A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
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In California water news this week …
Though Klamath River Dam deconstruction is nearly finished, habitat restoration work continues
“As the deconstruction portion of dam removal on the Klamath River winds down, the nonprofit spearheading the effort is on track to achieve fish passage by the end of next month, a representative said. Meanwhile, the firm tasked with habitat restoration in partnership with the tribes that have relied on the river since time immemorial, will fly several hundred large trees into the area via helicopter in August. Those trees, with their root wads intact, will be placed in fish-bearing streams for salmon and steelhead. But for the Yurok Tribe, removing the four dams — JC Boyle, Iron Gate, Copco No. 1 and No. 2 — is part of a larger vision to fix the entire Klamath River basin. … ” Read more from the Lost Coast Outpost.
Klamath dam removal and river restoration ahead of schedule
“The project removing the four dams on the Klamath River and restoring the natural habitat is ahead of schedule, according to a Thursday news conference. Parts of the JC Boyle and Copco No. 1 dams will likely be broken next week and the copper dam — which diverts river flows into a series of tunnels — at Iron Gate is set for demolition in the last week of August, said Ren Brownell, a spokesperson for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. “I do want to emphasize that this is a very weather-dependent project, so extreme temperatures can cause delays. Our crews aren’t going to be out there working and it’s above 108 degrees. Severe smoke could impact it, wildfires, things like that. But we’re presently way ahead of schedule, which is very good news for fish,” Brownell said. … ” Read more from the Eureka Times-Standard (gift article).
Kern subbasin’s third try at groundwater plan fails to avert state enforcement action
“Noting that Kern County residents could suffer “urgent impacts” to their drinking water from continued agricultural groundwater overpumping, staff at the state Water Resources Control Board announced Thursday they are recommending the entire Kern subbasin be put on probation. Probation is the first step toward a possible state pumping take over. A hearing before the Water Board is set for Feb. 20, 2025. The finding was a blow to area water managers who had hoped a new groundwater plan submitted in May would address concerns about its 2022 plan, which was deemed inadequate in 2023. Managers of Kern’s 20 groundwater sustainability agencies had worked since then to revamp the plan. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
SEE ALSO: Water Board to hold probationary hearing for Kern County Subbasin under Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, press release from the State Water Resources Control Board
Californians’ water usage is down 9% and other takeaways from The Times’ updated water tracker
“California residents are using about 8 fewer gallons of water per day than they did during the last drought emergency, according to newly released state data. Between April 2023 and last April, urban water users consumed an average of 77 gallons per person per day. That comes out to a 9% decrease since the drought emergency ended in March 2023. This period includes the effects of two consecutive wet winters, the first of which relieved the years-long historic drought that had gripped the western United States since 2021. In July 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for Californians to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15%, a move that would have brought statewide water use down to about 79 gallons per person per day. While residents fell short of the goal, they still cut back by about 7% — or 85 gallons per person per day. … ” Read more from the LA Times. | Read via AOL News.
How California’s on-site water recycling can boost conservation
“Despite enduring droughts for much of the past 15 years, California continues to lead the nation in water consumption. During these dry periods, some of the state’s local governments began to look for ways to diversify their water supplies away from lengthy pipelines and expensive, out-of-state sources. In 2012, San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission began developing the Onsite Water Reuse Program to investigate whether water reuse, also known as water recycling, in buildings could be a solution to California’s water problem. “There weren’t any state or national regulations,” Paula Kehoe, the director of water resources at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, told Business Insider. Kehoe and her team created a permitting program to streamline the adoption of on-site water-reuse systems developed by private businesses. … ” Read more from Business Insider.
Parched Central Valley farms depend on Sierras for groundwater
“New research shows that California’s Central Valley, known as America’s breadbasket, gets as much as half of its groundwater from the Sierra Nevadas. This is significant for a farming region that, in some parts, relies almost entirely on groundwater for irrigation.
While it is easy to see above-ground reservoirs rise and fall with the rain and snow, aquifers are a natural water source hidden out of sight, in some cases hundreds of feet underground. “They are like giant bathtubs full of water and sediment,” said UC Riverside associate professor of groundwater hydrology Hoori Ajami. Scientists have long recognized that the Sierras are a key water source for the Central Valley aquifer, but this new UC Riverside-led study is the first to quantify the groundwater contribution from the mountains. … ” Read more from UC Riverside.
