In general, regulations are rules or laws designed to control or
govern conduct. Specifically, water quality regulations under the
federal and state Clean Water Act “protect the public health or
welfare, enhance the quality of water and serve the purposes of
the Act.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a
Unilateral Administrative Order to the Havasu Water Company [in
Southern California by the Colorado River] to take a series of
steps to prevent further violations of the Safe Drinking Water
Act. The EPA specifically cited the company’s failure to adhere
to the Act’s drinking water regulations.This included violation
of the maximum allowable level for total trihalomethanes.
Trihalomethanes are the byproducts that may form during the
disinfection process and may threaten human health through
long-term exposure at levels above federal limits.
… The vast majority of Tricolored Blackbirds spend their
whole lives in California. A handful breed in Oregon,
Washington, Nevada, and Baja California, and at least 20 of the
birds were spotted last year in Idaho. Most, however, nest in
the San Joaquin Valley, and many are known to breed a second
time in the early summer months—often 50 to 100 miles north in
the wetlands and willows of the Sacramento Valley. It’s here,
too, that the birds feed on rice in the fall. They often browse
the paddies alongside other blackbirds—including the very
similar Red-winged Blackbird—that farmers can legally cull as
pests. This has inevitably led to losses of Tricolors over the
years. Although the species’ native
nesting habitat has been almost entirely removed from
California, they’ve adapted with varying success to shifting
land use. Where vineyards and orchards have replaced grassland
and marsh, the blackbirds have mostly disappeared.
Above-average storms have allowed the Modesto Irrigation
District to offer Tuolumne River water to nearby farmers who
normally tap wells. It is getting few takers. The program is
designed to boost the stressed aquifer generally east of
Waterford, just outside MID boundaries. The district board on
Tuesday debated whether to drop the price to spur interest, but
a majority voted to leave it unchanged. The discussion came
amid a state mandate to make groundwater use sustainable by
about 2040. MID does not have a major problem within its
territory, which stretches west to the San Joaquin River. But
it is part of a regional effort to comply with the 2014 law.
This includes out-of-district sales of Tuolumne water in years
when MID’s own farmers have plenty. That was the case in 2023,
one of the wettest years on record, and this year thanks to
storage in Don Pedro Reservoir.
The federal government has released a 584-page document
detailing possible solutions to an invasive species that poses
“an unacceptable risk” to another fish that’s listed as
threatened. When it’s all said and done, officials want to give
smallmouth bass a cold shower — or a cool bath, anyway — to
discourage them from reproducing. Make no mistake, the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation’s plan is a detailed “Cool Mix” strategy
on how to reduce the threat to the humpback chub in the
Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. Smallmouth bass are
voracious predators, and they’ve started to establish
populations below the dam where the chub is struggling to
survive. Biologists say the bass will feed on the chub, their
eggs, and pretty much anything else that will fit in its mouth.
The president of the Navajo Nation has signed the resolution
approving the historic Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights
Settlement Agreement. In doing so, he joined officials from the
Hopi and San Juan Paiute tribes. Before the historic signing,
Navajo speaker Crystalyne Curley pointed out how many Navajo
live off 10 to 30 gallons of water a day, a fraction of the
average American home. “Just even having the efficiency,
the convenience of turning on a faucet of water, that’s
something that’s going to change the livelihoods of many of our
Navajo people,” she said. Navajo president Buu Nygren said the
tribes need the agreement to survive. “Through COVID, through
all the national news over the last several years, people truly
understand the need for water on Navajo,” Nygren said. But
Nygren warned: If we don’t settle the water rights for the
Navajo Nation, the Hopi tribe and the San Juan Paiute, it’s
just another form of genocide.”
“Have you ever heard of nurdles?” I have posed this question
countless times while tabling at events and giving talks across
San Diego County. “They are pre-production plastic
pellets,” I explain while pouring a few out of a jar into the
palm of my hand, adding, “Just about everything made out of
plastic starts with nurdles. They are melted down and poured
into molds to create plastic cutlery, beach toys, milk jugs…you
name it!” I then reveal that I collected the nurdles on
display from North County San Diego beaches, emphasizing
that ”they easily escape during manufacturing and can also
be lost when transported in trucks, shipping containers, and
freight trains.” Despite sharing this information with people
of all ages for years, it hadn’t occurred to me that the
nurdles I find might originate from the rail corridor that
transects the beach communities that I frequent in Northern San
Diego.
As the American West faces intensifying water challenges, water
managers, landowners, and water users are increasingly turning
to the Groundwater Accounting Platform as a data-driven tool
that enables them to track water availability and usage with
user-friendly dashboards and workflows. This critical tool is
now available throughout California to support sustainable
groundwater management practices. Unsustainable groundwater
pumping across much of the West has endangered long-term water
supplies and lead to millions of dollars of infrastructure
damage from sinking land. The Groundwater Accounting Platform
empowers users to manage long-term, and helps communities avoid
undesirable outcomes and maintain clean water supplies at lower
costs. Additionally, this critical functionality supports
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies as they manage resources in
priority basins under the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act.
In the third week of May 2024, the water temperatures in the
lower Sacramento River recorded at Wilkins Slough increased to
72oF, well above the 68oF water quality standard (Figure 1).
These warm water temperatures occurred in a wet spring of an
Above Normal water year that is following a Wet water year. The
water temperature spike occurred between prescribed pulse flow
releases from Shasta Dam in May (Figure 1). Three pulse
flows were prescribed this spring to promote and assist
migration of juvenile salmon into the lower Sacramento River
and the Delta. After the second pulse in early May, the lower
river flow was allowed to drop to a drought-level 5000 cfs,
causing the high water temperatures. Shasta Reservoir was
virtually full at 4.3 MAF during all of May. The Central Valley
Basin Plan’s water quality objective for the lower Sacramento
River is 68oF maximum “during periods when temperature
increases will be detrimental to the fishery.” (P. 3-14).
Is climate action on extreme heat a human right? It was a
provocative opening question that I posed to the science
education graduate students in my climate justice course at San
José State University. Put another way: Is a government’s
failure to take action on the climate crisis a violation of
human rights? The question of human rights, climate justice,
and vulnerable groups recently emerged in the news in two
different cases an ocean apart, with drastically different
outcomes. However, they were connected by an ever-pressing
issue: extreme heat and human health. In one case, a group of
women known as the Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection
argued before the European Court of Human Rights that by
failing to meet climate sustainability goals and create
accountability measures, the Swiss government had violated
their human rights. -Written by Tammie Visintainer, an assistant
professor of science education at San José State
University.
California Water Institute Interim Director Laura Ramos has
been appointed to the California State Water Board’s Wastewater
Needs Assessment (WWNA) Advisory Group. The WWNA is a four-year
assessment project, that began in July 2023, to provide
information on and strategies to address California’s
water-related sanitation system needs. This first-of-its-kind
study has two phases: • Phase I, understanding
baseline conditions of California’s wastewater infrastructure
and • Phase II, identifying wastewater systems of
concern and potential solution As part of the Advisory
Group, Ramos will advise the WWNA project team to develop a
statewide assessment for Californians’ equal and human right to
sanitation and safe wastewater management and critical
wastewater infrastructure needs.
Los Angeles area legislators are leading the charge to combat
chemicals connected to leukemia, ADHD, hearing loss and breast
cancer — and more — through a series of proposed environmental
laws. … [L]egislators are also trying to do better by
California’s kids, whose developing brains and immune systems
are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of
chemicals. … Assemblymember Holden wants to see a crackdown
against the state’s longtime enemy of lead in drinking water —
a potent neurotoxin that can cause irreversible damage to
children’s intellectual development, hearing and ability to
concentrate. In 2018, Holden authored a law requiring
licensed child care centers in the state to test their tap
water for lead contamination. The results came out last year
and found that one in four centers had lead levels above the
allowable threshold.
“Planned export is 4,500 acre-feet”—that is the
much-anticipated decision from Los Angeles on water diversions
from the Mono Basin this year. This means Los Angeles
Department of Water & Power (DWP) diversions will not increase
from last year, even though existing rules would allow DWP to
quadruple their exports from the Mono Basin. This is good news
for Mono Lake, because the decision will help preserve the five
feet of recent wet year lake level gains. Thanks and credit for
this decision go to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for her
leadership, city council and agency leaders, community leaders
for speaking up for environmental sustainability, and citywide
investment in water resilience such as stormwater capture and
other local water conservation measures. It follows a request
by the Mono Lake Committee and a diverse coalition of
supporters in March to not increase diversions.
The defense lawyer minced no words as he addressed a room full
of plastic-industry executives. Prepare for a wave of lawsuits
with potentially “astronomical” costs. Speaking at a
conference earlier this year, the lawyer, Brian Gross, said the
coming litigation could “dwarf anything related to asbestos,”
one of the most sprawling corporate-liability battles in United
States history. Mr. Gross was referring to PFAS, the “forever
chemicals” that have emerged as one of the major pollution
issues of our time. Used for decades in countless everyday
objects — cosmetics, takeout containers, frying pans — PFAS
have been linked to serious health risks including cancer. Last
month the federal government said several types of PFAS must be
removed from the drinking water of hundreds of millions of
Americans.
