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.
It’s a growing threat that sneaks in with the tide. Sea levels
here in the Bay Area are expected to rise by a foot or more
over the next several decades, potentially overwhelming levees
and seawalls around the Bay. But now an environmental group
says one of the most powerful weapons we have to fight back, is
being literally, thrown away. … [T]ons of sediment that are
dredged out of the Bay every year and barged out sea, or dumped
in deep water … could be the perfect solution to bolster the
wetlands that surround the Bay.
Bay Area environmental groups are celebrating a decision by an
affiliate of Cargill to withdraw its appeal of a federal
judge’s finding that Redwood City salt ponds are protected by
the Clean Water Act. While the withdrawal does not mean
development is prohibited it does make it more difficult, as
the federal act requires permits be issued before any dredging
or filling of the salt ponds, a 1,365-acre area adjacent to the
San Francisco Bay filled with tidal pools, marshland and
commercial salt mining operations.
California households face over $600 million in household water
debt, with some 1.6 million homes — roughly 12 percent of all
state residents — dealing with an average of $500 in arrears.
The findings show clear racial inequities, with households of
color bearing the brunt of this debt. More than 130 smaller
utilities across the state will need federal help in the next
six months if they are to survive. It is clear that we
need a solution now. -Written by Michael Carlin, the acting general
manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
For more than 100 years after California’s Gold Rush,
developers and city leaders filled in San Francisco Bay,
shrinking it by one third to build farms, freeways, airports
and subdivisions. All that changed in the 1970s with modern
environmental laws. But now as sea level rise threatens to
cause billions of dollars of flooding in the coming decades,
the bay is going to need to be filled again — but this time in
a different way, according to a new scientific report out
Tuesday.
Tree roots are being blamed for a 98,280-gallon sewage spill in
Sausalito that went unnoticed for two weeks. The overflow
started on March 17 and went undetected because of heavy
vegetation, according to the county.
Protecting the Bay Area from sea level rise may all come down
to mud. That’s the finding of a new report from San Francisco
Estuary Institute that tries to address a two-part problem
related to the looming threat of sea level rise: the lack of
natural sediment coming into the bay and the need to reinforce
its shorelines to protect the region from rising seas. There’s
a fairly straightforward solution, the nonprofit research
organization proposes: Take the sediment that’s dredged from
the bay’s shipping channels and barged out to sea or to deep
parts of the bay — 2½ to 3 million cubic yards of mud a year —
and use it to restore wetlands on the perimeter.
The Suisun Marsh — known as the largest swath of contiguous
wetlands on the West Coast and a haven for thousands of
migrating waterfowl — has become the Bay Area’s latest
battleground between fossil fuel producers and
environmentalists hellbent on fighting climate change. A
Brentwood company, Sunset Exploration Inc., announced in
January it wants to explore for natural gas by drilling a
section of the 116,000-acre marshland about 9 miles southwest
of Suisun City in an area known as Hunter’s Point, according to
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The theme of the April 14 meeting of the Cloverdale City
Council is seemingly water — the council will be viewing a
presentation on its updated water and sewer rate study and
giving direction on whether or not to proceed to a public
hearing with new rates, and will also be discussing whether or
not it wants to join the Sonoma-Marin Saving Water
Partnership.
It’s nothing less than an invasion. Interlopers are coming
into California by land, by sea…and by FedEx. That’s what
happened with the European green crab, a voracious
cannibal that stowed away in packages of worms sent by
overnight delivery to commercial fisherman in California.
Unknown to anyone, the tiny crustaceans were concealed in
seaweed that wrapped the cargo and were freed into the Pacific
when fishermen tossed it overboard. … California spends
$3 million a year attempting to eradicate nutria, a large,
homely, orange-toothed rodent that destroys wetlands and bores
holes into levees. Another $3 million a year goes to educating
boaters about quagga mussels, which hitch rides on hulls and
cling to equipment in the state’s vast water transport
system. And, for the last 20 years, authorities have
spent more than $34 million to manage Atlantic cordgrass in the
San Francisco Bay-Delta.
The chamise plants that blanket California’s shrubby chaparral
should have grown new sprouts by now, flowering after winter
rains before baking in the arid summer heat. They are highly
flammable and abundant in wildland areas — and, for that
reason, a bellwether to wildfire researchers. This month, a San
Jose State University team analyzing moisture levels was
shocked at what it found at study sites in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. At two locations researchers found no new growth to
cut from the shrubs. It’s an ominous sign of just how dry the
vegetation is around California, where boundless numbers of
plants and trees have been starved of life-sustaining water
thanks to an entire winter of paltry precipitation. Those dry
plants are fuel for wildfires, and they’re primed to burn
explosively.
Here’s a look at the nation’s top 10 cities with the most
properties at risk of flooding, according to 2020 data from the
First Street Foundation’s First National Flood Risk
Assessment. Flooding is a huge problem in America and is
only getting worse as global warming increases the frequency
and strength of tropical storms and hurricanes, and the warmer
atmosphere holds more water, leading to more rainfall. Warmer
temperatures also trigger winter snow to melt faster and
earlier. Flooding in the United States is likely to cause
some $20 billion in damages this year and cost as much as $32
billion by 2051, according to research from First
Street. Sundae took a look at the nation’s top 10
cities with the most properties at risk of flooding… #10. San
Jose … #5. Fresno … #3. Sacramento…
Nearly every resident of California has experienced an
earthquake. Even the youngest schoolchildren have the safety
procedure drilled into them: duck under a table, hold on, and
pray that it’s only a small one. Barring a truly catastrophic
quake, the situation usually ends there. You go on with your
day as if nothing had happened, the near catastrophe completely
forgotten. Most people assume that the danger ends after the
last remnants of the tremor share the ground. But there is a
much more sinister side effect of earthquakes that affects
daily life around California and much of the rest of the world:
contaminating the groundwater supply.
The city of St. Helena’s water system recently failed a
drinking water standard, city officials said Thursday evening.
… The city routinely monitors its distribution system for the
presence of drinking water contaminants. Testing results
received for Nov. 10, 2020, and March 9, 2021, showed the
system exceeded the standard or maximum contaminant level —MCL
— for haloacetic acids, or HAA, [Jo Ann Burkman, acting chief
operator for the city's water division] said. The standard
MCL for haloacetic acids is 60 ug/L; the running annual average
for the LSWTP Distribution System in the fourth quarter of 2020
measured 68 ug/L…
State water pollution officials have hit the city of Sunnyvale
with $187,000 penalty after the city’s wastewater treatment
plant spilled more than a quarter million gallons of partially
treated sewage into San Francisco Bay last summer. The spill
occurred on July 29 when a 36-inch welded steel pipeline
ruptured, releasing 292,600 gallons — the equivalent of about
12 backyard swimming pools — of partially treated sewage that
had not been disinfected into channels that flow into the bay
near Moffett Field. … The spill was one of the two largest
illegal discharges from a Bay Area sewage treatment plant into
San Francisco Bay over the past six years …
The dams that are built in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River
Watershed protect thousands of people and billions of dollar’s
worth of agriculture but they are far too old and far too many
of them need repair. Some unnecessary dams are drying rivers
and putting business in front of the environment.
For seven days in mid-March 2021, the Bureau of Reclamation
substantially increased Folsom Lake storage releases. Roughly,
the releases tripled in volume (Figure 1). The release of over
20,000 acre-feet of water is significant for a year in which
Folsom storage is not much better than it was in the worst year
on record – 1977 (Figure 2).1 With the release in mid-March,
the lake level dropped 3 feet. Yes, there was rain in the
forecast and a decent snowpack, but certainly no flood
concerns. So why? The reason was to meet state water quality
requirements for Delta outflow. Delta outflow increased from
7,000 cfs to 12,000 cfs for a few days (Figure 3).
In anticipation of this week’s Bay-Delta Science Conference, I
thought it would be useful to consider some of what it takes to
understand a complex ecosystem like an estuary and to encourage
everyone working in the San Francisco Estuary – scientists,
policymakers, and local stakeholders – to continue shifting our
ecosystem management focus from the simple to the complex. I’ll
explain why in a moment. Here are four suggestions for
improving ecosystem management in the San Francisco Bay-Delta:
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) filed comments with
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) regarding Sunset
Exploration’s proposal to drill for natural gas in the Suisun
Marsh. Located in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, this 88,000-acre
wetland is home to a number of endangered and threatened
species, including California Ridgway’s rail, black rail, and
Chinook salmon – and is just a few short miles from
environmental justice communities in Solano County…. DOJ
urges the Army Corps to fully consider the proposal’s
significant environmental impacts, including harm to these
communities and protected species, as well as increased
greenhouse gas emissions, before deciding whether to grant the
requested permit.
