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 typical American household consumes approximately 300
gallons of water daily. However, a segment of the population
still experiences water insecurity, a troubling trend that is
increasing and not limited to the southwestern United States. A
group of Arizona State University academics have documented
this emerging development in a new paper titled “When the
Household is the Utility: Ensuring Equitable Water Service for
Rural U.S. Communities Served by Decentralized Water Systems.”
Co-authored by Lee E. Voth-Gaeddert, a research professor
with the Biodesign Institute, and Claire Cropper, a PhD
student and researcher in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of
Engineering, the paper reveals that economically disadvantaged
populations and rural households that aren’t connected to piped
water are much more likely to experience water insecurity. In
terms of numbers, that’s roughly 12% of the U.S. population or
about 40 million people, Voth-Gaeddert and Cropper estimate.
A sudden storm over Lake Tahoe Saturday afternoon churned up
towering waves and fierce winds that capsized a boat, killing
eight people and injuring more. What happened in less than an
hour is now being called one of the deadliest weather-related
boating accidents in recent Tahoe history — and a powerful
reminder of how quickly and violently mountain weather can
change. This tragic event raises urgent questions: What caused
such extreme weather? Could anyone have predicted it? And is it
something that could happen again? … While detailed regional
modeling of Lake Tahoe’s summer thunderstorms is limited, major
climate assessments point to broader trends that could impact
storm behavior in the Sierra Nevada. … Findings suggest a
shift toward stronger, more abrupt convective storms. That has
implications for Lake Tahoe, where an afternoon downdraft
hitting warm lake air could generate sudden wind spikes and
dangerous waves similar to those seen on June 21.
Winter storms, combined with debris from the Park Fire, pushed
the Five-Mile basin in northeast Chico to its limits for flood
control. Butte County Public Works Director Josh Pack received
a nod from the Board of Supervisors during Tuesday’s meeting to
look into a job order contract to mitigate flood risk, ideally
before winter. Pack said the Five-Mile Sediment Removal Project
would consist of two phases with the first made up of any work
that can be completed this year and the second being the
long-term work next year and beyond. Pack said the goal of the
first phase is to begin work by Aug. 15, creating a strict
timeline to get the project rolling. … To help aid in
the project, Pack said U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)
helped secure $5.6 million in earmarked funding while state
Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) introduced a bill
that could expedite the work by exempting the project from the
California Environmental Quality Act and its required studies.
The United States Bureau of Reclamation celebrated the 80th
anniversary of the Shasta Dam and Powerplant’s completion, a
key element of California’s Central Valley Project. Acting
Regional Director Adam Nickels honored the 4,700 workers and
their families who contributed to this engineering milestone
from 1938 to 1945. … On June 20, 1945, the Bureau of
Reclamation officially took control of both the dam and power
plant from Pacific Constructors, Incorporated. Towering at 602
feet tall, Shasta Dam is the second-largest concrete dam in the
U.S., stretching 3,460 feet across the Sacramento River. It
required 6.5 million cubic yards of concrete, enough to circle
the Earth’s equator with a 3-foot-wide sidewalk.
… Shasta Reservoir, formed by the dam, is California’s
largest water storage facility, holding over 4.5 million
acre-feet of water.
A year of average precipitation gave California’s groundwater
supplies a significant boost, according to a state analysis
released Tuesday. California’s aquifers gained an estimated 2.2
million acre-feet of groundwater in the 12 months that ended
Sept. 30, the state’s 2024 water year. That’s about half the
storage capacity of Shasta Lake, California’s largest
reservoir. State officials said local agencies reported that
about 1.9 million acre-feet of water went underground as a
result of managed aquifer recharge projects designed to capture
stormwater and replenish groundwater. … Gov. Gavin
Newsom said California is collecting more groundwater data than
it has previously, and is continuing to prioritize efforts to
recharge aquifers. He said, however, that the state’s water
infrastructure is unprepared for the effects of climate change,
and he reiterated his support for building a water tunnel
beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
There’s a break in the clouds that have hovered over Colorado
River negotiations for more than a year. State water leaders
appear to be coalescing behind a new proposal for sharing the
river after talks were stuck in a deadlock for more than a
year. The river is used by nearly 40 million people across
seven states and Mexico, but it’s shrinking due to climate
change. As a result, state leaders need to rein in demand.
For months, they were mired in a standoff about how
to interpret a century-old legal agreement. The new proposal is
completely different. Instead of those states leaning on old
rules that don’t account for climate change, they’re proposing
a new system that divides the river based on how much water is
in it today. … The new plan says the amount should be
based on a three-year rolling average of the “natural flows” in
the river — basically, how much water would flow through it if
human dams and diversion weren’t in the way.
… On June 11, the California Energy Commission officially
approved the Darden Clean Energy Project, a sprawling solar
farm and battery storage facility proposed for a stretch of
fallow farmland in western Fresno County. Darden is the first
project approved under a new fast-track permitting program,
which gave the commission just 270 days to finish its
environmental review. …The land for the project, near Cantua
Creek, was once a productive site for agriculture. But droughts
and decades of farming have left the 9,500-acre area with dry
and alkaline soil. The Westlands Water District
currently owns the land and is shutting down irrigation on
it and other swaths of former farmland, aiming to
conserve water for areas with better dirt.
