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On the calendar today …
- PUBLIC HEARING: Delta Conveyance Project water right hearing beginning at 9am. The State Water Resources Control Board Administrative Hearings Office will hold a Public Hearing on the pending Petitions for Change of Water Right Permits for the Delta Conveyance Project. Interested members of the public who would like to watch this hearing without participating may do so through the Administrative Hearings Office YouTube channel at: bit.ly/aho-youtube. Click here for the meeting notice.
In California water news today …
A raging jet stream is reshaping the Pacific. Here’s what it means for California weather
“Monday will offer the kind of weather that makes the Bay Area feel amazing, with light offshore breezes, blue skies and warm temperatures. But that serenity masks a brewing change over the Pacific. Subtle changes will be underway by early Tuesday as winds over the ocean flip from offshore to southerly, pulling more moisture-laden air toward the coast. That shift will bring the familiar return of morning fog and cooler temperatures near the water, while inland valleys stay warm and mostly sunny.That small wind shift hints at something larger unfolding across the Pacific. A sluggish upper-level low, the same one that drenched California late last week, has been spinning well offshore, cut off from the main jet stream. In the coming days, an increasingly energized jet streak sweeping in from Asia will finally dislodge it and jump-start a new storm cycle across the North Pacific. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Atmospheric River to advance into the West Coast this week
“A series of storms will bring a deluge of moisture into the Pacific Northwest later this week, sparking not only a threat for flooding rainfall, but also mountain snowfall, blustery conditions and travel disruptions across the region. While some locations across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming will already be experiencing a storm diving southeastward into the U.S. from western Canada into the start of the week, AccuWeather meteorologists warn there is much storminess to come as the week progresses. The first storm impacting the Northwest through early week will continue tracking eastward and eventually through the northern Rocky Mountains into the early morning hours on Monday. Additional pockets of showers and periods of high-elevation snow showers will occur during this time. … ” Read more from AccuWeather.
Plan submitted to increase Bay Area city from 30,000 to 400,000 residents
“A year after pulling a measure from the ballot amid catastrophic polling numbers, the team behind California Forever has presented a new plan to Solano County. If approved, the Suisun Expansion Project would annex 22,873 acres of unincorporated Solano County to become part of Suisun City. Last year, a secretive group of investors were outed for buying up 65,000 acres of land in Solano County, making them the largest landowners in the county. Once the purchases became public, the group came forward under the name California Forever, announcing their intention to build a new city of 400,000 people largely in rural areas around Suisun City and Rio Vista. The announcement was widely unpopular in the county and, amid dire polling numbers, California Forever pulled the November 2024 ballot measure that would have allowed the project to bypass certain zoning restrictions to develop the area. At the time, California Forever CEO Jan Sramek said they would be back to the drawing board with plans to resubmit the project in 2026. Instead, they’re now offering over 22,000 acres to Suisun City for incorporation. … ” Read more from SF Gate.
ILRP: Ag expert panel organizes its work and requests additional data at first working group meeting
“The Second Statewide Agricultural Expert Panel, convened by the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to review data collected so far by the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program (ILRP) on nitrogen applied (A) and nitrogen removed (R), met on Monday, October 13 to start discussing the specific questions they’ve been assigned to answer. In a process chaired by University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) nutrient management specialist Daniel Geisseler, panelists first introduced themselves then commented on what additional information they would like to consider. They discussed how to tackle writing their report under the constraints of California’s open meeting law, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act which requires all deliberations be conducted at public meetings. They began discussing the first of nine “charge questions” before them. And they heard a brief round of public comment. … ” Read more from Jane Sooby at Maven’s Notebook.
