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Water news you need to know

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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Aquafornia news Politico

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Trump’s quiet truce on California water

President Donald Trump promised to break California’s water rules wide open. So far, he’s mostly working within them. Five months after Trump issued a pair of directives for federal agencies to overturn state and Biden-era rules limiting water deliveries, the federal government has done no such thing. Instead, it’s quietly increasing water flows following the very rules Trump once railed against — at least for now. … What’s changed? For one, California had a wet winter, which tends to smooth over political differences. … Newsom has also aligned himself more with Trump on water, as when he jilted Delta-area Democrats last month in pushing to expedite a tunnel to move more supplies from Northern to Southern California. More substantively, some of the water districts that might be expected to agitate for Trump to overturn Biden-era water rules concede that they actually allow more deliveries than Trump’s version.

Other Trump administration and California water news:

Aquafornia news The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)

A battle is brewing in the American West: A thirst for cheap power on one side and a prehistoric fish on the other

… The Colorado River system rushes through turbines inside Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell, producing affordable, carbon-free hydropower. … Climate change and chronic water overuse continue to constrict the mighty river’s flows, though, jeopardizing the dam’s ability to produce hydroelectric power. The lack of water has also created a slew of environmental problems in the Grand Canyon’s ecosystem, which sprawls below Glen Canyon Dam — most notably for an ancient, threatened fish species, the humpback chub, which is hunted by invasive smallmouth bass. Under Biden last year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation finalized a decision that allows the dam to periodically release surges of water that bypass the machinery that generates power. These flows cool the river below the dam, which curbs smallmouth bass reproduction. Utah Republicans and power providers say that decision has only further threatened the valuable energy source — and they hope to undo it.

Other endangered and threatened species news:

Aquafornia news Chico Enterprise-Record (Calif.)

Lake Oroville begins process of slowly draining

After sitting near capacity for almost a month, Lake Oroville is beginning to slowly creep back down in water elevation as the California Department of Water Resources steadily increases outflows. Lake Oroville was reported at 896.35 feet in elevation Monday and will likely lower more in the weeks to come. DWR spokesperson Raquel Borrayo said the lake was once again bolstered by a wet and snowy winter. “Thanks to above-average precipitation and average snowpack levels in the northern Sierra for the last three years, water levels at Lake Oroville have been peaking in May and June and then slowly declining to their low point around November,” Borrayo said. Borrayo said the higher releases are sent into the Feather River, though some of the water remains local. … On Monday, inflows into Lake Oroville were estimated at 3,000 cubic feet per second.

Other reservoir and snowpack news around the West:

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix, Ariz.)

Trump pushes ‘America First’ in Mexico water deal. Experts worry it may backfire

… Trump has found a perhaps obvious avenue to pursue his goal to ensure the United States is getting a fair shake on the world stage. But some experts fear bringing tariff threats and “America First” rhetoric into the world of water negotiations will backfire, and that the careful work of administering the 1944 water treaty could get damaged in the process. … The treaty is a complex document, but it requires the United States to deliver water from the Colorado River to Mexico, and Mexico to deliver water from the Rio Grande to the United States. … After Trump threatened tariffs in April, Mexico’s president did announce an additional water shipment to Texas from Mexico’s reservoirs on the Rio Grande. But experts say there just isn’t enough water available for Mexico to get back on track by October. … Many of northern Mexico’s reservoirs are low or empty, and in some places, a lack of rain means rivers run dry.

Other water treaty news:

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix, Ariz.)

Arizona elections and Colorado River negotiations will collide in 2026

2026 is shaping up to be a key year for the Colorado River and the seven basin states that rely on its water. Those states hope to wrap up negotiations on how to use less of the overallocated river’s water by the end of this year — that means Arizona lawmakers and the governor would have next year to approve the deal. Joanna Allhands, digital opinions editor for The Arizona Republic, has written about this and joined The Show, along with editorial page editor Elvia Díaz, to discuss. … “If it plays out like what groundwater negotiations have done so far, that just means no one compromises, everything falls apart, we don’t get anywhere. And then that could be really disastrous for us, specifically because Arizona is the only Colorado River basin state that is required to have legislative approval for whatever deal comes our way,” (says Joanna Allhands). 

