The story of California’s surface water— water that remains on
the earth’s surface, in rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs or
oceans—is one that reflects the state’s geographic
complexity.
The Wildlife Conservation Board has approved approximately
$24.3 million in grants to help enhance flows in streams
throughout California. … The approved projects will lead to a
direct and measurable enhancement of the amount, timing and/or
quality of water in streams for anadromous fish or special
status, threatened, endangered or at-risk species, or to
provide resilience to climate change.
At the 2019 Western Groundwater Congress, Gilbert Barth, PhD,
provided quantitative assessments of groundwater resources to
address questions associated with water planning, and
specializes in model development and calibration with a focus
on quantifying changes between surface water and groundwater
systems. He’s developed and applied models throughout the
Western US for regional, interstate, and international
deliberations.
Two 30-inch outlet pipes in the dam had been plugged with
debris since last spring, forcing the lake to rise and wash
over a spillway that state officials have deemed unsafe. But by
early February, water was again flowing out of the pipes,
allowing the lake to drop to a safe level, according to a
Shasta County Sheriff’s Office report.
So much for the March Miracle. Despite a few March storms, the
Sierra Nevada snowpack remains well below average, California
officials reported Wednesday, suggesting that water supplies
will be tight this summer and fall.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has issued a new three-year
operating plan for the Klamath River, dedicating more water for
endangered salmon while avoiding a “worst case scenario” for
farmers and ranchers. In exchange, a local tribe and fishing
groups agreed to suspend a lawsuit filed against the agency in
2019…
The group leading the effort to build a new off-stream
reservoir in Northern California recently hired a new executive
director. The Sites Project Authority Board of Directors
selected Jerry Brown, who previously served as general manager
of Contra Costa Water District, overseeing the operations and
management of a large water system with more than 500,000
customers.
On March 19, 2020, California issued Executive Order N-25-20, a
statewide shelter in place order in response to the COVID-19
pandemic, significantly altering operations of both state
agencies and private businesses. … Importantly, the Division
of Water Rights continues to require all surface water users to
submit annual reports to meet the April 1, 2020 deadline for
reporting 2019 water use.
The rules take the form of a state Fish and Wildlife Department
permit that will govern State Water Project deliveries from the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta… But the permit does not
explicitly control the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Central
Valley Project, which exports Delta water to San Joaquin Valley
farms. That means the two big government pumping operations
will likely adhere to different standards — possibly allowing
the federal project to boost deliveries at the expense of the
state project.
The Hoopa Valley Tribe applauded Fresno County Superior Court’s
refusal to validate a proposed contract between Westlands Water
District and the Bureau of Reclamation. … The contract would
have allocated up to 1,150,000 acre-feet of water annually to
Westlands, most of which would be imported from the Trinity
River, which has sustained the Hupa people since time
immemorial.
On April 1, 2020, DWR will conduct the fourth Phillips Station
snow survey of the season. Due to the novel coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic and California Department of Public Health
guidance to limit gatherings, DWR will be conducting the April
Phillips Station snow survey without media present and will be
providing video of the survey and the results via Facebook
live.
State regulators are giving mixed responses to the EPA’s
relaxed enforcement on a range of environmental obligations by
facilities affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The
Environmental Protection Agency said this week it wouldn’t seek
penalties for violations covered by the emergency policy. …
The California Environmental Protection Agency said its
enforcement authority “remains intact” in spite of the EPA
memo.
The second-largest river in California has sustained Native
American tribes with plentiful salmon for millennia, provided
upstream farmers with irrigation water for generations and
served as a haven for retirees who built dream homes along its
banks. With so many competing demands, the Klamath River has
come to symbolize a larger struggle over the increasingly
precious water resources of the U.S. West…
In an alert to state regulators, Southern California Edison,
which operates the power station, said an unexpected surge of
wastewater led to an “upset” at the treatment plant that
morning, triggering an alarm but allowing the sewage to flow
through a 6,000-foot pipe out into the ocean before workers
could turn off the pumps.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of
Water Resources are conducting exploratory work, including
clearing, excavation and controlled blasting of rock material
in the Basalt Hill area near B.F. Sisk Dam, located between Los
Banos and Gilroy, between 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. during April and
May. The exploratory findings on Reclamation lands will help
identify size and quality of granular material for the planned
Safety of Dams Modification project.
Gathering signatures for two proposed Napa County ballot
measures – one on rural, commercial cannabis cultivation, the
other on watershed protections – is a daunting task amid
COVID-19 shutdown orders. Californians are to shelter-at-home
except when engaged in “essential” tasks such as buying food.
Yet each measure needs more than 7,000 signatures from
registered voters by May 8 to qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot.
During a week full of COVID-19-related uncertainty, a pair of
new lawsuits are a reminder of one constant: disputes over
Klamath Basin water. This past week, PacifiCorp and Klamath
Water Users Association each filed petitions for review of
Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for temperature in the Upper
Klamath and Lost River subbasins.
Winter-flooded rice fields already provide essential habitat
for migratory birds, but could they also provide benefits to
help the state’s salmon populations? Scientists at the
University of California, Davis, are finalizing their fieldwork
on an experiment to find out what management practices farmers
might adopt in their fields to maximize fish survival.
The COVID-19 virus outbreak is affecting us all, whether we
live in a big city or rural Siskiyou County. The economy is
grinding to a halt and governments are planning a massive
response to keep money flowing to small businesses and
employees – the lifeblood of the entire economy. It is through
this lens that I encourage Klamath Basin residents to
view Klamath River Renewal Corp.’s dam removal and river
restoration project as an economic bright spot.
Of the $37 million, approximately $24 million was awarded to 19
projects statewide through the Proposition 1 Watershed
Restoration Grant Program. Approximately $7 million was awarded
to seven projects through the Proposition 1 Delta Water Quality
and Ecosystem Restoration Grant Program to projects that
directly benefit the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Approximately $6 million was awarded to 14 projects through the
Proposition 68 Rivers and Streams Grant Program.
While California will not receive a soaking rain similar to
what occurred at the beginning of the week, residents across
the state can expect unsettled weather to stick around through
Wednesday.
