California hosts a substantial, complicated water rights system
that allocates water across the state. In addition to a dual
system — riparian and appropriate rights — today state courts
are recognizing expanded public trust values in determining
how the state’s water resources should be best used.
Water rights are governed mostly by state law. Water quality
issues, which may affect allocation, are regulated separately by
both federal and state laws. Water rights can be quite
contentious.
Colorado River water managers could be pulled back to the
negotiating table as soon as next year to keep its biggest
reservoirs from declining further. The 2019 Drought Contingency
Plan was meant to give the U.S. and Mexican states that depend
on the river a roadmap to manage water shortages. That plan
requires the river’s biggest reservoir, Lake Mead, to drop to
unprecedented levels before conservation among all the lower
basin states — Arizona, Nevada and California — becomes
mandatory. California isn’t required to conserve water in the
reservoir until it drops to an elevation of 1,045 feet above
sea level.
Drought may be the sneakiest of natural disasters. Although
human history teems with people engulfed by abrupt aridity —
the Akkadians of four millenniums ago, the Maya in the ninth
and 10th centuries A.D., the Great Plains farmers of the 1930s
— even today drought is a poorly appreciated phenomenon. …
The American West is once again facing drought, one of the
worst on record. Across a vast region encompassing nine states
and home to nearly 60 million people, the earth is being wrung
dry. -Written by Farhad Manjoo, NY Times opinion columnist.
The California priority water rights system is being put to the
test, as state regulators impose emergency regulations and send
notices of water unavailability to farmers who are trying to
negotiate their crops through another drought year. Reacting to
worsening dry conditions, the State Water Resources Control
Board adopted emergency regulations last week to curtail water
diversions in the Russian River watershed in Mendocino and
Sonoma counties.
For decades, an agonizing war over [water] has divided
indigenous people and the descendants of settlers of [the
Klamath basin], which like much of the American West, is now
plagued by drought. Family farmers often describe the conflict
as one that pits them against federal bureaucrats who protect
the suckerfish, imperiled as the lake grows more inhospitable.
That portrayal, say members of the tribes, dismisses a tougher
truth … about race, equity and generational trauma to a
people whose history includes slaughter, forced removal of
children, federal termination of their tribal status and loss
of land …
The Central Coast Water Authority (CCWA) and its eight member
cities and water districts has filed a significant and
unprecedented lawsuit in Santa Barbara Superior Court against
the County of Santa Barbara regarding management of the State
Water Project. CCWA manages, operates and finances the
portion of the State Water Project in Santa Barbara
County.
Three conservation groups aiming to keep more water in rivers
for recreation are working on a revision to a state law.
American Whitewater, Conservation Colorado and Western Resource
Advocates are proposing an amendment to legislation that would
allow natural river features such as waves and rapids to get a
water right. Under the state’s current statute, in order to get
what is known as a recreational in-channel diversion water
right, it must be tied to a man-made structure in the river,
such as a design feature that creates the waves in many kayak
parks.
Rich with promise and potential, the grapes that create the
Russian River Valley’s famed wines are ripening in the intense
midday heat. But soon they’ll face the fight of their lives,
deprived of water as the state diverts scarce supplies from
agriculture to the region’s thirsty cities and
subdivisions. … [Last] week, in a contentious step, the
State Water Resources Control Board unanimously approved an
emergency regulation to halt agricultural diversions for up to
2,400 of the region’s water rights holders. Citing state law,
the regulation prioritizes “health and safety,” saying
agricultural use is “an unreasonable use of water and is
prohibited.”
The Central Coast Water Authority, along with a number of its
customers — namely eight nearby California cities and water
districts — filed a lawsuit Friday claiming the Santa Barbara
County Flood Control and Water Conservation District
overstepped its authority by passing a new resolution that
imposes an undue burden on their water rights. The lawsuit,
filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, accuses the
district of meddling in its affairs by improperly imposing
restrictions on its right to transfer and exchange water with
other entities.
Lake Powell’s water level is the lowest it’s been in decades,
and the latest 24-month projections from the Arizona and Utah
reservoir show that it’s likely to drop even further — below a
critical threshold of 3,525 feet by next
year. A 20-year megadrought and a hotter climate
has contributed to shrinking water supplies in the
Colorado River. If Lake Powell’s levels continue to dwindle, it
could set off litigation between the seven states and the 40
million people that all rely on the Colorado River.
Central Valley cattle ranchers are gearing up for a fight
against what they see as groundwater rustling. Their fear is
that newly formed groundwater agencies in some areas could
devalue their land by not giving them a fair share of their own
groundwater. Ranchers believe those fears were realized on June
8 when the Madera County Board of Supervisors approved a
groundwater allocation that will partially exclude rangeland.
Ranchers who own rangeland that has never been irrigated won’t
receive a share of the county’s “transitional water” allotment.
Nichole S. Morgan has been appointed to the State Water
Resources Control Board, where she has been Assistant Deputy
Director of Financial Assistance since 2019 and served in
several positions from 2009 to 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office
announced.
Severe drought highlights the need for greater investment to
improve aging California water facilities, and increases calls
for allocation of federal and state resources to tackle the
problem. A national coalition that includes the California Farm
Bureau urged U.S. Senate leaders last week to take action to
address the shortcomings of aging water infrastructure, and to
include “a broad range of water uses” in any federal
infrastructure legislation.
The seriousness of California’s drought is being driven home to
thousands of farmers in the Central Valley. State regulators
warned 6,600 farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
watershed on Tuesday that they’re about to lose the right to
pull water from the estuary’s rivers at some point this summer.
The watershed covers a major swath of the Central Valley.
While water in the West becomes scarcer and droughts more
frequent and more severe — thanks in part to changing weather
patterns and rising temperatures triggered by carbon emissions
— Wall Street views water as an “asset class,” a commodity like
stocks, bonds, and real-estate that can generate enormous
returns for shareholders, even in severe droughts. Or maybe,
especially in water shortages. Institutional investors like One
Rock are snapping up water rights just like others are snapping
up rental properties to lease back to Americans at a profit…
California never has enough water to meet all demands and even
when supplies are relatively robust there’s a triangular
competition over their allocation. Farmers, municipal users and
environmental advocates vie for shares of water that has been
captured by California’s extensive network of dams and
reservoirs. … When California experiences one of its
periodic droughts and reservoirs shrink from scant rain and
snowfall, its perpetual conflict becomes even sharper. -Written by Dan Walters, a CalMatters columnist
Tricia Hill tears up when she talks about the emotional toll
the water shut-off in southern Oregon has had on her family.
Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal
government in May shut down the water supply from the Upper
Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border to protect native
fish species on the verge of extinction. As a result, Hill and
other farmers like her in the region have been cut off from
water they have used for decades.
With the harshest dry year in recent memory, the Sacramento
River Settlement Contractors (Settlement Contractors) are
working closely with federal and state agencies, as well as our
conservation partners, to continually improve our operations
and serve water for multiple benefits, including water for
cities and rural communities, farms, birds, fish, and
recreation.
Imperial Valley grower, landowner and former elected official
Michael Abatti has responded to the Imperial Irrigation
District’s official filing in his U.S. Supreme Court
petition. The official response was filed sometime Monday,
June 7. In March, Abatti filed for a “writ of certiorari” with
the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the California Court
of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District’s decision in Abatti v.
Imperial Irrigation District, to which the district was ordered
by the High Court to provide a formal response last month.
Those watching the level of Lake Tahoe know it is dropping
quickly, and it’s not just because of a lack of snowfall this
year and another year of drought. Understanding why the lake
drops, and who causes it to drop (yes, there is a person – the
watermaster), is key to knowing why the lake should be at its
natural rim of 6,223 feet above sea level by the beginning of
August. As of June 8 the lake is two feet above that rim.
The Klamath Basin is suffering the worst drought in the state.
Competing need for the water by local tribes seeking to sustain
endangered fish populations, farmers and ranchers, and
commercial and tribal fisheries has been a persistent issue,
and has led to conflicts in the past. The Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement, which took 10 years to plan, was a
turning point and a compromise for the parties needing access
to the water.
When the Palo Alto City Council publicly backed the Bay-Delta
Plan in 2018, it was swimming against the political tide. The
plan, formally known as the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta Estuary plan, sets limits on how much water
agencies can siphon from the three tributaries of the San
Joaquin River. While it aims to protect salmon, steelhead and
other river species, it has also attracted intense opposition
and litigation from water districts that claim that the new
restrictions will undermine the reliability of their water
supply.
Fears of a confrontation between law enforcement and rightwing
militia supporters over the control of water in the
drought-stricken American west have been sparked by protests at
Klamath Falls in Oregon. Protesters affiliated with rightwing
anti-government activist Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights Network
are threatening to break a deadlock over water management in
the area by unilaterally opening the headgates of a reservoir.
Tribes and environmental advocates fear flows along the Klamath
River could be reduced to a trickle if the State Water
Resources Control Board doesn’t take action on water use
upstream on the Scott and Shasta rivers. Andy Marx, board
president of Friends of the Shasta River, said the river
“virtually dried up” over Memorial Day weekend as a result of
excessive irrigation diversions.
California’s water wars are legendary, complex and
ongoing. To avoid getting too far in the weeds, media often
boil it down to a dispute over who should have priority to a
limited supply of water — people or fish. The real beauty
of aerial snow surveys is that it’s one thing that farmers and
environmentalists can agree on. -Written by Garth Stapley, The Modesto Bee’s Opinions Page
editor.
A water war is under way in Sacramento right now that could
have far-reaching impacts on families in the Central Valley.
… Hearings got under way Wednesday, as Semitropic Water
Storage District in Kern County makes its administrative appeal
to the State Water Resources Control Board for water rights to
the Kings River. It filed its first petition in 2017, asking
for access to 1.6 million acre feet of floodwater from the
Kings River.
