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 headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
Failing to place one of five U.S. Department of Agriculture
hubs in California is as ludicrous as thinking you can grow
bananas on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. That is exactly
what Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is doing with her
reorganization plans to decentralize the Washington, D.C.-based
department whose portfolio includes farming, forestry,
nutrition and food safety. Rollins announced the revamping of
the 100,000-employee department by pushing the majority of the
workforce into hubs in Utah, Colorado, North Carolina, Indiana
and Missouri. … Overlooking the country’s top
ag-producing state for a hub is a mistake. No other state comes
close to California’s $59.46 billion in cash receipts for all
commodities.
At the Skinner Fish Facility near Byron, water for 27 million
Californians and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland
passes through. … Early this year, golden mussels began
clogging the system. … Pam Marrone, cofounder of the Invasive
Species Corporation, has studied invasive species extensively.
Earlier this year, she was inducted into the National Inventors
Hall of Fame. … Already, she’s created a product that kills
Quagga and Zebra mussels. Zequanox is being used across the
country. In the last few months, her team has been
experimenting with Zequanox and found it can kill golden
mussels, but not at as high a rate as they would like.
… She said golden mussels are much tougher to kill than
Quagga and Zebra mussels.
Major decisions are underway that could reshape how water flows
through Mendocino County for decades to come. At its July 18
meeting, the Mendocino County Inland Power and Water Commission
(IWPC) tackled a range of issues tied to the future of the
Potter Valley Project — from signing a key Water Diversion
Agreement to updates on state funding, dam removal timelines,
and groundwater studies. … During open session, attorney
Scott Shapiro provided an update on the project in preparation
for the Eel Russian Project Authority (ERPA)’s upcoming July 21
meeting. … In February, the State of California pledged $18
million for the project — with $9 million designated for
designing NERF and the remaining $9 million allocated to the
Eel River Restoration Fund.
Scientists and civil society are urging delegates from more
than 170 countries represented at a summit here [Zimbabwe] to
step up ambitions to combat the continued destruction of
Earth’s fastest-disappearing ecosystem. Wetlands underpin
all life on Earth, supplying fresh water, oxygen, habitat and
food. Yet since 1970 more than 35 percent of wetlands have been
lost or degraded at a pace three times faster than losses
experienced within forests. The U.N. gathering known as
the 15th meeting of the conference of the Contracting Parties
of the Convention on Wetlands (COP15), one of the oldest global
environmental protection treaties, comes just weeks after
scientists released a dire warning about the destruction and
declining health of global wetlands, describing the decline as
an overlooked crisis that threatens food and water security,
and worsens climate change.
As the number of data centers continues to rise across Arizona,
concerns are growing about how the state will meet the
increasing demand for power and water and who will ultimately
pay for it. A new report from Western Resource
Advocates warns that electricity demand in the Southwest
could grow significantly over the next decade. … In
addition to electricity, data centers use large volumes of
water to cool their servers. That’s drawing concern in a state
where most areas are currently experiencing moderate to
exceptional drought. The report projects that water usage by
data centers in Arizona could grow from 4.5 billion gallons in
2030 to 7 billion gallons annually by 2035 which is enough
water to support nearly 200,000 people per year.
As wildfire conditions across California are expected to
increase steadily through the summer, state officials this
month expressed concerns about cuts in staff and funding at
federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, a division
within the Agriculture Department that partners with the state
to fight wildfires and manage forests. California is home
to 18 national forests, with 48% of its land owned and managed
by the federal government. “On critical priorities like
wildfire, safety and water supplies, federal agency
effectiveness is critical,” California Natural Resources
Secretary Wade Crowfoot said during a webinar in which he and
other state officials discussed potential impacts of federal
staffing reductions to the state’s natural resources, including
forests.
Democrats are digging in their heels following EPA’s proposal
to roll back the scientific finding that underpins federal
rules against planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate-minded Republicans, on the other hand, appear to be
giving President Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt. The
administration moved Tuesday to overturn a 16-year-old
endangerment finding, which says greenhouse gas emissions pose
a threat to human health. Congressional Democrats promised
Tuesday to fight EPA’s actions by encouraging legal challenges
and expanded state climate efforts.