Sealing a baffling fight over a ditch that involved dead cows,
helicopters and a criminal trial, a federal judge ruled Tuesday
that a California county didn’t trample a rural cattle
rancher’s rights in its curious attempt to sabotage his water
rights permit.
March rain has left Salt River Project reservoirs as full as
they’ve been in a decade. The utility is discharging water to
make room for the runoff, providing a boost to the underlying
aquifers. The utility says the Salt and Verde river systems are
at a combined 94% of capacity, almost 20 points higher than
last year.
Most of the 6,000 gallons of crude oil that was spilled into
the Cuyama River in Santa Maria has been contained. … A
tanker truck carrying more than 6,000 gallons of crude oil
overturned and crashed into the Cuyama River east of Santa
Maria on Saturday, according to the Santa Barbara County Fire
Department.
Two lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s
authorization of plans to increase water pumping from the
Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds will be moved from the
Northern District of California to the Eastern District of
California, a federal judge ruled.
Kolster’s latest book, L.A. River (GFT Publishing, 2019),
contains a series of images of the fifty-one-mile body of water
at various stages, from its headwaters in Canoga Park through
California’s biggest city to Long Beach, where it meets the
Pacific Ocean. For this project, Kolster used a
nineteenth-century photographic technique called the wet plate
collodion process, to striking effect.
A pair of low-pressure systems will bring rain and mountain
snow to the West, including communities in worsening drought,
in the early part of the week ahead. The first of the
low-pressure systems arrived on the California coast Sunday.
The second system, the larger of the two storms geographically,
will swing southward from the Gulf of Alaska through midweek.
A tanker truck overturned down an embankment Saturday, spilling
up to 6,000 gallons of crude oil into a river that flows into a
dam and reservoir near the city of Santa Maria, authorities
said.
CAL FIRE last week awarded $43.5 million to local organizations
to reduce the risk of wildfires to homes and communities across
California. Fifty-five local fire prevention projects are
receiving funding for hazardous fuel reductions, wildfire
preparedness planning and fire prevention education.
In an effort to reduce the amount of pollution entering surface
waters, the state of California requires industries with an
identified potential of discharging pollutants in storm water
runoff to obtain and implement an industrial storm water
permit. A new state law, effective Jan. 1, requires applicable
businesses to provide proof of coverage under the industrial
storm water permit in order to obtain or renew their business
license with a city or county.
Historically, we’ve always been able to predict these extremes
by looking at how often they occurred in the past. But a new
study published Wednesday in Science Advances reveals just how
many of those forecasts actually fall short. In just a decade,
the findings suggest, the climate has shifted so drastically
that the frequency of past extreme events is no longer a
reliable predictor.
Paul Detjens is driving us from his Martinez office to a
restoration site near the mouth of Walnut Creek on Suisun Bay,
a project he spearheads as an engineer for the Contra Costa
County Flood Control District. … The closer we get to our
destination, however, the more industrial the landscape
becomes, and the more improbable it seems that we’re in the
right place to realize this vision.
The nature of Butte County’s concerns over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
scaled back Delta tunnel project was made clear last Tuesday,
when Supervisor Debra Lucero questioned a staffer from the
state Department of Water Resources.
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.
Recent storms delivering rain to the Valley floor and snow to
the Sierra mountains have prompted Fresno Irrigation District
to begin water deliveries to growers on May 1. … In a news
release Thursday, FID officials said they anticipate a
three-month water delivery season ending in July.
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.
Vallee and his team are here to maintain an array of
hydrophones used to track migrating native fish. The work is
part of a multi-agency effort to provide more timely and
detailed information about the movements of salmon, steelhead,
and sturgeon in the Central Valley. Deploying hundreds of
listening stations across the watershed, the program lets
scientists follow thousands of tagged fish as they navigate
from hatcheries and headwater streams toward the Pacific Ocean.
Summer streamflow in industrial tree plantations harvested on
40- to 50-year rotations was 50% lower than in century-old
forests, data from the long-term Alsea Watershed Study in the
Oregon Coast Range showed.
Cindy Messer considers one of her greatest professional
accomplishments also the toughest experience in her 23-year
career. Messer was sworn in as chief deputy director of the
California Department of Water Resources the day after the
Oroville Dam crisis began in February 2017… But within
months, her boss retired, and she became acting interim
director for the recovery phase.
At the 2020 Kern County Water Summit, California Water
Commission Chair Armando Quintero spoke about the role of the
commission, gave an update on the Water Storage Investment
Program and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, and
spoke of their new role defined in the water resiliency
portfolio.
California mountains are blanketed in snow and much of the
state has had plenty of rain in a remarkable March turnabout
from the extremely dry first two months of the year. The most
recent statewide storm started during the weekend and, despite
diminishing, snowfall and showers were still occurring here and
there.
This spring the Forest Service, aided by U.S. Marine Corps
members, will blast apart 13 more dams in the Trabuco ranger
district in Southern California’s Cleveland National Forest.
It’s the last phase of a groundbreaking project that began more
than five years ago to remove a total of 81 dams from four
streams in the mountains of Orange County.
California’s bone-dry February didn’t leave a lot of forage for
Todd Swickard’s cattle—though mid-March rains should provide
some help. … Swickard noted conditions on the hills were what
one would expect in mid-April or later, with land gradually
fading to brown and poppies everywhere.
Now, Big Ag and the water agencies that do its water will want
to also divert streamflow during the winter wet season. For
folks who believe that any water “diverted” to the ocean is
wasted water, winter storm and snow-melt high flows have become
the target.
While disruptive, the storm has helped replenish a depleted
snowpack after an exceptionally dry winter. The water stored in
the snowpack is critical for the region’s water supply and for
moistening vegetation before fire season.
The falling cost of renewable energy and continued decline of
manufacturing renders many of these structures unnecessary.
Others require expensive maintenance. Seven in 10 are more than
50 years old and many are falling into disrepair, according to
the American Society of Civil Engineers…
Already a well-regarded landscape and portrait photographer,
Bay set out to bring more attention to the issue. The avid
surfer admits that he initially wasn’t sure how best to convey
what he saw as an environmental emergency. Then, one day, he
says he was visiting the Tijuana River mouth and stumbled upon
an idea.
To the extent that new science requires new approaches in the
Delta, existing new science indicates that restoration of the
Delta will require more water to be left in the Delta, not
less.
