A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation Writer Matt Jenkins.
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Denver Water has begun issuing fines to customers who
violate watering restrictions as a prolonged drought
continues to strain the region’s water supply with no signs of
improvement. Denver Water customers are currently limited to
watering lawns two days a week. Despite those restrictions
being in place for most of the summer, the measures have not
made a significant difference, according to the
agency. Last week, Denver Water issued more than 50
warnings and six or seven fines to customers who did not follow
watering rules. The agency said it has shifted from
educating customers about restrictions to actively enforcing
them.
Other drought impact and response news around the West:
The coordinated series of cyberattacks launched on U.S.
drinking water and wastewater utilities across the country in
recent weeks has alarmed lawmakers on Capitol Hill — but it
remains to be seen whether the threat will be enough to break
the impasse over mandating basic security standards for the
sector. … Two Democratic senators introduced legislation
Monday that would give EPA clear authority to assess
cybersecurity threats across the water and wastewater
sector. The bill from Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and
Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is effectively a second attempt at an
approach the Biden administration tried three years ago but was
foiled by opposition from Republican states and industry
groups. The Water Cyber Shield Act of 2026 would
allow EPA to require utilities to address vulnerabilities it
identifies and mandate cybersecurity evaluations for large
utilities.
The Bureau of Reclamation is increasing Central Valley Project
2026 water supply allocations for south-of-Delta contractors,
reflecting improved water supply conditions and operational
flexibility. … Based on current hydrology and updated
forecasts, irrigation water service and repayment contractors
south-of-Delta are increased from 25% to 28% of their contract
total. Municipal and Industrial water service and repayment
contractors are increased from 75% to 78% of their historic
use, or public health and safety needs, whichever is
greater. All other allocation amounts announced May 19
remain unchanged.
A contested lithium extraction facility in Imperial County was
dealt a setback in court Tuesday. The California Fourth
Appellate District said that Imperial County officials
unlawfully approved Controlled Thermal Resources’ Hell’s
Kitchen project and asked a lower court to overturn its earlier
ruling in favor of the project. The appeals court said there
was insufficient evidence that the company had secured
water for its 50-year life span and that an
environmental impact report didn’t address the impact of
water use on air quality in the area just east
of the Salton Sea that the county has branded “Lithium
Valley.” The ruling, written by Associate Justice Julia
Kelety, also said that the environmental review did not
adequately address possible future mandated water
supply reductions from the Colorado River.
The Trump administration plans to rescind an EPA rule requiring
states to consider tribes’ rights to fish, hunt and
gather wild plants when establishing water quality
protections — a policy the administration argues went
beyond the agency’s authority. Finalized under the Biden
administration, the rule provided an avenue for tribes to
compel state and federal regulators to account for their
consumption of traditional plants and animals when setting
water quality standards. Those standards form the basis for
protecting rivers, lakes and other water bodies from pollution.
Under works for months, the agency is now close to moving
forward with a proposal to rescind the rule, according to a
notice Friday by the Office of Management and Budget.
With extreme weather increasing around the world, scientists
are working to help critical infrastructure, such as water
management systems, adapt. On the U.S. West Coast, where both
periods of prolonged drought and intense atmospheric river
storms are common, effective water management can be
particularly tricky. One strategy that water managers are now
pursuing is known as Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations
(FIRO). The method relies on increasingly accurate weather
forecasts to improve water supply reliability without
increasing flood risks to downstream communities. … A new
study helps advance the evaluation process by
identifying the physical and operational constraints
that influence how much forecast lead time would be needed to
safely use FIRO at a given reservoir. The research,
published in Water Resources Research, was led by DRI’s
Christine Albano.
The state says it needs more money to police overpumped
regions in the San Joaquin Valley and is considering a
new fee that could cost water agencies between $50,000 to
$250,000. That fee would be charged to groundwater
sustainability agencies seeking exemptions from state
enforcement measures. It would apply to new exemption requests
as well as to agencies seeking to extend exemptions that have
already been granted. Southern Tulare County water managers
challenged the proposed fee during a July 30 workshop, saying
the Water Resources Control Board hasn’t given updated details
on its costs and how that money, and other fees, would be
spent.
