A watershed is a land area that helps drain runoff (snowmelt and
rain) into a diverse system of lakes, streams, rivers, and other
waterways.
Watersheds may be as small as a patch of land draining into a
tiny pond or as large as the Sacramento River Basin, which drains
an area about 27,000 square miles.
Watersheds follow natural boundaries and are usually separated
from one another by ridges or mountains. A watershed has many
important natural functions. It collects water from
precipitation, stores groundwater in aquifers, releases
water as runoff and provides habitat for plants and animals.
Ukiah Fire Chief Doug Hutchison knew what kind of hassle the
city was getting into by acquiring some 763 acres of overgrown,
fire-starved forest on the city’s western edge—but it seemed
worth it. There, Doolin Creek’s two forks merge and run through
a steep canyon, eventually heading straight through the city
and emptying into the Russian River. Steelhead trout, which
swim most of the way up the Russian River’s 110 miles to spawn
in its tributaries, and year-round resident native fishes like
sculpins and roaches, are kept cool by big trees shading the
creek. California nutmeg, fragrant like sandalwood, has been
spotted here, and spiky chinquapin. Also, the manzanita and
chamise are so thick in places that it’s hard to walk through.
If a big hot fire rolled through here, it would be very bad for
the wildlife, the forest, and the community. The city has taken
on the property to mitigate those fire risks and protect the
watershed.
Southwestern Colorado is left with 6% of its peak snowpack
earlier than usual this season in part because of a rare,
sudden and large melt in late April. Snow that gathers in
Colorado’s mountains is a key water source for the state, and a
fast, early spring runoff can mean less water for farmers,
ranchers, ecosystems and others in late summer. While the snow
in northern Colorado is just starting to melt, southern river
basins saw their largest, early snowpack drop-off this season,
compared to historical data. For Ken Curtis, the only reason
irrigators in Dolores and Montezuma counties haven’t been short
on water for their farms and ranches is because the area’s
reservoir, McPhee Reservoir, had water supplies left over from
the above-average year in 2023. “Because of the carryover, the
impacts aren’t quite that crazy bad,” said Curtis, general
manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District.
As we head into summer, don’t miss your chance to explore the
statewide impact of forest health on water resources
on our Headwaters Tour July
24-25! We’ll venture with experts into
the foothills and mountains of the Sierra Nevada to examine
water issues that happen upstream but have dramatic impacts on
water supply and quality downstream and throughout California
on our
Save the dates for:
Northern
California Tour, October 16-18: Explore the
Sacramento River and its tributaries through a scenic
landscape while learning about the issues associated with a
key source for the state’s water supply. Registration
opens June 12!
Water Summit, October 30: Attend the Water
Education Foundation’s premier annual event hosted in
Sacramento with leading policymakers and experts addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West. More
details coming soon!
Monsoon Awareness Week – the annual effort by state, local and
federal agencies to prepare the public for these awesome, often
dangerously powerful storm patterns – is nearly upon us. As for
the monsoon storms themselves? Well, they will arrive.
Eventually. Maybe later than usual this year. But,
nevertheless, the message remains: Be prepared. Oh, sure, they
make some fun of our appropriation of the term “monsoon” in
India where rainfall at the peak of the summer monsoon season
in June and July averages 16-20 inches and where one uniquely
situated village averages 107 inches in July alone. But the
often fierce winds driving moisture from the Mexican tropics
into our arid Sonoran Desert region have a character and power
of their own.
Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located in far Northern
California, harbors what remains of a once vast, shallow lake.
On a recent April morning, I toured the area with John
Vradenburg, supervisory fish and wildlife biologist for the
Klamath Basin Refuges. … The Klamath Basin National
Wildlife Refuges are a complex of six refuges straddling the
Oregon-California border — remnants of vast wetlands that once
expanded and contracted with the seasons, breathing an almost
unfathomable abundance of life into the dry region. A century
or so ago, flocks of geese and swans darkened the sky. There
were masses of white pelicans; hordes of grebes, ducks, and
ibises; eagles and hawks in profusion. On Lower Klamath Lake,
which sprawled nearly 100,000 acres, boats conveyed tourists
from the Klamath River to the lake’s southern tip.
