Stormwater runoff has emerged as a primary water quality issue.
In urban areas, after long dry periods rainwater runoff can
contain accumulations of pollutants. Stormwater does not go into
the sewer. Instead, pollutants can be flushed into waterways with
detrimental effects on the environment and water quality.
In response, water quality regulators use a range of programs to
reduce stormwater pollution including limiting the amount of
excess runoff and in some cases recapturing freshwater as well.
Federal environmental officials on Thursday awarded a loan to
the city of San Francisco — in the hundreds of millions of
dollars — to improve the city’s stormwater infrastructure. The
Environmental Protection Agency gave the city $369 million in
loans under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation
Act, which could expand to $791 million in the future. Passed
in 2014, the federal loan program administered by the EPA
provides facilities with long-term, low-interest credit
assistance so they can complete water infrastructure
improvement projects.
In drought years, California’s depleted reservoirs are a
visible reminder of the state’s water crisis. As dry periods
drag on, its two largest reservoirs — Shasta and Oroville —
start to look more like streams than lakes. But for every
gallon of water no longer aboveground, gallons more are
disappearing, largely unnoticed, from storage that can’t be
seen from the highway. California’s underground aquifers
can hold around eight to 12 times as much water as all its
largest reservoirs combined. Yet over the past two
decades, California’s Central Valley — the epicenter of the
state’s agriculture industry — has been pumping groundwater at
an accelerated rate. During the 2011-2017 drought alone,
Central Valley aquifers lost more water than it takes to fill
Lake Mead all the way to the top.
After a historic winter hit California with dozens of
atmospheric rivers, the last line of defense protecting the
Pacific from much of L.A.’s trash held strong. In the first
storm season of a two-year pilot project, Ballona Creek Trash
Interceptor 007 stopped nearly 155,000 pounds of garbage from
flowing out to the ocean. … The Dutch nonprofit
partnered with the Los Angeles County Department of Public
Works to introduce the interceptor in October. The system
floats a few hundred yards from the outlet of Ballona Creek
into the Pacific Ocean, its twin booms extended to the
shoreline to funnel trash to a solar-powered system that lifts
objects from the water with a conveyor belt and drops them into
six dumpsters. The trash collects in the dumpsters and awaits
manual removal.
The plastics industry has long hyped recycling, even
though it is well aware that it’s been a failure.
Worldwide, only 9 percent of plastic waste actually gets
recycled. In the United States, the rate is now 5 percent.
Most used plastic is landfilled, incinerated, or winds up
drifting around the environment. Now, an alarming
new study has found that even when plastic makes it to a
recycling center, it can still end up splintering into smaller
bits that contaminate the air and water. This pilot study
focused on a single new facility where plastics are sorted,
shredded, and melted down into pellets. Along the way, the
plastic is washed several times, sloughing off microplastic
particles—fragments smaller than 5 millimeters—into the plant’s
wastewater.
The first few months of 2023 brought with it to California
months of rain, atmospheric rivers and the deepest snowpack the
Sierra has seen in decades. The state’s water supply is looking
better than it has in the past several years. In
Sacramento County, officials are encouraging people to continue
saving water. The problem is that much of the water from the
storms flows into the Pacific Ocean, but the county is
encouraging you to save the water and points to residents
already committed to the process. One such resident is
Elder Yehudah, whose backyard is a plentiful place filled with
citrus trees, vegetables, plants and bees. He also has plenty
of water.
California has begun the public process for a potential
regulatory proposal expanding the list of chemicals that may be
regulated under its Safer Consumer Products Program
(SCP). The California Department of Toxic Substances
Control (DTSC), part of the California Environmental Protection
Agency, has proposed adding microplastics and
para-Phenylenediamine (PPD) derivatives to its Candidate
Chemicals List (CCL) in an attempt to control their impact on
human health and the environment. PPD derivatives are a family
of chemicals used in a variety of industrial
applications. The only PPD derivative currently on the CCL
is 6PPD, a substance used to prevent deterioration of
motor-vehicle tires but that has also been found to hurt
certain species of salmon when it transforms into a toxicant
known as 6PPD-quinone.
In a rhythm that’s pulsed through epochs, a river’s plume
carries sediment and nutrients from the continental interior
into the ocean, a major exchange of resources from land to sea.
