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On the calendar today …
- WEBINAR: Conserving California – Protecting our Special Places in Turbulent Times from 12pm to 1pm. From our majestic mountains to our stunning coast, from large parks to small open spaces, California’s natural abundance defines our state. Today, climate change and other stressors threaten this abundance. In response, our state leaders established a global-ambitious commitment to conserve 30 percent of our lands and coastal waters by 2030—known as “30 by 30” or 30×30. In place for five years, this 30×30 target has built into a movement that has added over 2 million acres to conserved areas. Join us for an uplifting conversation on 30×30’s progress over the last year in California and meet the creative leaders across California driving this movement. Click here to register.
In California water news today …
The drying planet: Groundwater pumping becoming one of the largest drivers of global sea level rise
“As the planet gets hotter and its reservoirs shrink and its glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned, invisible cache of fresh water: the vast, hidden pools found deep underground. Now, a new study that examines the world’s total supply of fresh water — accounting for its rivers and rain, ice and aquifers together — warns that Earth’s most essential resource is quickly disappearing, signaling what the paper’s authors describe as “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” The landmasses of the planet are drying. In most places there is less precipitation even as moisture evaporates from the soil faster. More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater, which underlies vast proportions of every continent. … Both California and Arizona grow significant portions of America’s fruits and vegetables. Something has to give. “If you want to grow food in a place like California,” Famiglietti asked, “do you just bring in water? If we deplete that groundwater, I don’t think there’s enough water to really replace what we’re doing there.” The United States might not have much choice, he added, but to move California’s agriculture production somewhere far away and retire the land. … ” Read more from Pro Publica.
SEE ALSO: 8 Things to Know About New Research on Earth’s Rapid Drying and the Loss of Its Groundwater, from Pro Publica
The parched planet paradox: How drought and sea level rise feed on each other
“Overpumping groundwater, worsening droughts and more rapid evaporation due to higher temperatures have caused a drastic decline in the amount of available freshwater, according to a new study. “Continental drying” has redirected the planet’s total water to the oceans to such degree that it has now surpassed melting ice sheets as the biggest contributor to global sea level rise, the research found. Losses of land-based water could have profound implications for access to safe drinking water and the ability to grow food in some of the world’s richest agricultural regions. “We use a lot of water to grow food,” said Jay Famiglietti, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability and one of the authors of the study. “If things don’t change, we’ll see impacts on our food security and just our general water availability.” … ” Read more from NBC News.
Officials sparks debate with proposed regulation that could impact wide range of everyday products: ‘The science is clear’
“A California regulatory agency recently announced its intent to begin regulating products that could contribute to microplastics pollution. The state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control released a rulemaking package that proposes to add microplastics to the Candidate Chemicals List. This would allow the agency to evaluate products that contribute to microplastic pollution and would pave the way for future regulation of products that contain one or more candidate chemicals, provided they have been formally listed in the California Code of Regulations through rulemaking. … ” Read more from The Cool Down.
Food security declines amid growing agricultural trade deficit
“As concerns about domestic food security grow, John Duarte—former California Congressman and owner of Duarte Nursery—has raised alarm over a troubling shift in America’s agricultural trade balance. Speaking with AgNet West’s Nick “The Ag Meter”, Papagni, during a recent interview, Duarte highlighted that the United States is now importing significantly more food than it exports, a reversal from previous decades.According to Duarte, 1995 marked the last year the U.S. was a net exporter of agricultural goods, boasting a trade surplus of approximately $13 billion at the time. However, in the years since, the country has moved into a deep trade deficit in food production. Duarte noted that the U.S. currently faces a $32 billion agricultural trade deficit, a staggering turnaround that raises concerns about long-term food independence. … ” Read more from Ag Net West.
Trump administration cuts to NOAA affects global buoy network, accurate weather forecasting
“Sonoma County boasts 55 miles of coastline, a pristine ocean shore that supports booming recreational and commercial pursuits. An afternoon surfing, hiking or fishing requires knowing the wind speed, the wave patterns and the general weather, all of which could be affected by the Trump Administration’s cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. … Changes at NOAA might not affect Dougherty’s business that much, but the same can’t be said for Sonoma’s commercial fishing fleet. Working anywhere from four to 150 miles offshore depending on the season, captains like Dick Ogg need precise readings about the waves and weather. “The distance between the swell and the height of the swell is what you don’t want to get into. You want a bigger separation and a lower swell. You can fish and you can maneuver through a big separation, but you can’t when it’s short and tight,” he said. … ” Read more from Northern California Public Media.
