A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
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In California water news this week …
Series of atmospheric rivers takes aim at West Coast next week
“The West Coast is in for a wild weather ride over the next week as a series of atmospheric rivers take aim through the first week of February, with clean-up from this week’s atmospheric river flooding in San Diego continuing. The superhighway for atmospheric rivers (ARs) is back open, and everyone from Seattle to Los Angeles to Phoenix is nervously eyeing the Climate Prediction Center’s warning of risks for flooding, heavy rain, heavy snow and high winds for the third soaker, still a half-week out. “You have a big pattern change out West,” said FOX Weather Meteorologist Amy Freeze. “We talk about the atmospheric river, that’s taking aim on the West Coast. Pay attention to this one. It’s said to blast the Golden State in a week. I know, a week ahead of time, what’s going on? Well, this has got all the hallmarks of a high-end flooding situation for California, some beach erosion, mudslides, potentially, and a lot of mountain snow.” … ” Read more from Fox Weather.
SEE ALSO:
- More atmospheric rivers are on the way. Here’s what the west can expect., from the New York Times
- California weather set to see huge swings, ending in atmospheric river storm, from the San Francisco Chronicle
Evaluating Voluntary Agreements in the Bay-Delta Watershed
“Updates to flow and other regulatory requirements for California’s Bay-Delta watershed are long overdue. For much of the last 12 years, state political leadership has prioritized efforts to develop voluntary agreements (VAs) with water users over completing updates to the watershed’s water quality standards. Now the State Water Resources Control Board has restarted the regulatory process and is considering what role proposed VAs will play in it. Our new policy paper—Five Guiding Principles for Effective Voluntary Agreements: A Case Study on VAs for Water and Habitat in California’s Bay-Delta Watershed—describes five principles for evaluating VAs that should guide the Board’s deliberations. … ” Continue reading at Legal Planet.
California ranks high worldwide for rapidly depleted groundwater
“In a sign of the ongoing threats to its precious groundwater stores, half a dozen regions in California rank among the world’s most rapidly declining aquifers, according to research published today. Globally, lack of local water drives migration, poverty, starvation and violence — while in California, it drives decades-long regulatory battles over how to stop over-pumping by growers. Aquifers in Spain, Iran, China and Chile top the list of the 100 most rapidly dropping groundwater levels. In California, California’s Cuyama Valley, north of Santa Barbara, ranked 34th worldwide. Its underground basin has been dropping almost 5 feet a year, and residents, farmers and even the school district are locked in a court battle with carrot growers who sued them over groundwater rights. Four other basins in the San Joaquin Valley and one in northeastern San Diego also netted spots in the top 100, with water levels falling up to almost four feet a year, according to the study, which was led by University of California and Swiss researchers and published in the journal Nature. … ” Read more from Cal Matters.
How a state-funded drought program was converted to help farmers take on flood water and permanently cut groundwater pumping
“When farmers fallowed thousands of acres during the recent drought, most didn’t expect they would be flooding those lands months later. But that’s what happened during last year’s historic floods after the state adapted LandFlex, a drought program, to take on some of the deluge from valley rivers. “Our original intent with fallow land was for those farmers to put cover crops on it to mitigate dust,” said Teji Sandhu, integrated watershed management program policy advisor for the state Department of Water Resources. “In order to protect communities and cities down south of the rivers, we thought, ‘Why not allow these guys to recharge that land and be able to pull flood waters off onto that fallow land?’” … ” Read more from SJV Water.
Jay Famiglietti: Protecting the Earth’s groundwater
“For decades, Jay Famiglietti, A82, E16P, has been singing a persistent refrain: Freshwater availability on earth is shrinking. A hydrologist who pioneered satellite technology to measure groundwater depletion around the globe, he’s seen constant declines in water aquifers ranging from California to China. “Not only are things getting worse, but in some places the pace of decline is accelerating—and that includes California and Arizona,” he says. “We’ve been kicking the can down the road for a long time.” In his role as Global Futures Professor at Arizona State University (ASU), Famiglietti now finds himself in a unique position to do something about the challenge of groundwater depletion. … ” Read more from Tuft’s Now.
DAN WALTERS: California regulators want to spend billions to reduce a fraction of water usage
“Hydrologists measure large amounts of water in acre-feet – an acre of water one-foot deep, or 326,000 gallons. In an average year, 200 million acre-feet of water falls on California as rain or snow. The vast majority of it sinks into the ground or evaporates, but about a third of it finds its way into rivers. Half of that will eventually flow into the Pacific Ocean. That leaves approximately 35-40 million acre-feet for human use, with three-quarters being applied to fields and orchards to support the state’s agricultural output, and the remaining quarter – 9-10 million acre-feet – being used for household, commercial and industrial purposes. In other words, nearly 39 million Californians wind up using about 5% of the original precipitation to water their lawns, bathe themselves, operate toilets and cook their food. … ” Read more from Dan Walters.
