… the fields that grow our food are filthy with plastic
waste — the direct result of modern farming’s increasing
reliance on the signature material of the Anthropocene. Whether
incidentally littered onsite or directly diffused into the soil
via polymer-coated chemical pellets, plastic is now embedded
both in agricultural practices and the tilled earth itself. It
leaks into waterways, might be poisoning our food, and is
virtually unregulated. Nobody knows what to do about
it. “Now we have it, and it’s the devil … it’s a global
menace,” says Tom Willey, a retired certified organic farmer in
the San Joaquin Valley who reluctantly used plastic sheet
“mulch” for about 20 years ago on his farm near Madera.
… From Modesto to Manteca, from Davis to Petaluma, and
throughout the Delta and North Bay regions, plastic sheeting
for hoop-style greenhouses and groundcovers are seen in fields
beside public roads and waterways, sometimes strewn in
windblown rags and tatters, waiting for disposal.
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear San Francisco’s appeal
of a ruling that tightened offshore water pollution standards
and said the city was failing to adequately protect swimmers
and bathers from discharges of sewage into the Pacific. The
ruling, due next year, could limit the authority of federal and
state environmental agencies. The issue is whether — as
San Francisco and other local governments contend —
environmental laws require them only to limit water pollution
to amounts set in advance, such as specific discharges per
million parts of water. Federal and state regulators argued
that the city was still violating its legal duty to prevent
dangerous pollution from bacteria and other contaminants from
flowing through its Oceanside Water Pollution Control
Plant into the ocean.
Soon, Monterey One Water customers will no longer receive a
bill in the mail every other month. Beginning July 1,
wastewater fees will show up on a parcel’s annual property tax
bill for the year, eliminating the bimonthly bill. M1W
spokesperson Mike McCullough says once the transition is fully
implemented, the agency estimates it will save about $400,000
annually.
UC Riverside professor Jinyong Liu embarked on a scientific
challenge as an undergraduate chemistry student when he heard
people dub per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as
“forever chemicals.” … Undetectable by sight, smell, or
taste, PFAS is part of everyday American life. It’s found in
personal care products like shampoo and dental floss, in
grease-resistant food packaging, and nonstick cookware. … In
2019, the State Water Resources Control Board ordered 30
airports, including the San Luis Obispo County Regional
Airport, to investigate their groundwater and soil for the
chemical. State regulators pinpointed pollution to a PFAS-rich
foam called aqueous film forming foam (AFFF), which has been
discharged into the environment since the mid-1970s through
firefighter trainings.
Los Osos could end its building moratorium by the end of the
year and see new construction for the first time in decades
under a plan led by the California Coastal Commission and San
Luis Obispo County. The proposal could eventually bring 1%
residential growth to a community that has been under a
building ban since 1988. The history of Los Osos’
moratorium began with the septic tank discharge prohibition
issued by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control
Board in 1983. That agency found that the town’s 5,000 septic
tanks were sending millions of gallons of effluent down the
drain and into both the groundwater and the bay. The county
then carried out a multi-decade struggle to site and fund a new
water treatment plant, finally launched in 2012 and put into
service in 2016.
The court-appointed manager of an embattled utility provider in
the Santa Cruz Mountains reported that circumstances aren’t as
dire as they were six months ago, but the system and its
hundreds of customers aren’t out of the woods. “We’re still
standing,” is the simplest way Nicolas Jaber, an attorney with
Serviam by Wright LLP, could put it during a Wednesday town
hall meeting in Boulder Creek for customers of Big Basin Water
Co. Jaber is also a project manager with the Irvine-based law
firm assigned by a Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge last
fall to assume operational control of the water system after it
spent years on the brink of collapse. Only a couple of months
later, a judge assigned even more responsibility to Serviam by
Wright by having it take over Big Basin’s wastewater treatment
plant — serving a subset of customers in the Fallen Leaf
neighborhood — after raw waste was spotted spilling onto open
earth at the facility.
In a region where many farm businesses plant, harvest and
process countless fresh vegetables nearly 365 days a year, it’s
no surprise that Monterey County, Calif., landed as one of Farm
Futures’ Best Places to Farm. … “It’s one of five or six
true Mediterranean climates in the world, so we can produce
fresh leafy greens, veg and berries almost year-round,” says
Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm
Bureau. Growers here are highly specialized. Dole Food
Co., for example, has a team of people dedicated solely to
harvest; an average lettuce harvest crew has 35 people who can
harvest 2 acres a day. Growers must understand tricky state and
federal regulations, labor negotiations, and water
restrictions. Yet, they’re motivated by strong market prices
driven by dynamic domestic and global demand that fluctuates
quickly.
The city of San Juan Bautista is set to receive upwards of
$12.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to improve wastewater infrastructure, announced
U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. The city will receive a
combination of grants and low-cost federal loans from a
specific program that supports clean drinking water systems and
proper disposal, the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grants
program. San Juan Bautista will receive a loan of nearly
$10.3 million and a grant of just over $2.2 million.
As of Tuesday morning, there was no news from Sacramento County
Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto on a dispute over the
city’s approval of the proposed Sage Ranch subdivision. The
issue is whether the city of Tehachapi violated state law when
it approved a 995-unit residential project on 138 acres near
Tehachapi High School in September 2021. The long-awaited
hearing on the first through third causes of action of the
case, Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District vs. City of
Tehachapi, took about three hours on May 3, with Acquisto
questioning attorneys about case law and water.
