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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One of the rarest species on Earth, the Devils
Hole pupfish, came close to extinction in recent months,
thanks to an earthquake 500 miles from their deep desert cave.
Now, worried scientists and divers are taking unprecedented
steps to save the 38 remaining fish. … A few years
ago, a mat was laid on the rock shelf of Devil’s Hole to
collect pupfish eggs. Those eggs were then transferred to a
replica of the cave built in nearby Ash Meadows Fish
Conservation Facility. The fake Devil’s Hole contained the same
92-degree water and spawning shelf. There, in captivity, a
backup colony of pupfish was bred. Nineteen of those captive
fish were carefully brought into the cave in recent weeks.
3D printing has opened up new possibilities across multiple
fields, from food production to housing. Now, its use in
designing the next generation of sustainable technologies could
be a game-changer. Microbial electrochemical systems have
broad applications for green tech, including wastewater
treatment, energy generation, and chemical synthesis, as a
report by SciTechDaily explained. These devices leverage
microorganisms to transfer electrons, and MES can both degrade
pollutants and generate electricity, making them a
future-forward tool for sustainable design. Among the
advantages of using 3D printing for MES is the ability to
rapidly prototype and customize reactor designs, as the report
detailed. This gives researchers the flexibility to optimize
fluid dynamics and mass transfer within the reactors, helping
improve performance.
Facing the continued collapse of Chinook salmon, officials
today shut down California’s commercial salmon fishing season
for an unprecedented third year in a row. Under the
decision by an interstate fisheries agency, recreational salmon
fishing will be allowed in California for only brief windows of
time this spring. This will be the first year that any
sportfishing of Chinook has been allowed since 2022. … The
decline of California’s salmon follows decades of deteriorating
conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year,
including the Sacramento and Klamath rivers.
The Trump administration has proposed nearly $1.7 billion in
cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
that, if passed by Congress, could decimate funding to critical
climate and extreme weather research and fundamentally change
the structure of the agency. The proposal would cut more than
$480 million from NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Research, according to a White House document obtained by the
Chronicle. … The proposed budget would eliminate
funding for NOAA’s six regional climate centers, which provide
and manage unique environmental data to different parts of the
United States based on regionally-specific weather and climate
hazards. The Western Regional Climate Center
monitors and researches drought,
precipitation, wildfire smoke and other natural
hazards in California and eight other states.
Four Northern California farm bureaus are making a plea to the
Donald Trump administration, urging it to halt PG&E’s plan
to dismantle a key piece of water infrastructure. The counties
say they need time to craft a strategy to protect public
health, the local economy and their communities.
… Environmentalists and Eel River advocates say it’s
time to rip out the century-old Potter Valley Project and let
the Eel River run wild again. For decades, dams like Scott
and Cape Horn have choked the river, blocking salmon from ideal
spawning grounds and turning cold mountain water into warm,
fish-killing reservoirs, they argue. … Yet for residents
and farmers, the looming loss of reliable summer water has
sparked alarm. Without Scott Dam and Lake Pillsbury to store
water year-round, the region would be left at the mercy of
rainfall. “Summertime access to water, which is eminent today,
will not be an option,” the farm bureaus warned.
Wednesday marks one full year since the state brought the
“hammer” down on Kings County farmers for pumping so much
groundwater it sank a vast area that could be seen from space,
nicknamed “the Corcoran bowl.” In the year since the Water
Resources Control Board put the Tulare Lake subbasin on
probation for lacking a plan that would, among other things,
stop excessive pumping that is causing land to collapse taking
an entire town with it, state actions were halted by a lawsuit,
injunction and appeal. … The legal actions have put a
wall between Water Board staff and Kings County water managers
but that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening. While state
well registration, reporting and fee sanctions are on hold,
just about every groundwater sustainability agency in the
subbasin has implemented its own version of those measures.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday denied reports
that Mexico had capitulated to U.S. demands for immediate water
deliveries required by a 1944 treaty that allocates surface
water along their shared border. One of the reports, published
by the Mexican newspaper Reforma, stated that the Coahuila dam
“La Amistad” had increased its extractions by
600%. Calling the published reports “false,” Sheinbaum
said her administration is negotiating with northern states to
send more water to the U.S. while recognizing that pervasive
drought conditions have made it impossible to keep up with
deliveries. “Talks are underway with the governors of
Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Chihuahua to reach a joint agreement
to determine how much water can be delivered … without
affecting Mexican producers, while also complying with the 1944
treaty,” Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that EPA, the Interior and Energy
Departments and other agencies unlawfully froze funds under
Democrats’ climate and infrastructure spending laws, ordering
the agencies to immediately resume disbursing the money. The
ruling from Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for
the District of Rhode Island, who was named to the bench by
President Donald Trump in 2019, comes on the eve of an expected
decision from another judge in Washington on whether EPA
lawfully terminated $20 billion in climate grants. That case
and other litigation are part of a complex web of lawsuits over
frozen funds and terminated grants playing out in multiple
courts.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will allocate $3
million to help homeowners near the Eaton burn area test for
lead contamination, after preliminary tests found elevated
levels of the heavy metal on homes standing after the fire.
