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.
… While stakeholders wait to see how the EPA’s
announcements will develop into specific actions, one
particular area of continued uncertainty relates to PFAS in
drinking water. … Following its request to stay legal
challenges to these two Biden-era actions to allow the new EPA
leadership to review these rules, the EPA on May 14 announced
that it would maintain the current national primary drinking
water regulation for PFOA and PFOS and introduce a proposal to
extend the compliance date to 2031. At the same time, the EPA
said it would rescind regulations and reconsider regulatory
determinations for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (commonly known as
GenX), and the hazard index mixture of these three, plus PFBS,
citing compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act as its
rationale.
Fire and water are seemingly opposing forces. But in the
context of global climate, they go together like peanut butter
and jelly. And looking at the fire and flood tally so far, 2025
has been extra. … Aridification is causing the arid west
to move eastward, encroaching on the mid longitude regions of
the U.S. and Canada. Aridity, drought and heat
combine to make ideal conditions for fire. Increased average
air temperature leads to more water in the atmosphere as water
vapor. More energy in the form of heat moves storms. The
combination of the two–more water and more energy–means more
disasters with higher consequences measured in deaths and
dollars. The end result is that communities are sandwiched
between dry and wet extremes and the economic consequences of
fire and flood disasters. The U.S. sustained 403 weather
and climate disasters from 1980–2024 where overall damages and
costs reached or exceeded $1 billion each (including the
Consumer Price Index adjustment to 2024). When you add them
together, the total cost of these 403 events exceeds $2.915
trillion.
Last August, Northwest salmon caught a break when four dams on
the Klamath River, which flows from mountain country in
southwest Oregon through northern California to the Pacific
Ocean, were demolished. But it was a limited break. The goal of
that $500 million project, possibly the largest of its kind in
American history, remains unreached, and serious effort still
is needed to fulfill it. A fully free-flowing Klamath River may
be beyond us for a while, but certain half-measures could
help. Hanging over it is the shadow of the decision this
month by the Trump administration to abandon a regional
agreement involving breach of the four lower Snake River dams
in Washington state, also partly for fish run purposes.
… Some news stories at the time proclaiming the return
of a free run of the Klamath River spoke too optimistically. In
Oregon, much of the upper river is blocked by the last two
dams, the Keno, west of Klamath Falls and near the same-named
unincorporated community, and the Link River, which impounds
and partly creates Upper Klamath Lake.
Harmful blooms of algae like the one floating near the dam on
Apache Lake are on the rise worldwide and are likely to
proliferate more in Arizona as warming temperatures create
encouraging habitats for the blue-green toxic scum. The Apache
Lake bloom, reported May 29, is the second this year in Arizona
following one spotted on Lake Havasu a month prior. About 30
harmful blooms plagued Arizona waters last year, affecting
parts of Lake Havasu, Saguaro and Canyon lakes and Tempe Town
Lake. That’s likely an undercount as the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality voluntarily collects reports and doesn’t
have the authority to force water managers to post warnings or
test the water. … Harmful blooms also are likely to become
more common and more severe in Arizona as conditions get dryer
and hotter, said Taylor L. Weiss, with the Arizona Center for
Algae Technology and Innovation and assistant professor at
Arizona State University.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s effort to remove barriers
to energy development within the 3.6 million-acre Rock Springs
Resource Management Plan area (which replaced Green River RMP
in 2024) will include revised estimates of oil and natural gas
reserves, according to the agency. … Initial “low” estimates,
which may change dramatically based on new calculations, will
potentially be used to reduce restrictions on oil and natural
gas development imposed under “area of critical environmental
concern” designations in the Rock Springs RMP updated in
December. That plan will likely change after a review spurred
by President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American Energy
executive order, and Interior orders under his administration.
The U.S. Geological Survey — the BLM’s sister agency under the
Interior Department — released a report Wednesday revising
estimates of “undiscovered, technically recoverable” oil and
natural gas reserves underlying onshore federal lands, boasting
“significant increases.”
