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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After more than three years of negotiations among the seven
Colorado River Basin states, the federal government is
preparing to release its plan for managing the shrinking river.
The U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation
say they expect to release the Final Environmental Impact
Statement for post-2026 Colorado River operations this week.
The document is expected to identify the federal
government’s preferred approach for operating Lake Mead and
Lake Powell after the current guidelines expire.
… An earlier draft examined five possible approaches but
did not identify a preferred alternative. The final document
should provide a clearer picture of the direction the Trump
administration intends to take.
A South Carolina federal judge ordered the Trump administration
to fund hundreds of environmental justice grants it illegally
canceled last year, a decision that could impact $20 million in
federal funding rescinded from the Walker River Paiute
Tribe in Nevada. … The federal climate program
was terminated in May 2025 following two executive orders
issued by President Donald Trump targeting funding for
renewable energy and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at
the federal level. … In Nevada, the program’s termination
eliminated a $20 million EPA grant that would have
funded a multi-year climate resiliency plan to deliver
water, energy, and food infrastructure to about 1,200
tribal members who live on the Walker River Reservation. … A
portion of the grant was also earmarked for avital water infrastructure project to protect
health and safety on the reservation.
The official tally shows Kern County water districts are only
willing to chip in $11.7 million of $33 million
requested by the state toward the planning phase of
the so-called delta tunnel, according to figures presented at
the July 23 Kern County Water Agency meeting. The agency, which
administers the State Water Contract on behalf of 13 local
water districts, called “member units,” voted Thursday to
approve a funding agreement with the Department of Water
Resources that included the reduced amount for planning and
pre-construction costs of the 36-foot diameter Delta Conveyance
Project. That leaves DWR with a 20% funding gap in
the $300 million it needs for this phase.
From some parts of Highway 101, the Salinas Valley can look
like one long, uniform stretch of agricultural fields.
But the groundwater basins that lie beneath the surface tell a
different story, one of interconnectivity, fragmentation and
different interests depending what end of the valley you’re on.
Groundwater is the source for roughly 96% of all water used in
the Salinas Valley. For more than a century, it has been the
foundation for Monterey County’s agricultural industry. But as
generation after generation has sipped from thousands of straws
up and down the valley, groundwater levels have dropped
and the salty waters of Monterey Bay have seeped in to fill its
place. … The [Sustainable Groundwater
Management] act created the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater
Sustainability Agency, which next month must decide on
a plan to stop the salty march.
… The Quartz Valley Indian Reservation, a group of about 400
Native Americans whose ancestors once lived throughout the
remote border region, was awarded a $25 million loan from the
state this week to buy the Scott Valley property. … As a
condition of the loan from the State Water Resources
Control Board, the tribe will help restore the land,
which is part of a watershed seen as crucial to the health of
theKlamath River Basin. … [T]he land
encompasses the creeks that give rise to the Scott
River, a salmon-rich tributary of the Klamath River,
long central to Native American tradition. In recent decades,
the Scott River has gotten increasingly low, the result of
drought, warming temperatures and agricultural water
diversions — a problem that has prompted state
water restrictions and ongoing controversy over water
management.
… Stratos developers say the project would bring an initial
$30 million to the county and a permanent 2,000 skilled jobs,
higher than the 50 jobs data centers typically provide,
according to a 2024 Virginia legislative audit of the industry
in that state. In terms of water, backers say the
project wouldn’t draw directly from the Great Salt
Lake and would use two kinds of cooling systems to
keep servers from overheating: a closed-loop system circulating
liquid and air-based cooling. They’re also seeking
water rights for more than 13,000 acre-feet — enough
to supply 26,000 households per year — saying those rights are
attached to the land they’re buying. But they contend the data
center would use less water than the ranchers
there do now.
The founders of a Colorado company said they’ve found a way to
boost rainfall by at least 10% in certain locations, using
technology that could help mitigate the persistent
Colorado River water crisis. However, an
abiding distaste for “cloud seeding” in Wyoming has hampered
efforts here so far, representatives of Rain Enhancement
Technologies say. Randy Seidl, the company’s CEO, and chief
meteorologist Jeff Chagnon told Cowboy State Daily their system
relies solely on solar-generated electricity, not cloud-seeding
chemicals. They’ve built rain-making facilities in
Utah and Colorado, but when they’ve approached Wyoming
officials their message has been conflated with the
“cloud-seeding umbrella,” Seidl said.