Environmental groups sue to block Delta tunnel project
“Environmental groups on Friday sued the California Department of Water Resources for approving a plan to divert water from the environmentally sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta to Central and Southern California. The lawsuit says the water agency failed to consider ecological and wildlife harms in giving the go-ahead for the giant tunnel known as the Delta Conveyance Project taking water from Northern California. Advocates say the project will modernize the state’s aging water system, which is currently not equipped to capture water amid climate change conditions. Opponents say the tunnel would divert billions of gallons of water from the Sacramento River, harming delta smelt, Chinook salmon and other imperiled fish.”The last thing California needs while fighting the climate emergency is a gigantic tunnel wreaking havoc on a sensitive ecosystem and the communities that rely on it,” said John Buse, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. … ” Read more from SF Gate.
Sierra Club, Delta Counties file lawsuit against Delta tunnels; DWR responds
“The deadline for filing CEQA litigation against the Delta Conveyance Project closed yesterday. Two more lawsuits were filed, bringing the total of those I know of to 7. Read on for links to the seven court filings and the response from the Department of Water Resources. … ” Continue reading at Maven’s Notebook.
Friends of the River calls upon State Water Resources Control Board to prevent the Merced River from running dry again
“After providing the previously undisclosed story of the Merced River secretly running dry in 2022 for a bombshell piece written by Raymond Zhong of the New York Times, Friends of the River (FOR) is now calling upon the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt permanent dry season baseflow regulations on the Merced River. In late 2022, the Merced River, the 14th biggest river in California, ran completely dry for four months near its confluence point with the San Joaquin River. The river, which serves essential habitat for listed species including spring-run Chinook salmon and steelhead, was impassable. This issue ended up buried in bureaucratic correspondence, so this story of a major California river running dry was never told to the public. That was until FOR uncovered it and stepped up to deliver the public the truth. “The story of the Merced River running dry is as much about poor policy decisions as it is about climate change,” said Keiko Mertz at FOR. “We need to systemically change how we allocate water in the state through water rights reform so that these issues don’t occur again.” … ” Continue reading from Friends of the River.
California to uncloak water rights as it moves records online
“For a state that prides itself on technological innovation, California is surprisingly antiquated when it comes to accessing fundamental facts about its most critical natural resource – water. Most anywhere else in the West, basic water rights information such as who is using how much water, for what purpose, when, and where can be pulled up on a laptop or smartphone. In California, just figuring out who holds a water right requires a trip to a downtown Sacramento storage room crammed with millions of paper and microfilmed records dating to the mid-1800s. Even the state’s water rights enforcers struggle to determine who is using what. … ” Read more from Western Water.
Raw sewage in creeks? Sunnyvale and Mountain View argue in court the Clean Water Act should not apply to them
“When it comes to the environment, Sunnyvale and Mountain View have a pretty green image, spending millions on bike lanes, solar energy and electric vehicle charging stations. But their tactics in an ongoing court case — in which their lawyers claimed major Bay Area creeks should not be protected from pollution under the federal Clean Water Act — are raising eyebrows among environmentalists. “It’s disappointing,” said Eric Buescher, an attorney for San Francisco Baykeeper, a nonprofit group that works to reduce pollution in San Francisco Bay. “We think the cities should be better stewards of the streams and creeks they are charged with protecting.” … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News (gift article).
White House rule dramatically deregulated wetlands, streams, and drinking water
“The 1972 Clean Water Act protects the “waters of the United States” but does not precisely define which streams and wetlands this phrase covers, leaving it to presidential administrations, regulators, and courts to decide. As a result, the exact coverage of Clean Water Act rules is difficult to estimate. New research published today in Science by a team at the University of California, Berkeley, used machine learning to more accurately predict which waterways are protected by the Act. The analysis found that a 2020 Trump administration rule removed Clean Water Act protection for one-fourth of US wetlands and one-fifth of US streams, and also deregulated 30% of watersheds that supply drinking water to household taps. “Using machine learning to understand these rules helps decode the DNA of environmental policy,” said author Joseph Shapiro, an associate professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ARE) at UC Berkeley. “We can finally understand what the Clean Water Act actually protects.” … ” Read more from UC Berkeley.