The case, titled Baley v. United States, was filed 19 years ago
when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation re-allocated Klamath River
irrigation water to threatened and endangered species. A
favorable outcome would mean upwards of $30 million
collectively in compensation for irrigators named in the case.
After a prolonged period of mostly dry conditions, the Tahoe
Basin finally reported impressive 24-hour snowfall totals
Sunday morning: As of 8:30 a.m., Squaw Valley had recorded 18
inches at its base and up to 30 inches at its highest peaks.
Tahoe City measured 23 inches, Homewood 33 and Incline Village
22. … Between Sunday and Monday, the Cascades and northern
Sierra could see another one to three feet of snow.
The public release of this product, and the underlying research
supporting it, is part of a joint partnership between CW3E and
NASA JPL, sponsored by the California Department of Water
Resources, to improve the two-week to two-month lead time of
forecasts, known as subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) forecasts.
The aim of these improved forecasts of atmospheric rivers and
precipitation is to benefit western U.S. water resource
management.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is soliciting public
comment on the scope of environmental review for a revised
Delta tunnel project despite prior findings of independent
technical experts that a key project proposal is “impractical,”
stating that it “does not recommend” further study.
If corporations can have the rights of people under the law,
why not rivers? The question made sense to Will Falk, and he
answered it yes. Falk is a lawyer, and he got to represent the
Colorado River in a lawsuit. So he spent time along the river,
in something of a conversation with it. Falk tells the story in
his book How Dams Fall.
As discussed below, in the case of west coast salmon, the
scientific evidence is clear that the replacement assumption
has proven faulty as the total abundance of salmon declined at
the same time the propagation and release of hatchery salmon
has expanded.
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.
Much-needed snow will blanket California’s Sierra Nevada high
country this weekend into next week, bringing hope of a
“Miracle March” that could replenish vital, water-providing
snowpack after a record-dry February.
Tuolumne Utilities District announced on Tuesday that it has
entered into exclusive negotiations with Pacific Gas and
Electric Co. to acquire the Phoenix Hydroelectric Project,
which would include pre-1914 water rights on the South Fork of
the Stanislaus River…
Arizona does not currently have a comprehensive program to
protect its surface water quality. The state is now faced with
the task of creating one following a change to federal law. The
Trump administration unveiled its final rule in January
redefining which waterways are regulated under the Clean Water
Act, known as “Waters of the U.S.” Under this rule change, the
vast majority of Arizona’s creeks and streams will not be
protected.
“’Listen to the land’ is my mantra,” said Susan Sorrells, a 4th
generation resident and owner of Shoshone, California. …
Integrating nature with community became a part of Sorrells’
and her husband Robby Haines’ vision for stewarding the land.
As a gateway to Death Valley National Park, ecotourism became
their economic engine.
We’re getting better when it comes to the L.A. River. Ten years
ago, most of us didn’t even know that L.A. even had a river.
… It’s hit a few bumps along the way (including the 1936
Flood Control Act that channelized it with concrete walls) —
but now, you not only can get to the re-wilded parts of the Los
Angeles River, but you can get onto them, too (for a part of
the year)!
The new rules allow the federal Central Valley Project to kill
100 percent of baby winter run Chinook salmon below Shasta Dam
for three years running. Chinook salmon live for three
years, so authorizing the Bureau of Reclamation to kill every
endangered winter run for three years amounts to an extinction
plan for this species.
Beaches were closed on Tuesday from the Mexico border to
Coronado as rain flushed sewage-contaminated runoff from
Tijuana into the San Diego region. “Things have gotten worse
than ever,” said Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina.
The latest research about the Colorado River is alarming but
also predictable: In a warming world, snowmelt has been
decreasing while evaporation of reservoirs is increasing. Yet
no politician has a plan to save the diminishing Colorado
River.
A District Court judge has once again scuttled the Southern
Nevada Water Authority’s plans to obtain and pump rural
groundwater about 300 miles from eastern Nevada, prompting one
Clark County commissioner to call on the water authority “to
look in a different direction.”
The largest reservoir in the Western U.S., Lake Mead, is rising
again after more than a decade of decline, and at least some
credit goes to the National Hockey League team in Las
Vegas.
A settlement was reached Wednesday in a federal lawsuit filed
by an environmental group accusing Pacific Coast Energy Co. of
illegally discharging polluted water from an Orcutt oil
facility into northern Santa Barbara County waterways and
threatening endangered species.
Because the State and Federal water managers coordinate
operations of the State Water Project and Central Valley
Project, the State Water Contractors argue that dumping the
biological opinions governing those operations and restarting
the process would create “uncertainty in water supply
availability, potentially affecting the [State Water
Contractor] members’ water supplies from the SWP.”
As the waters of Lake Mead have risen and fallen over the
years, the remains of the village of St. Thomas have
reappeared, then disappeared again, only to re-emerge years
later. It’s a sort of Brigadoon for the southwestern United
States.
The storm— fed by a plume of subtropical water vapor at the
lower and middle levels of the atmosphere — could bring 1 to 3
inches of rain to the area through at least Wednesday. … The
heaviest rain is expected throughout Tuesday, upping the
chances for both an ugly morning and evening commute.
Over the past month, DWR has been holding scoping meetings in
the Delta and select locations throughout the state. At
meetings in Walnut Grove, Stockton, Clarksburg and Brentwood, a
diverse group of farmers, fishermen, elected officials,
climate/social justice activists, economists and engineers came
out in force to oppose what is often referred to as the
“boondoggle” project.
A $3 billion package of water projects recommended for approval
by the Southern Nevada Water Authority this month could raise
average residential bills by $10, while providing a boost to
the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas.
State and federal leaders came together to tour the Salton Sea
and understand the impending health issues the public continues
to face. NBC Palm Springs joined officials to get a glimpse of
what is being done to help restore an area that was once a
relaxing summer destination.
A proposal to pump water out of Nevada’s fragile Walker Lake to
generate hydropower to sell in California won preliminary
approval from federal regulators. On Friday, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission issued a preliminary permit and granting
priority to file for the proposed Walker Lake Pumped Storage
Project.
If agriculture in the valley is going to survive, water leaders
need to get cozy with new ideas and new allies. And, yes, that
means environmentalists.