This May, while collecting live fish for their annual aquatic
pathogen assessment on the Klamath River in Northern
California, Yurok Tribe biologists made a shocking discovery:
over 70 percent of the young, ocean-bound Chinook salmon
captured in their traps were dead. Almost all of the fish
tested upstream were infected with Ceratonova shasta, a
parasite that relies on both fish and annelid worms as hosts.
Barry McCovey, senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe,
expects most of the infected fish to die.
The Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors adopted a
resolution Tuesday, June 1, to better serve IID’s
Coachella Valley energy customers and better protect Imperial
Valley’s water rights, according to a press release. The
Board’s resolution seeks to provide a local alternative to AB
1021 by Assemblyman Chad Mayes (I-Yucca Valley) that would
create a number of adverse consequences for the region, if
passed into law, including giving Coachella Valley energy
ratepayers a say over IID’s water rights and policy in Imperial
Valley.
Earlier this year, the State Water Resources Control Board
released a report, Recommendations for an Effective Water
Rights Response to Climate Change, that considered how the
State Wate Board could include climate change when considering
new water right applications. Since the report’s release,
it has been the subject of much discussion and has sparked
concerns amongst existing water right holders. At the
Kern County Water Summit, hosted by the Water Association of
Kern County, a panel addressed the topic.
Rising tensions in the Klamath Basin could come to a boil soon,
as two Klamath Project farmers plan to breach the fenced
headgates of the federal irrigation project’s main canal and
try to release water, likely triggering a standoff with the
federal government. Farmers Grant Knoll and Dan Nielsen bought
property next to the headgates in April for $30,000 and have
set up camp on the site. They are staffing a large canvas tent
with volunteers from the local branch of People’s Rights, a
national organization formed in 2020 by militant activist Ammon
Bundy, and they’re trying to rally support.
Cynthia Beltran moved to Sunizona with her seven-year-old son
last autumn even though the area lacks functional drinking
water wells, because it was all she could afford. She cannot
afford the $15,000 cost of deepening her well, which dried
up last year, and had been paying for a local firm to deliver
water in a tanker. But at $100 a week it became too expensive,
so now she will be relying on a friend to help her fetch water
from her mother’s well. … Nearly 20 wells in Sunizona
alone were deepened between 2015 and 2019, after they dried
up.
Can California regions regulate groundwater without destroying
their businesses and communities? That’s the question being
posed as regions and localities implement the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the historic 2014 state law
that brought regulation to California’s diminishing groundwater
supplies. –Written by columnist Joe Matthews
The brewing battle over the century-old Klamath Project is an
early window into the water shortfalls that are likely to
spread across the West as a widespread drought, associated with
a warming climate, parches watersheds throughout the
region. In Nevada, water levels have dropped so
drastically in Lake Mead that officials are preparing for a
serious shortage that could prompt major reductions in Colorado
River water deliveries next year. In California, Gov. Gavin
Newsom has placed 41 counties under a state of emergency.
The Imperial Irrigation District has filed its initial response
to Imperial Valley grower, landowner and former elected
official Michael Abatti’s U.S. Supreme Court case.
… Abatti is seeking to overturn a previous appellate
court ruling that asserts Imperial Irrigation District is the
“sole owner” of water rights in the Valley, and farmers do “not
(have) an appurtenant water right” but rather are entitled
merely to “water service” that is subject to modification by
the district at its discretion.
Can California regulate groundwater without destroying its own
communities? That’s the question being posed as regions
implement the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA),
the historic 2014 state law regulating California’s diminishing
groundwater supplies. Groundwater is buried in aquifers,
underground spaces between rocks, soils, and sand. Layers of
aquifers are called groundwater basins. California has hundreds
of them. Eight-five percent of Californians depend on
groundwater …
-Written by Joe Mathews, who writes the Connecting
California column for Zócalo Public Square.
Two farmers with ties to anti-government activist Ammon Bundy
have purchased land by a shut-off irrigation canal in Oregon
that would normally deliver water to a massive federal
irrigation project along the California-Oregon border and have
set up a protest encampment there, Jefferson Public Radio
reports. The move comes after federal regulators shut off all
water deliveries from the project’s main “A Canal” due to
extreme drought and the need to balance the water demands of
farmers with threatened and endangered fish species …
In the summer of 2001, local farmers and other activists armed
with saws and blowtorches breached a chain-link fence and
opened the headgates of a federal canal that supplies farmland
in Oregon and far Northern California. Local farmer Grant Knoll
was among the activists there that year. The protesters forced
the gates open three times but were eventually blocked by U.S.
marshals. Now, with a drought just as severe as two decades ago
— and with farmers’ water again cut off — he’s prepared to
fight again.
Who has the right to water in the Kern River? It has been the
subject of fierce legal battles throughout Bakersfield’s
history, and on Friday, the Ventura County Superior Court tried
to answer a part of that question. In a court ruling, Judge
Kevin DeNoce found the city of Bakersfield must supply the
North Kern Water Storage District with 20,000 acre feet of
water it owed the district in 2020 and pay the district $2.8
million to reimburse groundwater pumping costs the district
incurred last year. It’s the latest court decision in a
long-running dispute, and it threatens to limit the city’s
ability to use water from the Kern River.
The [Colorado] state water board is encouraging all nine basin
roundtables to adopt a code of conduct requiring members to
communicate in a professional, respectful, truthful and
courteous way. But some Western Slope roundtables are pushing
back. Over roughly the last month, Colorado Water Conservation
Board Director Rebecca Mitchell has been visiting the remote
roundtable meetings on Zoom, answering questions about the code
of conduct and urging the roundtables to adopt it. The goal of
the document is to make sure everyone feels comfortable
speaking up in meetings.
With the driest year in memory, the water resources managers
and landowners in the Sacramento Valley are working hard to
serve multiple benefits throughout the region with limited
water supplies. This has required all hands-on deck and
creative management within the region as all surface water
supplies have been significantly reduced, with hundreds of
thousands of farmland acres idled throughout the region, urban
suppliers working with their citizens to implement various
conservation measures to reduce water use and there will
undoubtedly be challenges for domestic groundwater wells.
Crystal Geyser bought the nearly 145,000 square foot bottling
plant in 2013. Since then, it’s been the target of protests by
local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Opponents say if it ever started operating, it would draw down
too much water, and cause air and noise pollution. … They are
in the midst of suing the beverage company in an effort to get
a new environmental impact report.
The Shasta-Klamath Region organizes work around protecting
California source water and volcanic aquifers, working with
family farms to improve water management, and protecting legacy
fly-fishing waters like the McCloud River, Hat Creek, and Fall
River. In 2021, we are heavily invested in conservation
projects in the Shasta and Scott watersheds. These key Klamath
tributaries will be critical for recovering salmon populations
in the Mid-Klamath Basin after dam removal.
What was already forecasted to be a historically bleak water
year in the Klamath Project has quickly become a living
nightmare for farms and ranches fighting for survival in the
drought-stricken basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation shut
down the Project’s A Canal for the entire irrigation season May
12 in response to worsening conditions — allotting zero surface
water from Upper Klamath Lake for thirsty crops and livestock.
It is the first time in more than a century the A Canal will
deliver no water. Meanwhile, irrigators are left to wonder how
they will pay the bills as fields turn to dust.
San Francisco has sued a state agency over proposed Tuolumne
River flows that it claims would be “devastating” to Bay Area
water users. The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts
joined in the lawsuit as “real parties in interest,” due to
similar concerns about their customers not getting enough
water. The suit is one more twist in the decades-long battle
over how much water to provide for salmon and other fish
downstream from Don Pedro Reservoir.
Millions of people are betting on Arizona. They’re buying
homes, starting businesses, and families. The future of how we
use our water resources may dictate the future of their
success. … That question was addressed four decades earlier
with the Groundwater Management Act of 1980. The idea was the
law would ensure when water was taken out, just as much was put
back in, creating what they called a safe yield goal by
2025. Unfortunately, a new study released by ASU
researchers with the Kyl Center shows the law is not living up
to its promise as deep, thousands of years old aquifers
continue to be over-pumped.
A group of protesters gathered at Sugarman’s Corner in downtown
Klamath Falls on Saturday, preparing to welcome a 25-car
caravan of mostly Klamath Tribal members calling for solutions
to the Klamath Basin’s water crisis. A man walked by the
demonstrators, eyeing their signs with statements like “Peace
and Healing in the Klamath Basin,” “Water Justice is Social
Justice” and “Undam the Klamath.”
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and
pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and
soul.” Sierra Club founding member John Muir penned those words
more than a century ago as he launched a decades-long battle to
advocate for preservation of the American West. … More than a
century later, Muir’s legacy of environmental awareness lives
on through his great-grandson, Reno attorney Ross de Lipkau,
one of the state’s leading water rights experts.
The drought has some members of the Arizona Legislature
wondering if the state should look for a new source of water:
the Mississippi River. Conservationists wonder if lawmakers
should try a different approach. As Arizona braces for a
drought contingency plan to kick in, the Legislature has
floated the idea of damming the Mississippi and piping the
water here. The idea received overwhelming support among
lawmakers, though it is unclear if the project is viable. Sandy
Bahr, with the Sierra Club, told KJZZ’s The Show last month the
state needs to adjust its thinking about water, especially in
times of drought.
After seven years of controversy, Crystal Geyser Water Company
announced last week that it has given up on opening its Mount
Shasta facility. A representative for the company said Crystal
Geyser was “challenged every step of the way” since it
purchased the nearly 145,000 square foot facility in 2013.
Last year, for the first time, it became possible to trade
water on Wall Street through futures contracts. Normally
reserved for commodities like oil or precious metals, water
became the latest asset to join the financial market. But how
could this practice impact the planet? The trading in the
future prices of highly-prized commodities, where buyers agree
to purchase an asset at a set date in the future for an agreed
price, began in Japan in the seventeenth century with the
trading in rice futures. The latest commodity to begin trading
in futures is water supplied in American’s most populous state,
California.
