A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
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In California water news this week …
Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and Southern California’s water dilemma
“Two years ago, the Colorado River Lower Basin states united to conserve an extra 3 million acre-feet of water by 2026, aiming to stabilize Lake Powell and Lake Mead while crafting the post-2026 guidelines for managing the river. With last year’s near-normal snowpack and conservation efforts ahead of schedule, success seemed within reach. However, over the last few months, this year has become anything but normal, and the system is looking to be anything but stabilized. At Metropolitan’s Imported Water Subcommittee, Laura Lamdin, Senior Engineer and interim team manager for the Colorado River, briefed subcommittee members on the challenging situation. … ” Read more from Maven’s Notebook.
California Aqueduct repairs: Billions needed to fix subsidence
Land subsidence along the California Aqueduct is threatening the ability of the State Water Project to deliver water, an important piece of infrastructure for millions of Californians. The recently released addendum to the 2023 SWP Delivery Capability Report from the Department of Water Resources (DWR) reveal significant reductions in flow capacity as sinking land constricts the aqueduct’s channels, particularly in subsidence-prone areas of the San Joaquin Valley. With repairs estimated to cost billions, officials are exploring engineering fixes, collaboration with local agencies, and funding solutions to safeguard one of California’s most vital water delivery systems. At June’s Metropolitan Imported Water Subcommittee meeting, Sarah Bartlett, interim manager for the State Water Project Supply and Programs Team, explained the challenges and outlined DWR’s efforts to address them. … ” Read more from Maven’s Notebook.
‘Water brings life’: Plans to revive Tulare Lake take shape in the San Joaquin Valley
“Tulare Lake was drained by farmers more than a century ago, and it has reappeared only rarely when floods have reclaimed farmlands in its ancient lake bed in the San Joaquin Valley. Now, a coalition of tribal leaders, community activists and environmental advocates has begun an effort to restore the lake. They have been discussing a proposal to bring back a portion of its once-vast waters by building a reservoir fringed with wetlands on the west side of the valley, within sight of Interstate 5. “Water brings life,” said Robert Jeff, vice chairman of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut Tribe. “Putting that water back on the land is going to benefit everybody and everything.” Jeff and other supporters of the concept, including leaders of the nonprofit group Friends of the River, say setting aside space for lake restoration would provide an outlet to capture floodwaters when needed, helping to protect low-lying towns and farms. They say restoring part of the lake and its marshes would revive vital habitat for wildlife, bringing the area a new park where people could fish, watch migrating birds and walk along the water’s edge. … ” Read more from the LA Times. | Read via Yahoo News.
Judge backs Reclamation in fight over California water contract conversions
“A federal judge agreed on Monday with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that conversion of temporary water contracts from the California Central Valley Project doesn’t require a new environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act or the Endangered Species Act. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston, a Joe Biden appointee, ruled on cross motions for summary judgment that the bureau’s interpretation of the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act was more plausible than that of the environmental advocacy organization that sued five years ago. “Given the layered complexity of the multiple statutory schemes at issue, it is easy to lose track of the central issues in this case,” the Fresno, California-based judge said. “The question is whether Reclamation’s obligations under the WIIN Act regarding contract conversion make it impossible for the agency to exercise discretion for the protected species’ benefit.” … ” Read more from Courthouse News.
Feds must decide on protections for Chinook salmon
“In a move environmentalists are hailing as an important victory for Chinook salmon conservation, the federal government has agreed to decide this year whether the fish warrants federal protections. By Nov. 3, the National Marine Fisheries Service must decide whether so-called Oregon Coast and Southern Oregon and Northern California Coastal varieties of Chinook salmon warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act. By Jan. 2 of next year, feds must do the same for Washington Coast spring-run Chinook salmon, according to a settlement agreement from Thursday. The Center for Biological Diversity — joined by the Native Fish Society, Umpqua Watersheds, and Pacific Rivers — in February sued the service and two top officials after the service failed to issue 12-month findings on the groups’ petitions to list the fish. “This agreement requires a decision that is already overdue,” said Michael Morrison, chair of Pacific Rivers. “Science and law are crystal clear. These unique and endangered salmon urgently need and deserve protection.” … ” Read more from Courthouse News Service.
