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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… While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has changed
directions on several environmental subjects since President
Donald Trump took office, PFAS regulations are not yet among
those. Indeed, the Biden Administration EPA’s PFAS Strategic
Roadmap still is posted on the EPA’s website – at least for now
– and the EPA has not reported in two cases the positions it
will take on judicial challenges to final Biden-era PFAS
regulations. Thus, although those regulations are under
challenge, they are in effect, they have not been stayed, and
they are having impacts in the regulated community. The
EPA’s April 2024 PFAS maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) under
the Safe Drinking Water Act will affect drinking water systems,
of course. More broadly, they also will affect groundwater
cleanups as the low MCL values become integrated into screening
levels, risk analyses, and remediation levels.
Outside of major cities like Fresno and Clovis, drinking-water
quality for San Joaquin Valley residents can be dicey. The
Valley is full of examples of rural water systems failing to
either produce enough supply or deliver fresh water that is not
tainted by contaminants, be they manufactured, like farming
chemicals, or naturally occurring elements in local soils like
arsenic. … Now, Rep. David Valadao, a Republican from
Hanford, is teaming up with Rep. Norma Torres, a Democratic
legislator from Southern California, on a new bill that would
amend the federal Safe Drinking Water Act by adding a special
focus on nitrate and arsenic pollution in groundwater. The
amendment would authorize the federal government to allocate
$15 million a year in grants to clean up failing water systems
in rural communities.
Generative AI is a power and water hungry beast. While its
advocates swear it’ll change the world for the better, the
tangible benefits today are less clear and the long term costs
to both society and the environment may be enormous. Even the
federal U.S. government knows this, according to a new report
published Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office
(GAO), a nonpartisan watchdog group that answers to
Congress. … One immediate obstacle to the
investigators was AI companies’ lack of transparency around
their water usage. … According to the GAO’s estimates,
AIs doing 250,000,000 queries a day would use as much
electricity as 26,071 U.S. household’s use in a day and
1,100,836 gallons of water.
Staten Island lies in the heart of California’s Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta, and exemplifies the woes of this troubled
region. More than one quarter of the Delta―about 200,000
acres―is deeply subsided. This extreme soil loss puts stress on
the levees encircling the islands. And, because the soil there
is peat and so rich in organic matter, subsidence in the
central Delta also spews carbon into the air. … But
Staten Island also offers among the best hope for solving the
Delta’s soil loss and greenhouse gas emission problems. The
Nature Conservancy is testing ways of halting and even
reversing subsidence on the island, and the latest project is a
wetland restoration slated to begin as early as this
summer.
To ensure the availability and sustainability of water
resources and sanitation for all (United Nations Sustainable
Development Goal 6), water managers and the communities they
serve are investing in approaches that are both broad and deep.
… A comprehensive framework like One Water may also help
address a long-standing injustice: why communities of color are
more likely to have higher levels of contaminants in their
drinking water. In addition to applying integrated water
management approaches involving at-risk communities, some
scientists suggest that unconventional water resources should
be explored for their potential to mitigate water insecurity.
That’s the thrust of this month’s opinion, “Deep Groundwater
Might Be a Sustainable Solution to the Water Crisis.”
Contamination and overuse of shallow groundwater supplies are
creating a need for in-depth analysis on the health, safety,
and financial concerns associated with accessing deep
aquifers.
During a tour of the Western Slope last week, U.S. Sen.
John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said he was frustrated with the
pace of negotiations that could determine how the
Colorado River is shared in the future and
that the Upper Basin states may be pushing back too hard. A
deal should have been reached last summer, he said. “Colorado
should have a right to keep the water that we have been using
the way we’ve been using it, and I don’t think we should
compromise that,” Hickenlooper said. … The seven states that
use water from the Colorado River – Arizona, California and
Nevada comprise the Lower Basin – have just over a month left
to agree on how the nation’s two largest reservoirs would be
operated and cuts shared in the future before the federal
government may decide for them.
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday
that Mexico must stop the flow of billions of gallons of sewage
and toxic chemicals from Tijuana that has polluted the Pacific
Ocean off neighboring Southern California, closing beaches and
sickening Navy SEALs who train in the water. Lee Zeldin made
the demand during an Earth Day trip to the California-Mexico
border, where he toured a plant in San Diego County that treats
the sewage as a secondary facility and flew along the frontier
to see the Tijuana River. He also was scheduled to meet with
SEALs. Zeldin said that in the next day or so, his agency will
present Mexico a to-do list of projects to resolve the
decades-long environmental crisis, but he stopped short of
specifying how the Trump administration would hold Mexico
accountable if it does not act.
