Author Archives: Francine

Sinkholes Found in Glenn County

February 27, 2022

Public Left in Dark

Sinkhole Existence Buried in Meeting Minutes
On January 11, 2022 AquAlliance become aware of sinkholes in the mid-Sacramento Valley through minutes from the Glenn Groundwater Authority1 and the Corning Sub-basin GSA Committee2. We requested additional information from Glenn County by e-mail and the Department of Water Resources (DWR) at the Red Bluff office by e-mail and voice message. There were no responses over 13 days hence we resorted to formal Public Records Act requests.


Preliminary review of records released to date indicates that

  1. There are multiple properties east of Orland with sinkholes (see Exhibit A).
  2. Glenn County and DWR have known about reports of sinkholes since August 2021.3
  3. “Several holes were observed ranging from 1-ft in diameter to 6-ft in diameter with varying depths ranging from 1 ½ feet to 3 feet deep. Mr. S…* stated that one of the holes that he already repaired required six dump trailer loads (about 3 yds each) to refill. The question that is being asked is where is the dirt going? Since there is the suspicion of being related to groundwater pumping, we are bringing this to your attention.”4 [emphasis added] [*name altered for privacy]
  4. It appears to be unexpected to find sinkholes in the soils of Glenn County. “I researched this topic and found only one publication on sink-hole like features in alluvial soils not in karst terrain, and that was in Italy.”5

Turkey Sinkholes Attributed to Groundwater Overuse
In Turkey, 2020 reporting found that drought and overuse of groundwater created massive sinkholes.6 “Giant sinkholes, large enough to swallow a house, are plaguing farmers in central Turkey. The past two years have brought a crippling drought, and farmers are using wells to tap even deeper into groundwater reserves.”7

Sinkholes Cause Health, Safety & Economic Concerns
The growing number of sinkholes in Glenn County is clearly alarming. The health and safety issues may be significant and the economic costs enormous. The cause has not been revealed yet, but whatever the reason, Glenn County and DWR need to enforce a moratorium on new wells and stop all groundwater substation transfers within its jurisdiction.

More Data Needed
AquAlliance will attempt to keep the public and the press informed as more records are obtained and reviewed.

Background on Sinkholes in California

U.S. Geological Survey:
“It is a frightening thought to imagine the ground below your feet or house suddenly collapsing and forming a big hole in the ground. Sinkholes rarely happen, but when they strike, tragedy can occur. Sinkholes happen when the ground below the land surface cannot support the land surface. They happen for many reasons; read on to educate yourself about sinkholes.” https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/sinkholes

National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/sinkhole

Los Angeles: https://abc7.com/sinkhole-van-crenshaw-street/7833491/

Exhibit A

Public Records file from Glenn County and DWR: Sinkholes_east_of_Orland_Sept-2021_(1).

1 “Ms. Hunter also stated that staff was made aware of sink holes developing in the Colusa and Corning subbasins, and that a site visit has been conducted with Department of Water Resources.” Glenn Groundwater Authority December 14, 2021 minutes p. 2 (packet pdf p. 8).

2 “A new monitoring well was installed through the DWR Technical Support Services (TSS) program. Staff are considering utilizing the TSS program to apply for potential geophysical work to better understand basin conditions, particularly in areas of concern and/or data gaps (e.g., around Stony Creek where there have been reports of the ground “sinking” in the area). This effort will be coordinated with the Colusa Subbasin where the anomaly is also occurring.” Corning subbasin minutes December 8, 2021 p.2 (packet pdf p. 7)

3 Massa, Rick August 16, 2021 e-mail to Lisa Hunter of Glenn County. “We have learned of orchardists that are experiencing sink holes in their orchards.”

4 Id.

5 Loy, Ken e-mail October 10, 2021.

6 Taylor, 2021. Drought and Sinkholes Threaten Farmers in Turkey. The Atlantic. “Chris McGrath, a photographer with Getty Images, recently spent time in Turkey’s Konya province, where extreme drought conditions have been taking a heavy toll on farmers and the land. For farmers, the lack of rain gives them little option but to tap into the groundwater supplies to sustain their crops, forcing some to turn to installing illegal ground wells. However, the reliance on groundwater has seen underground water levels drop by more than two meters in the past five years, contributing to an increase in massive sinkholes across the province, worrying farmers as they spread closer to residential areas. The number of sinkholes in the region has doubled in the past year. Gathered below are images of some of the farmers and shepherds as they cope with the extremely dry conditions and unstable land.” https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2021/06/photos-drought-and-sinkholes-threaten-farmers-turkey/619121/

7 https://theworld.org/media/2022-01-12/central-turkey-threatened-growing-sinkholes

 

NorthState Groundwater Pumping Threats Provoke Lawsuits

 

 

Contact: Barbara Vlamis, AquAlliance: 530-895-9420

Chico, CA. AquAlliance filed three lawsuits against the Butte, Colusa, and Vina subbasins’ Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) in the last ten days with two co-plaintiffs, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network. The GSPs are the result of state mandates from the 2014 Groundwater Sustainability Act,[1] which requires some protection of groundwater after allowing unregulated use since California’s formation.

