A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
Note to readers: Sign up for weekly email service and you will receive notification of this post on Friday mornings. Readers on daily email service can add weekly email service by updating their subscription preferences. Click here to sign up!
This week’s featured article …
California’s unnatural river flows threaten aquatic life—here’s a (partial) fix
By Robin Meadows
As a New York Times columnist once quipped, “California’s water system might have been invented by a Soviet bureaucrat on an LSD trip.” The system was engineered in the 1900s to capture winter rain and spring snowmelt in vast reservoirs and then send this water to cities and farms via thousands of miles of canals, pipelines and tunnels.
While this system suits many people, it doesn’t suit fish, frogs and other river life. Many California waterways are regulated by reservoirs that release water for supply, flood control, and hydropower, resulting in river flows that are far from natural. Now there’s a movement to reinstate the seasonal flows that native species depend on.
Click here to read this article.
In California water news this week …
California Democrats move forward bill to chip away historic water rights
“The California Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife today passed a bill out of committee that would empower the State Water Board to chip away at historic water rights and significantly reduce rural water allocations. Under SB 389, sponsored by Ben Allen (D-Redondo Beach), the California State Water Resources Control Board and its five appointed members would be able to review historic riparian and appropriative water rights to determine whether or not they are appropriate. … ” Read more from the Center Square via Maven’s Notebook.
A racist past and hotter future are testing Western water like never before
“As droughts strain water supplies across Western states, some cities and farmers have struggled with mandatory cutbacks. Determining who gets cut is decided by the foundational pecking order of Western water: the older your claim to water, created as the country expanded westward, the better protected it is. When there’s a shortage, those with newer water rights have to cut back first, sometimes giving up their water completely before older claims lose a single drop. It’s known as “first in time, first in right.” But “first” is a relative term. “First in time, first in right is kind of laughable, because the ones that were here first were the indigenous people,” says Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the Winnemem Wintu tribe in Northern California. … ” Read moire from NPR.
SEE ALSO: Some say the century-old water rights system in the West is unfair and racist, from NPR
Lake Tahoe has an alarmingly high concentration of microplastics, study finds
“A new scientific research paper published Wednesday morning found that alarming levels of microplastics are lingering in the surface waters of Lake Tahoe. In a comparative study of 38 freshwater lakes and reservoirs worldwide, Tahoe had the third-highest concentration of microplastics, according to the paper, which was co-authored by a researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno, and published in the journal Nature. With 5.4 plastic particles per cubic meter, Tahoe is cited as one of three lakes where microplastic concentrations are higher than those found in the notorious ocean gyres of floating garbage. The other two are Lake Maggiore and Lake Lugano, adjacent water bodies spanning the border between Switzerland and Italy. … ” Read more from the SF Chronicle.
SEE ALSO: Lake Tahoe has high concentration of microplastics, global research shows, from the Tahoe Daily Tribune
Millerton Lake reaches full capacity, prompting controlled over the top spill-over
“Millerton Lake has officially reached full capacity. On Wednesday, water was seen spilling over the top of Friant Dam. Michael Jackson, Area Manager for the Bureau of Reclamation says the spillover is about 50 to 100 cubic feet per second (cfs). This is in addition to the 3,500 cfs coming out through the lower gates and into the San Joaquin River. … ” Read more from KMPH.
Climate change is increasing stress on thousands of aging dams across the US
“Heavy rainfall in the Northeast on June 9-11, 2023, generated widespread flooding, particularly in New York’s Hudson Valley and in Vermont. One major concern was the Wrightsville Dam, built in 1935 on the Winooski River north of Vermont’s capital city, Montpelier. The reservoir behind the dam rose to within 1 foot of the dam’s maximum storage capacity, prompting warnings that water could overtop the dam and worsen already-dangerous conditions downstream, or damage the dam. Hiba Baroud, associate professor and associate chair in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University, explains how flooding stresses dams in a changing climate. … ” Read more from The Conversation via Maven’s Notebook.
Next phase of recycled water begins for California
“Achieving a major milestone in the state’s efforts to maximize the potential of recycled water, the State Water Resources Control Board announced today proposed regulations that would allow for water systems to add wastewater that has been treated to levels meeting or exceeding all drinking water standards to their potable supplies. The process, known as direct potable reuse, will enable systems to generate a climate-resilient water source while reducing the amount of wastewater they release to rivers and the ocean. This development advances Gov. Newsom’s all-of-the-above Water Supply Strategy, which includes the goal of recycling and reusing at least 800,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2030. … ” Continue reading this press release from the State Water Board.