On May 23, 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
published opinion in Natural Resources Defense Council et al.
v. Debra Haaland et al. (Case No. 21-15163) (“NRDC v. Haaland”)
rejecting the plaintiffs’ challenges to the federal
environmental review of certain long-term water supply
contracts for the Central Valley Project (“CVP”). Specifically,
the Ninth Circuit held that the Bureau of Reclamation
(“Reclamation”), Fish & Wildlife Service (“FWS”), and National
Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) complied with the Endangered
Species Act (“ESA”) in evaluating the effects of executing and
implementing these contracts on listed species. The opinion is
the latest development in a nearly 20-year-old case that is in
its second round of review by the Ninth Circuit. The Sacramento
River Settlement Contractors (“Settlement Contractors”) are
agricultural, municipal, and industrial water users who hold
senior water rights to the Sacramento River. Downey Brand
represents a large group of Settlement Contractors in this
case.
A settlement agreement obtained by SJV Water shows the longtime
attorney for the Kern County Water Agency was paid $640,000
when she was fired in March. The agency voted to fire Attorney
Amelia Minaberrigarai after a March 18 special meeting. She had
just three months left on her contract. The agency stated she
was not fired for cause, which meant she was entitled to be
paid for the remaining months on her contract, or about
$80,000. Instead, she received $640,000 in exchange for not
suing the agency, according to the settlement agreement. The
agency also agreed to treat Minaberrigarai as a “retiring
employee,” meaning she was also paid for any sick or vacation
time she had banked.
California’s freshwater ecosystems—and the native plants and
animals that rely on them—have been in decline for decades.
Roughly half of California’s native freshwater species are
highly vulnerable to extinction within this century. But
efforts to protect and recover native species now face an
additional serious threat: climate change, which is
accelerating and compounding the impacts of past and current
land and water management issues. Simply working harder, using
the same insufficient approaches to conservation, is unlikely
to be successful. New approaches, including some that are
experimental or highly controversial, are urgently needed.
Although California has recently made important strides in
setting goals for salmon, the state lacks a comprehensive
approach to protecting native biodiversity in the face of
climate change. We have identified a portfolio of actions that
can help California rise to this urgent challenge.
The former general manager of a San Joaquin Valley water
district, accused by federal prosecutors of carrying out one of
the most audacious and long-running water heists in California
history, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a version of the crime far
more muted than what prosecutors had laid out in their original
indictment. As part of a plea agreement negotiated with
prosecutors, Dennis Falaschi, 78, former longtime head of the
Panoche Water District, appeared in a Fresno federal courtroom
and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to steal water
from the government and one count of filing a false tax return.
The plea deal is a jarring twist in a case that has captivated
farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. In 2022, prosecutors accused
Falaschi of masterminding the theft of more than $25 million
worth of water out of a federal irrigation canal over the
course of two decades and selling it to farmers and other water
districts.
Water right exactions are a proposed tool to mitigate costs
associated with water rights and water infrastructure that
would also help users make better decisions about how much
water to use. But first, what are exactions? Exactions are a
land use permitting tool used by cities and other permitting
agencies to ensure developers bear some of the public costs of
new development, like increased traffic, a need for more parks,
or increased sewage from new residents. Technically, an
exaction is property (money or other property) given by a
developer in exchange for a discretionary permit (i.e., a
permit that the permitting entity can decide whether or not to
issue).
The 5th District Court of Appeal denied a petition Friday to
rehear the court’s earlier decision to put a hold on a Kern
County court’s order that had required the City of Bakersfield
keep enough water in the Kern River for fish to survive. Both
plaintiffs in the action have said they will likely petition
the California Supreme Court to review the 5th District’s
ruling. … Keeping enough water in the river for fish,
Keats noted, would be more cost effective. Bakersfield does
want water in the river, said its attorney Colin Pearce. But it
only has so much to give. “The city has been trying to get
water in the river for decades,” Pearce said. “The fight is
really between the water districts, who have more water than
the city, and the plaintiffs, who want more water in the
river.”
Healdsburg, California, residents can expect their water and
sewer bills to go up by 21 percent beginning in August after a
rate hike was approved this week by the Healdsburg City
Council. According to the city’s Water and Wastewater Cost of
Service and Rate Design Study, this could amount to as much as
$34 per month for some residents in the Northern California
community. … The city said the revenue will help improve and
maintain its water system, including fixing bursting pipes.
Hey, Congress: Colorado is doing its part, now we need you to
do yours. As someone who was raised on the Western Slope,
I have always felt a deep connection to water. Whether it is
snow on the slopes, rapids in the river or irrigation on our
fields, water is the common thread that weaves together the
future of our communities across geographic, political and
socio-economic divides. Now, as the state senator who
represents the headwaters of the Colorado River, addressing my
constituents means prioritizing our state’s water interests,
which is becoming increasingly important. -Written by Dylan Roberts, a
Democratic state senator for District 8.
Maria-Elena Giner faced a room full of farmers, irrigation
managers and residents in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas on
April 2. The local agricultural community was reeling.
Reservoirs on the Rio Grande were near record lows and the
state had already warned that water cutbacks would be
necessary. The last sugar mill in the region closed in
February, citing the lack of water. But Mexico still wasn’t
sending water to the U.S. from its Rio Grande tributaries, as a
1944 treaty requires the country to do in five-year intervals.
… The IBWC, based in El Paso, implements the boundary
and water treaties between the two countries. Giner’s team had
spent 2023 working to reach an agreement with Mexico to ensure
more reliable water deliveries on the Rio Grande. In December,
she was confident the U.S. and Mexico would sign a new
agreement, known as a minute. But at the final hour Mexico
declined to sign.
I’ve spent years writing about California water policy and my
thoughts on water rights can be summarized simply: the current
system is inequitable and must be modernized if the state has
any hope of staving off the worst impacts of the climate
crisis. It is only a matter of time before we are in another
major drought and our water supply becomes even more scarce.
… The bills are currently making their way through the
committee process and it is vital they pass. The Coachella
Valley’s water future depends on it. AB 1337
(Wicks) gives the State Water Resources Control Board –
the agency charged with protecting water use during droughts
and times of scarcity – the ability to oversee the amount of
water used by all water rights holders when there is
a shortage. -Written by Amanda Fencl, a Western States Senior
Climate Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
…Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is looking for new places
to store water and preparing to prevent saltwater from creeping
into California’s main water hub as part of long-term drought
planning outlined in a report published Thursday. The report
was prompted in part by last year’s state audit that determined
that the state Department of Water Resources did not adequately
factor climate change into its forecasts. It lists several
ongoing efforts to revamp the State Water Project but does not
propose any significant changes in operations … Climate
change is likely to further constrict deliveries by the State
Water Project, the state-run system of pipes, pumps and
reservoirs that provides water to 27 million Californians and
irrigates 750,000 acres of farmland.
Environmental activists have opened a new front in their
long-running fight against a company that pipes water from the
San Bernardino Mountains and bottles it for sale as Arrowhead
brand bottled water. In a petition to the state, several
environmental groups and local activists called for an
investigation by the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, arguing that the company BlueTriton Brands is harming
wildlife habitat and species by extracting water that would
otherwise flow in Strawberry Creek. Those who oppose the taking
of water from San Bernardino National Forest want the state
agency to assess the environmental effects and uphold
protections under state law, said Rachel Doughty, a lawyer for
the environmental nonprofit Story of Stuff Project.
Federal agencies and California farmers fended off a challenge
by environmentalists seeking greater protections for several
vulnerable fish species, as an appeals court Thursday upheld
the handling of long-disputed irrigation water contracts. In
the latest round of a fight that’s dragged on for decades and
isn’t over yet, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals determined that the Biden administration
properly considered the impact of the irrigation water
deliveries on the delta smelt and Chinook salmon. Both species
are protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Within the heart of the Navajo Nation and in the shadow of the
sandstone arch that is the namesake of the tribal capital, a
simple greeting and big smiles were shared over and over again
Friday as tribal officials gathered: “Yá‘át’ééh abíní!” It was
a good morning, indeed, for Navajo President Buu Nygren as he
signed legislation in Window Rock, Arizona, outlining a
proposed settlement to ensure three Native American tribes have
water rights from the Colorado River and other sources — and
drought-stricken Arizona has more security in its supply. The
signature came a day after the Navajo Nation Council voted
unanimously in favor of the measure. The San Juan Southern
Paiute and Hopi tribes also approved the settlement this week.
Claudia Sheinbaum, front-runner in Mexico’s presidential race,
aims to overhaul water governance in the agriculture sector,
the top user of the country’s scarce supply, with a potential
investment of 20 billion pesos ($1.2 billion) per year. Julio
Berdegue, a member of Sheinbaum’s campaign team focused on
water and the agricultural sector, told Reuters the candidate’s
six-year plan will review existing water concessions, crack
down on illegal use, update irrigation technology and revamp
national water entity CONAGUA. He cautioned the plan,
details of which have not previously been reported, was still
in development and could change. Sheinbaum has said she plans
to reform the National Water Law and develop a strategy to
confront pervasive issues in Mexico, which is suffering from
crippling drought, widespread water shortages, and heat waves
in recent days so severe that howler monkeys are dropping
dead from trees.
Lawmakers aim to amp up protections for water used by
Colorado’s largest electric utilities with a broadly supported
bill based on recommendations from water experts around the
state. Senate Bill 197 would help electric utilities hold onto
water rights that could otherwise be declared “abandoned” as
the state transitions to clean energy. It would also enhance
protections for environmental and agricultural water, and ease
access to funding for tribes. The bill grew out of water policy
recommendations developed by the Colorado River Drought Task
Force in 2023. The bill, which passed with bipartisan support,
is the legislature’s main effort this year to address those
recommendations — and to help Colorado address its uncertain
water future. Polis has until June 7 to sign the bill, allow it
to become law without his endorsement or veto it.