Any wildfire can become a threat to life and property. But in
Northern California, the most destructive fires can also change
the forests and snowpack that help feed the region’s
rivers and reservoirs. That connection is a growing
concern in the American River watershed, which
helps supply water for approximately 2 million people. A
new watershed resilience plan funded by California’s Department
of Water Resources looks at how climate change could affect the
American, Bear and Cosumnes watersheds in the decades ahead.
The impacts include hotter summers, more extreme precipitation,
longer droughts, shrinking snowpack, more frequent wildfire and
earlier runoff into reservoirs.
Homeowners in a development near Patterson no longer have to
worry that a water agency 200 miles away could cut off their
taps. A contract was signed late this week between the Kern
County Water Agency and Western Hills Water District that will
keep water water flowing to the 600-home Diablo Grande
development in the western foothills of Stanislaus County. The
agency agreed to deliver up to 1,500 acre feet a year to
Western Hills, which serves Diablo Grande exclusively, and
forgive $14 million in debt the agency said it was owed. The
agency signed off on the contract Thursday and Western Hills
agreed to it on Friday. The agency will charge Western Hills
$37,500 per year, with an escalation clause, as an
“administration fee,” according to the contract.
The U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement in June 2025 to work
together on a permanent solution for the sewage crisis in the
Tijuana River Valley. This comes after decades of the crisis,
leading to widespread pollution that closed beaches and filled
the air with toxic hydrogen sulfide. The original memorandum of
understanding outlined goals for both American and Mexican
construction of wastewater infrastructure: Minute 328. This
includes the expansion of the South Bay International
Wastewater Treatment Plant to 50 million gallons per day by the
end of 2027. “Mexico is on schedule with their commitments
that are made in those minutes,” said Mike Martucci, the
Administrator for EPA Region 9, which includes
California. Among those commitments are rehabilitating
pump stations and interceptors along the Tijuana River in 2026
and upgrading their wastewater treatment plants on the Mexican
side of the border in 2027.
Humboldt County environmental health officials are warning
residents to avoid stagnant areas of local waterways after a
dog died shortly after swimming in a slow-moving pool of the
Eel River near Scotia on Thursday, July 23. The incident comes
as conditions become increasingly favorable for cyanobacteria —
microscopic, photosynthetic bacteria commonly known as
blue-green algae — and the harmful algal blooms they can
produce. Warnings are typically issued in late July or early
August, when low river flows and prolonged high temperatures
can contribute to cyanobacteria growth in rivers and lagoons.
… The Oroville Wildlife Area Recreation Improvement Project
will renovate the land near the Feather River boat launch by
adding a riverside trail connector, a 25-site campground
facility, a new boat launch facility, and other landscaping
improvements. … The Oroville Dam was built in the 1960s.
This area was used to harvest and transport materials to the
site. All that was left behind was some pavement, a single boat
ramp and eventually one bathroom that people had to use for
more than 50 years. The Department of Water Resources, along
with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, reached
out to the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency and asked them to
take on this project. The Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency was
able to secure grants from the Wildlife Conservation Board and
U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
… Located in the northern end of Imperial County, Calipatria
is one of the communities closest to the so-called Lithium
Valley, where an underground reservoir of geothermal brine
beneath the Salton Sea contains one of the world’s largest
lithium deposits. It’s at the center of plans, long touted by
businesses and politicians as high up as Gov. Gavin Newsom, to
transform California’s neglected, polluted and job-poor
Imperial Valley into a hub for green industry. Imperial County
has ambitious plans to develop 51,000 acres of land along the
sea for renewable energy, lithium extraction and associated
infrastructure. But some are concerned that the county’s plans,
including its proposal to fast-track a wide range of industrial
projects, could further exacerbate the region’s public health
crisis.
