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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… Near the Oregon border, another coalition is seeking
monument status for an area known as Sáttítla that extends over
parts of the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath and Modoc national
forests. They say local tribes and numerous
Californians depend on the area’s aquifers — which
flow into the Fall River and beyond — for clean drinking water
and renowned fisheries. The geologically unique area is a
spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc tribes and serves
as habitat for protected species, including the bald eagle and
northern spotted owl.
A lawsuit was announced Monday on behalf of a group of South
Bay residents affected by raw sewage allegedly discharged from
the South Bay International Water Treatment Plant and flowing
into the waters of southern San Diego County. The complaint
filed Friday in San Diego Superior Court alleges Veolia, which
was contracted by the International Boundary and Water
Commission to operate, manage and maintain the plant, has
failed to prevent hundreds of such sewage discharges over the
years.
The Oxnard–Thousand Oaks–Ventura metropolitan area is making
waves in water conservation with the launch of a groundbreaking
desalination project. The initiative, which went online today,
aims to address long-standing water scarcity issues in the
region by converting seawater into potable water using
advanced, environmentally friendly technology. The $500 million
facility, located along the coast near Oxnard, utilizes
cutting-edge reverse osmosis techniques and renewable energy
sources to minimize its environmental impact. It’s expected to
produce up to 30 million gallons of fresh water per day, enough
to supply about 25% of the metro area’s residential water
needs.
… The speed of the salmon’s return has astonished even the
most seasoned biologists. … News of the salmon’s return
prompted a flurry of texts and excited phone calls among fish
advocates. Their return is especially poignant to members of
the Klamath Tribes, whose ancestral lands include the upper
Klamath Basin above the dam sites. With the construction of the
dams, salmon, or c’iyaals, had been absent from the Upper
Basin for over 100 years. Now attention is shifting from the
massive dam-removal project to the equally enormous task ahead:
restoring the Klamath watershed. Biologists will look to the
fish themselves for guidance.
Water is vital to California. Access to water and
ecosystem information helps communities plan for the increasing
demands caused by climate change, population growth, and other
factors. This data assists in identifying areas and populations
most at risk from drought, flooding, and water quality issues.
To effectively manage California’s water resources amid
significant changes, everyone – from the public to Tribes to
local, state, and federal representatives – needs to have
shared access to reliable, timely, and credible water and
ecosystem data. So in 2016, the California Legislature passed
the Open and Transparent Water Data Act, authored by Senator
Dodd, which required state agencies to make water and ecosystem
data available for widespread use. The California Water
Data Consortium (Consortium), established in 2019, is dedicated
to supporting the implementation of the Act by state agencies.
… Imperial County ranks among the most economically
distressed places in California. However, the region also
happens to sit atop massive lithium reserves large enough to
provide for a third of all global demand. And as the renewable
energy transition drives global demand for lithium and other
minerals to power battery packs, investors eyeing the Imperial
Valley have already rebranded it as “Lithium Valley.” Public
officials are heralding a new era of prosperity. But are local
fortunes really changing? Or will the new “lithium gold rush”
follow old, familiar patterns?
The Santa Fe Irrigation District board is taking action to plan
for the future of Lake Hodges Dam, setting aside $10.4 million
for its share in the cost of a replacement dam. At the board’s
Nov. 13 meeting, the board approved putting an additional $6.7
million into its Hodges Dam Fund, the fund created last year to
pay for current needs and prepare for the construction of the
future. The city’s proposed timeframe is for design of the new
dam to be completed in 2028 with a four-year construction
beginning in 2030.
There are three policy issues particularly important to
California’s farmers that Trump wants to change. If he does
what he has promised, one might benefit the industry and two
might damage it. The beneficial change is what California Farm
Bureau President Shannon Douglas, in a post-election statement,
calls “securing a sustainable water supply.” For years, state
officials have been trying, either through regulatory decrees
or negotiations, to reduce the amount of water San Joaquin
Valley farmers take from the San Joaquin River and its
tributaries to enhance flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta, thus improving its water quality to support fish and
other wildlife. Farmers are miffed that after two wet winters
filled the state’s reservoirs, state federal water managers
still limited agricultural deliveries. … The two pending
issues that could backfire on farmers who voted for Trump
are imposing tariffs on imports from China, which could invite
retaliatory tariffs on agricultural exports, and deporting
undocumented immigrants, who comprise at least half of the
state’s agricultural workers. —Written by Dan Walters, columnist for CalMatters
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s potential role leading the Department
of Health and Human Services would not give him carte blanche
over fluoride in drinking water — although he could still
influence the debate in other ways, legal experts say. Kennedy,
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head HHS, professed this
month that Trump would sign an executive order in January
advising all water utilities to remove fluoride from drinking
water supplies. But while Trump later expressed tentative
support for the idea, the main agency with the ability to
mandate changes on water fluoridation is EPA — not the one
Kennedy was chosen to lead.
The Cedar City Council approved a purchase of 15-acre feet of
water for over $240,000 at last Wednesday’s meeting. The
proposal was first presented at the Nov. 6 City Council
meeting. Manager Paul Bittmenn said that Kimbal Holt with KS
Cedar Ridge planned to sell 15-acre feet of water rights. Cedar
City had a right of first refusal, meaning the city had a right
to purchase the water before a transaction could be entered
with a third party. The total cost of the water rights
was $240,750.00 — $16,050 per acre-foot, Bittmenn said.
The city and the company will split the closing costs, and the
purchase was set to close on Nov. 15.
