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 bill that would finally formalize a 2007 agreement between
the Tule River Indian Tribe and several downstream agricultural
users advanced to the Senate earlier this month. The
“Tule River Tribe Reserved Water Rights Settlement Act of
2025,” introduced by Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff
(both D-California), advanced from the Committee on Indian
Affairs and will be heard on the Senate floor. If passed,
the bill would accomplish several tasks, including securing an
annual supply of 5,828 acre feet of surface water from the
South Fork of the Tule River for the reservation’s domestic
water system, which serves more than 400 homes and all of its
administration buildings.
A handful of residents who live near the Tijuana River Valley
protested the smell of sewage coming from the river (on
Sunday). … Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre is
protesting, too. She said she hears residents’ concerns about
what needs to be done, and said the Trump administration and
Governor Newsom need to help solve the problem. ”We’re
hearing people who have COPD and chronic pneumonia and sinus
situs and migraines,” saids Aguirre. “These are all consistent
with exposure to all of these pollutants. What’s it going to
take? We need our federal government to come down here, do a
tour of the area, declare a state of emergency, and divert and
treat the river.”
Justices with the 5th District Court of Appeal peppered
attorneys with questions about the application of state water
law and the fight over Kern River flows during arguments in
Fresno on Thursday. How the 5th District rules on this appeal
could have far-reaching effects on river conservation efforts
throughout California as it involves California Fish and Game
Code 5937. That code states dam owners must keep enough water
downstream to keep fish in good condition. It was the linchpin
in restoring other California rivers, including the San Joaquin
River in Fresno County. And 5937 is the underpinning of a
preliminary injunction and implementation order issued in late
fall 2023 by Kern County Superior Court Gregory Pulskamp that
mandated the City of Bakersfield keep enough water in the river
through town for fish.
Prolonged droughts, wildfires and water shortages. Torrential
downpours that overwhelm dams and cause catastrophic flooding.
Around the globe, rising temperatures stoked by climate change
are increasing the odds of both severe drought and heavier
precipitation that wreak havoc on people and the environment.
Rainfall can disappear for years only to return with a
vengeance, as it did in California in 2023, with record-setting
rain and snowfall. That led to heavy vegetation growth that
provided fuel for the devastating January wildfires in Los
Angeles after drought returned. But how can global warming
cause both drier and wetter extremes? Here’s what experts say.
The question for the past year on most northern California
anglers’ lips has been: Will there be a salmon season in 2025?
That question has changed to: Why bother having a salmon
season? That question is based upon the Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s annual salmon information meeting and the three
proposed alternatives listed by the Pacific Fisheries
Management Council (PFMC). A third consecutive year of an ocean
and river salmon closure will further devastate the economies
of northern California’s coastal communities, the proposed
alternatives are based on a 4,000-fish commercial quota and a
12-day ocean recreational season at best. –Written by Dave Hurley, a fishing writer and member of
the California Outdoors Hall of Fame.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has fixed or
replaced the vast majority of fire hydrants flagged for repairs
in last year’s inspections after a long delay by the L.A. Fire
Department in forwarding the inspection results, officials
confirmed this week. The LAFD — which is contracted to annually
inspect 66,000 fire hydrants across the city — had identified
at least 1,350 hydrants in need of repair, according to its
2024 inspection. But the department did not properly transmit
the data to DWP in August, a lapse that came to light only
after the Palisades fire when LAFD shared its year-old
inspection data with KCBS-TV. DWP finally received the data
Feb. 14.
A California Court of Appeal (Fifth District) (“Court”)
addressed in a March 14th Opinion whether water in an aquifer
could be personal property. … The land and attached
improvements were appraised in 2019 at $14,985,000. The
appraisal excluded any subsurface water or mineral rights. In
addition, the appraisal indicated that due to two perpetual
United States Fish and Wildlife conservation easements, that
the land was limited to its current use as an irrigated and dry
pasture ranch with some lower intensity farming uses. The
trial court had held, and this Court agreed that: Water
was not personal property owned by 4-S; and,
Rights to use of the water ran with the land
and therefore the lender acquired those rights at the
foreclosure sale.
Attorneys for the mining conglomerate Cemex filed their latest
appeal in the effort to build a sand-and-gravel mine in Soledad
Canyon, just east of the city of Santa Clarita. The mining
company purchased the mineral rights to extract 56 million tons
of aggregate, a material vital for construction that’s in rich
supply there, according to the federal government. Cemex
needs a beneficial-use permit from the State Water Resources
Control Board to use the Santa Clara River in order to sustain
its mining operations. … Opponents of the mine, which
include the city, argue that the facility would add hundreds of
truckloads daily to an already congested Highway 14, a massive
amount of air pollution from mining operations, and impacts to
the river, including about 322-acre-feet of water use
annually.
The Solano County Water Agency’s free vessel decontamination
program will end on April 7. … The Bureau of Reclamation
announced that, beginning April 7, direct-managed concessions
and the Solano County Water Agency will charge for vessel
decontaminations for boaters seeking to launch at Lake
Berryessa. … “Moving forward, boaters who seek to avoid a
30-day, mandatory quarantine to protect the reservoir
from invasive mussels, will need to reach out to
either the Solano County Water Agency, Markley Cove Resort,
Pleasure Cove Marina, or Putah Canyon Recreation Area to
arrange for a vessel decontamination for any motorized vessel
or vessel launched from a trailer,” the Bureau of Reclamation
announcement states.
A river that runs between the U.S. and Canada has now run
itself right into the middle of the fight between the two
allies. President Donald Trump’s administration has now stopped
negotiations to re-up a decades-old U.S.-Canada treaty that
controls the flow of the Columbia River between British
Columbia after claiming it could play a role in solving
California water shortages. … Trump’s decision to pause
treaty negotiations comes after he once called the river a
“very large faucet” that he said could provide much-needed
water to California if diverted — indicating he may be
interested in ending the treaty to access more water from the
river.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern
California will receive an increased allocation of 35 percent
from the California Department of Water Resources this year,
according to a report by Cynthia Kurtz, Pasadena’s
representative on the MWD Board. The City of Pasadena
imports about 60% of its water from the MWD. Kurtz
will present detailed information about the water supply
outlook during a meeting of the Pasadena Municipal Services
Committee on Tuesday, where she will deliver her first
quarterly update to the Committee. … Despite the
Colorado River Aqueduct currently being shut down for annual
inspection and maintenance, the MWD expects to receive its
normal supply of Colorado River water this year due to reserves
stored in Lake Mead.
The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) said it
submitted comments to the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF) regarding the development of a national artificial
intelligence (AI) action plan. AMWA, which represents large
drinking water systems across the United States, highlighted
the critical intersection of AI development and water resource
management in its comments. The association said it is urging
policymakers to assess AI’s impact on water demand while
leveraging AI for water efficiency.
… A recent study “Same data, different analysts: variation in
effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and
evolutionary biology” highlights concerns for how we draw
conclusions from scientific study and how science can inform
policy. … Collaborative synthesis science is one way to
strengthen consensus and to understand the roots of disparities
between different studies and approaches, leading to more
robust science. In the realm of California
water, contemporary models of collaborative synthesis
include the CVPIA Science Integration Team and subgroups,
Interagency Ecological Program Project Work Teams, and working
groups at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis. At its best, this approach brings together
cooperative teams with diverse perspectives and expertise to
achieve highly innovative solutions to research problems.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