The 2020 ocean abundance projection for Sacramento River fall
Chinook, the driver of West Coast salmon fisheries, is
estimated at 473,200 adult salmon, higher than the 2019
forecast. However, the Klamath River fall Chinook abundance
forecast of 186,600 adult salmon is lower than the 2019
forecast and will likely result in reduced fishing opportunity
in the areas north of Pt. Arena…
We expect most of Southern California, including the Los
Angeles Basin and San Diego metro area, as well as parts of
Arizona, to pick up at least an inch of rain through Thursday.
Some heavier amounts in higher terrain on southern- and
southwestern-facing slopes are possible. Flash flooding of
flood-prone, low-lying streets, freeways and normally dry
washes and arroyos is possible in some areas.
If you followed the news about the Colorado River for the last
year, you’d think that a political avalanche had swept down
from Colorado’s snow-capped peaks and covered the Southwest
with a blanket of “collaboration” and “river protection.” I
won’t call it fake news, but I will point out errors of
omission.
As sea levels rise, so do the waters in the bay, which connects
to the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate. That relationship
between rising ocean levels and rising bay levels is well
known. What is less obvious is that groundwater levels are
rising as well, adding another variable to the region’s
equation of increasing flood risk.
The scramble for water has intensified as global warming has
battered much of the West during the last 20 years with heat
waves, droughts and wildfires. With projections for declining
snowpack and river flows, cloud seeding is becoming a regional
climate adaptation measure costing several million dollars each
year.
The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project is the largest
tidal wetland restoration project on the West Coast. When
complete, the Project will restore 15,100 acres of industrial
salt ponds to a rich mosaic of tidal wetlands and other
habitats. The Project is intended to restore and enhance
wetlands in South San Francisco Bay while providing for flood
management, wildlife-oriented public access, and recreation.
Drought conditions in California continued to expand, according
to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor data released Thursday.
After what experts are calling California’s driest February on
record, slightly more than 34% of the state was deemed to be in
moderate drought. That’s an increase of about 11% over figures
released a week ago.
An environmental watchdog group has filed lawsuits against the
cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale alleging that the cities’
aging sewer systems are leaking bacteria from human feces into
stormwater drainage systems, contaminating local creeks and
ultimately the Bay.
In a Feb. 28 filing, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation,
formed to shepherd the removal of four hydroelectric dams from
the Klamath River in Northeern California and Southern Oregon,
submitted key budget information to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. … This filing is another concrete step
toward implementing the amended Klamath Hydroelectric
Settlement Agreement (KHSA), removing the dams and restoring a
free-flowing Klamath River, KRRC officials said.
The preserve [inside the Neal Road Recycling and Waste Facility
near Chico]—which is overseen by California Open Lands, a local
nonprofit land trust—also has been a focus of the State Water
Resources Control Board’s Office of Enforcement, which is
investigating the landfill for allegedly discharging last
winter about 24 million gallons of waste-contaminated
stormwater into the preserve and a neighboring watershed.
Utah’s booming population growth and rapid economic development
means the need for more water, a higher level of conservation
and wise development of water supplies, which are not infinite.
With that in the backdrop, the Utah House of Representatives on
Tuesday passed HCR22, which makes clear to neighboring states
and policymakers that Utah will someday develop its unused
portion of the Colorado River.
The Sacramento splittail is a lovely, silvery-white fish that
lives primarily in Suisun Marsh, the north Delta and other
parts of the San Francisco Estuary (SFE; Moyle et al. 2004).
The name comes from its unusual tail, in which the upper lobe
is larger than the lower lobe. It is a distinctive endemic
species that for decades has fascinated those of us who work in
Suisun Marsh.
The Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District celebrated its 100-year
anniversary in February, according to a press release. The
district’s water rights were established in 1883, one of the
earliest and largest water rights on the Sacramento River, and
it was formally organized on Feb. 21, 1920.
If you live in Southern California or Silicon Valley, you might
be surprised to learn that your local water district (a member
agency of the State Water Contractors) is siding with the Trump
Administration, and defending Trump’s plan to increase water
diversions, despite the widespread acknowledgement that this
plan is likely to drive salmon and Delta smelt extinct.
It was a busy time for California water issues last month when
Trump visited the San Joaquin Valley, signed the Record of the
Decision on the biological opinions which govern the operations
of the state and federal water projects (along with another
Presidential memo), which was promptly followed by the state
filing of a lawsuit the next day. … So not surprisingly, the
voluntary agreement was top of the agenda the following week at
the February meeting of Metropolitan’s Bay Delta Committee.
One day after President Trump tweeted his support, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to take
steps today to bring to the floor legislation that would
permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and
address the national parks maintenance backlog, senators said.
… Trump’s tweet was an election-year about-face from his
latest budget proposal, which recommended virtually eliminating
the popular, bipartisan program.
The study by economists David Sunding and David Roland-Holst at
UC Berkeley examined the economic impact of two types of
restrictions to water supplies for ag: on groundwater pumping
as part of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and
future reductions in surface water due to regulatory processes
by the state and federal government.
I have long argued that a robust governance network, both
formal and informal, around the management of the Colorado
River provides the necessary conditions for managing the
problems of the river’s overallocation and the increasingly
apparent impacts of climate change. … But as we approach the
negotiation of the next set of Colorado River management rules
– a process already bubbling in the background – it is not hard
to see how my thesis could break down.
The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board issued an
investigative order in February that requires more monitoring
of sewage-tainted cross-border flows. The order requires the
International Boundary and Water Commission to monitor more
than a dozen locations over an 18-month period.
At the January meeting of Metropolitan’s Bay Delta Committee,
Program Manager Randall Neudeck updated the committee on some
of the projects and activities happening underway the Yolo
Bypass.
The message was loud and clear for state water officials at a
public meeting Monday evening in Redding: Don’t send any more
water south through a proposed Delta tunnel project. A group of
more than 100 Native Americans rallied on the lawn of the
Redding Civic Auditorium before they marched into a scoping
meeting held inside the Redding Sheraton Hotel across the
street.
Forecasters and water managers keeping a close eye on
precipitation are hopeful that a wet month, a phenomenon known
by weather experts as “miracle March,” may help bolster
lackluster winter rain totals.
