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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… In an order issued Thursday, (Interior Secretary Doug)
Burgum put Tyler Hassen, who came to the Interior Department as
a representative of the U.S. DOGE Service, in charge of a
sweeping effort to “create significant efficiencies” and
eliminate “redundant efforts” across the department. Hassen’s
broad portfolio includes IT, human resources, training,
financial management, international affairs, contracting,
communications and other tasks. … Hassen’s decisions
could have major implications for how Interior — which is
responsible for maintaining national parks, protecting
endangered species, and overseeing drilling in public lands and
waters — operates going forward. … One
of Hassen’s first tasks after President Donald Trump’s
inauguration was visiting a Northern California water pumping
station to push one of Trump’s long-standing priorities:
rerouting water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other
parts of the state.
Humans have the technology to literally make snow fall from the
clouds. In the drought-stricken Southwest, where the
Colorado River needs every drop of water it
can get, there are calls to use it more. Utah, home to the
nation’s largest cloud seeding program, is at the crossroads of
the technology’s past and future. The state has become a
proving ground for cloud seeding in the West, with water
managers, private sector investors, and conspiracy theorists
keeping a close eye on their progress. … Utah’s
cloud seeding program is being closely watched by others around
the region. Its efforts cover more ground than any other state
in the nation, and it has one of the strongest bases of state
funding. For that reason, other water-short states in the
Western U.S. are keeping an eye on how much return on
investment Utah is getting from a $5 million annual cloud
seeding budget and those efficiency-boosting tech upgrades.
The websites
for four regional climate centers funded
by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or
NOAA, returned to service Monday after
an outage linked to expired contracts, according to
service notifications. The sites shut last week after a funding
lapse compromised NOAA’s contracts with the research
universities that operate the centers, which provide custom
weather analysis tools across 27 states. The Southern Regional
Climate Center, housed at Texas A&M University, is
receiving “stopgap” funding to restore service, director John
Nielsen-Gammon said in an interview Monday, with a full-year
contract extension expected to come sometime in the next
several weeks.
Following in the footsteps of other federal science agencies
under President Donald Trump’s administration, the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week ordered its
staff to start canceling grants already awarded to universities
and research institutes, according to an agency source and an
email seen by Science. Although EPA is not a large funder of
R&D compared with other federal agencies, it does provide
$35 million to $40 million each year to researchers studying
the impacts of pollution and ways to reduce them. The internal
email, sent between senior agency administrators, gave no
reason for scrapping the grants, but the Trump administration
has also been downsizing EPA activities in other ways. Since
Trump took office, EPA has scrapped $1.5 billion in grants for
environmental justice and frozen $20 billion in funding for
clean energy and efficiency programs.
The state of California has adopted a new framework to
coordinate a response to the recent discovery of golden
mussels, an invasive species that can wreak havoc on local
ecosystems. … In December 2024, the California Fish and
Game Commission voted to list golden mussels as a restricted
species. To help contain and suppress the invasive shellfish,
the California state government has unveiled a comprehensive
Golden Mussel Response Framework. … Among the measures
called for in the framework are an investigation into how
golden mussels can spread, increased inspection and
decontamination of watercraft, and an education campaign.
(From news release:) Anticipated water demands for Klamath
Project water contractors are likely to be met as the Klamath
Basin hydrology pivots from consecutive years of drought.
Described in the 2025
Klamath Project Annual Operations Plan, today’s
initial water supply allocations from the Bureau of Reclamation
are based on modeled estimates of water available for
irrigation delivery and incorporate current reservoir storage,
precipitation, and snowpack, as well as projected inflow
forecasts. … The 2025 Plan is used as a planning and
information tool by water users and details the volume of water
available for Project irrigated agriculture as well as water
reserved to meet Endangered Species Act requirements in the
Klamath River and Upper Klamath Basin.
On a stormy spring day, Devon Peña stood atop a
sagebrush-covered hill and looked down on Colorado’s San Luis
Valley. Dark clouds had unleashed a deluge just a few hours
earlier, but now they hovered over the mountains, veiling the
summits above. Below, rows of long, narrow fields extended from
Culebra Creek toward a man-made channel, the main artery of the
valley’s centuries-old “acequia” irrigation system. This was
the “People’s Ditch,” a waterway holding the oldest continuous
water right in Colorado. … The acequia system was once
dismissed by Western water managers. But as a changing climate
brings increasing drought and aridification to the Southwest,
time-tested solutions like this one could hold the key to
mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, especially in
rural communities.
