On the calendar today …
- WEBINAR: California-Nevada Drought & Climate Outlook from 11am to 12pm. The California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System September 2023 Drought & Climate Outlook Webinar is part of a series of regular drought and climate outlook webinars designed to provide stakeholders and other interested parties in the region with timely information on current drought status and impacts, as well as a preview of current and developing climatic events (i.e., El Niño and La Niña). Click here to register.
In California water news today …
Rain and snow will impact California this week. Here’s when
“An active weather pattern is expected to return to California this week, with rain along the coast and snow in the Sierra Nevada, Klamath Range and South Cascades. The week will start dry, with freezing temperatures around Wine Country and the Sacramento, Salinas and San Joaquin valleys on Monday and Tuesday mornings. Minor coastal flooding is also expected due to a combination of high tides and large swells. Clouds are expected to increase along the coast Tuesday, a sign of change coming midweek. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle (gift article).
How a brewing Super El Niño could impact California
“The latest update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows eastern tropical Pacific Ocean water is at a strong El Niño status. The peak of these conditions is likely to hit December through February of next year. The impacts from the warming water is already unfolding in places like Australia with drier than normal conditions and wildfires. How this global weather pattern will impact California is yet to be seen, especially with the wettest time of year about to hit. Jan Null, an adjunct professor at San Jose University, says the headlines can be deceiving since many people might think El Niño is a storm. He says even though this warming equatorial water is 3000 miles away, it can influence storms, but is not the storm itself. … ” Read more from Channel 10.
California’s amazing terminal lakes
“When Californians talk of lakes, they usually mean reservoirs, the 1500 or so artificial bodies of water behind dams. Alternately, they may be referring to the 4,000 or so natural lakes in the Sierra Nevada or to one of the few large natural lakes in the state, such as Lake Tahoe or Clear Lake. But some of the most interesting lakes in the state draw our attention mainly when demand for water threatens to dry them up. These are terminal lakes, that mostly depend on seasonal rain or snow melt to maintain them as lakes. They are called terminal lakes because water flows into the basins through streams, but leaves mostly by evaporation or sinking into underground aquifers. Each lake has its own unique chemistry and other characteristics, although most are highly productive so are important to migratory waterfowl and invertebrates. They may or may not support endemic fish populations. This blog is a brief introduction to the largest of these fascinating lakes in California. All are in need of management to protect their distinctive features and biota. … ” Continue reading at the California Water Blog.
New proposed California anti-ag measure could have national implications
“A proposed northern California anti-ag measure could have an effect nationwide. The measure in Sonoma County would eliminate animal agriculture in that county. “It would outlaw all animal agriculture in the county. That would affect dairies that would affect poultry operations,” said Director of Political Affairs with the California Farm Bureau, Steven Fenaroli, who explained those are two of the biggest animal ag industries in the county. The measure titled “Prohibition on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations” is backed by an animal rights extremist group, which has already collected more than 18,000 signatures toward putting the measure on the ballot. … ” Read more from Ag Net West.
