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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Former President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom want you to
believe they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum on California
water. But their policies aren’t drastically different — and
both lean toward the Republican-leaning farmers of the Central
Valley. On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to force
Newsom to turn on the faucet for water-strapped farmers if he
is elected. Meanwhile, Newsom finalized rules [on Nov. 4]
that insulate the state’s endangered fish protections from
federal changes. But he’s also advancing controversial
proposals to store and move around more water, a perennial ask
of the agricultural industry, and easing pumping limits meant
to protect an endangered fish in order to send more water south
to parched farms. Newsom’s positioning has put the otherwise
green-leaning governor squarely on the foe list for
environmental groups and garnered him credit from unlikely
sources.
The Imperial County Board of Supervisors is expected Tuesday to
approve a letter to express its concerns about the Imperial
Irrigation District’s 2024-2026 System Conservation
Implementation Agreement. … The IID Board of Directors
approved a significant conservation agreement with the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) to leave up to 700,000 acre-feet
of water in Lake Mead, by conserving up to 300,000 acre-feet of
water a year through 2026. In exchange for the conservation
agreement, the IID will receive millions in federal funding for
the implementation of conservation programs … This agreement
also unlocks the balance of other funding for Salton Sea
mitigation efforts; however, the County is concerned that due
to the lack of direct engagement and consultation from the IID
during the negotiations process with USBR, other potential
health and economics impacts related to agricultural water
conservation were not considered nor addressed in the agreement
or with the associated funding.
Almost the entire United States faced drought conditions during
the last week of October. Only Alaska and Kentucky did not have
at least moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S.
Drought Monitor, a record in the monitor’s history. The
past four months were consistently warmer than normal over a
wide swath of the country, said Rich Tinker, a drought
specialist with the National Weather Service. But in June,
while roughly a quarter of the country was dry to some degree,
he said, now 87 percent of the nation is.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the U.S.-Mexico border on
Monday — but not for the reason you’d expect. The border crisis
that drew the Democrat wasn’t immigration, but sewage. For
nearly a century, billions of gallons of sewage have been
pouring into Southern California from Mexico, making coastal
communities near San Diego the victim of a crisis few people
know about. The problems have disrupted daily life around
America’s eighth-largest city, affected military operations and
exposed how generations of politicians in Mexico and the U.S.
have failed to provide sanitation on both sides of the world’s
busiest border.
In 1963, the Glen Canyon Dam was built. It created Lake Powell
Reservoir, which straddles Utah and Arizona, to ensure a water
supply for the lower Colorado River basin states and Mexico.
Over the past six decades, it has also become a recreation
destination for millions. The dam has experienced its fair
share of unexpected trauma, threatening river flow levels,
depleting water storage and exposing sediment. Sediment is
the walled molded mud that contains the Colorado River. It’s
always been there, but historic droughts like those in 2002 and
2020 have caused the lifeline of the West to drop to alarming
levels, exposing the mud. Before the water is potable, it’s
brown and murky. … Why should we care? Because the mud
is being trapped above the dam, depriving the river below, and
suffocating it above.
A showdown over the reach of environmental reviews under the
National Environmental Policy Act is set for December before
the U.S. Supreme Court. At the center of the showdown is
the 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway, which intends to connect oil
fields in northeastern Utah to the national rail network so
far-flung refineries can access the Uinta Basin’s waxy crude.
The Surface Transportation Board in 2021 approved the railroad
after conducting a two-year, 1,700-page Environmental Impact
Statement review under the National Environmental Policy Act,
or NEPA. The railroad would direct an additional 5
billion gallons of Uinta Basin crude in 2-mile long trains
along tracks along the Colorado River from Grand Junction to
Winter Park and then through metro Denver en route to
refineries on the Gulf Coast. The project has stirred vehement
opposition among environmental groups, politicians and
communities along the railroad, with concerns focused on spills
and wildfires.