California and two other states have avoided the harshest water
cutbacks the Trump administration could have imposed over the
next two years to deal with the deepening crisis on the
Colorado River. The Times has learned that federal officials
have agreed with an offer made earlier this year by
California, Arizona and Nevadato
reduce what they take from the river by at least 3.2 million
acre-feet between now and the end of 2028. Under the
plan, California will cut its use of Colorado River water by
about 12% through 2028, Arizona will take about 31% less and
Nevada 28% less, according to two officials at state and local
agencies who spoke anonymously since details of an announcement
are still being finalized.
Mexico says it’s finally going to hire a company to build a
plant that turns the ocean into freshwater in Rosarito,
reviving an idea shelved years ago amid protests that the
government was privatizing water. And, in the name of reducing
how much water Mexico takes from the Colorado
River, the United States is going to help get the
water to the cities that need it. Construction could
start as soon as Aug. 1, according to a federal
Mexican project website. … This is not the only
desalination plant in Baja California. There are multiple
across the state, but they are small in comparison to what’s
being proposed in Rosarito. The Rosarito plant would be
the size of a desalination plant in Carlsbad, which
has the ability to produce 50 million gallons per day and
currently provides San Diego with about 10 percent of its
drinking water needs.
… Salt Lake City is considering a new ordinance that would
limit new nonresidential properties to 200,000 gallons
per day, mirroring the emergency order issued in
March. Uses tied to agriculture would be exempt, as would water
consumed by schools, government-owned or operated facilities
that primarily provide social services, places of worship and
hospitals. … “We have got to get our heads and our hands
around the water crisis, and start to manage things more
responsibly. It’s literally a human survival
issue, so … I would be happier if we went even
stricter,” said Salt Lake City Councilwoman Victoria Petro.
Other drought impact and response news around the West:
On a hot morning in June, dozens of agave plants took root in
the soil of Madera County. The plant has long been grown in
parts of Mexico to make tequila and mezcal. But in California,
it’s only more recently gotten attention from Central Valley
farmers seeking options as they face water shortages
and the prospect of fallowing land. Researchers say
agave could be a useful option for farmers with limited water
supplies. The drought-resilient crop has
demonstrated commercially viable yields with less than a tenth
of the water usage needed for many tree
crops. … Samuel Sandoval Solis, a fellow UC Davis
agave researcher, said the water demands of agave are so little
that researchers are looking to develop a manual for growing
agave without any irrigation.
The developer behind a proposed $10 billion data center has
filed a lawsuit asserting his rights to Colorado River
water in California’s Imperial Valley. Sebastian Rucci
is a Huntington Beach lawyer and businessman pushing the plan
in a region already known as a big water user. The Imperial
Valley sprouted as an agricultural center that’s the largest
user of Colorado River water in the seven states that rely on
the river. Farmers use about 80% of the state’s full
allocation. As managing member of Imperial Valley Computer
Manufacturing, Rucci filed his lawsuit June 5 in California
Superior Court in Imperial County. After two cities — El Centro
and Imperial — snubbed Rucci’s bid to get recycled wastewater
to cool the proposed data center, the developer went
back on a statement that he had no intention of using water
from the over-allocated Colorado River.
Every two to seven years, El Niño generates buzz among
scientists, government officials and communities wondering what
impacts it could have across California. … In Monterey
County specifically, El Niño could manifest in a wetter winter,
though scientists won’t know how severe impacts could be until
individual storms are much closer. It could bring larger
swells, higher water levels and increased coastal erosion as
unusually warm water off Mexico fuels tropical storms in the
Eastern Pacific. … At a meeting of the Big Sur
Multi-Agency Advisory Council on Friday, July 17, officials
said the U.S. Forest Service is planning prescribed burns in
Los Padres National Forest and forming an internal task force
to plan for El Niño-related impacts on trails and roads. The
risk of landslides are elevated during El Niño events.
There are a host of Kern County water board seats up for
election this November. The deadline to throw you hat in the
ring is August 7. Races for water board seats don’t typically
attract the kind of attention that hot congressional or even
city council seats do, but they should. Water boards are in
charge of making sure your water is drinkable; they decide how
much you pay for it; and make rules about whether you can run
your sprinklers on Mondays or Tuesdays and for how long. Some
local boards are in charge of regional and statewide issues
that can impact our economy in very real ways. One such board
with four of its seven director positions up for elections is
the Kern County Water Agency. This is one of the most powerful
water agencies in the county, arguably the state.
