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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The State of California is taking significant steps to combat
the recent discovery of golden mussels in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta. According to officials, this marks the first
occurrence of the invasive species in North America. The
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is leading
the charge, offering $1 million in grants to boating facility
operators. These funds aim to enhance efforts against invasive
mussels in the state’s lakes, reservoirs, and waterways. The
golden mussel, native to East and Southeast Asia, poses a
severe threat to California’s ecosystems and infrastructure.
The council overseeing U.S. Pacific coast fisheries issued a
new recommendation Tuesday for “very limited”
recreational salmon fishing through the end of 2025,
according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The decision allows for the first recreational ocean salmon
fishing in California waters since 2022. The recommendation
from the Pacific Fishery Management Council also
included keeping California’s commercial salmon
fisheries closed for the third year in a row.
… Salmon in California waters face ongoing issues from
drought, climate disruption, wildfires, algal blooms, shifting
food sources, habitat destruction and thiamine deficiency,
according to wildlife officials.
The Port of Los Angeles must significantly improve its
management of stormwater and groundwater to ensure that toxic
pollutants stay out of the harbor, according to Wednesday’s
tentative settlement of a lawsuit against the city of Los
Angeles for alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
The lawsuit brought by Los Angeles-based Environment California
in July 2024 alleged that there have been more than 2,000
illegal discharges of pollution in the previous five years at
the port. That pollution stems from bacteria-laden stormwater
and contaminated groundwater that accumulates in a 53-acre area
of the port and is discharged into the harbor, the suit
alleges.
Since 2010, California American Water, the investor-owned
utility that provides water to the Monterey Peninsula, has
pursued building a desalination project to bolster the local
water supply and put an end to its illegal overpumping of the
Carmel River. In that time, the volume of documents born out of
that effort – including by those trying to kill the
project – could fill a warehouse. Meanwhile, a cheaper
project – Pure Water Monterey, which recycles
wastewater – has outpaced Cal Am’s efforts, and has
already added enough water to the local portfolio to allow Cal
Am to stop its overpumping, although a cease-and-desist order
from the state remains in effect. … That raises some
obvious questions: Why build a costly desal project if the
water isn’t needed?
It may feel like it rained a lot last year – and it did – but
not enough to satisfy L.A. County’s critical shortage of
rainfall, officials say. A news release issued Tuesday by Water
for L.A. County indicates that the county captured nearly 12
billion gallons of stormwater over the past several months.
Tuesday was the last official day of the storm season, which
begins on Oct. 15 every year. But the 11.9 billion gallons
of stormwater received are still not enough. … A “stark
contrast” provided by officials was the fact that the 2023-24
storm season brought 21.2 billion gallons of stormwater to the
region, which was enough to meet the water needs of 2.9 million
people for an entire year, officials explained. The drop in
rainfall highlights L.A. County’s water management challenges
that are exacerbated by persistent drought conditions; thus,
local legislators are looking to improve the system that
supplies water to more than 9.7 million residents
countywide.
According to the USDA Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook (March 2025),
2024 brought historic heat to the United States, marking the
warmest year in the contiguous U.S. since records began in
1895, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental
Information. While 2024 also ranked as the third wettest year
overall, key agricultural states like California and Washington
experienced a dangerous mix of summer dryness and extreme heat,
significantly affecting fruit and tree nut production. … In
California, southern regions were hit especially hard. By
February 2025, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported moderate to
extreme drought across the entire southeast interior of the
state. In Northern California, drought was less severe. The
Sacramento Valley saw a rapid shift from no drought in July
2024 to 100% of land classified as abnormally dry by October.
… The San Joaquin Valley, largely drought-free through the
summer, also saw worsening dryness by fall, with nearly all
land in drought by February 2025—over 60% at moderate to severe
levels.
Sacramento environmental groups are raising concerns about
flood management construction on the American River slated to
reach the Rio Americano High School area next year. The
controversial ongoing work, part of the Sacramento Levee
Upgrades project run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has
come under scrutiny since beginning last year, as the erosion
prevention measures have required the removal of trees and
plants along the river. Up to 600 trees, including 100-year-old
heritage oaks, will be bulldozed, according to the American
River Trees group. However, the Army Corps has said the work is
necessary to prevent potential catastrophic flooding. The work
is designed to update the Army Corps’ standards from planning
for a 50-year flood event to a 200-year event.
