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 major heat wave expected in California’s Central Valley
this weekend will bring triple-digit temperatures and increased
fire risk, a harbinger for what figures to be another scorching
summer. And this year the typically cool coastal areas may not
be spared, raising the possibility of even more widely spread
wildfires for a state long beleaguered by
them. … AccuWeather senior meteorologist Scott
Homan said the chances of wildfires will also be heightened,
especially in Southern California after it received
below-average precipitation in the winter and early spring.
Most of the region is in a drought, and
significant parts are in extreme drought. …The National
Interagency Fire Center noted the snowpack has
been melting faster than usual amid warm weather in the West
and will dissipate by late June even in mountain areas that had
large accumulations, removing a barrier to wildfire spread over
the summer.
Researchers have found that pollutants in the Tijuana River,
which carries raw sewage and industrial waste from Tijuana, are
also turning up in the air along the coast near the U.S.-Mexico
border. After collecting samples from air and water along the
coast, scientists from UC San Diego determined that fine
particles of various pollutants from wastewater are in the air
in parts of San Diego County. They found that sea spray
aerosols contain illicit drugs and drug byproducts that occur
in human urine, as well as chemicals from tires and personal
care products. The researchers said the pollutants are carried
in wastewater and stormwater runoff, and become airborne in
spray where the river meets the crashing waves near the border.
Pollutants also likely enter the air from churning waters in
the river itself, they said.
Six years after first announcing plans to walk away from
the Potter Valley Project, Pacific Gas
and Electric Company has finally revealed the staggering price
tag for dismantling the century-old hydroelectric facility:
$532 million. That’s the estimated cost PG&E submitted to
state regulators on May 15, a half-billion-dollar teardown that
will be funded by PG&E customers, many of whom also risk
losing the year-round water supply the system delivers to
600,000 people across Northern
California. … Now, with the Potter Valley Project
slated for removal, a replacement is already on the drawing
board. The New Eel-Russian Facility, led by
the Eel-Russian Project Authority, commonly referred to as
ERPA, would be built near Cape Horn Dam to keep water flowing
while restoring the Eel River’s natural processes.
The final listening session focusing on a controversial water
rule will be held Thursday in Salt Lake City to give Utah
residents a chance to weigh in. Called the Waters of the United
States, or WOTUS, the hotly contested issue
has wrangled its way up to the U.S. Supreme
Court. … An Obama-era rule issued in 2015 as an
outgrowth of a Supreme Court decision was lauded by
environmental activists and conservation groups as the most
significant and impressive overhaul of the Clean Water
Act in 42 years. … Supporters of WOTUS say it
is meant to protect the benefits of water for all people of the
United States to enjoy, not just individual property owners.
The rule, however, was derided by states, private property
owners and ranchers as regulatory overreach that stretched the
meaning of words like navigable, near or adjacent.
LAO Bottom Line: We recommend deferring action on both
proposals, without prejudice. These policy issues do not have
budget implications. Deferring action would allow the
Legislature more time and capacity for sufficient consideration
of the potential benefits, implications, and trade-offs. Below,
we describe the proposals and note some key issues for the
Legislature to keep in mind when it considers these
proposals.
A Colorado cactus once thought vulnerable to oil shale
development has now become the first plant to be removed from
Endangered Species Act protections during the
current Trump administration. Crediting a mix of “ongoing
conservation efforts” and “improved scientific data,” the Fish
and Wildlife Service announced its final decision to delist the
previously threatened Colorado hookless cactus. The move
completes a proposal initiated by the Biden administration in
2023. “We determined that oil shale deposit development and
gold mining, predation, herbicide and pesticide application, or
collection and commercial trade are not threats to the
existence of the species even though they were identified as
such in the 1979 listing rule,” the FWS states in a final rule
to be published Thursday in the Federal Register.
Parts of Tehama County, including around Red Bluff, Corning and
Antelope, are sinking, officials have discovered, prompting an
emergency meeting to decide next steps to intervene. In a
statement announcing the June 3 meeting, county officials said
they found the mid- to southwestern part of Tehama had
“observable land subsidence on a scale that has never been
recorded.” … In Tehama County, some of the area’s
groundwater dried up during years of heavy drought, according
to the announcement. The soil is now collapsing into the cavity
left by the absent water, making the ground above it
sink. Other factors are further stressing what’s left of
the underground water supply, according to the county. These
include changes in agricultural practices and less surface
water available from lakes, creeks and other water bodies.