As shoreline communities in the San Francisco Bay Area scramble
to prepare for rising seas, they should also be mindful that
protecting themselves could worsen flooding elsewhere. This is
because seawalls can reflect and amplify tides. “Decisions in
one location could affect hazards in another,” said
environmental engineer Michelle Hummel, who began studying the
bay while at UC Berkeley and is now at the University of Texas
at Arlington. Her latest research reveals that building
seawalls along relatively small sections of shore could raise
water levels enough to have far reaching effects, even all the
way across the bay. … But building seawalls in other
places could, especially in the wide alluvial valleys where
rivers flow into the bay.
Rejecting arguments that a utility can’t be sued over
century-old pollution, a federal judge signaled Wednesday that
he will likely advance a lawsuit seeking to hold Pacific Gas
and Electric liable for contamination that occurred more than
100 years ago. … [Plaintiff and San Francisco resident Dan]
Clarke claimed groundwater contamination stemming from the site
of PG&E’s former gas plant “is intermittently discharged
into the bay.” He said seasonal, tidal and other factors result
in groundwater passing the former plant site and intermixing
with contaminants before leaking into the San Francisco Bay.
Drought is returning to California as a second, consecutive
parched winter draws to a close in the usually wet north,
leaving the state’s major reservoirs half empty. But this
latest period of prolonged dryness will probably play out very
differently across this vast state. In Northern
California, areas dependent on local supplies, such as Sonoma
County, could be the hardest-hit. Central Valley growers have
been told of steep cuts to upcoming water deliveries.
Environmentalists too are warning of grave harm to native
fish. Yet, hundreds of miles to the south, the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California reports
record amounts of reserves — enough to carry the state’s most
populous region through this year and even next.
Much of the state’s water infrastructure was designed decades
ago and was built to serve half the size of our current
population. Faced with aging infrastructure, California cities
have taken innovative approaches to modernizing water treatment
and recycling systems to meet the needs of a growing population
and a changing climate. One infrastructure need that many
residents take for granted is wastewater treatment.
… The San José-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater
Facility is the largest advanced wastewater treatment
facility in the Western United States. Originally built in
1956, today it serves more than 1.4 million residents and
17,000 businesses in eight cities in Silicon Valley and
unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County. Using
a treatment process that simulates the way nature
cleans water, the facility treats an average of 110 million
gallons of wastewater per day.
Eelgrass, a plant that grows in “underwater meadows” along the
California coast and emerges like a floating carpet at low
tide, is already known to be an important habitat for fish,
birds and baby Dungeness crabs. It turns out it can also reduce
seawater’s acidity back to preindustrial levels, creating
refuges for animals who can’t tolerate that byproduct of
climate change. … [S]eagrass meadows, which have shrunk in
number and size globally because of pollution and
development … may support wildlife as well as the
production of farmed oysters, mussels and
abalone. … The state already has efforts in place
to protect its eelgrass habitat. The California Ocean
Protection Council has a goal of preserving the state’s
existing 15,000 acres of seagrass beds and adding another 1,000
acres by 2025.
San Francisco Bay’s life support systems are unravelling
quickly, and a wealth of science indicates that unsustainable
water diversions are driving this estuary’s demise. Yet,
with another drought looming, federal and state water managers
still plan to divert large amounts of water to their
contractors and drain upstream reservoirs this summer.
Meanwhile, the state’s most powerful water districts are
preparing yet another proposal to maintain excessive water
diversions for the long-term. By delaying reforms that the
law requires and that science indicates are necessary, Gov.
Gavin Newsom encourages wasteful water practices that
jeopardize the Bay and make the state’s water future
precarious. -Written by Jon Rosenfield, a senior scientist for SF
Baykeeper.
The Delta Stewardship Council (Council) announced the hiring of
Ryan Stanbra, the Council’s legislative and policy advisor, to
the key post of chief deputy executive officer. … Appointed
by Governor Brown in 2015, Ryan joined the Council in the role
of legislative and policy advisor. He has played a pivotal role
in advising on critical Council initiatives like implementation
of reduced reliance on the Delta, interagency coordination and
outreach for the Delta Levees Investment Strategy, increasing
funding for critical science investments, and more. He has
served in the acting chief deputy executive officer role since
January.
Restoration projects, like species, evolve. The Sonoma Creek
Enhancement Project, originally about mosquito control, has
shown itself to be a boon to special-status tidal marsh
wildlife as well. More than a decade of adaptive management
actions made that happen. The existing marsh, formed
rapidly beginning in the 1960s by deposited sediment, lacked
the dendritic channels of a mature marsh. High tides brought in
water that pooled in a central basin and didn’t drain out,
providing breeding habitat for mosquitos. The disadvantages of
chemical treatment prompted land managers to look for
alternatives.
Updated water supply allocations announced last week would
still drain upstream reservoirs in order to deliver 4.5 million
acre feet of water to the contractors of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP), devastating
fish and wildlife. This week, the fisheries biologists at the
National Marine Fisheries Service projected that these planned
operations are likely to result in lethal water temperatures
that will kill 89% of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon
below Shasta Dam this year. This mortality estimate is even
worse than what was observed in 2014 and 2015, when salmon
populations were devastated by warm water in their spawning
grounds.
As the rain season comes to a close across Northern California,
water districts are keeping a close eye on rain totals that are
below average, and water managers are explaining what another
“dry water year” means for our region. According to
California’s Department of Water Resources, or DWR, the state
is well into its second consecutive dry year. That causes
concern among water managers. However, it comes as no surprise.
… With the memory of drought years between 2012 and 2016 not
too distant, [DWR information officer Chris] Orrock explained
how lessons learned from that time period are still being
implemented.
Much like when tech money reshapes an historical neighborhood,
a beaver’s move downtown can cause the locals to worry. In
Napa, the animals’ sprawling waterfront complexes create
worrying pools along the riverbank, while the native
cottonwoods are whittled down and threaten landowners’ roofs.
It seems destined that two species known for their
environmental engineering would struggle to live in unison.
However, municipalities like Napa and Martinez in Contra Costa
County have learned to live with their beavers, and the
upcoming California Beaver Summit aims to set the record
straight.
Another advantage to “feeding” the soil in a region plagued
with persistent drought involves the tremendous water savings.
… With below-average precipitation in California,
its reservoirs are showing the impacts of a second dry year.
Lake Oroville stands at 55% of average and Lake Shasta,
California’s largest, now stands at 68%. Most
eco-conscious activists agree that, with the climate’s changing
patterns that lead to decreasing water supplies and die-offs of
pollinators, a lot more needs to be done to help keep our water
and food supplies plentiful.
With racism in the public eye and the pandemic wreaking havoc
on vulnerable populations disadvantaged by ecological hazards,
the need to ensure environmental justice has become more
apparent – and more important – than ever… Race affects
class. Class then affects your options. It’s more of
a human rights issue today than a civil rights
issue. When you broaden it to human rights, then we’re
talking about a wide variety of things that affect the
opportunities open to people as people, not as citizens: Do we
have a right to clean water? Do we have a right to decent
housing? Do we have a right to an environment free of
pathogens?
People living on San Francisco’s streets and in its parks face
daily barriers to finding and accessing clean water, according
to a report released earlier this month by the nonprofit
organization, Coalition on Homelessness. The coalition
surveyed 73 unhoused people during the 2020-21 winter months to
better understand how they access, use, and store water. Of
those surveyed — mostly elderly and disabled people living in
the Tenderloin area — some 68 percent responded that meeting
their daily water needs is a burden. Sources of hardship
abound. Some unhoused residents said they have trouble getting
water at grocery stores or restaurants because of their
appearance.
The San Francisco Estuary Partnership’s next update to it’s
2016 Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for the
Estuary—or Estuary Blueprint—will bring a new focus on equity
and environmental justice to ongoing efforts to restore and
protect the Bay and Delta.
The lack of rain and snow during what is usually California’s
wet season has shrunk the state’s water supply. The Sierra
Nevada snowpack, a crucial source of water as it melts over the
spring and summer, is currently at 65 percent of normal. Major
reservoirs are also low. Two state agencies warned last week
that the dry winter is very likely to lead to cuts in the
supply of water to homes, businesses and farmers. The federal
Bureau of Reclamation also told its agricultural water
customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
expect no water this year.
In the face of climate change and severe weather, there is a
risk of more prolonged droughts in California. Despite recent
storms in March, Santa Clara County is now in a drought and it
is unknown how severe it will get. Valley Water remains focused
on preparing for future dry and wet years through a variety of
projects and programs, including the proposed expansion of
Pacheco Reservoir in southern Santa Clara County. The project
would increase the reservoir’s capacity from 5,500 acre-feet to
up to 140,000 acre-feet, enough water to supply up to 1.4
million residents for one year.
