California has pioneered some of the
toughest state environmental legislation to address environmental
issues. For example, laws focused attention on “instream uses” of
water to benefit fish and wildlife, recreation, water quality and
aesthetics. Among water-related issues, in general, are
climate change, toxic waste disposal, pollution and loss of
wildlife and habitat.
Also, the California Legislature was the first in the country to
protect rare plants and animals through passage of the California
Endangered Species Act in 1970.
… “One of the big goals for rebuilding the park is to allow
that natural hydrology to occur as well, and
that means retaining stormwater,” said [Will] Fourt. “So not
conveying it out quickly, but letting it soak in, letting it be
here.” One trail in the old growth forest has already been
rebuilt with this in mind. The trail is completely flat, but
raised on a bed of rocks that allows water to flow under and
pool next to it. Both parks’ utilities and water treatment
systems were also damaged in the fire … Visitors need to plan
on bringing water, especially when visiting Big Basin, said
Fourt. With the canopy gone, Big Basin is a lot warmer
and drier than before.
Many of the estuaries in the United States were once much
larger than previously known, a critical finding as
policymakers work to protect and restore these ecosystems. …
The finding on current and historical estuary size comes from a
study, published in November in the journal Biological
Conservation, exploring how 30 of the country’s estuaries have
changed from as early as 1842 to today. The study determined
that estuaries along the Pacific Coast have lost, on average,
more than 60% of their tidal marshes since mapping began, while
tidal marshes along the East Coast have decreased in size by 8%
over that span. Conversely, some Gulf of Mexico estuaries have
remained stable or grown over time—migrating landward into
adjacent forests—while others in that region have barely shrunk
at all.
… Audubon supports H.R. 9515, the Lower Colorado River
Multi-Species Conservation Program Amendment Act of 2024. The
Program constructs habitats along the Colorado River below
Hoover Dam, and that habitat is essential not only for the 27
species the program targets, but also for many of the 400
species of birds that rely on the Lower Colorado River,
including Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Sandhill Cranes, and Yuma
Ridgway’s Rails. Today, because the Program spending does not
keep pace with the collection of funds from non-federal
partners, about $70 million is held in non-interest-bearing
accounts. If these funds were held in an interest-bearing
account, the Program would have about $2 million in additional
funds per year, and be more able to maintain program
implementation in the face of increasing costs. —Written by Jennifer Pitt, Audubon’s Colorado River program
director
After 13 years of planning and building, the Hester Marsh
Restoration Project had its unofficial “ribbon-cutting” moment
over the weekend of Nov. 15-17. Project researchers, managers
and volunteers gathered at the marsh on the edge of Elkhorn
Slough to observe how the newly completed marsh interacted with
water seeping in with the King Tides. The key question: Were
the final plans for the marsh designed at the correct
elevation? If the marsh was built to plan, observers should see
the water at high tide cover the marsh’s surface – only
slightly. And at 9:35am on Friday, Nov. 15, that is exactly
what they observe.
Replicating a historic survey from 30 years ago, the
Intermountain West Shorebird Survey is a five-year effort to
count shorebirds at more than 200 wetland sites across 11
states in the Intermountain West. The program aims to better
understand shorebirds and their distribution across wetlands,
how that distribution has changed over the past three decades,
and how the wetlands themselves have changed. During peak
migration—a one-to-two-week period in the spring and fall—a
network of volunteers, including state and federal agency
biologists, are on the ground, spotting scopes and binoculars
in hand, counting shorebirds. … This is a photo diary
from two of those survey teams: one on Great Salt Lake, where
over 100 participants surveyed almost the entire lake and its
wetlands in one “Big Day” and the other at Salton Sea, where
surveyors split their survey between three days.
… Near the Oregon border, another coalition is seeking
monument status for an area known as Sáttítla that extends over
parts of the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath and Modoc national
forests. They say local tribes and numerous
Californians depend on the area’s aquifers — which
flow into the Fall River and beyond — for clean drinking water
and renowned fisheries. The geologically unique area is a
spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc tribes and serves
as habitat for protected species, including the bald eagle and
northern spotted owl.
While photos of littered beaches and floating garbage patches
are unsettling, perhaps the most problematic plastic is barely
visible to the naked eye. Called microplastics — chunks less
than 5 millimeters across — these bits have been detected
everywhere from Arctic sea ice to national parks. These
pervasive particles are harder to clean up than larger
plastics, allowing them to accumulate in the environment and
inside living creatures. As their quantities rise, UC Davis
researchers are racing to understand the risks they pose to
ecosystems, animals and humans. “If these things are
getting into our drinking water sources, we
should really care,” said Katie Senft, a staff research
associate at UC Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center,
“especially if they’re not going anywhere and we don’t know the
long-term implications.”