Bargaining for Tribal water in California
“In the semi-arid western United States, a system of property rights allocates water among alternative uses. Every western state follows a set of rules that grant priority based on the first year a user diverted surface water for productive use. This doctrine of prior appropriation remains relatively stable because new water rights must queue behind earlier claimants. The priority dates on many senior water rights precede the turn of the 20th century. The most dramatic change to this ordering over the last 60 years has been the recognition of water rights held by tribes on federal Indian reservations. The Colorado River, the lifeblood of seven states, northern Mexico, and 30 reservations, has seen dramatic changes to its water rights system due to these settlements. Today, tribes own high-priority rights to 22% to 26% of the river’s average annual flows. Their abilities to use these rights in ways that introduce flexibility into the otherwise inflexible appropriative rights system has made them crucial partners in managing basin-wide water shortages. … ” Read more from the California Water Blog.
Californians are worried about wildfire and growing costs of climate change, survey finds
“Californians are most likely to name wildfires as the top environmental issue facing the state and are very concerned about the rising costs associated with climate change, according to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. Although Californians understand climate change poses a personal and financial risk to their lives and generally want state and local governments to do more to address it, when asked if they’re willing to spend more money on renewable energy, most respondents said “no.” This marks a continuing decline. In 2016, 56% of respondents were willing to spend more. Today, just 40% are. While renewable energy is generally cheaper than oil and gas, investing in the infrastructure to transition from a fossil fuel economy to a renewable energy economy is pricey. That includes the costs like installing high-speed EV chargers and reinforcing the electric grid. How to fund those projects is a conundrum for policymakers. … ” Read more from the LAist.
Wildfire risk to escalate across western US through end of July
“It has already been an active wildfire season over a large part of the western United States, but changing weather conditions next week could bring a significant uptick in fires, AccuWeather meteorologists warn. As of July 24, there have been nearly 30,000 wildfires across the U.S. so far this year, which have burned nearly 3 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Aside from some isolated thunderstorms in recent days, much of the West has had temperatures near to slightly below the historical average over the past week. That setup helped keep a lid on new lightning-induced wildfires. Changes are coming to the West next week, however. … ” Read more from AccuWeather.
In commentary today …
Shifting the burden of dirty waters
In regional water news and commentary today …
NORTH COAST
Trinidad elects to explore new water supply; community members fear induced growth
“This month, the Trinidad City Council elected to join the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria in a study to assess the feasibility of establishing a connection to the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. Council voted narrowly (by a 3-2 margin) to pursue the study at a July 8 meeting, reversing earlier decisions by the city to decline to participate. The study, while exploratory in nature, has garnered passionate opposition for several years from community members who fear that increased water capacity may spur increased development. Conversely, the study’s proponents say that climate change, combined with the challenges associated with maintaining an aging water infrastructure that supplies water to only 400 customers, necessitates change. … ” Read more from the Eureka Times-Herald.
Potter Valley Tribe launches community forest on 48 acres of Mendocino coastline
“The Potter Valley Tribe has reclaimed 48 acres of Mendocino County coastline, creating the new Pomo Community Forest just south of Fort Bragg, according to a Trust for Public Land press release. This forest will restore ancestral homelands while providing space for cultural programs, youth education, and limited public recreation. Only two other Tribes nationwide have established community forests through the U.S. Forest Service’s Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program, the release noted. Tribal Chairman Salvador Rosales said, “We will be working to restore the site to a healthy state of old growth and mixed forest resources, using Traditional Ecological Knowledge and modern practices.” … ” Read more from Mendo Fever.
SACRAMENTO VALLEY
First salmon in nearly 100 years found in Northern California river
“An endangered species has returned to its Northern California river habitat for the first time in almost a century, wildlife officials said. Winter-run chinook salmon — one of nine species considered to be most at risk of extinction by NOAA — have been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 1994. But new concerns for the species came to light after California’s historic statewide drought between 2012 and 2016, when the fish all but vanished from the McCloud River, which flows through Siskiyou and Shasta counties. … ” Read more from SF Gate.
