A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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Canals in California may soon feature a new look — solar panel
canopies, designed to stop evaporation and soak up the sun’s
rays, created under a new project funded with help from the
federal government to boost green energy
infrastructure. Governor Gavin Newsom joined staff from
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday to highlight a new
“solar-over-canal” project along one of the state’s primary
aqueducts. The pilot project proposes placing a solar canopy to
“float” over a major waterway as a source of renewable energy
that can also prevent loss of precious water through
evaporation. Adam Nickels, Deputy Regional Director at the
Bureau of Reclamation, said that the Biden Inflation Reduction
Act helped make it possible to pick a portion of the
Delta-Mendota Canal for placement of a solar panel in Merced
County.
California was thrown back into winter on Thursday with a
cold storm diving into the northern part of the state and
delivering low-elevation snow to places that
infrequently see snow in winter, let alone April. The storm
system originated in the Gulf of Alaska and ushered a polar air
mass into the region, pushing down temperatures to below normal
levels for this time of year. The system is expected to impact
Southern California Thursday night into Friday. … The
storm was also impacting the Sierra Nevada. The weather
service’s Sacramento office said it had received
reports of snowfall at elevations as low as 1,800 feet on the
western side of the northern Sierra
A first-of-its-kind report has estimated that Los Angeles
County must invest billions of dollars through 2040 to protect
residents from worsening climate hazards, including extreme
heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea
levels and climate-induced public health threats. The report,
published this week by the nonprofit Center for Climate
Integrity, identified 14 different climate adaptation measures
that authors calculated would cost L.A. taxpayers at least
$12.5 billion over the next 15 years. … To mitigate
these impacts, the county must expand its stormwater drainage
infrastructure by installing bioswales, porous pavement and
other opportunities for stormwater to seep into the ground, the
report found.
Last month, the seven U.S. states that use Colorado River water
released two divergent plans for how that water should be
managed after 2026 when the current agreement expires. Their
proposals centered on operations at Lake Powell and Lake Mead,
the country’s two largest reservoirs, the levels of which are
instrumental in determining how much water each state gets. But
a coalition of environmental organizations felt that those
plans — and the discourse surrounding which states should have
to cut their water use — drowned out a crucial consideration:
the environment. So, last week, they submitted a plan of their
own. “Our plan explicitly integrates environmental values and
resources into the planning, while also trying to meet the
needs of people,” Taylor Hawes, the Colorado River Program
director for The Nature Conservancy, said.
In late March the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors
proclaimed a local emergency related to concerns about heavy
metals like arsenic and lead being present in the Klamath
River. It was prompted by the ongoing removal of four
hydroelectric dams on the river. … Matt St. John, an
environmental program manager with the North Coast Regional
Water Quality Control Board, said it was expected that you’d
also have high metals concentrations. “Those metals
concentrations are not a threat to public health. It’s okay to
touch the water with those type of concentrations. And no water
in the state of California should be drunk without any without
treatment. And so, the Klamath River isn’t a source of drinking
water without treatment of that water.”
… So what kind of fire season are we in for this year? Like
2023, this year has been a wet one. … After the wet
winter, vegetation in the state isn’t as parched as it would be
during a drought, so wildfire activity is likely to be pretty
low in the spring and early summer, Daniel Swain, a climate
scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in
an online briefing this week. … But the year probably
won’t stay as quiet as 2023 was. This year’s wet weather hasn’t
been as extreme as last year’s — some inland cities, like
Fresno and South Lake Tahoe, actually received less rain
than usual this year — so plants and soil are more likely
to dry out over the rest of this year than they were last year.
“I would be somewhat surprised if this year was not
significantly more active,” Swain said.
The Sacramento County district attorney’s office has sued a
state agency alleging that storage tanks are leaking hazardous
substances under several downtown buildings, including the
state Capitol. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Sacramento
Superior Court against the California Department of General
Services, alleges the leakages are also happening in Oakland.
It was filed jointly by Sacramento County District Attorney
Thien Ho and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. The
district attorneys filed the lawsuit “to protect public health
and the environment from harm due to releases of hazardous
substances from leaking Underground Storage Tanks, including
harm to groundwater and surface waters and against harm from
indoor air impacts,” the lawsuit stated.
At the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority board meeting
on March 29, the IWVGA board approved motions to reimburse two
domestic well owners who had to replace their wells due to
declining groundwater levels. IWVGA reimbursed $37,996 for the
Halpin Well and $31,082 for the Byerly Well. Reimbursement
covers the estimated current value of the exhausted well and
the incremental costs of drilling a deeper well. California’s
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires groundwater
basins like the IWV groundwater basin to reach sustainability
by 2040. This is why the IWVGA initially formed to draft and
implement a Groundwater Sustainability Plan.
As Attorney General Kris Mayes gathers evidence to take action
against corporate farms’ groundwater pumping, some lawmakers
would like to establish protections that discourage such
lawsuits. Agricultural operations could get their legal fees
paid by the plaintiff if they are sued in a nuisance action to
reduce or take away their water use under a bill filed early
this year by state Rep. Austin Smith, R-Wittmann. The measure
would have a “chilling effect” on new approaches to reduce
groundwater use, several legal experts told The Arizona
Republic, because the claimant would need to pay filing fees
and attorney fees for themselves and the sued party.
Phoebe works to investigate how the endangered fish can thrive.
The Little Colorado River has a brilliant turquoise-blue color
due to the calcium carbonate minerals suspended in the water.
Travertine, a chalky limestone that settles out of the water
and coats the riverbed with a white hue, adds to the river’s
amazing color. The Little Colorado River can be divided
into the upper and lower reaches, with the boundary between the
two marked by a series of travertine waterfalls. The river is
one of the last remaining places where you can find the
endangered humpback chub. Science Moab talked with Phoebe
Brown, a river guide and researcher who as an undergraduate was
part of a larger study looking at the growth rates of the
humpback chub.
