A generational issue for the families living in San Lucas
continues as they’ve gone decades without drinking water. Soon
federal, state, and local leaders will secure nearly a million
dollars to build a pipeline to King City. Advertisement “The
kids couldn’t even be bathed in the water. That’s how bad it is
that babies are not able to get bathed. That means there’s
something really wrong,” said Fray Marin-Zuniga, a San Lucas
resident. Plants not growing, animals dying, young children
unable to bathe, this is the reality for those living in the
unincorporated South Monterey County town of San Lucas. “Back
when I was in school here, because I graduated from San Lucas
School, the water was yellow,” Martin-Zuniga said.
Martin-Zuniga has lived in San Lucas his entire life, he shows
KSBW the dry skin condition that he’s developed on his arm. He
says as the years go by, the need for clean water has never
wavered.
Santa Clara County residents could see higher water bills in
the upcoming year, as one water agency looks for ways to cover
costs. Valley Water, the region’s main water supplier, is
proposing raising groundwater production charges on cities and
private water retailers. The increase will be passed on to
household ratepayers through local water companies such as San
Jose Water. This could add $8.78 a month to customers’ bills in
the upcoming fiscal year. Valley Water is spending big to
fix the Anderson and Pacheco dams and other projects that hold
and protect the county’s water supply from climate change. The
board of directors is looking for more money amid a
multimillion-dollar structural deficit, putting residents on
the hook for the district’s losses.
San Francisco has been giving Seattle a run for its money on
the precipitation front. Since Jan. 1, nearly 18 inches of
rain has accumulated in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Seattle sits
at just 13 inches. This year is unusual. San Francisco
has been rainier than Seattle in just 16 of the past 50 years
through mid-April. In a normal year, San Francisco trails
Seattle by about 2.5 inches of precipitation on April
14. Annually, Seattle averages 16.5 inches more rainfall
than San Francisco and may still surpass San Francisco this
year. While 2024’s rainfall may seem topsy-turvy, it
fits expectations with El Niño, a global climate pattern that
has its biggest influence on West Coast storms from January
through April.
Rebuilding beaches after hurricanes is costing U.S. taxpayers
billions of dollars more than expected as the Army Corps of
Engineers pumps mountains of sand onto storm-obliterated
shorelines. Congress approved more than $770 million since 2018
for emergency beach “nourishment” projects after five
megastorms struck Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Those
costs shattered government expectations about the price of
preventing beaches from disappearing through decades-old
programs that in many cases were created before the dangerous
effects of climate change were fully understood. Four of those
storms — Michael, Maria, Irma and Ian — were among the most
powerful to make landfall in the United States, raising
questions about the rising costs of pumping, dumping and
spreading sand onto beaches that are increasingly jeopardized
by the effects of climbing temperatures.
Four years ago, over 97% of Big Basin Redwoods State Park in
Santa Cruz County burned during the state’s worst wildfire
season in recorded history. Last year, unprecedented winter
storms caused an estimated $190 million in damages to coastal
parks. And at Seacliff State Beach, also in Santa Cruz County,
storms flooded the campground and destroyed the beach’s
historic pier. Climate change and the resulting severe
wildfires, extreme storms and rising sea levels are
increasingly threatening our beloved state parks. … To
address this unprecedented threat, we need to create
climate-resilient state parks that can prepare for, adapt to
and recover from climate impacts. -Written by Rachel Norton, the executive director
of the California State Parks Foundation.
Even though Pacific storms have become less frequent, as is
often the case in April, a new storm is brewing and will slice
across California just in time for the weekend, bringing areas
of rain, mountain snow and much cooler air, AccuWeather
meteorologists say. … A storm over the Gulf of Alaska will
drop southward just off the coast into Friday and will swing
toward California this weekend. … A few inches to
perhaps a foot of snow may fall over the high country of the
Sierra Nevada from the weekend storm.
As the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities
continue to increase the levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, the ocean is absorbing a large portion of the CO2,
which is making seawater more acidic. … And here’s one
important fact about ocean acidification: It’s not happening at
the same rate everywhere. The California coast is one of the
regions of the world where ocean acidification
is occurring the fastest. … In particular, effluent
discharged from coastal sewage treatment plants, which has high
nitrogen levels from human waste, has been shown to
significantly contribute to ocean acidification off the
Southern California coast.
A first-of-its-kind report has estimated that Los Angeles
County must invest billions of dollars through 2040 to protect
residents from worsening climate hazards, including extreme
heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea
levels and climate-induced public health threats. The report,
published this week by the nonprofit Center for Climate
Integrity, identified 14 different climate adaptation measures
that authors calculated would cost L.A. taxpayers at least
$12.5 billion over the next 15 years. … To mitigate
these impacts, the county must expand its stormwater drainage
infrastructure by installing bioswales, porous pavement and
other opportunities for stormwater to seep into the ground, the
report found.
Almost half of all homes in the U.S. are at severe or extreme
risk of flood, hurricane winds, wildfires, heat and/or
hazardous air quality. In the 2024 Housing and Climate Risk
Report, Realtor.com looked at homes across the nation to
analyze which cities had homes at the highest risk of those
disasters, which the site calls climate
risk. … About 9% of homes across the U.S. are at
severe to extreme air quality risk. The San Francisco
Bay Area tops the list. California’s
frequent droughts, wildfires and heat waves are largely at
fault. ”Shifts in environmental conditions, including
extreme heat, drought, and wildfires, are amplifying the
likelihood of heightened air pollution risk,” wrote
analysts.