July 16 has been, for many years, the day that Chinook salmon
fishing opens to recreational anglers on the Sacramento,
American, Feather and Mokelumne rivers. One of the most popular
salmon fishing spots is the mouth of the American River at
Discovery Park in Sacramento, where dozens of boats and bank
anglers line up in the predawn darkness hoping for the chance
to hook a beautiful, ocean-bright salmon. But this year, just
like last year, the rivers will be closed to salmon fishing. On
May 15, the California Fish and Game Commission unanimously
adopted emergency regulations for Chinook salmon fishing
closures in the Central Valley and Klamath River Basins, due to
dramatic population declines.
The fallout and recriminations in Kings County continue over
the state Water Resources Control Board’s historic decision to
place the Tulare Lake subbasin on probation for failing to come
up with a cohesive plan to protect the region’s groundwater.
The Kings County Farm Bureau, which has already sued the Water
Board over the probationary designation, is now demanding the
resignations of the manager and entire board of directors of
one local water board, saying they are at fault for putting the
region in jeopardy with the Water Board. The Farm Bureau is
seeking to oust Kings County Water District General Manager
Dennis Mills and all of the district’s board members. Mills and
three of those board members also sit on the Mid-Kings River
Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA).
Installing drought-tolerant landscaping or using recycled water
for irrigation could become substitutes for grey water systems
under a proposal from the Marin Municipal Water District. The
district’s communications and water efficiency committee has
endorsed a proposal that will overhaul the grey water ordinance
that was adopted in 2016. Grey water is wastewater from
bathtubs, showers, bathroom sinks and clothes washers. The
existing ordinance states that applicants seeking new water
service, and projects requesting expanded water service for
large residential or commercial remodels, must install a grey
water recycling system for landscape irrigation. However, the
district allowed customers to self-certify whether a grey water
system was feasible, resulting in many owners of eligible sites
exempting their properties, staff said.
California’s agriculture agency has released a concept paper
proposing ways to streamline ag-related food safety and water
quality reporting requirements. The paper is part of a
regulatory alignment study led by the state Department of Food
and Agriculture in coordination with the California
Environmental Protection Agency and the State Water Resources
Control Board. Officials said the objective is to reduce
paperwork for farmers and ranchers. Informed by a broad range
of interviews and feedback, the proposals presented in the
concept paper serve as a foundation and are not final
recommendations.
Two groups of states submitted conflicting proposals in March
describing how federal officials should manage reservoirs on
the Colorado River after 2026. Former Colorado River Water
Conservation District General Manager Eric Kuhn, along with two
other water experts, have their own idea to pitch. Kuhn and his
co-authors, University of New Mexico professor John Fleck and
Utah State University professor Jack Schmidt want to add more
flexibility to dam operations to address environmental and
recreation concerns in the Grand Canyon below Glen Canyon Dam
(the dam that forms Lake Powell). Kuhn presented what has
been called the “academic proposal” during a Colorado Basin
Roundtable meeting in Glenwood Springs on Monday. He said the
document is not a “proposal” akin to the states’ proposals,
describing it as more of an “approach” that can be incorporated
with other proposals.
Major Central Valley water agencies have signed an agreement
with the federal government to establish a new drought
resiliency framework. The partnership is funded by the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation
Reduction Act. The big picture: The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, the Friant Water Authority, the San Luis &
Delta-Mendota Water Authority and the San Joaquin River
Exchange Contractors Water Authority all signed a memorandum of
understanding on Tuesday to establish a South of Delta Drought
Resiliency Framework. The MOU establishes an approach to
implement drought resiliency projects and framework, which
includes a drought plan that allows the agencies to conserve
and store or exchange a portion of their water deliveries for
use in future years with lower supplies.
Related Central Valley water infrastructure
articles:
Three California companies pushing back against state emergency
regulations and water curtailment orders saw most of their
claims dismissed by a federal judge Tuesday. Los Molinos Mutual
Water Company, Stanford Vina Ranch Irrigation Company and
Peyton Pacific Properties LLC challenged the restrictions,
which were in response to 2021 and 2022 drought conditions. …
However [U.S. District Court Judge Dale Drozd] kept intact the
Endangered Species Act claim against water board members and
staff while tossing all claims against the [state] Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration – acting under its Food
Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), as amended, 21 U.S.C. §
2201 et seq., to address the safety of all FMSA-covered
produce other than sprouts (Covered Produce) – on May 6, 2024,
issued a final rule that amended its 2015 rule on the
safety of produce. With certain exceptions for
growers of Covered Produce, the FDA’s new rule
requires pre-harvest agricultural water
assessments for hazard identification and risk management
decision-making purposes. Requirements for harvest and
post-harvest use of agricultural water have not changed.
The FDA regulated sprouts specifically in an earlier
pre-harvest agricultural water regulation that remains
applicable to that produce.
A California attorney representing a public relations firm told
a Michigan federal judge on Monday that she had nothing to do
with the firm’s campaign attacking a lawyer suing one of its
clients connected to the Flint water crisis. . . .
Sebastopol residents could pay an average of $43 more per month
for water and sewer services beginning July 1. The proposed
increase, to be discussed by city leaders on Tuesday and be
voted on by the Sebastopol City Council in June, is meant to
cover the cost of much needed maintenance and replacements on
the city’s aging system. The city has dipped into reserves for
the past five years, depleting its “rainy day” account.
According to city documents, the city expects its water fund to
have just $13,000-plus on the books at the end of the 2023-24
fiscal year, while its wastewater fund will be in the hole by
more than $1 million. … To backfill the loss, the city plans
to raise water rates by 50%. It could then follow one of two
recommended plans: raise rates by 16% in year two, then two
percent for the next three years. Or, in the second plan, the
city could raise rates by 11% in the second year, then 9% for
the next three years.
The Biden administration is moving forward with new permitting
guidance to curb pollution that moves through groundwater in
response to a landmark Supreme Court ruling. In a decision
praised by environmental advocates, the high court ruled in
2020 that wastewater treatment plants and industrial facilities
must obtain federal permits for groundwater pollution that
affects major bodies of water. Since then, however, questions
have emerged over how to interpret and apply the ruling, which
said that permits are necessary if groundwater pollution has
the “functional equivalent” of directly contaminating a lake,
river or other surface water. The Trump administration issued
its own interpretation of the ruling in January 2021, which EPA
under President Joe Biden scrapped months later.
Today, Rep. Harder called out Sacramento politicians and the
California Department of Water Resources for trying to ship the
Central Valley’s water south while causing “significant and
unavoidable” impacts on Delta communities. In a benefit-cost
analysis released yesterday, the state admits the cost of the
project has grown to over $20 billion and would devastate Delta
communities with $167 million in damages. The project would be
a disaster for Delta communities by destroying farmland and
worsening air quality. “This new analysis acknowledges what
we’ve known all along: the Delta Tunnel is meant to benefit
Beverly Hills and leave Delta communities out to dry,” said
Rep. Harder. “This $20 billion boondoggle project wouldn’t
create a single new gallon of water for anyone. I’m sick and
tired of politicians in Sacramento ignoring our Valley voices
and I will do everything in my power to stop them from stealing
our water.”
Time has passed, but tension once ran deep between Oroville and
Cal Water, when the utility company refused the city’s request
to add fluoride to its water supply in 1954. In fact, Oroville
complained to the California Public Utilities Commission in
1955, asking it to order Cal Water to obtain its fluoridation
permit. Its case with the CPUC met a petition with the
California Supreme Court in 1957, but Cal Water ultimately
applied for and received its permit from the state Department
of Health by the end of that year. It was said to be the first
request of its kind in the United States to a state regulatory
body like the CPUC, according to the March 1, 1955 Oroville
Mercury-Register. But that’s all history, now that the Oroville
City Council will consider Tuesday whether to require Cal Water
add fluoride to the domestic water supply in city limits.
The trial dates for two related lawsuits filed against the city
of Newport Beach accusing it of negligence in the maintenance
of a water main that burst and flooded a local home twice has
been set for this fall, according to attorney Jesse Creed. Amy
and Marshall Senk have owned their home on Evening Canyon Road
in Corona del Mar since 2002 and, after remodeling it, began
living there in August 2006. In October 2020, a water main
owned and operated by the city failed and burst, which led to
“catastrophic” flooding of the property with 500,000 gallons of
water, according to a complaint filed in Orange County Superior
Court in April 2023 by the Senks’ attorneys from
Panish|Shea|Ravipudi LLP. The damage left in the wake of the
failure made the house uninhabitable.
A coalition of Northwest Colorado governments has come out in
opposition to designating the Dolores Canyon region as a
national monument. The board of the Associated Governments of
Northwest Colorado this week approved a resolution urging
“President Biden, federal agencies and legislative bodies to
consider the adverse impacts such designation would have on
local governance, economy, access, and national security.” The
board’s action came the same week Mesa County commissioners
passed a resolution opposing the monument designation. … [The
AGNC] worries about potential impacts to things such as
farming/ranching and recreational access, and to potential
mining of uranium and lithium in the region that “represents a
critical matter of national security, particularly considering
the current state of global affairs.”
The Kings County Farm Bureau and two of its farmer members have
filed suit against the state Water Resources Control Board,
claiming the board exceeded its jurisdiction when it placed the
Tulare Lake groundwater subbasin on probation April 16. A writ
of mandate was filed May 15 in Kings County Superior Court. A
writ is an order asking a governmental body, in this case the
Water Board, to cease an action. The farm bureau is asking the
board to vacate the resolution, which was passed unanimously.