As California descends deeper into drought, state regulators
are planning to do something they’ve done few times in modern
history: order thousands of people, farms, and even cities and
towns that hold historic water rights to stop drawing water
from the rivers, lakes and ponds they rely on. The move is
intended to make sure the dwindling flows in California’s
waterways are reserved for those with the most senior water
rights, as well as for fish and other wildlife. Many of those
with lesser rights would have to turn to storage, groundwater
or another source, if they have it.
The city of San Francisco is reviving a long-simmering feud
with the state over water, filing a lawsuit Friday that charges
state regulators with trying to take away the city’s coveted
Sierra Nevada water supplies. The suit claims the state water
board is demanding the city forfeit too much water from the
Tuolumne River as part of a licensing deal for two dams in the
faraway basin. State regulators have said the water is needed
to maintain proper river flows and support struggling salmon,
but city officials contend the demands would leave Bay Area
residents and businesses vulnerable to water shortages.
El Dorado Irrigation District’s territory extends across the
county line to a small piece of Folsom — a total of 190 acres.
A developer is planning to turn that acreage into a
subdivision. Currently the property is all range land and there
is no request for water service. The earliest that water
service could be requested may not be until 2023. El Dorado
Irrigation District has been a multi-county agency since the
early 1980s, according to Jesse Saich, EID communications
manager.
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic as federal regulators shut off irrigation
water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would
not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a
half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating
birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the worst water
crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it
will not release water this season into the main canal that
feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project,
marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system.
Rural, low-income Latino communities across California were
hardest hit by the last drought and could see drinking water
shortages again this year as extreme drought spreads across the
state, according to a report released Thursday by non-partisan
advisors to California’s lawmakers. The report from the
Legislative Analyst’s Office warns state officials to prepare
by ramping up monitoring of wells in vulnerable communities and
lining up emergency drinking water supplies to send
there.
In 1980, Arizona began regulating groundwater in the state’s
largest cities and suburbs under a landmark law that
called for most of these areas to achieve an overarching
goal by 2025: a long-term balance between the amount of
water pumped from the ground and the amount seeping back
underground to replenish aquifers. Forty-one years
later … [g]roundwater is still overpumped in most of the
state’s “active-management areas,” or AMAs. And in many places,
aquifer levels continue to decline.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that
more than 1,000 farmers in the Klamath Basin will not receive
any reserved water from Upper Klamath Lake — a devastating
prospect for farmers who have already planted fields, hired
crews and made plans for the growing season ahead. … Farmers
in Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc counties were already reeling
over the prospect of receiving less than 10% of their
allotment, or a total of 33,000 acre-feet of water. The
latest announcement feels “like a punch to the gut,” farmers
said …
On its surface, the idea of banking water to bridge the
certainty of future rain-deficient periods seems like an
innovative and non-controversial planning procedure. In the
end, however, it all depends on who holds the keys to the bank.
The notion of water banking has grabbed local attention lately
following a controversial and divided 3-2 vote March 3 by San
Luis Obispo County supervisors, a vote which numerous North
County entities view as opening the door to selling and
exporting county water resources to the highest outside bidder.
Ben Tobin has questions about the Grand Canyon’s caves. The
University of Kentucky geologist started learning about caves
as a young man, in part because his mother was a geologist, and
a childhood fascination grew over time. … When he was in
college, an internship in Arkansas doing cave tours got him
hooked, and eventually his work brought him out West, to Grand
Canyon National Park. Tobin specializes in what’s known as
karst hydrology. These are underground systems made up of
soluble rock such as limestone. To Tobin, caves are like
another world, with blind animals, fossils and archeological
finds.
When Sandra Chavez’ mother discovered she had stage four cancer
last year, one of Sandra’s first thoughts was about their
water. Her family’s private well is contaminated with nitrates
and Chavez wondered if years of drinking the water could have
caused her mother’s sickness. Chavez and her family have relied
on bottled water since they found out their well water was
unsafe in 2015. But sometimes they don’t have enough and are
forced to drink the contaminated water. So when Chavez
found out about a new program providing free bottled water
delivery for families with nitrate-contaminated wells, she was
frustrated she hadn’t been contacted.
Only one week remains to register for our May 20 virtual
Lower
Colorado River Tour where you can hear directly
from experts offering a range of perspectives on the most
contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Practically every drop of water in the
Colorado River is already allocated, but pressure on the
hard-working river continues to grow from myriad sources —
increasing population, declining habitat and climate
change.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the
19th century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the
Gila River Indian Community — is now coursing again with water,
luring things like cattails and birds back to its
shores. … The revival of this small segment of the
649-mile (1045-kilometer) Gila River, which has served the
tribes that make up the Gila River Indian Community — the
Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly
2,000 years, was an added benefit of a grassroots
infrastructure overhaul, known as “managed aquifer recharge,”
or MAR, which aimed to restore the local groundwater
basin.
Well owners in Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley are invited to join community meetings on groundwater
conditions and sustainable management of this critical water
source. The Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are nearing
completion of major plans that identify issues with current and
future groundwater resources and that describe how these
challenges will be addressed.
Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson, along with prominent
North Coast water managers and politicians gathered at a
virtual summit yesterday morning to discuss the severe drought
facing the North Coast and the entire state. At the summit (a
recording of which is available on YouTube), State Senator Mike
McGuire stated that the state legislature is moving forward on
a several billion dollar drought relief package, which would
include $1 billion in grants to help ratepayers and utilities
pay off back bills and $500 million to help smaller low income
communities develop enhanced drinking water supplies, among
other things (read the full list below).
With the uncertainty of water, some Central Valley farmers are
destroying their crops ahead of the summer season in order to
survive. It’s impacting jobs and soon possibly the grocery
shelves. Every crop at Del Bosque Farms is planted
meticulously, and every drop of water is a precious commodity.
Joe Del Bosque started the family farm in 1985. He grows
melons, asparagus, cherries, almonds, and corn, but the drought
brings a flood of concern.
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well
as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California
fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its
current rate. With state water resources constrained by the
extreme drought, that’s the alarm that environmental, fishing
and tribal groups are sounding after reports show the
Sacramento River will reach dangerous temperatures during
spawning season, based on federal scientific scenarios that
analyze the bureau’s planned water releases.
A San Bernardino Superior Court judge has made a ruling against
the Town of Apple Valley in its attempt to take over its
largest supplier of water. In a tentative decision issued
Friday, Judge Donald Alvarez found that Liberty Utilities had
“disproved” the town’s arguments that its acquisition of the
company’s water system would be in the public’s interest and a
necessity. … The town filed its eminent domain lawsuit
in January 2016 when the system was owned by Ranchos Water
Company in response to what they said was a public outcry over
rising water rates.
Don’t be fooled. Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision Monday to
declare drought in most of California, including here, is no
reason for most farmers in Stanislaus County to break out the
party hats. They know full well that words on a declaration
will not generate an extra drop of water for their orchards and
row crops. They also know that a drought declaration could take
some power over the water we do have from our locally elected
irrigation leaders — who represent institutions guiding us
through periodic droughts for more than 100 years — and hand it
to nonelected Sacramento bureaucrats.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced an expansion of the drought
emergency to 41 of the state’s 58 counties, dedicating $5.1
billion to boost water infrastructure and an additional $1
billion to paying off nearly the entirety of Californian
household water debt. Yet, while the governor’s plan includes
$150 million for groundwater cleanup and water recycling
measures, it does nothing to speed up the process to bring
overdrafted water basins into full and sustainable operation.
The deadline is currently 2040 for critically overdrafted
basins and 2042 for remaining high and medium priority basins.
Spring is generally a time of renewal for the watersheds of the
western United States. Warmed by the lengthening days, the
region’s towering mountain ranges shed their mantle of snow,
releasing freshets of water into welcoming streams and
reservoirs. This year, though, the cycle is in disarray.
Outside of the Olympic and Cascade ranges of Washington state,
winter snows were subpar. The spring melt has been a dud. From
the Klamath to the Colorado and Rio Grande, watersheds are
under stress once again, and water managers face difficult
tradeoffs between farms, fisheries, and at-home uses.
Arizona legislators are looking eastward to ease the impact of
a two-decade drought in the Colorado River Basin. According to
Arizona Rep. Tim Dunn, who represents the area of Yuma, the
Legislature is asking Congress to fund a technological and
feasibility study for diverting floodwater from the Mississippi
River to replenish the Colorado River. Whether that comes in
the form of a diversion dam or pipeline, Dunn says the plan
would benefit both the Midwestern and Southwestern United
States.
A conflict over access to water in the Klamath Basin is
signaling the way climate change could play out across the
western United States. After a drier-than-normal spring,
farmers and indigenous tribes in the Klamath Basin are at odds
over water in Upper Klamath Lake. According to the U.S. Drought
Monitor, the Klamath Basin is experiencing “extreme drought,”
… Centuries ago, the area was wetlands; but in the early
20th century, the land was opened up to agriculture. Members of
the Klamath Tribes say tree removal and drainage hastened
drying as the climate warmed.
Newly released emails reveal that lawyers and lobbyists for
mining companies, developers and the agriculture industry had a
hand behind the scenes in shaping Arizona’s newly adopted law
on clean-water rules for rivers and streams. The emails
show the involvement of these influential groups went beyond
their public endorsements of the legislation. Their lawyers and
lobbyists were given access to offer input while the final
legislation was being drafted, and the emails show they
suggested specific language, offered “wordsmithing” tweaks and
requested significant changes that state officials incorporated
into the bill.
