Several news sources featured in the Daily Digest may limit the number of articles you can access without a subscription. However, gift articles and open-access links are provided when available. For more open access California water news articles, explore the main page at MavensNotebook.com.
On the calendar today …
- ONLINE EVENT: Financing Coordinating Committee Funding Fair from 9am to 12pm. The California Financing Coordinating Committee (CFCC) conducts free funding fairs statewide each year to educate the public and offer potential customers the opportunity to meet with financial representatives from each agency to learn more about their available funding. CFCC members facilitate and expedite the completion of various types of infrastructure projects by helping customers combine the resources of different agencies. Project information is shared between members so additional resources can be identified. Presentations will be held from 9 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and participants can visit virtual booths from 11:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. to meet with representatives. Click here to register.
- WEBINAR: Evaluating managed aquifer recharge (MAR) opportunities and methods in a challenging farm setting from 12pm to 1pm. Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) on farmlands is challenging. This GRACast will present work done in a MAR feasibility study that engaged novel techniques for correlating geophysics with soils data. Click here to register.
- SoCAL WATER DIALOG: So Cal’s Water Portfolio Just Got More Drought Resistant from 12pm to 1:30pm. California now leads the nation with the most comprehensive water reuse regulations that both protect public health and provide the region with a reliable source of water. New direct potable reuse regulations approved December 2023 by the SWRCB now allow the placement of highly treated water directly into water supplies without a temporal, spatial, or mixing buffer. Join the So Cal Water Dialogue as we delve into the multi-year process behind the approval of the new regulations and what is needed to get DPR projects up and running. Expert speakers also will address the topics of affordability, public acceptance, advances in resource recovery, the role of AI and machine learning to optimize systems, and which projects could come online first. Click here to register.
- WEBINAR: One Year Since Sackett v. EPA: Strategies for Moving Forward with Wetland Protections from 12pm to 1:30pm. Wetlands and streams are at risk more than ever at the global and national level. The most recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wetlands Status and Trends Report finds that more than half of wetlands in the lower 48 states are gone, and loss rates have increased by 50 percent since 2009. Additionally, the 2023 Supreme Court decision on Sackett v Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rolled back federal protections of wetlands and other water bodies. How do we move forward? While there is no one right or best way to approach this dilemma, one thing is clear – partnerships will be critical for success. In this webinar, you will learn about approaches that two organizations, the National Association of Wetland Managers and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, are taking to increase public awareness about the value of wetlands as well as gain support in Congress to increase funding and flexibility for federal, state and Tribal wetland programs. Click here to register.
- WEBINAR: Unlocking WaterSMART Funding: Insights and Success Stories from Colorado Communities from 12pm to 1pm. With the once in a generational influx of funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART Program has provided critical funds to western states to implement climate and drought resilient water infrastructure projects. Since 2021 in Colorado alone, WaterSMART has funded 47 projects and 6 plans with over $35.8 million in federal funds, totaling to over $72 million in total project cost. As part of WaterNow’s WaterSMART Grant Application Support & Help Desk initiative, this 1-hour virtual webinar will be a panel style discussion featuring community representatives from Colorado water utilities who have successfully received WaterSMART funds. Join us and gain valuable insights into available WaterSMART grant opportunities and project examples, lessons learned, application tips, and the array of resources from WaterNow and others available to help you get your application over the finish line. Click here to register.
In California water news today …
Former California water district manager pleads guilty in conspiracy case
“A former California public water district manager pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday in connection with the theft of federally owned water. Dennis Falaschi, 78, of Aptos, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer Thurston, where he entered pleas on conspiring to take federally owned water and filing a false tax return. Falaschi, formerly the general manager of a public water district in Fresno and Merced counties, faces a maximum of five years’ incarceration and $250,000 fine on the conspiracy charge, and three years in prison and $100,000 fine on the tax charge. All remaining charges will be dropped. The sentence is in the judge’s hands. However, prosecutors in Falaschi’s plea agreement stated that they will recommend the guideline range — a system used to determine a potential sentence in federal court — be dropped by up to 50%, if he provides significant assistance to the government. … ” Read more from the Courthouse News Service.
SEE ALSO:
- Who else was stealing? Conspiracy plea deepens mystery in San Joaquin Valley water heist, from the LA Times | Read via AOL News.
