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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President Biden on Thursday expanded San Gabriel Mountains
National Monument by nearly a third in an action that was
widely praised by the Indigenous leaders, politicians,
conservationists and community organizers who had long fought
for the enlargement of the protected natural area that serves
as the backyard of the Los Angeles Basin. … Stretching
from Santa Clarita to San Bernardino, the San Gabriel Mountains
watershed provides Los Angeles County with 70% of its open
space and roughly 30% of its water. The added protections
will help ensure equitable access to the San Gabriels’ cool
streams and rugged canyons while also preserving clean air and
water.
Winter-like weather will make a brief return to California this
weekend, with widespread snow in the Sierra Nevada. The
National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories
for much of the Sierra, including Donner Pass, the Tahoe
Basin and Yosemite National Park. The spring snowmaker will add
fresh powder in some locations, boosting an already healthy
snowpack.
Tribes that use the Colorado River want a say in negotiations
that will reshape how the river’s water is shared. Eighteen of
those tribes signed on to a letter sent to the Bureau of
Reclamation, the federal agency that will finalize new rules
for managing the river after 2026, when the current guidelines
expire. In the memo, tribal leaders urge the federal government
to protect their access to water and uphold long-standing legal
responsibilities. … The tribes’ letter aims to make sure
that Indigenous people, who used the Colorado River before
white settlers ever occupied the Western U.S., are not
left behind as Reclamation considers those proposals. “If you
are not at the table, you are on the menu,” Jay Weiner, a water
lawyer for the Quechan Indian Tribe, said. Weiner, who helped
craft the letter, said it aims to answer the complicated
question: What do tribes want?
Governor Gavin Newsom, with the support of the Department of
Water Resources (DWR) and other state agencies, signed into
effect new developments for the California Water Plan which
details water conservation efforts for the next five
years. Newsom said that the state has invested $9 billion
in the last three years, and that “I want folks to know that we
are not just victims of fate, that we recognize the world we’re
living in.” Recognizing that California will be
operating with ten percent less water in 2040 than what is
currently available, Newsom said “We put out a hotter, drier
strategy” to offset the loss. This includes plans for improving
water security, desalinization plants, stormwater capture,
water recycling, and new strategies for large-scale
conveyance.
Grand County and Northern Water have struck a deal that will
send more water running down Western Slope streams to benefit
farmers, boaters and the environment. Grand County in northern
Colorado is home to nearly 16,000 people, part of Rocky
Mountain National Park and the headwaters of the Colorado
River. Each year, four major diversion tunnels take up to
350,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water out of the county and
push it east to the Front Range. Now, the county and the water
provider are agreeing to release water in the opposite
direction, to the west.
The state legislature has mandated that water conservation
become “a California way of life.” This may sound simple, but
converting these words into reality — with tailored local
reduction targets for over 400 water agencies that deliver
water to most Californians each and every year — is proving to
be hard work for regulators. Getting this right, even if it
takes some extra time, is what matters. … As designed,
however, our analysis showed that the water savings would be
modest while the costs would be high. And, most troubling, we
found that the proposed regulations would hit low-income,
inland communities the hardest. That’s why we suggested that
the State Water Board revisit these rules. -Written by Ellen Hanak and David
Mitchell with the Public Policy Institute of California
Water Policy Center.
For the past 101 years, the cows on [the Mulas Dairy
farm] near San Pablo Bay were milked twice a day. In
recent years, that meant you’d hear the loud hum of vacuum
pumps running from midnight to 7 a.m. and again from noon to 7
p.m. … [Farm president Mike] Mulas was standing near a
drainage ditch on the east side of his 800-acre Schellville
property. The shallow stormwater trench runs through part of
the farm and empties into a field, not far from a network of
creeks that flow into San Pablo Bay. It was a major point of
contention in a lawsuit filed over alleged water quality
violations in early 2023. … For the North Bay’s
struggling dairy industry, it could also be read as another
signpost of the new era. In an age where some environmental
groups take to the courts in higher numbers, going after farms
they allege are polluting surrounding watersheds, many
struggling family farms simply can’t put up a fight anymore.
2023 was the planet’s warmest year on record, coming
in 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average.
But California bucked the trend. The state overall was just 0.8
degrees above the 1991-2020 average; some places had near- to
below-average temperatures. There’s a 55% chance that 2024 will
be even warmer than 2023, according to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. And for now, California is
expected to be in line with this projection. Seasonal outlooks
show that the United States will be warmer than average this
summer, though pinpointing exactly how hot is a challenge.
Rising temperatures in California in late summer and into fall
could prime conditions for potential wildfires.
Workers have begun dismantling the largest dam on the Klamath
River … Several Indigenous leaders and activists watched as a
single earthmover tore into the top of Iron Gate Dam, starting
a pivotal phase in the largest dam removal project in U.S.
history. As they celebrated the long-awaited moment, they
shouted, embraced and offered prayers. They said they hope to
see the river’s salmon, which have suffered devastating
declines, finally start to recover once Iron Gate and two other
dams are fully removed later this year.
