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.
… As the salmon runs have declined for many reasons, one of
the strategies to reduce salmon smolt mortality has been
trucking the juvenile salmon to the delta to bypass the striped
bass. Stripers are spawning in the Sacramento River during the
spring salmon out-migration. Stripers love to eat baby salmon.
As with many things in life, the solution to today’s problem is
often the cause of the next issue. Trucking the juvenile salmon
directly from the hatchery on Battle Creek to the lower delta
or the bay does not allow the salmon to imprint on the
Sacramento River water. These fish did not know their way
home. The result was salmon wandering to freshwater creeks
flowing into the bay. … The solution to this has
been to set net pens in the Sacramento River to hold these
Coleman salmon smolts for a period of time to imprint on the
water. Then they are trucked down to the delta or bay.
As Southern California enters the peak of summer, water
agencies, utilities, and residents are turning their attention
to one of the region’s most pressing challenges—sustainable
water use. July is officially recognized as Smart Irrigation
Month, a national initiative launched by the Irrigation
Association in 2005 to raise awareness about the value of
efficient irrigation practices. … In Southern California,
where outdoor water use accounts for more than 50% of
residential consumption (Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California, 2022), Smart Irrigation Month comes at a
critical time. With July historically being the month of
highest water demand, communities from Irvine to the Inland
Empire are rallying around the message: Use water wisely, every
drop counts.
Building new housing is a priority across the state, especially
in fire ravaged areas of Southern California. But now a growing
number of environmental groups say they want to make sure that
future construction isn’t putting communities at risk from
climate change. They’re pointing to a provision in a recently
passed budget bill, AB 306, which could essentially freeze new
residential building regulations for the next six years and
bars cities and counties from adopting stricter
codes. David Lewis is executive director of the nonprofit
Save the Bay. His group is concerned that the bill will slow
climate resiliency efforts, including upgrades meant to protect
communities from flooding and other effects of sea level rise.
A federal judge declared in a new ruling that the Bureau of
Reclamation can issue permanent water agreements to major
contractors in California — specifically the sprawling
Westlands Water District — without undertaking new
environmental or Endangered Species Act reviews. But
conservation advocates who brought the lawsuit against the
Westland contract said that it does not clear the path forward
for that deal, pointing to a series of claims still pending in
the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
District Judge Jennifer Thurston, a President Joe Biden
appointee, issued a decision in favor of the Interior
Department on June 30, and subsequently ordered the case,
Center for Biological Diversity, et al., v. U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, closed last week.
Cloud giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been named as the end
customer for a planned data center campus in Tucson, Arizona.
Project Blue is a 290-acre site set to host a
data center campus. At least three data centers are reportedly
set to be built, but the final number of buildings could be
higher; some reports suggest up to 10 buildings totaling 2
million sq ft (185,805 sqm) and 600MW are planned. … A
new opposition group, No Desert Data Center, is attempting to
mobilize residents against the project over its water use and
potential impact on the area. The site is reportedly set to use
drinking water for its cooling systems for at least the first
two years of operation until it can switch to using treated
wastewater once a new water line is completed.
The various and competing interests surrounding the Potter
Valley Project have now come together in an agreement that
Humboldt County has signed onto. … Approved by Humboldt’s
Board of Supervisors at its July 22 meeting, the agreement
charts the removal of Scott Dam and Cape Horn Dam, as well as
the continuation of water diversion through a new facility
built and operated by a new joint powers authority (JPA).
PG&E now operates the Potter Valley Project (PVP) but is
getting out of it and will submit a decommissioning plan to the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by July 29. … The
agreement supports a transfer of PG&E’s water rights to the
Round Valley Tribe, which will lease the rights to the new JPA.
In addition to lease payments, the JPA will make separate
payments into an Eel River Restoration Fund.