Water: The one issue no one wants to talk about in the California Senate race
“Water is the third rail of California politics — and the state’s Senate candidates are carefully steering around it. Water is a perpetual problem in California, with bitter fights over scarce resources even in rainy years. But the leading candidates to fill the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat have made almost no moves to differentiate themselves or highlight their records on one of the state’s most intractable political issues. The candidates’ relative silence less than two months before the primary election is a sign that they see little to gain from wading into an issue that’s the top priority for the state’s massive agricultural industry and the Republican-leaning Central Valley, but carries little weight in the Democrat-dominated urban centers. … ” Read more from Politico.
Clusters of atmospheric rivers amp up California storm damages
“Early in 2023, a series of storms dumped record-breaking amounts of rain and snow across California. Flooding, power outages, and mudslides from the deluge resulted in 21 deaths and over $3 billion in losses. The deluge resulted from streams of water vapor in the sky known as atmospheric rivers, which paraded over California one after another. In all, nine atmospheric rivers hit California between Dec. 26, 2022, and Jan. 17, 2023. New research from Stanford University suggests back-to-back atmospheric rivers, which are likely to become more common because of climate change, bring particularly severe damages. The study, published Jan. 19 in Science Advances, shows that atmospheric rivers arriving in rapid succession cause three to four times more economic damage than they would have individually by drenching already-saturated soils and increasing flood risks. … ” Read more from Stanford News.
California’s ‘ARkStorm’: Historic 1000-year floods of 1861-62 featured 8 weeks of atmospheric rivers
“Imagine Disneyland under feet of water for weeks. Rivers swelling to levels never seen before and never seen since. Days of rain stretch into weeks as floodwaters rise to epic levels. California may have endured an onslaught of tropically-infused atmospheric river storms that filled the calendar for months at the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 and is staring at another atmospheric river this weekend, but those storms pale in comparison to the historic floods during the winter of 1861-1862. Colloquially today known as an “ARkStorm” – a deft reference to an “atmospheric river (AR) 1,000 (k) year storm” – the storms were a recipe for disaster for a young region that had recently been settled. Abraham Lincoln was president at the time, and America was embroiled in the first months of the Civil War. But out West, California’s population was bulging to about a half million in the wake of the great Gold Rush about a dozen years prior. … ” Read more from Fox Weather.
New renderings and details emerge for California Forever, the $800 million city proposed [by] Silicon Valley
“When California Forever—the $800 million venture to build a city on rural land in Silicon Valley—was first unveiled in September, it was light on specifics. Now, a filing with the Solano Registrar of Voters, and a new set of renderings, the vision for a speculative community that’s twice the size of San Francisco has become a little bit clearer.Phase one of the project seeks to house about 50,000 residents across an 18,600-acre site in Solano County, California between San Francisco and Sacramento, just outside the Travis Air Force Base. While most of the acreage will be used for housing, schools, office, and commercial use, about 4,000 acres will be used for parks, trails, urban ecological habitat, community gardens, and other types of open space, California Forever said. Renderings even show jovial factory workers within a manufacturing hub to demonstrate the full range of blue- and white collar jobs California Forever is looking to create and foster. … ” Read more from Architect’s Newspaper.
What a hand-cranked drill just revealed about the West’s ‘megadrought’
“For the past several summers, Karen King crisscrossed the western United States in search of trees. Using a hand-cranked drill, she bored into towering spruces high in the Rockies, Sierra Nevada and other mountains to unsheathe blocks of wood. She wanted to learn about the region’s past dry spells — to understand the current “megadrought” gripping the region. “Your left bicep is a lot larger than your right bicep by the end of the summer,” said King, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. “I’m not kidding.” All that hand-cranking paid off in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. She and her colleagues found the West’s two-decade drought is inextricably linked to climate change, adding to the evidence that human-caused emissions are reshaping the region in profound ways. … ” Read more from the Washington Post.
SEE ALSO:
- Water-guzzling ‘hot drought’ in the West is unprecedented in at least 5 centuries, study suggests, from CNN
Changing climate behind sharp drop in snowpack since 1980s
“Scientific data from ground observations, satellites, and climate models have not agreed on whether climate change is consistently chipping away at the snowpacks that accumulate in high-elevation mountains and provide water when they melt in spring. This complicates efforts to manage the water scarcity that would result for many population centers. A new Dartmouth study cuts through the uncertainty in these observations and provides evidence that seasonal snowpacks throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere have indeed shrunk significantly over the past 40 years due to human-driven climate change. The sharpest global warming-related reductions in snowpack—between 10% to 20% per decade—are in the Southwestern and Northeastern United States, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe. The study was funded in part by NIDIS through the NOAA Climate Program Office Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, & Projections (MAPP) program. … ” Continue reading from NIDIS.