Rising seas and extreme storms fueled by climate change are
combining to generate more frequent and severe floods in cities
along rivers and coasts, and aging infrastructure is poorly
equipped for the new reality. But when governments and planners
try to prepare communities for worsening flood risks by
improving infrastructure, the benefits are often unfairly
distributed. A new modeling approach from Stanford University
and University of Florida researchers offers a solution: an
easy way for planners to simulate future flood risks at the
neighborhood level under conditions expected to become
commonplace with climate change, such as extreme rainstorms
that coincide with high tides elevated by rising sea levels.
The approach, described May 28 in Environmental Research
Letters, reveals places where elevated risk is invisible with
conventional modeling methods designed to assess future risks
based on data from a single past flood event.
New predictions for the summer season, released by NOAA’s
Climate Prediction Center this week, show weather is likely to
heat up in almost every corner of the United States. The
forecast, which covers June, July and August, indicates nearly
every U.S. state with leaning toward a hotter-than-normal
summer season. The highest chances are found out West, where
Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado have a 60% to
70% chance of above-average temperatures over the next three
months. … That could create drought conditions in a
region that isn’t faring too poorly now, but has struggled
with extreme drought in recent years. To make matters worse,
we’re heading into a La Niña pattern by late summer.
La Niña years are associated with drought conditions for the
southern half of the country, including Southern California and
the Southwest.
California is recognized as one of the world’s hotspots of
biodiversity, with more species of plants and animals than any
other state. And a significant number of the state’s species,
from frogs to birds, live in habitats that depend on
groundwater. … Spotting threats to vulnerable natural areas
has become a mission for Melissa Rohde, a hydrologist who has
spent years analyzing satellite data and water levels in wells
to come up with strategies for preventing ecosystems from being
left high and dry. … California is the only state with a
groundwater law that includes provisions intended to protect
groundwater-dependent ecosystems. But the law, adopted in 2014,
gives considerable leeway to local agencies in developing water
management plans that prevent “significant and unreasonable
adverse impacts.”
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.
In recent years a few folks who pay attention to the wild
critters have been whispering of sighting beavers in the Eel
River of Humboldt County and even dams in a few tributaries. In
2015 we even posted about a local wildlife tracker finding
beaver footprints.
Stranded for nearly three weeks by record flooding in southern
Brazil, one tiny Indigenous community is determined not to
evacuate what they consider sacred ancestral lands that are in
dispute with real estate developers. The Mbya Guarani people
have been living since 2018 on a peninsula in far southern
Porto Alegre, the state capital of Rio Grande do Sul. The
community has long been at odds with Arado Empreendimentos
Imobiliarios, the firm that has been planning a residential
development on nearly 426 hectares (1,053 acres) in the area
for over a decade, part of which is in dispute. Heavy
rains have battered Rio Grande do Sul since late April, causing
historic floods that have killed over 160 people, while nearly
100 residents are still missing and more than 500,000 have been
displaced. Even with the devastating floods,
community leaders say they would not consider leaving.
Wildfire smoke covered as much as 70 percent of California in
recent years — wreaking havoc not only on land, but also in the
state’s vast freshwater ecosystems … according to [a UC
Davis] study published on Wednesday
in Communications: Earth & Environment. … What
[researchers] found was that while wildfire smoke does change
light, water temperature and oxygen levels, it does so to a
different extent — depending on lake size, depth, smoke cover
and nutrient levels. Subsequent decreases in photosynthesis and
respiration rates can then influence everything else, [said
Adrianne Smits, the lead author of the study] “Food webs, algal
growth, the ability to emit or sequester carbon — those are
dependent on these rates,” she added. “They’re all related, and
they’re all being changed by smoke.”
At its recent Countywide Plenary for Water, El Dorado Water
Agency (EDWA) brought together water and utility managers,
business and community leaders, non-profit organizations, and
staff from local, state, and federal agencies to collaborate on
sustainably managing our watershed. Rebecca Guo, General
Manager of EDWA, kicked off the Plenary by highlighting the
Programmatic Watershed Plan which identified resource
management strategies to address watershed threats as well as a
new report on the valuation of ecosystem goods and services in
the upper American River watershed. The valuation report found
that the working landscapes (including working and natural
lands) within the watershed are an incredibly valuable asset
worth more than $1.6 trillion over a 100 year period.