The benefits of integrating solar energy with agriculture
“Integrating solar energy with agricultural production can bring economic and environmental benefits for farmers and rural communities, according to a new fact sheet released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The fact sheet focuses on how agrivoltaic and ecovoltaic solar energy systems can increase renewable energy production, reduce agricultural water use, and provide financial benefits for landowners and farmers. Agrivoltaic systems promote sustainable agriculture by allowing different cropping options, improving soil health, and reducing pesticide, fertilizer, and water use, while ecovoltaic systems combine renewable energy with environmental conservation, supporting habitat restoration and aquifer recharge. “These systems can contribute to the economic resilience of farms, particularly during periods of drought or a drop in crop prices,” says Angel S. Fernandez-Bou, a UCS western states senior climate scientist and a co-author of the fact sheet. … ” Read more from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The California-to-Arkansas farmer pipeline
“The thick, squelching mud means there’s no outrunning the mosquitoes, which pierce any bit of skin left un-doused by bug repellant. Still, the discomfort of slogging through flooded Arkansas rice fields in the sticky month of June is offset by visions of abundance. A few glistening inches of water lie across several paddies on Hallie Shoffner’s 2,000-acre seed farm, Delta Harvest, from which thousands of bright green stalks of specialty rice protrude. … Shoffner’s efforts stand on their own. But they are also nestled within an even more monumental goal, spearheaded by World Wildlife Federation (WWF), to shift some crop production from increasingly water-scarce, heat- and fire-scorched California to the Mid-Delta. Called The Next California, WWF’s plan is not to steal fruit, vegetable, nut, and grain production from the Golden State. Rather, it presumes that climate change will make it impossible for California to continue producing all its customary crops — that state’s water-dependent farmers will need an out, and it might be soon. … ” Read more from Investigate Midwest
San Francisco tells Supreme Court it’s not responsible for ocean water quality
“In a case that could limit the authority of federal and state agencies to regulate water pollution, San Francisco is arguing to the Supreme Court that it is responsible only for the pollutants its sewage-treatment plants discharge into the ocean, and not for the quality of the waters themselves. The court agreed in May to hear San Francisco’s appeal of a ruling that said the city was failing to protect swimmers and bathers from discharges of sewage into the Pacific Ocean. The ruling, due by June 2025, will determine whether local governments can be penalized for pollution near their shores, or whether — as they contend — the law requires them only to limit contaminants to levels set in advance, like specific discharges per million parts of water. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle (gift article).
In long-sought change, states must consider tribal rights when crafting water rules
“This May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a revision to the Clean Water Act that requires states to consider tribal treaty rights when crafting water quality regulations. The rule could protect resources such as wild rice, sturgeon, salmon and shellfish. While many tribes have issued pollution standards for waters within their own boundaries, the federal rule will cover off-reservation landscapes on which Native people still exercise hard-won rights to hunt, fish and gather. Such areas cover millions of acres mapped out in dozens of treaties, concentrated especially in the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest. State regulators have long been tasked with setting water quality standards for those areas. Now, the new rule directs them to consider the treaty-protected aquatic species that depend on those waters. For instance, states may be forced to lower pollution thresholds in some waters to account for the fact that tribal members who practice subsistence lifestyles consume fish at higher rates than the general public. … ” Read the full story from Stateline.
Invasive species are thriving thanks to climate change while worsening global heating
“From Burmese pythons and European starlings to zebra mussels and Great Lake lampreys, the United States is in the midst of an invasive species crisis, impacting local environments both on the land and in the water. There are a number of factors making this problem worse, but foremost among them is climate change. Dr. Robert C. Venette, a research biologist working for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Northern Research Station, is paying close attention to multiple invasive species, including “several bark beetles, emerald ash borer, spotted lanternfly, hemlock wooly adelgid, oak wilt, Palmer amaranth and Japanese knotweed, among others.” But figuring out exactly how much damage they will do — and what that means for the future of the environment — isn’t an easy task. … ” Read more from Salon.