The whole state of Utah, like many western U.S. states, is in
the thick of it. Utah recently emerged from its driest 20-year
period since the Middle Ages, while the Great Salt Lake, an
iconic landmark of the West, is on course to dry up completely
in a matter of years, not decades. … But amid climate change,
drought, and increased demands for water, Utah is trying to
change the system, bucking one of the oldest water rules in the
western U.S. As it does in other Western states, Utah’s water
policy fits under a principle of “beneficial use,” which
declares that water rights holders must use their water for
beneficial purposes, such as agriculture, or give up those
rights. … These water rights are incredibly important
right now for states and tribal nations along the Colorado
River, which winds its way out of the Rocky Mountains, through
the desert Southwest and (almost, under the right conditions)
into Mexico.
Most drivers on Malibu Canyon Road pass right by the hulking,
useless 100-foot-tall dam without even realizing it’s there.
But if they pulled off onto the right turnout, walked about 15
feet and peered over the edge, they’d glimpse it: a huge gray
dam entirely filled with sediment. … [Russell] Marlow
compared Malibu’s Rindge Dam to the four Klamath
dams on the northern edge of California, which
were finally dismantled this year in the world’s largest
dam removal project. It wasn’t easy; the Klamath dams only came
down after decades of advocacy by tribal communities. Those
dams caused the decline of Chinook salmon, by degrading water
quality and blocking migratory routes. Like the Klamath dams,
the Rindge Dam has caused decades of negative impacts to fish
like the Southern California steelhead, plus other impacts to
the broader watershed.
Just a month after completing work to remove four dams on the
Klamath River, fish and wildlife officials in California and
Oregon said they have already spotted a salmon upstream of the
locations where the dams once blocked the fish from migrating.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said a fall-run
chinook salmon was found in a tributary stream west of Klamath
Falls, Oregon, on Oct. 16. That fish reached Spencer Creek
after migrating some 230 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean.
State and federal fisheries officials, along with
representatives from Native American tribes, have begun
extensive monitoring along the Klamath River to see how the
fish have reacted after the dams were destroyed, and whether
they are migrating upstream past where the four dams were once
located.
… As part of a study funded by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, Bradley Moore, a professor of
marine biology, marine chemistry and geochemistry at Scripps
Oceanography, worked to determine how domoic acid is produced
with the hope of creating a predictive model. Now, a team of
researchers from SIO, La Jolla’s J. Craig Venter
Institute and other organizations appear to have done it.
In September, the group published a study on predicting harmful
algae blooms that contain high levels of domoic acid by
tracking a single gene that serves like a canary in a coal mine
— an early detector of danger. The study provides new insights
into the mechanisms that drive harmful blooms and offers
potential ways to forecast and mitigate their effects.
A California landfill has been illegally dumping toxic waste
into the Napa River for years, polluting waters that feed a
valley known around the world for the quality of its vineyards,
according to a federal lawsuit filed by landfill employees.
Fifteen workers from Clover Flat Landfill and Upper Valley
Disposal Service (UVDS) in Napa County, California, allege that
operators of the landfill intentionally diverted what is called
“leachate” – untreated liquid wastewater often containing heavy
metals, nitrates, bacteria and pathogens – into the Napa River
and other area waterways for decades. The actions were done to
“avoid the costs of properly trucking out the toxic leachate”
to facilities designated for safe disposal, the lawsuit
alleges.
Mayor Andrew Lara joined other city leaders in dedicating a new
water treatment facility in Pico Rivera on Monday, calling the
$15 million Groundwater Treatment Project a milestone decades
in the making. “This sends a message to our residents that we
will put their health and well-being first and foremost,” Lara
said. “This underscores Pico Rivera’s obligation to safeguard
water quality for future generations and prioritize our
community’s well-being through strategic investment and
inter-agency collaboration.” The new treatment plant is
part of the city’s 2020 Water Master Plan, launched in response
to state mandates on drinking water. City staff and the City
Council spent years working to safeguard the health of the
community after industrial pollution contaminated many of the
region’s groundwater aquifers, Lara said.
Campbell Soup Company and Kind Snacks announced projects that
would advance regenerative agriculture practices for key
ingredients with financial support from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. Campbell’s received $3.4 million through USDA’s
Regional Conservation Partnership Program to increase adoption
of sustainable practices and reduce water consumption among
tomato growers in California. Separately, Kind, a subsidiary of
Mars Inc., said it will unlock more than $300,000 for
regenerative agriculture in almonds through USDA’s Partnership
for Climate-Smart Commodities Program.
