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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The US Forest Service and water bottling company BlueTriton
[Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water] must fight their California
water permit battle in a court closer to the case’s origin, a
federal judge ruled. Judge John D. Bates transferred BlueTriton
Brands Inc.’s bid to reinstate its special use permit related
to San Bernardino National Forest water diversions to the US
District Court for the Central District of California,
according to an order filed in US District Court for the
District of Columbia.
As rain returns to the Sacramento area, the California
Department of Water Resources is observing Flood Preparedness
Week. Local agencies across the state are sharing information
about California’s flood risks and how to prepare for flooding,
according to the department’s website. Where is the flood risk
in Sacramento County? What can residents do to prepare? Here’s
what you should know ahead of the winter weather season.
Denver will transform the landscape around its iconic City and
County Building into a waterwise shortgrass prairie, tearing
out thirsty bluegrass turf and creating a demonstration
showcase for conservation. The rip-out-and-replace
project, scheduled for completion by next fall, will slash 44%
of water use on the traditional bluegrass lawn surrounding City
Hall, dropping water use in that area from 1.2 million gallons
a year to 670,000 gallons. The 1932 neoclassical
building has historic landmark designation, but the
grounds do not, so Denver Parks and Recreation is free to
design and build the $400,000 project, parks spokesperson
Stephanie Figueroa said. The money will come from the Parks
Legacy Fund, created by a special sales tax Denver voters
approved in 2018 for open space acquisition and
renovation.
The Biden administration Thursday approved a massive lithium
and boron mine in southern Nevada, overriding some
environmentalists’ protests that it could drive an endangered
wildflower to extinction. … Some environmentalists have also
raised alarm about the mine’s water consumption, given a
historic drought gripping much of the American West. But
Bernard Rowe, Ioneer’s managing director, said the company is
taking steps to mitigate these concerns. The mine will be “very
efficient with water. We recirculate about 50 percent of our
water,” Rowe said on a call with reporters Thursday, adding
that “we’ve designed the project to be very, very respectful of
environmental sensitivities.”
Flooding has become a common occurrence in the East Houston
neighborhood where ecologist Jessica Díaz Vázquez grew up. When
the water rises, she and other residents of this predominantly
Latinx community wonder whether pollutants from nearby
petrochemical plants are coming with it. “You don’t want to go
near [the water] because you really just don’t know what could
be in it,” said Vázquez, who is now a fellow at NOAA. Hers
isn’t the only community wondering what’s in its water.
According to a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and
the Environment, lakes in communities where more than a quarter
of residents are Hispanic or people of color are 3 times less
likely to have been monitored for water quality than lakes in
predominantly white, non-Hispanic areas of the United States.
… ABC10 meteorologist Rob Carlmark took a trip to Southern
California’s largest natural lake, Lake Elsinore. This lake is
facing the same scenario, but the leaders of the community
surrounding the lake are taking the next step. They put forth
real action and are getting results. … It’s the largest
natural freshwater lake in Southern California. It is fairly
shallow but six miles long and the surface area is nearly 3,000
acres. … When the lake turned green with toxic
cyanobacteria algae in 2022, the town was heavily impacted.
They’ve had numerous periods of the water turning green, but
the outbreak prompted a six-month closure. Residents demanded
Lake Elsinore’s mayor and city council address the issue.
… For the first paper, published in June in the journal
Energy & Environmental Science, William Tarpeh and his
co-authors – including first author Dean Miller, a Stanford PhD
candidate in chemical engineering – used wastewater from a Palo
Alto treatment plant to test a process for converting nitrate
into ammonia. For the second paper, published in October in the
same journal, Tarpeh’s team tested another process that
produces high-purity ammonia from agricultural runoff.
… Tarpeh and his colleagues created an
“electrocatalyst-in-a-box” – an electrically driven process
that both extracts nitrate from wastewater and converts that
nitrate into ammonia. For the second paper, Tarpeh’s team used
a two-step process of electrodialysis and nitrate reduction to
take nitrate and ammonia from wastewater and convert them
together into high-purity ammonia. They successfully
concentrated ammonia about 12 times compared to the nitrate and
ammonia in the original wastewater, Tarpeh said.
