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 Interim Director Doug Beeman.
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The Bay Area’s sunny spring weather last week seems to have
been a tease, with rain dotting the current forecast while
meteorologists warn that the first half of the month at least
looks dreary. … When the rain returns later in the week,
it will be unusually focused on Southern California, dropping
just about an inch across Northern California counties that
bore the brunt of February’s winter weather. … (T)he Sierra
Nevada can expect significant snowfall throughout the week
after getting 6 to 12 inches around the mountains this past
weekend. … Monitoring the rainfall in the Santa Cruz
Mountains over the next few days could be more difficult than
usual after the NWS’s radar on Mount Umunhum, just south of San
José, went down Saturday.
California has just experienced its third reasonably wet winter
in as many years. How unusual is this? And how might three such
winters in a row affect salmon? We interviewed Jeffrey Mount,
senior fellow with the PPIC Water Policy Center, and Carson
Jeffres, senior researcher and lab director at UC
Davis’s Center for Watershed Sciences, to find out.
Assembly Bill 1044, introduced by Assembly Member Alexandra
Macedo (R-Tulare) Feb. 20, would create a new agency to be
administered through Tulare County and that would cover half of
Eastern Tule’s original acreage. The bill was written at the
county’s request after Eastern Tule lost all of its irrigation
district members. … The new groundwater entity will
include the Hope and Ducor water districts, neither of which
have surface water contracts. … But under recent Proposition
218 elections, the districts were able to levy land assessments
to fund a study to look at connecting to the Friant-Kern
Canal.
… If we’re serious about having enough water in
California, then our commitment to infrastructure must finally
meet our needs. A century ago, our nation and state had a
vision for building federal and state water infrastructure that
would build California into the fifth largest economy in the
world. But we haven’t made any substantial investments in
infrastructure since the 1970s, even though California’s
population has doubled. Here’s what we can do: Let’s get
serious about evaluating raising Shasta Dam. … We
should also make investments for ourselves, our children and
our grandchildren in projects like San Luis Reservoir expansion
in the San Joaquin Valley, Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento
Valley and canal conveyance so that California continues to
have a strong economy. –Written by Allison Febbo, general manager of Westlands
Water District.
Researchers from San Diego State University are launching the
second phase of a survey as they study the effects of pollution
on Tijuana River Valley residents. For decades, the Valley has
been plagued by untreated sewage flows that originate in
Mexico. The Tijuana River not only carries the effluent, but
also large quantities of chemicals and other pollutants into
the U.S. side of the border and the Tijuana River Valley. In
recent years, the contamination has gotten worse as Tijuana’s
sewage infrastructure has collapsed and is constantly sending
millions of gallons of raw sewage north of the border. On a
daily basis, the stench can be overwhelming.
… El Paso’s Pure Water Center, which will go online by 2028, is
the first direct-to-distribution reuse facility in the country.
Treating wastewater for reuse as drinking water has long been
controversial. But as the technology has advanced and water
resources dwindle, more cities are exploring direct
reuse. El Paso is the first out of the gate, but Phoenix
and Tucson are expected to follow suit. Elsewhere in Texas,
communities from the Panhandle to the Hill Country are
considering their own
facilities. Colorado and California recently
adopted rules to regulate the treatment technology.
Nevada Irrigation District (NID) will continue to discuss the
selling of 17 parcels the District initially intended to serve
as land that would have been part of the Centennial Dam
project, which in September the board resolved it would not
move forward with. The California Surplus Lands Act (SLA) is
used to help governmental agencies, such as NID, focus on
various land uses including public amenities like parks and
schools. In recent years, the SLA has been used to promote
affordable housing in a time where such dwellings are less
plentiful. “Surplus land” basically refers to any land owned by
a local or state agency that is no longer necessary to the
agency’s use.
As wildfires burned across Los Angeles in early January,
nearly 200,000 people were put under evacuation orders. In
the weeks since, these residents have slowly started returning,
some to properties that were lost to the fires and others to
structures that seemed to be untouched but where less
visible threats lurk. That includes potential contaminants
coursing through the water pipes beneath their feet, which can
incur fire damage that takes days, if not weeks, to
address. … Experts say there is a need for government
officials and utility agencies across the United States to step
up their preparations and response to extreme weather events in
recognition that they have become more common and are
increasingly leaving communities cut off from the water sources
they rely on.
We expect to hear a lot about energy in President Trump’s
address to Congress on Tuesday night. One of President Trump’s
latest executive orders “Establishing a National Energy
Dominance Council,” aims to grow domestic energy production by
changing “processes for permitting, production, distribution,
regulation and transportation across all forms of American
energy.” The relationship between rivers and energy development
may not jump right off the page. Still, fast-tracking energy
projects or lifting public safeguards energy projects, like
hydropower dams, will have an impact on rivers – our most
important source of drinking water. Therefore, finding a
true balance between river protection and energy development
will be vital to ensuring success in achieving President
Trump’s other stated goal of having the cleanest water in the
world.
Three years ago, drought was declared in our community. Marin
Municipal Water District reservoirs dipped to just months of
remaining supply. This sobering memory has been forefront in
the minds of each member of the MMWD Board of Directors as we
work with district staff to implement a roadmap designed to
ensure our supply reliability for future droughts. Last month,
the Marin Water Board voted unanimously to proceed with the
design and environmental review for a new pipeline and pumping
plant to transport excess winter water flows from Sonoma
County’s Russian River system to Marin reservoirs – truly a
milestone moment. –Written by Jed Smith, vice president of the Marin
Municipal Water District Board of Directors.