- Former California water official pleads guilty to conspiring to steal water from irrigation canal, from the Associated Press
- Former Water District General Manager Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Water Theft and Separate Tax Charge, from the Department of Justice
Kings County farmers face probation as state demands well registration, detailed pumping reports
“Probation has started for the Tulare Lake subbasin and farmers will be getting a list of “to-dos” in the mail this week. The State Water Resources Control Board is sending step-by-step instructions of what’s expected under this historic designation, in which board staff will begin collecting pumping information. The board declared the region under probation at an April 16 hearing after water managers failed to come up with a coordinated plan to get pumping in check to stop subsidence and better protect domestic wells. Probation is the first step toward a state pumping take over – known as an interim plan – if locals can’t come up with their own plan that’s acceptable to the Water Board over the next year. Ever since the April 16 hearing, questions and confusion have roiled Kings County farmers. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
Supreme Court agrees to hear water pollution fight between San Francisco, EPA
“The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear San Francisco’s appeal of a ruling that tightened offshore water pollution standards and said the city was failing to adequately protect swimmers and bathers from discharges of sewage into the Pacific. The ruling, due next year, could limit the authority of federal and state environmental agencies. The issue is whether — as San Francisco and other local governments contend — environmental laws require them only to limit water pollution to amounts set in advance, such as specific discharges per million parts of water. Federal and state regulators argued that the city was still violating its legal duty to prevent dangerous pollution from bacteria and other contaminants from flowing through its Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant into the ocean. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Strange bedfellows align in latest Supreme Court water case
“One of the nation’s most liberal cities is enmeshed in a new Supreme Court battle against the Biden administration’s top environmental watchdog — with the backing of fossil fuel trade groups. In the Supreme Court petition San Francisco v. EPA, which the justices granted Tuesday, the California city contends that federal water regulators failed to get specific enough in setting limits on how much pollution local wastewater treatment and collection facilities can send into the Pacific Ocean. EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) requirements leave permit holders unable to comply with federal standards, lawyers for San Francisco wrote in their request for help from the Supreme Court. “San Francisco has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure to meet the [Clean Water] Act’s requirements and stands ready to invest further to reduce pollution if the Act so requires,” they wrote in their petition. “Generic water quality prohibitions, however, neither set limits on the quantities of pollutants that San Francisco may discharge nor prescribe management practices that the City must implement.” … ” Read more from E&E News.
SEE ALSO: EPA water pollution rules will face Supreme Court scrutiny, from the Courthouse News
Ninth Circuit hands major victory to senior water right holders on the Sacramento River
“On May 23, 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a published opinion in Natural Resources Defense Council et al. v. Debra Haaland et al. (Case No. 21-15163) (“NRDC v. Haaland”) rejecting the plaintiffs’ challenges to the federal environmental review of certain long-term water supply contracts for the Central Valley Project (“CVP”). Specifically, the Ninth Circuit held that the Bureau of Reclamation (“Reclamation”), Fish & Wildlife Service (“FWS”), and National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) complied with the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) in evaluating the effects of executing and implementing these contracts on listed species. The opinion is the latest development in a nearly 20-year-old case that is in its second round of review by the Ninth Circuit. … ” Read more from Downey Brand.
Warm water temperature in lower Sacramento River in May 2024
“In the third week of May 2024, the water temperatures in the lower Sacramento River recorded at Wilkins Slough increased to 72oF, well above the 68oF water quality standard. These warm water temperatures occurred in a wet spring of an Above Normal water year that is following a Wet water year. The water temperature spike occurred between prescribed pulse flow releases from Shasta Dam in May (Figure 1). Three pulse flows were prescribed this spring to promote and assist migration of juvenile salmon into the lower Sacramento River and the Delta. After the second pulse in early May, the lower river flow was allowed to drop to a drought-level 5000 cfs, causing the high water temperatures. Shasta Reservoir was virtually full at 4.3 MAF during all of May. … ” Read more from the California Fisheries blog.
Groundwater accounting platform offers data-driven solution for the American West
“As the American West faces intensifying water challenges, water managers, landowners, and water users are increasingly turning to the Groundwater Accounting Platform as a data-driven tool that enables them to track water availability and usage with user-friendly dashboards and workflows. This critical tool is now available throughout California to support sustainable groundwater management practices. Unsustainable groundwater pumping across much of the West has endangered long-term water supplies and lead to millions of dollars of infrastructure damage from sinking land. The Groundwater Accounting Platform empowers users to manage long-term, and helps communities avoid undesirable outcomes and maintain clean water supplies at lower costs. Additionally, this critical functionality supports Groundwater Sustainability Agencies as they manage resources in priority basins under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. … ” Read more from the Environmental Defense Fund.
Last year’s groundwater recharge numbers were impressive but what about this year?
“This current, remarkably average water year – not last year’s barn burner – will be the true test to see how well groundwater agencies are rejuvenating the San Joaquin Valley’s withered aquifers, longtime water managers say. Yes, 2023’s historic wet year did a lot to help groundwater levels rebound in many parts of the valley. And the numbers were impressive. … But the state report notes even a record breaking wet year isn’t enough to refill the aquifers and groundwater deficit persists. And really, the question isn’t whether districts with groundwater plans can store water in wet years, but average to dry ones, said Eric Quinley, general manager of Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District, which has been aggressively building recharge basins and infrastructure for years. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
New UC research identifies significant future water supply losses for California
““The Magnitude of California’s Water Challenges” – by Jay Lund (UC Davis), Josué Medellín-Azuara (UC Merced), and Alvar Escriva-Bou (UCLA), that identifies significant future water supply losses annually for California, estimating that by 2050, the Golden State is projected to lose between 4.6 and 9 million acre feet of annual water – equivalent to 10–20% of its supply for California’s communities and farms.This research supports the estimates in the Governor’s Water Supply Strategy and amplifies the urgent need to set necessary statewide targets in statute, as established in SB 366 (Caballero). … ” Read more from Water for All.
Replenished by rain, California’s national parks turn lush, draw visitors
“Visitors are flocking to California’s world-famous national parks as the Golden State enjoys a year without any drought. Following a series of storms between January and March, which packed the state’s mountains with snow, weather-watchers say California is enjoying the benefits of an above-normal precipitation season. After years of drought, 2024 is shaping up to be “abnormally normal,” Scott Rowe, senior hydrologist at National Weather Service’s Sacramento office, said in a press briefing Tuesday morning. This year’s storms come after a wet year in 2023, which built up massive snowpack. After a dry fall that year, “we got very wet very quickly once we hit the calendar year 2024,” Rowe said. … ” Read more from the Courthouse News Service.
A ticking toxic time bomb
“Between 2014 and 2015, a “blob” of record-breaking warm water traversed the west coast of the U.S., gaining media attention as the warm temperatures wreaked havoc on the bottom of the food chain, causing fisheries like sockeye, pink, and coho salmon to collapse and thousands of sea lions and sea birds to starve. However, amid this devastation, one microscopic creature thrived or “bloomed”—a neurotoxin-producing diatom called Pseudo-nitzschia—causing devastating multi-million dollar losses for many West Coast commercial and tribal crab and shellfish fisheries that had to shut down due to the risk of toxin-contaminated seafood. … Beyond the clear ecological and economic devastation, this 2015 blob-associated harmful algal bloom also left the scientific community in shock. The prevailing understanding was that toxic Pseudo-nitzschia blooms were associated with nutrient-rich, cold-water pulses of water seasonally brought up or “upwelled” from the depths along the Pacific west coast. With the massive hot blob of water hovering over the coastline in 2015, there was little to no upwelling. So how did a toxic bloom occur during this massive heatwave? … ” Read more from USC Dornsife.
Climate change increases crop water demand in San Joaquin Valley, exacerbating shortage on groundwater supplies
“Climate change has been known to compound California’s drought conditions, but a new study shows it has also affected our water supply in other ways. Researchers from UC Merced and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have found that rising temperatures associated with global climate change are largely responsible for increased farming water demands in the San Joaquin Valley — the southern half of California’s Central Valley and the state’s largest agricultural region. Published in PLOS Water, the joint study used existing data to estimate water demand for crops from 1980 to 2023 in the San Joaquin Valley. The researchers found a 4.4% increase in the area’s water deficit over the last 10 years compared to the previous three decades. The increase was about 500,000 acre-feet per year from 2012–2023 — enough to fill Millerton Lake, one of California’s large reservoirs. … ” Read more from UCLA.
