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 Trump administration has announced it would attempt to kill
some of the strong new Pfas “forever chemical” drinking water
limits set in April 2024. While the moves would deliver a clear
win for the US chemical and water utility industries, it is
less clear whether the action will be successful, what it means
longterm for the safety of the US’s drinking water, and its
impact on progress in addressing forever chemical pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is attempting
maneuvers that violate the law, observers say, and even if they
survive a legal challenge, progress under the Biden
administration cannot be fully undone. … Still, the
announcement raises a fresh round of questions about the water
utility industry, which has led the attack on the new
rules.
A group of farmers, ranchers and rural municipalities are going
to court to try to stop Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes
from pursuing her lawsuit to halt the pumping of groundwater by
a Saudi-owned alfalfa farm. An attorney for the Arizona Farm
and Ranch Group Coalition says they fear other farms in the
future could be sued for their pumping of Arizona’s underground
aquifers. Mayes is relying on a largely untested legal theory.
She argues the company Fondomonte is creating a public nuisance
due to the amount of groundwater it is pumping at its farms in
La Paz County. She says the amount they are pumping has dried
up nearby wells and has resulted in land subsidence. The
coalition worries the outcome of the case could overturn
existing water regulations and could be a dangerous expansion
of public nuisance laws. But the real purpose behind the new
court filing, attorney David Brown said, is the fear that if
the attorney general wins in court, “this case is just the
beginning.”
With the recent completion of dam removal along the
California-Oregon border, the public is being invited in to see
the results. A string of new recreation sites on
the Klamath River began opening Thursday, allowing
visitors to view and access the free-flowing waters that Native
Americans and environmentalists had long pushed to undam. The
five river access sites remain in various stages of
development. Three are debuting this week with pit toilets,
boat ramps, patches of riverfront and not much else. Improved
facilities are expected in coming months, providing sparse but
scenic spots for picnicking, wildlife viewing and
kayaking. Two of the sites are still under construction
and are closed. Managers of the dam-removal project expect all
the access areas to be fully open by August.
There are 98 animal species the state considers threatened or
endangered and 12 others that are candidates for being listed.
Including plants and insects, there are 250 endangered,
threatened or species of concern that are found in Solano
County. … Among the listed species that can be found in the
Suisun Marsh are the Delta smelt, Sacramento splittail,
California black rail, Salt Marsh song sparrow, Suisun shrew,
and California tiger salamander. And, of course, Putah
Creek is home to the endangered salmon. … Today (May 16)
marks the 20th anniversary of Endangered Species Day, with
events planned across the country.
Perched above the Dillon Reservoir on the side of a mountain
road in Summit County, Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed into
law three bills aimed at bolstering the state’s water
infrastructure. The measures come amid the backdrop of
chronic drought and increased water demand in the West which
have made finding a path towards water sustainability more
urgent. Negotiations between Colorado and six other states over
future use of the Colorado River, which serves around 40
million people, remain at a standstill. Speaking amid
on-and-off snow flurries and bouts of sunshine, Polis said the
bills signed on Thursday will help “build a sustainable,
livable future” by “securing our water for the state of
Colorado.”
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs convened a “roundtable” of state
water users and other officials on Tuesday to assess the
condition of Arizona’s Colorado River water supplies and to
increase public awareness of the challenges the state faces as
negotiations over the future operations of the river system go
forward. The event at the headquarters of the Central Arizona
Project included a helicopter fly-over for the Governor of
parts of the 336-mile CAP canal system, which typically
delivers nearly half of Arizona’s Colorado River water to
central and south-central Arizona communities.
The Porterville Irrigation District board of directors voted
unanimously to launch a second version of its own groundwater
sustainability agency Tuesday, May 13. … This the latest
in a string of steps for the district, which voted in late
September to break away from Eastern Tule GSA following the
state Water Resources Control Board’s decision to place the
Tule subbasin on probation for lacking a groundwater plan that
would bring aquifers into balance by 2040. Hoping to escape the
metering requirements, well registration, and pumping fees that
come with probation, Porterville ID and several other districts
bailed out of Eastern Tule. Porterville ID initially
agreed to partner with the City of Porterville to form a new
GSA citing overlapping boundaries, the city’s proven track
record on fixing domestic wells and its storage capacity at
Lake Success east of town.
