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.
Elizabeth Castillo looks on as her daughter Reynata plays with
children at a playground near the Los Angeles River in Long
Beach, California, in mid-October, hoping one day the river
will be clean enough to kayak on. … In the last half-century,
the LA River served primarily as flood control infrastructure,
but open space and wildlife advocates fomented a movement to
make it wild and accessible to all.
The Colorado River serves over 35 million Americans before
reaching Mexico – but it is dammed at the border, leaving
locals on the other side with a dry delta.
The Delta smelt is such a small and translucent fish that it
often disappears from view when it swims in the turbid waters
of its home in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. However, it’s
also been disappearing from the Delta entirely.
Imperial County is seeking to declare a public health
emergency at the Salton Sea … aiming to force Gov. Gavin
Newsom and federal officials to free up emergency funds
and take immediate action to tamp down dangerous dust.
The initiative to establish an ecosystem marketplace began in
2017 with the Noble Research Institute, which started working
on developing protocols to verify carbon sequestration and
improved water quality…
A smaller run is expected to return this year because of the
lower number of spawning adults recorded a few years ago…
Coho salmon spend about a year and a half in freshwater and a
year and a half in the ocean before returning to freshwater to
spawn and die. What’s encouraging researchers more is how well
the newly hatched coho from last season are surviving.
Two top officials at the California Coastal Commission blasted
Del Mar this week for continuing to reject “managed retreat” as
an option to deal with sea level rise, saying they hope the
city will reconsider its stance.
Change is hard. It’s human nature to resist it. So it’s not
surprising that some Central Valley farmers and water managers
are raising alarm bells about the most sweeping change to state
water law in a century, saying in a recent Fresno Bee series
that the consequences will be “excruciating” and
“catastrophic.”
A capital improvement project that’s been on the table for 17
years was finally approved at the Georgetown Divide Public
Utility District’s Oct. 8 meeting. The project consists of
removing vegetation and debris from the canal and lining three
sections of the Main Canal with gunite. The canal takes water
from Stumpy Meadows Reservoir to the Auburn Lake Trails Water
Treatment Plant.
New research tracking 1.8 million trees found that tall trees
died at more than twice the rate of smaller ones toward the end
of extreme and persistent drought.
Warmer-than-average temperatures are forecast for much of the
U.S. this winter according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
… Drier-than-average conditions are most likely for
Louisiana, parts of Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas and
Oklahoma as well areas of northern and central California.
Audubon California’s Salton Sea Program Director Frank Ruiz
served as the guide for this trip. Ruiz says the Salton
Sea is receding at an alarming rate, about 6-inches a year,
exposing toxic lake bed which is evident from the air.
A set of water rules that has fueled rapid growth in Arizona’s
suburbs is riddled with weaknesses, according to a new report
by researchers at Arizona State University, who argue the
system needs to be overhauled to protect homeowners from rising
costs and to ensure sufficient water supplies for the future.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a right-of-way grant
(ROW) Wednesday that allows for the construction of various
facilities on 711 acres east of Klamath Falls, according to a
news release. … The ROW grant is part of the Swan Lake North
Hydro LLC proposal to develop a 393.3-megawatt hydropower
generating facility…
For more than 20 years, California pondered what to do about
steelhead in the Santa Ynez River. On Sept. 17, the State Water
Resources Control Board finally made a decision. It voted to
pass an order that will increase water releases from Lake
Cachuma.
The project includes improvements along more than 3 miles of
dirt roads, repairing culverts and building erosion control
features designed to reduce sediment flow into the creek. The
aim is to protect gravel nests, called redds, where female
salmon and steelhead lay their eggs, suffocating the eggs as
well as clogging the gills of adult fish…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Critical U.S.
infrastructure is dilapidated and unsafe. Regulation is week,
and enforcement is weaker. Everyone agrees on the need for
action, and climate change will only make the problem worse.
but no one seems to do anything about it. Sadly, this has
become a familiar story. Take dams for instance.
Deadly fires across California over the past several years have
shown how wildfire has become a serious public health and
safety issue. Health effects from fires close to or in
populated areas range from smoke exposure to drinking water
contaminated by chemicals like benzene to limited options for
the medically vulnerable. These kinds of threats are becoming
major, statewide concerns.
The state Department of Water Resources and Butte County
announced the settlement Tuesday, more than two years after
spillways at the Oroville Dam crumbled and fell away during
heavy rains. The repairs resulted in heavy truck traffic that
damaged Butte County roads. Butte County sued in August 2018.
When nitrogen-based fertiliser runs into water systems it can
result in toxic algae blooms, leading to oxygen depletion and
vast oceanic ‘dead zones’. Evidence suggests their use also
contributes to air pollution, increased rates of cancer and
reduced biodiversity, as well as emitting nitrous oxide – an
extremely potent greenhouse gas. … A team of scientists, led
by the University of California, Davis, has come up with a
five-step plan to tackle this two-sided problem.
Thousands of gallons of crude petroleum began spouting out of
the ground near a part of Chevron’s steam injection well
network in a Kern County oil field over the weekend … in the
same area where a larger uncontrolled release of 234,000
gallons of oil has taken place since August.
When the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew
Wheeler, accused California of allowing “piles of human feces”
on city streets to contaminate sewer systems … the
accusations, contained in a Sept. 26 oversight letter, had been
developed without the knowledge of the California-based staff,
which would normally issue such notices. Instead, it was put
together by a small group of political appointees in Washington
assigned specifically to target California, according to three
current E.P.A. officials.
The reasons are twofold. First, a big Sierra snowpack (the
fifth largest since 1950) meant a larger allocation via the
California State Water Project – a 75 percent allocation (which
is really bigger than it sounds – it’s a big allocation).