The Trump administration on Friday awarded a permanent water
delivery contract to the country’s largest agricultural
district, brushing aside environmentalists’ concerns about
California’s uncertain water future in the face of climate
change. At issue is irrigation water that flows through the
Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project to the Westlands
Water District, a Rhode Island-sized agricultural powerhouse
and former client of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.
In 2019, California’s use of the Colorado River—a major water
source for Southern California’s cities and farms—dropped to
the lowest level in decades. We asked John Fleck—director of
the University of New Mexico’s Water Resources Program and a
member of the PPIC Water Policy Center research network—about
the ongoing changes in California’s use of this water, and what
it means going forward.
The report done by University of California, Berkeley,
economists Dr. David Sunding and Dr. David Roland-Holst shows
that the California economy will suffer unless responsible,
balanced water reforms are enacted in the effort to achieve
groundwater sustainability goals in the San Joaquin Valley.
Valley Water in Santa Clara, Calif., doesn’t fully agree with a
Feb. 20 directive from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) to drain its Anderson Dam as the water district waits to
begin upgrades to the structure near the Calaveras Fault.
While this February could be the driest February on record, one
year ago most farmers didn’t know when it would be dry enough
to work their fields. This sums up the argument for additional
water infrastructure for surface supplies…
A judge on Thursday granted a six-month extension for roughly
14,000 Ojai Valley and Ventura property owners facing a
potential water adjudication. In January, the city of Ventura
sent thousands of legal notices and summonses to people with
property near the Ventura River or one of the area’s
groundwater basins.
The Interior Department on Friday awarded the nation’s largest
farm water district a permanent entitlement to annual
irrigation deliveries that amount to roughly twice as much
water as the nearly 4 million residents of Los Angeles use in a
year. … The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the
federal project, also signed permanent contracts on Friday with
a handful of municipal districts that it supplies.
The state is projecting lower numbers of adult full-run Chinook
salmon in the Klamath River this year, a discouraging sign for
the Yurok Tribe, whose fisheries have been devastated by
reduced fish counts in recent years.
A major contributor to the Southern California water supply is
the Colorado River, which pumps in about 26 percent of the
region’s water supply via the Colorado Aqueduct, which was
built in the 1930s. … There’s a problem, and it’s happening
at the source. Years of multiple water allocations and
persistent drought have put the Colorado River under stress.
On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation delivered its own
salvo to the Newsom administration – it was pushing forward
pre-construction work on raising Shasta Dam. … A push to
raise the dam was made possible by the same law that delivered
new biological opinions – the Water Infrastructure Improvements
for the Nation (WIIN) Act, approved in the waning days of the
Obama administration.
A judge on Thursday granted a six-month extension for roughly
14,000 Ojai Valley and Ventura property owners facing a
potential water adjudication. In January, the city of Ventura
sent thousands of legal notices and summonses to people with
property near the Ventura River or one of the area’s
groundwater basins.
An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign
that has inserted misleading language about climate change —
including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere is beneficial — into the agency’s scientific
reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
… The misleading language appears in environmental studies
and impact statements affecting major watersheds including the
Klamath and Upper Deschutes river basins in California and
Oregon…
A warming planet has major ramifications on winter snowpack
across the globe, including a long-term drying trend for many.
That’s a concern for winter sports enthusiasts and communities
that depend on snow throughout the year.
Northern California has just concluded one of its normally
wettest months without a drop of rainfall. Even with an extra
day on the calendar, February – a month that usually brings 20%
of San Francisco’s annual rainfall – just added to the streak
of dry days dating back to late January.
A handful of protesters marched outside the Mexican Consulate
in Little Italy, protesting cross border sewage flows. They
want Mexico to do more to fix the problem. Polluted water has
routinely flowed from Mexico into the United States since
December. “We feel like we’re not getting heard,” said Mitch
McKay, president of Citizens for Coastal Conservancy.
A major contributor to the Southern California water supply is
the Colorado River, which pumps in about 26 percent of the
region’s water supply via the Colorado Aqueduct, which was
built in the 1930s. … There’s a problem, and it’s happening
at the source. Years of multiple water allocations and
persistent drought have put the Colorado River under stress.
As the real globe warms, one trend is clear: Winter is
shrinking and snow is melting. In the past 50 years, the frozen
mantle that caps the Northern Hemisphere in the dark months has
lost a million square miles of spring snowpack. Winter warming
has tripled in the U.S. West since 1970; the length of winter
is projected to decline at ski areas across the country, in
some locations by more than 50% by 2050 and by 80% by 2090.
A rally before the start of the Department of Water
Resources’(DWR) public scoping meeting for the Delta Conveyance
Project (DCP) set the tone for the event — residents of East
County were in no mood to consider another tunnel project in
the Delta.
California’s complaint challenges the biological opinions
issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National
Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)
as well as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s EIS and record of
decision completed pursuant to the National Environmental
Policy Act.
The Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) continued progress
toward implementing the Amended Klamath Hydroelectric
Settlement Agreement (KHSA) to remove the Klamath dams and
restore a free-flowing Klamath River by selecting McMillen
Jacobs Associates to provide owner’s representation services,
according to a news release.
Joining 12 other conservation groups from throughout the
country, the Olema-based Turtle Island Restoration Network
alleges the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers did not attempt to weigh the potential impacts to
endangered species when it removed millions of acres of
waterways and habitat from Clean Water Act protections in
January.
A federal order to drain Silicon Valley’s largest drinking
water reservoir has thrown the region into disarray, with
multiple agencies pointing fingers at each other and some local
leaders fearful their cities could run out of water, not this
summer but the following one.
The future of the complicated network of waterways and canals
that supplies millions of Californians with water daily could
be murky at best, U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt
warned Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom in a letter Monday.
Turns out President Donald Trump is no match for another
California drought. Less than a week after Trump told San
Joaquin Valley farmers in Bakersfield that he was taking bold
steps to increase their water supply, his administration
announced Tuesday farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley may only receive about 15 percent of their contracted
water supply for the upcoming growing season.
Silicon Valley water officials assured the public Tuesday they
have enough water to avoid shortages this summer, even after
federal regulators announced that Anderson Reservoir, the
region’s largest, must be completely drained beginning this
fall because of the risk its dam might collapse in a major
earthquake.