SGMA implementation shifts from planning to reality
“Since the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act’s enactment in 2014, its impact on California’s groundwater management has unfolded gradually. However, a true turning point occurred in April 2024, when the Tulare Lake Subbasin — one of seven critically overdrafted basins — underwent its probationary hearing and was subsequently placed on probation. This marked the first time the state exercised its enforcement authority under SGMA. According to a May article by the professional law corporation Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, SGMA implementation has reached a critical juncture. The seven critically overdrafted basins deemed inadequate by the Department of Water Resources include the Tulare Lake Subbasin, Tule Subbasin, Kaweah Subbasin, Kern County Subbasin, Delta-Mendota Subbasin, Chowchilla Subbasin, and Pleasant Valley Subbasin. This critical juncture has prompted closer scrutiny of the seven overdrafted basins now facing direct state oversight. … ” Read more from Valley Ag Voice.
Kaweah is second San Joaquin Valley groundwater basin to escape state enforcement
“The Kaweah subbasin is the second San Joaquin Valley region to successfully escape state intervention, managers learned today. In a phone call with state Water Resources Control Board staff, managers of Kaweah’s three groundwater sustainability agencies got the news that their efforts to rewrite their groundwater management plans were good enough for staff to recommend that they return to Department of Water Resources oversight. “I think the proof is in the pudding,” said Aaron Fukuda, speaking on behalf of the East, Mid- and Greater Kaweah groundwater sustainability agencies. “We put everything we had into the development of the GSP, and now we will put all that energy into implementation.” … ” Read more from SJV Water.
Violating California residents’ right to water
“After the couple finished the rough frame of the house on Bluff Road, they installed a high-tech water filtration system in the kitchen, but it clogged around the mid-1990s. And, after years of working on the place, Trindade lacked the funds and the will to replace it. … So when Trindade heard about a project to pipe safe drinking water to the taps of homes in Moss Landing and other unincorporated agricultural communities in northern Monterey County, he signed on. He’d have to figure out how to pay the water bill later. In December, the Biden administration awarded a $20 million Community Change grant designed to help disadvantaged communities address environmental and climate justice challenges to the nonprofit Community Water Center, founded 20 years ago to help underserved rural communities without access to clean drinking water. That grant, combined with funding from the state, would have finally provided safe drinking water to Trindade and thousands of others like him who had contaminated wells or were hooked up to failing public water systems in the low-income Pajaro, Sunny Mesa and Springfield communities. But the project barely had a chance to get off the ground. On May 1, the same day Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed the Trump administration was “ensuring America has the cleanest air, land and water on the planet,” the EPA canceled the Community Water Center’s grant. … ” Read more from Inside Climate News.
Rice: The other climate- and wildlife-friendly solution for the Delta
“Rice acreage is growing rapidly in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s agricultural core. It nearly tripled in the Delta’s Primary Zone between 2018 and 2022, according to data compiled for the Delta Protection Commission’s March 2025 Socioeconomic Indicators Update (PDF). That took it from the zone’s No. 11 crop to No. 9. Rice acreage is still dwarfed by corn. At nearly 60,000 acres, corn remained the Primary Zone’s No. 2 crop in 2022. But corn acreage is falling: It dropped 43% in the same period rice was rising. “We could be looking at 15,000-20,000 acres of rice in the Delta this year,” said Michelle Leinfelder-Miles, Delta Crops Resource Management Advisor for the UC Cooperative Extension. “I’m learning of rice going in places it hasn’t gone before,” she said. “The Delta community seems really coalesced on developing a rice industry.” … ” Continue reading from the Delta Protection Commission.
California is full of hidden reservoirs. These mystics find them.