In commentary this week …
When it comes to Calif.’s water, the numbers do lie
Bill Hammonds, an attorney and chairman of Firebaugh-based Hammonds Ranch, writes, “Years ago, I wrote a tongue in cheek essay dedicated to the authors of “How to Lie with Statistics”, which proved beyond any doubt that rainfall caused mental illness. There is, by the way, significant statistical evidence to back this up, but it may well be confusing coincidence with causation. That said, there is an anomaly in how the State of California reports rainfall records. Simultaneously, the state is using this data to allocate water to farmers in the Central Valley, and year after year, there are more emergencies, and the farms get less water. The state tracks rainfall in the Sierra in three different regions, the Northern Sierra 8 Station Average, the Tulare Basin and the San Joaquin stations. In the southern San Joaquin Valley the water we use comes mostly from the Northern Sierra. … ” Read more from the San Joaquin Valley Sun.
Managing California’s water requires improved transparency
Allison Febbo, general manager of the Westlands Water District, writes, “California is experiencing whiplash between boom-and-bust cycles of prolonged drought and atmospheric rivers. The unpredictable nature of our climate makes management of California’s water system extraordinarily challenging. But as the lifeblood for every Californian and a key ingredient for our agricultural communities, it is critical we have water management and distribution systems in place that work during both dry and wet years. This year’s water allocations from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and the Department of Water Resources were at the very least frustrating and demonstrate the need for improvements. For background, Westlands Water District (District) receives water from the Central Valley Project and distributes that water to farmers and communities on the Westside of Fresno and Kings counties. Water allows farmers in Westlands to produce more than 50 crops annually and play a critical role in meeting California’s — and the nation’s — food supply and food security needs. … ” Read more from The Business Journal.
Farmers to benefit as Sites Reservoir nears fruition
Fritz Durst, a Yolo County farmer and chairman of the Sites Joint Power Authority, writes, “From prolonged drought to excessive flooding, water conditions in California have been anything but consistent during the past few years. That’s a problem for one of the world’s leading agricultural regions. With climate change threatening one of California’s biggest industries, we need to invest in a truly resilient and reliable water future. We need Sites Reservoir. After the worst drought on record in 2022, historic, wet winters in 2023 and 2024 produced record rain that filled reservoirs and aquifers above average levels. It was a welcome change for California’s farms, which were relying on depleted wells and aquifers in the previous two years. But it wasn’t enough to overcome losses from the state’s large groundwater deficit. If it were already operational, Sites Reservoir—a 1.5 million acre-feet off-stream water storage project planned for rural Glenn and Colusa counties north of Sacramento—would be 100% full as of this past spring. … ” Continue reading this commentary.
Sites Reservoir: When is a multibillion-dollar water project not worth it?
Sofia Prado-Irwin, a staff scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, writes, “… Gov. Gavin Newsom has fast-tracked Sites Reservoir, lauding the proposed project northwest of Sacramento as a panacea for a California that still remembers the challenges of an extreme drought. But big water storage and conveyance projects such as Sites and the Delta tunnel, another massive boondoggle, pose huge environmental and financial risks. These are old ideas that claim to respond to climate change when in fact they destroy intact ecosystems and wildlife habitats. The Sites Reservoir aims to store about 1.5 million acre-feet of water, requiring an enormous amount of water to be diverted from the Sacramento River system. This would further damage a fragile ecosystem that’s home to federally protected salmon and steelhead. Big projects also leave Californians with a heavy, lasting burden…. ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News.
Red tape is getting in the way of storing more water underground. The state must lead
“California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was enacted a decade ago to address one of the state’s oldest water problems: the over-exploitation of groundwater aquifers on which many cities, towns and agricultural operations depend. SGMA requires the state to bring aquifers into balance so that for every drop of water taken out, an equal amount is put underground into the same aquifer. Optimally managing basins means recharging them with water when it’s available. Some regulatory red tape is getting in the way. … A win-win solution seems obvious: We propose that all excess water in California’s hydrological system (all water not already obligated for municipal, agricultural or environmental use) should be claimed by the state and made available for groundwater recharge as aquifer needs and regional conveyance/recharge systems permit. All of it. … ” Read the full commentary at the Sacramento Bee. | Read via AOL News.
Are there ways to use avian flu control concepts to deal with California’s water problem?