The city is getting ready to impose new penalties for water
customers who exceed their rations during St. Helena’s Phase II
water emergency. On Tuesday the City Council told staff to
bring the recommended penalties back for adoption at the April
13 council meeting. The new penalties would take effect May 1.
Meanwhile, city officials will develop clear conservation
targets and look at adjusting the city’s water management
policies, including how water allocations are calculated.
The Ninth Circuit reversed a conviction for three counts of
violations under the Clean Water Act because the district court
failed to instruct the jury that the defendant needed to
knowingly discharge material “into water” to convict.
… In the summer of 2014, Lucero executed a scheme under
which he charged construction companies to dump dirt and debris
on lands near the San Francisco Bay, including wetlands and a
tributary subject to the Clean Water Act. Although Lucero
admitted to “walking the land” where the dumping happened, the
period when the dumping occurred was unusually dry due to
drought. The trial court found Lucero guilty on two counts of
discharges into wetlands and one count of discharge into a
tributary.
[F]or those who live in the legal Delta zone – some 630,000
people – the braided weave of the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Rivers and their maze of associated wetlands and levees
provides a place of home, community, and recreation. And, as a
recent study by the Delta Stewardship Council shows, climate
change is tugging on the watery thread holding it all together.
… The council’s overview reveals a grim outlook for the
millions of people that are tethered to the region’s water:
drought similar to that experienced in 2012-2016 will be five
to seven times more likely by 2050. This will result in more
severe and frequent water shortages and, as the report bluntly
states, “lower reliability of Delta water exports.”
The upcoming salmon season doesn’t look promising for
recreational and commercial fishermen on the Coastside. But
environmentalists from the Central Valley are hoping to change
that in the future by easing the movement of salmon between the
Pacific Ocean and inland rivers. One of those rivers is the
Tuolumne River. Its stewards at the Tuolumne River Trust are
sounding the alarm over the river’s health and say that
committing more water to this distant river will help the
salmon populations more than 100 miles away in places like
Coastside fisheries.
As California stares down the barrel of yet another dry year,
alarm bells are already ringing over conditions in the Delta.
Environmental groups, fishermen, tribes, and a host of others
are calling on the State Water Resources Control Board to
complete and implement a long-delayed update to the Water
Quality Control Plan for the Bay and Delta (Bay-Delta Plan), to
protect the imperiled ecosystem. At the same time, plans for a
structure with the potential to divert more water than ever to
southern cities and farms are creeping ahead.
The Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District completed
construction this week on an expansion of its water recycling
system, increasing the district’s recycled water production
capacity nearly fourfold. …The expanded system allows the
district to treat roughly 5.4 million gallons of recycled water
per day at its headquarters at 300 Smith Ranch Road in San
Rafael. That’s up from the district’s previous capacity of 1.4
million daily gallons.
Starting Monday, March 22, groundwater users who own property
in the Santa Rosa Plain area will have an opportunity to review
and update their water use information. The new Groundwater
User Information Data Exchange (GUIDE) Program is being
launched by the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability
Agency (GSA) to improve understanding of how groundwater is
used, and the number and types of water wells in the Santa Rosa
Plain basin.
Nitrogen pollution is one of agriculture’s biggest and most
intractable problems. Crops can’t grow without the critical
nutrient, and because sources of nitrogen are easy to come
by—synthetic fertilizer is cheap and manure from large animal
agriculture operations is plentiful—farmers often apply too
much, to try to ensure the highest yields. Because plants can’t
use it all, the excess makes its way into groundwater and
washes into waterways where it contaminates drinking water and
creates vast dead zones in oceans and lakes.
… California’s largest hotspot unsurprisingly includes
21 counties that cover the Central Valley, America’s produce
capital.
In an effort to address drought and increase local groundwater
supply, the Santa Clara County Valley Water District is
fast-tracking a plan to purify and recycle more water in San
Jose. … But city elected leaders — concerned for the
environment and limited staff resources due to COVID-19 — are
pumping the brakes and want more time to negotiate.
Councilmembers met Friday with Valley Water’s board of
directors for a special meeting to hash out the issue.
The Porter-Cologne Water Quality Act, California’s state clean
water law, passed in 1969 and became the model for the 1972
federal Clean Water Act. Nearly half a century after passage of
the landmark federal law, it is time for both the state and the
nation to assess progress and chart a new course. Once again,
California is leading the way with Assembly Bill 377, a new
bill introduced by Assemblyman Robert Rivas (D-Hollister).
Although new legislation is needed, the existing federal and
California clean water acts have produced successes that should
be celebrated. -Written by Terry Tamminen, president of 7th
Generation Advisors and founder of Santa Monica
Baykeeper.
The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will
likely hire a contractor for the sweeping Lower Walnut Creek
Restoration Project that aims to improve both flood control and
conditions for wildlife and recreation. County staff recommends
the board approve a deal with Four M Contracting, which came in
with the lowest bid on the project, at $11.285 million. The
Winters-based civil engineering firm specializes in wetland
enhancement projects and the creation of wildlife habitat.
Earth Island Institute, a Berkeley, Calif.-based environmental
nonprofit, sued a collection of the world’s largest food,
beverage and consumer goods companies, saying their use of
millions of tons of plastic packaging has resulted in polluted
oceans, waterways and beaches. … Another novel element
of the case is that the Earth Island Institute is claiming the
10 companies in question are also harming the institute
specifically by allowing plastics to proliferate in the oceans
off of California, causing the nonprofit to expend enormous
sums to effect beach clean-ups and other related
projects.
Amid a drought, Napa County is preparing to protect more than
2,000 city of Napa properties from the next flood. The county
learned earlier this year that the stalled Napa River flood
control project will receive $48.3 million in federal funds.
That has local flood control officials talking about the final
round of projects. Step one has been meeting with officials
from the federal partner, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, by
Zoom. Four flood control projects totaling about $94 million
are to be done with a mixture of federal, local, developer and
grant money.
In the latest effort to protect Coyote Valley, a Palo Alto
environmental group has closed three deals totaling $16.5
million to purchase 331 acres in the scenic expanse of rural
land on San Jose’s southern edges … The three properties
purchased in the most recent deals, left undeveloped, also will
be used to provide natural flood protection for downtown San
Jose. The idea is that when Coyote Creek is flooding, as it did
in 2017, causing $100 million in damage, its waters can be
deliberately spread over the open area to seep into the
groundwater table instead of all rushing downtown into
neighborhoods.
Senate President pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego) today
presented SB 1, a landmark bill to help California address the
impacts of sea level rise, to the Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water, which approved the bill in a 7-2 vote. …
SB 1, the Sea Level Rise Mitigation and Adaptation Act, directs
the Coastal Commission to take sea level rise into account in
its planning, policies, and activities, and would … expand
funding to assist more disadvantaged communities along the
coast that are vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise and
are actively working to address environmental justice issues.
San Francisco’s homeless residents struggle to access enough
water to live and stay healthy, according to a grim report
released Tuesday by the nonprofit Coalition on Homelessness.
The Coalition surveyed 73 homeless residents, and found that 61
percent of them do not have access to 15 liters of water a day,
which is UNICEF’s disaster response standard for people to meet
a minimum survival level.
In the latest sign that California is entering a new drought,
Silicon Valley’s largest water provider on Tuesday asked the
public to step up water conservation efforts. … The district,
a government agency based in San Jose that serves 2 million
people, stopped short of announcing immediate mandatory water
restrictions, like asking cities and private water companies
who buy its water to implement odd-even lawn watering days
for their customers, or to impose rates that set a penalty for
residential water use above a certain level.
Pacific Gas and Electric will pay to remove soil possibly
tainted by century-old gas plants and investigate groundwater
contamination in a San Francisco shoreline area under the terms
of a deal announced Monday. The agreement represents the third
and final settlement reached in a lawsuit filed in 2014 over
pollution from manufactured gas plants operated by PG&E in
the late 1800s and early 1900s. Under the deal entered Monday,
PG&E will fund a study on how to remove or mitigate
contamination from an underground storage tank on the former
site of its North Beach gas plant, which stopped operating
after it was damaged in the Great Earthquake of 1906.
Alameda County Water District has been busy developing a Water
Efficiency Master Plan that continues ACWD’s efforts to
encourage water use efficiency in the Tri-Cities and ensure
long-term water supply reliability for its customers. The WEMP
is now complete and ready for review. It provides a roadmap for
ACWD’s Water Use Efficiency Program for the next five years and
strategies out to 2050.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering whether
the spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon that occupy the
rivers of Northern California and southern Oregon are
genetically distinct. The decision … would almost
certainly result in a listing under the Endangered Species Act
if seen as a separate species. … [T]he dams and
reservoirs that have been installed at various points
throughout the rivers of the West Coast create problems for
spring-run Chinook that are unique and separate from their
closely related cousins. It also allows the fall-run
species to outcompete the spring run since they both are able
to reach the same spots in the river to reproduce.
