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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Salmon are swimming again in the North Yuba River for the first
time in close to a century. The fish are part of an innovative
pilot project to study the feasibility of returning spring-run
Chinook salmon to their historical spawning and rearing habitat
in the mountains of Sierra County. … Using a proven technique
used by other agencies but never before attempted by CDFW,
fisheries scientists created dozens of man-made salmon redds,
or nests, using a hydraulic injection system to clear the
intended nests of silt. Scientists then carefully deposited the
eggs up to a foot and a half deep within the gravel to mimic
the actions of spawning adult salmon. … The first young fish
were seen in the trap on Feb. 11. The young fish are being
trucked downstream of Englebright Lake and released into the
lower Yuba River to continue their migration to the Pacific
Ocean.
Trump has said in the past that water from B.C. could be used
to solve California’s drought problems. … Is Trump’s
scenario plausible? Or just a pipe dream? And what impact could
his rhetoric have on B.C., which is currently working with the
federal government to renegotiate the crucial Columbia River
Treaty? Here are five things to know.
The National Association of Clean Water Agencies says it’s
worried about how big cities and utility companies will fund
lead pipe replacement and other big projects in the future.
Right now, the association says, the federal government
provides low-interest loans for those types of projects, but,
with a lot of cost cutting happening, those programs could be
in danger. If they go away, cities and utility companies will
have to borrow money at a higher interest rate, which will lead
to higher rates for customers.
The juniper pollen has cranked up early this year, and the
irrigators with groundwater pumps (legal or not, it’s hard to
know) are firing them up, but the most telling sign of spring
was the kettling sandhill cranes this morning. … This winter
has been dry in the headwaters, and the latest forecast calls
for just half of normal flows on the Rio Grande entering New
Mexico’s “Middle Valley,” where the cranes and I live. … We’ll
be fine. We’re used to this. Irrigators will troop down to the
irrigation district board meeting the second Monday of each
month to complain about not getting water to grow stuff, but
there’s a sad resignation to the ritual. We live in a desert.
Water is a blessing when it comes, but the reality of desert
living requires a stoicism of stubborn acceptance.
In this episode of the Ag Tribes Report, host Vance Crowe dives
into the pressing issues facing the agricultural sector today.
Joined by John Boelts, President of the Arizona Farm Bureau,
they explore the complexities of water management in Arizona, a
state where agriculture consumes a significant portion of the
water supply. The discussion highlights the challenges of
maintaining agricultural water rights amidst new policies and
the ongoing water crisis.
Our planet is awash in plastic pollution. Tiny bits of it,
called microplastics, taint the air and our food. Plastic
specks have been found everywhere from our bodies to a
dolphin’s breath. That’s why scientists keep looking for ways
to break down this sturdy material. Now, they’ve discovered a
promising new strategy. Bacteria common in wastewater can break
down a common type of plastic called PET. That finding could
inform new ways to clean up PET pollution, which may make up
around half of all the microplastic in wastewater.
Most California reservoirs are gurgling with more water than
usual, even after state water officials increased the amount
pouring out of some dams last week. Rain and snow melt from the
mountains and foothills boosted the levels of many California
lakes during the first half of February. Winter storms dumped
close to 1.5 feet of rain on the state’s biggest reservoir,
Lake Shasta, during the first two weeks. Rain and runoff pushed
the lake’s level to 15 feet from its crest on Feb. 7. The lake,
located 10 miles north of Redding, reached 90% of its capacity
with more than a month to go in the North State’s rainy season.
Other water supply and snowpack news across the West:
Nearly six months after the stunning collapse of a $1.5 billion
plan to enlarge Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County
to provide more water to Bay Area residents, state officials
are trying to figure out now what to do with nearly half a
billion dollars in state funding they had committed to the
now-defunct project. On Wednesday, they provided their first
clue. A majority of the seven board members of the California
Water Commission, a state agency that distributes funding to
build reservoirs and other water projects, indicated they are
leaning toward dividing up the $453 million left over from the
Los Vaqueros project and giving it this year to six other major
new reservoir and groundwater storage projects currently on the
drawing board around the state.
Water managers are preparing for another potentially lackluster
runoff this year in the Colorado River Basin. At a meeting
Tuesday, water managers from the Upper Colorado River
Commission agreed to write a letter to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation asking for a monthly meeting to monitor drought
conditions. Officials from the four Upper Basin states
(Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) are hoping to avoid a
repeat of 2021 when emergency reservoir releases caught them
off guard. … Drawing down Blue Mesa, Colorado’s
largest reservoir, during the height of the summer boating
season forced marinas to close early for the year and was a
blow to the state’s outdoor recreation economy.
Jessica Kramer has been nominated by President Donald Trump to
serve as the next assistant administrator of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Water. Kramer
worked in the Office of Water during the first Trump
administration and has recently been working for the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection as deputy secretary of
regulatory programs. Kramer will now await Senate confirmation
for her new post at EPA, although no date has been set for a
hearing or vote.
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel introduced a bill on Wednesday to
require California to set emergency rules limiting PFAS in
drinking water, following similar standards set by EPA and 11
other states. The proposal, AB 794, would allow the State Water
Resources Control Board to set standards that are more
stringent than the first-ever national standards finalized by
former President Joe Biden’s EPA in April 2024, which are now
under litigation by chemical companies and water
utilities.
