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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Cuts and freezes are jamming up some of the basic functions of
government at agencies targeted in President Donald Trump’s
rollbacks of his predecessors’ energy and environmental
policies, more than a dozen federal employees told POLITICO.
Lockdowns of spending and an absence of guidance from political
appointees are leaving Environmental Protection Agency
scientists unable to publish their research, preventing some
Energy Department officials from visiting their department’s
laboratories and forcing the cancellation of disaster planning
exercises at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the
13 employees, who were granted anonymity to avoid reprisals.
They said the chaos has also left recipients of Biden-era
energy grants in limbo as they wait for approval to continue
the projects they’ve started. … Other affected agencies
include the Interior Department and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, which conducts crucial climate
research and oversees the National Weather Service.
As the Senate continues to comb through the Big Beautiful Bill,
258 million acres of public land across the western U.S.,
including large swaths of California, could soon be eligible
for sale. A map published by the Wilderness Society, a
nonprofit land conservation organization, reveals which parcels
of land across 11 states would be up for grabs, in accordance
with the land sale proposal detailed by Sen. Mike Lee, a
Republican from Utah and the chairman of the Senate Committee
on Energy and Natural Resources. If the budget is passed
by the July 4 deadline, an estimated 16 million acres in
California are at risk of being sold over the next five years.
Those vulnerable parcels of land include areas adjacent
to Yosemite National Park, Mount Shasta, Big Sur and Lake
Tahoe. … In all, up to 3 million acres across
all states would be authorized to be sold out of 258 million
eligible acres across the West.
A recently released opinion from the Justice Department
suggests that the Trump administration may seek to unilaterally
eliminate national monument designations. The administration
has previously expressed interest in shrinking or removing
protections on protected lands to clear the way for resource
extraction or development, and the DOJ opinion would seem to
mark an escalation of those priorities. The stakes are
particularly high here in Arizona, where we have the
second-highest number of national monuments in the country.
Roger Naylor, author of “Arizona National Parks and Monuments:
Scenic Wonders and Cultural Treasures of the Grand Canyon
State,” joined The Show to discuss the implications of this.
… “These are essential places to us, not only for our
recreation, not only for tourism, but just protecting wildlife
corridors and very often protecting
watersheds, keeping our water supply safe as well,”
(says Naylor.)
One of the all-time great stories of American environmental
law, the Mono Lake saga recounts the protracted conflict over
scarce water resources between the City of Los Angeles and
advocates for the Mono Basin, Yosemite’s eastern watershed,
some four hundred miles to the north. In 1983, in National
Audubon Society v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court
famously addressed the conflict by centering the state’s
obligations under the common law public trust doctrine, which
sets forth public rights and obligations in certain natural
resource commons, especially navigable waterways. … While the
decision itself is well-represented in the legal literature,
the full story of the case has not received the attention it
deserves. This Article offers fresh perspective on the least
recounted but critical parts of the story—not only the
significance of the legal innovations in the decision, but also
what happened beforehand to lay the foundations for the
landmark ruling, and then what happened afterward to bridge the
court’s holding to the ultimate outcome for Mono Lake.
California Trout (CalTrout) and Pacific Gas & Electric
(PG&E) kicked off construction today on a project that will
remove the last unnatural barrier to fish passage on mainstem
Alameda Creek, the largest local tributary to the San Francisco
Bay. … This project will open more than 20 miles of stream
including quality spawning habitat in the upper watershed to
Chinook salmon and steelhead with completion anticipated in
winter 2025. … In 2022 and 2023, former barriers at the BART
weir and inflatable bladder dams in Fremont, eight to ten miles
upstream of where Alameda Creek enters the Bay, were made
passable for fish due to newly constructed fish ladders by the
Alameda County Water District and after years of advocacy by
the Alameda Creek Alliance. The newly constructed fish ladders
enabled Chinook salmon and steelhead to migrate through the
lower creek into Niles Canyon and access parts of the upper
Alameda Creek watershed for the first time in over fifty years.