In commentary this week …
Gov. Newsom is accelerating California’s extinction crisis
By Jon Rosenfield, PhD, SF Baykeeper science director; and Eric Buescher, SF Baykeeper managing attorney, write, “California is at the forefront of a global crisis known as the Anthropocene extinction. This rapid eradication of living diversity is not caused by meteor strikes or volcanic eruptions, but by human activity. No animal group is more at risk than fishes. Researchers recently concluded that our state is a world leader in the number of freshwater fishes likely to become extinct by the end of the century. Governor Newsom’s water policies are accelerating this race to oblivion. Many of California’s imperiled native fishes live in San Francisco Bay, including five species that are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. Baykeeper recently sued the US Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Bay’s population of longfin smelt to that list. And, late last year, we and our partners petitioned state and federal agencies to protect the Bay’s white sturgeon population as threatened after decades of decline. … ” Click here to read this commentary.
Why are top California Democrats ducking Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Delta tunnel project?
Sacramento Bee opinion columnist Tom Philp writes, “The three top Democrats seeking to replace the late Dianne Feinstein in the United States Senate managed to clearly answer every question California’s McClatchy opinion team recently managed to pose. Except for one. It happened to deal with one of Feinstein’s signature issues: Water. Opinion Here was the question: “Climate change is requiring California to adapt its water management and develop new supplies. What is your position on Governor Newsom’s Delta Conveyance Project…?” One said yes. Two said they were studying the matter. Asked the identical question, our incumbent Senator, Alex Padilla, said he was analyzing a recently-published environmental document. Three out of four of California’s leading Democrats are flunking a key leadership test. … ” Continue reading at the Sacramento Bee.
Clean drinking water is a human right. Why are so many California communities without it?
Author Miriam Pawel writes, “Barely a month after he took office in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom journeyed to a rural school in the Central Valley and stood by chance against a backdrop more prescient than he had planned: a classroom whiteboard that posed the “Essential Question — How do you respond to challenges?” The governor had chosen Riverview Elementary School, in Parlier, to dramatize his first bill-signing, an interim fix to provide tens of millions of dollars to buy bottled water for communities with contaminated wells. “We can’t even provide basic drinking water to a million-plus Californians?” Newsom said, before posing for photo ops where drinking fountains had been sealed for more than a year. “Pathetic.” … ” Read more from the LA Times.
Column: California’s most improbable water project rebrands itself as a crusader for environmental justice
Columnist Michael Hiltzik writes, “It’s hard to think of a California company that carries more toxic baggage than Cadiz Inc. The Los Angeles firm has been trying for more than 20 years to advance a plan to siphon water from under the Mojave Desert and pump it to users throughout Southern California. It has long been stymied by environmental objections, but kept on life support by wielding political influence and regular financings such as private stock placements and junk bond-rated debt. Now Cadiz is trying a new tack. Under its newly installed chief executive, the veteran government aide Susan Kennedy, it has affiliated itself with the so-called human right to water movement, which ties the inaccessibility of clean water for disadvantaged communities to other social justice quests such as developing more affordable housing. … ” Read more from the LA Times. | Read via Yahoo News.
The Middle East can show the world how to save water
“No visit to the Emirati city of Al Ain is complete without a trip to its oases, where farmers tend to thousands of date palms, fruit trees and fodder crops that are made possible by a system of aflaj – Iron Age irrigation channels that have been included in Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This ingenious collection of complex underground and surface channels is an engineering marvel, but it also reveals how the importance of fresh water is imprinted not just on the landscape but in the hearts of the people. The persistence of the falaj networks shows what many in the Middle East have understood for centuries: that the struggle for clean water is a life-or-death one. … ” Read more from The National News.
In regional water news this week …
Copco 1, last of three remaining Klamath River dams, breached by blast
“Copco 1, the oldest of the three remaining dams on the Klamath River, was breached Tuesday. Crews blasted away a plug in Copco’s adit, a 10-foot-diameter tunnel that was drilled at the base of the dam last summer. Ren Brownell, spokeswoman for Klamath River Renewal Corporation, which is coordinating the dams’ removal, said crews went about 100 feet into the dam and left a 12-foot concrete plug at its upstream end. A steel pipe was installed on its exterior and covered with concrete and a large rock. Earlier this month, openings were created at the two other hydroelectric dams — Iron Gate and John C. Boyle — as part of drawing down water from the reservoirs behind the dams. A fourth dam, Copco 2, was removed last year. … ” Read more from the Capital Press.