If the 2024 ballot poses the question of whether voters care
more about leaky schools or wildfires, the answer appears
clear: Climate change trumps education in the California
consciousness. … Proposition 4, which would spend the
same amount on wildfire, flooding and other climate
resiliency programs, is at a comfortable 60 percent,
according to polling released last week. Much of the difference
is due to climate being the fresh face on the block, pollsters
and backers of both bonds said. While school funding has been
on the ballot six times since 1998, most recently in 2020, this
is the first time climate-specific spending has gone before
voters, said Mark Baldassare, survey director at the Public
Policy Institute of California, which conducted last week’s
poll.
The Salton Sea, California’s largest lake by surface area, is
experiencing an increasing rate of shoreline retreat following
a policy change that shifted more water from the Colorado River
to San Diego, according to a newly published study. The
resulting dried lakebed is creating more polluted dust from
dried agricultural runoff that affects nearby communities,
researchers said. Researchers forecast that parts of the Salton
Sea’s North Shore are expected to retreat 150 meters by 2030
and an additional 172 meters by 2041 given the current rate of
retreat. The average rate of retreat between 2002 and 2017 rose
from 12.5 meters a year to nearly 38.5 meters per year after
2018.
Aaron Fukuda, general manager of the Tulare Irrigation
District, took a gamble when he supported cracking down on his
growers as wells across the arid southern San Joaquin Valley
were going dry — and he’s still waiting to see if it will pay
off. Fukuda said he got angry phone calls from his community
for about a year after he championed a local emergency
ordinance in 2022 to put pumping limits and penalties on
irrigation wells across 163 square miles of prime farmland in
Tulare County, where overuse and drought have been lowering
groundwater levels 2 to 3 feet per year. He’s since also
embraced policies to recharge more groundwater and protect
domestic wells. But the specter of his region’s over-pumping is
still coming for Fukuda. State officials have determined that
his sub-basin still hasn’t done enough to stop groundwater
levels from dropping further by 2040, as required by the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t take up an Arizona tribe’s
petition that looks to overturn a ruling that sides with a
state environmental agency’s decision to let a copper mining
company discharge untreated wastewater into a creek that’s
considered sacred to the Indigenous community.
The Colorado River is managed like a joint bank account — seven
states have equal shares of two basins, and not a single drop
of water is overlooked. Lake Powell in Utah and Lake Mead in
Nevada manage the fortune; when drought hits, and the budget is
low, the stress of being down on funds is shared among account
partners. … When the Colorado River
Compact was established in 1922, it allocated 7.5 million
acre-feet of water per year, or 75 million acre-feet over 10
years, to each of the two basins. However, the river’s strain
from population growth in certain areas, agricultural demands
and the impacts of climate change have decreased the flow
significantly, often delivering less than the initially
intended amount.
Amid warmer-than-average fall temperatures, Colorado’s snowpack
levels are pacing above normal. Snowpack, also referred
to as snow-water equivalent, is a measurement of how much
liquid water is held within the state’s snowfields — a key
indicator for drought conditions and seasonal runoff. As
of Friday, Nov. 1, the statewide snowpack was at 143% of the
30-year median, which is considered the historical normal,
according to data from the Natural Resources Conservation
Service.
San Francisco is often said to have some of the best
drinking water in the nation. Fed by snow on the peaks at
Yosemite, the cold, unspoiled supplies are so crisp and clean
that the water requires no filtration before being piped 160
miles to Bay Area taps. Celebrity water sommelier Martin Riese
once called the city’s water “smooth” with earthy notes and
“almost like you have little lime” in the aftertaste. This
beloved elixir, however, may not be as good as some people
think it is. A recent taste test found that the city’s supplies
were slightly inferior to water from other Bay Area
providers. To be clear, the test conducted by researchers
at the University of Colorado at Boulder, with Bay Area
residents doing the tasting, is not the final word on San
Francisco water.