In a dramatic decision that could significantly impact Silicon
Valley’s water supply, federal dam regulators have ordered
Anderson Reservoir, the largest reservoir in Santa Clara
County, to be completely drained starting Oct. 1. The 240-foot
earthen dam, built in 1950 and located east of Highway 101
between Morgan Hill and San Jose, poses too great of a risk of
collapse during a major earthquake, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, which regulates dams, has concluded.
President Trump believes he “got it done” in fixing
California’s troubled and contentious water system. What he
actually produced is another wrecking-ball delay and a lawsuit
to try to halt his lopsided solution.
Protecting the North Coast’s waters and the communities that
depend on them is a top priority, Congressman Jared Huffman
told a town hall at the Eureka High School auditorium Friday
night. Making sure fishermen get timely compensation when
they’re barred from fishing and ensuring there is enough water
in the area to protect fisheries are two key issues, the San
Rafael Democrat said.
Climate change has dramatically decreased natural flow in the
Colorado River, jeopardizing the water supply for some 40
million people and millions of acres of farmland, according to
new research from the USGS. The decline is expected to continue
unless changes are made to alleviate global warming and the
impacts of drier, hotter temperatures.
The federal government wrapped up cleanups at six Superfund
sites around the country in the 2019 budget year, the fewest
since three in 1986, EPA online records showed. The Superfund
program was born out of the 1970′s disaster at Love Canal in
New York, where industrial contaminants poisoned groundwater,
spurred complaints of health problems and prompted presidential
emergency declarations.
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
has created an online mapping tool known as the Bay Shoreline
Flood Explorer that allows you to see the impacts of rising
oceans if precautions aren’t taken. You can see how much of the
shoreline is inundated at 12 to 144 inches of rise, as well as
the impacts of storm surges and exceptionally high tides that
can temporarily cause water levels to rise.
The Folsom Lake Intake Improvement Project delivers district
water supplies available at Folsom Lake to the El Dorado Hills
Water Treatment Plant and is critical to service reliability
for the El Dorado Hills service area. In service since the late
1950s, significant portions of the pump station have reached
the end of their useful life.
Farm groups are urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to work with the
federal government on water deliveries even as California
followed through Thursday on its threat to sue to nullify
biological opinions that could bring increases in surface water
for San Joaquin Valley growers.
California’s coast is truly a treasure for residents and
visitors alike. Sadly, rising seas are washing away our beach,
and for every inch of sand lost, our opportunities for joy —
and our economic future — similarly shrink.
By 2030, the projected sea level combined with a particularly
nasty storm event could flood nearly everything west of Highway
1 in Stinson Beach: 590 parcels, 430 buildings and several
miles of road. By the middle of the century, every high tide
will bring flooding, and the roadways will likely need to be
altered to maintain access to the low-lying town.
The state Department of Water Resources said Thursday the
Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to cover
approximately $300 million in repair costs the agency had
previously denied. … All told, the state now expects to be
reimbursed for approximately $750 million of the $1.1 billion
cost of the crisis…
A day after President Trump visited the Central Valley to
celebrate a boost in water for California farms, state
officials sued to block the additional water deliveries.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra, in a lawsuit filed Thursday,
maintains that new federal rules designed to increase pumping
from the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta fail to protect
salmon and other endangered fish in the delta estuary.
The Colorado River’s average annual flow has declined by nearly
20 percent compared to the last century, and researchers have
identified one of the main culprits: climate change is causing
mountain snowpack to disappear, leading to increased
evaporation.
Groundwater sustainability plans that have been submitted to
the state are now online at the DWR SGMA Portal. Plans are open
to public comment for 75 days after they were posted online.
Below is a table of the submitted plans, the counties they
cover and details about the public comment period for that
plan.
Do you believe in miracles? At this point, it would take one to
restore water and snowpack totals in a very dry California to
near average levels for the winter.
Following a promising 2018 fall Chinook salmon season on the
Klamath that saw the run size trending upwards, the 2019
returns fell significantly short of expectations. Looking at
the numbers presented in the PFMC “Review of 2019 Ocean Salmon
Fisheries” document, it’s likely we’ll have some severe
restrictions both in the ocean and in the Klamath and Trinity
rivers in 2020.
California is doing more to preserve its groundwater levels
than ever before, but a new, interactive tool by a local water
advocacy group suggests it may not be enough. Last Wednesday,
Visalia-based Community Water Center … argued that California
will experience longer, more severe droughts due to climate
change.
An attempt to list as an endangered species a plant found only
in Shasta County could put it in the middle of a controversy
over raising the height of Shasta Dam. The California Fish and
Game Commission is expected to vote Friday on whether to accept
a petition to list the Shasta snow-wreath as an endangered
species under state law.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a pre-emptive strike against President
Donald Trump, said Wednesday he plans to sue Trump’s
administration to block a controversial plan to increase water
deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley. Newsom’s office said he
“will file legal action in the coming days … to protect
highly imperiled fish species close to extinction.”
Dozens of dead fish are floating to the surface along a Fresno
County waterway and people living nearby are worried about
their water. Fancher Creek flows from Pine Flat all the way
into Fresno, mostly to let farmers get irrigation water. But
fish also use the water, except right now, for about 200 yards,
all of them are dead.
Recently, the Department of Water Resources released a report
to supplement the 2017 California Aqueduct Subsidence Study
that addresses specific issues within a 10-mile-wide study
corridor… At the February meeting of Metropolitan’s Water
Planning and Stewardship Committee, Ted Craddock, DWR Assistant
Deputy Director of the State Water Project, provided an
overview of the report.
The Colusa Groundwater Authority, the California Department of
Water Resources and The Nature Conservancy have partnered to
conduct an on-farm, multi-benefit demonstration program for
growers in two select project locations around Colusa County.
The National Weather Service tweeted satellite images of the
Sierra on Tuesday, showing the stark difference between this
year and the above-average snowfall from 2019. The mountain
snowpack — a crucial element in the state’s annual water supply
— is 53 percent of normal for this time of year, according to
the Department of Water Resources.
A coalition of environmental groups informed the Trump
administration Tuesday that it would sue over a major rollback
of water protections designed to replace the Obama-era Waters
of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule.
