A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
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This week’s featured articles …
MONTHLY RESERVOIR REPORT for September 1
Prepared Exclusively for Maven’s Notebook by hydrologist Robert Shibatani
As we near the end of WY 2021-22, much of the central and southern State are heading into a blistering end-of-summer heat wave over the upcoming Labor Day weekend. This will certainly not help reservoir and river conditions. Over the month of August, reservoirs continued their late summer decline. Folsom Reservoir led the way losing some 144,000 acre-feet. Shasta was next, losing 91,000 acre-feet. San Luis, New Melones, and Trinity reservoirs lost 73,373, 69,100, and 56,000 acre-feet, respectively. Millerton and Lake Berryessa each lost about 34,000 acre-feet over the month.
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In California water news this week …
State lawmakers reject bill to curb farms’ water pumping
“California lawmakers punted on a proposal to rein in agricultural groundwater pumping as drought continues to grip California and more than a thousand domestic wells have run dry. A bill by Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, would have added hurdles to obtain a permit to drill an agricultural well. Though the bill cleared the Senate on Monday, Bennett elected to not bring it up for a final vote in the Assembly before the Legislative session timed out Wednesday night. He said California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told him the bill was no longer viable because of changes made. During one of the driest years in recent history, California legislators did not pass any new laws that would boost the water supply or protect groundwater from overpumping, although funds were included in the budget for groundwater management and programs like water recycling. … ” Read more from Cal Matters here: State lawmakers reject bill to curb farms’ water pumping
California passes bill banning sale of farmland to foreign governments
“The California legislature passed a bill Wednesday that is on its way to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) desk and would outlaw foreign country land sales to protect the nation’s food supply. A similar bill was introduced on the federal level last month by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from buying land in the United States. “Food can, and is, being used as a weapon like we are seeing in Ukraine,” said the California bill’s author, state Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Fresno). “Recent reports discuss how a nation could gain leverage by acquiring agricultural land and creating bioweapons that impact our food supply chain. The Food and Farm Security Act seeks to protect California’s water and food supply, especially as water availability across Western states decreases.” … ” Read more from the Washington Examiner here: California passes bill banning sale of farmland to foreign governments
Help paying water bills may be on way for low-income Californians
“María Dolores Díaz sighs when she opens her water bill every month because she knows what she’ll see: another bill that she’ll struggle to pay. California’s water affordability crisis has been simmering for years as water rate increases have outpaced inflation, rising 45% between 2007 and 2015 alone. By September 2021, nearly 650,000 residential and 46,000 business accounts owed more than $315 million in unpaid water and wastewater bills. Latino and Black communities have been hit the hardest, with higher average debt. About half a million account holders had their water shut off for unpaid bills in 2019, according to state data. California lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Monday and Tuesday to offer assistance: A bill that creates a new state program to help low-income Californians like Díaz pay their water and sewage bills is now expected to be sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature. … ” Read more from Cal Matters here: Help paying water bills may be on way for low-income Californians
SEE ALSO: First-in-the-nation water affordability program heads to governor’s desk, from Clean Water Action
California lawmakers approve new water regulations for marijuana growers
“California lawmakers have approved a streamlined permitting process that would allow marijuana growers to divert water from streams. Water regulators say the new permitting requirement is designed to make it easier for environmental regulators to protect streams and fisheries from the effects of marijuana growing operations. But Republican Assemblyman Brian Dahle says it allows marijuana growers to bypass the state’s toughest environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. ... ” Read more from Jefferson Public Radio here: California lawmakers approve new regulations for marijuana growers
Why California’s largest reservoir in nearly 50 years may be derailed by water shortages
“Deep in California’s farm country, this dusty valley ringed by brown hills and sunny skies is seen by many as the state’s answer to drought. Here, about 70 miles north of Sacramento, a coalition of water agencies is setting out to build the first major reservoir in California in nearly half a century. The $4 billion plan calls for flooding miles of ranchlands with flows from the nearby Sacramento River and sending the water to cities and irrigation districts as far away as the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Much of the money is already lined up, and as state water shortages have intensified, the project has won increasing bipartisan support, including from Gov. Gavin Newsom. But there’s a problem: There may not be enough water to fill the new reservoir. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle here: Why California’s largest reservoir in nearly 50 years may be derailed by water shortages
Smarter gambling with California’s water challenges
