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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A smoldering chemical reaction brewing deep inside the recently
closed Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic now threatens to
consume an entire 160-acre canyon of buried waste, endangering
a storage area for hazardous liquid waste, according to state
officials. … State regulators worry that damage to the
tank farm would cause chemical-laden leachate to spill onto the
landfill’s surface and potentially into nearby sources of
water. State agencies have ordered Waste Connections to
relocate the tank farm to prevent hazardous chemicals from
seeping into groundwater or spilling into
storm drains that feed into the Santa Clara River.
A 10-story development on the corner of Ashby and Shattuck
Avenues will move forward after labor unions and residents
brought forward environmental concerns to the City Council on
March 25. … Concerns about benzene levels initially came
from the project site’s listing in the State Water Resource
Control Board’s Geotracker database, when in 2013 and 2014,
soil sampling revealed elevated levels of benzene, petroleum
hydrocarbon gasoline and more chemicals. However, since
2022, soil sampling has confirmed that benzene levels were
within acceptable limits. … Further concerns about air
quality, soil toxins and groundwater were negated by the city
because, upon review, it found toxins and air quality standards
to be within the accepted limits.
Before sitting down with Pedro Pizarro, president and chief
executive officer of Edison International, I gave some thought
to how I would ask him about the Eaton fire. Pizarro lives in
Pasadena, not far from the charred remains of Altadena. His
company’s biggest subsidiary — the utility Southern California
Edison, which supplies electricity to 15 million people — has
been accused in dozens of lawsuits of igniting the fire. Should
I just straight-up ask him whether the deadly conflagration was
Edison’s fault? Turned out I didn’t have to. Pizarro brought up
the blaze. “We still don’t know whether Edison equipment caused
the Eaton fire. It’s certainly possible it did. I’ve pledged to
be transparent with the public as we continue to investigate,”
he said.
With the looming possibility that the Trump administration
could reduce federal limits on toxic PFAS chemicals in drinking
water, public health advocates are warning that people across
the country would suffer. Concerns for the future of the
federal limits come amid ongoing litigation over the federal
limits on six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
in drinking water. A 60-day stay on the litigation granted in
February ends Tuesday, after which the Trump administration
could seek to make changes to the standards, which were put
into place a year ago under the Biden administration. The
Biden-era rule requires public water systems to complete
initial monitoring for the PFAS chemicals by 2027, and to
implement technologies for reducing PFAS in their water by 2029
if levels exceed the limit. … The Trump administration has
not stated if it will seek to rework the rule but those who
helped fight for PFAS mitigation measures say they fear for its
future.
A federal judge late Thursday ordered Denver Water to halt
construction on the massive expansion of Gross Reservoir’s dam
in western Boulder County and sent three key environmental
permits back to the Army Corps of Engineers for a
rewrite. The order hands a major, if temporary, victory to
environmental and neighborhood opponents fighting the
half-finished, $531 million project to nearly triple the
storage capacity of the reservoir on South Boulder
Creek. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello
put a halt to construction nearly four months after Denver
Water and the river-defending nonprofit Save the Colorado
failed to negotiate a settlement that would further mitigate
damage from the project. When settlement talks stalled, Save
the Colorado asked for an injunction and Denver Water argued it
should go forward pending more talks.
… Navigating the historically intricate regulatory environment
has long posed challenges for agricultural producers and water
managers. However, growing momentum toward streamlining and
modernizing these regulatory frameworks signals a promising new
era of government-industry cooperation. Farmers throughout the
San Joaquin Valley are actively advocating for policies that
provide greater flexibility in water allocation, enhance local
groundwater management, and upgraded mixed use flood control
infrastructure. Recent executive orders and updated regulations
have already begun to reduce administrative burdens, providing
farmer with greater confidence and an enhanced sense of
certainty with making critical planting and investment
decisions. –Written by William Bourdeau, executive vice president of
Harris Farms, owner of Bourdeau Farms, director of the
Westlands Water District, director of American Pistachio
Growers, Family Farm Alliance, and chairman of the Valley
Future Foundation.
