An endangered toad in San Diego’s East County is having a bit of a resurgence thanks to a couple of storms like Hilary and a large hole in the bottom of a dam.
“This is perfect habitat for the arroyo toad,” said Sweetwater Authority Biologist Pete Famolaro while standing in a Sweetwater River watershed near the Loveland Reservoir.
It’s been just over a year since a century-old dam was removed from Mill Creek, a tributary that runs through the Santa Cruz Mountains in Central California. Now, scientists say the creek is already beginning to show signs of revitalization — including an unexpected discovery.
Aquatic ecologists with the Sempervirens Fund, one of the conservation groups that co-owns the 8,532-acre forest known as San Vicente Redwoods, found 12 juvenile steelhead trout and 15 federally endangered coho salmon fry swimming in the creek last month. It was the first time the latter species had ever been recorded there. v
After last year’s drought that saw protests and threats of breaking into federal water management facilities, the implications of the recent Klamath Irrigation District (KID) vote are unclear, but support from irrigators was widespread on March 29, 2022.
Out of 377 votes, 319 KID members voted ‘yes’ to the ballot question: “Pursuant to both our federal contract obligations and state water rights, do you want the district to attempt to deliver you water knowing it will likely complicate federal drought funding?”
California red-legged frogs disappeared from their natural habitat in Riverside and San Diego counties decades ago. Disease and invasive species were their downfalls, according to John Heil, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Now multiple partners — including national and international nonprofits, government agencies, and private landowners — have come together to change the course of the frog’s plight, Heil explained.
The San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has decided to join them, not fight them.
Stymied by environmental barriers and losses in court for 11 years, the large water wholesaler serving 700,000 residential and business customers from Fontana to Yucaipa is on the precipice of releasing an environmentally based plan that would nearly double its supply of water by diverting billions of gallons from the Upper Santa Ana River, while mitigating the effects on 20 indigenous fish and bird species.
California’s salmon populations have been dangerously close to extinction for decades. A new partnership may help tip the scales toward recovery.
Federal officials on Tuesday declared the monarch butterfly “a candidate” for threatened or endangered status, but said no action would be taken for several years because of the many other species waiting for that designation.
Environmentalists said delaying that long could spell disaster for the beloved black-and-orange butterfly, once a common sight in backyard gardens, meadows and other landscapes now seeing its population dwindling.
The order raises more questions about the administration’s agenda when it comes to pesticides and freshwater flows for threatened fish species.
As the Department of Homeland Security sped construction of new barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, it ignored concerns from the Fish and Wildlife Service not to abuse groundwater resources and put the survival of some endangered species at risk, new documents show.
A government assessment recently obtained by an environmental group appears to link a well the group says is used in U.S.-Mexico border wall construction to low water levels in wildlife habitats at an Arizona refuge with endangered species.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
