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.
California legislators considered dozens of bills related to
artificial intelligence this year. That’s a number that’s
climbed quickly over the last couple years as lawmakers grapple
with the technology’s increasing presence — and possible
negative impacts. And one growing point of concern
involves generative AI’s relationship with state resources as
the technology becomes everyday life for Californians. Experts
say generative AI is driving up energy and water
demands at data centers. But the question is: By
how much?
Progress appears to be happening in the high-stakes
negotiations over the future of the Colorado River. Ahead of a
Tuesday deadline by the Trump administration for a deal in
principle, the Colorado River Commissioner for Utah said in a
statement to FOX 13 News that they may get there. … “We’re
making steady progress on key issues the federal government has
identified, aiming to reach broad alignment by November 11—even
if the finer details come later,” said Gene Shawcroft.
… Despite the uncertainty, there is growing confidence that a
storm will impact much of California by
Thursday, potentially the rainiest of any storm so far
this season. … One potential outcome of the complex
weather pattern is a prolonged period of wet weather, not only
in Northern California, but across the entire state. … The
[National] weather service highlights two areas of California
for the greatest chances of heavy precipitation: the Sierra
Nevada and the Southern California coastline. It’s too early to
speculate whether precipitation will fall as rain or snow in
Tahoe, but the agency also predicts heavy snow in the
highest elevations of the Sierra.
Other weather and water supply news across the West:
A state legislative committee failed to pass a bill draft last
week that would have placed a 10-year moratorium on all cloud
seeding activities in the state. During the moratorium, the
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality would have been
tasked with completing a study of cloud seeding impacts
compared to baseline conditions, according to the initial bill
proposal – but University of Wyoming Atmospheric Science
Department Head Jeff French said that plan wouldn’t be
“scientifically sound.” … “The only way I could see us
actually being able to measure the effectiveness of cloud
seeding is by doing a focused study that includes cloud
seeding.”
The Trump administration will soon propose changes to a Clean
Water Act regulation that allows states and tribes to veto
major energy projects over water pollution concerns. EPA’s
pending “Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality
Certification Improvement Rule” was sent Wednesday to the White
House Office of Management and Budget for interagency review,
according to a notice from the office. Section 401 of the
law requires companies seeking a permit from the Army Corps of
Engineers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or other
agencies to also obtain a water quality certification from
states or tribes in which their project is located.
Two Kings County water agencies are holding public workshops
Nov. 12 and 14 to explain their pumping allocations. The
Mid-Kings River and South Fork Kings groundwater sustainability
agencies (GSAs) both passed draft sustainable yield pumping
allocations for their farmers in October. … But South Fork
farmers objected to Mid-Kings’ allocation of 1.43 acre feet per
acre of land, which is more than double what was set in South
Fork at .66 acre foot per acre of land.
It could cost $27 million, or more, to revamp and reopen
the Kernville hatchery as a Kern River rainbow trout
breeding facility, according to a report commissioned by the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Costs would be less
to rehab the hatchery as just a fish planting base but neither
the report nor CDFW had estimates for that lesser function. In
either case, those amounts are separate from what CDFW is
already spending to rebuild about a mile-long siphon to bring
Kern River water into the hatchery. The siphon project is
expected to cost $7 million and be completed in 2027.
U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn want to limit the U.S.’s
engagement with Mexico after the country failed to deliver
water to Texas under a 1944 international water treaty. The
Texas senators filed legislation Thursday that would limit the
U.S. from sending Mexico future deliveries of water and would
allow the U.S. president to stop engaging with Mexico in
certain business sectors that benefit from U.S. water. The
treaty requires the U.S. to deliver 1,500,000 acre-feet of
water from the Colorado River to Mexico every
year.
The Board of Supervisors discussed a resolution requesting
equitable Proposition 4 funding distribution for the New River
during the regular board meeting Tuesday, Nov. 4. Deputy CEO of
General Services for the County of Imperial, Gil Rebollar …
said that within the water chapter of Proposition 4, a
$10-billion climate bond that voters approved in Nov. 2024,
“there’s a specific line for California-Mexico rivers and
coastal waters.” … Rebollar said the resolution places
Imperial County on record as saying that the New River and
Salton Sea projects are eligible for a funding allocation and
emphasizes that Imperial County is seeking an equitable share
of the funding.
State officials grilled Water Development Office Director Jason
Mead this week over ballooning costs and uncertainties dogging
three dam projects after he told them one project on the
Colorado border would cost $150 million, nearly double the
original estimate of $80 million. … The proposed
reservoir would release stored water into the Little Snake
River, which flows back and forth across the Colorado border
before leaving Wyoming for good, flowing into the Yampa, Green
and Colorado rivers. The dam and reservoir would allow Wyoming
to use more water from the Colorado River Basin.
