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 introduced by Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula aimed at
stopping a century-long mining project in Fresno County did not
make it out of committee Monday afternoon. That mining project
would drill a 600-foot deep pit near the San Joaquin River in
Fresno County. Arambula introduced a bill, AB1425, which went
before the Natural Resources Committee in Sacramento this
afternoon. It would have disqualified building materials
company CEMEX’s proposed 100-year mining expansion project
utilizing hard rock mining, blasting and drilling that deep
pit. … The San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust
has been strongly opposed to the project because of its
potential impact on the environment.
The principles of environmental justice call for the fair
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless
of race, culture, national origin, or income, in the
development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Environmental
justice also necessitates dedicated outreach and transparent
opportunities for all community members to represent their
concerns in the decision-making process. The Delta Stewardship
Council has worked to incorporate environmental justice into
several recent and ongoing initiatives, described below. These
initiatives also identify the next steps to address
environmental justice in our future work.
The long-standing rule against swimming in Lake Cachuma has
come under renewed focus. Santa Barbara County is exploring how
to change the rule that prevents visitors from swimming in the
local reservoir while still maintaining its status as a water
source for the region. … The rule against swimming
in the lake goes back to its creation in 1953, when the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation created Lake Cachuma through the
construction of the Bradbury Dam. Even though the county
manages the park, the lake itself is still owned by the Bureau
of Reclamation. Brian Soares, the operations and maintenance
manager for Lake Cachuma, said the reason swimming has not been
allowed at the lake is that the water is used to supply Santa
Barbara County areas with drinking water.
… The concept is known as “ag-to-urban.” It’s a pathway to
convert farmland to residential use, a process that is
currently restricted because of groundwater shortages in Active
Management Areas — parts of Arizona, including the metro
Phoenix region, that are subject to regulation under the
state’s groundwater code. Certain housing projects in areas
like the Phoenix AMA must prove they have at least 100 years of
assured water supply before building. When Democratic Gov.
Katie Hobbs took office in 2023, she announced groundwater
levels in the West Valley were too low to meet that
requirement. As a result, developers are not currently allowed
to build new subdivisions there. Building homes on agricultural
land provides developers an opportunity to meet the 100-year
requirement in a different way — by retiring the agricultural
water rights on that land.
Burbank residents face significant water rate increases as the
city grapples with its complete dependence on imported water
and rising costs from external suppliers. Burbank Water and
Power recently proposed water rate increases of 14% beginning
Jan. 1, 2026, and an additional 14% beginning Jan. 1, 2027.
… The utility expects to pay up to 21% more for imported
water in 2026 compared to 2024. Burbank relies on
groundwater storage since it lacks direct access to natural
water sources. However, BWP must first purchase and spread
imported water before extracting it from the groundwater basin.
To maximize its limited supply, the utility produces
approximately 4 million gallons of recycled water daily for
non-potable purposes, such as irrigating school fields and
parks and operating the Magnolia Power Plant.
Forecasting the weather in Nevada presents unique challenges
due to the state’s distinctive geography and limited resources,
according to experts. Dawn Johnson, a warning coordination
meteorologist, explained that the Sierra Nevada Mountains play
a significant role in the state’s weather patterns. “We’ve got
a little mountain range to the west, so once it reaches the
Sierra Nevada mountain range that is the big difference. It
acts as a blocking and modifying mechanism for our weather
systems as they come in,” said Johnson. This natural barrier
traps moisture carried by winds from the Pacific Ocean,
contributing to Nevada’s status as the driest state in the
country. The National Weather Service office in Reno operates
with significantly fewer weather stations than neighboring
California, with only about 60 compared to California’s
100.
… Formed in 1993, the Salton Sea Authority serves as a
central hub where local leaders, agencies, and community
members bring ideas for projects like trail systems and
community-centric developments. The Authority plays a crucial
role in aligning these ideas with the overarching restoration
plan. In an interview with NBC Palm Springs, the Authority’s
CEO discussed a significant new initiative: a $22.3 million
comprehensive feasibility study. The study will help develop a
realistic, achievable ecosystem restoration plan for the entire
Salton Sea, based on available resources. “Recently, we signed
an agreement to implement a longer-term feasibility study,” the
CEO explained. “It will effectively develop a feasible and
achievable ecosystem restoration plan for the entire sea based
on the resources that are available.”
