A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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In a region where many farm businesses plant, harvest and
process countless fresh vegetables nearly 365 days a year, it’s
no surprise that Monterey County, Calif., landed as one of Farm
Futures’ Best Places to Farm. … “It’s one of five or six
true Mediterranean climates in the world, so we can produce
fresh leafy greens, veg and berries almost year-round,” says
Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm
Bureau. Growers here are highly specialized. Dole Food
Co., for example, has a team of people dedicated solely to
harvest; an average lettuce harvest crew has 35 people who can
harvest 2 acres a day. Growers must understand tricky state and
federal regulations, labor negotiations, and water
restrictions. Yet, they’re motivated by strong market prices
driven by dynamic domestic and global demand that fluctuates
quickly.
Two years ago, the Great Salt Lake became an omen for the risks
of climate change: The water level dropped to a record low,
threatening the ecosystem, economy and even the air quality of
the area around Salt Lake City, home to a majority of Utah’s
population. Now, after two unusually wet winters and a series
of conservation measures, the lake has gained about six feet.
Despite that increase the lake is still below the minimum
levels considered healthy. And environmentalists and
policymakers are concerned that the increase might reduce the
pressure to save the lake. “I worry about complacency,” said
Bonnie Baxter, director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at
Westminster University. “We need to really be cautious about
being optimistic.” Increased water levels in the lake are
primarily the result of higher-than-normal snowfall, according
to Hayden Mahan, a meteorologist with the National Weather
Service in Salt Lake City.
Spring is in full swing, with warm weather providing prime
conditions for enjoying the outdoors in California. But it also
brings safety concerns. Warm temperatures and an
above-average snowpack can combine to produce deadly
incidents on the state’s rivers and streams. Recent flows are
fueled by meltwater from California’s snowpack, which was just
above average on April 1. While flood risk is generally lower
than with last year’s 2023’s behemoth snowpack, there are still
safety concerns this year. “The peak snowmelt season is April,
May, June,” said Andy Reising, manager of the snow surveys and
water supply forecasting unit of the California Department of
Water Resources. … Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke
closed access to the Merced and San Joaquin rivers Monday,
following recent deadly incidents.
The city of San Juan Bautista is set to receive upwards of
$12.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to improve wastewater infrastructure, announced
U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. The city will receive a
combination of grants and low-cost federal loans from a
specific program that supports clean drinking water systems and
proper disposal, the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grants
program. San Juan Bautista will receive a loan of nearly
$10.3 million and a grant of just over $2.2 million.
A nasty storm is brewing over the meteorological heart of Los
Angeles. A decision by government forecasters to relocate
downtown L.A.’s official weather observation station from USC
to Dodger Stadium is generating extreme heat and wind gusts
from some local climate experts. They insist the move will cast
fog on local efforts to document the effects of climate change.
“It contaminates the record,” said Jan Null, a veteran
California meteorologist who runs the Golden Gate Weather
Service. “It changes the ballgame.” The station — a curious
array of poles, metal boxes and shiny cylinders that weather
wonks know affectionately as “KCQT” — is slated to move from
USC to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s training center on the
south side of the stadium in Elysian Park on Monday. The last
time the key monitoring station moved was 25 years ago.
In today’s globalized world, ensuring that Americans can depend
on local food production is more critical than ever. The
California Farm Water Coalition, dedicated to raising awareness
about the connection between farm water and our food supply,
has released three educational fact sheets shedding light on
the water needed to produce the food Californians consume
daily, and the risk we face from unsustainable foreign food
production. California’s population of 39 million requires
a staggering 11.3 trillion gallons of water annually to grow
enough food and fiber to meet its needs, as described in the
fact sheet, “Where Does Farm Water Go?”. However, current water
supplies fall short, leaving a gap of 38 percent between the
water used to grow our food and the demand on food production
by the state’s population.
Hundreds of new mining claims have been staked within the
community of Amargosa Valley, Nevada, on thousands of acres
directly adjacent to Death Valley National Park. These new
mining claims, documented here for the first time, are staked
above groundwater aquifers that feed the springs at Furnace
Creek in Death Valley National Park and provide drinking water
to the Timbisha Shoshone Reservation. Furnace Creek hosts the
park’s visitor center, hotels and other tourist amenities.
… The new claims were filed by Canadian-based Rover
Critical Minerals and follow a year of controversy over claims
filed near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge just a few
miles away. The company’s proposed mining project in that area
sparked a lawsuit that led to the withdrawal of
project approval and prompted efforts to secure a mineral
withdrawal within the Amargosa Valley area.