A trio of briefings on aging infrastructure and climate change
from the State Water Project will open with a stakeholder panel
discussion featuring Zone 7 Water Agency General Manager
Valerie Pryor during the California Water Commission’s meeting
on Wednesday (March 17), starting 9:30 a.m. The meeting agenda
includes three briefings under Item No. 9 including an overview
of the State Water Project and updates on the Climate Change
Vulnerability Assessment and the California Department of Water
Resources’ “efforts to address issues related to aging
infrastructure.”
There’s a cruel irony to lacking access to quality water as the
sky pours rain, a luxury development’s fountain spews a
waterfall around the corner, and the bay is within walking
distance. Such is the case for the unhoused residents of an
encampment on the border of the California cities of Berkeley
and Emeryville, whom I visited on a March afternoon that cycled
between intermittent showers and partly-cloudy skies. It’s
located along train tracks and near the highway, with no clear
businesses or public facilities in the immediate area that
would be willing to offer a restroom or sink.
The California commercial salmon season, due to start May 1,
will be only about half as long as last year’s season, after
the Pacific Fisheries Management Council settled on three
proposals for the dates and months fishing can take place this
season. The main reason for the shorter season is
the smaller number of adult Sacramento River
salmon expected to be in the ocean this spring and summer.
While commercial fishing boats were permitted to go out for 167
days total last year, the three proposals for the 2021 season
would only allow fishing for a total of 78 days, 94 days or 104
days.
For decades, the Cargill salt ponds in Redwood City have
stretched into the San Francisco Bay like a blank slate. What’s
to come of them? The Cargill corporation sees the outline of a
new housing development, while environmental groups see a
restored wetland habitat. David Lewis and his group Save the
Bay recently joined a lawsuit against the former Trump
administration’s EPA in a back-and-forth battle over whether
the area falls under federal protection.
Driven by maintenance costs and supply price increases, higher
water bills could be coming to San Jose residents as soon as
July—despite pandemic-related hardships and resident pushback.
… Santa Clara Valley Water District, the wholesale water
provider in the county, could raise rates by 9.6%, which
translates to about a $4.50 increase per month to customers.
The company’s directors will vote on the proposed increases in
May and rate hikes would take effect July 1.
Hail and rain blanketed much of the Greater Sacramento Area
this week, though experts say it’s not likely to play a major
role in the state’s drought position. … Having endured
two consecutively dry winters, California’s snowpack in most
areas is less than 75% of normal for this time of year,
according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Many
water agencies in California have discussed water conservation
measures, the center wrote in its latest drought report. The
North Marin Water District in the San Francisco Bay Area has
already considered voluntary and mandatory water conservation
orders.
There’s one type of oyster that’s indigenous to the San
Francisco Bay, and that’s the Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida).
It’s named after Olympia, Washington, though these small, tangy
oysters can be found up and down the west coast from Alaska all
the way down into central Mexico. Olympias — or Olys for short
— can still be found in the San Francisco Bay today. But
scientists say pollution from agricultural runoff is too high
for commercial fishing.
Bad news for salmon lovers: The quantity of fish in Bay Area
coastal waters this year is expected to be far lower than in
2020. And fewer fish means less work for local fishers and
fewer salmon in stores. The number of adult king salmon
from the Sacramento River fall run is projected to be 271,000
this spring and summer, compared with last year’s estimate
of 473,200….The limited season reflects a downward trend in
the population of king salmon, also known as chinook, over the
last decade because of drought and state policies that have
limited the amount of water allotted to the parts of the
Sacramento River basin where the fish spawn and juveniles spend
their early months.
In November 2019, the city of Newark approved the “Sanctuary
West” project for Area 4, a plan to construct 469 single
family homes and 2,739 parking spaces. The land borders the Don
Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, and conservation groups and
state and federal agencies have targeted it for restoration
since the 1990s. … Area 4 is a rare San Francisco Bay
upland habitat. Tidal wetlands move inland over time as sea
level rises, but for the most part, in the Bay Area, cities are
built right up to the edge of the marsh and the wetlands have
nowhere to go.
California is home to a diversity of coastal ecosystems like
tidal marshes, seagrass beds, and estuaries. These ecosystems
provide flood and storm protection, healthy habitats for fish
and birds, and recreational spaces. They may also play an
important role in addressing climate change. A new COS
and Natural Capital Project study in Global
Environmental Change investigates the carbon sequestration
potential of habitats along the California coast and details
pathways incorporating carbon-capturing habitats into climate
change policy.
Today’s road trip features the Delta “super highway” of the
1800s, with plenty of water, quaint river towns, history and
food along the way. From Stockton, you’ll travel a little more
than 100 miles, so plan for a fun day-long outing. You’ll see
every type of agriculture, levees built by Chinese labor after
the early railroads were constructed, and boats and cargo ships
travelling the same sloughs as did old steamboats and sailing
packets.
A mass tree dieback has spread through the East Bay hills and
Peninsula over the last several months, affecting both native
and nonnative trees. … The first eight months of
the 2020-2021 rainfall year constitute one of the driest starts
on record in the Bay Area, and the last two years together are
on track to be the second driest two-year stretch dating back
to 1850 in San Francisco … Last year was also the
warmest ever recorded in California. But the nature and spread
of the tree dieback made researchers suspect more than just
drought as the killer.
The City recognizes the changing aesthetics of the drinking
water, which is common with surface water supplies. Starting on
March 5th our State Water Project supply source (Delta water)
will be unavailable for three weeks to perform maintenance
which necessitates using our Lake Hennessey water. The
taste and odor is not unique to Napa’s water sources – seasonal
algae blooms are common to many surface waters. As algae dies
off they release odor causing compounds. Most persons
describe the aesthetics of this phenomenon as earthy and/or
musty.
Congressman Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, introduced a bill
Wednesday that would extend “critical water supply provisions”
in the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN)
Act for the next seven years in an effort to improve
California’s access to water. On Wednesday, Garcia introduced a
bill that would enact a seven-year extension for “critical
water supply provisions” in the WIIN Act, which became law at
the end of 2016.
A man accused of illegally repairing a levee and damaging
sensitive aquatic habitat in the Suisun Marsh is facing a $2.8
million fine following a California appeals court decision last
month. John Sweeney, who ran a kiteboarding club on Point
Buckler Island in Solano County after buying it in 2011, must
also abide by a clean up and abatement order that requires him
to restore the marshlands and tidal channels damaged during the
levee work.
As climate change brings an increase in the frequency and
severity of droughts, forest dieback is a key cause for
concern: forests act as reservoirs of biodiversity and also
allow vast amounts of carbon to be stored, reducing the
so-called greenhouse effect. Oak trees, iconic veterans of
European and American forests, have previously been thought to
be highly vulnerable to drought. Now, thanks to a novel
non-invasive optical technique, scientists from INRAE and the
University of Bordeaux in France, with their colleagues from
University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University have
studied a range of oak species in North America to find out
more about their resistance to drought.
A recent global assessment, released by 16 conservation
organizations, of the world’s freshwater fish species found
that nearly a third are at risk of extinction. Overfishing and
climate change are the most significant and pervasive drivers
of the global decline in freshwater biodiversity, but the
blockages created by dams and the introduction of non-native
species have also played significant roles. The news is
distressing, yet CalTrout sees this as a call to action. Our
organization works diligently to ensure resilient wild fish
thrive in healthy waters.
Early in 2020, when the severity of COVID‐19 became evident, US
water utilities implementing conservation programs had to act
quickly to determine how to mitigate changes in their
conservation programs and staffing. Prioritization and
collaboration helped utility staff settle into their new way of
working, which included adapting to online connection with
customers and each other. These adaptations might lead to
permanent changes. Thanks in large part to the power of
technology, many water conservation and customer education
programs have continued, with interest and participation even
increasing in some cases.
The city of St. Helena strongly encouraged all residents and
businesses this week to join efforts to conserve its water
supply, particularly water used for outdoor irrigation. …The
city remains in Phase II Water Shortage Emergency because of
limited rainfall this season and the low level of the city’s
reservoir, Martin Beltran, a management analyst for the city’s
Public Works Department, said Monday in a news release.
A disappointingly dry February is fanning fears of another
severe drought in California, and cities and farms are bracing
for problems. In many places, including parts of the Bay Area,
water users are already being asked to cut back. The
state’s monthly snow survey on Tuesday will show only about 60%
of average snowpack for this point in the year, the latest
indication that water supplies are tightening. With the end of
the stormy season approaching, forecasters don’t expect much
more buildup of snow, a key component of the statewide supply
that provides up to a third of California’s water.
