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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With the recent discovery of invasive golden mussels in
California waterways, the Department of Water Resources (DWR)
is ramping up prevention efforts to protect Lake Oroville and
surrounding State Water Project (SWP) facilities. Golden
mussels haven’t been detected in Lake Oroville, Thermalito
Forebay, or Thermalito Afterbay, but DWR is taking proactive
steps to keep it that way. These invasive mussels can severely
damage ecosystems, clog pipelines, foul boat motors, and
disrupt water delivery systems. To stop their spread, DWR is
partnering with California State Parks and California
Department of Fish and Wildlife to implement a mandatory
watercraft inspection program at Lake Oroville starting later
this month.
In November 2024, powerful gusts whipped across parts of the
Central Valley. The winds not only knocked out power, but they
also kicked up soil particles, producing a massive dust storm.
The extreme weather event dropped visibility to near zero,
grinding highway traffic to a halt. Scientists expect dust
storms in California to occur even more often in the future,
due to climate change and human activities like construction
and agriculture. … The Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act may have also increased the
chances for dust storms. The act, passed in 2014, limits the
overdraft of groundwater in order protect groundwater basins in
the long term. It has caused farmers to take some fields out of
production due to decreased water access.
… With the rapid rollbacks taking place across the federal
government showing no signs of decelerating, many environmental
groups have expressed concern that regulations safeguarding
against PFAS contamination could soon be weakened or
overturned. As a result of the unclear future of federal
regulation, as well as the prevalence of PFAS in drinking
water, many states have taken it upon themselves to strengthen
their PFAS laws to protect their waterways. … One such
example was seen in California, where state
legislators introduced Assembly Bill 794 aiming to strengthen
the State Water Board’s authority by empowering the Water Board
to directly combat challenges to the existing federal
regulation by ordering it to “establish emergency regulations
that are at least as protective as current federal standards”
(as of January 19, 2025).
This article documents the current status of tribal water
rights
in California and explains why they differ from other
states. … In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in
Winters v. U.S. that through the creation of reservations,
tribes are entitled to water rights sufficient to meet their
homeland needs. … The Klamath Tribes in Oregon, the
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe (PLPT) in Nevada, and five
reservations along the California-Arizona border hold
high-priority Winters rights to surface water crossing the
California state line. In each case, the sovereignty tribes
were able to exert over their rights increased when tribal
priorities aligned with state or federal interests.
… Across Colorado, the snowpack peaked lower in major river
basins than the 30-year median, according to federal data from
1991 to 2020. The peaks were often earlier than usual, and the
snowpack is melting quickly — several weeks earlier than the
norm in some areas. Water managers and climatologists are
hoping for a rainy May and active summer thunderstorm season.
In dry years, farmers and ranchers can be short on irrigation
water in late summer. Reservoirs can have less extra water to
carry over into the next year. Fish and aquatic ecosystems can
suffer with less water in warmer rivers. Water managers across
the desert Southwest are in similar situations. Western
Colorado is a key water source for the Colorado River
Basin, where rivers and streams send water into an
immense reservoir, Lake Powell.
Along the Pacific Northwest coast, scientists have long warned
of a looming threat: a massive earthquake from the Cascadia
Subduction Zone, capable of triggering tsunamis and devastating
shaking. Now, new research highlights another, often-overlooked
danger—the sudden sinking of the land itself and the
longer-term threats posed by coastal flooding. A study
authored by a team of scientists including USGS shows that a
magnitude 8 or greater earthquake today along the Cascadia
megathrust fault—stretching from northern California to
Vancouver Island, British Columbia—could cause 0.5 to 2 meters
(1.6 to 6.6 feet) of sudden land subsidence, instantly raising
relative local sea levels and more than doubling the number of
people, buildings, and roads exposed to coastal flooding.
The Los Osos water pipeline has been in the works for the past
four years. If funded, it would connect Los Osos to the state
water project, providing the town with a new source of water.
The project has already been approved at the federal level, but
for work to begin, the Army Corps of Engineers needs to approve
the allocation of funds. A recent report from the Los Osos
Community Services District’s general manager states the CSD
has reached out to the Corps several times since December for
an update on the project but has never received a
response.