Second, Met’s become much more nimble in conserving water and
juggling the various supplies within its service territory.
Lake Mendocino made it through a typically long, hot summer
with an abundance of water and now, thanks to an ongoing
experiment with high-tech weather forecasting, the reservoir
can retain more water through the winter, benefiting people,
fish and farmers along the Russian River.
Invasive fish species have long been a challenge for scientists
in the Grand Canyon because they attract fishermen but can
devour threatened native species. Now, the National Park
Service is ready to try a new approach to keeping things in
balance: pay fishermen and women to harvest one of the worst
offenders, the brown trout.
In Arizona, the mountainous city of Flagstaff normally gets 8.3
inches of rain in monsoon season but had 2.08 inches — the
driest in more than 120 years of record keeping. The Grand
Canyon airport, Teec Nos Pos on the Navajo Nation and Show Low
also had record low rainfall.
Later this week, the State Water Resources Control Board will
vote on a long-anticipated plan to reduce some of the
pollutants flowing into Central Valley water. However, not
everyone agrees on the details.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of Senate Bill 1 means the honeymoon
may be over with environmental groups who saw the bill as a
bulwark to protect California’s water quality and endangered
species from the Trump administration’s regulatory slashing.
In an effort to reduce litter, wildfire risk, and ocean
pollution from cigarette butts, smoking will be banned on all
of California’s state beaches and in state parks under a new
law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Starting Jan. 1, it will be
illegal to smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, vaping devices “or
any other lighted or heated tobacco or plant product intended
for inhalation” on any state beach or in any state park in
California.
In case you’ve noticed some of the storm drains in the City of
Pasadena covered, the Department of Public Works wants you to
know it’s just following the rules. The covers are “catch
basins” and they are used for gathering trash samples
throughout the City to help in complying with mandated Total
Maximum Daily Load limits.
The number of wildfires burning across the western United
States over the past 6 decades has been steadily increasing,
and those fires are growing larger and more severe, especially
in mountain areas where more than 65% of clean water resources
for the West’s 75 million people originate. What happens when
fires intersect water resources is the subject of two new
papers in Hydrological Processes.
A tiny fiberglass island is bobbing up and down in the San
Francisco Bay right now. From far away, it looks like a beluga
whale poking through the water. Up close, it looks like a
misshapen raft. In reality, it’s a buoyant structure known as
the “Float Lab,” which is designed to foster a floating
ecosystem.
Agriculture is part of what makes our state’s economy strong
and helps provide for all our families, which is why it is
crucial that we do absolutely everything we can to protect our
state’s farms and allow them to operate without the fear of
major obstacles. California agriculture nearly faced such an
obstacle with Senate Bill 1, which would have placed harsh
regulations on water pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta.
Arizona’s top water official presented new long-term
projections Friday showing that Pinal County doesn’t have
enough groundwater to provide for the fast-growing area’s
cities, farms and many planned subdivisions over the coming
decades.
The court denied the petitioner’s challenge, which questioned
the validity of the county’s Environmental Impact Report,
according to the Statement of Decision. Crystal Geyser
purchased the former Coca Cola water bottling facility on Ski
Village Drive in 2013 with hopes of bottle sparkling spring
water and eventually producing Juice Squeeze drinks there.
A major fish restoration project is underway on private
property near Cottonwood. River Partners shared a video of new
side channels that are being built to help the recovery of
struggling wild salmon populations in the Sacramento River.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority announced the environmental reports, which
“analyze potential impacts of approving water transfers to
increase water reliability for those suffering shortages during
dry times.”
Alicyn Gitlin, conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club’s
Grand Canyon Chapter, said the project would threaten an
endangered species, interfere with the Grand Canyon’s already
degraded hydrology and damage sites held sacred by two Arizona
tribes.
A lawsuit has been filed in federal court on behalf of local
environment groups to ask for water releases from Twitchell Dam
to protect endangered steelhead in the Santa Maria River.
Nearly 600 former Environmental Protection Agency officials are
calling on Congress to investigate the Trump administration’s
“inappropriate threat of use of EPA authority” against the
state of California over recent environmental policies.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The removal of the Upper York Creek Dam will not begin in 2019
as previously planned, but the project is still on schedule to
be complete by the end of 2020. … The city now plans to do
both phases in 2020, after last-minute design changes failed to
win regulatory approval in time for the 2019 construction
season ending Oct. 31.
Fish in San Geronimo Creek are again the source of litigation.
… For the average Marinite to know what’s at stake, fish
proponents and the county need to answer three obvious but, so
far, unanswered questions.
California’s largest inland lake, the Salton Sea, lies in the
Imperial and Coachella valleys. The lake, which is more than 50
percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean, is becoming more salt
than water because it’s essentially evaporating. The lake and
the area that surrounds it — once hotspots for tourism and
wildlife — have essentially become ghost towns.
A big part of the reason for Fresno County falling short of the
No. 1 ranking those years was due to California’s five-year
drought that began in late 2011— the worst in the state’s
recorded history — causing major water shortages in the western
end of Fresno County that forced farmers there to limit their
farming or let fields go fallow.
A staggering number of Chinook salmon are returning to a
California river that hasn’t sustained salmon for decades due
to agricultural and urban demands, giving biologists hope that
threatened fish are finally spawning in their native
grounds without human help.
Pumped Hydro Storage LLC is seeking approval from the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission to study the sites east of Grand
Canyon National Park over three years. None of it will move
forward without permission from the Navajo Nation. Navajo
President Jonathan Nez said he’s been briefed by tribal
economic development officials about the proposals — but hasn’t
talked with anyone from Pumped Hydro Storage.