Today, the Bureau of Reclamation announced a plan to increase
flow releases from New Melones Reservoir to assist with meeting
Delta salinity and outflow requirements. Additional flow
releases will begin on the
lower Stanislaus River
on May 10 and will reach a total
flow of 1,000 cubic feet per second and again
on May 11 to reach 1,500 cfs. This
increased flow of 1,500 cfs will likely
occur for an extended duration. During the increased
releases, water levels will be higher and currents
faster. Visitors should use caution when near or
on the Stanislaus River during these increased
flows.
California is now in its second year of drought, hard on the
heels of the last one in 2012-16. But drought is not an
equal-opportunity crisis; it can be more or less disruptive
depending on geography, storage, how water supplies are
managed—and, of course, precipitation. And some sectors—notably
rural water water systems and the environment—are more
vulnerable.
Arizona cities, towns, farmers and ranchers are preparing for
the first-ever cuts to the state’s allotment of Colorado River
water. The cuts are the result of a drought that’s lasted 26
years and will likely take effect in 2022. The so-called “Tier
1″ water shortage will affect some water users more severely
than others. … Farmers and ranchers in Pinal County are
already preparing, but it’s going to be a costly process.
A water district locked in a long-running legal battle over
residential rates with the city of Ventura recently agreed
to pay $1 million, but the fight does not appear to
be over. City Attorney Gregory Diaz said Friday he
expected the United Water Conservation District to
exercise its option to appeal. Ventura has filed lawsuits every
year against the water district since the agency implemented
increased charges in 2011-12. This settlement is for fiscal
year 2019-20. The district charged residential customers
three times more than agricultural customers for groundwater,
and the city challenged its methodology.
As California slowly emerges from the depths of the COVID-19
pandemic, one remnant left behind by the statewide lockdown
offers a sobering reminder of the economic challenges still
ahead for millions of the state’s residents and the water
agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
… Our latest article in Western Water explores the
hurdles to helping consumers, how some water agencies have
devised workarounds and how far more lasting solutions remain
out of reach.Western Water is just one of the publications
produced by our journalism team…
The North Marin Water District failed to adequately study
whether there will be enough water for endangered fish in
Lagunitas Creek if it builds a new well in West Marin, an
environmental group alleges. The well is intended to address
worsening saltwater contamination in the water supply. Save Our
Seashore, a nonprofit in Inverness, filed an appeal against the
project with the Marin County Planning Commission. … The
commission is expected to hold a hearing on the issue on May
24.
In scale and ambition, California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) has few parallels. And the work becomes
increasingly urgent as the climate crisis makes water shortages
increasingly severe. … This emphasis on local expertise
points to SGMA’s possibilities — and its potential pitfalls —
especially when it comes to deciding what “sustainable” water
management means. Each management body has wide discretion to
define “sustainability” — and the path to
sustainability by 2040 — for its particular basin.
The Colorado River Basin appears to be out of miracles this
spring. Five years after a “Miracle May” of record rainfall
staved off what had appeared to be the river’s first imminent
shortage in water deliveries, the hope for another in 2021 “is
fading quickly,” says the Colorado Basin River Forecast
Center’s latest report, released Thursday. That’s one more
piece of bad news for the Central Arizona Project. A first-time
shortage is now likely to slash deliveries of river water to
Central Arizona farmers starting in 2022 but won’t affect
drinking water supplies for Tucson, Phoenix and other cities,
or for tribes and industries that get CAP water.
The dispute between Imperial Valley farmer Mike Abatti and the
Imperial Irrigation District over water rights entered a new
chapter last month. Mr. Abatti filed a petition for certiorari
to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to review last
year’s California appellate court’s ruling in the IID’s favor.
Our local Imperial County Farm Bureau and the California Farm
Bureau, along with some individual valley farmers, then filed
amicus briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Mr. Abatti’s
petition for review. Mr.
At a rare joint meeting between all three of their leadership
boards, Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc Counties discussed ways to
support agricultural communities during the Klamath Basin’s
historic drought this year. Farmers and ranchers in the Klamath
Project will receive 33,000 acre-feet of water, less than 10%
of their normal allocation, more than a month later than
normal. Irrigators on tributaries to the Lower Klamath River,
like the Scott River, are also expecting water deliveries to be
curtailed during the summer.
It’s that time of drought again. During one of the driest years
on record, once again curtailing water deliveries to local
farms, Fresno-area lawmakers wasted little time trotting out
one of their favorite falsehoods. That every year, including
the parched ones like 2021, California “wastes” millions of
gallons of water by “flushing it to the ocean.” Central San
Joaquin Valley residents have heard this declaration so often
and for so long, from the mouths of politicians and parroted on
talk radio, that many of us believe it’s true.
Water customers with the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency
can expect rate increases to kick in over the next five years,
after board members voted in late April to approve the fees.
The PVWMA serves coastal growers and farmers in south Santa
Cruz and north Monterey counties through 21 miles of water
pipelines running near Highway 1. The water, which is a blend
of recycled water, groundwater and Harkins Slough Recovery well
water, supplements farmer’s on-site agricultural wells.
A new groundwater monitoring station is coming to Corning’s
public works yard on Gallagher Avenue just across from a
warehouse that stores various road signs and equipment. Public
Works Flood Control Manager Ryan Teubert presented the project
Tuesday to the Tehama County Board of Supervisors. It consists
of construction at the yard, which will be funded and performed
by the California Department of Water Resources.
The federal government is strictly curtailing irrigation this
year in an attempt to protect endangered fish important to
Indigenous tribes. Farmers say this will make it all but
impossible to farm, while tribal groups say the plan doesn’t go
far enough to save their fisheries. In mid-April, a farming
region in southern Oregon began to release water from the
Klamath River into its irrigation canals. … [A]ccording to
the federal government, it was an illegal maneuver that could
further jeopardize the survival of multiple endangered species
and food sources important to Indigenous tribes and fisheries
in the region.
More than a month after announcing it was suspending water
deliveries to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley, the Bureau of Reclamation delivered equally bad news to
farmers north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Their water
supplies, tabbed at 5 percent of their contracted amount, were
not available for delivery via the Central Valley Project due
to limited supply.
Melting snow and flowing irrigation ditches mean spring has
finally arrived at the base of Grand Mesa in western
Colorado. Harts Basin Ranch, a 3,400-acre expanse of
hayfields and pasture just south of Cedaredge, in Delta County,
is coming back to life with the return of water. … The
ranch has the No. 1 priority water right — meaning the oldest,
which comes with the ability to use the creek’s water first —
dating to 1881. … [The ranch's owners] have been
accused of water speculation — which means buying up the ranch
just for its senior water rights and hoarding them for a future
profit.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said today it will deny federal
protections to three salamander species that environmentalists
fear could be put in danger by a proposed California dam
project. Pressed by a lawsuit to make a decision, the federal
agency concluded the Shasta salamander, Samwel Shasta
salamander and Wintu Shasta salamander don’t need to be listed
under the Endangered Species Act even if plans proceed to
expand the Shasta Dam by raising it.
A familiar scene has returned to California: drought. Two
counties are currently under emergency declarations, and the
rest of the state could follow. It was only four years ago when
a winter of torrential rain finally wrestled the state out of
its last major drought, which had dragged on for five years and
left thousands of domestic wells coughing up dust. That
drinking-water crisis made national headlines and helped shine
a light on another long-simmering water crisis in California:
More than 300 communities have chronically unsafe drinking
water containing contaminants that can come with serious health
consequences, including cancer.
In 2021, access to running water and clean drinking water is a
given for most Americans. The Census Bureau has even considered
dropping a question on plumbing access from the U.S. census
questionnaire. But many of the nation’s tribes still lack
running water, access to clean water, and even flushing
toilets. Native American households are 19 times more likely
than white households to lack indoor plumbing, according to the
U.S. Water Alliance, and more likely to lack piped water
services than any other racial group. That problem is at an
inflection point for the Navajo Nation and 29 other tribes in
the Colorado River Basin, which stretches from the Rocky
Mountains to Mexico.
One thing that’s been re-emphasized, time and again, during the
pandemic travails of the past 14 months: Farming is essential.
During the coming few months, as California struggles through
another drought, we’ll learn whether our elected and appointed
public officials feel the same way. [A]n overarching, long-term
problem needs to be solved to make sure farm employees can not
just work safely, but can have jobs, period: water supplies.
Experts say a statewide drought declaration … could bring
significant consequences for the regulatory structure governing
California’s complicated water-delivery system. Many farmers
believe an emergency order could loosen environmental
regulations and free up water supplies for them. Environmental
groups fear the very same thing – that more of California’s
dwindling water supply could be directed to farming at the
expense of fish and wildlife.
In today’s Home Grown, a local lawsuit over ownership of the
Colorado River water might be taken higher to the U.S. Supreme
Court. The Michael Abatti versus the Imperial Irrigation
District (IID) lawsuit has been ongoing in the valley,
disputing over whether water rights belong to the landowners or
if they are controlled by the IID. … Abatti won the lawsuit
in Imperial County Superior Court, but Katie Turner, attorney
with Sutherland and Gerber says it didn’t make it to the
California Supreme Court.
A federal judge’s decision rebuffed environmental groups’
effort to increase water flow from California’s Twitchell Dam,
stating that wildlife conservation was not among the dam’s
authorized purposes and that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
(Bureau) had no authority to modify the water releases for
conservation purposes. U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr.
sided with defendants in San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper v.
Santa Maria Valley Water Conservation District, rejecting
plaintiffs’ claim that by failing to release enough water to
benefit protected steelhead trout, the Bureau and local water
district were in violation of the ESA.
The US Bureau of Reclamation last week warned water users to
brace for a 500,000 acre-foot cut in water from the Colorado
River as a historic drought continues to tighten its grip on
the Southwest. The cutback comes on top of a 200,000 acre-foot
reduction Arizona water users agreed to last year in an effort
to put off this day of reckoning. The Central Arizona Project
provides more than a third of the state’s water. The reductions
will mostly impact farmers. The sparse snowpack this winter
soaked into the ground during the hot, dry spring — producing
little runoff.