Resilient California fishes: Sacramento sucker
“The fresh waters of California support a diverse native fish fauna, 130 taxa by our count (Leidy and Moyle 2021). At least 56 of these taxa are on trajectories towards extinction 7 are already extinct; 32 are listed as threatened or endangered by state and federal agencies. Not surprisingly, the declining species attract lots of attention because protecting them affects water use statewide. In this blog series, however, we discuss native fishes that are not considered to be in trouble. Instead we discuss native species that have sufficient resiliency in life history, distribution, and physiology to keep populations large and sustainable, even in highly altered habitats. Information on these species should help us to understand why they have such resiliency in the face of large-scale changes to California waterways that have endangered other fishes. We base our discussion on publications such as Moyle (2002), Moyle et al. (2015), and Leidy and Moyle (2021). … ” Read more from the California Water Blog.
Will future of sea levels rising bring more costs to California taxpayers?
“While the last day for state leaders to have Senate and Assembly Bills sent to the governor’s desk has come and gone, that isn’t stopping them from looking at things that could affect the state in the near future. Several state legislators traveled to San Diego County on October 10th to host a committee on the sea level rise and the impact it might have on the state’s economy. Multiple advocates spoke in front of state leaders to explain the results of what they’ve researched when it comes to the recent weather related disasters and what they can expect for the foreseeable future. … ” Read more from Fox 26.
After fire in California’s forests, what happens to the birds?
“Across several national parks in the Sierra Nevada, researchers found that the populations of some bird species grew rapidly after fires and remained higher even decades later. Scientists already knew that some bird species could thrive in burn scars, dubbing them “post-fire specialists.” But a new study, published Oct. 9 in the journal Fire Ecology, provided a rare look at the longer-term impacts of fires on a group of common bird species. The researchers only investigated low- to moderate-intensity burns, such as those associated with prescribed fire. Previous research suggests high-intensity megafires, fueled by climate change and fire suppression, can threaten birds. “It was really exciting to us to see how rapid and how enduring the response of birds was to these fires in these national parks,” Chris Ray, a research ecologist for the Petaluma-based nonprofit, the Institute for Bird Populations, and the study’s lead author, told SFGATE. “For 41 of the 42 species we looked at, population density actually increased a bit after low to moderate severity fires.” … ” Read more from SF Gate.
In commentary today …
From droughts to human mistakes, California salmon near extinction
Opinion columnist Tom Philp writes, “For California water managers, the Sierra snowpack has always been like money in the bank. With steady kisses of spring sun, snowmelt reliably flows ever downward until reaching the state’s vast network of reservoirs downstream. But in the spring of 2021, in what turned out to be the second year of a scorching three-year drought, something happened to a meager snowpack. Much of it unexpectedly vanished into the sky or ground. Summer, as it now tends to do, had arrived early. Faced with a cruel choice of who gets the limited water and who goes without, human decisions designated the remnants of California’s once-massive salmon population as the losers. The operators of the state’s largest reservoir behind Shasta Dam instead had already begun to honor contracts that guarantee farmers a lot of water, come drought or deluge. That meant less water in the Sacramento River to keep its inhabitants alive. … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
In regional water news and commentary today …
NORTH COAST
Salmon clear last Klamath dams, reaching Williamson and Sprague rivers
“Just a year after four dams were removed, fall Chinook have migrated nearly 300 miles into the Upper Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon. For the first time in more than 100 years, Chinook salmon have been spotted at the confluence of the Sprague and Williamson rivers in Chiloquin, the government seat of the Klamath Tribes in Southern Oregon. It’s the latest milestone following the removal of four dams on the Klamath River last year, which was the largest river restoration project in U.S. history. “A hundred and fifteen years that they haven’t been here, and they still have that GPS unit inside of them,” said the visibly giddy Klamath Tribal Chair William Ray, Jr. “It’s truly an awesome feat if you think about the gauntlet they had to go through.” … ” Read more from Jefferson Public Radio.
California’s love for one flower is poisoning the state’s last wild river
“Tucked into California’s remote northwest corner, the Smith River winds through Del Norte County, a sparsely populated stretch of redwood country near the Oregon border. Celebrated by conservationists as the state’s wildest river, 25 miles of undammed, crystalline water cut through ancient forests and rugged coastal mountains before meeting the Pacific near Crescent City.Down on the river’s lower plain, though, the wilderness gives way to farmland. Here, a handful of growers produce nearly all of America’s Easter lily bulbs, which are then shipped off to greenhouses across the country. The iconic plant is the most famous export from Del Norte County — yet state scientists say decades of pesticide use by these growers have contaminated the tributaries that flow through those fields, threatening fish, wildlife and nearby residents. … ” Read more from SF Gate.