California’s Central Valley is one of the most productive
agricultural regions in the United States… But a seven-year
drought has threatened the viability of the valley’s farmland,
and many rural communities have suffered greatly as a result.
Joris Debeij’s short documentary When a Town Runs Dry offers a
window into the front lines of the water crisis.
Building on the Governor’s call to “position California to meet
broad water needs through the 21st Century” there are unique
opportunities in the Sacramento River Basin to more effectively
integrate 21st Century infrastructure into our multi-benefit
water management approaches to help achieve resiliency.
The Senate approved almost $20 million in funding to address
sewage flows along the border. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who
secured language in three different appropriations bills for
the 2020 fiscal year, called the spills that send millions of
gallons of raw sewage from Tijuana to San Diego,
“unacceptable.”
Over the past decade, state and federal agencies have continued
to publish peer reviewed scientific research that largely
strengthens our understanding of how the volume, timing,
temperature, and quality of water – and the operations of
existing dams and water diversion facilities, including the
state and federal water projects – adversely affect salmon and
other fish and wildlife.
The National Marine Fisheries Service owes an explanation for
why it decided that two dams on the Yuba River do not adversely
affect threatened Chinook salmon, steelhead and green sturgeon,
three Ninth Circuit judges ruled Thursday.
Areas under Clean Water Act, or CWA, jurisdiction are not
prohibited from being filled for development, but if developed,
the act does require federal oversight, permitting and full
mitigation for any loss of wetlands and wildlife habitat.
Removing CWA protections would likely make the 1,400-acre salt
pond site more profitable to develop, and thus more difficult
to purchase for tidal marsh restoration.
Hotter-burning wildfires are transforming California’s forests,
and not for the better. A new study from UC Davis finds
high-intensity fires leave fewer trees and a less diverse
population of plants behind. … Those intense fires transform
forest into shrubland. And according to Richter, the more
frequent and the larger the area burned at these high-severity
sites, the larger the shrub fields left behind.
The loss of oyster reefs in the bay has affected its entire
ecosystem. Oysters are natural filter feeders, filtering out
small sediments and contaminants in the water. The unclean
water has made it difficult for underwater grass to grow,
reducing habitats for fish. The California Shellfish Initiative
… works to advance local restoration plans for the bay,
partnering with the California Coastal Conservancy to rebuild
its native oyster reefs and wetlands.
The ambitious tree-planting project falls under the purview of
Rachel Malarich, the city’s forest officer—a job that was just
created in August to “oversee the growth of Los Angeles’ urban
forest” as part of Garcetti’s Green New Deal. … The project
will grow what’s already the largest urban forest in the
country, making what happens in Los Angeles an important model
for other cities looking to go green.
Pulling weeds is not usually a great way to start a party. But
filling a dumpster with invasive species was just the right
activity to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Tijuana River
Action Month on Saturday.
On a biological scale, 20 years is like the blink of an eye —
if not faster. But for San Francisco marine biology
researchers, 20 years is priceless in what it can tell about
the changing nature of the bay’s wildlife, especially in the
face of a changing climate.
The city north of San Diego has taken the position that one of
the Coastal Commission’s basic strategies, called “managed
retreat” or sometimes “planned retreat,” will not work in Del
Mar. … Del Mar is among the first cities or counties in the
state to formalize its plans for adapting to sea level rise. As
a result, Del Mar’s decisions and its negotiations with the
Coastal Commission will set a precedent.
Anthony Burdock, Project Manager for the Isabella Dam Safety
Modification Project, presented a program outlining
catastrophic dam failures and how those failures were used to
mold the dam safety regulations that now govern the nation’s
dams, including Isabella Dam.
Nevada County health officials continue to investigate a
“plume” of contamination on the South Yuba River that tested
positive for E. coli bacteria last month, now saying that a
property previously identified as a possible source of the
pollution does not appear to be connected to the incident. …
A “complex” investigation is continuing…
California’s senators have asked the Environmental Protection
Agency’s watchdog to investigate whether the agency abused its
enforcement powers when it accused San Francisco of improperly
dumping waste into the ocean.
President Trump’s political feud with California has spread
collateral damage across more than a dozen other states, which
have seen their regulatory authority curtailed and their
autonomy threatened by a Trump administration intent on
weakening the environmental statutes of the country’s most
populous state.
How does one achieve temperature and flow targets for listed
species with such different requirements, while also meeting
the needs of human water users? A recent study sought to
achieve an equitable solution by using a multi-objective
approach to identify trade-offs and model an optimal dam
release scenario to meet the needs of salmon, sturgeon, and
humans…
Environmental groups that have long pushed to bring down a huge
dam along the Colorado River are suing the federal government,
alleging it ignored climate science when approving a 20-year
operating plan for the dam near the Arizona-Utah border.
Just how far will Gov. Gavin Newsom go in his high-profile
fight with the Trump administration over environmental
protections? The next few months will provide an answer, as
Newsom is forced to take a stand on Trump rollbacks in a
long-contested battleground — the Northern California Delta
that helps supply more than half the state’s population with
drinking water and fills irrigation canals on millions of acres
of farmland.
Chronicle reporter Ryan Kost spent four days along the bay. He
didn’t have a plan, but he had a map showing future flood zones
— and a desire to know what would be lost under all the blue.
Scrapped waste tires dumped by the hundreds at two sites along
the Russian River near Hopland have incensed local watershed
stewards eager to see someone held accountable.
We now have an opportunity to build on the successful Arizona
process that led to the DCP signing. Arizona is stronger
together. And that will serve us well as we work toward the
next step – maintaining a stable, healthy Colorado River system
as we face a hotter and drier future.