The United States Department of Agriculture on Monday announced
that it will rescind a decades-old rule that protects 58.5
million acres of national forestland from road construction and
timber harvesting. The USDA, which oversees the U.S. Forest
Service, said it will eliminate the 2001 “Roadless Rule” which
established lasting protection for specific wilderness areas
within the nation’s national forests. Research has found that
building roads can fragment habitats, disrupt ecosystems, and
increase erosion and sediment pollution in drinking
water, among other potentially harmful outcomes. In a
statement, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins described the rule —
which applies to about 30% of national forestland — as outdated
and overly restrictive. … More than 40 states are home
to areas protected by the rule. In California, that encompasses
about 4.4 million acres across 21 national forests, including
the Angeles, Tahoe, Inyo, Shasta-Trinity and Los Padres
national forests.
Caltrans has proposed a $500 million project to widen a wine
country highway that the agency said could be underwater in 25
years. Members of the California Transportation Commission will
decide at a public meeting beginning Thursday whether to award
Caltrans and local agencies a $73 million grant that would
cover some of the cost to widen Highway 37 — a roadway linking
Vallejo to Sears Point across the Napa Sonoma
Marsh, much of which is only one lane in each
direction. In the long term, Caltrans has a plan to replace the
current road with an elevated causeway that would move vehicles
above the wetlands below. That project would cost more than $10
billion and is not funded. To deal with Highway 37’s
bottleneck in the meantime, the agency has proposed a $500
million “interim project” to widen the existing roadway. The
state agency estimated that construction on the first half — a
$250 million eastbound lane — would finish in 2029. The plan,
Caltrans said, “does not address sea level rise.”
It’s been a little over a year since the Environmental
Protection Agency rolled out the first legally-enforceable
limits on some PFAS chemicals in drinking water. The
regulation came after years of research tying the human-made
chemicals to a range of health issues. … Under the EPA’s
first formal limits last year, drinking water can have no more
than four parts per trillion of the PFAS listed. … Tucson is
already in compliance. But (Tucson Water Director John) Kmiec
estimates the city has spent some $70 million of its own money
to get there. Additional federal funding came down for
communities nationwide last year — including a roughly $33
million for Tucson. That’ll be used to build a new treatment
plant Kmiec says will bring a handful of wells back online and
some 3.3 million gallons of drinking water back into the
system. … But some things are changing now, under the Trump
administration. A directive released by the EPA in May drops
four out of the six compounds listed in 2024. Only PFOA and
PFOS will remain regulated for now.
Seven people died and another person is missing after a boat
overturned near D.L. Bliss State Park at Lake Tahoe on Saturday
afternoon amid strong winds and rainy conditions. Elsewhere in
South Lake Tahoe, a number of boats crashed into each other and
came ashore near Camp Richardson. … The National Weather
Service in Reno noted in an early Saturday morning update that
occasional showers and thunderstorms were expected through the
afternoon around the Tahoe Basin and north of Highway 50, but
pegged those chances at 10-20%. Another update at 1:12 p.m.
also noted the chance for afternoon showers and thunderstorms.
NOAA/National Weather Service Meteorologist in Charge Chris
Smallcomb said the weather event that occurred on the lake that
afternoon was “sudden, localized and of limited
predictability.” It briefly produced wind gusts of 45 mph, he
said. … Below is how Smallcomb responded to KCRA’s
questions about Saturday’s event.
Anaheim’s ambitious push to turn the often-dry Santa
Ana River into a river walk with ample water and
activities for the public is estimated to cost $200 million,
according to a city budget overview. OC River Walk would add
inflatable rubber dams to the Santa Ana River
near Angel Stadium to create a riverbed with standing water.
Along the Santa Ana River, the city would construct new park
space with trails and terrace steps for what’s envisioned as a
destination for the region. City spokesperson Mike Lyster said
the $200 million figure is an estimate of what it would cost to
build today, but there are no plans to begin construction
anytime soon. The big costs are building the dam system,
embankments and a pedestrian bridge. Currently, city officials
are studying the project with grant support from other levels
of government and a nonprofit. Where new trails and bridges
might go is all to be determined. The city anticipates studies
on planning and design will take through at least 2030 and has
the funding identified for that.
California’s June 7-8 Ocean salmon season offered some of the
best fishing many longtime anglers can remember. Fast action,
quick limits and bustling harbors characterized the weekend
along much of the coast with a hot salmon bite reported as far
south as San Luis Obispo County. Excellent ocean conditions
from Crescent City all the way down to Avila Beach allowed
anglers to get out both days and try to catch the iconic sport
fish in ocean waters for the first time since 2022. … The
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) estimates
9,165 Chinook salmon were taken statewide by 10,505 anglers
aboard both charter vessels and private skiffs, achieving the
summer fishery harvest guideline of 7,000 Chinook. On
recommendation from CDFW and industry, the National Marine
Fisheries Service took in-season action today to close the
remaining summer dates of July 5-6, July 31-August 3, and
August 25-31.