The next drought could end up with two domestic wells going dry
in the water basin that most of San Joaquin County and parts of
surrounding counties rely on. Compare that to Kern County in
the southern San Joaquin Valley where many wells go as deep as
1,200 to 1,600 feet. Water experts anticipate 200 wells will go
dry in Kern County when the next drought rolls around. … The
Eastern San Joaquin County Groundwater Basin is likely the only
one among some 515 groundwater basins and subbasins throughout
California that already is — or almost at the point — of being
on task to meet a 2042 state mandate that no more water can be
taken from a groundwater basin than is recharged in any given
year.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s campaign to build the Delta Tunnel
amped up on Feb. 19 when the Governor sent a letter to the
State Water Resources Control Board claiming that the
petition to amend water rights permits to accommodate the
proposed Delta Conveyance Project, AKA Delta Tunnel, would
be in the “compelling public interest.” The Delta Tribal
Environmental Coalition (DTEC) quickly responded to the
Governor’s Letter, disputing Newsom’s claims that the Delta
Tunnel would be in the public interest — and would instead
further destroy a sensitive Bay-Delta ecosystem that has
already been decimated by massive water diversions, driving
Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations closer and
closer to extinction.
Former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is in talks to advise
the Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural water
district in the country, as the California agency prepares to
lobby under a friendlier administration for federal contracts
with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, according to two sources.
… A Westlands spokesperson and one other person familiar with
his plans confirmed McCarthy was discussing taking an advisory
role with the water agency. As the largest publicly run farm
water district in the country, Westlands, based in Fresno,
covers 1,100 miles in the western San Joaquin Valley and
represents powerful Central Valley farmers who have
historically held close ties to California Republicans and
members of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Not long after a series of devastating wildfires began ravaging
parts of Los Angeles in early January, people were demanding
answers: What caused it? Why couldn’t it be stopped? Who, or
what, is responsible for why so many lost so much? Those
questions soon found their way into the mirror world that is
social media and the internet, where a wave of disinformation
and misinformation—some of it propagated directly from
President Donald Trump and his surrogates—compounded the
crisis. Much of it concerned the state’s most precious
resource: water.
Potentially toxic lithium-ion batteries pried from burned-out
electric vehicles in the Eaton fire and transported to a
temporary hazardous waste collection site in Azusa for
processing has raised concerns about toxic metals leaching into
nearby sources of drinking water. The Main San Gabriel Basin
Watermaster, an agency responsible for the safety of
groundwater supplies for nearly 2 million Los Angeles County
residents, sounded an alarm recently over the crushing of these
batteries on a dirt bank of the San Gabriel River at Lario
Park. … The Watermaster has requested the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, in charge of the Lario
hazardous waste staging site, relocate the battery-crushing
activity from the Lario site or simply move the crushing
activity farther from the river bank to a paved parking lot
area.
Projects to turn wastewater into drinkable water are
progressing in San Diego and East County, but their costs have
once again spiked. In East County, a milestone is approaching
as a 24-inch pipeline that will transport water from the
Advanced Water Purification plant under construction in Santee
to the Lake Jennings reservoir in El Cajon is on track to be
completed by the end of the month. … It will convert 15 million
gallons of wastewater a day into enough drinkable water to meet
30% of East County’s demands. Construction of another stretch
of pipeline needed for East County’s and San Diego’s water
treatment projects is beginning soon in Mission Trails Regional
Park. Costs of that project recently saw a significant price
increase for the city of San Diego’s $5 billion Pure Water
sewage recycling system and the $1 billion Advanced Water
Purification program.
Boat launches at all East Bay Municipal Utility District
reservoirs will remain closed in an effort to keep invasive
golden mussels from infesting the public water supply, the
agency said. Golden mussels haven’t been detected in EBMUD’s
seven raw water reservoirs, and the boat launch closures
announced this past Thursday are a pre-emptive measure to keep
them at bay. Last October, the invasive bivalves were
discovered in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — the first
known occurrence of the species in North America, according to
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Turtle Bay Exploration Park announced Wednesday the
upcoming release of Chinook salmon into the Sacramento River on
Friday. As part of the collaborative Conservation Head Start
Program developed in partnership with the Coleman Fish
Hatchery, the Chinook salmon, which have been staying at Turtle
Bay for a year, will be released on the south banks of the
Sacramento River near the Sundial Bridge. Officials say that
the Chinook salmon is an endangered species that faces
significant threats to their survival, which includes habitat
loss, water pollution, and challenges posed by climate change.
In order to combat these issues and help bolster their
population, the Conservation Head Start Program provides a
controlled, secure environment for the salmon to grow and
thrive in before they are released into the wild.
As oil and gas production in the U.S. continues to reach record
highs, the margin of Westerners who support public land
conservation over increased oil and gas development also
continues to climb. In a new “Conservation in the West
Poll” released today by Colorado College, 72 percent of
respondents from eight Western states said they would prefer
their member of Congress to emphasize protecting clean air,
water and wildlife habitat while boosting outdoor recreation
over maximizing the amount of public land used for oil and gas
drilling. The figure marks a two-percent increase from
last year’s poll, and only 24 percent of those surveyed
expressed interest in more oil and gas drilling and mining on
public lands. The 48-point margin in favor of conservation is
the highest in the poll’s fifteen-year history.