Diving into Water Law: Q&A with California’s “Water Renaissance Man” Justice Ronald Robie
“He’s been called a “water renaissance man.” Justice Ronald Robie has dived into the issue from every corner of California government—as a Legislative consultant writing key water policy, as director of the state Department of Water Resources, and now as an appellate court justice ruling on key water issues facing the state. Justice Robie, who serves on the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento, answered our questions on the future of water law, climate change, and the role of the Judicial Council as more water litigation flows to California courts. Q: This year, Californians experienced historic levels of rain after long stretches of drought over the past two decades. Should that change how we think about water scarcity? A: Historically, California has ups and down with water. That’s why we rely on dams, because we don’t have a reliable source of water every year. When I was director of water resources in 1977, we had the driest year on record at that time. And that was followed by a couple of wet years. So, you can’t predict it, and that’s the problem. … ” Read more from California Courts.
C-WIN: Why is the Bureau of Reclamation Driving Salmon to Extinction?
“An analysis sponsored by the California Water Impact Network confirms the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BoR) – the federal agency that controls flows from Shasta Dam down the Sacramento River – is violating its own policies to maximize water deliveries to corporate farms at the expense of California’s once mighty salmon runs. The study by estuarine fisheries ecologist and biostatistician Tom Cannon shows that BoR consistently ignores its own plan and state and federal law requiring the release of salmon-sustaining cold water from Shasta Reservoir. The practice continues today, even though 2023 was one of California’s wettest years on record, with plenty of water available for the fish. While the agency has justified these actions during droughts as a needed water conservation measure, it has refused to increase fishery flows even during years of abundant precipitation and maximum reservoir storage. … ” Read more from C-WIN.
Judge: Federal Shasta River “Safe Harbor” coho salmon program violates Endangered Species Act
“Late yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled against a federal “Safe Harbor” program on California’s Shasta River that allowed a dam owner and water diverters to harm threatened coho salmon in exchange for scant “stewardship” practices on private lands. The court halted the program, invalidating the underlying biological opinion and environmental assessment. Now, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must prepare a new biological opinion and a more thorough environmental impact statement that do not violate the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, respectively. … ” Continue reading this press release.
Strawberry fields forever? Strawberry production leaves long-term plastic pollution, research finds
“Researchers have found that the plastic mulch used to support the growth of Californian strawberries sheds large quantities of plastic mulch fragments. These particles have been shown to negatively impact soil qualities, casting doubt on the long-term viability of their use. The findings from the survey are likely to apply world-wide to plastic use in agricultural production. Presenting their work at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Lyon, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Ekta Tiwari (from Sistla group at California Polytechnic State University) said “What we are seeing a huge quantity of macroplastic plastic material—particles bigger than 5mm across—being shed where the mulch is used to enhance strawberry production. These can remain in the soil for decades or longer.” … ” Continue reading at PhysOrg.
Drones, satellites and AI: How California fights its unpredictable wildfires with analytics
“Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jon Heggie wasn’t expecting much to worry about when a late summer fire erupted north of Santa Cruz, home to California’s moist and cool “asbestos forests.” This place doesn’t burn, he thought, with just three notable fires there in 70 years. Heggie’s job was to predict for the crews where the wildfire might go and when, working through calculations based on topography, weather and fuels — the “immutable” basics. For fire behavior analysts like Heggie, predictable and familiar are manageable, while weird and unexpected are synonyms for danger. But that 2020 fire was anything but predictable. … ” Continue reading from Cal Matters via Maven’s Notebook.
Floods, fires and deadly heat are the alarm bells of a planet on the brink
“The world is hotter than it’s been in thousands of years, and it’s as if every alarm bell on Earth were ringing. The warnings are echoing through the drenched mountains of Vermont, where two months of rain just fell in only two days. India and Japan were deluged by extreme flooding. They’re shrilling from the scorching streets of Texas, Florida, Spain and China, with a severe heat wave also building in Phoenix and the Southwest in coming days. They’re burbling up from the oceans, where temperatures have surged to levels considered “beyond extreme.” And they’re showing up in unprecedented, still-burning wildfires in Canada that have sent plumes of dangerous smoke into the United States. Scientists say there is no question that this cacophony was caused by climate change — or that it will continue to intensify as the planet warms. … ” Read more from the Washington Post.