California’s most recent drought lasted many long, parched
years… There was plenty of suffering to go around, but some
vineyards fared less terribly than others—historic parcels east
of San Francisco, in Contra Costa County, for example. Planted
at the turn of the last century by Italian, Portuguese, and
Spanish immigrants, they rely on a technique called dry farming
rather than irrigation.
PG&E has installed more than 600 weather stations at
locations all across the Sierra foothills in Northern
California and plans to more than double that in the next three
years. … The weather stations provide multiple sets of eyes
on an area that has very dry vegetation with a real danger of
wildfires. They also give PG&E a better handle on when it
may be necessary to de-energize the power lines.
Although the Water Board made clear that they are not, at this
time, issuing notices of violation, the letters serve as a shot
across the bow to an industry that is beginning to appreciate
the importance of compliance with environmental regulations and
portends more significant enforcement efforts in the near
future.
Lake Powell’s long decline may be on hiatus after this year’s
snowy winter, but activists still are raising concerns that
climate change could render Glen Canyon Dam inoperable. This
time, they are taking their concerns to court, asking a federal
judge to invalidate the federal Bureau of Reclamation’s 20-year
operating plan for the towering dam..
A new study released Wednesday says that diminishing
groundwater is causing the level of streams and rivers to fall
as well. Like the shrinking aquifers, surface water is critical
to farms, towns and cities for everything from food to trade to
energy production. … In watersheds such as California’s
Central Valley, the Midwestern U.S.’s high plains, the Upper
Ganges and the Indus in South Asia, groundwater is already
being depleted.
California on Wednesday fined Chevron more than $2.7 million
for allowing an oil spill at the Cymric Oil Field in Kern
County that lasted 113 days and covered almost an acre of a dry
streambed.
California has more water stored in its reservoirs than it did
a year ago after a marathon wet winter that pounded the state
with rain and blanketed its mountain ranges with snow.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of
violation to San Francisco on Wednesday, accusing the city of
improperly discharging waste into the ocean and bay and
following through on President Trump’s recent pledge to cite
San Francisco for water pollution.
The Oregon Court of Appeals won’t resolve a dispute over the
impact of Klamath basin wells on surface waters due to newly
imposed regulations in the area. The appellate court has
dismissed the case because it’s moot and unworthy of review
after the Oregon water regulators adopted different rules
governing surface water interference from wells in the Upper
Klamath basin earlier this year.
To help protect endangered fish and other critters that rely on
the Ventura River for habitat, migration and procreation, the
city of Ventura has agreed to better monitor and reduce its
water draw in dry times. The city will also take steps to
remove barriers for steelhead trout to make the journey to and
from the sea…
The Trump administration has retreated on a plan to push more
water through the Delta this fall after protests from
California officials on the harmful impacts on endangered
Chinook salmon and other fish.
Back in May, the board of the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management
Agency unanimously agreed to pay the United Water Conservation
District for about 15,000 acre-feet of water. Officials said
the relatively low-cost release would help recharge aquifers
still struggling after years of drought. That much was clear.
Other details were more murky.
To optimize mitigation for impacts to wetlands, other
wildlands, and at-risk species, the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife is developing a program called the Regional
Conservation Investment Strategy (RCIS). … Each RCIS
identifies top conservation needs, such as habitat for
sensitive species…
The United States-Mexico border region is enduring the latest
in a series of massive cross-border sewage tainted spills.
Federal officials in charge of monitoring the trans-border
sewage situation on the U.S. side of the border said nearly 8
million gallons of tainted water flowed across the border in
the Tijuana River channel.
The Westlands Water District on Sept. 30 formally stopped its
environmental review of a $1.4 billion U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation plan to raise the 602-foot dam by another 18.5
feet. It is unclear what Westlands’ decision will mean for the
future of the project…
Although the $750 million represents a personal gift to Caltech
rather than a corporate gift from the Resnicks’ principal
corporate entity, The Wonderful Company, they’re engaged
through that company in some arguably unsustainable
environmental practices.
A coalition of river and coastal defenders have won a major
victory against the State Water Resources Control Board,
securing an order that requires the board to meet the statutory
deadlines for its list of impaired waterways in California. The
lawsuit focused on the board’s violations of the Clean Water
Act and the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act…
Recently, authority over many streams, pools, and lakes in the
United States reverted from the federal government to the
states. The Trump administration repealed the 2015 “Waters of
the United States” rule, under which the federal government
claimed authority to regulate virtually any body of water it
wished.
While I’m deeply disappointed that Governor Newsom vetoed SB 1,
the governor’s veto is also a troubling sign for several big
tests on California water coming this fall…
When you look at a farm, do you think about nutrient rich soils
or cover crops growing between rows? When you look at a marsh,
do you see the submerged layers of sediment created by years of
plant litter piling up? Probably not. But those parts of
well-managed agricultural lands and wetlands store a lot of
carbon, and that’s increasingly important as climate change is
forcing society to consider ways to lower carbon emissions…
A Native American tribe has granted personhood to a river in
northern California making it the first known River in North
America to have the same legal rights as a human, at least
under tribal law. The Yurok Tribe based near the southern
border of Oregon confirmed the new status on the Klamath River.
Senate Bill No. 690 seeks to reduce exposure to dangerous
pathogens, limit beach closures and address water quality
issues in the Tijuana River Valley. The bill will also allow a
$15 million budget allocation for cleanup efforts as well as
prioritizing projects that will address water quality, flood
control, trash and sediment.