California has more than 1,000 thousand miles of coastline and
the water in the Pacific Ocean presents an opportunity for more
fresh water in the state. Unlocking the opportunity takes time,
money and resources, and some experts say it’s not for
everyone. … The massive system California has in place
now is one of the most complicated, robust and successful
systems ever created. That system has more recently
incorporated the ocean. Desalination is being put to the test
in coastal areas up and down the state. The process takes salt
out of ocean water and turns it into fresh water for people.
State officials, as well as private partners, focus on these
areas as the best fit for this water supply.
The San Luis Valley Groundwater Basin stretches from San Luis
Obispo to Edna Valley — but a toxic chemical swirling in the
water prevents the city from using the resource for drinking
water. That will soon change, however. San Luis Obispo won a
$6.6-million grant to install wells that remove
tetrachloroethylene, a chemical also known as PCE, from the
groundwater, according to city water resources program manager
Nick Teague. The wells should be operational by 2026 and will
allow the city to fulfill about 12% of its drinking water
needs, he said.
Fog is central to life in California. … But climate
change is going to disrupt this quintessentially Californian
weather experience. We asked Todd Dawson, a scientist who has
long studied the relationship between fog and redwoods, to
divine the future of fog for us. Why does fog occur in
California, and why is it so important to the state’s
ecosystems? … Fog also provides an enormous, critical
water subsidy that sustains many coastal systems. Our coastal
fog has a high water content, so when it strikes surfaces such
as redwoods and grasses, it drips into the ecosystem. It
represents anywhere from 30–40% of all the water coastal
redwoods get each year.
A generational issue for the families living in San Lucas
continues as they’ve gone decades without drinking water. Soon
federal, state, and local leaders will secure nearly a million
dollars to build a pipeline to King City. … Plants not
growing, animals dying, young children unable to bathe, this is
the reality for those living in the unincorporated South
Monterey County town of San Lucas.
As a homeowner, you invest a great deal of time, money, love,
imagination, and hard work into your house and property.
Of course, you hope nothing will go seriously wrong. Still, you
purchase homeowner’s insurance to give you peace of mind and to
ensure you’re financially protected if your home and belongings
are damaged by unpredictable events such as fire, vandalism,
theft, or storms. Today, climate change is causing
increasingly erratic weather patterns. Natural disasters,
including severe storms and wildfires, are becoming more
frequent and devastating. In 2023, nine “atmospheric
rivers” pummeled the western United States, dumping record
amounts of rain and snow. According to the National
Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, more
than 32 trillion gallons of water drenched California, racking
up $4.6 billion in damages. -Written by John Petrov, a contractor and public
insurance adjuster with over 25 years of experience in the
construction industry.
A critical set of oral testimonies will help a state regulator
determine whether or not the Monterey Peninsula needs a
desalination project to generate water supply over the next few
decades, or whether the Pure Water Monterey Expansion project
will get the job done. …The testimonies and cross
examinations lasted five days, ending March 15. The testimonies
were heard by California Public Utilities Commission
Administrative Law Judge Robert Haga. Many of the testimonies
… came down to which contrary estimates of water supply
and future demand Judge Haga will believe. Once he’s reached a
decision it will then be taken up by the five-member CPUC
commissioners.
At the Indian Wells Valley Water District board meeting on
March 11, the Water District board moved forward in learning
about the process of consolidating the Dune 3 water mutual
company into their service area. Some negotiation and planning
still needs to happen before any decision is finalized, but for
the moment the board is willing to cautiously move forward in
the process. The IWV Water District serves water to IWV
residents by pumping water out of the IWV groundwater basin.
However, they are not the only ones doing so. Dotted all across
IWV are domestic well owners and even a few other public or
private organizations resembling a water district. If one of
those organizations fails, an obligation still exists to serve
water to the people in that region.
All weather patterns must come to an end, and the setup that
allowed warm and dry conditions over much of the Northwest and
limited rainfall in California in recent days will wind down
later this week as a new train of storms lines up over the
northern Pacific, AccuWeather meteorologists
say. The storm train is not as intense as some episodes
over the winter, but with a breakdown of high
pressure over the Northwest and a southward shift in
the jet stream from the Pacific into North America,
there will be more opportunities for rain and mountain snow as
well as locally heavy precipitation that can slow travel on
highways and airports. … While a blockbuster snowfall is
not anticipated in the Sierra Nevada, the change to snow will
be more deliberate and add to the snowpack.
Thousands of leaking, idle oil wells are scattered across
California, creating toxic graveyards symbolic of a dying
industry. To tackle this “urgent climate and public
health crisis,” Santa Barbara Assemblymember Gregg Hart
introduced Assembly Bill 1866 last week. The bill would mandate
oil operators to develop plans to plug the 40,000 idle wells
(and counting) in the state within a decade, prioritizing those
within 3,200 feet of vulnerable communities. … Ann
Alexander, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense
Council, calls the system “very badly broken.” Companies “just
sit indefinitely on their defunct wells” as they leak methane
gas, pollute the air, and contaminate groundwater.
… Last fall, the county announced its plan to
spend $3.7 million to repair an “unpluggable” well at
Toro Canyon Creek. Drilled in the 19th century, this idle well
has leaked thousands of gallons of crude oil since
the 1990s, contaminating waterways and killing wildlife as a
result.
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.