A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation Writer Matt Jenkins.
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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.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have given
Native tribes a greater role in California water policy
decisions, saying the state is already making this a priority.
The bill would have directed state agencies to
recognize historical inequities affecting tribes, and to
consult with them on water projects, plans and
policies. Newsom said in his veto message Wednesday
that his administration has worked to address wrongs committed
against tribes and has prioritized respectful
“government-to-government dialogue.” He said, however, that
California “must streamline its water policies to
protect our water supply from the reality of climate
change.” … Opponents of the bill included the
Assn. of California Water Agencies, which argued it was vague,
lacked clear standards, and could expose agencies to more legal
disputes and delays.
On the shores of Playa del Rey sits L.A.’s last line of defense
against sewage streaming into the Santa Monica Bay — and a
jacked El Niño this winter threatens to be more than a match
for it. Built in 1950, the Hyperion Water Reclamation
Plant handles roughly 95% of the city’s sewage on any
given day — up to 800 million gallons of effluent from toilets,
washing machines, sinks, industrial operations and more. Storms
can overwhelm the aging facility, which suffered an
equipment breakdown in 2021 that led to 17 million gallons of
raw sewage gushing into the Santa Monica Bay. Los
Angeles officials are bracing for more trouble if the forecast
“super” El Niño brings heavy rains and flooding.
… L.A.’s stormwater and wastewater systems are separate,
but when it rains, water seeps into the ground and can
sneak into the cracks of aging wastewater pipes.
The multi-state agreements managing the Colorado River for
decades now have officially expired. When the clock struck
midnight on October 1, the agreements ended. In their absence,
the Trump administration is now managing the water for
more than 40 million people across the American West until the
states can get a deal together. … Water will
still flow to Utah and other states along the Colorado River (a
portion from the Colorado River system is pumped into the
Wasatch Front through the Central Utah Project for drinking
water needs). But there will be noticeable
changes. For example, FOX 13’s sister-station KTNV
reported on Thursday that Nevada will begin taking
reductions in how much water it gets from the river over the
next two years.
Denver Water customers are banned from watering their lawns
starting Thursday, and the state’s largest utility is
threatening steep fines for those who break the drought-induced
rule. The prohibition outlaws lawn watering and the
use of spray irrigation at the start of October for the rest of
the warm season, though customers can still hand-water trees,
shrubs, flowers and vegetables. Residential customers
who break the rule once will face a $500 fine. The
fine increases to $1,000 for each subsequent violation and,
if the watering does not stop, Denver Water says it
will shut off the customer’s water service. The
utility — which serves 1.5 million people across metro Denver —
has sent postcards to customers warning them about the ban and
the potential fines. Those postcards served as warnings,
according to a Denver Water press release.
… Proposition 45, sponsored by the California Chamber of
Commerce, would streamline the approval process for a wide
range of development activities considered “essential.” …
[P]rojects eligible for streamlining would be limited, though
several categories of development would qualify: housing,
water infrastructure, clean energy, health
services, wildfire prevention, broadband internet, education
facilities and transportation. … Opponents of the
proposition say so many changes for so many projects is an
invitation for sprawl and polluting development. They worry
that fast-tracking the approval process would inevitably lead
to less comprehensive reviews and public comment, resulting in
projects that yield toxic emissions, increase wildfire risk and
squeeze energy and water supplies.
… Specifically listed as ineligible for faster
review are the contentious water tunnel proposal in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and California’s
high-speed rail project.
October 1 marks the beginning of California’s new Water Year
(WY). Water years here run from October 1 until September 30 of
the next calendar year and are named for the calendar year of
the bulk of the water year (January – October). October
1 is also the nominal beginning of California’s wet
season. (No significant rain yet, by the way.)
California’s hydrology has two basic seasons, wet and dry, with
the wet season nominally from October 1 – April 1 (Figure 1).
The first sizable storm sometimes arrives in late September and
sometimes not until November (recently in 2021). Sizable storms
rarely arrive after April. As we leave California’s long
2026 dry season and prepare, hopefully, for the wet season, it
is good to reflect on the last water year and prepare
for what is also California’s flood season.