Pronounced “He La,” the Gila Rivers’ headwaters originate in
New Mexico, where it is a wild and scenic mountain river. The
path of the Gila settles into broad valleys as it enters
Arizona, providing water for rural towns and agriculture along
the way. The Gila’s flow is interrupted by Coolidge Dam and San
Carlos Reservoir on the San Carlos Indian Reservation west of
Safford, Arizona. Water from the reservoir is managed by the
San Carlos Irrigation District for communities, farms, and
ranches downstream. The Ashurst-Hayden and Florence diversion
dams in Pinal County send what remains of the Gila River water
to Central Arizona farms, after which the river is a dry
channel except when there are high flows from rain and snow
melt. The combination of dams, diversions, and
drought earned the Gila River the title of Most Endangered
River in 2019 from American Rivers, a nonprofit advocacy
organization.
California wildfires aren’t the only thing killing the state’s
majestic giant sequoia trees. So is a little-known bark beetle.
Researchers in the Sierra Nevada, the only place where the
giant sequoia naturally grows, have found several of the
world’s largest trees unexpectedly infested with beetles, some
dying from the attacks. While the mortality numbers are small,
especially when compared to the toll of the wildfires that
wiped out as many as 20% of all mature sequoias in 2020 and
2021, the emergence of another lethal threat to the
titans — this one also tied to the warming climate —
is hugely worrisome. That’s why research teams at Sequoia
and Kings Canyon National Parks are climbing into the towering
canopy of the Giant Forest this week and assessing the
condition of the biggest tree on Earth, the 275-foot General
Sherman Tree.
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.”
For the first time in more than four years, all of Northern
California is free of drought or abnormally dry
conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor data released
on Thursday. California now has its lowest amount of drought
conditions since 2011. “Considering how long they were in some
form of abnormal dryness or drought, it’s pretty significant,”
said Lindsay Johnson, a climatologist with the National Drought
Mitigation Center at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. It’s the first time all of Northern
California is free of abnormally dry or drought conditions
since October 2019. Parts of Siskiyou and Modoc counties that
were previously a stronghold of dry conditions are now
classified as normal for the first time since Nov. 19, 2019.
As the 2024 wildfire season approaches, experts predict a more
intense season than usual for the United States. Parts of
Lahaina, Maui are still recovering from last year’s
catastrophic fires and communities in parts of the U.S. are
already inhaling smoke from Canadian wildfires, the urgency to
understand and prepare for potential wildfire impacts has never
been greater. The National Interagency Fire Center’s
(NIFC) latest outlook suggests that significant wildfire
activity is expected across various regions, including portions
of southern California, parts of the Southwest, and the Pacific
Northwest. Factors contributing to this heightened risk include
prolonged drought conditions, higher-than-average temperatures,
and persistent winds.
Spring is in full swing, with warm weather providing prime
conditions for enjoying the outdoors in California. But it also
brings safety concerns. Warm temperatures and an
above-average snowpack can combine to produce deadly
incidents on the state’s rivers and streams. Recent flows are
fueled by meltwater from California’s snowpack, which was just
above average on April 1. While flood risk is generally lower
than with last year’s 2023’s behemoth snowpack, there are still
safety concerns this year. “The peak snowmelt season is April,
May, June,” said Andy Reising, manager of the snow surveys and
water supply forecasting unit of the California Department of
Water Resources. … Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke
closed access to the Merced and San Joaquin rivers Monday,
following recent deadly incidents.
Hundreds of new mining claims have been staked within the
community of Amargosa Valley, Nevada, on thousands of acres
directly adjacent to Death Valley National Park. These new
mining claims, documented here for the first time, are staked
above groundwater aquifers that feed the springs at Furnace
Creek in Death Valley National Park and provide drinking water
to the Timbisha Shoshone Reservation. Furnace Creek hosts the
park’s visitor center, hotels and other tourist amenities.