In commentary this week …
Delta tunnel will address California’s water challenges
David Bini, executive director of the Santa Clara & San Benito Counties Building & Construction Trades Council, and Derrick Seaver, president and CEO of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce, write, “California is running out of time to adapt to the very real impacts of climate change already plaguing our state — extreme dry periods, reduced Sierra snowpack and short, intense periods of warmer and wetter rains. We must act now to upgrade our water infrastructure to capture and move water when we have it so that it’s available when we do not. Failure to improve our water infrastructure is the equivalent of denying climate change. That’s why it is frustrating to see the same tired arguments against the Delta Conveyance Project, one of the most important water infrastructure projects we can build as a state to secure our water supply for millions of Californians well into the future. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News (gift article).
California lawmakers must reject trio of bills which would upend water rights
Justin Caporusso, executive director of the Mountain Counties Water Resources Association, writes, “If California as we know it is to continue to exist, we will need sustainable water sources. However, a trio of bills moving through the Legislature is the wrong approach. Senate Bill 389, introduced by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, Assembly Bill 1337, introduced by Asm. Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Assembly Bill 460, introduced by Asm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-San Ramon, would upend the water rights system that, while imperfect, has worked in California for more than a century. These bills would strip away due process for water-rights holders and take an aggressive approach to enforcement that is akin to nailing a painting to the wall with a jackhammer. … ” Read more from the OC Register (gift article).
Clear California goals needed to develop future water supply
Jim Wunderman, the president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, writes, “Over the past decade, California has withered and swelled under huge swings in annual rain and snowfall. We’ve endured two of the most severe droughts in recorded state history, two of the wettest years on record, and even one of those rare occurrences — the average water year. The trend, however, is clear. California is getting warmer, and the drought intervals between our wet years are getting longer. State officials estimate climate change could reduce water supplies by about 10% by 2040, resulting in an approximate 8 million acre-feet per year loss. Meanwhile, the Colorado River basin is in steady decline, and scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories estimate warming temperatures will eliminate the Sierra snowpack most years beginning in the 2040s. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News.
Atmospheric rivers are here to stay. California must invest in flood protection
State Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and State Sen. Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) write, “The past two years have dramatically shown the climate whiplash that California must prepare for. Two years of punishing drought have been followed by a dozen atmospheric rivers blanketing the Sierra Nevada with snow and overtopping our rivers. Homes in Planada, Pajaro, the Tulare Lake Basin and elsewhere have been inundated. Along the San Joaquin River and Cosumnes River, some parts of our districts have also been underwater, and the risk of flooding will extend well into the spring as our record snowpack melts. We’ve seen more than a billion dollars in flood damage this winter. Yet scientists tell us that floods in the future could be dramatically larger and more deadly. We need major federal, state and local investments to protect our people and economy from those floods. That’s why we’ve introduced Senate Bill 638, a $6 billion bond to fund flood and dam safety investments around the state. … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
How a rural California county is working to avoid catastrophic flooding this summer
Gary Bradford, a Yuba County supervisor and board delegate of the Rural County Representatives of California, writes, “This year, California experienced over a dozen atmospheric rivers, severely impacting rural and urban communities throughout the state and contributing to the deaths of at least 22 Californians across 13 counties. As the resulting historic snowpack (237% of California’s average) melts rapidly through the summer, the state has few places for additional runoff to go, potentially leading to disastrous flooding through the summer months. California’s unique geography and weather patterns require our flood control experts to think differently about how we manage our water resources during wet periods to ensure communities, businesses and natural ecosystems can thrive. Flood control infrastructure, including dams, reservoirs, levees and wetlands, play a vital role in this protection, directing the flow of water throughout different times of the year. … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
Making the pie bigger
Scott Hamilton writes, “The following article first appeared in Valley Voice in August 2021. As many prepare to attend the Kaweah Subbasin SGMA event on Thursday, July 13th at the International Ag Expo in Tulare it would be good to keep in mind there are more people working on solutions than one always realizes. The Sustainable Groundwater Act (SGMA) has had some unfortunate side effects. It has pitted neighbor against neighbor and water district against water district to fight for the last uncaptured remnants of water in the Valley. These fights are frequently contentious and emotional. And nothing less than future of some farms is at stake. But there is an alternative. Rather than fighting over pieces of the existing water pie, the pie can be made bigger. But this is California, and politics, particularly water politics, can present challenges of monumental proportions. … ” Continue reading at Water Wrights.
