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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Water began flowing from a pipe onto hundreds of acres of dry,
sunbaked lake bed as California officials filled a complex of
shallow ponds near the south shore of the Salton Sea in an
effort to create wetlands that will provide habitat for fish
and birds, and help control lung-damaging dust around the
shrinking lake. The project represents the state’s largest
effort to date to address the environmental problems plaguing
the Salton Sea, which has been steadily retreating and leaving
growing stretches of dusty lake bottom exposed to the desert
winds. … The habitat area in Imperial County is being
filled with water after an adjacent area called East Pond
received its first water in April. In the coming weeks, state
officials said the flooding of these sections will bring to
fruition the first 2,000 acres of the Species Conservation
Habitat Project, a central effort in California’s plan for
improving conditions at the state’s largest lake.
California’s second-largest reservoir, Lake
Oroville, reached capacity Friday, hitting the high
water mark for the third straight year — a first for the
57-year-old reservoir. The milestone comes after a moderately
wet winter in California, with enough snow in the mountains,
particularly in the north, to melt and flush substantial water
into state reservoirs. This week, water storage in California’s
major reservoirs stood at a comfortable 116% of average for the
time of year, ensuring decent supplies for the rest of
2025. At Lake Oroville, about 70 miles north of Sacramento
in Butte County, water levels rose Friday morning to within
inches of the 900-foot elevation mark that state water managers
deem full pool, prompting notice that the reservoir had hit
capacity. At capacity, the lake holds 3.4 million acre-feet of
water, enough to supply more than 7 million households for a
year.
Recent cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) have conservationists and scientists
worried about anadromous fish populations in the Pacific
Northwest. Like other federal agencies, NOAA is undergoing
major downsizing. The shrinkage is already disrupting habitat
restoration work for salmon and steelhead in California. And if
additional budget cuts that are currently in the works come to
fruition, the agency’s fisheries division could be eliminated
entirely, a recently retired NOAA scientist tells Field &
Stream. … When it comes to salmon and steelhead,
(fluvial geomorphologist Brian) Cluer worries most about
the potential loss of dam-removal projects in the Pacific
Northwest. NOAA played a pivotal role in the removal of four
dams on California’s Klamath River in 2023 and 2024, Cluer
says.
… To the eye, Imperial Beach, Calif., is an idyllic beach
town, a playground for tourists and Southern California
residents alike at the southern border with Mexico. But lately,
the view has been ruined by the sea breeze, which reeks of
rotten eggs. The surfers who once prepared for big-wave
competitions are gone. So are the tourists who built intricate
sand castles and licked ice cream cones on the pier. Imperial
Beach is now the center of one of the nation’s worst
environmental disasters: Every day, 50 million gallons of
untreated sewage, industrial chemicals and trash flow from
Tijuana, Mexico, into southern San Diego County. The
cross-national problem traces back at least a century. But it
has significantly worsened in recent years as the population of
Tijuana has exploded and sewage treatment plants in both
countries have fallen into disrepair.
The Kings Subbasin is not hitting the brakes after a
near-average Water Year 2024. Building on the momentum of the
historic 2023 water year, Kings Subbasin groundwater agencies
remain committed to driving long-term sustainability under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)
through local action and coordination. According to the most
recent Annual Report, Water Year 2024 (October 1, 2023 to
September 30, 2024) brought slightly above-average surface
water diversions, reaching approximately 108% of the Kings
River’s long-term average. Though not as abundant as the year
before, 2024 was classified as a near-average year in terms of
water availability. This marked a return to more typical
conditions after 2023’s wet year.
NASA’s U.S.-French Surface Water and Ocean
Topography (SWOT) satellite, which was launched in 2022
from Vandenberg Space Force Base, has spotted large-scale river
waves for the first time, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) in Southern California has announced. The river waves,
which, unlike ocean waves, are temporary surges of water,
stretched from 47 to 166 miles long as they traveled down
rivers in Montana, Texas, and Georgia, the SWOT satellite
recorded. The three large waves measured by the SWOT
satellite from 2023 to 2024 were believed to be caused by
extreme rainfall and a loosened ice jam, NASA reports.
… On Jan. 25, 2024, on the Colorado
River south of Austin, Texas, a river wave over
30-feet-tall and and 166 miles long traveled around 3.5 feet
per second for over 250 miles before discharging into Matagorda
Bay, and was associated with the largest flood of the year on
that section of river, according to NASA.
The Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) has approved $59.5
million in grants to support 25 habitat protection and
restoration projects in 21 counties across California. Awarded
at WCB’s May 22 meeting, the projects will safeguard nearly
23,000 acres of the state’s most ecologically important
landscapes. Among the awards is a $14.75 million grant to
the Trust for Public Land(opens in new tab) (TPL) to acquire
approximately 6,475 acres near the city of Ventura. Known as
Rancho Cañada Larga, the land features coastal sage scrub,
native grasslands, oak woodlands, chaparral and riparian
habitats that support at least 20 special-status wildlife
species and eight rare plant species. The site provides
critical habitat for the California red-legged frog and
Southern California steelhead, and lies within the year-round
range of the California condor.