“The board’s decision to place the (Tulare Lake Subbasin) on
probation violated the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
and expanded the board’s authority beyond its jurisdiction,” a
Kings County Farm Bureau press release states. The filing
asks for declaratory and injunctive relief, and cites eight
causes of action under the writ that the “probationary
designation is arbitrary, capricious, and lacking in
evidentiary support.”
A Western Slope fundraising effort to buy the historic Shoshone
hydroelectric plant water rights is now more than half of the
way toward succeeding thanks to a $2 million contribution by
the City of Glenwood Springs, just downstream of the Glenwood
Canyon facility. Glenwood’s City Council unanimously approved
the funding Thursday. The city’s recreation-based economy
relies in part on reliable Colorado River flows through the
canyon, which the plant’s water rights help assure by virtue of
their seniority.
Is bottled water really “natural” if it’s contaminated with
microplastics? A series of lawsuits recently filed against six
bottled water brands claim that it’s deceptive to use labels
like “100 percent mountain spring water” and “natural spring
water” — not because of the water’s provenance, but
because it is likely tainted with tiny plastic fragments.
Reasonable consumers, the suits allege, would read those labels
and assume bottled water to be totally free of contaminants; if
they knew the truth, they might not have bought it.
… Experts aren’t sure it’s a winning legal strategy, but
it’s a creative new approach for consumers hoping to protect
themselves against the ubiquity of microplastics. Research over
the past several years has identified these particles
— fragments of plastic less than 5 millimeters in diameter
— just about everywhere, in nature and in people’s
bodies.
When the Wilton Rancheria tribe restored its control over a
77-acre parcel outside Sacramento recently, tribal Chairman
Jesus Tarango Jr. couldn’t stop smiling. … For years,
Tarango’s elders had fought to remain on their ancestral
territory in the Sacramento Valley, only to have the U.S.
government repeatedly renege on promises: Officials sold their
land to private buyers and even canceled their status as a
federally recognized tribe. … “Home” means something
different if you happen to be a descendant of the Miwok and
Nisenan tribes that lived on and watched over this part of
Northern California only to watch it fall into the hands of
outsiders, Tarango said. He describes his tribe as “a river
people.” They view the Cosumnes River and the many creeks that
rush over boulders and wind past wooded banks in their homeland
as sacred givers of life and sources of power. Those waters
flow through them too.
In August 2022, amidst a severe drought, the State Water Board
ordered ranchers and farmers in Siskiyou County to cease
irrigation. Initially facing fines starting at $500 per
day, escalating to $10,000 after 20 days or a hearing, they
chose to continue irrigating due to economic pressures.
This decision led to a significant reduction in the
Shasta River’s flow, endangering local salmon populations. The
incident underscored the State Water Board’s limited
enforcement capabilities and the minor penalties for water
rights violations compared to water quality infringements.
As a result, there is now proposed legislation aimed at
empowering the State Water Board to enforce water rights more
effectively and impose deterrent fines for violations.
Navigating California’s complex water rights landscape has
always been contentious.
Land subsidence remains the biggest issue in the new state
regulation of groundwater. The state Water Board reports that
subsidence measured as much as 7 feet just east of Corcoran
between June 2015 and January 2024. Groundwater pumping west of
Highway 99 has caused the land to sink at least 4 to 5 feet
according to a DWR database. The worry here is the collapse of
water delivering infrastructure. Tulare Lake farmers have been
asked to install metering on their pumps 90 days after the
decision to put the GSA on probation which was made April 16.
That means by mid-July pumpers must install metering as well as
begin reporting how much water they are extracting.
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.
Taking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) at its word to
employ a “robust public engagement process”, a coalition of
over a dozen national and state farm and water organizations
have engaged the agency on its proposal to list the
northwestern and southwestern pond turtles under the federal
Endangered Species Act (ESA). The litigious Center for
Biological Diversity has been pushing for stronger protection
for the pond turtles for over a decade. The proposed listing of
the turtle could potentially impact producers and water
managers in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
… For example, millions of acre-feet of stored water in
the past decade have been directed away from farmland and
flushed out to the sea to “protect” delta smelt in California
and coho salmon on the Klamath River. -Written by Dan Keppen is executive director of the Family
Farm Alliance.
When Noah Williams was about a year old, his parents took him
on a fateful drive through the endless desert sagebrush of the
Owens Valley—which the Nüümü call Payahuunadü—in California’s
Eastern Sierra. Noah was strapped into his car seat behind his
mother, Teri Red Owl, and his father, Harry Williams, a Nüümü
tribal elder who loved a teachable moment. “Hey look—that’s our
water!” he liked to tell Noah whenever they drove past the
riffling cascades of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. … In a
state shaped by water grabs, drought emergencies, and “pray for
rain” billboards, Payahuunadü is the locus of
California’s most infamous water war—the fight
between Payahuunadü residents and the city of Los
Angeles, over 200 miles away. … Around 1904, Los Angeles city
officials came up with a plan to take the valley’s water for
themselves.
Colorado lawmakers gave the thumbs-up to 10 water measures this
year that will bring millions of dollars in new funding to help
protect streams, bring oversight to construction activities in
wetlands and rivers, make commercial rainwater harvesting
easier and support efforts to restore the clarity of Grand
Lake. Money for water conservation, planning and projects was a
big winner, with some $50 million approved, including $20
million to purchase the Shoshone water rights on the Colorado
River. Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, chair of the Senate
Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, expressed
gratitude for the legislature’s focus on water issues and for
funding the Shoshone purchase.
California regulators have decided to ban fishing for chinook
salmon on the state’s rivers for a second year in a row, in
effort to help the species recover from major population
declines. The unanimous vote by the California Fish and Game
Commission on Wednesday follows a similar decision last month
to prohibit salmon fishing along the California coast this
year. The decision will shut down the recreational salmon
fishing season along the Sacramento, American, Feather,
Mokulumne, Klamath and Trinity rivers, among others. State
officials have said salmon are struggling because
of factors such as reduced river flows during the
severe drought from 2020-2022, the effects of climate
change, harmful algae blooms, and shifts in the species’
ocean diet. Fishing advocates blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom and
his administration, arguing that the state has been sending too
much water to farms and cities, and depriving rivers of the
cold flows salmon need to survive.
Imperial Irrigation District officials have figured out how to
surmount a key hurdle to complete a Colorado River conservation
deal worth nearly $800 million: pushing to have California
legislators quickly pass a bill that would immediately give
them the power to kill endangered fish and birds. District
staff, the bill’s sponsor and environmentalists say that likely
wouldn’t occur, thanks to funding to create habitat elsewhere,
and due to backstop federal species protections that are
actually stronger than the state’s. But it is a
counter-intuitive piece of lawmaking that has upset one
longtime critic. What’s driving the legislation are a tiny
desert pupfish and two types of birds, all nearing extinction,
which have found unlikely refuge in the Imperial Valley’s
concrete drainage channels and marshy areas by the fast-drying
Salton Sea.
Related Salton Sea and endangered species articles:
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.”
A multi-disciplinary authorship group of over 30 individuals
has published a report comprised of literature review, policy
analysis, and recommendations pertaining to the water impacts
of cover crop practices in California’s Central Valley under
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The report,
entitled “Cover Cropping in the SGMA Era,” is the product of a
convening process jointly developed by the California
Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD),
California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), Natural
Resources Conservation Service of California (NRCS-CA), and
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC
ANR) and assembled by Sustainable Conservation.
The U.S. government is dedicating $60 million over the next few
years to projects along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico
and West Texas to make the river more resilient in the face of
climate change and growing demands. The funding announced
Friday by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland marks the first
disbursement from the Inflation Reduction Act for a basin
outside of the Colorado River system. While pressures on the
Colorado River have dominated headlines, Haaland and others
acknowledged that other communities in the West — from Native
American reservations to growing cities and agricultural
strongholds — are experiencing the effects of unprecedented
drought.
Many Los Angeles residents will see their sewer fees double
over the next four years, with the City Council approving the
increases Tuesday over the objections of business groups
concerned that landlords will be disproportionately affected.
The council voted 11 to 4 for the rate hikes, with
Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez, Kevin de León, Imelda Padilla
and Heather Hutt dissenting. The increases are needed to fund
the rising cost of construction and materials, officials with
the Bureau of Sanitation said. The officials said that labor
costs will rise 24% over the next five years because of a
recent salary package for city workers backed by Mayor Karen
Bass and the council.
Dow Chemical and Shell USA are facing a negligence suit in
California federal court by the city of Pomona, alleging the
companies are responsible for manufacturing commercial products
containing the toxic 1,2,3-trichloropropane that has migrated
into the city’s water supply and seeking to recoup costs over
response efforts. …
[Tuolumne River Trust's policy director Peter] Drekmeier’s beef
with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission goes back
years and rests on the premise that the agency stores far more
water than it needs in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, on the upper
Tuolumne, at the expense of the river downstream. The
commission’s water management plan is based on the unlikely
possibility of an 8.5-year drought—a theoretical disaster
dubbed the “design drought” that critics consider overkill. …
Environmentalists insist the agency could take a more
fish-friendly approach, releasing more water through
O’Shaughnessy Dam into the Tuolumne River while still providing
adequate supplies for its 2.7 million customers.
A federal judge just added yet another layer to planning a
sustainable future for the region’s water resources. U.S.