A June quarterly monitoring report from a Department of Toxic
Substance Control order for the Saugus Industrial Center,
former home of the Keysor-Century Corp., revealed groundwater
contamination levels many times above the state’s limits as
cleanup continues and plans for nearby properties are filed at
City Hall. A Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency spokesman
said Thursday the reports are from monitoring wells and not
from any sources in circulation for
customers. Water-contamination concerns in that area are
expected to cost tens of millions of dollars for the agency for
years to come, according to officials in court records and past
statements. … The process, which began a decade ago,
involves the injection of emulsified vegetable oil into the
wells as part of a complicated process to “promote anaerobic
biodegradation of volatile organic compounds in saturated soils
and groundwater,” according to (the) report.
The community is set to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the
completion of Shasta Dam, a key structure in California’s
Central Valley Project. The celebration on Friday, June 20
promises a full day of events in The City of Shasta Lake.
Construction of Shasta Dam began in 1938 and was completed in
1945. President Truman once referred to the dam as “symbolic of
the hopes and aspirations of generations who would make the
broadest, wisest uses of their natural resources.” The
festivities will kick off Friday morning with a Shasta Lake
business mixer at the Shasta Dam Visitors Center at 10 a.m. A
celebration program will follow at 11 a.m., and an open house
will start at noon. … The Bureau of Reclamation, along
with the Shasta County Board of Supervisors and the Shasta
BoomTown Museum, organized the event to commemorate this
milestone. The Shasta Dam plays a crucial role in regulating
the Sacramento River’s flow and creates the largest water
storage facility in California, holding more than 4.5 million
acre-feet of water.
Yesterday, the unincorporated community of West Goshen in
Tulare County hit a key milestone to achieve their Human Right
to Water by breaking ground on their safe drinking water
project. Many families in this area currently rely on drinking
water contaminated with concerning levels of contaminants
including nitrate, 1,2,3-trichloropropane, and uranium.
… In 2021, residents formed the community based
organization West Goshen Water for Life. … Through an
alternatives analysis funded by State Water Board technical
assistance funding, the community decided that connecting to a
safe piped water supply from the California Water Service (Cal
Water) Visalia system was the most sustainable long-term
drinking water solution. Their efforts to implement that
solution were met with collaboration from Tulare County,
California Water Service, and funding from the Department of
Water Resources through a $3.4 million grant aimed at emergency
drought relief.
Citing a rise in costs to deliver gas and water to the public,
the Long Beach Board of Utilities Commissioners on Tuesday
approved higher rates, as part of their $397.4 million budget
for the fiscal year that begins in October. Under the plan,
water and sewer rates will go up starting Oct. 1. Under the
proposal, the monthly charge for the typical single-family home
will increase by 12% for water and sewer rates. This translates
to an average increase of $8.26 per month for a single-family
water bill and $1.47 for a monthly sewer charge. For gas
services, the board approved a 15% increase starting in August,
followed by a 12% hike next April. For a typical single-family
home, this translates to an estimated monthly increase of
$4.67. … The increase in rates, officials say, are meant
to offset the rising costs of construction, imported
water and other “inflationary pressures.”
California’s state auditor will not investigate the state’s
controversial Delta Conveyance Project, which would divert
water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta down to farms and
consumers in Southern California. Despite the proposal
receiving some bipartisan support Wednesday afternoon,
lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee stopped
short of recommending the project be
audited. … Despite six lawmakers voting to approve
the audit, no one made a vocal endorsement. The proposal failed
because it didn’t receive the votes necessary from the state
Senate side. At least four votes are necessary from both houses
on the joint committee. At her request, (Assemblymember
Rhodesia) Ransom (D-Stockton) was granted reconsideration of
the audit proposal, meaning the issue will be on a future audit
committee agenda.