City lawmakers on Monday opposed a data center moratorium but
moved forward with new regulations prohibiting excessive water
and requiring operators to mitigate potential residential
impacts. The Aurora City Council voted 7-4 to approve a
resolution to create data center specific
regulations, and opposed another more broad resolution
that would have included a pause on data center development.
Councilmembers Alison Coombs, Alli Jackson, Ruben Medina and
Amy Wiles opposed the resolution. The resolution identifies two
specific regulations: a prohibition on the use of
evaporative cooling, which is a type of cooling system data
centers use that can be water-intensive, and requires
setback and buffers for data centers in certain areas that are
near residences.
After years of analysis and stalled negotiations, the federal
government last month finally laid out its
proposal for managing the Colorado River’s biggest
reservoirs for the next decade. … It doesn’t solve all
issues, though. If drought conditions don’t improve,
Reclamation said in its analysis that “even large and
unprecedented reductions may be needed and may not be enough to
stabilize storage” at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. “The
scary thing about all of this is that none of this solves the
problem if the world keeps getting drier,” [Jack]
Schmidt [senior research scientist at Utah State
University’s Center for Colorado River Studies] said. “That
should be taken as an enormous warning for the desperate need
to reduce the impact of a warming planet and the drying of the
Colorado River Basin.”
Even if you have never been to L.A., you probably have seen the
L.A. River. It is that wide concrete trench that Hollywood
loves to film: drag races, chase scenes, countless commercials
shot on the bare slab… But it’s strange. This river doesn’t
look like a river. … Luckily for our L.A. friends, the
L.A. River is undergoing a restoration that will bring back
many of the multiple benefits of the river such as habitat,
cleaner air, and green areas in the city while improving water
quality, reducing erosion, and of course, maintaining (or even
improving) the much-needed flood risk control. This restoration
project in the L.A. River is an example of a nature-based
solution. Nature-based solutions are approaches to adapt to
challenging environmental conditions in ways that work with
nature, not against it. … This is the first post in a series
about what using nature-based solutions looks like in
California.
For the first time, Grand County can call upon a water right to
increase streamflows in the Colorado River
while providing environmental, agricultural and recreational
benefits to the county. Under a new Operational Framework
agreement, Grand County can release up to 10,000 acre-feet, or
about 3.3 billion gallons, of water annually from the
Colorado-Big Thompson Project, according to a
joint news release from Grand County and the Northern Colorado
Water Conservancy District (Northern Water). Grand County
plans to use the water to increase flows in the
Colorado River during periods of low water and high
temperatures, according to Grand County Communications
Director Christine Travis. Higher flows help cool the river and
protect aquatic life.
Strengthening California’s defenses against emerging artificial
intelligence-enabled cyber threats, Governor Gavin Newsom today
[Aug. 10] announced a first-in-the-nation
initiative to protect state assets and critical
infrastructure while advancing responsible AI
innovation. Building on California’s nation-leading 2023 and
2026 Executive Orders on Artificial Intelligence, the Governor
is directing state agencies to establish an AI Cyber Defense
Program, strengthen cybersecurity coordination across state
government, expand AI-enabled defenses for critical
infrastructure and local governments, and improve preparedness
for emerging AI cybersecurity incidents. … “Cyberattacks
can disrupt the essential services Californians rely on every
day, including water, power, transportation,
and emergency communications,” said California Governor’s
Office of Emergency Services Director and state Homeland
Security Advisor Caroline Thomas Jacobs.
The Dixie Valley toad’s only known habitat is a 760-acre
wetland fed by hot springs in a remote part of
Churchill County, about 130 miles east of Reno. When the
species, a descendant of toads that lived in the Great Basin’s
marshes and lakes during the last ice age, was listed under the
Endangered Species Act in 2022, federal agencies identified
groundwater pumping as one of several threats
to its survival. Now, those threats may become harder to
address. On July 10, the federal government rescinded the
definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act that has
prevented habitat destruction that would affect a species’
chances of survival. The move has reignited a decades-long
debate about what it means to protect an endangered species,
which could have far-reaching ramifications for listed species
in Nevada like the Dixie Valley toad.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) spent last Thursday
evening touring the Russ Creek and Centerville Slough
Restoration Project, a 1,540-acre project at the mouth of the
Eel River Estuary northwest of Ferndale. …
[T]he Russ Creek and Centerville Slough Restoration Project
purports to be one of the largest coastal restoration
efforts in California. It’s also a unique project
insofar as it is on privately owned land, and in addition to
reestablishing 550 acres of continuous floodplain and tribal
habitat, it will allow for the preservation and
improvement of adjacent agricultural lands — working
across multiple plots of private property to address systemic
tidal connectivity and drainage challenges along a rapidly
subsuming reclaimed agricultural landscape that was once
important brackish marshland habitat.