Other Colorado River Basin news:

Aquafornia news CalMatters

‘Not improving’: Lake Tahoe had one of its murkiest years on record

Lake Tahoe’s iconic blue waters were the third murkiest on record last year and the worst they’ve been in several years, according to data from scientists who have studied the lake for decades. Clarity of the alpine lake — measured by dropping a white disk into the water and noting when it disappears from sight — is a signal of its overall health. Tiny particles are major culprits of reduced clarity, including the sediment and other pollutants that wash into the lake from runoff and air pollution and the plankton that grow in its waters. Researchers with UC Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center reported today that the average murkiness in 2024 was exceeded only in 2021, when fires blanketed the lake in smoke and ash, and in 2017, when the lake was clouded by sediment-laden runoff during a near-record wet year. The report says that clarity levels are “highly variable and generally not improving,”  and recommends that “future research should focus on examining the nature of the particles that affect water clarity.” 

Related articles:

Aquafornia news The New York Times

A first descent as the Klamath River runs free for the first time in 100 years

The remote and rugged Klamath River in Oregon and California, one of the mightiest in the American West and an ancient lifeline to Indigenous tribes, is running free again, mostly, for the first time in 100 years after the recent removal of four major dams. At the burbling aquifer near Chiloquin, Ore., that is considered the headwaters, a sacred spot for native people, a group of kayakers, mostly Indigenous youth from the river’s vast basin began to paddle on Thursday. Ages 13 to 20, they had learned to kayak for this moment. Stroke by stroke, mile by mile, day by day, they plan to reach the salty water of the rugged Northern California coast, more than 300 miles away, in mid-July. If all goes as planned, the kayakers will pass the rehabilitated sites of the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history. They will pass salmon swimming upstream in places that the fish had not been able to reach since the early 1900s. They will pass through the ancient territory of their tribes — the Klamath, Shasta, Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Yurok among them.

Related article:

Aquafornia news KCRW (Santa Monica, Calif.)

Salton Sea is a saga of environmental change at high speed

If you know anything about the Salton Sea, maybe you’ve heard that California’s largest lake has been shrinking for decades, the fish are dying, and toxic dust from the lakebed is blowing around the Coachella Valley. The term “apocalyptic” gets thrown around. For the people who live here, that’s not a helpful way to think of the place. … Thinking of the Salton Sea as a place that’s doomed can make it hard to see it as a place in the middle of dramatic change, affected in real time by humans — and lately by the equivalent of a really big faucet. Long-running plans to add more water — more sustainable water — to the edges of the sea are now coming online, which should be great news for the region’s most devoted tourists: the birds. … As water is rerouted from the lake to San Diego and other urban areas, the Salton Sea is getting saltier. So the fish are dying off, and the fish-eating birds, like pelicans, are also going elsewhere as the place changes.

Aquafornia news Politico

‘Set up for failure’: Trump’s cuts bring climate and energy agencies to a standstill, workers say

Cuts and freezes are jamming up some of the basic functions of government at agencies targeted in President Donald Trump’s rollbacks of his predecessors’ energy and environmental policies, more than a dozen federal employees told POLITICO. Lockdowns of spending and an absence of guidance from political appointees are leaving Environmental Protection Agency scientists unable to publish their research, preventing some Energy Department officials from visiting their department’s laboratories and forcing the cancellation of disaster planning exercises at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the 13 employees, who were granted anonymity to avoid reprisals. They said the chaos has also left recipients of Biden-era energy grants in limbo as they wait for approval to continue the projects they’ve started. … Other affected agencies include the Interior Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which conducts crucial climate research and oversees the National Weather Service.

Other climate science news:

Aquafornia news SFGate

Map shows which 16M acres of Calif. public lands eligible for sale in GOP bill

As the Senate continues to comb through the Big Beautiful Bill, 258 million acres of public land across the western U.S., including large swaths of California, could soon be eligible for sale. A map published by the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit land conservation organization, reveals which parcels of land across 11 states would be up for grabs, in accordance with the land sale proposal detailed by Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. If the budget is passed by the July 4 deadline, an estimated 16 million acres in California are at risk of being sold over the next five years. Those vulnerable parcels of land include areas adjacent to Yosemite National Park, Mount Shasta, Big Sur and Lake Tahoe. … In all, up to 3 million acres across all states would be authorized to be sold out of 258 million eligible acres across the West.

Other public land sale news:

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix, Ariz.)