Taking medicine can help us get better when we’re ill. But our
bodies won’t absorb all of a drug. The leftovers leave in our
urine. Water treatment plants were never designed to remove
those drugs. So they just flow through these cleanup plants and
into rivers and other sources of drinking water. But a simple
low-cost, two-step process could help end that. An added
benefit, this treatment also removes plant fertilizers. And
that’s a good thing, because they can trigger blooms of harmful
microbes in lakes, rivers and streams. Researchers at the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and at China
Agricultural University in Beijing developed the new process.
They shared how it works in the December 5 Journal of Hazardous
Materials.
California is only halfway through the rain year, and in
Redding’s case, the rainfall and snowfall amounts exceed what
the area typically receives in total precipitation, making 2025
one of the wettest years since 2019. …Wet winter storms
left waters in California’s largest reservoir,
Lake Shasta, less than 16 feet from the top on Tuesday.
Precipitation in March pushed the lake level more than 18 feet,
according to data from the California Department of Water
Resources, boosting the top almost as high as Shasta Dam was
after torrential rains in early February. It is expected the
lake may be full by end of May.
In a wide-ranging ruling that could have larger implications
for public interest lawsuits throughout California, the 5th
District Court of Appeal reversed a preliminary injunction that
had required water in the Kern River through the heart of
Bakersfield. … Bring Back the Kern, Water Audit California
and several other public interest groups sued the City of
Bakersfield in 2022 for dewatering the river. They are
demanding the city study the environmental impacts of its river
operations. That lawsuit is set for trial in December. The
preliminary injunction was an outgrowth of that 2022 lawsuit.
It was an attempt to keep water in the river for fish that had
come teeming back with high flows in 2023. The 5th
District’s ruling, issued Wednesday, reversed the injunction
but didn’t close the door to a possible future injunction and,
in fact, gave lengthy direction for how that could be done.
The Trump administration is considering rolling back a major
Biden-era regulation on “forever chemicals” in drinking water,
a move that could leave people more exposed to the substances
linked to cancer, high blood pressure and fertility problems.
But any attempt to weaken the rule would run into a formidable
statutory standard, experts say — the same one that has gotten
EPA into legal messes in the past. Finalized last spring, EPA’s
current rule requires water utilities to remove the man-made
chemicals from drinking water starting in four years. Formally
called per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, “forever
chemicals” are known for their virtual indestructibility and
have been found in approximately half the nation’s tap water.
Time is running out to register for next week’s
Water 101 Workshop and go beyond recent national
headlines to gain a deeper understanding of how water is
managed and moved across California. Plus, only a handful of
spots remain for the opportunity to extend your ‘beyond the
headlines’ water education experience on our Central Valley
Tour! And come one, come all to our
annual Open House
& Reception on May 1.
The headgates are open and water is returning to Highline Lake
in the state park located outside of Grand Junction
(Colo.). The lake — fed by the Government Highline Canal
and connected to the Colorado River — was
drained in November after a years-long battle against invasive
zebra mussels. Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced that it
began refilling the lake on March 31. The first adult
zebra mussel was found in the lake in 2022, marking the first
discovery of the species in Colorado water. After finding more
mussels, Colorado Parks and Wildlife launched a response that
included applying molluscicide to the lake, water sampling,
cleanup efforts and ultimately, draining the lake entirely.
This was the first time the lake was fully emptied in 60
years.
The Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors on Tuesday,
April 1, approved the first-quarter amendment to the
2025-2026 biennial budget. … The board also approved a new
forbearance agreement with the state of California, pledging
not to use water conserved by neighboring water districts, an
action aimed at addressing ongoing water shortages in the
region. The 2025 California Forbearance Agreement commits IID
to forego using or diverting water conserved under agreements
with Metropolitan Water District and Coachella Valley Water
District, according to Tina Shields, IID Water Department
manager.
