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 headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
The Oroville City Council has moved to address the growing
issue of trash along the Feather River by approving a motion to
send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom. The council is seeking
assistance in tackling the environmental impact they believe is
caused by nearby homeless encampments. … Last month, the
Feather River Recreation and Parks District held their annual
Feather River Cleanup event. … Joseph Velasquez,
the park maintenance supervisor with the district, says their
team and the community picked up about 10,000 pounds of trash.
This fall, Pasadena Water and Power (PWP) invites the community
to participate in programs that help conserve one of Southern
California’s most precious natural resources: water. At these
events, attendees can capture rainwater for irrigation by
participating in an upcoming rain barrel distribution and
attending water efficient landscape workshops. All events are
open to the public and can be
found at PWPweb.com/TheRippleEffect.
A town administrator in Las Animas County is facing several
felony charges after investigators say she funneled more than
$26,000 from a small town’s water project intended to secure
long-term water access, to her personal bank account.
… Investigators say she took money from federal loans
and grants that were awarded to the town of about 450 for a
massive reservoir project. The money was allegedly commingled
with the town’s general fund and used for unauthorized personal
transactions and other town expenses, leaving contractors for
the critical water project unpaid.
… Every few years, wild pigs emerge from river habitat to
wreak havoc in the Fairmount Park area. … The pigs currently
roaming Riverside’s corridors descend from domestic swine that
escaped during catastrophic 1930s floods. … The Santa
Ana River corridor creates a green highway connecting
rural habitats to urban resources, with residential
neighborhoods serving as unintended waypoints between
wilderness areas. … The pigs have inhabited these river
bottoms longer than most human families, and they’ll probably
outlast current management strategies too.
Appellate court justices heard arguments Tuesday in the highly
watched dispute over whether the state exceeded its authority
when it placed the Tulare Lake subbasin on probation last year
for failing to come up with an adequate plan to protect the
region’s groundwater. … The outcome of Tuesday’s
arguments could have far reaching effects throughout the San
Joaquin Valley, most of which is severely overdrafted and
struggling to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA).
The Colorado River Indian Tribes may soon become the third
Indigenous government in North America to grant personhood
rights to a river. ‘Aha Kwahwat, or the Colorado River, has
been at the heart of Mojave culture and history for millennia.
The river is also critically important to the other three
cultures that make up the Colorado River Indian Tribes: the
Chemehuevi, whose ancestral lands lie to the northwest of
CRIT’s lands, Navajo and Hopi who moved to the area in the
1940s. … Once the tribal membership has completed weighing in
… the already-drafted resolution will be put before the
tribal council, and once approved, will become part of CRIT’s
law.
A bill with unanimous support is basically a unicorn in today’s
divided politics, so California just saw the return of a
water-planning unicorn in the form of SB 72 that Gov. Gavin
Newsom signed into law Oct. 1. Prior to being signed, the bill
— effectively an update to the California Water Plan that
enforces the need for quantifiable water needs reports and
water goals — passed through the state’s legislature without
any “no” votes. This also isn’t the first time it
happened. Past iterations of the bill also received unanimous
support, but this is the first time the governor signed it.
The clock is ticking down on Mexico’s deadline this month to
pay the United States water it owes under a 1944 international
treaty. So far, Mexico has paid less than half what it
owes during this five-year cycle, which ends on Oct. 25.
… Mexico must pay the United States 1.75 million
acre-feet of water every five years. The current cycle ends
Oct. 25 but so far they have only sent 807,980 acre-feet to the
Rio Grande. … Under the treaty, the United
States must send Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet of water annually
via the Colorado River out West.
The Water Education Foundation has named Alex Hager, KUNC’s
reporter covering the Colorado River Basin, as
this year’s recipient of the Rita Schmidt Sudman Award for
Excellence in Water Journalism. The award recognizes
Hager’s clear, deeply sourced reporting that helps the public
understand the people, policies and ecosystems tied to one of
the West’s most important rivers, said Jenn Bowles, the
Foundation’s Executive Director. Hager is the first
broadcast journalist to receive the award that acknowledges
outstanding work illuminating complicated water issues in
California and the West.
The Senate on Tuesday evening confirmed a new leader of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, installing
Neil Jacobs. … Dr. Jacobs, an atmospheric scientist and
meteorologist who has stressed a strong desire to improve the
accuracy of U.S. weather forecasting models, is generally
respected across NOAA, which oversees much of the federal
climate research that the administration has targeted for deep
cuts. At the same time, he has faced criticism and rebuke
for his tenure during President Trump’s first term.