… “Without adequate soil testing, contaminants caused by
the fire can remain undetected, posing risks to returning
residents, construction workers, and the environment,” the
state’s Office of Emergency Services director Nancy Ward wrote
in a February letter to FEMA. “Failing to identify and
remediate these fire-related contaminants may expose
individuals to residual substances during rebuilding efforts
and potentially jeopardize groundwater and surface
water quality.”
A gorgeous California city has been plagued with a foul
odor due to a stomach-churning problem in the Tijuana
River. The stink started after Mexico announced
it was forced to dump around five million gallons a day of
sewage into the river. Mexico is attempting to replace a
section of an ageing sewage pipeline with a newer one made of
concrete. … The US side of the (International Boundary
and Water Commission) said Mexico had informed them that the
decision to dump five million gallons of wastewater a day into
the river was a ‘difficult decision,’ but there were no other
alternatives to fixing the sewage problem. On Thursday,
the IBWC said that even though the sewage dump was ‘bad news,’
the decision was the best way to prevent wastewater from
polluting the Tijuana River long-term. The construction
project is on the Mexico side of the river and will be split
into two phases, scheduled to be completed by April 17.
A barrage of atmospheric river events that swept across
California during the winter and spring has left the state
well-positioned when it comes to water storage. As the
peak of the snowmelt season begins to slow down, the majority
of California’s major reservoirs are at least 90% full – a
promising sign for a state that frequently battles drought and
associated wildfires. Shasta Lake, California’s largest
reservoir, was last reported to be at around 95% capacity,
surpassing its historical average by 117%. The reservoir
affects 35 California counties and plays a crucial role in
managing water for the Sacramento and San Joaquin River
watersheds. … Just as notable is Diamond Valley Lake,
located about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles in Southern
California. According to data from the California
Department of Water Resources, the water basin was at 97% of
capacity and 128% above its historical average.
Other water supply and snowmelt news around the West:
New research has identified hotspots in the US with concerning
levels of water quality and poor access to clean drinking
water, revealing that Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and
Washington had the most water quality violations across the
board. The paper, published Tuesday in the journal Risk
Analysis, also developed county-level scores across most of the
country for unequal access to safe and clean drinking water,
finding that eight of the 10 counties with the worst “water
injustice” scores were in Mississippi, with the other two in
Texas and South Dakota. … “You can see some pretty stark
differences between states,” said study lead author Alex Segrè
Cohen, a social scientist at the University of Oregon. In
Arizona, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, “almost every county
has high water violation scores,” she said.
… At the beginning of the 20th century, Frederick McKay, a
young dentist in Colorado Springs, noticed that his patients’
teeth showed unsightly browning — now known as fluorosis, a
consequence of exposure to too much fluoride. At the same time,
those patients’ teeth were far more resistant to dental decay
than those of people in nearby towns, whose teeth looked
better. … As for natural contamination of the kind that
Colorado Springs experienced, it’s estimated that more than
100,000 people in the United States get their water from wells
with naturally excessive fluoride levels. You’d think that the
folks calling to end fluoridation would also be unveiling a
comprehensive plan to help people make sure their private water
sources are safe. Yet Kennedy has not done so. Why not? A
better question might be why now? Why the sudden urge to talk
about fluoride? I think the answer may lie somewhere quite far
afield. In Texas, actually. -Written by Zeynep Tufekci, a professor of sociology and
public affairs at Princeton University and a New York Times
Opinion columnist.