… I asked my boss about his restaurant choice. He said he’d
gone vegan after learning how much Colorado River water
irrigates cattle feed — almost a third of all river
consumption, according to a recent study. His comment made
me reconsider my own beef consumption. … And most
Angelenos would find eating one less burger a week much easier
than tearing out their lawns (which I also advocate!). -Written by Aaron Mead, a writer based in the Los Angeles
area.
Are you a water rightsholder? Have you filed your Annual Water
Diversion and Use reports for Water Year 2023? If you answered
“yes” then “no,” a notice of violation could be on the way.
It’s just been announced that the Division of Water Rights will
be sending Notices of Violation in the next few weeks for those
who have not submitted the annual reports or statements. Those
were due before February 1. According to the Board, if you
submit your past-due report promptly, you will not receive the
notice and potential future enforcement action. There is a help
website that has been set up in an attempt to walk
rightsholders through the process. You can access that at
https://shorturl.at/xNY28.
In an April 1, 2024 letter to three water boards, fishing and
conservation groups and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe urged
regulators to control recently measured excess levels of
selenium in Mud Slough. Mud Slough drains selenium-impaired
land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley into the San
Joaquin River and ultimately San Francisco Bay.
… Selenium has long been known to cause
reproductive failure, deformities, and death in fish and
waterfowl, according to a statement from the California
Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). “Our groups have
spent over a decade at the water boards and in court trying to
bring runoff from Mud Slough into compliance with water quality
standards,” said Chris Shutes, Executive Director of the
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
On April 2, 2024, the California Department of Water Resources
(DWR) released the California Water Plan Update 2023 (CWP 2023
Update). DWR’s press release dubs the plan “A Roadmap to Water
Management and Infrastructure for a Water Resilient Future.”
Resiliency is one of the key focuses for the CWP 2023 Update,
as its chapter on objectives is entitled the “Roadmap to
Resilience.” The plan is focused on the vision that “All
Californians benefit from water resources that are sustainable,
resilient to climate change, and managed to achieve shared
values and connections to our communities and the environment.”
Think “Sonoma County farm,” and most people will conjure an
image of docile cows chewing cud or chickens scratching the
dirt, idly whiling away their days among the grassy, green
hills of this mostly rural, coastal Northern California county.
But animal rights activists say all is not right in this region
known for its wine and farm-to-fork sensibilities. They say
there are two dozen large, concentrated animal farming
operations — which collectively house almost 3 million animals
— befouling watersheds and torturing livestock and poultry in
confined lots and cages. And in an effort to stop it, they’ve
collected more than 37,000 signatures from Sonoma County
residents to put an end to it — forcing the county Board of
Supervisors to either enact or match the ordinance themselves,
or have it kicked over to the November ballot.
For centuries, there was a familiar spring and summer element
in the Sierra Nevada skies: hundreds of enormous white
birds soaring over the lakes and mountains. On land, their
courtship displays were notable from afar as they leaped,
twirled and flapped their elegant black-tipped wings in
complicated shows to find a lifelong mate. With a wingspan of
around 7 feet and an average height of 5 feet, sandhill cranes
were once easy to spot around Lake Tahoe, even from a
distance. Due to overhunting and habitat loss, there were
only three or four breeding pairs throughout the entire state
by 1944, despite once likely numbering in the hundreds of
thousands. However, the state of California didn’t grant the
birds “fully protected” status until 1970.
Two letters filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) reveal details of the damage at PG&E’s Lake
Spaulding Powerhouse No. 1, which is out of service since early
March. The failure of the powerhouse, combined with a massive
rockslide over the PG&E-owned starting portion of the South
Yuba Canal, have effectively cut off water supplies from the
higher elevations to the Bear River and Deer Creek. The State
Historic Preservation Officer’s letter to FERC provides
additional information on the damage discovered by PG&E.
Zimbabwe declared a state of disaster Wednesday over a
devastating drought that’s sweeping across much of southern
Africa, with the country’s president saying it needs $2 billion
for humanitarian assistance. The declaration was widely
expected following similar actions by neighboring Zambia and
Malawi, where drought linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon
has scorched crops, leaving millions of people in need of food
assistance. … [President Emmerson Mnangagwa] appealed to
United Nations agencies, local businesses and faith
organizations to contribute towards humanitarian
assistance. El Nino, a naturally occurring climatic
phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean every two to
seven years, has varied effects on the world’s weather. In
southern Africa, it typically causes below-average rainfall,
but this year has seen the worst drought in decades.
It was an average year for Colorado’s snowpack — and that’s
great news. The statewide snowpack sat at 109% of the
30-year median on Wednesday, just a few days shy of the normal
peak of snowpack for the state. Every major river basin in the
state also recorded above-median snowpack, reducing the risk of
large, uncontrollable wildfires and boosting the state’s water
supplies. Despite a slow start to the snow season, large
storms in February and March boosted the amount of water that
will become available as mountain snow melts. The statewide
snowpack had lagged behind the median until early March.
The $171 million Kern Fan Groundwater Storage project – with a
unique “eco-twist” – received another chunk of public funding
just as the first section of the 1,300-acre project had a
formal christening on Wednesday. Officials with Rosedale-Rio
Bravo Water Storage District, Irvine Ranch Water District and
the Bureau of Reclamation gathered at the project site near
Enos Lane west of Bakersfield to look over construction of the
first part of Phase 1, which began in February. The Bureau
announced earlier in the week that it had approved a $3.9
million grant for the project, which is in addition to $4.7
million awarded by the Bureau in 2023. That funding requires a
75% match from Rosedale-Rio Bravo and Irvine Ranch.