A river otter has been spotted in the San Joaquin River where
Fresno conservation officials say the animals have only
recently begun appearing again. The San Joaquin River Parkway
and Conservation Trust posted about the sighting on social
media Wednesday, saying river otters are top predators in river
ecosystems and can indicate a healthy environment. … Sharon
Weaver, executive director of the San Joaquin River Parkway and
Conservation Trust, told GV Wire that otters have not been
present in the area in the recent past but have started
appearing near Sycamore Island. … She pointed to habitat
improvements along the San Joaquin River, including efforts to
improve conditions for salmon and strengthen the broader
ecosystem.
A local country club is facing criticism after signing an
agreement to lease groundwater to a mining company. According
to state Department of Water Resources records, the Tucson
Country Club signed a short-term lease to provide Copper World
with up to 75 acre-feet of groundwater per year. The mining
company plans to pump the water from its well fields east of
the Sahuarita town limits, near a state-designated subsidence
feature. The lease is set to expire on Friday, Dec. 31, 2027,
while Copper World’s 20-year, 6,000 acre-feet groundwater
withdrawal permit from the state expires the following month in
January 2028. Environmental advocacy group Save the Scenic
Santa Ritas strongly opposed the deal, warning it will further
deplete a stressed aquifer.
Only seven of the 22 civilian Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act
agencies reviewed had fully addressed all three of the Office
of Management and Budget’s networked device requirements, which
cover establishing and maintaining device inventories and
processing cybersecurity waivers, according to a new audit
published Sept. 30 by the Government Accountability Office
(GAO). The report says the gaps may leave agencies at risk of
cyberattacks that could compromise sensitive data and systems.
… Networked technologies face increasing cyber threats
worldwide, and in July, cyber threat actors disrupted
operations in the water sector by changing passwords to
disconnect networked programmable logic controllers, a type of
OT device.
San Francisco officials gathered Wednesday along Sunset
Boulevard’s greenbelt, a 2-mile strip of plants and trees along
the road, to celebrate an integral financing step in a project
to deliver recycled water as the landscape’s irrigation source
instead of potable water. Sunset Boulevard is a main
thoroughfare running through the Sunset District connecting
from Golden Gate Park to Lake Merced. The 60-acre greenbelt
along both sides of the road is covered in trees and native
plants that create habitats for critters and provide shade for
residents. But it uses drinking water for irrigation,
water that could be under threat amid droughts. Connecting the
green space’s irrigation to a recycled water transmission pipe
could save about 40 million gallons in drinking water per year.
The Scott River, which flows out of mountain
forests into a broad valley near the California-Oregon border,
provides vital habitat for salmon that swim
upstream from the ocean to spawn in the fall and winter. But
this year, portions of the river have been transformed into
stretches of dry sand and gravel, while
farmers have kept hayfields green by running their wells and
pumps. Environmental advocates are accusing regulators
at the State Water Resources Control Board of failing to do
enough to prevent the river from running dry. …
[C]ritics say the state should have ordered farmers to cut
groundwater pumping more drastically this year to save water in
the river. Farmers disagree, saying drought and other
factors are primarily to blame.
New rules for the Colorado River officially go into effect on
Thursday, but they won’t bring changes to Arizona’s water quite
yet. … Federal rules for the Colorado River and its major
reservoirs typically run on a different calendar than the rest
of the world. … So, starting Thursday, a
controversial federal plan will start changing the amount of
water sent from Lake Powell downstream to Lake Mead.
However, the amount of water delivered from Lake Mead to people
farther downstream — like cities in the Phoenix
area and huge farm districts in
California — is managed in line with the normal
calendar, from Jan. 1 to Jan. 1. So even though the amount of
water flowing into Lake Mead will be different this week,
the amount of water flowing out of it won’t change
until the beginning of 2027.
The California Supreme Court hearing on Kern River flows has
been changed from Redding to the justices’ home court in San
Francisco, according to the court’s website. The
hearing will still be held Oct. 7 at 9 a.m. The
California Attorney General’s office and Department of Fish and
Wildlife also accepted an offer from the Supreme Court
to make their own arguments in support of the
plaintiffs, Bring Back the Kern and Water Audit
California. This case has generated significant interest as
it hinges on a key statute used in numerous
conservation cases, California Fish and Game Code
5937.