More than 100 engineers, utility leaders, scientists, and
public officials came together in the wake of January’s
catastrophic Los Angeles firestorms to identify innovative
strategies and emerging technologies that could build more
resilient infrastructure, recognizing the broader challenges of
growing climate and disaster risks. … The resulting
report, “Innovation Opportunities for a Resilient L.A.,”
emphasizes that no single strategy is sufficient. Instead, Los
Angeles must pursue a mix of approaches, from upgrading
infrastructure to improving coordination across agencies.
… Climatologists are forecasting a 71% chance of another
La Niña this fall, which could lead to more drought conditions
and potentially higher-than-normal wildfire danger.
… While the latest data suggests that a La Niña may
impact us, it remains unclear whether it will be a weak or
moderate one. … [Bill Patzert, research scientist and
oceanographer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory] predicted
that the best-case scenario is that we get a series of
spaced-out storms over the next few months. So, even if
rainfall is below normal again, if it’s spread out, and any
potential fuels are damp enough, we won’t see another round of
major wildfires this season.
Under a new program developed by Arizona’s water department,
West Valley housing developers have access to a new water
provider. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs announced that EPCOR is
the first company operating in Arizona to receive an
Alternative Designation of Assured Water Supply, or ADAWS.
ADAWS went into effect in November and serves as a pathway for
providers to prove they have enough water to last an area for
100 years. … Hobbs said the alternative designation
allows water companies to prove they have an adequate supply
from a variety of sources — in EPCOR’s case, a combination of
groundwater and sources like Lake Pleasant and the Colorado
River.
A Palo Alto environmental nonprofit recently acquired 668 acres
of farmland in the Pajaro River Valley with the hopes of
returning parts of the property to its former wetland
landscape. The property, situated along the Upper Pajaro
River on the border of Santa Clara and San Benito counties, was
formerly a privately owned farm along with two ranches used for
livestock grazing and vegetable crops. … POST
[Peninsula Open Space Trust] crafted its vision for the site’s
restoration with the hopes of making the surrounding watershed
— and the communities it feeds into — more resistant to the
effects of flooding.
Some of the biggest names in the American food world are
rallying to stop California from banning common nonstick
cookware, saying the proposal will hurt restaurants and home
cooks. … Proponents of the bill argue that there are
already many nonstick cookware products that are made without
PFAS. They have also argued that the environmental damage from
manufacturing PFAS products and disposing of them significantly
harms the environment, including drinking water
sources.
California state prosecutors are taking Sable Offshore to
court, accusing the oil company of repeatedly discharging dirt
and other material into coastal streams and wetlands without a
permit as it rushed to bring a pipeline and an offshore
drilling platform back online. … The lawsuit accuses
Sable of digging around the idle pipeline it is seeking to
repair and reopen without first seeking a permit from the
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. … The
work, called “pig and dig” operations, risks damaging the
“sensitive aquatic and riparian habitat” by discharging dirt
and vegetation in violation of state water quality rules,
according to the complaint.
The six bathrooms that will be in a
184,000-square-foot data center that Related Digital
is building out for CoreWeave in Cheyenne are going
to use more water than the data center’s cooling
systems. That’s according to Related Companies CEO Jeff
Blau, who was in Cheyenne Tuesday to break ground on the $1.2
billion facility. … “What are the two complaints you
hear about, you hear about water consumption. Neighborhoods and
communities are concerned that we’re going to use up all the
water,” he said. So, the $1.2 billion data center that Related
Digital is developing isn’t going to use any water.
… There are several ways to get energy from deep within the
Earth. Hydrothermal systems tap into underground hot water and
steam to generate electricity. These resources are concentrated
in geologically active areas where heat, water and permeable
rock naturally coincide. In the U.S., that’s generally
California, Nevada and Utah. … Some geothermal fluids
contain valuable minerals; lithium concentrations in the
groundwater of California’s Salton Sea region could potentially
supply battery manufacturers. … Despite its challenges,
geothermal energy’s reliability, low emissions and scalability
make it a vital complement to solar and wind.
The human right to water is often framed in terms of pipes,
treatment plants, and funding. Far less attention is paid to
governance and who gets to decide on the rules that shape water
quality, price, and reliability. Now, writing in Nature Water,
Kristin Babson Dobbin and co-authors shed light on how local
democracy influences the right to water. … By analysing
over 2,400 community water systems in California, Dobbin et al.
show that ‘water democracy’ — the extent to which residents can
vote for their water system’s governing board — is linked to
measurable differences in performance.
The ongoing water distribution dispute between the City of
Tehachapi and the Tehachapi Cummings County Water District has
escalated, with both parties taking their grievances to social
media. The conflict, which began three years ago, centers on
the allocation of water from the California State Water
Project. … City Manager Greg Garrett claims that the majority
of water from the SWP is being allocated to agriculture,
leaving the city with insufficient resources for residents and
future developments. … In contrast, Thomas Neisler,
general manager of the water district, insists that the city’s
goals can be met without additional SWP water.
