Wetlands are among the most important ecosystems in the world.
They produce high levels of oxygen, filter toxic chemicals out of
water, reduce flooding and erosion and recharge groundwater. They
also serve as critical habitat for wildlife, including a large
percentage of plants and animals on California’s endangered
species list.
As the state has grown into one of the world’s leading economies,
Californians have developed and transformed the state’s marshes,
swamps and tidal flats, losing as much as 90 percent of the
original wetlands acreage—a greater percentage of loss than any
other state in the nation.
While the conversion of wetlands has slowed, the loss in
California is significant and it affects a range of factors from
water quality to quality of life.
Wetlands still remain in every part of the state, with the
greatest concentration in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
its watershed, which includes the Central Valley. The Delta
wetlands are especially important because they are part of the
vast complex of waterways that provide two-thirds of California’s
drinking water.
Throughout most of its 52-mile length, from the Mexicali Valley
in Baja California to southern California’s Salton Sea, the
Alamo River is mostly a weed-choked gulley. Fed in large part
by farm runoff, the river carries with it a safe-eating
advisory from the state of California because of the stew of
contaminants it contains. One small farming community, billing
itself as the carrot capital of the world, recently completed a
project designed to help rid the river of some of its
pollutants and provide homes for threatened and endangered
birds and wildlife, including the Yuma clapper rail. The
31-acre Holtville Alamo River Wetlands Project, a partnership
that includes the Imperial Irrigation District, Imperial
County, the Salton Sea Authority and Desert Wildlife Unlimited,
was awarded $4.6 million in federal funding with $1.6 million
coming from the Bureau of Reclamation’s Salton Sea Program
budget.
On Friday, the California Coastal Commission approved some
planned changes at Palco Marsh — largely upgrades for the
stormwater network, with aims to prevent flooding from storms
and future sea level rise. It was approved unanimously as part
of their consent calendar, without discussion. Eureka’s Public
Works department wants to take on a bundle of projects at the
marsh. This includes discharging more partially treated
stormwater there, upgrading stormwater infrastructure, dredging
350 feet of new channels and deepening 800 feet of tidal
channels (with sediments put on the marsh plain), and upgrading
drainage between the marsh and Humboldt Bay — all impacting 86
acres of fresh and saltwater marsh between U.S. Highway 101 at
Broadway and Humboldt Bay, south of Del Norte Street. According
to a Coastal Commission staff report, Palco Marsh gets
untreated runoff from commercial, industrial and residential
areas totaling 395.7 acres, and after this project, it would
see water from 685 acres.
In a recent publication in Freshwater Biology,
UC Davis researchers found that waterfowl food-plants in
managed wetlands of Suisun Marsh can boost plankton production
by an order of magnitude compared to plants in open tidal
habitats. Suisun Marsh is one of the largest tidal wetlands on
the west coast of North America and is critical habitat in the
San Francisco Estuary (SFE). While managed wetlands in the
marsh are operated to promote waterfowl, this study supports
other research showing how fishes can benefit from waterfowl
management actions … This work has direct implications for
managing food availability for native and desirable fishes,
especially those that rely on plankton in the SFE. This is
another example of a reconciliation ecology approach for
California water.
Today, U.S. Representative John Garamendi (D-CA08) voted to
pass the “Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2024”
(S.4367) in the House of Representatives by a bipartisan vote
of 399 to 18. “The Water Resources Development Act passed
today continues our bipartisan tradition of meeting the water
infrastructure needs of communities across California and the
country. As a senior member of the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, I secured several provisions in this
bill directing federal investment for Mare Island, restoring
Bay Area wetlands, and improving our precious water supply for
local communities in California’s 8th Congressional District.
This pivotal legislation will strengthen community resilience
from the threats of climate change, improve California’s water
resource projects that safeguard human health, and enrich
America’s vital natural aquatic ecosystems for generations to
come,” said Garamendi.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city of Pittsburg,
California, Monday for approving a development, including a
massive data center, without considering and planning for its
environmental effects, including greenhouse gas emissions,
water usage, and harms to wildlife and surrounding wetlands.
The project site is on grassland and wetlands habitat with
nearby streams and other waterways. The area serves as an
important wildlife corridor for the region and is home to
red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, white-tailed kites, and other
raptors.
A key piece in the Sierra Nevada, north of Truckee,
has flipped from private to public land. On Tuesday, the Trust
for Public Land announced the completed transfer of 569 acres
in Sardine Meadow to the Tahoe National Forest. The
transfer permanently protects a vital part of the Truckee River
watershed and comes after a large conservation effort to heal
the meadow following decades of logging, overgrazing and
railroad construction dating back to the late
1800s. Sardine Meadow is north of Stampede Reservoir,
outside Truckee. It’s the largest meadow in the Davies
Creek watershed, which feeds into the Truckee River and
supplies water downstream to the Reno area.
City of Holtville officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony
Thursday morning to celebrate the opening of the city’s
decades-long Wetlands project, conceived by Elwood “Pete”
Mellinger. The $4.6 million, 31-acre project made several
residents joyous at the event, especially Holtville resident
Mary Martinez, whose backyard scene has completely changed with
the project. Years back, the property used to be so filled with
trees that nobody could walk through.