On March 24, 2021, the Groundwater Resources Association of
California and California Groundwater Coalition hosted the
virtual 2021 Groundwater Law & Legislation Forum, featuring a
keynote address from California’s Natural Resources Secretary
Wade Crowfoot and updates on pending groundwater legislation,
DWR’s SGMA implementation, and ACWA’s position on potential
bond measures. One panel focused on the intersection of
environmental justice, groundwater management and the role the
legislative process can play…
A recent report looked into why Indigenous communities within
the Colorado River Basin are struggling to get clean, reliable
running water. A household in tribal lands is 19 times more
likely than a white household to not have indoor plumbing, and
during the pandemic this had catastrophic effects on some
Indigenous communities. According a 2019 report outlining the
action plan for closing the water access gap throughout the
United States, “race is the strongest predictor of water and
sanitation access,” and it’s Indigenous people who face this
problem most.
With the Colorado River’s largest reservoir just 38% full and
declining toward the threshold of a first-ever shortage,
Arizona water officials convened an online meeting this week to
outline how the state will deal with water cutbacks, saying the
reductions will be “painful” but plans are in place to lessen
the blow for affected farmers next year. Lake Mead’s decline is
expected to trigger substantial reductions in water deliveries
in 2022 for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The largest of those
cuts will affect Arizona, slashing its Colorado River supplies
by 512,000 acre-feet, about a fifth of its total entitlement.
Join us May 6 for our annual open
house where you can test your water trivia knowledge, win
prizes and meet the people behind our programs that foster a
deeper understanding of California’s most precious natural
resource – water. The Foundation’s open house will be held next
Thursday via Zoom from 4:30–5:30 p.m.
After another dry winter that threatens to worsen water
shortages across California, state officials have accused a
water bottling company of diverting too much water from forests
in the San Bernardino area. The officials issued a draft
cease-and-desist letter to the company last week – the latest
development in a battle that has dragged on for years.
A North County water district representing irrigated
agriculture near Shandon is asking the state for allocations of
Lake Nacimiento and Santa Margarita Lake water, which it
proposes to pipe into the nearby Paso Robles Groundwater Basin.
While pitched as a potential solution to the Paso basin’s
overdraft, the proposal is already getting blowback from two
county supervisors.
While most irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin are enduring a
spring without surface water, canals in Klamath Drainage
District have been flowing since the middle of April. And KDD
says no laws were broken to make deliveries to its customers.
KDD opened the Ady and North canals on April 15, diverting
water from the Klamath River to serve its patrons. The Bureau
of Reclamation, whose operations plan for 2021 emphasized that
no water deliveries be made to the Klamath Project prior to May
15, sent a letter to KDD asking them to immediately cease the
diversions.
The Navajo Nation can pursue its lawsuit seeking to force the
federal government to secure water from the Colorado River for
the reservation, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday, reversing a
lower court’s dismissal of the tribe’s breach of trust claim.
The tribe doesn’t seek a judge’s determination of its rights to
the river, which the Interior Department says would fall under
the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, according to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Instead, the tribe
seeks an order for Interior to determine the extent to which it
needs water, to develop a plan to secure…
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday instructed the Imperial
Irrigation District to submit a response to California farmer
Michael Abatti’s request that their longstanding legal battle
be taken up by the nation’s highest court. Scott Harris, clerk
of the Supreme Court, wrote to Jennifer Meeker, an
attorney for the water and power district, to say that even
though IID didn’t feel the need to answer Abatti’s
petition, ”the Court nevertheless has directed this office
to request that a response be filed.” This comes two weeks
after Frank Oswalt, IID’s general counsel, said the district
didn’t need to submit a response …
The Marin Municipal Water District on April 20 enacted a series
of water conservation rules, including banning home car washes,
no watering of outdoor lawns between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., and no
refilling decorative pools or fountains. A day later,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency for
the Russian River watershed in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
Marin County borders Sonoma. Newsom chose to make the
declaration in those two counties only, rather than statewide,
as some officials and farmers in the agricultural-rich Central
Valley had hoped. But Newsom said a broader drought declaration
could come as conditions change.
California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from
siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San
Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead
brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the
state. The draft cease-and-desist order, which still
requires approval from the California Water Resources Control
Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between
the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for
years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the
expense of local communities and ecosystems.
With a snowpack at 20-percent of normal, as of April 1, Inyo
County and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power begin
a month of discussion over the proposed pumping plan for the
2021-22 run-off year. LADWP intends to pump from 64,600 to
78,980 acre-feet of water from well fields in the Owens Valley.
Inyo’s Water Commission will meet this evening at 6 p.m. for
its initial discussion of the plan, laid out with proposed
volumes from Laws to Lone Pine.
Along the Oregon-California border, the Klamath River Basin is
a crucial water source for Indigenous tribes, endangered
species, and farmers. This year, though, there is simply not
enough to go around. The Western US is enduring another
major drought, and the Klamath River Basin is at a historic
low. This resulted in different groups being forced to compete
and make their case for why water, now precious and scarce,
should be diverted to their needs. It’s a stark reminder of the
tough, no-win decisions that citizens will continue to face
amid the worsening climate crisis.
News of drought and climate change impacts on Arizona’s water
supplies has become more alarming with the release of each new
study. To prepare for a drier future, Arizona will need an
informed public. For help in understanding the state’s water
management situation, a brief new reference work is now
available from the University of Arizona Water Resources
Research Center.
The Colorado River cuts through the Grand Canyon, providing
water for about 40 million people and 5 and a half million
acres of farmland. To some, the water is as valuable as
oil. In 1922, the seven U.S. states through which the
river flows signed onto the Colorado River Compact, a
water-sharing agreement that divvies up the river’s annual
flow. The water must be shared equally between Upper Basin
states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico; and the Lower
Basin: California, Arizona and Nevada. There’s been infighting
ever since.
Humboldt State University’s Native American Studies Department
and Save California Salmon recently launched a spring webinar
series, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge,” a look at how
tribes’ traditional fisheries and fire management practices
could address environmental crises. As California prepares for
yet another year of drought, Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy,
department chair of Native American Studies at HSU, said local
tribes are concerned about the health of rivers.
California water officials on Friday issued a draft order
telling Nestlé to ”cease and desist” taking much of
the millions of gallons of water it pipes out of the San
Bernardino National Forest to sell as Arrowhead brand bottled
water. The order, which must be approved by the
California Water Resources Control Board, caps years of
regulatory probes and a public outcry over the company’s
water pipeline in the San Bernardino Mountains, where opponents
argue that siphoning away water harms spring-fed Strawberry
Creek and the wildlife that depends on it.
Thousands of wells that bring water to San Joaquin Valley homes
are at risk of drying up this summer, leaving families without
running water for drinking, cleaning and bathing. While no one
knows the extent of the threat from this second year of drought
conditions, Jonathan Nelson with the Community Water Center
says “the alarm bells are sounding.” Homes, farms and
entire communities that rely on shallow wells as their only
source of water are vulnerable to declining groundwater levels
from dry conditions and agricultural pumping.
A federal court has ruled that Best Best & Krieger LLP client
City of Santa Maria and others are correctly not releasing more
water from a dam above the City, as doing so would be in
conflict with the dam’s Congressional purpose. … The
lawsuit claims the defendants are violating the Endangered
Species Act by not releasing enough water from Twitchell Dam on
the Cuyama River, thereby not providing sufficient water for
federal law-protected Southern California Steelhead trout to
spawn.
Following a temporary delay in Colorado federal court, the
Trump administration’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR)
will now take effect in Colorado on April 23, 2021. Under
the NWPR, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
Army Corps of Engineers will no longer require permits for
operations affecting certain categories of streams and wetland
areas previously subject to the Clean Water Act.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a drought emergency for
Sonoma and Mendocino counties, but resisted calls to issue a
statewide proclamation — at least for now. Newsom’s emergency
order primarily affects communities and water districts in the
Russian River watershed, which includes the cities of Santa
Rosa, Ukiah and Sebastopol. Some 360,000 people live in the
area.
Visit key infrastructure and environmental restoration
sites along the lower Colorado River during our online
tour May 20 of the iconic river as it weaves through the
Lower Basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. Our
Lower Colorado
River Tour starts at Hoover Dam near Las Vegas and
stops at major agricultural regions, tourist
destinations and key wildlife areas such as the Salton Sea
and a wildlife refuge in Yuma, Ariz. resulting from a
tribal-city partnership.
Just how bad is the drought in the Western US? The
shrinking of Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, is a
troubling indicator. The massive man-made lake, which
straddles the border of Arizona and Nevada, is now only
at 39 percent of its full capacity, down from 44
percent in April 2020. That’s equivalent to a 10-foot drop
in the water level, according to the latest data from
the Bureau of Reclamation. Which means mandatory
restrictions on the amount of water surrounding states draw
from Lake Mead could be triggered in the next few months.
Time is running out to register for this
week’s Water
101 Workshop, which offers a primer on California’s water
history, laws, geography and politics. One of our most popular
events, this once-a-year workshop will be held as an engaging
online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and
Friday, April 23. California’s water basics will be covered by
some of the state’s leading policy and legal experts, and
participants will have an opportunity to engage with the guest
speakers individually during live Q&A in breakout
rooms.
Water law adjudication, already a complicated field, will only
become more so because of the climate crisis, extended
droughts, and increasing demand for groundwater in Nevada, the
Supreme Court was told last week. The court Friday held its
first meeting for the newly created commission to study the
adjudication of water law cases. Members of the commission
range from ranchers to conservationists to mining industry
representatives and scientists.
A California federal judge rejected environmental groups’ suit
aimed at securing more water releases from a dam near Santa
Maria for protected trout’s benefit, deciding that species
conservation was not among the purposes Congress included in
the project’s authorization.