Microplastics, tiny plastic particles found in everyday
products from face wash to toothpaste, are an emerging threat
to health and ecology, prompting a research team to identify
what keeps them trapped in stream ecosystems. Everyday
actions like washing synthetic clothing and driving, which
wears down tires, contribute to an accumulation of
microplastics in environments from city dust to waterways.
These plastics often carry toxic chemicals that can threaten
the health of humans and wildlife.”We are the key source of
microplastics,” said Shannon Speir, assistant professor and
researcher in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food
and Life Sciences, and for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment
Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System
Division of Agriculture.
… This month, the (University of Colorado Boulder) team
published a new study, led by Eckland, in Water Resources
Research. The analysis draws on their 2021 field season and
parses information about sediment and organic carbon in river
water for a surprising result. Reservoirs like Elephant Butte
may sequester organic carbon within layers of sediment,
especially during periods of drought and flash floods.
Essentially, the reservoir acts as a carbon sink, trapping
organic material that would otherwise emit carbon dioxide
through natural decay. The explanation lies in physics.
Normally, when water flows into a reservoir, it spreads out
over the surface. But if the river picks up enough sediment,
the process flips upside down. Instead of the river water
fanning out on top, an underwater current plunges it downward.
Scientists call this a “hyperpycnal plume.”
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta
filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of President Donald
Trump’s broad imposition of tariffs on imported goods … but
California’s economy was already sluggish. … California’s
largest-in-the-nation agricultural industry, including its
famous winemaking sector, is also shrinking, largely due to
uncertain water supplies, labor shortages and the same high
costs for electricity and fuel that the logistics industry
faces. The Public Policy Institute of California has estimated
that, “even in the best-case scenario, some 500,000 acres may
need to be fallowed in the San Joaquin Valley” due
to restrictions on pumping irrigation water from
underground aquifers. –Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters
The mountain yellow-legged frogs of Yosemite National Park are
in an epic fight for survival. Theirs is a tale of devastation
and redemption, luck and suspense, and amphibians in
helicopters. And in an era of grim headlines about the state of
nature, a recent UC study about them offers a rare glimmer of
hope: These frogs, which were plagued nearly to extinction by a
deadly fungus just a few years ago, are now poised for a
comeback. This Earth Day, we’re celebrating stories from the
past year of UC research that illustrate the resilience of life
on our planet and demonstrate the power of humans to help solve
problems of our own making.
Knights Ferry has a major drinking water problem in its small
water system, and it’s had it for a long time. The residents
have largely learned to live with the near constant leaks,
equipment failures and sporadic shutoffs. The community was
established in the 1850s on the northeastern edge of Stanislaus
County. Home to the longest covered bridge west of the
Mississippi and a park run by the Army Corps of Engineers, it’s
a destination by out-of-towners for recreational opportunities
and preserved Gold Rush-era history.
On a hot day, there’s nothing quite like a refreshing drink of
water. But how would you feel if that water was sourced from
the sewer? As cities across the West brace for a drier future,
they’re investing in advanced water purification technology. It
flushes out the contaminants in wastewater so that the murky
stuff that goes down your toilet can eventually come out ready
to drink at your sink. “There’s a lot of uncertainty here in
terms of water resources, so we think that this is that next
bucket of water that we need to tap into,” said Nazario Prieto,
assistant director of Phoenix Water Services. The city of 1.6
million people is building its first advanced water
purification plant that could eventually process up to 15
million gallons of wastewater a day.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) and Foster Poultry Farms
have reached a settlement of the lawsuit filed against Foster
Poultry Farms in 2020. ALDF’s complaint alleged that Foster
Poultry Farms unreasonably uses water to slaughter and process
chickens at its poultry-processing plant in Livingston,
California in violation of Article X, section 2 of the
California Constitution, which mandates that all water use in
the State of California must be reasonable. While Foster
Poultry Farms completely denies ALDF’s allegations regarding
its water use and animal welfare practices, it has agreed to
continue to work to improve water conservation and animal
welfare at its Livingston poultry-processing plant, which is
the largest chicken poultry-processing plant on the West Coast.