District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled that the Army
Corps of Engineers violates the Endangered Species Act with
water released from Coyote Valley Dam into the Russian River.
Because of the way the 66-year-old dam is designed, a lot of
sediment gets mixed with the water and clouds the Russian
River. Salmon and other fish are accustomed to some natural
turbidity in the water, as the clouding is called, but not that
much. The good news is that the Corps of Engineers has a few
months to come up with at least a temporary plan to address the
judge’s concerns.
Beyond a chain-link fence topped with spiraled barbed wire,
swaying coastal grasses conceal a cache of buried radioactive
waste and toxic pesticides from a bygone chemical plant.
Warning signs along the Richmond, Calif., site’s perimeter
attempt to discourage trespassers from breaching the locked
gates, where soil testing has detected cancer-causing gamma
radiation more than 60 times higher than background levels in
some places. For most of the 20th century, the former
Stauffer Chemical Co. disposed of thousands of tons of
industrial waste near its factory grounds along Richmond’s
southeast shoreline. … In a January letter to Albany and
Berkeley city officials, [the State Water Board] wrote
that the landfills “may have accepted industrial waste
materials that could present a risk to water quality, human
health, and the environment.”
San Francisco is poised to become the first city in the country
to issue a ban on firefighter clothing manufactured with
so-called forever chemicals. Local lawmakers are expected
to pass an ordinance on Tuesday prohibiting the use of
protective equipment made with per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances, or PFAS. The long-lasting compounds do not break
down, allowing them to linger almost permanently in the
environment. PFAS can be ingested or absorbed into the skin and
have been linked to harmful health effects, including decreased
fertility, low-birth weight and developmental delays in
children, a higher risk of certain cancers and increased
cholesterol levels, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency.
In an effort to avoid the fate of their neighbors to the north,
Kern County water managers are putting the finishing touches on
a new groundwater plan they hope will stave off probation in
order to keep state bureaucrats from taking over local pumping.
The county’s 20 groundwater agency boards began approving final
changes to the plan, which is actually six identical plans,
last week in expectation of submitting them to the state Water
Resources Control Board by May 28. The goal is to stay out of
probation, which is where the Tulare Lake subbasin ended up
after a hearing before the Water Board on April 16. Tulare Lake
covers almost all of Kings County. Now, under probation, most
Kings County growers will have to register their wells at $300
each and report extractions starting July 15.
The Scott and Shasta Rivers were once salmon strongholds, but
over-allocation of water has made these rivers nearly
uninhabitable for coho and chinook. The State Water Resources
Control Board established emergency regulations that set
minimum streamflows during the most recent drought. But those
will likely expire soon. Without new permanent instream flows,
both rivers could run dry. A coalition of tribal governments,
fishermen and environmental nonprofits are asking the State
Board for new permanent instream flow dedications. And new
legislation, if passed, will strengthen the ability of the
state to protect those instream flows. Karuk Vice-Chairman
Kenneth Brink, Cody Phillips of the California Coastkeeper
Alliance, and Klamath advocate Craig Tucker join the EcoNews to
talk about what’s needed to save California’s salmon.
Further legal action on the Kern River was put on pause
Thursday morning following an order by the 5th District Court
of Appeal that stayed a local injunction mandating enough water
be kept in the river for fish. … The underlying lawsuit was
filed in 2022 by Bring Back the Kern and several other public
interest groups along with Water Audit California, against the
City of Bakersfield for dewatering the river. … That 2022
lawsuit demands the city study the impacts of its river
operations on recreation and the ecosystem under the Public
Trust doctrine, which states all natural resources are held in
trust by the state for the greatest beneficial use by the
public. That was once automatically considered to be farming,
industry and municipal uses. But in recent years, recreation,
aesthetics and the environment have gained equal footing.
The Colorado River is in trouble. More than two decades of
megadrought fueled by climate change have sapped its supplies,
and those who use the river’s water are struggling to rein in
demand. Now, with current rules for river sharing set to expire
in 2026, policymakers have a rare opportunity to rework how
Western water is managed.
The effort to grant “rights of nature” to Boulder Creek through
Nederland as a legacy for generations to come lasted less than
three years. The human guardians appointed to voice those
rights lasted less than five months. The Nederland town board
voted unanimously late Tuesday to repeal a 2021 rights of
nature resolution meant to give a policy voice to watershed
environmental protections, in clearly stated pique at a
nonprofit group opposing a dam the town wants to build on the
creek’s middle branch. Nederland board members
claimed they were misled by Save the World’s Rivers and its
leader Gary Wockner to bolster river protections, only to have
the group file formal objections in water court to Nederland’s
plan for a new reservoir on Middle Boulder Creek.
The town of Seagraves sits on the high plains of West
Texas, not far from the New Mexico border. Nearby, water pumped
from the Ogallala Aquifer irrigates fields of peanuts and
cotton. Dissolved in that West Texas water are copious amounts
of fluoride. The tap water in Seagraves contains levels of the
mineral that many experts believe could have neurotoxic
effects, lowering children’s IQs. The science on that effect is
unsettled, and most experts say better research is needed. But
nearly everyone agrees that at some point, high fluoride levels
ought to be a matter of greater concern — even if they don’t
always agree on what that point is. Many cities add low
levels of fluoride to drinking water in a bid to prevent tooth
decay, but the policy has long been controversial. Lost
in that debate are the roughly 3 million Americans
whose water naturally contains higher concentrations of
fluoride — often at levels that even some fluoridation
advocates now acknowledge could have neurodevelopmental
effects.
After more than an hour of discussion, which included the
addition of some new conditions of approval by staff as well as
public comments both in opposition and support, the California
Coastal Commission unanimously approved the project. In
granting the Harbor District’s permit application, the
commission cleared away one of the last remaining
administrative hurdles for Nordic Aquafarms’ proposed
fish-production factory on the Samoa Peninsula. The coastal
development permit will allow the Harbor District to upgrade
its seawater intake infrastructure in Humboldt Bay, install new
underground water pipelines along the bay, perform a variety of
environmental mitigation activities and, eventually, withdraw
up to 11.8 million gallons of water per day for tenants in the
future National Marine Research and Innovation Park.
Businesses should start preparing for more regulatory
notification and reporting, recordkeeping obligations, and
potential liability now that the Environmental Protection
Agency has issued its first-ever national, legally enforceable
drinking-water standards for “forever chemicals.” The EPA has
set near-zero maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, for six per-
and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and we expect this development
to broadly impact PFAS regulation. Water systems operating
under state drinking water standards for PFAS will have to
comply with the more stringent MCLs. The costs to treat PFAS in
drinking water to meet the MCLs will cost billions of
dollars. -Written by Jeffrey Dintzer and Gregory Berlin of the
Alston & Bird law firm.
After yearslong battles with the city of San Diego over
crumbling stormwater infrastructure in their southeastern San
Diego neighborhoods, hundreds of people whose homes and
businesses were damaged by flash flood waters in January are
now suing the city. The $100 million mass tort lawsuit has
nearly 300 plaintiffs — homeowners and renters as well as
business owners in the communities of Southcrest, Logan Heights
and others along the Chollas Creek watershed. The lawsuit
contends that city leaders have known for years that the creek
and stormwater infrastructure around it are in urgent need of
attention.
Subsidence has reared its head again as a key factor cited by
state Water Resources Control Board staff for recommending that
the Kaweah groundwater subbasin be placed on probation – the
first step toward possible state takeover of groundwater
pumping. The recommendation was contained in a draft report
released May 6, which set Nov. 5 for Kaweah’s hearing before
the Water Board. Subsidence was listed as a major factor in
similar staff reports for the Tulare Lake and Tule subbasins.
Tulare Lake was, indeed, placed on probation by the Water Board
April 16 and the Tule subbasin comes before the board Sept. 17.
The Kaweah report identified additional challenges
for water managers in the subbasin, which covers the northern
half of Tulare County’s valley portion into the eastern fringes
of Kings County.
Two California water utilities went before the state’s Supreme
Court on Wednesday to argue that the Public Utilities
Commission cut corners when it decided to discontinue the use
of surcharges to compensate the utilities for sales shortfalls
from water conservation efforts. The Golden State Water Co. and
the California-American Water Co. claim that the commission
made the decision to eliminate the so-called decoupling
mechanisms without giving them adequate notice that it was
considering this option as part of a yearslong rulemaking
procedure. As a result, the utilities argue, they had no
opportunity to provide evidence to support their case that
these mechanisms — which allow them to impose a surcharge on
their customers when they face a revenue shortfall because of
California’s efforts to conserve water in drought-plagued years
— were serving their purpose.
One of multiple charges in a lawsuit that pins blame for the
perpetually sinking Friant-Kern Canal on a single Tulare County
groundwater agency was recently removed. The Eastern Tule
Groundwater Sustainability Agency (ETGSA) hailed the move as
vindication. But plaintiffs, the Friant Water Authority and
Arvin-Edison Water Storage District, said the change was simply
meant to narrow the complaint in order to get faster action
against Eastern Tule. The stakes could not be higher as the
entire Tule subbasin, which covers the southern half of
Tulare’s valley portion, is looking down the barrel of a
possible pumping takeover by the state Water Resources Control
Board. The Water Board, the enforcement arm of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, has scheduled a
“probationary hearing” for the subbasin Sept. 17.
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.
