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It can be difficult determining the best lakes in a country as
large as America. But the people have spoken, and it turns out,
California is home to two. Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino
County was voted the best lake in the United States by USA
TODAY 10Best, in which an expert panel nominates their picks
for readers to vote on. It’s a popular destination for visitors
eager to get out on the water; Fishing, boating, waterskiing,
paddleboarding and summertime swimming are just some of the
ways people can enjoy the stunning lake located in the San
Bernardino National Forest of Southern California. … But
Big Bear Lake isn’t the only body of water in California to
make the list of 10 best lakes in the nation. Coming in at No.
10 is the popular Lake Havasu, which straddles both California
and Arizona.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to fast track the construction of
the Delta Conveyance Project had a setback Tuesday. The
governor’s strategy of inserting a bundle of policy changes
into the state budget was rejected by a budget subcommittee,
essentially sending a message to Newsom that the Legislature
would rather discuss his suggestions using the normal
legislative process. The Delta Conveyance Project is a proposal
for a 45-mile gravity-fed canal that would carry excess water
from the Sacramento River to join the preexisting aqueduct
system that provides water to millions of users in Central and
Southern California. Three members of the Senate Budget
Subcommittee 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection and
Energy voted to reject the fast-tracking proposal.
… Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said the governor
received letters of support from 28 bipartisan legislators, as
well as from water agency and community leaders, including the
State Building and Construction Trades Council and the Soboba
Band of Luiseno Indians in San Jacinto in Riverside County.
Senate lawmakers blasted the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026
budget proposal for agencies charged with major water
infrastructure projects, and they vowed to secure more money
for both the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of
Reclamation. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy
and Water Development on Wednesday reviewed proposed budgets
for both agencies, with senators from both parties criticizing
the president’s desired cuts. “We’re probably going to have to
start over with this budget, gentlemen. I’m not telling you
anything that you don’t know,” Louisiana Republican Sen. John
Kenendy, who chairs the subcommittee, said as he ended
Tuesday’s hearing. “It’s just not realistic,” he added,
noting he otherwise supports cuts put forth by the Office of
Management and Budget. “I just know that the appetite for the
work that you all do and the necessity of it. I’m just being
realistic.”
Just weeks before completion of construction, Northern Water
has confirmed uranium has been discovered at the site of the
Chimney Hollow Reservoir and Dam. … Now
near-complete, the Chimney Hollow Dam is the fourth largest dam
in Colorado and the largest built in the United States since
the year 2000. Northern Water is now working with the
Environmental Protection Agency to monitor the levels of
uranium being detected. … Northern Water currently
plans to begin filling the reservoir in August. (Northern Water
spokesperson Jeff) Stahla said the discovery of the uranium is
not enough to derail the project. Citing the reservoir’s
eventual capacity of hundreds of billions of gallons of water,
Stahla said there is a possibility the initial fill of the
reservoir will wash the uranium off the dam and dilute it.
Eventually, as water cycles in and out of the reservoir, the
concern of the uranium may not longer be an issue.
Nevada, the driest state in the nation, faces a water crisis in
the years to come. To help save the precious resources for
future generations, the governor just signed two bills A.B. 104
and S.B. 36 with bipartisan support including a new, statewide
program to pay people to voluntarily give up their water
rights. One would only need to look to Lake
Mead to understand that Nevada’s water supply is
dwindling while its population is booming. Now those with
entitlements to water, like multigenerational ranchers and
farmers, can exchange those rights for money. … The
statewide initiative enables groundwater rights holders like
agricultural producers to voluntarily retire or give up their
claim to water in exchange for cash in areas where use exceeds
long-term water availability. Once retired, the rights are
permanently removed from use. … While the law has been
passed, it is unclear where the money will come to pay those
willing to voluntarily give up water rights.
Join us Sept. 8-12 as we examine water issues along the
263-mile Klamath River, from its spring-fed headwaters in
south-central Oregon to its redwood-lined estuary on the
Pacific Ocean in California. In anticipation of high
demand, the Foundation will begin allocating tickets for the
Klamath River
Tour via a lottery method on June 12. To enter
before limited bus seating is gone, review the tour details
here and submit the entry form linked at the
top of the tour page at your earliest convenience. Attend the
Water
Summit, Water Education Foundation’s premier
annual event, Oct. 1 in Sacramento with leading policymakers
and experts addressing critical water issues in California and
across the West. Registration opens June
18.
The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to
abolish California’s two newest national monuments, Sáttítla
Highlands National Monument in the state’s far north and
Chuckwalla National Monument near Joshua Tree. The push to
eliminate the designations, issued earlier this year by former
President Joe Biden, was revealed in a U.S. Justice Department
memo this week, responding to legal questions from the
administration about rolling back the California
monuments. Sáttítla Highlands monument was established in
January to protect a remote 224,000-acre volcanic landscape
northeast of Mount Shasta, known for lava beds and caves. The
designation was sought by Northern California’s Pit River Tribe
to prevent geothermal power production at
tribally sacred sites. … In a statement, White House
spokesperson Harrison Fields cited the president’s pledge to
“liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal,
geothermal and mineral leasing.”
