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 largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed
Oct. 2 on the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern
California. Four dams were taken out, allowing adult salmon to
swim all the way up the Klamath River from the Pacific Ocean
and into more than 400 miles of newly reopened habitat. OPB
cinematographer Brandon Swanson collected video footage of the
dam sites before and after the removal operation. The video
above includes before and after shots of all four dams.
… The video also includes before-and-after shots of a
site along Iron Gate reservoir, where an algae bloom had turned
the stagnant lake green in 2022, and a site along Northern
California’s Copco Lake reservoir, where a community of about
100 people lives.
San Diego County leaders are weighing whether to take legal
action aimed at holding the company managing a federal
wastewater plant along the U.S. border accountable for
pollution. The County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously
Tuesday to “explore litigation options” against Veolia, the
French transnational company managing the federal wastewater
plant on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico. The
options on the table are to start their own case against Veolia
for failing to curb Tijuana River pollution, or join one of the
other lawsuits already filed this year against the company on
behalf of Imperial Beach residents. Supervisor Terra
Lawson-Remer also said they may consider taking action against
other responsible parties, including Mexico.
A federal judge denied a request by the owner of Point Buckler
Island in the greater San Francisco Bay for a new trial in an
almost eight-year dispute with the U.S. Justice Department over
his illegal “repair” of the levee surrounding the island. John
Sweeney argued that the 2020 ruling that, after a bench trial,
had found him liable for violating the Clean Water Act was no
longer sustainable in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court
decision last year in Sackett v. Environmental Protection
Agency, which had curtailed the federal government’s authority
to regulate wetlands. In that decision, the nation’s top court
found that the reach of the Clean Water Act extends to only
those “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies
that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right, so
that they are ‘indistinguishable’ from those waters.”
Clear Lake is the largest freshwater lake that lies wholly in
California. It’s also the oldest warm water lake in North
America, having formed over half a million years ago, but those
ancient waters and surrounding shores hide a dangerous element
that could suffocate this treasure. Warming temperatures and a
changing climate are giving algae and bacteria the upper hand.
The community isn’t willing to give up, though. Long-time
resident Debbie Clarke sees the potential in the lake sitting
just 100 miles north of Sacramento and San Francisco.
She recalls summer days from her childhood when the lake would
go from 1,000 people to 15,000 people starting Memorial Day
weekend. Even though the population of permanent residents has
grown, Debbie says it still feels like a close-knit community.
One neighbor is even working on revitalizing an old boat slip
with hopes of making it a place to swim and fish, if he can
find a way to keep out a dangerous bacteria growth called
cyanobacteria.
America has a flooding problem. When Hurricane Milton hit
Florida, the images of inundation seemed shocking — but also
weirdly normal: For what felt like the umpteenth time this
year, entire communities were underwater. Since the 1990s, the
cost of flood damage has roughly doubled each decade, according
to one estimate. The federal government issued two disaster
declarations for floods in 2000. So far this year, it has
issued 66. The reasons are no mystery. Global warming is
making storms more severe because warmer air holds more water.
At the same time, more Americans are moving to the
coast and other flood-prone areas. Those conflicting
trends are forcing people to adapt. Advances in design, science
and engineering — combined with a willingness to spend vast
amounts of money — have allowed the United States and other
wealthy countries to try new ideas for coping with water.
The state granted $20 million to the Turlock Irrigation
District in 2022 to test the idea of solar panels atop canals.
The project was delayed by design challenges, but installation
finally started in May on a small canal stretch southwest of
Keyes. It could be generating power by year’s end, to be
followed next summer by a second test site east of Hickman.
While increasing the supply for TID’s electricity customers,
the panels also could reduce evaporation. Taking the concept
statewide could be a key step against climate change, the
University of California reported in 2021. UC Merced
researchers will monitor the systems for power output,
evaporation savings and whether the panels interfere with canal
operations. TID will retain them after data collection ends in
June 2026.
With autumn well underway, Californians are eager to know
whether it’ll be a wet or dry winter in the Golden State. After
two winters marked by robust snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada,
could more snow-dumping storms be on the way in coming
months? Meteorologists said they don’t have a crystal ball
that can forecast the weather several months out. A variety of
factors could impact the upcoming winter’s outcome, from
the development of a La Niña weather pattern to an
area of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, and nobody can predict
how much influence each will have if it does develop.