Fourteen months ago, a catastrophic flood upended thousands of
lives in Pájaro, a small Central California farmworker town
filled with immigrants who speak mostly Spanish or Indigenous
languages. A relentless series of atmospheric rivers
transformed the inviting Pájaro River into a malevolent foe
that charged through a crumbling levee and engulfed the coastal
community in floodwaters. Regional and state officials
knew a levee break was inevitable—it had failed at least four
times before—but didn’t prioritize desperately needed repairs
for a town populated by low-income farmworkers. … A
group of Pájaro residents explored the impacts of climate
change on their town through a very personal lens as part of
the Pájaro PhotoVoice Project, organized by the nonprofit
climate justice organization Regeneración. The photos will be
on display at Somos Watsonville, a nonprofit community
center, until June 7.
The Pleasanton City Council unanimously approved finance
documents to allow the city to issue water revenue bonds with a
principal maximum amount of $19 million, which will help pay
for water system improvement projects and the first phase and
design work for drilling new wells as part of the city’s Water
Supply Alternative Project. Following the council decision to
authorize the bond issuance during the May 7 council meeting,
staff said pricing and interest rates for the bonds will be
established on May 20 or May 21 with the goal of having the
city receive the bond proceeds on June 4. “This is similar to
buying a house. You don’t just get it from your salary,
sometimes you have to go into debt and pay it back over time,”
Mayor Karla Brown said during the meeting. “But this will be a
big shift in this city.”
Those stunning warnings in 2021 that the Marin Municipal Water
District was within months of running out of water led voters
to demand change. In the 2022 election, that frustration was
evident as voters elected three new directors. The historic
drought has taken a toll on the district’s chain of reservoirs,
the capacity of which it relies to meet the water needs of the
communities MMWD serves. The Lake Sonoma reservoir, which MMWD
relies on to import about 25% of its supply, was also depleted
by the drought and its releases restricted. The drought was a
huge test of the district’s long held policy of maintaining its
supply through conservation. The prolonged drought proved that
conservation, while vitally necessary, wasn’t enough — and the
district was caught in a crisis.
As legacy publications celebrated their Pulitzer Prize wins
Monday, bottles of champagne were also uncorked at Lookout
Santa Cruz, a fledgling 10-person newsroom based on the second
floor of a former bank on Santa Cruz’s quiet, tree-lined
Pacific Avenue. “What a day!” said Ken Doctor, the Lookout’s
chief executive and founder. “It’s incredible!” The online news
organization won the prize for its breaking news coverage of
Santa Cruz County’s catastrophic January 2023 floods.
… Doctor said the package submitted to the Pulitzer
board included on-the-ground reporting, as well as blogs,
newsletters and texts produced for readers as the storms
hammered California’s Central Coast, causing landslides, levee
failures and widespread destruction.
The judge in the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper case has ordered a
further six-month stay in the litigation so that structured
mediation can continue. … Eleven major parties involved
in the mediation process, including newcomers to the
negotiations the State Water Resources Control Board and the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife, had jointly asked
the court to continue the stay to Jan. 31, “to allow the
structured mediation a realistic period of time to reach its
conclusion.” … The case dates back to 2014, when Santa
Barbara Channelkeeper sued the city of Ventura and the State
Water Resources Control Board for taking too much water from
the Ventura River, in turn harming endangered Southern
California steelhead trout.
Roughly a half-dozen agencies, governments and a nonprofit
group have filed briefs with a state regulator that could
determine whether or not California American Water Co. gets the
OK for its years-long effort to build a desalination plant on
the Monterey Peninsula. The issue comes down to whether the
peninsula will have enough water to meet the demand for the
next three decades by tapping into recycled water, or whether a
desal plant will be needed. Administrative Law Judge Robert
Haga will examine the April 30 filings, render an up-or-down
proposed ruling and ship it off to the five-member California
Public Utilities Commission to vote on. In late 2022, Cal Am
won the hearts of the California Coastal Commission when the
12-member appointed body approved a permit allowing Cal Am, an
investor-owned utility, to move forward with the desal plant in
Marina. But for Cal Am, it was a double-edged sword.
A free water quality testing program has been launched for
residents of Santa Cruz County. It is estimated that 21,000
residents in the county consume water from household wells and
smaller water systems that are not regulated and have never
been fully tested for safety, per the County of Santa Cruz
Health Service Agency. This is a concern for residents in the
southern part of the county, whose water has high levels of
contaminants. This program will provide point-of-use treatment
and drinking water replacements for those who rely on household
groundwater wells for their drinking water. If your well tests
positive for contaminants and your home is eligible for
assistance, you will be given information about free drinking
water replacement programs.
Marina-area residents are looking at a jump in the cost of
their water that can be as high as 20% a year in order to raise
money for repair and replacement of dilapidated infrastructure
like pipes and pumps. The Marina Coast Water District board of
directors approved an increase on April 22 but has to hold a
special meeting Monday to correct errors in what it calls its
2024 Five-Year Rate Study. It also approved a Proposition 218
mailing, which requires special districts in California to send
out notices to every property owner within the district service
area notifying them of a rate change and allowing them to
protest the change. Before any increase can legally take
effect, the district board of directors need to hold a public
hearing in mid-June.
A generational issue for the families living in San Lucas
continues as they’ve gone decades without drinking water. Soon
federal, state, and local leaders will secure nearly a million
dollars to build a pipeline to King City. Advertisement “The
kids couldn’t even be bathed in the water. That’s how bad it is
that babies are not able to get bathed. That means there’s
something really wrong,” said Fray Marin-Zuniga, a San Lucas
resident. Plants not growing, animals dying, young children
unable to bathe, this is the reality for those living in the
unincorporated South Monterey County town of San Lucas. “Back
when I was in school here, because I graduated from San Lucas
School, the water was yellow,” Martin-Zuniga said.
Martin-Zuniga has lived in San Lucas his entire life, he shows
KSBW the dry skin condition that he’s developed on his arm. He
says as the years go by, the need for clean water has never
wavered.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.