The Rio Linda/Elverta Community Water District (RLECWD), has
reached a major settlement in its long-running lawsuit against
the U.S. government over potential groundwater contamination
stemming from the former McClellan Air Force Base. The $6.25
million agreement, officially approved by the U.S. District
Court on February 18, 2025, resolves the District’s claims
under federal environmental laws. After accounting for legal
fees, the District received $4.09 million from the settlement
on March 12th. … Early news reports suggested the
District, along with Sacramento Suburban Water District in a
similar case, was initially seeking much larger sums,
potentially over a billion dollars, to address the
contamination concerns.
A nearly half-mile segment of coastline in Huntington Beach and
Newport Beach at the Talbert Channel reopened to surfers and
swimmers Monday morning after a large sewage spill caused a
weekend cessation of water activity. Orange County Health Care
Agency officials on Saturday called for the temporary closure
along beaches 1,000 feet to the north and south of the channel,
near the mouth of the Santa Ana River, to protect visitors from
potential exposure to bacteria. The spill stemmed from a
blockage discovered Friday evening in a sewer line on Costa
Mesa’s Mesa Verde Drive East, near Golf Course Drive, according
to Scott Carroll, general manager of Costa Mesa Sanitary
District.
Few developments in local history have changed the Valley more
than Friant Dam. From providing flood control and irrigation
water to the east side of the Valley, to drying up huge
portions of the river, and destroying the salmon population,
the scale of the dam’s impact is undeniable. Today on KVPR’s
Central Valley Roots, we explore the dam’s history. California
leaders originally envisioned the Central Valley Project as a
state funded effort as early as 1919. But amid the Great
Depression, the state couldn’t sell the bonds necessary to fund
construction. Instead the state turned to Washington. In 1935
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt approved the construction
of Friant Dam.
… Many experts are calling for a collective reframing of
water as a scarce and essential common good.
… Extraction rights and pricing systems that fail to
account for the hidden effects (or ‘externalities’) that come
from using this common good lead to inefficient consumption and
can direct water-intensive activities to regions that are
already water-stressed. … Better pricing through targeted
water-use taxes and subsidies could help to manage demand,
improve access and support more sustainable use. For example,
chip manufacturers like Intel and TSMC have invested in
building semiconductor factories (or ‘fabs’) in Arizona – a
state known for its dry climate. … Better pricing could
have given these companies the incentives to locate their
facilitates in more water-abundant regions, easing pressure on
Arizona’s water system.
Beside a restored creek in San Geronimo, California, birds soar
where birdies once were scored. Formerly home to an 18-hole
golf course, the 157-acre property has been rewilded into a
thriving nature preserve. The fairway, once groomed to
unnatural perfection, is now overgrown with tall grass and
wildflowers. … Vitally, the creek that runs through the
course’s front nine – no longer impeded by a dam – is seeing a
slow return of the endangered coho salmon. … With the
number of golf course closures outweighing openings every year
since 2006, some are rethinking the best use of these open
spaces. In states such as Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts,
and California, nature is now being allowed to run its course
to protect wildlife and protect against storms.
Some residents in San Diego neighborhoods including Pacific
Beach and La Jolla told CBS 8 that they have recently picked up
on a strong chlorine flavor and questioned what was happening.
… Working for you, CBS 8 reached out to the City of San
Diego to find out what’s causing the smell and taste. According
to the city, chlorine is a standard and essential part of
treating drinking water. It’s used as a disinfectant and is
regularly added to water stored in local reservoirs, which are
monitored weekly. … After a recent inspection, the city
added more chlorine to the Bay View reservoir to ensure water
quality. Some residents served by the reservoir, including in
Pacific Beach, La Jolla and Soledad, may have temporarily
noticed a stronger taste or smell.
Some of the top players in Central Valley water policy are
urging farmers to take action while the time is ripe to press
their elected representatives to work with President Donald
Trump on making real change in the amount of water that will be
delivered to the region for years to come. That was as
the core of the message delivered to over 100 farmers at the
fifth annual California Water Alliance forum, held in Fresno on
Friday. … The message from (Rep. Vince) Fong and (Friant
Water Authority CEO Jason) Phillips was simple: With Trump at
the helm, this is a once in a generational opportunity to flip
California’s water crisis on its head and return to a period
several decades ago when water flowed freely across the
state.