An investment of over 15 billion pesos will be allocated to
address cross-border wastewater flows that have plagued Tijuana
and San Diego for decades. Víctor Daniel Amador Barragán,
Baja California’s Secretary of Water Management, Sanitation,
and Protection, highlighted the news during Governor Marina del
Pilar Ávila Olmeda’s weekly press conference. Amador
Barragán presented updates on Minute 328 of the International
Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) regarding the Binational
Tijuana River Sanitation Agreement. Signed in July 2022, this
agreement represents the largest allocation of resources in 40
years to tackle the environmental issue. According to
official data, the total binational investment amounts to
around $15 billion pesos, with $12.373 billion coming from the
U.S. government and $2.762 billion from the Mexican government.
These funds will be distributed across 17 key projects aimed at
modernizing and expanding sanitation infrastructure.
Boaters visiting Ruth Lake this summer are being urged to
clean, drain, and dry all watercraft to prevent the spread of
the invasive golden mussel. Officials say that the golden
mussel, native to East and Southeast Asia, poses a significant
threat to the lake’s ecosystem and Humboldt County’s primary
water source. According to the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, Ruth Lake’s water quality conditions are ideal
for the golden mussel to establish and thrive. The dense
colonization of this species could disrupt the operations of
Matthews Dam, potentially endangering the county’s water
supply. Michiko Mares, General Manager at the Humboldt Bay
Municipal Water District, emphasized the importance of boaters’
cooperation to help stop the spread of the mussel.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin returned to Capitol Hill this week
to testify before House and Senate appropriators in defense of
the Trump administration’s bid to slash EPA’s budget by more
than half, from $9.1 billion this year, to $4.2 billion in
fiscal 2026, which begins in October. Because the White House
has thus far released only a skeletal “skinny” version of its
budget request, lawmakers don’t have a lot to work with. But it
was Zeldin’s first appearance before Congress since he won
Senate confirmation in late January and took charge of a deeply
polarizing agenda that critics say will decimate the agency.
Here are four takeaways from this week’s hearings. During
Trump’s first term, lawmakers repeatedly rebuffed deep cuts to
EPA spending. They are now poised to do so again.
The recent firing of the head of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency is just the latest in a string of blows for
the nation’s top disaster-response agency, which has been
repeatedly undercut by the Trump administration’s efforts to
rein in spending and restructure the federal government. The
dismissal of acting Director Cameron Hamilton on May 8 adds to
ongoing layoffs, budget cuts, grant cancellations and
leadership changes at FEMA, and officials now say the agency
could run out of money as soon as July. … Experts say the
turmoil at FEMA will leave millions of Americans vulnerable as
climate-change-fueled disasters get worse in the months and
years ahead — particularly as President Trump seeks to shift
more of the burden of disaster response away from the federal
government and onto the states. In the wake of January’s
destructive firestorm in Los Angeles, FEMA notably opted to
break from its decades-long tradition of testing soil for
contaminants, as The Times first reported.
The societal risks posed by heat waves can be reinforced and
magnified during drought conditions. To explore this further in
the United States, heat waves and drought events were defined
at U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) stations using daily
maximum air temperature and weekly time series of the U.S.
Drought Monitor (USDM). … Given that 5-cm standardized soil
moisture anomalies were found to both vary (wet and dry
conditions) within drought events and strongly impact both air
temperature and heat index intensity, the muted intensity
response to drought may be related to the USDM’s limited
response to short-term precipitation events that are sufficient
to moisten the soil and impact heat waves, but not ameliorate
drought. This highlights the importance of evaluating heat
waves at subdaily scales and explicitly accounting for the role
of soil moisture in influencing heat wave intensity and
exposure.
… The city is in the process of undertaking a potential water
rate increase since the water fund has been operating at a
deficit for many years. Because water rates have not been
raised in approximately 20 years, the current rates are
insufficient to cover operational costs and infrastructure
maintenance. As a possible alternative option, Interim City
Manager Hauck suggested that the city consider divesting the
operations to a private utility company, which would assume
full operation and management of the water and sewer systems.
