An archive of articles that where displayed on the River Watch main home page.
June 28, 2021 Written by Communications Intern Sage Bachman As California enters another severe drought, residents are once again being asked to use water more judiciously so as to make it last longer. While it is indeed crucial for all of us to reduce our water usage, is also critical to investigate how California’s limited sources […]
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The highly engineered rivers that sustain California cities and farms upset streamside woodlands’ relationship with groundwater, a new study finds, jeopardizing their future in a changing climate.
California’s perennially drought-parched Central Valley bears little resemblance to the vibrant landscape of the pre-Gold Rush days, when wild rivers sustained lush woodlands and floodplains teeming with life.
Trees at the center of these biodiversity hotspots evolved in an arid landscape sculpted by finely tuned exchanges […]
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MavenBreaking NewsJuly 1, 2021 From the California Coastkeeper Alliance: Today, California Coastkeeper Alliance filed a lawsuit in Superior Court to compel the County of Sonoma to consider and mitigate impacts to public trust resources caused by groundwater extraction in the Russian River watershed. As the Russian River watershed faces a drought emergency, California Coastkeeper Alliance is […]
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GLEN MARTINFOR THE PRESS DEMOCRATJune 24, 2021 The drought is intensifying efforts to conserve all of Sonoma County’s water resources, including a supply that has eluded oversight until recently: groundwater. But even as plans for groundwater monitoring and sustainable use proceed, tensions are building over its management. The authority to evaluate and regulate groundwater comes […]
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New research shows that the amount of heat the planet traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land By Tik RootJune 16, 2021 The amount of heat Earth traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land, according to new research from NASA […]
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A landmark study by Grandjean et al. has ust been published confirming that very low levels of fluoride exposure during pregnancy impairs the brain development of the child, and at a population level may be causing more damage than lead, mercury, or arsenic. The paper’s authors ultimately concluded that a maternal urine fluoride concentration of 0.2mg/L was […]
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The two leading science groups studying ecosystems and climate urged protection of carbon-rich habitats and warned against solutions to warming that lower species diversity. By Georgina GustinJune 11, 2021 Slowing global warming and stemming the loss of biodiversity have been viewed as independent challenges for years. But a new landmark report concludes that climate […]
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The Forest Trends report shows a 50 percent increase in deforestation of tropical woodlands, most of it for agriculture and much of it illegal, since the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests. By Georgina GustinMay 19, 2021 In the seven years since governments and corporations promised to stop deforestation, the clear cutting of critically important tropical […]
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Numerous issues around equity and the plan’s rollout loom. Nick BowlinMay 10, 2021 Beneath the almond and citrus fields of the San Joaquin Valley lies an enormous system of aquifers that feeds some of the world’s most productive farmland. Hundreds of miles north and east, along the Nevada border, is the Surprise Valley, a remote, […]
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The very ground upon which Corcoran was built is steadily collapsing, a situation caused primarily by agriculture. Lois HenryMay 25, 2021 In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp. Corcoran […]
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Olivia RosaneMay. 03, 2021 01:04PM EST Oceans Plastic pollution is entering the ocean from more sources than previously thought. A new study published in Science Advances Friday found that 80 percent of the plastic that enters the world’s oceans via rivers comes from more than 1,000 waterways. That’s as much as 100 times the number of rivers previously estimated, study leader the Ocean Cleanup […]
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Scientists used to think 20 rivers at most carried most plastic into the oceans, but now they know it’s far more, complicating potential solutions.ByLaura ParkerPublished April 30, 2021 The problem with plastic waste just got more complicated—and so did the effort to stanch its flow into the world’s oceans. Rivers are the primary conduits for […]
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Emily DennyApr. 28, 2021 California water officials have accused Nestlé of draining more water out of southern California’s Strawberry Creek in the San Bernardino National Forest than permitted. The drafted cease-and-desist order, which was sent to the company on Friday, asked Nestlé to stop draining millions of gallons of water out of the forest every […]
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The Marin County Superior Court ruled that the county in Northern California failed to adequately protect coho salmon and their habitat in the San Geronimo Valley. Marin County originally planned to adopt a streamside conservation ordinance to preserve vegetation, maintain water quality and prevent erosion in 2007 when it last updated its countywide plan. But […]
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The Biden administration is doubling down on a plan to airdrop tons of poison-laced bait on the Farallon Islands near the Golden Gate to eradicate invasive house mice that have overrun […]
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Here we go again …. The Farallones “Poison Drop” is coming back before the California Coastal Commission. Richard Charter has created a new video, 1 ½ minutes, explaining the whole thing.sOn May 12, 13, or 14, 2021, the California Coastal Commission will decide whether or not to permit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to […]
