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The long-term health of the ocean off the coast of Southern
California, and the health of the region’s freshwater streams
and rivers and lakes, soon could hinge on the Trump
administration’s definition of a single word: ditch. The
Environmental Protection Agency is in the midst of sorting out
which of the “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS – the
creeks, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, wetlands, oceans, and,
yes, in a few cases, ditches – should still be protected from
pollution by the Clean Water Act of 1972. At least some of the
proposed new rules could result in more pollution in Southern
California’s vast network of paved flood control channels,
which soon could be viewed by the federal government as
“ephemeral ditches.”
… As of Jan. 1, California is mandating that underground
fuel tanks have two protective shells to prevent soil
or groundwater contamination. The single-walled
cylinders at the Bay Farm station are considered archaic and
possibly hazardous, prone to leaks like the one that recently
caused a major road closure in
Burlingame. … According to the State Water
Resources Control Board, California has fewer than 650
single-walled tanks left in the ground. … In due time,
state water board leaders assure that all of California’s
underground gas supply will be doubly secured, their outer
layers girded for earthquakes, extreme weather or natural
deterioration.
Budget analysts for San Diego say city officials should demand
big changes at the cash-strapped County Water Authority,
including a thorough re-thinking of its entire operations and
urgent action on out-of-state water sales. The recommendations
come with the city facing cumulative water rate hikes of 90%
over six years, and the water authority predicting it will need
to increase the rates it charges the city and other local
agencies 100% to 150% by 2035. Those hefty rate hikes
could possibly shrink substantially if the water authority
limits large capital projects, reduces operating expenses and
finds a way to “right size” its water supply, according to the
city’s independent budget analyst.
… Since the Jan. 22, 2024, flooding, the city’s Stormwater
Department has made progress clearing its storm channels,
including performing repeated maintenance on channels in
Southcrest and Mountainview that were overwhelmed in 2024. But
the city is restricted by a general lack of funding for
stormwater maintenance. Nearly half of its channel segments and
infrastructure — including in the Los Penaquitos watershed, San
Diego River watershed and Tijuana River watershed — haven’t
been maintained in at least 15 years, according to recent city
records.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse are continuing
their calls for a comprehensive review of the Uinta Basin
Railway, a project that would ship crude oil along the
headwaters of the Colorado River.
… Bennet, Neguse and environmental groups have raised
concerns that the project could increase the risk of a train
derailing and spilling oil into the Colorado River headwaters.
… “These trains would run for over 100 miles directly
alongside the headwaters of the Colorado River — a vital water
supply for nearly 40 million Americans, 30 tribal nations,
millions of acres of agricultural land, and a main driver of
our state’s recreation and tourism industries,” the lawmakers
wrote.
The Salton Sea, 35 miles long and between nine and 15 miles
wide, is the largest lake by surface area in California. Its
history is complex—and an anomaly in the natural world. Today’s
Salton Sea lies 228 feet below sea level, on the site of the
much-larger ancient Lake Cahuilla. Peaking at 40 feet above sea
level, Lake Cahuilla encompassed much of the Imperial, Mexicali
and Coachella valleys, most recently between 500 and 1,000
years ago. With evaporation and no outlet, over the years, Lake
Cahuilla dried up, leaving a huge 2,000-square-mile desert
sink—from the Gulf of California to the Banning Pass. A
horizontal dark band from the earlier shoreline is easily
spotted along the cliffs near today’s Salton Sea.
… In sheltered estuaries like Elkhorn Slough, a coastal inlet
where freshwater meets seawater just inland from Monterey Bay,
researchers have found that sea otters can help keep underwater
sea grass meadows and nearby marshes intact. Around a hundred
otters now make their home in the slough, one of California’s
last great coastal wetlands. … The connection runs through
the food web: Otters eat crabs. When crab numbers drop, tiny
grazers like sea slugs survive and multiply. … That keeps the
meadows healthy even in estuaries loaded with pollution from
fertilizers and other runoff. … When shore crab numbers
explode, the crabs burrow into marsh banks and chew on plant
roots. … By eating those crabs, otters slow the loss of marsh
edges that protect nearby communities from flooding and storm
surge.
Aquafornia is off Monday, Jan. 19, the federal
holiday honoring the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
We will return with a full slate of water news on
Tuesday, Jan. 20. In the meantime, follow us
on X/Twitter for
breaking news and on LinkedIn for
Foundation-related news.
The U.S. Senate passed a limited spending package on Thursday
that will largely fund several science- and land-related
agencies, including the Department of Interior, the U.S. Forest
Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at current
levels. … The biggest blow to the West, climate science
and the nation’s health and safety, however, are
potential cuts to the National Center for Atmospheric
Research, based in Boulder, Colorado. The center,
often called NCAR, creates the modeling and analysis that
underpins the weather forecasting people
around the world depend on for their lives and work.