Soon, these fish will be able to consistently swim even further
upstream.
San Lucas residents, who have been without clean drinking water
for nearly 14 years, may soon see a resolution as local leaders
approve a plan to bring affordable water to the community. In
the small, rural town of San Lucas, with a population of a
little over 400 people, residents struggle with a basic
essential: water. They have lived without proper drinking
water for over a decade, with the cost of clean drinking water
being their biggest obstacle. Now, county leaders, along with
the San Lucas Water District, have a solution. ”We were
able to bring in a partner, CalWater, to be able to be that
water provider, and in doing so the average monthly bill in the
community is expected to be around 90 dollars. But the benefit
beyond that is anybody who is low-income, which we know 90% of
that community is, will only pay about 60% of that bill, so
they are going to average around 50 to 60 dollars a month. As a
water bill, that is doable,” said Monterey County Supervisor
Chris Lopez.
… Originally born in Colorado, (Richard) Sloan moved to
Fresno with his parents when he was around 4 years old. He
moved to Khartoum, Sudan for two years and returned in 1964 to
Fresno. It was then, when he was 13 years old, when he first
became acquainted with the San Joaquin River. … During
his final years in (Army) service and after, Sloan began
volunteering for the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation
Trust. That was when he experienced his first canoe ride down
the river, where he noted that he was “never out of sight of a
tire” while on the water. … “I thought, ‘Oh my God, why
doesn’t anybody do anything about that?’ and that’s what
spurred me onto that first cleanup, then after that, I started
organizing tire cleanups and they turned out to be pretty
popular,” Sloan said. In 2000, he got a full-time position
with the trust as the River Steward Coordinator and also became
chair of the Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter. Through his
positions he was able to coordinate the river’s first clean up
at Camp Pashayan, where they pulled out 60 tires and an
old-timey soda vending machine.
… Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom
Buschatzke said at a recent roundtable that under the Trump
administration, the state could be better positioned than it
was under the Biden administration. … Under the Biden
administration, the Lower Basin states sent a proposal to the
federal government offering to take 1.5 million acre-feet of
water cuts per year. Arizona would cut the most, at 750,000
acre-feet. The Biden government rejected the Lower Basin’s
proposal and issued an “alternative report” on Jan. 17, almost
the last day of the administration. … Arizona Senate
President Warren Petersen went on to say he also wants the
federal government to tie in expensive infrastructure projects
to the negotiations, and not just river-related infrastructure,
but maybe even a desalination plant in
California. Petersen said if Arizona were to help pay
for that, then Arizona could take some of California’s Colorado
River allocation.
Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee introduced 15 water-related bills
Thursday, targeting everything from the length of federal
permitting to the types of water resources protected by the
Clean Water Act. The bills would benefit oil
and gas companies, farming interests, homebuilders, water
utilities and others who say that environmental reviews and
long permitting timelines are stifling development. They were
introduced by Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee
Chair Mike Collins, (R-GA) … Doug LaMalfa,
(R-Calif.) and others. “The Clean Water Act was
intended to protect water quality, support healthy communities,
and balance the demands of economic growth across the United
States,” (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman
Sam) Graves said in a statement.
… Every summer across the state, the atmosphere dries up and
the temperatures turn warm, sucking moisture from the landscape
and turning the parched vegetation into kindling, ready to burn
under the right conditions. This year, forecasters are already
seeing signs that the pattern could be more intense than usual.
The snow in the Sierra Nevada, the frozen reservoir
that moistens the landscape through the spring, is nearly gone;
it melted off earlier than normal. This year’s grass
crop is plentiful, especially in Northern California, which
received more rain than the southern part of the state, and
it’s already fueling fires as it dries out. And forecasters
predict the summer will be exceptionally hot. All of this adds
up to a higher probability of more large wildfires than usual
this summer, with the possibility that even the smallest spark
could explode into a significant wildfire if not stopped
quickly.
