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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As Trump administration firings at the National Weather
Service continue to impact local offices across the U.S.,
the agency announced Thursday that staffing limitations may
further reduce or suspend the launch of weather balloons. The
announcement follows weeks of legal uncertainty over
widespread staff reductions, and comes the day after the
agency’s Sacramento office announced that it would stop
answering public phone lines and reduce the extent and
frequency of certain forecasting products due to “critically
reduced staffing.” Prior to that announcement, the office
said it would be limiting its weather updates on social
media. The changes are among the first of many that weather
service managers say they are likely to make as they prepare
for an era of “degraded operations” under the current
administration.
With the summer tourism season on the horizon, a bipartisan
group of Western Slope state lawmakers is warning of “serious
risk” to Colorado’s public lands if U.S. Forest Service cuts
aren’t reversed. In an April 2 letter to United States
Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers
called for thousands of recently-fired Forest Service staff to
be rehired. … The letter states that mountain snowpack
runoff — the majority of which flows from national forest lands
on Colorado’s Western Slope — supplies three-quarters
of the water supply for the state’s four major river
systems. “The surface water from these national
forestlands supports drinking water needs, agriculture,
industrial uses, recreation, and habitat for aquatic life
throughout the West,” the letter states. “The potential is
great for national forest management to positively or
negatively influence the reliability of these water supplies,
both in quantity and quality.”
This week, a public federal process determined there will be no
commercial salmon fishing off California’s coast for the third
year in a row. It’s a grim milestone for our state. While
we will see some recreational ocean fishing, we’re at the
low-water mark. … For the salmon lovers among us, these
are dark times. But I see glimmers of hope. … Two weeks ago,
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife revealed the
progress on California’s “Salmon Strategy for a Hotter, Drier
Future.” It was an update on the strategy Gov. Gavin Newsom
released last year, which outlined dozens of key action items
the state must take to better support healthy salmon
populations. In the last year alone, state fish and
wildlife and its partner agencies have made critical headway on
nearly 70% of the action items set by Gov. Newsom. Another 26%
are already done. –Written by Charlton H. Bonham, director of the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
While cooler temperatures and more rain in March helped
mitigate drought in some regions in California, drought
conditions aren’t forecasted to improve for large swaths of the
state in the coming months. A seasonal drought
outlook by the Climate Prediction Center released on
Thursday, April 17, valid through July 31, forecasts that
Southern California and a central pocket of the state will see
drought conditions persist with no improvement. It comes as a
National Integrated Drought Information System update issued on
April 10 reported that below-normal temperatures and
higher-than-normal rainfall in March helped mitigate drought in
the Central Valley and San Diego. Yet nearly 40% of
California is in a drought, according to the latest available
data from the U.S. Drought Monitor accessed on April 17.
The Marin Municipal Water District took another step this week
in pursuit of what the agency says is its largest supply and
drought resiliency project in 40 years. The district board
voted unanimously on Tuesday to authorize spending $9.7 million
to design a pipeline that would tap into an existing aqueduct
system to get Sonoma County water to Marin reservoirs. The
pipeline project was selected in February as the district’s
priority effort to boost supply. If completed, it would be the
largest water supply project since Kent Lake was expanded in
1982, according to the district. … Estimated at $167
million, the proposed project would construct a 13-mile,
36-inch pipeline and a pump station to redirect some of that
(excess) water into the Nicasio Reservoir for storage. The
pipeline could yield 3,800 to 4,750 acre-feet of water a year.
Construction has officially begun on a new $267 million water
treatment facility along Navajo Route 36 near Shiprock, New
Mexico. The San Juan Lateral Water Treatment Plant, expected to
be completed by late 2028, will play a vital role in securing
clean drinking water for more than 200,000 people over the next
four decades, including communities in Arizona. … Once
operational, the plant will treat up to 18.8 million gallons of
water daily—meeting Safe Drinking Water Act standards—with the
capacity to double that output to 37.6 million gallons per day
as needed. In addition to delivering long-term water security,
the facility is expected to create 200 jobs during its
development.
A new partnership between three organizations will explore
options for raising the dam at Lake Mendocino to boost the
water supply supporting agriculture and recreation. State and
local politicians, tribal officials and representatives from
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers met this past Friday at Lake
Mendocino to formalize a cost-sharing agreement for the Coyote
Valley Dam General Investigation Study. According to the
Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Lake
Mendocino provides drinking water for over 650,000 people in
Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties and plays a role in flood
control. The study, led by a partnership between the
commission, the Lytton Rancheria and the Corps of Engineers
will assess the prospects of greater water supply and potential
federal interest in reducing flood risks.