MOUNTAIN COUNTIES
A TOWERING IMPACT: Closure of Colby Mountain Lookout stuns mountain residents
“More than half of Ken Jordan’s life has been spent 40 feet up in a wildfire lookout tower, watching over the mountain communities of Butte Meadows and Jonesville, as well as the surrounding land. But in an instant, that proud legacy was cut short, as he was told by a government official that the Colby Mountain Lookout would be torn down and he was out of that job. That happened earlier this month to Jordan, who spent 41 years as a U.S. Forest Service lookout at Colby, just above Butte Meadows, watching for “smokes.” “I was stunned,” said Jordan, whose shock was echoed by residents of the communities he watched over. Last year, the lookout turned 90 years old, and a major celebration was being planned for the historic 40-foot tower as well as the tower keeper. But this year, a Forest Service official told him it was “a pile of junk” and the government was “… not going to put another dime into it,” Jordan recalled in an interview with this newspaper. … ” Continue reading from the Chico Enterprise-Record.
WNC Geology students explore Lake Tahoe’s ancient volcanic past with Dr. Winnie Kortemeier
“Lake Tahoe served as both a classroom and a time machine for Western Nevada College geology students recently, as Dr. Winnie Kortemeier, Professor of Geosciences, led three of her classes on a hands-on field trip to uncover the volcanic story that shaped the iconic lake — and proved it to be 2.3 million years old. … At Burton Creek State Park, students hiked among volcanic rocks, spotting roundish chunks of pillow basalt in an orange outcropping that towered 200 to 300 feet above them, all capped by striking columnar basalt. At Skylandia Beach, they examined a massive underwater-formed volcanic tuff cone, more than a mile wide. Dr. Kortemeier explained that the tuff cone formed when lava erupted into water, blasting out material that formed a cone-shaped structure built of visible layers of lapilli and ash. The tour also included a visit to the historic 18-foot-high Tahoe dam built in 1909 for irrigation in Fallon. For students, it was a chance to connect natural history with human history. … ” Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
New Tahoe institute brings win-win collaborative approach to solving sustainability locally and globally
“The Tahoe Institute for Global Sustainability through the University of Nevada, Reno’s Lake Tahoe Campus is gaining momentum after its launch in early June with the goal of developing solutions to sustainability in the basin and worldwide. “Lake Tahoe is not only the jewel of the Sierra Nevada,” said Sudeep Chandra, PhD, professor and limnologist at UNR, who has helped launch the new institute, “but it is an important marker for the globe for understanding environmental change and economic resilience.” That makes Tahoe an ideal location for the institute to study and approach sustainability from many different angles and expertise areas, finding and interweaving solutions for both nature and society.“I get excited,” Chandra says, “because it’s about supporting win-win solutions.” … ” Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
BAY AREA
Award-winning S.F. park, transformed from ‘wasteland,’ marks year of public service
“At took Bayview Hunters Point resident Jason Dewes one year to the day to get up his nerve to take one of the free rowboat rides at India Basin Waterfront Park. But when the most ambitious San Francisco park project in modern history opened on Oct. 19, 2024, his son Paxton, 14, became enamored of the wooden boatbuilding course offered to kids in the community. Paxton joined up, and his dad finally agreed to put on a life jacket and row around the cove with two staffers in the boat, along with the shop dog, Yuki, also in her jacket. “I don’t do boats so I was a little nervous, but it was time to get out there,” Dewes, 38, said once back on the dock, with Paxton gleaming at his side. “This has helped him grow and to get hand-on involvement. It has built his confidence.” … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY
You could shape the future of Modesto’s state park. Here’s how
“California State Parks wants community input to shape Dos Rios State Park. It’s part of a multi-stage effort that will incorporate public comment on how the park, located near Grayson, is used long-term. State parks staff hosted an online workshop Wednesday evening to get participants talking about what they love about the park, what needs fixing and what the future might look like. This was the second workshop on Dos Rios; the first was an in-person meet-up at the park on Oct. 4. The majority of Wednesday’s participants had visited the park at least once and had used it for activities including hiking, walking and observing nature. … ” Read more from Modesto Bee.