Butte County: Consultants make recommendations for local subbasins
“Local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies were provided with some updated data and recommendations for managing their subbasins during a webinar on Thursday hosted by Butte County. The focus of the event was on the northern Sacramento River and the subbasins it feeds. The breakdown was provided by Lisa Porta of Montgomery and Associates, a consulting firm hired by the Vina and Wyandotte Creek subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Agencies, though various stakeholders attended. In total, the evaluation covered six counties, 11 subbasins and 27 Groundwater Sustainability Agencies. In her presentation, Porta noted that she was sharing mostly an overview of the findings. “These were just some highlights,” Porta said. “Just providing some highlights on big-picture observations and recommendations we saw.” … ” Read more from the Chico Enterprise-Record. | Read via MSN News.
Massive surf resort with hotel, bungalows and wave pool proposed for Placer County
“A major surf-themed entertainment and recreation venue could be coming to Placer County as early as 2027. Developers behind the proposed Alchemy Surf Resort submitted a new application to Placer County with hopes of breaking ground next year. The project would span 25 acres within the larger Placer One development, transforming a currently vacant field into a recreation destination. Plans for the resort include a surf center, hotel, bungalows and various recreational facilities, according to Inland Surf Company, the developer behind the proposal. … ” Read more from Channel 10.
BAY AREA
Why Caltrans is widening a Bay Area highway that’s going to flood
“The highway stretches across Marin and Solano Counties through the colorful mosaic of marshland in the San Pablo Bay north of San Francisco. But state Route 37’s scenic roadway is vulnerable to sea level rise, which could submerge the highway as soon as 2040, and is subject to brutal bottlenecks during peak hours as commuters circulate between counties. The doomed Bay Area highway that sees over 40,000 drivers a day has a fix in the works — but not everyone agrees it’s the right one. As shovels and bulldozers from Caltrans prepare to widen Highway 37 in a $500 million project, tides continuously chip away at the road’s edge. Its western half near Novato is subject to repeated flooding, especially during king tides, while the eastern span is protected by a series of levees and dikes. … ” Read more from SF Gate.
San Francisco just tied for its rainiest July in history
“A thick marine layer squeezed out another drop in the rain bucket in San Francisco on Sunday, making it the third straight day — and fifth day this July — of measurable precipitation. It’s only the second time since 1850 that San Francisco has recorded five days of measurable rainfall in July, defined as 0.01 of an inch of precipitation or greater. July 2022 finished with five days of rain. But with four days left this month and no end in sight to the foggy mornings, it’s possible 2025 moves into solo possession of first place. It’s not uncommon for drizzle to accompany summer fog in the coastal hills, but it’s much more unusual for it to accumulate, even in minuscule amounts. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY
Tehachapi: City and Sage Ranch developer challenge water district’s request; hearing set for Aug. 4
“Preparing for a hearing set for 9 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 4, the city of Tehachapi has formally objected to an attempt by Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District to expand existing litigation between the two public agencies. The case is 34-2022-80003892 in Sacramento Superior Court. On July 17, a Sacramento County judge granted the water district’s ex parte application for an expedited hearing on an attempt to challenge the Tehachapi City Council’s July 7 approval of a new housing element. In a court filing, the water district alleged that the approval continued a pattern and practice of CEQA violations by the city. CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act. … ” Read more from the Tehachapi News.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Nature is making a comeback in Altadena’s canyons after Eaton fire’s toll
“Kindra Girard has been hiking the Chaney Trail into Millard Canyon above Altadena for 15 years. There’s the reveal after conquering each switchback, the unique rock formations, the reliable, resident oaks and the icing on the cake — a waterfall. “It was my favorite trail,” said the La Canada Flintridge resident, who had pulled up to the trail and was greeted by a closed gate on July 17, just as she had done every month since the Jan. 8 Eaton fire swept through the canyon, while destroying large swaths of Altadena homes, businesses and houses of worship. The closing of the trail and canyon is heartbreaking news for Girard, and hundreds of thousands of other humans who’ve hiked the canyon trails to touch nature. But scientists are learning that the closure of Chaney Trail and others nearby is a good thing for the animal and plant population that have demonstrated strong signs of restoration after devastation. … ” Read more from the LA Daily News.