Climate change, drought, wildfires reduce value of private forestland in the West by billions
“Investing in private timberland in the West has become increasingly risky, according to a new study from Oregon State University researchers, with values declining by billions of dollars in the last two decades. The economic value of private timberland in California, Oregon and Washington has declined by about $11 billion since 2004, or around 10%, due to the threat of drought and wildfires, according to a new study from researchers at Oregon State University. “The bulk of the damage is from altered risk expectations in land markets – not direct damage to the existing tree stock on the stand,” Yuhan Wang, a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State and the study’s lead author, said in a news release. “That is a key and somewhat surprising finding.” Wang and David Lewis, a natural resource economist at Oregon State, published their findings Nov. 7 in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. … ” Read more from the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
In regional water news and commentary today …
NORTH COAST
How removing 4 dams will return salmon to the Klamath River and the river to the people
“The fog that helps define Northern California’s famed “Lost Coast,” a green and lush world biosphere reserve, took on a sepia hue on this August morning. Smoke from the Smith River Complex Fire, burning along the Oregon border, mixed with the damp air and added a woody tang to the back of the throat as visitors arrived in the small town of Klamath, home to the Yurok Tribe. The unmistakable odor of exhaust from gas-powered generators mingled with the wildfire smoke. Businesses and homes were struggling to keep the lights on and food fresh in the wake of a countywide power outage. The local utility, anxious to avoid sparking more fires or supercharging existing fires, had switched off the electricity two days before. But power or not, the town crackled with activity. Vendors offered handcrafted abalone jewelry, local honey, wood crafts, T-shirts and hand-blown glass. They assembled tables and shade tents along Klamath Boulevard, the small town’s main drag. Parade floats and two marching bands were ready, and tribal leaders filled bags with candy to hand out to the crowd expected for the 59th Annual Yurok Salmon Festival. Amid the bustle, one essential element of the festival was missing: the salmon. … ” Continue reading at the Arizona Republic. Note: This story is the first of a five-part series. Look for links to the other stories in the series at the top of the article.
Fish rearing facilities offer life support for endangered suckers
“It takes a village to raise suckers, and the Klamath Tribes are growing hundreds of the bottom-dwelling fish in constructed ponds near Chiloquin, Oregon. On a bright October morning, a crew has gathered to return a small number of them to the Sprague River, a tributary of Upper Klamath Lake. Two technicians take turns transferring netfuls of fish from kiddie pool-sized holding tanks to a waiting truck. Fisheries Technician Charlie Wright sits perched next to the tank, verifying that each fish has been fitted with a passive integrated transponder, or PIT tag, which allows biologists to track where they go and how well they survive. “We’re scanning them as we’re loading them to make sure everybody’s has a tag because we can’t release anybody without a tag,” says Wright. … ” Read more from Jefferson Public Radio.
Lake Pillsbury- a future vision
“Mistakenly named in 1850 for eel-like lamprey, Eel River begins a 196 air-mile journey from Lake County. Approximately 84,000 acre feet of water flows down Bald Mountain to Lake Pillsbury forming a headwaters lake. The upper-watershed lake formed a bond with the land as it flooded a gravel filled shallow valley containing few summer pools. The pools formed by beavers disappeared by trapping many years before that. A historically wet valley once supported young fish survival and growth before their journey to the ocean. Downstream, pressure on anadromous fish is extreme as increased demand draws down the river’s shallow water table during the summer and warmer surface water supports predator fish. Adding to the problem, Van Horn Dam diverts water through a tunnel to the Russian River system producing electric power for the PG&E Potter Valley Project enterprise. This splitting of flow decreased water available to downstream habitats. … ” Read more from the Lake County Record-Bee.
MOUNTAIN COUNTIES
The significant environmental impact of Tahoe’s scarce wetlands
“Research shows that one acre of healthy Sierra Nevada wetlands can capture as much carbon from the air as one acre of a tropical rainforest. In South Lake Tahoe, these species rich wetlands sit between neighborhoods, lay like patchwork divided by roads, and with the help of the California Tahoe Conservancy and partners, are slowly reclaiming their territory. This reclamation comes as the CTC’s climate change projections predict the basin’s average temperatures will increase by four to nine degrees Fahrenheit in less than 80 years, making summer in Tahoe feel as hot as summer in San Jose does today. These wetlands already made up a small percentage of the landscape before human impacts, but after, meadows diminished by 50% and the wetter marshes by 75%, according to the CTC’s Watershed Program Supervisor Stuart Roll. … ” Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Taylor Creek interruptions likely impacted kokanee salmon reproduction, but fish expert warns alternative could have been worse