… The new claims were filed by Canadian-based Rover
Critical Minerals and follow a year of controversy over claims
filed near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge just a few
miles away. The company’s proposed mining project in that area
sparked a lawsuit that led to the withdrawal of
project approval and prompted efforts to secure a mineral
withdrawal within the Amargosa Valley area.
Two years ago, the Great Salt Lake became an omen for the risks
of climate change: The water level dropped to a record low,
threatening the ecosystem, economy and even the air quality of
the area around Salt Lake City, home to a majority of Utah’s
population. Now, after two unusually wet winters and a series
of conservation measures, the lake has gained about six feet.
Despite that increase the lake is still below the minimum
levels considered healthy. And environmentalists and
policymakers are concerned that the increase might reduce the
pressure to save the lake. “I worry about complacency,” said
Bonnie Baxter, director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at
Westminster University. “We need to really be cautious about
being optimistic.” Increased water levels in the lake are
primarily the result of higher-than-normal snowfall, according
to Hayden Mahan, a meteorologist with the National Weather
Service in Salt Lake City.
Gardening and landscaping allow us to beautify our properties
and give us something fun to do on weekends, but it can also
help improve the watershed ecosystem we live in. Russian
River-Friendly Landscaping, a set of guidelines developed by
the Russian River Watershed Association (RRWA), is a systematic
approach to designing, constructing, and maintaining landscapes
based on basic principles of natural systems. When we
incorporate these guidelines into our landscaping, there are
multiple benefits: we protect and conserve our local waterways
by reducing plant debris and pesticide use, decreasing runoff
by allowing more water to infiltrate into the soil, and more.
With wildfires raging in western Canada and heat and drought
leading to heightened fire risks in Mexico, the U.S. faces a
fast start to the smoke season but a slower one when it comes
to fires. Why it matters: After last year’s relatively inactive
U.S. wildfire season, forecasters expect this fire season to be
overall more active but likely not as extreme as the
destructive years of 2020 or 2021. The 2024 U.S. wildfire
season is set to pick up over the coming weeks as
hotter-than-average summer temperatures set in, according to
the National Interagency Fire Center’s (NIFC) forecast.
… Threat level: With computer models signaling the
likelihood of an unusually hot and dry summer across the West,
even states like California, which was inundated with heavy
rain and snow last winter, may see a significant
uptick in its wildfire activity toward the latter portion of
the summer into the fall, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain
told Axios.
The Merced River and the San Joaquin River will be closed for
recreational use throughout Merced County, announced the Merced
County Sheriff’s Office on Monday. Sheriff’s officials say the
snow melting the Sierra Nevada Mountains, is provoking
more water to be released into the county’s waterways and is
making conditions very dangerous in the rivers. The
announcement comes after Sheriff Vern Warnke says they have
encountered tragedies along the river recently, including
people going missing after going to the river. Sheriff Warnke
says it is okay to go fishing in the river, but activities such
as kayaking, swimming, and any other activities that have
anything to do with getting into the water are prohibited until
further notice. “The water’s running fast, running cold,
running deep. So please, stay out of the water,” Warnke
said.
Wildfire weather has become more frequent in the Western United
States over the past five decades, with some of the largest
jumps in California, according to a new report by Climate
Central, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on climate
change. The report looks at three key weather conditions —
heat, dryness and wind — that, when combined, load the dice for
wildfires to spread quickly and grow large, said Kaitlyn
Trudeau, senior research associate with Climate Central.
… The report serves as a good reminder that
the Western U.S. has become warmer and drier in ways
that tend to promote more large wildfires, said Park Williams,
climate scientist and professor in the UCLA Department of
Geography, who was not involved in the analysis.
Last year, we shared a story about a threatened California
red-legged frog that was spotted near the Mosquito Fire burn
scar in Foresthill, California. We have more good news to
share! Just a few weeks ago, biologists from the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service’s Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office
and Tahoe National Forest returned to the burn scar to see if
they could find any frogs. In addition to seeing new native
plant growth, they were thrilled to spot TWO California
red-legged frogs living in newly constructed wetlands about a
mile away from where the frog was found last year!