In response to President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American
Energy executive order, multiple governmental agencies have
introduced new rules for implementing the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Eight federal agencies have
introduced policies like faster deadlines, page limits and
removal of public input in order to expedite domestic energy
production. The White House lauds these new policies for
enabling rapid development. However, environmental groups like
Wilderness Workshop (WW) protest the new policies for
undermining the intended purpose of NEPA and putting vital
ecosystems at greater risk of being irreversibly damaged.
… [P]ublic awareness and appreciation for the San Joaquin
River and the assemblage of properties that form the river
parkway have significantly grown. More people are helping to
conserve the parkway than ever before, volunteering with
nonprofits such as the San Joaquin River Parkway and
Conservation Trust, RiverTree Volunteers and Fresno Canoe and
Kayak Club to pick up trash or remove invasive Parrot’s feather
from the river. … Another significant development: The
San Joaquin River Conservancy, the locally controlled state
agency created to develop the parkway, finally has the funding
and staff to start acting like an actual state agency.
… The point here is that in many measurable, tangible
metrics, the San Joaquin River Parkway is in a much better
place. –Written by Fresno Bee columnist Marek Warszawski.
… Cadiz recently alleged that its efforts to access and pump
out groundwater are not subject to review by California’s State
Lands Commission. But in June, incoming Senate President
Monique Limón and Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, both of whom
chair the California Legislature’s committees on natural
resources, quashed that evasion. … The lawmakers
highlighted the strict and detailed scrutiny facing the company
under state law. … Gov. Newsom championed that law. This
week is the sixth anniversary of SB 307, which he signed on
July 31, 2019. In his signing statement, the Governor stated
the fact that “water has flowed underneath the Mojave for
thousands of years,” feeding a “fragile ecosystem.”
A continually warming world could alter the way ocean currents
regulate huge swaths of the Earth’s climate, making even rainy
places like Central America, the Amazon and Indonesia,
susceptible to drought. Researchers, in a study published
Wednesday in the journal Nature, studied how ancient rainfall
patterns interacted with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning
Circulation, a massive system of ocean currents that moves
water through the Atlantic Ocean and what that could mean for
the future of Earth’s climate. By moving warm water from
the tropics to the North Atlantic, the AMOC plays an important
part in regulating the climate by both locking in place the
tropical rain belt at the equator and redistributing heat from
the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere.
The state of Arizona is home to 22 tribal nations — and all of
them have a deep connection to water. However, many tribes are
being left out of conversations surrounding the
topic. Liliana Caughman, an assistant professor in
the American Indian Studies program at Arizona State
University, is working to change that. Through her
lab, the Relate Lab, eight Indigenous scholars are working
alongside the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at ASU
and their WaterSimmersive project to create water-related
exhibits in rural communities throughout Arizona. … The
Indigenous Water Stories Research Cohort is currently working
with tribes like the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Colorado
River Indian Tribes and Navajo Nation to relay the stories and
history of water that come from each.
Last week, the Trump administration announced a set of
sweeping AI policy recommendations to “usher in a new golden
age of human flourishing.” Among the suggested environmental
rollbacks laid out in both an executive order and a
corresponding AI Action Plan is a set of specific
recommendations to essentially loosen Clean Water Act
permitting processes for data centers. … The part
of the Clean Water Act specifically named in these comments and
in the recommendations from the White House deals with how
projects like data centers could impact federally protected
waters during construction or use, and what materials are
discharged into those waters or dredged from them.
Other data center water and environmental impact news:
A Bay Area representative and other federal lawmakers mounted a
push on Tuesday for action on groundwater
rise, which they warned will worsen flooding across
the United States in the decades to come, with the potential to
damage critical infrastructure, harm freshwater supplies and
spread toxic chemicals into communities. … U.S. Reps.
Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y.,
introduced legislation in June that would set aside $5 million
over the next year for the United States Geological Survey to
study and map groundwater rise nationally through 2100. …
They held a press conference on Tuesday in South San Francisco
in San Mateo County — considered the most at-risk county to sea
level rise in California — to push for
Congress to advance the legislation, which they dubbed the
Groundwater Rise and Infrastructure Preparedness Act of 2025.
A top Colorado state negotiator said Monday that the Bureau of
Reclamation must consider sending less Colorado River water to
California, Arizona and Nevada if regulators want to avoid
“running so close to the brink of crisis all the time.” The
Interior Department and Reclamation are leading negotiations
among the seven states that share the drought-stricken
waterway, trying to come up with a new long-term operating
plan. The states face a November deadline to meet an agreement,
but for nearly two years have been at odds over how to divide
cuts to the amount of water flowing to the Upper Basin —
Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico — and the Lower Basin of
California, Arizona and Nevada.
Governor Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation for
several counties in Northern California to aid in recovery
efforts following severe storms in February and March. The
proclamation includes Humboldt, Mendocino, Modoc, Napa, Shasta,
Sonoma and Trinity counties. The Governor’s office said these
counties’ roads and waterways were affected by
landslides and widespread flooding, creating
conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and
property. The proclamation authorizes the Governor’s Office of
Emergency Services (Cal OES) to provide assistance to counties
under the California Disaster Assistance
Act. Additionally, Newsom issued a separate emergency
proclamation specifically for Trinity County to address the
impact of the March storms on public safety and infrastructure.
… Iran is in the throes of an acute water crisis, on top of a
monthslong energy shortage that has prompted daily scheduled
power cuts across the country. Iranians still recovering from a
12-day war with Israel and the United States last month must
now confront life without the basics. The government announced
this week that many reservoirs, particularly those that supply
the capital, Tehran, with drinking water, were drying out.
Water supplies for Tehran are predicted to run out in just a
few weeks, officials said, pleading with the public to reduce
water consumption. … [T]he crisis has grown so extreme that
the government shut down all government offices and services in
Tehran and more than two dozen other cities across the country
on Wednesday, creating a three-day weekend in an attempt to
lower water and electricity usage.
In a stunning move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on
Tuesday proposed to repeal its landmark 2009 finding that
greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. The proposal
would also revoke the standards the agency has set for
greenhouse gas emissions from all motor vehicles. The so-called
endangerment finding is a formal determination affirming that
planet-warming greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and
methane pose a threat to human health and the environment. …
If it is reversed, many standards that rely on it could crumble
— leaving the auto industry and other polluting sectors free to
emit greenhouse gases without limits. But experts and state
regulators say it could also represent a golden opportunity for
California to set a national example, as the move may open the
door for stronger regulations at the state level.
Republicans are quietly moving to kill proposed regulations for
PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge that is spread on farmland as
fertilizer, a practice that has sickened farmers across the
country, destroyed their livelihoods and contaminated food and
water supplies. … Republicans quietly
slipped a rider into a House appropriations bill that would
fund the EPA aims to derail the risk assessment process by
cutting off funding. The rider also includes language that
appears designed to permanently prohibit funding for the
implementation of regulations for some PFAS in sludge.
… Public health advocates and some Congress members are
now mobilizing to kill the rider, which they say is likely
illegal because it pre-empts the Clean Water
Act.
… Experts say wastewater infrastructure updates are crucial
as populations continue to boom in cities like Tijuana and
climate-fueled flooding triggers sewage overflows around the
United States. However, these projects can be costly and time
consuming. Delayed fixes leave many communities exposed to
bacteria-laden waterways, particularly along the coast, where
sea-level rise poses a dual threat to outdated
infrastructure. The Tijuana River is widely considered one
of North America’s most degraded waterways. The river winds
through urban areas in Mexico, where communities dump sewage,
trash and other waste directly into the water or onto the
streets, where it can wash in during a storm. … [T]he
problem is especially bad during heavy rainfall events such as
the atmospheric rivers that hit the West Coast.