… Property owners in Bakersfield are reacting after
being notified of a proposed increase in sewer rates. Residents
and businesses are voicing concerns, claiming the proposed
rates will add to their financial burden. “What a bad time,
were they even thinking?” That’s what Bakersfield resident
Linda Goncalves said came to her mind after receiving one of
the 106,000 sent notices to property owners in Bakersfield,
letting them know about a proposed increase to sewer rates. If
approved, the rates for a single residential home will shoot up
from 239 dollars a year to 950 dollars a year, an increase of
almost 300 percent. ”Staff determined that increase was
needed,” stated Public Information Officer with the City of
Bakersfield Joe Conroy. “These costs for maintenance and
keeping up the system is actually increasing much faster than
we expected.”
One of the rarest species on Earth, the Devils
Hole pupfish, came close to extinction in recent months,
thanks to an earthquake 500 miles from their deep desert cave.
Now, worried scientists and divers are taking unprecedented
steps to save the 38 remaining fish. … A few years
ago, a mat was laid on the rock shelf of Devil’s Hole to
collect pupfish eggs. Those eggs were then transferred to a
replica of the cave built in nearby Ash Meadows Fish
Conservation Facility. The fake Devil’s Hole contained the same
92-degree water and spawning shelf. There, in captivity, a
backup colony of pupfish was bred. Nineteen of those captive
fish were carefully brought into the cave in recent weeks.
3D printing has opened up new possibilities across multiple
fields, from food production to housing. Now, its use in
designing the next generation of sustainable technologies could
be a game-changer. Microbial electrochemical systems have
broad applications for green tech, including wastewater
treatment, energy generation, and chemical synthesis, as a
report by SciTechDaily explained. These devices leverage
microorganisms to transfer electrons, and MES can both degrade
pollutants and generate electricity, making them a
future-forward tool for sustainable design. Among the
advantages of using 3D printing for MES is the ability to
rapidly prototype and customize reactor designs, as the report
detailed. This gives researchers the flexibility to optimize
fluid dynamics and mass transfer within the reactors, helping
improve performance.
Facing the continued collapse of Chinook salmon, officials
today shut down California’s commercial salmon fishing season
for an unprecedented third year in a row. Under the
decision by an interstate fisheries agency, recreational salmon
fishing will be allowed in California for only brief windows of
time this spring. This will be the first year that any
sportfishing of Chinook has been allowed since 2022. … The
decline of California’s salmon follows decades of deteriorating
conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year,
including the Sacramento and Klamath rivers.
The Trump administration has proposed nearly $1.7 billion in
cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
that, if passed by Congress, could decimate funding to critical
climate and extreme weather research and fundamentally change
the structure of the agency. The proposal would cut more than
$480 million from NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Research, according to a White House document obtained by the
Chronicle. … The proposed budget would eliminate
funding for NOAA’s six regional climate centers, which provide
and manage unique environmental data to different parts of the
United States based on regionally-specific weather and climate
hazards. The Western Regional Climate Center
monitors and researches drought,
precipitation, wildfire smoke and other natural
hazards in California and eight other states.
Four Northern California farm bureaus are making a plea to the
Donald Trump administration, urging it to halt PG&E’s plan
to dismantle a key piece of water infrastructure. The counties
say they need time to craft a strategy to protect public
health, the local economy and their communities.
… Environmentalists and Eel River advocates say it’s
time to rip out the century-old Potter Valley Project and let
the Eel River run wild again. For decades, dams like Scott
and Cape Horn have choked the river, blocking salmon from ideal
spawning grounds and turning cold mountain water into warm,
fish-killing reservoirs, they argue. … Yet for residents
and farmers, the looming loss of reliable summer water has
sparked alarm. Without Scott Dam and Lake Pillsbury to store
water year-round, the region would be left at the mercy of
rainfall. “Summertime access to water, which is eminent today,
will not be an option,” the farm bureaus warned.