President Donald Trump’s California-related water policy hasn’t
always been thoughtfully executed, as the fracas over his
ordered water releases early this year to help with the Los
Angeles wildfires made clear. The decision was hastily made,
didn’t help firefighting efforts and squandered water that
Central Valley farms will need as the dry season takes hold.
Nevertheless, the president’s instincts are correct. California
faces repeated droughts, with state water policy prioritizing
environmental concerns over the needs of farmers and consumers.
This approach hasn’t done much to improve the environment or
boost fish populations. So Trump is right to shift priorities
on federally managed projects. The latest news is heartening,
as it points toward building a project that has been discussed
for decades: raising Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet.
There is now another option for boaters hoping to get out on
Folsom Lake amid golden mussel restrictions.
Boats can now undergo a hot water decontamination — skipping
the 30-day quarantine that was previously the only
option. The rules are aimed at preventing an infestation
of golden mussels, which were recently identified in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and that “pose a significant
threat to the ecological health of all waters of the state, its
water conveyance systems, infrastructure, and water quality,”
California State Parks said. California State Parks lists
one location that is authorized to conduct decontaminations and
place a green seal on vessels headed for Folsom Lake – Mello
Marine. … It’s a service that requires a lot of water
and Mello’s setup was designed with that in mind – using pond
liners, trenches, filters and holding tanks.
The Orange County Water District (OCWD; the District) and the
City of Tustin celebrated the dedication of a new PFAS
treatment plant, marking a major milestone in ensuring safe and
reliable water for Tustin residents and businesses.
The dedication ceremony brought together local, state and
federal representatives to recognize the proactive actions of
both OCWD and the City of Tustin in addressing PFAS, a group of
manufactured chemicals increasingly found in water sources
across the country, including the Orange County Groundwater
Basin. The new treatment system, implemented at the existing
Main Street Water Treatment Plant, uses ion exchange technology
to treat up to 6,400 gallons of groundwater per minute. The
centralized plant is fed by four offsite wells connected
through approximately 2.5 miles of conveyance pipeline.
Nicole Byrne watched anxiously from across the small kitchen in
her home as Parham Azimi, a Harvard University researcher,
lined up sample bottles next to the running tap. … Azimi was
there gathering water samples as part of an unprecedented
academic collaboration led by health, environmental, data and
wildfire risk assessment researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan
School of Public Health, the UCLA Fielding School of Public
Health, the University of California, Davis and the University
of Texas at Austin. With support from the Spiegel Family Fund,
the universities formed the LA Fire Health Study Consortium in
late January after the fires killed 29 people, destroyed more
than 16,000 structures, primarily in Altadena and Pacific
Palisades, and exposed millions to particulate matter, gases,
chemicals, heavy metals, asbestos, PFAS, microplastics and
other toxic pollutants.
The rate at which trees are dying in California has hit a
10-year low, according to a survey from the U.S. Forest
Service. Trees were dying at an alarming rate from 2015 to
2018, but after significant snow and rainfall in recent years,
trees are getting their necessary nutrients. ”We’ve had a
couple good years of precipitation,” said Jeffrey Moore, aerial
survey manager with the Forest Service. “We expected the amount
of mortality to start tapering off, and indeed that was the
case.” Severe droughts, he says, are the main culprits for the
amount of trees that die. Less water means fewer nutrients,
which then allows for a greater chance of trees to get disease
or infected with bugs that feed on dry bark. “The drought
itself was what we call the proximal factor,” Moore said. “It
weakened the trees to the point where other things could come
in and actually kill them outright.”
… Lake Tahoe is famous for its blueness. The growth and
spread of algae is one reason blue lakes around the world can
appear green in the summer. Algae form the base of many food
webs, and most algae in Lake Tahoe, though sometimes
unattractive, do not pose a health risk to people or animals.
Harmful algal blooms are a different story. HABs can be
mistaken for harmless types of algae that naturally occur in
Tahoe and can be found clinging to rocks, washing up on
beaches, and attached to the bottom of creek and river
channels. HABs, however, pose a risk to public health and
safety as they can produce toxins. The Lahontan Regional
Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) places a focus on
algae and HABs in Tahoe’s waterbodies. They are not alone. The
Tahoe Science Advisory Council (Science Council), and notably
its member the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center,
study the presence, abundance, and distribution of Tahoe’s
algae over time and how those characteristics are shifting with
climate change.