Ending Mono Lake diversions to Los Angeles would help the environment but hurt the climate
Jim Newton, veteran journalist, best-selling author and teacher, writes, “California’s effort to secure water supplies is a struggle older than the state itself. It played out during the Gold Rush, and it defines modern San Francisco and Los Angeles. It has created divisions between north and south as well as east and west. It consumes endless political energy and mountains of literal energy, spent by moving water from the Sacramento Bay Delta to San Jose and Southern California, from the Colorado River to the Los Angeles basin, from the Sierra Nevada to the Bay Area. In all of that, Mono Lake is a small data point, barely a dot on the state’s vast water map. So why is Mono Lake suddenly attracting attention in water circles? … ” Continue reading this commentary.
Climate change is making our water/energy conundrum much more complicated
Philippe Benoit, research director for Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050, and Anne-Sophie Corbeau, global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, writes, “The Colorado River Basin has recently been wracked by an extended drought, which brought to the fore major concerns regarding hydroelectricity production. The iconic Hoover Dam sits on the Colorado, which transforms water into enough electricity to power 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California. Although an agreement was reached by the three dependent Western states to cut water use, it served as a reminder of how energy production is dependent on water — a dependency that is being subjected to greater uncertainties because of climate change. This phenomenon is not only impacting citizens dependent on the Colorado River but stretches across the United States and the world. … ” Read more from The Hill.
Editorial: It’s time for California’s public officials to return to work. In person.
The LA Times editorial board writes, “Temporarily allowing state officials to participate in meetings from home or from secret locations by phone, Zoom or other electronic means made perfect sense in 2020, to permit government to function without spreading disease. But California’s COVID-19 state of emergency ended in February. The public health justification for lawmakers and state commissioners to do their public business out of public view has ended. Yet lawmakers are trying to hang on to pandemic-era emergency rules that suspended open meeting laws. Last year, for example, they extended the state open meetings exception through July 1. That extension expired just over a week ago, so now the Legislature is mulling SB 544, which would make the former emergency rules permanent. … ” Read more from the LA Times. | Read via Yahoo News.
In regional water news this week …
The nation’s largest dam removal project begins in California, but new concerns arise
“A few miles south of the California-Oregon border, up a remote canyon on the Klamath River, the hum of heavy machinery marks the start of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. Hundreds of workers and scores of trucks and wrecking vehicles last month began dismantling a nearly century-old concrete dam, the first of four hydroelectric dams slated for demolition in an ambitious bid to restore one of the great rivers of the West. The 33-foot-high dam known as Copco 2 in Siskiyou County, about a six-hour drive from San Francisco, is the smallest of the four structures being taken out. But it represents a monumental step for environmentalists, Native Americans and commercial fishermen who have been pushing for decades for the once improbable rewilding of the 250-mile river. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle (gift article).
Removing dams from the Klamath River is a step toward justice for Native Americans in Northern California
“Historically, the Klamath was the third-largest Pacific salmon-producing river on the West Coast. The river supported abundant and diverse runs of native fish, including Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead trout, Pacific lamprey, green sturgeon, eulachon smelt and coastal cutthroat trout. Most of the Klamath in California has been designated since 1981 as “wild and scenic” – the strongest level of protection for free-flowing rivers. People and fish of the Klamath River have been interconnected for millennia. But dams and irrigation systems built before the 1960s – along with other pressures, such as logging, mining and overharvesting – have separated fish from their spawning habitats and Indigenous cultures from sacred fish. Recognizing this harm, state, federal and tribal agencies now are removing four of the Klamath’s six dams to let fish migrate farther upstream to historical habitats. The target completion date is 2024. This US$450 million project is the largest dam removal in the world. … ” Continue reading from The Conversation via Maven’s Notebook.
Leaking ACID canal getting old for waterlogged residents; health concerns arise
“Picture residential streets where cars round the corner and splash mucky water connected to small, algae-filled ponds that fester on the roadway’s edge. Look around and wonder why a port-a-potty sits just outside someone’s front door. Another street over, wooden pallets provide a dry walkway over standing water so the residents don’t get their shoes wet and muddy when they walk to and from their car. What’s going on in this quiet neighborhood just outside the Anderson city limits that borders on the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District (ACID) Canal?For several months now, residents and ACID officials have been dealing with water – too much of it – that’s seeped from cracks in the mostly earthen canal and filled nearby yards to overflowing. … ” Read more from A News Cafe.