EASTERN SIERRA
Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a Tribe moves forward at Tupe Nobe
“In the spring, the Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a Tribe finalized the purchase of Tupe Nobe, land formerly known as Burger’s Sierra Retreat. Located on the Tribe’s ancestral homelands, this land sits ten miles east of Yosemite National Park and five miles west of Mono Lake. The purchase returns 160 acres of land back to its original stewards. Tupe Nobe translates to “the rock house” and refers to the mountain in the middle of the property. The land encompasses several diverse and important habitats—wet meadows, aspen forest, riparian and upland habitats. The parcel is a small piece of the larger region where the Kootzaduka’a Tribe has lived since time immemorial. Starting in the 1860s, settlers divided this land into plots and took it from Kootzaduka’a people. Tupe Nobe was one of those parcels, and now its return to the Tribe is a significant step in the “land back” movement. … ” Read more from the Mono Lake Committee.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
L.A. declares uncleared properties a ‘public nuisance,’ including a mansion from HBO’s ‘Succession’
“A burned-down hilltop mansion once featured in HBO’s “Succession” is one of eight Pacific Palisades properties declared a public nuisance by Los Angeles city officials who alleged the owner still hasn’t removed fire ash and debris. The Los Angeles Board of Building and Safety Commissioners, a five-member committee that adjudicates public nuisance cases, voted that the fire debris at the eight properties — a mix of luxury estates, multifamily apartments and businesses — constituted a public nuisance and could pose a risk to public health and safety. City officials alleged the owners of these properties failed to meet the Oct. 2 deadline to clear hazardous fire debris. The board’s vote pressures owners to clean up the toxic debris — or prepare for a city contractor to step in, clear their lots and send them a bill for the work. … ” Read more from the LA Times.
Warming made LA wildfires 25 times larger
“Warming made the devastating L.A. wildfires earlier this year twice as likely and 25 times larger, according to a new report on global wildfires. “Climate change is not only creating more dangerous fire-prone weather conditions, but it is also influencing the rates at which vegetation grows and provides fuel for the fires to spread,” said coauthor Francesca Di Giuseppe of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. In L.A., uncommonly heavy rainfall drove the growth of shrubs, which turned to tinder when the region was hit by an exceptional drought. The latest State of Wildfires report, which is undertaken yearly by an international team of experts, finds the worsening heat and drought also fueled record fires in the Congo and the Amazon. In the Pantanal-Chiquitano region of South America, fires last summer were 35 times larger as a result of warming. … ” Read more from Yale e360.
What happened to Dairy Valley? How LA’s top cow city became Cerritos
“Do you know the story of L.A.’s milk shed? Long before that famous jingle “Yes Cerritos Auto Square!” took over the crevices of our subconscious, the city of Cerritos was famous for a much different reason: dairy. Southern California was huge in the industry, primarily in L.A. County. But rising urbanization threatened the farmers’ way of life, who were increasingly being pushed out of their towns. That’s why some came up with an odd idea that mirrored West L.A.’s circus town: form a city to save the cows. Before Southern California became today’s urban sprawl, the land was mostly full of agriculture. Among those cropfields were hundreds of dairy farms. There were so many in L.A. County that it earned a reputation as being the biggest “cow county” in the nation. … ” Read more from the LAist.
City of Chino approves water sale to Niagara Bottling for $1.5 million
“The City of Chino is $1.5 million richer after the city council on Tuesday approved the sale of 2,000 acre-feet in excess stored groundwater reserves to Niagara Bottling Company of Diamond Bar, which is the equivalent of 651.7 million gallons of water. The agreement was approved as a consent calendar item with no discussion. The sale will not impact the city’s ability to meet its own water demands, according to a staff report. … ” Read more from the Chino Champion.
