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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As hot temperatures sweep across Utah and water supplies
continue to drop, states and the federal government are
launching a new effort to better measure how much water
evaporates from major reservoirs upstream of Lake Powell. The
Bureau of Reclamation partnered with scientists and Upper Basin
states, including Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming, to
launch a new evaporation study at Flaming Gorge, Blue Mesa and
Navajo reservoirs — key water storage projects in the Upper
Colorado River Basin. … Reclamation is sending up to
1 million acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge to prop
up Lake Powell, which forecast models show will reach
levels that threaten hydropower production and could
damage dam infrastructure by early next year.
Where water normally flows continuously on the San Pedro River
east of Sierra Vista, only ponds and puddles persisted last
week. … The Charleston gauge, long considered a key indicator
of the San Pedro’s health, dried up late last month for
the first time in 21 years. And it stayed dry — or
nearly dry — until water from a monsoon storm arrived Friday
morning. It was the latest blow to a river whose lush riparian
groves and very high bird populations have long made it a
global treasure in the eyes of many ecologists. But the river’s
declining flows and the lowering of neighboring groundwater
wells over the years have also made it a political and legal
battleground pitting environmentalists wanting to limit the
area’s growth and groundwater pumping and government
officials who seek to keep the river flowing without curbing
economic development.
Facing legal challenges and growing industrial pressures, the
Imperial County Board of Supervisors will vote Tuesday
on whether to freeze new data center developments
across all unincorporated lands for nearly another year. The
proposed 10-month and 15-day extension of an urgency moratorium
underscores a deepening regulatory anxiety over how these
power-hungry facilities will affect the region’s strained
electric grid and vital water resources. Beyond the data center
freeze, Chairwoman Peggy Price will advance the framework for
a new data center advisory committee. The
group will attempt to bring order to the gold rush by
appointing an 11-member advisory panel representing a
cross-section of conflicting interests.
The Marin Municipal Water District is entering a $2.65 million
deal with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to advance a major
drought resiliency project. The water district board voted
unanimously Tuesday to approve the partnership agreement,
charging the Army Corps to support the “atmospheric
river capture” project. The project is a proposed
pipeline that would replenish Marin reservoirs with
Sonoma County rainwater during droughts. Under the
agreement, the Army Corps will design a section of the pipeline
that is 18,000 feet long. The agreement is a necessary step for
the district to use federal funding from the 2022 Water
Resources Development Act, or WRDA, slated for the project.
… Estimated at $214 million, the planned 13-mile,
36-inch pipe would tap into an aqueduct system that runs along
Highway 101, carrying water from the Russian River into Marin.
Sunday was an unusual summer day for much of Central and
Southern California, bringing clouds and even sparse rain
showers across much of the state as a monsoon was full steam
ahead. The North American monsoon – a weather pattern that
invites tropical moisture into the region during the summer
months – doesn’t always make its way all the way to Central and
Northern California. The fact that is has is a sign of the
strength of the weather pattern. … With a
strengthening El Niño at play, more moisture will be
available to crash into California from the south over the
summer months. There are hints that more monsoonal moisture
could return later this weekend or next week as the atmosphere
attempts to adjust to El Niño’s influence.
Commercial and recreational salmon fishing has resumed off the
North Coast after a three-year statewide closure, marking a
long-awaited milestone for a troubled industry that has endured
historic losses in revenue and resources. Charter captains are
reporting abundant catches out of Bodega Bay, and commercial
boats up and down the coast are again unloading hauls of the
prized West Coast staple for the first time since 2022. Still,
the reopening is far from a return to normal, industry veterans
say. This year’s season is heavily restricted with
staggered openings and closings designed to limit the take on
rebounding Chinook salmon returns. And fewer boats may be
around to cash in, as some fishermen say years of lost income
from curtailed and closed fisheries have driven some away from
the water for good.
… Cross-border sewage pollution has plagued Imperial Beach,
Coronado and other parts of South San Diego for decades, and
worsened in recent years. As Tijuana’s population grew and
wastewater plants on both sides of the border failed, hundreds
of millions of gallons of raw sewage poured into the ocean.
That has sickened swimmers and surfers, and led to near
continual beach restrictions for the past three years. Imperial
Beach residents describe waking up to headaches, asthma and
rashes after exposure to the water, or airborne pollutants from
the Tijuana River. Schools invoke “rainy day schedules” when
pollution levels spike. Struggling to breathe, sleep and swim,
many residents of the largely working class, majority Latino
community think their environmental burdens are
overlooked.