“On a recent sunny Monday morning, 85-year-old Doug Brown pulled up to a breakfast joint in Willits in his white pickup. Bold white letters on the tinted camper shell window spelled out “Water Witcher,” with Brown’s phone number written just below. Inside the truck was a quiver of wire rods, each tipped with different metals or materials, to be used for Brown’s practice of an archaic tradition: water dowsing. In an age defined by dry spells and dwindling resources, an unlikely group continues to quietly deploy their centuries-old practice in search of water. Called dowsers, water witchers or diviners, members of this eclectic guild claim they can locate the Earth’s hidden reservoirs using primitive technology and intuition, all for a price. … ” Read more from SF Gate.
New membrane technology could expand access to water for agricultural and industrial use
“Approximately 40 percent of the U.S. water supply comes from underground water reserves, but far more brackish groundwater is available–much of it too salty from calcium and magnesium content, however, for practical use. In fact, the amount of brackish groundwater in the U.S. is more than 800 times the amount of fresh groundwater pumped from all other sources every year, according to U.S. Geological Survey estimates. By sufficiently treating brackish groundwater to separate salts and other contaminants, the U.S. could significantly expand its available water supply. A new technology equips membranes used in the reverse-osmosis desalination process with electrical conductivity, improving their ability to separate salts and other contaminants from hard-to-treat waters. Active Membranes, a California-based company, licensed the technology originating from UC Riverside and UCLA to advance its development and bring it to market. … ” Read more from Berkeley Lab.
California is running out of safe places to build homes due to fires, rising seas
“California, gripped by a housing shortage that is forcing families from the state, wants to build 2.5 million homes. But it’s running out of safe places to put them. Much of the land best suited for new housing — wind-swept, grassy hills surrounding the state’s major cities — now faces an extreme threat of wildfire, brutally illustrated by the Los Angeles-area blazes in January that killed 30 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. Fires have also leveled entire towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills, often considered an affordable place to buy a home. With California’s peak fire season on the way, the state’s main firefighting agency recently updated its maps showing the places at risk, and the danger zone now encompasses an area the size of Georgia. … ” Read more from the San Jose Mercury News.
Beneath layers of waste, landfills around the US have been reaching scorching temperatures, and neighbors have been getting sick.
“Last year, Brandi Howse’s annual mammogram returned a grim diagnosis: Stage 3 breast cancer. To save her life, she had her breasts removed, then her ovaries. She’s free of the disease now and continues to take medication. It was all a particular shock, says Howse, who is 50, because her mammogram the year before had been clean. Several of her neighbors on Lincoln Avenue in Val Verde, California, have similar stories of cancers, autoimmune disorders or heart problems that seemed to come out of nowhere. She and her neighbors say they can’t be sure of the cause, but given the number of people who are sick in their community of about 3,000, they have a guess. Hidden behind a foothill about 500 yards from Howse’s front door, on the northwest edge of Los Angeles County, sits Chiquita Canyon Landfill, one of America’s largest repositories of municipal waste. While the landfill has often seemed on the verge of closure, it’s grown by more than 200% over the quarter-century Howse has lived nearby. … ” Read more from Bloomberg (gift article).
Environmental groups are outraged after Newsom overhauls CEQA
“The Golden State’s tug-of-war between environmental advocacy and a worsening housing crisis came to a head Monday evening when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills that will overhaul the landmark California Environmental Quality Act in an effort to ease new construction in the state. The two pieces of legislation, Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, were linchpins in the approval of a proposed $320-billion annual state budget deal; the governor’s signature was conditional on their passage. … Newsom said the bills will break down long-standing barriers to development, speeding up production, cutting costs and allowing the state to address its housing scarcity. “Today’s bill is a game changer, which will be felt for generations to come,” the governor said in a statement. Development experts agreed, saying it is among the most significant reforms to CEQA in its 55-year history. But its passage sparked fierce backlash from environmental groups who say it marks a sweeping reversal of essential protections for the state’s most vulnerable landscapes, wildlife and communities. … ” Continue reading from the LA Times. | Read via AOL News.