On February 18, 2021, the First Appellate District issued an
opinion in Sweeney et al. v. California Regional Water Quality
Control Bd., San Francisco Bay Region et al. (Case No. A153583)
(“Sweeney”). The opinion is much anticipated given its
relevance to the continued validity of the State Water
Resources Control Board’s recently adopted State Procedures for
Discharges of Dredged and Fill Material (“Procedures”).
The Appellate Court reversed the lower court in the entirety,
substantially deferring to the actions and prosecutorial
discretion of the State Water Resources Control Board (“State
Water Board”) and San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality
Control Board (“Regional Water Board”, collectively, “Water
Boards”) based on application of a revised standard of
review.
The Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Water Resources
plan to allocate approximately 5 million acre feet of water
this year – as long as California allows them to effectively
drain the two largest reservoirs in the state, potentially
killing most or nearly all the endangered winter-run Chinook
salmon this year, threatening the state’s resilience to
continued dry conditions, and maybe even violating water
quality standards in the Delta.
Ninety-nine percent of the state is dry, according to ABC Seven
News Meteorologist Mike Nicco. More than half of the state is
in severe drought mode and 31% is in the extreme drought
conditions which includes part of the North Bay. The Bay
Area is abnormally dry right now, but that should have changed
in January and February as they are typically our wettest
months.
On a Saturday in late October, Carolyn Phinney is hip-deep in a
half-acre of vegetables, at the nucleus of what will one day be
15 acres of productive farmland. … The patch is a wealth of
herbs, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, kale, winter squash, and
zucchini. So much zucchini—fruits the size of bowling pins
hidden under leaves as big as umbrellas. “Zucchini plants are
supposed to be 30 inches across. Ours are 8 feet,” she says.
“Everything looks like it’s on steroids.” Phinney is the farmer
behind CoCo San Sustainable Farm of Martinez,
California, a farm built on reclaimed land, using reclaimed
water, and started with a simple mission: to get kids to eat
more vegetables.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday abandoned
its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling last year that a
sprawling collection of Redwood City salt ponds is protected
from development under provisions of the Clean Water Act. The
move brings to an end the federal government’s attempts —
started during former President Trump’s administration — to end
protections that could have led to development at the site.
Related article:
While the county’s Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) has
been monitoring groundwater through residential and commercial
wells volunteered for the program since 2017, four new wells
specifically designed to capture a broad range of information
will soon be expanding the available data. The Sonoma Valley
Fire District approved the installation of the first of four
new groundwater monitoring wells on a small piece of their
property on Felder Road, just off Arnold Drive. It is expected
to be producing results by this year.
San Francisco has long been an international leader on
environmental issues. However, water policy has been a stain on
that record. … Many California rivers are overtapped by
excessive pumping, but few are in worse condition than the
Tuolumne River. In drier years, more than 90% of the Tuolumne’s
water is diverted. On average, 80 percent of the river’s flow
never makes it to the Bay. It’s not a surprise that the river’s
health has collapsed. …
-Written by Bill Martin, a member of the Sierra Club
Bay Chapter Water Committee, and Hunter Cutting, a member
of the Sierra Club Bay Chapter’s San Francisco Group Executive
Committee.
The Department of Justice can proceed with its claims that
California violated state law when it changed its water quality
control plan for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta system in federal court, the Ninth Circuit ruled.
Granting a partial stay of the state law claims in federal
court is allowed in limited circumstances, but the federal
government’s actions here don’t amount to the type of forum
shopping that justifies a stay, according to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Those of us in the water industry are always looking for new
ways to ask our customers to save, conserve, and never waste
water. And we do that for good reason. We live in a region
prone to regular periods of drought, punctuated by sudden and
catastrophic floods. Last year we had a very dry year, and this
water year is off to a very dry start as well. Sonoma Water,
which supplies drinking water to 600,000 residents in Sonoma
and Marin counties, relies on rainfall to fill our reservoirs
and consecutive years of below-average rainfall are always
cause for concern. Will this be a two-year dry spell, or the
beginning of a multi-year drought? -Written by Barry Dugan, Senior Programs Specialist in
the Community and Government Affairs Division at Sonoma
Water.
With much of Northern California swathed in a severe drought,
the city of Healdsburg is asking residents to voluntarily
conserve water by reducing irrigation and switching to drought
resistant plants, fixing leaky faucets and running clothes and
dishwashers at full capacity. As of Jan. 19, precipitation was
at 40% of normal rainfall according to Felicia Smith, a utility
conservation analyst with the city of Healdsburg.
California’s environmental permitting system was developed to
prevent bad things from happening to the environment, but it
often slows efforts to do good things, too. How can California
improve regulatory processes to make them more efficient and
effective? The PPIC Water Policy Center recently discussed
these issues with a group of experts…
On Friday, the City of Antioch, along with local and
State dignitaries, broke ground on their new and historic
Brackish Water Desalination Plant. At a price of $110 million,
the project was made possible with $93 million in funding from
the State, and $17 million from the City of Antioch.
Bay Area political leaders and organizations have come together
to encourage the new Biden administration to protect Redwood
City’s salt ponds from future development by withdrawing a
Trump era appeal of a federal district court ruling deeming the
wetlands federally protected.
A recent webinar on trading of guaranteed future water prices
on the stock market showed the potential to drive up the price
tag of water for public agencies. During a Feb. 2 California
Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) virtual meeting,
water stock market advocates were clear that prices would rise.
However, they stated that it would be a good thing, because
water has been undervalued and therefore wasted. Their approach
would encourage more efficient use of water, they told the CDFA
board.
Steelhead season is underway in the Central Valley as three
major hatcheries are set to release over 1.1 million fish into
the Feather, American and Mokelumne rivers later this month.
Steelhead are the migratory form of rainbow trout that make
their journey to the Pacific Ocean and return to freshwater
streams.
The first few months of this rainfall season were below average
across California, with drought conditions evident statewide.
Although the Golden State received a much-needed soaking in
late January, moderate drought conditions remain across Santa
Clara County. Valley Water remains focused on preparing
for future wet and dry years through various projects and
programs, including the proposed expansion of Pacheco Reservoir
in southern Santa Clara County. -Written by Valley Water Directors, Vice Chair Gary
Kremen, John L. Varela, and Richard P. Santos.
The Marin Municipal Water District is calling on customers to
voluntarily cut back on their water use for the first time
since the 2013 drought in response to meager rainfall
reminiscent of the notorious 1976-1977 drought.
A pipeline rupture that gushed hundreds of gallons of oil into
the San Francisco Bay spurred a class action filed Tuesday that
accuses a Chevron refinery of prioritizing profits over safety
and threatening the survival of herring in the area for years
to come. … On Feb. 9, a Chevron refinery in the East Bay
city of Richmond, California, discovered a pipeline leak that
oozed about 700 gallons of a substance described
interchangeably by Chevron as “a mixture of recovered oil and
gasoline”, “petroleum and water mixture” and “hydrocarbons.”
The threat of landslides is again in the news as torrential
winter storms in California threaten to undermine fire-scarred
hillsides and bring deadly debris flows crashing into homes and
inundating roads.
The City of St. Helena has agreed to monitor local groundwater
levels and stream flows, averting a potential lawsuit from an
environmental advocacy group. Following months of negotiations,
the city and Water Audit California released a joint statement
Friday announcing the city will collect monthly water levels
and annual extraction totals for local wells and provide a
public, “scientifically useful” summary of the data. The city
will conduct a comprehensive review of its water system,
develop new protocols for using the city’s own Stonebridge
wells, and work with Water Audit on the installation of new
stream gauges along the Napa River, York Creek and Sulphur
Creek.
San Francisco is challenging the EPA over conditions imposed in
a permit that allows the city to send discharge from its
combined sewer system into the Pacific Ocean, according to a
petition for review in the Ninth Circuit.
Emergency crews in Richmond, California, are rushing to clean
up an estimated 600 gallons of oil that spilled from a Chevron
refinery into the San Francisco Bay. Details on the spill are
still scant, but the emergency has reinvigorated calls from
residents and environmentalists for the city to change its
relationship with the refinery.
On December 17, 2020, the Sacramento County Superior Court
issued a ruling limiting the ability of the California State
Water Resources Control Board (“State Board”) to implement its
adopted statewide wetlands and Waters of the State (“WOTS”)
regulations.
The Chevron refinery in Richmond is investigating an oil spill
Tuesday afternoon, according to city and county officials. The
spill happened in what’s called the “Long Wharf” off Point
Richmond, where a sheen can be seen on the top of the water at
Bear Point.
