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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Nevada Irrigation District’s (NID) first snow survey of the
year found the mountain snowpack well below average, even as
District reservoirs remain near full following strong
early-season storms. Surveyors measured only 47 percent of the
historical snowpack across NID’s five snow courses. The average
snow water content was 9.5 inches. By comparison, the
historical average water content is 20.2 inches. Despite the
low snowpack, reservoir storage remains well above average,
largely due to heavy precipitation in December.
Keene residents are facing the possibility of water bills
skyrocketing as the Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary that
operates their water system seeks dramatic rate increases or
permission to abandon service entirely. The Keene water system,
originally built to supply steam locomotives, has been
maintained under a legacy agreement since trains were phased
out. Union Pacific has been trucking in water to supply the
small community, but now says the operation is financially
unsustainable. … The water system has petitioned the
California Public Utilities Commission for permission to either
dramatically increase rates or abandon the system altogether.
The Center for Biological Diversity notified the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service today that it intends to sue the agency for
failing to finalize Endangered Species Act protection for the
Clear Lake hitch — a rare fish found only in Lake County,
California. … Each spring, adult Clear Lake hitch
migrate into tributary streams to spawn before returning to the
lake. … The main threat to the hitch is a lack of
water flowing in spawning tributaries, driven by chronic
over-withdrawal, both legal and illegal, and worsening
climate-driven drought.
A recycling system that’s capable of simulating a free flowing
fire hose — without wasting water — will be the main feature of
a Riverside Fire Department drill Tuesday attended by the
mayor, fire chief and other officials. The agency’s new
“PumpPod” will be unveiled during a demonstration exercise
scheduled for Tuesday morning at the city’s Emergency
Operations Center on Saint Lawrence Street. The recirculation
system was acquired by the fire department thanks to a $3
million California Department of Water Resources grant
administered by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California.
Ultrarunner Mina Guli says she doesn’t actually love running.
The Thirst Foundation nonprofit CEO is somewhat of a living
contradiction, after running 200 marathons in 2022 across 32
countries to bring awareness to the world’s water crises that
are being roiled by warming temperatures. … This summer,
Guli plans to run the 1,800-mile span of the Colorado River,
all the way from the headwaters in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains
to the Colorado River Delta outside of Mexicali, Mexico, before
finishing in Los Angeles. … She hopes her run will sound
alarm bells for the rapidly drying, beating heart that keeps
taps flowing in Las Vegas and throughout the American West: the
Colorado River.
Not everyone with a stake in the future of Arizona’s access to
Colorado River water feels as “cautiously optimistic” about
water usage negotiations among the seven Colorado River Basin
states. The governors of six of the seven states,
including Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, said they were cautiously
optimistic that the states would reach a deal after they met in
Washington D.C. last week to hash things out.
… Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis,
whose community relies on CAP water, shared a particularly
pessimistic message about an agreement, but called for unity
among Arizonans and the Lower Basin states. “The prospects
for success, I think we all know, seem pretty dim at this
point,” Lewis said.
The Bay Area’s warm, dry stretch has spilled into
February. Aside from a paltry 0.13 inches of rain on Jan.
27–28, the region has gone weeks without meaningful
precipitation. … Just three weeks ago, the statewide snowpack
stood at 89% of its historical average after a burst of late
December and early January atmospheric rivers. Since then, it
has collapsed to 59%. … The issue is timing and
temperature. January, typically one of California’s wettest
months, was dominated by warm, dry weather that steadily melted
what the Christmas and New Year’s storms delivered. No
significant precipitation is expected for at least the next two
weeks.
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, has co-introduced
bipartisan legislation to extend a federal $450 million water
recycling grant for Western states until 2032. The federal
grant, signed by former President Joe Biden in 2021, has
already allocated roughly $308 million on water recycling
projects in Colorado River
states. … The Large-Scale Water Recycling
Project Grant Program funds are available to all Western
states, but have only been granted to five programs in
Utah and Southern California, totaling roughly
$308 million. If the program were not extended, it would expire
at the end of the U.S. government’s 2026 fiscal year on Sept.
