water

In the wettest winter in California in 20 years, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is 185 percent above average, says the LA Times, according to measurements by the California Department of Water Resources. In the Southern Sierras, the snowpack is even higher — at 201 percent above average.

More than 900 people packed a Modesto hearing, "most of them determined to stop the state's plan" to roughly double the flow on the lower Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers from February to June each year, says the Modesto Bee. "Farmers and wataer managers said the plan would put people out of work while doing little for fish."

The National Weather Service says rainy season is off to its wettest start in the northern Sierra Nevada in 30 years, with about twice as much precipitation as usual since the Oct. 1 start of the water year, says the Sacramento Bee. Even so, the state Department of Water Resources says customers of the State Water Project can expect to receive 20 percent of the water they requested for 2017.

Agriculture produces nearly 20 percent of greenhouse gases, which is why the industry should play a fundamental role in mitigating the impact of climate change, said the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization at climate talks in Morocco.

October was "surprisingly wet" across northern California, with Sacramento getting four times its usual rainfall for the month, says the San Jose Mercury. "Meteorologists stress that it’s only the very beginning of California’s rainy season, so there are no guarantees that a wet October will bring a wet November, December, January or February."

The Mississippi River, rising from Lake Istasca in northern Minnesota to flow 2,340 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, "is heading toward an ecological precipice," says the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a special report. In five years, 400 square miles of forests, marshes and grasslands in the upper Mississippi have been converted to agriculture and urban development, "endangering the cleanest stretch of America’s greatest river with farm chemicals, depleted groundwater and urban runoff."

In Weed, CA, population 2,700, a David-and-Goliath story is playing out over bottled water. Residents are suing Roseburg Forest Products, an Oregon-based timber company for monopolizing the town’s drinking water, reports the New York Times. Roseburg owns the forest where a pristine spring surfaces, bringing water from Mount Shasta.

Growers "dug about 2,500 wells in the San Joaquin Valley last year alone, the highest number on record," says the Sacramento Bee, describing "a kind of groundwater arms race" to offset the greatly curtailed amounts of irrigation water from state and federal water projects.

Water efficiency projects sound like a win-win for western farmers and the environment. But most of the money — including the $50 million recently pledged by the U.S. Department of Interior and the USDA — spent trying to save water on farms fail to take human nature into account and may make the problem worse.

Water tests found minute levels of drug residues, industrial chemicals, caffeine and the insect repellent DEET in a 128-mile stretch of the Hudson river, with the strongest concentrations near wastewater treatment plants, according to two Cornell University scientists quoted by WAMC radio in Albany, N.Y.

The U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to finally hear a lawsuit between Texas and New Mexico over water rights to the Rio Grande, says The Texas Tribune. Three years ago, the Lone Star state alleged that New Mexico farmers were taking more than their fair share of the river’s water. Now a court-appointed special master, Gregory Grismal, has released a 273-page report recommending that the court ignore New Mexico’s request to drop the suit.

In an about-face, federal officials will not be cutting farm water supplies from Shasta Dam, California's largest, after all, reports The Sacramento Bee. Federal fisheries officials have been in tense conversation over the last month with state and federal water regulators over how much of Shasta’s water to hold back in order to protect the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon. The National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had seemed set to seriously limit water deliveries to Central Valley farmers.

In California, federal fisheries regulators are mulling two new plans to save the state’s endangered winter-run Chinook salmon and Delta smelt—plans that could mean serious water shortages for farmers. While this year saw ample rain and snowfall in the northern half of the state, regulators warn that the precipitation wasn’t enough to make up for several years of historic drought.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that landowners have the right to challenge in court the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determinations that a wetland is protected under clean water laws. The case involved peat-mining companies in Minnesota who were told their work in a wetland would affect the Red River of the North 120 miles away.

In a major shift in policy, California's cities, water districts and private companies will set their own water conservation targets instead of being handed assignments by the state, Gov. Jerry Brown announced as drought conditions eased across the state. The new approach, expected to see approval by the State Water Resources Board of May 18, also would require more irrigation districts to quantify water-use efficiency by growers and spell out how they will handle shortages in the future.

On a nearly party-line vote, the Senate defeated a proposal by North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven to prevent EPA from carrying out its Waters of the United States (WOTUS).

California farmers made $53.5 billion in sales in 2014, even as Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and mandated urban water cuts for 2015. The record sales figures, which represent the most recent data available, were released in a new report by the state agriculture department.

As part of initiatives related to Earth Day, the Biden administration set "a bold, new national goal to protect, restore, and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of our nation's rivers and streams" on Tuesday. The initiative could be the overdue response to the Supreme Court decision in 2023 that limited federal protection of wetlands but only seven states are currently taking part, said an attorney active in water law.