A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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Colorado voters may be asked to let more money flow to water
projects by allowing the state to keep all of the sports
betting tax revenue it collects, if a measure referring the
issue to the November ballot is approved by lawmakers. House
Bill 1436 … collects a 10% tax on the proceeds of licensed
sports betting. Some of the money is used to cover the cost of
regulating betting and the rest, up to $29 million total, is
funneled toward water projects. In the event tax collections
exceed $29 million, the legislature decides how to refund the
money under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
A water transfer from a small western Arizona town to a growing
East Valley community has some observers concerned. About a
decade ago, a company called Greenstone bought nearly 500 acres
of land in the town of Cibola, in La Paz County. But, a few
years later, Greenstone sold the water rights for that farmland
to Queen Creek. In the process, the company made about $14
million in profit. Since then, La Paz and two other Arizona
counties have sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, arguing the
agency didn’t consider the long-term implications when it
approved the deal. A judge this year sided with those counties,
and told the bureau to essentially redo its environmental
assessment of the arrangement.
Coastal wetlands—including salt marshes, tidal forested
wetlands, and seagrasses—can sequester more carbon per acre
than inland forests, making them some of the world’s most
effective natural carbon sinks. So, states [including
California] are increasingly incorporating the protection and
restoration of these “blue carbon” habitats into their broader
initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet their
climate change goals. Although states use different approaches
to incorporating coastal wetlands into their climate planning,
some common elements are high-level leadership and policy
goals, quality data and established methodologies for
understanding blue carbon trends, and partnerships for
effective implementation.
For more than 15 years, Valley Water has measured mercury
levels in reservoirs and creeks in the Guadalupe River
Watershed and studied ways to reduce the metal’s harmful
impacts. Parts of the Guadalupe River watershed, which covers
about 171 square miles, are contaminated with mercury from the
former New Almaden Mining District. The mining and processing
of mercury occurred in the area from 1845 through 1971. These
operations released large amounts of mercury into parts of the
Guadalupe River watershed, which flows into South San Francisco
Bay. Mercury-enriched sediment from mining waste made its way
into creeks and reservoirs within the watershed. Creeks flowing
in the watershed carry that sediment down the Guadalupe River
to San Francisco Bay, especially during wet years.
A generational issue for the families living in San Lucas
continues as they’ve gone decades without drinking water. Soon
federal, state, and local leaders will secure nearly a million
dollars to build a pipeline to King City. Advertisement “The
kids couldn’t even be bathed in the water. That’s how bad it is
that babies are not able to get bathed. That means there’s
something really wrong,” said Fray Marin-Zuniga, a San Lucas
resident. Plants not growing, animals dying, young children
unable to bathe, this is the reality for those living in the
unincorporated South Monterey County town of San Lucas. “Back
when I was in school here, because I graduated from San Lucas
School, the water was yellow,” Martin-Zuniga said.
Martin-Zuniga has lived in San Lucas his entire life, he shows
KSBW the dry skin condition that he’s developed on his arm. He
says as the years go by, the need for clean water has never
wavered.
Get ready for the latest scoop on the Klamath River dam removal
and restoration project! In the newest episode of the Fish
Water People Podcast, Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River
Renewal Corporation, is welcomed back to discuss exciting
updates on the once-in-a-lifetime restoration effort. In recent
months, significant milestones have been achieved, with
successful dam breaching at Iron Gate, Copco 1, and J.C. Boyle
in Southern Oregon – signifying a monumental leap forward in
the journey to restoring river vitality. Despite expected
challenges such as sediment management and ecological
adjustments, the project remains steadfast on its course.
Native vegetation is already beginning to sprout, breathing new
life into the ecosystem. Curious what lies ahead on this
monumental journey of renewal?
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to
approve $15 million in funding for the construction of the
Vista Grande Drainage Basin Improvement project. The project
aims to address persistent flooding in northern San Mateo
County and parts of San Francisco. “The project is expected to
provide a range of public benefits, including improved storm
drainage, water supply, wastewater disposal, solid waste
capture, recreation, and environmental enhancement benefits,”
county staff said in a report. According to county staff, much
of the flooding can be attributed to overflowing water at Lake
Merced during heavy downpours. The project will channel and
filter rainwater from the Vista Grande Watershed before
releasing it into the Pacific Ocean.
Balancing the water supply needs of millions of Californians
while protecting the environment is no easy task. The
Department of Water Resources is committed to using and
advancing the best available science to operate the State Water
Project to get water to the people who need it while protecting
native fish species. One important way DWR is doing just that
is through the advanced use of genetics to identify different
runs of Chinook salmon to monitor and protect the runs that are
listed as threatened or endangered. Knowing which runs are
present and where they are being found in the water system
ultimately helps rebuild salmon populations in California. DWR
has released a video showing the genetic identification process
in action.
Officials are conducting tests at a drinking water reservoir in
California, after dead fish were found floating there. The Lake
Elsinore & San Jacinto Watersheds Authority (LESJWA) announced
on Wednesday evening it had launched an investigation into
oxygen levels at Canyon Lake. The reservoir, in southern
California, has historically suffered from algae blooms, which
can cause environmental concerns, according to the LESJWA
website. ”A fish die-off, is one of the first visible
signs of environmental stress when dead fish are found floating
on the surface of water or washed up on the shore,” a statement
said. “The most common cause of a fish die-off is the depletion
of dissolved oxygen in a body of water.” There was no
mention of whether the fish die-off or presence of algae could
potentially impact the quality of the drinking water.