Snowpack was near normal for much of the upper Colorado River
basin this winter. By April 1, which is what hydrologists
typically consider to be the end of winter for water
measurement, the upper basin had received about 90% of its
historical median snowpack. … Despite the overall positive
snowpack report, hydrologists and drought forecasters are not
optimistic about runoff. Forecasters predict that through July,
runoff will be at 67% of average above Lake Powell, the largest
reservoir on the Upper Basin. “Dry soils across the West,
both going into the winter season and during the spring,
combined with a relatively hot, dry March have really
diminished our predicted streamflow for the summer,” said Nels
Bjarke, a hydrologist with the Western Water Assessment.
California wildlife officials will shut down a state-run fish
hatchery in Humboldt County, ending more than 50 years of
operations due to rising costs, aging infrastructure and
federal limits on steelhead production. The Mad River Fish
Hatchery, which raises a modest number of steelhead and rainbow
trout and serves as an access point to the picturesque Mad
River for recreation and fishing, will close in June after
decades of financial challenges. … Because the Northern
California steelhead found in the Mad River are federally
protected as a threatened species, the hatchery is limited to
raising only 150,000 fry per year under regulations meant to
preserve the wild DNA of fish that breed naturally in the
waterway, the agency said.
Seven months before fire swept through the Pacific Palisades
neighborhood of Los Angeles, the city’s water managers were
formulating a plan to revive an old reservoir to temporarily
boost the area’s limited water capacity. The Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power was exploring the option because
the neighborhood’s main reservoir — the Santa Ynez Reservoir —
had been taken offline as a result of a torn cover, which
officials had begun preparations to repair early in 2024. The
repair project was still months away from completion this
January when the fire broke out, and with the reservoir empty,
firefighters ran short of water in fighting the blaze. Emails
released to The New York Times under public records law show
that the city had searched for solutions to rectify the
monthslong supply shortage but, despite lengthy discussions and
preliminary preparations, failed to correct the problem in
time.
For people on the West Coast, atmospheric rivers, a weather
phenomenon that can bring heavy rain or snow from San Diego to
Vancouver, are as common a feature of winter as Nor’easters are
in Boston. … But it is also a specific meteorological
phenomenon that describes the moisture-rich storms that develop
over the Pacific Ocean and dump precipitation when they collide
with the mountain ranges of Washington, Oregon and California.
These plumes of exceptionally wet air transported through the
atmosphere by strong winds are not unique to the West Coast,
though. They occur around the world, and a growing number of
meteorologists and scientists are beginning to apply the term
to storms east of the Rocky Mountains.
For the first time, scientists have mapped groundwater
variables nationally to understand which aquifers are most
vulnerable to contamination from orphan wells. Oil and
gas wells with no active owner that are no longer producing and
have not been plugged are considered orphan wells. These
unplugged wells can create pathways for contaminants like
hydrocarbons and brine to migrate from the oil and gas
formation into groundwater zones. … USGS scientists Joshua
Woda, Karl Haase, Nicholas Gianoutsos, Kalle Jahn and Kristina
Gutchess published a geospatial analysis of water-quality
threats from orphan wells this month in the
journal Science of the Total Environment. They found that
factors including large concentrations of orphaned wells and
the advanced age of wells make aquifers in Appalachia, the Gulf
Coast and California susceptible to
contamination.
Three years ago, when Utah’s Great Salt Lake was at its lowest
levels, state lawmakers were alarmed enough to try what may be
impossible: save the lake from drying up. If Utah succeeds, it
would be the first place in the world to reverse a saline
lake’s decline. The salt lake — the largest in the Western
Hemisphere — once covered an area larger than Rhode Island.
Today, more than half its water is gone. About 800 square miles
of lake bed sits exposed, baking in the desert heat, sometimes
billowing toxic dust plumes across the state’s urban core.
… But the measures the state is pursuing will take
decades to reap results, if ever. Critics now say the pace and
scale of the efforts must greatly increase.