AZ has 19 national monuments. Why a recent Justice Dept. opinion may eliminate their designations

A recently released opinion from the Justice Department suggests that the Trump administration may seek to unilaterally eliminate national monument designations. The administration has previously expressed interest in shrinking or removing protections on protected lands to clear the way for resource extraction or development, and the DOJ opinion would seem to mark an escalation of those priorities. The stakes are particularly high here in Arizona, where we have the second-highest number of national monuments in the country. Roger Naylor, author of “Arizona National Parks and Monuments: Scenic Wonders and Cultural Treasures of the Grand Canyon State,” joined The Show to discuss the implications of this. … “These are essential places to us, not only for our recreation, not only for tourism, but just protecting wildlife corridors and very often protecting watersheds, keeping our water supply safe as well,” (says Naylor.)

Other national monument and Antiquities Act news:

Aquafornia news UC Davis Law Review

Saving Mono Lake: the prologue, peak, and implementation of the landmark Audubon Society public trust litigation

One of the all-time great stories of American environmental law, the Mono Lake saga recounts the protracted conflict over scarce water resources between the City of Los Angeles and advocates for the Mono Basin, Yosemite’s eastern watershed, some four hundred miles to the north. In 1983, in National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court famously addressed the conflict by centering the state’s obligations under the common law public trust doctrine, which sets forth public rights and obligations in certain natural resource commons, especially navigable waterways. … While the decision itself is well-represented in the legal literature, the full story of the case has not received the attention it deserves. This Article offers fresh perspective on the least recounted but critical parts of the story—not only the significance of the legal innovations in the decision, but also what happened beforehand to lay the foundations for the landmark ruling, and then what happened afterward to bridge the court’s holding to the ultimate outcome for Mono Lake. 

Aquafornia news California Trout

News release: CalTrout and PG&E kick off construction on Alameda Creek fish passage project

California Trout (CalTrout) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) kicked off construction today on a project that will remove the last unnatural barrier to fish passage on mainstem Alameda Creek, the largest local tributary to the San Francisco Bay. … This project will open more than 20 miles of stream including quality spawning habitat in the upper watershed to Chinook salmon and steelhead with completion anticipated in winter 2025. … In 2022 and 2023, former barriers at the BART weir and inflatable bladder dams in Fremont, eight to ten miles upstream of where Alameda Creek enters the Bay, were made passable for fish due to newly constructed fish ladders by the Alameda County Water District and after years of advocacy by the Alameda Creek Alliance. The newly constructed fish ladders enabled Chinook salmon and steelhead to migrate through the lower creek into Niles Canyon and access parts of the upper Alameda Creek watershed for the first time in over fifty years. Soon, these fish will be able to consistently swim even further upstream. 

Aquafornia news KSBW (Salinas, Calif.)

Plan approved to bring clean, affordable water to California town after 14 years

San Lucas residents, who have been without clean drinking water for nearly 14 years, may soon see a resolution as local leaders approve a plan to bring affordable water to the community. In the small, rural town of San Lucas, with a population of a little over 400 people, residents struggle with a basic essential: water. They have lived without proper drinking water for over a decade, with the cost of clean drinking water being their biggest obstacle. Now, county leaders, along with the San Lucas Water District, have a solution. ”We were able to bring in a partner, CalWater, to be able to be that water provider, and in doing so the average monthly bill in the community is expected to be around 90 dollars. But the benefit beyond that is anybody who is low-income, which we know 90% of that community is, will only pay about 60% of that bill, so they are going to average around 50 to 60 dollars a month. As a water bill, that is doable,” said Monterey County Supervisor Chris Lopez.

Other local water management news:

Aquafornia news Fresnoland (Calif.)

Richard Sloan makes San Joaquin River conservation a mission

… Originally born in Colorado, (Richard) Sloan moved to Fresno with his parents when he was around 4 years old. He moved to Khartoum, Sudan for two years and returned in 1964 to Fresno. It was then, when he was 13 years old, when he first became acquainted with the San Joaquin River. … During his final years in (Army) service and after, Sloan began volunteering for the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust. That was when he experienced his first canoe ride down the river, where he noted that he was “never out of sight of a tire” while on the water. … “I thought, ‘Oh my God, why doesn’t anybody do anything about that?’ and that’s what spurred me onto that first cleanup, then after that, I started organizing tire cleanups and they turned out to be pretty popular,” Sloan said. In 2000, he got a full-time position with the trust as the River Steward Coordinator and also became chair of the Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter. Through his positions he was able to coordinate the river’s first clean up at Camp Pashayan, where they pulled out 60 tires and an old-timey soda vending machine. 