These wetlands were built in 2021 by the Tahoe National
Forest and many dedicated volunteers to resemble naturally
occurring habitat. Biologists hoped that California
red-legged frogs would move in, but after the fire, no one was
sure if the frogs would be able to make the journey safely.
A team of researchers has been hard at work in the Rocky
Mountains to solve a mystery. Snow is vanishing into thin air.
Now, for the first time, a new study explains how much is
getting lost, and when, exactly, it’s disappearing. Their
findings have to do with snow sublimation, a process that
happens when snow evaporates before it has a chance to melt.
Perhaps most critical in the new findings is the fact that most
snow evaporation happen s in the spring, after snow totals have
reached their peak. This could help water managers around the
West know when to make changes to the amount of water they take
from rivers and reservoirs.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) today
presented its 2024 Excellence in Water Leadership Award to
Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) General Manager Andy Fecko
for his leadership and commitment to water resource issues,
especially in reducing fuel load in our National Forest system
lands. At PCWA, Fecko manages several billion dollars of
infrastructure that must be operational at all times, including
during and after wildfires that have become more common and
destructive in the past decade. In response to the devastating
Kings Fire in 2014, Fecko led the region’s creation of the
French Meadows Forest Restoration Project – a public/private
forest health partnership. The project consists of 30,000 acres
of ecological thinning within the Tahoe National Forest. This
is a first-of-its-kind project that established the formula for
success in California forest management, which is based on
collaboration.
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.
Rainfall and snow storms boosted California’s groundwater
supplies and replenished the Sierra Nevada snowpack, but
scientists say dry conditions in the summer — and starting as
soon as this weekend — could reverse that progress. …
temperatures in California — including in San Francisco — are
forecast to climb over their usual seasonal highs. That
could accelerate the rate at which the state’s snowpack melts,
according to Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist and
station manager at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow
Laboratory …
Over the past decade, a signature California program that
charges polluters for their planet-heating emissions has
generated billions of dollars for state initiatives, and Gov.
Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that these revenues are effectively
helping to reduce pollution and combat climate change.
… The program has also supported projects intended to
reduce wildfire risk by thinning vegetation and restoring
degraded forests. … Another issue that
has generated criticism is the fact that about 65% of
the annual cap-and-trade revenues must be dedicated each year
to several programs, with 25% going to high-speed rail and the
remainder split between affordable housing, transit and rail,
low-carbon transit operations, and safe drinking water.
Nearly 1,600 acres of land used as rice fields north of
Sacramento could one day become public land, after a huge
restoration project funded partly by
big tech. Apple is among the donors to the Dos
Rios Norte project, an effort to restore a floodplain located
where the Sacramento and Feather rivers meet that’s crucial to
wildlife, the Sacramento Bee first reported.
California conservation nonprofit River Partners is leading the
efforts, with the goal of repairing the area habitat for the
state’s native Chinook salmon population, threatened bird
species and other wildlife species. The project aims to save
around 7,000 acre-feet of water each year, among other
environmental benefits. Apple would not disclose how much the
company contributed to this project, but confirmed to SFGATE it
has pledged more than $8 million since 2023 to California
watershed projects, including this one.
As temperatures begin to warm up in Northern California, you
might be tempted to take a dip in local waterways. “Keep in
mind that the area rivers and streams will continue to run COLD
as a product of mountain snowmelt,” the National Weather
Service posted Monday afternoon on X, formerly known as
Twitter. The weather service is forecasting temperatures in
Sacramento to reach 90 degrees by Sunday, for the first time in
2024. “We will be going from below-normal temperatures to
above-normal temperatures for this time of the year,” Scott
Rowe, a senior service hydrologist at the weather service in
Sacramento, said Monday.
A rare late season storm dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on some
regions of Northern California over the weekend, breaking at
least one daily snowfall record. The storm, which swept in from
the Gulf of Alaska, dropped about 31 inches of snow on Lower
Lassen Peak, 26 inches at Palisades Summit and 22 inches at
Soda Springs Ski Resort and 16 inches at Kingvale, according to
the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office. The UC
Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory at Donner Summit
recorded 26.4 inches of snow in a 24-hour period on May 5,
making it the “snowiest day of the season at the lab,”
according to a social media post. The last record was 23.8
inches on March 3.