Delta Independent Science Board Members Dr. Jay R. Lund and Dr. Thomas L. Holzer write, “Anyone familiar with California, knows it as a land of opportunities, risks, and complex unintended consequences, especially in water and environmental management. Felicia Marcus, a former State Water Resources Control Board chair and Delta Stewardship Council member, recently remarked in the LA Times that managing water in California is like gambling. California has more drought and flood years per average year than any other part of the United States. California’s climate has immense natural variability, illustrated in Figure 1. As a result, California has always been challenging for water management. Most climate change modeling shows California weather extremes becoming even more frequent and intense. California’s hydrologic variability and uncertainty force water managers and large water users, particularly agriculture, to play the odds. Like anyone forced to gamble one takes pains to calculate the odds, prepare for extremes (even surprises), and seek supplies and investments that provide cost-effectiveness, adaptability, and good performance, in this case, for both humans and ecosystems. … ” Continue reading at the Delta Stewardship Council website here: Smarter gambling with California’s water challenges
NGOs release evaluation of DWR’s determinations on 2020 Groundwater Sustainability Plans in Critically Overdrafted Basins
“Of the 46 GSPs submitted in January 2020, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) determined eight GSPs to be adequate and 34 GSPs to be incomplete. In this paper we evaluate to what extent DWR’s determinations provide oversight on the key issues of drinking water, disadvantaged communities, the environment, stakeholder involvement, and climate change. We summarize the corrective actions that DWR is recommending or requiring, as well as compare DWR’s determinations to the assessment of 31 GSPs that we conducted in 2020. We also reviewed the 11 comment letters submitted by the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), 25 comment letters submitted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), and seven comment letters submitted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to compare deficiencies identified in GSPs across agencies.” Read the report at the Groundwater Exchange here: Groundwater sustainability assessments: A review of DWR’s determinations on groundwater sustainability plans in critically overdrafted basins
RELATED: California can’t waver on water regulation, commentary at Cal Matters
Dirty water, drying wells: Central Californians shoulder drought’s inequities
“On a hot morning in August, the pressure gauge on Jesús Benítez’s well read about 10 pounds per square inch — barely enough for a trickle. Like a growing number of Central Californians, Benítez is bearing the brunt of the state’s punishing drought, which is evaporating the state’s surface water even as a frenzy of well drilling saps precious reserves underground. As a result, the number of dry wells in California has increased 70% since last year, while the number of Californians living with contaminated drinking water is at nearly 1 million. The majority of those people live in low-income communities and communities of color, state data show — and experts say heat, drought and climate change are only making those inequities worse. … ” Read more from the LA Times here: Dirty water, drying wells: Central Californians shoulder drought’s inequities
Delta Stewardship Council shares progress on environmental justice initiative
“At the August 25, 2022, Delta Stewardship Council meeting, staff presented results from recent interviews with environmental justice organizations and advocates. These interviews were conducted to inform the development of a paper on EJ issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which was initiated in response to a recommendation from the 2019 Delta Plan Five-Year Review. Through this paper, the Council aims to build a network of community leaders and organizations to inform and support the Council’s EJ work; identify the associated issues impacting communities in and around the Delta; and chart options to address those issues. “Delta issues are California issues,” said Chair Virginia Madueño. “This work is about human dignity. As EJ issues continue to become a greater priority, we have a responsibility as Delta stewards to set the tone and example for how EJ work is conducted.” … ” Continue reading at the Delta Stewardship Council here: Delta Stewardship Council shares progress on environmental justice initiative
Rewilding California farms: grants going out to repurpose drought-parched Central Valley land
“A withered cornstalk may become the near-future snapshot of some farms in the drought-stricken Central Valley, while also allowing the return of a native landscape that will help conserve the state’s water. The Federal Central Valley Project is not expected to send any water to most farmers who work the fields as California enters a third year of drought. “I always say we’re a poster child for this issue, because we’re not doing it right,” said Mike Hagman, executive director of the Lindmore Irrigation District, located in the Tulare County city of Lindsay. … Hagman owns 160 acres of now-fallowed agricultural land. But now there is some hope. His land and others may find a new life under an innovative $50 million California project. … ” Read more from CBS 5 here: Rewilding California farms: grants going out to repurpose drought-parched Central Valley land
SEE ALSO: Some California farmland being restored to natural state in hopes of lessening drought effects, from CBS News
Federal cyber mandate looms for local water systems
