A 19-year drought has created a crisis for states along the Colorado River.
Nearly all the lettuce in this country is grown with water from the Colorado River, which means a 19-year drought along the river has far-reaching implications.
SOMMER: States like California and Arizona have been negotiating a deal to share water, to cut back so reservoirs don’t hit critical lows.
SOMMER: But getting everyone to share water – that’s the tricky part because of an invisible pecking order, the water rights system.
SOMMER: One farming community in California, the Imperial Valley, has some of the oldest water rights.
SOMMER: Bruce Kuhn is on the board of directors of the Imperial Irrigation District.
He voted to sell some of Imperial’s water to San Diego as part of that deal.
SOMMER: Kuhn’s customers were farmers who were not happy.
Now Kuhn is back on the board with another water-sharing vote in front of him.
If that doesn’t happen by the end of January, the federal government says it will step in to decide the future of the Colorado River.

“I think it’s from the nitrate,” Chavez says.
According to a 2012 report from UC Davis, in 96 percent of cases where nitrate leaches into groundwater supplies, agricultural operations are at fault.
This is almost certainly how the Chavez family’s well became contaminated.
“It’s shameful,” says Jonathan Nelson, the policy director for the Community Water Center, an organization that has been advocating for people without safe drinking water in the San Joaquin Valley for many years.
Jerry Brown declared he was “committed to working with the Legislature and stakeholders” to bring clean, safe, affordable water to all Californians, and he stated much the same thing in this year’s budget address, delivered in January.
Here, the wells that supplied 750 people ran dry during the drought.
Chavez says he has asked to be connected to the same pipe network.
The fund would be created mostly by a 95-cent-per-month addition to household water bills statewide, with 20 percent – $30 million – proposed to come from a tax imposed on agricultural fertilizers that contain nitrogen.
Tuck says drawing the needed money from the general fund, instead of taxing ratepayers, would be a more appropriate way to create and maintain the drinking water fund.
Nelson, at the Community Water Center, calls the stance taken by the Association of California Water Agencies “the shame of California.” “We have some of the wealthiest water agencies in the state worried about a fee of less than a dollar a month that would help bring clean water to communities of low-income people,” Nelson says.

As of late Saturday, five of the eight properties damaged by the water main break had been designated safe to access, and residents were given the option of returning to those homes, DWP officials said.
The water main break was initially reported at 5 a.m. Friday at 55th Street and Towne Avenue, causing flooding and a large sinkhole, damaging homes and leaving some vehicles fully or partially buried in mud.
Initial test results are expected as early as Sunday.
Services were also available at the Fred Roberts Recreation Center.
“The shutdown process for the 24-inch diameter pipe had to be done carefully so as to not damage other pipes in the area,” according to an LADWP statement.
“Water system crews and water quality staff have determined that due to loss of pressure in the ruptured pipe that it must be disinfected in order to ensure the highest water quality standards.
As a result, crews have distributed bottled water to area residents this (Friday) evening as well as placed large water stations in the area to assist residents with household water and sanitary needs until water service can be safely restored.” Sections of 55th and 56th streets were closed to traffic between Main Street and Avalon Boulevard.
Firefighters assisted some residents in getting out of their homes past the water that flooded their driveways and yards.
“The leak has caused property damage in the area, which will be assessed by on-site claim agents,” the DWP said.
Those whose vehicles were towed were directed to call US Towing at (323) 870-7100.

But fire authorities say forceful winds and a long drought would be necessary to produce a Central Texas wildfire as devastating in as the ones currently blazing in California.
“Only out in East Texas do we see this type of force and certainly nothing close to the things they have.” The Texas Panhandle occasionally has wind-driven fires, but they also are not as forceful as in California, said Logan Scherschel, an urban-interface specialist for the Texas A&M Forest Service.
Austin firefighters more frequently have to put out fast-moving grass fires on the city’s eastern half, but the Hill Country’s forested and rolling hills are similar enough to California’s mountain forests to cause some concerns, Buck said.
The types of fuels are similar,” Buck said.
“But we just fortunately don’t get that same long drought very often nor do we get the Santa Ana winds.” In Austin, greenbelts along Lake Austin and areas to the west, such as the Jester Estates neighborhood, are similar to Northern California, Buck said.
Because of recent rains, Central Texas is not in immediate threat of fires, said Melanie Karns, the hazard mitigation coordinator for Texas A&M Forest Service.
“Thankfully, this year we’ve had a lot of rain,” Karns said.
“This is the prime time to protect homes and prevent those future fires,” Scherschel said.
If Central Texas were to see a fire too large for local fire departments, the Forest Service would provide support and resources from other departments around the state, Karns said.
The Bastrop County Complex Fire, which destroyed burned 34,000 acres and 1,660 homes in Bastrop County, remains the worst fire in Texas history and a grim reminder of fire’s destruction, Karns said.