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The Biden-Harris transition team identified COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change as its top priorities. Rivers are the through-line linking all of them. The fact is, healthy rivers can no longer be separated into the “nice-to-have” column of environmental progress. Rivers and streams provide more than 60 percent of our drinking water—and a clear path toward public health, a strong economy, a more just society and greater […]
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March 21, 2021 Lynda V. Mapes, Seattle Times environment reporter Part of a 180-acre timber sale auctioned off for $4.2 million last November by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), their next stop was a plywood mill. Then, something unusual happened. Hilary Franz, state commissioner of public lands, pulled back nearly 40 acres with most […]
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Kurtis AlexanderMarch 23, 2021 State and federal water officials have delivered their most dire warning yet of California’s deepening drought, announcing that water supply shortages are imminent and calling for quick conservation. Among a handful of drastic actions this week, the powerful State Water Board on Monday began sending notices to California’s 40,000 water users, […]
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BOB NORBERGTHE PRESS DEMOCRATNovember 21, 2007 The fall run of chinook salmon started slowly on the Russian River and, biologists said Tuesday, it hasn’t gotten any better. So far, 950 fish have been counted passing through the Sonoma County Water Agency’s fish ladder near Forestville, which would make this year the smallest run in the […]
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George Plaven, Capital PressFeb 19, 2021 When it comes to critical water infrastructure in the West, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet says it is about more than dams, pipes and canals. Water security begins in the forest, along streams and rivers that flow through farms and communities, Bennet, D-Colo., said during the Family Farm Alliance annual […]
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When the COVID-19 outbreak swept across the U.S., toilet paper, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes flew off store shelves. But shopping carts have also been full of something that most Americans get supplied straight to their home: water. Shoppers emptied store shelves of bottled water while stockpiling during the initial months of the pandemic. Even Amazon ran […]
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Rooted in Roman law, the public trust doctrine recognizes the public right to many natural resources including “the air, running water, the sea and its shore.”
The public trust doctrine requires the sovereign, or state, to hold in trust designated resources for the benefit of the people. Traditionally, the public trust applied to commerce and fishing in navigable waters, but its uses were expanded in California in 1971 to include fish, wildlife, habitat and recreation. […]
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The danger lurks in California, too Kurtis AlexanderDec. 3, 2020 Pacific Salmon | Species | WWF Rodeo Creek in Hercules is one of four Bay Area waterways where scientists found lethal levels of 6PPD-quinone, which researchers say is killing salmon. Paul Kuroda / Special to The ChronicleScientists in the Pacific Northwest say they’ve solved a […]
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“The 9th Circuit failed to correct the legal errors in the panel decision,” said the lead attorney in the case, who added that the case is now up to the nation’s highest court. For the second time in as many years, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected a landmark climate lawsuit brought by a group of young people—who say they will now take their case to the United […]
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TYLER SILVY THE PRESS DEMOCRAT January 22, 2021, 4:51PM Hundreds of California wineries will for the first time be governed by statewide wastewater processing rules, a change from the long-held, regional approach that could increase production costs for wineries and protections for waterways while providing consistency for vintners across the state. The move toward a […]
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“We aim to provide leaders with a realistic ‘cold shower’ of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future.”Jessica Corbett, staff writer In an example to the rest of the scientific community and an effort to wake up people—particularly policymakers—worldwide, 17 scientists penned a comprehensive assessment of the […]
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More than 250 scientists and scholars from 30 countries have issued an open letter calling on policymakers to “engage more with the growing risk of societal disruption and collapse due to damage to the climate and environment,” arguing that only then “might communities and nations begin to prepare and so reduce its likelihood, speed, severity, harm to the most vulnerable, and to nature.” […]
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When humans over-exploit underground water supplies, the ground collapses like a huge empty water bottle. It’s called subsidence, and it could affect 1.6 billion people by 2040. But scientists haven’t modeled global risks of subsidence—until now. To build their model, Sneed and her colleagues scoured the existing literature on land subsidence in 200 locations worldwide. They considered […]
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By Harry Baker – Staff Writer Satellite images reveal color changes in rivers across America. A third of U.S. rivers have significantly changed color over the last 36 years, turning from blue to yellow and green, striking new images reveal. Researchers analyzed 235,000 satellite images — taken over a 34-year period between 1984 and 2018 — from NASA […]
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