The San Diego County Water Authority was successful in its rate
lawsuit against the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, and the SDCWA provided a check to the Rainbow
Municipal Water District for Rainbow’s share of the settlement.
On March 23, the Rainbow board voted 5-0 to place the money
into the district’s reserves rather than to attempt to provide
refunds to each individual ratepayer.
Publicly owned treatment works in California have been
observing a trend of permit requirements issued by EPA Region 9
and the State to develop and utilize an Asset Management
Program as part of their NPDES/Wastewater Discharge Order. In
the case of OC San, an Asset Management Plan has already been
in place; however, with many of its major assets aging, the
development of a more robust AMP became a priority for the
agency.
The Klamath River Basin is in a dire situation this
year. The plan curtails irrigation diversions to less than
10% of demand while failing to meet the biological needs of
salmon and other fisheries downstream. … Reclamation also
announced $15 million in immediate aid to the Klamath Project
through the Klamath Project Drought Relief Agency, an
additional $3 million in technical assistance to Tribes for
ecosystem activities in the basin, as well as funding for
groundwater monitoring in the basin.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will begin releasing warmer
water from the upper layers of the Shasta Reservoir directly
into the Sacramento River to maintain flows, while saving
colder water for the winter-run Chinook salmon migration.
The Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs are likely to drop to
historically low levels later this year, prompting mandatory
conservation by some of the river’s heaviest users. The latest
Bureau of Reclamation reservoir projections, which take into
account river flows in a given year, show a likelihood that
Lake Mead on the Arizona-Nevada stateline will dip below the
critical threshold of 1,075 feet in elevation in May and remain
below that level for the foreseeable future. A first-ever
official shortage declaration from the Department of the
Interior is almost certain later this year.
Reclamation announced today that spring-time operations at
Shasta Dam will adjust to benefit endangered winter-run Chinook
salmon in the Sacramento River during this critically dry water
year. … No additional water from Shasta Reservoir will be
released during this temporary adjustment—only the withdrawal
elevation and timing of water releases will change.
Borrego Springs, the small desert town at
the entrance to California’s sprawling Anza-Borrego
State Park, has won a judge’s approval for an
agreement under which large farmers, resort owners and
its own water district will slash water use by 74% by
2040. Officials say the cuts are needed to keep the town
of 3,000 alive.
Leaders of the Central Coast Water Authority fear that Santa
Barbara County is at a disadvantage in obtaining state water
because of the county’s failure to adopt an amendment to the
State Water Project that allows local water districts to buy
and sell water supplies outside the county. The CCWA is an
umbrella organization for all of the State Water Project
members in Santa Barbara County.
The Yurok Tribe said it’s sounding the alarm as culturally
invaluable salmon edge closer to extinction. The Yurok also
said it is canceling its commercial fishery for the fifth time
this year. Tribal officials said past water management
decisions and climate change have put Klamath river salmon
stocks at risk. The tribe said it’s gravely concerned about the
rapidly declining salmon stocks in the Klamath River
Basin … Tribal officials said [Reclamation's] plan
provides bare-minimum flows for imperiled Klamath salmon and
sucker fish populations.
Restoration flows will begin tomorrow, April 16, on the Trinity
River to help improve conditions after another critically dry
water year. A flow schedule based on the expected amount of
water available to support salmon restoration efforts on the
Trinity River is brought forward by the Trinity Management
Council each year. This week’s two-day schedule is slated to
increase daily average flows from 300 cubic feet per second to
1,300 cubic feet per second.
While high-profile surface-water initiatives like WaterFix and
the Delta Conveyance Project grab most of the headlines
pertaining to water management in the state, efforts to make
significant changes to the way groundwater is utilized have
been underway since 2014. Now, the state and the local water
agencies are seeking public comment on documents related to the
management of groundwater. In 2014, then-Gov. Jerry Brown
signed a three-bill legislative package collectively known as
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to better
manage groundwater supplies over the long term.
California was the first U.S. state to legally recognize access
to safe, clean and affordable water as a human right. But
substantial parts of the state lack access to drinking water
that meets those criteria. A new study published by the
California State Water Board and supported by UCLA research
identifies a risk for failure among a significant portion of
the state’s small and medium-sized public water systems.
The Yuba Water Agency manages water storage and deliveries to
downstream customers while having a hand in preserving fish
habitats and recreational areas. Currently, the agency has
already begun doubling its reservoir releases at a time when
visitors to the river are also expected to go up. Due to
the time of year, those releases from upstream reservoirs are
dictated by irrigation needs of downstream growers.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation delivered a gut-punch to Klamath
Project irrigators Wednesday, announcing a historically low
water allocation as the basin struggles with extreme drought.
Farms and ranches in the Project will receive an initial
allocation of just 33,000 acre-feet — the lowest total since
the shutdown of 2001 and barely 8% of historical demand. That
is dramatically lower than the bureau’s original estimate of
130,000 acre-feet based on hydrological conditions at the
beginning of March.
Shasta Dam, which rises over 600 feet, flooded much of our
tribe’s homeland and inundated dozens of our sacred sites. It
stopped our salmon from reaching their spawning grounds. And by
holding back water when it is needed by the river, Shasta Dam
has driven our salmon to the brink of extinction. That threat
continues in the proposal to raise Shasta Dam. That project
would flood more of our sacred sites and further harm salmon.
The Trump administration made that project their top priority
water infrastructure project in the nation.
-Written by Caleen Sisk, the spiritual leader of the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Southern California, like most of the West, is in the middle of
a record dry season. To combat it and keep the metropolitan
area well-watered, they’re relying more heavily on the Colorado
River, with water pumped directly from the south end of Lake
Havasu. Last Wednesday, the Metropolitan Water District began
pumping from Lake Havasu at full capacity for the first time in
years, drawing water from the Whitsett Intake Pumping Plant
located just north of the Parker Dam. The eight-pump flow is
equivalent to about 3,000 acre feet of water being pumped per
day, according to MWD Manager of Colorado River Resources Bill
Hasencamp.
Hundreds of farmers who rely on a massive irrigation project
that spans the Oregon-California border learned Wednesday they
will get a tiny fraction of the water they need amid the worst
drought in decades, as federal regulators attempt to balance
the needs of agriculture against federally threatened and
endangered fish species that are central to the heritage of
several tribes. Oregon’s governor said the prolonged drought in
the region has the “full attention of our offices,” and she is
working with congressional delegates, the White House and
federal agencies to find relief for those affected.
Water is one of the world’s most vital resources. So is there
reason to freak out now that profit-hungry hedge funds and
other investors can trade it like a barrel of oil or shares of
Apple? That’s exactly what CME Group recently did in California
when it launched the world’s first futures market for water in
December 2020. Put simply, a futures market lets people place
bets on the future price of water.
-Written by Ellen Bruno, of University of
California, Berkeley and Heidi Schweizer, of North
Carolina State University.
On Wednesday, March 3rd, the Northern California Water
Association (NCWA) Board of Directors officially adopted our
2021 Priorities. The water leaders in this region look forward
to working with our many partners in 2021 to cultivate a shared
vision for a vibrant way of life in the Sacramento River Basin.
We will continue to re-imagine our water system in the
Sacramento River Basin as we also work to harmonize our water
priorities with state, federal, and other regions’ priorities
to advance our collective goal of ensuring greater water and
climate resilience throughout California for our communities,
the economy, and the environment.
There’s just one week left to register for our Water 101
Workshop, which offers a primer on the things you need to know
to understand California water. One of our most popular events,
this once-a-year workshop will be held as an engaging online
event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday,
April 23.
The San Joaquin Valley’s quest for groundwater sustainability
will result in large amounts of irrigated agricultural lands
being retired. A new book explores how some of these lands
could be restored to natural areas that bring multiple
benefits. We talked to Scott Butterfield, a senior scientist at
The Nature Conservancy and one of the book’s editors, about
this vision.
The San Diego County Water Authority is no stranger to conflict
– virtually all of its dealings over the past decade have been
shaped by its feud with the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California. Now that feud is fueling
fights within the agency itself.
Imperial Irrigation District apparently has decided not to
sweat Michael Abatti’s decision to appeal his case against the
district to the nation’s highest court. IID announced Monday it
will not file a response to Abatti’s petition to the U.S.
Supreme Court over his ongoing legal dispute with the district
over water rights. The exception would be if the court requests
a response. IID General Counsel Frank Oswalt said in a press
release that a response is unnecessary.
It’s that time of year, when we find out it’s that kind of
year. We appear at the doorstep of a “critically dry
year,” and most reservoir levels are significantly below
average. Those conditions bring painfully to mind the awful
drought years of 2014 and 2015, and threaten water supplies for
California farms and cities, and for the protected fish species
that must also get by in these lean years. -Written by Danny Merkley, director of water resources, and
Chris Scheuring, senior counsel for the California Farm
Bureau.
With California in the throes of a second year of drought
conditions, the mega-water agency of Southern California served
notice Tuesday that it’s prepared to spend up to $44 million to
buy water from Northern California to shore up its supplies.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, which serves 19 million urban residents, authorized
its staff to begin negotiating deals with water agencies north
of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where supplies are
generally more plentiful.
Extreme drought conditions throughout the West are lowering
levels in the crucial water reservoir, Lake Mead. Scars of long
years of low precipitation are hard to go unnoticed at Lake
Mead, and the hot, dry summers have been felt for the last
several years in Arizona. 2020 was especially dry, with little
monsoon. Now, the West is in uncharted territory. Lake Mead is
projected to drop by several feet this year, from elevation
1,083 to about 1,068, according to officials with the Central
Arizona Project. The lake is hovering around 39 percent of its
full capacity.
