfortably early Wednesday, with its
strongest support from the most populous counties.
Fifty years ago, Bay Area residents rallied around the call to
save San Francisco Bay. Public action on an unprecedented scale
reversed development tides that for more than a century had
covered shallow waters with land for industrial parks and
housing tracts, roadways and garbage dumps.
Eleven years ago, it was a major threat to San Francisco Bay. A
fast-growing, non-native plant that spread in dense thickets up
to 7 feet tall was exploding out of control, overrunning
wetlands, threatening birds, wildlife and even the public’s
view of the water.
A 59-year-old South Bay man was charged with illegally dumping
fill material, construction debris and other pollutants into
the waters of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National
Wildlife Refuge, officials said.
The long-term threat of a rising bay has prodded nearly a dozen
city agencies to come together and respond with an action plan
— “action” being a relative term.
Looking out at San Francisco Bay, you’d never know it’s dotted
with tiny pieces of plastic. … This microplastic threatens
fish and may also threaten people who eat them. “We can’t
recover it once it’s into our watersheds and oceans,” said Stiv
Wilson, campaign director at The Story of Stuff, a nonprofit in
Berkeley.
In a clear sign that the largest wetlands restoration project
on the West Coast is already improving the health of San
Francisco Bay, bird populations have doubled over the past 13
years on thousands acres of former industrial salt-evaporation
ponds that ring the bay’s southern shoreline, scientists
reported Thursday.
San Francisco Bay is in a race against time, with billions of
dollars of highways, airports, homes and office buildings at
risk from rising seas, surging tides and extreme storms driven
by climate change. … That’s the conclusion of a new report
from more than 100 Bay Area scientists and 17 government
agencies that may help fuel a regional tax measure aimed at
addressing the looming crisis.
San Francisco Bay is contaminated with widespread pollution
from billions of tiny pieces of plastic in greater
concentrations than the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and other
major U.S. bodies of water, according to a groundbreaking new
study.
A large cement factory near Cupertino will have to pay more
than $7 million in fines and remediation for polluting a local
creek that pours into San Francisco Bay, state and federal
regulators said Wednesday.
California lawmakers led by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough,
and Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer
introduced legislation last week to double the amount of
federal grants to restore the bay, the largest estuary on the
West Coast, to $10 million a year.
Estuaries are hard places to understand and even harder to
explain. Estuarine scientists, myself included, have struggled
to learn how changes in the San Francisco Estuary led to
declining fish populations and waning productivity,
particularly in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Scientists have set up eating stations full of fish roe in the
middle of Richardson Bay in an attempt to feed ducks whose
numbers have been on the decline in recent years.
In a move that could force the city of San Jose to spend
millions modernizing its sewage system, cleaning up trash and
removing homeless encampments, an environmental group announced
Monday it will file a lawsuit under the Clean Water Act
charging the city with failing to stop pollution from washing
into creeks and San Francisco Bay.
This 3-day, 2-night tour, which we do every year,
takes participants to the heart of California water policy – the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
15-minute DVD that graphically portrays the potential disaster
should a major earthquake hit the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Delta Warning” depicts what would happen in the event of an
earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale: 30 levee breaks,
16 flooded islands and a 300 billion gallon intrusion of salt
water from the Bay – the “big gulp” – which would shut down the
State Water Project and Central Valley Project pumping plants.
A 30-minute version of the 2005 PBS documentary Water on the
Edge. This video is ideal for showing at community forums and
speaking engagements to help the public understand the complex
issues surrounding the New River.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautifully illustrated 24×36 inch poster,
suitable for framing and display in any office or classroom,
focuses on the theme of Delta sustainability.
The text, photos and graphics explain issues related to land
subsidence, levees and flooding, urbanization and fish and
wildlife protection. An inset map illustrates the tidal action
that increases the salinity of the Delta’s waterways. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the California Bay-Delta
Authority.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive plants can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native plants and animals. “Space
Invaders” features photos and information on six non-native
plants that have caused widespread problems in the Bay-Delta
Estuary and elsewhere.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex and
competing issues with sections on water quality, levees, salinity
and agricultural drainage, and water distribution.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
“State officials unveiled a longer-term plan to deal with the
drought Wednesday, one which relaxes some water-quality standards
and endangered species protections in the Delta to allow for more
water to be sent south to parched cities and farms.”
Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of the Engineers, the San
Francisco Bay/Delta Model is a hydraulic model of San Francisco
Bay and the Delta and is housed in a converted World II-era
warehouse in Sausalito in Marin County.
Stretching 320-feet by 400-feet wide, the Bay Model
features a replica of the Bay Delta watershed from the Golden
Gate to the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. Pumping systems move hundreds of gallons of water
throughout the display and create 14-minute tidal ebb and flow.
Invasive species, also known as exotics, are plants, animals,
insects, and aquatic species introduced into non-native habitats.
Often, invasive species travel to non-native areas by ship,
either in ballast water released into harbors or attached to the
sides of boats. From there, introduced species can then spread
and significantly alter ecosystems and the natural food chain as
they go. Another example of non-native species introduction is
the dumping of aquarium fish into waterways.
Without natural predators or threats, these introduced species
then multiply.
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water provides an overview of the
idea of a dual conveyance facility, including questions
surrounding its cost, operation and governance
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Delta through the
many ongoing activities focusing on it, most notably the Delta
Vision process. Many hours of testimony, research, legal
proceedings, public hearings and discussion have occurred and
will continue as the state seeks the ultimate solution to the
problems tied to the Delta.