USGS: Approaches for managing post-fire vegetation shifts
“As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires over larger land areas, more landscapes may experience vegetation shifts after fires, for example, forests transforming to grasslands or shrublands. Management decisions about post-fire vegetation can have far-reaching impacts as forests provide vital resources to humans and ecosystems. But how do land managers and stewards deal with shifts vegetation following fires? A publication from the Northwest CASC highlights three effective strategies for managing post-fire vegetation change: partnering with Indigenous communities experienced in fire management, creating decision-based science, and improving monitoring efforts. First, the paper provides examples of successful collaborations between government, management, and tribal organizations that improve general understanding of fire and ecological dynamics. Second, it discusses how to create decision-based science by bringing managers and scientists together to assess existing knowledge, knowledge gaps, and to make information accessible and useful. Finally, the paper highlights the importance of ongoing monitoring efforts. Agencies and local communities must coordinate to collect and share data needed to identify fire risks and where the landscape is changing, and to evaluate the effectiveness of management actions. … ” Read more from the USGS.
Improving air quality increases forest fires
“If we want cleaner air, fewer forest fires, and less severe climate change, a new UC Riverside study shows we must reduce aerosol pollution and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide at the same time. The study found that boreal forests in the northern hemisphere are particularly vulnerable to negative effects of cleaning up aerosol pollution. This includes forests in Canada, Alaska, northern Europe, and northern Russia. Aerosols are small particles like dust and sea salt as well as airborne chemicals produced by fossil fuel combustion. They are responsible for poor air quality. The UCR study, published in the journal Science Advances, showed that reducing levels of human-made aerosols causes an increase in wildfires, especially in northern hemisphere forests. … ” Read more from UC Riverside.
In commentary today …
Taking back California – Abundant water
Edward Ring writes, “If energy powers modern civilization, then water gives it life. And in California, for at least the last 20 years, with escalating severity, life has been tough. There isn’t enough water to go around. But as with energy, the water shortages in California are largely the product of political choices. And as with energy, this presents an opportunity for politicians willing to present voters with alternatives.California’s chronic water shortages aren’t happening because droughts have become more severe, although that is part of the cause. But the main reason there is water scarcity is because Californians have been relying on a water supply infrastructure that was largely completed more than 50 years ago, when the state’s population was half what it is today. Since then, investment in water infrastructure has been neglected at the same time as environmentalists have demanded increasing percentages of water remain in the rivers as “unimpaired flow.” In response, rationing has been the tool of choice to allocate what water supplies remain available for the state’s farms and cities. … ” Read more from American Greatness.
Everywhere and forever all at once: PFAS and the failures of chemicals regulation
William Boyd, Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, writes, “Earlier this spring, the Biden administration finalized two important rules targeting a small subset of so-called forever chemicals: one establishing drinking water standards for six such chemicals and the other designating two of the more prominent ones as hazardous substances under CERCLA (the Superfund Law). These chemicals, which are part of a much larger family of some 15,000 chemicals known as Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (or PFAS), are called forever chemicals because of their extreme environmental persistence. They are now widespread in America’s drinking water, showing up in about half of the country’s tap water, and ubiquitous in the broader environment, where they bioaccumulate in living organisms. As their name suggests, these chemicals last, well, like, forever—or at least until we clean them up, which takes enormous effort, not to mention time and money. … ” Read more from the Legal Planet.
In regional water news and commentary today …
NORTH COAST
Water and cooperation breathe new life into Klamath Basin wildlife refuges
“The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges are a complex of six refuges straddling the Oregon-California border — remnants of vast wetlands that once expanded and contracted with the seasons, breathing an almost unfathomable abundance of life into the dry region. A century or so ago, flocks of geese and swans darkened the sky. There were masses of white pelicans; hordes of grebes, ducks, and ibises; eagles and hawks in profusion. On Lower Klamath Lake, which sprawled nearly 100,000 acres, boats conveyed tourists from the Klamath River to the lake’s southern tip. In typical early 20th century fashion, the Bureau of Reclamation remade the basin into a network of dikes, canals, drains, sumps and pumps called the Klamath Reclamation Project. Both Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake were drained to feed new farms established by homesteaders, including veterans returning from both World Wars. … To preserve what remained of the shrinking habitat, President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 established the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. Though a fraction of their former splendor, these wetlands still serve as a vital stopover for the millions of birds that use the Pacific Flyway every year. … ” Read the full story from The Revelator.
BAY AREA
Aging infrastructure and effects of climate change lead to need for critical investments
“Since 1929, Valley Water has been dedicated to providing Santa Clara County with safe, clean water, flood protection and stewardship of streams. While our county’s landscape may look different than it did nearly 100 years ago, our mission remains the same. We continue to invest in infrastructure, develop new programs and expand existing ones to ensure this mission is achieved year after year. On May 14, 2024, the Valley Water Board of Directors adopted a $963.6 million Fiscal Year 2024-25 budget to help provide these critical services. In addition to the new budget, the Board adopted new water charges where the vast majority of the county will see a rate increase of 12.9% ($8.78 a month for an average household). … ” Read more from Valley Water News.