[T]he 800 to 900 people in Tohatchi, and another 600 to 800 in
Mexican Springs, eight miles to the west, all depend on a
single well and single pump. If the pump running it fails,
or if the water level in it drops — both issues that have
troubled nearby Gallup this year — water will cut out for the
homes, the head-start center, the schools, the clinic, the
senior center, five churches, and the convenience store and gas
station. … [T]he Navajo Nation has waited more than a
century for pipes and water treatment plants that would bring
drinking water to all of its people while watching nearby
off-reservation cities and farms grow, swallowing up water from
the Colorado River Basin that the tribe has a claim to.
One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural
region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep
cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to
sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes. The
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in
the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce
this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after
delaying the decision a month.
With a salmonella outbreak in eight states already under
investigation by the Centers for Disease Control, officials are
watching in California for another disease that impacts
waterfowl. Botulism killed thousands of waterfowl and other
birds last year on two national wildlife refuges near the
border of California and Oregon. Some estimates were as high as
60,000 dead birds. The Lower Klamath Basin and Tule Lake
national wildlife refuges were among the first created more
than 100 years ago. Millions of waterfowl and shore birds,
along with songbirds, migrated along the Pacific Flyway into
the two refuges and beyond. Today, between severe
restrictions on water flowing into and out of the refuges
and a crippling drought that shows no sign of letting up,
the refuge marshes are going dry.
The Rancho California Water District received a nearly $3.5
million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
which will fund up to 75% of Phase 1 of the Vail Dam Hazard
Mitigation Project. Phase 1 has already begun and includes
pre-construction activities such as design, environmental
compliance and permitting to upgrade the dam at Vail Lake,
located east of Temecula. Vail Lake, a reservoir with water
storage capacity of approximately 45,000 acre-feet or 14.7
billion gallons of water, was acquired by Rancho Water in 1978
and is an component of Rancho’s diversified water supply
portfolio for providing water supplies to over 150,000 urban
and agricultural water users in the cities of Temecula and
Murrieta, and the surrounding areas.
California remains far behind its targets for addressing
exposed playa around the Salton Sea, according to data released
in the 2021 Salton Sea Management Program annual report.
But state officials expressed optimism in a public
workshop that they are finally beginning to catch up to those
goals. The state was supposed to implement dust suppression
projects or build wetlands habitat across 3,500 acres of
exposed playa by the end of 2020 to tamp down dust that’s
imbued with a century’s worth of salts, pesticides and other
agricultural runoff.
Our Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project has just
been updated to reflect the latest developments affecting
California’s largest surface water delivery system. The 24-page
guide explores the history of the Central Valley Project, from
its roots as a state water project that stalled amid the Great
Depression to its development as a federal project that
stretches from Shasta Dam in far Northern California to
Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
Despite market unknowns created by the pandemic and lower
commodity prices, California agricultural land values remained
largely stable, an indication buyers have confidence in the
long-term land market in the state: This was a key takeaway
from a virtual business conference held by the California
Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural
Appraisers. The conference also discussed impacts of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act on California land
values. Even though record supplies of the state’s
highest-value crops led to lower prices for farmers last year,
appraisers said the softer prices also helped move those
products.
While California’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act promised comprehensive protection of the state’s
groundwater, significant gaps remain in its coverage. The
Department of Water Resources now has an opportunity to reduce
or eliminate those gaps and should seize the moment. We know
all Californians will experience another year of water
shortages and warmer, drier conditions that will require
conservation and which are likely to fuel destructive wildfires
in our forests and around our communities. We are all in this
together. Groundwater is critical for California, particularly
in dry years when it provides up to 60% of the water supply for
farms and people.
-Written by Jeanette Howard, director of The
Nature Conservancy’s freshwater science team; Melissa M.
Rohde, a groundwater scientist at The Nature Conservancy;
and Barton H. Thompson, senior fellow of the Woods Institute
for the Environment, and faculty director of Water in the West
at Stanford University.
Scientists have been predicting for years that the Colorado
River would continue to deplete due to global warming and
increased water demands, but according to new studies it’s
looking worse than they thought. That worries rancher Marsha
Daughenbaugh, 68, of Steamboat Springs, who relies on the water
from the Colorado River to grow feed for her cattle.
… Recent reports show that the river’s water flows were
down 20% in 2000 and by 2050 that number is estimated to more
than double.
A barely-noticed action early in March by the San Luis Obispo
County Board of Supervisors likely has placed greater control
of the region’s water supply in the hands of a few individuals
and private water agencies. On a split 3-2, north-south vote,
supervisors on March 3 approved an amendment to the county’s
contract with the state of California for deliveries from the
State Water Project (SWP). An approval that creates the
opportunity, some say, for a controversial practice called
“water banking.”
In the first episode in the Delta Conveyance Team Spotlight
video series, [DWR] spoke with the project’s Executive
Director Tony Meyers about his long and eventful career in
engineering, including work on some of DWR’s most ambitious and
significant infrastructure projects. In this excerpt, he
reflects on the appeal of large-scale engineering projects and
speaks about the importance of the Delta Conveyance Project in
protecting the security of California’s water supply.
Robert (Bob) Anderson’s nomination as Solicitor of the
Department of the Interior was formally transmitted by the
White House to the United States Senate today. Bob
has served as Interior’s Principal Deputy Solicitor
since January 20, 2021. … For 20 years, Bob was a
law professor at the University of Washington and directed its
Native American Law Center. He has been the Oneida Indian
Nation Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School for the
past twelve years. He is a co-author and editor of the leading
federal Indian Law treatise, Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian
Law, and is a co-author of a leading textbook on American
Indian Law. He has extensive expertise and has published many
articles in the fields of natural resources law, water law, and
American Indian law.
Our two-day Water 101 Workshop begins on Earth Day,
when you can gain a deeper understanding of
California’s most precious natural resource. One of our
most popular events, the once-a-year workshop will be held as
an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April
22 and Friday, April 23. California’s water basics will be
covered by some of the state’s leading policy and legal
experts, including the history, geography, legal and political
facets of water in the state, as well a look at hot topics and
current issues of concern.
Not counting long and ugly court battles, the two most likely
solutions to California water wars are voluntary agreements or
involuntary edicts. Our Modesto Bee Editorial Board long
has favored voluntary agreements, or compromises negotiated
mainly between local irrigation districts (representing our
farmers) and state and federal officials. The other side,
chiefly represented by environmental and fishing interests,
would prefer that the California State Water Board simply take
huge amounts of water from our Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced
rivers, mostly to benefit fish — what could be called
involuntary edicts.
-Written by Garth Stapley, The Modesto Bee’s opinion
editor.
For seven days in mid-March 2021, the Bureau of Reclamation
substantially increased Folsom Lake storage releases. Roughly,
the releases tripled in volume (Figure 1). The release of over
20,000 acre-feet of water is significant for a year in which
Folsom storage is not much better than it was in the worst year
on record – 1977 (Figure 2).1 With the release in mid-March,
the lake level dropped 3 feet. Yes, there was rain in the
forecast and a decent snowpack, but certainly no flood
concerns. So why? The reason was to meet state water quality
requirements for Delta outflow. Delta outflow increased from
7,000 cfs to 12,000 cfs for a few days (Figure 3).
The Colorado River Indian Tribes will receive $209,000 for
irrigation canal projects, Congressman Paul Gosar announced
Tuesday. The federal funds were awarded by the U.S. Department
of the Interior to help CRIT pay for canal lining. The project
is intended to help stop water seepage from the canal. CRIT
relies on the Colorado River as its primary source of water,
and water conserved with help the Tribes meet existing demand
during times of drought, Gosar said. The project will line
nearly 4,000 feet of the earthen canal with a membrane covered
in sprayed concrete. The stretch of canal has been identified
as having the most significant seepage rate of all 232 miles of
canals in the Colorado River Irrigation Project, according to
the Bureau of Reclamation.
Rural water users are panicking over a proposal to create a
market for the sale and purchase of water rights in Nevada,
unconvinced by arguments that the concept would encourage
conservation. Lawmakers on Monday weighed whether so-called
“water banking” would be preferable to prevailing water law
doctrines that govern surface and groundwater rights disputes
in the driest state in the U.S. A legislative hearing about two
proposals to allow water rights holders to sell their
entitlements pitted state water bureaucrats against a coalition
of farmers, conservationists and rural officials.
Nearly five years ago we brought you the story of a little town
an hour south of the Oregon border that was doing battle with a
big timber company over who owned the rights to a pristine
spring that gurgles in the shadows of Mount Shasta, the
majestic snow-capped dormant volcano. After $1.5 million in
legal fees and countless hours of argument and activism, the
City Council of that town, Weed, Calif., recently approved a
deal securing use of the water in perpetuity. It was a
David-over-Goliath victory for Weed, population 2,700.
Is there water available on the Kern River and, if so, how
much? Parties to the long-running river dispute will finally
get a hearing by the State Water Resources Control Board on
those questions, at least. The big question — who should get
the water? — will have to wait. Still, this is the first
significant public movement on the Kern River in the past 11
years.
State officials are putting farmers in south-central Arizona on
notice that the continuing drought means a “substantial cut” in
deliveries of Colorado River water is expected next year. A
joint statement issued Friday by the state Department of Water
Resources and the Central Arizona Project said an expected
shortage declaration “will result in a substantial cut to
Arizona’s share of the river, with reductions falling largely
to central Arizona agricultural users.” The Central Arizona
Project is an aqueduct system that delivers Colorado River
water to users in central Arizona and southern Arizona,
including farmers, cities and tribes.
Water releases designed to benefit the critical outmigration of
juvenile salmon on the Stanislaus River as well as assist farms
and communities along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley
already starting to suffer the effects of two consecutive dry
years is languishing in the federal bureaucracy. Up to
100,000 acre feet is proposed to be released that belongs to
the South San Joaquin and Oakdale irrigation districts that
would provide a critical impulse flow from April 15 to May
15. That water based on measurements at Vernalis south of
Manteca where the Stanislaus River joins the San Joaquin River
would significantly improve the survivability of the threatened
salmon.
