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 massive fish die-off has closed a popular lake and recreation
area in Monterey County amid speculation by state officials
that warming water caused the kill. Lake San Antonio, a county
park in southern Monterey County, was closed Tuesday as crews
deal with the removal of up to hundreds of thousands of
freshwater fish of multiple species that have washed up against
the shoreline. Among the species in the die-off are trout,
carp, crappie and bass, including one 4-pound trophy
bass. The water is being tested in an attempt to
determine the cause. A preliminary indication is oxygen
depletion due to warm water, according to the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Biden administration pushed out a flurry of major
environmental rules early this year under a looming threat of
rollbacks if former President Donald Trump clinches the White
House in November’s election. But some significant rules won’t
get out the door in time to shield them from being reversed if
Trump wins, a reality that was on stark display last week when
the Biden administration released its plans for upcoming
regulations. … Earlier this year, Biden’s agencies
finished a series of significant regulations, including a
high-stakes power plant rule on climate pollution, a policy
governing conservation of public lands and drinking water
standards for some members of the “forever chemicals” family
known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. … EPA
is expected to roll out a revised lead and copper rule for
drinking water systems, which would trigger action sooner to
reduce lead exposure and require lead pipes to be replaced
within 10 years. That rule isn’t expected to be
completed until October.
Practical solutions to California’s energy and water shortages
will always have a better chance of being implemented if they
adhere to the limitations placed upon them by those concerned
about climate change. A solution that should work for everyone
is forest thinning. … It turns out that forest
thinning also reduces the amount of water that is immediately
taken up by the roots of overcrowded trees and undergrowth and
transpired into the atmosphere. Instead, more of this water can
run off into tributaries or percolate to recharge springs. How
much water? A 2011 study by experts from the University of
California, Merced, and UC Berkeley … reports that 60% of the
state’s consumptive water comes in the form of Sierra runoff,
and when forest cover is reduced by 40%, total runoff increases
by an estimated 9%. … if California’s forests were
thinned appropriately, 2.2 million acre-feet of water would be
added to California’s water supply in an average year. — written by Edward Ring, senior fellow with the
California Policy Center and author of the “The Abundance
Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California.”
The California Energy Commission [Wednesday] unanimously
approved a sweeping plan to develop a massive floating offshore
wind industry in ocean waters — a first-of-its-kind undertaking
that will require billions in public and private investments
and could transform parts of the coast. The new state plan sets
the path for harnessing wind power from hundreds of giant
turbines, each as tall as a 70-story building, floating in the
ocean about 20 miles off Humboldt Bay and Morro Bay. The
untapped energy is expected to become a major power source as
California electrifies vehicles and switches to clean energy.
California’s wind farms represent a giant experiment: No other
place in the world has floating wind operations in such deep
waters — more than a half-mile deep — so far from shore.
The commission’s vote today came after representatives of
various industries, environmentalists, community leaders and
others mostly expressed support for offshore wind, although
some voiced concerns.
A private company supported by global investors bought nearly
500 acres of land in a tiny Arizona town and sold its water
rights to a Phoenix suburb for a $14 million
profit. … Greenstone Resource Partners LLC
bought agricultural land in Cibola, Arizona (population around
200), and sold the water rights to suburban Queen Creek, known
for lush golf courses and resort pools. Water previously used
to irrigate Cibola farms now flows through a canal to provide
water to master-planned communities over 200 miles
away. … Greenstone bought farmland about a decade ago,
but it was actually part of an investment plan to divert water
from the area for profit. … “I’m afraid we’ve opened
Pandora’s box,” Holly Irwin, a local county supervisor, said
about the Greenstone deal, per the Guardian. Companies like
Greenstone, tied to real estate developers and big banks, now
have a precedent to falsely pose as farms and take water away
from people living on the land.
A new study by scientists at Utah State University shows that a
shrinking Great Salt Lake may exacerbate drought conditions
along the entire Wasatch Front. “As the Great Salt Lake
water body is shrinking, that local precipitation caused by a
storm event is going to decrease,” Dr. Wei Zhang, an associate
professor of climate science at USU and one of the study’s
authors, told FOX 13 News on Monday. Using a series of
meteorological models as a case study, USU researchers found
that, in essence, the shrinking Great Salt Lake can create its
own vicious cycle of drought. … The Great Salt Lake is
famous for its ability to amplify storms. “Lake-effect snow”
can pump out more snow in the mountains and boost Utah’s
lucrative ski industry.