The jewel-like lakes of the High Sierra in Yosemite National
Park are awe-inspiring sights. But for more than a hundred
years they’ve also been biologically disrupted, stocked each
year with non-native fish, which in turn destroyed the
population of Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs that once
covered their shores and filled their depths. With that loss,
the entire ecosystem shifted.
The number was, and is, eye-opening: $10.8 billion. That’s an
estimate issued by city leaders in San Bernardino County for
how much their taxpayers might have to pay, over the next two
decades, to meet possible new standards for cleaning the water
that flows out of their streets and yards and farms and into
the culverts, creeks and tributaries connected to the Santa Ana
River Watershed, a stretch that includes much of San
Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties. Leaders from 17
cities and agencies in San Bernardino County made that $10.8
billion claim during a public hearing in September, in Cypress,
that involved representatives from all three counties. Their
estimate was part of a broader negotiation over the details of
the region’s next MS4 permit, a federally mandated document
that will set limits on how much pollution can legally flow
into local waters and, by extension, the ocean.
The cold, alpine lakes of the high Sierra once hummed with the
splashing and soft, clicking chirp of the yellow-legged frog.
Like many fragile amphibians, however, the small, often darkly
dotted frogs with yellow undersides have seen their numbers
collapse over the years, first when predatory trout were
introduced to lakes for fishing, and then by a menacing fungal
disease. Today, the 2- to 3-inch-long frogs are absent from
about 70% to 90% of their historical range. But the fortunes of
the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog may be turning.
Researchers behind a 15-year effort to revive the endangered
species at Yosemite National Park reported Thursday that the
frog’s population at the park has begun to rebound.
The long-running lawsuit against the City of Bakersfield over
how it operates the Kern River is set to go to trial on Dec. 8,
2025. Kern County Superior Court Judge Gregory Pulskamp set the
trial date before a packed courtroom, though most in attendance
were attorneys on one side of the case or another. This
was the first hearing since the well-known environmental law
firm Morrison Foerster joined the case to work with Attorney
Adam Keats, who represents plaintiffs Bring Back the Kern, Kern
River Parkway Foundation, Sierra Club, Audubon Society and the
Center for Biological Diversity. Morrison Foerster
brought five attorneys (11 others were on hand either in person
or online) to the case management hearing Thursday.
Hikers and Kern River advocates began finding multiple dead
Canada geese in and around Truxtun Lakes starting Thursday.
California State University Biology Professor Rae McNeish
counted at least 10 dead adult birds along the shore and saw
another two on the island, according to an email string SJV
Water was included on. “The birds look like they recently died,
we’re in pretty good condition overall, and were not wounded,”
McNeish wrote in the email string on Thursday. “They look like
they just laid down and died.” She also reported she had spoken
with a woman, apparently from the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, who was at the lake and had bagged a couple of
the birds “for testing.”
Thousands of dead fish have been left behind in the waterbed
where the Kern River sometimes flows through Bakersfield — not
due to drought but to maintenance by the city water department
that added to accusations of mismanagement. Those claims were
brought to Superior Court in a 2022 lawsuit by multiple
environmental advocacy organizations. In October, Bakersfield
argued against the claims, asserting it is not solely
responsible for the dewatering of the Kern River. The recent
fish deaths were “a really tragic situation, both ecologically
and for the community, and of course for the wildlife because
the fish has nowhere to go,” freshwater ecologist Rae McNeish
said.
Thousands of dead fish have been left behind in the waterbed
where the Kern River sometimes flows through Bakersfield – not
due to drought but to maintenance by the city water department
that added to accusations of mismanagement. Those claims were
brought to Superior Court in a 2022 lawsuit by multiple
environmental advocacy organizations. In October, Bakersfield
argued against the claims, asserting it is not solely
responsible for the dewatering of the Kern River. The recent
fish deaths were “a really tragic situation, both ecologically
and for the community, and of course for the wildlife because
the fish has nowhere to go,” freshwater ecologist Rae McNeish
said.