King tides are bringing extreme high and low tides to the
Central Coast this weekend, impacting local wetlands and
providing a glimpse into the effects of rising sea
levels. … According to the United States Geological
Survey, the Monterey Bay area sees sea levels rising at about 2
millimeters a year. Over the past few hundred years, California
has lost more than 90% of its wetlands, with the Elkhorn Slough
losing 50% of its wetland habitat.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) today
announced the award of $17 million in grants for 18 restoration
and protection projects throughout the state, including
projects to benefit disadvantaged communities, salmon and
steelhead in the Klamath-Trinity watershed, wetlands and
meadows and watersheds impacted by cannabis cultivation.
Today’s awards continue the ongoing efforts to support critical
restoration projects with funding made available in late 2022
through the Nature Based Solutions (NBS) Initiative and
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds, funding through CDFW’s Cannabis
Program, as well as funding dedicated to habitat restoration
through Proposition 68.
Federal and State of California government agencies, overseeing
water, agriculture, fish and wildlife, public lands and flood
control, have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to
enhance collaboration on landscape-scale, multi-beneficial
floodplain water projects in the Sacramento River Basin. The
purpose of this agreement is to elevate the opportunity for
landscape-scale funding and to streamline planning, design,
implementation, monitoring, and information sharing of projects
located on the floodplains that enhance flood protection,
restore fish and wildlife habitat, improve groundwater aquifer
recharge, provide water supply reliability, and sustain farming
and managed wetland operations.
A large, fast-breeding rodent that tears through wetlands and
crops has raised alarm among Solano County officials and
farmers. Nutria, which may grow up to 2 feet long and weigh 20
pounds, were discovered in the Central Valley as early as 2017,
after going undetected for 40 years in California. But recently
they’ve multiplied. State Fish and Wildlife efforts have
captured a total of 5,171 nutria across 10 counties, including
Stanislaus, Fresno, San Joaquin, Mariposa, Sacramento, Contra
Costa, Madera, Tuolumne and Solano. The fear is they will
migrate to other North Bay areas beyond the Suisun Marsh,
specifically into sensitive wetlands and watersheds, such as
the Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Areas, San Pablo National
Wildlife Refuge and San Francisco Bay.
The return of fully planted rice crops to the Sacramento Valley
following years of drought has restored another essential
feature of the region. After harvest, reservoirs replenished by
last year’s historic storms enabled farmers to flood more of
their fields this winter, creating wetland habitat for
migrating waterfowl. … Today, around 300,000 acres of the
valley’s rice paddies are flooded each winter to provide food
and shelter for 7 million ducks and geese, according to the
California Rice Commission. More than 200 species of wildlife,
including threatened species such as Sandhill Cranes, rely on
the fields. Especially over the past decade, state and federal
programs have been developed to incentivize winter flooding,
defraying some of the cost, and rice farmers have embraced
their role in wildlife conservation.
A new but little-known change in
California law designating aquifers as “natural infrastructure”
promises to unleash a flood of public funding for projects that
increase the state’s supply of groundwater.
The change is buried in a sweeping state budget-related law,
enacted in July, that also makes it easier for property owners
and water managers to divert floodwater for storage underground.
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.
Land and waterway managers labored
hard over the course of a century to control California’s unruly
rivers by building dams and levees to slow and contain their
water. Now, farmers, environmentalists and agencies are undoing
some of that work as part of an accelerating campaign to restore
the state’s major floodplains.
Biologists have designed a variety
of unique experiments in the past decade to demonstrate the
benefits that floodplains provide for small fish. Tracking
studies have used acoustic tags to show that chinook salmon
smolts with access to inundated fields are more likely than their
river-bound cohorts to reach the Pacific Ocean. This is because
the richness of floodplains offers a vital buffet of nourishment
on which young salmon can capitalize, supercharging their growth
and leading to bigger, stronger smolts.
Water is flowing once again
to the Colorado River’s delta in Mexico, a vast region that
was once a natural splendor before the iconic Western river was
dammed and diverted at the turn of the last century, essentially
turning the delta into a desert.
In 2012, the idea emerged that water could be intentionally sent
down the river to inundate the delta floodplain and regenerate
native cottonwood and willow trees, even in an overallocated
river system. Ultimately, dedicated flows of river water were
brokered under cooperative
efforts by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
State work to improve wildlife habitat and tamp down dust at California’s ailing Salton Sea is finally moving forward. Now the sea may be on the verge of getting the vital ingredient needed to supercharge those restoration efforts – money.
The shrinking desert lake has long been a trouble spot beset by rising salinity and unhealthy, lung-irritating dust blowing from its increasingly exposed bed. It shadows discussions of how to address the Colorado River’s two-decade-long drought because of its connection to the system. The lake is a festering health hazard to nearby residents, many of them impoverished, who struggle with elevated asthma risk as dust rises from the sea’s receding shoreline.