Muddy boots and AI are helping this threatened California frog to make a comeback
“It had been five years since the first of the frog eggs had been moved, carefully plucked from Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and transported by cooler to Southern California. Anny Peralta-Garcia was getting nervous. The eggs belonged to California red-legged frogs, an amphibian that had been eaten, bulldozed and eventually pushed out of the state decades earlier. Peralta-Garcia, an Ensenada-based conservation biologist, had helped harvest fresh eggs from a pond in Baja. The efforts to move them back to the frogs’ historic range in California had been monumental — involving private landowners, federal agencies, conservation groups, helicopters and an international border. And now, 87 more moved egg masses later, everyone was waiting to see if it worked. If the re-introduced frogs were breeding. … ” Read more from the LAist.
Cloud seeding within Santa Ana River watershed canceled by wildfires, lackluster results
“A cloud seeding pilot program that aimed to enhance water supplies within the Santa Ana Watershed has been called off, due to insignificant results and the proliferation of burn scars from wildfires in the target areas, including Orange County. Officials with the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority announced earlier this month that the four-year program, which began in late 2023, would not be continued as researchers did not see the anticipated results. “After careful review of the program’s first-year data, SAWPA and its partners determined that the results did not demonstrate a strong enough correlation between cloud-seeding activities and measurable increases in rainfall or snowpack,” officials stated in a July 10 news release. … ” Read more from the LA Times.
LA County sanitation officials have big plans: recyled drinking water and cleaner oceans
“About two miles off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes, on a sunny morning last week, a crew of marine biologists prepared to launch a trawl about 200-feet deep into the ocean — intent on catching a diverse array of sea flora and fauna for analysis. The catch, reeled in by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts’ Ocean Monitoring team on Thursday, July 24, included hundred of creatures: Scorpion fish. Sea stars. Red octopus. During such routine trips, the creatures get tested to determine the impact of the agency’s operations on the local marine ecosystem. The catch-and-test trips are just one of many crucial studies undertaken by LASAN’s team of biologists aboard the agency’s research vessel, the Ocean Sentinel. Since 1970, the Ocean Sentinel has monitored how treated wastewater from LASAN’s A.K. Warren Water Resource Facility, in Carson, impacts the ocean. “We split our monitoring into three main pieces,” Josh Westfall, LASAN’s senior environmental scientist, said aboard the research vessel. “We have our core or local monitoring, regional monitoring, and we have special studies.” … ” Read more from the LA Daily News.
Officials aim to curb algal blooms in Lake Elsinore with new regulations
“In an effort to curb harmful algal blooms that have long been a problem for Lake Elsinore and Canyon Lake, the Santa Ana Water Board recently adopted more stringent pollution limits, including for nitrogen and phosphorus. The two nutrients are often found in yard and agricultural runoff and fuel algal blooms. Experts have been working since 2004 to understand how to best keep the two Riverside County lakes healthy. Strategies include: keeping oxygen levels up using aeration; adding aluminum sulfate, which binds with excess nutrients; and adding recycled water to keep lake levels up. … ” Read more from the LAist.
Along the Colorado River …
‘Glimmer of hope’ in Colorado River negotiations is now gone, researcher says
“After a promising step in talks about the future of the Colorado River, the seven states that use its water appear to be hitting more hurdles. They’re arguing over exactly how much water each state will get from the shrinking river. A few weeks ago, researcher John Fleck at the University of New Mexico said he saw a “glimmer of hope” in those negotiations. But now, that glimmer is gone. Fleck says states are falling back into rivalries that go back more than a century, and they’re afraid to make compromises. “This new method has a lot of promise, but as we work out the details, we’re seeing that those old problems are surfacing again, and the negotiations as a result, just don’t seem to be going as well as we had hoped they were,” Fleck said. … ” Read more from KJZZ.
The West’s data centers suck (water and power)
“This May, STaX Capital Partners applied for a permit to install turbines fueled by methane from oil wells on Alaska’s North Slope. The temporary facilities would serve as a proof of concept for a much larger gas-fired power plant — with an output equal to that of the state’s largest coal-fired plant — all of whose electricity would go to a planned bitcoin-mining data center located nearby. The Alaska-based company told Northern Journal it hopes to “create the playbook for sustainable, at-scale Bitcoin mining in Alaska.” But “sustainable” bitcoin mining is an oxymoron, given the enormous amounts of power and water data centers consume. The massive server banks that run nearly every aspect of our digital world churn away in warehouse-like buildings in Phoenix, Las Vegas, rural Washington and Wyoming, each gobbling as much electricity as a small city to process AI queries, cryptocurrency extraction and other aspects of our increasingly cloud-based society. The harder they work, the hotter they get, and the more power and water they need to cool off. … ” Read more from High Country News.