New wells tap into huge water storage possibilities: Roseville unveils two facilities that will boost its groundwater reserves
“If Northern California has another wet winter, Roseville is ready to save some of that rain for later. The City of Roseville recently dedicated two new Aquifer and Storage and Recovery (ASR) wells. These specialized wells allow the City to not only pump water up for use, but to recharge its groundwater basin. It’s like putting water in the bank. And that basin is huge—double the size of Folsom Reservoir. Roseville and its water partners now have access to 1.8 million acre feet of potential groundwater storage space. At full capacity, Folsom Reservoir holds about 975,000 acre feet. Each acre foot can supply three typical homes for a year. “It’s a big achievement,” says Sean Bigley, Roseville’s Assistant Environmental Utilities Director. “It’s a small footprint with huge water storage potential.” … ” Read more from the Sacramento News & Review.
Central Valley Water Board expands innovative safe drinking water program to eight more geographic zones
“Three years after the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board launched a novel program that has brought replacement drinking water to more than 1,200 households with nitrate-impacted wells in designated areas of the Central Valley, the regional board is expanding the program to new areas in eight groundwater basins.The Central Valley Water Board recently mailed 938 Notices to Comply to permit holders in these areas, known as Priority 2 management zones within its Salinity Alternatives for Long-Term Sustainability (CV-SALTS) program. Collectively, these notices affect dischargers – growers, dairies, industrial facilities and wastewater plants – in the following basins: Delta-Mendota, Eastern San Joaquin, Madera, Merced, Kern County (Poso), Kern County (West-side South), Tulare Lake and Yolo. … ” Read more from the Central Valley Water Board.
State nitrate program expands but public participation is still lacking
“After three years, more of the Central Valley is being folded into the state’s nitrate control program. But program managers and environmental justice advocates say there are still serious problems with outreach. The state’s nitrate control program launched in 2021. It offers free well testing and water deliveries for residents whose wells test over the limit for nitrates. The program is mandated by the State Water Resources Control Board and funded by nitrate polluters throughout the valley. Nitrates can be harmful to pregnant women and infants. Nitrates have infiltrated drinking water supplies in the valley from farming fertilizers, septic tanks, dairies and other wastewater sources. … ” Continue reading from SJV Water.
How much water does the Peninsula need to remove the shackles of water poverty?
“Outside of rare situations involving historic water rights, the State Water Board has prohibited California American Water from setting new water meters – or upsizing existing ones – since it imposed a cease-and-desist order on the company’s overpumping of the Carmel River in 2009. That means housing projects on the Peninsula have largely been impossible, along with, say, adding another bathroom to an existing house. Cal Am, the investor-owned utility that delivers water to the Peninsula’s taps, maintains a desalination project is necessary right now to meet demand, and to get the state to lift its order. The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District has long disagreed with that assessment, and its staff believes that, with expansion of recycled water project Pure Water Monterey that will come online in 2025, there is more than enough water to supply Cal Am’s local service area for at least the next 30 years. … ” Read more from Monterey Weekly.
Cuyama water lawsuit continues as Grimmway, Bolthouse drop out
“The Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin adjudication started its Los Angeles County Superior Court hearings in January, but Bolthouse Farms and Grimmway Farms are no longer plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Originally filed in 2021, the adjudication calls for a judge to rule on how much water everyone can pump from the basin, which is one of California’s 21 critically overdrafted basins that has a state-required groundwater sustainability plan. The sustainability plan calls for a 60 percent reduction in water use in 20 years. The suit sparked frustration for Cuyama residents, who later launched a boycott against the carrot-growing companies and a petition calling for the corporations to drop the lawsuit. … ” Read more from New Times SLO.
Will disastrous flooding force San Diego to finally fix its storm drains?
“Hundreds of San Diegans are assessing the damage caused by Monday’s flash floods, which washed away cars, caused a sinkhole in Miramar and blanketed homes and streets in Southcrest with mud and debris. The intense rainfall in the span of just a few hours laid bare the longstanding inadequacies of San Diego’s stormwater infrastructure. And it provided a glimpse into the future, when climate change is likely to hit low-income communities of color the hardest. For decades, politicians and bureaucrats have swept the stormwater problem under the rug. Major storms are still relatively rare, and surface-level infrastructure needs like potholes tend to draw the most attention from constituents. … ” Read more from KPBS.