In a major step toward California’s first effort to bury
climate-warming gases underground, Kern County’s Board of
Supervisors today unanimously approved a project on a sprawling
oil and gas field. The project by California Resources Corp.,
the state’s largest producer of oil and gas, will capture
millions of tons of carbon dioxide and inject it into the
ground in the western San Joaquin Valley south of Buttonwillow.
The Carbon Terra Vault project is part of a broader bid by the
oil and gas industry to remain viable in a state that is
attempting to decarbonize. Although the company still faces
additional steps, the county approval is a key development that
advances the project. … The EPA will require the
company to monitor the injection wells for a century to
ensure that no groundwater is polluted.
Initial examinations suggest there are no drinking water
sources threatened by injecting carbon into the reservoir.
But the project would use significant amounts of
groundwater in a basin that already is over-pumped.
Legislative momentum against PFAS has surged this year, as at
least 11 states enacted laws to restrict the use of “forever
chemicals” in everyday consumer products or professional
firefighting foam. … Earlier this year, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency released new standards limiting
PFAS in drinking water. Water systems have five years to comply
with the rules. Even before the EPA action, 11
states had set their own limits on PFAS in drinking water,
starting with New Jersey in 2018.
… California’s latest PFAS measure, which
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last month, specifically
bans the use of PFAS in menstrual products. Democratic
Assemblymember Diane Papan, the author of the bill, said it was
particularly strong because it covers both intentional and
unintentional uses of PFAS, so “manufacturers will have to
really be careful about what comes in their supply chain.”
Flood Preparedness Week will have all but come and gone before
Solano County is expected to see any more rainfall. The
National Weather Service in Sacramento is reporting a new storm
system coming in over the weekend, with a chance of rain into
next week. Flood Preparedness Week runs Oct. 19-26. However,
the state Department of Water Resources said now is the time to
get prepared for the possibility of flooding, and that starts
with knowing your risk. … The warning comes after two
straight years with major flood events across the state.
It also comes with what forecasters are saying will be a La
Niña winter, which likely means a drier winter in Southern
California, and a lot of uncertainty in the northern part of
the state – including the Bay Area. Right now, the Climate
Prediction Center reports there is an equal chance that
rainfall will be above normal this winter or below normal this
winter. The historic trend is for slightly above average rain
during La Niña years in Northern California.
… In Pinal County, … water shortages mean that farmers no
longer have access to the Colorado River, formerly the
lifeblood of their cotton and alfalfa empires. The booming
population of the area’s subdivisions face a water reckoning as
well: The state has placed a moratorium on new housing
development in parts of the county, as part of an effort to
protect dwindling groundwater resources. Over
the past four years, Arizona has become a poster child for
water scarcity in the United States. Between decades of
unsustainable groundwater pumping and a once-in-a-millenium
drought, fueled by climate change, water sources in every
region of the state are under threat. As groundwater aquifers
dry up near some of the most populous areas, officials have
blocked thousands of new homes from being built in and around
the booming Phoenix metropolitan area.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration are making further
contingency plans to shield the Golden State in case former
President Donald Trump returns to the White House. Newsom and
top budget officials are looking to establish an account the
state can immediately draw on for disasters if Trump refuses to
provide federal dollars for fires, floods and
other emergencies. Newsom said he doesn’t have a dollar
figure for the scenario his administration is discussing ahead
of his January state budget proposal, but described it as “not
an inconsequential consideration.”
New research released today by the Pacific Institute and the
Center for Water Security and Cooperation (CWSC) reveals
existing laws and policies fail to protect water and sanitation
systems from climate change impacts in frontline communities
across the United States. The report, “Law and Policies that
Address Equitable, Climate-Resilient Water and Sanitation,”
examines federal, Tribal, state, and local laws and policies
governing centralized drinking water and wastewater systems, as
well as decentralized onsite drinking water and sanitation
systems. The research demonstrates that most existing US water
laws and policies were developed assuming historical climate
trends that determine water availability would be constant and
that communities’ vulnerability to climate events would be the
same over time. The research specifically outlines how laws and
policies often do not anticipate or help to proactively manage
the impacts of climate change on water and wastewater systems
in frontline communities.