… A lack of snow — known as a snow drought —
grips much of the West as a result of the unusually high
temperatures, even as winter reaches the midway
point. Snow cover was less extensive than any Jan. 14
on record across the West, according to satellite-based
measurements. … In California, the snowpack is
proportionally worse below 6,500 feet than atop mountain
peaks. While most Sierra ski resorts are at high
elevations, low-elevation snow is critical for the
ecosystemand water resources because
it accounts for a larger area. … Drought conditions,
while much improved in California, plague a third of the West,
according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The most extreme
drought is concentrated in the headwaters of the Colorado
River, which drains into Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Other drought and water supply news around the West:
… As Colorado River rules near expiration, the federal
government published Jan. 9 a long-anticipated menu of options
for how to replace them and manage the overstressed river basin
going forward. … But only one of the possible management
plans shows what the Bureau of Reclamation currently has the
legal authority to do without approval from the seven
basin states, according to the report. And the state
negotiators have been at an impasse for nearly two years. That
option, called the basic coordination alternative,
calls for moderate water cuts in the driest years and
would only work for the short term, according to the
1,600-page draft report, called an environmental impact
statement, or EIS.
Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom released his proposed
budget, and according to the California Farm Bureau, it shows
strong commitment to wildfire response, climate resilience and
water infrastructure, but leaves gaps for agriculture and rural
communities. Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass says
farmers and ranchers are eager to help lead on wildfire
prevention, but notes that funding for proactive strategies on
working lands remains limited. … While she welcomes
investments in flood protection, groundwater recharge and
drought resilience, she says infrastructure alone will not
deliver results unless projects are paired with regulatory
efficiency so they can move forward.
Representative Adam Gray (CA‑13) has introduced a sweeping
federal water package designed to accelerate long‑delayed
infrastructure projects, expand storage capacity and streamline
permitting — a proposal that could reshape water reliability
for Westside communities that have long been at the center of
California’s water crisis. The End the California Water Crisis
Package, unveiled last week, includes three bills: the Central
Valley Water Solution Act, the WATER Act and the Build Now Act.
Together, they aim to modernize California’s water system by
authorizing new storage projects, improving federal
coordination and imposing enforceable timelines on
environmental reviews that often stall construction for
years.
Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, Thursday joined Sen. Alex
Padilla, D-California, in announcing they had secured nearly
$3.5 million to help address pollution and trash in the Tijuana
River Valley. The money was secured through the Community
Project Funding process and is intended for a project to dredge
the Smuggler’s Gulch area and remove waste, debris and
accumulated sediment. … The decades-long process to
clean the area has been exacerbated in recent years due to
multiple consecutive years of beach closures in the South Bay
due to elevated bacteria levels as a result of sewage and
wastewater runoff.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority minted a deal to put up to
$500,000 toward tree planting in the Las Vegas Valley amid
community concern that mandated grass removal is killing off
existing canopy. … The deal comes three days
after four valley residents filed a lawsuit against
the agency over its ban on “useless grass,” or grass that a
committee has deemed must be removed before the end of this
year, when a state law passed in 2021 takes effect. In the
complaint, Las Vegas arborist Norm Schilling wrote that the
required removal of grass directly under trees, contributing to
the disturbance of root systems, has resulted in the demise of
some 100,000 trees and has caused roughly $300 million in
damage across the valley.
California Forever, the company behind a plan to build a new
city in Solano County, announced its latest proposal on
Thursday to make progress on another ambitious initiative:
revitalizing the area’s shipbuilding industry with the goal of
creating thousands of jobs. The real estate development
corporation and Nimitz Group, which owns Vallejo’s Mare Island,
are urging the federal government to designate the California
Delta a “Maritime Prosperity Zone,” a designation created by
President Donald Trump last year. The zone would span the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers through Suisun and
San Pablo bays.
Marin County filed an emergency proclamation this week that
would allow the county to seek state and federal financial
assistance after severe storms that caused more than $4 million
in damage this month, officials said. A severe storm system,
record king tides, a storm surge, high winds and riverine
runoff converged to wreak havoc across Marin County earlier
this month, triggering widespread flooding, levee failures,
landslides and resident displacement, the county said in a
statement.
… At Tuesday’s Ripon City Council meeting, Public Works
Director James Pease addressed this in regards to the drinking
water standards established by the State of California and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The City of Ripon’s
Well 19, which was constructed in 2022, was recently discovered
to contain hexavalent chromium otherwise knowns as Chromium-6.
The drinking water locally is routinely tested and the results
of those tests are monitored by the City and the State of
California Division of Drinking Water in an effort to ensure
the concentration of any regulated constituent present in the
water does not exceed the allowable regulatory limit.
Thursday marks the kickoff of the third annual International
Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit, hosted at Arizona State
University. Atmospheric water harvesting is an intriguing new
frontier in water science. The idea is relatively simple: in
addition to harvesting from rivers and recycling groundwater,
what if we could tap into the water reserves floating in the
air around us? Research into atmospheric water harvesting is
still in its early stages. The Show spoke with one of the
presenters at this year’s summit: Carl Abadam, a Ph.D. student
at the University of New Mexico. Abadam said the first
challenge is figuring out how to extract water from the air.
… The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Monday proposed
plans to open nearly 2 million acres of land from Santa Barbara
to the Bay Area for oil drilling and fracking. … An
analysis from the Central Coast field office would allow new
drilling in Alameda, Contra Costa, Monterey, San Benito, San
Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Fresno, Merced and San Joaquin
counties. It found “minor” and “minimal” impacts to regional
air quality and water resources, as well as to
five newly listed endangered
species in the area including the foothill
yellow-legged frog, western spadefoot toad and northwestern
pond turtle. … “This proposal puts some of the Central
Coast’s most cherished public lands, beaches and
drinking water sources directly in the
crosshairs of expanded fossil fuel development,” said Jeff
Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch.