… Low commodity prices, declining land values, and a
tightening credit market have all contributed to increased
anxiety for San Joaquin Valley farmers, especially almond
growers. In 2024, there were 216 farm bankruptcies nationwide,
an increase of 55% from the previous year. Of that number,
California had the most with 17 farms falling into bankruptcy.
… The decline in land value led to another problem for
farmers, a loss of collateral to back up their loans. “With the
loss of those large farming entities you have a flood of land
on the market and it depressed the land values and so now you
no longer have the collateral you need,” said Hagop Bedoyan, a
bankruptcy attorney in Fresno. “Lenders like to see more of an
equity cushion.” Bedoyan added that lenders not only want
farmers to have more equity but they are also requiring farmers
to have two sources of water, surface and well
water.
The State Water Resources Control Board is launching a new and
improved system called CalWATRS (short for California
Water Accounting Tracking and Reporting System) to make
reporting water rights easier and more efficient. This system
will help the state manage water data better and make it easier
for the public to access important information. … You’ll
be able to explore and get used to the new CalWATRS system from
July through September 2025. This is your chance to try it out
before official reporting begins. Look for more information on
the CalWATRS website. … The current system, eWRIMS, will stop
accepting reports on June 8, 2025. You’ll still be able to
search for water rights information in eWRIMS after that, but
you won’t be able to submit anything new.
Spending warm summer days at the lake might look a little
different for some people this year. Lake Camanche has been
added the long list of Northern California waterways,
restricting boats and other watercraft because of invasive
golden mussels. … Objects like
paddleboards or kayaks are not allowed because of the recent
spread of the golden mussel, discovered for the first time in
Northern California last year. According to the East Bay
Municipal Utility District, unless you have a boat with a
permanent slip at Camanche, or were in the water or in on site
dry storage when boat launches closed last November, your
watercraft is banned. … Tiwana Cypress and her husband
have been camping at Lake Camanche for 10 years.
… Cypress said she’s seen other options, like taking
advantage of the lake’s boat rentals.
Two longtime employees are taking over operations at the Kern
County Water Agency in an interim capacity. The agency
named Nick Pavletich and Craig Wallace as co-managers while it
conducts a search for a new general manager. … Board
President Eric Averett said in a statement last week that the
board believes that this is the right time to take the
leadership of the agency in a new direction and did not provide
any specifics as to why McCarthy was ousted. … Pavletich is
the Administrative Operations Manager and has been with the
agency for 24 years. Wallace is the State Water Project Manager
and has been with the agency for a decade. Pavletich will
oversee all local activities in his interim role, with Wallace
taking over all statewide activities, including a special focus
on the proposed Delta tunnel.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) reported
the Colusa County Superior Court sentenced a Placer County man
May 21 to two years in jail for commercializing state wildlife.
According to the DFW, Justin D. Lewis conspired to
commercialize Pacific lamprey, a jawless fish that is usually
sourced commercially from Alaska and highly regarded as bait
for sturgeon and other fish. The DFW also noted lamprey have
significant food and cultural significance to Yurok tribal
members in Del Norte County and other tribal communities in the
area. Lewis sourced the fish from the Klamath River in Del
Norte County and resold through co-conspirators in Colusa
County and elsewhere, DFW confirmed. “Because of a temporary
downturn in the bait market, Lewis and others created an
illegal commercial market for California lamprey,” the DFW
stated.
Some La Plata County residents are looking for alternate
sources of drinking water after a wastewater treatment system
malfunctioned, sending E. coli into the local waterways. The
wastewater treatment system serves Pine Winds Mobile Home Park,
where about 60 people live east of the La Plata River and west
of Durango. Rivulets of water crisscrossed the community’s main
road Monday, flooding its central leach field. The field
typically helps treat wastewater before it enters the
groundwater system or nearby creek that flows into the La Plata
River. The leach field is failing, said Nicole Rowan,
director of the water quality control division at the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment. “There’s too much
water in there, so it can’t slowly let the water flow through
it to properly treat it,” Rowan said.
Work is set to begin on a water infrastructure in central
Oroville as the California Water Service (Cal Water) works to
improve water supply reliability and fire protection. The
project, which begins on June 9, 2025, is expected to last
10-12 weeks. Cal Water said that crews will install 3,510 feet
of new 12-, 8- and 6-inch water main to replace aging main.