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix, Ariz.)

Monday Top of the Scroll: Arizona could get a better deal in Colorado River water negotiations under Trump, experts say

… Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said at a recent roundtable that under the Trump administration, the state could be better positioned than it was under the Biden administration. … Under the Biden administration, the Lower Basin states sent a proposal to the federal government offering to take 1.5 million acre-feet of water cuts per year. Arizona would cut the most, at 750,000 acre-feet. The Biden government rejected the Lower Basin’s proposal and issued an “alternative report” on Jan. 17, almost the last day of the administration. … Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen went on to say he also wants the federal government to tie in expensive infrastructure projects to the negotiations, and not just river-related infrastructure, but maybe even a desalination plant in California. Petersen said if Arizona were to help pay for that, then Arizona could take some of California’s Colorado River allocation.

Other Colorado River Basin news:

Aquafornia news E&E News by Politico

House Republicans try again on water permitting bills

Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced 15 water-related bills Thursday, targeting everything from the length of federal permitting to the types of water resources protected by the Clean Water Act. The bills would benefit oil and gas companies, farming interests, homebuilders, water utilities and others who say that environmental reviews and long permitting timelines are stifling development. They were introduced by Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee Chair Mike Collins, (R-GA) … Doug LaMalfa, (R-Calif.) and others. “The Clean Water Act was intended to protect water quality, support healthy communities, and balance the demands of economic growth across the United States,” (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam) Graves said in a statement.

Related articles:

Aquafornia news The New York Times

California’s big question: How brutal will the summer wildfire season be?

… Every summer across the state, the atmosphere dries up and the temperatures turn warm, sucking moisture from the landscape and turning the parched vegetation into kindling, ready to burn under the right conditions. This year, forecasters are already seeing signs that the pattern could be more intense than usual. The snow in the Sierra Nevada, the frozen reservoir that moistens the landscape through the spring, is nearly gone; it melted off earlier than normal. This year’s grass crop is plentiful, especially in Northern California, which received more rain than the southern part of the state, and it’s already fueling fires as it dries out. And forecasters predict the summer will be exceptionally hot. All of this adds up to a higher probability of more large wildfires than usual this summer, with the possibility that even the smallest spark could explode into a significant wildfire if not stopped quickly.

Other fire season news:

Aquafornia news SJV Water

Attempt to boot judge off of Kern River case by water agency denied

A move to boot Kern County Superior Court Gregory Pulskamp off the long-running Kern River lawsuit was denied, according to a ruling issued Tuesday by the assistant presiding judge of the court. The Kern County Water Agency filed a motion May 30 to remove Pulskamp citing its belief the judge would be biased against the agency because a preliminary injunction he had issued requiring enough water be kept in the river for fish was overturned by the 5th District Court of Appeal. … Typically, disqualification motions come after a trial outcome is reversed, not in the middle of an ongoing lawsuit, according to attorney Adam Keats, who represents Bring Back the Kern and several other public interest groups fighting to get water back in the riverbed through Bakersfield. The agency, however, argued in its motion that the injunction and reversal should be considered similar to a trial. No, they are not similar, states a motion by the City of Bakersfield urging Kern’s presiding judge to deny the agency’s motion.

Aquafornia news The Fresno Bee

Opinion: San Joaquin River salmon restoration hits Fresno milestone

Earlier this month, Fresno welcomed 448 members of the Salmonidae family to town. … The 448 adult salmon represent a milestone for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, marking the highest number of captured returns since spring-run juveniles were reintroduced to the river system in 2014 following the 2008 legal settlement that modified the operations of Friant Dam to provide minimum flows for native fish. … Most of this year’s bumper crop were trapped in fyke nets placed downstream of the Eastside Bypass Control Structure in Merced County. (Some made their way upstream to Sack Dam until being captured.) After being placed into tanks with oxygenated, temperature-controlled water, the salmon were trucked 120 miles then examined and measured before being released back into the river in northwest Fresno. … What measures are taken to ensure nearly 450 adult salmon residing on the outskirts of a city of 547,000 people remain undisturbed until they can reproduce? The short answer is enforcement and education.
–Written by Fresno Bee columnist Marek Warszawski.

Other salmon news: