The San Joaquin River, which helps
drain California’s Central Valley, has been negatively impacted
by construction of dams, inadequate streamflows and poor water
quality. Efforts are now underway to restore the river and
continue providing agricultural lands with vital irrigation,
among other water demands.
After an 18-year lawsuit to restore water flows to a 60-mile dry
stretch of river and to boost the dwindling salmon populations,
the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement is underway.
Water releases are now used to restore the San Joaquin River and
to provide habitat for naturally-reproducing populations of
self-sustaining Chinook salmon and other fish in the San Joaquin
River. Long-term efforts also include measures to reduce or avoid
adverse water supply impacts from the restoration flows.
The drama was high on the Tulare Lake bed Saturday as flood
waters pushed some landowners to resort to heavy handed and, in
one instance, illegal tactics, to try and keep their farm
ground dry — even at the expense of other farmers and some
small communities. Someone illegally cut the banks of Deer
Creek in the middle of the night causing water to rush toward
the tiny town of Allensworth. The levee protecting Corcoran had
its own protection as an armed guard patrolled the structure to
keep it safe. At the south end of the old lake bed, the
J.G. Boswell Company had workers drag a piece of heavy
equipment onto the banks of its Homeland Canal to prevent any
cuts that would drain Poso Creek water onto Boswell land.
A recent study revealed elevated levels of potentially toxic
chemicals in some species of fish in two Northern California
rivers. The study specifically identified the Feather River and
San Joaquin River, along with hundreds of other waterways in
the United States. The chemicals are scientifically known
as PFAS – poly-and perfluoroalkyl substances – and there are
thousands of different types that are used in manufacturing.
PFAS are commonly used as part of waterproof materials. They
can also be found in food packaging, clothing and certain floor
coatings, as well as firefighting foams.
Isleton, located along the Delta in the southernmost part of
Sacramento County, is a city of about roughly 800 people and is
surrounded by bodies of water. And on Wednesday, city officials
said wastewater ponds have spilled into those nearby waterways.
Those waterways include the Mokelumne, San Joaquin, and
Sacramento rivers. City Manager Chuck Bergson said Isleton
has nine ponds that can hold about 60 million gallons of
wastewater in total, but recent heavy rainfalls, as well as
pipes damaged during the January storms, have filled up all of
the ponds to the point where about 2 to 3 million gallons of
wastewater have overflowed.
Fresno County’s newest large-scale water storage project is
happening below ground. With California inundated by rain and
snow, state and federal water regulators hatched a plan to help
replenish underground aquifers further depleted by heavy
agriculture pumping during the recent drought. In an agreement
announced last week, more than 600,000 acre-feet of floodwater
from the San Joaquin River system will be diverted and allowed
to soak back into the earth in areas with permeable soils and
wildlife refuges. How much water is 600,000 acre-feet? Enough
to overflow Millerton Lake, which stores 520,000 acre-feet at
capacity. Or enough to meet the annual needs of more than 1
million average households.
With back-to-back storms to hit California in the coming days,
state officials are scrambling to make strategic releases from
key reservoirs in hopes of preventing a repeat of the flooding
that killed nearly two dozen people in January. At least 10
rivers are forecast to overflow from the incoming “Pineapple
Express” storm, which is expected to drop warm, heavy,
snow-melting rain as it moves from the Central Coast toward the
southern Sierra beginning Thursday night into Saturday. Among
them are rivers that flooded at the start of the year, when
nine atmospheric river storms pummeled the state. The waterways
include the Cosumnes River near Sacramento, where more than a
dozen levee breaches sent floodwaters onto roadways and
low-lying areas, trapping drivers and contributing to at least
three deaths along Highway 99.
A powerful storm barreling toward California from the tropical
Pacific threatens to trigger widespread river flooding
throughout the state as warm rain melts a record accumulation
of snowpack and sends runoff surging down mountains and into
streams and reservoirs. Although state officials insist they
are prepared to manage runoff from what is now the 10th
atmospheric river of a deadly rainy season, at least one expert
described the combination of warm rain, epic snowpack and moist
soils as “bad news.” … Already, the National Weather
Service is warning residents that a number of rivers could
surge beyond their flood stage, inundating nearby roads and
properties. Likewise, some reservoir managers have already
begun releasing water in anticipation of heavy inflows through
the weekend.
Explore the epicenter of groundwater sustainability on
our Central Valley Tour
April 26-28 and engage directly with some of
the most important leaders and experts in water storage,
management and delivery, agriculture, habitat, land use policy
and water equity. The tour focuses on the San Joaquin Valley,
which has struggled with consistently little to no
surface water deliveries and increasing pressure to reduce
groundwater usage to sustainable levels while also facing water
quality and access challenges for disadvantaged
communities. Led by Foundation staff and
groundwater expert Thomas Harter, Chair for Water
Resources Management and Policy at the University of
California, Davis, the tour explores topics such as subsidence,
water supply and drought, flood management, groundwater
banking and recharge, surface water storage, agricultural
supply and drainage, wetlands and more. Register
here!
It’s a familiar scenario: Rising rivers are pinched off from
the flood plains that could have spread, slowed and stored the
sudden abundance of water. Floodwaters break through levees and
leave destruction and heartbreaking loss in their wake. Renewed
frustration and fury enter the public dialogue about “wasted”
water. … River managers use the term “environmental
flows” to describe the water that’s allowed to stay in rivers
to nurture the ecosystem, as opposed to water diverted or
stored for farms, cities or hydropower. While I worked at the
UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, we dove in deep on
environmental flows, calculating an environmental flow
management strategy for every major tributary to the San
Joaquin River, which nourishes the valley that bears its
name. -Written by Ann Willis, California Regional Director
for American Rivers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to
restoring and protecting rivers across the country.
