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 Interim Director Doug Beeman.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Please Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Also, 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.
About 50,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater mixed with
rainwater spilled from a San Luis Obispo treatment facility
Thursday afternoon and into a creek, prompting a nearby beach
closure. According to the San Luis Obispo County Public Health
Department, the sewage mixture began spilling from a treatment
facility around 12:40 p.m. “due to the storm surge event.” The
Department said approximately 50,000 gallons was released into
San Luis Obispo Creek during the event. The spill was mitigated
by 1 p.m., the release said.
… There are now 96 major data centers spread across
Arizona, including 87 in the Phoenix metro area. AWS,
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and others have a
presence in the state. In addition, Intel, NXP, Texas
Instruments, and Taiwan Semiconductor operate semiconductor
fabrication plants. … Manufacturing processes at
chip fabrication facilities consume up to 4.8 million gallons
of water daily. Data centers typically pull between
500,000 gallons and 5 million gallons per day — mostly from
underground aquifers — though some facilities use air-cooling
and immersion cooling systems.
Federal lawmakers are once again seeking to protect drinking
water and wastewater utilities from some of the costs
associated with PFAS contamination. A bipartisan bill
introduced by U.S. Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washington,
and Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, if enacted, would shield utilities
from legal costs and cleanup liabilities associated with PFAS
contamination. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
designated two types of PFAS — PFOA and PFOS — as hazardous
substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act. Local utilities expressed
concerns that they would need to pay to remove PFAS from
drinking water, which can be an expensive endeavor.
Navy SEAL candidates in California are often training in water
filled with bacteria that cause illnesses, a Department of
Defense watchdog report found, and the service’s special
warfare command does not have a formal policy for monitoring
water quality and relocating training. The DoD inspector
general’s findings, released last week, said candidates at
Naval Amphibious Base Coronado would often train in the water
even when local San Diego beaches nearby were closed to the
public due to high levels of “fecal indicator bacteria.”
Jess Ranch Lakes has reopened in Apple Valley after a four-year
closure. … The lake was closed for four years due to the new
bird-borne fish disease Lactococcus garvieae that devastated
fish throughout the entire state. The Ledfords were ordered to
humanely put down and bury all existing fish by the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife. The disease did not
contaminate the water, Robert said, but it did take quite some
time to rebound and raise enough healthy fish to reopen for
business. Every new fish that the family raises in their
hatchery is now vaccinated to protect against the bird disease.
… A slew of early actions by the Trump administration has set
about throwing open more land and waters for the fossil fuel
industry, triggering the reversal of regulations that
strengthen the Endangered Species Act, the country’s landmark
1973 conservation bill, including a rule that protects
migratory birds from unintentional killing. … A lack
of resources has stymied many listed species from a full
recovery and opponents of the act claim that it has unduly
blocked economic development. Trump recently railed
against protections afforded to the delta smelt, a small,
unassuming creature in California that the president called an
“essentially worthless fish”.
… (T)he Los Angeles wildfires – likely to be one of the
costliest natural disasters in U.S. history – have exposed
festering regulatory hurdles that have exacerbated the crisis.
Many are years in the making, maddeningly complex and not given
to quick solutions. It’s a confluence of bad policy involving
brush clearance, water, insurance, firefighting, housing and
climate change. Simply put, California has created a tangled
web of regulation that renders this once-innovative state
incapable of accomplishing anything efficiently. –Written by Steven Greenhut, Western region director for
the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California
News Group editorial board
For decades, California has taken the lead in setting standards
for water reuse. Other parts of the U.S. that have struggled
with water stress or scarcity have used the state’s Title 22
regulations as a benchmark for their own guidelines or
need-based treatment designs. On Oct. 1, 2024, California’s new
Title 22 regulations took effect, which include guidance on
direct potable reuse (DPR). Within the state, continued
treatment investigation and investment are expected. Even
outside California, water utilities, regulators, manufacturers,
and design engineers should understand these new guidelines,
the processes, and the technologies they cover in order to
prepare themselves for implementation.
After an unusually dry January where most of Northern
California went without rain for 27 days in a row, the storms
have come fast and furious, dramatically improving the state’s
water-supply outlook. So much rain fell in the first week of
February that California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, near
Redding, rose 22 feet. Shasta Lake is 34 miles long. The
watershed at the state’s second-largest, Lake Oroville, in
Butte County, has received 24 inches of rain in the past two
weeks — five times the historical average — sending the
reservoir level up 23 feet from Feb. 1 to Feb. 7. And now a new
atmospheric river storm is forecast to soak the Bay Area and
the rest of the state Thursday and Friday.
Heavy rain is expected to sweep across Southern California on
Thursday, raising the risk of flash flooding and mudflows in
and around recent wildfire burn areas. Small mudflows were
previously observed around the Palisades burn scar from last
week’s storm, but Thursday’s storm will present a more
pronounced risk. Thursday could be the wettest day in Los
Angeles since February 2024, according to National Weather
Service forecasts, with 2 to 3 inches of rain expected.
Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego are asking the Bureau of
Reclamation to ensure projects for Colorado River preservation
will still get their funding. The Bureau of Reclamation has
already signed off on money for projects across Arizona —
including an $86 million agreement to build a recycled water
plant in Tucson in exchange for the city taking less Colorado
River water over the next 10 years. But in a letter to the
agency this week, the lawmakers say their constituents are
reporting funding for some of that work has been paused amid
the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze federal funding.
Officials from three counties and the Round Valley Indian
Tribes have reached a historic agreement that paves the way for
continued diversions from the Eel River to bolster flows in the
Russian River. The agreement represents a critical development
for anyone whose water comes from the Russian River. The
complex accord resulted from years of negotiations to preserve
supplemental flows in the Russian River, the water lifeline for
residents, ranchers and wildlife in Sonoma and Mendocino
counties. The agreement also supports the restoration and fish
recovery in the Eel River, which was crucial to securing
support from environmental interests, tribes and Humboldt
County residents.
Register today for the return of our Bay-Delta Tour May 7-9
as we venture into the most critical and controversial water
region in California. Get a firsthand look at the state’s vital
water hub and hear directly from experts on key issues
affecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco
Bay. The 720,000-acre network of islands and
channels supports the state’s two large water systems –
the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project
– and together with the San Francisco Bay is an important
ecological resource. You’ll learn firsthand how the drought is
affecting water quality and supply that serves local
farms, cities and habitat.
In California, a levy, charge, or exaction imposed by a local
government is an unconstitutional and invalid tax if it does
not qualify as one of seven enumerated tax exceptions and was
not approved by at least a majority of voters. The California
Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District recently
invalidated a water rate increase imposed on non-agricultural
water users because the water district failed to produce
evidence that non-agricultural water customers were solely
responsible for paying increased groundwater replenishment
fees. The case highlights the evidentiary burden on local
governments to demonstrate an exaction is not a tax under the
California Constitution.
Figuring out the dividing line between rain and snow has long
flummoxed forecasters, especially in places like the high
country of the American West, where complex topography and
dramatic elevation differences shape the weather. … To
gain a clearer picture of the rain-snow transition and its
impact on the water cycle, scientists have been using a free
phone app and data from thousands of volunteer observers who
provide real-time reports of what precipitation type they’re
seeing. The observations from the NASA-funded citizen science
project—known as Mountain Rain or Snow—have highlighted the
shortcomings of existing approaches to differentiating the
phases of precipitation, according to a study published in
Geophysical Research Letters in December.
President Donald Trump has nominated Colorado’s Kathleen
Sgamma, the head of Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas
trade group, to run the Bureau of Land Management.
Kathleen Sgamma Sgamma, a Denver resident, has been the head of
the Western Energy Alliance since 2006, working to protect the
interests of oil and gas producers amid an international
embrace of cleaner energies. Sgamma and the Western Energy
Alliance have been a vocal critic of former President Joe
Biden’s increased regulation of the oil and gas industry.
… Atmospheric rivers almost guarantee one thing for San
Francisco: millions of gallons of stormwater and raw sewage
will get poured into the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
In San Francisco, sewage and stormwater flow through the same
pipes as part of a combined system. The problem is that large
enough storms cause the system to overflow, which the city said
typically happens less than 10 times a year. …
Environmental groups and the state of California argue that the
city is discharging too frequently and at such high volumes
that it taints the waterways with bacteria that can cause
illness if people come into contact with it.
A few weeks ago, a fire broke out at the Moss Landing Power
Plant in California, the world’s largest collection of
batteries on the grid. Although the flames were extinguished in
a few days, the metaphorical smoke is still clearing. Some
residents in the area have reported health issues that they
claim are related to the fire, and some environmental
tests revealed pollutants in the water and ground near where
the fire burned. One group has filed a lawsuit against
the company that owns the site. In the wake of high-profile
fires like Moss Landing, there are very understandable concerns
about battery safety. At the same time, as more wind, solar
power, and other variable electricity sources come online,
large energy storage installations will be even more crucial
for the grid.
… With back-to-back atmospheric rivers poised to dump up
to 10 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevadas and bring as much as
15 inches of rain to northern areas, California faces a
familiar paradox: When it rains, it pours. Yet, water remains
scarce when it’s needed most. Why? Because balancing
environmental sustainability with agricultural and human needs
has been an ongoing challenge in state policies. For example,
substantial amounts of this precipitation are diverted to
support fish populations, leaving the Central Valley – one of
the nation’s most vital agricultural hubs – crippled by chronic
water shortages, depleted groundwater, and rising unemployment.
The new Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency’s
advisory group made recent headway on improving plans and
policies, though the agency is still behind its counterparts in
the subbasin. … During a Feb. 10 meeting, the advisory group
focused on updating Mid-Kings’ well registration and metering
policies. The proposed changes will go before the GSA board for
approval in March. When the former Mid-Kings imploded in summer
2024, the Kings County Board of Supervisors picked up the
pieces and started anew creating the advisory group to
represent growers. The advisory group has been doing a lot of
heavy lifting going over core policies intended to help bring
the area’s aquifers into balance, as mandated under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