Imperial Beach city leaders are calling for more federal
accountability and legislative actions to address the ongoing
Tijuana River pollution. In a four to one vote, the city
council approved a resolution Wednesday night that lists
several priorities to help solve the public health
crisis. Mayor Paloma Aguirre was the only dissenting vote.
The resolution, spearheaded by Councilmember Mitch McKay, is
largely symbolic as Imperial Beach has no jurisdiction over any
of the actions, but it intends to send a message to the federal
government, as well as state and local partners, about possible
next steps. … The resolution urges Congress to adopt
legislation that strengthens enforcement of international water
and environmental treaty obligations, and hold Mexico
accountable for failing to control transboundary pollution in
the Tijuana River.
At least one more dose of winter is headed to Utah’s mountains
while the state’s snowpack melts. After previously issuing a
winter storm watch, the National Weather Service issued a
winter weather advisory for Utah’s central and southern ranges,
which could receive up to a foot of snow at its highest points
by Friday night, as an incoming storm will likely impact those
regions the most. Still, other mountain ranges in the state
could pick up decent totals over the next few days. “(It’ll be)
a good dose of water for our state,” said KSL meteorologist
Matt Johnson.
Last October, an invasive species never before seen in
North America was discovered in the deep waters of the
Port of Stockton, about 92 miles east of San Francisco. No
larger than the size of a paperclip, the seemingly innocuous,
caramel-colored shells of golden mussels clinging to buoys and
monitoring equipment in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — and
subsequently found at O’Neill Forebay in the San Luis Reservoir
near Los Banos — have left California officials scrambling to
stop the spread. On Wednesday, the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife released its plan to address
what it’s calling an “urgent invasive species threat,” with
strategies to prevent further distribution of golden mussels
and to minimize their impact on the environment, recreation,
agriculture and, notably, drinking water infrastructure.
Wastewater industry professionals are split when it comes to
President Donald Trump’s performance in office so far. In a
poll conducted by Wastewater Digest following President Trump’s
first few months in office, roughly 50% of respondents felt
“very negative” or “somewhat negative” about his performance so
far as it relates to the wastewater sector. Roughly 44% felt
“very positive” or “somewhat positive,” and around 6% were
“neutral” on the topic. Responses about President Trump’s
performance varied, with some people praising his first few
months in office, while others were concerned about the future
of the country. Hot topics included comments about the economy,
regulations, tariffs and the environment.
A team of researchers at the University of Oxford have
uncovered crucial evidence for the origin of water on Earth.
Using a rare type of meteorite, known as an enstatite
chondrite, which has a composition analogous to that of the
early Earth (4.55 billion years ago), they have found a source
of hydrogen which would have been critical for the formation of
water molecules. Crucially, they demonstrated that the
hydrogen present in this material was intrinsic, and not from
contamination. This suggests that the material which our planet
was built from was far richer in hydrogen than previously
thought. The findings, which support the theory that the
formation of habitable conditions on Earth did not rely on
asteroids hitting Earth, have been published in the journal
Icarus.
… The purpose of this letter is to examine the decision made
by the Board on April 8, 2025, denying Ms. Annie Maine’s
petition not to approve a new well permit in the Hungry Hollow
Focus Area. The permit was approved thus consenting to the
continued degradation of the Hungry Hollow aquifer, already
under pressure from hundreds of new deep wells drilled to
supply 100 percent of irrigated water from groundwater sources.
… A group of people in Yolo County are concerned with
the laisse-faire approach to agricultural development during
the past 12 years, transforming the agricultural landscape from
annual crop rotations to perennial plantations. … We
would appreciate that Board members considered a different
future for Yolo agriculture, with greater respect for water and
land resources.
The proposal advanced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
National Marine Fisheries Service would limit the meaning to
taking direct action to kill or injure endangered or threatened
wildlife — removing the prohibition against habitat destruction
that leads to those ends. It fits with White House officials’
intent to spur economic growth by slashing regulations. If
adopted, the change could significantly curtail the reach of
the Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973 under former
President Nixon. It would also flout a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling that upheld the definition of harm to encompass
“significant habitat modification or degradation.” …
(T)he previous definition prevented acts like cutting down
swaths of old-growth forests in Northern California and the
Pacific Northwest where federally threatened northern spotted
owls nest and roost. Or filling in a wetland inhabited by
red-legged frogs, California’s state amphibian also listed as
federally threatened.