The GSPs encompass large portions of Butte, Colusa, and Glenn counties and each present specific threats to the unsuspecting public dependent on groundwater and to the streams, rivers, trees, and species that are supported by healthy aquifers. Some of the dangerous policies and parameters include:

Butte subbasin GSP (Figure 1. Mostly Butte County with portions of Colusa and Glenn counties)

  1. Discloses that groundwater levels will drop by up to 100% of historic range.
  2. Accepts failure of at least 7 percent of the domestic and very deep aquifer supply wells.
  3. Allows groundwater pumping to increase that will result in stream flow loss from 90 to 277 percent.[2]

Colusa subbasin GSP (Figure 2. Colusa and Glenn counties)

  1. Permits the failure of at least 20 percent of domestic wells in the Colusa Subbasin, despite the requirement under SGMA that domestic wells be given priority.
  2. Accepts the loss of almost 1,000,000 acre feet of groundwater storage by 2070.
  3. Allows unreasonable and undesirable amounts of land subsidence.

Vina subbasin GSP (Figure 3. Butte County)

  1. Provides parameters that will cause hundreds of wells to fail, yet fails to disclose the quantity and percentage.
  2. Accepts monitoring well thresholds that are unreasonably low, including some that are approximately 200% below normal operating ranges.
  3. Inadequately mitigates the loss of wells by small farmers and residents.

The lawsuits find many failures in common. AquAlliance Executive Director Barbara Vlamis explained, “The three GSPs as written make it impossible to reach sustainability in the required 20-year horizon. In addition to specific failures noted above, they all identify projects and management actions that are ambiguous and unenforceable. They may cause serious harm, and none of them will protect groundwater dependent ecosystems as explicitly required by SGMA.”

“Despite common knowledge and some analysis, the Butte, Colusa, and Vina subbasin GSPs fail to adapt to serious impacts from expected climate change,” Vlamis continued. “This deficiency alone in the plans leaves them unenforceable and invalid,” she added.

Plaintiffs are represented by the Law Office of Adam Keats.

Additional Contacts:   
Bill Jennings, CSPA: 209-464-5067
Adam Keats: 415-430-9403

#

[1] https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Groundwater-Management/SGMA-Groundwater-Management

[2] AquAlliance, 2021. Comments on the Colusa GSP: “This shows that the overall percentage of groundwater being pumped will be recharged from the streams in the Butte Subbasin (i.e. stream depletion)… In fact, with the Historical baseline, the loss exceeds the volume of groundwater being pumped, suggesting that the subbasin may be at a tipping point where the impacts from future pumping increases are amplified, causing significantly more harm than just taking 100 percent of the groundwater recharge from surface waters.” pp. 15-16.

View the 3 Complaints:

Butte GSP – Complaint in ValidationDownload
Colusa GSP — Complaint in ValidationDownload
Vina GSP – Complaint in ValidationDownload
AquAlliance is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public benefit corporation established to defend northern California waters and to challengethreats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed to sustain family farms, communities, creeks and rivers, native flora and fauna, vernal pools and recreation. www.aqualliance.net

MAPS

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

West megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years

By Seth Borenstein – February 14, 2022

 

Water drips from a faucet near boat docks sitting on dry land a the Browns Ravine Cove area of drought-stricken Folsom Lake in Folsom, Calif., on May 22, 2021. The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest it has been in at least 1200 years and a worst-case scenario playing out live, a new study finds. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson, File)

Click this link to view the photo with the article at the AP News website.

The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds.

A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the region — pushed the 22-year drought past the previous record-holder for megadroughts in the late 1500s and shows no signs of easing in the near future, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study calculated that 42% of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change.

“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drier state in the West and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said study lead author Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA. “This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.”

Williams studied soil moisture levels in the West — a box that includes California, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, most of Oregon and Idaho, much of New Mexico, western Colorado, northern Mexico, and the southwest corners of Montana and Texas — using modern measurements and tree rings for estimates that go back to the year 800. That’s about as far back as estimates can reliably go with tree rings.

A few years ago, Williams studied the current drought and said it qualified as a lengthy and deep “megadrought” and that the only worse one was in the 1500s. He figured the current drought wouldn’t surpass that one because megadroughts tended to peter out after 20 years. And, he said, 2019 was a wet year so it looked like the western drought might be coming to an end.

But the region dried up in late 2020 and 2021.

All of California was considered in official drought from mid-May until the end of 2021, and at least three-quarters of the state was at the highest two drought levels from June through Christmas, according to the U.S. drought monitor.

“For this drought to have just cranked up back to maximum drought intensity in late 2020 through 2021 is a quite emphatic statement by this 2000s drought saying that we’re nowhere close to the end,” Williams said. This drought is now 5% drier than the old record from the 1500s, he said.

The drought monitor says 55% of the U.S. West is in drought with 13% experiencing the two highest drought levels.

This megadrought really kicked off in 2002 — one of the driest years ever, based on humidity and tree rings, Williams said.

“I was wondering if we’d ever see a year like 2002 again in my life and in fact, we saw it 20 years later, within the same drought,” Williams said. The drought levels in 2002 and 2021 were a statistical tie, though still behind 1580 for the worst single year.

 website. Climate change from the burning of fossil fuels is bringing hotter temperatures and increasing evaporation in the air, scientists say.