Santa Maria and several other Central Coast Water Authority
members are planning to claim an additional 12,214 acre-feet of
state water that was set aside decades ago. The move — which
would be funded by issuing a $42 million bond — would increase
Santa Maria’s annual right to state water from 17,820 to over
27,000 acre-feet each year.
Following losses in court, a Fresno-based irrigation district
has backed off its plans to do an environmental study on
raising the height of Shasta Dam. The Westlands Water District
announced Monday that it has stopped working on the report
because it could not meet the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s
schedule for the project.
A new white paper released today by the Southern California
Water Coalition aims to further the discussion through its
provision of nine case studies of successful stormwater capture
projects from California to New York.
A new “green infrastructure” project under construction along
the western side of the block is designed to slow down that
process by detoxing the water through soil and plants and
pumping a purified product back out to the creek. The project,
a whopping seven years in the making, is part of a $4 million,
four-city effort…
Bakersfield residents deserve a round of applause, at least in
terms of the city’s water usage. So far in 2019, city residents
have saved 3,348 acre feet of water compared to 2013
quantities. Cumulatively, the city has cut water usage by
nearly 12 percent since 2013, an average year before drought
struck the state.
The Trump administration tried to pin California’s water woes
on the homeless, but water quality experts say there is little
connection between homeless camps and water pollution.
If there is a hell for salmon, it probably looks like this.
There were many more golf balls in the water than salmon this
summer, whacked there by enthusiasts at Aqua Golf, a driving
range on the bank of the Sacramento River. Below the surface,
the gravel salmon need to make their nests had been mined
decades ago to build Shasta Dam, 602 feet tall and with no fish
passage. The dam cut off access to all of the cold mountain
waters where these fish used to spawn.
The final of six yearly Comprehensive Monitoring Reports
performed by The Bay Foundation based on detailed scientific
monitoring data prove the Project wholly succeeded in meeting
its goals, performance standards and success criteria, and
requires no supplemental work.
Now that the San Francisco Giants’ underwhelming season is
over, the team has big off-season plans — at least in terms of
real estate. Construction should begin this winter on the first
phase of the remake of the team’s parking lot south of McCovey
Cove along Third Street, including a 5-acre waterfront park
with tide pools open to waders and a bayside lawn capable of
holding 5,000 people.
Bright pink “whiskers” have popped up in Riverside Park
recently, likely left by people performing a topography survey
in the beginning stages of a grant-funded project to restore
habitat in the largely undeveloped park that used to be home to
the city’s sewage treatment plant.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill on Friday that would have
allowed California to preserve Obama-era endangered species
protections and water-pumping restrictions for the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta should they be dismantled by the
Trump administration, a move scorned by environmental groups
that have been among the governor’s most important political
allies.
The project, called the Upper Salinas River Basin Conjunctive
Use Project, captures existing wastewater flows generated
within the eastside of the District and will return these flows
back to the Meadowbrook Wastewater Treatment Plant. The
wastewater undergoes treatment and is then discharged into the
river alluvium that contains the Salinas River underflow
providing subsequent conveyance to district wells…
The California Natural Resources Agency is hosting an inaugural
public forum designed to address issues related to the Oroville
Dam, according to a press release from the CNRA.
A Phoenix company wants to build two hydroelectric dams less
than five miles from the eastern border of Grand Canyon
National Park, submerging several miles of the Little Colorado
River and the endangered fish habitat it protects.
The river is carrying year-round flows down a stretch on the
Tohono O’odham Nation’s San Xavier District that until recently
was dry for more than 70 years except after big rains. And
here, unlike through downtown Tucson, the water is once again
coming up from the aquifer naturally — not being added
artificially through effluent.
For years, the Interior Department resisted proposals to raise
the height of its towering Shasta Dam in Northern California.
The department’s own scientists and researchers concluded that
doing so would endanger rare plants and animals in the area…
But the project is going forward now, in a big win for a
powerful consortium of California farmers that stands to profit
substantially…
Jaime Jahncke, a marine biologist with Point Blue Conservation
Science, which is headquartered in Petaluma, said the concern
is that another long-lasting warm water episode could do
serious harm to an already fragile ecosystem. “We’re going into
a blob and we don’t know what’s happening next,” said
Jahncke…
The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and
the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, or SPAWN, concerns
the protection of endangered coho salmon and threatened
steelhead trout in streams in Marin’s San Geronimo Valley.
Los Angeles’s twin challenges of building more housing while
restoring its namesake waterway are clashing along a shady
11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River between downtown and
the hills of Griffith Park.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has issued a new
plan to reduce water temperatures for endangered fish in the
Upper Klamath and Lost River watersheds, though it could come
at a price for farmers and ranchers.
Utah’s proposed Lake Powell pipeline will cost less to build
and be easier to permit under a decision announced Wednesday to
cut major hydropower components from the controversial project
that would move 86,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water to St.
George.
There are nut festivals. There are fruit and vegetable
festivals. Hot sauce and spicy food are cheered in other
places. There are wine and beer events. All are fun and bring
entertainment to our lives. But for all of that, there is
something extraordinary about Saturday’s Salmon Festival in
Oroville.
Excessive grazing harmed the Paiute’s habitat, and the
introduction of invasive species such as rainbow trout drove
the fish out of the river. “It has been gone from this
landscape for a really long time,” said Chuck Bonham, director
of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. And it might
have never returned without the unlikely intervention of Basque
shepherd Joe Jaunsaras.
The Trump administration continued pounding California
officials over the environment Thursday, blaming San Francisco
and Los Angeles’ homelessness for polluting their cities’ water
and demanding Gov. Gavin Newsom address a wide range of
shortcomings with drinking water supplies.
The California Water Boards sent at least 270 letters to
farmers in the Emerald Triangle, warning them to come into
compliance with regulations or face possible fines and even the
loss of their cultivation licenses.