If any of the Colorado River management options were used to
manage this year’s sub-par snowpack, Arizona, California and
Nevada would be forced to slash 17% to 43% of their legal
share. Coloradans would be focused on voluntary conservation.
Colorado River officials are debating six options for how to
manage the overstressed river after 2026 with the goal of
reaching a seven-state agreement by May. Under this year’s
water conditions, all of the proposed plans would call for
mandatory cuts in the three Lower Basin states with reductions
ranging from 1.3 million to 3.2 million acre-feet. The basin’s
legal share of the river is 7.5 million acre-feet, although
estimates say its actual use is higher. Under most of the
different management options, Colorado and its sister states in
the Upper Basin would be asked to voluntarily conserve up to
500,000 acre-feet of water.
The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, which serves
as a hub in California and forecasts weather in areas
including Redding, Modesto, Vallejo and the Sierra Nevada,
has been forced to cut down its operations and services due to
“critically reduced staffing,” triggered by Department of
Government Efficiency layoffs. … Several other weather
service offices in California are facing critical staffing
shortages. The Monterey office, which serves the broader Bay
Area region, is currently at a roughly 20% vacancy rate, with
three vacant positions. The Hanford office, which forecasts for
the San Joaquin Valley, Yosemite National Park and the southern
Sierra Nevada, is facing staffing levels as low as 50%.
… It all may have started in 2007 with a failed golf course
deal. That year, Trump toured a failing golf course called
Running Horse in Fresno. “What Trump saw was more than 400
acres of mostly weeds, several huge trenches for sunken
fairways and only two holes with grass,” the Fresno Bee
reported. … Trump made an offer, then pulled out — and by
2014, an almond orchard had taken over the site. Then, in early
2016, Johnny Amaral, a politically connected water authority
executive, organized a roundtable for Trump with 50 farmers to
discuss water issues and a tour of the Central Valley. Amaral
did not return calls from The Fact Checker, but he has
described the session in interviews over the years. Amaral
told the Los Angeles Times that the message to Trump was that
“the Central Valley is not out of water because of the drought,
but because the water is mismanaged.”
The Tijuana River has been plagued with raw sewage and
industrial waste from Tijuana for decades, fouling beaches
along the U.S.-Mexico border with polluted water and sending
foul odors drifting through communities in San Diego County. On
Wednesday, the environmental group American Rivers ranked the
Tijuana River No. 2 on its annual list of the nation’s most
endangered rivers, up from No. 9 on the list last year. The
group said it elevated the river on the list, right behind the
first-ranked Mississippi River, to bring greater attention to
the waterway’s chronic pollution problems and the lack of
action to clean it up. Activists with another group, Surfrider
Foundation, are also circulating a petition calling for
President Trump to declare a national emergency to expedite
efforts to curb the flow of untreated sewage and clean up the
river.
Depleted groundwater threatens communities, agriculture, and
ecosystems in California’s Central Valley, which produces much
of the nation’s fruit, vegetables, and nuts. But the same acres
where farmers have long cultivated thirsty crops might be
critical for refilling aquifers, Stanford scientists have
found. In a paper published April 17 in Earth and Space
Science, the researchers used electromagnetic geophysical data
to identify areas across the Central Valley where water
released on the surface could rapidly flow into aquifers to
“recharge” groundwater. “We were hoping to see a
relatively big portion of agricultural land that’s suitable for
recharge, and that’s what we’re seeing,” said lead study author
Seogi Kang, who worked on the research as a postdoctoral
scholar in geophysics in the Stanford Doerr School of
Sustainability and is now an assistant professor at the
University of Manitoba.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a swath of bills on water
issues this week, calling them “political cover” for what she
says is the Legislature’s inaction on water security. Hobbs
vetoed seven bills in total, all sponsored by Rep. Gail Griffin
(R-Hereford), who has a history of blocking Hobbs’ and
Democrats’ policy proposals. The bills would have made multiple
policy changes, like modifying definitions of terms and giving
voters an option for removing groundwater protections in parts
of the state under Active Management Areas. Hobbs wrote in a
veto letter that all the bills Griffin sent her either weaken
water protections or make “pointless trivial statutory changes”
that Hobbs argued demean Arizonans who want real groundwater
management.