Williams used 29 models to create a hypothetical world with no human-caused warming then compared it to what happened in real life — the scientifically accepted way to check if an extreme weather event is due to climate change. He found that 42% of the drought conditions are directly from human-caused warming. Without climate change, he said, the megadrought would have ended early on because 2005 and 2006 would have been wet enough to break it.

The study “is an important wake-up call,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environment at the University of Michigan, who wasn’t part of the study. “Climate change is literally baking the water supply and forests of the Southwest, and it could get a whole lot worse if we don’t halt climate change soon.”

Williams said there is a direct link between drought and heat and the increased wildfires that have been devastating the West for years. Fires need dry fuel that drought and heat promote.

Eventually, this megadrought will end by sheer luck of a few good rainy years, Williams said. But then another one will start.

Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist who wasn’t involved in the study, said climate change is likely to make megadrought “a permanent feature of the climate of the Colorado River watershed during the 21st century.”

___

Click this link to read the article at the AP News website.

Groups Sue Reclamation Against Extra Groundwater Pumping Plans In North Valley

 

by Dan Bacher
September 05, 2021

 

Chico, CA. — On August 26, three environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal District Court challenging the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over extra groundwater pumping plans by Sacramento River water districts that they say will harm local domestic and agricultural users, the Sacramento River, streams and ecosystems.  

The filing of the suit by AquAlliance, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and the California Water Impact Network was followed on Wednesday, September 1, by a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). At stake is an estimated 60,000 acre feet of groundwater, according to AquAlliance Executive Director Barbara Vlamis. 

If you want to listen to the TRO hearing, here is the information. Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021 at 1:30 PM (PT): Any participants not appearing and arguing before the Court may listen to the proceedings by calling into the public line using the instructions which will be available on the public calendar section of the court’s website at www.caed.uscourts.gov for Judge Shubb’s Sept. 7, 2021 calendar.

The named participants in the Extra Groundwater Pumping Program include Anderson Cottonwood WD, Glenn-Colusa ID, Princeton-Codora-Glenn ID, Provident ID, Reclamation District No. 108, Reclamation District No. 1004, River Garden Farms and Sycamore Mutual WC.

Reclamation concluded that the proposed action in the EA would have no significant impact on the human environment.

“In assessing the appropriate level of NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review, Reclamation determined the Proposed Action is not likely to have significant effects,” the Assessment found. “In considering whether the effects of the Proposed Action are significant, Reclamation analyzed the affected environment and degree of the effects of the action.” 

“The Proposed Action will occur within existing facilities and there would be no effects to the following resources: aesthetics; geology, soils, & mineral Resources; land use; population & housing; transportation & traffic; recreation; hazards & hazardous materials; cultural resources; public services & utilities,” Reclamation claimed.

The groups strongly disagree with Reclamation’s Finding of No Significant Impact. (FNSOO). The lawsuit asks the court to declare Reclamation’s Environmental Assessment invalid and issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to stop the project that the plaintiffs say will harm local domestic and agricultural users, the Sacramento River, streams, and ecosystems. 

The motion for a TRO and/or preliminary injunction notes that “groundwater and groundwater dependent people and resources are already severely impacted” in the Sacramento Valley.

“BOR grossly failed its statutory mandates under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) to disclose and consider the Project’s effects prior to approval, and prior to irreversible effects occurring,” the groups allege.  

“To have the federal government enable the abuse of groundwater by river water-rich Settlement Contractors, particularly in a critically dry year, is heinous,” said Vlamis. “The Extra Groundwater Pumping Plan pits Sacramento River water right users against groundwater-reliant neighbors and habitats that are already struggling. To represent the people and environment, we had to pursue our legal options.”

The groups said that with the knowledge of California’s climate and history, “Reclamation failed to prepare for the dry year before us.”

“The districts are hammering already taxed local groundwater basins during the serious 2021 drought, because they don’t want to accept cuts in river water deliveries even though their 25% cut is much less than those other users have experienced,” according to the groups. “However, the same districts have enough river water to sell to south-of-Delta interests.” (see table below)

“If Reclamation hadn’t released so much water from Shasta Reservoir in April and May this year, there would have been more in storage for critical flows for salmon and Delta farmers,” said Bill Jennings, Executive Director/Chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). 

Total Keswick Dam water releases in April were 352,673 acre-feet of water and 509,160 acre feet in May, a total of 861,833 acre-feet during the two months, according to the Bureau of Reclamation’s Northern CVP Water Temperature Plan.

This has been a disastrous year for imperiled Sacramento River salmon. The California Department of Fish and Game (CDFW) has forecasted that “nearly all” of the juvenile winter-run Chinook hatched on the Sacramento River this year could die before spawning, due to disease spurred by warm water conditions below Keswick Dam: sacramento.newsreview.com/…

A record run of over 18,000 endangered spring-run Chinook salmon on Butte Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River, has also turned into disaster as 14,500 fish have  died before spawning. These fish also have perished due to the outbreak of disease in warm, low water conditions: sacramento.newsreview.com/…  

On June 1, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water Impact Network (CWIN), and Save California Salmon (SCS) presented an alternative water temperature management plan to the State Water Resources Control Board  that would have resulted in more carryover storage to protect fish, water and people over the winter. However, the water board failed to consider the alternative and approved the Bureau’s environmentally destructive water temperature management plan: www.dailykos.com/…

The August 31 update to the CVP/SWP drought assessment forecasts that by November 1 there will only be 728,000 acre feet of storage left in Shasta Lake, 691,000 acre feet in Oroville and 169,000 acre feet in Folsom Lake.