“On Nov. 3, 2023, the U.S. Forestry Service temporarily interrupted the water flow to Taylor Creek from the Fallen Leaf Lake dam for three days. This raised concern from community members regarding the spawning kokanee salmon and the future of their eggs. University of Nevada, Reno Professor Sudeep Chandra says the flow into the lake also attracts kokanee to the stream for spawning and that while this interruption could impact reproduction, another concern is ensuring warm water invasive fish species don’t move across the ecosystem, becoming fully established in Taylor Creek and Fallen Leaf Lake. … ” Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Debate on Tahoe forest health best practices continue on cusp of timber mill opening
“Over the last century, scientists, environmentalists, the U.S. Forest Service, the government, ecologists, firefighters, and Indigenous people have all had different opinions about best logging and forest management practices. Whether that’s to help mitigate fire risk, create construction materials, or simply leaving trees alone to help fight climate change and provide important resources such as oxygen, shade, and wildlife habitat, living in the Tahoe forest in today’s world is a complex issue with a lot of perspectives involved. However, while the idea of a thick, natural forest is all good and well, there is a tradeoff to living in a heavily forested area. Experts say that particularly to the Tahoe Basin landscape, harsh logging practices of the Comstock era have left a forest that is too damaged, dense, and susceptible to more destructive wildfires. So, the question is, do tree thinning practices and doing controlled burns help mitigate wildfire risk? The US Forest Service, Tahoe Forests Matter, and Tahoe Forest Products weigh in … ” Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
SACRAMENTO VALLEY
District looks to prevent another ACID canal calamity
“The last time A News Cafe wrote about the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District, dozens of residents were fed up with canal water seeping underground and creating a soggy springtime mess that lasted into the summer. Cracks in the canal soaked nearby lawns and sent fields overflowing. Homes that were all of a sudden surrounded by water became unlivable, forcing residents to evacuate. Algae-tainted pools of standing water persisted for weeks along residential streets, raising concerns from a nearby school. Residents dug shallow ditches and brought in pumps in desperate attempts to divert the water elsewhere. Toilets quit flushing when septic tanks backed up. The mosquito population skyrocketed. Many nervous homeowners wondered if the property damage would be long-lasting. Now, with the irrigation season over and the canal taken offline for the winter, ACID is moving forward with emergency plans it hopes will reduce future calamities. … ” Read more from A News Cafe.
BAY AREA
Muir Woods miracle: If you’re lucky, you may catch a glimpse
“One of the small natural miracles in this part of the world is just an autumn rainstorm away. The first good rainstorm is the beginning of the salmon spawning season in Redwood Creek, a tiny stream that runs through Muir Woods National Monument. It is a natural pageant that has been going on in coastal streams for thousands of years when the seasons make their turn from autumn to winter. The salmon, first coho then steelhead, return from the Pacific Ocean to the stream where they were born to spawn and then die. The eggs they leave behind produce another generation of fish, and the cycle repeats. Though Redwood Creek is nothing like the mighty salmon rivers — the Columbia, the Klamath, the Eel — it is important in its own way. … ” Continue reading at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Salmon have returned to the East Bay’s water source in record numbers. What does it mean?
“The Mokelumne River, a 95-mile waterway that supplies a majority of drinking water to the East Bay, earned its name because of the abundance of salmon in its waters. Local legend has it that, many years ago, the rivers were so packed with salmon you could walk from shore to shore along their backs. Today, after 100 years of industrialization, the Mokelumne (pronounced muh-kaa-luh-mee), which flows from the Sierra Nevada to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is a much different river. Salmon now exist there primarily because of human intervention — hatcheries raise many of the salmon that return to its waters. To draw salmon upstream, water must be released from dams periodically to mimic natural weather patterns. Some hatchery fish are even driven to the San Francisco Bay in trucks in an effort to aid their passage to the ocean and increase the odds that they will one day return. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News.