San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer is teaming up
with several local officials in an attempt to get the
Environmental Protection Agency to take action against the
sewage crisis in the South Bay. On Thursday morning in
Coronado, Lawson-Remer is slated to speak alongside those
officials and some South Bay residents, submitting a petition
to the EPA to designate parts of the Tijuana River Valley as a
“superfund site.” A superfund site is part of a 1980 law
that the EPA can use to free up federal funding to clean up
hazardous waste sites around the country. Those sites are meant
to target toxic waste, not raw sewage — which normally falls
under the Clean Water Act. But Lawson-Remer wants the EPA to
designate a six-mile stretch of the Lower Tijuana River Valley
as a superfund site after decades of exposure to toxic
chemicals, heavy metals, and pesticides.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) was nationally
recognized for its leadership in climate action and integrated
water management at the 2024 American Water Resources
Association (AWRA) conference in St. Louis earlier this month.
DWR received two prestigious awards: the Sandor C. Csallany
Institutional Award for its comprehensive Climate Action Plan
(CAP), as well as accepting the Integrated Water Resources
Management Award on behalf of the Flood-Managed Aquifer
Recharge (Flood-MAR) Network which includes DWR and partners.
These awards, received during the 60th Anniversary of AWRA,
highlight DWR’s ongoing commitment to addressing climate change
and enhancing California’s water resilience through
collaboration, innovation, and forward-thinking strategies.
Building on their established history of collaboration, the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Los
Angeles County Sanitation Districts announced an expansion of
their partnership to advance Pure Water Southern California, a
proposed regional water recycling project positioned to become
one of the largest of its kind in the world. Following the
approval of a revised agreement by the Sanitation Districts’
Board of Directors on Wednesday (Oct. 23), and Metropolitan’s
board last month, the Sanitation Districts will take on a
broader role in the program. This strategic update clarifies
each agency’s responsibilities, enabling them to leverage their
unique expertise to optimize the project’s success.
A cleanup project is underway in the Reeds Creek area of Red
Bluff. The Reeds Creek cleanup started earlier this month, and
the first stage is now finished. The initiative is being led by
theTehama County Probation Department, in collaboration with
the Red Bluff Police Department. Additionally, the Red Bluff
Fire Department, with assistance from Valley View Fire Center
crews, is carrying out vegetation mitigation prior to the
cleanup team clearing the area along the creek. Tehama County
Probation Department Corrections Counselor and Crew Supervisor
Geoffrey Will told KRCR the major goal is to get the banks and
the bed of the Sacramento River cleared out.
Janet Wilson, The Desert Sun’s senior environmental reporter,
was honored this week as a winner in the 71st Scripps Howard
Journalism Awards for her investigation into Imperial County
farmers’ water supply from the Colorado River, which was done
in collaboration with ProPublica. Through their “Thirsty
Valley” investigation, Wilson and ProPublica reporter Nat Lash
won the award for excellence in innovation, which honors Roy W.
Howard, the long-time chairman of the executive committee
of the Scripps‐Howard newspaper chain who died in 1964. The
judges also recognized the contributions of ProPublica
reporters Mark Olalde and Ash Ngu.
Colorado lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to
offer payments to Native American tribes that are unable to use
their full share of the Colorado River, arguing the groups
should be compensated for reducing pressure on the
drought-stricken waterway. Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and
John Hickenlooper, along with Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared
Polis, issued the plea Monday in a letter to the Bureau of
Reclamation. “We strongly encourage you to explore other
avenues for Colorado’s Tribal Nations to pursue funding related
to drought response, recognizing that they are currently
forgoing their water use not by choice, but resulting from a
history of inequity reflected in their long-term lack of
infrastructure,” the elected officials wrote.
Other tribal water and water negotiations articles:
At least one Tulare County groundwater region is doing things
right when it comes to protecting residential drinking water
wells, according to two advocacy organizations. The Kaweah
subbasin, which covers the northern half of Tulare County’s
flatlands, earned important endorsements this month from the
Community Water Center and Leadership Counsel for Justice and
Accountability. Both organizations confirmed to SJV Water that
Kaweah’s domestic well mitigation program is “the standard” for
other subbasins to follow and will recommend to the state Water
Resources Control Board that Kaweah not be placed on probation
at its January 7 hearing in Sacramento.
