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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… By most measures, the Imperial Valley is not a great
place to grow food. Yet carrots, cauliflower, sweet onions,
honeydew, broccoli, and alfalfa all grow here, incongruous
crops that spread across half a million acres of cultivated
land. … Given the lack of rain in the region, Ronald
Leimgruber says he has “about seven” different irrigation
projects on his farm, where he grows an array of crops,
including carrots, lettuce, watermelon, and hay. Leimgruber, a
third-generation farmer whose grandparents helped build the All
American Canal, estimates he has spent millions of dollars on
various water conservation techniques over the years. Some of
that spending was subsidized by the federal government; some
came out of his own pocket. He’s not sure it was worth it,
especially because the government does not fund the upkeep of
new systems.
The Colorado River Basin is in the midst of a 23-year drought.
Reduced precipitation, mostly in the form of snow in the
western mountains, has caused water administrators at the
federal, state and local level to seek ways to cut back usage.
But many of us in the high country do not need water managers
to tell us to reduce usage. Mother nature kindly, or unkindly,
does that for us. With limited storage at higher
elevations, snowpack is the source for virtually all water on
the West Slope. As the Basin experiences a steady decline in
precipitation, West Slope water users, especially irrigators,
find that in many years, they are subject to “natural
curtailment.” Less snowpack means less water.
Salmon have officially returned to Oregon’s Klamath Basin for
the first time in more than a century, months after the largest
dam removal project in U.S. history freed hundreds of miles of
the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border. The Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed the news on Oct. 17,
a day after its fish biologists identified a fall run of
Chinook salmon in a tributary to the Klamath River above the
former J.C. Boyle Dam, the department said. The fish
likely traveled 230 miles from the Pacific Ocean, officials
said, after four dams were removed to ensure their safe
passage. It’s the first confirmed salmon to return to the
Klamath Basin since 1912, when the first of four hydroelectric
dams was constructed along the river, the department said.
On September 28, 1994, the California State Water Resources
Control Board voted unanimously to approve Decision 1631,
amending the water licenses of the City of Los Angeles in order
“to establish fishery protection flows in streams tributary to
Mono Lake and to protect Public Trust resources at Mono Lake
and in the Mono Lake Basin.” … Board member Marc Del Piero
pronounced: “Today we saved Mono Lake.” Remarkably, not one of
the parties that participated in the hearing process that led
to D1631 appealed the decision—most notably, not even the Los
Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP). D1631 provided water
for the lake and streams. At the same time the Mono Lake
Committee had helped to secure water solutions for Los Angeles
that included conservation programs and millions of dollars in
state and federal funding to develop local supplies. A
decades-long water battle had ended with all parties agreeing
to stop fighting and move forward to implement the solution.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) recently outlined steps toward
addressing Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
contamination in agricultural soils and waters. In
collaboration with the University of Maine and the Center of
Excellence for Environmental Monitoring and Mitigation, ARS
hosted a three-day workshop with over 150 experts to develop a
research roadmap for handling PFAS, a persistent environmental
contaminant affecting agricultural operations.
The Board of Supervisors Tuesday signed off on the final budget
for a signage project along the Santa Ana River Trail, covering
most points on the segment that traverses Riverside County with
guideposts, relying on a federal allocation to pay for it. …
The initial project budget was $1 million, but Regional Parks &
Open Space District officials determined the full amount would
not be required, so the board revised the final budget at a
slightly lower sum in accordance with updated figures. “The
signage program project aims to enhance the quality of life for
Riverside County residents and Santa Ana River Trail users by
maintaining clean, safe and equitable outdoor recreational
opportunities,” according to documents posted to the board
agenda.
Covering water issues in Mendocino County is like fitting
together a jigsaw puzzle. Limiting the geographic area to the
Ukiah Valley, Lake Mendocino and the Upper Russian River, there
are over a dozen water agencies that are involved in local
water use policies. We decided to catch up with the MCIWPC, as
we have not been covering these meetings. … In 2017
Congressman Jared Huffman proposed to solve the problem of how
to heal the ecology of the Eel River Basin, while at the same
time ensuring water security and habitat protection for people
living in the Russian River basin, by organizing a Two Basin
Solution Partnership. ERPA has been formed to ultimately own,
operate and fund the new diversion facility which is needed to
attain the envisioned Two Basin Solution. The Boards of
the local water agencies, NGOs, and state and federal
authorities have been wrestling with this problem for years.