A long-term shift toward drier conditions is reshaping
landscapes and livelihoods across the globe. Known as
aridification, this gradual drying trend now affects 2.3
billion people and 40% of Earth’s land, with serious
implications for agriculture and water systems—especially in
the U.S. From California’s Central Valley to the Great Plains,
often called the world’s breadbasket, farmers are facing tough
decisions about what to plant, how to irrigate, and how to
adapt to a future where water is no longer guaranteed. These
findings appear in the Nature Water article “Increasing
aridification calls for urgent global adaptive solutions and
policy action,” led by Mississippi State University
Associate Vice President and Professor Narcisa Pricope in
collaboration with a team of international scientists.
… (E)very human interaction with water is connected to a
broader water system. But water practitioners haven’t always
treated their work with the same interconnected approach.
Instead, many cities and regions divide their water into three
silos: drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater, each managed
separately. That approach is not meeting the needs of many
communities. And a different approach, called One Water, is
beginning to take its place. One Water treats drinking water,
wastewater, and stormwater as a single, interconnected entity
and attempts to manage it holistically, bringing together water
utilities, community members, business and industry leaders,
researchers, politicians, engineers, and advocacy groups.
… The key to preventing disasters … is regular inspection
of sewer lines, hunting down any cracks and fissures that, if
left unattended, can lead to soil ingress and eventual collapse
of the pipe. Sewer pipes can be dark, cramped, and filled
with pockets of gas, making inspecting large networks using
traditional methods (typically a tethered, remotely operated
crawler fitted with a camera or even in-person) a slow, costly,
and often hazardous process. This is where drones come in.
Designed and engineered to operate in confined spaces, a new
generation of flying robots is being sent into sewers to
perform inspections in a safer, more efficient way.
An agreement to build a waterway allowing fish to swim freely
past a dam on the lower Yuba River has moved forward as part of
an initiative that also includes returning a threatened salmon
species to another part of the watershed. Federal, state and
local agencies have partnered on the potentially $100 million
project and tout its goal of restoring access for a variety of
fish species to parts of the river system walled off for more
than a century. … But local anglers have raised concerns
about the project, fearing that the free-flowing bypass will
allow predatory fish, particularly striped bass, to access a
section of the river seen as a haven for certain species.
Sen. Jerry McNerney is stepping into the fight over one of the
biggest modern-day water projects in California — a tunnel to
reroute more water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta south to farmers and cities — just as it’s heating up.
Representatives of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region have
long railed against the project for its potential impact on the
environment and local water supplies. But McNerney, a 22-year
veteran of Congress who came to the state Senate last year to
represent San Joaquin County, which will bear the brunt of the
tunnel’s construction, sees political forces aligning in a way
that they haven’t in decades. “It’s going to be more of a
challenge for us to keep the discussion to actually the benefit
and cost of this thing, as opposed to just the will to get it
done,” he said.
For years, the Klamath Basin along California’s remote northern
border has been mired in drought, missing out on the string of
wet winters that benefited the rest of the state. But not
any longer. Officials at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced this past week that stormy weather over the past
several months was enough, alongside the removal of four
dams on the Klamath River and other water projects, to
likely ensure sufficient water for farms, fish and wildlife
refuges in the region. The federally run Klamath Project, the
extensive network of dams and canals that supplies water along
the California-Oregon state line, is projected to deliver the
most water it has since at least 2019 this year — 330,000
acre-feet — according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
A group* of my Colorado River collaborators
has put together what we hope can be a useful set of
foundational principles as the basin states and federal
leadership search for a path toward a negotiated agreement for
post-2026 Colorado River management. They’re based on a number
of key premises: The Colorado River Compact will remain the
foundation of the river’s management, but we have to find a way
past the deep disagreement between Upper and Lower basin states
on what the Compact actually says.
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding President Donald
Trump’s EPA is how it plans to revoke the endangerment finding
— the lifeblood of most climate regulations. … Experts said
EPA may be betting that it can upend the scientific finding —
which paved the way for the nation’s rules on climate pollution
on cars, power plants and across other sectors — without taking
direct aim at the overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases
are driving up global temperatures. Instead EPA
Administrator Lee Zeldin and other officials whom the president
tasked in January with undoing the finding could raise
questions about whether a sector — or even the whole country —
contributes enough climate pollution globally to warrant
regulation.
The grim reality for agriculture under the state’s new
groundwater law has pitted farmer against farmer in several
regions, including the Pleasant Valley subbasin. An April 22
meeting of the Pleasant Valley Groundwater Sustainability
Agency (GSA) erupted in accusations of conflict of interest as
some farmers demanded the resignation of GSA General Manager
Brad Gleason. … Specifically, Gleason was accused of signing
a $25 million loan application without board approval. The
alleged application was with the U.S. Department of Agriculture
for a proposed pipeline that would bring surface water to the
subbasin where Gleason has land, according to a letter sent to
the board by grower Phillip Christensen. Gleason, who has
farmed in the area for more than 40 years, denied the
allegations in a terse back-and-forth with attorneys at the
meeting.
Turns out there’s a lot more than sewage polluting our rivers,
oceans and air, according to scientists who study the
cross-border sewage crisis. More than 175 toxic chemicals have
been found in water samples collected from the Tijuana River
Valley, according to Dr. Paula Stigler Granados, who spoke at
the Coronado High School Stop the Sewage Health Forum on
Wednesday. … She said that out of the 392 chemicals found in
samples, 224 appear on a regulatory list, and 175 appear in the
EPA Toxic Substance list. In addition, many of the chemicals
are what scientists call an “emerging concern,” which means no
one knows just how toxic they are yet. … This includes
everything from pharmaceutical drugs like anesthetics to
illegal drugs like cocaine and meth, according to a list shared
at the meeting.
Sunlight glimmers on Lake Tahoe on a spring morning in April as
the John LeConte, the 48-year-old research vessel for the UC
Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, motors across the
glassy water. The engine turns over with a rhythmic revving
that eventually fades into a background hum. Gentle waves
ripple out from the prow, but the water is otherwise completely
still. I’m onboard the John LeConte with a group of scientists.
We’re heading to the middle of Lake Tahoe to get a picture of
what’s happening beneath the surface of the water, all the
way down to the deepest parts of the lake.
More than 1,000 additional NOAA employees will soon exit the
agency after accepting Commerce Department early retirement and
buyout offers, according to current and former employees. The
additional departures raise the number of total staff
reductions since February to more than 2,200 employees, or
nearly 20 percent of the agency’s workforce under the Biden
administration, according to current and former staffers who
have tracked the reductions. The moves come as workers across
the federal bureaucracy face deep reductions in force, or RIFs,
at their departments. An informal tally circulating among
agency employees and provided to POLITICO’s E&E News by a
former staffer indicated that the total number of people who
took early retirements or buyouts is around 1,050 people. An
April 22 staff meeting agenda from one of NOAA’s line offices
also indicated the agency had accepted the retirement and
buyout applications of between 1,050 and 1,100 employees.
Four area lawmakers are coming together and calling for the
reopening of Folsom Lake to boaters. Assemblyman Josh Hoover,
Congressman Kevin Kiley, Senator Roger Niello, and Assemblyman
Joe Patterson are demanding action in response to the lake’s
recent closure, citing concerns about its impact on the
region’s economy and recreational access. The group contends
that restrictions tied to invasive species prevention have gone
too far and are calling for immediate steps to allow boaters
back on the water as peak season approaches. In a joint letter
sent this week to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the
California Department of Parks and Recreation, the group
expressed strong concerns about the lake’s recent closure and
the impact it is already having on local recreation and
businesses.
