From farmers to winemakers, commercial irrigators pumping from
the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Basin may soon need to pay for
their water use. On Tuesday, the Paso Robles Area Groundwater
Authority voted unanimously to send notices of the proposed
rates to impacted property owners, giving them the opportunity
to protest the fees. If a majority of recipients submit a
written protest, the agency can’t implement the rates. The
California Department of Water Resources considers the basin
“critically overdrafted.” Users pumped about 25,500 acre-feet
of water more than was returned to the underground reservoir in
2024, according to the most recent annual report on the basin.
… The fees would fund administrative tasks like
monitoring wells and writing annual reports along with programs
designed to balance the basin. If passed, the rate structure
will last for five years.
… Carlsbad, unlike many other seaside communities facing
gut-wrenching decisions about how to handle coastal erosion,
might just have the time, space and resources to get ahead of
the problem. Plenty of advocates in the region hope the city
can be a model for climate adaptation with its proposal to move
the road inland. But its ambitions depend on its ability to
find outside funding and build public support locally for the
project. Right now, the city is on track to choose the
path of “retreat now,” before an emergency situation, rather
than “retreat later,” the default option for many communities —
especially those facing harder decisions to move homes and
businesses rather than just infrastructure.
A week following a boil water notice in the Five Cities area,
San Luis Obispo County is still investigating the cause of the
contamination. While that order has been lifted for the
communities of Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach, Oceano, Pismo Beach
and Avila Beach, some residents are still taking precautions.
… Nola Engelskirger from San Luis Obispo County Public
Works says she understands people’s concerns, but now that the
notice is lifted, there is nothing to worry about. “People
should know their water is safe. It is meeting all drinking
water standards. The boil water notice was lifted, and right
now we are doing everything we can to take precautions to not
have that happen again,” she said.
A large swath of southern San Luis Obispo County was ordered to
boil its drinking water last week after bacteria was discovered
in Lopez Lake’s water distribution pipeline. Residents of
Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach, Pismo Beach, Oceano, Avila Beach
and other unincorporated areas of the South County had to to
boil drinking water for up to four days depending on where they
lived. … The county discovered the bacteria at five
routine testing sites in the Lopez water distribution system on
April 29. After a second round of tests, the county issued a
boil water notice on April 30 — which lifted for some residents
on May 2 and others on May 3. … On Thursday, the county
shared additional details of what led to the unprecedented boil
water notice for Five Cities residents. Here’s what happened.
The San Luis Obispo County Department of Public Works is
temporarily changing how it disinfects water in the South
County after residents were put under a boil water notice late
last week. Around 50,000 residents in the Five Cities area were
told on April 30 to boil their water before use after a sample
from the Lopez Lake water system tested positive for E. coli,
the county said. It was the first time such a sample had
prompted a boil water notice for the distribution system, which
feeds much of the South County region. … Now, Public
Works is expected to temporarily change the disinfectant used
in the Lopez Project distribution system from chloramine
disinfection — which uses a blend of chlorine and ammonia — to
free chlorine, according to a news release.
The Los Osos water pipeline has been in the works for the past
four years. If funded, it would connect Los Osos to the state
water project, providing the town with a new source of water.
The project has already been approved at the federal level, but
for work to begin, the Army Corps of Engineers needs to approve
the allocation of funds. A recent report from the Los Osos
Community Services District’s general manager states the CSD
has reached out to the Corps several times since December for
an update on the project but has never received a
response.
San Luis Obispo County lifted the boil-water order for all
remaining areas on Saturday afternoon, following a
water-contamination alert that lasted four days. According to
an alert from the county, the boil-water order was lifted
shortly after noon, allowing residents in Pismo Beach and Avila
Beach to resume normal water use, after the State Division of
Drinking Water gave the all-clear. … The county said it
was working with state officials to investigate the cause of a
single positive E. coli test result that spurred the boil
order. The investigation is expected to take 30 days. Director
of Public Works John Diodati said the drinking water is safe
and will be monitored and tested as the county investigates the
cause.
Thousands of San Luis Obispo County residents were recently
warned to boil or purify their drinking water after tests
detected a strain of coliform bacteria in the water supply. The
bacteria, which was found in the water distribution system of
Zone 3 of the San Miguelito Water Co., is an early indication
of a potential E. coli contamination. … This is the
first time coliform bacteria contamination at the Lopez
distribution system has triggered a boil water notice, the
county Public Works Department said in a Thursday news release.
Here’s what to know about the potentially dangerous water
contaminant.
The long-standing rule against swimming in Lake Cachuma has
come under renewed focus. Santa Barbara County is exploring how
to change the rule that prevents visitors from swimming in the
local reservoir while still maintaining its status as a water
source for the region. … The rule against swimming
in the lake goes back to its creation in 1953, when the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation created Lake Cachuma through the
construction of the Bradbury Dam. Even though the county
manages the park, the lake itself is still owned by the Bureau
of Reclamation. Brian Soares, the operations and maintenance
manager for Lake Cachuma, said the reason swimming has not been
allowed at the lake is that the water is used to supply Santa
Barbara County areas with drinking water.
Officials in Santa Barbara County are exploring the possibility
of allowing visitors to swim in Lake Cachuma, a human-made
reservoir in the Santa Ynez Valley where swimming has been
banned since its creation in 1953. … Swimming is banned
at the lake because it’s used as a local water source. That’s
been the case since the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation created the
lake in 1953 by constructing the Bradbury Dam, then called the
Cachuma Dam, thereby blocking the flow of the Santa Ynez River.
The lake is still owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, though
it’s managed by the county. Bantilan said the county is in
touch with local water agencies about allowing swimming at the
lake, a move that’s already taken place at other reservoirs in
the state.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