This tour guided participants on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
Out of sight and out of mind to most
people, the Salton Sea in California’s far southeast corner has
challenged policymakers and local agencies alike to save the
desert lake from becoming a fetid, hyper-saline water body
inhospitable to wildlife and surrounded by clouds of choking
dust.
The sea’s problems stretch beyond its boundaries in Imperial and
Riverside counties and threaten to undermine multistate
management of the Colorado River. A 2019 Drought Contingency Plan for the
Lower Colorado River Basin was briefly stalled when the Imperial
Irrigation District, holding the river’s largest water
allocation, balked at participating in the plan because, the
district said, it ignored the problems of the Salton Sea.
Deep, throaty cadenced calls —
sounding like an off-key bassoon — echo over the grasslands,
farmers’ fields and wetlands starting in late September of each
year. They mark the annual return of sandhill cranes to the
Cosumnes River Preserve,
46,000 acres located 20 miles south of Sacramento on the edge of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
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.
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.
Farmers in the Central Valley are broiling about California’s plan to increase flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to help struggling salmon runs avoid extinction. But in one corner of the fertile breadbasket, River Garden Farms is taking part in some extraordinary efforts to provide the embattled fish with refuge from predators and enough food to eat.
And while there is no direct benefit to one farm’s voluntary actions, the belief is what’s good for the fish is good for the farmers.
Deep, throaty cadenced calls —
sounding like an off-key bassoon — echo over the grasslands,
farmers’ fields and wetlands starting in late September of each
year. They mark the annual return of sandhill cranes to the
Cosumnes River Preserve,
46,000 acres located 20 miles south of Sacramento on the edge of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
Along the banks of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Oakley, about 50 miles southwest
of Sacramento, is a park that harkens back to the days when the
Delta lured Native Americans, Spanish explorers, French fur
trappers, and later farmers to its abundant wildlife and rich
soil.
That historical Delta was an enormous marsh linked to the two
freshwater rivers entering from the north and south, and tidal
flows coming from the San Francisco Bay. After the Gold Rush,
settlers began building levees and farms, changing the landscape
and altering the habitat.
As vital as the Colorado River is to the United States and
Mexico, so is the ongoing process by which the two countries
develop unique agreements to better manage the river and balance
future competing needs.
The prospect is challenging. The river is over allocated as urban
areas and farmers seek to stretch every drop of their respective
supplies. Since a historic treaty between the two countries was
signed in 1944, the United States and Mexico have periodically
added a series of arrangements to the treaty called minutes that
aim to strengthen the binational ties while addressing important
water supply, water quality and environmental concerns.
This 28-page report describes the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada
region and details their importance to California’s overall water
picture. It describes the region’s issues and challenges,
including healthy forests, catastrophic fire, recreational
impacts, climate change, development and land use.
The report also discusses the importance of protecting and
restoring watersheds in order to retain water quality and enhance
quantity. Examples and case studies are included.
This 30-minute documentary, produced in 2011, explores the past,
present and future of flood management in California’s Central
Valley. It features stories from residents who have experienced
the devastating effects of a California flood firsthand.
Interviews with long-time Central Valley water experts from
California Department of Water Resources (FloodSAFE), U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Central Valley Flood
Management Program and environmental groups are featured as they
discuss current efforts to improve the state’s 150-year old flood
protection system and develop a sustainable, integrated, holistic
flood management plan for the Central Valley.
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.
15-minute DVD that graphically portrays the potential disaster
should a major earthquake hit the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Delta Warning” depicts what would happen in the event of an
earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale: 30 levee breaks,
16 flooded islands and a 300 billion gallon intrusion of salt
water from the Bay – the “big gulp” – which would shut down the
State Water Project and Central Valley Project pumping plants.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, features
a map of the San Joaquin River. The map text focuses on the San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to restore flows
and populations of Chinook salmon to the river below Friant Dam
to its confluence with the Merced River. The text discusses the
history of the program, its goals and ongoing challenges with
implementation.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this
24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson
River, and its link to the Truckee River. The map includes the
Lahontan Dam and reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming
areas in the basin. Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and
geography, the Newlands Project, land and water use within the
basin and wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant
from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan
Basin Area Office.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterbirds, and stretches from Alaska in the north
to Patagonia in South America.
Each year, birds follow ancestral patterns as they travel the
flyway on their annual north-south migration. Along the way, they
need stopover sites such as wetlands with suitable habitat and
food supplies. In California, 95 percent of historic
wetlands have been lost, yet the Central Valley hosts some of the
world’s largest populations of wintering birds.
In the Central Valley, wetlands—partly or seasonally saturated
land that supports aquatic life and distinct ecosystems— provide
critical habitat for a variety of wildlife.
This printed issue of Western Water examines how the various
stakeholders have begun working together to meet the planning
challenges for the Colorado River Basin, including agreements
with Mexico, increased use of conservation and water marketing,
and the goal of accomplishing binational environmental
restoration and water-sharing programs.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the issues
associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the
water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of
whether additional flows are needed for the system, and how they
might be provided.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Colorado River
Delta, its ecological significance and the lengths to which
international, state and local efforts are targeted and achieving
environmental restoration while recognizing the needs of the
entire river’s many users.