“Infrastructure improvements like this help Cal Water provide
safe, clean, reliable drinking water to our customers’ homes
and businesses. That’s our top priority,” said Loni Lind, Local
Manager. “Proactive, ongoing maintenance and upgrades like this
also help improve our emergency readiness.” … Cal Water
said that this effort aligns with their goal to continually
modernize and upgrade its water system to better serve
customers.
Westlands Water District leader Allison Febbo characterized
Tuesday’s announced 5% federal water allocation increase as
“disappointing” in light of California’s full reservoirs while
also calling for more investment in new water
infrastructure. “While an increase is appropriate, given
current reservoir levels and snowpack, a 5% increase is
disappointing and highlights a critical reality: Even in
average hydrological years, California’s outdated water system
falls short of delivering the water our communities require,”
said Febbo. … The Bureau of Reclamation’s increase means that
the Central Valley Project’s South-of-Delta ag
contractors such as Westlands will receive 55% allotments. All
north-of-Delta CVP contractors are receiving 100% allotments.
Municipal and industrial water service and repayment
contractors will receive a 5% boost to 80% of their historical
use, or public health and safety needs, whichever is greater,
the Bureau said.
Arizona’s governor and the GOP-controlled Legislature are at
odds over regulating groundwater pumping in the state’s rural
areas — and time is running out. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs
stood with local Republican leaders at the start of this year’s
session, optimistic that Republicans in the Legislature would
embrace her proposal to create rural groundwater management
areas. But almost four months later, talks have stalled and
frustration has mounted as both sides try to find a solution to
conserve water that’s increasingly becoming more scarce
amid a prolonged drought. Negotiators have not met
since early April, Hobbs’ office said. Around the same time,
Republicans and some interest groups grew frustrated with a
separate proposal by the Arizona Department of Water Resources
to slash overdraft in the Willcox Basin by a percentage that is
“unattainable,” said Sen. Tim Dunn, one of the Republican
negotiators.
… The California Wildlife Conservation Board, a state agency
dedicated to protecting California’s biological diversity, has
approved $59.5 million in grant funding to preserve nearly
23,000 acres of some of the state’s most ecologically
significant habitats, a May 23 news release from the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife shows. … For instance,
the beleaguered Salton Sea, which is at risk
of drying out and releasing toxic dust if left unattended, will
receive $5.2 million in funding to restore over 560 acres of
crucial wetland habitat. … One of the more significant
awards is a $14.75 million grant to acquire nearly 6,500 acres
of land in Ventura County home to at least 20 special-status
species, including the California red-legged frog and the
Southern California steelhead.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board, one of Colorado’s top
water policy agencies, has a new leader: Southern Ute tribal
member Lorelei Cloud. The 15-member board sets water policy
within the state, funds water projects statewide and works on
issues related to watershed protection, stream restoration,
flood mitigation and drought planning. On May 21, board members
elected Cloud to serve a one-year term as chair, making her the
first Indigenous person to hold the position since the board
was formed in 1937. Cloud said her new role gives Indigenous
people a long-sought seat at the table where water decisions
are made. … Part of the Colorado Water Conservation
Board’s purpose is to protect Colorado’s water interests in
dealings with other states, like the water sharing agreements
among seven states in the Colorado River
Basin. … She represents the San Miguel-Dolores-San
Juan basin in southwestern Colorado, which is part of the
larger Colorado River Basin, a key water source for about 40
million people across the West.
The Colorado River basin has lost 27.8m acre-feet of
groundwater in the past 20 years, an amount of water nearly
equivalent to the full capacity of Lake Mead, the largest
reservoir in the United States, a new study has found. The
research findings, based on Nasa satellite imagery from across
the south-west, highlight the scale of the ongoing water crisis
in the region, as both groundwater and surface water
are being severely depleted. … With less
visibility has come less regulation: California only instituted
statewide management of its groundwater in 2014, and before
that, groundwater use was largely unregulated. Arizona, which
has seen big groundwater decreases, still does not regulate
groundwater usage in the majority of the state. … Since
2015, the basin has been losing freshwater at a rate three
times faster than in the decade before, driven mostly by
groundwater depletion in Arizona.