The U.S. Forest Service has approved a fast-tracked critical
minerals mine in Southern Arizona despite years of pushback
from nearby communities The $3 billion South 32 Hermosa project
will unearth deposits of zinc, manganese, lead and silver.
… Already, discharged water from the mine has been
flagged by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality for
exceeding allowable levels of heavy metals. … Each year,
it’s expected to remove 2,790 acre-feet of water from the
aquifer, amounting to 195,000 acre-feet over the course of its
operations. Though some water will be recharged, the final
environmental impact statement notes that net water loss from
the aquifer will be 34,000 acre-feet, equivalent to over 1
billion gallons. Nearby residents in the project’s 50-mile cone
of depression worry that groundwater pumping could cause their
wells to run dry and that the overall dewatering could affect
the surrounding ecosystem.
Climate change could nearly double household water bills in
vulnerable US cities by mid-century, pushing an extra 7–16% of
residents into water poverty, according to new research that
offers the most detailed picture yet of how a warming planet
will hit household budgets. The study, led by researchers at
Stanford University and published in the journal Nature
Sustainability, modelled the coastal city of Santa Cruz,
California, tracing the chain of cause and effect from shifting
rainfall and rising temperatures through to reservoir levels,
utility spending decisions, water rates and, ultimately, what
shows up on residents’ bills.
The Trump administration finalized a rollback of the Endangered
Species Act on Friday, paving the way for drilling, mining and
other human development across protected wildlife habitats. The
move redefines “harm” under the Endangered Species Act, the
landmark conservation law that protects threatened and
endangered plants and animals. … The move seems
especially poised to hit California. … Of the roughly 2,300
species protected by the Endangered Species Act, nearly 300 are
found in California. These species include amphibians such as
tiger salamanders and Yosemite toads; birds
such as California condors and northern spotted owls; fish such
as Little Kern golden trout and Santa Ana
suckers. … A report from Earthjustice estimates
that expanded oil drilling in California could threaten five
marine species including humpback whales, sea otters,
leatherback sea turtles, marbled murrelets and wild
salmon.
Predicting the weather is always tricky, with even the most
solid forecasts sometimes not living up to the hype. But over
the last few months, the world’s weather experts have become
more united in the belief that we were going to be hit by a new
El Niño climate pattern, and the consensus of computer models
suggests it will probably be a very strong
one. California is no stranger to the effects of El
Niño, with the pattern associated with some of the state’s most
memorable destructive winter seasons. … For Southern
California, it would mean a higher chance of
above-average rainfall, risking a winter of flash
floods and landslides. During three of the four
“very strong” El Niños in the global record, downtown Los
Angeles got significantly more rain than average.
A San Joaquin water district says it may have found a powerful
tool in the fight against California’s growing golden mussel
problem. The Arvin-Edison Water Storage District says a
large-scale copper-based treatment successfully killed
golden mussels found throughout the areas of its water system
that were treated before farmers experienced disruptions to
their water deliveries. … The district turned to a
copper-based product called Natrix CA, using it in a 30-day
treatment across its water system. … The first
30-day treatment cost the district about $3 million.
… [T]he next round of treatment is expected to cost about
$1.3 million, with the district anticipating two to three
treatments each year.
In its dash to build President Trump’s signature border wall,
the federal government is drilling unpermitted wells into
already-depleted aquifers in New Mexico, according to state
officials. The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer told
Here & Now it counted at least six wells under development
along the border, but none have the necessary permits required
by state law. … [Rancher Russell] Johnson relies on a
natural spring to supply water for his cattle and his
home. “These wells that they’re drilling for border
wall construction, they’re talking about trying to attain
300-plus gallons a minute, and it’s going to pump us
dry,” he said.
As the Trump administration delays regulations on “forever
chemicals” that pollute reservoirs, rivers and aquifers
nationwide, California officials say they are unsure what the
consequences will be for an estimated 1.5 million
Californians served by utilities with contaminated sources of
drinking water. With uncertainty over when regulations
on some of the most common of these cancer-causing pollutants,
called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, will take
effect in California, lawmakers are floating
alternative plans to remove them from the state’s tap
water. Among several forever chemical-related
bills in Congress is one that would tax PFAS manufacturers to
help utilities pay for expensive treatment technologies. State
legislation that could have led to the ban of pesticides
containing PFAS has been watered down by lawmakers, but
environmental advocates still see the bill as an important
first step.