San Diego’s identity is inextricably tied to its coastline, a
widely cherished wonder that is in a constant state of change.
Depending on one’s perspective, the region’s seashore has been
enhanced or diminished by human endeavors for generations, all
the while being shaped by natural forces. Those elements
currently are coming together in a big way, changing — or
potentially changing — the San Diego coast. Numerous
projects touch on issues involving coastal protection and
access, climate change and sea-level rise, and public safety
and transportation. Most have touched off familiar conflicts of
varying intensity. Some of the projects are completed or
will be soon, while others are years away or still on the
bubble. Taken collectively, the changes could be
transformational. -Written by Michael Smolens, columnist for the San
Diego Union-Tribune.
California’s weather was made for demagogues. For as long as
records have been kept, the state has typically experienced a
series of dry years followed by a series of wet years. The
weather lines up conveniently with election cycles. A few years
of drought will prompt an excitable politician to declare that
projections clearly show the end of the world is upon us unless
California takes immediate action. Depending on the
circumstances, that action can be the election of that
politician to office, or re-election to office, or an
oppressive law that takes effect after the perpetrators are out
of office, or voter approval of borrowed money for an
overpriced project that might be a state-of-the-art boondoggle.
In 2018, as Gov. Jerry Brown prepared to head into the sunset
of his colorful political career, he signed two new laws that
imposed permanent drought-emergency restrictions on the people
of California. -Written by Susan Shelley, columnist with the LA Daily
News.
In August 2022, amidst a severe drought, the State Water Board
ordered ranchers and farmers in Siskiyou County to cease
irrigation. Initially facing fines starting at $500 per
day, escalating to $10,000 after 20 days or a hearing, they
chose to continue irrigating due to economic pressures.
This decision led to a significant reduction in the
Shasta River’s flow, endangering local salmon populations. The
incident underscored the State Water Board’s limited
enforcement capabilities and the minor penalties for water
rights violations compared to water quality infringements.
As a result, there is now proposed legislation aimed at
empowering the State Water Board to enforce water rights more
effectively and impose deterrent fines for violations.
Navigating California’s complex water rights landscape has
always been contentious.
California regulators have decided to ban fishing for chinook
salmon on the state’s rivers for a second year in a row, in
effort to help the species recover from major population
declines. The unanimous vote by the California Fish and Game
Commission on Wednesday follows a similar decision last month
to prohibit salmon fishing along the California coast this
year. The decision will shut down the recreational salmon
fishing season along the Sacramento, American, Feather,
Mokulumne, Klamath and Trinity rivers, among others. State
officials have said salmon are struggling because
of factors such as reduced river flows during the
severe drought from 2020-2022, the effects of climate
change, harmful algae blooms, and shifts in the species’
ocean diet. Fishing advocates blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom and
his administration, arguing that the state has been sending too
much water to farms and cities, and depriving rivers of the
cold flows salmon need to survive.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s May Revision of the state budget plan
released on May 10, aims to address a “sizable deficit” of
roughly $56 billion into 2026. The multi-billion-dollar deficit
is in stark contrast to the $97.5 billion budget surplus that
Newsom projected in the 2022-23 state budget. Several budget
cuts, amounting to over $30 billion were announced, including a
$500 million cut to water storage projects. These discretionary
spending cuts delay certain funding sources for water-storage
projects such as the planned Sites Reservoir north of
Sacramento. While funding awarded under Proposition 1 — a
voter-approved 2014 ballot initiative to support various water
projects — will not be affected by the budget crisis, the
California Farm Bureau explained in a press release that $500
million in discretionary funding to support the project would
be cut.
Colorado lawmakers gave the thumbs-up to 10 water measures this
year that will bring millions of dollars in new funding to help
protect streams, bring oversight to construction activities in
wetlands and rivers, make commercial rainwater harvesting
easier and support efforts to restore the clarity of Grand
Lake. Money for water conservation, planning and projects was a
big winner, with some $50 million approved, including $20
million to purchase the Shoshone water rights on the Colorado
River. Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, chair of the Senate
Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, expressed
gratitude for the legislature’s focus on water issues and for
funding the Shoshone purchase.