UC San Diego scientists sifting through nearly 200 years of
Santa Barbara Channel sediment discovered an “explosion” of
plastic pollution after World War II, according to a study
published in the journal Science Advances. Core samples dating
back to 1834 revealed that the amount of microscopic plastics
in the channel doubled about every 15 years since the 1940s.
The Center for Biological Diversity has taken what appears to
be a preliminary step toward suing Marin County over its
supplemental environmental impact report to the Marin
Countywide Plan, which focuses on potential cumulative impacts
to salmonids from development in the San Geronimo Valley.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
A plan to remove four dams on the Klamath River – one of the
most ambitious river restoration projects ever attempted – is
either mocked or praised depending on the audience. It will
expand salmon habitat or destroy a fishery. The only certainty
is that lives will change forever.
The Trump administration on Thursday, pressing the president’s
complaints about homelessness in California, will demand the
state improve the way it deals with human waste, arsenic and
lead in water as it raises the stakes in an escalating war
between the federal government and the country’s most populous
state.
At the August meeting of the California Water Commission, Karla
Nemeth, Director of the Department of Water Resources (DWR),
spoke to the commissioners about the Department’s strategic
plan and the work underway on the Delta conveyance project,
which she noted nests into the strategic plan as a key feature
of what needs to be done to modernize the State Water Project.
If the battle against climate change has a front line, the
shore of San Francisco Bay might be it. At the County Parks
Marina in Alviso, trucks rolled in like an armored column,
delivering tons of dirt that will eventually be used to build a
4-mile-long sea wall.
Aurelia Skipwith, who is already a top official at the interior
department, formerly worked at the agrochemical giant Monsanto.
New revelations show she also has ties to the Westlands Water
District, a political powerhouse with a history of chafing
against Endangered Species Act regulations that can interfere
with farmers’ demands for water in California.
This is supposed to be a beautiful beach, but instead it looks
like a disaster area because a sea wall built about a decade
ago to protect homes has failed. Now property owners are
spending millions to fix it.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife, in a letter to the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the federal plan would harm
the nearly-extinct Delta smelt and other species. The state
said the plan would also hurt the mostly urban water agencies
that belong to the State Water Project, which might have to
surrender some of its supplies to compensate for the federal
plan.
Officials said in a news release that a property in the 13000
block of Kilham Mine Road in Nevada City was likely the source
of the plume that moved downstream into Englebright Lake. …
Investigators discovered multiple code violations on the
property and county code enforcement is working with the
property owner to rectify the violations.
Elected leaders from around the San Diego region met with the
Trump administration on Tuesday to ask for help stopping the
sewage-tainted water that regularly flows in the Tijuana River
across the border with Mexico. Specifically, regional leaders
tried to persuade federal authorities to fund a more than
$400-million plan to capture and treat the pollution…
As populations in the West rise, managers of our precious water
supplies have to figure out how to deal with increasing demand
in the midst of climate change. In Southern Nevada, we rely on
the Colorado River. But the Truckee River is the lifeline in
Northern Nevada, and climate change is affecting them in a much
different way.
The five-year-old moratorium on new water hookups in the Goleta
Valley will likely continue through 2020, even though the
drought emergency is over, authorities say.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Bay Area
conservation groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency
Tuesday for failing to protect Redwood City’s salt ponds under
the Clean Water Act, a decision they say will harm the San
Francisco Bay ecosystem.
Authorities have not yet determined the source of contamination
of an E. coli outbreak detected on a stretch of the South Yuba
River in Nevada County, but the water has now returned to a
safe condition, environmental health officials said Tuesday
afternoon.
There was more buzz this week at two big Colorado River Basin
events about the idea of a “grand bargain” to deal with coming
collisions between water overallocation and the Law of the
River.
California Farm Bureau Federation Senior Counsel Chris
Scheuring said the strong 2019 water year should not distract
from “the public-policy issues that never go away in California
water.” Scheuring said he thinks water deliveries may remain
good for the next year or two, but farmers should be prepared
for another multiyear drought.
Sea otters are a keystone species in their native coastal
environments. They prey on small herbivorous sea creatures like
sea urchins, which can lead to more kelp and healthier seagrass
in an area. But after being hunted for their fur to near
extinction in the 19th and 20th centuries, otter populations
along the California coast are still struggling.
One of the most recent threats to California’s environment has
webbed feet, white whiskers, shaggy fur and orange buck teeth
that could be mistaken for carrots. … The swamp rodents,
called nutria, are setting off alarms in California.
It’s been nearly a decade since California ordered coastal
power plants to stop using seawater for cooling, a process that
kills fish and other marine life. But now state officials may
extend the life of several facilities that still suck billions
of gallons from the ocean each day.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was once one of the lushest
marshlands in the state. The peat-rich soil made it an ideal
place for some of the state’s first farms to pop up. Today,
scientists are hacking their way through thick brush to see if
restoring these marshes is a way to reduce carbon dioxide in
the air.
Climate change is bringing many changes to California’s water
system, but one of the most concerning is the loss of the
Sierra snowpack caused by warming temperatures.
NRDC just released two analyses that look at how state water
pollution control and public health officials deal with one of
the most significant causes of nitrogen and phosphorus
pollution and one of the most important effects of nitrogen and
phosphorus pollution.
Lawns cool the air, reduce urban heat-island effect, remove
pollutants, and provide play spaces. … From a design
standpoint, they make uncluttered views, provide background and
contrast for flowers, and create our outdoor living spaces.
Historically, lawns provided all those benefits at high cost,
literally and environmentally.