A federal judge ruled Monday afternoon that a California dam
harms endangered salmon when it conducts flood control
operations. Coyote Valley Dam, operated by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, protects the city of Ukiah from flooding from
nearby Lake Mendocino. In 2022, fisheries biologist Sean White
sued the Corps claiming the dam’s flood control operations kick
up sediment in the water, increasing turbidity and harming
endangered Central California coast steelhead, coho and Chinook
salmon. White’s previous requests for injunctive relief were
denied in 2023, yet he was granted summary judgment on his
claims on Monday after providing more data. U.S. District Judge
Jacqueline Scott Corley, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in her
18-page opinion that it was beyond dispute that the dam’s
operations harm the fish.
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.
Diminished by decades of over-pumping, California’s groundwater
reserves saw a huge influx of water last year, in some places
the most in modern times, according to state data that offers
the first detailed look at how aquifers fared during
the state’s historically wet 2023. The bump was driven, in
part, by deliberate efforts to recharge aquifers — the
porous underground rock that holds water and accounts for about
40% of the state’s total water supply. The intentional water
banking, or managed recharge, resulted in at least 4.1 million
acre-feet of water pushed underground, nearly equivalent to
what California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, can hold.
About 90% of that recharge occurred in the San Joaquin Valley,
the state’s agricultural heartland, where aquifers have been
heavily taxed by pumping.
Bureaucratic blunders, mismanagement, partisan politics,
cross-border politics, understaffing, equipment failures. The
list of reasons for the longstanding sewage crisis at the
U.S.-Mexico border is long. At the center is the International
Boundary and Water Commission, the binational agency
responsible for preventing water pollution in the Tijuana River
and southern San Diego County shorelines. It has been severely
handicapped in its task. The result: beach closures due to
contaminated ocean water, economic losses and growing concerns
about the long-term health impacts caused by breathing,
smelling and touching sewage-tainted water. Each country is
represented by a commissioner appointed by their respective
presidents. Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner, appointed by
President Joe Biden in 2021, inherited the broken system. She’s
been trying to steer the federal agency in the right direction
ever since.
[T]here’s an undercurrent of doom these days in the North Bay
fisher community that might dampen the celebration. That’s
because federal officials are reportedly about to declare that
no one will be allowed to catch any salmon off the California
coast this year, for the second year in a row. … Local
salmon populations are in the pits right now, due to years of
drought and low flows in local waterways — made worse, of
course, by human diversions and dams. … On the upside:
Many hundreds of millions more state dollars are being
invested right now into restoring salmon habitats across
California. There are also huge
American-Indian efforts underway to introduce more
salmon back into rotation, especially up north in the Klamath
River area.
The state legislature has mandated that water conservation
become “a California way of life.” This may sound simple, but
converting these words into reality — with tailored local
reduction targets for over 400 water agencies that deliver
water to most Californians each and every year — is proving to
be hard work for regulators. Getting this right, even if it
takes some extra time, is what matters. … As designed,
however, our analysis showed that the water savings would be
modest while the costs would be high. And, most troubling, we
found that the proposed regulations would hit low-income,
inland communities the hardest. That’s why we suggested that
the State Water Board revisit these rules. -Written by Ellen Hanak and David
Mitchell with the Public Policy Institute of California
Water Policy Center.
For the past 101 years, the cows on [the Mulas Dairy
farm] near San Pablo Bay were milked twice a day. In
recent years, that meant you’d hear the loud hum of vacuum
pumps running from midnight to 7 a.m. and again from noon to 7
p.m. … [Farm president Mike] Mulas was standing near a
drainage ditch on the east side of his 800-acre Schellville
property. The shallow stormwater trench runs through part of
the farm and empties into a field, not far from a network of
creeks that flow into San Pablo Bay. It was a major point of
contention in a lawsuit filed over alleged water quality
violations in early 2023. … For the North Bay’s
struggling dairy industry, it could also be read as another
signpost of the new era. In an age where some environmental
groups take to the courts in higher numbers, going after farms
they allege are polluting surrounding watersheds, many
struggling family farms simply can’t put up a fight anymore.
Tribes that use the Colorado River want a say in negotiations
that will reshape how the river’s water is shared. Eighteen of
those tribes signed on to a letter sent to the Bureau of
Reclamation, the federal agency that will finalize new rules
for managing the river after 2026, when the current guidelines
expire. In the memo, tribal leaders urge the federal government
to protect their access to water and uphold long-standing legal
responsibilities. … The tribes’ letter aims to make sure
that Indigenous people, who used the Colorado River before
white settlers ever occupied the Western U.S., are not
left behind as Reclamation considers those proposals. “If you
are not at the table, you are on the menu,” Jay Weiner, a water
lawyer for the Quechan Indian Tribe, said. Weiner, who helped
craft the letter, said it aims to answer the complicated
question: What do tribes want?
Giant pumps hum inside a warehouse-like building, pushing water
from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta into the California
Aqueduct, where it travels more than 400 miles south to the
taps of over half the state’s population. But lately the
powerful motors at the Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant have been
running at reduced capacity, despite a second year of
drought-busting snow and rain. The reason: So many threatened
fish have died at the plant’s intake reservoir and pumps that
it has triggered federal protections and forced the state to
pump less water. The spike in fish deaths has angered
environmentalists and fishing advocates, who argue the state
draws too much water from the delta while failing to safeguard
fish.
Water systems will need to comply with new rules on
contaminants at the state and federal levels after two
regulations were approved this month. That could bring
challenging costs to water providers. And still, advocates say
protections aren’t good enough. On April 17, the state
Water Resources Control Board passed a maximum contaminant
level (MCL) for hexavalent chromium, a heavy metal that can
occur naturally and through improper industrial site disposal.
… On April 18, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) designated perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous substances.
On April 25, 2024, the Delta Stewardship Council unanimously
appointed Dr. Lisamarie Windham-Myers as its new lead scientist
for the Delta Science Program. She had been serving in an
interim capacity during the lead scientist recruitment process
due to the early departure of the prior lead scientist. At the
recommendation of the Delta Independent Science Board, the
Council extended Dr. Windham-Myers’ term to a full three-year
term through November 30, 2026. … Dr. Windham-Myers is a
systems ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who is known
internationally for her work leading teams to advance the
understanding of carbon sequestration in aquatic systems.
For decades, concerns about automobile pollution have focused
on what comes out of the tailpipe. Now, researchers and
regulators say, we need to pay more attention to toxic
emissions from tires as vehicles roll down the road. At
the top of the list of worries is a chemical called 6PPD, which
is added to rubber tires to help them last longer. When tires
wear on pavement, 6PPD is released. It reacts with ozone to
become a different chemical, 6PPD-q, which can be extremely
toxic—so much so that it has been linked to repeated fish kills
in Washington state. … The Yurok Tribe in Northern
California, along with two other West Coast Native American
tribes, have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to
prohibit the chemical.
Twelve years after California became the first state in the
nation to declare a “human right to water,” achieving this
basic societal goal of securing clean water for all 39 million
state residents is more daunting than ever. This is a moral
imperative for one of the largest economies in the world. There
is no good reason for clean, safe water to be elusive to an
estimated 1.2 million Californians who get their water from
failing water systems beset with financial problems and safety
concerns. But there is an undeniable reason: The state’s water
system was in far worse shape than previously thought.
California needs to drill more than 55,000 new wells and fix
nearly 400 failing public water systems. -Written by Tom Philp, Sacramento Bee columnist.
Kern River combatants are headed back to court where a local
advocacy group hopes to force the City of Bakersfield to goose
up flows, which were cut to a trickle leaving piles of dead
fish west of Bakersfield. The hearing is set for May 9 at 8:30
a.m. in Division J before Kern County Superior Court Judge
Gregory Pulskamp. “Nobody should be happy with the condition of
the Kern River right now; the people deserve and the law
requires a flowing river, not a couple of stagnant pools with
gasping and cooking fish,” wrote Attorney Adam Keats in an
email. Keats represents Bring Back the Kern and a coalition of
other public interest groups in a lawsuit with Water Audit
California against Bakersfield that seeks to have the city
study how its water diversions impact the environment. The city
owns water rights to the Kern as well as the river bed and six
that it operates in from about Hart Park west to Enos Lane.
As the California State Water Resources Control board meets at
the California Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters for
three days of discussion on its Bay-Delta Water Quality Control
Plan Solano County water officials are there to speak in
opposition to a course of action that could see the county’s
water allocation from Lake Berryessa cut by 75 percent. Chris
Lee and Alex Rabidoux of the Solano County Water Agency
presented information regarding the growth of salmon
populations in Putah Creek in recent years. The state has
claimed that diminished river flows in these areas are harming
fish habitats and are ecologically detrimental to the water
system as a whole, but SCWA argues that Putah Creek is already
a standout example of salmon repopulation.
Increased water allocations from systems that move water from
northern to southern California were met with disappointment
and frustration from contractors. Both the Department of Water
Resources and Bureau of Reclamation increased allocations this
week to 40% of contracted amounts, going up 10% and 5%,
respectively. With nearly all the state’s reservoirs filled to
above average levels, the increases were seen as stingy, at
best. “This allocation increase is incredibly disappointing and
should be much higher,” said Kern County Water Agency Board of
Directors President Ted Page in a press release. … The
presence of the fish “triggered state and federal regulations”
that put an automatic crimp on pumping, the release states.
Page objected to that sort of snap regulatory reaction saying
the restrictions are “based on outdated fish population
estimating tools.”
The city of Sanger has allowed its largest private employer,
Pitman Family Farms, a years-long delay in settling $1 million
in payments after the city failed for years to collect money
tied to the company’s increased water use. Pitman Family Farms
poultry processor, known for its line of high-end chickens sold
under the brand Mary’s Chicken, has steadily grown in recent
years. The family-owned company established its plant in Sanger
in 2002 and is today the second largest employer in the city
behind the public school district. As the company has grown its
business – including several plant expansions over the years
from a one-story to a four-story processing plant – its use of
city water has increased. This growth has had an impact on the
city’s infrastructure, but the city wasn’t properly charging
the company for its water use, city records show.
Prosecutors have accused Dennis Falaschi, 77, a gregarious
local irrigation official [with the Panoche Water District], of
masterminding the theft of more than $25 million worth of water
out of a federal canal over the course of two decades and
selling it to farmers and other local water districts.
According to the allegations, proceeds that should have gone to
the federal government instead were used to benefit Falaschi,
his water district and a small group of co-conspirators, much
of it funneled into exorbitant salaries and lavish fringe
benefits. … Some farmers who relied on Falaschi and his
irrigation district were outraged — at the government. They see
him as the Robin Hood of irrigation. … For more than a
year, Falaschi maintained his innocence, insisting there had
been no theft. Then this spring, his attorneys filed paperwork
that said he was prepared to change his plea. Exactly what he
will plead guilty to remains unclear.
A water transfer from a small western Arizona town to a growing
East Valley community has some observers concerned. About a
decade ago, a company called Greenstone bought nearly 500 acres
of land in the town of Cibola, in La Paz County. But, a few
years later, Greenstone sold the water rights for that farmland
to Queen Creek. In the process, the company made about $14
million in profit. Since then, La Paz and two other Arizona
counties have sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, arguing the
agency didn’t consider the long-term implications when it
approved the deal. A judge this year sided with those counties,
and told the bureau to essentially redo its environmental
assessment of the arrangement.
The water in Imperial Beach could soon be much cleaner. A
legislative package protecting the Tijuana River Watershed was
passed by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee Wednesday.
The two bills address corporate pollution tainting California’s
water supply. Companies responsible for sewage, garbage and
chemicals that are spilling over from south of the border and
contaminating the waters of San Diego could soon be held
accountable by having to pay fines depending on how much waste
they improperly dump.
Water users in the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability
Agency shot down a proposed pumping fee that would have been
nearly $100 per acre-foot. That sends the Mid-Kings River
GSA back to the drawing board, with local stakeholders calling
for more input in the next proposal. The
backstory: California views that the GSA – which comprises
of water users in the Kings County Water District, the City of
Hanford and Kings County – has not done enough to manage
groundwater pumping through the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA). SGMA was passed by the Legislature
in 2014, and it governs how agencies in critically overdrafted
areas achieve groundwater sustainability.
The Pacific Northwest lays claim to well over two-fifths of
America’s dam-derived electricity. So when a drought hits the
region, the nation takes notice. That happened in 2023
when, according to a recent report, U.S. hydroelectric
power hit its lowest level in 22 years. … Last year offered
energy providers in the West a glimpse of the conditions they
may need to adapt to as the world warms and seasonal weather
patterns shift. While models predict climate change will plunge
California and the Southwest deeper into drought, what awaits
Washington and Oregon is less clear.
For the last 20 years, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has
been giving Las Vegas residents cash for each square foot of
grass they convert to a desert landscape. That incentive went
up just for 2024 from $3 a square foot to $5 a square foot of
grass converted. … Last year, over 12 million
square feet of grass was converted and that was when the
incentive was at $3 a square foot. Now this year at $5 a square
foot SNWA is seeing around a thousand applications each month
for the rebate program which has a budget of about $24
million.
California may be a leader in the fight against climate change,
but the state is years, even decades, behind other states when
it comes to granting environmental rights to its citizens.
While a handful of other state constitutions, including those
of New York and Pennsylvania, declare the people’s rights to
clean air, water and a healthy environment, California’s does
not. That could change as soon as November. Under a proposal
moving through the Legislature, voters would decide whether to
add one sentence to the state constitution’s Declaration of
Rights: “The people shall have a right to clean air and water
and a healthy environment.”
The Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that
south-of-Delta water contractors are having their water
allocation increase from 35 percent to 40 percent of their
contracted amount. That five percent increase was
“incredibly disappointingly low” for Westlands Water
District. The big picture: South-of-Delta contractors
were initially allocated 15 percent of their contracted total
in February, but that number was boosted to 35 percent in
March. Farmers were hopeful that California’s above
average snowpack would result in a greater boost, considering
the state has had a good start to the year with precipitation.
When Californians voted for Proposition 1 in 2014, they had
every reason to expect sound investments in climate-resilient
water projects. And all but one of the projects selected to
receive the proposition’s $2.7 billion in water supply funding
fulfill those criteria.They replenish groundwater basins and
enhance the storage capacity of existing reservoirs to better
withstand droughts — benefits that are realized by all people
across the state. Unfortunately, the one project that does not
measure up — the Sites Reservoir Project — would be publicly
funded to the tune of nearly $900 million. -Written by Max Gomberg, a former California
State Water Resources Control Board climate adviser and a
senior policy consultant and board member of the California
Water Impact Network.
Arizona Democrats are looking to capture voters mindful of one
resource that is sparse in the desert state: water. As
political battles over abortion and the southern border hit
close to home for some Arizonans, record-setting
high-temperature summers and droughts worry many. Democrats
look to rein in rural voters who have turned on the party by
framing water as a “life or death” matter going into the 2024
elections. … In tandem, Mayes and Gov. Katie Hobbs
(D-AZ) have cracked down on controversial farms that
had unlimited access to the state’s limited groundwater
supply. Last year, the pair ended a contract with a Saudi
Arabian company, Fondomonte, that grew alfalfa in Arizona and
then shipped the hay back to the Middle East. Under the
contract from former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, the company
was given unlimited access to groundwater in Arizona.
On April 23, during the administrative public hearing of the
Board of Mesa County Commissioners, they approved a
million-dollar contribution toward the permanent protection of
the most senior, non-consumptive water right on the Colorado
River — the Shoshone water rights. “Mesa County’s $1 million
investment in the Shoshone water rights is not just a financial
commitment, but a pledge to our community’s future,” said
Bobbie Daniel, Chair of the Board of Mesa County Commissioners.
“By safeguarding these rights, Mesa County ensures that the
West Slope’s lifeblood — our beloved Colorado River — continues
to sustain our families, farms, and natural habitats. …”
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS,
can be found in those items and hundreds of other household
products. the chemicals have made their way into our showers,
sinks and drinking glasses — a 2023 study detected PFAS in
nearly half of the nation’s tap water. … For the first time,
the Environmental Protection Agency is regulating PFAS. This
month, the E.P.A. announced that it would require municipal
water systems to remove six forever chemicals from tap
water. Lisa Friedman, a reporter on the Climate desk at
The New York Times, wrote about the new rules.
Farmers in the critically overdrafted Tulare Lake Subbasin in
the San Joaquin Valley are bracing for escalating costs as
state and local agencies assess fees on wells and groundwater
pumped. For the first time, the California State Water
Resources Control Board last week placed the subbasin on
probationary status as part of regulations under the state’s
landmark 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA.
… Kings County Farm Bureau Executive Director Dusty Ference
said new state and local groundwater-related fees will impact
farmers and communities.
In one of the biggest rollbacks of the Clean Water Act since
its inception five decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court last
year abolished protections for tens of thousands of acres of
wetlands in Colorado. And unless the state legislature passes a
measure to create a permitting plan and restore the protections
that existed before the Supreme Court’s decision, Grand
County’s waterways are at risk. In every area of the state,
Colorado’s wetlands lacking a permanent surface flow – along
with intermittent streams that run seasonally and ephemeral
streams that only flow in response to rain or snow – are in
jeopardy. In essence, the ruling means wetlands that were
previously protected can now be filled, paved over and
destroyed with impunity. -Written by Kirk Klanke, Colorado Headwaters
Chapter of Trout Unlimited.
As the Bureau of Reclamation looks to prepare new rules for the
Colorado River, states across the West and other interested
stakeholders have proposed plans for the river’s future. These
alternative plans aim to shape the operation of the Colorado
River after many of the current rules expire in 2026. In April,
a coalition of conservation groups including Audubon,
Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and others
submitted a plan for managing the Colorado River. Known as the
Cooperative Conservation Alternative, the proposal seeks to
broaden management efforts on the Colorado River to be more
inclusive of various interests, Tribes, and the environment.
On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency designated two
types of “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances under the
federal Superfund law. The move will make it easier for the
government to force the manufacturers of these chemicals,
called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, to shoulder
the costs of cleaning them out of the environment.
… Although the EPA’s new restrictions are
groundbreaking, they only apply to a portion of the nation’s
extensive PFAS contamination problem. That’s because drinking
water isn’t the only way Americans are exposed to PFAS … In
Texas, a group of farmers whose properties were contaminated
with PFAS from fertilizer are claiming the manufacturer should
have done more to warn buyers about the dangers of its
products.
In what may be an illegal tax increase, the board of the
Metropolitan Water District just approved a two-year budget
that doubles the property tax it collects in its six-county
service area. MWD is a water wholesaler with 26 cities and
water retailers as its customers. Through those entities, MWD
supplies water to about 19 million people in Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura
counties. The new budget raises the wholesale rates by 8.5% in
2025 and then by 8.5% again in 2026. The rates for treated
water will go up 11% and then 10%. Metropolitan said it has to
raise rates and taxes to cover its operating costs because
they’ve been selling less water, first because of drought, and
then because of rain.