SYRCL, in partnership with the Tahoe National Forest, completed
the second year of project implementation on 229 acres of
meadow, fen, and meadow edge habitat within five high priority
meadows in the North Yuba Watershed: Haskell Headwaters Fen,
Chapman Saddle Meadow, West Church Meadow, Freeman Meadow, and
Bear Trap Meadow. Meadows are important ecosystems for
sequestering carbon, they serve as habitat for threatened
native species, and act as a “water bank” by holding snow water
as it melts then slowly releasing it through the summer.
As temperatures rise and precipitation shifts from snow
dominant to rain dominant, the resiliency of these meadow
ecosystems is increasingly threatened. While existing habitat
degradation in these meadows was initially caused by a variety
of historic human impacts, this degradation is expected to
worsen in response to the impacts of climate change without
intervention.
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
… 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.
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.
… An estimated eight to ten species of lamprey are native to
California (Auringer et al 2023), providing many ecological and
cultural benefits. … And, like salmon, carcasses of
anadromous species (such as the Pacific lamprey) shuttle marine
nutrients to our freshwater rivers after completing upstream
spawning migration. It is likely that all native species
of lamprey in California are in decline, yet a dearth of
information on their ecology and population status makes it
difficult to know how to conserve them. This is especially true
of the small and often forgotten river resident species like
the endemic Kern brook lamprey pictured below. Indeed, lampreys
are one of the least studied groups of fishes in
California. Without these important ecosystem engineers
and aquatic health indicators, we could miss processes
with big roles in keeping our freshwater systems healthy and
full of life. And importantly, population declines of
Pacific lamprey threaten Indigenous culture and food
sovereignty for tribal communities.
The Biden and Newsom administrations will soon adopt new rules
for California’s major water delivery systems that will
determine how much water may be pumped from rivers while
providing protections for imperiled fish species. But
California environmental groups, while supportive of efforts to
rewrite the rules, are criticizing the proposed changes and
warning that the resulting plans would fail to protect fish
species that are declining toward extinction in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay.
… The rules under revision govern dams, aqueducts and
pumping plants in California’s two main water systems, the
Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, which
deliver water to millions of acres of farmland and more than 25
million people. Pumping to supply farms and cities has
contributed to the ecological degradation of the Delta, where
threatened and endangered fish species include steelhead trout,
two types of Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, Delta smelt and
green sturgeon.
A sprawling ranch that crosses ridgetops, valleys and redwood
forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, formerly eyed for luxury
homes and once part of a still-pending quarry proposal, is
being spared from development and turned into a preserve.
Peninsula Open Space Trust announced Monday that it has paid
$15.65 million for 1,340 acres of ranchlands southwest of
Gilroy with plans to permanently protect the site for wildlife,
clean water, carbon sequestration and tribal
value. Land trust officials say the property became a top
priority for preservation because of its location along a thin
corridor that animals use to get in and out of the Santa Cruz
Mountains from the south. The beneficiaries, they say, include
local mountain lions, which have struggled to find safe ways to
leave the region to breed and stay genetically strong.
A federal judge on Friday granted in part a preliminary
injunction against a Northern California county accused of
discriminating against its Asian American population over
access to water. The plaintiffs live in parts of the county
with no wells or other means of accessing water, and say that a
blanket prohibition on transporting water offsite — which isn’t
enforced across the board — disproportionately hurts Asian
American residents.
When the birds touch down, they have no idea of the danger that
lurks in the water. But soon they feel weak. Their eyes may
close. They struggle to hold up their wings, then their heads.
Eventually, they drown. Over the past three months, nearly
100,000 birds have died in this vicious sequence that
scientists say marks the worst outbreak of avian botulism ever
at the Klamath Basin national wildlife refuges, along the
California-Oregon border. The die-off is centered at Tule
Lake, an ancient, volcanic lake in Siskiyou and Modoc counties.
It’s one of six federal refuges designed to provide sanctuary
for the hundreds of thousands of birds, as well as other
animals, that live and visit the remote region annually. Among
the recent dead are both the local waterfowl, namely ducks, and
the many migratory birds that stop for food and rest on their
often-long journeys up and down the West Coast.
A federal judge denied a request by the owner of Point Buckler
Island in the greater San Francisco Bay for a new trial in an
almost eight-year dispute with the U.S. Justice Department over
his illegal “repair” of the levee surrounding the island. John
Sweeney argued that the 2020 ruling that, after a bench trial,
had found him liable for violating the Clean Water Act was no
longer sustainable in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court
decision last year in Sackett v. Environmental Protection
Agency, which had curtailed the federal government’s authority
to regulate wetlands. In that decision, the nation’s top court
found that the reach of the Clean Water Act extends to only
those “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies
that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right, so
that they are ‘indistinguishable’ from those waters.”