As the western United States heads into its traditional dry
season, water managers are assessing how winter rains have
helped replenish the region’s reservoirs. The vast majority of
precipitation that falls during the wet season results from
atmospheric rivers (ARs) that rain down life-sustaining water
but can also cause costly destruction. These fast-moving
“rivers” of water vapor in the sky supply up to half of the
region’s annual precipitation, with stronger ARs responsible
for the majority of flood damages along the West Coast. To
aid in predicting and monitoring these extreme weather events,
NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) operates nine
atmospheric river observatories at sites distributed along the
coast from Washington to Southern California. These unmanned
weather stations send round-the-clock observations back to the
laboratory, which analyzes and displays the data publicly on
its Atmospheric River Portal.
UC Riverside-led study has found that a smartphone app that
tracks household water use and alerts users to leaks or
excessive consumption offers a promising tool for helping
California water agencies meet state-mandated conservation
goals. Led by Mehdi Nemati, an assistant professor of public
policy at UCR, the study found that use of the app—called
Dropcountr—reduced average household water use by 6%, with even
greater savings among the highest water users. Dropcountr works
by interpreting water-use data from smart water meters, which
many utilities originally installed for remote reading to
streamline billing. The app turns data from these meters into
real-time feedback for consumers, showing how much water they
use, how their usage compares to similar households, and how it
has changed over time.
… Until recently my husband, Norm Benson, and I were
mom-and-pop operators of a water treatment and distribution
system at Clear Lake, an idyllic, nutrient-rich version of a
green Lake Tahoe, about 110 miles north of San Francisco.
We love our community and didn’t mind pitching in. Over the
years our mutual water system, the Crescent Bay Improvement
Co., has become unsustainable. Our treated lake water could not
meet state or federal drinking standards. … The state
and a much larger water company in recent years threw us a
lifeline, for which we are grateful. By the time we got help,
our water hadn’t been drinkable for years. We were hardly
alone. More than 400 water systems, serving 885,000
Californians, are failing across the state, the State Water
Resources Control Board reports. More than half those failing
systems are in disadvantaged communities, and two-thirds serve
mostly people of color. –Written by Mary Benson, a Lake County real estate broker
who operated a small water system at Clear Lake with her
husband.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin warned states and tribes Thursday
not to “leverage” the Clean Water Act to block or impede energy
projects approved by the Trump administration. The agency
issued a memorandum reiterating states’ and tribes’ “specific
and limited” authority to review infrastructure projects for
potential water quality effects and announced it would soon
propose a regulation on the topic. “Under the last
administration, certain states attempted to leverage the Clean
Water Act to undercut projects that would boost national and
regional development and unleash American energy resources,”
Zeldin said in a statement. “With this memorandum, EPA is
reinforcing the limits on Clean Water Act section 401
certification to support energy, critical mineral, and
infrastructure projects that are key to economic growth and
Power the Great American Comeback.”
Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs and Northern Water voiced
opposition Wednesday to the Western Slope’s proposal to spend
$99 million to buy historic water rights on the Colorado River
from Xcel Energy. The Colorado River Water Conservation
District has been working for years to buy the water rights
tied to Shoshone Power Plant, a small, easy-to-miss hydropower
plant off Interstate 70 east of Glenwood Springs. The highly
coveted water rights are some of the largest and oldest on the
Colorado River in Colorado. The Front Range providers are
concerned that any change to the water rights could impact
water supplies for millions of city residents, farmers,
industrial users and more. … The proposed purchase taps
into a decades-old water conflict in Colorado: Most of the
state’s water flows west of the Continental Divide; most of the
population lives to the east; and water users are left to
battle over how to share it.
California’s snowpack is dwindling, and climate scientists
believe another record-breaking hot summer could be in the
cards, ramping up the possibility of an early fire season. The
state’s snowpack is at 14% of average peak snowpack, down from
96% on April 1 — the date snow scientists consider the height
of the snowpack, according to the state. The snowpack is
melting a little faster than usual, but state scientists said
the rate of snowmelt isn’t entirely abnormal. However, climate
scientists believe early snowmelt this year could be partly due
to human-caused climate change. Andy Reising, manager of the
California Department of Water Resources’ snow surveys and
water supply forecasting unit, said it’s important to
understand that snow is not melting uniformly across all
watersheds.
All 1,200 scientists and staff at the U.S. Geological Survey’s
biological research arm are on edge this week as they wait to
learn whether they’ll still have jobs come Monday. For weeks,
the biologists who work in the division, known as the
Ecosystems Mission Area, have watched two parallel threats
unfold. Most immediate is the expected firing of most division
staff as soon as next week. … The second threat is even more
serious: If the White House has its way, its proposed 2026
budget would eliminate the Ecosystems Mission Area, or EMA,
altogether. … The elimination of EMA would have profound
consequences. … It would erase bipartisan and widely
respected programs that, for example, monitor waterfowl
populations for game agencies, track contamination in
drinking water, convene time- and cost-saving
collaborations between agencies, universities and nonprofits,
and foster the next generation of fish and wildlife
professionals. … EMA scientists also monitor toxic
chemicals in water, and are one of the only groups looking in
private wells.
