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 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.
The Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday updated the long-term
operations plan for the Central Valley Project to allow
increased exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a move
that conflicts with California’s own requirements, potentially
shifts more of the water burden onto the state and threatens
the Delta’s ecosystem and water quality. … The
Reclamation Bureau stated that under the updated plan, the
federal-managed CVP could gain an additional 130,000 to 180,000
acre-feet of water a year — roughly 40 billion to 60 billion
gallons — while the State Water Project could see an increase
of 120,000 to 220,000 acre-feet, or about 39 billion to 70
billion gallons.
The state of Colorado is ramping up an effort to measure water
use on the Western Slope, developing rules and standards and
rolling out a grant program to help water users pay for
diversion measurement devices. With input from water users,
officials from the Colorado Division of Water Resources are
creating technical guidance for each of the four major Western
Slope river basins on how agricultural water users should
measure the water they take from streams. … The
push for more-accurate measurement comes at a time when there
is increasing competition for dwindling water supplies, as well
as growing pressure on the Colorado River’s Upper
Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming)
to conserve water.
San Luis Obispo County can reduce the amount of water it
releases from Lopez Dam, a federal court ruled [last week].
Lopez Lake supplies drinking water to about 50,000 South County
residents. … After a coalition of environmental groups
sued the county, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the county
last year to release more water from Lopez Dam to support
steelhead trout migration through Arroyo
Grande Creek. The county appealed the decision on Jan. 24,
saying that releasing the prescribed amount of water into the
creek would wash away the eggs of two other protected
species: the tidewater goby and the California
red-legged frog.
A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded
a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US.
… The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by
companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of
billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the
huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects,
worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to
local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’
need for huge amounts of water to cool down
equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier
areas where supplies are scarce.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave California’s
levees and roads D grades in its “Report Card for California’s
Infrastructure,” while warning that extreme weather events
becoming more common with climate change are straining
already-stressed waterways and streets. … Levees across
the state received a grade of D+. … But in the capital
region, the report cited huge investments in safeguarding
people around the Sacramento River basin. The region has
pursued updates around Natomas and improvements through the
American River Watershed Common Features Project, the
Sacramento River east levee, the South Sacramento Streams Group
Project, Feather River West Levee Project and the Marysville
Ring Levee.
This study investigates the accuracy of long-term water demand
projections and tracks the evolution of water demand management
incentives across 61 California water suppliers from 2000 to
2020. Through a systematic analysis of Urban Water Management
Plans, we find that water suppliers consistently overestimated
future demand by an average of 25% for 5-year projections and
74% for 20-year projections. This overestimation stems
primarily from assumptions about per capita water demand rather
than population growth estimates. While suppliers generally
projected stable or increasing per capita demand, actual water
demand per capita declined by 1.9% annually between 2000 and
2020, leading to a decoupling of water demand from population
growth.
When Colorado Parks and Wildlife personnel tested a small pond
that feeds the irrigation system at the Mesa County
Fairgrounds, looking for invasive zebra mussels, the results
came back as a surprise. … Mussels of different ages,
including adult ones, were discovered during the early-October
testing. … It seemed more likely that mussels might be
present at some of the public areas along the Colorado
River or on larger reservoirs with a lot of potential
for cross-contamination involving things such as watercraft.
… This very issue is high on the minds of Parks and Wildlife
officials as the agency deals with an expanding zebra mussels
problem along the Colorado River in multiple counties.
A new break in a Mexican sewer line has sent raw sewage to
South Bay communities, taking a toll on residents who live by
the Tijuana River and Imperial Beach in what locals call an
ongoing “sewage saga.” Officials with the U.S. International
Boundary and Water Commission say they were working on
improvements at the Hollister and Goats pump station when a
sewage line broke in Mexico, sending 120,000 gallons of sewage
through two layers of berms and vacuum trucks all the way to
Monument Road. The line broke because of recent rain.
… The U.S. and Mexico have agreed to what they call
permanent solutions, including a $600 million expansion of the
South Bay Treatment Plant.
When Claire Buchanan led us up Alameda Creek in the hills above
Fremont about eight weeks ago, the waters were flowing again
after a major restoration. Buchanan and her colleagues at the
environmental nonprofit California Trout helped spearhead the
removal of a PG&E pipeline that had partially blocked the
creek for decades, effectively acting as a barrier to migrating
fish. … Then shortly after the removal, volunteers
spotted a site that hadn’t been seen in roughly 70 years,
Chinook salmon, moving upstream towards lower Niles Canyon.
… And some local volunteers believe there may already be
more salmon migrating into the area.
Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA) and the Salinas
Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency
(SVBGSA) have launched a new well registration program to
better understand and protect groundwater resources in the
Salinas Valley. All well owners are asked to register their
wells for free by Jan. 31, 2026. The program, approved by the
Monterey County Board of Supervisors earlier this year, is part
of a statewide requirement under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which calls for all
groundwater basins to be monitored to ensure long-term
sustainability for all users.
California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals dealt Cemex a blow
and handed Santa Clarita an opportunity this week, in a
long-running battle over sand-and-gravel mining rights in
Soledad Canyon. Cemex sued the State Water Resources Control
Board over the agency’s decision to renotice its water rights
application. During a hearing on the appeal last month,
attorneys for Cemex blamed the state water board for delaying
its attempts to fulfill mining rights purchased in 1990.
Cemex’s attorneys were suing the board, saying they should be
able to appeal the state water board’s 2024 decision to
renotice its applications for water rights.
Three years into construction, the massive East County Advanced
Water Purification Program is approaching the finish line late
next year when the region’s sewage now being treated at Point
Loma will be pumped to a new Santee plant and converted to
drinkable, purified water. Last month, the four-person
board that oversees the more than $1 billion AWP project
approved a $34 million allocation for another phase of Package
5 of the project that broke ground in mid-2022. There are five
packages for the AWP that is a collaboration among four
agencies—Padre Dam Municipal Water District, San Diego County,
the city of El Cajon, and Helix Water District.
The Imperial Irrigation District (IID) is officially joining
California’s newly formed Salton Sea Conservancy, a move that
shifts long-term restoration and air-quality responsibilities
to a state-run agency. IID is transitioning away from the
Salton Sea Authority, the regional group of cities and water
agencies that has coordinated local efforts since the 1990s.
Under the new structure, the district will work directly with
the conservancy, which brings state, federal, tribal, and local
partners into one coordinated system. IID leaders say the
change is intended to speed up project delivery and strengthen
collaboration.
Several prominent activists in the “Make America Healthy Again”
movement are urging President Trump to fire Lee Zeldin, the
administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, over his
decisions to loosen restrictions on harmful chemicals.
… Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA influencer … said she was
initially optimistic that the Trump administration would crack
down on PFAS in drinking water, since Mr. Kennedy had crusaded
for clean water as the president of the environmental group
Waterkeeper Alliance. Instead, the E.P.A. has given water
utilities an additional two years, until 2031, to comply with a
Biden administration rule limiting two types of PFAS present in
drinking water systems.
The Trump administration is making good on a promise to send
more water to California farmers in the state’s crop-rich
Central Valley. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday
announced a new plan for operating the Central Valley Project.
… It follows an executive order President Donald Trump signed
in January calling for more water to flow to farmers, arguing
the state was wasting the precious resource in the name of
protecting endangered fish species. U.S. Secretary of the
Interior Doug Burgum said the plan will help the federal
government “strengthen California’s water resilience.” It takes
effect Friday.
Californians can be excused for being confused about the
weather forecast. Scientists in October said La Niña had
arrived, which many associate with dry conditions, particularly
in the Southland. But we have instead experienced a very wet
season — at least so far — with rain bringing much-needed
moisture to the brush, likely putting an end to the autumn fire
season, and helping to keep the state’s reservoirs in good
shape. … But La Niña “doesn’t always mean
drought,” said meteorologist Jan Null, an adjunct
professor at San Jose State University. In fact, out of the
seven La Niñas seen over the last 15 years, three were whoppers
when it came to rain. … A healthy snowpack is
key to California’s annual water supply.
Other weather and water supply news around the West:
Democratic state Sen. Steve Padilla is calling for public
review of a massive data center designed to power generative
artificial intelligence technology that has been proposed in
the heart of the Imperial Valley. … In a letter to
the Imperial County Board of Supervisors this week, Padilla,
whose district includes Imperial County and South San Diego
County, said the public deserved “a complete picture of the
water usage and energy demands” of the nearly 1million square
foot data center project. … The data center would
require 750,000 gallons of water per day for facility
operations. … The concerns over the Imperial Valley data
center come amid a growing fight over the growth of data
centers and how lawmakers should regulate them — in California
and elsewhere.
… The Colorado River and its reservoirs are not sufficient to
meet the regional demand for water, so
groundwater has been extracted from the
aquifers. … In a recent study published in Geophysical
Research Letters, a research team used gravity data from NASA’s
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and GRACE
Follow-On to determine how much water has been withdrawn from
Colorado River Basin aquifers since 2002. … The results
indicate that the reservoirs and the aquifers have lost a
combined 52 cubic kilometers of water since 2002. The reduction
of groundwater was 65% of that total, about 34 cubic
kilometers.
A rapidly growing infestation of invasive golden mussels is
raising concerns among engineers, boaters, and water agencies
as the species spreads through the Sacramento–San Joaquin
Delta. … So far, crews have resorted to scraping pipes
by hand or using pressure-washing equipment. Some agencies are
testing ultrasonic or electronic systems that discourage marine
growth, but there is no proven long-term solution.
… Local boaters and maritime experts are raising the
alarm over the rapid spread of golden mussels in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, warning of rising maintenance
costs and potential risks to water infrastructure.
A settlement between a desert mining company and groundwater
authority in eastern Kern County will erase $24 million in past
groundwater fees by allowing the company to use other sources,
including 2,000 acre feet of reclaimed water. In exchange
Searles Valley Minerals agreed to drop its lawsuits against the
Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and not oppose its
planned pipeline project to import water from the Antelope
Valley, according to recent press releases. Searles will,
however, continue to “actively participate” in a larger legal
action, known as an “adjudication,” in which a judge will
ultimately determine how much water can be pumped from the
Indian Wells Valley basin and who has rights to that water.