A white egret delicately dips its beak into a small puddle. A
mother otter and pups dive and roll in a clear, still pool.
Tiny minnows dart in the shady shallows. And all of this takes
place a stone’s throw from backyards and byways. Our local
creeks and streams are literal rivers of life flowing through
Sonoma County communities.
An improved understanding of cannabis cultivators’ water use
practices is a particularly pressing need. Given the propensity
of cannabis growers to establish farms in small, upper
watersheds, where streams that support salmonids and other
sensitive species are vulnerable to dewatering, significant
concerns have been raised over the potential impacts of
diverting surface water for cannabis cultivation.
Trucking juvenile hatchery salmon downstream is often used in
the California Central Valley to reduce mortality during their
perilous swim to the ocean. But is it all good? Researchers …
published an article in Fisheries this month exploring the
history and implications of salmon trucking in a changing
climate.
Nevada County authorities are still working to determine the
source of contamination after discolored water in the South
Yuba River tested positive for “dangerous” levels of E. coli
over the weekend, prompting a no-swim advisory.
Because harmful algae blooms have increased significantly over
the past 40 years and are now found in every state in the
country, NRDC set out to find out how states are tracking this
growing menace and how (and whether) states are educating and
warning the public of the threats posed by toxic algae. … To
our dismay, 16 states reported no data at all.
Free water is available to Needles residents who happen to live
in one of the areas the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has
determined to have earned prior perfected water rights (PPR):
Well-drilling, pumping, piping and treating not included.
Neighbors within an area must agree on an equitable plan for
distribution of the water.
Nevada County has issued a no-swim advisory for a nearly
50-mile stretch of the South Yuba River, northeast of
Sacramento, because of dangerous levels of E. coli as well as
unknown sediments in the water.
Total and per-capita water use in Southern Nevada has declined
over the last decade, even as the region’s population has
increased by 14%. But water use among the biggest water users —
some of the valley’s wealthiest, most prominent residents — has
held steady.
An influx of Bay Area visitors to Sonoma County’s bucolic
riverlands has spiked in recent years, bringing with it a
problem typically reserved for the privacy of one’s own home.
People are pooping in public.
While farm and private property interests cheered,
environmental groups last week bemoaned the Trump
administration finalizing the repeal of the controversial
“Waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, rule. We see little to
cheer or jeer at this point, as the repeal is hardly the final
chapter in a dispute that has stretched on for nearly 10 years.
All of September, crews have been dumping rocks into the bed of
the river to create an ideal habitat for salmon to spawn. Dams
along the American River cut off access to the salmon’s natural
breeding ground.
A project to restore a portion of Brentwood’s Marsh Creek got a
big boost with a new $1.4 million U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency grant. … The Three Creeks Parkway Restoration project
aims to improve the creek’s floodplain, provide quality habitat
for Chinook salmon and Swainson’s Hawk as well as expand
recreational opportunities in the area.
When water is diverted from rivers, the remaining water moves
more slowly and warms more easily. Algae and bacteria thrive in
warm, stagnant water and are more likely to grow in excess,
increasing the chances of a HAB event.
A rookie California lawmaker plans to haul a 20-pound rodent
carcass into Congress on Tuesday to press his colleagues for
money to fight an invasive species wreaking havoc on his
district. Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, hopes a hearing on his
bill will convince his colleagues that funding to stop invasive
nutria in California’s Central Valley is sorely needed …
By any reckoning, the steelhead trout won a significant legal
victory this week, along with CalTrout and the Environmental
Defense Center, which have been arguing the case for two
decades. But it remains uncertain exactly how much more water
will have to be released downstream from Lake Cachuma to create
a habitat wet enough along the main stem of the Santa Ynez
River for the federally endangered fish to wage a meaningful
comeback.
The mayor of this beach town, which abuts Tijuana, Mexico at a
point that is visible by a border wall marking the two
countries, is fed up with sewage and toxic chemicals flowing
into the United States, and he is heading to Washington, D.C.,
to ask the Trump administration to do something about it.
A dozen kayakers paddled down the tree-lined, sandy-bottomed
Los Angeles River in late August, running their hands through
sycamore and willow leaves and gliding over carp and steelhead
trout as traffic noise from the nearby 405 Freeway buzzed
overhead.
It’s a big feat to get 65,000 people to do anything, let alone
spend three hours picking up soiled trash. Yet, state officials
are expecting around that number to turn out Saturday for the
35th annual Coastal Cleanup Day.
Our beaches, bays and waterways are central to who we are as
San Diegans and to our unique way of life. But in a heavily
urbanized region clean water doesn’t just happen; it takes hard
work and stewardship.
Before all those thousands of miles of levees went in, the
Central Valley had one of the West Coast’s largest salmon runs,
with a million or more of these mighty fish returning each
year. A big reason for the salmon’s suc-cess was that the
valley was among the most extensive floodplains in the world.
Imperial Beach regularly experiences flooding during high-tides
and storms — climate change and rising oceans are threatening
to make that flooding significantly worse.
Claims by President Donald Trump on Wednesday that discarded
drug needles in San Francisco are making their way through the
city’s sewage system and into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific
Ocean were widely blasted the following day by experts who say
he has no idea what he’s talking about.
Two bills to ban smoking at all state beaches — with a $25 fine
for violators — have reached Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk and await
his signature. Former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed similar bills
three times, saying people should be allowed to smoke outdoors
in parks. But this year there’s a new governor.
It appears that Woodland is now in the “advancement” stage with
the Army Corps of Engineers willing to work on a plan for
longterm flood protection along the city’s northeast side.
However, the effort could just as quickly be reversed,
according to members of the City Council, if they don’t get
farmers on board with their efforts.