… Thanks to its unique geographical intersection of ocean,
mountains, deserts, wetlands and urban development, San Diego
County is recognized as the most biologically diverse county in
the continental United States, according to the Nature
Conservancy. That’s the subject of “Nature — San Diego:
America’s Wildest City,” which premieres at 8 p.m.
Wednesday on PBS stations and the PBS app. A giant-screen
version of the film, titled “Wild San Diego,” will
follow on Nov. 22 for a seven-year engagement at the San Diego
Natural History Museum. … The film looks at a handful of
wildlife species that are not only native to San Diego County
but that also have either adapted to, or been hurt by, the
presence of humans, who arrived in this region 12,000 years ago
and have increased 500-fold in number to 3.3 million over the
past 100 years. The greatest influence humans have had on
wildlife, the documentary says, is how we manage our
water resources.
Delta smelt has cost valley farmers, rural communities, and
residents in Southern California significant quantities of
water. Since water supplies have been restricted to
protect delta smelt starting in 2008, no estimate of the water
cost has been produced, but it is very likely that the total
number exceeds 10-million-acre feet. The cost to replace that
water is in the order of $5 billion. Delta smelt
are a small, native fish, found only in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and westwards to the Napa River in salinity that
ranges from slightly salty to one third that of sea water. They
were listed as threatened in 1993 and the status was later
changed to endangered. Since 2017, they have no longer been
found in long-running fish surveys in which they were once
abundant. Their protection under the Endangered Species Act is
warranted. —Written by Scott Hamilton, president of Hamilton Resource
Economics
A new operating permit issued Monday for California’s state
water project is expected to help protect fish and ensure
almost 30 million people can access a reliable water supply.
… The incidental take permit is required under state law to
protect endangered and threatened fish species like the Chinook
salmon. … Composed of over 700 miles of canals, pipelines,
reservoirs and hydroelectric facilities, the state water
project both stores and delivers clean water to some 27 million
Golden State residents, along with 750,000 acres of farmland. A
series of planned actions and tools intended to reduce and
offset potential impacts to fish species are linked to the new
permit. They include tidal marsh and floodplain restoration
projects supporting spawning, better fish passage in essential
migration areas and support for hatchery production
activity.
Former President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom want you to
believe they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum on California
water. But their policies aren’t drastically different — and
both lean toward the Republican-leaning farmers of the Central
Valley. On the campaign trail, Trump has promised to force
Newsom to turn on the faucet for water-strapped farmers if he
is elected. Meanwhile, Newsom finalized rules [on Nov. 4]
that insulate the state’s endangered fish protections from
federal changes. But he’s also advancing controversial
proposals to store and move around more water, a perennial ask
of the agricultural industry, and easing pumping limits meant
to protect an endangered fish in order to send more water south
to parched farms. Newsom’s positioning has put the otherwise
green-leaning governor squarely on the foe list for
environmental groups and garnered him credit from unlikely
sources.
The Imperial County Board of Supervisors is expected Tuesday to
approve a letter to express its concerns about the Imperial
Irrigation District’s 2024-2026 System Conservation
Implementation Agreement. … The IID Board of Directors
approved a significant conservation agreement with the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) to leave up to 700,000 acre-feet
of water in Lake Mead, by conserving up to 300,000 acre-feet of
water a year through 2026. In exchange for the conservation
agreement, the IID will receive millions in federal funding for
the implementation of conservation programs … This agreement
also unlocks the balance of other funding for Salton Sea
mitigation efforts; however, the County is concerned that due
to the lack of direct engagement and consultation from the IID
during the negotiations process with USBR, other potential
health and economics impacts related to agricultural water
conservation were not considered nor addressed in the agreement
or with the associated funding.
Almost the entire United States faced drought conditions during
the last week of October. Only Alaska and Kentucky did not have
at least moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S.
Drought Monitor, a record in the monitor’s history. The
past four months were consistently warmer than normal over a
wide swath of the country, said Rich Tinker, a drought
specialist with the National Weather Service. But in June,
while roughly a quarter of the country was dry to some degree,
he said, now 87 percent of the nation is.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the U.S.-Mexico border on
Monday — but not for the reason you’d expect. The border crisis
that drew the Democrat wasn’t immigration, but sewage. For
nearly a century, billions of gallons of sewage have been
pouring into Southern California from Mexico, making coastal
communities near San Diego the victim of a crisis few people
know about. The problems have disrupted daily life around
America’s eighth-largest city, affected military operations and
exposed how generations of politicians in Mexico and the U.S.
have failed to provide sanitation on both sides of the world’s
busiest border.
