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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A recent study in the journal Science analyzed dozens of
Chinese cities, revealing that they’re slowly sinking. This
phenomenon of the Earth’s surface literally being pushed down —
technically known as land subsidence — is not limited to the
tens of millions who will be impacted in China. From California
to Greece, human activity is making the land under our feet
more prone to subsiding than ever. … Local authorities
are starting to take notice. Earlier this month in
California, state water officials put a farming region known as
the Tulare Lake groundwater sub basin on “probation” to curb
excess water use.
On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency designated two
types of “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances under the
federal Superfund law. The move will make it easier for the
government to force the manufacturers of these chemicals,
called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, to shoulder
the costs of cleaning them out of the environment.
… Although the EPA’s new restrictions are
groundbreaking, they only apply to a portion of the nation’s
extensive PFAS contamination problem. That’s because drinking
water isn’t the only way Americans are exposed to PFAS … In
Texas, a group of farmers whose properties were contaminated
with PFAS from fertilizer are claiming the manufacturer should
have done more to warn buyers about the dangers of its
products.
As the Bureau of Reclamation looks to prepare new rules for the
Colorado River, states across the West and other interested
stakeholders have proposed plans for the river’s future. These
alternative plans aim to shape the operation of the Colorado
River after many of the current rules expire in 2026. In April,
a coalition of conservation groups including Audubon,
Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and others
submitted a plan for managing the Colorado River. Known as the
Cooperative Conservation Alternative, the proposal seeks to
broaden management efforts on the Colorado River to be more
inclusive of various interests, Tribes, and the environment.
Already fuller this year than it was at this time a year ago,
Lake Shasta continues to fill, creeping toward the top ―
sometimes rising just inches a day. But by early May, the lake
level is expected to stop rising and the long draw-down of the
lake will begin again and continue through the summer. The lake
is expected to reach about 5 feet from full sometime in early
May, according to Michael Burke, a spokesman for the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Shasta Dam. … Two
years ago, conditions at the lake were dire, with the water
level down to historically low levels. … But with the
lake fuller this year, many water agencies are receiving their
full allotment of water from the bureau.
State Sen. Anthony J. Portantino, who represents Pasadena, has
authored a bill mandating the study of microplastics’ health
impacts in drinking water. The Senate Environmental Quality
Committee approved the bill this week. By filing SB
1147, Portantino seeks to emphasize the need for further
research and action in addressing the pervasive presence of
microplastics in various environmental elements.
… The bill’s provisions include a requirement for all
water-bottling plants producing bottled water for sale to
provide an annual report to the State Department of Public
Health’s Food and Drug branch on microplastic levels found in
their source water. This data, as mandated by the bill, aims to
enhance transparency and consumer awareness regarding the
presence of microplastics in bottled water, a product consumed
widely across California.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would let two
energy companies with coal-fired power plants in northwest
Colorado hang on to their water rights even after the plants’
planned closures in 2028. Senate Bill 197 says that industrial
water rights held by Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and
Transmission Association Inc. will be protected from
abandonment through 2050. Under Colorado law, a water right
that is not being used could end up on an abandonment list,
which is compiled every 10 years. Abandonment is the official
term for one of Colorado’s best-known water adages: Use it or
lose it. It means that the right to use the water is
essentially canceled and ceases to exist. The water goes back
into the stream where another water user can claim it.
The San Francisco Bay could experience a foot of water in sea
level rise by 2050 if high emissions continue, according to the
State of California’s Sea-Level Rise Guidance Report. There is
a push for major spending to control flooding in the Bay Area
before that scenario plays out – and one of the proposed
solutions is tidal marsh. Like many Pacific Islanders living
around East Palo Alto, the shoreline is a spiritual place to
Anthony Tongia and Violet Saena. … According to the
USDA Forest Service, more than 80 percent of the San Francisco
Bay’s original tidal wetlands have been altered or displaced.
This has impacted habitats and species that live along the
shoreline. It also partially led to recurring flooding in
several areas along the Bay.