“EPA is set to unveil a new federal mandate requiring states to expand inspections of about 1,600 water systems to include cybersecurity threats, according to a senior administration official. The official, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said EPA is not issuing a new rule but instead will release a so-called implementation memo based on the agency’s existing authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Ultimately, states already responsible for inspecting everything from tanks to pumps and operations at hundreds of public water systems across the nation would also be responsible for ensuring utilities are protected against hackers. … ” Read more from E&E News here: Federal cyber mandate looms for local water systems
In commentary this week …
Newsom’s water strategy needs to go a step further
Sarah Null, the 2021–22 CalTrout Ecosystem Fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center, and Jeffrey Mount, a geomorphologist and senior fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center, write, “Two weeks ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom released his water supply strategy, which is designed to address California’s warming climate and increasing drought intensity. Central to this strategy is expanding storage to capture water during wet periods and to help urban and agricultural users make it through dry times. But why stop there? What about storing water for the environment? In our recent Public Policy Institute of California report, titled “Storing Water for the Environment: Operating Reservoirs to Improve Freshwater Ecosystems,” we explore how to do a better job of managing rivers that are affected by large dams and how to make restoring river health a primary objective of reservoir management. ... ” Read more from Cal Matters here: Newsom’s water strategy needs to go a step further
For his water plan to work, Newsom must marshal all key forces
Edward Ring, the co-founder of the California Policy Center, a libertarian think tank, and the author of “The Abundance Choice – Our Fight for More Water in California,” writes, “At first glance, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new water supply strategy might suggest the projects he is proposing will create about 7 million acre-feet of new water, but a closer reading shows that’s not quite true. If every proposed storage facility is built, and the proposed water recycling and desalination projects are also eventually completed, Newsom’s water supply strategy will add about half that much. Even so, his plan is timely and much needed, but making it happen will require unprecedented compromises from California’s powerful environmentalist lobby. … ” Continue reading at Cal Matters here: For his water plan to work, Newsom must marshal all key forces
DWR’s tunnel vision: Ignoring science won’t make it go away
Doug Obegi, Director of California River Restoration for the NRDC, writes, “Why does the Department of Water Resources’ draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the proposed Delta tunnel project refuse to consider any operational alternatives that increase flows into and through the Delta to protect salmon and the environment? After all, for more than a decade, State and federal agencies have repeatedly concluded, as the State Water Board concluded in 2009, that “[t]he best available science suggests that current flows are insufficient to protect public trust resources.” The minimum Delta water quality and outflow requirements in the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan have not been substantively updated since 1995, and the State Water Board has been working since 2008 to update those outdated and inadequate flow requirements that have caused an ecological crisis. In 2018, the Board released its Framework for completing the update of the Bay-Delta Plan’s water quality standards, which proposes to require increased Delta outflows and improve upstream reservoir storage and water temperature management, resulting in reduced water diversions from the Bay-Delta (on average 2 million acre feet per year). And if that wasn’t enough, the State Water Board’s CEQA scoping comments for the Delta tunnel explicitly directed DWR to consider one or more operational alternatives that increase flows through the Delta, consistent with the State Water Board’s 2018 Framework. … ” Continue reading at the NRDC here: DWR’s tunnel vision: Ignoring science won’t make it go away
The true cost of building the Delta tunnel can be found in what’s left of Owens Valley
Dennis Wyatt, editor of the Manteca Bulletin, writes, “High in the eastern Sierra in early July, rain and hail fell above the county seat of Inyo County. It helped feed the stream that gives life to the community of 761 souls known as Independence that most view as just a wide spot on Highway 395 as you zip from Reno to San Bernardino. The result of the early afternoon drenching served up with exclamation points of lightning bolts will also seeped into underground streams. It is how a journey of years starts for that water to reach aquifers in the Owens Valley below to nourish the handful of ranches and farms. They are what have been able to survive since the Los Angeles Aqueduct — the early 1900s version of the proposed myopic Delta tunnel plan — started sending water to the faucets of Los Angeles bungalows and mansions. … ” Read more from the Mantec Bulletin here: The true cost of building the Delta tunnel can be found in what’s left of Owens Valley
Californians want water rights reform
Kate Poole, Senior Director of the Water Division, NRDC’s Nature Program, writes, “Even the most casual observer of western water recognizes that a long-delayed reckoning is coming on the Colorado River, with significant water cuts looming for those who divert water from the River. The same crisis is unfolding in a less visible way in California’s Bay-Delta estuary, the main hub for the state’s vast water supply system and the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas. Like the Colorado River, water diversions in California are built on a foundation of consistently extracting more water than Nature provides. California’s appropriative water rights system (“first in time, first in right”) currently determines the winners and losers as our water supply shrinks in the face of climate change. Without reform, California’s system means that the most senior water rights holders – those who declared the water theirs during the violent and exclusionary settling of California in the late 1800s, early 1900s, predominantly irrigation districts – get first claim to the available water, while water for people to drink and bathe and water for the environment only get the leftovers. … ” Continue reading at the NRDC here: Californians want water rights reform