Construction on a $2 billion levee project that will
effectively protect more than a third of Stocktonians’ homes
from flooding kicked off this week. Local government
officials took part in a groundbreaking ceremony Friday off
March Lane at the Tenmile Slough in Brookside to launch the
Lower San Joaquin River Improvement Project. … The first
phase of the project, slated for completion in late 2026, will
see improvements made to just over a mile of the Tenmile Slough
levee, which sits directly in the backyard of many homes in the
Brookside area of west Stockton, according to a presentation on
the project’s overview. About one mile of the levee will be
upgraded to have a seepage cutoff wall, which is an added layer
of material preventing water seeping through or under the
levee.
In a major twist, the Donald Trump administration is now
reviewing regional appeals to halt PG&E’s plans to
dismantle the Potter Valley Project. … In an April
14 letter, the Bureau of Reclamation responded to an inquiry
from Aaron Sykes, a board member of the Lake Pillsbury
Alliance, which represents the homeowners and stakeholders
fighting to keep Scott Dam, the structure that holds back Lake
Pillsbury. In the letter, which was reviewed by SFGATE, the
federal agency said funding for the project is “undergoing
reviews” to ensure it aligns with an executive order President
Donald Trump signed on his first day in office that directs the
government to explore any “undue burden” on the “use of
domestic energy resources” including, oil, coal and hydropower.
With drought conditions worsening in southern Utah, Gov.
Spencer Cox says he’s working on issuing an emergency
declaration. Despite northern Utah seeing average snow
this year, counties in the south are exceptionally dry. Cox
said he’s currently working with local officials on the
declaration, which could extend to a handful of counties in the
southwestern corner of Utah that have seen a meager snowpack
this winter. … Statewide, the snow water equivalent —
which is basically the amount of water currently in the
snowpack — is at about 78% of normal, according to the Natural
Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, which tracks the
snowpack at sites around the state. Much of northern Utah is
between that or higher, with Snowbird’s site at 96%, and a site
in Big Cottonwood Canyon at 115%.
For decades, residents of Bakersfield have lived with a river
that’s little more than a channel of dust. The Kern, which
pours from the snowy peaks of the southern Sierra, descends
upon California’s ninth-largest city and, in all but the
wettest of years, runs dry. A sandy, weed-strewn corridor is
left winding unremarkably through the downtown, beside roads,
beneath bridges and behind businesses. … A group of
residents is trying to change that. Cooper and dozens of others
are fighting to bring water back to the Kern River, hoping to
create a lush, parklike centerpiece in a city best known for
the sunbaked oil fields and farms that surround it. It
isn’t an easy go. The river’s waters are already largely
accounted for, some serving the municipal needs of Bakersfield
and nearby communities, but most drawn for agriculture, the
engine of the regional economy.
A senate bill has been introduced to the Nevada legislature
this session that could prohibit the sale of plastic water
bottles in Nevada Lake Tahoe communities, if passed. The bill
is similar to the City of South Lake Tahoe’s ordinance that
went into effect on Earth Day of last year and the Town of
Truckee’s ordinance, taking effect this upcoming Earth Day.
Both ban the sale of certain plastic water bottles and both
municipalities lie on the California side of Lake Tahoe.
Senate Bill 324 would introduce similar restrictions in
communities that abut the Nevada portion of the Lake Tahoe
Watershed. The proposed bills prohibits sale of disposable
plastic water bottles under four liters.
Upon joining the faculty at UC Davis, Hap (Dunning) initiated a
course in water law, which became his passion and the focus of
the rest of his professional career. In the late 1970s, he
served as executive officer of the Governor’s Commission to
Review California Water Rights Law. He later served on the
California Water Commission and the Bay Delta Advisory Council,
and he sat on the board of directors of several nonprofits,
including among others The Bay Institute of San Francisco, the
Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and the Tuolumne River
Trust. Much of his scholarship dealt with the application of
the public trust doctrine to water rights. In its landmark
decision on that topic in 1983, the California Supreme Court
cited the papers from a major conference Hap organized at UC
Davis in 1980. (Dunning also served on the Water
Education Foundation’s Board of Directors from
1997-2014.)