I’m writing to express our tribe’s dismay at Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s announcement that he plans to veto Senate Bill 1. …
Vetoing this bill will green-light President Trump’s plan to
divert even more water from our struggling rivers for
industrial agriculture. Many well-respected fish biologists and
environmentalists have concluded Trump’s attempt to ignore the
best science and rewrite the rules will essentially be an
“extinction plan” for Chinook salmon and other threatened fish.
Every degree of warming is expected to worsen what, in many
ways, is already a crisis for the state’s multibillion-dollar
agricultural industry. And a crisis here is a problem
everywhere, given that California produces 50% of the nation’s
fruits and vegetables and 90% of its nut crops.
“There’s tremendous pollution being put into the ocean because
they’re going through what’s called the storm sewer that’s for
rainwater,” Trump said. “And we have tremendous things that we
don’t have to discuss pouring into the ocean. You know there
are needles, there are other things.”
Dr. Jim Cloern is a recently retired senior scientist emeritus
at the US Geological Survey who has spent his career learning
how estuaries respond to human activities and variability of
the climate system. In this brown bag seminar, Dr. Cloern gives
specific examples of how local, regional, and global scale
processes affect the San Francisco Bay and Delta.
A report that the homeless living along the San Gabriel
Riverbed may have contaminated the water supply has city and
water officials scrambling to spread the message that the water
in the east San Gabriel Valley is safe to drink, officials
said.
From New York City to coastal California, a poison-producing
living slime is overtaking waterways and shorelines, killing
pets, ravaging tourism markets and making its way into local
drinking water. So far this year, algae has been implicated in
dog deaths and illness in California, Georgia, North Carolina
and Texas.
Newsom has said he won’t approve Senate President Pro Tem Toni
Atkins’ bid for a legal backstop against environmental
rollbacks by the Trump administration. And Washington is poised
to reduce protections for endangered fish species in the
state’s largest watersheds. The result may be the heightened
regulatory uncertainty that opponents of the bill said they
hoped to avoid…
Tijuana’s sewage system appears to be incapable of handling the
sewage generated in the Mexican city, and Imperial Beach Mayor
Serge Dedina called the situation unacceptable. Dedina hoped to
get the attention of President Donald Trump, who is in San
Diego on Wednesday for a fundraiser.
The Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed (FOMCW) are proud to
announce that Marsh Creek & Delta Cleanup Day which will take
place on Saturday, September 21. The event will be held between
9:00 am to 12:00 pm.
Recent years have brought severe droughts that have forced
farmers to become more efficient with water use. With nearby
Silicon Valley teeming with the promise of efficiency and
data-fueled intelligence, a natural relationship between
technology and agriculture has developed.
The threats came in a dispute over reintroducing winter-run
Chinook salmon into the McCloud River, a pristine river above
Shasta Dam, as part of a federal plan approved under the Obama
administration to try to stave off extinction for the
critically endangered fish.
Big research is happening at the Kearney Agriculture and
Extension Center in Fresno County. Sorghum, a crop that looks
similar to corn, is under a microscope.
Whatever satisfaction might be gained by telling the president
to pound sand is nowhere near as important as protecting the
water supply of Modesto and thousands of farmers depending on
the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers.
From flooded neighborhoods and roads to disappearing beaches
and crumbling bluffs, Orange County faces a range of drastic
losses as a result of rising sea levels, according to a
presentation to the state Coastal Commission on Friday.
State officials have ordered increased water flows on the Santa
Ynez River in Santa Barbara County to protect steelhead trout,
which are endangered in Southern California. The State Water
Resources Control Board action follows two decades of legal
efforts to address long-term declines in native fish
populations in the Santa Ynez.
About 30 Paiute cutthroat trout will be plucked Wednesday from
Coyote Valley Creek in the eastern Sierra Nevada wilderness and
hauled in cans strapped to pack mules about 2 miles west into
Long Valley. State and federal researchers will be on hand as
the fish are dumped into a stretch of Silver King Creek at
about 8,000 feet elevation…
The steering committee is expected to develop guidelines and
select programs that would prioritize funding through Measure
W, which was approved by voters last year.
The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta has more non-native species
than native ones, and its estuary is considered the most
invaded in the world. We talked to Jim Cloern—an emeritus
scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct fellow
at the PPIC Water Policy Center—about this challenge.
Newsom saw SB 1 as a mortal threat to something he’s been
supporting since shortly before he took office: a tentative
truce in California’s longstanding water wars. The truce
revolves around the flow of water in and out of the Delta from
California’s most important river systems, the Sacramento and
San Joaquin.
Steelhead trout … trapping is taking place in an undisclosed
portion of Gaviota Creek in Goleta where the water is drying
up. There are more than a dozen barriers that restrict the
movement of the fish when they get trapped below them.
Some 45,000 to 50,000 spring-summer Chinook spawned here in the
1950s. These days, the average is about 1,500 fish, and
declining. And not just here: Native fish are in free-fall
throughout the Columbia River basin, a situation so dire that
many groups are urging the removal of four large dams to keep
the fish from being lost.
Residents say the system is outdated because it combines 7.4
million gallons of sewage and storm water to be stored
underground, and they want a more modern system that splits the
two.
The city of South Gate plans to transform a weedy and rutted
field overlooking an industrialized stretch of the Los Angeles
River into a sylvan retreat boasting a nursery for rare native
fish that thrived before the explosive growth of Southern
California after World War II.
Valley Water is looking for volunteers to aid with cleaning up
local waterways in Santa Clara County. … In addition to
contaminating water, and harming birds and wildlife, waste and
debris can block our creeks potentially causing flooding,
according to Valley Water.