Abandoning established water law does nothing to produce or save one drop of water and puts our food supply at risk
The California Farm Water Coalition writes, “In times of crisis, drastic measures born out of panic almost always make things worse, and the same applies to dealing with California’s current drought. There is no doubt that people, farms, our communities, and the environment are suffering. And there is a theory being floated among the state’s water bureaucracy that if we abandon our long-established system of water rights, our problems will be solved. They won’t. Water rights are not the cause of California’s changing weather patterns and neither discarding this long-established law, nor fighting the legal battles that would result from trying to do so, will move, store, or create one drop of water. … ” Read more from the California Farm Water Coalition here: Abandoning established water law does nothing to produce or save one drop of water and puts our food supply at risk
California can’t waver on water regulation
Samantha Arthur, working lands program director at Audubon California, and Ngodoo Atume, a water policy analyst at Clean Water Action, both serving on the Groundwater Leadership Forum, write, “Over the past decade, California has gone from being the state with the least groundwater regulation to adopting a law that serves as an international model. How the state implements its landmark groundwater law during California’s worst drought on record could inform global climate change adaptation practices for generations. The Golden State has one shot over the course of the next 20 years to bring its depleted aquifers into balance and achieve sustainability. Californians are counting on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to get the state there. Carrying out the act, however, isn’t easy. While many honest actors at the state and local level want the new regulation to succeed, the law calls for undoing a century of unsustainable groundwater pumping. The forces that helped create the problem still stand in the way of reforming it. … ” Read more from Cal Matters here: California can’t waver on water regulation
RELATED: Groundwater sustainability assessments: A review of DWR’s determinations on groundwater sustainability plans in critically overdrafted basins, report from the Groundwater Leadership Forum
Another view on AB 2201 (groundwater well requirements)
Louise Lampara, Executive Director of the Ventura County Coalition of Labor Agriculture and Business, writes, “Assemblymember Steve Bennett’s proposed bill, AB2201, would create a new permanent permitting process for groundwater wells that negatively impacts local water districts, municipalities, and California’s agricultural community. Even with recent amendments to the bill language, AB2201 would force a strict new mandate on how groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) must operate. The bill dictates how GSAs must manage their own groundwater basins and removes the ability of locally based experts at the GSAs to decide for themselves what management options best address local conditions. Instead, the bill would require local GSAs to make specific findings and determinations for new and modified groundwater wells before these wells may be allowed. ... ” Read more from Water Wrights here: Another view on AB 2201
The mystifying absence of hypothesis testing in the Delta science endeavor
“Just about every one of us was introduced to the scientific method in a middle-school science class. We were told that science happens when hypotheses about how things work are evaluated using observations and data. Facts we were told emerge when hypotheses stand up or don’t stand up to that test. And that we learned is how science is done. Of course, for the very most of us that straightforward explanation had no ready adolescent application, and the lesson like so many others was lost in the white noise of stuff that mattered at the time. Now, even for the teenagers who were later to become scientists, that early in-one-ear-and-out-the-other exposure to the scientific method was a last-time experience. Incredibly, a college education in many scientific disciplines is no longer grounded in the scientific method — the central concept underpinning the advancement humanity’s collective knowledge. … ” Read more from the Center for California Water Resources Policy and Management here: The mystifying absence of hypothesis testing in the Delta science endeavor
The Colorado River is in crisis. There are no painless solutions.
The Washington Post editorial board writes, “After 22 straight years of drought, the Colorado River is no stranger to crisis. But even by its standards, the outlook this summer is bleak. The nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are nearly three-quarters empty. Satellite images show the river’s topography has changed dramatically since 2017, and scenes on the ground are no less shocking: stranded houseboats, dead plants and cracked lake beds. None of this should be a surprise. Scientists have warned for years that drought, fueled by climate change, and consistent overuse of the waterway would result in dangerous lows. It is clear drastic cuts in water use are needed — soon. … ” Read more from the Washington Post here: The Colorado River is in crisis. There are no painless solutions.