Good news on the Colorado River is rare. Its reservoirs, the
two largest in the country, have shrunk to record lows. The
policymakers who will decide its future are stuck at an
impasse. Climate change has driven more than two decades of
megadrought and strained the water supply for 40 million people
across the Southwest. But a new study is delivering a potential
dose of optimism for the next 25 years of the Colorado River.
The findings, published in the Journal of Climate, forecast a
70% chance the next quarter century will be wetter than the
last.
Did you know packaging, most of it plastic, makes up more than
50% of what California dumps in landfills? … Single-use
plastics accumulate in landfills and break down into
microplastics that pollute air, food, water and our bodies.
… We must address plastic production and emissions at
the source.
President Biden on Thursday expanded San Gabriel Mountains
National Monument by nearly a third in an action that was
widely praised by the Indigenous leaders, politicians,
conservationists and community organizers who had long fought
for the enlargement of the protected natural area that serves
as the backyard of the Los Angeles Basin. … Stretching
from Santa Clarita to San Bernardino, the San Gabriel Mountains
watershed provides Los Angeles County with 70% of its open
space and roughly 30% of its water. The added protections
will help ensure equitable access to the San Gabriels’ cool
streams and rugged canyons while also preserving clean air and
water.
Winter-like weather will make a brief return to California this
weekend, with widespread snow in the Sierra Nevada. The
National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories
for much of the Sierra, including Donner Pass, the Tahoe
Basin and Yosemite National Park. The spring snowmaker will add
fresh powder in some locations, boosting an already healthy
snowpack.
The seasonal waterfalls at Yosemite National Park are in
spectacular full force, with one “secret waterfall” taller than
an iconic New York City skyscraper almost at peak flow.
… The 2,400-foot falls ran year-round last season,
but they’re not expected to do so again this year. Last
winter’s record Sierra Nevada snow helped keep them
from going dry, something that had happened only once before in
the previous decade. … While still impressive, this
season’s ephemeral water show doesn’t pack quite the punch it
did a year ago at this time, when 10 ephemeral waterfalls
cascaded throughout the park. Waterfalls throughout Yosemite
are only getting snowmelt from a “surprisingly average”
Sierra winter, according to NASA.
The Great Salt Lake’s southern arm reached 4,195 feet elevation
at times over the stormy weekend as it nears reaching that
figure daily for the first time in five years. While that’s a
key water level in the ongoing efforts to preserve the lake
after it reached an all-time low in 2022, the state agency
tasked with overseeing the lake’s future recently took a field
trip to other parts of the Southwest as it soaks up ideas that
could help improve future water inflows.
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.
As it does every year, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS)
will be evaluating plant and animal species to determine which
ones deserve federal protection under the Endangered Species
Act. About half of the species chosen for analysis so far in
2024 have something in common: Their futures depend on the
conservation of wetlands. A mere coincidence? Probably
not. While wetlands cover just 6 percent of the earth’s
land surface area, they provide habitat for a whopping 40
percent of plants and animals. In all likelihood, we can
expect this trend of wetland-dependent species coming under the
protection of the Endangered Species Act to continue, predicts
Amy McNamara, a freshwater ecosystems strategist for NRDC. But
this, she says, “is something that we should work to avoid at
all costs.”
Last fall, UC Riverside’s Dr. Hoori Ajami co-authored a study
looking at how long-term droughts are impacting river flows
across the US. We asked Dr. Ajami and The Nature Conservancy’s
lead river scientist, Dr. Bronwen Stanford, to tell us about
the study and its implications. First, what is a “baseflow
drought” and how is it distinct from a precipitation drought?