Governor Newsom challenges President Trump to adopt model executive order to help ‘Make America Rake Again’
“Governor Gavin Newsom today urged President Trump to follow California’s lead and step up the federal government’s management of its forestlands in California to help protect communities from catastrophic wildfire. Over half of the forests in California – 57% – are owned by the federal government, compared to the state’s 3%. The Governor sent a model executive order to the White House for the President to issue to help the federal government match California’s efforts and better manage its forestlands. The order – if signed by the President – would direct the federal government to increase its forest management capabilities and investments to match the most advanced state and local government efforts, like California’s historic investments. … ” Read more from Governor Newsom.
Newsom calls on Trump to boost wildfire preparedness and ‘make America rake again’
“As California’s fire season heats up, Gov. Gavin Newsom sharply criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for failing to devote adequate resources to wildfire preparation and response efforts on federal lands. Newsom said his office sent the White House a proposed executive order that, if signed, would direct the federal government to match California’s forest management investments and capabilities in the state. “We made it easy,” Newsom said at a news conference at Cal Fire’s Mt. Howell Lookout tower in Placer County. “The president could sign this afternoon.” As of Tuesday, California was actively fighting nine wildfires and much of inland Northern California was under red flag fire warnings due to the threat of lightning strikes. … ” Read more from the LA Times.
In commentary this week …
The cost of state inaction—the future of California’s water supply
Jay Lund and Alvar Escriva-Bou, professors of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UC Davis and Josue Medellin-Azuara, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UC Merced, write, “California’s weather whiplash has left the Golden State in a place of severe uncertainty about its diminishing water supply and increasing human and environmental demands for water. Research that my colleagues and I published last year, “The Magnitude of California’s Water Challenges” showed that Californians can expect their water supply to shrink 12 to 25% by 2050, up to 9 million acre-feet, or equal to one to two Lake Shastas. Our recent follow-up research, “Inaction’s Economic Cost for California’s Water Supply Challenges” estimates the costs of such water supply losses. These economic losses could reach $3.4–6.4 billion per year in a likely future or $7.0–14.5 billion in a worse scenario, with up to 67,000 jobs statewide. … ” Read more from the OC Register.
Politics and the cost of water infrastructure
Edward Ring writes, “When it comes to building water supply infrastructure, even if regulations are streamlined and litigation is contained, there are massive costs. Quantifying these variables is something we have focused on a great deal, most recently in WC#96, “The Economics of the Delta Tunnel.” In that and other reports we’ve offered a highly simplified cost/benefit equation: divide the total capital cost of a water supply project by the expected average annual yield in acre feet. While this ratio is an excellent way to begin to compare the cost-effectiveness of various water supply project options, it omits a result of great practical value, which is the ultimate wholesale and retail costs per acre foot that the project will eventually yield. We have steered clear of this depth of analysis because it introduces a great deal of added subjectivity, and almost always denies recipients of the estimate access to a coherent description of every variable that was considered and the assumptions behind each of them. But there is one level of detail we can add without going off the deep end, and that is the expected financing cost per acre foot. … ” Read more from Edward Ring.
How deep-pocketed groundwater users are stalling California’s sustainability plans
Scott Hayman, chair of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, writes, “California is at a groundwater management crossroads as legal loopholes threaten to undo the state’s progress toward responsible groundwater sustainability. At the core of this legal conflict are two legal processes. The first is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, the landmark law passed in 2014 to bring order to overdrafting of basins and ensure long-term sustainability of the state’s groundwater resources. The second is groundwater adjudications, a legal tool to determine water rights of who can pump water and how much they can use. Increasingly, these two legal processes are clashing. As a result, it is causing confusion, delaying implementation of groundwater sustainability plans and further putting California’s water future at risk. In fact, nearly a quarter of state-approved groundwater sustainability plans are being challenged in a groundwater adjudication. … ” Continue reading this commentary.
