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On the calendar today …
- WEBINAR: Welcoming Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat Meghan Hertel from 2pm to 3pm. Join the Natural Resources Agency for a virtual meet and greet with Meghan Hertel and the 30×30 California Team. Click here to register.
In California water news today …
Several more feet of snow to fall in Sierra Nevada, even after blizzard
“A blockbuster blizzard, complete with hurricane-force winds and whiteout conditions, is easing Sunday after battering California’s Sierra Nevada for days. But the prolonged storm, which even spawned a tornado near Fresno, isn’t over and more heavy snow is forecast through early Wednesday. At least 7 feet of snow fell in the high peaks of Sierras, and a 190.1-mph wind gust was recorded Friday night atop the summit of the Palisades Tahoe ski resort. Blizzard warnings are finally set to expire by 4 a.m. Monday — but another powerful snowstorm is on the way. Winter storm warnings remain in effect until early Wednesday, with another pulse of snow expected to arrive Monday through Tuesday night. … ” Read more from the Washington Post (gift article).
Portions of I-80, Mt. Rose Hwy, I-580 South through Washoe Valley closed; More snow expected
“A powerful blizzard that closed highways and ski resorts had mostly moved through the Sierra Nevada by early Monday but forecasters warned that more snow was on the way for Northern California mountains. Sections of Interstate 80 to the west and north of Lake Tahoe were still shut down late Sunday, with no estimate for reopening, the California Highway Patrol said. The CHP office in South Lake Tahoe warned motorists that tire chains for improved traction are required on routes through the mountains, where more than 7 feet (2.1 meters) of snow fell over the weekend. … ” Read more from KTVN.
California bracing for new round of snow on heels of crippling Sierra Nevada blizzard
“Thousands are still waiting for power to be restored and roads to be cleared across the Northern California mountains after a blizzard pounded the area through the weekend. But there is no rest for the weary, as the next storm is already threatening to dump more snow at the start of the workweek. As the first winter storm lingers, Blizzard Warnings continue through Sunday with another 1 to 2 feet of snow expected. At midnight, the winter weather alerts swap from Blizzard Warnings to Winter Storm Warnings for the same areas through early Wednesday morning. “Mountain travel will continue to be extremely dangerous to impossible today (Sunday) and will remain difficult at best through Tuesday night,” NWS Sacramento forecasters wrote in a forecast discussion on Sunday. … ” Read more from Fox Weather.
Friant Dam has more water than it can handle. Fresno wants it before it’s lost to ocean
“After a month of more-than-abundant rainfall and years of drought in Fresno and the central San Joaquin Valley, the city of Fresno hopes to have an opportunity to buy discounted water from Millerton Lake that would otherwise flow down the San Joaquin River and be lost to the Pacific Ocean. Fresno City Council members unanimously voted Thursday to authorize a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to purchase a share of “non-storable flood flows” — excess water that would be released to make room for more rainfall and snowmelt runoff behind Friant Dam — at a discount compared with the city’s normal water allotment from the San Joaquin River. Brock Buche, director of public utilities for the city, told council members that Fresno has a standing contract for up to 60,000 acre-feet of water each year; the actual amount that the city gets depends on the overall volume of water made available to water contractors. … ” Read more from the Fresno Bee via AOL News.
The groundwater crisis: The need for new data to inform public policy
“Although many of Earth’s major aquifers are severely depleted, it is hard not to feel that groundwater will become ever more important in the context of climate change. However, the amount of groundwater hidden in Earth’s aquifers remains a huge unknown. We only see the impacts of depletion on a large scale through declining water levels in wells or earth-scale geophysical studies. This lack of data has been harmful in forming clear public policies that can help communities and industries respond effectively to climate change. From a policy perspective, groundwater management is often opaque. As a recent article in The New York Times highlights, there is a lack of consistent regulation between states and within states. In many cases, access to groundwater is simply unregulated or lost in a tangled web of regulations — effectively a free-for-all. This is exacerbated by the lack of basic data, such as not knowing how many wells there are, let alone how much water is being pumped. … ” Continue reading from the MIT Press Reader.