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY
Blueprint and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California sign historic MOU
“A historic memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed recently between the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley (Blueprint) and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan). The purpose of the MOU is to establish collaboration to identify, develop, and implement projects in the San Joaquin Valley (Valley) for managing water supplies, including storage and recovery. The MOU was signed by Blueprint Executive Director Austin Ewell and Metropolitan’s General Manager, Adel Hagekhalil, at the Association of California Water Agencies Conference on May 8 in Sacramento. Many areas in the Valley suffer from water shortages and lack funds for infrastructure. Metropolitan has been successfully banking water in Kern County for decades and is interested in pursuing opportunities to improve water supply reliability during California’s increasingly volatile wet and dry cycles. … ” Read more from the Water Blueprint fro the San Joaquin Valley.
Powerful Kern water agency paid more than $600,000 to oust its longtime attorney
“A settlement agreement obtained by SJV Water shows the longtime attorney for the Kern County Water Agency was paid $640,000 when she was fired in March. The agency voted to fire Attorney Amelia Minaberrigarai after a March 18 special meeting. She had just three months left on her contract. The agency stated she was not fired for cause, which meant she was entitled to be paid for the remaining months on her contract, or about $80,000. Instead, she received $640,000 in exchange for not suing the agency, according to the settlement agreement. The agency also agreed to treat Minaberrigarai as a “retiring employee,” meaning she was also paid for any sick or vacation time she had banked. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
EASTERN SIERRA
Revealed: the rural Californians who can’t sell their businesses – because LA is their landlord
“A red horse statue perched on a 12ft pole greets drivers coming to the town of Bishop from the south. It’s one of the first landmarks here, part of Mike Allen’s corrugated metal feed store – a local institution that sells camping gear, livestock feed and moving equipment in this expansive region of inland California. But Allen desperately wants to sell it so he can retire. “I own the building, the inventory, and the asphalt for the parking lot,” Allen said. “But I don’t own the land under it.” And so Allen can’t get rid of it. The land under Allen’s store belongs to an owner 300 miles away: the city of Los Angeles, specifically its department of water and power (DWP). … ” Read more from The Guardian.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Water recycling in Southern California gets major funding boost from federal government
“Metropolitan Water District’s program to create a new water supply for Southern California by purifying water currently being sent to the ocean received a funding boost today from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced the $99.2 million in funding for Pure Water Southern California at an event held at the regional recycled water program’s demonstration plant in Carson, where she was joined by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano, California State Water Resources Control Board Chair Joaquin Esquivel and representatives from Metropolitan, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, and other water agencies that were awarded federal funds. … ” Read more from Business Wire.
SEE ALSO:
-
- Water recycling gets a boost in Southern California with new federal funding, from the LA Times
- Biden-Harris administration delivers $179 Million from Investing in America Agenda for innovative water reuse and drought resilience projects, press release from the Bureau of Reclamation
Plastic pellets spilled along Southern California coast
““Have you ever heard of nurdles?” I have posed this question countless times while tabling at events and giving talks across San Diego County. “They are pre-production plastic pellets,” I explain while pouring a few out of a jar into the palm of my hand, adding, “Just about everything made out of plastic starts with nurdles. They are melted down and poured into molds to create plastic cutlery, beach toys, milk jugs…you name it!” I then reveal that I collected the nurdles on display from North County San Diego beaches, emphasizing that “they easily escape during manufacturing and can also be lost when transported in trucks, shipping containers, and freight trains.” Despite sharing this information with people of all ages for years, it hadn’t occurred to me that the nurdles I find might originate from the rail corridor that transects the beach communities that I frequent in Northern San Diego. … ” Read more from Surfrider.
San Clemente’s sand expansion project wraps up ahead of holiday weekend
“A project to widen the beach surrounding the San Clemente Pier has wrapped up, for now, just in time for the unofficial start of the summer season. Beach crowds flocking to the area may notice a more expansive beach, offering up more towel and play space than in recent years. Leslea Meyerhoff, San Clemente’s coastal administrator, did a final walk through on Thursday, May 23, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer project managers and the contractor, Manson Construction, calling the completion of the first phase a “significant milestone.” … ” Read more from the OC Register.
