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.
If you think about the pollution your car causes, chances are
you’re not thinking about the tires. And probably even less
about a faraway creek, where a Coho Salmon is dying. But
researchers at the University of Washington and elsewhere
… say as the rubber wears away from car tires during
everyday driving, it spreads tiny micro particles, including a
destructive chemical called 6PPD. … Now, with
information gathered in part by the [San Francisco Estuary]
Institute, the State of California is stepping in, laying the
groundwork for potential regulations to curb the toxic tire
pollution.
Bits of your pants, shirts, socks and fleece jackets are
polluting local waters. Cal Lutheran biology students have
discovered this disturbing fashion dilemma as part of a
scientific research project. For the past four years, CLU
biology professor Andrea Huvard, PhD, has guided dozens of
students in a long-term research project: They are studying the
presence of microfibers in the ocean, sediments and marine
animals around Southern California.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board
announced the appointment of Eileen White as its executive
officer, succeeding Michael Montgomery. Her first day is July
11. White most recently served as director of East Bay
Municipal Utility District’s Wastewater Department, where she
recently led the development of EBMUD’s Integrated Master Plan
for its main wastewater treatment plant, along with EBMUD’s
Climate Action Plan, to guide operations, investments and
priorities for decades to come. White managed a workforce of
280 people.
In the current legislative session, lawmakers are working on a
bill designed to reduce plastic waste. If they are unable to
draft legislation by June 30, the issue will go straight to
voters as a ballot measure. The initiative, the California
Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would require
all single-use plastic packaging and food ware used in
California to be recyclable, reusable, refillable or
compostable by 2030. … Over the last year, research has
shown the presence of these particles in human
blood, healthy lung tissue and meconium — the
first bowel movement of a newborn. They are also found in
marine organisms, ocean water, air and soil.
From tattoo parlors to senior housing, and ethnic-food vendors
to world-famous record shops, it’s been said that if you can’t
find what you’re looking for on San Pablo Avenue, then it
doesn’t exist. And now, the busy thoroughfare, which runs
north-south through the heart of the East Bay, is also a
testbed for a distributed network of rain gardens. The project,
known as the San Pablo Avenue Green Stormwater “SPINE”, began
nearly ten years ago (the caps are used for emphasis, not as an
acronym). In the fall of 2012, the U.S. EPA issued a $307,000
portion of a larger green-infrastructure grant for the design
of seven garden sites in seven different cities.
San Anselmo has approved a plan to renovate the playing fields
at Memorial Park with phased-in water conservation upgrades.
After being presented with three project options Tuesday, the
Town Council voted 4-1 to combine elements of two alternatives,
but to do the work in stages. The project calls for new grass
and an upgraded irrigation and drainage system to be installed
as soon as possible. A stormwater and grey water harvesting
system and a 100,000-gallon underground water storage tank will
be added later.
Research in Seattle-area creeks has discovered tire bits
shedding lethal amounts of a little-known, salmon-killing
chemical called 6PPD-quinone. … In December 2020, 27
coauthors published an article in the journal Science
identifying 6PPD-quinone as the coho killer. Within weeks, the
U.S Tire Manufacturers Association asked California officials
to treat tires with 6PPD as a priority under the state’s
toxic-chemical laws. Coho salmon is an endangered species in
California. The California rule, once finalized, would give
manufacturers of tires sold there 180 days to assess any known
or potential alternatives to 6PPD in tire rubber.
A handful of state lawmakers gathered last week on the side of
the Tijuana River Estuary that’s not visibly clogged by
plastics and tires spilling from Mexico down canyon gullies or
down the river itself to ask the governor for money to, well,
stop trash from spilling over the border. Southern
California lawmakers hope Gov. Gavin Newsom will put $100
million in next year’s budget to be split equally between the
Tijuana River and the Mexicali-to-Salton-Sea-flowing New River,
both sewage-plagued water bodies.
Aging subterranean infrastructure in Sacramento will get a
boost from $3.5 million in federal funding that will pay for
future underground reservoirs to harden parts of the combined
storm and sewage system within the city’s core. The funding was
celebrated Friday during a news conference in Land Park to
outline the project with Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and
city leaders including County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy and
City Councilman Rick Jennings.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has boldly promoted the goal of building more
than 3 million new homes by 2025 to address the significant
supply/demand imbalance and bring down the cost of housing. …
In spite of this, an excessive new proposal by the State Water
Resources Control Board … will further stall new housing
production, as well as the development of public infrastructure
and economic development projects throughout California. The
proposal will require unachievable standards for water quality
compared to alternative enhanced and achievable approaches. -Written by Joseph Cruz, executive director for
the California State Council of Laborers; and Richard J.
Lambros, the managing director for Southern California
Leadership Council.
Stormwater infrastructure in cities is highly visible and
serves to mitigate flooding and reduce pollution that reaches
local waterbodies. Being so visible, it might be reasonable to
assume that stormwater is adequately funded both in
infrastructure and water quality management. Yet, stormwater
infrastructure and water quality improvement are notoriously
difficult to fund.
Germs are hitching rides around the world’s waterways on the
tiniest of rafts — microscopic plastic fibers from human
clothing and fishing nets — and contaminate the shellfish that
consume them, according to research published Tuesday by
scientists at the University of California, Davis. These
researchers hope to see further study on how the pathogens in
these contaminated fish affect the humans and other animals
eating them.
You could say that Orange Memorial Park in South San Francisco
is about to turn deep green. … [Colma Creek is] an
historic, natural waterway that was heavily cemented for flood
control in the early days of the area’s development. For
decades, the creek has carried runoff from the surrounding
watershed straight into San Francisco Bay, along with a
significant amount of trash. But that’s about to change.
In November 2021, salmon entering Putah Creek were part of a
large fish kill in the lower creek. The event took
everyone familiar with the creek by surprise and prevented
successful migration of the creek’s fall salmon. Only 4 or 5
adult Chinook salmon made it upstream to suitable spawning
habitat. The result was particularly tragic as it followed
on the heels of the restoration of a salmon run in the creek,
as well as habitat for other fishes.
This 3-mile stretch of sand and tide pools beneath a fortress
of 80-foot bluffs is a California tourism poster if there ever
was one. Nothing disturbs the pristine, sunny view, except –
once you’re aware of them – the nurdles. But you have to look
close – on-your-hands-and-knees close – to see one. And once
you do, you see another and another – so many that you may not
think of this, or any beach, the same way again. Mark
McReynolds is trying to bring into focus these tiny
preproduction plastic pellets that manufacturers melt down to
mold everything from car bumpers to toothpaste caps.
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.
