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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On Monday, SpaceX amended its initial public
offering to state that water conditions—including water
scarcity, regulations around water, and drought—could constrain
data center development. It isn’t the only tech company trying
to assess how water scarcity might impact its business. Water
use is emerging as one of the most contentious data center
issues. A recent Gallup poll found that seven
out of 10 Americans are opposed to data center development,
with water scarcity ranking as the top resource
concern. Facing increasingly fierce resistance, some
tech companies are scrambling to assure the public that they’re
facing the issue head-on. … Google is taking a
different approach … the company rolled out a series
of water-related commitments to communities where it has data
centers, along with funding announcements for water-related
projects in the US.
Members of the Colorado Drought Task Force want Gov. Jared
Polis to issue an emergency proclamation to unlock more help,
potentially from state coffers, in face of worrisome drought
conditions. After a historically bad winter that ended a
month early, Colorado is already feeling the impacts — whether
that’s financial strain, tough business decisions or an
overstressed environment. As part of the state’s response,
the task force recommended Monday moving into the
highest level, phase three, of the state’s drought response
plan. The move could allow the state to tap more
resources or seek a presidential declaration. … The
officials gathered for their third meeting in Winter Park to
hear updates about drought conditions and impacts on fisheries,
water providers and wildfire risk.
A new report from a group of widely respected Colorado River
experts says the region’s major reservoirs are sliding toward
“devastating consequences” as water levels continue to drop.
The authors write that another dry year, on the heels of last
winter’s record-setting dry conditions, would send the nation’s
largest reservoirs to “run-of-the-river” levels, meaning that
they are unable to store water for the future, and simply pass
water downstream. As a result, the paper’s authors — a group of
academics and retired water officials — are calling on state
water managers and the federal government to work quickly on
new rules for sharing the Colorado River and avert
infrastructure problems at Lake Powell and Lake Mead,
the nation’s two largest reservoirs.
A collapse in a major Tijuana sewage pipeline has sent millions
of gallons of raw wastewater surging into the Tijuana River
Valley, pushing a South Bay treatment plant far beyond its
capacity and driving dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide gas
into surrounding neighborhoods overnight. The U.S.
International Boundary and Water Commission reported the
failure of Tijuana’s Parallel Gravity Line [last] Friday
night. The line conveys wastewater across Tijuana and its
collapse sent excessive flows to the South Bay International
Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is designed to handle 35
million gallons per day. The plant sustained flows above 45
million gallons per day for 13 hours over the weekend and
peaked above 60 million gallons per day for nine hours.
Harmful algal blooms were rarely observed in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta before 2000. Over the past two decades, they have
become a regular summer event, and scientists are racing to
understand why. DWR is co-leading a five-year, $3 million
research project funded by NOAA to investigate what is driving
the increase in harmful algal blooms across the Delta and San
Francisco Bay. The effort, called MERHAB, brings together
scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the San Francisco
Estuary Institute, UC Santa Cruz, Cal Poly Maritime Academy and
several regulatory agencies. … The research team is
using remote sensing technology, continuous monitoring
stations, laboratory analysis and community volunteers to track
where blooms form, how they move and what conditions trigger
them.
The water that keeps the upper Russian River
flowing through the dry months — the flow farms and towns from
Ukiah to Healdsburg lean on every summer — comes from a
century-old diversion the federal government spent six years
agreeing to shrink. On Friday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke
Rollins told Congressman Jared Huffman in a letter dated
May 29 she’s not done fighting to keep that system in place,
dams and all. On Tuesday, Congressman Huffman, who represents
the district in which the dams are located, told the Voice her
letter was “incoherent.” … “Like most of the
gobbledygook in that letter, it’s nonsense,” he said in an
interview Tuesday, after his office gave the letter to The
Mendocino Voice and Bay City News.
With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act supplemental
five-year water infrastructure funding set to expire Sept. 30,
local government and water stakeholders are urging federal
lawmakers to reauthorize core water programs and fully fund
water infrastructure programs in fiscal year 2027. The 2021
IIJA allocated $50 billion for water infrastructure over five
years, divided across five pots under the Clean Water State
Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund,
with specific funding to replace lead pipes and address PFAS
and other contaminants. The National League of Cities is asking
Congress to maintain the IIJA’s authorization amount — $5.85
billion each to the Clean Water SRF and the Drinking
Water SRF — and reauthorize grant and technical
assistance programs to address PFAS, lead pipes and other water
infrastructure projects in FY27.