Marin County water districts are weighing the need for
mandatory conservation actions in the face of abnormally low
rainfall and what could be another prolonged drought. Marin’s
two largest suppliers — the Marin Municipal Water District and
the North Marin Water District — plan to begin with voluntary
conservation measures before considering more restrictive
options such as rationing and irrigation bans similar to those
of the 2014 drought.
The flood of state bills addressing sea level rise this year is
surging faster than the ocean itself, as legislators recognize
the urgent need to prepare for the consequences expected in the
decades ahead.
Environmentalist groups aiming to stop a major controversial
housing development at the edge of Newark’s wetlands are
appealing an Alameda County court decision that would allow the
project to go forward, marking the latest volley in a
decades-long fight over the best use for the land. The Citizens
Committee to Complete the Refuge and the Center for Biological
Diversity … said the development “would contribute to
the loss of Bay wetlands and wildlife habitat,” such as the
endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, and could worsen flooding
in nearby areas.
For many Bay Area residents who live near the water’s edge,
little-publicized research indicates groundwater rising beneath
their feet could start to manifest in 10-15 years, particularly
in low-lying communities like Oakland. And that could resurface
toxic substances that have lingered for years underground.
For years, Gamble Vineyards has worked to create a more
biodiverse habitat on vineyard land, including establishing
animal sanctuaries throughout the property and donating acreage
to the Napa River Restoration project. Now the river’s growing
beaver population is chewing the trees that Gamble has planted
over the last 20 years.
A new set of winery wastewater guidelines will be imposed on a
statewide basis. The State Water Resources Control Board
recently adopted a general order regulating how wastewater will
be processed and discharged. … While the wine industry
is concerned with water quality issues, there is some concern
that a statewide mandate may not be the best approach to the
issue.
If the natural water supply doesn’t meet the water needs of an
increased population, Marin is going to have to revisit the
idea of building a desalination plant. Currently, the largest
U.S. desalination plant in San Diego produces 50 million
gallons daily at a cost of one cent per gallon. That cost is
kept low given the San Diego’s plant is adjacent to a power
station. If Marin had to draw its power from MCE or Pacific Gas
and Electric Co., the cost would rise to 1.33 cents per gallon
or $10 per billing unit over and above normal water
charges. -Written by Rick Johnson, who worked 40 years with the San
Francisco Water Department as a senior inspector and revenue
recovery project manager.
An NBC Bay Area investigation found 30 out of 39 sewage
treatment plants located around San Francisco Bay Area are at
risk of flooding as sea levels rise due to climate
change. Four of those plants could flood with as little as
9.84 inches of sea level rise. That’s an amount that state
analysts say is a possibility by 2030. If and when that
happens, toilets won’t flush, and in some cases, sewage could
back up into homes, whether residents live in the hills or
along the coast.
While wetter streets and a greener White House may offer San
Franciscans some hope for the future, the situation remains
dire for salmon in the Tuolumne River. … [I]t’s hard not to
feel that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s water
policies are partially to blame. Californians are significantly
reducing or eliminating dependence on river water. But the
SFPUC continues to side with agricultural users to fight
limitations on the water it takes from the Tuolumne. -Written by Robyn Purchia, an environmental attorney,
blogger and activist
When Palo Alto officials adopted a position in 2018 in support
of the Bay-Delta Plan, which aims to protect the Yosemite
ecosystem by restricting how much water cities can draw from
the San Joaquin River and its tributaries, they knew were
swimming against the prevalent political tide. Prompted by
water conservationists and environmentalists, the City Council
went against recommendations from the city’s Utilities
Department staff and its water supplier, the San Francisco
Public Utilities Commission, which relies on the Tuolumne River
for much of its water.
San Francisco Bay is dwarfed by the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound
and other treasured estuaries when it comes to federal funding,
and California lawmakers want that changed. On Thursday, a
contingent of Bay Area members of Congress introduced
legislation that would boost federal money tenfold for
restoration of the region’s signature waters. Under the
proposal, $50 million a year for five years would flow to bay
projects that reduce water pollution, support wildlife, revive
wetlands and protect shoreline communities from sea level rise.
The sun shines meekly through a veil of morning fog and
wildfire smoke while several figures in orange vests, hard
hats, and face masks move slowly through a marsh on the north
shore of San Francisco Bay. …It’s early October at the mouth
of Sonoma Creek, where an unusual conservation project that
broke ground five years ago is nearing the finish line. Audubon
California and partner agencies are turning what was once a
400-acre stagnant backwater into a thriving wetland ecosystem
that will serve as a refuge from rising seas for decades to
come.
For years, researchers have worked to solve the mysterious
cause of extreme coho salmon mortality in the Pacific
Northwest. A recent study by the San Francisco Estuary
Institute and the University of Washington has finally
identified the microscopic culprit as a highly toxic
contaminant associated with tire particles…The study focused
on water samples from the San Francisco Bay area and the Puget
Sound in Washington state, but scientists fear the contaminant
could affect coho salmon in the Eel and Klamath rivers as well.
Working with Rep. Jerry McNerney, Rep. John Garamendi
expedited completion of the Army Corps feasibility study for
the San Francisco Bay to Stockton Navigation Improvement
Project. This feasibility study examines deepening the John F.
Baldwin and Stockton Deepwater Ship Channels from their
existing depths of -35 feet mean lower low water to -40 feet
and beneficially reusing dredged sediment for marsh restoration
of subsided islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The Alameda City Council unanimously accepted a pioneering
report on the effects of sea level rise on
groundwater. The report, “The Response of the Shallow
Groundwater Layer and Contaminants to Sea Level Rise” finds
that rising groundwater levels are a hidden threat related to
sea level rise.
Seeking to overturn a federal district court determination that
the Cargill salt ponds in Redwood City are covered by federal
Clean Water Act protections, the Environmental Protection
Agency under the Trump administration and Cargill Inc.
representatives filed appeals to the ruling this week.
A four-year battle over a plan to dredge 13 miles of waterways
to clear San Francisco Bay for larger oil tankers ended Monday,
with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers announcing it was
scuttling the project.
Marin County flood planners are turning to Santa Venetia voters
to help pay for an estimated $6 million project to upgrade the
timber-reinforced berm that protects hundreds of homes from
overtopping tides.
All of Northern California is now in some kind of drought,
according to the federal Drought Monitor, with the Bay Area in
“severe” drought conditions and much of the Coast Range and
Central Valley in “extreme” conditions.
Winter is traditionally California’s wet season, when snowpack
accumulates and later melts, replenishing water supplies. But a
lot of rain and snow need to fall to make up for the dryness of
2020, a year of record-high temperatures and unusually low
precipitation in the state — a problem fueled by global
warming.
Early season storms typically sweep a slurry of debris from
streets and sidewalks into rivers, creeks and bays. This year,
the fall flush not only contains the usual gunk, waste experts
say, but a whole lot of discarded PPE — or personal protective
equipment, the detritus of the pandemic.
A new Stanford University study identifies residential water
use and conservation trends by analyzing housing information
available from the prominent real estate website Zillow. The
research … is the first to demonstrate how real estate data
platforms can be used to provide valuable water use insights
for city housing and infrastructure planning, drought
management and sustainability.
A marine construction barge that apparently became stuck in the
mud at low tide in the Petaluma River on Saturday was inundated
by the rising tide overnight, becoming partially submerged and
leaking fluids into the tidal slough… Moving the barge out of
the navigation channel was expected to be a long-term
challenge, and a problem for large boats just starting to use
the river again after its recent, long-awaited dredging.
Years in the works, Menlo Park’s first recycled water system is
up and running, carrying wastewater from local households to
the Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club, where a new treatment
facility cleans the water for irrigation use, keeping the golf
course a lush emerald green.
A 340-acre landfill facility in Richmond, Calif., is releasing
contaminated stormwater into nearby waters in violation of its
federal water pollution permit, a conservation group says in a
lawsuit filed in federal court.
Over the past several months, a curious sight has arisen from
the waters surrounding South Marin. Four markers, painted in
black-and-white stripes and adorned with nautical symbols, have
been placed throughout the Bay to document the rising tides in
a new visual model created by Marin County sculptor Jeff
Downing.
A former quarry in south Santa Clara County will be humming
with fish and wildlife in the coming months as birds, frogs,
turtles and a variety of other species benefit from a newly
created wetland habitat and a restored Llagas Creek.
Though the monthly average is just over 1 inch, October is a
highly variable month, and it’s not unusual to end the month
with little or no rain in the Bay Area. It is however
exceptionally bad timing to do it twice in a row for only the
second time in the last 170 years, as the state reels from
fires, heat and smoke, on the heels of a record-breaking dry
winter and as most forecasts [for California] call for a drier
than normal winter ahead.