150 years of water mismanagement: How we created our own crisis – and what we can do about it
The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) writes, “Shortly after California was admitted to the Union in 1850, residents turned their thinking to water. California’s landscapes were beautiful and fertile – but much of the land was semi-arid or arid. Water was seasonally abundant in some areas. Several large rivers drained the state, shunting massive volumes of water from melting snowpack and rainfall in the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range, Klamath/Trinity mountains, and coastal ranges to the sea. And in some years, California was slammed by the weather phenomena now known as “atmospheric rivers”. So much rain and snow would fall that vast portions of the state were inundated, including the Central Valley. … ” Read more from C-WIN here: 150 years of water mismanagement: How we created our own crisis – and what we can do about it
How to turn desalination waste from burden to profit
Tristan Justice, the western correspondent for The Federalist, writes, “California has two desalination plants coming up for a vote by the state Coastal Commission this fall which will decide the projects’ fate as the West Coast suffers its worst drought in 1,200 years. In May, the commission unanimously rejected a $1.4 billion-dollar plant that would have offered 50 million gallons of precious potable water daily to a region which, by nature’s standards, should not even exist as the metropolis it is today. State regulators raised concerns over risks to marine ecosystems and “environmental justice” as reasons to vote down the massive water project in their report. Environmental hazards, however, could be diminished by proper mitigation strategies including some that could turn plant waste products into lucrative commodities. … ” Read more from The Federalist here: How to turn desalination waste from burden to profit
Indigenous communities may hold the key to wildfire prevention, but government policies leave them choking on smoke instead
Riya Anne Polcastro, an author, photographer and adventurer based out of the Pacific Northwest, writes, “Take a hike through the forests of the Pacific Northwest and it soon becomes apparent how centuries of mismanagement and poor wildfire prevention created a landscape littered with tinderboxes begging to ignite. Fire-starved land stretches for acres on end. Meadows are choked out by brush and encroaching pine trees. Replanted clear-cuts stand in dead row after dead row — a testament to both the ignorance and arrogance inherent in centuries of shoddy forest management. As a result, Indigenous communities are grappling with inordinately higher than average concentrations of smoke-filled air as wildfire seasons across the U.S. and Canada become more extreme. While low-income communities of color tend to bear the brunt of air pollution in urban centers, wildfire smoke collects at higher concentrations in rural areas where it disproportionately affects Native and First Nations people. … ” Read more from the Triple Pundit here: Indigenous communities may hold the key to wildfire prevention, but government policies leave them choking on smoke instead
In regional water news this week …
Federal agency recommends removal of four lower Klamath River Dams
“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a final Environmental Impact Statement on Friday recommending the removal of the four lower Klamath River Dams along the border of Oregon and California. The dam removal project will be the largest such project in U.S. history second to the 2012 removal of the Elwha Dam on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. “Restoring the impounded reaches to a free-flowing river would have significant beneficial effect on restoring salmon runs, access to traditional foods, Tribal cultural practices, and a characteristic fluvial landscape,” read the environmental impact statement. … ” Read more from the Courthouse News Service here: Federal agency recommends removal of four lower Klamath River Dams
Ranchers, tribes, state officials clash over Shasta River water
“The land that Jim Scala and his family have been ranching for three generations is parched and brown as far as he can see. The pond where his cattle used to drink is now a puddle, ringed with cracked mud. With bills mounting from trucking in water and buying hay to replace dead pasture, and facing the prospect of selling half his herd, Scala and others made a decision to defy the state’s order. “We said, ‘To hell with it,’” Scala said. “We’re starting the pumps.” In a single day in mid-August, the Shasta River’s flows dropped by more than half and stayed there for a week, which could jeopardize the salmon and other fish that spawn there. Klamath river tribes were outraged, and California water regulators sounded the alarm. The State Water Resources Control Board ordered the Shasta River Water Association, which serves roughly 110 farms and ranches in central Siskiyou County, to stop pumping. … The weeklong standoff crystallized a warning from California water watchers: The state has limited power to speedily intervene in urgent conflicts over water, which are expected to flare across the state as drought squeezes water supplies for ranches, farms, tribes, cities and fish. … ” Read more from Cal Matters here: Ranchers, tribes, state officials clash over Shasta River water
RELATED: The State Water Board takes enforcement action against Shasta River Water Association for illegal diversions, press release from the State Water Resources Control Board
‘Devastation’: South Shasta County residents deal with drought conditions not seen in 100 years