Other Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act news:
“Forever chemicals” are everywhere — in our drinking water, in
our food and in products like nonstick frying pans, raincoats
and even some types of floss. … If your community has
water contaminated by PFAS chemicals, drinking water could be
your main source of exposure. According to the U.S.
Geological Survey, they’re in nearly half of the nation’s tap
water. Many cities and towns have already tested
public water for these chemicals, so a good first step is to
check with your water utility to see if they have published
those results. To do that, you can call your utility’s customer
service line or look online to see if they’ve published PFAS
data in water quality reports. … Once you figure out the
levels of PFAS chemicals in your water, you can compare them to
the EPA’s regulations.
A reshaped agreement for the Kern County Water Agency to
provide water to a housing development 200 miles to the north
erased $14 million in debt, giving residents water certainty
into the future just days before KCWA had threatened to shut
off their supplies. … The letter of intent, provided to
SJV Water Monday, was signed May 28, just days before the
agency said it would cut off Western Hills. The water entities
are still working out a formal contract. … The new,
draft deal caps more than a year of back and forth between the
entities over Western Hills’ skipped water payments. How a Kern
County water agency ended up supplying a housing development
200 miles to the north is a complex, somewhat convoluted, deal
going back 28 years.
… The Water Renaissance Plan calls for a collective
commitment to developing local water supplies. It outlines
eight priority recommendations, from policy reforms to the
creation of new sources of funding, such as a general
obligation water bond focused on local water supplies. The
group, composed of a variety of nonprofit and advocacy
organizations, including the Sierra Club, claims that
sustainable technologies like stormwater capture, wastewater
recycling, and conservation could yield between 1.8 and 2
million acre-feet of local water supplied by 2045, at a lower
price tag than the delta tunnel. And local water is much more
reliable in the face of climate change. … Models predict at
least an 8 percent reduction in imported water supplies by
2050. … Can they convince lawmakers and state agencies that
have long favored engineered solutions?
… In recent weeks the Interior Department has contacted farm
districts, cities, tribes and other water users in
Arizona, California and Nevada looking to
extend Biden administration contracts that paid out nearly $1.4
billion from Democrats’ signature climate law to entities that
agreed to fallow fields, tighten conservation measures or
otherwise forgo water deliveries. At the same time,
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered up a list of projects
from the region’s seven governors to address the river’s
long-term problems, for which the federal government could be a
“potential cost-share partner.” The menu of proposals they
delivered a week ago includes 85 projects totaling more than
$50 billion — a price tag that far exceeds what Interior
currently has in its coffers.
The Trump administration has offered one of its most detailed
explanations of why it wants to stop dam removal on
Northern California’s Eel River, citing in a
letter numerous concerns that include water, power, wildfire
safety and even the state’s “radical leadership.” Still, big
questions remain. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent the
three-page letter Friday in response to a Congressional
inquiry about her agency’s sudden interest in a pair of
relatively obscure PG&E-owned dams. … The dams, in Lake
and Mendocino counties, are part of the Potter Valley
hydroelectric project, which Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is
seeking to retire because of its age and expense. … In
the letter obtained by the Chronicle, Rollins said her agency
is actively looking for someone new to operate the
project, to both continue power generation and maintain water
supplies.
A developing El Niño in the Pacific Ocean is showing its
earliest atmospheric fingerprints, with scientists detecting
shifts in pressure, wind patterns and ocean temperatures that
could shape weather across the United States in the months
ahead. … While California is not typically in the path
of tropical systems, forecasters say warmer ocean waters and
more favorable storm tracks can increase the risk of tropical
moisture reaching the region. That can translate into heavy
rainfall and flash flooding in parts of Southern California,
particularly in late-season setups. AccuWeather also warns of
an elevated flood risk across the broader Southwest,
including Arizona and New Mexico, where remnants of
Pacific storms can interact with monsoon moisture and produce
intense rainfall far inland.