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Sixteen-year-old Priyanka Ghosh Choudhuri, with help from her friends and family, organized a cultural event here Sept. 23 for the benefit of ‘The Samburu Project’ to build a well to provide clean water for a community in Samburu, Kenya.
‘The Samburu Project’ is a grass roots non-profit organization, headquartered in Los Angeles, whose goal is to provide people in a village of Kenya, called “Samburu,” access to clean and safe drinking water.
They do this primarily by building water wells.
Since 2005, the organization has drilled 100 water wells in Samburu.
The Indian American student became involved with “The Samburu Project” charity in 2016 through an annual event called “Walk for Water,” according to a press release.
Since then she joined the charity’s awareness club in her high school, called TRIBE.
She actively helped with all Samburu events through freshman year and sophomore year, including walking door to door in her neighborhood to raise funds.
The venue was decorated to allow the guests to visualize how water is transported from the wells to the people’s homes in Samburu, including handicrafts available for purchase made by the people there.
After a brief presentation by the executive director of the charity, the audience was shown a short video shot in Samburu this summer.
The featured highlight of the evening was Rabindra Nath Tagore’s famous Bengali dance drama “Chandalika,” with Choudhuri playing the part of Chandalika, a young untouchable girl.

As the new school year begins, Oakland is carrying out an aggressive strategy to limit lead in water by expanding water testing, installing filtered water stations and adopting a lead limit of 5 parts per billion, lower than the state and federal limit of 15 parts per billion.
Oakland Unified is among the California districts that have adopted lead limits for their drinking water that are more stringent than those in a new state law that requires part per billion standard, the only level health advocates say is safe.
San Diego Unified has adopted a 5 parts per billion limit and is looking to borrow $45 million to further lower its lead standard to 1 part per billion by 2020.
An EdSource analysis of test results found 24 schools in Oakland, and 150 throughout California, with lead levels in water sources over 15 parts per billion.
But testing also revealed that 46 schools in Oakland — just over one-third of those tested — had lead levels between 5 and 15 parts per billion.
Since then, tests have identified 12 schools where a water outlet had lead levels above 15 parts per billion, out of 234 schools where tests have been conducted.
Tests recorded lead levels between 5 and 15 parts per billion at 45 San Diego schools.
Naji, the San Diego Unified spokesman, said repair work at fixtures that tested over 5 parts per billion is ongoing, as are more extensive tests of the district’s water sources.
Push for districts to adopt lower lead levels Rusch said CALPIRG is encouraging “dozens of districts” that still rely on the 15 parts per billion standard, including San Francisco Unified and Los Angeles Unified, to adopt more stringent lead policies.
Of the district’s 20 schools, three tested over 15 parts per billion and three others had lead levels between 1 and 5 parts per billion; the rest were under 1 part per billion.

According to court records disclosed on July 19, Crystal Geyser created an "Arsenic Pond" in a remote part of eastern California between Death Valley and The Sequoia National Forest, and then didn’t disclose that water they pumped out of the pond and delivered to water treatment plants was full of the poisonous heavy metal.
According to an investigation by the EPA’s Criminal Investigations Division and the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, Crystal Geyser produced thousands of gallons of arsenic-contaminated water at its Olancha, CA facility, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.
When the filters are back-flushed for cleaning, thousands of gallons of contaminated water were diverted to a holding pond, the indictment said.
In 2014, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control notified Crystal Geyser that the wastewater was deemed hazardous waste and needed to be transported and treated in compliance with environmental and hazardous waste laws.
The Department of Justice said that the investigation and indictment did not concern the safety or quality of Crystal Geyser’s bottled water.
Crystal Geyser stopped diverting wastewater into the Arsenic Pond in October 2014, the indictment said.
Some of the water was transported to a hazardous waste facility in Los Angeles County.
Laura Cunningham, California Director of Western Watersheds Project, said that pollution from industrial waste has been a particularly common issue in California’s recent history.
Adam Scow, California director of Food and Water Watch, said he doubted the fine would amount to a threat to the company’s business model.
Water is our most important public resource.”

