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.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.
We occasionally bold words in the text to ensure the water connection is clear.
The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
Northern Water will further delay an initial partial filling of
its new Chimney Hollow reservoir into next year to allow time
for expanded groundwater tests in the area to make sure
unexpected uranium leaching inside the planned pool would not
migrate to other supplies. … Filling of a small portion
of the reservoir had been planned for this month, but now is
“expected in early 2026,” according to the agency. … The
project was meant to “firm” or store water rights Northern
Water owns in the Windy Gap project near Granby, which collects
and pumps Colorado River water into the Adams Tunnel for Front
Range buyers.
The Colorado River states are still divided — so much so that
they could not reach a broad agreement on how to manage the
river by their federal deadline. The Department of the
Interior gave seven Western states, including Colorado, until
Tuesday to indicate whether they can reach any level of accord
on how the water supply for 40 million people
should be managed in the future. The current agreement, which
has governed how key reservoirs store and release water
supplies since 2007, expires Dec. 31. … In a joint
statement Tuesday, the seven states and federal officials said
they recognize the seriousness of the basin’s challenges as
drought and low reservoirs have put pressure on the river’s
water supplies.
For the first time in more than a year, the House and Senate
produced compromise spending bills that could lay the
groundwork for a broader deal to fully fund the government. …
The legislation contains about $1.4 billion to support the
“revitalization of aging water and wastewater
infrastructure,” according to a summary. USDA’s
Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations budget would get $50
million under the negotiated proposal. An additional $3 million
would be set aside “for the rehabilitation of aging dam
infrastructure.” … Lawmakers added language to
increase by $2.6 million the statutory funding ceiling on the
Bureau of Reclamation’s Calfed Bay-Delta
program, which supports ecosystem restoration, water
supply management and levee integrity.
A fast-moving atmospheric river is heading toward California
this week and could pack a punch, threatening periods of heavy
rain and possible flooding and debris flows in recently burned
areas. After arriving in Northern California on Wednesday, the
storm system is expected to land in Southern California on
Thursday, where it could remain all the way through Saturday.
… The storm could also bring heavy snow to the Sierra
Nevada, and meteorologists were already discouraging travel
between Thursday morning and Friday morning. Donner Peak
could get 12 to 18 inches of snow.
The Valley’s two largest water providers will connect their
systems, allowing water from the Salt River Project into the
Central Arizona Project canal system. The project would give
SRP and CAP the flexibility to move water through the Valley.
Combined, the two providers serve the vast majority of
Arizonans. SRP water comes from the Salt and Verde Rivers. CAP
water comes from the Colorado River and is in danger of taking
cuts. SRP and CAP have different service areas. The proposed
SRP-CAP Interconnection Facility (SCIF) would allow water
users, like some central Arizona cities and towns with rights
to SRP water to access it.
Thanks to their use of a unique methodology, a McGill-led
research team has obtained new insights into how boulders
affect snow melt in mountainous northern environments, with
implications for local water resources. The team found
that snow near boulders melts faster, not only because rocks
radiate heat, but also due to subtle processes that reshape the
snow’s surface. This information will help researchers
understand how small-scale processes affect downstream water
resources. … The paper is published in the journal Cold
Regions Science and Technology.
When Amazon proposed building its Project Blue data center in
Tucson, Arizona, the company faced intense pushback. Residents
raised concerns about the enormous amounts of water and
electricity that the data center would need—two major ways such
projects impact the environment, especially in a desert
city. … A study published this week in the journal
Nature Sustainability makes that connection even clearer. Led
by researchers at Cornell University, the study analyzed the
environmental impact that data centers could have in the U.S.
as their growth continues, and created a state-by-state look at
where those data centers should go to avoid the worst effects.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) have taken a huge leap
forward in their ongoing efforts to protect and preserve their
namesake. Last week, the tribal council voted to acknowledge
legal personhood status for the body of water. The Nov. 6 vote
follows similar actions other tribes have taken to safeguard
natural resources. However, CRIT has made history as the first
community to ever bestow personhood status on the Colorado
River. The move came in response to overuse of water resources,
according to a Tuesday announcement from the tribes.
… As a legal person, the Colorado River has the right to
be protected under tribal law.
Last month, a trash boom strung across the Tijuana River
channel just inside U.S. territory stopped 40 tons of materials
during a one-hour rain event – as the trash gets removed and
sent to area landfills, another environmental issue has
surfaced. Dumps north of the border are having to take in the
additional trash coming in from Mexico compounding a critical
shortage of landfill space, according to Oscar Romo, director
of Alter Terra, a binational environmental group. All of it has
to go into a landfill in San Diego.
This month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is
accepting public comments on PG&E’s surrender and
decommission plan for the Potter Valley Project, which would
remove the Scott and Cape Horn dams from the lower Eel River
and replace the utility’s water diversion facility with a New
Eel Russian Facility. Friends of the Eel River and Save
California Salmon, alongside other partners, have teamed up to
host a series of events along the North Coast to update the
public on the dam removal process and help community members
navigate FERC’s public commenting process.
President Donald Trump nominated a former lawmaker from New
Mexico on Wednesday to oversee the management of vast public
lands that are playing a central role in Republican attempts to
ramp up fossil fuel production. The nominee for the Bureau
of Land Management, former Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico,
must be confirmed by the Senate. … The Sierra Club said
in a statement that Pearce was “an opponent of the landscapes
and waters that generations of Americans have
explored and treasured.” … The National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association and Public Lands Council said in a joint statement
that Pearce “understands the important role that public lands
play across the West.”
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.