California’s waterways are about to get a helping hand from an
unexpected ally: the North American beaver. With the recent
passing of Assembly Bill (AB) 2196, authored by Assemblymember
Damon Connolly and supported by CalTrout, a comprehensive
program for beaver restoration throughout California’s
watersheds is set to begin. This innovative approach leverages
nature-based solutions to promote fish and freshwater
resilience, offering a beacon of hope for our aquatic
ecosystems. … While beavers are admired for their sweet
and adorable charm, they are powerful ecosystem engineers whose
work is vital for maintaining healthy watersheds. Their
dam-building activities create complex aquatic habitats,
improve water quality, and increase biodiversity. By
reintroducing beavers to their native historical range, we’re
not just bringing back a lovable species – we’re deploying
nature’s own environmental restoration experts.
Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the
first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster
that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives,
according to a landmark new report. Decades of destructive land
use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused
climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global
water cycle, said the report published Wednesday by the Global
Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international
leaders and experts. … Disruptions to the water cycle are
already causing suffering. Nearly 3 billion people face water
scarcity. Crops are shriveling and cities are sinking as the
groundwater beneath them dries out.
A coalition of water users, businesses and conservation
organizations filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Utah’s 7th District
Court, seeking to overturn a water permit given to an
Australian mining company that seeks to extract lithium from
groundwater in theGreen River. Living Rivers and Great Basin
Water Network say they have been working with community members
in Green River for more than a year to ensure that groundwater,
surface water, ecosystems, farms and residents face no harm
from Anson Resource’s project proposed for the banks of the
Green River. The coalition’s filing targets a recent decision
by the Utah State Engineer to approve a water rights
application for the novel lithium mining operation along the
Colorado River’s largest tributary.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to side with the City
of San Francisco in its unusual challenge of federal water
regulations that it said were too vague and could be
interpreted too strictly. The outcome could have sweeping
implications for curtailing water pollution offshore and would
deal another blow to the Environmental Protection Agency, which
has faced a string of losses at the court over its efforts to
protect the environment. The case has given rise to unusual
alliances, with the city joining oil companies and business
groups in siding against the E.P.A. In arguments on Wednesday,
it was the conservative justices who seemed the most aligned
with a city best known as a liberal bastion. At its core, the
case is about human waste and how San Francisco disposes of it
— specifically, whether the Clean Water Act of 1972 allowed the
E.P.A. to impose generic prohibitions on wastewater released
into the Pacific Ocean and to penalize the city.
California and Biden administration officials on Tuesday
announced new ecosystem restoration plans for the dwindling
Salton Sea, where conservation efforts aim to improve regional
air quality and support wildlife. … As the restoration
project proceeds, state officials said that they aim to revive
the region’s ecological value by creating networks of ponds and
wetlands, providing habitats for fish and birds and suppressing
dust within the area. The Salton Sea is one of many salty lakes
around the world that has been stirring up dust and worsening
air pollution as it dries up.
… As school districts look to resurface their athletic fields
and cities consider how to update public parks, local leaders
must decide what kind of play surface to install. And, the two
options — natural grass or artificial turf — are sharply
dividing Bay Area residents. Turf, which is made from thousands
of synthetic fibers and crumb plastic infills, is quickly
becoming America’s go-to field material for its ability to
provide a smoother, year-round surface at a lower maintenance
cost than grass. … However, there is strong resistance to the
material too, from those who point out that turf infills
contain PFAS or “forever chemicals,” which
break down slowly and can cause serious environmental harm and
adverse health effects, including cancer.
… In California, the history of introductions of all bass
species is murky and confusing because of poor record keeping
and the frequent treating of all species together as “black
bass” (Dill and Cordone 1997). Increasingly, predation by bass
species is regarded as an important factor contributing to
declines of native fishes in California. Furthermore, and
perhaps because of their warmwater thermal niche, bass tend to
grow best during droughts (Rypel 2009). Thus, as climate change
increases the duration and severity of droughts in California,
novel conditions increasingly favor the black bass complex
(Rypel 2021).