A clean water and flood protection measure that would extend an
existing Santa Clara Valley Water District program indefinitely
has nearly $340,000 in its campaign coffers. A bulk of
donations have come from unions, the construction and
engineering sectors and political action committees, according
to the latest financial statements filed with the state.
What geologists call vertical land motion—or subsidence and
uplift—is a key reason why local rates of sea level rise can
differ from the global rate. California offers a good example
of how much sea level can vary on a local scale. “There is no
one-size-fits-all rule that applies for California,” said Em
Blackwell, a graduate student at Arizona State University.
Working over the last year, construction crews expect to
complete a new 2-mile levee near Novato in the coming weeks. It
will allow bay waters to eventually reclaim nearly 1,600 acres,
or about 2.5 square miles, of former tidal marshes that had
been diked and drained for agriculture and development during
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Oakland’s McClymonds High School is now safe for students and
staff to return to after a months-long closure because of a
toxic chemical found in groundwater on the campus. The school
first closed in February, just weeks before classroom
instruction was halted because of COVID-19.
Water from every toilet flush, shower and load of laundry is
treated and pumped back into the bay. San Francisco’s
wastewater management processes have kept cities going and
scientists busy for quite some time. The San Francisco Estuary
Institute researchers are committed to monitoring contamination
levels in the bay and studying the associated ecological
impacts.
A federal judge ruled Monday that a sprawling collage of salt
ponds in Redwood City is subject to protection under the Clean
Water Act — going against a previous decision by the
Environmental Protection Agency that would have eased
development along the bay.
Assessments of the worst-case scenario predict the Bay may rise
a damaging 1.9 feet by 2050 and as much as nearly 7 feet by
2100. Restoring even a fraction of the Bay’s lost wetlands
would provide long-lasting benefits.
The proposed ecological wetland park at Alameda Point, known as
DePave Park, is another step closer to becoming a reality. On
Sept. 15, four members of the city council gave thumbs up to
moving forward with seeking a $2 million grant to pay for a
master planning process.
The last time Mt. Tamalpais had a major wildfire was in 1929.
In 1930, Marin’s population was 41,648. Today it’s more than
258,000. … As with many other utilities, the Marin Municipal
Water District is updating its treatment plants. It is unclear,
from a technology and science perspective, whether our
community treatment plant could handle sediment runoff from a
big rainstorm after a catastrophic, climate-driven wildfire.
The Embarcadero faces severe threats, with regionwide
repercussions from both earthquakes that could undermine the
city’s seawall and a rise in bay waters that could flood
downtown streets and inundate BART and Muni tunnels, according
to an exhaustive new study from the Port of San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay-Delta is literally threatened from all
sides: rising sea levels from the ocean, disruptions to
sediment supply from upstream, and within the Bay-Delta itself,
development and other land use changes have left only a tiny
fraction (5%) of marshland untouched. … A recent study by
scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey used historical
streamflow and sediment data to predict what will happen to the
Bay-Delta under varying levels of climate change.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is extending its
Emergency Residential Community Assistance Program, designed to
help customers struggling to pay water, sewer and Hetch Hetchy
power bills during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which
launched in May, was originally set to expire Sept. 4, but will
now be expanded through the end of the year
If current predictions hold, the entire Palo Alto Baylands
could be submerged by the middle of the century because of sea
level rise, a destructive predicament that would threaten both
the sensitive habitat and the critical infrastructure in the
nature preserve. To prepare for rising tides, the city is
moving ahead with the creation of a new Sea Level Adaptation
Plan…
Though they are not native to the Anderson Reservoir, the
steelhead population is in decline, making the local watershed
particularly important to preservation efforts.
Climate change could deliver more silt, sand and pollution to
the San Francisco Bay-Delta, along with a mixed bag of other
potential consequences and benefits, according to a new study
in the AGU journal Water Resources Research, which publishes
research articles and commentaries providing a broad
understanding of the role of water in Earth’s natural systems.
For the first time in years, boats will soon be able to travel
freely again down the Petaluma River. … Once a vibrant
waterway, Petaluma River is now silted in, full of mud. Lt.
Colonel John Cunningham says the river hasn’t had a full
cleaning by the Army Corps of Engineers for nearly 20 years.
In the Aug. 14 outage, multiple redundant power sources failed
at the plant in West Oakland, something that hasn’t happened
since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Major flooding at the
pump station led sewage to flow from an outlet into the estuary
more than nine hours later. The incident occurred amid hot
weather when people like to swim in the estuary running between
Oakland and Alameda,
On Aug. 7, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a service
contract to Adanta, Inc. of Napa to expand and enhance an
existing wetlands on the Veterans Affairs (VA) property at
Alameda Point. The wetlands project is being implemented to
offset impacts to wetlands areas elsewhere on the VA property
where a health clinic, offices and a columbarium cemetery will
be built.
A major release of raw and partially treated sewage into the
Oakland Estuary earlier this month was triggered by a
rapid-fire series of electrical failures at the East Bay
Municipal Utility District’s main wastewater treatment plant,
the agency says in a report filed with state regulators.
Sea levels on the California coast could rise as much as seven
feet by 2100 and put tens of thousands of vulnerable San
Franciscans at risk of daily flooding, according to a new
report from the California State Legislative Analyst’s office.
Just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, yet a world away from San
Francisco, in an unincorporated and oft-overlooked area known
as Marin City, sea level rise is rarely the first worry that
comes to mind. Traditional flood maps for this predominantly
Black and working-class community suggest that the area is safe
from rising water until 3 feet or more. But sea level rise is a
lot more complicated than just waves breaking over seawalls and
beaches disappearing.
A stretch of concrete and asphalt that was once an aircraft
taxiway will be removed so the site along San Francisco Bay can
be converted to a wetlands park, according to a proposal the
city is considering.
The state will suffer dire long-term consequences if lawmakers
set aside concerns about rising seas to focus solely on
COVID-19, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned
Monday. Sea level rise will likely put at least $8 billion in
property underwater by 2050, and could affect tens of thousands
of jobs and billions in gross domestic product, according to
studies cited by the office. Sea level rise and related
flooding and erosion … also pose threats to water treatment
plants, roads, marinas, ports and railways.
When Brenda Goeden first started working on mud, silt, and sand
in the San Francisco Bay two decades ago, dredgers and
contractors couldn’t get rid of all the sediment they excavated
fast enough. … But today sediment is a hot commodity, as
restorationists and developers scramble to elevate salt marshes
and building sites before rising tides claim them. Now, a new
plan is in the works to optimize allocation of this critical
resource.
Saving our planet will require unprecedented focus and
investment from every sector of our society and all levels of
government — especially the federal government. Yet when it
comes to the San Francisco Bay — a national treasure and the
lifeblood of our region, producing over $370 billion in goods
and services annually and supporting more than 4 million jobs —
the federal government has been complicit in its deterioration.
The California coast has been largely spared from sea level
rise for decades, but the trend is now set to reverse, and the
coastline has already started disappearing due to land
subsidence.
As part of Valley Water’s mission to provide flood protection
for our communities, we are continuously preparing for the
possibility of flooding. We must regularly keep our streams and
creeks well maintained to handle the rainy season and protect
the many species of wildlife that live there.
As flames danced from one commercial building to another early
Tuesday, San Francisco firefighters were faced with a dilemma
as they battled the conflagration — they had run out of
hydrants.
State water regulators have issued a $285,000 penalty against
the Phillips 66 refinery for releasing millions of gallons of
industrial wastewater into San Pablo Bay early last year. The
penalty is the 11th issued in the last 17 years against the
Houston-based oil company. Its refinery sits on the bay shore
in Rodeo, just south of the Carquinez Strait and Vallejo.
The 49-year-old Callender grew up in San Jose and graduated
from Santa Teresa High School. He has been with the district
for 24 years and is the first African-American to head the
agency in its 90-year history. Rick Callender is well known for
his political connections and his role as the long time former
head of the local NAACP.
More than a year after planning efforts began, municipal
officials and advocates have determined that the Islais Creek
Adaption Strategy should include a comprehensive vision for how
the watershed can best serve nearby residents, workers and
businesses, as well as address ways to manage increasing flood
risks.
The work, which begins June 29, will complete critical
improvements to the North Shore Force Main (NSFM), a
pressurized sewer pipeline that transports wastewater in
northern San Francisco to the Southeast Treatment Plant in the
Bayview, which treats 80 percent of the City’s wastewater.
After an absence of many decades, Chinook salmon swim up the
Guadalupe River in San José most winters. The fish look for
places to lay eggs and often find them. If there’s enough water
left in the dry season, their offspring swim back down the
river in the spring to head out to sea. Surprisingly, given the
generally heated politics regarding fish in California, little
else is known about these salmon.
