Since 2010, California American Water, the investor-owned
utility that provides water to the Monterey Peninsula, has
pursued building a desalination project to bolster the local
water supply and put an end to its illegal overpumping of the
Carmel River. In that time, the volume of documents born out of
that effort – including by those trying to kill the
project – could fill a warehouse. Meanwhile, a cheaper
project – Pure Water Monterey, which recycles
wastewater – has outpaced Cal Am’s efforts, and has
already added enough water to the local portfolio to allow Cal
Am to stop its overpumping, although a cease-and-desist order
from the state remains in effect. … That raises some
obvious questions: Why build a costly desal project if the
water isn’t needed?
Facing the continued collapse of Chinook salmon, officials
today shut down California’s commercial salmon fishing season
for an unprecedented third year in a row. Under the
decision by an interstate fisheries agency, recreational salmon
fishing will be allowed in California for only brief windows of
time this spring. This will be the first year that any
sportfishing of Chinook has been allowed since 2022. … The
decline of California’s salmon follows decades of deteriorating
conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year,
including the Sacramento and Klamath rivers.
Pumping from the Paso Robles groundwater sub-basin continued at
unsustainable levels last year — with agriculture extracting
more water than domestic well owners and municipal water
systems combined, according to a new report. The
sub-basin, which pools underground from the area east of
Highway 101 to north of Highway 58, was designated as
“critically overdrafted” by the California Department of Water
Resources. Basin users pumped 75,100 acre-feet of water in
2024, up from 63,600 acre-feet in 2023 — an 18% increase,
according to the latest annual report for the
basin. … That’s far from the estimated sustainable
yield of 61,100 acre-feet per year. … This is the eighth
year in a row that pumping exceeded the sustainable yield.
One unique animal with a large task in the health of our local
creek and river systems. Along the Central Coast and the state,
beavers have become a vital source of assistance in protecting
against some of California’s biggest natural threats. …
Audrey Taub with the SLO Beaver Brigade invited KSBY to see the
work that beavers do right on the Salinas River, showing how
they thrive in riparian areas and ponds created due to the dams
formed by the local beaver population. Thanks to their dams
they help control and disperse the flow of water. Taub says the
rodents create resilient environments that can ward off the
spread of wildfires, decrease drought and in light of recent
storms, manage flooding.
A new lawsuit alleges Valley Water CEO Rick
Callender pushed to have his agency sponsor the NAACP
California-Hawaii State Conference — a private group he
personally oversees — with public dollars. The conflict of
interest claim comes from a civil complaint filed March 20 by
Salena Pryor, an NAACP colleague who worked under Callender in
his capacity as the statewide NAACP chapter president. She
accuses Callender of demeaning and undermining her on numerous
occasions while she helped coordinate NAACP events, from
distressing late-night video calls to public embarrassment. It
comes as Callender is on administrative leave from Valley Water
— which cares for Santa Clara County’s streams, flood
protection and wholesale water supply — while the agency
investigates an employee’s misconduct complaint against him.
The San Miguel Community Services District declined to join a
new agency that will charge fees for pumping groundwater from
the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin. The basin is managed by five
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies, four of which voted to
create a Joint Powers Authority that would have the power to
levy fees. On Thursday night, the San Miguel Community Services
District Board of Directors voted 2-2 on a motion to join the
Joint Powers Authority. Because the board was tied, the motion
failed, and the agency missed the Friday deadline to join the
Joint Powers Authority.
About 80 people gathered Monday in the historic Aromas
Community Grange after the California Department of Water
Resources (DWR) selected the Pajaro River Watershed as one of
five watersheds to pilot the Watershed Resilience Program. The
initiative, which is supported by a $2 million grant from DWR
and administered by Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency, will
help the watershed prepare for the ongoing effects of climate
change.
For about 13,000 years, Santa Barbara County’s rivers teemed
with steelhead trout. They dwelled in its cool pools, journeyed
to and from the ocean, and built spawning nests, or redds, in
gravely bottoms. Until the 1950s, the area supported runs of
tens of thousands of fish journeying upstream to spawn. Today,
the Southern California steelhead is critically
endangered. On Sunday, folks spent the afternoon at the
Lobero Theatre learning about the southern steelhead. The
event, part of the Santa Barbara Flyfisher’s campaign to “Save
Santa Barbara Steelhead,” included a town hall with eight
panelists who discussed everything from the historic and
cultural significance of the fish to how to prevent its
extinction.
Protecting our water starts with understanding what’s in it.
That’s exactly what interns with the Goleta Water Quality
Monitoring Program are doing through the Santa Barbara
Channelkeeper—testing local streams to ensure our waterways
remain clean and safe. Each month, interns visit 20 stream
sites across the Goleta Valley Watershed, collecting vital
data. They measure dissolved oxygen, pH levels, conductivity,
turbidity, and temperature directly in the stream. They also
collect water samples for lab analysis, testing for nitrates
and bacteria that could indicate pollution. Additionally, they
document algae coverage, water flow, and even trash
accumulation at each site.
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors upheld up its
vote to allow four development projects in the bayside town of
Los Osos after lifting a 35-year building moratorium, despite
community concerns over new construction threatening their
water source. The moratorium, lifted last year, was placed on
town over three decades ago to protect it’s only water source,
the Los Osos groundwater basin. … The Los Osos Sustainability
Group appealed the construction permits for two homes and two
hotels in Los Osos at Tuesday’s board meeting, arguing that the
projects threaten the sustainability of the town’s fragile
groundwater basin by placing additional demand on a water
supply that is already in “critical overdraft,” according to
the group.
The city of Paso Robles joined a countywide effort to create an
agency that could charge fees for pumping water out of the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin, despite public outcry during a fiery
City Council meeting Tuesday night. The approved agreement
paves the way for sustainable and collaborative management of
the basin, which was determined by the California Department of
Water Resources to be in “critical overdraft,” according to
Paso Robles public works director Christopher Alakel. Annually,
pumpers use around 13,700 acre-feet more water than is returned
to the basin each year. … But dozens of community members
voiced opposition to the decision — with some going as far as
alleging that Paso Robles staff and officials were siding with
special interests to take away their constitutional water
rights.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
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.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
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.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
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.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
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.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