Work has been underway on a recycled water treatment project in
Santee for about two years. In another two years, some East
County residents will get their drinking water from the East
County Advanced Water Purification program. It’s a massive
billion-dollar recycled water treatment plant north of Santee
Lakes that, at its peak, has 250 construction workers working
on it. Kyle Swanson, the CEO and general manager at the Padre
Dam Municipal Water District, says the project will meet about
30% of drinking water demands in East County alone. Right now,
most East County residents get their water from Northern
California and the Colorado River, according to Swanson.
… California has some of the tightest toxic regulations and
strictest air pollution rules for smelters in the country. But
some residents of the suburban neighborhoods around Ecobat
don’t trust the system to protect them. … Uncertainty,
both about the safety of Ecobat’s operation going forward and
the legacy of lead it has left behind, weighs heavily on them.
… Early on, environmental officials flagged reasons for
concern about the lead smelter. State and federal regulators
issued an order and a consent decree in 1987 because of the
facility’s releases of hazardous waste into soil and water. An
assessment from that time found “high potential for air
releases of particulates concerning lead.”
At its April 12, 2024, meeting, the Delta Stewardship Council
unanimously elected Council Member Julie Lee as chair and
Council Member Gayle Miller as vice chair. “As the chair of
this Council, I realize these are very big shoes to fill,” Lee
said. “I fully commit to you to do my very best to ensure that
the Council continues to fulfill its mission.” Chair Lee’s
election took effect immediately, and pursuant to the Delta
Reform Act, she may serve in that capacity for no more than
four years. Her current term on the Council expires on February
3, 2026. Prior to being appointed to the Council by Governor
Gavin Newsom in 2022, Lee served the Office of Governor Jerry
Brown and the following California state agencies: Government
Operations Agency, Building Standards Commission, Department of
Transportation, Department of Personnel Administration, Highway
Patrol, and Department of Corrections.
In what may be an illegal tax increase, the board of the
Metropolitan Water District just approved a two-year budget
that doubles the property tax it collects in its six-county
service area. MWD is a water wholesaler with 26 cities and
water retailers as its customers. Through those entities, MWD
supplies water to about 19 million people in Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura
counties. The new budget raises the wholesale rates by 8.5% in
2025 and then by 8.5% again in 2026. The rates for treated
water will go up 11% and then 10%. Metropolitan said it has to
raise rates and taxes to cover its operating costs because
they’ve been selling less water, first because of drought, and
then because of rain.
The recently announced closure of the salmon fishing season
delivered yet another devastating blow to the thousands of
families that depend on commercial and recreational fishing for
their livelihoods. For the second year in a row, fishing boats
at Fisherman’s Wharf will remain mothballed. The recent drought
contributed to the salmon decline, but the larger problem is
archaic water policies that allow too much water to be diverted
from our rivers and the Delta. As a result, salmon experience
manmade droughts almost every year, and the droughts we notice
become mega-droughts for fish. … California desperately needs
water reform, but strong opposition has come from what might
seem like an unlikely suspect. The San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission, which manages our Hetch Hetchy Water
System, is one of the worst culprits when it comes to poor
stewardship of our aquatic ecosystems. -Written by Peter Drekmeier, Policy Director for
the Tuolumne River Trust; and Scott Artis; Executive
Director of the Golden State Salmon Association.
Since the founding of Sacramento, residents have treasured the
beauty of the American River while living in fear of its
destructive power. Were the American to defy its man-made banks
in a series of historic storms, hundreds of thousands of
residents would face a flood disaster modern-day Sacramento has
never seen. The more we try to tame the river — as when the
Folsom Dam was constructed in 1955 to deny the river its
floodplain — the more we disfigure it. This ugly trade-off has
marked the passage of time in Sacramento and is as central to
the essence of this community as the state Capitol or the Tower
Bridge. A proposal to shore up some erosion spots along the
lower American River is the most recent flashpoint in the
trade-off between public safety and nature. -Written by Tom Philip, Sacramento Bee columnist.