Those who enjoy fishing and who seek trout and salmon in
particular were reminded Wednesday by California Department of
Fish & Wildlife officials that they should keep their dogs away
from the uncooked fish. A parasitic flatworm called Nanophyetes
salmincola can be transmitted to canines that eat the two types
of fish before they’re cooked, creating a bacteria-like
organism in their body and a condition called salmon poisoning
disease, officials said in a news release. The parasite is seen
only in dogs; the disease is potentially fatal but is
treatable, experts say. Signs of the disease in a dog include a
rise in body temperature, a loss of appetite, listlessness,
diarrhea and vomiting. Rapid weight loss may also occur.
College students in California have begun scanning 2 million
pages of water rights records on paper to make them more easily
available in digital form to the public as part of a $60
million project. The idea is to make it easier to determine who
has the right to use water in the state, and from what stream
and when, especially in times of drought. Here & Now’s Peter
O’Dowd learns more with Erik Ekdahl, deputy director of the
California State Water Board’s Division of Water Rights.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that
south-of-Delta water contractors are having their water
allocation increase from 35 percent to 40 percent of their
contracted amount. That five percent increase was
“incredibly disappointingly low” for Westlands Water
District. The big picture: South-of-Delta contractors
were initially allocated 15 percent of their contracted total
in February, but that number was boosted to 35 percent in
March. Farmers were hopeful that California’s above
average snowpack would result in a greater boost, considering
the state has had a good start to the year with precipitation.
Conservationists lost an appeal to the Ninth Circuit on
Wednesday as they attempted to force the federal government to
reconsider climate change studies in managing the Glen Canyon
Dam and Colorado River. Save the Colorado, Living River and the
Center for Biological Diversity initially asked the U.S.
Department of the Interior to consider emerging climate science
and the severe potential of climate change in updating its
management plan in 2016 for the Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell,
which has a water level 3,564 feet above sea level.
… [The judges] concluded that the Interior did not
violate environmental law when developing its 20-year plan for
managing water releases from the dam or the plan’s accompanying
environmental analysis.
Long-term weather models are hinting a wet storm could sweep
California in early May, but forecasters warn that people
shouldn’t arrange their plans around this potential system just
yet. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service’s Weather
Prediction Center told SFGATE that some models show the storm
could generally bring a chance of 0.5 to 1 inch of rain across
the entire state. An inch of rain is not a big deal in the
winter, but in May, it’s a little less typical.
… Weather models show the storm potentially arriving May
4, with rain chances continuing into Monday, May 6. Oravec
shared this information with a big caveat: The timing of the
storm is likely to change in the coming days, or the entire
forecast could shift.
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Several environmental groups asked San Francisco on Tuesday to
reduce its diversion of Tuolumne River water. They said chinook
salmon and other wildlife suffer from the current operations,
especially the river stretch in and near Modesto. At a meeting
of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the groups
urged more conservation and wastewater recycling. The agency
responded that these “single-issue activists” do not understand
the city’s needs. San Francisco secured rights in 1913 to about
an eighth of the Tuolumne, which arises at about 13,000 feet in
Yosemite National Park. Most of the water diversion is at Hetch
Hetchy Reservoir, built just inside the western park boundary
to the dismay of early preservationists.
The Biden administration announced a goal Tuesday to protect
and restore 8 million acres of wetlands over the next six years
in an effort to counter development pressures and recently
weakened federal regulations. The bold new target seeks to
reverse the ongoing loss of U.S. wetlands, which help keep
pollutants out of rivers and streams and act as a natural
buffer against flooding. Over 60 percent of wetlands now lack
protections under the Clean Water Act for the first time in
decades after the Supreme Court curtailed the law’s scope last
year. In addition to wetlands, the administration
committed to “reconnect, restore and protect” 100,000 miles of
rivers and streams nationwide by 2030, including by removing
impediments such as dams and by restoring stream banks
experiencing erosion.
Something spectacular is happening in the Golden State.
California—the fifth-largest economy in the world—has
experienced a record-breaking string of days in which the
combined generation of wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and
solar electricity has exceeded demand on the main electricity
grid for anywhere from 15 minutes to 9.25 hours per day. These
clean, renewable electricity sources are collectively known as
wind-water-solar (WWS) sources. … With the future growth
of both utility-scale and rooftop solar, however, California
will ultimately provide 100 percent WWS during summer daytime
hours as well. Solar, though, provides electricity during the
day only.
For the last 20 years, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has
been giving Las Vegas residents cash for each square foot of
grass they convert to a desert landscape. That incentive went
up just for 2024 from $3 a square foot to $5 a square foot of
grass converted. … Last year, over 12 million
square feet of grass was converted and that was when the
incentive was at $3 a square foot. Now this year at $5 a square
foot SNWA is seeing around a thousand applications each month
for the rebate program which has a budget of about $24
million.
The Del Norte City Council approved long-awaited Renovations on
the Wastewater Treat Plant (WWTP). The WWTP is operated via
contract with Jacobs Engineering. Jacobs Staff were on hand in
the audience and via Zoom to address technical questions by
councilors and the Public. The Resolution for amending the
agreement with the California State Water Resources Control
Board (SWRCB) amends the financial arrangements between the
City and the SWRCB. A second Resolution approved amending the
City budget for fiscal year 2023-24.