Rare high tide floods coastal roads along S.F. Bay, with more to come
“A rare combination of high tides and an ocean swell from a storm in the Pacific swamped roads along the San Francisco Bay shoreline on Sunday morning, the National Weather Service said. “This isn’t any major flooding concern. There is some inundation in parking lots along the bay line,” said meteorologist Roger Gass. A coastal flood advisory had been posted to expire at noon Sunday, but flooding was minimal, Gass said. A second flood advisory will go into effect at 8 a.m. Monday and last through 1 p.m. People are encouraged to avoid low-lying areas along the bay shoreline throughout the Bay Area during the advisory period. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
CENTRAL COAST
Levee agreement marks a watershed moment for the people of Watsonville and Pajaro
“Ari Parker’s mother, who passed away earlier this year at 100 years old, often asked her daughter the same question Pajaro and Watsonville residents have asked since the 1950s: Is the levee replaced? Parker, a Watsonville City Council member, represents the northeast corner of the city near where the Salsipuedes and Corralitos creeks split. … “She would ask, ‘Is it fixed? Is it fixed?’ I mean, for so many years that’s what everybody who lives here has asked,” Parker told Lookout. “The people want this done tomorrow, and I don’t blame them.”Parker made the comments as she was leaving an event at Watsonville City Hall on Tuesday that signified that the answer to her mother’s question will soon, finally, be yes. … ” Read more from Lookout Santa Cruz.
Editorial: New agreement on Pajaro River levee project a study in cooperation among electeds
The Santa Cruz Sentinel editorial board writes, “In this, the fall of many people’s discontent, it’s become an accepted truth that the wheels of government move slowly, if at all, on things that really matter or to help the disadvantaged. But not always, as evidenced by the agreement announced last week to move up construction of a new levee system on the Pajaro River. The agreement was signed Tuesday by local, state and federal elected officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer to start construction next summer on a levee that will provide 100-year flood protection. While this agreement doesn’t, obviously, protect against a flood this rainy season, it moved up by a full year the start of a project that will take years to complete and that has taken decades to put into motion after another major river-related catastrophe in 1995. … ” Read more from the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Why do baby carrots drink so much water?
Stephen Gliessman, Professor Emeritus at UC Santa Cruz, writes, “Recent stories in the New York Times’ groundwater investigation series have highlighted growing concern for the global loss of groundwater, which has finally begun to raise awareness of the need for critical changes in how we are using our groundwater. This need is particularly evident in the Cuyama Valley of northeastern Santa Barbara County in California, where my family’s small vineyard and olive grove is located. My partner in our farm, Robbie Jaffe, and I have been very involved in trying to speak for the Cuyama Valley community, defending the science of groundwater depletion and our personal experience as farmers and community-members. I am a professional agroecologist trained in ecosystem processes with experience in sustainable agriculture. Robbie is an environmental educator and community organizer with long experience in food justice issues. Recently, Robbie and I joined with allies to launch an effort to take this message directly to consumers, who have an important role to play. … ” Read more from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY
Commentary: Kern River flowing year-round through Bakersfield will be spectacular
Joe Krovoza, former chair of the Putah Creek Council and the former mayor of Davis, writes, “”Congratulations to Bakersfield for boldly moving forward with new flows for the Kern River. This piece adds perspective from up north in our Great Central Valley. Winters and Davis in the 1990s were where Bakersfield has been in recent decades. Putah Creek’s channel courses through Winters and Davis. (Putah, by the way, is really a river with about half the typical flow of the Kern!) With no guaranteed flows for lower Putah Creek since construction of Monticello Dam and the filling of Lake Berryessa in the 1960s, our waterway’s habitat was dwindling and public access was shabby. Deep into a 1980s drought, our creek’s alarm went off. Children at Davis’ summer camp saw fish flapping in the mud. Parents were appalled, the city of Davis was embarrassed and those who value nature were dismayed. Dirt bikes could roam 20 miles of dried channel. … ” Continue reading at the Bakersfield Californian.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Pomona wins $30 million in lawsuit over perchlorate contamination in drinking water
“A federal judge has awarded Pomona $30 million to close the book on the city’s protracted legal battle over contaminated drinking water, officials announced. For years, the city has fought to hold SQM North America, a global mining company, accountable for importing fertilizer that contained perchlorate, a known contaminant the city says leeched into its drinking water wells. “The city is pleased to see this long-running litigation come to a favorable resolution,” Anita Gutierrez, Pomona assistant city manager, said in an email. “The significant judgment will ensure that Pomona water customers will continue to have access to clean and safe water, without having to bear extensive remediation costs of addressing perchlorate within our water system.” … ” Read more from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
Rethinking Irvine’s proposed bottled water ban
“The proposed ban on bottled water in Irvine has sparked a meaningful conversation about the delicate balance between environmental responsibility and community well-being in pursuit of a more sustainable future. While the city of Irvine’s efforts to reduce single-use plastics are admirable, it is essential that our elected leaders recognize the many roles bottled water plays in our community and the potential repercussions of a sweeping, city-wide ban. The proposed ban assumes that clean tap water is a given for all of Irvine’s residents, and that is simply not the case. For some residents, bottled water is a necessary solution in the face of recent findings indicating above-average levels of contaminants in the city’s tap water. A ban would limit access to safe, clean bottled water that allows Irvine residents to meet their hydration needs without jeopardizing their health. … ” Read more from the OC Register.
