Since World War II and a booming state population that
increasingly sought out the great outdoors to relax, the state’s
water-based recreational activities have continued to grow more
popular and diverse, occurring in a multitude of sources –
from swimming pools and spas to beaches, reservoirs, natural
lakes and rivers.
Public water supply projects, such as the State Water Project,
have helped to provide additional recreational opportunities for
Californians. In some cases, reservoir releases can contribute to
downstream recreation benefits by improving fisheries or by
creating whitewater rafting opportunities that would not be
possible in the absence of reservoir regulation. However, there
are conflicting values and needs for the same river system.
… Riparian forest is a rare sight in the Central Valley.
About one million acres of trees, shrubs, and grasses once
flourished, drowned, and flourished again along the valley’s
rivers, creeks, and floodplains; now, perhaps 130,000 acres
remain. In recent years, though, that number has begun to inch
up again. Caswell has about 260 acres. Seven miles south of
there is Dos Rios Ranch—2,100 acres, much of it former dairy
farm and almond orchard, at the extremely floodable confluence
of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers—which is steadily being
restored to riparian forest. Later this year it will open as
California’s first new state park in 15 years.
Some of California’s most treasured parks are threatened by
blight caused by pollution and climate change, according to a
pair of new reports. The four national parks with the highest
ozone levels are all in California, with Sequoia and Kings
Canyon National Parks topping the list of parks struggling with
air that’s dangerous to breathe, according to a recent report
by the National Parks Conservation Assn., an independent
advocacy group. Meanwhile, severe wildfires, drought and
sea-level rise are ravaging state parks, which encompass nearly
a quarter of California’s coastline, according to a separate
report by the California State Parks Foundation, another
advocacy group. … Behemoth sequoias and jagged Joshua
trees are among millions of trees across the state
succumbing to worsening wildfires, severe drought, extreme
heat, disease and other stressors that have been intensified by
global warming.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering three
options for the ocean salmon season, set to begin May 16. The
federal council that manages water from California, Oregon and
Washington state came up with two options that would entail a
short salmon season, and it’ll come with small harvest limits
for both commercial and sport fishing. The last option includes
closing off the ocean fisheries for the second consecutive
year. Last year, commercial and recreation salmon fleets in
California were left anchored following the PFMC’s decision to
cancel the 2023 fishing season due to years of drought, low
river level and dry conditions affecting the Chinook salmon
populations in the Klamath and Sacramento rivers.
When heavy rain overwhelms wastewater treatment plants in San
Francisco, causing stormwater to overflow onto streets and
into the bay, sewage is an unfortunate part of the mix.
After heavy rain, the largest recipient of the potent brew of
stormwater and sewage in the city is Mission Creek — a
channel to the bay that is home to houseboats, walking trails
and a kayak launch. At Mission Creek, Islais Creek, another
channel at India Basin, and a few locations in between, the
city discharges 1.2 billion gallons of “combined sewer
discharges” in a typical year, according to the environmental
group S.F. Baykeeper, which has notified the city it intends to
sue over how such discharges impact the environment. A large
portion of the combined sewer overflows — which SFPUC said
are composed of 94% treated stormwater and 6% treated
wastewater — is making its way without basic treatment
into the bay during storms, according to S.F. Baykeeper.
A rusty red color in Lake Merritt that left lake stewards
scrambling to sample the water on Mar. 7 has tested positive
for the same algae that caused the devastating harmful algal
bloom in 2022. On Friday, lake stewards sent water
samples to labs run by the California Department of Public
Health and San Francisco Bay Regional Water Control Board.
Unofficial field testing initially detected no harmful algae.
However, lab testing confirmed over the weekend the presence of
Heterosigma akashiwo, a type of algae often associated with
harmful blooms. Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, occur when
certain types of algae grow rapidly and release toxins, lower
oxygen levels, and cause other changes in water quality that
can kill fish and other marine creatures.
A search continues for a woman last seen being carried
downriver in the Angeles National Forest, California sheriff’s
officials said. The 59-year-old woman lost her footing while
crossing a river near the Heaton Flats Trail at 9:51 a.m.
Saturday, March 9, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said
in a news release. Strong river currents swept her downstream,
deputies said. She had been hiking with friends. … Some
teams have been airlifted to search areas because of the rugged
terrain and swift river currents, deputies said. The sheriff’s
office encouraged hikers to use “extreme caution” when crossing
rivers.
California officials are preparing new urban water conservation
rules intended to help the state adapt to a drier future caused
by climate change. In reality, the proposed restrictions are so
great they could actually harm those adaptation efforts by
sacrificing the tree canopy we have nurtured in our cities for
generations. The “Making Conservation a California Way of Life”
rule package, proposed by the State Water Resources Control
Board, sets conservation targets unique to each urban water
agency in the state. While conserving each and every year makes
sense, so must the restrictions. A recent report by the
non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found big flaws in
the Water Board’s approach, describing the proposal as overly
complex, expensive and unrealistic, with potential water
savings amounting to a mere drop in the bucket statewide. -Written by Jim Peifer, executive director of the
Sacramento Regional Water Authority; and Victoria
Vasquez, grants and public policy manager
for California ReLeaf, which works to protect, enhance and
grow California’s urban and community forests.
What goes up must come down — perhaps even for things as
massive as Lake Powell. That’s the topic of the Glen Canyon
Institute’s March 15 event, “Glen Canyon Rises.” Featuring
artists, musicians and writers, the event celebrates the
re-emergence of the legendary canyon as the water table keeps
dropping in the massive reservoir shrouding the canyon, Lake
Powell. The Moab Times-Independent spoke with two of the
event’s participants, writer (and former Salt Lake Tribune
reporter) Zak Podmore and photographer Dawn Kish, about their
work to document the return of the southern Utah canyon
sometimes called America’s lost national park.