“We are in uncharted territory,” emphasized Jennings. “We have never had this little storage in the reservoirs. Cities, farms and fish are all screwed. This is substantially worse than 1977.”    

The plaintiffs are represented by the Aqua Terra Aeris law firm.

Table of participants in the Extra Groundwater Pumping Program

All named participants in the Extra Groundwater Pumping Program also plan to transfer water to south-of-the-Delta users in 2021. 

District

Water to sell south-of-Delta (possible af) *

 Extra Groundwater Pumping potential (af) **

Anderson Cottonwood WD

5,226

3,000

Glenn-Colusa ID

91,000

25,000

Princeton-Codora-Glenn ID

13,200

8,000

Provident ID

19,900

8,000

Reclamation District No. 108

55,000

12,500

Reclamation District No. 1004

27,175

4,300

River Garden Farms

20,000

3,000

Sycamore Mutual WC

25,000

3,000

* Numbers are found in the 2020 Long-Term Water Transfer Program FEIS/EIR. Each district’s total acre-feet are unknown for 2021.

** Reclamation asserts the total acre-feet will not exceed 60,000.   

USGS: Increased Pumping in California’s Central Valley During Drought Worsens Groundwater Quality

The urgency of the AquAlliance lawsuit was underlined by the release of a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that reveals that intensive pumping of aquifers during drought can speed up deterioration of groundwater quality.  

The study “Critical aquifer overdraft accelerates degradation of groundwater quality in California’s Central Valley during drought” is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

“The results highlight clean drinking water supply vulnerabilities in California and other western states currently experiencing record drought conditions,” according to the USGS. 

“Water quality problems from legacy groundwater pollution could get worse, faster, when pumping increases during drought,” said Dr. Zeno Levy, a research geologist with the USGS. “This could lead to more public drinking-water wells being shut down if costly treatment or cleaner water sources to mix with are not available.”

The agency said researchers examined 30 years of data from California’s Central Valley to find increasing nitrate concentrations at public drinking-water wells were more prevalent in areas where groundwater levels dropped rapidly during drought.

“Nitrate is a contaminant from fertilizer typically present at elevated concentrations in shallow groundwater throughout the Central Valley due to decades of agricultural land use. Scientists found that increased pumping from wells during drought can pull shallow, contaminated groundwater down to depths commonly tapped for public drinking-water supply,” the study stated.

Previous groundwater research has focused on the risk of wells being overdrawn and running dry during drought.

“The new study provides a major advancement to understanding the related consequences to water quality caused by over pumping,” the USGS wrote. “The study is unique in that it looked at regional linkages between groundwater use and quality, rather than local patterns at the scale of individual wells.”

This research was undertaken as part of a cooperative effort between the USGS and the California State Water Resources Control Board’s Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Program. 

This content was created by Dan Bacher, a Daily Kos Community member. To view the article online, visit https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/5/2048791/-Groups-Sue-Reclamation-Against-Extra-Groundwater-Pumping-Plans-In-North-Valley

Groundwater Pumping Threats in NorthState Counties

Transfers Tied to Extra Pumping Plans

Press Release
August 26, 2021
Contact: Barbara Vlamis, AquAlliance: 530-895-9420

Chico, CA.  AquAlliance, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and the California Water Impact Network filed a lawsuit in federal District Court against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) over Extra Groundwater Pumping Plans by Sacramento River water districts. The districts are hammering already taxed local groundwater basins during the serious 2021 drought, because they don’t want to accept cuts in river water deliveries even though their 25% cut is much less than those other agricultural users have experienced.[1] The same districts have enough river water to sell to south-of-Delta interests, however (see table below).

Reclamation seeks to pay the Extra Groundwater pumpers for their energy costs based on the analysis found in the Environmental Assessment for Groundwater Actions to Offset Surface Water Diversions from the Sacramento River in Response to Drought in 2021.

The lawsuit[2] asks the court to declare Reclamation’s Environmental Assessment invalid and issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to stop the project that will harm local domestic and agricultural users, the Sacramento River, streams, and ecosystems. AquAlliance Executive Director, Barbara Vlamis, explained, “To have the federal government enable the abuse of groundwater by river water-rich Settlement Contractors, particularly in a critically dry year, is heinous. The Extra Groundwater Pumping Plan pits Sacramento River water right users against groundwater-reliant neighbors and habitats that are already struggling. To represent the people and environment, we had to pursue our legal options.”

Even with the knowledge of California’s climate and history, Reclamation failed to prepare for the dry year before us. “If Reclamation hadn’t released so much water from Shasta Reservoir in April and May this year, there would have been more in storage for critical flows for salmon and Delta farmers,” said Bill Jennings of CSPA.[3]

Plaintiffs are represented by the Aqua Terra Aeris law firm.

