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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A federal judge denied summary judgment to a California
nonprofit that accuses a solid waste facility in Butte County
of allowing contaminants to seep out of its facility and into a
wetland preserve that leads to a Sacramento River tributary
during a major rainstorm. Nonprofit California Open Lands
maintains a wetland preserve in Butte County that sits near the
Neal Road Recycling and Waste Facility, operated by the Butte
County Department of Public Works.
Plumas County recently commissioned an independent review of
vested mining rights for the Engels-Superior Mines, situated in
the county. Best Best & Krieger LLP (BBK), a prominent law
firm, undertook this investigation, posting its findings in a
detailed memorandum on April 15, 2024. The memorandum addresses
a request by California-Engels Mining Company (owner) and US
Copper Corp (applicant). This request pertains to the Engels
Mine and Superior Mine located in Indian Valley on the Feather
River watershed. The memorandum, accessible on the Plumas
County Zoning Administrator website, illuminates the historical
context and legal intricacies surrounding the mining
operations. It discusses five determinations sought by the
applicant, including the mining history, vesting date, extent
of mining, continuity of mining rights, and intent to continue
mining.
Last year, U.S. hydropower electricity generation fell to
its lowest since 2001. This year, we expect hydropower to
increase 6% and account for 250 billion kilowatthours of
electricity generation in the power sector, based on forecasts
in our Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). We expect
hydropower to increase in nearly every part of the country,
with notable increases in the Southeast and in the Northwest
and Rockies. We expect other regions with significant
hydropower generation to either increase slightly, such as in
New York, or remain about the same, such as in California.
California’s changing climate brings new challenges each year
for water managers as they navigate extreme shifts from drought
to flood while working to ensure safe, reliable water supplies
for California’s 39 million residents. Water managers address
these challenges in their local watersheds, which are often at
the forefront of the impacts of climate change.
California WaterBlog is a long-running outreach project from
the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, a research center
dedicated to interdisciplinary study of water challenges,
particularly in California. We focus on environmentally and
economically sustainable solutions for managing rivers, lakes,
groundwater, and estuaries. This week, for UC Davis Give Day
(April 19-20) we’re sharing a little about the Center and the
work we do. I’m Karrigan Bork, the Center’s Interim Director,
helping out while Director Andrew Rypel is on sabbatical, and
I’ll be your guide for this brief tour through the “Shed”. If
you would like to donate to help the Center continue important
work, I’ve shared our giving link below.
Just south of the intersection of North Horne and East
McKellips Road in Mesa sits the Park of the Canals. It’s one of
just a few places where you can still see remnants of canals
dug by the ancestral Sonoran Desert people who occupied the
Salt River Valley before the time of Christ. Those ancient
farmers have been referred to as the “Hohokam” but it’s not the
name of a tribe or a people, and their O’Odham, Hopi, and Zuni
descendants do not call them that. Early archaeologists believe
the culture developed in Mexico and moved into what is now
Arizona. In order to flourish, they built an extensive canal
system to bring water to villages and irrigate thousands of
acres of agricultural fields.
In an effort to protect more than 5 million Californians from a
cancer-causing contaminant, state regulators today set a new
standard that is expected to increase the cost of water for
many people throughout the state. The State Water Resources
Control Board unanimously approved the nation’s first drinking
water standard for hexavalent chromium, which is found
naturally in some California groundwater as well as water
contaminated by industries. Now water suppliers will be forced
to install costly treatment to limit the chemical in water to
no more than 10 parts per billion — equivalent to about 10
drops in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Lake Powell could reach a four-year high this spring and summer
as snowmelt supplements the reservoir’s water levels. Lake Mead
in Nevada and Arizona and Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona have
suffered from a regional drought for years, and excessive water
usage is slowly depleting the Colorado River faster than
natural weather patterns can fill it. An above-average snowfall
and excessive precipitation last spring and this winter have
bolstered the water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and
new data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation revealed that the
nation’s second-largest reservoir could rise by up to 50 feet
by mid-summer.
The conversation surrounding California’s water continues. The
Sites Reservoir project northwest of Sacramento has a price tag
of $4 billion and is funded by local, state and federal
dollars. The 1.5 million-acre project would divert water from
the Sacramento River into a valley near Maxwell, California,
and use it for storage. California water rights are a bit
tricky – and strict – and that’s the phase the Sites Project
Authority is in. They say things are ramping up, however. A
hearing officer has put forth a schedule for the hearings
surrounding water rights to conclude by the end of this year
and a decision could be made in early 2025. … There’s been
pushback [on the project] from environmental groups.
In much of the United States, groundwater extraction is
unregulated and unlimited. There are few rules governing who
can pump water from underground aquifers or how much they can
take. This lack of regulation has allowed farmers nationwide to
empty aquifers of trillions of gallons of water for irrigation
and livestock. Droughts fueled by climate change have
exacerbated this trend by depleting rivers and reservoirs,
increasing reliance on this dwindling groundwater. In many
places, such as California’s Central Valley, the results
have been devastating. As aquifers decline, residential wells
start to yield contaminated water or else dry up
altogether, forcing families to rely on emergency deliveries of
bottled water.
No Mainer would assume that David Byrne — legendary frontman
for the Talking Heads and endlessly inventive musician and
artist — would be fascinated by the Penobscot River Restoration
Project. … This Saturday he’ll be giving a talk and leading a
panel discussion at the Waterville Opera House with local
experts about the dam removal project in the lower Penobscot.
… The project began in 1999 as a collaborative effort
between many Maine organizations and businesses to better
balance hydropower needs with restoring native fisheries and
getting the river closer to its natural, pre-industrial state.
Between 2012 and 2016, the Veazie Dam and Great Works Dam in
Old Town were removed, and a bypass was constructed on the
Howland Dam.