San Francisco’s water department, known for sourcing some of
the best supplies in the West, is building its first nature
center to commemorate its watersheds. The $27 million facility,
which broke ground this spring, is taking shape on city-owned
land in Alameda County, near the town of Sunol. The center is
designed to extend the tribute paid by the Sunol Water Temple,
a 110-year-old monument honoring local creeks…
After being docked for three months due to COVID-19
restrictions, the Department of Water Resources relaunched its
research vessel monitoring program, the Sentinel. It was the
first time since the 1970s that DWR didn’t have a monitoring
vessel taking field samples in the waters of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Estuaries.
As winter rains intensify with climate change, flooding will
worsen in Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s largest by
population… The Coyote Creek system — 1,500 miles of
waterways that drain a 350-square-mile watershed — connects
half a dozen elements that are key to climate adaptation, from
reservoirs to creek confluences to the Bay shore.
The North Marin Water District will push off a planned water
rate hike and restructuring plan for Novato until fall in
response to economic hardships caused by the coronavirus
pandemic. After a nearly two-hour discussion, the district
board of directors voted 4-1 on Tuesday to delay changes set to
take effect July 1 to Oct. 1.
Driving on Highway 101 from the South Bay, up the Peninsula,
commuters zoom by nearly invisible infrastructure keeping the
highway and nearby communities dry. Beyond the highway, at the
edge of the San Francisco Bay, are levees and tide gates
protecting roads and neighborhoods against high tides and storm
flooding. Unless you visit the bay lands to walk the levee
trails, you might never know these important structures exist.
San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the West Coast, and
in recent years much effort has been put into restoring tidal
marsh habitat in the Bay. … FISHBIO was recently invited to
tour one such project in the North Bay, where we had the
opportunity to use our ARIS sonar camera to examine the fish
community in the restored area.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Board of
Directors has selected Clifford C. Chan as the District’s next
general manager, succeeding Alexander R. Coate who served in
the role for nearly ten years. Chan, a 23-year employee of
EBMUD, has served most recently as the water utility’s Director
of Operations and Maintenance.
Water pollution in San Francisco Bay, California has reduced
significantly due to the reduction in traffic, according to a
recent study in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
The toxic particles emitted by cars, in fact, fall into the
surrounding waters, inlets and on the coast for miles.
The City of San Mateo’s Clean Water Program is progressing to
Phase 2 of the upgrade and expansion of its wastewater
treatment plant on Detroit Drive. … The wastewater treatment
plant upgrade is the largest component of the $1 billion,
decade-long Clean Water Program.
When most people think of sea otters, they picture these
charismatic creatures wrapped in kelp as they float on their
backs in the ocean. But this iconic image is only part of the
story. Sea otters also once abounded in the San Francisco Bay
and other coastal estuaries. Now, a team of sea otter experts
is raising the idea of bringing sea otters back to our bay.
The water keeps rising, shrinking the window for implementing
solutions. Sea-level rise already threatens the bay shore,
which, at about 500 miles, is half the length of the entire
California coast. The worst is yet to come: The Bay Area needs
to plan for a 2-foot rise by 2050 and up to 7 feet by 2100.
The nation’s environmental watchdog may investigate federal
enforcement of water policy in California after Democratic
lawmakers accused the Trump administration of “irregular”
interference targeting San Francisco, according to a letter
sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Though Nina Hawk cited personal considerations as the reason
for her hasty exit, Hawk had recently faced
conflict-of-interest charges related to her husband’s
employment by Valley Water’s largest customer, a contract
overseen by the division she headed.
The survey data indicated that shotgun wads, the plastic piece
inside a shotgun shell that separates the shot from the powder,
are one of the top ten most commonly found plastic items on all
surveyed beaches. These shotgun wads likely come from waterfowl
hunting, year-round shooting ranges, and target shooting fields
along the San Francisco Bay and Delta.
As part of an ongoing effort to protect San Francisco’s
homeless population from Covid-19 infection, the city’s Board
of Supervisors passed an emergency ordinance Tuesday requiring
more restrooms and hand-washing stations for those living on
the street.
Valley Water CEO Norma Camacho is set to retire July 10, but
with the coronavirus outbreak forcing so many aspects of
society online, the district’s board members have had to get a
little creative in conducting their search for a successor.
On a recent sunny, windy March day – just before COVID-19 sent
the [San Francisco] Bay Area into lockdown – Dave Halsing stood
on the trails at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve and
pointed out what used to be old industrial salt ponds. He noted
how they’re gradually being restored into a rich mosaic of
tidal wetlands and other ecosystems in the South Bay Salt Pond
Restoration Project.
West County Wastewater and East Bay Municipal Utility District
announced a recycled water partnership that will preserve
valuable drinking water for the region and support West County
Wastewater’s ongoing mission of environmental stewardship and
protecting public health.
One unintended side effect of the novel coronavirus crisis
could provide much-needed relief for the San Francisco Bay,
according to David Lewis, executive director of the
environmental group, Save the Bay. Lewis says that cars
contribute to pollution in the bay in ways that aren’t always
obvious, and the reduction in traffic from the COVID-19
shelter-in-place order could help.
Ecologist Jonathan Young steered his rowboat alongside a
rectangular container that was floating between two bright
orange buoys. He reached under a plastic mesh covering and
pulled out a large black and brown object the size of his fist
that looked a lot like a clam. “These are the underdogs of
water quality,” he said. “And also, unfortunately, on their way
to extinction.”
The whole San Francisco Bay ecosystem—that enormous estuary
with its maze of bays, rich delta, and associated rivers and
streams—is in the midst of an ecological calamity. Decades of
dam building and water extraction to quench the thirst of
California’s growing population and the needs of its mighty
agriculture industry have starved the state’s waterways, as
well as the bay itself, of crucial freshwater supplies. As a
result, the entire estuary is under enormous stress.
Led by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development
Commission, the report takes study findings from throughout the
region to demonstrate the shared impacts of sea level rise
ranging from 12 to 108 inches on housing, transportation
networks, critical environmental habitat, jobs and
disadvantaged communities.
A 48-inch increase in the bay’s water level in coming decades
could cause more than 100,000 Bay Area jobs to be relocated.
Nearly 30,000 lower-income residents might be displaced, and
68,000 acres of ecologically valuable shoreline habitat could
be lost. These are among the findings in the most detailed
study yet on how sea level rise could alter the Bay Area.
The effluent is hauled ashore on barges, hit with a dose of
disinfectant, then deposited into a huge East Bay Municipal
Utility District sewer main called the Alameda Interceptor.
From there, the material joins the underground river of
everything else that’s been flushed down local toilets and
flows to the agency’s wastewater treatment plant at the foot of
the Bay Bridge.
The advice is simple and universal: Washing your hands with
soap and water is one of the most effective ways to stop the
spread of the coronavirus. But for millions of people across
the country, that’s not simple at all: They lack running water
in their houses due to service shutoffs prompted by overdue
bills.
Highlighting the threat that coronavirus poses to basic public
health systems around California and the nation, a worker at
San Jose’s wastewater treatment plant — a facility that treats
the sewage from 1.5 million people in San Jose and seven other
cities — has tested positive for COVID-19. The employee is a
janitor working as part of a contract company.
The return of rainbow trout to Calaveras Creek marks a
milestone in an ongoing, multi-agency restora-tion of Alameda
Creek, which drains more than 600 square miles of the East Bay.
Much of the watershed is heavily developed and modified,
especially the northern reaches in and around Pleasanton and
Livermore.
For decades, the discussion over flood mitigation in Petaluma
has almost exclusively centered around storm surges and heavy
rainfall events. Now, months after the city made its landmark
climate emergency proclamation, attention is shifting to focus
more on sea level rise and scientific projections that offer a
glimpse into what could be a sodden future.
An employee at Silicon Valley’s largest water district has
tested positive for coronavirus, and at least eight other
employees, including CEO Norma Camacho, were in self-quarantine
as a result. … The employee is not involved with the
treatment or delivery of drinking water, and that service
continues uninterrupted, officials at the district, also known
as Valley Water, said Monday.
Stanford’s Newsha Ajami spoke with Sonia Tagare, host of
theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio,
during the Women in Data Science conference in Stanford,
California. They discussed how Ajami is working to bridge the
gap between science and policy in water management, building
solutions for water resilient cities, and changing the
traditional top-down water management model to a more
collaborative bottom-up approach.
Let’s be clear, the Redwood City salt ponds are simply the
wrong place for development. This is an open space tidal plain
that’s part of the Bay and was a thriving wetland for
centuries.