Other wetland restoration and green infrastructure news:
It’s never too early to start thinking about applying for our
preeminent water leadership
program. Applications for
the 2027 William R. Gianelli
Water Leaders program, focused on
California participants, will be available in October. This
program starts in January 2027. The goal of the program is to
build a network of water leaders from diverse backgrounds who
will deepen their water knowledge, build their leadership
skills and learn to take a collaborative approach to
decision-making about water resources. Those interested should
sign up for our
announcements to find out when applications will
be available and when we will host a virtual
question-and-answer session prior to application
deadlines.
The fifth of five groundwater agencies in Kings County
officially committed to a region-wide planning effort that
water managers hope will fend off the potential of
state regulators mandating how much farmers can pump.
Over the summer four of the five GSAs in the Tulare Lake
subbasin, which covers most of Kings County, agreed to work on
a single groundwater management plan and hired two engineering
firms to get the job done. The Southwest Kings Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) was the final GSA to agree. At its
August 7 meeting, Southwest agreed to join the region-wide
effort, rather than writing its own plan. The board agreed
unanimously and without comment.
Federal environmental agencies and local leaders will gather in
Calexico later this month to update the public on ongoing
efforts to address long-standing pollution in the New River, a
vital cross-border waterway flowing from Mexicali, Mexico, into
California’s Imperial Valley. The U.S. Section of the
International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC) and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they will
co-host a hybrid public roundtable on Tuesday, Aug. 18, from 11
a.m. to 1 p.m. PDT. … For decades, the New River has
carried industrial wastewater, agricultural runoff, and
untreated sewage northward across the U.S.–Mexico border,
creating persistent public health hazards and environmental
concerns for residents in Calexico and surrounding Imperial
County communities.
… Through its Healthy Rivers and Landscapes (HRL) program,
among other initiatives, California is restoring habitat in the
Yolo and Sutter Bypasses. These are engineered
floodplains built in historical flood basins, and
their first job is flood control: when the
Sacramento River runs high, the bypasses take the water that
would otherwise reach Sacramento and the towns around it. But
they can do two things at once. The same shallow, slow,
seasonally flooded ground that protects cities turns out to be
excellent rearing habitat, giving juvenile Chinook salmon room
to feed and grow before they head out to sea. However, that
comes with a question the program is required to answer:
As floodwater recedes, could young salmon get left
behind in isolated pools?
Local, state and federal agencies are collaborating to release
about 800 million gallons of water from Twin Lakes, near the
headwaters of the Arkansas River, into the river, according to
a joint statement. The goal is to protect river health,
recreation and fisheries from the effects of high temperatures
and low flows. … [T]he additional water will help moderate
water temperatures and reduce stress on fish during peak summer
months of the drought. … The Southeastern Colorado Water
Conservancy District approved the cooperative plan to use up to
2,500 acre-feet — which is about 814 million gallons — of water
from an existing transbasin diversion that moves water
from the Colorado River into the Arkansas River,
called the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project.
In Colorado, water is critical. But what’s spreading in the
water on the western slope has experts concerned. Now, the
fight to contain zebra mussels has become a priority around the
state for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. … According to
CPW, zebra mussels were first discovered in Highline Lake in
2022, the first infestation of the species in Colorado. By
2024, zebra mussels were detected in the Government Highline
Canal and the Colorado River. … These shells already
infect some western slope lakes and more than 100 miles of the
Colorado River, from the Utah border to where it meets with the
Eagle River in Dotsero. They want its spread to stop there.