More than 6,000 rivers worldwide surge freshwater into oceans,
delivering nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, that
feed phytoplankton, generating a bloom of life that in turn
feeds progressively larger creatures. They may even influence
ocean currents in ways researchers are just starting to
understand. … Many of the harms caused by dams are
well-documented. They block fish passage and starve subsistence
fishers; radically alter natural river regimes and aquatic
creatures’ lifecycles; and flood forests, wetlands, villages,
and historical sites. … Now scientists are describing another
impact that has received relatively little attention but
appears to also be profound: Dams block sediment-carrying river
pulses into the ocean.
The City of Santa Barbara has received a $1.26 million grant to
research microplastic pollution prevention, with the goal of
providing clean streets, clean air and clean seas. The city’s
Sustainability & Resilience Department announced Friday that
its Creeks Restoration and Water Quality Improvement Division,
in partnership with the University of Southern California (USC)
Sea Grant Program, was awarded the grant. Microplastics are
small plastic pieces or fibers smaller than 5mm in size (about
the size of a pencil eraser). They are found on our streets, in
our creeks and ocean, the water we drink, the food we eat and
the air we breathe. Microplastics can absorb and carry
pollutants, leach harmful chemicals into water and are often
mistaken for food by wildlife.
When rain storms pummel Sacramento, a city surrounded by
levees, crews work all hours of the night to prevent
flooding. They monitor, control and maintain the city’s
more than 100 stormwater lift stations, which residents depend
on to pump water into creeks, canals, or the Sacramento or
American Rivers. These stations failing would cause water
to burst out of the city’s gutters, drain inlets and manholes,
said supervising plant operator Philip Myer. … During
power outages in windy downpours, the city sends electricians
to hook up generators to pumping stations. Other crews clear
fallen trees that clog up drainage systems. Rain doesn’t drain
out of Sacramento naturally or for free.
Oprah Winfrey has amassed an impressive collection of Montecito
real estate over the last two decades. But the media mogul’s
latest headline in the luxury community is not about a house,
but a wall — one that neighbors fear might reroute flooding
onto their properties during the next rainstorm. After months
of heavy rainfall and flooding across the community, a boulder
wall was installed along San Ysidro Creek, which runs along
Winfrey’s estate, to protect the property from flooding and
creek erosion, according to Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk.
… It’s a reasonable precaution; Montecito has long been
prone to weather disasters, including a 2018
mudslide filmed by Winfrey that killed 23
people, a number of whom were swept into San Ysidro Creek. …
But residents fear that the wall could redirect the creek,
pushing floodwater onto other properties during intense
rainfall.
UC Riverside scientists are taking a modern approach to
studying a murky subject — the quantity, quality, and sources
of microplastics in Los Angeles County’s
urban streams. Microplastics are particles with a
maximum diameter of 5 millimeters, roughly the size of a pencil
eraser. The category can include nanoplastics, which are far
smaller than the width of an average human
hair. Scientists have been aware that these particles have
been filtering through the environment for decades, but concern
about them has only started to ramp up more recently.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
On average, more than 60 percent of
California’s developed water supply originates in the Sierra
Nevada and the southern spur of the Cascade Range. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
Join us as we head into the Sierra to examine water issues
that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts downstream and
throughout the state.
Blasted by sun and beaten by waves,
plastic bottles and bags shed fibers and tiny flecks of
microplastic debris that litter the San Francisco Bay where they
can choke the marine life that inadvertently consumes it.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
Farmers in the Central Valley are broiling about California’s plan to increase flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to help struggling salmon runs avoid extinction. But in one corner of the fertile breadbasket, River Garden Farms is taking part in some extraordinary efforts to provide the embattled fish with refuge from predators and enough food to eat.
And while there is no direct benefit to one farm’s voluntary actions, the belief is what’s good for the fish is good for the farmers.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
We headed into the foothills and the mountains to examine
water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts
downstream and throughout the state.
GEI (Tour Starting Point)
2868 Prospect Park Dr.
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670.
As we continue forging ahead in 2018
with our online version of Western Water after 40 years
as a print magazine, we turned our attention to a topic that also
got its start this year: recreational marijuana as a legal use.