Nevada’s data center boom is a power, water conundrum
“Nevadans could one day be stuck with higher energy bills, an overwhelmed power grid and an even drier desert because of data centers that store cloud data and power search engines. Often untold drawbacks of the West’s data center boom are outlined in a report from the nonprofit Western Resource Advocates released last week, pointing to policies it says states and utility commissions should consider to better regulate an emerging industry it warns could devastate natural resources. In Nevada, the projected growth — and the volume of energy and water needed to sustain it — is indeed remarkable, said Deborah Kapiloff, a report author and policy adviser at the nonprofit. “Over the next 20 years, these utility projections are saying, essentially, that we need to double Nevada’s electrical infrastructure to accommodate these customers,” Kapiloff said. “We need to make sure that everyday Nevadans are not paying for that.” … ” Read more from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
‘When the water goes away, it goes away’ — NV’s desert wildlife can’t keep up with drought
“It’s been five years since Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) staff specialist Joe Bennett spotted 20 dead bighorn sheep near a guzzler while flying over Southern Nevada. The manmade water source had run dry, and the sheep, reliant on it for water, had died within 40 feet of the failed water source. “It was the worst day of my career,” he said. “The next day, we were hauling water.” The situation was, on one hand, an anomaly — Southern Nevada’s bighorn sheep are highly adapted to the region’s harsh climate, and they’ve largely avoided illnesses plaguing other sheep herds across the state. On the other hand, the death of dozens of sheep represented what climate, wildlife and other experts say they are seeing day after day across the Southern Nevada desert — desert-adapted wildlife feeling the toll of abnormally dry conditions carrying on season after season, and not enough relief through monsoons. … ” Read more from the Nevada Independent.
Queen Creek water deal could spur 15K homes
“State water officials have approved the first-ever legal transfer of water from rural Arizona into one of the state’s “active management areas’’ that have restrictions on growth. The Department of Water Resources will allow Queen Creek can take up to 5,000 acre-feet a year, sufficient to build about 15,000 homes. Buckeye will be allowed to withdraw up to 5,926 acre-feet of water a year from the Harquahala Basin in western Arizona for up to 110 years. That is enough to serve more than 17,000 homes. All this comes two years after DWR refused to issue any permits for new subdivisions in some areas of both communities after concluding they lacked the legally required 100-year supply of water. … ” Read more from the East Valley Tribune.
The Southern Ute tribe has finally tapped into Animas-La Plata water. Why did it take 60 years?
“This summer, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe rolled out miles of temporary rubber water lines. The above-ground tubes had one job: carrying water to oil and gas operations on the reservation. But the pipelines also represent something else: a historic moment in a drawn-out, arduous debate over water in southwestern Colorado. In May, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe tapped into its water in the controversial Animas-La Plata Project, the first time a tribe has used its water from the project since it was authorized in 1968. The Animas-La Plata Project has come to encapsulate long-held dreams to develop Western water — and the decades of debates, environmental concerns, local objections and Congressional maneuvering that almost made the project fail. At the center of it all were tribal nations and the chance to, once and for all, settle all of the tribal water claims in Colorado. It took until 2011 to fill Lake Nighthorse, the main feature of a heavily scaled-down federal water project located just south of Durango. Then 14 more years for a tribe to be able to use a small slice of its water. … ” Read more from the Colorado Sun.
In national water news today …
Trump’s budget takes aim at gold standard measurement of atmospheric carbon dioxide
“In its latest assault on science, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating funding for the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii’s Big Island, the place that has helped us understand how the rise in greenhouse gases is causing climate change. Measurements made at remote sites around the world, located away from industrial activities, provide the most direct evidence of this global increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The Mauna Loa Observatory, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s oceanic and atmospheric research makes carbon measurements, is the most famous of these. Located on the barren slopes of a volcano 11,135 feet above sea level, it’s the site of the longest continuous CO2 measurement in the world. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