Additional Contacts:   
Bill Jennings, CSPA: 209-464-5067; cell 209-938-9053
Jason Flanders, Aqua Terra Aeris: 916.202.3018

#

AquAlliance is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public benefit corporation established to defend northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed to sustain family farms, communities, creeks and rivers, native flora and fauna, vernal pools and recreation. www.aqualliance.net

[1] https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsroomold/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=73745
[2] https://tinyurl.com/ektruuyz
[3] California Sportfishing Protection Alliance et al. 2021. Proposed 2021 Temperature Management Plan for Central Valley Project Shasta- Trinity Division. pdf p. 6.

Background

A) U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Environmental Assessment for Groundwater Actions to Offset Surface Water Diversions from the Sacramento River in Response to Drought in 2021 https://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_project_details.php?Project_ID=50127

B) Maps illustrating the groundwater conditions in the Sacramento Valley. https://data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/northern-sacramento-valley-groundwater-elevation-change-maps

C) All named participants in the Extra Groundwater Pumping Program also plan to transfer water to south-of-the-Delta users in 2021.

District

Water to sell south-of-Delta
(possible af) *

Extra Groundwater Pumping
potential (af) **
Anderson Cottonwood WD 5,226 3,000
Glenn-Colusa ID 91,000 25,000
Princeton-Codora-Glenn ID 13,200 8,000
Provident ID 19,900 8,000
Reclamation District No. 108 55,000 12,500
Reclamation District No. 1004 27,175 4,300
River Garden Farms 20,000 3,000
Sycamore Mutual WC 25,000 3,000
* Numbers are found in the 2020 Long-Term Water Transfer Program FEIS/EIR. Each district’s total acre-feet are unknown for 2021.
** Reclamation asserts the total acre-feet will not exceed 60,000.

Reclamation updates Central Valley Project 2021 water supply allocation

AquAlliance: Here is the news we expected – “Agricultural water service contractors south-of-Delta allocation of 5% of their [CVP] contract supply is not available for delivery until further notice.’ The State Water Project projection for mostly urban contractors dropped to 5% delivery.

Major water transfers are in the works in addition to what the Bureau of Reclamation planned in the Long Term Water Transfer Program (2021 Sacramento Valley Water Transfers). 

AquAlliance pulled our team together once more, so the Long Term Water Transfer Program is currently in court. We filed the lawsuit in May 2020. Unfortunately, but understandably, the virus caused all court activity to move very slowly with our opening brief finally due in August 2021. All briefs should be done in 2021 with a decision in 2022. We have a very strong case once again.

Currently we are evaluating how we may protect area groundwater from the additional water transfers.

Bureau of Reclamation Press Release follows.

For Release: March 23, 2021
Contact: Mary Lee Knecht, 916-978-5100, mknecht@usbr.gov

Reclamation updates Central Valley Project 2021 water supply allocation

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Today, the Bureau of Reclamation announced an update to the initial Central Valley Project 2021 water supply allocation for agricultural water service contractors south-of-Delta. Allocation amounts are based on an estimate of water available for delivery to CVP water users and reflects current reservoir storages, precipitation, and snowpack in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada.

“Although conservative hydrologic data was used to develop the initial CVP water supply allocation, inflow projections to CVP reservoirs have decreased from February forecasts, which further constrain available water supply,” said Regional Director Ernest Conant. “After careful consideration of water management options, we are adjusting the allocation for south-of-Delta agricultural contractors. As always, we will continue to monitor hydrology as the water year progresses and continue to look for opportunities for operational flexibility.”

Northern California has about 51% of average precipitation for this time of year; statewide average snowpack levels are at 63% of average. Ongoing dry conditions will require the coordination of federal, state and local agencies. Today, the California Department of Water Resources, which operates the State Water Project, is expected to announce a reduction in its anticipated water supplies.

Due to worsening hydrologic conditions, Reclamation is announcing the following update to the initial 2021 CVP water supply allocation:

Agricultural water service contractors south-of-Delta allocation of 5% of their contract supply is not available for delivery until further notice.

There are no updates to other CVP allocations at this time.

As the water year progresses, changes in hydrology and opportunities to deliver additional water will influence future allocation decisions. Water supply updates will be made as appropriate and posted at https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp-water/index.html.

The Bureau of Reclamation is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior and is the nation’s largest wholesale water supplier and second largest producer of hydroelectric power. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation opportunities, and environmental benefits. Visit www.usbr.gov and follow @USBR and @ReclamationCVP on Twitter.

Secret Meetings Exposed

State and local government continue to play dangerous game with groundwater

Click to see why we created this blog.

An “Interbasin Coordination Group” (ICG) consisting of Northern Sacramento Valley agency staff and consultants has been meeting since May 2020.[1] But the public was not aware of the meetings until a consultant mentioned the Group in November 2020.[2] We were told that Interbasin Coordination Group meetings provided an opportunity for “informal” exchange of information and collaboration between staff and consultants working on Groundwater Sustainability Plans in subbasins throughout the region. Consultants facilitate both the non-public inter-basin coordination as well as public Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) committee meetings, so to exclude interested advisory committee members who represent the public is outrageous. The excuse that technical content is a barrier to public participation in IGC meetings is a smokescreen.