Hoori Ajami: Water in a stream has two sources: precipitation
and groundwater. “Baseflow” is groundwater’s contribution to a
stream’s flow. We were specifically interested to see how a
river’s baseflow changes after a precipitation drought. …”
For the past two years, Mt. Shasta has emerged from winter
covered in thick blankets of white snow that conceal what
decades of drought have done to the Northern California
mountain’s ancient glaciers. The seasonal snows come and go on
the 14,179-foot peak. For hundreds of years, the glaciers have
clung to the mountain’s steep slopes, slowly changing and
moving over time. But for the past few decades, droughts and
periods of abnormally warm weather have caused the glaciers to
shrink. Scientists have studied the glaciers and documented
their demise as climate change — with its warmer temperatures
and dearth of snow — has slowly caused Mt. Shasta’s glacial
masses to dwindle, especially during the 2020-22 drought.
Atmospheric river storms are like punches in a boxing match. A
flurry of weak ones are OK. But it’s best to avoid the big
knockout blows. That’s exactly what happened in California this
winter. Scientists say that from Oct. 1 to April 1, the state
actually received more atmospheric rivers, the famous
moisture-laden meteorological events that are critical to the
water supply, than it did last year — 44 this winter compared
to 31 last winter. But the intensity made all the difference.
Statewide, California had just 2 strong atmospheric rivers this
winter, compared with 7 last year. Many of the biggest this
winter hit Washington and Oregon instead. The result was, for
the most part, a remarkably, blissfully average rainy season
for California. 3 were moderate and 7 were strong. This year,
26 were weak, 16 were moderate and 2 were strong.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
Land and waterway managers labored
hard over the course of a century to control California’s unruly
rivers by building dams and levees to slow and contain their
water. Now, farmers, environmentalists and agencies are undoing
some of that work as part of an accelerating campaign to restore
the state’s major floodplains.
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.
Many of California’s watersheds are
notoriously flashy – swerving from below-average flows to jarring
flood conditions in quick order. The state needs all the water it
can get from storms, but current flood management guidelines are
strict and unyielding, requiring reservoirs to dump water each
winter to make space for flood flows that may not come.
However, new tools and operating methods are emerging that could
lead the way to a redefined system that improves both water
supply and flood protection capabilities.
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.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
High in the headwaters of the Colorado River, around the hamlet of Kremmling, Colorado, generations of families have made ranching and farming a way of life, their hay fields and cattle sustained by the river’s flow. But as more water was pulled from the river and sent over the Continental Divide to meet the needs of Denver and other cities on the Front Range, less was left behind to meet the needs of ranchers and fish.
“What used to be a very large river that inundated the land has really become a trickle,” said Mely Whiting, Colorado counsel for Trout Unlimited. “We estimate that 70 percent of the flow on an annual average goes across the Continental Divide and never comes back.”
Each day, people living on the streets and camping along waterways across California face the same struggle – finding clean drinking water and a place to wash and go to the bathroom.
Some find friendly businesses willing to help, or public restrooms and drinking water fountains. Yet for many homeless people, accessing the water and sanitation that most people take for granted remains a daily struggle.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
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.
Water means life for all the Grand Canyon’s inhabitants, including the many varieties of insects that are a foundation of the ecosystem’s food web. But hydropower operations upstream on the Colorado River at Glen Canyon Dam, in Northern Arizona near the Utah border, disrupt the natural pace of insect reproduction as the river rises and falls, sometimes dramatically. Eggs deposited at the river’s edge are often left high and dry and their loss directly affects available food for endangered fish such as the humpback chub.
An hour’s drive north of Sacramento sits a picture-perfect valley hugging the eastern foothills of Northern California’s Coast Range, with golden hills framing grasslands mostly used for cattle grazing.
Back in the late 1800s, pioneer John Sites built his ranch there and a small township, now gone, bore his name. Today, the community of a handful of families and ranchers still maintains a proud heritage.
Amy Haas recently became the first non-engineer and the first woman to serve as executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission in its 70-year history, putting her smack in the center of a host of daunting challenges facing the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Yet those challenges will be quite familiar to Haas, an attorney who for the past year has served as deputy director and general counsel of the commission. (She replaced longtime Executive Director Don Ostler). She has a long history of working within interstate Colorado River governance, including representing New Mexico as its Upper Colorado River commissioner and playing a central role in the negotiation of the recently signed U.S.-Mexico agreement known as Minute 323.