While photos of littered beaches and floating garbage patches
are unsettling, perhaps the most problematic plastic is barely
visible to the naked eye. Called microplastics — chunks less
than 5 millimeters across — these bits have been detected
everywhere from Arctic sea ice to national parks. These
pervasive particles are harder to clean up than larger
plastics, allowing them to accumulate in the environment and
inside living creatures. As their quantities rise, UC Davis
researchers are racing to understand the risks they pose to
ecosystems, animals and humans. “If these things are
getting into our drinking water sources, we
should really care,” said Katie Senft, a staff research
associate at UC Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center,
“especially if they’re not going anywhere and we don’t know the
long-term implications.”
The California Water Institute at Fresno State is positioning
its current projects to help inform work related to
California’s Proposition 4, a $10 billion climate resiliency
bond that overwhelmingly passed on the November ballot.
The historic measure is the largest single climate bond in
state history and includes $3.8 billion for state water
projects that address drought, flood and water supply issues.
The California Water Institute targets some of those key areas
with two grant-funded programs already underway; the Unified
Water Plan and Climate Resiliency through Regional Water
Recharge in the San Joaquin Valley. … Under
the Unified Water Plan, the California Water
Institute partnered with Water Blueprint for the San
Joaquin Valley for a two-year, $1 million project awarded
by the Bureau of Reclamation to track various water projects
happening across the Valley. It’s an effort to compile the
information into a single, unified water plan that could
inform future investments.
Other Proposition 4 and election-related articles:
A strong and prolonged atmospheric river is expected
to affect northwest California this week, with
moderate to locally heavy rainfall bringing the potential for
rapid rises in rivers, streams and creeks across the region,
the National Weather Service said. The atmospheric river—a
narrow corridor of concentrated moisture originating from
the Pacific—marks one of the strongest storms to hit the
region this season. The river storm is expected to bring a
deluge of torrential rain, flooding and hazardous conditions to
the region later in the week.
President-elect Donald J. Trump said Friday that Gov. Doug
Burgum of North Dakota, his pick to run the Interior
Department, will also serve as the administration’s point
person to coordinate energy policy across the federal
government. In that role, Mr. Burgum will be charged with
executing Mr. Trump’s vision of a government that drives up
fossil fuel production while it demolishes environmental
regulations. Mr. Burgum will be “chairman of the newly formed,
and very important, National Energy Council,” Mr. Trump wrote
in a statement, “which will consist of all departments and
agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation,
distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of
American energy.”
… Less than a month after [four dams on the Klamath River
came down] … salmon are once more returning to spawn in
cool creeks that have been cut off to them for generations.
Video shot by the Yurok Tribe show that hundreds of salmon have
made it to tributaries between the former Iron Gate and Copco
dams, a hopeful sign for the newly freed waterway. … The
Klamath River flows from its headwaters in southern Oregon and
across the mountainous forests of northern California before it
reaches the Pacific Ocean.
An international team of scientists using observations from
NASA-German satellites found evidence that Earth’s total amount
of freshwater dropped abruptly starting in May 2014 and has
remained low ever since. Reporting in Surveys in Geophysics,
the researchers suggested the shift could indicate Earth’s
continents have entered a persistently drier phase.
The state Water Resources Control Board on Friday canceled a
Jan. 7, 2025 probation hearing for the Kaweah subbasin in order
for staff to more thoroughly study a groundwater plan submitted
in June that may prove to be protective of the aquifer and
domestic wells. … No one was more elated than the managers of
the three Kaweah groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs).
… Less than a year ago, Kaweah’s groundwater managers were
locked in a near stand off over coordination, groundwater
accounting and other basics required under the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act.
Just outside Canyonlands National Park in San Juan County,
rancher Matt Redd walked to a spot where two of his pastures
meet. One side is growing alfalfa and other traditional grazing
crops with wheel line irrigation. The other is home to a
lesser-known grain called Kernza. … Perhaps the most
beautiful thing about it, though, is how little water Kernza
needs compared to the neighboring pasture. Even though this
summer brought Utah record-breaking heat, Redd didn’t
water it from July through September. … That means more
of his ranch’s water can stay in nearby creeks that flow toward
the Colorado River.
The Bureau of Reclamation [on Nov. 15] released the final
Environmental Impact Statement for the Long-Term Operation of
the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, a
significant document that analyzes revised operating rules for
one of California’s major water storage and conveyance systems.
… Prepared in accordance with the National Environmental
Policy Act, the Environmental Impact Statement analyzes five
alternatives reflecting a reasonable range of options for
the operation of dams, powerplants, and related facilities of
the Central Valley Project and Delta facilities of the State
Water Project.
… This is Governing Gavin. There is no greater example that
has revealed the two Newsoms than one of California’s
most contentious issues: Water. … Governing
Gavin was proposing some additional environmental flows
combined with more habitat restoration. It was a
proposal backed by various water users known as the Voluntary
Agreements. These water users were also threatening to back
away from this plan if SB 1 passed and Trump’s new operating
rules for the Delta were blocked by the Legislature. Newsom
wanted his Voluntary Agreements. While it was clear that Newsom
did not want SB 1 to reach his desk, Atkins moved it there
anyway, all but daring the governor to veto the bill. Which he
did. Newsom attempted to belittle the legislation. It, for
example, did not “provide the state with any new authority to
push back against the Trump administration’s environmental
policies.” Yet how precisely can any state legislation
magically increase a state’s authority against any federal
government? -Tom Philp is an editorial writer and columnist for The
Sacramento Bee