In 1963, the Glen Canyon Dam was built. It created Lake Powell
Reservoir, which straddles Utah and Arizona, to ensure a water
supply for the lower Colorado River basin states and Mexico.
Over the past six decades, it has also become a recreation
destination for millions. The dam has experienced its fair
share of unexpected trauma, threatening river flow levels,
depleting water storage and exposing sediment. Sediment is
the walled molded mud that contains the Colorado River. It’s
always been there, but historic droughts like those in 2002 and
2020 have caused the lifeline of the West to drop to alarming
levels, exposing the mud. Before the water is potable, it’s
brown and murky. … Why should we care? Because the mud
is being trapped above the dam, depriving the river below, and
suffocating it above.
A showdown over the reach of environmental reviews under the
National Environmental Policy Act is set for December before
the U.S. Supreme Court. At the center of the showdown is
the 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway, which intends to connect oil
fields in northeastern Utah to the national rail network so
far-flung refineries can access the Uinta Basin’s waxy crude.
The Surface Transportation Board in 2021 approved the railroad
after conducting a two-year, 1,700-page Environmental Impact
Statement review under the National Environmental Policy Act,
or NEPA. The railroad would direct an additional 5
billion gallons of Uinta Basin crude in 2-mile long trains
along tracks along the Colorado River from Grand Junction to
Winter Park and then through metro Denver en route to
refineries on the Gulf Coast. The project has stirred vehement
opposition among environmental groups, politicians and
communities along the railroad, with concerns focused on spills
and wildfires.
The whole state of Utah, like many western U.S. states, is in
the thick of it. Utah recently emerged from its driest 20-year
period since the Middle Ages, while the Great Salt Lake, an
iconic landmark of the West, is on course to dry up completely
in a matter of years, not decades. … But amid climate change,
drought, and increased demands for water, Utah is trying to
change the system, bucking one of the oldest water rules in the
western U.S. As it does in other Western states, Utah’s water
policy fits under a principle of “beneficial use,” which
declares that water rights holders must use their water for
beneficial purposes, such as agriculture, or give up those
rights. … These water rights are incredibly important
right now for states and tribal nations along the Colorado
River, which winds its way out of the Rocky Mountains, through
the desert Southwest and (almost, under the right conditions)
into Mexico.
Most drivers on Malibu Canyon Road pass right by the hulking,
useless 100-foot-tall dam without even realizing it’s there.
But if they pulled off onto the right turnout, walked about 15
feet and peered over the edge, they’d glimpse it: a huge gray
dam entirely filled with sediment. … [Russell] Marlow
compared Malibu’s Rindge Dam to the four Klamath
dams on the northern edge of California, which
were finally dismantled this year in the world’s largest
dam removal project. It wasn’t easy; the Klamath dams only came
down after decades of advocacy by tribal communities. Those
dams caused the decline of Chinook salmon, by degrading water
quality and blocking migratory routes. Like the Klamath dams,
the Rindge Dam has caused decades of negative impacts to fish
like the Southern California steelhead, plus other impacts to
the broader watershed.
Just a month after completing work to remove four dams on the
Klamath River, fish and wildlife officials in California and
Oregon said they have already spotted a salmon upstream of the
locations where the dams once blocked the fish from migrating.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said a fall-run
chinook salmon was found in a tributary stream west of Klamath
Falls, Oregon, on Oct. 16. That fish reached Spencer Creek
after migrating some 230 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean.
State and federal fisheries officials, along with
representatives from Native American tribes, have begun
extensive monitoring along the Klamath River to see how the
fish have reacted after the dams were destroyed, and whether
they are migrating upstream past where the four dams were once
located.
… As part of a study funded by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, Bradley Moore, a professor of
marine biology, marine chemistry and geochemistry at Scripps
Oceanography, worked to determine how domoic acid is produced
with the hope of creating a predictive model. Now, a team of
researchers from SIO, La Jolla’s J. Craig Venter
Institute and other organizations appear to have done it.
In September, the group published a study on predicting harmful
algae blooms that contain high levels of domoic acid by
tracking a single gene that serves like a canary in a coal mine
— an early detector of danger. The study provides new insights
into the mechanisms that drive harmful blooms and offers
potential ways to forecast and mitigate their effects.