The California story we keep erasing
Tony Platt is a scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Law and Society, writes, “I’ve spent most of the last five years digging into California’s past to expose UC’s role on the wrong side of history, in particular Native American history. Beginning in the early 20th century, scholars at Berkeley (and at USC and the Huntington Library) played a central role in shaping the state’s public, cultural identity. They wrote textbooks and popular histories, consulted with journalists and amateur historians, and generated a semiofficial narrative that depicted Indigenous peoples as frozen in time and irresponsible stewards of the land. Their version of California’s story reimagined land grabs and massacres as progress and popularized the fiction that Native people quietly vanished into the premodern past. Today, prodded by new research and persistent Indigenous organizing, tribal groups and a later generation of historians have worked to set the record straight. For thousands of years, California tribes and the land they lived on thrived, the result of creative adaptation to changing circumstances. … ” Read more from the LA Times.
In regional water news this week …
Nature returns: Striking before-and-after photos show life flourishing at Lower Long Bar
“Recently, Danielle Conway, SYRCL’s Fisheries Restoration Program Manager, conducted photopoint surveys at our Lower Long Bar Restoration site and collected some exciting pictures throughout the entire project area. Photopoint surveys are a common qualitative practice, particularly in restoration. You select GPS locations throughout the project site where you expect to see change, navigate to that point prior to implementation, take photos in the four cardinal directions, and then repeat after construction. In this case, pre-project photos were taken in February 2021, and post-project photos were taken in December 2022 — about a month after implementation was completed. Danielle repeated the whole process again in June of 2025. These latest photos demonstrate the dramatic positive changes that have occurred at the restoration site in the years following implementation. … ” Read more from the South Yuba River Citizens League.
A to-be-drained lake, a PG&E plan, and the promise and peril of California’s next big dam removal
“A cool May breeze lapped across the surface of this reservoir in remote Lake County, where a couple made their way out in a boat across otherwise serene waters, taking advantage of the brightest bit of afternoon sun. This man-made retreat, four square miles of water impounded by a dam across the upper Eel River, feels durable. It’s filled with hungry trout and black bullhead, prey for the sharp-eyed bald eagles, egrets and herons that hunt these waters. To many of its visitors, and the several hundred people who live along its 31-mile shoreline deep within the sprawling Mendocino National Forest, Lake Pillsbury is the region’s heartbeat. But Scott Dam, at the foot of Lake Pillsbury, and another, smaller dam on the river 12 miles downstream, have also become a headache for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which owns both dams. … ” Read more from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Stinson Beach gets its first-ever price tag for coping with sea level rise — and it’s gigantic
“By 2060, a third of Stinson Beach’s fabled sandy beach could be permanently underwater. By 2085, when sea levels are expected to rise by 3.3 feet, nearly all seaside homes could flood in a major storm. Those are some of the conclusions of the most comprehensive sea level rise vulnerability and adaptation plan yet for Stinson Beach, released by Marin County this month. Different approaches to mitigating those expected climate change impacts could add up to at least $1.2 billion, the report finds — the equivalent of $2.4 million apiece for each of its approximately 500 residents. But the cost of doing nothing would be much worse, planners say — and because the town already sees regular beach erosion and flooding, they recommend that some measures be taken right away. “We’ve identified this as the most vulnerable space in West Marin,” said Kathleen Kilgariff, senior planner for the Marin County Community Development Agency. The beach itself also plays an important role in the broader Bay Area, she said. “It really is a recreational resource for so many people, not only those who live there.” … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Keeping microplastics out of the San Francisco Bay: A conversation with environmental toxicologist Ezra Miller
“In 2019, the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) published a three-year study of microplastics in the San Francisco Bay that was―and still is―among the most thorough assessments of these tiny contaminants globally. The study was also groundbreaking. Much to the researchers’ surprise, microplastics that entered the Bay in runoff from storms dwarfed those from wastewater treatment plants. “This was a paradigm shift for us,” says Ezra Miller, an SFEI environmental toxicologist who is part of a team working on microplastics in the Bay. “Most people’s gut reaction is that wastewater effluent is the main source.” The team’s next steps include figuring out how microplastics get into stormwater, which will help identify strategies for keeping them out of aquatic ecosystems. Miller presented SFEI’s latest microplastics work at a recent symposium called Microplastic Pollution: Impact on the SF Bay Delta and Remediation Strategies. … ” Read more from Maven’s Notebook.