California’s Eel River got its modern name from the swarms of
Pacific lamprey that once plowed up and down its length, but
it’s more famous for its wild steelhead and salmon –– and,
unfortunately, for the dramatic decline in those fisheries over
the past century. Trout Unlimited has been working over
the past 25 years to improve habitat and fish passage for
steelhead and salmon in the Eel watershed, much of which
remains largely intact. Two recent developments in which TU has
played a major role should dramatically improve the prospects
for wild salmon and steelhead in California’s third largest
river system. The first is that Pacific Gas & Electric,
the utility that owns two old hydropower dams on the river, has
agreed to remove them. … The second is that the North Coast
Regional Water Quality Control Board recently approved a
proposal to designate two important tributaries to the Eel’s
south fork as Outstanding National Resource Waters
(ONRW).
Bay Area cities and counties will soon have to make major
upgrades to their aging wastewater facilities to comply with
new regulations that aim to protect the San Francisco Bay from
harmful algal blooms. The upgrades are estimated to cost $11
billion across the region — an average increase for
ratepayers of $200 per year per household. The new
regulations are expected to be finalized at Wednesday’s meeting
of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.
… The need for the upgrades became clear, regulators say,
after major algal blooms in the bay over the past two summers
turned the water rust red and killed tens of thousands of fish.
Nutrients found in wastewater — especially nitrogen which
comes from human urine and other types of waste — are
major contributors to algal blooms. And algal blooms are more
likely to happen as water temperatures and other conditions
change in the bay with global warming.
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has finalized
a rule mandating that projects built using its funds not only
take into account previous and current levels of local flood
risk, but for the first time consider the future risk of
flooding, which is being exacerbated by climate change. Federal
officials said that the updated Federal Flood Risk Management
Standard — which will be published Thursday and will go into
effect Sept. 9 — is set to make communities more resilient and
save taxpayers money by preventing repeat building of
vulnerable structures in flood zones. The rule will not affect
rates in FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.
The issue of water — who gets it, how much they get and what
happens when Mother Nature doesn’t provide enough — is not a
new conflict in the Intermountain West. Lake Powell in Glen
Canyon National Park is the link in the multistate system that
feeds the Colorado River from the upper basin states to its
lower basin counterparts. In its trip, the Colorado River
water, mainly provided by snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains,
travels through the upper basin states comprising Colorado,
Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. It then flows through Lake Powell
down to Lake Mead, feeding the lower basin states: Nevada,
Arizona and California. … In their post-2026 operations
proposal, the lower basin states said they would cut water use
by 1.5 million acre-feet per year as long as Lake Powell and
Lake Mead’s combined storage remains at a certain level.
Much of California’s water supply originates in the Sierra
Nevada, making it dependent on the health of forests. But those
forests are suffering from widespread tree mortality and other
ecosystem degradation resulting mostly from the growing
frequency and severity of droughts and wildfires. On our
Headwaters Tour
July 24-25, we will visit Eldorado and Tahoe
national forests to learn about new forest management
practices, including wildfire prevention and recovery.
… The 2-day, 1-night tour with an
overnight in Lake Tahoe travels up the Sierra and
around Lake Tahoe to learn about upper watersheds and
the critical role they play in water supply and quality across
California. We will also discuss meadow restoration, climate
change, wildfire impacts and water quality.
Tucked between headline-grabbing opinions on presidential
immunity, Jan. 6 rioters and homeless encampments, the U.S.
Supreme Court closed out a momentous session late last month
with a series of body blows to the federal
bureaucracy. Under three back-to-back rulings, regulations
that touch nearly every aspect of the American economy and
American life (see: rules on food safety, water
quality, overtime pay, medical billing, carbon
emissions, fisheries monitoring and housing discrimination, to
name a few) may soon be harder to enforce, more convenient to
challenge in court and easier to strike down once challenged.
For the conservative legal movement and for major business
interests who bristle under what they see as an overreaching
federal regulatory apparatus, the rulings mark a
once-in-a-generation victory against the “administrative
state.” But in California, the effects of those rulings may be
a bit more muted, legal experts say. … From worker safeguards
to water regulations to LGBTQ-protections on
college campuses, the rules enforced by California state
agencies often meet and exceed the stringency of their federal
counterparts.