Federal lawmakers commend management plan for Delta National Heritage Area
“Today, U.S. Representatives John Garamendi (D-CA08), Josh Harder (D-CA10), Ami Bera (D-CA06), and Mike Thompson (D-CA04) sent a letter to the State of California’s Delta Protection Commission supporting the draft management plan for the federally designated Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area released for public comment on February 5. “We write in support of the Delta Protection Commission’s draft management plan for the federally designated Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta National Heritage Area noticed for public comment on February 5. After incorporating any changes called for during the public comment period ending on March 6, we trust the Commission will submit the final management plan to the National Park Service by the March 12, 2024, deadline under federal law. Any delay in approval by the National Park Service could risk $10 million in federal grant funding to conserve the Delta’s rich cultural heritage, historic landmarks, and natural beauty,” wrote the Representatives in their letter to California’s Delta Protection Commission. … ” Read more from Congressman John Garamendi.
2024 salmon season in doubt
“On March 1, 2024, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) held its CDFW Annual Salmon Information Meeting via a webinar. The prognosis for a 2024 salmon season does not look good. The closure of all California salmon fishing in 2023 brought an uptick in salmon escapement to 133,000 in the Sacramento River, which is somewhat positive. The forecast for this year’s fishable stock in the ocean (made up of broodyears 2021-2023), however, is not much better than last year’s, with the lingering effects of the 2020-2022 drought. If a normal fishery had been held last year or were to be held this year, the salmon stocks would no doubt fall into an “over-fished” status. … ” Read more from the California Fisheries blog.
Pacific Fishery Management Council considering closures to protect deep-sea habitats
“Deep-sea coral restoration and research sites are being proposed to protect deep-sea habitats from bottom fishing gear in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. “Throughout the world, we’ve been damaging deep-sea corals even before people really even thought about them,” said Andrew DeVogelaere, a research ecologist for NOAA’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. “When people see them now, they’re beautiful and inspiring.” On Thursday, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages commercial, recreational, and tribal fisheries in Federal waters off of Washington, Oregon and California, will analyze the potential impacts of fishery closures to protect deep-sea corals from bottom contact gear at three potential sites – Sur Ridge, Año Nuevo Canyon, and Ascension Canyon. At these depths, bottom contact gear could include traps or set longlines for sablefish, also known as black cod. … ” Read more from the Monterey Herald.
Some curious things about water management
Jay Lund writes, “Water management is often very different from what we think intuitively, or what we have been taught. Here are some examples. 1. Most water decisions are local. Water policy and management discussions often seem to assume that state and federal government decisions and funding are the most important aspects of water management. This is not nearly true. Historically, culturally, and practically, most water management in California and the U.S. is local. There might be a dozen or more state and federal agencies, but there are thousands of local water, drainage, sanitation, and irrigation districts and millions of households and businesses. Local demand, supply, and operating decisions are the most important parts of water management, and where most innovations in water management originate. … ” Continue reading at the California Water Blog.
BOOK REVIEW: Water for All: Global Solutions for a Changing Climate
“In Water for All: Global Solutions for a Changing Climate (Yale University Press, 2023), Dr. David Sedlak charts a realistic, practical, and inspiring course of action for tackling the world’s water crises. Sedlak’s remarkable book is both broad in scope and meticulously researched, and his writing style is engaging for professional and general readers. Those seeking sensible, well-informed, all-of-the-above solutions to water issues should have Water for All on their shelves. Water for All builds on Sedlak’s previous work, Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource (Yale University Press, 2014), which charts the history of human water development up to the present and points to the future. In Water for All, Sedlak makes more particular our current path toward water solutions, classifying the world’s water crises into six categories, differentiated by economic, political, and use criteria: water for the wealthy, for the many, for the unconnected, for good health, for food, and for ecosystems. Doing so allows him and his reader to understand the diversity of water development that has occurred to date, as well as the options and opportunities for cross-pollination of good ideas, workable technologies, and best practices that can lead to global solutions. … ” Continue reading from the Water Shelf at Maven’s Notebook.
After years of rapid growth, California’s almond industry struggles amid low prices
“For much of the last decade, almonds have been such a lucrative crop that growers and investment firms have poured money into planting new orchards across vast stretches of California farmland. Now, the almond boom has fizzled and the industry has entered a slump. Prices have dropped over the last several years, and the state’s total almond acreage has started to decrease as growers have begun to tear out orchards and plant other crops. In a sign of the troubles besetting the industry, one large almond-growing conglomerate has declared bankruptcy. In a series of Chapter 11 filings in federal bankruptcy court, Trinitas Farming and other affiliated companies said that record-low almond prices and high interest rates contributed to their “serious liquidity constraints.” … ” Read more from the LA Times.