… These are the key findings of the Californians and the
Environment survey on federal and state environmental policy
directions, wildfires and extreme weather events, climate
change and related policies, and ocean, coast, and marine life
that was conducted July 1–July 7, 2025: Most Californians
choose wildfires, global warming, government overregulation,
and watersupply when asked
to identify the most important environmental issues facing the
state today. Majorities believe that stricter
environmental regulations in California are worth the cost and
favor the state government making its own policies, separate
from the federal government, on climate change.
… More than 50 years after the Safe Drinking Water Act was
passed to ensure that Americans’ water is free from harmful
bacteria, lead and other dangerous substances, millions of
people living in mobile home parks can’t always count on those
basic protections. A review by The Associated Press found
that nearly 70% of mobile home parks running their own water
systems violated safe drinking water rules in the past five
years, a higher rate than utilities that supply water for
cities and towns, according to Environmental Protection Agency
data. … One July day in 2021, officials with the EPA
were out investigating sky-high arsenic levels in the tap water
at Oasis Mobile Home Park in the Southern
California desert when they realized the problem went
way beyond just one place. … At some [other parks], testing
found high levels of cancer-causing arsenic in the water that
had been provided to residents for years.
The Trump administration will propose the repeal of a landmark
2009 determination that climate change poses a danger to the
public, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee
Zeldin said Wednesday. “EPA has sent to the Office of
Management and Budget a proposed rule to repeal the 2009
endangerment finding from the Obama EPA,” Zeldin told Newsmax.
… The finding provided a legal basis for EPA regulations
on these planet-heating gases, including for its rules
requiring automakers’ to cut emissions from their vehicle
fleets.
The tiny Marin County town of Nicasio is up in arms, not
because the nearby dam will fail, but because an expansion plan
could flood their town if it succeeds. To store more
water, the Marin Municipal Water District wants to use a rubber
dam to raise the level of Nicasio Reservoir by about 4 and a
half feet. Just upstream of the reservoir is the tiny hamlet of
Nicasio, with about 250 homes and a population under
1,000. The folks in Nicasio are on wells and get no water
from the reservoir except when it helps cause floods.
California Congressmen Juan Vargas (D-CA-52) and Rep. Scott
Peters (D-CA-50) have announced they’re requesting $45 million
to help combat cross-border pollution. According to a press
release from Rep. Vargas, he and Rep. Peters added $45 million
to the U.S.-Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program (BWIP)
in the 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
Appropriations Bill. The bill has passed the U.S. House
Appropriations Committee. Vargas says the funding can be
used to help combat cross-border pollution, which has plagued
the Tijuana River Valley for decades.
The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was
unable to say whether the agency would continue under the Trump
administration when asked by lawmakers Wednesday. Testifying
before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee
on Emergency Management, acting FEMA chief David Richardson was
asked by Democrats point blank whether FEMA will continue to
exist. President Donald Trump has suggested repeatedly that the
agency could be eliminated as part of his government-shrinking
measures. … Richardson made his first Capitol Hill
appearance for the hearing on FEMA reform. The emergency
management agency is under heavy scrutiny in the wake of
flooding in Texas earlier this month that killed more than 130
people.
The removal of metal and concrete debris from the American
River is closer to fruition after the Placer County Board of
Supervisors authorized for the contract to be finalized
Tuesday. The State Route 49 Bridge broke into three pieces and
was washed away in December 1964, when the partially
constructed Hell Hole Dam failed during an atmospheric river
event. The debris was never removed, as construction of the
Auburn Dam three miles downstream was authorized, and still
lies in a stretch of the river within the Confluence of the
Auburn Recreation Area 60 years later. The board approved
a fund transfer agreement in February 2023 to receive $8
million from the California 2022-23 budget for the American
River Debris Removal Project, following coordination with
Protect American River Canyons (PARC).