… Folsom Lake is slated to hold 266,000 acre-feet of water at
the end of the year. … Typically, Reclamation aims for a
300,000 acre-foot threshold by the end of December — a number
the Water Forum deems sufficient to survive a subsequent dry
year with minimal implications. Missing the target could
disrupt a delicate balancing act, weighing the needs of local
water suppliers and environmental advocates against the entire
Central Valley Project, which uses reservoirs, dams and canals
to feed agricultural needs alongside some urban customers.
… Missing the mark by 34,000 acre-feet at Folsom Lake
isn’t an immediate cause for alarm, according to RWA [Regional
Water Authority] Executive Director James Peifer. But if winter
deliveries fall short and a drought takes hold, missing the
December target could mark the beginning of a troublesome era.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has approved a
right-of-way (ROW) grant allowing construction to begin on the
conversion of the Cadiz Northern Pipeline from a natural gas
pipeline to a water conveyance system, clearing a major federal
hurdle for the Mojave Groundwater Bank project being developed
by Cadiz Inc. in partnership with the Lytton
Rancheria. … While Cadiz and its tribal partner
describe the project as a critical long-term water supply
investment for Southern California, the proposal has faced
years of scrutiny and opposition from some environmental
organizations and desert conservation advocates who have raised
concerns about groundwater extraction in the Mojave Desert. The
BLM’s approval marks one of the final major federal
authorizations needed before construction can move forward.
We’ve been wondering how the county would spend $80 million per
year on the sewage-plagued Tijuana River under a proposed
half-cent sales tax measure proposed by the San Diego County
Supervisors. On Friday, Supervisor Paloma Aguirre (the issue’s
main champion and former mayor of sewage-blighted Imperial
Beach) put out her proposed plan. Main message? Convert a large
chunk of that money into a bond (a big loan governments often
take out to finance expensive projects) and have the county
build a system that treats the entire Tijuana River. It’s also
known as the “river diversion” project and Aguirre’s been
pushing for it since she was mayor. That basically
involves running the river on the United States side through a
new treatment plant (called advanced primary treatment) so that
raw sewage doesn’t make its way to the Pacific Ocean (and
Imperial Beach).
The City of Bakersfield pledged to run some of its Kern River
water down the normally dry river bed through town at least
until July 30th this year. While it lasts, the Kern River
Parkway Foundation and Bring Back the Kern are hoping to draw
attention to the difference a little water makes in the river
bed by holding “Sunsets on the River” events at Yokuts Park
each Thursday through the rest of the month. … Bring
Back the Kern, along with Water Audit California, sued
Bakersfield in 2022 seeking to have river operations studied
under the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires water be used
to the greatest public benefit, including for the environment
and recreation. A portion of that lawsuit may be heard by the
California Supreme Court in September, while the main lawsuit
is scheduled to come back to court in February 2027. In the
meantime, Bring Back the Kern hopes to take full advantage of
the temporarily flowing river.
The Carpinteria Salt Marsh — a portion of the remaining coastal
wetlands in Santa Barbara County — has become a legal
battleground over a proposed house at 501 Sand Point Road. The
house, elevated above an environmentally sensitive habitat area
(ESHA) has been contested over environmental concerns. Friends
of the Carpinteria Salt Marsh say construction will threaten
hundreds of species that call the marsh their habitat, as well
as the vital flooding control function of the marsh.
… On Wednesday, Judge Thomas P. Anderle of the Superior
Court of Santa Barbara postponed a court hearing between the
Friends of the Carpinteria Salt Marsh (an organization that
aimed to challenge the environmental legality of the project)
and the California Coastal Commission. … When
extreme weather leads to flooding, Carpinteria’s wetlands serve
as a vital stormwater distribution outlet — preventing
disastrous debris-flows that have decimated Santa Barbara in
the past.
The company Cadiz Inc. has been trying for years to pump
groundwater in the Mojave Desert and ship it to thirsty cities
in California. Now, the Trump administration has signed off on
part of its plan: converting an oil and gas pipeline to
transport water across the desert. The federal Bureau
of Land Management released documents Thursday saying the
company’s plan to repurpose 162 miles of the pipeline to
transport water “will not significantly affect” the
environment. … Environmental advocates and leaders of
Native tribes, who have been fighting the project, criticized
the decision by the Bureau of Land Management, saying
it threatens natural springs and wildlife habitat in
the desert.
