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 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.
The El Dorado Water Agency (EDWA) held its first-ever regional
plenary on Thursday, October 23 to hear from water experts in
Tahoe about what the issues are and what can be done to solve
them. … One of the major points of discussion was
tetrachloroethylene pollution, also called PCE pollution, which
affected wells at the Y in past years, and continues to affect
other systems through a 400-yard plume. While the drinking
water in Tahoe is safe, controlling and preventing PCE
contamination is something that water suppliers are
prioritizing.
… They’re technically called beaver dam analogues — since
with their complex patterns of sticks and mud, they’re supposed
to imitate real beaver dams. … [F]ake beaver dams aren’t
meant to last forever. They’ll be maintained annually for about
five years (unless real beavers take over earlier), but the
result when established in the right place can be remarkable,
restoring and rejuvenating wetlands, replenishing the water
table, keeping water higher up in systems longer in the year,
and providing habitat for everything from insects, frogs and
toads to elk and moose, and yes, even beavers.
The Merced River flows for 145 miles, from the spectacular
beauty of Yosemite Valley all the way to Hills Ferry west of
Livingston, where the Merced meets the San Joaquin. But how and
when did the river did it get its name? Today on KVPR’s Central
Valley Roots we look back at the names that have graced this
waterway. We have Spanish explorer Gabriel Moraga to
credit for giving us the river’s modern name, and we’ll get to
that in a moment. But this story begins much earlier.
Nevada’s growing reliance on groundwater for irrigation and
drinking water has led to significant declines in thousands of
wells across the state, according to a recent study. The study,
published in Hydrological Process, analyzed data from about
6,500 wells across Nevada and found that about 40% had
significant declines over the last three decades amid
intensifying drought and rising water demand – a
decline that is expected to put groundwater dependent
ecosystems in the state at serious risk.
The original 50-year license for facilities at the Oroville Dam
[anchor dam of the State Water Project] expired in 2007,
leaving operations running on a year-to-year basis. …
Oroville Mayor David Pittman explained that the facilities
bring in about $200,000 annually to the local community.
However, a pending 50-year deal could bring a billion dollars
in recreational investments and additional annual benefits. The
delay in re-signing the license lies with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission or FERC, according to
Pittman. … Despite the hold-up, Congressman Doug
LaMalfa defended FERC’s actions, explaining that they must seek
sign-off from environmental committees.
Mexico failed to deliver millions of gallons of water to South
Texas farmers, in defiance of a 1944 treaty. Now, members of
Texas’ congressional delegation are calling on the Trump
administration to make Mexico’s failure a part of upcoming
trade negotiations. … The 1944 treaty requires
Mexico to deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water to the U.S. from
six [Rio Grande] tributaries in Mexico every
five years, or 350,000 acre-feet per year. In exchange, the
U.S. gives Mexico 1,500,000 acre-feet of water from the
Colorado River every year. However, Mexico
ended the five-year cycle Friday with a debt of 925,000
acre-feet, according to preliminary numbers from the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality.
The San Diego City Council will be returning to the topic of
hiking water rates, just a few weeks after dropping the topic
in the face of public backlash and reluctance to raise rates
yet again. … The item will return this week at 2 p.m. on
Tuesday, October 28. … “The main driver of the water rate
increase is higher costs to purchase water from the San Diego
County Water Authority, which are passed on to the city’s
customers,” a statement from the city read. … Other reasons
for the proposed hike include increasing costs of maintenance,
rising energy rates, Pure Water Phase 1 operations and more.
The government shutdown has not had much effect on the human
visitors at the Cosumnes River Preserve, but it may have a
lasting impact on sandhill cranes and other birds that pass
through this fall: Federal water bird counts in October were
canceled. … So far, the two water bird surveys planned
for October have been canceled. That means the three sandhill
cranes that landed in the managed wetland on Sunday (Oct. 26) a
little after noon were only counted informally this month; it
also means that staff could have a harder time pinpointing when
different migrating species arrived in the area. The surveys
help inform water management in the
park.
… Colorado’s snowpack has been growing slowly since the water
year began Oct. 1. Currently the Natural Resources Conservation
Service has Colorado’s snowpack at 41% of median average for
the date Oct. 27 and 0.2 inches of snow water
equivalent. The 1991-2020 median average snowpack for Oct.
27 is 0.5 inches of snow water equivalent. … It is still
early in the season, but overall, October has recorded
below-average snowfall since the beginning of the water year.
Other weather and water forecast news across the West:
As California faces growing water challenges, some say it’s
time to rethink where our infrastructure dollars are going. The
Kern County Water Agency is pushing for more investment in
water projects rather than the high-speed rail. The Water
Agency says federal funding should be shifted away from
California’s high-speed rail project and instead be used to
modernize the State Water Project’s Delta Conveyance
Project. … Water Agency leaders claim the Delta
Conveyance Project would secure reliable water supplies for
decades to come — while the high-speed rail continues to face
cost overruns and delays.