Palo Alto’s bioreactor towers are aging out, like a lot of the
clean water infrastructure constructed around the Bay Area in
the 1950s-1970s. Recent wind gusts, swirling around the edges
of February’s atmospheric river storms, have not been friendly
to the towers either. On a March visit to the Palo Alto
Regional Water Quality Control Plant, which treats 18 million
gallons of wastewater every day, I could see a big chunk
missing from the wall of one rusty cauldron and tumbleweeds
caught in the metalwork. Elsewhere on the 25-acre site,
the plant’s facilities are visibly undergoing a $193 million
overhaul. The overhaul will help the plant meet increasing
regulatory limits on the amount of nitrogen that dischargers
can pipe into the shallows of San Francisco Bay.
A federal judge denied summary judgment to a California
nonprofit that accuses a solid waste facility in Butte County
of allowing contaminants to seep out of its facility and into a
wetland preserve that leads to a Sacramento River tributary
during a major rainstorm. Nonprofit California Open Lands
maintains a wetland preserve in Butte County that sits near the
Neal Road Recycling and Waste Facility, operated by the Butte
County Department of Public Works.
Plumas County recently commissioned an independent review of
vested mining rights for the Engels-Superior Mines, situated in
the county. Best Best & Krieger LLP (BBK), a prominent law
firm, undertook this investigation, posting its findings in a
detailed memorandum on April 15, 2024. The memorandum addresses
a request by California-Engels Mining Company (owner) and US
Copper Corp (applicant). This request pertains to the Engels
Mine and Superior Mine located in Indian Valley on the Feather
River watershed. The memorandum, accessible on the Plumas
County Zoning Administrator website, illuminates the historical
context and legal intricacies surrounding the mining
operations. It discusses five determinations sought by the
applicant, including the mining history, vesting date, extent
of mining, continuity of mining rights, and intent to continue
mining.
California WaterBlog is a long-running outreach project from
the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, a research center
dedicated to interdisciplinary study of water challenges,
particularly in California. We focus on environmentally and
economically sustainable solutions for managing rivers, lakes,
groundwater, and estuaries. This week, for UC Davis Give Day
(April 19-20) we’re sharing a little about the Center and the
work we do. I’m Karrigan Bork, the Center’s Interim Director,
helping out while Director Andrew Rypel is on sabbatical, and
I’ll be your guide for this brief tour through the “Shed”. If
you would like to donate to help the Center continue important
work, I’ve shared our giving link below.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife recommended
Alternative 3 – Salmon Closure during the final days of the
Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) meeting mirroring
the opinions of commercial and recreational charter boat
anglers. The department’s position is a significant change from
early March. The PFMC meetings are being held in Seattle from
April 6 to 11, and the final recommendations of the council
will be forwarded to the California Fish and Game Commission in
May.
Sustaining the American Southwest is the Colorado River. But
demand, damming, diversion, and drought are draining this vital
water resource at alarming rates. The future of water in the
region – particularly from the Colorado River – was top of mind
at the 10th Annual Eccles Family Rural West Conference, an
event organized by the Bill Lane Center for the American West
that brings together policymakers, practitioners, and scholars
to discuss solutions to urgent problems facing rural Western
regions.
Today, Congresswoman Norma Torres and Congressman David Valadao
– members of the House Appropriations Committee – announced the
introduction of the bipartisan Removing Nitrate and Arsenic in
Drinking Water Act. This bill would amend the Safe Drinking
Water Act to provide grants for nitrate and arsenic reduction,
by providing $15 million for FY25 and every fiscal year
thereafter. The bill also directs the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to take into consideration the needs of
economically disadvantaged populations impacted by drinking
water contamination. The California State Water Resources
Control Board found the Inland Empire to have the highest
levels of contamination of nitrate throughout the state
including 82 sources in San Bernardino, 67 sources in Riverside
County, and 123 sources in Los Angeles County.
