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.
San Francisco Bay is dwarfed by the Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound
and other treasured estuaries when it comes to federal funding,
and California lawmakers want that changed. On Thursday, a
contingent of Bay Area members of Congress introduced
legislation that would boost federal money tenfold for
restoration of the region’s signature waters. Under the
proposal, $50 million a year for five years would flow to bay
projects that reduce water pollution, support wildlife, revive
wetlands and protect shoreline communities from sea level rise.
We are now past the halfway mark in California’s normally
wettest winter months, and the wet season to date has been
anything but. Most of the state has received less than half of
its average annual precipitation to date. Coming after a very
dry Water Year 2020 these conditions are concerning. More
precipitation will certainly occur in February and March, but
will it be enough to erase the state’s large
deficit?
Today, 95% of the Central Valley’s historical floodplains are
cut off from the river by levees. Built in the early 1900s to
combat devastating floods, levees and bypasses were constructed
to corral mighty rivers and push water quickly through the
system. Even before invasive species, large rim dams, and Delta
water export facilities were introduced into the system, salmon
populations started to dramatically decline with the
construction of the levees. Simply put, the levees prevented
Chinook salmon from accessing their primary food source.
If you look deep into the eyes of a fish, it will tell you its
life story. Scientists from the University of California,
Davis, demonstrate that they can use stable isotopic analysis
of the eye lenses of freshwater fish—including threatened and
endangered salmon—to reveal a fish’s life history and what it
ate along the way. They conducted their study, published today
in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution, through
field-based experiments in California’s Central Valley. The
study carries implications for managing floodplains, fish and
natural resources; prioritizing habitat restoration efforts;
and understanding how landscape disturbances impact fish.
A bid by Kern County farmers to take Kings River floodwater
officially got underway Tuesday as state regulators hashed out
procedures and next steps with the various parties. An initial
hearing had been set for April 15, but may now be pushed back
to July, depending on how Administrative Hearing Officer Nicole
Kuenzi rules.
Each spring and fall, an estimated 1 billion birds migrate
through the Pacific Flyway, which snakes down from Alaska,
along the West Coast of the United States and Mexico,
and into South America. … Now new research reveals what
has been long-suspected but never confirmed: California’s
Central Valley and the Colorado River Delta are hotspots for
North America’s migratory landbirds.
A federal agency has ruled that the state can continue to seek
higher flows on the Tuolumne River than planned by the Modesto
and Turlock irrigation districts. The Jan. 19 ruling drew
cheers from environmental and fishing groups that have long
sought larger releases from Don Pedro Reservoir into the lower
river.
San Francisco rightly prides itself on being an environmental
leader. Given this deep commitment to protecting the
environment, the city’s water agency — the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission — should be a leader in smart, sustainable
water policy. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. But
Mayor London Breed now has a once-in-a-decade chance to turn
the SFPUC in a new direction by appointing a progressive,
visionary new general manager who reflects the city’s values.
San Francisco’s Bay-Delta ecosystem and the Central Valley
rivers that feed it are in steep decline… -Written by John McManus, president of the Golden State
Salmon Association, and Kate Poole, the water lead for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.
California water issues are notoriously complicated by a
massive diversity of users, ecosystems, applications and
futures. Indeed, water in the Delta has been described as
a “wicked problem” indicating that these problems cannot
be ignored and defy straightforward characterization and
solutions. Below we highlight how a Swiss cheese model might be
applied to vexing long-term declines in native fish populations
in California.
The Trump administration left President Biden a dilemma in the
California desert: a plan to remove protections from millions
of acres of public lands and open vast areas to solar and wind
farms. Biden’s team could easily block the proposed changes,
which were slammed by conservationists as a last-gasp effort by
the outgoing administration to support private industry at the
expense of wildlife habitat and treasured landscapes….There
are also places to put solar and wind installations besides
intact habitat, including Central Valley farmland with
dwindling water supplies …
The California Department of Conservation (DOC) today announced
five watershed coordinator grants totaling $1.5 million to
support regional sustainable groundwater management goals. The
grants will go to organizations around the state within medium-
and high-priority groundwater basins.
To help you learn more about the importance of groundwater, the
Water Education Foundation has an array of educational
materials on this vital resource. And next week, the
Foundation’s online magazine, Western Water news, will
publish a special report examining how two local groundwater
agencies are taking different approaches to achieve
sustainability in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the most
critically overdrafted regions in the state.
California’s tussle with federal authorities over water
operations will get a second look under the new administration
of President Joe Biden. The 46th president plans to sign a
number of executive orders, including one that instructs agency
heads to review actions taken under President Donald Trump that
“were harmful to public health, damaging to the environment,
unsupported by the best available science, or otherwise not in
the national interest.” On the list for both the departments of
Commerce and Interior is a review of new biological opinions
adopted in 2019 governing water delivery in California.
California Water Service (Cal Water) has completed a multiphase
infrastructure project in the Magnolia area of Stockton that
will keep critical water infrastructure in the area safe and
reliable. The upgrade will ensure customers, firefighters, and
nearby medical facilities continue to have the water they need
for their everyday and emergency needs.
Low income communities across the San Joaquin Valley and other
regions of the state are being hit hard by rising water and
utility debt according to a recent survey released by the
California Water Board. Michael Claiborne, an attorney
with the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability,
says residents are having to decide which essential service to
pay for amid a global pandemic.
Recent fish surveys confirm what many biologists, ecologists,
and water experts have known for some time – Delta smelt remain
on the brink of extinction. Zero Delta smelt were found in the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recent Fall
Midwater Trawl Survey. Even the Enhanced Delta Smelt Monitoring
Program, which is specifically designed to capture the tiny
fish, only successfully caught two Delta smelt from September 8
to December 11, 2020.
California’s Central Valley produces much of the nation’s food,
including about 40% of the country’s fruits and nuts and has
the nation’s second most pumped aquifer system. Its drier
southern portion, the San Joaquin Valley, has decreasing
surface water supply reliability due to frequent and prolonged
droughts, stricter environmental regulations, and growing
competition among water users. Many farmers pump groundwater to
provide their unsupplied water demand. The resulting
groundwater overdraft has numerous impacts on the Valley’s
agriculture and residents.
The Sacramento County Superior Court recently issued a final
decision in San Joaquin Tributaries Authority v. California
State Water Resources Control Board, finding that the State
Water Resources Control Board (State Board) is not authorized
to adopt a state-level water quality control plan for waters
that are not classified as waters of the United States. As
a result, the State Board is prohibited from applying the Water
Quality Control Plan for Inland Surface Waters and Enclosed
Bays and Estuaries of California (Inland Surface Waters WQCP)
to wetlands that do not meet the federal definition of waters
of the United States.
More than 200 farm and water organizations from 15 states are
urging President-elect Joe Biden and congressional leaders to
address aging Western water infrastructure in any economic
recovery package. Groups including state Farm Bureaus, the
Family Farm Alliance and Western Growers issued letters to
Biden and lawmakers Wednesday saying existing canals and
reservoirs were built more than 50 years ago and are in
desperate need of rehabilitation.
Throughout his research, Simon Ferrigno has seen the statistic
range from 2,000 to 20,000 liters of water needed to make a
T-shirt. Instead of numbers, Ferrigno said the focus
should be on whether or not the water that’s used in the
process can be cleaned and repurposed for other needs.