The Port of Los Angeles will need to clean up widespread water
contamination in the city’s harbor by shoring up sewage
treatment operations, according to a settlement approved by a
federal judge. The settlement was the result of
a lawsuit filed by the organization Environment
California last summer accusing the port of violating the
Clean Water Act by unleashing toxic pollutants
into the San Pedro Bay. The group maintained that the port
had conducted more than 2,000 illegal wastewater discharges in
the previous five years alone — releases that
routinely surpassed limits on fecal bacteria, copper and
other contaminants. The settlement approved on Tuesday
tasks the port with improving its management and treatment of
stormwater and groundwater,
through provisions requiring the elimination of fecal bacteria
from the groundwater.
The drama between two Kings County water entities continued
earlier this month as the manager of one threw shade on the
recharge policies of the other. Kings County Water District’s
boundaries are intertwined with the Mid-Kings River Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) but isn’t a member of the GSA after
an ugly break up last year when the water district pulled out
of a joint operating agreement, leaving Kings County and the
City of Hanford to pick up the pieces for a large chunk of the
subbasin. At the water district’s June 5 meeting, its General
Manager Dennis Mills questioned and criticized recharge
policies recently enacted by the re-formed Mid-Kings GSA board.
Adding to the complexity of the situation, two Kings County
Water District’s board members also sit on the Mid-Kings GSA
advisory group that vetted the very policies Mills was
concerned with.
In celebration of the largest dam removal project in U.S.
history, a group of native youths will embark today on a
kayaking descent of the Klamath River from its headwaters in
Southern Oregon 250 miles to its mouth in Northern California —
the first source-to-sea journey on the newly undammed river.
Decommissioning and razing four of the six dams along the
Klamath, which stood for more than a century and generated
hydroelectric power, took decades of advocacy from
environmentalists, fishing groups and in particular the
region’s indigenous tribes, who regard the mighty waterway,
with its historic salmon runs, as the pillar of life. Two
remaining dams on the river, both in Oregon, are being left
alone due to their importance managing flood water and
supporting agriculture. … Now, to commemorate the
milestone, about 30 young people belonging to tribal
communities across the Klamath River Basin are launching on a
monthlong expedition to see the powerful, freeflowing river in
its entirety.
The plight of a tiny community in eastern Colorado will soon be
the subject of a congressional hearing. Colorado U.S.
Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is coming to the aid of a small
water district in Morgan County, where toxic black sludge
passes for drinking water. The Prairie View Ranch Water
District is 50 miles northeast of the Denver metro area, and it
has been a colossal disaster 20 years in the making. Residents
say without drinkable water, their homes are
worthless. Boebert — who represents the residents in
Washington D.C. — is asking the House Appropriations Committee
for a $5 million grant to help overhaul the water
system. … Morgan County Board of County
Commissioners approved the water district as a private
for-profit company despite special districts being tax-exempt
public entities, allowing developers to run the district for 16
years while residents were in the dark.
… Having reported on water on the Monterey Peninsula for the
better part of the last decade, it’s remarkable to reflect on
what has transpired in that time: A political movement for
public water, a political movement to stop Cal Am’s
desal project in Marina, an innovative
recycled water project and its expansion, and
a conditional approval for Cal Am’s desal project, which is
still being litigated on multiple fronts. … How much
supply there is, and how much demand there will be by 2050, are
among the things still being debated regarding Cal Am’s desal
project (per a condition of approval from the California
Coastal Commission). It was finally scheduled to be voted upon
by the California Public Utilities Commission at a meeting in
Sacramento tomorrow, June 12. Late yesterday, Commissioner
Darcie Houck, who’s presiding over the proceeding, pulled it
from tomorrow’s meeting and rescheduled it for June
26. … The whole purpose behind these efforts has
been to lift the state’s cease-and-desist order that prohibits
Cal Am from setting new water meters. But it’s the State Water
Control Board that decides that. –Written by Monterey County Now columnist David
Schmalz.
Lake Tahoe is famous for its clear blue waters — but new
research suggests that clarity may come with a catch. A study
from the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center,
published in the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and
Oceanography, shows that ultraviolet radiation in Lake Tahoe
can vary by up to 100 times between wet and dry years. The
findings are based on 18 years of underwater data through 2023
and highlight how climate-driven weather swings — especially
between drought and heavy precipitation — are changing the
light that reaches beneath the surface, according to a release
from the University of California, Davis. The data shows
that during dry years, clearer water allows ultraviolet rays to
reach far deeper into the lake. … That shift has big
implications: UV radiation influences the lake’s carbon cycle,
affects aquatic organisms like zooplankton and fish and can
suppress photosynthesis, the foundation of the lake’s food web.