During President Trump’s visit to California this week, the
commander in chief who campaigned on a pledge of shipping more
water to Central Valley farms plans to stop in Bakersfield to
boast about a promise kept. … But what confounds some who are
worried that Trump’s water plan could undermine the environment
is how little the state has done to stop Washington.
In the latest update, the cost of implementing the voluntary
agreements has soared by over $4 billion to a whopping $5.3
billion. Governor Newsom failed to mention the enormous and
growing costs in his oped praising the voluntary agreement
framework.
Hoisting the spoils of victories in California’s hard-fought
water wars, President Donald Trump is directing more of the
state’s precious water to wealthy farmers and other agriculture
interests when he visits their Republican Central Valley
stronghold Wednesday.
While Trump will be in town Wednesday to discuss agriculture
issues with local farmers, as of Friday the Kern County Farm
Bureau remained in the dark about the president’s visit, and
the Kern County Republican Party similarly had not been
informed of Trump’s plans. … A White House statement released
to the media said Trump’s Bakersfield visit would focus on
efforts to dramatically improve the supply and delivery of
water in California and other Western states.
Local reservoirs and municipal water supplies might become so
polluted from the fires that the current water supply
infrastructure will be challenged or could no longer treat the
water. … But most of the fire-prone areas in North America
lack large-scale vulnerability assessments of their municipal
water supplies…
There are many reasons for the shift, from rising incomes
overseas and a shortage of farm labor to scarcity of water for
irrigation. But as expected, the bottom line is the bottom
line: growers generally plant what sells best.
Though the process leading to removal of the Klamath Dams
continues to march forward, numerous citizens in Siskiyou
County have continued fighting to keep the dams in place. Many
of those dam advocates are members of the Siskiyou County Water
Users Association, which in January hosted a presentation about
an alternative fish passage technology the association believes
could “make it possible” for the dams to remain.
It’s time for Gov. Gavin Newsom to own up on water policy. He
can either play nice with a roughshod plan from President Trump
to divert crucial water flows or craft his own blueprint that
balances both wildlife and California’s economy.
Two sprawling metropolitan areas offer a glimpse of the future.
One rich, one poor, they sit on opposite sides of the Pacific
Ocean: the San Francisco Bay Area (population 7 million) and
metropolitan Manila (almost 14 million). Their history, their
wealth, and the political and personal choices they make today
will shape how they fare as the water inevitably comes to their
doorsteps.
Reps. Jim Costa (D–Fresno) and TJ Cox (D–Fresno) joined fellow
Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee to grant
wide-ranging subpoena power to the committee’s chair, Raul
Grijalva (D–Ariz.)… A key inquiry likely to be explored by
Grijalva … is to dig into the Trump administration’s issuance
of new biological opinions governing the Central Valley
Project.
President Trump will splash into California’s perpetually
roiled water world next week when he drops by the southern San
Joaquin Valley city that’s home to his biggest House booster
and proximate to some of the state’s biggest dilemmas. With his
expected visit to Bakersfield, Trump can affirm support for
increased irrigation water deliveries, troll Democratic Gov.
Gavin Newsom and reward House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
(R-Calif.) in his hometown.
State water officials offered an early look at the downsized
California WaterFix project earlier this month, and
conservationists and far-traveling indigenous tribes say they
still believe it has the potential to permanently alter life in
and around the Delta.
A report recently published by the Lawrence Livermore National
Lab, Getting to Neutral, suggests that power plants across the
state could profitably convert wood from forests and orchards
into liquid or hydrogen fuels, all while capturing their
carbon.
California’s alarmingly dry winter continues, with no
meaningful snow or rain in sight. Although it’s far too soon to
predict a drought, experts said wildfire risks could worsen
this summer as a result of the shortage of precipitation.
Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled
to vote on a resolution granting Committee Chair Raul Grijalva
(D–Ariz.) wide-ranging subpoena power over the Interior
Department. One inquiry in the hopper: a closer look at the
process that yielded the Trump Administration’s
freshly-released biological opinions governing the
federally-operated Central Valley Project.
In the coming weeks and months, the Newsom administration,
water users and conservation groups will continue to refine a
framework for potential voluntary agreements intended to
benefit salmon and other fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta.
The EIR scoping meetings for the single-tunnel delta conveyance
facility (DCF) began this week. My comments focus on two
critical areas where DWR appears to be repeating their mistakes
of their past despite the Newsom administration’s stated
intention of taking a fresh approach
A Bay Area environmental group has sued the cities of Sunnyvale
and Mountain View, saying they are in violation of the federal
Clean Water Act for discharging raw sewage and polluted storm
water into creeks, sending bacteria pollution to levels more
than 50 times legal limits.
To adequately prepare for the impacts of sea level rise,
regional collaboration must be enhanced and a considerable
investment by the state is needed and soon, according to the
experts and officials who spoke at a hearing on sea level rise
Friday in Foster City.
First things first: you’d be wise to forget everything you’ve
read or heard recently about “voluntary agreements,” which
according to the usual suspects, will bring a just and peaceful
end the seemingly never-ending battle over California water.
Not true. Not even close.
The EPA announced Monday it has reached a settlement with
Airtech International… For about four years, the EPA said,
Airtech violated the federal Clean Water Act by allowing
industrial stormwater runoff to flow into the Bolsa Chica
channel without a stormwater discharge permit from the
California State Water Resources Control Board.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be allocating roughly
$9.7 million this year to pay for the project, U.S. Rep. Jared
Huffman, D-San Rafael, announced Monday. An additional $1.3
million was set aside for preliminary work to eventually dredge
the San Rafael Canal. The Army Corps is supposed to maintain
the 18-mile river every four years but has fallen way behind on
that commitment.
Wildfires can have many detrimental impacts on water supplies.
The effects can last for multiple decades and include drinking
water pollution, reservoir sedimentation, flash floods and
reduced recreational benefits from rivers. These impacts
represent a growing hazard as populations expand, and
communities encroach onto forest landscapes.
The local steelhead run is at the height of its roughly
four-month window, when adult fish raised from eggs at the Don
Clausen Hatchery return from the ocean, swimming up the Russian
River and Dry Creek. Returning salmon — including wild and
hatchery raised chinook and coho — make similar journeys
through the watershed, but their spawning seasons are a bit
different.