When Noah Williams was about a year old, his parents took him
on a fateful drive through the endless desert sagebrush of the
Owens Valley—which the Nüümü call Payahuunadü—in California’s
Eastern Sierra. Noah was strapped into his car seat behind his
mother, Teri Red Owl, and his father, Harry Williams, a Nüümü
tribal elder who loved a teachable moment. “Hey look—that’s our
water!” he liked to tell Noah whenever they drove past the
riffling cascades of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. … In a
state shaped by water grabs, drought emergencies, and “pray for
rain” billboards, Payahuunadü is the locus of
California’s most infamous water war—the fight
between Payahuunadü residents and the city of Los
Angeles, over 200 miles away. … Around 1904, Los Angeles city
officials came up with a plan to take the valley’s water for
themselves.
Fourteen months ago, a catastrophic flood upended thousands of
lives in Pájaro, a small Central California farmworker town
filled with immigrants who speak mostly Spanish or Indigenous
languages. A relentless series of atmospheric rivers
transformed the inviting Pájaro River into a malevolent foe
that charged through a crumbling levee and engulfed the coastal
community in floodwaters. Regional and state officials
knew a levee break was inevitable—it had failed at least four
times before—but didn’t prioritize desperately needed repairs
for a town populated by low-income farmworkers. … A
group of Pájaro residents explored the impacts of climate
change on their town through a very personal lens as part of
the Pájaro PhotoVoice Project, organized by the nonprofit
climate justice organization Regeneración. The photos will be
on display at Somos Watsonville, a nonprofit community
center, until June 7.
Seeking to squeeze more value out of wastewater, the Palo Alto
City Council approved on May 13 the construction of a
$63-million salt-removing plant in the Baylands. Known as the
Local Advanced Water Purification System, the plant will go up
at the periphery of the Regional Water Quality Control Plant,
the industrial facility at 2501 Embarcadero Way that serves
Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford
University and the East Palo Alto Sanitary District. It will
consist of three structures: a 30-foot-tall storage tank, an
open-air building and a prefabricated building. They would go
up at the northwest side of the regional plant, next to
Embarcadero Road. Unlike other advanced purification systems,
the new Palo Alto plant will not make wastewater safe for
drinking.
Gardening and landscaping allow us to beautify our properties
and give us something fun to do on weekends, but it can also
help improve the watershed ecosystem we live in. Russian
River-Friendly Landscaping, a set of guidelines developed by
the Russian River Watershed Association (RRWA), is a systematic
approach to designing, constructing, and maintaining landscapes
based on basic principles of natural systems. When we
incorporate these guidelines into our landscaping, there are
multiple benefits: we protect and conserve our local waterways
by reducing plant debris and pesticide use, decreasing runoff
by allowing more water to infiltrate into the soil, and more.
The last of four Klamath River dams undergoing deconstruction
began earlier this week. Located in Klamath County, J.C. Boyle
Dam is the northernmost of the four planned for removal by the
Klamath River Renewal Corporation. KRRC CEO Mark Bransom said
the corporation received approval from the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission to begin removal starting Monday, May 13.
“As of Monday morning, the contractor was working on the
earthen embankment section of the dam,” Bransom said. J.C.
Boyle Dam is part embankment and part concrete, consisting of
earth-fill, concrete gravity, intake and spillway sections.
As of Tuesday morning, there was no news from Sacramento County
Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto on a dispute over the
city’s approval of the proposed Sage Ranch subdivision. The
issue is whether the city of Tehachapi violated state law when
it approved a 995-unit residential project on 138 acres near
Tehachapi High School in September 2021. The long-awaited
hearing on the first through third causes of action of the
case, Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District vs. City of
Tehachapi, took about three hours on May 3, with Acquisto
questioning attorneys about case law and water.
With wildfires raging in western Canada and heat and drought
leading to heightened fire risks in Mexico, the U.S. faces a
fast start to the smoke season but a slower one when it comes
to fires. Why it matters: After last year’s relatively inactive
U.S. wildfire season, forecasters expect this fire season to be
overall more active but likely not as extreme as the
destructive years of 2020 or 2021. The 2024 U.S. wildfire
season is set to pick up over the coming weeks as
hotter-than-average summer temperatures set in, according to
the National Interagency Fire Center’s (NIFC) forecast.
… Threat level: With computer models signaling the
likelihood of an unusually hot and dry summer across the West,
even states like California, which was inundated with heavy
rain and snow last winter, may see a significant
uptick in its wildfire activity toward the latter portion of
the summer into the fall, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain
told Axios.