“Bill Robison has a “lifesaver” who drives a 1973 Ford truck. A couple times a week, Ed Roberts rolls up to Robison’s house with a 500-gallon tank of water in the bed of his pickup. The truck bounces out into Robison’s orchard along Balls Ferry Road in Anderson, where the two fill barrels with water. At this time of year Robison usually floods his pecan and walnut orchards with irrigation water from the Anderson-Cotttonwood Irrigation District. But for the first time in its 106-year history, the district this year did not supply water to residents in southern Shasta and northern Tehama counties. … ” Continue reading at the Redding Record Searchlight here: ‘Devastation’: South Shasta County residents deal with drought conditions not seen in 100 years
American River Basin Study finds that increasing temperatures and changing precipitation will impact basin through rest of 21st century
“The American River Basin in central California expects to see increasing temperatures and a declining snowpack through the end of the 21st century. The Bureau of Reclamation released the American River Basin Study today, which also found an increased variability of fall and winter precipitation that will amplify the severity of droughts and flooding in the basin. The report is available on Reclamation’s Basin Study website. “Water management in the basin is expected to be more challenging in the future due to climate pressures that include warming temperatures, shrinking snowpack, shorter and more intense wet seasons and rising sea levels,” said California-Great Basin Regional Director Ernest Conant. “We are excited for the partnerships and collaboration within the basin and look forward to working with them on the identified adaptation portfolios to address the vulnerabilities and maintain a balance between supply and demand in the basin.” … ” Read more from the Bureau of Reclamation here: American River Basin Study finds that increasing temperatures and changing precipitation will impact basin through rest of 21st century
SEE ALSO: Study Details Climate Change Impacts and Strategies for Addressing Future Water Demands, Flood Risks, and Environmental Impacts, from the Regional Water Authority
Less snow and less water. Federal study paints bleak picture of American River’s future
“Hotter weather, less snow and more water shortages. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation offered a bleak vision of the future of the American River watershed Wednesday, releasing an extensive report on how the basin that’s so vital to the Sacramento region’s water supplies will be affected by climate change in the coming decades. The bureau, which operates Folsom Lake, said the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Sacramento could eventually see shortfalls of as much as 78,000 acre-feet per year unless stronger conservation and water-storage projects are undertaken. Closer to Sacramento, the area’s water agencies will likely have to increase groundwater pumping by as much as 155,000 acre-feet per year, “which would affect groundwater sustainability.” … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee here: Less snow and less water. Federal study paints bleak picture of American River’s future
Residents forced to sell homes as part of earthquake upgrade at largest reservoir in Santa Clara County
“Last year, while they were sitting in their home in a picturesque wooded area along the shores of Anderson Reservoir between Morgan Hill and San Jose, Trevor Holler and his father, Martin Holler, noticed a bad smell. It lasted for days. Then they realized it was coming from under the house. They found a broken sewer pipe. As they kept digging, they were stunned to see that the 3-bedroom lakefront house the family had owned since the mid-1980s had slid about a foot off its foundation. Now, in what may be collateral damage from a $1.2 billion project to rebuild Anderson Dam to bring it up to modern earthquake standards, the Hollers and six of their neighbors along Hoot Owl Way are being forced to sell their homes to the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which owns the dam and the reservoir, the county’s largest. The district’s engineers say the earth will continue to slowly slide, the problems can’t be fixed, and the homes must be torn down. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News here: Residents forced to sell homes as part of earthquake upgrade at largest reservoir in Santa Clara County
Opposition grows to Santa Clara Valley Water District’s plans for a dam
“A lawsuit filed against Santa Clara Valley Water District now has two more plaintiffs. The groups say they’re against the proposed Pacheco Dam because they believe it will destroy the environment and sacred land. The Stop the Pacheco Dam Coalition filed the lawsuit back in June, claiming Valley Water is trying to avoid following state guidelines before building the dam. Now the Sierra Club and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band say they agree with the coalition and are joining the lawsuit. … ” Read more from KTVU here: Opposition grows to Santa Clara Valley Water District’s plans for a dam
‘It’s in Mother Nature’s hands’: Oakland fish carcass cleanup continues amid signs algae may be dissipating
“Crews this week were working to remove thousands of dead fish, clams and other animals from Lake Merritt ahead of a punishing heat wave that threatened to exacerbate the smell from the decaying carcasses. About 1,200 pounds of dead fish were hauled away from the shores of the popular Oakland waterway Wednesday after the mass die-off over the last week. The work, which is continuing, was prompted by one of San Francisco Bay’s largest toxic algae blooms in recent memory. The heat that began Thursday — expected to topple high-temperature records by early next week — could re-energize the outbreak of algae believed responsible for the die-off. Still, experts expressed cautious optimism that the outbreak may be receding. “I’d like to think the worst is behind us, but we don’t know,” said Eileen White, executive officer of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. “It’s in Mother Nature’s hands at this point, and we’re in uncharted territory.” … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury Times here: ‘It’s in Mother Nature’s hands’: Oakland fish carcass cleanup continues amid signs algae may be dissipating
