“Infrastructure” in general can be defined as the components and
equipment needed to operate, as well as the structures needed
for, public works systems. Typical examples include roads,
bridges, sewers and water supply systems.Various dams and
infrastructural buildings have given Californians and the West
the opportunity to control water, dating back to the days of
Native Americans.
Water management infrastructure focuses on the parts, including
pipes, storage reservoirs, pumps, valves, filtration and
treatment equipment and meters, as well as the buildings to
house process and treatment equipment. Irrigation infrastructure
includes reservoirs, irrigation canals. Major flood control
infrastructure includes dikes, levees, major pumping stations and
floodgates.
Atmospheric river-fueled storms that soaked California over the
past week benefited the state’s water supply. In addition to
providing a “much-needed boost to the statewide snowpack,”
storms increased storage in California’s major water supply
reservoirs, said Michael Anderson, state climatologist with the
California Department of Water Resources, by email. Across
the state, reservoir storage is well above average for this
time of year, according to the Department of Water Resources.
Statewide storage was 121% of average Friday, up from 115% of
average a week earlier.
During an online meeting open to the public Thursday, the
Pacific Gas & Electric Company plans to provide an update on
the process to dismantle its hydroelectric plant in Mendocino
County known as the Potter Valley Project. Built more than 100
years ago to provide electricity to the Ukiah Valley, the
hydroelectric plant is no longer deemed a vitally useful
facility, and over the past several years PG&E has been
slowly completing the process of surrendering the project and
removing the dams that provide it with water: Scott Dam, which
created Lake Pillsbury, and Cape Horn Dam.
Let’s start with the picture that is currently being imagined
when folks talk about the Colorado River and its
water. It starts with snowpack in the Rocky
Mountains, two-thirds of which originates right here in the
western slope of Colorado and ends up with cities and farmers
along the way taking water out of the river so that it’s dry
before it even reaches the sea. One of the solutions being
touted to date is simply to pay farmers to use less water.
There is, of course, a lot cities can also do to increase water
efficiency and reuse waste water, but all of these solutions
center around using less. A necessary hardship, yes,
but perhaps an incomplete picture. It’s like only looking at
the water when it’s in its liquid form, and forgetting that the
other half of the Colorado River is in the atmosphere, coming
from the oceans and recirculating through vegetation on land.
Nestled in the shadow of Mount Shasta, Shastina Reservoir is a
quiet gem for local anglers. But beneath its serene surface
lies a secret with statewide consequences: this Siskiyou County
waterway was ground zero for a 65-year-old ecological
experiment that unleashed an invasive species, decimated
California’s native delta smelt, and forced billions of gallons
of water to be flushed into the Pacific Ocean—all while
Southern California burns for lack of it. Historical records
and scientific literature indicate that once wakasagi became
established in Shastina Reservoir, they were considered a
success by the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG),
despite early warnings about ecological risks.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for an independent
investigation into water supply and pressure, and his office
has released fact checks regarding whether there’s a water
shortage in the state. While President Donald Trump has been
critical of the state’s water management, he recently issued an
executive order directing more water be routed from the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state, a
directive that one water expert described as not a solution but
a signal to supporters that “he’s trying to do something,” USA
TODAY reported. To fully understand the debate, it’s
important to know that Southern California gets most of its
water from two sources. Here’s an overview.
Each year, Sacramento needs about a million more gallons of
water per day to meet growing demand. Soon, the city’s water
treatment plants will have a tough time keeping up. A new
multi-million dollar plan aims to modernize the system,
ensuring Sacramento’s future is flush with water. The
city unveiled a plan called Water+. It will double the daily
capacity of the existing Sacramento River water treatment
plant, just off Interstate 5 and Richards Boulevard.
The Yorba Linda Water District (YLWD/District) is pleased to
announce that it has received a significant boost for its water
infrastructure initiatives with the authorization of $6.5
million through the Water Resources Development Act of 2024.
This critical bill, S.4367, also known as the Thomas R. Carper
Water Resources Development Act of 2024 was officially signed
into law by President Joe Biden on January 4, 2025.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has halted
disbursement of federal aid as part of an order from the White
House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to halt loan and
grant distribution, officials with the agency confirmed to The
Hill on Tuesday. … Potentially affected EPA
activities include the agency’s Water
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan
program, as well as grant programs related to air
pollution, children’s health and competitive grant funding
through the Office of Land and Emergency Management. The Energy
Department also appears to be pausing at least some of its
funding.