Butte County staff and regional SGMA consultants did not publish ICG summaries until November, when I asked about the undisclosed meetings. Staff and consultants assured me that public outreach would be extended to include participation in future ICG meetings. However, the December 1, 2020 summary illustrated that there was no opportunity for public participation. The meeting summary did indicate that there were discrepancies in the groundwater modeling of groundwater flow between the subbasins but failed to give examples. The reason: “It will be important to complete discussions as suggested and attempt to resolve or at least understand causes of substantial differences before distributing this information broadly.”

Added to the local secrecy regarding groundwater interactions across county boundaries is Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2020 Water Resiliency plan. The Governor’s plan seeks so-called Voluntary Agreements to create flexibility for groundwater sustainability agencies to trade/sell water from “regions of surplus” (targeting the Northern Sacramento Valley) to critically overdrafted basins (the San Joaquin Valley and Tulare basins). The Governor’s plan would enable and provide incentives for groundwater marketing and substantially reduce approval time for water transfers. Citizens, businesses (including groundwater dependent agriculture), and ecosystems that exist in the area of so-called surplus are vulnerable to short and long-term impacts to their water needs when streamlined review of water sales/trades by willing sellers with senior water rights are allowed.

AquAlliance represents you to protect local and regional groundwater and streams. Sign up for AquAlliance’s Blog, The Water Dig, to stay tuned (http://www.aqualliance.net/water-blog).

Acronyms
CBI – Consensus Building Institute
SGMA – Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed by the state legislature in 2014.
ICG – Interbasin Coordination Group

– J.R. Brobeck

[1] https://www.buttecounty.net/waterresourceconservation/Sustainable-Groundwater-Management-Act/Inter-basin-Coordination

[2] Corning Sub-basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency Committee meeting

Jim Brobeck is a water-policy analyst with AquaAlliance.

The Fallacy of California’s “Coequal Goals”

Click to see why we created this blog.

The so-called Delta Reform Act Legislation of 2009 mandated a policy of co-equal water management. “Coequal goals” intend to provide a more reliable water supply for California and to protect, restore, and enhance the Delta ecosystem. Unfortunately the reliability of irrigation water supply continues to supersede the intention to respect the Delta ecosystem. While the pumps continue to pull unreasonable amounts of water out, the fish populations have all but disappeared in the famous estuary.

In order to achieve the co-equal goals, the state recognized the need to reduce reliance on water exported from the Delta. But that reliance on pumping NorthState water out of the Delta has not diminished. The federal and state water projects were meant to reduce demand on the aquifer system. But demand for groundwater has continued to escalate.

The state has known for decades that valley wells were running dry, streams were leaking into drained aquifers, and that the land surface was collapsing as more water was removed from the ground – most especially in the San Joaquin Valley. Unfortunately, this pattern accelerated in the Sacramento Valley after 2000. In the second decade of the 21rst century California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The goal of this act is “management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon [2015 -2042!] without causing undesirable results.” The undesirable results include “chronic lowering of groundwater levels, reduction of groundwater storage, seawater intrusion, land subsidence, water quality degradation, and depletions of interconnected surface water.” While attempting to maintain a reliable source of rural irrigation and   domestic water is obviously the goal of SGMA in the Central Valley, the act also mentions the need to consider impacts to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs).

There are long-standing plans by the California Department of Water Resources to consider the aquifer system of the northern Sacramento Valley as a source of water for farms and cities south of the Delta. The Department envisions turning the aquifer of our region into a wildly fluctuating reservoir that can be drained during dry periods and artificially refilled during hoped-for wet years with “surplus water”. Water purveyors would like to join this scheme by being the agents of groundwater recharge and subsequent capture of ownership of “water in storage”.

AquAlliance knows that the health of northern Sacramento Valley communities, economies, and the environment rest on a foundation of public trust in a stable watershed owned in common. SGMA requires consideration of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem [GDE] health. I am skeptical of SGMA agencies’ definition of GDEs and their intention to preserve ecosystem integrity. A future blog will follow on GDEs.  

– J.R. Brobeck

Jim Brobeck is a water-policy analyst with AquaAlliance.

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Lawsuit Filed Against Long Term Water Transfer Program

Massive Transfers Threaten North State Farms, Fish and Communities

Contact: Barbara Vlamis, AquAlliance: 530-895-9420; cell 530-519-7468

Read the Complaint:

Water-Transfer-Dkt.-1-ComplaintDownload

Chico, CA. AquAlliance filed a lawsuit in federal District Court against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) (Agencies) over their second attempt to disclose and analyze impacts from their long term water export plans. USBR and SLDMWA seek significant water from the Sacramento River Watershed and groundwater basins to ship through the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley.