Property owners who pump water for their farms or businesses
from the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Basin may soon need to
pay for their groundwater. Right now, they have the opportunity
to protest those fees. Residential well owners, however,
won’t be charged those fees directly — which means they can’t
protest them either, according to Ryan Aston, a consultant who
developed the proposed rates. … The agency will hold a
public hearing to consider the rates on Aug. 1. If a majority
of recipients submit a written protest, the agency can’t
implement the rates. Otherwise, the board can vote to enact the
fees.
… State lawmakers are under pressure from Big Ag to kill or
rewrite legislation that would make it easier to convert
farmland to solar production. The Legislature rejected a
similar bill last year, despite looming regulations that will
require Central Valley farmers to pump less groundwater. In
southeastern California, meanwhile, the powerful Imperial
Irrigation District — which controls more Colorado River water
than the entire state of Arizona — voted this month to oppose
further solar development on Imperial Valley farmland, even as
a climate-fueled megadrought drains the river’s major
reservoirs. … AB 1156 would let growers in
water-stressed areas suspend their contracts to enable solar
development, without anyone paying the fee. The solar company
would pay full property taxes. Local officials would need to
sign off. And again: If less water inevitably means lost
farmland, why not incentivize solar? –Written by Sammy Roth, climate columnist for the Los
Angeles Times.
The clearness of Lake Tahoe’s deep, blue waters tells a story.
The lake’s incredible clarity, which today averages 60 to 70
feet deep, is among Lake Tahoe’s most famous features. Despite
having been on the ropes at times over the past 100 years, that
clarity endures. The most recent report on Lake Tahoe’s clarity
from the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center shows
that the visibility of the lake’s water averaged 62 feet last
year. By any standard, being able to see a 10-inch white disk
descend six stories into a body of water is amazing. But as the
report states, clarity could be better, could be worse and must
be better understood. –Written by Julie Regan, executive director of the Tahoe
Regional Planning Agency, and Jason Vasques, executive director
of the California Tahoe Conservancy.
After nearly a decade of planning and negotiations, the
Humboldt County Board of Supervisors today unanimously approved
a water diversion agreement that will support PG&E’s plan
to decommission the aging Potter Valley Project and demolish
its two dams — Scott Dam and Cape Horn Dam — on the upper
stretches of the Eel River. The historic agreement marks a
major turning point in a years-long effort by federal, state,
tribal and local agencies to craft a “two-basin solution” that
meets the needs of communities in both the Eel and Russian
River basins, which have long been at odds over ownership and
control of water diverted from the Eel River.
The Trump administration has drafted a plan to repeal a
fundamental scientific finding that gives the United States
government its authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions
and fight climate change, according to two people familiar with
the plan. The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule
rescinds a 2009 declaration known as the “endangerment
finding,” which scientifically established that greenhouse
gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives.
That finding is the foundation of the federal government’s only
tool to limit the climate pollution from vehicles, power plants
and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet.
Farmers in the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency
(GSA) can see a light at the end of the tunnel as county
administrators begin to execute a rescue plan to help them
comply with the state’s groundwater law. Assembly Bill
568 made it through the state Senate Natural Resources and
Water Committee July 16. If approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the
legislation will create the new Tule East GSA, a joint powers
authority between Tulare County, Hope and Ducor Water
Districts. … The new entity will encompass about half
the acreage of Eastern Tule, almost all groundwater-dependent
lands that were left behind when irrigation districts abandoned
the GSA in the wake of the state Water Resources Control
Board’s decision to place the Tule subbasin on probation in
September.
The number of dams in the United States at risk of overtopping
is increasing, “threatening their structural integrity and
downstream communities,” according to a new study from Florida.
… “We identified six dams having the greatest
overtopping probability, with several being located near large
population centers, posing potential risks to the downstream
communities,” warned the study, published in the peer-reviewed
British journal Nature Communications. … The six dams
with the highest probability of overtopping and the closest
downstream cities were in Texas, Kansas and California. …
[No.4:] Whiskeytown Dam: Anderson, California.