Ventura Water is proposing to raise the rates by over 10% each
year starting in July 2026 through 2031. That means a
typical single-family home that pays around $118 a month for
water and wastewater will pay around $137 a month by 2027 and
around $219 a month by 2031. … [Ventura Water General Manager
Gina] Dorrington said that this funding is needed to replace
aging infrastructure and for projects including Ventura Water
Pure, which will recover, purify and reuse water for the
community. But the estimated cost of the project has
increased to over $100 million over the past few years.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the
Yorba Linda Water District celebrated today the dedication of a
new helicopter hydrant at the Robert B. Diemer Water Treatment
Plant – providing firefighters a new, strategically located
water source for aerial fire suppression. … The Diemer
Helicopter Hydrant holds 8,500 gallons of water and can be
continuously refilled in less than 10 minutes via a gravity-fed
water line from Diemer Plant’s treated-water reservoir.
… Perhaps no region stands to take larger hits to its
Colorado River water than central Arizona, owing to the low
priority of its water rights. … Unless Arizona’s farmers
and tribes can strike deals to bail out the state’s growing
cities, Arizona’s largest population centers will bear the
brunt of these cuts. Cities like Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson
could lose more than 20% of their Colorado River water,
triggering public debates in council chambers and municipal
offices over how to respond, what to sacrifice and what to
prioritize.
California often swings between climate extremes — from
powerful storms to punishing droughts. As climate change drives
more intense and frequent dry and wet cycles, pressure on
California’s water supplies grows. A new University of
California, Davis, economic study finds that drought in
California pushes the price of water from rivers, lakes and
reservoirs up by $487 per acre-foot, more than triple the cost
during an average wet year. The research appears in Nature
Sustainability.
The October floods in southwestern Colorado damaged homes and
upended people’s lives, but there was one silver lining: A lot
of the water also helped replenish reservoirs
in the state. The deluge, caused by tropical storms and
hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean, dumped more than 480 billion
gallons of water on five counties in southwestern Colorado.
… But the water also bumped parts of the region out of
severe and extreme drought. The amount of water stored in
Colorado reservoirs surged or even doubled.
Other weather and water supply news across the West:
State water officials have taken the first formal step toward
regulating groundwater pumping in the Ranegras Plain
Groundwater Basin, marking a major shift for La Paz County
residents who have long warned that unregulated water use is
threatening their communities. The Arizona Department of Water
Resources announced it will begin procedures to consider
creating a new Active Management Area, or AMA, in the western
Arizona basin. The move follows years of local concern about
land subsidence, dried wells, and groundwater depletion linked
to corporate water use in rural parts of the county.
Tree rings can tell a story. Wide bands signal a wet period,
while narrow ones show a drought. Whole ecosystems can be
encoded in trees. In Western Colorado, scientists are examining
trees to find out more about the environment’s story in an
effort to protect the river they stand along. … The
Crystal River is one of the few rivers in Colorado that doesn’t
have any major dams; large stretches of it are still pristine.
… At the heart of what Cooper, Brown and Merritt are
trying to do with this study is establish the relationship
between the trees and the Crystal’s natural hydrologic rhythm,
which wouldn’t exist if it were dammed or diverted.
After hearing again from local residents regarding the need for
increasing water storage infrastructure before the Pacific Gas
and Electric Company fully decommissions its Potter
Valley Hydroelectric Project and removes the dams that help
fill Lake Mendocino, the Mendocino County Board of
Supervisors this week passed a resolution that many argued did
not express their needs forcibly enough. … At their
previous meeting on Oct. 21, the board did not advance [First
District Supervisor Madeline] Cline’s resolution, voting to
instead bring forward a modified version drafted by Fifth
District Supervisor Ted Williams.
In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom released California’s Water
Supply Strategy, outlining necessary actions for the state to
adapt to a hotter, drier future where the changing climate
leaves less water to meet California’s needs. Since then,
California water managers have been looking at ways to address
the fact that the warming climate means that when storms do
come, a greater share of that rain and snow will be absorbed by
dry soils, consumed by thirsty plants, or evaporate into the
air.
Utah wildlife officials are again reminding people that it’s
illegal to dump fish into bodies of water after state
biologists discovered an unapproved species had been introduced
at a southeast Utah reservoir. Biologists found smallmouth
bass at Loyds Lake, located within the Colorado River drainage
located southwest of Monticello, while doing routine surveys,
the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources reported on Wednesday.
The reservoir is home to rainbow trout and green sunfish, but
not bass, largely because of its proximity to the Colorado
River and the threat to native fish within it.