Frustrated with the amount of water dribbling down the western
reach of the Kern River, plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit over
the river filed a motion Tuesday asking the judge in the case
to intervene. The motion says the City of Bakersfield has
not maintained flows required to keep fish in good condition,
particularly in the areas of the river from Allen Road
westward. “Fish have died and habitat has dried up and
the Bakersfield community has lost much of the living river
that it had enjoyed for almost all of 2023,” it says. The
motion seeks to compel the city to keep the flow at a specified
level based on water levels where the river enters the city’s
jurisdiction. The city’s water attorney Colin Pearce said
the motion is being reviewed and the city will respond
accordingly.
Proposed state legislation to modify California’s longstanding
farmland conservation law could pave the way for large swaths
of farm acreage to be repurposed as sites for renewable energy
projects. The California Land Conservation Act of 1965,
commonly known as the Williamson Act, preserves farmland by
assessing property taxes based on the land’s agricultural value
rather than its full market value. Landowners with Williamson
Act contracts, which cover about half the state’s 30 million
acres of farm and ranchland, generally see a 20% to 75%
reduction in property taxes. … The proposed legislation
seeks to align the state’s renewable energy and groundwater
management goals. California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, or SGMA, requires users to bring groundwater
basins into balance within the next two decades.
In a place as dry as the desert city of Dubai, whenever they
can get rain, they’ll take it. United Arab Emirates authorities
will often even try to make it rain—as they did earlier this
week when the National Center of Meteorology dispatched planes
to inject chemicals into the clouds to try to coax some
showering. But this time they got much more than they
wanted. Dubai faced torrential downpours on Tuesday, with
flooding shutting down much of the city … The UAE government
media office said it was the heaviest rainfall recorded in 75
years and called it “an exceptional event.” More than a typical
year’s worth of water was dumped on the country in a single
day. Now, many people are pointing a finger at the “cloud
seeding” operations preceding the precipitation.
Santa Clara County residents could see higher water bills in
the upcoming year, as one water agency looks for ways to cover
costs. Valley Water, the region’s main water supplier, is
proposing raising groundwater production charges on cities and
private water retailers. The increase will be passed on to
household ratepayers through local water companies such as San
Jose Water. This could add $8.78 a month to customers’ bills in
the upcoming fiscal year. Valley Water is spending big to
fix the Anderson and Pacheco dams and other projects that hold
and protect the county’s water supply from climate change. The
board of directors is looking for more money amid a
multimillion-dollar structural deficit, putting residents on
the hook for the district’s losses.
The Wonderful Company, California-based maker of the popular
pomegranate juice POM, is the state’s second-largest user of
paraquat – a toxic herbicide banned in over 60 countries – a
new Environmental Working Group investigation finds.
Studies have found a strong connection between paraquat
exposure and an elevated risk of Parkinson’s disease. The
chemical has also been linked with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and
childhood leukemia. … Wonderful’s brands include POM
pomegranate juice, Landmark Vineyards wine and Fiji Water,
among many others. In 2021 alone, Wonderful sprayed more
than 56,000 pounds of paraquat on California fields where it
grows pistachios, almonds and pomegranates, according to state
and county records analyzed by EWG. … The herbicide can
remain in soil for years.
Record-breaking heat waves, severe floods and acute wildfires,
exacerbated by climate change, carry a colossal price tag: an
approximately 19% reduction in global income over just the next
26 years, a new study published Wednesday found. That financial
gut punch won’t just affect big governments and corporations.
According to the United Nations, the world is heading toward a
gain of nearly 3 degrees of global warming in the next century,
even with current climate policies and goals – and researchers
say individuals could bear the economic burden. The researchers
in Wednesday’s study, published in Nature, said financial pain
in the short-term is inevitable, even if governments ramp up
their efforts to tackle the crisis now.
From Sequoia Park to the old Tulare Lake bed, local authorities
recount the same story. A deluge of biblical proportions,
including heavy rain and storm runoff, in the past year in the
Kaweah, Kings and Tule basins has caused hundreds of millions
of dollars in damage to the region’s road and bridge
infrastructure. … Still a year later, government
agencies continue to struggle to repair the extensive damage
requiring federal funding to make it happen.
The U.S. has a long record of extracting resources on Native
lands and ignoring tribal opposition, but a decision by federal
energy regulators to deny permits for seven proposed hydropower
projects suggests that tide may be turning. As the U.S. shifts
from fossil fuels to clean energy, developers are looking for
sites to generate electricity from renewable sources. But in an
unexpected move, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
denied permits on Feb. 15, 2024, for seven proposed hydropower
projects in Arizona and New Mexico. The reason: These projects
were located within the Navajo Nation and were proposed without
first consulting with the tribe. FERC said it was “establishing
a new policy that the Commission will not issue preliminary
permits for projects proposing to use Tribal lands if the Tribe
on whose lands the project is to be located opposes the
permit.” -Written by Emily Benton Hite, Assistant
Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Saint Louis
University; and Denielle Perry Associate, Professor
at the School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern
Arizona University.
Nutrient (nitrogen [N] and phosphorus [P] chemistry)
downgradient from onsite wastewater treatment system (OWTS) was
evaluated with a groundwater study in the area surrounding
Elizabeth Lake, the largest of three sag lakes within the Santa
Clara River watershed of Los Angeles County, California.
Elizabeth Lake is listed on the “303 (d) Impaired Waters List”
for excess nutrients and is downgradient from more than 600
OWTS. The primary objective of this study was to develop a
conceptual hydrogeological model to determine if discharge from
OWTS is transported into shallow groundwater within the
Elizabeth Lake subwatershed and contributes nutrients to
Elizabeth Lake in excess of the total maximum daily load
limit.