SEE ALSO: Thousands of dead fish in San Francisco Bay Area blamed on toxic red tide, from the LA Times
Tuolumne river trust questions worst-case drought scenario plan
“Peter Drekmeier, Tuolumne River Trust policy director, urged the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) last week to reconsider the parameters of its Design Drought plan, which serves as a worst-case drought scenario for the commission’s policy decisions. Drekmeier, who presented at the commission’s Aug. 23 meeting, argued that the SFPUC’s use of a hypothetical 8.5-year drought unnecessarily withholds water releases into the Tuolumne River – from which the Tri-Valley sources the majority of its water – and consequently damages the ecosystems there. “The problem is we’ve altered the ecosystem from what favors the native fish and wildlife to non-natives,” said Drekmeier in an interview with The Independent. “And the slow-moving, warm, stagnant water creates toxic algae blooms in the delta – cyanobacteria that produces neurotoxins – which can kill pets and wildlife and can make people very sick.” … ” Continue reading at the Livermore Independent here: Tuolumne river trust questions worst-case drought scenario plan
Friant Water Authority fighting to keep canal flowing
“It isn’t obvious to the naked eye, but the San Joaquin Valley is sinking, and it’s slowly destroying key parts of the agricultural infrastructure as it goes. … The ground in some areas of the South Valley – centered in the middle of the former Tulare Lake Basin near Corcoran – is falling at a rate of up to a foot a year. In the stretch between Pixley and the Kern County line, the subsidence is so bad the Friant-Kern Canal has sunk to the point it now carries just a fraction of its original capacity. “The canal is just going down into a hole,” Chris Hickernell, general superintendent for the Friant Water Authority, said during a recent interview with KPIX CBS SF Bay Area. “But it’s the whole region around here that’s kind of settling in, and a lot of people don’t look at it that way because the grapes aren’t any lower and the pistachios aren’t any lower.” … ” Read more from the Valley Voice here: Friant Water Authority fighting to keep canal flowing
Fallout from Kings County water war continues as state mulls groundwater plan
“There’s no word, yet, of state intervention in the ongoing water war between two of Kings County’s largest growers – John Vidovich and the J.G. Boswell Company – but there has been fallout. Kimberly Brown, a board member of the Southwest Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency, resigned August 10 in protest of last-minute language added to the region’s groundwater plan. That language, it’s widely believed, could prompt negative action from the state Department of Water Resources affecting the entire subbasin. Brown’s response is significant as she not only represented the Dudley Ridge Water District on the groundwater agency, she is also a vice president of the large and powerful Wonderful Orchards farming company. … ” Read more from SJV Water here: Fallout from Kings County water war continues as state mulls groundwater plan
LOIS HENRY: Lawsuits attempt to extract Boswell pumping numbers
“The J.G. Boswell Company pumps, on average, 100,000 acre-feet of groundwater a year from beneath its lands covering the old Tulare Lake Bed, according to a Boswell employee. The information was elicited in a wide-ranging deposition of Boswell water department manager Mark Unruh as part of an ongoing lawsuit over a pipeline being built by rival farming entity Sandridge Partners, controlled by John Vidovich. … ” Read more from the Bakersfield Californian here: LOIS HENRY: Lawsuits attempt to extract Boswell pumping numbers
Bakersfield: State wildlife agency’s policy is limiting official action on Truxtun Lake turtles, city says
“If you’ve had your heart set on rescuing some of Truxtun Lake’s struggling turtles – forget it. That opportunity has appeared to have come and gone. Truxtun Lake – a manmade lake just off the now-dry Kern River riverbed – is basically gone, and outwardly devoid of significant wildlife, a victim of the ongoing California drought. The city of Bakersfield has basically elected to let the Truxtun Lake turtles die, citing a state Department of Fish and Wildlife regulation that says non-native invasive species like these turtles – the Red-Eared Slider, most likely descended from domestic reptiles purchased in stores and then turned loose at the lake – cannot be removed unless the removing party is prepared to keep them in captivity for the remainder of their lifespan. … ” Read more from KGET here: State wildlife agency’s policy is limiting official action on Truxtun Lake turtles, city says
Officials announce 15-day watering ban for large areas of Los Angeles County
“Officials are urging large areas of Los Angeles County to heed a temporary outdoor watering ban that will begin next week and affect more than 4 million people, as crews make repairs to a leaking major pipeline. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California outlined the 15-day ban at a Tuesday news conference. The watering restrictions begin Sept. 6 and run through Sept. 20, allowing workers to repair the 36-mile Upper Feeder pipeline that supplies water from the Colorado River, one of the two main sources of water for most of Southern California. “Today, we are asking the community to join us in ensuring our region manages our liquid gold — our water — responsibly, and to stop outdoor watering from Sept. 6 through Sept. 20,” Dawn Roth Lindell, general manager of Burbank Water and Power, said. … ” Read more from the LA Times here: Officials announce 15-day watering ban for large areas of Los Angeles County