Work is moving forward on a project to restore native habitat
and implement a series of water quality treatment projects to
redesign the path of stormwater to Middle Struve
Slough. … Much of the run-off from the roadways,
neighborhoods, commercial and industrial areas in Watsonville
flows untreated to the Watsonville wetlands and out to the
Monterey Bay … As a result, the City’s sloughs, once drained
for farming, and now surrounded by development has impaired
water quality, affecting birds, wildlife, and trail and beach
users. … When completed, the Middle Struve Slough Habitat and
Water Quality Improvement Project … will include treatment
wetlands and sediment catchment basins that intercept
stormwater before it flows to the wetlands, a series of ponds
designed to improve habitat for birds, western pond turtles,
and other wetland wildlife, and restored native plants
throughout the area.
The Supreme Court’s upcoming review of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s regulatory authority over wastewater
discharge pollution is likely to highlight bitter divides over
the court’s role in the democratic system. “Given the
makeup of this Supreme Court and in the aftermath of the Loper
Bright decision, the court will be less willing to give EPA any
sort of deference with respect to their interpretation of the
Clean Water Act,” Wyatt Kendall, a partner at Morris Manning
focused on environmental regulatory processes, said in an
interview. In June, the conservative majority abandoned agency
deference, overturning four decades of precedent on government
authority. Disagreements over agency rulemaking have already
caused tension on the bench.
The Biden administration, members of Congress and native tribes
will commemorate the designation of the Chumash Heritage
National Marine Sanctuary on Monday — the first such preserve
in California to be managed in cooperation with Indigenous
peoples. The 4,543-square-mile sanctuary, located off
California’s rugged Central Coast, would prohibit oil drilling
and offer other protections to an area that encompasses
numerous cultural resources, including the suspected remains of
ancient, submerged villages. The preserve could one day serve
as the final puzzle piece of an effort to protect virtually all
of California’s coast from the Channel Islands to Point Arena,
north of the Bay Area.
Other marine sanctuary and offshore drilling articles:
After nearly a century of people building dams on most of the
world’s major rivers, artificial reservoirs now represent an
immense freshwater footprint across the landscape. Yet, these
reservoirs are understudied and overlooked for their fisheries
production and management potential, indicates a study from the
University of California, Davis. The study, published
in the journal Scientific Reports, estimates that U.S.
reservoirs hold 3.5 billion kilograms (7.7 billion pounds) of
fish. Properly managed, these existing reservoir ecosystems
could play major roles in food security and fisheries
conservation.
California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the
worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its
land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform
more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit
landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release,
officials announced Monday. … The plan also calls for
11.9 million acres of forestland to be managed for biodiversity
protection, carbon storage and water supply protection by 2045,
and 2.7 million acres of shrublands and chaparral to be managed
for carbon storage, resilience and habitat connectivity, among
other efforts.
Tiny pieces of plastic waste shed
from food wrappers, grocery bags, clothing, cigarette butts,
tires and paint are invading the environment and every facet of
daily life. Researchers know the plastic particles have even made
it into municipal water supplies, but very little data exists
about the scope of microplastic contamination in drinking
water.
After years of planning, California this year is embarking on a
first-of-its-kind data-gathering mission to illuminate how
prevalent microplastics are in the state’s largest drinking water
sources and help regulators determine whether they are a public
health threat.
Algal blooms are sudden overgrowths
of algae. Their occurrence is increasing in California’s
rivers, creeks and lakes and along the coast, threatening the
lives of people, pets and fisheries.
Only a few types of algae can produce poisons, but even nontoxic
blooms hurt the environment and local economies. When masses
of algae die, the decaying can deplete oxygen in the water to the
point of causing devastating fish kills.
Excess salinity poses a growing
threat to food production, drinking water quality and public
health. Salts increase the cost of urban drinking water and
wastewater treatment, which are paid for by residents and
businesses. Increasing salinity is likely the largest long-term
chronic water quality impairment to surface and groundwater in California’s Central
Valley.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
Stretching 450 miles long and up to
50 miles wide, the Sierra Nevada makes up more than a quarter of
California’s land area and forms its largest watersheds,
providing more than half of the state’s developed water supply to
residents, agriculture and other businesses.*
The California Environmental Quality
Act, commonly known as CEQA, is foundational to the state’s
environmental protection efforts. The law requires proposed
developments with the potential for “significant” impacts on the
physical environment to undergo an environmental review.
Since its passage in 1970, CEQA (based on the National
Environmental Policy Act) has served as a model for
similar legislation in other states.
This issue of Western Water examines that process. Much
of the information is drawn from discussions that occurred at the
November 2005 Selenium Summit sponsored by the Foundation and the
California Department of Water Resources. At that summit, a
variety of experts presented findings and the latest activities
from areas where selenium is of primary interest.