Drought doesn’t just affect Utah’s lakes, rivers, and streams —
it also affects the fish who live in them, requiring more
thought and care from anglers this summer. While fish can’t
drown in quite the way people can, it is possible for them to
suffocate in the water when there isn’t enough dissolved
oxygen. And unfortunately for Utah’s fish, drought means not
only less water, but less dissolved oxygen in the water. …
That doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t or shouldn’t fish
during a drought — in fact, at Crouse Reservoir, anglers are
currently allowed to harvest more fish than usual, since
extremely low water levels have led to fears fish won’t
survive. … That means following some best management
practices when practicing catch and release to make sure the
fish can recover, including going earlier in the day, pinching
down the barbs on hooks, and minimizing the time you’re
fighting the fish or have them out of the water.
… Efforts in Montecito have become an emblem of how
communities can come together after storms to rebuild a
resilient town ahead of future climate-driven disasters. …
Montecito officials and residents took a multifaceted response
to rebuilding after the 2018 debris flow, including a
realisation that new safety initiatives had to be adopted.
… The Flood Control District started regularly walking
debris basins that had been built in the 1960s after the
previous damaging mudslides, and using drones to spot any
debris needed for removal by bulldozers and trucks. Sediment
would have normally washed to the sea on its own but now gets
stuck in the basins. The county implemented a routine of
removing some of the larger sediment flows to nearby beaches as
part of an “emergency beach nourishment” programme, to help
keep the basins clear. They are also in touch with other
communities that might need sediment for uses such as a coastal
dune restoration site. While it was at first met with
criticism … because it de-beautified some of the community’s
beaches, the removal allowed the basins to stay open for future
storms.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has initiated an
administrative order on consent with Radius Recycling Inc. in
response to alleged Clean Water Act violations at the
company’s metal recycling facility in West Oakland, California.
The order targets the site’s discharge of pollutants into the
Oakland Inner Harbor and San Francisco Bay in violation of the
facility’s permit under the Clean Water Act. In January,
EPA signed a memorandum of understanding with Radius Recycling,
the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), other
state regulators and a community organization to address the
impacts of the company’s metal shredding operation on the West
Oakland community. … Radius will install a granular activated
carbon treatment unit capable of reducing metals below effluent
limitations. Radius also will develop and implement a Water
Pollution Prevention Plan that increases inspections of the
site and strengthens cleaning and maintenance measures.
On May 29, 2025, in a decision long-awaited by project
developers, the Supreme Court issued Seven County
Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, which
clarified the proper scope of review and deference to be
afforded to agency decisionmaking under the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This decision reinforces
longstanding Supreme Court holdings and may help improve the
NEPA process by providing support for agencies to focus their
NEPA reviews on impacts associated with their authorizations.
… The decision is also noteworthy for its commentary on
how NEPA litigation has negatively impacted project
development. The Court noted that project opponents may not
always be motivated by their concern for the environment,
instead using NEPA to prevent new infrastructure
projects.
Nearly two-thirds of California was “abnormally dry” as the
state braced for more hot, dry weather and strong winds,
according to the U.S. Drought Monitor’s latest update. About a
third of the Golden State was experiencing “moderate” to
“exceptional” drought conditions as of Thursday, June 19, the
U.S. Drought Monitor said, with Southern California and parts
of the Central Valley getting hit the
hardest. … Recent hot spells and dryness have
“manifested in rapidly developing soil moisture shortages,
declining prospects for summer water supplies, an elevated
wildfire threat, a boost in irrigation demands and increased
stress on rain-fed crops,” researchers wrote in a weekly
national drought summary. Bouts of warm weather have resulted
in the rapid drying and early melting of the snow pack, leading
to “a variety of agricultural and water-supply issues and
concerns.”
The Senate on Wednesday approved a package of bills from the
Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including legislation
to shore up Colorado River water supplies and
to expand a national park. Both Nevada Democratic Sen.
Catherine Cortez Masto and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa
Murkowski praised the bipartisan package. “I am hopeful that
the Senate can pass more of these similar, very
noncontroversial bills through the unanimous consent process,”
Murkowski said on the Senate floor. … The measures include S.
154, the “Colorado River Basin System Conservation
Extension Act,” from Colorado Democratic Sens. John
Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet. That bill would renew a $125
million effort to reduce water use in the Upper Basin of the
Colorado River. That region covers parts of Colorado, New
Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The Arizona House is taking up the so-called “Ag to Urban
bill.” The Senate approved the bipartisan measure Thursday.
Also known as Senate Bill 1611, the measure provides what
Senate Natural Resources Chair Thomas “T.J.” Shope calls
solutions to Arizona’s most pressing issues: groundwater
protection and skyrocketing home prices due to low supply.
Under the bill, farmers would be allowed to sell their land and
water rights to developers who will in turn build for-sale
housing to meet the needs of Arizona’s growing population. In a
press release, Shope, who’s also the Senate president pro
tempore, called this “the most consequential piece of
groundwater legislation” in decades. ”An analysis of the
Ag-to-Urban program by the Arizona Department of Water
Resources reveals our state will save 9.6-million-acre feet of
water over the next 100 years,” said the Republican senator.