IMPERIAL/COACHELLA VALLEYS
Audio: Can Salton Sea be saved? It’s turning into an ecological disaster
“The water of the Salton Sea is so salty that birds, fish, and insects can’t survive. Its lakebed also grows drier by the day, revealing toxic dust that can blow all the way to Los Angeles. The body of water is a far cry from its heyday in the mid-20th century as a resort oasis in the desert between Joshua Tree and the U.S.-Mexico border. A recent plan to fix it included pumping desalinated ocean water from the Sea of Cortez — but it’s been rejected by a state panel led by UC Santa Cruz experts.” Listen at KCRW.
SAN DIEGO
Asbestos in old water pipes raises concern for Carlsbad condo project
“Carlsbad’s Planning Commission has approved 12 condominiums for a Jefferson Street lot occupied by one single-family home, despite concerns about hooking up to the city’s old water pipes made with asbestos. Asbestos, a known carcinogen, was widely used to reinforce concrete water and sewer pipes from the 1930s through the 1970s, including the pipes in Carlsbad’s downtown water supply system. The pipes generally are considered safe unless broken or damaged to release the asbestos. “We have quite a bit of it, and we will develop a program to phase it out … but it’s going to take some time,” said Dave Padilla, Carlsbad’s utilities engineering manager. New connections to the old system require special precautions, Padilla said Wednesday. Workers doing the job must wear protective equipment to prevent them from inhaling asbestos fibers. “Any cutting action can create friable asbestos material,” he said. … ” Read more from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Along the Colorado River …
Invasive zebra mussels now found in upper Colorado River. What does it mean for Lake Mead?
” … Quagga mussels, known as the “evil cousin” of zebra mussels, already exist in Lake Mead. But in late 2024, golden mussels were found in a California waterway. It was the first time the species had been found in the United States, and they’ve since spread throughout central and Southern California. And last month, Colorado River officials for the first time discovered invasive zebra mussels in the upper river. Nevada waterways are currently free of zebra and golden mussels. But, Nevada officials and water managers are preparing for what it could mean if the zebra or golden mussels find their way into Lake Mead and other state water bodies and using their experience with quagga mussels as a baseline. Research shows that if quagga and zebra mussels are found in the same area, quagga dominate zebra mussels, according to Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) Regional Water Quality Manager Todd Tietjen. Research also shows that golden mussels could outperform both of them, “which is why we are really ramping up our detection efforts.” … ” Read the full article at the Nevada Independent.
In national water news today …
CEQ issues NEPA implementation guidance to federal agencies
“On September 29, 2025, the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”), a federal agency within the Office of the President, issued a 10-page memorandum directed to federal department and agency heads, providing guidance on implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, (“NEPA”; 42. U.S.C. § 4321 et seq), the federal counterpart of CEQA. That guidance, which can be found here, includes an overview of NEPA and its recent amendments, stressing – in line with recent U.S. Supreme Court authority – its nature as a “purely procedural” statute, and “provid[ing] guidance for federal agencies to use when establishing or revising their agency-specific NEPA implementing procedures.” It was accompanied by a 23-page template to assist agencies in that endeavor. … ” Continue reading from Miller Star Regalia.
Use of congressional review act on BLM plans could impact state plans under other agencies
“After Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives invoked the Congressional Review Act against Bureau of Land Management land-use plans last month, experts warned that similar future actions could potentially impact management plans in other states that fall under different federal agencies. In September, the House passed resolutions under the Congressional Review Act (CRA)—a little-known 1996 law that Congress enacted to overturn certain federal agency actions through a special review process—to roll back three resource management plans (RMPs) for managing public lands under the BLM for Montana, Alaska and North Dakota. Those plans collectively guide decisions on over 166 million acres, shaping oil and gas leasing, renewable energy, grazing and habitat protections. The Senate voted to approve all three rollbacks on Oct. 8 and 9. … ” Read more from Inside Climate News.