The winter of 2023 isn’t finished yet. Not by a long
shot. An atmospheric river storm is likely to hit Northern
California late Thursday into Friday, meteorologists and
climate scientists said Monday, bringing high chances of heavy
rain in the Bay Area, 1 to 3 feet of new snow at higher
elevations in the Sierra, and an increased risk of flooding as
the warm rain hits the state’s massive snowpack. Details
about the storm, a classic “pineapple express” event barreling
in more than 2,000 miles from Hawaii, are still not certain.
… [Forecasters] said that the latest storm by itself won’t
likely be enough to cause major melting of the immense Sierra
snowpack — which on Monday was 192% of its historic average,
the most snow in 30 years — because the deep snow can absorb a
fair amount of rain.
At a Calaveras Amador Mokelumne River Authority (CAMRA) board
meeting on Feb 16, Nicholas Sher of GreenGenStorage was given
the floor to present on GreenGenStorage’s proposed Mokelumne
River Battery Project, which aims to generate and store “clean”
energy using existing infrastructure and an open-loop pump
system that pumps water through an underground tunnel between
two reservoirs. The project is currently in the planning phase
but is already facing scrutiny by environmental groups,
community members in both Calaveras and Amador counties, and
political leaders who want to know how it is being funded, what
the benefits are, and what the effects will be on recreation
and the ecosystem of the Mokelumne River, which became a
protected Wild and Scenic River System in 2018. CAMRA is a
joint powers authority that was formed in 1999 to address water
issues involving both Amador and Calaveras counties.
As drought-weary Californians watched trillions of gallons of
runoff wash into the Pacific Ocean during recent storms, it
underscored a nagging question: Why can’t we save more of that
water for not-so-rainy days to come? But even the rare
opportunity to stock up on the precious resource isn’t proving
enough to unite a state divided on a contentious idea to siphon
water from the north and tunnel it southward, an attempt to
combat the Southwest’s worst drought in more than a millennium.
The California Department of Water Resources said such a tunnel
could have captured a year’s supply of water for more than 2
million people. The proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
administration — one that would cost $16 billion to help 27
million water customers in central and southern California — is
spurring fresh outrage from communities that have fended off
similar plans over four decades, including suggestions to build
other tunnels or a massive canal.
A multinational building materials company is trying to pull a
fast one on Fresno County residents — and county officials are
helping. Remember CEMEX’s proposal to continue gravel
mining along the San Joaquin River north of Fresno for another
century? By using even more environmentally damaging methods
than those currently employed? Things have been quiet on
that front since 2020 when CEMEX’s impertinent scheme came to
light and I expressed my initial outrage. Sure enough,
the gears of destruction are moving once again. -Written by columnist Marek Warszawski.
The future is now. Governor Newsom’s February 13, 2023
Executive Order ordering the State Water Board to
consider modifying flow and storage requirements for the State
Water Project (SWP) and the Central Valley Project (CVP) is his
blueprint for the Bay-Delta estuary and every river that feeds
it. When requirements to protect water quality, fish, and
wildlife are inconvenient, water managers can ignore them. It’s
all voluntary. For ten-odd years, California’s water managers
have promised “Voluntary Agreements” to replace the Bay-Delta
Water Quality Control Plan. They could never figure out
the details of what to propose.
The Bakersfield City Council at its meeting Wednesday will
likely approve a $288,350 contract to conduct a detailed study
of the city’s water supplies and demands with a strong focus on
Kern River operations. Though the proposed study, on the
consent agenda, isn’t in direct response to a lawsuit filed
last year against the city by Water Audit of California over
the river, the study could answer some questions posed in the
lawsuit. The Water Audit suit alleges the city has been
derelict by not considering the public in how it operates the
river. The lawsuit doesn’t demand money. Rather it seeks to
stop water diversions from the river temporarily while the
court orders the city to study how river operations have
affected fisheries, the environment and recreational uses.
As climate whiplash grips California and much of the West,
water challenges intensify. Our Water
101 Workshop on Feb. 23 in Sacramento is
your once-a-year opportunity to gain a foundational
understanding of water in the state and learn more about the
impacts of changing hydrology. Registration closes this
Friday.
Also, registration is now open for our two spring water
tours, the Central Valley Tour April 26-28 and
Bay-Delta Tour May 17-19.
A wet month or two triggers something in California under our
current political landscape, a landscape that has been mostly
unchanged for four decades. What is triggered is the reset to
ensure California remains in a drought. Coupled with some of
the greatest water infrastructure in history built to capture
water in order to supply our population and feed it, comes
water managers, political leaders, and laws who manage its
flow. Only in California can you have the ability to save
several years’ worth of water demand, be fortunate enough to
have it met by Mother Nature, and have your fellow man waste it
all. The releasing of water last month brought a bit more of an
outcry from the public than we are used to hearing. -Written by columnist Wayne Western Jr.
Modesto-based E. & J. Gallo Winery, which produces the popular
Barefoot and Apothic wines, among many others, will pay a fine
of nearly $380,000 for discharging more than 90,000 gallons of
wastewater into the Merced River last summer. The discharge, a
mix of wastewater and irrigation-well water, was reported to
the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board on Aug.
9. The board investigated the discharge and found that the
water had “elevated levels of potassium, organic matter and
salinity” that could threaten the health of fish and other life
in the river.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