If the heat is sapping your will to live, most San Joaquin
Valley crops are right there with you. The blast furnace
weather has farmers irrigating in cycles, using more frequent
bursts, taking advantage of the coolest part of the day;
anything to get crops through to harvest But “it’s just too
damn hot,” said Kern County grower and farm manager Keith
Gardiner. “We’re trying to keep up but we can’t increase the
number of cycles. There’s only so much water we have access to.
We’re pretty much maxed out.” Gardiner grows his own almonds
and row crops, while his company, Pacific Ag Management manages
acreage for other farmers as well. Hot weather is nothing new
in the valley. But extreme heat for this long – especially the
high overnight temperatures – is putting crops through
significant stress, Gardiner said.
Unable to come to an agreement over what do to about widespread
pollution and threats to their employees while still treating
homeless people fairly, the board of Silicon Valley’s largest
water agency on Tuesday delayed a vote on a new ordinance to
ban camping along 295 miles of creeks in San Jose and other
parts of Santa Clara County. … The district,
a government agency based in San Jose, has spent $3.4 million
since July removing 15,050 cubic yards of debris — enough to
fill 1,500 dump trucks — from Coyote Creek, Guadalupe River,
Los Gatos Creek and other South Bay waterways.
To continue providing safe, clean, reliable tap water to
customers across the communities it serves, Cal Water yesterday
submitted Infrastructure Improvement Plans for its California
districts from 2025-2027 in its General Rate Case (GRC) filing
with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The
application also proposes a Low-Use Water Equity Program, which
would decouple revenue from water sales, to assist
low-water-using, lower-income customers. … Associated
rates set by the CPUC would become effective no sooner than
January 2026. In the plans, Cal Water proposes to invest more
than $1.6 billion in its districts from 2025-2027, including
approximately $1.3 billion of newly proposed capital
investments.
Northern California steelhead require continued protection as a
threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act,
according to a recent 5-year review by NOAA Fisheries. State
and federal agencies, tribes, and private landowners have
completed numerous habitat restoration projects since the last
review in 2016. However, the population faces continued threats
from drought, high water temperatures, and water use, all
exacerbated by the changing climate. The 5-year review also
found that water conservation should be integrated into habitat
restoration projects to achieve maximum benefits.
California’s regulatory policy often is at odds with reality,
but the latest water-conservation rules seem extreme even
within that context. The State Water Resources Control Board
has approved new mandatory conservation standards that comply
with a package of state laws passed by the Legislature in
recent years. They will force us to use less water by imposing
targets on suppliers. This isn’t rationing for individual
households, but the net result might be the same as water
agencies are forced to meet the targets or face fines. The
water agencies will then impose restrictions and raise prices.
Conservation is an important part of any water strategy, but as
usual the state prefers the stick to the carrot.
Three water systems in Santa Barbara County failed the state’s
annual assessment of drinking water systems, with another 12
falling into the “at-risk” category. Serving a population
of more than 6,000 individuals and more than one million
tourists annually, the Solvang Water Division was the largest
of the three failures. However, upon receiving the State Water
Resources Control Board’s notice, Solvang immediately took the
perchlorate-contaminated well offline. This resulted in no
service interruptions and brought the number of current failing
systems in the county down to two as of this Monday.
Despite rising water rates, the city of Carlsbad has opted
against prepaying fixed charges to the county’s wholesale water
supplier in exchange for discounted rates in 2025. In late May,
the San Diego County Water Authority asked its 23 member
agencies, including the Carlsbad Municipal Water District, to
consider a prepayment option. On June 27, the San Diego
County Water Authority board approved a 4% increase in
wholesale water rights. While that number is far less than the
15% to 18% increase that was previously projected, the water
authority plans to consider additional charges to support its
maintenance and operations and financial stability later this
month during a public hearing scheduled for July 25.
The Miramar Reservoir is once again open to motorboats, canoes,
kayaks and float tubes. … [San Diego] closed the
reservoir to boats last September to install a mile-long
underwater pipeline. It’s part of the city’s effort to reduce
San Diego’s dependence on imported water by purifying recycled
water. Right now, most of the water in the Miramar Reservoir
comes from the Colorado River. … The cost of that imported
water has tripled in the last 15 years.