Water managers in the Klamath Basin say, for the first time
since 2019, there will be enough water to meet everyone’s
demands this year. An unusually wet winter has been a relief
after a tough drought period. The Bureau of Reclamation
released its annual operations plan on Monday,
allocating 330,000 acre-feet of water to farmers from Upper
Klamath Lake. Water is prioritized first to protect endangered
species in the lake and river. Next, water is allocated to
farmers, and finally, it can go to wildlife refuges.
… The agency released a new plan last year that outlines
water management for the Klamath Basin over the next five
years. The removal of the dams on the Klamath River, along with
new data, has prompted the need for the plan, according to
the Bureau.
Join us at our annual open house and reception on May 1
at our office near the Sacramento River to meet our team
and learn more about our work. Drop by anytime from 3:30
p.m. to 6:30 p.m. to enjoy happy hour refreshments and
appetizers while chatting with our team about our tours,
conferences, maps, publications and training programs for
teachers and up-and-coming water
professionals. RSVP here!
We are also gearing up for a busy post-summer programs schedule
packed with opportunities to get out and learn. For
now, save the dates:
Our first-ever Klamath River Tour: Sept. 8-12
Annual Water Summit: Oct. 1
Northern California Tour: Oct. 22-24
And our latest Western Water story from our journalism team
explores the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation
Program at its halfway point. Read
the full story here.
Jay Gandhi, a retired federal judge who served as the mediator
in settlements with Pacific Gas & Electric, related to the
Camp, Butte and North Bay fires, is joining a lawsuit against
Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power. … Though he is
experienced in mediating wildfire settlement negotiations, this
time, it is more personal – Gandhi and his family lost their
home in the Palisades fire in January. … Gandhi joins a
suit filed on Jan. 13, which now represents more than 750 fire
plaintiffs. Current U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson,
who also lost his home in the fire, also joined the lawsuit.
The suit focuses on the lack of water in the
Palisades, alleging that two reservoirs key to
public use in the area were not full, and claims that the LADWP
left overhead power lines energized, instead of doing a public
safety shutoff, which other major utility companies in the
state do during red flag warnings.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to free fishermen from
regulatory red tape are tying up the very people he seeks to
unburden as thousands of small and medium-size operators begin
feeling the weight of the president’s NOAA wrecking ball.
“We’re seeing the whole system grind to a halt and fall apart,”
said Meredith Moore, director of the fish conservation program
at Ocean Conservancy, which has tracked the Trump
administration’s fisheries rulemaking since Feb. 1. …
Slash-and-burn downsizing, fishermen and experts say, is
eroding NOAA’s ability to perform basic functions — like
opening or closing a fishery, updating a fishery management
plan, completing a stock assessment or engaging with regional
advisory councils to ensure it’s following the latest science.
The management rules are effectively stop-and-go lights on the
fisheries highway. Without them, fishing boats remain dockside
and fishermen lose critical income.
… In California, our groundwater system is out of balance.
More water is going out than is coming in, which is causing a
host of problems—falling water levels, domestic wells going
dry, land subsidence, ecosystems under stress, and water
quality problems. There’s a lot of space in the aquifers after
all the groundwater pumping, and natural recharge isn’t filling
it adequately. We could supplement with managed aquifer
recharge (MAR). That means sending the excess water in wet
years to locations where it can move downward and replenish our
groundwater systems. Spreading water in a dedicated recharge
basin, agricultural field, or floodplain could move it
efficiently down below the surface, depending on the geologic
characteristics of the site.
Fresno Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula will host a town hall
Thursday evening to rally opposition against CEMEX’s proposed
blast mine along the San Joaquin River, a project critics warn
could contaminate groundwater and damage critical habitat. The
April 24 event at the River Center will feature presentations
on the environmental impacts of the mining giant’s expansion
plans and highlight Arambula’s legislation aimed at blocking
the project. … “The CEMEX Rockfield Expansion poses a serious
threat to wildlife, water quality, air quality, and the
long-term vision for the San Joaquin River Parkway. This is a
critical moment for our community to get informed, get
involved, and make your voices heard,” the flyer for the event
reads.
