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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Over 10,000 feet above sea level in Sequoia and Kings National
Parks dozens of weather station towers are sprinkled amongst a
forest of towering trees. These towers house antennas and
sensors designed to collect valuable water
data used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Sacramento District and many of its partners. Though these
stations are built to withstand extreme weather, there comes a
time — about every 50 years or so — when the stations need a
little more than routine annual maintenance. This was the
case for two USACE-operated weather stations that were rebuilt
in 2025: Upper Tyndall near Mt Whitney, in the Kern River
watershed, and Mitchell Meadow near Cedar Grove, California, in
the Kings River watershed.
Water recycling treats wastewater so it can be used for
drinking water, farming, housing, and industry. Communities
across the U.S. also turn to water recycling to increase
existing water supplies. The Bureau of Reclamation selected 5
projects in Southern California and Utah to receive grants
worth about $308 million for developing water recycling
projects. Projects will serve rural, suburban, and urban
communities. Agency officials identified ways to address
challenges they had implementing the initial grant program. We
recommended the Bureau document the experience so that Congress
can improve the program if it is revised or reauthorized.
One year after the January 2025 fires devastated communities
across Los Angeles, the region is still reckoning with how its
infrastructure performed and whether it should be modified to
perform under increasingly extreme conditions. The anniversary
has sharpened an urgent policy question with far-reaching
consequences: as urban wildfires become more frequent and
severe, what role can water systems realistically play in
protecting lives, supporting emergency response, and guiding
resilient rebuilding? A new UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
publication, Water Systems’ Wildfire Fighting Capacities and
Expectations: Workshop Synthesis Report, begins to answer this
question.
With farmland prices sagging and new irrigation rules coming,
diversified farmer Michael Vander Dussen didn’t hesitate to
spend $1.4 million for 321 acres in west Fresno County, as an
insurance policy of sorts. Vander Dussen admits he isn’t
as interested in the land as much as its access to water. He
recently planted a field of pistachio trees nearby, and he
wants to make sure they survive. … Vander Dussen said
both properties are in the same GSA, groundwater sustainability
agency. And he intends to fallow a portion of the new property
that is located west of Raisin City and south of Kerman.
… The Fresno Bee has started tracking these types of
agriculture land sales using an AI tool that we developed to
more efficiently share this news with you.
Residents of a Green Valley neighborhood are voicing their
concerns over plans to remove grass from their community park,
a move driven by Assembly Bill 356 and the Southern Nevada
Water Authority’s (SNWA) efforts to conserve water by
eliminating nonfunctional turf. The SNWA defines nonfunctional
turf as irrigated grass that does not provide functional use.
However, neighbors near Wingbrook Avenue argue that the grass
in their park is functional. … The SNWA asserts that
removing nonfunctional turf will help reduce Colorado River
consumption and protect the community’s water supply.
Since Modesto Irrigation Director Larry Byrd voted to squash an
investigation into himself last month, some, including experts,
have wondered how he was allowed to do that. … In
September, MID launched an investigation after Byrd was
publicly accused of either stealing or misusing the district’s
canal water. The investigation found that Byrd’s previous
answers to some of the accusations against him were impossible.
However, the report, scientific and data-reliant, failed to
clearly implicate Byrd. But had Byrd recused himself, the
investigation would have continued.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
A steady stream of water spilled from Lake Casitas Friday, a
few days after officials declared the Ojai Valley reservoir had
reached capacity for the first time in a quarter century. Just
two years earlier, the drought-stressed reservoir, which
provides drinking water for the Ojai
Valley and parts of Ventura, had dropped under 30%.
The Casitas Municipal Water District was looking at emergency
measures if conditions didn’t improve, board President Richard
Hajas said. Now, the lake is full, holding roughly 20 years of
water.
After nearly a century of people building dams on most of the
world’s major rivers, artificial reservoirs now represent an
immense freshwater footprint across the landscape. Yet, these
reservoirs are understudied and overlooked for their fisheries
production and management potential, indicates a study from the
University of California, Davis. The study, published
in the journal Scientific Reports, estimates that U.S.
reservoirs hold 3.5 billion kilograms (7.7 billion pounds) of
fish. Properly managed, these existing reservoir ecosystems
could play major roles in food security and fisheries
conservation.
California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the
worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its
land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform
more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit
landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release,
officials announced Monday. … The plan also calls for
11.9 million acres of forestland to be managed for biodiversity
protection, carbon storage and water supply protection by 2045,
and 2.7 million acres of shrublands and chaparral to be managed
for carbon storage, resilience and habitat connectivity, among
other efforts.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife recommended
Alternative 3 – Salmon Closure during the final days of the
Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) meeting mirroring
the opinions of commercial and recreational charter boat
anglers. The department’s position is a significant change from
early March. The PFMC meetings are being held in Seattle from
April 6 to 11, and the final recommendations of the council
will be forwarded to the California Fish and Game Commission in
May.
Sustaining the American Southwest is the Colorado River. But
demand, damming, diversion, and drought are draining this vital
water resource at alarming rates. The future of water in the
region – particularly from the Colorado River – was top of mind
at the 10th Annual Eccles Family Rural West Conference, an
event organized by the Bill Lane Center for the American West
that brings together policymakers, practitioners, and scholars
to discuss solutions to urgent problems facing rural Western
regions.
Today, Congresswoman Norma Torres and Congressman David Valadao
– members of the House Appropriations Committee – announced the
introduction of the bipartisan Removing Nitrate and Arsenic in
Drinking Water Act. This bill would amend the Safe Drinking
Water Act to provide grants for nitrate and arsenic reduction,
by providing $15 million for FY25 and every fiscal year
thereafter. The bill also directs the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to take into consideration the needs of
economically disadvantaged populations impacted by drinking
water contamination. The California State Water Resources
Control Board found the Inland Empire to have the highest
levels of contamination of nitrate throughout the state
including 82 sources in San Bernardino, 67 sources in Riverside
County, and 123 sources in Los Angeles County.
Catastrophic weather events wreaked havoc on U.S. agriculture
last year, causing nearly $22 billion in crop and rangeland
losses, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
California accounted for $1.14 billion of that figure,
including nearly $880 million in damages from severe storms and
flooding. The figures represent a significant shift from
previous years, when drought and wildfires were California’s
biggest challenges. Since then, atmospheric rivers, Tropical
Storm Hilary and other weather events battered our farming
communities. - Written by Matthew Viohl, director of federal
policy for the California Farm Bureau