Chevron turns to the sun to cash in on this $1.4 trillion opportunity
“Chevron (NYSE: CVX) recently revealed plans to build its first solar-to-hydrogen production facility in California. The project would turn non-potable water from its existing operations into an emissions-free fuel source with help from the sun. The clean hydrogen will help support the state’s growing need for lower-carbon energy. This investment will be Chevron’s first solo commercial hydrogen project. It will help the oil and gas giant get in the position to cash in on the emerging hydrogen market, which Deloitte sees growing to $1.4 trillion by 2050. It could be a major growth driver for Chevron. Chevron plans to develop a 5-megawatt (MW) hydrogen production facility in California. The oil company plans to use solar energy, land, and non-potable water (i.e., unsuitable for human consumption) from an existing oil and gas field in the state. Chevron will use “produced water,” which is water produced as a byproduct of its other operations. While that water isn’t fit for drinking, it’s suitable for producing hydrogen. … ” Read more from the Motley Fool via Yahoo News.
In regional water news and commentary today …
NORTH COAST
Hundreds of thousands of juvenile Chinook salmon die in Klamath River while moving through dam
“Hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon are believed to have died over the past week after being released into the Klamath River from the Fall Creek Fish Hatchery on Monday, Feb. 26, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Fall Creek is a tributary of the Klamath River. The fish were believed to have been killed as a result of gas bubble disease while passing through a tunnel at the base of Iron Gate Dam, the lowest of four dams being removed on the river. The Chinook salmon fry died according to monitoring data downstream of the dam. … ” Read more from Jefferson Public Radio.
Did Fish and Game officials just cause 850,000 juvenile salmon to die?
“The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold to Californians as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish,” the Globe reported. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife recently released between 850,000 and 1 million salmon juveniles into Fall Creek which empties into the Klamath River, even after reports that “every living mollusk, crawdad, turtle, fish, insect in and about the river is DEAD!” William Simpson, a Siskiyou resident, told the Globe in an interview last week, when they were released that the juvenile salmon would also die because of the muddy clay sediment. … ” Read more from the California Globe.
Tahoe snow totals have already eclipsed 7 feet. Here’s how much more to expect
“Snow totals started rolling in Sunday from an ongoing blizzard in the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe that has buried the region in feet of snow. The National Weather Service compiled storm total snowfall reports across the Tahoe Basin. Storm total snowfall in this story is rounded to the nearest half-foot. Since the storm began Thursday morning, the summit of Homewood Mountain has measured 7.5 feet of snow, and 6.5 feet at the base. The bases of Heavenly Mountain, Palisades and Northstar reported each measured between 5.5 and 6 feet of snow. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Marin County waterfalls flush as rain keeps coming
“With a solid winter of rain in the hills, it’s peak waterfall season in Marin County. The only question is which cascade to see first. For Ian McLorg, chief park ranger with Marin County Parks, Dawn Falls is the first that comes to mind. The approximately three-quarter-mile trail to the falls is in the Baltimore Canyon Preserve. “Dawn Falls, especially after some good rain, is a pretty spectacular waterfall,” McLorg said. To access Dawn Falls Trail, he suggested entering via Crown Road in Kentfield and hiking the Southern Marin Line Fire Road. “A short jaunt from the trailhead at Southern Marin Line Fire Road, you just head as if you’re going towards Corte Madera, and the Dawn Falls Trail drops off to your left down the fire road,” McLorg said. “That one is a great one to see this time of year.” … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News.
Sewage from Mexico entering its 10th decade of contaminating San Diego coastline
“On Sept. 7, 1993, the San Diego City Council declared a state of emergency regarding the discharge of raw sewage it said was coming from Tijuana, Mexico, and polluting the international border. More than 30 years later, the San Diego City Council renewed the state of emergency on Feb. 27 over an ongoing issue that has been traced back to 1934. In the past five years, the International Boundary and Water Commission stated that more than 100 billion gallons of untreated sewage, industrial waste and urban runoff have been discharged into the Pacific Ocean from the Tijuana River. … ” Read more from the Center Square.