Southern Arizona politicians joined representatives of the
Sierra Club by the banks of the Colorado River on Oct. 27 to
call on Washington to protect the waterway by taking action
against climate change. The officials, including Democratic
U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, were demanding an end to what
they called major rollbacks in climate protections, most
prominently the Trump administration’s plan to overturn the
endangerment finding that enables the Environmental Protection
Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Several Central Valley counties are expected to lose millions
each year due to the impacts of natural disasters on farms,
according to a new report. Trace One, a product lifecycle
management software company, released its 2025 edition of their
“Where Natural Disasters Are Having the Biggest Impact on the
Nation’s Food Supply” report, in which Fresno, Tulare, Madera
and Kings County farms have been identified as some of the U.S.
counties with the highest agricultural losses due to natural
disasters such as droughts, floods, and hurricanes. Fresno
County ranked no. 14 on the list. … According to the study,
the worst natural hazard for agriculture in Fresno County is
drought.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners
have begun the second year of efforts to reintroduce spring-run
Chinook salmon into the North Yuba River. Officials say the
initiative aims to bring the threatened species back to its
traditional habitat. Around 350,000 Chinook salmon eggs have
been collected and recently fertilized at the Feather River
Fish Hatchery in Oroville. These eggs will be placed into the
North Yuba River’s gravel substrate next month, similar to last
year’s successful method.
The San Joaquin River continues to sit at the center of
California’s most complex water disputes, and Los Banos remains
one of the communities most directly affected. As state and
regional leaders debate over mining, water storage, flooding,
fish habitats, and groundwater management, the outcomes will
shape how water moves through the Central Valley for
generations, and how much of it reaches local communities like
Los Banos.
The city of Santa Fe will no longer add fluoride to its water
supply, something city officials said was due in part to high
costs and ongoing research into the health risks and benefits
of fluoride. A naturally occurring mineral that helps
strengthen teeth, fluoride is frequently added to the water
supply for its dental benefits, but has attracted skepticism
from some corners, including U.S. Health and Human Services
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. The Utah Legislature earlier this
year passed a law banning fluoride from being added to drinking
water statewide. Several other states are considering similar
measures.
… [T]he influence of mining on water rights, access and
allocations has implications that extend far beyond swings in
commodity prices. When large-scale hard rock mines extract
below the water table, they continuously pump massive volumes
of water out of the aquifer to “dewater.” The goal is to keep
operations free of groundwater. Such dewatering, however, can
have significant consequences for the hydrologic balance of
local aquifer systems, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and
connected surface water (springs, rivers, etc…). The
management, governance, accounting and consequences of this
water movement is an important and ongoing (ground)water policy
question in many states, one that is worth looking at,
especially if, indeed, we are about to see a new mining boom.
Solano County officials are crafting an appeal of
the Certification of Consistency for the Delta tunnel
project. The state Department of Water Resources submitted its
certification for the Delta Conveyance Project
on Oct. 17. The county Board of Supervisors on Oct. 21 voted
unanimously in closed session to appeal the document. “Solano
will be working with San Joaquin, Yolo and (the) Central Delta
Water Agency to file a joint request that the Delta Stewardship
Council remand the Certification of Consistency back to DWR
because the county believes the DCP will have severe negative
impacts on the Delta and is inconsistent with the Delta Plan,”
the County Counsel’s Office said in an email response to the
Daily Republic.
National Weather Service offices in California are scaling back
operations ahead of the critical winter storm season, as
federal cuts and staffing shortages take a toll. The
California-Nevada River Forecast Center, which is run by the
weather service and provides water managers with critical data
to prevent river flooding, is seeing cutbacks that could end up
“limiting the state’s ability to track … dangerous shifts in
weather,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said last week. … The
number of written forecasts issued by the Sacramento office,
which watches for winter storms across the Northern
Sierra, has plummeted since it announced cutbacks in
April.
… Lake Powell’s water levels have been retreating for
the past two decades, revealing vast swaths of once-submerged
land. The falling water levels have jeopardized hydropower
generation and added anxiety to policy talks about managing the
region’s water supply. At the same time, they have put stunning
geologic features and lush riverside habitats back in the open
air. … Beavers are architects that make those animal
communities even stronger. … Recent studies have
tracked the emergence of old river features and the return of
native plants. This one aims to track the return of healthy
ecosystems, using beavers as a marker of progress.
… Humboldt County Superior Court Presiding Judge Kelly Neel
ruled against local nonprofit Friends of the Eel River (FOER)
in its lawsuit concerning the county’s management of
groundwater extraction in the Eel River Valley. The lawsuit,
first filed in 2022, argued that Humboldt County was falling
short of its responsibility to protect public trust resources
in the Eel by failing to consider the adverse effects of
groundwater pumping, particularly during the late summer and
early fall. … But Judge Neel instead found that the
county is already considering public trust resources on the Eel
through both its Groundwater Sustainability Plan and its well
permitting process.
