A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Vik Jolly.
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The Supreme Court wants to know where the Trump administration
stands in a battle between Colorado and Nebraska over water
from a river that flows between the two states. In a long list
of orders issued Monday, the justices requested the solicitor
general’s views on Nebraska’s plea for help from the high court
in a challenge against Colorado for hampering the Cornhusker
State’s effort to build a cross-border canal along the South
Platte River. Nebraska sued Colorado in July, arguing that its
neighbor is in violation of a 1923 compact that allows Nebraska
to take nearly 65 million gallons of water per day during the
irrigation season between April and mid-October, and larger
volumes during the rest of the year.
A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved
through California but not before causing at least six deaths
and dousing much of the state. Early Monday lingering
thunderstorms pose the risk of mudslides in areas of Los
Angeles county that were recently ravaged by wildfire.
… More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara
county as the storm approached Los Angeles. Parts of the Sierra
Nevada received more than a foot of snow. The weather service
said scattered rain could continue through Tuesday in the
southern part of the state. Another storm was expected to
arrive on Thursday.
Dry, dry, dry. And warm, warm, warm. That’s been the weather
story across Colorado so far this November. Colorado’s mountain
snowpack is off to a slow start this season, and the Denver
metro area still hasn’t seen flurries. Snowpack levels across
the state remain far below average, though meteorologists say
weather patterns are expected to shift in the coming days,
bringing a better chance for winter storms before the end of
the month. … According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, much of
the state is unusually dry, while patches of Pitkin and Eagle
counties have slipped into extreme drought.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
At least two thirds of California’s population and more than 4
million acres of California farmland rely on water delivered by
the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project,
two of the largest multipurpose water management projects in
the world. A report released this week by the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviews these
projects’ monitoring, modeling, and other scientific activities
— specifically actions designed to help protect endangered
fish. … This first report examines three actions
designed to help protect fish and offers recommendations to
strengthen those actions.
Three months ago, Santa Clara County’s largest water agency
voted to kill a $3.2 billion plan to build a huge new reservoir
in the southern part of the county near Pacheco Pass. The
Pacheco Reservoir would have been the largest new reservoir
built in the Bay Area since 1998 when Los Vaqueros Reservoir
was constructed in eastern Contra Costa County. … This week,
the district, a government agency in San Jose that provides
water to 2 million South Bay residents, approved a roadmap for
the next 25 years that combines new reservoir projects,
groundwater storage and recycled water. The price tag: $3.9
billion.
When controversial Las Vegas developer Jim Rhodes abandoned
plans for a sprawling community near the northwestern Arizona
city of Kingman nearly two decades ago, the vast swaths of land
he’d purchased were mostly surrounded by open
desert. Instead of walking away from his investment,
Rhodes applied for a group of industrial-scale agriculture
wells that could reach the largely untapped groundwater in the
Hualapai Valley Basin. … Today, more than 99% of the
cropland in the basin is owned or controlled by out-of-state
farming operations or investment funds. … More than half of
the basin’s cultivated land is tied to California-registered
companies, which collectively farm close to 13,000 acres.
Last week, more than a dozen tribes across the U.S. commented
on a new proposal by the Trump administration to let developers
obtain preliminary permits for hydropower projects on
reservations in spite of tribal opposition. This rule would
apply to projects like dams, reservoirs and pump-storage
facilities — all overseen by the independent Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, which, under a Biden-era rule, does not
issue such permits without consent. The regulator is being
asked to change course by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The Delta Protection Commission continued its
consideration on the Certification of Consistency for the Delta
Conveyance Project. Of the 11 members present, two … recused
themselves and left prior to the beginning of discussion on the
item,” a staff report following the Thursday meeting in Hood
stated. “Two of the remaining members indicated they would
abstain.” … ”That left only seven members who would be
available to vote on (the item), when eight are required for
action. The commission evaluated its options and decided to
adjourn and continue the meeting to 10 a.m. Monday via
teleconference.”
When it comes to zebra mussels in the Colorado River system,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis summed it up
this way: “We look, we find.” While Colorado’s first
detection of the highly invasive zebra mussel was in 2022,
Parks and Wildlife, alongside federal and local partners, has
ramped up testing for the species following a growing number of
finds this summer on the Western Slope. … Zebra mussels
are an invasive aquatic species notorious for their prolific
reproduction and destruction of ecosystems and
infrastructure.
When New Mexico water users convinced the federal government to
build the San Juan-Chama Project in 1962, they hoped it would
relieve stress on the Rio Grande. The pipeline from southern
Colorado to Northern New Mexico would bring water from the
Colorado River Basin to the Rio Grande Valley. But in recent
years, as Northern New Mexico has seen historic shortages on
the Rio Grande, water managers say the Colorado River has not
softened the blow. Rather, the two water sources have both
become more unreliable, linked to one another by legal and
natural systems that have turned stretches of wet river into
highways of mud and sand.
Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers say delays at the
Environmental Protection Agency are putting Americans’ drinking
water at risk, accusing the agency of withholding critical
public health information about PFAS chemicals. Rep. Chellie
Pingree, D-Maine, said the EPA has failed for months to release
a report on PFNA, a type of PFAS contaminant. PFAS, often
called “forever chemicals,” are man-made substances found in
air, groundwater and drinking water across the country.
… Pingree sent a letter last month to EPA Administrator
Lee Zeldin demanding an update, but she said the agency has not
responded.
The California Farm Water Coalition is pleased to announce the
selection of Michelle Paul as its next executive director. Ms.
Paul will replace Mike Wade, who is retiring in February from
his role as the Coalition’s executive director, a position he
has held since 1998. Ms. Paul was selected following a
comprehensive statewide search led by the Coalition’s executive
director selection committee, which considered a strong and
diverse field of candidates from across California. She will
join the Coalition in mid-January and assume full
responsibilities on March 1.
Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP has identified Riverside, San
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Ventura as the
California counties most susceptible to wildfires in 2026,
based on recent hazard mapping and federal risk
data. … According to the firm, environmental
conditions such as prolonged drought, high temperatures, low
humidity and strong winds including Santa Ana and Diablo winds
dry out vegetation and accelerate fire spread. It flags
additional factors such as dry lightning strikes, dead
vegetation, invasive plant species, extensive tree mortality
from pests and the build-up of fuel where natural fire cycles
have been suppressed.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