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles County spent more than $145 million fighting and paying for lawsuits alleging wrongful conviction, excessive use of force, medical malpractice and violation of federal clean water laws, among other claims, during fiscal year 2016-17, according to a report received Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.
The data, originally requested in November, was approved without any comment from the board as a "receive and file" item.
The report was not on a list of pre-board meeting "highlights" published weekly by the county’s public information office, though the $1.3 million purchase of a mobile compounding pharmacy was listed as an item of interest.
Twenty-one settlements in all topped $1 million, accounting for almost three-quarters of total settlements paid.
Of the nine judgments granted, three were in excess of $1 million and all those involved the Sheriff’s Department.
The number of total new cases filed fell to 707, the lowest total in the last seven years, according to the report.
The Sheriff’s Department saw a 40 percent decline in excessive force cases and deputy-involved shooting cases were down by one-third, though the department still ranked number one in litigation costs, spending $68.6 million.
Nearly 300 cases filed related to lower-profile issues such as auto liability and dangerous conditions.
A separate annual report on county risk management — also filed without comment by the board — noted that 187 employment claims unrelated to workers’ compensation were filed against the county in 2016-17, an almost 30 percent increase over the prior year.
The county won about 40 percent of the 20 cases it took to trial in 2016-17 and received verdicts of less than the plaintiffs asked for 70 percent of the time.

PHILLIPS STATION, Calif. (AP) — California’s brief escape from severe drought ended Thursday after scientists declared more than 40 percent of the state in moderate drought and water officials confirmed lower-than-normal snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.
Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which hold nearly a quarter of the state’s population, were rated in severe drought.
During a week of rainless skies and some record-high temperatures in Southern California, water officials also trekked into the Sierra Nevada on Thursday and manually measured the vital snowpack, which stood at less than a third of normal for the date.
In Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which are about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, the lack of rain and dry vegetation fueled a December wildfire that grew to be the largest recorded in state history.
“I know we need rain, but another mudslide would be awful,” said Santa Barbara restaurant hostess Cayla Stretz.
Survivors in her area are still digging out homes, many beaches and roads are closed by mud, and business is down in the beach town, Stretz said.
Last year’s rain has most of the state’s reservoirs higher than usual, a bright spot, said Doug Carlson, a state Department of Water Resources spokesman.
During the peak of the state’s dry spell, 99.9 percent of California was in some stage of drought and nearly half fell into the very highest category.
The years of disappointing winters and competition for remaining water supplies devastated native species ranging from Chinook salmon to pine forests, dried many household wells in the state’s middle, and compelled farmers to plunge other wells deep into the earth in search of irrigation water.
In California’s Central Valley, the nation’s richest agricultural producer, government officials had to install water systems during and after the five-year drought for small towns such as East Porterville, after household wells dried.

PHILLIPS STATION, Calif. — California’s brief escape from severe drought has ended after scientists declared more than 40 percent of the state in moderate drought and water officials confirmed lower-than-normal snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.
Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which hold nearly a quarter of the state’s population, were rated in severe drought.
During a week of rainless skies and some record-high temperatures in Southern California, water officials also trekked into the Sierra Nevada on Thursday and manually measured the vital snowpack, which stood at less than a third of normal for the date.
“It’s not nearly where we’d like to be,” Frank Gehrke, a state official, said of the snow, which supplies water to millions of Californians in a good, wet year.
‘We need rain’ In Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, which are about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, the lack of rain and dry vegetation fueled a December wildfire that grew to be the largest recorded in state history.
“I know we need rain, but another mudslide would be awful,” said Santa Barbara restaurant hostess Cayla Stretz.
Survivors in her area are still digging out homes, many beaches and roads are closed by mud, and business is down in the beach town, Stretz said.
During the peak of the state’s dry spell, 99.9 percent of California was in some stage of drought and nearly half fell into the very highest category.
Cutbacks at the peak of the five-year state drought mandated 25 percent conservation by cities and towns.
In California’s Central Valley, the nation’s richest agricultural producer, government officials had to install water systems during and after the five-year drought for small towns such as East Porterville, after household wells dried.