The 2019 Long Term Water Transfer Program’s final approvals were made in April 2020. The Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) describes the Project as north-to-south transfers that could be as high as 600,000 acre-feet (af) per year in the six year project window.1

One of the many EIS/EIR failures disclosed in the complaint starts with the Project description. The EIS/EIR complicates something as basic to a project as its description by asserting transfers will differ from the disclosed 600,000 af and only reach 250,000 af per year,2 yet no legally enforceable element of the Project would compel the purported annual restriction. Further complicating the Project description is one assertion that transfers will take place in only two of the six years.3

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the Agencies’ Environmental Impact Statement/Report was arbitrary and capricious, ignored relevant new information and failed to meet minimum requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In addition to the wholly inadequate Project description, the Agencies failed to fully disclose the impacts from the Long Term Water Transfer Program and the numerous conditions affecting groundwater, subsidence, and species populations. The Agencies’ review also failed to consider the cumulative impacts from other significant actions such as the 1) Addendum to the Coordinated Operation Agreements of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project; 2) Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary Amendments and Voluntary Settlement Agreements; 3) Sacramento Valley Water Management Agreement; 4) Sites Reservoir project; 5) other water transfers; 6) California Department of Water Resources’ Delta Conveyance Project; 7) amendments to State Water Project water supply contracts.

AquAlliance Executive Director Barbara Vlamis explained, “Not just once, but twice now we find that USBR and SLDMWA refuse to face the real impacts that come from hoping to squeeze ever more water from the streams and groundwater basins of the Sacramento Valley. Clearly, they ignored their losses in the 2018 court ruling and pursued the very definition of insanity – using the same tools to reach the same conclusions. To represent the farms, fish, fowl and communities, we had to pursue our legal options.”

AquAlliance has been joined by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network, and they are represented by the Aqua Terra Aeris law firm. Co-plaintiffs in the litigation also include Central Delta Water Agency and South Delta Water Agency that are represented by the Soluri Meserve law firm.

Additional Contacts:
Bill Jennings, CSPA: 209-464-5067; cell 209-938-9053
Pat Soluri, Soluri Meserve: 916.455.7300; cell 916.599.0474

AquAlliance is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public benefit corporation established to defend northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed to sustain family farms, communities, creeks and rivers, native flora and fauna, vernal pools and recreation. www.aqualliance.net

Background

A) 2015 10-Year Water Transfer Program History
USBR and SLDMWA (Agencies) approved a Program that could send up to 600,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water south of the Delta – each year.4 When combined with additional state approved transfers, the total could have been over 800,000 acre-feet each year. With history as a guide, half of the transfer water would have come from groundwater substitution transfers. 5 Although widely opposed by NorthState residents and local government, the Agencies moved forward approving the use of groundwater substitution, fallowing, reservoir releases, and conservation to make the transfers possible. The Agencies proposed a thin veneer for mitigating impacts that depends only on monitoring the stressed hydrologic systems (groundwater, streams, and rivers). AquAlliance and partners sued in 2015 and received a favorable ruling in 2018. Successful claims included:

  1. CEQA
    1. The absence of performance standards for groundwater mitigation measure.
    2. The FEIS/EIR failure to mitigate for land subsidence.
    3. The inadequate cumulative biological impact analysis regarding reduced delta outflow.
    4. The FEIS/EIR’s failure to analyze impacts to the giant garter snake and propose mitigation.6
  2. NEPA
    1. Failure to evaluate the effectiveness of groundwater mitigation.
    2. Climate change.

B) U.S. Bureau of Reclamation /SLDMWA Long Term Water Transfer Program
2015 Project – https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp/long-term.html
2019 Project – http://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_projdetails.cfm?Project_ID=18361
C) Maps illustrating the groundwater conditions in the Sacramento Valley.
https://data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/northern-sacramento-valley-groundwater-elevation-change-maps

1 “In addition, the biological opinions1 on the Coordinated Operations of the CVP and State Water Project (SWP) (USFWS 2008; National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service [NOAA Fisheries] 2009) analyze transfers through the SWP Banks and CVP Jones Pumping Plants from July to September that are up to 600,000 acre-feet (AF) in critical and dry years. For all other year types, the maximum transfer amount is up to 360,000 AF. For this Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR), annual transfers would not exceed the above capacities and would be pumped through Banks or Jones Pumping Plants between July 20 and September.” EIS/EIR p. 3.1-3.

2 “The transfers included in Alternative 2 would be up to 250,000 acre-feet per year…” p. ES-7. Also found on pages E-9, E-11, 1-4, 2-2, 2-9, 2-10, etc.

3 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion 2019. “After reviewing the current status of the snake, environmental baseline for the action area, effects of the proposed project, cumulative effects, and proposed conservation measures, it is the Service’s opinion that the two years of water transfers as proposed from 2019-2024, are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the snake.” [Emphasis added] p. 28.

4 600,000 acre-feet each year for 10 years is equivalent to what a city of 100,000 people would use in 300 years.

5 Groundwater substitution transfers take place when a water district sells its river water that is normally used to irrigate rice and instead continues growing rice by pumping well water. The grower makes money on both the water sale and the rice that is grown.

6 “This type of failure was deemed dangerous because the lack of analysis and findings about the extent of impacts makes it impossible to determine if the mitigation measures are sufficient.”

Massive Northern California reservoir project scaled back to reduce costs

Sites Reservoir in Colusa County would send water statewide, but $5.1 billion was too expensive

By PAUL ROGERS | progers@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: May 11, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: May 11, 2020 at 6:03 a.m.

An ambitious plan to build the largest new reservoir in California in 40 years to supply water to homes and businesses from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, along with Central Valley farmers, is being scaled back considerably amid questions about its $5 billion price tag and how much water it can deliver.