30.
Nevada lawmakers are working to revive a bill that would
require state water regulators to take a closer look at how
geothermal operations impact groundwater during the permitting
process. Farmers and hard-rock mining companies that pump
groundwater are required to apply for permits under Nevada law,
but current statutory framework exempts some industrial
groundwater users from the permit process as long as they
return the water they pump back into the ground. Assembly Bill
109 would close a “loophole” that allows developers to
pump water without a permit from the state engineer if the
operation is considered “non-consumptive.”
Meghan Hertel, of Sacramento, has been appointed
Director of the Department of Fish and
Wildlife. Hertel has been the Deputy Secretary of
Biodiversity and Habitat at the California Natural Resources
Agency since 2024. She was the North American Director of the
Land Life Company from 2022 to 2024. Hertel held several
positions at Audubon California from 2010 to 2022, including
Director of Land and Water Conservation, Interim State
Co-Director, Director of Working Lands, Associate Director of
Public Policy, and San Joaquin River Project
Manager. [Hertel is an alum of the Water
Education Foundation's Water Leaders program].
The Green River doesn’t make a lot of sense at first glance.
The Colorado River’s largest tributary flows
through a nearly 2,300-foot-deep canyon inside of northeastern
Utah’s Uinta mountain range. But at almost 2.5 miles high, the
massive, 50-million-year-old rock formation hypothetically
shouldn’t have even yielded to the nearby Green River, which
itself began to form less than eight million years ago.
… According to the coauthor of his team’s study
published on February 2nd in the Journal of Geophysical
Research: Earth Surface, the region is “enormously significant”
to the overall landmass. “The merging of the Green and Colorado
Rivers millions of years ago altered the continental divide of
North America,” he [geologist Adam Smith] explained in a
statement.
Attention Western Slope pond owners: Colorado Parks and
Wildlife is on the hunt for hungry, fast-reproducing, invasive
mussels — and that they might be hiding in your pond.
State and federal agencies, plus water districts, are fighting
to track and contain zebra mussels in and around the Colorado
River in Colorado. Officials are hiring new staff, doing
sampling blitzes and catching mussel-bearing motorized boats at
the state’s borders, but the populations of zebra mussels keep
popping up. This year, the state is taking its search beyond
public waters and irrigation systems. Colorado Parks and
Wildlife staff hope to survey as many as possible of the
thousand-plus ponds on private property in the Grand Junction
area during summer 2026.
The salmon recovery effort on Putah Creek was highlighted as an
early example of a Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program
success story at the recent California State Water
Resources Control Board hearings. The control board is updating
the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan, with Solano
County agencies joining the State Water Contractors and a host
of others in favoring the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes option.
Many upset Adelanto residents demanded a clean water solution
from their elected officials in early December, detailing hair
and skin problems due to the city’s “brown, cloudy,
foul-smelling” water. Less than two months later, Adelanto City
Council has taken action to secure a qualified firm that will
provide home water filtration systems at no cost to residents.
The announcement came at the Jan. 28 Adelanto City Council
meeting, three years after the synthetic chemical
Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS) was first detected in
Adelanto water.
Wetlands—including marshes, mangroves, swamps, and
floodplains—provide valuable benefits. They serve as habitat
for the fish we eat, protect coastal communities from storms,
and help filter pollution out of our water. But these important
areas are at risk of disappearing due to erosion, land
subsidence, and development. … NOAA’s Office of Habitat
Conservation works with partners to protect and restore these
habitats, so they can provide economic and ecological benefits
that fisheries and communities depend on.
California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) has increased
the 2026 State Water Project (SWP) allocation to 30% of
requested supplies, up from the initial 10% announced Dec. 1,
following mid-December storms that boosted available water
supplies. … Despite the recent dry conditions,
California’s reservoirs remain well above average, at 125% of
typical storage statewide. Lake Oroville, the SWP’s largest
reservoir, is currently at 138% of average for this time of
year. DWR also pointed to increased operational flexibility
following a December amendment to the project’s Incidental Take
Permit, which allows adjustments to certain fish protection
actions during storms.
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.