Homeowners approve 200% water rate increase in hopes of keeping Kern County water flowing – at least for now
“Residents of a development hundreds of miles north of Kern County on Saturday approved a massive water rate hike in hopes of appeasing a local agency that has provided them water for the past 24 years under a convoluted exchange deal. They will go from paying about $200 a month for the base connection fee to $568 a month. The money will go to the Western Hills Water District so it can repay the Kern County Water Agency a debt of $13 million that KCWA says it owes in unpaid water charges. KCWA had said it would cut off supplies to Western Hills, which serves the Diablo Grande development in the foothills west of Patterson, by June 30 if residents didn’t agree to the rate hike. But on June 26, KCWA board members, apparently in closed session, extended that deadline to Sept. 30 to allow Western Hills to “develop an alternate supply,” according to a letter KCWA sent Western Hills on June 27. … ” Read more from SJV Water.
A new toxic metal has been found in the air after L.A. fires. No one knows where it’s coming from
“Krista Copelan’s home didn’t burn in the Eaton Fire. But for months afterward, it was filled with poisonous traces of things that did. … And on Copelan’s kitchen floor: beryllium. A little-known earth metal prized for being lighter than aluminum but more rigid than steel, beryllium is safely used commercially in numerous products, including electronics and cars. But when heated, objects containing beryllium can release the metal as microscopic particles that infiltrate the lungs. The substance is so dangerous that even a minuscule concentration in air over time — equivalent to a few grains of salt in an Olympic-size swimming pool — can spur development of cancer cells, or a lifelong and sometimes fatal respiratory disease.Beryllium has been found in dozens of homes in the Eaton and Palisades fire zones, test results obtained by the Chronicle show. … ” Read the full story from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Six months after the fires, are LA beaches safe?
“It’s been about six months since the Eaton and Palisades fires killed 30 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. Since then, contamination has been a concern for nearby communities, including those along the coast. That’s because after the fires came the rains, which sent hazardous material straight from those burned sites through creeks and storm drains into the ocean. Shortly after the fires, the environmental nonprofit Heal the Bay and water quality officials gathered sand and water samples from Malibu, Palisades and Santa Monica beaches over several months, testing for hazardous forever chemicals, heavy metals and benzene. “What we can say is that based on what has been tested and what those results are, the risk appears to be low,” said Tracy Quinn, chief executive of Heal the Bay, which analyzed the samples. … ” Read more from the LAist.
Firefighting helicopter system takes flight in the San Gorgonio Pass
“In a powerful show of innovation and collaboration, San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency (SGPWA) and its partners unveiled the first of seven life-saving Heli-Hydrants after just 18 months of development. More than 100 water leaders and elected officials attended the June 12th ribbon-cutting ceremony near the first Cabazon Water District Heli-Hydrant. The event highlighted how these tank-based systems allow helicopters to refill with water in under 10 seconds, often the difference between containment and catastrophe. “As a retired Fire Captain Specialist, I know personally how every second matters when fighting wildfires,” said SGPWA Board Secretary Kevin Walton. “These Heli-Hydrants give our firefighters a critical edge, and we are already seeing their impact as they are being used right now to fight the Wolf Fire. SGPWA is proud to lead this effort and work with local water agency partners to protect lives and property across the region.” … ” Click here to read more.
Announcements, notices, and funding opportunities …
NOTICE OF INITIATION: Revised PFOA, PFOS, & PFHxS Notification and/or Response Levels and New Notification and Response Levels for PFHxA
NOTICE: Addendum 4 to Order WR 2024-0006-DWR: Reinstatement of Conditional Curtailments for Junior Water Rights in Shasta River Watershed
