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.
Major construction on the Sunol Valley Fish Passage Project, an
effort intended to restore fish passage and ecological function
in the upper Alameda Creek, is expected to be completed this
year. The project involves the removal of an existing Sunol
Valley concrete erosion-control mat, which is protecting a
36-inch pipeline, L303, owned and operated by Pacific Gas and
Electric Company (PG&E). … Removal of this final
major barrier in the mainstem Alameda Creek was driven by
decades of work by the Alameda Creek Alliance and the Alameda
Creek Fisheries Restoration Workgroup to complete 16 other
fish-passage projects.
The Interior Department has stopped dozens of
environment-related grants to at least two nonprofit groups,
recipients said Wednesday. Interior agencies including the Fish
and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management stunned two
organizations — California Trout and the
Institute for Applied Ecology — on Tuesday with the declaration
that their grants were canceled. California Trout has received
28 FWS grants since fiscal 2014, according to a federal
spending database. … All seven of California Trout’s
active grants were axed.
A conservation group on Wednesday formally petitioned for the
western spadefoot frog to receive protection under California’s
Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity
petitioned for federal protection for two frog populations
separated by Southern California’s Transverse
Ranges. … The frogs depend on vernal pool
complexes, which are temporary wetlands connected to
upland grasslands or shrublands. Vernal pools are depressions
in a forest that hold water for part of each year, supporting
species like the western spadefoot. According to the
center, more than 90% of these pools have been lost to urban
development, intensive agriculture and roads.
I recently spoke with seventeen-year-old Keeya Wiki about the
first descent of the Klamath River, a 263-mile
river in Oregon and California. Keeya, who is Yurok and Māori,
was one of thirty youth who kayaked the river for the first
time in one hundred years. She reminded me of what it feels
like when you protect something sacred. In 2024, four dams came
down on the Klamath River, the largest dam removal in U.S.
history, and the river was free. The youth trained for the
descent on white waters throughout the region, and even in
Chile, to make sure they were safe. Then this summer they
joined the river and traveled for a month of freedom, joy, and
renewal.
As the San Diego City Council prepares to make major water rate
hikes, city staff clearly want weary councilmembers to blame
the San Diego County Water Authority and not the wastewater
recycling project the city is building. … On Friday,
city Public Utilities staff released a new cost analysis that
showed how Pure Water, a multi-billion-dollar wastewater
recycling project, could produce cheaper water than what the
San Diego County Water Authority provides. The city’s new Pure
Water numbers are the latest jab at the Water Authority over
growing water prices.
California is seeing a spike in cases valley fever — an illness
spread by fungal spores. Researchers speculate the
rise is tied to patterns of drought and
precipitation. … [Gail Sondermeyer Cooksey,
epidemiologist at the California Department of Public Health:]
When we see prolonged drought followed by heavy winter rains,
we see these surges in Valley Fever in the years that follow.
… There is a lot of concern that changes in climate and
environment are going to lead to these diseases occurring more
in the state of California, but also elsewhere in the United
States.
Following an extremely warm, dry summer on the Western Slope,
recent rainfall is beginning to chip away at the worst of
Colorado’s drought conditions. In mid-August,
“exceptional” drought conditions — the most severe among the
national drought monitor rankings — developed across nearly 7%
of the state in northwest Colorado for the first time since May
2023. … “Fortunately, the exceptional drought that we
had in early to mid-August is over in western Colorado with the
persistent rains of the last few weeks,” said Russ Schumacher,
Colorado’s state climatologist, at September’s Colorado Water
Conditions Monitoring Committee meeting on Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a waiver Tuesday
allowing the federal government to bypass environmental laws in
order to fast-track construction of more barriers along the
U.S.-Mexico border in the San Diego area. … The waiver will
allow the federal government to bypass more than two dozen laws
including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water
Act and the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act. … Environmentalists and advocacy
groups say the waiver is inhumane and will further harm
migratory species and damage sensitive habitat.
Volunteers took to the Santa Ana River to clean up trash as
part of the 41st Annual California Coastal Cleanup
Day. More than 25 people joined to collect more than 145
pounds of trash during the Saturday, Sept. 20, effort at Martha
McLean-Anza Narrows Park in Riverside. The Santa Ana River
runs through the park. The event was organized by Caltrans and
the Inland Empire Waterkeeper and was one of hundreds across
the state that day at beaches, rivers, creeks, bays and
wetlands, a news release states.
Yuba Water Agency is set to increase the water flows on the
Yuba River below the New Bullards Bar Dam starting September
29. Officials say the change is part of the Colgate Tunnel and
Penstock Improvement Project. … Parker explained that
due to taking the powerhouse offline, the water flow will be
higher than normal. Yuba Water Agency urged local recreators to
avoid the area or exercise extreme caution. … Starting
Monday, the flow will increase to about 900 cubic feet per
second.
California’s largest drinking water supplier is trying to turn
the page. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California, which imports and sells water to 19 million people
in Los Angeles and the surroundings, earlier this month zeroed
in on Shivaji Deshmukh, the current general manager of the
Inland Empire Utilities Agency, to replace retiring General
Manager Deven Upadhyay. … The impending changeover comes
as the agency faces a series of pivotal decisions on how to
handle shrinking supplies and growing costs — and after years
of instability at the top of LA’s water world.
Colorado saw a record fiscal year in sports betting last year,
resulting in over $36 million in tax revenue after over $6.3
billion in bets were made, according to the Colorado Department
of Revenue. Of that, over $33 million will go to Colorado’s
Water Conservation Board, the department said. … About
93% of revenue from the tax on casinos helps fund the
implementation of Colorado’s water plan, according to Water for
Colorado, a coalition of nonprofits that work on water
conservation throughout the state. Water for Colorado calls the
agreement “a win for Colorado’s water.”
A new study, led by federal agencies in collaboration with the
University of Colorado Denver, shows that the whitebark pine
tree—an iconic, high-elevation tree that stretches from
California’s Sierra Nevada through the Cascades and
Rockies and into Canada—could lose as much as 80
percent of its habitat to climate change in the next 25 years.
… The threatened whitebark pine tree is a crucial food
source for squirrels and grizzly bears. It also acts as a
natural snow fence, holding snowpack in place
and releasing meltwater slowly throughout the summer. That
runoff supports entire watersheds, which
farmers and ranchers depend on.
… Once considered a relic of the 1930s Great Depression era,
dust storms are once again a growing challenge across the
western United States. … One contributor to these dust
events is the slow-motion drying of the massive inland lakes
across the western U.S. caused mainly by climate change and
intensive water use. Among them is Imperial Valley’s Salton
Sea. … Under pressure from intense water use and climate
change-fueled drought, the vast lake is steadily receding. …
[T]he Salton Sea is also laced with decades of agricultural
chemicals, pesticides and the remnants of military bomb testing
— which researchers have warned may be making it into the air
as well.
OpenAI is scouring the U.S. for sites to build a network of
huge data centers to power its artificial intelligence
technology, expanding beyond a flagship Texas location and
looking across 16 states to accelerate the Stargate project
championed by President Donald Trump. … The company’s
request for proposals calls for sites with “proximity to
necessary infrastructure including power and
water.” … Data centers also typically
draw in large amounts of water for cooling. … The other
states where OpenAI is actively looking include
Arizona,California, Florida,
Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Utah, Virginia,
Washington and West Virginia.
Many parts of the world are predicted to endure “day-zero
droughts,” periods of extreme and unprecedented water scarcity,
which could happen as soon as this decade in certain hotspots
including parts of North America, the Mediterranean and
southern Africa, according to a new study [in Nature
Communications]. … Day-zero droughts arise from the
confluence of various factors, including a prolonged dearth of
rain, low river levels and shrunken reservoirs, as well as
rocketing water demand to supply people, farms and industries.
… More than a third of these regions, including the
western United States, could face this situation as early as
the 2020s or 2030s.
A Utah State University team says that the Colorado River is
experiencing low water levels and may be headed for a crisis.
Utah State University’s Colorado River Studies team released a
new report that shows that water storage levels in Lake Powell
and Lake Mead is significantly reduced. … [Utah State
University (USU) Director of Colorado River Studies Jack]
Schmidt added that USU’s team is calling for water cuts across
all seven basin states that draw from the Colorado river,
saying that voluntary conservation alone won’t be enough.
Developers of the Sites Reservoir project are proposing an
off-stream reservoir to enhance California’s water storage
capacity. Representatives from the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and the Sites Project Authority met at the Tehama
Colusa Canal Authority building to continue public negotiations
for a partnership. The proposed reservoir aims to stabilize
water deliveries for agriculture, cities and environmental
purposes. The Sites Project Authority, which will own the
reservoir, is in formal negotiations with the Bureau of
Reclamation to define its participation.
… During the department’s first Water Resources Science
Symposium held on September 23, the third annual Sierra Nevada
Phillips Award was presented to Ellen Hanak, Ph.D. For almost
25 years, Dr. Hanak has adeptly navigated between science and
policy on controversial and difficult water management
challenges in California, including groundwater recharge, water
affordability, and drought. Currently, Dr. Hanak is an adjunct
fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)
and is a founding director of PPIC’s Water Policy Center.
As anticipated, the recent 4-day ocean salmon season from Point
Reyes south to Point Sur surpassed the 7500-fish quota, leading
to in season action by the National Marine Fisheries Service on
September 17 to close the remaining 2025 fall dates of Sept
29-30, October 1-5, and October 27-31. The California
Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) estimated that 12,000
Chinook salmon were taken by 12,400 anglers in the brief fall
season. … Captain James Smith of California Dawn Sport
Fishing said … “I think we have only reached 7,500 fish
four times since 1994 during a much longer open period. It just
shows how many salmon are in the system.”