SEE ALSO: MWD customers in SoCal asked to stop outdoor watering for 2 weeks during pipeline repair, from ABC 7
Plan to bury contaminated sediment in Newport Harbor goes to Coastal Commission
“Newport Beach has spent four years and roughly $2 million on a plan to dig a hole the size of six football fields at the bottom of its harbor, a hole that U.S. Army Corps crews can use to bury contaminated sediment dredged up from nearby channels. City officials insist the plan, which is expected to take three more years and cost the city at least another $10 million to complete, is the most practical and environmentally friendly way to clear the harbor’s channels and get sediment — which contains elevated levels of chemicals such as mercury and DDT — out of open waters. But the proposal faces growing opposition from environmental organizations and a group of residents led by tech mogul Palmer Luckey. That group, which has spent more than $100,000 of their own money investigating the project and exploring alternatives, argues that the push to dredge in this fashion is being rushed. And opponents are worried about the project’s long-term effects on water quality and protected wildlife. … ” Read more from the OC Register here: Plan to bury contaminated sediment in Newport Harbor goes to Coastal Commission
Big Bear Lake not dry, but megadrought means challenges, big ideas
“Look up, and lucky visitors to Big Bear Lake’s north shore this summer might be able to spot the mountain community’s famous trio of bald eagles. But in recent weeks, visitors have looked down and seen some less natural things along the lake’s rapidly expanding shoreline. There was a decaying torso from a mannequin that popped up overnight. There were shotgun shells, dock weights that looked to be decades old, and pull tabs from soda cans that have been banned since 1980. The vintage debris is not as shocking as the dead bodies that have emerged from a shrinking Lake Mead. But the sightings are a sign of just how low Big Bear Lake has become during this record-setting megadrought. With its complete dependence on precipitation, Big Bear Lake has long been what area writer and historian Mark Landis terms “a bellwether of drought conditions in Southern California.” … ” Read more from the Whittier Daily News here: Big Bear Lake not dry, but megadrought means challenges, big ideas
Cadiz offers free water to Salton Sea and Torres Martinez tribe, but opponents are skeptical
“A controversial water project in the Mojave Desert — known for decades as the Cadiz water pipeline — is back in the spotlight with a promise that it will provide water to disadvantaged communities near the shrinking Salton Sea in addition to its long-held ambitions of selling desert water to urban Southern California. the latest iteration — Cadiz Water Project — notably rebrands the effort as one focused on conservation that would benefit communities in need of clean water or water infrastructure. A recent agreement between Cadiz, the Salton Sea Authority, and Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians would provide free water — 5,000 acre-feet per year — to the tribe and troubled sea. … ” Read more from the Desert Sun here: Cadiz offers free water to Salton Sea and Torres Martinez tribe, but opponents are skeptical
San Diego’s imported water supply may not be as secure as hoped
“San Diego water managers exude an understated confidence when they talk about the regional drought that is drying up California and the Colorado River Basin. “Despite the fact that we’ve developed the supplies and have the water available, it’s never okay to waste and we’re always moving toward becoming more efficient with that water that we do have,” said Jeff Stephenson of the San Diego County Water Authority in a July interview with KPBS. Earlier this year the SDCWA touted the fact they even if the current drought persisted, they would have a sustainable supply of water for years. … ” Read more from KPBS here: San Diego’s imported water supply may not be as secure as hoped
San Diego County showing way forward in beating back water shortages
“More than 30 years ago, if you were to visit San Diego County, you would be struck by the lush green lawns, beautiful gardens, and many folks washing their cars. The county alongside the Pacific Coast appeared to be flush with water. But in all actuality, a major water catastrophe was already in the works. From 1987-1992, California was hit with a megadrought, and San Diego, which was at the end of the fresh water pipeline, was in deep trouble. … Fast forward, and today, San Diego is riding a huge wave of success. The key: those who lived here decided to reduce the risk of another painful drought from ever happening again. They decided to spend the money, update the infrastructure, and create a diverse water portfolio. ... ” Continue reading from CBS News here: San Diego County showing way forward in beating back water shortages
Announcements, notices, and funding opportunities …
ESTUARY PEARLS: Beavers, climate impacts, harmful algal blooms, juvenile salmon, phytoplankton production, and more …
NOTICE: August 30 Weekly Update on Curtailment Status of Water Rights and Claims in the Delta Watershed
NOTICE of acceptance of Sites Project Authority water right application
NOTICE of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding the Delta Levees Investment Strategy
YOU’RE INVITED: 30×30 Partnership Kick-Off