The fight between Imperial Valley farmer Michael Abatti and the
Imperial Irrigation District over control of the
district’s massive allotment of Colorado River water could
be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court if Abatti gets his way. He
and his lawyers have announced that they have petitioned the
nation’s highest court to take up the litigation that has
dragged on since 2013….Abatti is seeking to have the
country’s apex court hand control of IID’s water over to
landowners, a move that would leave most of the valley’s water
with a few larger agricultural operations.
Seven agencies that have been working together to sustain the
groundwater in the Cosumnes Subbasin, which includes the
communities of Galt, Herald, Wilton and Rancho Murieta South,
held a workshop March 24. The presentation was intended to help
residents understand how groundwater will be used in the next
two decades in the Cosumnes Subbasin. The group has until Jan.
31, 2022 to submit its plan to the state on how it intends to
meet its target of replacing 20,000-acre feet per year (AFY) in
underground basins called aquifers to sustain the groundwater.
One of the takeaways from meeting is the plan will cost $2.25
million in the early years.
A groundwater market, which caps total pumping within one or
more basins, allocates portions of the total to individual
users and allows users to buy and sell groundwater under the
total cap, is a promising tool for basins implementing
California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA). … [G]roundwater markets can be a useful tool for
achieving basin sustainability, but they are not a good fit for
every basin or groundwater sustainability agency (GSA). … The
Fox Canyon groundwater market benefitted from the four enabling
conditions (water scarcity, fixed allocations, agricultural
stakeholder support, and capacity and funding) described below.
The huge, lush green meadows that stretch between the S.R. 203
junction with U.S. 395 and Crowley Lake may seem like they have
been there forever but in reality, their existence has been
under threat for several years after the Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power threatened to withdraw much of the water
from the meadowlands a few years ago, stating it needed the
water for its own uses. If implemented, the proposed
‘de-watering’ of much of the massive meadows would have turned
them into sage and dust, destroying wildlife habitat, historic
cattle grazing leases, the fishing habitat along Hot Creek and
the Upper Owens River and much more.
California agricultural land values that are rising and falling
the most are doing so under the perception of water
availability – no surprise there. This is putting farmland in
the Fresno Irrigation District (FID) in a positive light as
that agency has done a good job over the years managing
conjunctive use of irrigation water.
Mark Twain is often credited with saying, “Whiskey is for
drinking; water is for fighting over.” This remains true in
California, where drought conditions, climate change, and
population growth throughout the state’s history have made
water an increasingly valuable and regulated resource. The
legal landscape involves complex questions related to water
quality, water sustainability, and competing claims to water
rights. One notable area of controversy involves the adequacy
of water supply for new development projects.
California has one of the most complex and complicated water
systems in the nation. There are hundreds of water
districts, different reservoirs and rivers and canals
controlled by different jurisdictions, and lots of politically
charged legislation. Understanding this system is a
difficult undertaking, but those at the Modesto Irrigation
District believe they’re up to the task. Through
emotional storytelling and strong characters, the MID set out
to explain how the rivers in their district nourish
communities by talking to the men and women who depend on
them. The interviews and stories eventually turned into a
feature-length documentary called Until the Last
Drop.
In recent years, the Wiyot Tribe in Northern California secured
ownership of its ancestral lands and is working to restore its
marine habitats; the nearby Yurok Tribe fought for the removal
of dams along the Klamath River and has plans to reconnect with
salmon, its traditional food source; and the Quapaw Nation in
Oklahoma has cleaned up contaminated land to make way for
agriculture and cattle businesses.
Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act established pumping
regulations in the state’s most populous areas but set no such
limits on rural parts of the state. In recent years, some rural
areas have come under increased pressure from agricultural
pumping that has dropped groundwater levels dramatically. …
Lawmakers introduced several bills in the current legislative
session to regulate or provide more options for managing the
state’s groundwater. One would have banned most new wells in
the Upper San Pedro and Verde Valley river basins. Another
would have set spacing limits for new wells in areas that are
overdrawn. Another, introduced by Rep. Regina Cobb of Kingman,
would have given county supervisors the power to establish
groundwater limits or regulations in their area.
Imperial Valley grower, landowner, and former elected official
Michael Abatti has filed a petition for “writ of certiorari”
with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the California
Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District’s decision in Abatti
v. Imperial Irrigation District, according to a press release
from Abatti and his legal team. Michael Abatti, Imperial County
farmer Abatti is seeking to overturn a previous appellate court
ruling that asserts Imperial Irrigation District is the “sole
owner” of water rights in the Valley, and farmers do “not
(have) an appurtenant water right” but rather are entitled
merely to “water service” that is subject to modification by
the district at its discretion, the press release states.
The Fort Yuma-Quechan Indian Tribe is situated at a nexus in
the Colorado River Basin. That’s true in a geographic sense.
The tribe’s reservation overlays the Arizona-California border
near Yuma, Arizona. The two states are heavily reliant on water
from the Colorado River. The reservation also abuts the
U.S.-Mexico border where the river flows into Mexico for use in
cities and on farms. One of the river’s largest irrigation
projects, the All-American Canal, was dug through the tribe’s
land, and flows from the reservation’s northeastern boundary to
its far southwestern corner, on its way to irrigate crops in
California’s Imperial Valley. The confluence of the Colorado
River and one of its historically important tributaries, the
Gila River, is nearby.
Over the coming decades, California’s San Joaquin Valley will
transition to sustainable groundwater management under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), ensuring
reliable groundwater supplies for generations to come.
Sustainable groundwater management and a changing climate will
inevitably affect how land is used on a sweeping scale. By some
estimates, the amount of farmland that will have to be taken
out of production to balance groundwater demand and supply is
equivalent to the size of Yosemite National Park — a transition
that could serve a huge blow to the agricultural economy, rural
communities and the environment.
As California’s seasons become warmer and drier, state
officials are pondering whether the water rights permitting
system needs revising to better reflect the reality of climate
change’s effect on the timing and volume of the state’s water
supply. A report by the State Water Resources Control Board
recommends that new water rights permits be tailored to
California’s increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable
enough to ensure water exists to meet an applicant’s
demand.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
The rivalry between farms and wildlife for water and land was
long seen as a zero-sum game, especially in California where
water is such a precious commodity that the state’s water
futures are traded on the stock exchange. That competition has
been particularly sharp in the Central Valley: 95% of the
region’s historic wetlands have transformed into farmland, and
the region’s increasingly scarce water supply has been
prioritized for farming. As a result, some of the migratory
birds that rely on the Central Valley for habitat, food, and
water sources have seen steep declines in the past
century.
A California Court of Appeal recently issued two opinions
affirming a physical solution limiting the right to pump
groundwater by a landowner who has never pumped from the
groundwater basin or who has not established the amount or
reasonableness of pumping. A landowner filed the underlying
lawsuit in 1999 to quiet title to its claimed superior
groundwater rights in a groundwater basin that had been in a
state of overdraft for decades. The lawsuit became a
comprehensive groundwater adjudication involving approximately
70,000 landowners in the Antelope Valley area of California,
including two separate classes and the United States.
From the very first gold miners making claims to divert streams
in the Sierra Nevada foothills to the later wrangling that
enabled irrigation of Central Valley farmland and drinking
water to be sent to growing cities in California, water rights
are an indispensable cornerstone of the state’s water supply
and delivery system.
As a result of increasing demand for water, exacerbated by the
decades-long drought in the Colorado River system, the Colorado
State Engineer is considering a proposal that would impose
stricter limitations on the permitting of new groundwater wells
in the Yampa River Basin upstream of where the Yampa River
meets the Little Snake River. The Yampa River flows west
from its headwaters near Steamboat Springs, in northwest
Colorado. After it is joined by the Little Snake River,
it flows to meet the Green River near the Colorado-Utah state
line. From there, the Green River flows south as a major
tributary of the Colorado River.
With World Water Day this week and the dry year emerging
throughout the Sacramento Valley, we take this moment to
reflect on the value of water as we cultivate a shared vision
in the region for a vibrant way of life. We encourage you to
watch and read the following vignettes that all showcase the
value of water.
One of the most critical negotiations for Utah’s future is
coming at a time when Utah’s delegations in Washington D.C. may
be less influential than every other party at the table. The
Colorado River Compact, hammered out in 1922 with few
amendments over the years, expires in 2026. Every other state
in the compact other than Utah has a majority Democratic or
split delegation in Washington. Those states? Colorado, New
Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Dan Gibbs, executive
director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources, announced
recently the establishment of a Water Equity Task Force to
better understand existing equity, diversity and inclusivity
(EDI) challenges in Colorado water issues and inform the
Colorado Water Plan. … The 2005 Water for the 21st Century
Act (HB 05-1177) ushered in a new area of regionally inclusive
and collaborative water planning. That spirit was further
codified in the 2015 Colorado Water Plan, which ensured that
all water uses in Colorado are interconnected and of equal
value.
An Oregon judge has agreed to hear further legal arguments over
his ruling that tribal water rights in the Klamath basin must
be re-quantified. Because the judge’s legal opinion from last
month hasn’t yet been reduced to an order, that means the
Klamath tribes can enforce their water rights to shut off
irrigation in the meantime.
After 22 years of litigation, a California appellate court has
affirmed a trial court judgment defining groundwater pumping
rights for thousands of landowners plus cities, water districts
and Edwards Air Force Base in the Antelope Valley desert north
of Los Angeles. The March 16, 2021 opinion by the Fifth
District Court of Appeal is one of three recent opinions
rejecting challenges to a 2015 trial court judgment declaring
groundwater rights and imposing a “physical solution” to reduce
pumping and to ensure sustainability of the Antelope Valley’s
largest single source of water supply.