… As of Monday, the National Science Foundation had canceled
more than 400 active awards, according to a list obtained by
The New York Times. The decision comes after months of scrutiny
of the agency, including a report released by Senator Ted Cruz,
Republican of Texas, last October and, in February, an internal
review of awards containing words related to diversity, equity
and inclusion, or D.E.I. … Last Thursday, the magazine
Nature reported that all new research grants by the agency had
been frozen, as ordered by the Department of Government
Efficiency, or DOGE. The N.S.F. declined to confirm the
freezing of new awards or what role, if any, DOGE had in the
action. On Friday, the N.S.F. went further, canceling grants
supporting ongoing research.
Securing the proper legal documents to protect their water
rights often takes time and money that tribes can’t afford.
That’s why the Native American Rights Fund’s Tribal Water
Institute created The Headwaters Report. The report breaks down
the ins and outs of tribal water law, updates what’s going on
in the courts and Congress, and highlights what water issues
are on the horizon. Daniel Cordalis, a staff attorney with the
Colorado-based group, said some tribes will pay third-party
firms thousands of dollars a month to provide them with that
information. “And it’s information every tribe should have,” he
continued. “And the cost is a barrier to getting this kind of
information for a lot of tribal nations, and it shouldn’t be
one. I think it lifts the whole tribal communities up if
they’re able to have the same information.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on
April 22, 2025, settlements with 10 entities with facilities
across California for claims of chemical safety-related
violations under the Clean Air Act. Two water treatment plants
were listed in EPA’s expedited settlement agreements. All
entities agreed to come into compliance with Risk Management
Program (RMP) safety requirements and pay penalties, which
total over $170,000. According to the EPA, two water
treatment plants in the state of California had violations:
Benecia Water Treatment Plant … (and) Cement Hill Water
Treatment Plant.
A major California water lifeline serving more than 600,000
residents is on the brink of being shut down by one of
America’s largest utility companies – and now its fate may lie
in the hands of Donald Trump. Since 1922, the century-old
Potter Valley Project has diverted water from Northern
California’s Eel River into the Russian River, serving as a
critical source of water for farms and communities across
Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin and Lake counties. However,
PG&E announced plans to fully dismantle the project, citing
financial losses and aging infrastructure – a move that sparked
controversy across the region, SF Gate reported. In a rare
twist, the federal government is now stepping into the local
water battle, as the Trump administration reviews whether or
not to block the shutdown.
In Sacramento, even an inch of rain can lead to a much more
complicated problem underground. The city is one of only two in
California and four on the West Coast still operating a
combined sewer system—a century-old design where stormwater and
sewage flow through the same pipes. As climate challenges
intensify, modernizing and maintaining the system is a 24/7
job. The history of Sacramento’s combined sewer system (CSS)
stretches across 7,500 acres in neighborhoods like downtown,
east Sacramento, Oak Park and Land Park. The system serves
300,000 residents, at least ten times the population when it
was built. “These systems were never meant to keep up with the
type of rainfall we’re seeing today,” said Carlos Eliason, a
spokesperson for the city’s sewage operations.
… America’s wetlands were historically viewed as useless
areas that stood in the way of development. More than half of
the 221 million acres of wetlands that existed when Europeans
settled have been destroyed, and six states—California,
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio—have lost at least
85 percent of their wetlands, according to the US Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS). Wetlands act as “natural sponges,”
absorbing up to an estimated 1.5 million gallons of water per
acre, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, and they provide more than half of America’s
$5.9 billion seafood harvest, including trout, bass, crab,
shrimp, and oysters. They also filter pollutants from the water
and sequester carbon dioxide. About half of our endangered and
threatened species on wetlands. … And yet, the
destruction continues. Between 2009 and 2019, the United States
lost about 1,047 square miles of wetlands, a 2024 FWS report
notes—an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.
A bill to exempt some housing projects from a controversial
California law that pro-building activists blame for slowing
down development cleared its first legislative hurdle this
week. On Monday, the State Assembly’s Natural Resources
Committee approved AB 609, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy
Wicks (D-Berkeley), which would exempt infill housing projects
built within existing cities from review under the California
Environmental Quality Act. … In recent years, CEQA has become
a political lightning rod as housing activists have argued
it has been used to slow or stop housing projects from
moving forward, while defenders say it hasn’t played a
major role in deterring housing production in California.
… But not everyone is on board with the proposed
changes. “We just have blinders on in terms of how much good
CEQA — and looking at the environmental reviews — has done to
preserve safety and safety for water and safety from fire,”
said Susan Kirsch, president of Catalysts for Local Control.