For decades, raw sewage from Tijuana, Mexico has, and
continues, to flow across the border into San Diego,
California. This discharge flows into the Tijuana River
Valley, and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. This
pollution has negatively impacted the Tijuana River Valley and
the Tijuana River Estuary, one of the last remaining estuaries
in California, and the beaches. Unhealthy concentrations
of fecal indicator bacteria has forced the County of San Diego
to close 10 miles of beach access from the US-Mexico Border all
the way to the beaches of Coronado. At the urging of
Congressman Scott Peters, the San Diego State University School
of Public Health issued a white paper which details the public
health risks posed by the transborder flow of sewage.
On Sept. 7, 1993, the San Diego City Council declared a state
of emergency regarding the discharge of raw sewage it said was
coming from Tijuana, Mexico, and polluting the international
border. More than 30 years later, the San Diego City Council
renewed the state of emergency on Feb. 27 over an ongoing issue
that has been traced back to 1934. In the past five years, the
International Boundary and Water Commission stated that more
than 100 billion gallons of untreated sewage, industrial waste
and urban runoff have been discharged into the Pacific Ocean
from the Tijuana River.
With a solid winter of rain in the hills, it’s peak waterfall
season in Marin County. The only question is which cascade to
see first. For Ian McLorg, chief park ranger with Marin County
Parks, Dawn Falls is the first that comes to mind. The
approximately three-quarter-mile trail to the falls is in the
Baltimore Canyon Preserve. “Dawn Falls, especially after some
good rain, is a pretty spectacular waterfall,” McLorg said. To
access Dawn Falls Trail, he suggested entering via Crown Road
in Kentfield and hiking the Southern Marin Line Fire Road. “A
short jaunt from the trailhead at Southern Marin Line Fire
Road, you just head as if you’re going towards Corte Madera,
and the Dawn Falls Trail drops off to your left down the fire
road,” McLorg said. “That one is a great one to see this time
of year.”
When rain falls anywhere in Santa Rosa, Windsor, Rohnert Park,
Cotati, or Sebastopol, the water will make its way to the
Laguna de Santa Rosa. Sitting at the bottom of the greater
Santa Rosa plain, the Laguna is the largest freshwater wetlands
complex on the northern California coast. In 2011, it was
designated a Wetland of International Importance. Yet how many
locals could find it on a map? To be fair, parts of the Laguna
have been altered and obscured by decades of development.
Sebastopol dumped its sewage there until 1978. Restoration work
has been underway since the 1990s, and December 2023 saw the
release of the first-ever comprehensive restoration plan for
the entire Laguna, designed to guide its continued recovery.
Visiting Death Valley today, it is hard to imagine nearly all
of it once underwater. It contains the lowest point in the U.S.
It is known for record-setting heat and aridity. But the land
there — and many of the basins that dot the Mojave and the
Great Basin — were once filled with water. During the last
Ice Age, in the late Pleistocene, a lake filled much of what is
now called Death Valley to a depth of about 600 feet. That’s
only a bit shallower than the modern-day Lake Huron (with a
max. depth of about 750 feet). It is believed that the body of
water, later described as Lake Manly, stretched 90 miles long
and 11 miles wide. And it was hardly alone. Further east, in
the heart of the Great Basin, Lake Lahontan and Lake
Bonneville, at their peak, stretched hundreds of miles.
Kayakers and nature lovers are flocking to Death Valley
National Park in California to enjoy something exceedingly rare
at one of the driest places in the United States: Water. A
temporary lake has bubbled up in the park’s Badwater Basin,
which lies 282 feet below sea level. What is typically a dry
salt flat at the bottom of Death Valley has for months been
teeming with water after record rains and flooding have
battered eastern California since August. In the past six
months, a deluge of storms bringing record amounts of rain led
to the lake’s formation at the park.
[Former golfing grounds in northern California] haven’t been
doused with pesticides or rodenticides since 2018, which was
when this 157-acre stretch of land stopped being the San
Geronimo Golf Course, and began a journey toward becoming wild,
or at least wilder, once again. A small number of shuttered
golf courses around the country have been bought by land
trusts, municipalities and nonprofit groups and transformed
into nature preserves, parks and wetlands. … The
restoration of the San Geronimo land is still underway.
Floodplains will be reconnected, and a fish
barrier has been removed, allowing access to more robust
migratory and breeding grounds for endangered coho salmon and
threatened steelhead trout. Trails are planned that would skirt
sensitive habitat, making the land a publicly accessible
ecological life raft, starkly different from its time as a golf
course.
If open space, ocean views and wildlife are your thing,
Chanslor Ranch in Bodega Bay should be your next destination.
Long a privately owned getaway known primarily for horseback
trail rides, the 378-acre ranch across Highway 1 from Bodega
Dunes and Salmon Creek state beaches is now in county hands and
open to the general public. … [V]isitors are welcome to hike
4.5 miles of trail leading up coastal hills, down to Salmon
Creek and around the rugged landscape, which is bounded in part
by the creek. The land is known for a diversity of habitat,
from wetlands to coastal prairie, as well as many plants and
animals. The wetlands are a stopover for migrating birds, as
well.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Deep, throaty cadenced calls —
sounding like an off-key bassoon — echo over the grasslands,
farmers’ fields and wetlands starting in late September of each
year. They mark the annual return of sandhill cranes to the
Cosumnes River Preserve,
46,000 acres located 20 miles south of Sacramento on the edge of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Deep, throaty cadenced calls —
sounding like an off-key bassoon — echo over the grasslands,
farmers’ fields and wetlands starting in late September of each
year. They mark the annual return of sandhill cranes to the
Cosumnes River Preserve,
46,000 acres located 20 miles south of Sacramento on the edge of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.