Aquafornia

A lengthy complaint alleging secretive, self-dealing on the part of a prominent farmer and board member on a key Tulare County groundwater agency slogged through a Fair Political Practices Commission investigation over the past four years resulting in, essentially, a slap on the wrist late last month. Eric L. Borba, former chair of the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency, was found in violation of the state’s disclosure rules at the Commission’s April 25 meeting for not listing his ownership in several ditch companies including the value of those water assets. He was ordered to revamp his Form 700s, which public board members and executives must file each year, and pay a $5,400 fine. The Form 700s now list Borba’s ownership, through a variety of entities, in five area ditch companies. 

There’s a new opportunity for private wetland owners to make money from their land. The BirdReturns program pays wetland owners to flood their land and provide habitat for birds in the Central Valley. The program offers seasonal participation and is currently accepting applications for fall participation. Applications close on June 9.  The program is funded through a $15 million grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife which will keep the program running through 2026.  The program, “aims to fill in all the other gaps throughout the rest of the year when, in the natural cycle, there would be habitat for birds,” said Ashley Seufzer, senior project coordinator for Audubon California.  This is the second year of the fall program. In the past, there have been participating landowners in the San Joaquin Valley but the number changes every season, said Seufzer. 

Monitoring salmon and steelhead is like ghost-hunting. Despite declining population numbers, these spawning salmonids still run in the memories of communities along coastal California streams. These fish support the livelihoods of diverse people including tribes, commercial fishers, and recreational fishing businesses. Claire Buchanan, Bay Area Senior Project Manager, captured the sentiment when she said “steelhead are like ghosts” as she described how they often migrate up and down creeks undetected under the cover of darkness and murky waters after storms. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, at the southern edge of where salmon spawn along the West Coast, sightings of critically endangered coho salmon are rare and sightings of threatened steelhead are even less frequent. Conservationists are working to conjure more of these fish back into the Santa Cruz Mountains.

When the state of California began to implement and enforce the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act some nine years ago, it became clear that without change, there will not be enough sustainably available groundwater to support all of the irrigated acres that are currently in production. With that decline in agriculture, the businesses, communities and tax base that depends on those farms would be very negatively impacted as well. This reality prompted a wide variety of interests in the San Joaquin Valley to form a “coalition of the willing” that came to be known as the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley (Blueprint). The dairy industry was one of those interests. Over 90% of California milk production is located in the San Joaquin Valley, much of which is designated by the State as “critically overdrafted.” On behalf of Milk Producers Council, I have been involved with the Blueprint from the beginning. Here is an update on the progress of the Blueprint.

The nation’s high court has agreed to hear a water quality case next year that will examine U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authority to impose new wastewater discharge requirements on utilities that are based on conditions without specific numeric limits.  San Francisco wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review a July 2023 opinion by judges from the federal appeals court in San Francisco that affirmed agency authority to include broad language prohibiting the pollution and placing conditions on the city’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Those conditions included requiring the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to update its long-term control plan for managing combined-sewer overflows. 

Forest Service officials reported that it took six hours and 17 trash bags to clear the mess left by approximately 3,000 students from both UC Davis and the University of Oregon. The students are accused of littering the beaches and surrounding areas of the popular lake with cups, drink cans, pool floats, and other items, despite being asked to clean up after themselves. Deborah Carlisi, a detailed recreation staff officer for Shasta-Trinity National Forest, stated that staff had provided trash bags and requested that the students pack out whatever they brought in. “Some students used them. Some students didn’t,” Carlisi said. She noted that the worst part is the trash that has sunk to the bottom of the lake, which cannot be cleaned up until water levels drop later in the summer. 

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. 

Related articles: 

• Newsweek: Lake Mead Water Level Has Zero Risk of Falling Below 1,000 Feet Before 2028
• Denver Post: Colorado River flows will be affected by depleting groundwater, study says
• Aspen Journalism: Using less of the Colorado River takes a willing farmer and $45 million in federal funds
• Colorado Sun: “Sharing is important” - Elementary students dive into Colorado water issues in pen pal program
• U.S. Department of the Interior: News Release - Biden-Harris Administration delivers $242 million from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to expand Western water storage and conveyance ​

California’s Clear Lake has been taken over by so much algae that its emerald waters are now visible from space, photos show. The satellite images, taken by NASA in mid-May, indicate that the eutrophic lake may be infested with blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria — single-celled organisms that can become potent enough to poison humans and animals, according to the United States Geological Survey. County officials wrote that, overall, algae is integral to the freshwater lake’s health and aquatic ecosystem. More than 130 different types of species have been identified thus far, but three problematic blue-green algal species have been known to bloom there in the spring and late summertime. These harmful species can cause skin irritation, along with gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms, officials said.

Related article: 

• Fox 40 – Sacramento: California alerts residents to health risks of toxic algal blooms as weather heats up
• San Francisco Chronicle: Extreme heat coming to California with hot temps in these areas 

…  the fields that grow our food are filthy with plastic waste — the direct result of modern farming’s increasing reliance on the signature material of the Anthropocene. Whether incidentally littered onsite or directly diffused into the soil via polymer-coated chemical pellets, plastic is now embedded both in agricultural practices and the tilled earth itself. It leaks into waterways, might be poisoning our food, and is virtually unregulated.  Nobody knows what to do about it. “Now we have it, and it’s the devil … it’s a global menace,” says Tom Willey, a retired certified organic farmer in the San Joaquin Valley who reluctantly used plastic sheet “mulch” for about 20 years ago on his farm near Madera. … From Modesto to Manteca, from Davis to Petaluma, and throughout the Delta and North Bay regions, plastic sheeting for hoop-style greenhouses and groundcovers are seen in fields beside public roads and waterways, sometimes strewn in windblown rags and tatters, waiting for disposal.

Related pollution articles: 

• The Guardian: California comedown: how illicit cannabis farms have left a wilderness where ‘you’re lucky to see a lizard’
• Reuters: California attorney general seeks to enforce plastics probe subpoenas in court