Wednesday marks one full year since the state brought the
“hammer” down on Kings County farmers for pumping so much
groundwater it sank a vast area that could be seen from space,
nicknamed “the Corcoran bowl.” In the year since the Water
Resources Control Board put the Tulare Lake subbasin on
probation for lacking a plan that would, among other things,
stop excessive pumping that is causing land to collapse taking
an entire town with it, state actions were halted by a lawsuit,
injunction and appeal. … The legal actions have put a
wall between Water Board staff and Kings County water managers
but that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening. While state
well registration, reporting and fee sanctions are on hold,
just about every groundwater sustainability agency in the
subbasin has implemented its own version of those measures.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday denied reports
that Mexico had capitulated to U.S. demands for immediate water
deliveries required by a 1944 treaty that allocates surface
water along their shared border. One of the reports, published
by the Mexican newspaper Reforma, stated that the Coahuila dam
“La Amistad” had increased its extractions by
600%. Calling the published reports “false,” Sheinbaum
said her administration is negotiating with northern states to
send more water to the U.S. while recognizing that pervasive
drought conditions have made it impossible to keep up with
deliveries. “Talks are underway with the governors of
Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Chihuahua to reach a joint agreement
to determine how much water can be delivered … without
affecting Mexican producers, while also complying with the 1944
treaty,” Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that EPA, the Interior and Energy
Departments and other agencies unlawfully froze funds under
Democrats’ climate and infrastructure spending laws, ordering
the agencies to immediately resume disbursing the money. The
ruling from Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for
the District of Rhode Island, who was named to the bench by
President Donald Trump in 2019, comes on the eve of an expected
decision from another judge in Washington on whether EPA
lawfully terminated $20 billion in climate grants. That case
and other litigation are part of a complex web of lawsuits over
frozen funds and terminated grants playing out in multiple
courts.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will allocate $3
million to help homeowners near the Eaton burn area test for
lead contamination, after preliminary tests found elevated
levels of the heavy metal on homes standing after the fire.
… “Without adequate soil testing, contaminants caused by
the fire can remain undetected, posing risks to returning
residents, construction workers, and the environment,” the
state’s Office of Emergency Services director Nancy Ward wrote
in a February letter to FEMA. “Failing to identify and
remediate these fire-related contaminants may expose
individuals to residual substances during rebuilding efforts
and potentially jeopardize groundwater and surface
water quality.”
A gorgeous California city has been plagued with a foul
odor due to a stomach-churning problem in the Tijuana
River. The stink started after Mexico announced
it was forced to dump around five million gallons a day of
sewage into the river. Mexico is attempting to replace a
section of an ageing sewage pipeline with a newer one made of
concrete. … The US side of the (International Boundary
and Water Commission) said Mexico had informed them that the
decision to dump five million gallons of wastewater a day into
the river was a ‘difficult decision,’ but there were no other
alternatives to fixing the sewage problem. On Thursday,
the IBWC said that even though the sewage dump was ‘bad news,’
the decision was the best way to prevent wastewater from
polluting the Tijuana River long-term. The construction
project is on the Mexico side of the river and will be split
into two phases, scheduled to be completed by April 17.
A barrage of atmospheric river events that swept across
California during the winter and spring has left the state
well-positioned when it comes to water storage. As the
peak of the snowmelt season begins to slow down, the majority
of California’s major reservoirs are at least 90% full – a
promising sign for a state that frequently battles drought and
associated wildfires. Shasta Lake, California’s largest
reservoir, was last reported to be at around 95% capacity,
surpassing its historical average by 117%. The reservoir
affects 35 California counties and plays a crucial role in
managing water for the Sacramento and San Joaquin River
watersheds. … Just as notable is Diamond Valley Lake,
located about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles in Southern
California. According to data from the California
Department of Water Resources, the water basin was at 97% of
capacity and 128% above its historical average.
Other water supply and snowmelt news around the West:
New research has identified hotspots in the US with concerning
levels of water quality and poor access to clean drinking
water, revealing that Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and
Washington had the most water quality violations across the
board. The paper, published Tuesday in the journal Risk
Analysis, also developed county-level scores across most of the
country for unequal access to safe and clean drinking water,
finding that eight of the 10 counties with the worst “water
injustice” scores were in Mississippi, with the other two in
Texas and South Dakota. … “You can see some pretty stark
differences between states,” said study lead author Alex Segrè
Cohen, a social scientist at the University of Oregon. In
Arizona, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, “almost every county
has high water violation scores,” she said.