A plan to close Napa Valley’s controversial Clover Flat
Landfill and move waste to the Potrero Hills Landfill in
Suisun City is moving forward. A Waste Connections
representative confirmed Monday at a special Upper Valley Waste
Management Agency meeting that the company will submit a
closure plan to Napa County’s Local Enforcement Agency and
state officials in early 2025. It marked the first time the
closure had been discussed publicly. … Waste
Connections, one of the nation’s largest waste companies, took
over the site from the local Pestoni family, which had owned
and operated the landfill for decades, in 2023, along with
another Napa Valley facility, Upper Valley Disposal Service on
Whitehall Lane. But problems have persisted. That includes
water sampling by regulators in early 2023, which found the
same contaminants in a downstream creek as
those identified at the landfill.
The sound of construction equipment echoed through the quiet
streets of south Salinas as excavation work proceeded along
Park Street and a section of Archer Street earlier this month.
Part of California Water Service’s (Cal Water) extensive
program of infrastructure upgrades currently underway, the crew
was in the process of replacing a section of the approximately
350 miles of water mainline responsible for transporting
potable water within the city’s municipal water distribution
system with 1,871 feet of new 8-inch water main. The mainline
replacement project, which includes swapping out old fire
hydrants as well, began earlier this summer, according to Cal
Water, and is important for water quality and fire prevention
by preventing failure of aging and high-risk pipelines.
Researchers at the United States Geological Survey and the
Arkansas government announced on Monday that they had found a
trove of lithium, a critical raw material for electric vehicle
batteries, in an underground brine reservoir in Arkansas. With
the help of water testing and machine learning, the researchers
determined that there might be five million to 19 million tons
of lithium — more than enough to meet all of the world’s demand
for the metal — in a geological area known as the Smackover
Formation. … Federal researchers also have identified other
potential resources that could produce large quantities of
lithium, including the Salton Sea in Southern
California, where Berkshire Hathaway Energy and other
companies are working to extract lithium from hot liquid pumped
up from an aquifer more than 4,000 feet below the ground by
geothermal power plants.
New groundbreaking research aims to evaluate potential human
health risks from bacteria in surface water systems across four
U.S. states. The project involving the University of Hawaiʻi at
Mānoa will assess the environmental spread of
antimicrobial-resistant pathogens—disease-causing
microorganisms that have evolved to withstand the effects of
antibiotics and other medicines designed to kill them—through
wastewater discharge and agricultural runoff. The three-year
study recently received a $2.4 million grant from the
Environmental Protection Agency. … UH Mānoa
researchers will focus on Kauaʻi’s Hanalei River, where
they will examine how cesspools and animal agriculture
contribute to the spread of antimicrobial resistance. The river
system in Hawaiʻi, along with waterways in Nebraska, New
Jersey and California, were selected to represent diverse
environmental conditions and pollution sources.
California’s waterways are about to get a helping hand from an
unexpected ally: the North American beaver. With the recent
passing of Assembly Bill (AB) 2196, authored by Assemblymember
Damon Connolly and supported by CalTrout, a comprehensive
program for beaver restoration throughout California’s
watersheds is set to begin. This innovative approach leverages
nature-based solutions to promote fish and freshwater
resilience, offering a beacon of hope for our aquatic
ecosystems. … While beavers are admired for their sweet
and adorable charm, they are powerful ecosystem engineers whose
work is vital for maintaining healthy watersheds. Their
dam-building activities create complex aquatic habitats,
improve water quality, and increase biodiversity. By
reintroducing beavers to their native historical range, we’re
not just bringing back a lovable species – we’re deploying
nature’s own environmental restoration experts.
A combination of warmer climate and water mismanagement has led
to the draining of Eagle Lake near Susanville. While
changes could still be made to preserve what’s left, the Bureau
of Land Management says getting the lake levels to where they
were a century ago would take decades of rain without
evaporation — and that’s a scenario that just won’t play out.
Evaporation and winds drop lake levels at Eagle Lake several
feet every year. “You get 3-5 feet of loss every year so
you have to balance that with recharge, and if you don’t, then
the lake just gets smaller and smaller,” said Stan Bales with
the Bureau of Land Management.
Two cancer-causing components have been found in Sebastopol’s
aging water wells, raising red flags among city council
leadership, especially as the city lacks funding to fix its
infrastructure. Specifically, traces of arsenic were detected
in three of the city’s wells, according to a recently released
city report. Tetrachloroethylene, commonly known as PCE, has
been detected in one of those three wells, too. But the levels
of both arsenic and PCE in the city’s drinking water remain
under thresholds deemed dangerous by state and federal
regulators, city officials say. That’s because filtering or
treatment systems have been installed to remove the bulk of the
contaminants, and water from the wells is blended to reduce
them even more.