… California has some of the tightest toxic regulations and
strictest air pollution rules for smelters in the country. But
some residents of the suburban neighborhoods around Ecobat
don’t trust the system to protect them. … Uncertainty,
both about the safety of Ecobat’s operation going forward and
the legacy of lead it has left behind, weighs heavily on them.
… Early on, environmental officials flagged reasons for
concern about the lead smelter. State and federal regulators
issued an order and a consent decree in 1987 because of the
facility’s releases of hazardous waste into soil and water. An
assessment from that time found “high potential for air
releases of particulates concerning lead.”
The recently announced closure of the salmon fishing season
delivered yet another devastating blow to the thousands of
families that depend on commercial and recreational fishing for
their livelihoods. For the second year in a row, fishing boats
at Fisherman’s Wharf will remain mothballed. The recent drought
contributed to the salmon decline, but the larger problem is
archaic water policies that allow too much water to be diverted
from our rivers and the Delta. As a result, salmon experience
manmade droughts almost every year, and the droughts we notice
become mega-droughts for fish. … California desperately needs
water reform, but strong opposition has come from what might
seem like an unlikely suspect. The San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission, which manages our Hetch Hetchy Water
System, is one of the worst culprits when it comes to poor
stewardship of our aquatic ecosystems. -Written by Peter Drekmeier, Policy Director for
the Tuolumne River Trust; and Scott Artis; Executive
Director of the Golden State Salmon Association.
Below-average precipitation and snowpack during 2020-22 and
depleted surface and groundwater supplies pushed California
into a drought emergency that brought curtailment orders and
calls for modernizing water rights. At the Water Education
Foundation annual water summit last week in Sacramento,
Eric Oppenheimer, chief deputy director of the California State
Water Resources Control Board, discussed what he described as
the state’s “antiquated” water rights system. He spoke before
some 150 water managers, government officials, farmers,
environmentalists and others as part of the event where
interests come together to collaborate on some of the state’s
most challenging water issues.
On average, more than half of
California’s developed water supply originates in the
Sierra
Nevada and the southern spur of the Cascade
Range. Our water supply is largely dependent on the health
of our Sierra forests, which are suffering from ecosystem
degradation, drought, wildfires and widespread tree
mortality.
Join us as we head into the Sierra to examine water issues
that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts downstream and
throughout the state.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
For more than 20 years, Tanya
Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado
River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from
Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more
than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and
other crops.
Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower
Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water
evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a
lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the
Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for
sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later
worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of
California, exposing her to the different perspectives and
challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s
Lower Basin.
On average, more than 60 percent of
California’s developed water supply originates in the Sierra
Nevada and the southern spur of the Cascade Range. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
This tour ventured into the Sierra to examine water issues
that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts downstream and
throughout the state.
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.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
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.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Voluntary agreements in California
have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve
environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows
and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be
diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state
regulators.
Shortly after taking office in 2019,
Gov. Gavin Newsom called on state agencies to deliver a Water
Resilience Portfolio to meet California’s urgent challenges —
unsafe drinking water, flood and drought risks from a changing
climate, severely depleted groundwater aquifers and native fish
populations threatened with extinction.
Within days, he appointed Nancy Vogel, a former journalist and
veteran water communicator, as director of the Governor’s Water
Portfolio Program to help shepherd the monumental task of
compiling all the information necessary for the portfolio. The
three state agencies tasked with preparing the document delivered
the draft Water Resilience Portfolio Jan. 3. The document, which
Vogel said will help guide policy and investment decisions
related to water resilience, is nearing the end of its comment
period, which goes through Friday, Feb. 7.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
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.
Dates are now set for two key
Foundation events to kick off 2020 — our popular Water 101
Workshop, scheduled for Feb. 20 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, and our Lower Colorado River Tour, which will run
from March 11-13.
In addition, applications will be available by the first week of
October for our 2020 class of Water Leaders, our competitive
yearlong program for early to mid-career up-and-coming water
professionals. To learn more about the program, check out our
Water Leaders program
page.
Californians have been doing an
exceptional job
reducing their indoor water use, helping the state survive
the most recent drought when water districts were required to
meet conservation targets. With more droughts inevitable,
Californians are likely to face even greater calls to save water
in the future.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona
governor and secretary of the Interior, has been a thoughtful,
provocative and sometimes forceful voice in some of the most
high-profile water conflicts over the last 40 years, including
groundwater management in Arizona and the reduction of
California’s take of the Colorado River. In 2016, former
California Gov. Jerry Brown named Babbitt as a special adviser to
work on matters relating to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
the Delta tunnels plan.
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
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.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
We headed into the foothills and the mountains to examine
water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts
downstream and throughout the state.
GEI (Tour Starting Point)
2868 Prospect Park Dr.
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670.
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.
For decades, cannabis has been grown
in California – hidden away in forested groves or surreptitiously
harvested under the glare of high-intensity indoor lamps in
suburban tract homes.
In the past 20 years, however, cannabis — known more widely as
marijuana – has been moving from being a criminal activity to
gaining legitimacy as one of the hundreds of cash crops in the
state’s $46 billion-dollar agriculture industry, first legalized
for medicinal purposes and this year for recreational use.
As we continue forging ahead in 2018
with our online version of Western Water after 40 years
as a print magazine, we turned our attention to a topic that also
got its start this year: recreational marijuana as a legal use.
State regulators, in the last few years, already had been beefing
up their workforce to tackle the glut in marijuana crops and
combat their impacts to water quality and supply for people, fish
and farming downstream. Thus, even if these impacts were perhaps
unbeknownst to the majority of Californians who approved
Proposition 64 in 2016, we thought it important to see if
anything new had evolved from a water perspective now that
marijuana was legal.
Joaquin Esquivel learned that life is
what happens when you make plans. Esquivel, who holds the public
member slot at the State Water Resources Control Board in
Sacramento, had just closed purchase on a house in Washington
D.C. with his partner when he was tapped by Gov. Jerry Brown a
year ago to fill the Board vacancy.
Esquivel, 35, had spent a decade in Washington, first in several
capacities with then Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and then as
assistant secretary for federal water policy at the California
Natural Resources Agency. As a member of the State Water Board,
he shares with four other members the difficult task of
ensuring balance to all the uses of California’s water.
Sixty percent of California’s developed water supply
originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our water
supply is largely dependent on the health of our Sierra forests,
which are suffering from ecosystem degradation, drought,
wildfires and widespread tree mortality.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Water conservation has become a way of life throughout the West
with a growing recognition that water supply is not unlimited.
Drought is the most common motivator of increased water
conservation. However, the gradual drying of the West due to
climate change means the amount of fresh water available for
drinking, irrigation, industry and other uses must be used as
efficiently as possible.
Wastewater management in California centers on the collection,
conveyance,
treatment, reuse and disposal of wastewater. This process is
conducted largely by public agencies, though there are also
private systems in places where a publicly owned treatment plant
is not feasible.
In California, wastewater treatment takes place through 100,000
miles of sanitary sewer lines and at more than 900 wastewater
treatment plants that manage the roughly 4 billion gallons of
wastewater generated in the state each day.
As part of the historic Colorado
River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for
thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below
sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
The federal Safe Drinking Water Act sets standards for drinking
water quality in the United States.
Launched in 1974 and administered by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, the Safe Drinking Water Act oversees states,
communities, and water suppliers who implement the drinking water
standards at the local level.
The act’s regulations apply to every public water system in the
United States but do not include private wells serving less than
25 people.
According to the EPA, there are more than 160,000 public water
systems in the United States.
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
This issue of Western Water looks at the political
landscape in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento as it relates to
water issues in 2007. Several issues are under consideration,
including the means to deal with impending climate change, the
fate of the San Joaquin River, the prospects for new surface
storage in California and the Delta.
2002 marks the 30th anniversary of one of the most significant
environmental laws in American history, the Clean Water Act
(CWA). The CWA has had remarkable success, reversing years of
neglect and outright abuse of the nation’s waters. But challenges
remain as attention turns to the thorny issue of cleaning up
nonpoint sources of pollution.
This printed issue of Western Water, based on presentations
at the November 3-4, 2010 Water Quality Conference in Ontario,
Calif., looks at constituents of emerging concerns (CECs) – what
is known, what is yet to be determined and the potential
regulatory impacts on drinking water quality.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the issues
associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the
water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of
whether additional flows are needed for the system, and how they
might be provided.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study and what its
finding might mean for the future of the lifeblood of the
Southwest.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
20-minute version of the 2012 documentary The Klamath Basin: A
Restoration for the Ages. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues related to complex water management
disputes in the Klamath River Basin. Narrated by actress Frances
Fisher.
For over a century, the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon and
California border has faced complex water management disputes. As
relayed in this 2012, 60-minute public television documentary
narrated by actress Frances Fisher, the water interests range
from the Tribes near the river, to energy producer PacifiCorp,
farmers, municipalities, commercial fishermen, environmentalists
– all bearing legitimate arguments for how to manage the water.
After years of fighting, a groundbreaking compromise may soon
settle the battles with two epic agreements that hold the promise
of peace and fish for the watershed. View an excerpt from the
documentary here.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
30-minute DVD that traces the history of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and its role in the development of the West. Includes
extensive historic footage of farming and the construction of
dams and other water projects, and discusses historic and modern
day issues.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive plants can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native plants and animals. “Space
Invaders” features photos and information on six non-native
plants that have caused widespread problems in the Bay-Delta
Estuary and elsewhere.