Los Angeles County officials missed dozens of opportunities for
water infrastructure improvements that experts say probably
would have enabled firefighters to save more homes during the
Palisades fire, public records show. As crews battled the
blaze, attempting to extinguish flames that burned huge swaths
of L.A. County and killed at least 11 people, some hydrants ran
dry. The lack of water has come under scrutiny since the
wildfire broke out Jan. 7, with officials scrambling to explain
why the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was left empty
for maintenance. But thousands of pages of state, county
and municipal records reviewed by The Times show the disaster
was years in the making. Red tape, budget shortfalls and
government inaction repeatedly stymied plans for water system
improvements — including some that specifically cited the need
to boost firefighting capacity. Many projects on a list of
about three dozen “highest priority” upgrades compiled by
county officials in 2013 have yet to break ground in
communities devastated by the fires.
A seventy-year-old stalwart is getting a much-needed makeover.
The San Diego County Water Authority is working to upgrade the
historic First Aqueduct to deliver safe and reliable water
supplies for the region. As part of the Southern First
Aqueduct Facilities Improvement project, there will be traffic
diversions and possible delays on Hardin Street between East
Washington Ave. to the north and Escondido Creek Channel to the
south in Escondido. “The Water Authority is working
closely with its member agencies to minimize impacts to
residents and business and ensure there is not interruption to
water delivery,” the agency said in a statement.
The collapse of a $1.5 billion plan to enlarge Los Vaqueros
Reservoir in Contra Costa County and share the water with
residents across the Bay Area is a disappointing setback for
the state’s efforts to expand water storage, and should be
studied to reduce the chances of it happening again with other
projects, state water officials said Wednesday. At a meeting in
Sacramento, several members of the California Water Commission,
a state agency which had promised the project $477 million in
state bond funding in 2018, said Contra Costa Water District
leaders should have kept them better informed when negotiations
between Bay Area water agencies on costs and risks began to
unravel this summer. … The project was scheduled to
begin construction by next year. It was considered by
water experts statewide as one of the most promising ways to
expand California’s water supplies in an era of more severe
droughts. It had no major lawsuits and wasn’t controversial
with environmental groups, largely because it was proposing to
expand an existing reservoir rather than damming a river.
Yuba Water Agency recently awarded a $76.8 million contract to
upgrade key components of its hydropower generation
infrastructure in the Yuba County foothills. A joint venture
company made up of Obayashi and Drill Tech Drilling & Shoring,
Inc. was awarded the contract for the agency’s Colgate tunnel
outage project, set to begin in the fall of 2025. The tunnel
outage will focus on a four-mile-long rock tunnel and
one-mile-long penstock pipe that carries water from New
Bullards Bar Reservoir to New Colgate Powerhouse at the base of
Lake Francis Road in Dobbins. During the outage, Yuba Water
will remove rocks and debris, repair and reinforce worn parts
and install a new protective valve system at the top of the
penstock pipe. The upgraded valve will enhance the agency’s
ability to protect downstream infrastructure and improve
maintenance access without requiring the entire tunnel to be
dewatered.
Cities across California and the Southwest are significantly
increasing and diversifying their use of recycled wastewater as
traditional water supplies grow tighter.
The 5th edition of our Layperson’s Guide to Water Recycling
covers the latest trends and statistics on water reuse as a
strategic defense against prolonged drought and climate change.
As downtown-based water infrastructure company Cadiz Inc. is
well into the third decade of its pursuit of a massive water
storage and transfer project in the Mojave Desert, it’s turning
to a novel funding source: Native American tribes. In late
November, Cadiz obtained a letter of intent from the Santa
Rosa-based Lytton Rancheria of California Native American tribe
to invest up to $50 million in the Cadiz project, also known as
the Mojave Groundwater Bank. In an interview earlier this
month, Cadiz Chief Executive Susan Kennedy said the company is
now in talks with about a half-dozen other tribes. The aim, she
said, is to obtain financial commitments from these tribes
that, in combination with bond sales and other sources of
financing, should cover the $800 million cost of the project.
As the permitting battle over the proposed Sites Reservoir
Project in Northern California heats up, it’s become clear that
the project would further heat up the atmosphere as well. Just
as California has made bold commitments to achieve carbon
neutrality in the next few decades, the state seems ready to
approve a dam project that would put that progress in jeopardy.
A new report, “Estimate of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the
Proposed Sites Reservoir Project Using the All-Res Modeling
Tool,” created by a science team at my organization, Tell The
Dam Truth, exposes the climate impacts caused by this massive
dam and reservoir system. -Written by Gary Wockner, PhD, who directs Tell The
Dam Truth
Residents living below the Isabella Auxiliary Dam were thrilled
earlier this month with a temporary fix that finally dried up
excessive seepage from the dam that had been swamping septic
systems and breeding forests of mosquito-infested weeds around
their homes. The didn’t realize how temporary the fix would be,
however. After only 12 days without a river cutting through his
land, rancher Gerald Wenstrand woke up to see the seepage back
on Saturday.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
When you oversee the largest
supplier of treated water in the United States, you tend to think
big.
Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California for the last 15 years, has
focused on diversifying his agency’s water supply and building
security through investment. That means looking beyond MWD’s
borders to ensure the reliable delivery of water to two-thirds of
California’s population.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
A government agency that controls much of California’s water
supply released its initial allocation for 2021, and the
numbers reinforced fears that the state is falling into another
drought. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that most
of the water agencies that rely on the Central Valley Project
will get just 5% of their contract supply, a dismally low
number. Although the figure could grow if California gets more
rain and snow, the allocation comes amid fresh weather
forecasts suggesting the dry winter is continuing. The National
Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley will be warm and
windy the next few days, with no rain in the forecast.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
It’s been a year since two devastating wildfires on opposite ends
of California underscored the harsh new realities facing water
districts and cities serving communities in or adjacent to the
state’s fire-prone wildlands. Fire doesn’t just level homes, it
can contaminate water, scorch watersheds, damage delivery systems
and upend an agency’s finances.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
New water storage is the holy grail
primarily for agricultural interests in California, and in 2014
the door to achieving long-held ambitions opened with the passage
of Proposition
1, which included $2.7 billion for the public benefits
portion of new reservoirs and groundwater storage projects. The
statute stipulated that the money is specifically for the
benefits that a new storage project would offer to the ecosystem,
water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
Get a unique view of the San Joaquin Valley’s key dams and
reservoirs that store and transport water on our March Central
Valley Tour.
Our Central Valley
Tour, March 14-16, offers a broad view of water issues
in the San Joaquin Valley. In addition to the farms, orchards,
critical habitat for threatened bird populations, flood bypasses
and a national wildlife refuge, we visit some of California’s
major water infrastructure projects.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Contrary to popular belief, “100-Year Flood” does not refer to a
flood that happens every century. Rather, the term describes the
statistical chance of a flood of a certain magnitude (or greater)
taking place once in 100 years. It is also accurate to say a
so-called “100-Year Flood” has a 1 percent chance of occurring in
a given year, and those living in a 100-year floodplain have,
each year, a 1 percent chance of being flooded.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
The proposed Sites Reservoir would
be an off-river storage basin on the west side of the Sacramento
Valley, about 78 miles northwest of Sacramento. It would capture
stormwater flows from the Sacramento River for release in dry
years for fish and wildlife, farms, communities and
businesses.
The water would be held in a 14,000-acre basin of grasslands
surrounded by the rolling eastern foothills of the Coast Range.
Known as Antelope Valley, the sparsely populated area in Glenn
and Colusa counties is used for livestock grazing.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch map, which is
suitable for framing, explains the river’s apportionment, history
and the need to adapt its management for urban growth and
expected climate change impacts.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
Dams have allowed Californians and others across the West to
harness and control water dating back to pre-European settlement
days when Native Americans had erected simple dams for catching
salmon.
This printed issue of Western Water examines water
infrastructure – its costs and the quest to augment traditional
brick-and-mortar facilities with sleeker, “green” features.
Everywhere you look water infrastructure is working hard to keep
cities, farms and industry in the state running. From the massive
storage structures that dot the West to the aqueducts that convey
water hundreds of miles to large urban areas and the untold miles
of water mains and sewage lines under every city and town, the
semiarid West would not exist as it does without the hardware
that meets its water needs.
This printed issue of Western Water discusses low
impact development and stormwater capture – two areas of emerging
interest that are viewed as important components of California’s
future water supply and management scenario.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
It’s no secret that providing water in a state with the size and
climate of California costs money. The gamut of water-related
infrastructure – from reservoirs like Lake Oroville to the pumps
and pipes that deliver water to homes, businesses and farms –
incurs initial and ongoing expenses. Throw in a new spate of
possible mega-projects, such as those designed to rescue the
ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the dollar amount grows
exponentially to billion-dollar amounts that rival the entire
gross national product of a small country.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
financing of water infrastructure, both at the local level and
from the statewide perspective, and some of the factors that
influence how people receive their water, the price they pay for
it and how much they might have to pay in the future.
They are located in urban areas and in some of the most rural
parts of the state, but they have at least one thing in common:
they provide water service to a very small group of people. In a
state where water is managed and delivered by an organization as
large as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California,
most small water systems exist in obscurity – financed by
shoestring budgets and operated by personnel who wear many hats.
This issue of Western Water looks at water
infrastructure – from the large conveyance systems to the small
neighborhood providers – and the many challenges faced by water
agencies in their continuing mission of assuring a steady and
reliable supply for their customers.
Chances are that deep within the ground beneath you as you read
this is a vast network of infrastructure that is busy providing
the necessary services that enable life to proceed at the pace it
does in the 21st century. Electricity zips through cables to
power lights and computers while other conduits move infinite
amounts of information that light up computer screens and phone
lines.
This issue of Western Water explores the question of whether the
state needs more surface storage, with a particular focus on the
five proposed projects identified in the CALFED 2000 ROD and the
politics and funding issues of these projects.