“Water availability and its scarcity affect our lives and livelihoods. This is a case of applying the experience acquired in one area of human activities to another despite the great differences between the two areas. As improbably as it may appear, it may make sense to apply the lessons learned in controlling Avian flu to solve California’s almond production issue. But first, the facts about almonds and water. About 80% of the world’s supply of almonds is produced in California. Essential nutrients are those that the body cannot produce on its own or in sufficient quantities to meet its needs. Almonds, while nutritious, do not contain any nutrients that exclusively fulfil a common definition of “essential nutrients,” i.e., those the body cannot produce on its own or in sufficient quantities to meet its needs. … ” Read more from Impakter.
Water is life. Water is also property value.
The Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley writes, “When water supply and water quality are discussed, the focus is often on the critical importance of water for people’s health and safety, for agriculture, and for the natural environment. Rightly so. However, a more recent development is the direct tie between water and property values. One of the outcomes of the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 (SGMA) has been the connection of land values to the availability of surface water. Adjacent parcels that are otherwise identical now have dramatically different appraisals if one is in the service area of an irrigation district and has access to surface water, and the other has groundwater as its sole water source. The real estate community saw this coming, and now water sources have become a valuation factor cited in property appraisals. … ” Read more from the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley.
In regional water news this week …
Press release: Biden administration policies have Hoopa Tribe’s Trinity River coho fishery on path to extinction
“Today, following American Rivers named California’s Trinty River to its top-ten list of endangered American rivers. https://www.americanrivers.org/media-item/trinity-river-named-among-americas-most-endangered-rivers-of-2024/, the Hoopa Valley Tribe (Hoopa) charged the United States Bureau of Reclamation (“Reclamation”) and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (“CDFW”) with violation of the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). Hoopa filed what is known as a 60-day notice of intent to take legal action. The notice gives Reclamation, which operates dams on the Trinity River that divert water to industrial agriculture and other uses in the Central Valley, time to meet its responsibilities to enforce the ESA short of litigation. “Both Reclamation and CDFW are unlawfully taking Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Salmon in violation of the ESA through their ongoing operations of the Trintiy River Hatchery,” said the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s Fishery Director Michael W. Orcutt. … ” Continue reading from the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
High cyanotoxin levels prompts guidance for residents using private intakes from Clear Lake
“The Lake County Water Resources and Environmental Health departments, in partnership with Big Valley Rancheria, have issued guidance to community members who draw their drinking water from Clear Lake in light of high cyanotoxin levels in the lake. This year, due to persistent heat, the partners monitoring water quality conditions are witnessing elevated levels of cyanotoxins in some areas of Clear Lake. For Lake County residents with individual water systems that draw water directly from the lake using a private intake, drinking water may become unsafe when high levels of toxins are present. … ” Read more from the Lake County News.
Not Twain’s Tahoe: Raw sewage, microplastics and lead telecom lines litter Lake Tahoe
“On July 19, North Tahoe Public Utility District estimated that 125,000 gallons of untreated sewage were “discharged” from a break in a sewer line, of which only 40,000 gallons were recovered. An estimated 85,000 gallons of raw sewage seeped into the lake from the shore of Carnelian Bay West Beach. The contaminated water samples have been collected and sent to be tested, but the current levels still need to be determined. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, raw sewage in bodies of water “has the potential to impair water quality, adversely affect aquatic environments and increase risks to human health…the impacts may be especially problematic in marinas, slow-moving rivers, lakes and other bodies of water with low-flushing rates.” At the time when Mark Twain spoke in prose of the “noble sheet of Blue Water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea,” today’s Tahoe is not Twain’s Tahoe while he was reporting from the foothills of Virginia City, Nevada. … ” Read more from the Nevada Globe.
Lake Tahoe sees second-highest surface temp in 25 years amid California heat wave
“One of the United States’ most iconic lakes almost saw record-breaking surface level temperatures as another heat wave hits Northern California. When is warm too warm for Lake Tahoe? “Too warm, certainly in the case of Lake Tahoe, is when the temperature starts to accelerate the things we don’t want in the lake,” said Geoff Schladow, UC Davis professor and former director of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center. Schladow said Lake Tahoe had its second-highest surface temperature recorded from the middle of the lake in the last 25 years on July 22. It was 75.7 degrees. … ” Read more from CBS Sacramento.