Along the Colorado River …
AI is taking water from the desert: New data centers are springing up every week. Can the Earth sustain them?
“One scorching day this past September, I made the dangerous decision to try to circumnavigate some data centers. The ones I chose sit between a regional airport and some farm fields in Goodyear, Arizona, half an hour’s drive west of downtown Phoenix. … Microsoft announced its plans for this location, and two others not so far away, back in 2019—a week after the company revealed its initial $1 billion investment in OpenAI, the buzzy start-up that would later release ChatGPT. From that time on, OpenAI began to train its models exclusively on Microsoft’s servers; any query for an OpenAI product would flow through Microsoft’s cloud-computing network, Azure. In part to meet that demand, Microsoft has been adding data centers at a stupendous rate, spending more than $10 billion on cloud-computing capacity in every quarter of late. One semiconductor analyst called this “the largest infrastructure buildout that humanity has ever seen.” … ” Read more from The Atlantic.
Farmer fears AZ agriculture being left high and dry
“Last year, Arizona made national news after allowing a foreign-owned farm to use massive amounts of the state’s groundwater in the middle of a water crisis. … Last fall, Governor Katie Hobbs canceled Fondomonte’s state land lease and said its three other leases in the area would not be renewed. They expired last month. Hobbs said in a statement, in part, “It’s unacceptable that Fondomonte has continued to pump unchecked amounts of groundwater out of our state while in clear default on their lease.” But Arizona farmers also want to protect their water future. “That is, to me, a very scary situation,” said Marana and Eloy farmer Arnoldo Burruel, referring to the Fondomonte situation. He says the criticism against Fondomonte is unfair. He believes the lease issue is “miniscule,” and an excuse to take water from farmers. “Those gentlemen are out there investing heavily in something they bought and hold, legally,” he said. “They’ve broken no [water] laws, and yet they’re under attack.” … ” Continue reading from Channel 9.
Phoenix poses new regulations for incoming large water users
“Phoenix is on the verge of imposing new conservation measures and restrictions on large water users that consume over 250,000 gallons a day. Under the proposed ordinance that got preliminary approval last week from a council subcommittee, separate categories of restrictions and requirements would be placed on new companies that project using 250,000 gallons a day and those that expect to use twice that much. Those users that expect to consume 250,000 gallons a day would need to obtain approval of their conservation plans from the city Water Services Department before construction. … ” Read more from the Ahwatukee Foothills News.
In national water news today …
Water main break study highlights correlation between material, diameter
“Utah State University (USU) has published new research on water main breaks in the United States and Canada, examining break rates and related factors such as pipe material and diameter. It is the third such study conducted by USU with previous versions in 2012 and 2018. The new study, “Water Main Break Rates in the USA and Canada: A Comprehensive Study,” surveyed more than 800 utilities and analyzed about 400,000 miles of pipe data, representing 17% of the estimated 2.3 million miles of water mains in the United States and Canada. The sample size for this study was nearly three times larger than the previous 2018 study. … ” Read more from Water Finance & Management.
More news and commentary in the weekend edition …
In California water news this weekend …
-
Flooded rice fields in the Sacramento Valley provide habitat for migrating birds. Photo taken February, 2024. Dangers to linger well after massive blizzard exits the Sierra Nevada
- Tahoe’s ‘ton of powder’ lures skiers, snowboarders despite resort closures
- California water data shows change for typically drier months ahead
- State Water Board issues Notice of Public Hearing and Pre-Hearing Conference for the Sites Reservoir Project
- Fall-run chinook salmon fry succumb to gas bubble disease in Klamath River
- LandFlex helping improve sustainable groundwater usage, but needs additional support
- Klamath River nominated for 2024 ‘River of the Year’ due to Indigenous leadership
- Central Valley Farmers take precautions protecting crops ahead of storm
- CV-SALTS: Notices to comply for nitrate control program sent to Priority 2 areas; Interactive map and dashboard now available management zone information
- Ocean water from San Diego could stabilize south OC supply, boost desal
- Building anew along the shores of San Diego County
- And more …
Click here for the weekend digest.