… Mesic meadows are often overlooked, especially when the
background consists of Colorado’s Alpine vistas, but these
seasonally wet areas serve as nature’s sponges throughout
habitats dominated by sagebrush. By holding water in the soil
and slowly releasing it throughout the growing season, they
help sustain the land long after the snow has melted and runoff
has subsided. … In a region increasingly affected by drought,
wildfires and climate uncertainty, these wet meadow systems are
more important than ever. … Unfortunately, many mesic
and riparian areas have suffered from decades of land use
practices that have left them scarred with erosion, incised
gullies and dropping water tables. The result? Drying meadows,
reduced wildlife habitat, and diminished forage for livestock.
Fortunately, local restoration initiatives aim to preserve
these mesic meadows and riparian zones in a pocket of the
greater Castle Peak area called Bohr Flats. –Written by Peder Franson, the watershed restoration
manager for the Eagle River Coalition.
The City of Rio Dell, in partnership with Caltrans and the
Clean California program has connected multiple communities
with a new trail path along the bank of the Eel River. A
ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted today at the Edwards trailhead
celebrated the natural beauty of the waterway and unveiled a
transformed portion of the riverfront. This $2.3 million Clean
California grant project installed a new quarter-mile paved
nonmotorized path that runs along the west bank of the Eel
River, linking previously unconnected city streets and
providing the first designated public access point to the
river. Interpretive monuments placed along the trail highlight
the river’s ecological and cultural importance, offering an
educational experience for residents and visitors. The City of
Rio Dell was also awarded nearly $198,000 in Clean California
grant funding for landscaping and recreation upgrades along
Wildwood Avenue.
Industries that need ultra-pure water — including
semiconductor, battery, pharmaceutical, food and beverage
companies — are expanding in Arizona. One of the most
overlooked challenges for these businesses is what gets left
behind in the pursuit of clean water: brine, the salty
byproduct of processes like reverse osmosis. For Shahnawaz
Sinha, an associate research professor in civil and
environmental engineering at Arizona State University, brine
isn’t just waste, it’s an opportunity. Through a partnership
with Nestlé and supported by ASU’s Arizona Water
Innovation Initiative and the Global Center for Water
Technology, Sinha is developing a mobile, closed-loop water
recovery demonstration facility that could change how
industries in the metro Phoenix area deal with brine. By
recovering another 50%–90% of previously unusable water from
industrial brine and reducing the remainder to solid salt, the
project aims to minimize waste and extract freshwater to
support Arizona’s economy and water resilience.
Last year, after the historic removal of four dams on the
Klamath River, thousands of salmon rushed
upstream into the long-blocked waters along the
California-Oregon border, seeking out the cold, plentiful flows
considered crucial to the fish’s future. The return of salmon
to their ancestral home was a fundamental goal of dam removal
and a measure of the project’s success. However, a problem
emerged. The returning salmon only got so far. Eight miles
upriver from the former dam sites lies a still-existing dam,
the 41-foot-tall Keno Dam in southern Oregon. The dam has a
fish ladder that’s supposed to help with fish passage, but it
didn’t prove to work. While many proponents of dam removal
say they’re thrilled with just how far the salmon got, most of
the 420 miles of waterways that salmon couldn’t reach before
the dam demolition still appear largely unreachable.
New subsidence guidelines from the Department of Water
Resources are expected to drop on San Joaquin Valley water
managers any day, a prospect that has them both hopeful and
worried. The intent of the guidelines is to provide clarity
within the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA), which requires overdrafted regions to
enact plans to bring aquifers into balance by 2040. One of
SGMA’s primary goals is to halt subsidence, land
sinking. Excessive groundwater pumping has caused huge
swaths of the San Joaquin Valley to sink, damaging canals,
roads and increasing flood risks. Some areas have collapsed on
such a large scale, the phenomenon can be seen from space,
earning the nickname “the Corcoran
bowl.” Subsidence, though, has been a tricky devil to
manage.
Denver Water will appeal a federal judge’s order barring the
utility from filling Gross Reservoir once the construction on
the new, higher dam is complete. The utility on Tuesday filed a
notice to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals stating it will
challenge U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello’s recent order
that prohibits the filling of the reservoir to take advantage
of the higher capacity until federal permitting processes are
redone. … The expanded reservoir would be triple the size of
the current body of water outside Nederland and add enough
water to serve about 156,000 more households.
… Environmental groups opposed the reservoir expansion
because it requires the clear-cutting of a half-million trees
and will cause the utility to draw more water from the
already-strained Colorado River system.
A major US government website supporting public education on
climate science looks likely to be shuttered after almost all
of its staff were fired, the Guardian has learned. Climate.gov,
the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (Noaa)’s Climate Program Office, will imminently
no longer publish new content, according to multiple former
staff responsible for the site’s content whose contracts were
recently terminated. … The contractor said they worry
that what may have begun as a heavy-handed attempt by
administration officials to limit public knowledge of
human-caused climate change will have broader impacts on public
education on the cyclical drivers of weather – as well as the
results of publicly funded research conducted by Noaa
scientists.