Are chemicals still spreading near Placer County missile site? New probe data show the latest
“The most recent data collected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the Titan-1 missile silo site in Placer County found that despite longstanding concerns, new soil vapor monitoring probes closest to homes in the Sun City Lincoln Hills development do not show signs of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a chemical that can cause health problems. The monitoring probes did, however, measure low levels of benzene — a chemical linked to cancer — at the wells nearest to the homes. Officials say the source of the benzene was not immediately clear, but that the amounts found do not appear to be dangerous. Titan-1 missiles were a Cold War-era project. The Lincoln site, one of three in California, took up dozens of acres in a then-remote part of Lincoln — with miles of tunnels, three 160-foot-deep silos and other operation and housing buried underground. … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
Desalination plant proposed for San Francisco Bay
“Saying it needs to evaluate all options for new sources of drinking water, Silicon Valley’s largest water district is studying a plan to build the first seawater desalination plant along the shores of San Francisco Bay. The Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency based in San Jose, has approved spending $1.7 million for Black & Veatch, a Walnut Creek firm, to conduct an engineering feasibility study over the next 12 months for a project near the bay’s shoreline in Palo Alto, Mountain View or San Jose. Under the proposal, which is still in the early stages, the plant would take between 20 million to 80 million gallons of water a day from the bay, run it through filters to strip the salt out and serve from 10 million to 40 million gallons a day of freshwater to South Bay homes and businesses. That would provide about 11,000 to 44,000 acre-feet of water per year, enough for between 100,000 and 500,000 households. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News (gift article).
Sizing up progress on Nature-Based Infrastructure in the Bay Area
“It wasn’t the appearance of a flashy, high-ranking California official at the podium, or the review of 35 years of efforts to protect the Bay’s watershed at the beginning of the May 2024 State of the Estuary conference that made me sit up in my red velvet auditorium seat. It was an awards ceremony for outstanding projects. Usually a rather dull procedural item in my experience of half a dozen such conferences, this one’s message was nothing anyone said or put up on the screen. There to receive each small plaque from Friends of the Estuary were long lines of “collaborators.” As they snaked on and off the stage for a photo and handshake, the line of folk who had helped complete this or that project — from mapping the range of the salt marsh harvest mouse to involving students and teachers in watershed restoration — got longer and longer. In these humble lines of changemakers, no one was taking selfies or fist-pumping or even expecting to hear their own name spoken into the mike. These are just the folks quietly going about saving the planet — year after year. It was heartening to see such unity compared to the daily news headlines. … ” Read more from Knee Deep Times.
Ag districts to fund water projects, and more, in several disadvantaged west Fresno County communities
“Four large agricultural water districts have kicked in an initial $580,000 to pay for water projects in several communities dotting the vast farming areas of western Fresno County. The funding amount will remain the same until the districts revisit the program in three years. The four districts – Central California Irrigation District, Firebaugh Canal Water District and the Columbia and San Luis canal companies – are members of the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Water Authority, which covers 240,000 acres from about Newman down to Firebaugh mostly in Fresno County. Together they have funded the new Community Infrastructure Program, which will focus primarily on projects benefiting the disadvantaged communities of Mendota, Firebaugh, Gustine, Dos Palos, Los Banos and Newman. However, nonprofits, community organizations and local governments may apply for funding as well. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
A plan to replenish the Colorado River could mean dry alfalfa fields. And many farmers are for it
“A plan to help shore up the depleted Colorado River by cutting off water to alfalfa fields in California’s crop-rich Imperial Valley is finding support from the farmers who grow it. The Imperial Irrigation District — the biggest user of water from the 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) river — has offered to pay farmers to shut off irrigation to forage crops including alfalfa for up to 60 days during the peak of the sweltering summer. While farmers often balk at the idea of letting fields lie fallow, at least 80% of properties eligible for the new program have been signed up to participate, said Tina Shields, the district’s water department manager. “We don’t like to do fallowing down here,” Shields said. “They’re making business decisions.” … ” Read more from ABC News.
Announcements, notices, and funding opportunities …
NOTICE: Invitation to discuss the Integrated Report with program staff
NOTICE: Curtailments Issued for Water Rights in the Scott River Watershed