A move to boot Kern County Superior Court Gregory Pulskamp off
the long-running Kern River lawsuit was denied, according to
a ruling issued Tuesday by the assistant presiding
judge of the court. The Kern County Water Agency filed
a motion May 30 to remove Pulskamp citing its belief
the judge would be biased against the agency because a
preliminary injunction he had issued requiring enough water be
kept in the river for fish was overturned by the 5th District
Court of Appeal. … Typically, disqualification motions
come after a trial outcome is reversed, not in the middle of an
ongoing lawsuit, according to attorney Adam Keats, who
represents Bring Back the Kern and several other public
interest groups fighting to get water back in the riverbed
through Bakersfield. The agency, however, argued in its motion
that the injunction and reversal should be considered similar
to a trial. No, they are not similar, states a motion by the
City of Bakersfield urging Kern’s presiding judge to deny the
agency’s motion.
Earlier this month, Fresno welcomed 448 members of the
Salmonidae family to town. … The 448 adult salmon
represent a milestone for the San Joaquin River Restoration
Program, marking the highest number of captured returns since
spring-run juveniles were reintroduced to the river system in
2014 following the 2008 legal settlement that modified the
operations of Friant Dam to provide minimum flows for native
fish. … Most of this year’s bumper crop were trapped in fyke
nets placed downstream of the Eastside Bypass Control Structure
in Merced County. (Some made their way upstream to Sack Dam
until being captured.) After being placed into tanks with
oxygenated, temperature-controlled water, the salmon were
trucked 120 miles then examined and measured before being
released back into the river in northwest Fresno. … What
measures are taken to ensure nearly 450 adult salmon residing
on the outskirts of a city of 547,000 people remain undisturbed
until they can reproduce? The short answer is enforcement and
education. –Written by Fresno Bee columnist Marek Warszawski.
UC Davis Professor of Law Emeritus Harrison (“Hap”) Dunning
passed away at the end of March 2025 at the age of 86. You can
read the details of his life in the Davis
Enterprise Obituary, including the story of his extensive
work in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, but he is best
known in the UC Davis community for his work on water law and
the public trust doctrine. From serving on the Governor’s
Commission to Review California Water Rights Law in the 1970s
to his work on the California Water Commission and the Bay
Delta Advisor Council, he lived a life of service to the
California water community. California’s public trust doctrine
is built in part on Prof. Dunning’s legacy of scholarship,
which includes a foundation public trust conference at UC Davis
that resulted in several papers cited in the California Supreme
Court’s Mono Lake decision. [Harrison was a longtime
board member of the Water Education Foundation].
The EPA announced that it will provide $26 million in grant
funding to U.S. states and territories to reduce lead in
drinking water at schools and childcare centers. The funding is
part of the EPA’s ongoing efforts to support testing and
remediation of lead-contaminated water at locations where
children learn and play. Since 2018, the agency has distributed
more than $200 million toward reducing exposure to lead in
drinking water. … Grants will be issued through the Voluntary
School and Child Care Lead Testing and Reduction Grant Program.
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S.
territories are eligible for funding. A separate allocation for
tribal entities is expected to be released soon. The EPA’s
broader efforts include the “3Ts” program — Training, Testing,
and Taking Action — which provides guidance for local and state
officials to implement voluntary lead reduction
initiatives.
Along the Klamath River in Northern California, where logging
companies once cut ancient redwood trees, vast tracts of land
have been returned to the Yurok Tribe in a years-long effort
that tribal leaders say will enable the restoration of forests
and the protection of a watershed that is
vital for salmon. The effort, which unfolded gradually over the
last 23 years, culminated in May as Western Rivers Conservancy
turned over 14,968 acres to the Yurok Tribe. It was the last
portion of 47,097 acres that the nonprofit group acquired and
transferred to the tribe in what is thought to be the largest
“land back” deal in California history. Members of the tribe
say they are celebrating the return of their ancestral lands
along Blue Creek, a major tributary that meets
the Klamath about 40 miles south of the Oregon border. Blue
Creek holds cultural and spiritual significance for the Yurok,
and its cold, clear waters provide a refuge for salmon.