State regulators, in the last few years, already had been beefing
up their workforce to tackle the glut in marijuana crops and
combat their impacts to water quality and supply for people, fish
and farming downstream. Thus, even if these impacts were perhaps
unbeknownst to the majority of Californians who approved
Proposition 64 in 2016, we thought it important to see if
anything new had evolved from a water perspective now that
marijuana was legal.
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
Microplastics – plastic debris
measuring less than 5 millimeters – are an
increasing water quality concern. Entering the water as
industrial microbeads or as larger plastic litter that degrade
into small pellets, microplastics come from a variety of
consumer products.
Point sources release pollutants from discrete conveyances, such
as a discharge pipe, and are regulated by federal and state
agencies. The main point source dischargers are factories and
sewage treatment plants, which release treated
wastewater.
Problems with polluted stormwater and steps that can be taken to
prevent such pollution and turn what is often viewed as
“nuisance” runoff into a water resource is the focus of this
publication, Stormwater Management: Turning Runoff into a
Resource. The 16-page booklet, funded by a grant from the State
Water Resources Control Board, includes color photos and
graphics, text explaining common stormwater pollutants and
efforts to prevent stormwater runoff through land use/
planning/development – as well as tips for homeowners to reduce
their impacts on stormwater pollution.
This card includes information about the Colorado River, who uses
the river, how the river’s water is divided and other pertinent
facts about this vital resource for the Southwest. Beautifully
illustrated with color photographs.
This 30-minute documentary, produced in 2011, explores the past,
present and future of flood management in California’s Central
Valley. It features stories from residents who have experienced
the devastating effects of a California flood firsthand.
Interviews with long-time Central Valley water experts from
California Department of Water Resources (FloodSAFE), U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Central Valley Flood
Management Program and environmental groups are featured as they
discuss current efforts to improve the state’s 150-year old flood
protection system and develop a sustainable, integrated, holistic
flood management plan for the Central Valley.
This 30-minute documentary-style DVD on the history and current
state of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program includes an
overview of the geography and history of the river, historical
and current water delivery and uses, the genesis and timeline of
the 1988 lawsuit, how the settlement was reached and what was
agreed to.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
This 7-minute DVD is designed to teach children in grades 5-12
about where storm water goes – and why it is so important to
clean up trash, use pesticides and fertilizers wisely, and
prevent other chemicals from going down the storm drain. The
video’s teenage actors explain the water cycle and the difference
between sewer drains and storm drains, how storm drain water is
not treated prior to running into a river or other waterway. The
teens also offer a list of BMPs – best management practices that
homeowners can do to prevent storm water pollution.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to
Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of
California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the
authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a
faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of
California water rights.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
For all the benefits of precipitation, stormwater also brings
with it many challenges.
In urban areas, after long dry periods rainwater runoff can
contain heavy accumulations of pollutants that have built up over
time. For example, a rainbow like shine on a roadway puddle can
indicate the presence of oil or gasoline. Stormwater does not go
into the sewer. Instead, pollutants can be flushed into waterways
with detrimental effects on the environment and water quality.
World-renowned for its crystal clear, azure water, Lake Tahoe
straddles the Nevada-California border, stretching 22 miles long
and 12 miles wide and hemmed in by Sierra Nevada peaks.
At 1,645 feet deep, Tahoe is the second-deepest lake in the
United States and the 10th deepest in the world. The iconic lake
sits 6,225 feet above sea level.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses several
flood-related issues, including the proposed Central Valley Flood
Protection Plan, the FEMA remapping process and the dispute
between the state and the Corps regarding the levee vegetation
policy.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
Growth may have slowed in California, but advocates of low impact
development (LID) say the pause is no reason to lose sight of the
importance of innovative, low-tech management of stormwater via
incorporating LID aspects into new projects and redevelopment.
This printed issue of Western Water, based on presentations
at the November 3-4, 2010 Water Quality Conference in Ontario,
Calif., looks at constituents of emerging concerns (CECs) – what
is known, what is yet to be determined and the potential
regulatory impacts on drinking water quality.
This issue of Western Water examines the continuing practice of
smart water use in the urban sector and its many facets, from
improved consumer appliances to improved agency planning to the
improvements in water recycling and desalination. Many in the
water community say conserving water is not merely a response to
drought conditions, but a permanent ethic in an era in which
every drop of water is a valuable commodity not to be wasted.
