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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… To boost a dwindling Lake Powell hundreds
of miles downstream and keep its dam generating electricity for
more than 350,000 homes, federal officials are planning
to let out as much as one-third of the water in Flaming Gorge
over the next year. … In a way, it’s familiar
territory. A similar effort four years ago sent big quantities
of water from Flaming Gorge into the Green River, eventually
reaching the Colorado River and feeding into Lake Powell. But
the new plan could draw down up to double the 2022 amount.
… Matt Tippets, chair of the three-member commission for
Daggett County, which encompasses the Utah side of Flaming
Gorge, is staying optimistic, saying the reservoir will remain
vast even if it dips down to just 60% full. … “If this
happens two or three times, two or three years in a row, it may
be dire, but I don’t believe we’re at that point yet.”
Chances are rising that an El Niño expected to form soon could
become one of the most powerful such events on record,
according to new data released this week. … It’s
the third consecutive month that multiple models have predicted
that a potentially record-breaking El Niño could drive
global temperatures to new highs and shift patterns of
droughts, floods, heat, humidity and sea ice across the
planet. … Above-average summer and fall
temperatures in the Western U.S., possibly coming with
unusual humidity, downpours and tropical storm remnants in the
Southwest and Intermountain West. … This could
contribute to milder winter temperatures in the U.S. — as well
as big storms along the West Coast … as El Niño’s impacts
reach a peak from the end of the year into early 2027.
California Department of Water Resources Director Karla
Nemeth has been selected to lead the Association of
California Water Agencies (ACWA) as its next executive
director, President Ernie Avila announced today. Her selection
follows a nationwide recruitment process and overwhelming
support of the association’s Board of Directors. Effective
Sept. 1, Nemeth will oversee staff of the nation’s largest
statewide coalition of public water agencies. Based in
Sacramento, ACWA represents approximately 470 members
responsible for 90 percent of the water delivered to cities,
farms and businesses across California.
… Last year, more sections of the country’s rivers were
reconnected thanks to dam removals than at any other time in
history, according to the nonprofit group American Rivers.
… But federal money allocated to rehabilitate and remove
dams is far less than what’s needed. … Under the Trump
administration, many federal grants for dam removal and safety
have also stalled amid staffing and budget
cuts. … In April, the Trump administration
intervened in PG&E’s decommissioning of two
hydropower dams in Northern California. The two dams
have not produced electricity since 2021 because of equipment
failure and the utility determined that fixing the equipment
didn’t make economic sense. But the administration said they
were needed for water security.
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… Under SGMA, which is implemented by local agencies,
groundwater basins have until 2040 or 2042 to achieve
sustainability. But since 2020 or 2022, depending on local
conditions, groundwater agencies have been required to prevent
“undesirable results” such as land subsidence and household
wells running dry. In the San Joaquin Valley, where the
aquifers are especially depleted, preventing those outcomes
requires major changes ahead of the law’s final deadline.
Groundwater agencies covering much of the valley adopted
pumping limits, or allocations, within the past few years as
the state began cracking down on subbasins with inadequate
plans. … The pumping reductions required by SGMA
could cause as much as 20% of the San Joaquin Valley’s farmland
to be taken out of production by 2040, according to a
report by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Colorado’s trout fisheries could face a difficult summer,
impacting the state’s billion-dollar angling industry, as
widespread drought conditions drive predictions that
streamflows will be well below-average. Kirk Klancke, the
president of the Colorado Headwaters Chapter of Trout
Unlimited, said he is concerned that the drought will stress
fisheries this summer, especially if temperatures are anywhere
near as elevated as they were this winter. “If this summer is
anything like this past winter was, the chances are pretty good
that there’s going to be fish kills in our streams,” Klancke
said. … Colorado, and much of the West, experienced one
of the hottest, driest winters on record.
Headwaters are the landscapes where California’s streams and
rivers begin. … Up until about 150 years ago, most
of California’s headwater forests experienced frequent,
lower-intensity fires that kept understories open, limited
brush, and supported mature, fire-resilient tree species with
high, widely spaced canopies—conditions that also helped
sustain reliable water supplies. … Fire suppression has
allowed vegetation to build up, increasing the risk of
high-severity wildfires. This has major implications for the
state’s water supply. When headwater forests burn in severe
wildfires, those fires disrupt the processes that
regulate water supply—reducing snowpack, degrading water
quality downstream, and increasing sediment in
reservoirs.
A spring snowstorm across the Denver metro area is
bringing moisture and a temporary break from dry conditions,
but water managers say it will do little to improve the
region’s long-term supply. Despite steady rain and snow in
cities like Denver and Aurora, the storm largely missed key
mountain basins that feed the reservoirs serving much of the
Front Range. … Most of the water used in Aurora and
Denver comes from snowpack in the mountains, which melts
gradually and flows into river systems like the South Platte,
Colorado and Arkansas basins. This year, that snowpack has been
far below normal. … As a result, even a noticeable storm
in the metro area is not expected to make much of a difference.
Residents and environmental advocates in the Tijuana River
Valley are once again pushing for urgent action to address the
ongoing cross-border sewage crisis that has plagued South Bay
communities for years. Members of the Tijuana River Valley
Subcommittee, part of the Otay Mesa-Nestor Community Planning
Group, gathered in Nestor on Wednesday night to discuss both
temporary and long-term solutions to the pollution problem.
Community leaders said residents can no longer wait for
large-scale infrastructure projects while continuing to deal
with foul odors, health concerns and environmental damage.
… For decades, pollution flowing through the river
valley has triggered repeated beach closures along the South
Bay coastline.