The city could issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) from
interested water agencies, which Hauck said would give City
Council an idea of how the privatization process works so
council could make an informed decision. The Request for
Proposals would be an exploratory process and the city would
not be obligated to enter a contract.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure Thursday
prohibiting local governments from adding fluoride to their
water systems, making it the second state in the country after
Utah to ban the mineral. DeSantis signed the bill at a public
event in Dade City, Fla., over the concerns of dentists and
public health advocates. … State lawmakers approved the
bill last month, requiring the mineral and some other additives
be removed from water sources across the state. Utah was the
first state to ban fluoride in late March, and its prohibition
went into effect last week, while Florida’s provision is
effective July 1. Some local governments in Florida have
already voted to remove fluoride from their water, ahead of the
statewide ban. Earlier this month, Miami-Dade County
commissioners voted to override a veto by Mayor Daniella Levine
Cava and move forward with plans to remove fluoride from the
county’s drinking water.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to accelerate his
administration’s plan to build a $20-billion water tunnel
beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
by short-cutting permitting for the project and limiting
avenues for legal challenges. Newsom urged the Legislature on
Wednesday to adopt his plan to “fast-track” the tunnel, called
the Delta Conveyance Project, as part of his
revised May budget proposal. …The tunnel would create a
second route to transport water to the state’s pumping
facilities on the south side of the Delta, where supplies enter
the aqueducts of the State Water Project and are delivered to
27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland.
… Newsom said his proposal would: simplify permitting by
eliminating certain deadlines from water rights permits; narrow
legal review to avoid delays from legal challenges; confirm
that the state has authority to issue bonds to pay for the
project, which would be repaid by water agencies; and
accelerate state efforts to acquire land for construction.
The Trump administration is preparing to announce its pick to
head the Bureau of Reclamation, a crucial position in deciding
the future of the Colorado River, a White House spokesperson
told the Arizona Republic. … The White House
expects to announce its nominee for Reclamation Commissioner in
a matter of weeks, according to the spokesperson. The nominee
will go through what could be a months-long process to be
confirmed by the Senate before taking office. … Trump’s
reclamation commissioner could be the only person on his
appointed Colorado River team who comes from the river basin
itself. So far, two of the three major federal officials who
most affect the Colorado River — Burgum and Travnicek — are
from outside the basin.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it
plans to weaken limits on some so-called forever chemicals in
drinking water that were finalized last year, while maintaining
standards for two common ones. The Biden administration set the
first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl
and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding that they increased the
risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies
being born with low birth weight. Those limits on PFAS, which
are man-made and don’t easily break down in nature, were
expected to be reduced in drinking water for millions of
people. Limits on three types of PFAS, including so-called GenX
substances found in North Carolina, will be scrapped and
reconsidered by the agency, as will a limit on a mixture of
several types of PFAS.
Central Valley water regulators want the world’s largest winery
to stop using its wastewater on local crops — a decades-old
waste management practice — because it’s threatening Fresno’s
drinking water supply. The Central Valley Water Regional
Quality Control Board issued a tentative Cease and Desist Order
to E. & J. Gallo Winery in March for allegedly violating 2015
waste discharge requirements. … The stipulated order
says the winery at Olive and Clovis avenues is “threatening to
adversely impact groundwater beneath the Facility.”
Specifically, Gallo’s practice of applying some of its
untreated wastewater from the grape crush and press process
directly to 400 acres of local cropland has resulted in
concentrations of nitrate and other contaminants above
allowable levels. The city of Fresno is directly impacted by
the winery’s wastewater practices because it relies on
groundwater downgradient of the winery for its municipal
drinking water.
… Deep cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the sprawling federal agency charged
with monitoring and conserving fish stocks, managing coastal
waters, and predicting changes in climate, weather, and the
oceans—which commercial fishers rely on for day-to-day as well
as seasonal forecasts—threaten the long-term viability of
America’s $183 billion commercial fishing industry and the 1.6
million jobs it supports. … NOAA’s National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) staff, who oversee commercial fishing
and some recreational fisheries, is set to be slashed by nearly
30 percent. The NMFS assesses and predicts the status of
fish stocks, sets catch limits or quotas, and ensures
compliance with fisheries regulations, working collaboratively
with state environmental agencies, the fishing industry, and
other federal agencies.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, is part of a bipartisan bill
to unlock federal funding for water infrastructure in the West.
Working alongside U.S. Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, Kelly has
introduced the Restoring WIFIA Eligibility Act. It’s part of
efforts by their states, Washington state and California to get
federal dollars. Established in 2014, the Water Infrastructure
Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) created a program to provide
credit assistance to wastewater, drinking water, and stormwater
projects, both public and private. With terms that included
low, fixed-interest rates and repayment schedules, WIFIA loans
allowed applicants to draw funds when needed. Still,
Kelly’s office said “certain interpretations of the program”
created hurdles for any projects with federal involvement.
That, said the senator, made them ineligible for WIFIA loans
because of language that made them available only to
non-federal borrowers.