Negotiators for the seven states arguing over diminished
Colorado River water are discussing an option they hope will
end their deadlock, one that Arizona officials say would focus
less on who gets what and more on what the river can
realistically provide. They’re calling it the “supply-driven”
solution, Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said,
and it links the required water deliveries out of Glen Canyon
Dam to what might naturally be flowing downstream at Lees Ferry
if the dam weren’t there. The Rocky Mountain states upstream
from there would have to let that amount pass, and the
Southwestern states would have to live within its limits. It’s
intended as a fair way of adapting — and shrinking — the
region’s use of a river whose flow was once thought to exceed
15 million acre-feet of water a year but, in the last 25 years,
has averaged 12.4 million.
… After trying and failing for more than two decades to pump
ancient groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and sell it
to Southern California water districts, the controversial
company (Cadiz) has set its sights on new customers over
the border in the Grand Canyon State. … On Monday, the
Interior Department announced plans to sign a memorandum of
understanding with the latest incarnation of the project,
called the Mojave Groundwater Bank, touting it as “an important
tool to improve drought resiliency in the Colorado River Basin”
though recognizing that it is only in “early development.” And
on Tuesday, the Trump administration official leading Colorado
River negotiations for the federal government suggested to
water power players in Arizona that they consider the project.
… Opponents of the project, including conservation
groups who say it could harm sensitive desert ecosystems, still
see it as the same old concept.
Registration is now open for the Water Education
Foundation’s 41ˢᵗ annual Water
Summit featuring leading policymakers and
experts in conversation about the latest information and
insights on water in California and the West. The daylong
summit on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in
Sacramento is our premier event and an ideal
way to get up to speed on current topics for water district
managers and board members, state and federal agency officials,
city and county government leaders, farmers, environmentalists,
attorneys, consultants, engineers, business executives and
public interest groups. Plus, don’t forget
to enter the ticket lottery for our first-ever
Klamath River
Tour Sept. 8-12 and snatch a ticket for our
Northern
California Tour Oct. 22-24.
The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t required to revise
every outdated wastewater pollution standard
for various industries, but its decision in 2023 to not revise
standards using new pollution control technologies is both
arbitrary and capricious, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled
Wednesday. In 2023 several environmental groups, including
Waterkeeper Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity,
filed a complaint directly to the Ninth Circuit, challenging
the EPA’s decision to not revise “effluent limitations,
effluent limitation guidelines, standards of performance for
new sources, and pretreatment standards” that haven’t been
updated in decades. Passed in 1972, the Clean Water
Act requires the agency to regulate industrial
pollutants that make their way into the water, based on the
best available wastewater treatment technology. But according
to the plaintiffs, the EPA has never set limits on plants that
mold and form plastic, and has gone nearly 40 years without
updating wastewater limits on inorganic chemical plants and
petroleum refineries.
Last week, lawmakers introduced a new proposal to sell off
roughly 3 million acres of public land in the Western U.S. as
part of President Trump’s omnibus spending and tax bill, known
as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” According to the
Wilderness Society, more than 250 million acres of land managed
by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management could
be up for grabs under a leaked June 14 version of the proposal.
Though the plan focuses on land, its effects on
water could be profound. The eligible
land excludes national parks and a few other protected areas,
but it leaves open massive amounts of acreage in each Western
state. These eligible areas include land with wilderness
characteristics, grazing lands, wildlife corridors for
threatened and endangered species, recreation areas and popular
camping sites. Its also land that buffers the
headwaters of some of our most important rivers in the
West.
A Flagstaff-based hub for regional science — and for the
protection of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado
River — could be under threat from President Donald
Trump’s proposed cuts to the federal budget. In a letter to the
Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Trump’s budget
director, Russell T. Vought, laid out the president’s fiscal
priorities — mostly, a long list of cuts to virtually all
federal agencies. Among those was a recommendation to slash
$564 million from the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS). And in a more detailed appendix, the Office of
Management and Budget proposed reducing the budget of the
agency’s Ecosystems Mission Area by approximately 90%.
… Among the programs funded by the Ecosystems Mission
Area are the Southwest Biological Science Center and its
subsidiary, the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center
(GCMRC) — both housed here in Flagstaff.
Hundreds of tiny endangered fish slipped from orange plastic
buckets into a glittering lagoon in Malibu on Tuesday,
returning home five months after being whisked away from
threats wrought by the Palisades fire. The repatriation of more
than 300 northern tidewater gobies — led by the Resource
Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains — marked a
peaceful moment in a region still reeling from the
aftermath of wildfires. … In January, (conservation biologist
Rosi) Dagit orchestrated a successful rescue of 760 of the
semi-translucent, swamp-colored fish from Topanga Lagoon, an
unassuming biodiversity hotspot located off the Pacific Coast
Highway that drains into the Santa Monica Bay. The Palisades
fire that sparked Jan. 7 tore through the area, scorching all
of the critical habitat for the gobies and an endangered
population of steelhead trout that occupied the same watershed.
… Scientists and citizen volunteers arrived on Jan. 17
and used giant nets that served as sieves to retrieve the fish
that rarely exceed a length of two inches.
The design-build team of Stantec and PCL Construction detailed
the planned $250-million expansion of the South Bay
International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Diego, Calif.,
a project that has recently been fast-tracked due to the
ongoing transboundary raw sewage flows from Tijuana,
Mexico. Michael Watson, senior vice president and major
projects lead for water at Stantec and Jeff Newman, operations
manager at PCL, said at a public meeting held by the U.S.
section of the International Boundary and Water Commission June
12 that they had validated that 50 million gallons per day can
be treated by the plant after the expansion and will soon put
out early work packages. … New IBWC U.S. Commissioner
Chad McIntosh told local officials and attendees at the forum
that even after the expansion they would continue to press
Mexico to halt the cross-boundary sewage and chemical flows
into the Tijuana River which eventually flow
into the Pacific Ocean near the South Bay community of Imperial
Beach.
Water engineer Bob Hurford has a chart he often shares with
communities in the Gunnison River Basin to drive home the
seriousness of the region’s water conditions. It shows that the
basin’s runoff in the 2020s, so far, is worse than the Dust
Bowl era of the ’30s. … The western Colorado river basin
spans mountainous, agricultural regions and communities like
Crested Butte, Gunnison, Paonia, Montrose, Olathe and Delta.
Snowpack in the basin this year was near normal — when based on
30 years of data. The 100-year look was much more bleak,
Hurford found. … Mountain snowpack in the Gunnison
River Basin — one of several major river basins in Colorado —
peaked at 93% in late March, melted a bit, then rose again to
84% of the median, based on federal data from 1991 to 2020. The
basin is broken into smaller watersheds, including the Upper
Gunnison, Uncompahgre and North Fork basins. In the Uncompahgre
Valley, where Harold farms, the snowpack also peaked at
slightly less than normal. Spring runoff projections for the
valley were about 70% of the norm, Hurford said.
Other water supply and drought news around the West:
The long, litigious tail behind Santa Cruz County’s 2023 winter
storms still has no end in sight. But this week, a
partner at one of the firms leading the mass tort against local
and state government agencies for their alleged failure to
protect Pajaro Valley residents and businesses against the
destructive floods told Lookout that they are seeking damages
in the range of tens of millions of dollars. … The nine
lawsuits filed between 2023 and 2024 fault a half-dozen
government agencies for the damage caused by a string of
atmospheric rivers in the winter of 2023, beginning with the
New Year’s Eve floods in Watsonville and ending with the
catastrophic breach of the Pajaro River levee on March
11. … The lawsuits allege that the governments not only
knew, or should have known, that the levee’s instability posed
grave risks to the region’s people and businesses, but that
they also failed in their responsibility to address the
issue.