The owners of a planned data center in Box Elder County will be
subject to a new Utah law about water reporting requirements
that coincidentally just went into effect on Wednesday. “When
it comes to this proposed project in Box Elder County, they
will have to report 90 days prior to construction what their
estimated water use would look like and then there’s annual
reporting required,” said Representative Jill Koford, the
sponsor of the bill. Koford clarified that this
legislation did not come about because of a specific data
center plan, like the one in Box Elder County that has been
drawing a lot of criticism. She said she is heavily involved in
water policy and this law was conceptualized before the last
legislative session when she and other leaders were talking
about ways to help the Great Salt Lake.
In 2024, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR)
selected the Pajaro River Watershed as one of five watersheds
to pilot its watershed resilience program. On May 5, following
18 months of development and collaboration across public
agencies, tribal representatives, agricultural leaders and
other stakeholders, the program’s advisory group released the
official Pajaro River Watershed Resilience Plan. The
initiative is supported by a $2 million grant from DWR and
administered by Pajaro Valley Water. It was prompted by climate
hazards, including flooding, drought and wildfires, that have
exposed vulnerabilities in communities and economies reliant on
the watershed.
After nearly two weeks without safe drinking water, 46 of the
67 Mountain View households affected by the recent water main
contamination breach near Cuesta Park have been told that they
are in the clear. The city is still working to return full
water services to 21 homes in the area. Mountain View
announced Wednesday morning that, in coordination with the
California State Water Resources Control Board, it had lifted
the “boil water” notice – which went into effect on Friday, May
1 – for most of the impacted homes. The households still under
the advisory are on Drucilla Drive and Carla Court, where the
city is currently working on a “super chlorination” treatment
process for the pipeline serving that area.
The EPA on Wednesday unveiled a new online mapping tool to help
developers and government officials quickly tell which agency
has jurisdiction. Many projects require federal, state,
municipal, and Tribal approval before they can move forward.
Projects often get bogged down when either developers or
government officials can’t tell who’s responsible for reviewing
and approving permit applications. The Environmental Protection
Agency’s Permitting Authority Map covers permits under the
Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act; Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; and Marine Protection,
Research, and Sanctuaries Act.
… The village of Rumsen was located at Carmel River, about
five miles inland from San Carlos Mission in Carmel and the
coast. … According to the U.S. government, this
tribe had ceased to exist years ago. But people such as Munoz
and Hettinger, known as Ohlone Sisters, have a different
story to tell, marking the presence of a Costanoan Rumsen
Carmel Tribe community in Pomona. Today, the tribe has more
than 2,000 members, they say. This exhibit documents the
history and culture of the tribe with a series of photos and
videos that show tribal regalia and other clothing,
customs, dances and traditional ways of doing things, such as
making a tule boat, a traditional boat members of the tribe
used to navigate in the wetlands of Carmel River.
While some Americans were gazing at tulips and mowing lawns,
people in Colorado and Wyoming were getting
out their snow shovels. A late snowstorm swept over the Rocky
Mountains and into the High Plains on Tuesday, bringing heavy,
wet accumulation north of Denver into southeastern Wyoming.
… Even as Denver imposed lawn-watering restrictions to
address what have been low mountain snows, the city was facing
what may be its biggest snowfall of the season.
… But one storm won’t solve the West’s water
problems. A report from the National Drought
Mitigation Center said recent precipitation helped boost
topsoil moisture and reduced irrigation demands, but hasn’t
changed a “mostly bleak” water outlook heading into the
summer.
The Colorado River is flowing at record-low depths, raising
concerns for water providers and consumers across the Western
Slope. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the Colorado River below the Grand
Valley Diversion near Palisade reached a maximum depth of 9.91
feet in June 2024. … Mesa County is in an exceptional
drought, according to the Drought Response Information Project
(DRIP). … Ty Jones, district manager of Clifton Water
District, said the river is flowing at less than a
fourth of what it was in 2025. “We’re seeing
things never seen before, in all the records that we’ve kept in
the last 100 plus years,” Jones said. “I mean, we’ve not seen
that here in the valley.”
Lake Oroville [the anchor reservoir of the State Water
Project] is nearing full capacity at 97%, according to the
Department of Water Resources (DWR). The lake is at an
elevation of 893 feet as of May 1. Releases from Lake Oroville
to the Feather River have decreased from 1,700 cubic feet per
second to 1,300 cubic feet per second on May 3. This accounts
for reduced inflows and optimizes storage for water supply,
recreation and fish and wildlife enhancement. Releases from the
Feather River are assessed by DWR daily. DWR manages water
releases from Oroville Dam for flood control during the winter
and early spring months. … Due to dry conditions
and low snowpack in the Feather River watershed, DWR has the
flexibility to conserve water and encroach into the flood
space.
As New Mexico faces extreme drought, the state has launched a
new website to track the water goals the
governor set two years ago. Extremely low snowpack
levels threaten the state’s rivers and aquifers this
year, a trend that’s expected to continue, with a
recent report from water experts across the state projecting
that changing climate patterns and groundwater overuse could
reduce water supplies by 25% in coming decades. The remaining
waters are more vulnerable to pollution concerns from wildfires
and other contaminants. The dashboard includes data on water
conservation, development of new water resources and protection
of existing water resources.
An annual groundwater conference is being moved this year from
downtown Sacramento to Clovis in an attempt to reach those most
affected by the state’s new groundwater law – farmers. The
conference, “Faces of SGMA Implementation Summit” put on by the
Groundwater Resources Association will be held June 2-3 at the
Clovis Veterans Memorial Building. … The Groundwater
Resources Association’s mission is to help improve groundwater
supply by fostering greater education. To that end, this year’s
conference will feature large and small
growers who will give examples of how they’ve
modified their operations under SGMA.