On Wednesday, June 11, the U.S. Senate released a provision in
President Trump’s H.R.1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act that calls
for the sale of approximately 2.2 million to 3.3 million acres
of federal land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service.
… According to the tax and spending bill, lands in
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New
Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming could be sold off
for energy and/or housing development over the next five years.
… The Greater Yellowstone Coalition wrote via press
release that the privatization of federal lands could lead to
the loss of public access, negatively impact local economies
and result in development that harms wildlife habitat and
water resources. “Our national public lands
are not a luxury, they’re our legacy,” Greater Yellowstone
Coalition Executive Director Scott Christensen wrote. “These
are outdoor spaces that connect us to each other, fuel the
economies of western states and provide clean drinking water to
millions of Americans downstream.”
During the first semiannual meeting of the North American
Development Bank (NADBank) in 2025, the Governments of the
United States and Mexico, through the Board of
Directors, agreed to invest up to US$400 million in
priority water conservation and diversification infrastructure
in response to prolonged drought conditions throughout the
U.S.-Mexico border region. NADBank will welcome input from the
public on the Water Resilience Fund (WRF) during a 30-day
public comment period, after which the Board will consider its
final approval. Through the WRF, NADBank will allocate up
to US$100 million in retained earnings over the next five years
for concessional financing, as well as make up to US$300
million available for low-interest loans from its established
lending resources. NADBank may also supplement these
instruments with market-rate financing to further expand the
reach and impact of available resources.
… Since Trump returned to the White House in January, his
administration has fired or let go hundreds of climate and
weather scientists — and cut ties to hundreds more who work in
academia or the private sector. His team has eliminated major
climate programs, frozen or cut grants for climate research and
moved to shutter EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting program. The
Trump administration has slow-walked climate-related contracts
— including one for the upkeep of two polar weather satellites.
And it’s begun to wall off the United States from international
climate cooperation. … (H)is budget strategy calls for
even deeper cuts in the months and years ahead. That includes
billions of dollars in cuts to climate and weather research at
NOAA and NASA, widely considered two of the world’s top science
agencies. All told, it’s an unprecedented assault on
humanity’s understanding of how global warming is transforming
the planet, scientists say.
… Data centers are central to the internet’s environmental
impact. While they consume a lot of electrical energy, massive
amounts of water and have harmful pollutants, those levels have
been relatively stable in the past decade. … Since AI servers
run much hotter than a typical server, they require much more
water for cooling. In 2023, Google’s data centers consumed over
23 billion liters of freshwater for cooling its servers; for
context, that’s just one billion liters shy of PepsiCo.’s
reported overall freshwater consumption for the same
year. … AI’s environmental impact has been a topic of
increasing concern for researchers like Ren and Mohammad Islam,
a computer science and engineering professor at the University
of Texas, Arlington, who co-authored a paper on “making AI less
thirsty.” “GPT-3 needs to ‘drink’ (i.e., consume) a 500ml
bottle of water for roughly 10 to 50 medium-length responses,
depending on when and where it is deployed,” Ren and Islam’s
paper reports.
… Eastern San Joaquin County, like the rest of the Central
Valley, is facing an uncertain future due to the looming state
groundwater mandate that requires basins not
to pump more water from an aquifer than is replenished in a
given year. It is safe to say Milton will feel the pain
when it comes big time. To prevent a similar fate, the SSJID
has developed a long range water plan critical in its fight to
keep the state from ignoring historical front-of-the-line
legally adjudicated water rights to commandeer water from the
Stanislaus River basin to use as they see fit. That,
coupled with the groundwater mandate, would have a major
negative impact on Manteca, Ripon, Escalon and the surrounding
countryside as well as Lathrop and Tracy. While it wouldn’t
send the South County back to the 1880s, it would still be
devastating. And if you think this is only a problem for
farmers, guess again. Choke off the water supply based on
average or above average precipitation years, and you will
devalue existing homes. –Written by Manteca Bulletin editor Dennis Wyatt.