… Desalination plants are notoriously large electricity
users. Some have natural gas pipelines running to them to fuel
dedicated power plants. The company OceanWell estimates its
technology will cut that electricity use by up to 40%. Its goal
is to anchor an array of units 4.5 miles offshore, at a cost of
$500 million to $1 billion, to deliver 60 million gallons of
water per day. That’s enough for about 400,000
people. Prompted by severe water cutbacks four years ago,
the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District has been working with
Menlo Park-based OceanWell to develop a cheaper, less
power-hungry way to turn saltwater into drinking water without
sucking in tons of sea life. In a recent test at a
local reservoir, it worked.
U.S. Representative Dr. Raúl Ruiz (D-CA) called for an
immediate halt to proposed data center projects in his
district, voicing sharp concerns over their potential impact on
local utility costs, power grid stability, and public health.
In a video statement released last week, Ruiz—a physician who
represents California’s 25th congressional district,
encompassing parts of the Imperial Valley and Eastern Riverside
County—argued that the massive energy and water demands of
these facilities pose an undue burden on an already vulnerable
region. … The environmental footprint of these
facilities extends to water consumption. Many data centers
utilize evaporative cooling systems that consume
millions of gallons of water daily—a logistics
challenge that Ruiz argues is unsustainable given the state’s
hydrology.
A piece of legislation with real consequences for Northern
California’s fishing communities cleared a major hurdle this
week. Senate Bill 1393, carried by Senator Mike McGuire, passed
out of the California Senate with bipartisan support and now
heads to the Assembly for consideration. The bill targets
three specific areas of the state’s fisheries management
system. First, it strengthens the steelhead trout
restoration program and directs more funding toward
habitat projects that support the species’ recovery. Second, it
updates the regulatory framework governing the Dungeness crab
fishery, one of the most economically significant commercial
fisheries on the entire West Coast. Third, it establishes clear
rules for vessel transit through areas where crab fishing has
been closed, giving boat operators a defined path forward when
navigating restricted zones.
People living and working near the polluted Tijuana River may
have noticed more sewage flows and worsened sewer gas odors
over the weekend. The U.S. International Boundary and Water
Commission, or IBWC, said that’s because a 10-mile pipeline in
Tijuana, dubbed the Parallel Gravity Line, collapsed Friday
night. The line is supposed to transport wastewater to the San
Antonio de los Buenos plant in Baja California, which is
designed to divert flows from the Tijuana River by treating 18
million gallons per day before releasing them into the Pacific
Ocean. Instead, the raw flows have been entering the
river. According to IBWC data, flows in the river spiked from
10 million gallons on Friday to 34 million gallons on Sunday.
… The IBWC also said that the Parallel Gravity Line has
ruptured twice over the past two weeks.
Lax regulations and mismanaged applications in the US are to
blame for the tons of nitrogen fertilizer that runs off into
waterways each year and contributes to water and air pollution,
cancer and environmental damage, according to a report released
Monday. US farmers annually apply over 11 million metric
tons of nitrogen fertilizer, according to the US Department of
Agriculture (USDA), making it the most used fertilizer in the
country. The new report, published by the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC), finds that an estimated half of these
nutrients aren’t taken up by crops, but leach into the
environment instead in ways that cost the US billions of
dollars annually in water treatment costs, beach closures and
habitat loss. Most of the costs hit small and rural farming
communities, the report states.
At Metropolitan Water District’s May Imported Water
Subcommittee meeting, Christopher Martin, executive policy
advisor for the State Water Project at the California
Department of Water Resources, outlined the extent of
subsidence along the California Aqueduct, the state’s response
strategy, planned corrective measures, and the funding now
being assembled for repairs. Subsidence occurs when groundwater
pumping lowers water levels and reduces pore pressure in the
aquifer system, causing the fine-grained clay and silt layers
in the sediments to compact. … Because the sinking is
often uneven from place to place, it creates differential
subsidence that can distort the slope and freeboard of
infrastructure such as the California Aqueduct, reducing
conveyance capacity and increasing repair needs.
Balancing economic growth and environmental protection is not
easy. Consider wetlands, which provide flood protection, aid
water quality, and are linchpins of larger ecosystems. How can
we best preserve wetlands while enhancing economic
activity? According to a new study, one solution involves
supplanting traditional conservation mandates, which require
replacing affected wetlands locally, with tradeable offsets.
Through this system, a developer can build on a wetland by
purchasing credits representing an equivalent
environmental value created by improving a wetland somewhere
else in the same watershed, away from concentrated development.
… The scholars say it would provide a better way of
balancing wetlands preservation and economic gains, while
lowering flood risk.