On the surface, Victoria by the Bay is a charming neighborhood
of 926 homes only a short walk from the shores of San Pablo
Bay. But the ground beneath the roughly 200-acre
development was once home to the former Pacific Refinery Co., a
facility built in 1966 that produced 55,000 barrels of oil
daily and stored other hazardous substances in the northernmost
corner of Hercules, adjacent to Rodeo.
Did you know packaging, most of it plastic, makes up more than
50% of what California dumps in landfills? … Single-use
plastics accumulate in landfills and break down into
microplastics that pollute air, food, water and our bodies.
… We must address plastic production and emissions at
the source.
Lake Tahoe watercraft inspection stations are open for the
season to help prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species
and boaters can now book an appointment for this summer online,
announced the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Tahoe
Resource Conservation District. With the discovery last year of
invasive New Zealand mudsnails in Lake Tahoe, the agencies are
urging boaters, paddlers, beachgoers, and anglers to learn how
to prevent the spread of this new threat.
Did you know Phoenix is home to wetlands? Located near 91st
Avenue and Broadway, lies a haven of biodiversity and
tranquility not usually found in the desert. The Tres Rios
Wetlands spans 700 acres of water and features a unique
ecosystem unlike anything in the Valley. From rare bird species
to lush vegetation, this hidden gem showcases seven miles of
hiking trails. … The recycled water goes through an
extensive cleaning process and then makes its way to Tres Rios,
providing an ecosystem for all kinds of fish like bass,
catfish, and tilapia. There are also numerous water-loving
plants you won’t see anywhere else in the state naturally.
If you live around the San Francisco Bay, you’re probably
familiar with cement sea walls and sturdy levees. But,
increasingly, a nature-based design is providing an alternative
— one with significant benefits in the face of sea level rise.
When we first met Jessie Olson, she was in the middle of a
multiyear project, to create what’s known as a horizontal
levee, alongside a newly opened tidal marsh in Menlo Park.
Joined by volunteers and colleagues from Save the Bay, the team
installed hundreds of plants that will help clean the bay
waters as the tides surge in and out.
As it deteriorates, the ecosystem around the Salton Sea in
Riverside County in Southern California, has been creating a
toxic environment that hurts the health of children of
immigrant families who live and work there, according to
researchers. A 2023 study by the University of California,
Riverside, looked at the immigrant population of low-income
Hispanic and Indigenous Mexican Hispanic people in communities
around the Salton Sea and found that the rate of childhood
asthma is 20% to 22.4%, much higher than the California average
of 14.5%. … The Salton Sea formed in 1905 when the
Colorado River, itself a river with high salinity, burst an
irrigation canal gate and flooded the area; the lagoon almost
had the same salinity as the ocean.
A lawsuit by the mining company with contracts to extract more
than 50 million tons of aggregate from Soledad Canyon has been
continued to July, according to court records. Cemex, a
multinational building materials company, is suing the State
Water Resources Control Board over the company’s application
for the rights to use the Santa Clara River. The State
Water Board said last year Cemex’s application would be
publicly re-noticed, after pressure from state lawmakers who
sought legislation to force the board to re-notice the request
to use the river to mine. When Cemex appealed the decision
to re-notice and the State Water Board denied that appeal,
Cemex sued in September, stating its application “has already
lingered since the first Bush administration.”
A free water quality testing program has been launched for
residents of Santa Cruz County. It is estimated that 21,000
residents in the county consume water from household wells and
smaller water systems that are not regulated and have never
been fully tested for safety, per the County of Santa Cruz
Health Service Agency. This is a concern for residents in the
southern part of the county, whose water has high levels of
contaminants. This program will provide point-of-use treatment
and drinking water replacements for those who rely on household
groundwater wells for their drinking water. If your well tests
positive for contaminants and your home is eligible for
assistance, you will be given information about free drinking
water replacement programs.
Giant pumps hum inside a warehouse-like building, pushing water
from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta into the California
Aqueduct, where it travels more than 400 miles south to the
taps of over half the state’s population. But lately the
powerful motors at the Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant have been
running at reduced capacity, despite a second year of
drought-busting snow and rain. The reason: So many threatened
fish have died at the plant’s intake reservoir and pumps that
it has triggered federal protections and forced the state to
pump less water. The spike in fish deaths has angered
environmentalists and fishing advocates, who argue the state
draws too much water from the delta while failing to safeguard
fish.
The federal and state governments accused San Francisco on
Wednesday of discharging huge amounts of untreated wastewater
and sewage into the bay and the ocean for many years, violating
environmental laws and endangering beach-goers and aquatic
life. … And they said it’s been getting worse: In the rainy
season from October 2022 to March 2023, more than 4 billion
gallons were spewed into the waters. The lawsuit seeks
court orders requiring the city to change its practices, and
hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties to be paid to the
federal and state governments.
Water systems will need to comply with new rules on
contaminants at the state and federal levels after two
regulations were approved this month. That could bring
challenging costs to water providers. And still, advocates say
protections aren’t good enough. On April 17, the state
Water Resources Control Board passed a maximum contaminant
level (MCL) for hexavalent chromium, a heavy metal that can
occur naturally and through improper industrial site disposal.
… On April 18, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) designated perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous substances.