Major sand projects gear up to replenish OC’s eroded coast
“Orange County beaches are about to get a big influx of much-needed sand to create a buffer from the battering sea. Major sand replenishment projects are prepping to get underway in coming days and weeks, with boats bringing in pipes near the San Clemente Pier this week, trucks gearing up along Newport Beach’s coastline and equipment being prepped for work at the Surfside-Sunset beaches on the north end of the county’s coast. The sand projects have been years in the making – for San Clemente more than two decades – with severe erosion becoming rapidly apparent in recent years along stretches of beach throughout the county’s coastline. The shrinking beaches have alarmed residents, visitors and officials, who worry about not just the loss of recreation space, but for the sand buffer needed to keep infrastructure, roads and homes safe from the sea. … ” Read more from the OC Register.
IMPERIAL/COACHELLA VALLEYS
Wetlands are appearing around the Salton Sea. Could this be a natural solution?
“About 3 miles east of Bombay Beach, and a half-mile back from the Salton Sea’s receding shoreline, the crunchy exposed playa gives way from a mostly empty white landscape to more and more native vegetation, and then suddenly a few shallow ponds appear, surrounded by dense vegetation. The Bombay Beach wetlands are an unexpected side effect of the shrinking sea, and Audubon California is eyeing this phenomenon as at least a partial solution to the complex issues at the Salton Sea. … ” Read more from the Desert Sun.
SAN DIEGO
SoCal’s water wars threatened to tear San Diego apart
“Two of the San Diego County Water Authority’s smallest customers — avocado and citrus farming communities in North County tired of paying ever-rising water rates to urbanize San Diego — were prepared to leave quietly in search of cheaper water elsewhere. These water divorce proceedings began back in 2020. But at the 11th hour, the Water Authority started pulling out all the stops to keep them in line, and all hell broke loose. The Water Authority leaned on powerful friends at the State Capitol and former enemies in Los Angeles, where the biggest water supplier in the world lives: the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. … ” Read more from the Voice of San Diego.
Santa Fe Irrigation water rate increase to take effect in January
“On Nov. 16, the Santa Fe Irrigation District Board of Directors approved an approximate 5% rate increase effective January 1, 2024. According to a news release, the increase does not reflect any increase in costs from Santa Fe Irrigation District; it is the full pass-through of costs from the San Diego County Water Authority, the region’s wholesale water provider. “Approving a rate increase is always a difficult decision by the board of directors. However, the expertise and ingenuity of our staff helped to control internal costs, and as a result, we are only passing on the costs of our wholesale water provider,” said Dana Friehuaf, board vice president in the news release. … ” Read more from the Del Mar Times.
Swimming hazard warning issued as high tides hit San Diego County beaches
“A swimming hazard warning has been issued at San Diego County beaches from early Sunday until Monday morning, forecasters said Saturday. The warning will be in effect from 5 a.m. Sunday until 10 a.m. Monday, with potential high tides of over 6 feet accompanied by minor tidal overflow due to elevated surf of 3 to 5 feet on west-facing beaches, according to the National Weather Service. The NWS urged the public to avoid water contact until the warning is lifted. Minor flooding of low-lying beach parking lots and boardwalks was also expected. … ” Read more from Channel 7.
