California Environmental groups on April 29 challenged in court the state Dept. of Water Resources decision not to include a proposed 40-mile tunnel in its most recent environmental assessment needed to reauthorize long-term operation of the State Water Project—a 700-mile system of dams and aqueducts that moves water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to areas in the south.
The last Sierra Nevada snowpack measurement of the season on Thursday confirmed what California officials have feared for months: The state has suffered through a dry winter.
The state Department of Water Resources announced that the snow was just 1.5 inches deep at its traditional measuring spot at Phillips Station, a vast field off Highway 50 near Echo Summit. The “snow water equivalent” was just a half an inch, or just 3 percent of average for this time of year.
The Phillips measurement was an outlier. A broader measurement taken by 130 electronic sensors throughout the Sierra revealed an average snow water equivalent of 8.4 inches, or 37 percent of average for this time of year.
California water agencies yesterday sued the state over endangered species protections they claim threaten their ability to provide water to more than 25 million residents and thousands of acres of farmland.
The lawsuit is an extraordinary step, underscoring that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) now has multiple crises on his plate: the coronavirus pandemic and a rapidly devolving water war.
At issue is water shipped from California’s water hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta east of San Francisco, south via the State Water Project, a massive system of dams, canals and aqueducts.
California recently issued a new permit for the project under the state’s endangered species law.
The water agencies that get their water from the project — which include the country’s largest water provider — are challenging it in court, saying the terms of the permit would increase their costs by $22 million annually.
A coalition of 16 states led by California and New York sued the Trump administration Friday over a law that eliminated Obama-era protections for wetlands and streams across the United States.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, accuses President Trump and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of illegally exposing waterways to pollution and development by rolling back a key provision of the Clean Water Act.
The last seasonal survey of snow in the Sierra Nevada confirms that California had a dry winter that will leave much-needed runoff levels below normal, authorities said Thursday.
The snow was only 1 ½ inches deep at the traditional manual measuring site at Phillips Station in the range east of Sacramento, and the water contained in it was equivalent to just a half-inch, which is 3 percent of the May average for the location, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
Sierra snow melt typically provides about 30% of the state’s water supply.
More broadly, 130 electronic snow sensors scattered throughout the Sierras indicated that California’s snow pack water equivalent is 37 percent of the May average.
Readings for April also were well below average.
“March and April storms brought needed snow to the Sierras, with the snow pack reaching its peak on April 9, however those gains were not nearly enough to offset a very dry January and February” and the last two weeks of higher temperatures have rapidly reduced the snow pack, said Sean de Guzman, chief of the department’s Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecast Section.
The snow measurements help in predicting runoff into reservoirs that will help meet California’s water demand in the summer and fall, the water agency said.
At the moment, reservoirs are in good shape, with the six largest close to or even above their historical averages. Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface reservoir, is currently more than 80% full, authorities said.
Every day, millions of Americans could be flushing critical coronavirus data down the toilet.
With the nation growing ever more weary of sweeping stay-at-home orders and a worsening economy, some scientists say our poop could be the key to determining when a community might consider easing health restrictions.
From Stanford to the University of Arizona, from Australia to Paris, teams of researchers have been ramping up wastewater analyses to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Initial studies show that sewage monitoring, or “wastewater-based-epidemiology,” could not only tell us how much the virus might actually be spreading in a community — but also when the virus has finally gone away.
Re “California water war re-ignited”; Dan Walters, April 20, 2020, CalMatters
Dan Walters’ column does a good job describing a potential water battle that all Californians should want to avoid.
The COVID-19 pandemic has rendered uncertain many things we used to take for granted. When can we next go to a restaurant, plan a vacation or go to a baseball game? We can’t afford to add to that list, “will there be food at the grocery store?” Our food supply has been one of the few things we’ve been able to count on in recent months and we need that to continue.
The EPA has been too busy responding to the deadly coronavirus to work on its long-awaited proposal to manage huge volumes of pathogen-infested sewage and stormwater during heavy rains, the agency’s top wastewater official said Wednesday.
“We think we have a potential path forward,” said Andrew Sawyers, director of the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Wastewater Management, said in a webinar on water priorities for the year.
But “with Covid-19, there are a lot of things under consideration,” he said, referring to the disease caused by the coronavirus.
“We will provide additional information on timing and potentially when we can move this forward,” Sawyers said about the wastewater rule.
A group of more than 80 members of Congress is pushing for the inclusion of provisions to regulate a class of cancer-linked chemicals in future stimulus legislation dealing with infrastructure.
A recent flurry of litigation from around the state and across the country could have huge ramifications in California on the protection and distribution of scarce water resources.