Governor Gavin Newsom today highlighted a new agreement between
state and federal partners to enhance collaboration on
floodplain projects in the Sacramento River Basin that bolster
flood protection and habitat for fish and wildlife. The MOU
furthers state-federal coordination on the planning, design and
implementation of multi-benefit floodplain projects in the
Sacramento River Basin that increase flood protection, restore
habitat and ecosystems, improve groundwater recharge and water
supply reliability, and sustain farming and managed wetland
operations. The agreement is backed by the Floodplain Forward
Coalition comprised of landowners, irrigation districts, and
higher education and conservation groups.
A floodgate that will try to bring thousands of Central Valley
homes out of a 100-year flood zone is now complete. But some
homeowners are hesitant to say it’s worth it just yet. The
nearly $100 million project in Stockton is the first of its
kind in California and on the West Coast. After four years of
construction, the Smith Canal floodgate is now open.
… Funded through federal, state and local dollars, the
floodgate runs from the tip of Louis Park to the Stockton
Country Club’s shore. To the north is a 50-foot-wide barrier
between the San Joaquin River and thousands of homes in central
Stockton that are in flood-prone areas.
One of [San Diego's] many storm drain channels runs under
the railroad tracks at Imperial Avenue and Merlin Drive. It’s
covered with plants and trash. On Wednesday, mayoral
candidate Larry Turner continued his campaign push. Turner used
this storm channel as an opportunity to remind San Diego voters
of the January 22nd flooding. Heavy rain overflowed storm
drains, causing destruction across southeast San Diego. Since
then, the city cleared more than a hundred tons of debris from
those channels, but Turner says it’s too little too late.
… ABC10News anchor Kimberly Hunt brought this issue to
Mayor Todd Gloria more recently during our mayoral
debate. Gloria defended the city’s response, touting seven
million dollars he secured for the housing commission to assist
victims of the January 22nd flooding. … He says a large part
of $700 million in federal funds will go toward stormwater
infrastructure in those neighborhoods. But Turner claims there
are still a handful of channels that remain untouched.
When the birds touch down, they have no idea of the danger that
lurks in the water. But soon they feel weak. Their eyes may
close. They struggle to hold up their wings, then their heads.
Eventually, they drown. Over the past three months, nearly
100,000 birds have died in this vicious sequence that
scientists say marks the worst outbreak of avian botulism ever
at the Klamath Basin national wildlife refuges, along the
California-Oregon border. The die-off is centered at Tule
Lake, an ancient, volcanic lake in Siskiyou and Modoc counties.
It’s one of six federal refuges designed to provide sanctuary
for the hundreds of thousands of birds, as well as other
animals, that live and visit the remote region annually. Among
the recent dead are both the local waterfowl, namely ducks, and
the many migratory birds that stop for food and rest on their
often-long journeys up and down the West Coast.
A team of climate specialists from the NSF National Center for
Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics Lab, Texas
A&M University, and Pennsylvania State University has found
evidence for a rise in ocean levels during future atmospheric
rivers (ARs) that form in the Pacific Ocean and make their way
to the North American coast. In their
paper published in the journal Communications
Earth & Environment, the group describes their study of
previous ARs and how they applied what they learned to ARs of
the future, when taking into account global warming. Over the
next century, dramatic changes to the
world’s climate are expected, from warming
temperatures to more rain in some places and less in others.
Another aspect of climate change that has not received as much
press is the ongoing changes to the world’s oceans. In addition
to warmer air over the oceans, the water
temperature is also growing warmer.
… Los Vaqueros was a rare species, seemingly bred for
threading the gauntlet of California water politics that’s held
up other new storage projects for decades: It would have
expanded an existing project, rather than starting from
scratch, which meant fewer permitting hurdles. It would have
gotten its funding from a pool of relatively deep-pocketed Bay
Area water agencies, rather than politically precarious state
or federal dollars. And it promised water for environmentally
sensitive wetlands, helping it avoid lawsuits from
environmental groups and tribes. But the expansion of the
reservoir in the hills between the Central Valley and the Bay
Area fell apart last month as the main water agency behind the
project decided to back out, blaming high costs and lowered
benefits as well as disagreement over who should pay for what.
The breakdown has shaken Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
administration, which has thrown its weight behind other big
infrastructure proposals to store and move around more water —
most notably Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley and a
tunnel underneath the crumbling Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta —
as a way to adapt to climate change.