IMPERIAL/COACHELLA VALLEYS
A shorebird lover’s paradise at the Salton Sea
“Counting shorebirds during spring migration in the desert means waking up before dawn. Navigating in the dark, I blearily filled my purple water bottle adorned with a Plover Lover sticker, before setting out on a 45-minute drive from Coachella to meet my survey partner at the Salton Sea. … By 6am, I was basking in the early morning light at Niland Boat Marina, the starting point of our survey section, towards the northeast end of the 110-mile-long Salton Sea. My survey partner, Frank DiMartino from Ventura, and I were there to help gather important data for the Intermountain West Shorebird Survey, identifying and tallying the thousands of shorebirds migrating through the saline lake. … ” Continue reading at from Audubon.
Along the Colorado River …
Tribes are pushing for Congress to settle Colorado River water rights
“Within the heart of the Navajo Nation and in the shadow of the sandstone arch that is the namesake of the tribal capital, a simple greeting and big smiles were shared over and over again Friday as tribal officials gathered: “Yá‘át’ééh abíní!” It was a good morning, indeed, for Navajo President Buu Nygren as he signed legislation in Window Rock, Arizona, outlining a proposed settlement to ensure three Native American tribes have water rights from the Colorado River and other sources — and drought-stricken Arizona has more security in its supply. The signature came a day after the Navajo Nation Council voted unanimously in favor of the measure. The San Juan Southern Paiute and Hopi tribes also approved the settlement this week. … ” Read more from KSFR.
Navajo president: Failing to pass tribal water rights settlement would be ‘another form of genocide’
“The president of the Navajo Nation has signed the resolution approving the historic Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement. In doing so, he joined officials from the Hopi and San Juan Paiute tribes. Before the historic signing, Navajo speaker Crystalyne Curley pointed out how many Navajo live off 10 to 30 gallons of water a day, a fraction of the average American home. “Just even having the efficiency, the convenience of turning on a faucet of water, that’s something that’s going to change the livelihoods of many of our Navajo people,” she said. Navajo president Buu Nygren said the tribes need the agreement to survive. … ” Read more from KJZZ.
George Sibley: Romancing the river: Win-winning the West and our unimaginable future
“Way too much is happening in the world today, beyond the Colorado River. An Armageddon is shaping up in the mideastern Cradle of Too Many Civilizations that makes Colorado River problems look like sandlot scuffles; we’re in a long slog toward an election in the Untied (sic) States that would not even be close in a rational nation-state but somehow, ominously, is close here; a so-called Cold War is heating up again between competing military-industrial complexes that are again dragging us to the brink of unimaginable disaster. As if the changing climate were not already enough unimaginability. Much about our future is unimaginable today. Those apocalyptic challenges make a focus on my favorite river almost feel like a guilty diversion, but there’s a lot of fundamental roiling and boiling going on along and around the Colorado River too – a lot of it dependent on intelligent adaptation to unimaginables like the supercharged climate. … ” Read more from Sibley’s Rivers.
Lake Mead to benefit from $99M grant for water recycling project
“Federal resource managers announced $99 million in funding for a large-scale water recycling project that will save enough water in Lake Mead to serve nearly 500,000 households in Southern California and Southern Nevada annually. The Department of the Interior announced Tuesday that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will receive millions in funding for the planning and design of the state’s Pure Water Southern California facility, a planned regional large-scale water recycling project. When completed, the Pure Water project will produce 150 million gallons of purified water every day, enough to meet the demands of 470,000 households in Southern California and Southern Nevada annually. That water would be piped for industrial use and to replenish groundwater basins, which provide well water. … ” Read more from the Nevada Current.
In national water news today …
Lawyers to plastics makers: Prepare for ‘astronomical’ PFAS lawsuits
“The defense lawyer minced no words as he addressed a room full of plastic-industry executives. Prepare for a wave of lawsuits with potentially “astronomical” costs. Speaking at a conference earlier this year, the lawyer, Brian Gross, said the coming litigation could “dwarf anything related to asbestos,” one of the most sprawling corporate-liability battles in United States history. Mr. Gross was referring to PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that have emerged as one of the major pollution issues of our time. Used for decades in countless everyday objects — cosmetics, takeout containers, frying pans — PFAS have been linked to serious health risks including cancer. Last month the federal government said several types of PFAS must be removed from the drinking water of hundreds of millions of Americans. … ” Read more from the New York Times.