A Navy admiral, a lawyer, a fisherman, an environmental group
leader and a former head of the American Meteorological Society
excoriated the Trump administration Wednesday for what they
called a dangerous gutting of NOAA, the nation’s climate,
weather and oceans agency. In a forum hosted by Democratic
members of the House Natural Resources Committee, panelists
representing a broad cross-section of experts and groups cast a
grim picture of a core science agency hollowed out by firings
and budget cuts. “I have hesitated to say this in prior
instances in my life, but lives are at risk, people will die
from this, I’m sorry to say,” Mary Glackin, the former AMS
president and senior vice president of the Weather Company,
told attendees of the hearing led by Rep. Seth Magaziner of
Rhode Island.
(Yesterday,) leaders of the Hoopa Valley and Yurok Tribes
signed an agreement to share 50,000 Acre-Feet (AF) of federal
water from the Bureau of Reclamation’s Trinity Reservoir near
Lewiston, CA. The Tribes’ rights to that water come from a 1955
federal law under which Reclamation dammed the Trinity River
and diverted most of the water it stored to the Central Valley,
and a 1959 contract between the Bureau of Reclamation and
Humboldt County for a portion of the reservoir supply. Congress
awarded the water to Humboldt County and the Tribes to ensure
their opportunity for economic development with Reclamation’s
water supply and to mitigate Trinity Dam’s impact on the
downstream communities. The ceremony took place at the
confluence of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers on the border of
Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribal homelands.
Project Nexus: California’s first solar-covered canals. The
initiative that’s been years in the making is now generating
electricity while conserving the state’s water supply. The
solar panels sit over Turlock Irrigation District canals in
Central California. … The project is funded by the state and is
a public-private-academic partnership between Turlock
Irrigation District, Solar AquaGrid, UC Merced and the
California Department of Water Resources. Project Nexus stems
from a 2021 research project by UC Merced alumni and project
scientist, Brandi McKuin. Her study found covering canals with
solar panels reduces evaporation while generating power – and
brings other benefits.
A packed veterans hall in the northern Sonoma County city of
Cloverdale became the latest battleground in Northern
California’s escalating water war. On March 20, Cloverdale
Mayor Todd Lands hosted a town hall that brought together
community members from across the region to discuss the future
of the Potter Valley Project. … Although PG&E
announced its plan to give up control of the diversion system a
decade ago, the March 20 gathering was the first town
hall-style public meeting that invited Russian River officials
and residents to question the plan’s impact, voice concerns and
demand answers about the path forward. The meeting, which
SFGATE attended, drew a strong turnout from Russian River
residents critical of the decommissioning plans, reflecting
deep community frustration about how PG&E’s plans could
fundamentally change water availability throughout the
region.
The most powerful man in the world is waging war on a tiny,
almost extinct fish. The fish is the minnow-like delta
smelt, less than three inches long with a lifespan of only a
year. Its sole natural habitat is the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta – a marshy maze of more than 1,100 miles of
waterways, levees and islands where its namesake rivers
intertwine. … It has become a flashpoint in the California
water wars – the never-ending debate over the best use of a
scarce resource in a state burdened with recurrent drought,
wildfires, and the climate crisis. Now Trump is seizing control
of the debate – regulations and the truth be damned. –Written by columnist Bill Walker
A significant spill that sent more than 2 million gallons of
sewage into the Truckee River which went unreported in 2022 and
2023 has prompted legislative action in Nevada. A new bill,
Senate Bill 276, introduced by state Senator Ira Hansen in
Carson City, aims to prevent similar incidents by requiring
that downstream users be notified in the event of a spill.
Chairman Steven Wadsworth of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe
expressed frustration over the lack of notification regarding
the spill, which originated from an apartment complex.
“Unbelievable how this could happen and even worse than that
how could we not be notified,” said Wadsworth.
President Donald Trump’s trade wars are putting California
farmers and ranchers, happy with his promises to deliver more
water, back into financial — and political — limbo. … The
California Almond Alliance told Agriculture Secretary Brooke
Rollins and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in a March
letter that retaliatory tariffs would hurt American profits and
cede more market share to competitors, like Australia. Its main
ask: a smooth government bailout if retaliatory tariffs can’t
be avoided. … Almonds do have a few things going for them. They
have an ally on the inside: Trump last month named former
Almond Alliance president Aubrey Bettencourt to lead the
Natural Resource Conservation Service, a USDA agency focused on
soils.