Is a lack of testing, access to care masking the severity of sewage-linked illnesses in South County?
“Doctors Kimberly and Matthew Dickson, the married couple who own and run South Bay Urgent Care near Imperial Beach, have identified an unsettling pattern affecting the health of those living near South County beaches. After rainstorms or malfunctions with wastewater treatment equipment, the amount of sewage-linked bacteria in the water increases. Days later, they observe that the number of people they treat for gastrointestinal symptoms also jumps. “You can see, clearly, the correlation,” said Matthew Dickson. “The scary thing is these people hadn’t eaten something unusual, hadn’t traveled to other countries, or gone swimming in the ocean.” … ” Read more from the San Diego Union Tribune.
Along the Colorado River …
Colorado River deal opens cash spigot for big farms
“A widely hailed deal to conserve water from the shrinking Colorado River is turning into a windfall for some of the most powerful farmers and tribes in the West. A POLITICO investigation has found that many of the deals to save water under the three-year $1.2 billion pact struck by Arizona, California and Nevada in May are driving up the value of existing agreements to save or transfer water by nearly 50 percent. The Colorado River supplies water to 40 million people and vast swaths of the country’s most productive farmland — a task that’s becoming increasingly difficult as climate change shrivels its flow. But the investigation, based on more than a dozen interviews and analyses of federal, state and local documents, reveals that the gusher of federal money is likely to make a broader, long-term deal to save the West’s most important river more expensive. … ” Read more from Politico.
Want to test a theory on how to fix the Colorado River’s drought issues? There’s a model for that.
“Everyone from policymakers to armchair warriors has a theory on the best way to solve the Colorado River crisis. Soon they’ll have a chance to test out their ideas. The Colorado River’s flow is dropping — it’s about 18% lower in the 21st century than it was in the 20th century — and that’s a big deal to the 40 million people who depend on it for water across the West. But solving the crisis gets complicated, quickly. That’s where a team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, think they can help. They’ve developed a new way of looking at water-saving efforts across the enormous basin, and they’re turning it into an interactive map and dashboard that everyone can use. … ” Read more from the Colorado Sun.
Fourth graders in Eagle County take on Colorado River water policy
“Most of the fourth grade students at Eagle County Charter Academy have one thing to say to the people who decide how the Colorado River is managed: The policies that govern the river should change — and they have the evidence to prove it. “It’s shared throughout the basin, throughout the seven states,” said Hunter Kapala, 10, who saw population growth as a big issue in the river basin. “I was like in my brain, ‘There’s like so many people in those states, and it’s just going to keep on growing. Because people have babies like every two days or three days.’” The students spent weeks this fall studying the Colorado River — learning about how it supports 40 million people but its water supply has been shrinking — before staking out their policy positions in argumentative essays. If the students get their way, their essays will end up in the hands of the people who make the river policies. … ” Read more from the Colorado Sun.
New climate report shows impact of drying on Southwest
“The arid West is getting drier, and shrinking water supplies pose a risks throughout the region. Those findings come from a new federal report on climate change that also covers a broad range of hazards brought on by changing climate patterns due to human activity, from flooding to wildfires to drought to rising sea levels. The Fifth National Climate Assessment identified drying in the Colorado River basin as one of the greatest climate risks facing the Southwest, as well as the region’s biggest area for future climate mitigation and adaptation. The problem hinges on one key fact: The Southwest is getting drier, and it’s likely not a temporary phenomenon. Climate change is shrinking the amount of water on the surface and underground, replacing the normal ebb and flow of occasional drought with a permanent resetting of the baseline for how much water the region should expect to see each year, a process scientists call “aridification.” … ” Read more from the Arizona Daily Star.