Well, it’s official: we’re already observing the
strongest El Niño on record. … This Super El Niño
will no doubt significantly impact the Southwestern US
this winter, with effects from record-high sea levels
and coastal erosion to the potential for excessive
rainfall and consequent flash flooding throughout the
southern half of the country. And remember, what happens in the
ocean doesn’t stay in the ocean: we’re seeing this El Niño
impact weather patterns around the world, modifying
where precipitation—and lack thereof—occurs,
as I’ll discuss below.
Data centers can look like little more than large, windowless
warehouses. But the questions they create for a city can extend
far beyond where to put the building, or if beauty is indeed in
the eye of the beholder. … For Alison McNally, who teaches
geography and environmental resources at Stanislaus State, one
question immediately rises to the top in the San Joaquin
Valley: “Where would the water come from?” The
region already has competing demands from agriculture, homes,
businesses and environmental needs, while groundwater users are
adjusting to California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act. McNally said the impact of any particular data
center would depend heavily on its size, location and water
source.
… Adam Brice moves from one metal trough to the next with a
green hose, filling them with a commodity that’s going dry in
rural Chino Valley. He is a water hauler. The practice is not
unusual in this town 16 miles north of Prescott. Growth in the
region has caused lower water levels due to groundwater pumping
and inefficient recharge. … Local governments hope to mitigate
the overdraft through regional cooperation and stormwater
retention. But rural residents can’t wait. They have found some
relief in hiring water haulers and setting up their own
homemade storage methods.
San Diego Foundation (SDF) today announced $983,439 in
Binational Resilience Initiative (BRI) grants for 10 projects
bringing together 21 nonprofit organizations in the United
States and Mexico. Several projects directly address the
Tijuana River sewage crisis by reducing pollution and flooding,
improving wastewater treatment and making water quality
information easier for communities to understand, while others
will restore coastal habitats and support research and
education across the broader Cali-Baja region. The Tijuana
River sewage crisis affects water quality, public health and
communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Fort Bragg Vice Mayor Marcia Rafanan told the City Council on
Monday night that she went out to the city’s wave-powered
desalination buoy, which makes fresh water from ocean water, to
taste it. … The city’s 12-month pilot with Oneka
Technologies, a company based in Sherbrooke, Quebec, was
designed with pipelines carrying fresh water from the buoy to
the city’s wastewater treatment plant, according to the Coastal
Commission, which approved the project with conditions in
December 2025. The pipeline part of the project has since been
dropped. In an April memo to the Coastal Commission, which
the commission provided Wednesday, Oneka said the cost of
installing, surveying and removing the pipeline was
“disproportionate to the benefits” for a short pilot
project.
A proposed sale of hundreds of acres of wetlands near the Great
Salt Lake that have been largely untouched by humans for
decades is now facing some pushback from bird enthusiasts who
would like to see it stay that way. The 950 acres of land,
owned by Salt Lake City International Airport, is slated to be
purchased by Utah’s Department of Natural Resources. Inside the
parcel is a mitigation area that was set aside in the 1990s
when the airport built a runway. Since then, the airport has
done some minimal work to battle the invasive plant phragmites
and keep birds from encroaching upon the airport and, after
being approached by the state, considered a sale. … The
plan is to fold the land into a larger waterfowl management
area.
For more than a century, water from the Eel River has flowed
through PG&E’s Potter Valley Project into the Russian River
watershed, filling Lake Mendocino, supporting farms in Potter
Valley, and supplying homes and businesses across Mendocino,
Sonoma, and Marin counties. PG&E has decided it no longer
wants to operate the Potter Valley Project and has filed a plan
to decommission it, including removing Scott Dam and Cape Horn
Dam. That wasn’t a decision made by Mendocino County or our
local water districts, but our responsibility now is to make
sure water continues flowing to our communities and that the
infrastructure controlling it stays in local hands, not in the
hands of an outside investor. – Written by Mo Mulheren, the Second District Supervisor
for the County of Mendocino and the county’s alternate
commissioner on the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power
Commission.
