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 Department of Water Resources (DWR) today conducted the
critical April snow survey at Phillips Station and found no
measurable snow, a stark indicator of how record‑hot March
temperatures and high‑elevation rain have erased the Sierra
Nevada snowpack months ahead of schedule. The combination of
warm storms and unusually hot temperatures rapidly melted what
remained of this year’s already sparse snowpack.
Statewide, the snowpack is now just 18 percent of
average for this date, according to the automated snow
sensor network.
California’s snowpack is supposed to reach its peak April 1, so
today, state surveyors hold their final Sierra snow survey of
the year. But instead of peak snow, there’s almost none.
Snow across California’s Sierra Nevada measured just
18% of average Monday — among the smallest in decades.
A month of record-shattering heat thawed the snow and sent
runoff coursing into streams and rivers, leaving only minimal
water in the mountains as the state heads into dry
season. The early melt is a symptom of global warming that
scientists say is becoming more pronounced.
In Park City, Utah, skiers could find patches of grass poking
through the slopes for much of the winter — a striking sign of
a season that never really arrived. Now, after one of the
warmest winters on record, much of the West is entering spring
with snowpack at historic lows and an early
heat wave that pushed temperatures into triple digits. These
woes could be straight out of a climate fiction novel. But the
West’s no good, very bad winter was alarmingly real. And,
experts say, a worrisome combination of low snowpack and a
devastating heat wave could create a summer ripe for climate
disasters.
Other Colorado River Basin snowpack and drought news:
The federal government has complied with the Endangered Species
Act in its activities at two dams on California’s Yuba
River, a judge ruled Tuesday in a decade-old case.
However, U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta had one carveout
in his decision. He determined the National Marine Fisheries
Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improperly excluded
the Brophy Diversion from an analysis. He remanded that aspect
of the case to the service for reassessment. The judge’s
decision on the motions for summary judgement closes the 2016
case that at its heart focused on three fish: Central Valley
spring chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, and North
American green sturgeon.
In north Phoenix, where the landscape is a patchwork of scrubby
desert and master-planned communities, the future of the city’s
water system is taking shape. With climate change and
drought shrinking the amount of water in the rivers
and reservoirs that supply the nation’s fifth-largest
city, Phoenix is betting big on technology that can
turn sewage into clean, safe drinking water. It will allow
water managers to squeeze every last drop out of the supply
they already have at a time when they expect less to be coming
down the pipe from once-dependable sources. … [T]he
[Cave Creek Water Reclamation Plant] project is coming at a
pivotal time, as federal officials are proposing steep cutbacks
to the Central Arizona Project, which delivers Colorado River
water to the Phoenix metro area.
In California’s Sacramento River Valley, a
lush agricultural region known for producing rice and alfalfa,
one tribal group is taking steps to claim a piece of the global
AI boom. Colusa Indian Energy, a power company wholly owned by
the Colusa Indian Community, [announced]
Tuesday that it’s partnering with developer Strata Expanse to
build an AI infrastructure project on land belonging to the
Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians. … Developers have
pushed for more and larger facilities in rural communities,
deserts and downtowns, sparking growing community pushback over
concerns about straining power grids and the supply of
water, among other issues.
The potential collapse of the Central Arizona Project due to
continued low Colorado River flows could be a
game-changer for Arizona’s water use and policies, triggering
vastly increased emphasis on water conservation and possibly
even future growth limits. Or, the state could simply return to
its post-World War II custom of unlimited groundwater pumping,
combined with building massive water augmentation projects such
as desalination plants.
U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) announced Tuesday that more
than $6 million in federal funding has been earmarked for the
Imperial Valley, targeting a critical mix of environmental
restoration and municipal infrastructure in one of California’s
most climate-vulnerable regions. … The lion’s share of
the local funding—more than $4 million—is designated for the
Bombay Beach Wetlands Project. For decades,
the shrinking Salton Sea has exposed thousands
of acres of playa, sending clouds of pesticide-laced dust into
the air of a region that already suffers from some of the
highest childhood asthma rates in the country. The federal
infusion aims to stabilize and expand emerging wetlands, using
water to “cap” the dust while restoring vital habitats for
migratory birds.
William Briggs, deputy administrator of the U.S. Small Business
Administration, traveled to Imperial Beach on Tuesday to hear
directly from small business owners about the economic impact
of the ongoing Tijuana River pollution crisis, framing the
visit as a fact-finding mission ahead of potential federal
action. … Following the roundtable, Briggs joined the
delegation for a visit to pollution sites along the Tijuana
River corridor, including the Saturn Boulevard hotspot — a
stretch of the river on the U.S. side where sewage and
industrial waste is aerosolized into harmful gases, including
hydrogen sulfide, and carried by the wind into surrounding
communities.
… The fertilizers and pesticides that farmers use leave
nitrogen and phosphorus in their fields. Rain or snowmelt then
carries the chemicals into drinking water, which is dangerous.
Ingesting too many nitrates can cause health issues like cancer
or blue baby syndrome, low oxygen levels in infants. As Earth
warms due to human-caused climate change, the ground isn’t
staying frozen as consistently in many places, and snow is
often melting or falling as rain on thawed ground.
… Nitrate pollution is a big problem for low-income,
rural residents across the United States, said Samuel Sandoval
Solis, a professor at the University of California-Davis and an
extension specialist in water resources management.
Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is
announcing he secured $2.2 million in federal funding
for South Lake Tahoe projects that support critical
infrastructure development that ensures water sustainability,
and for the development of essential affordable housing. Schiff
delivered $1.2 million to South Lake Tahoe to enhance
water infrastructure resilience by replacing aging water
mains with larger, more resilient pipelines that will improve
system capacity, reduce leaks, and ensure a reliable drinking
water supply. This project will also improve public safety and
wildfire preparedness.
In fall 2023, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) awarded a five‑year, $3 million Monitoring and Event
Response Research Program (MERHAB) grant to improve Harmful
Algal Bloom (HAB) detection in the San Francisco
Estuary. Scientists at the USGS California Water Science
Center (CAWSC) are some of the lead principal investigators on
this project. One of the tasks led by the CAWSC is studying HAB
transport between freshwater and saltwater regions of the
estuary, which includes sampling toxins and HAB cells through
methods such as shellfish testing.
Earthquakes occur when the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust
shift, jolting past each other in a release of built-up
tension. However, other natural forces can also influence
seismic activity: Hydrological dynamics, like changes in
groundwater and snowpacks, in particular, put
pressure on faults. A new study from Caltech finds that a
higher rate of change in groundwater levels leads to a
noticeable increase in seismic
activity. … Utilizing new data analysis methods,
the researchers saw that regions experiencing more dramatic
changes in groundwater levels exhibit a larger seasonal
variation of seismic activity. In Northern California in
particular, groundwater changes correlated with an increase in
seismic activity of up to 10 percent.
A Merced Superior Court judge denied a request earlier this
month to halt the Planada flood recovery program due to
resident complaints about subpar repairs – just months after
Merced County ended its contract with Habitat for Humanity for
repair work. The legal dispute between Merced County residents
and several government agencies centers on the $20 million
Planada flood recovery program launched by the county to repair
homes after the historic 2023 floods ravaged parts of the
region. While the county reports that more than 100
damaged properties have been repaired under the program,
residents’ complaints and the termination of Habitat’s contract
have raised concerns about construction quality and oversight.
The public interest group, Bring Back the Kern, is launching a
competition for residents to use artificial intelligence to
generate images of a flowing Kern River through Bakersfield,
where it is mostly dry, according to a press release from the
group. The contest has been dubbed “A.I.pril Fools for the Kern
River” and runs Wednesday, April 1 through April 15. The idea
is to draw attention to the fact that the river runs dry
through Bakersfield in most years as agricultural diversions
take most of the water. … Bring Back the Kern, along
with Water Audit California, is suing the City of Bakersfield
over how it operates the river.
… In many areas, all-important snowfall has been half of
normal, with even hotter, drier temperatures expected in the
coming months. Much of the nation is in a drought already, but
the headwaters of the Colorado River is among the driest
places, along with south Texas and all of Florida. Alarmed
civic officials across the West have already begun
ordering restrictions on watering lawns, cleaning cars and even
whether restaurant patrons get served glasses of
water. … Climate experts have long warned that
climate change will make the West hotter and drier, and worry
that what’s happening now represents a long-term shift that
could reshape how people live and work across Arizona,
Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.
Instead of agreeing on a traditional, 20-year deal for the
Colorado River, the states that share the water source are
focused on a short-term plan as they stare down the basin’s
worst snow season in two decades. But that doesn’t mean
officials are ready to agree any time soon, despite mounting
federal pressure to do so. … “We are thoroughly prepared
to fight like hell if it comes to that,” said John Entsminger,
Nevada’s governor-appointed negotiator and general manager of
the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “We’re trying to avoid
that … If it comes to fighting to protect the water interests
of Southern Nevada, we’re ready.” A new deal must be in place
before the start of the next water year in October, whether the
states come to an agreement or the Trump administration imposes
one upon them.
Lake Oroville is sitting at 89 percent capacity, and the
Department of Water Resources is focused on keeping it that way
as dry conditions persist across the Feather River watershed.
The reservoir currently stands at 875 feet in elevation.
Releases to the Feather River are running at 2,100 cubic feet
per second, with a planned reduction to 1,750 cfs on Sunday,
March 29. Even with the reservoir nearly full, DWR is required
to maintain designated flood storage space under federal
guidelines set by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Between
mid-September and June, those rules dictate that a portion of
the reservoir’s capacity must remain open to absorb potential
inflows from rain and snowmelt.
… At least 36 states now offer tax incentives to attract data
center projects. But a backlash is growing in tandem — at least
12 states have filed moratorium bills this legislative cycle to
pause new data center construction while they sort out impacts
on electric grids, water supplies and public
health. Against that backdrop, the closed-door “Data x
Power” summit in Jackson April 1-2 will convene about 50 senior
leaders from hyperscale technology companies, energy
developers, government agencies and academia to explore whether
Wyoming belongs in the conversation.
Lawyers fighting for more flows in the Kern River got the green
light to question a noted river historian and author per a
court ruling issued Friday afternoon. It may seem like a “No
duh” objective to pick the brain of someone steeped in the
history of the Kern River in a trial about the Kern River, but
lawyers representing a local agricultural water district had
concerns about the breadth and nature of questions that would
be posed to Douglas R. Littlefield. … That’s because the
Buena Vista Water Storage District has hired Littlefield as an
“expert” witness in this and previous legal actions. So, he’s
not just someone who knows basic facts. He’s also potentially
privvy to Buena Vista’s legal strategies.