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.
Lake
Tahoe, the iconic high Sierra water body that straddles
California and Nevada, has sat for more than 10,000 years at the
heart of the Washoe tribe’s territory. In fact, the name Tahoe
came from the tribal word dá’aw, meaning lake.
The lake’s English name was the source of debate for about 100
years after it was first “discovered” in 1844 by people of
European descent when Gen. John C. Fremont’s expedition made its
way into the region. Not long after, a man who carried mail on
snowshoes from Placerville to Nevada City named it Lake Bigler in
honor of John Bigler, who served as California’s third governor.
But because Bigler was an ardent secessionist, the federal
Interior Department during the Civil War introduced the name
Tahoe in 1862. Meanwhile, California kept it as Lake Bigler and
didn’t officially recognize the name as Lake Tahoe until 1945.
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.
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
A new study could help water
agencies find solutions to the vexing challenges the homeless
face in gaining access to clean water for drinking and
sanitation.
The Santa Ana Watershed Project
Authority (SAWPA) in Southern California has embarked on a
comprehensive and collaborative effort aimed at assessing
strengths and needs as it relates to water services for people
(including the homeless) within its 2,840 square-mile area that
extends from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Orange County
coast.
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.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Potable water, also known as
drinking water, comes from surface and ground sources and is
treated to levels that that meet state and federal standards for
consumption.
Water from natural sources is treated for microorganisms,
bacteria, toxic chemicals, viruses and fecal matter. Drinking
raw, untreated water can cause gastrointestinal problems such as
diarrhea, vomiting or fever.
The Eel River supports one of California’s largest wild salmon
and steelhead runs in a watershed that hosts the world’s largest
surviving stands of ancient redwoods.
The Eel flows generally northward from Northern California’s
Mendocino National Forest to the Pacific, a few miles south of
Eureka. The river and its tributaries drain
more than 3,500 square miles, the state’s
third-largest watershed.
This 24-page booklet details the conflict between
environmentalists, fish organizations and the Yuba County Water
Agency and how it was resolved through the Lower Yuba River
Accord – a unique agreement supported by 18 agencies and
non-governmental organizations. The publication details
the history and hydrology of the Yuba River, past and present
environmental concerns, and conflicts over dam operations and
protecting endangered fish is included.
This 28-page report describes the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada
region and details their importance to California’s overall water
picture. It describes the region’s issues and challenges,
including healthy forests, catastrophic fire, recreational
impacts, climate change, development and land use.
The report also discusses the importance of protecting and
restoring watersheds in order to retain water quality and enhance
quantity. Examples and case studies are included.
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.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
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, features
a map of the San Joaquin River. The map text focuses on the San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to restore flows
and populations of Chinook salmon to the river below Friant Dam
to its confluence with the Merced River. The text discusses the
history of the program, its goals and ongoing challenges with
implementation.
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.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
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 Flood Management explains the
physical flood control system, including levees; discusses
previous flood events (including the 1997 flooding); explores
issues of floodplain management and development; provides an
overview of flood forecasting; and outlines ongoing flood control
projects.
A watershed is the land area that drains snowmelt and rain into a
network of lakes, streams, rivers and other waterways. It
typically is identified by the largest draining watercourse
within the system. In California, for example, the Sacramento River Basin is the
state’s largest watershed.
Southern California’s Santa Ana River is the largest watershed
drainage south of the Sierra and is located largely in a highly
urbanized, highly regulated setting.
At about 100 miles long and with more than 50 tributaries, the
Santa Ana spans parts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange
counties as it drains 2,840 square miles of land.
Drawn from a special stakeholder symposium held in September 1999
in Keystone, Colorado, this issue explores how we got to where we
are today on the Colorado River; an era in which the traditional
water development of the past has given way to a more
collaborative approach that tries to protect the environment
while stretching available water supplies.
Lake Tahoe is one of the Sierra Nevada’s crown jewels, renowned
for its breathtaking clarity. The high-altitude, clear blue lake
and its surrounding basin, which lie on the California-Nevada
state line, is a spectacular natural resource that provides
environmental, economic, recreational and aesthetic benefits.