Inactive ingredients in agricultural, pharmaceutical, and other
common products have typically been excluded from consideration
as potential contaminants in drinking water. However, while
these chemicals are inert in certain products, they can still
pose hazards when combined with other materials during the
drinking water treatment process. A new study from researchers
in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University
in St. Louis reveals how large this impact might be. …
(Graduate student Jean) Brownell discovered that inactive
amines, which are used as stabilizing agents in herbicides to
increase solubility and reduce drift, may be more important
than active agents in herbicides when it comes to forming
disinfection byproducts (DBPs) linked to various health risks,
though the impacts vary by region and time. The results were
published in the April 15 issue of Water Research.
Along the U.S.–Mexico border in Arizona, the Cocopah Indian
Tribe is accustomed to change. Over centuries, they have seen
borders drawn that intersect their homeland. They’ve watched
their traditional way of life adapt and survive with each new
generation. The Cocopah are known as “the river people,” a name
given long before the Colorado River was diverted through
modern canals and dams. As the water disappeared, so did sacred
animals that dwelled in the riverside habitat. … To reconnect
to this cultural power source, the Cocopah have partnered with
the National Audubon Society on two significant restoration
projects on the reservation’s North and West sections. Federal
grant funding is helping the Tribe transform more than 400
acres in the Colorado River floodplain.
The Leucadia Wastewater District (LWD) has visited two
Encinitas Union School District campuses this year to provide
an engaging lesson on water conservation and how they play a
vital role in protecting our oceans. Students at La Costa
Heights and Capri got a behind-the-scenes look at how water is
managed after it leaves their homes and LWD field service
technicians showed off their line-cleaning truck and
demonstrated how a closed-circuit TV robot inspects sewer lines
across northern Encinitas and southern Carlsbad. La Costa
Heights teacher Jessica Caldararo and Capri teacher Nancy Jois
applied for grants from LWD for their educational initiatives,
using the funds for these demonstrations as part of their water
conservation units.
Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed new legislation that will
provide more than $170 million in state funding to help prevent
wildfires while signing an order aimed at speeding up the work
by easing environmental permitting. The funding — which
the Democratic governor said was part of a broader effort to
better protect communities ahead of peak fire season — comes as
the state is under extraordinary pressure after the January
infernos that devastated Los Angeles communities…. Authorized
as part of a fast-tracked, early action budget
bill approved by the Legislature, the funds will be paid
to six conservancies throughout California. The agencies,
which operate under the governor’s Resources Agency, will
manage the removal of vegetation and thinning of forests within
their regions.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is dusting off a
114-year-old court ruling to argue the utility can’t be sued
for not providing enough water to fight the monstrous Pacific
Palisades fire because it didn’t have a contract to do so.
Attorneys from Munger, Tolles & Olson, a Los Angeles law firm,
are relying on a 1911 California Supreme Court decision to
defend the LADWP against multiple lawsuits blaming the utility
for running out of water to fight the blaze that started Jan.
7. Simply put, attorneys argue, the utility didn’t have a
contract to provide the water. “California courts have long
rejected attempts to hold water utilities liable for a failure
to provide water to fight fires, absent some specific contract
to do so,” wrote LADWP lawyers in a document submitted to the
court.
Last month, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD)
celebrated a rebound of native fish in the Big Sandy water
basin after 20 years of planning and treatment. The project
aimed to restore populations of flannelmouth suckers and
bluehead suckers, which are listed as species of greatest
conservation need in Wyoming and the Colorado River Basin. …
When the dams were built in the 1950s, they trapped some of the
large river species that were upstream from returning to the
Colorado River. As most Colorado River
tributaries were dammed, these species struggled to reproduce,
which resulted in declining populations throughout the mountain
states. … This project focused on removing illegally
introduced burbot, which were eating the smaller native
suckers, and invasive suckers, which were hybridizing with the
native suckers.
The tenth anniversary of the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA) last year put a spotlight on the challenges of
implementing this landmark legislation. Agencies in both the
San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys scaled up efforts to
replenish aquifers in recent years, but they still need ways to
better harness the water received in wet years. Spreading
water on privately owned land so it can penetrate the soil and
refill below-ground aquifers — a process known as groundwater
recharge — is one way to make the most of surplus water when
it’s available. This can include methods such as spreading
water on farmland or on land that’s set aside solely for
recharge. Landowners may recharge using their own water and
land, an irrigation district’s water on their private land, or
their own water on an irrigation district’s land.