SEE ALSO: National report tracks huge costs of climate change in Southwest, from the Nevada Current
Feds announce new funding for Nevada’s threatened springs
“Nevada’s springs are especially vulnerable to drought and climate change, but the fragile habitats are getting a helping hand thanks to the largest investment in climate resilience in the nation’s history. Last week, federal land managers announced $51 million in investments for 30 new environmental water resource projects in 11 states, including one in Nevada. The collaborative projects will focus on water conservation, water management and restoration efforts that will benefit the ecosystem or watershed health. In Nevada, the Southern Nevada Water Authority was granted more than $740,000 to rehabilitate the Warm Springs Natural Area in Moapa, a 1,250 acre downstream habitat of more than 20 perennial springs that form the headwaters of the Muddy River. … ” Read more from the Nevada Current.
Not everyone is on board with a plan to build hydropower on the Navajo Nation
“Percy Deal, a member of the Navajo Nation, is looking up at a pale stripe of sandstone that stands out against the rim of Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona. Juniper trees speckle the steep cliffsides facing the site of a proposed hydropower project. “All you have to do is look around here,” Deal said. “This is a very beautiful land.” The hydropower company Nature and People First applied for preliminary permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last year to investigate the possibility of building three pumped water storage projects on and below Black Mesa to generate electricity for nearby cities like Phoenix and Tucson. Deal and other Black Mesa residents are worried that the project could do damage to land and water that has ecological and cultural significance to both the Navajo and Hopi tribes. … ” Read more from KUER.
In national water news today …
New maps show where snowfall is disappearing
“Snowfall is declining globally as temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change, a new analysis and maps from a NOAA climate scientist show. But less snow falling from the sky isn’t as innocuous as just having to shovel less; it threatens to reinforce warming, and disrupt food and water for billions of people. Climate scientists say the future of snowfall is pretty clear: A warmer world driven by human pollution means precipitation is more likely to fall as rain than snow, all else being equal. It’s possible in the near term that climate change will cause more extreme winter storms and some years of increased snowfall — like the data shows for the Northeast US — but as global temperature warms, there will be fewer of those years, and eventually we could see snowfall amounts fall off a cliff. … ” Read more from CNN.
And lastly …
[Monica Humphries] wandered around an abandoned water park in the middle of a California desert. Take a look.
“A scattering of palm trees was my first clue that I was close to Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark. Once I spotted colorful billboards, I was positive I had arrived. Just off the service road running parallel to California’s Mojave Freeway in Newberry Springs are the remains of an old water park. The water park’s history is eerily reminiscent of a water slide with years of ups, downs, and sharp turns. It opened in the 1960s as Dolores Waterpark, as Business Insider reported in 2020. Later, it operated under the names Discovery Waterpark and, most famously, Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark. Then, in 2004, it closed for good. Today, the water has dried up, swimmers have disappeared, and most of what remains are empty cement pools and buildings decaying in the desert sun. … ” Continue reading at Business Insider.
Woman warns against the dangerous phenomenon that is ‘trapped water’: ‘I’ve never thought about this’
“One TikToker recently created a video titled “Free the water!” to inform her viewers about the dangers of “trapped water” and the need to dump out liquids contained in plastic bottles that aren’t going to be used. “I’m on this quest to dump out any water that gets trapped in plastic,” Kati (@spreadyourdreams) told her followers. “Because once it’s trapped in these plastic bottles, we have now lost it basically forever.” According to the Texas Water Quality Association, trapped water is indeed a big problem. … ” Read more from Yahoo Finance.
Added to the Water Shelf this weekend …
NEW BOOK: Water For All: Global Solutions for a Changing Climate by David Sedlak
SPEAKING OF WATER: The Three Ages of Water: A conversation with Peter Gleick
FISH WATER PEOPLE: What Water Wants, with Erica Gies and Nick Bouwes
ENGINEERING WITH NATURE: Mark Arax on The Dreamt Land—California Water, Sustainability, and EWN
THE GOOP PODCAST: Erin Brockovich on How We’ll Rescue Ourselves
CALIFORNIA SUN: Mark Arax on chasing water and dust across California