San Francisco’s aging infrastructure isn’t ready for its wetter future
“San Francisco’s future looks a whole lot wetter, thanks in part to human-caused climate change. That’s according to a new city-funded study that predicts that San Francisco will be hit by increasingly intense storms in the coming decades, and needs to dramatically update its stormwater infrastructure to try to handle the deluge. “We’re gonna see more areas that flood that have never flooded before,” said Kris May, founder of the Pathways Climate Institute, a San Francisco-based consulting firm, who helped lead the study. “I don’t think we have nomenclature anymore for what is coming with climate change.” The report, which was released weeks after KQED filed a public records request about it, predicts that storms in San Francisco, and throughout the Bay Area, could become 37% wetter by the end of this century. … ” Read more from KQED.
Can we prevent another algaepocalypse in San Francisco Bay?
“Starting in July 2022, a dark, reddish-brown tinge crept across San Francisco Bay, leaving dead fish in its wake. Carcasses piled up, first on the shores of Alameda and Lake Merritt, then South Bay, then all the way to Point Pinole. In a matter of weeks, more than 800 sturgeon and countless other fish perished from a lack of oxygen and, possibly, algal toxins. Last summer’s “algaepocalypse” was the Bay’s worst harmful algae bloom ever recorded. Since then, officials from wildlife, water, and health agencies have been scrambling to piece together what happened—and how future algae blooms might be prevented. Ten months later, they are just starting to get answers. … ” Read more from Bay Nature.
New groundwater fee aims to create “equity” among South San Joaquin Valley farmers but some say it will unfairly devalue their farms
“Farmers in the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District who rely on groundwater will be paying a new fee intended to create “financial equity” with farmers who contract for surface water. The new “groundwater service charge” was approved Wednesday by the Wheeler Ridge board of directors. While this particular issue only affects farmers at the far southern edge of the San Joaquin Valley, similar dilemmas are playing out in various forms all over the valley as surface water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta becomes more scarce in most years and new restrictions are being placed on groundwater as well. Farmers now find themselves in the ring with one another. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
Ventura: Nearly 100,000 property owners sued, must defend water rights
“All property owners whose land overlies two groundwater basins in the Oxnard, Ventura and Camarillo areas have been notified of a legal action that could have “a significant adverse effect on any right to pump or store groundwater that you may have.” The two basins are the “Santa Clara River Valley – Oxnard Groundwater Basin and the Pleasant Valley Groundwater Basin,” as described in thenotice sent to property owners. Property owners have until Aug. 30 to respond to the legal proceeding, called an adjudication, in order to defend their existing water rights. A case management conference is set for Sept. 29 and participating property owners must submit information about their groundwater use by Feb. 29, 2024. … ” Read more from the Ojai Valley News.
Column: Move by two small water districts could have impact across Southern California
Columnist Michael Smolens writes, “The Fallbrook and Rainbow water districts got the green light to, in effect, move north. That will impact ratepayers in San Diego County, and it could alter the balance of power in water decisions far beyond. Like so many contentious developments when it comes to water, this one might not be over for a while. Since 2019, the Rainbow Municipal Water District and Fallbrook Public Utility District have been working to join Riverside County’s Eastern Metropolitan Water District, which promises cheaper water. The two agricultural districts in North County have been chafing at the increasing costs of water from the San Diego County Water Authority. On Monday, they received approval to pull out of the SDCWA from the Local Agency Formation Commission, a government agency that oversees such jurisdictional matters. … ” Continue reading from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
San Diego County Water Authority to negotiate with Fallbrook, Rainbow over ‘divorce’
“The San Diego County Water Authority board held a special meeting Thursday to determine whether to file a lawsuit to keep the water districts in Fallbrook and Rainbow from leaving to join a district in Riverside County. In the end, the board voted to enter into settlement negotiations with the Fallbrook Public Utility District (PUD) and Rainbow Municipal Water District (MWD). “We’re going to try to meet with Fallbrook and Rainbow to better understand some of the challenges they have presented through this process,” said Nick Serrano, vice chair of the Water Authority. … ” Read more from KPBS.
Announcements, notices, and funding opportunities …
NOTICE: Protest deadline for Sites Reservoir water rights application extended to August 31
ANNOUNCEMENT: UPWARD Advisory Group – Applications due July 28
DELTA COUNCIL: Certification of Consistency filed for the Ulatis Creek Habitat Restoration Project
NOTICE OF OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT/CONSIDERATION OF ADOPTION: 2023 Proposed Renewal of General Waste Discharge Requirements for Cannabis Cultivation Activities
DWR: What to Do if Your Well Has Gone Dry – New ‘Be Well Prepared’ Flyer Available in Multiple Languages
NOTICE: Public Comment Period Opens for Groundwater Sustainability Plans for basins in Ventura and Santa Barbara County
NOTICE of Water Right Permit Application in Glenn County