Sites Reservoir is proposed for construction in remote ranch lands in Colusa County, about 70 miles north of Sacramento. The reservoir, originally designed to be four times as big as Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park and nearly as big as San Luis Reservoir between Gilroy and Los Banos, received more money than any other project two years ago from a water bond passed by state voters during California’s historic drought.

But supporters still haven’t found enough to pay all the construction costs.

So, late last month, the agency planning the reservoir, the Sites Project Authority, issued new plans. Although Sites is among the most high-profile water projects in the state, they have gone largely unnoticed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the new approach, the price tag will be cut roughly 40% from $5.1 billion to $3 billion. The reservoir’s size will shrink from 1.8 million acre feet to 1.5 million acre feet. Plans to build an 18-mile pipeline east to the Sacramento River to fill the reservoir were dropped in favor of using existing canals. A hydro-power pumping station was cut. And significantly, the amount of water the reservoir is expected to deliver on average, known as the “annual yield,” was cut in half from 505,000 acre feet to 243,000 acre feet.

Backers say the reservoir, which would still be California’s seventh largest, nevertheless remains on track.

“This is a step in the right direction to making this project a reality for the state of California,” said Jerry R. Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority.

Brown, no relation to the former governor, was hired last month after previously working as general manager of the Contra Costa Water District, where he oversaw expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir.

Making the project more affordable, he said, will increase the likelihood that water agencies will contribute — from farmers in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley to urban users like the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose, the Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore, and the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, all of whom have expressed interest.

So far, 21 agencies have put up $27 million for planning and studies. Another $19 million is due by Oct. 1.

“We took to heart what people told us and said we need to take a step back and re-evaluate this,” he said. “We’ve developed a right-sized project that is affordable and buildable.”

But the changes highlight how difficult it is to construct huge new water projects in California, even as the state heads into a dry summer following a disappointing winter rainy season.

“All of us have done something like this in our lives,” said Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “You go out on the market and see how big a house or car you can buy at first, but then when you sharpen your pencil and do the finances more seriously, you decide you can only afford something a little smaller.”

Environmentalists were more blunt.

“To me it just shows it’s a project that’s struggling to pay for itself,” said Ron Stork, a senior policy advocate for Friends of the River, a group that opposes the project.

An aerial view taken September 2014 shows the valley that would be filled by the proposed Sites reservoir near (Maxwell. Kelly M. Grow — California Department of Water Resources) 

The changes will delay the start of construction from 2022 to at least 2023, although planners say they still hope to finish by the original date of 2030.

“The probability of it happening at this price is much higher,” Lund said. “But the probability of any major new water project is always small in California.”

There are several reasons, he noted.

First, many of the best locations for dams are already taken. Second, environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act mean rivers can’t be dammed, wiping out fish and other wildlife, as they were generations ago.

Finally, it’s hard to fund them. Not only did California voters pass Proposition 13 in 1978, requiring a two-thirds majority to raise most taxes, but in 1986, former President Reagan changed federal law to require states to pay a greater share of the huge costs of building dams to curb federal spending.

The idea for Sites has been around since the 1950s. Politically, it has a big advantage: It would be an “off-stream” reservoir. Instead of damming a river, a remote valley 10 miles west of the sleepy farm town of Maxwell would be submerged, the water held in by two large dams and up to nine smaller “saddle dams” on ridges

The reservoir would be filled by diverting water from the Sacramento River — California’s largest river — in wet years, and releasing it in dry years for farms and cities, along with fish and other species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The project has multiple challenges, however.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which must issue permits, said the original plan would take too much water out of the Sacramento River, harming salmon, steelhead and other species. That’s in part why planners reduced the annual yield in the revised plans.

Then there’s money. Sites’ planners, who are mostly political and farm leaders in the Sacramento Valley, asked the Brown administration for $1.6 billion from Proposition 1, a bond passed in 2014 by voters. They got half, $816 million. They also were awarded a $439 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They also are seeking at least $1 billion in other federal loans, and $1.2 billion from water agencies that would buy the water.

But Sacramento Valley farmers already have groundwater and senior water rights. And because many grow low-value crops like rice, they can’t afford a project that is too expensive.

Silicon Valley and Los Angeles may be interested. But they have alternatives, like building local reservoirs, expanding recycled water and conservation, and cleaning contaminated groundwater, which may be cheaper.

“People are already saving water for rough periods,” Stork said. “That’s why this project is probably in trouble.”

To get the state bond money, the project must lock in 75% of its outside funding and finish its draft environmental studies by Jan. 1, 2022

If built, Sites would be the largest new reservoir in California constructed since 1979, when the Army Corps of Engineers completed construction on the 625-foot high New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River near Jamestown,  in the Sierra Foothills of Calaveras County at a capacity of 2.4 million acre feet.

“It’s a steep hill to climb,” Lund said. “But it’s not as steep at $3 billion as it would be at $5 billion.”

Paul Rogers | Natural resources and environment reporter 

Paul Rogers has covered a wide range of issues for The Mercury News since 1989, including water, oceans, energy, logging, parks, endangered species, toxics and climate change. He also works as managing editor of the Science team at KQED, the PBS and NPR station in San Francisco, and has taught science writing at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

View article at https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/11/massive-northern-california-reservoir-project-scaled-back-to-reduce-costs/