… In the Sacramento River basin, the reconnected
floodplain of the Yolo Bypass is intentionally inundated
during large floods, subtracting more than 80% of the volume of
floodwaters from the Sacramento River as it flows through its
namesake state capital (see image below as well as the top of
the article). This intentional flooding in the Bypass
is the single most important strategy for keeping the
people of Sacramento—along with other communities and
surrounding farmland—safe from flood damages. What can you call
that massive volume of water spreading harmlessly across the
Yolo Bypass but a “good flood” that is preventing “bad floods”
from threatening Sacramento? -Written by Jeff Opperman, global freshwater lead scientist
for World Wildlife Fund.
… Tayaba, who also serves as the tribe’s director of
traditional ecological knowledge, has become a prominent voice
in the fight for equitable water management and the
preservation of tribal cultural practices. … The Shingle
Springs Band of Miwok Indians, traditionally fishing people
along the Sacramento and American rivers, have been actively
involved in legal challenges against state water policies they
believe are detrimental to Delta ecosystems. Under
Tayaba’s leadership, the tribe sponsored Assembly Bill 2614,
which aimed to add tribal cultural uses of water to the state
water code.
… We’ve long ago moved past the option of not having to adapt
to climate change, of not facing a village, town, city, farm,
or river that has less water than we would prefer. It’s on us
now to make good choices, or less bad choices, and doing that
requires finding ways to come together in community to wrestle
our way through the competing and conflicting values. This is
hard. This is at the heart of water management even without
climate change, and we can do it well or poorly, in ways that
respect shared values or trample them. … Before we had to
wrestle with apocalypse we had to wrestle with what kind
of community we wanted to have. The results were
messy, but in the process we built the sort of institutional
framework we must now call on to help us with the next step.
It’s been a hydrological roller coaster ride this winter — big
storms followed by weeks of dry weather. But the water outlook
across Northern California remains healthy for the summer,
experts said Friday, with reservoirs brimming and summer water
restrictions for Bay Area residents unlikely for the third year
in a row. The statewide Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides
nearly one-third of California’s water supply, was at 85% of
its historical average Friday. That’s up from 69% a month ago.
And more storms are forecast for the next 10 days. … If
the Sierra snowpack grows to 100% or more of its historic
average by April 1, it will mark the first time in 25 years
with three average or above-average years in a row.
DOGE-ordered firings at the federal agency responsible for
delivering water to farms and cities across California are
getting in the way of President Donald Trump’s order to
maximize the state’s water supplies. The Bureau of
Reclamation’s California office has lost 10 percent of its
staff due to buyouts and orders by Elon Musk’s so-called
Department of Government Efficiency to fire short-tenured
employees, according to three people close to the office who
were granted anonymity because they feared
retaliation. DOGE’s cuts are already hurting Reclamation’s
ability to move water through a sprawling system of pumps,
canals and reservoirs to roughly a third of the state’s
farmland — and impeding the agency’s ability to ratchet up
deliveries in line with Trump’s demand, the people said.
A lawsuit over whether the Madera County Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) improperly conducted an election to
assess fees on more than 900 parcels of land to pay for
groundwater projects will continue, according to a judge’s
ruling issued Thursday. However, an injunction that had
prevented those fees from being collected for nearly three
years was also lifted by Madera County Superior Court Judge
Eric LiCalsi. LiCalsi did not prevent the fees from being
assessed retroactively, which would be a huge financial hit to
farmers. In the Madera subbasin, fees are $246 per acre, per
year. In the Delta-Mendota subbasin, the fees are $183.
The Los Angeles Fire Department did not inform the city’s
Department of Water and Power until mid-February that more than
1,000 fire hydrants needed repairs, despite being aware of the
issues months before. According to city records and officials,
the Fire Department discovered the damage to the hydrants
during inspections in the months before the Jan. 7 Palisades
fire, which destroyed thousands of homes. … The lapse in
sharing inspection records came to light Feb. 12, when KCBS-TV
reported that the LAFD had compiled a list of 1,350 fire
hydrants requiring repairs.
Real solutions to climate-proof water supplies are available …
Indeed, LA’s largest wholesale water provider, the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California, has shifted from an
historic focus on increasing water imports to maximizing local
water supplies, like water recycling, given climate impacts.
That’s why the Metropolitan Water District, along with many
other water agencies, supported the recent climate bond to
invest in a range of smart water solutions. These include
climate-proof strategies, such as: increasing groundwater
recharge and storage, modernizing water rights, strategically
repurposing land to maximize water savings and community
well-being, and conserving and reusing whenever possible.
Advanced Industrial Services, Inc. agreed to pay $29,736 after
a driver for the company dumped 150 gallons of
petroleum-contaminated wastewater into Grimes Canyon Creek near
Fillmore. The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office
announced the settlement Friday after the case was investigated
by both the DA’s office and California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The company was also ordered to comply with permanent
injunctive terms prohibiting the unlawful disposal of petroleum
products, the DA’s office said in a news release.
Chinook salmon were once abundant in the North Yuba River in
California’s Sierra Nevada. But since 1941, they’ve been kept
out of the chilly, clear waters by the Englebright Dam. Now,
for the first time in more than eight decades, the iridescent,
blue-green fish are once again swimming in the northern
waterway, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
announced in a statement this month. The young spring-run
Chinook salmon are part of a pilot project that may one day
become a full reintroduction program, with the eventual goal of
returning the fish to their historic spawning grounds in
California’s mountains.