The group called Water Audit California has used lawsuits to
pry water releases from local reservoirs for fish and has
threatened a groundwater-related lawsuit against Napa County.
The group last week co-sponsored a forum to suggest another
way.
More than dust-filled air could be plaguing residents around
the quickly evaporating Salton Sea in Imperial Valley.
University of California, Riverside research shows toxic
aerosols could also be filling the air. The problem has to do
with agricultural fertilizer in the Salton Sea wetland area.
The State Lands Commission and State Controller pleaded with
the Environmental Protection Agency in a letter Friday asking
for immediate action to stop the flow of 50 million gallons per
day of polluted water into the Tijuana River Valley. That
polluted water flow has created significant and ongoing beach
closures in Imperial Beach and Coronado.
In the waning moments of 2019, San Francisco’s Water Department
persuaded Congress to deny long-promised access to unreachable
areas of Yosemite National Park. This power play would ban
environmentally benign boating on Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The
move reverses the guarantees of improved access and recreation
which San Francisco made in 1913, when it pleaded with Congress
to pass the Raker Act and allow it to build the reservoir in
Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.
With the backing of an unusual mix of local Democrats,
Republicans, Border Patrol agents and environmental groups,
House Democrats leveraged their support for the trade bill —
one of Trump’s highest priorities — to secure the
administration’s rare backing for an environmental project.
Each group played a part.
“In many ways, summer steelhead are the most extreme athletes
of the steelhead, allowing them to get up to habitats higher in
the watersheds like the Middle Fork Eel River in the Yolla
Bolly Wilderness, their southernmost stronghold where they have
unimpeded access,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
biologist Damon Goodman. “Having clear routes of passage to be
able to make it up and express their life history is critical
to their survival.”
A warming climate has been linked to human activity around the
world, and has affected the Colorado River System as well. The
impacts are substantial, from reduced water flows, threats to
indigenous species and the influx of new invasive species along
the river system.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission recently
purchased nearly 800 acres of verdant, rolling hills and
expansive bay area views east of Milpitas, a property known as
Wool Ranch, adding cohesion to its collection of protected
lands that surround the watershed feeding the Calaveras
Reservoir.
Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico and the United States are supposed
to allow cross-border flows of water to each other, but Mexico
has fallen badly behind and now has to quickly catch up on
payments. … Mexico’s federal government dispatched National
Guard officers to protect the La Boquilla dam Tuesday, but
hundreds of farmers pushed and shoved them back hundreds of
yards in a failed bid to take over the dam’s control room.
Luisa Valiela is an Environmental Protection Specialist in the
watershed division of US EPA Region 9. Xavier Fernandez is the
Chief of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Board’s Planning
and TMDL division. At the 2019 State of the Estuary conference,
Ms. Valiela and Mr. Fernandez gave a joint presentation
covering the goals and objectives of the Wetlands Regional
Monitoring Program, the development process, and the Program
Plan that will be released in early 2020.
Owens Valley Indian Water Commission is pleased to announce the
Commission awarded the Big Pine Tribe a $100,000 Agriculture
Assistance Grant torepair segments of the Tribe’s irrigation
system to ensure tribal members have access to water for
agricultural and general purposes.
While the Ventura River may be beautiful, a legal case over its
water is turning ugly. Thousands of people like Jessica
Colborn, born and raised in Upper Ojai, are being served legal
papers. This is because of their wells that use water from the
river.
When the now-historic finger piers along San Francisco’s
Embarcadero were built, you can bet the builders never expected
that a century later, there would be engineering studies on how
to prepare the gaunt sheds for seas that could rise nearly 7
feet.
In fall of 2018, Desert Research Institute scientists Monica
Arienzo, Zoe Harrold, and Meghan Collins were formulating a
project to search for microplastic pollution in the surface
waters of Lake Tahoe and in stormwater runoff into the lake.
But the team was not satisfied in seeking to identify the
presence of microplastic alone—they also wanted to make
connections with community members at Tahoe.
The Ventura City Council announced Monday that it may request a
six-month extension from the court for the thousands who were
sent legal notices or served with a court summons in the case.
… The litigation dates back to 2014 when Santa Barbara
Channelkeeper filed a lawsuit alleging the city of Ventura
was taking too much water from the Ventura River,
hurting habitat for steelhead trout and other wildlife.
The governor’s newest proposal signals Newsom may be softening
his fight against Trump, but opening another battle. Newsom may
have traded a court fight with Trump for a legal battle with
the very environmentalists the Democratic administration has
seen as allies.
Researchers at Virginia Institute of Marine Science issued
their annual report card which looked at tide-gauge records for
32 coastal locations, stretching from Maine to Alaska. … The
Bay Area was home to two of those stations: one in Alameda and
one in San Francisco, which both recorded a year-over-year
rise.
“A lot of cities not at risk of sea of level rise will
experience the effect of it,” says Bistra Dilkina, a computer
scientist at the University of Southern California, who led the
study. “This will require an adjustment in terms of the
[increased] demand on the cities’ infrastructure.”
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers finalized a long-awaited new rule redefining the term
“Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act
(CWA). The Agencies state that their so-called Navigable Waters
Protection Rule will improve and streamline the regulatory
definition of WOTUS.
The Air Force research crew on the WC-130J Super Hercules
airplane was cruising at 28,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean,
preparing to deploy 25 weather-sensing devices over a long band
of water vapor known as an “atmospheric river” when the hazards
of air travel got in the way of science.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors
visited the Imperial Valley January 30 for a day-long tour that
highlighted areas critical to the agency’s Regional Conveyance
System Study.
The Bureau of Land Management may stop studying how its
long-term blueprints for millions of acres of public lands
would affect the environment, according to a document shared
with Bloomberg Environment. … The BLM may propose a land use
planning rule that will “remove NEPA requirements from the
planning regulations,” referring to the National Environmental
Policy Act,
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation last year lost a major partner
willing to help pay for raising the height of Shasta Dam, but
that hasn’t stopped the agency from going forward with the
project. The federal agency continues to look for new partners
after the Fresno-based Westlands Water District backed out, and
the bureau continues to do “pre-construction” and design work
on the dam.
