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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… After more than a year of deadlock in talks between the
seven states that share its water, the Lower Basin states of
Arizona, California and Nevada have proposed major cutbacks to
their take on the [Colorado] river. Those cuts, along with
other tweaks to the management of major reservoirs across the
West, would last through 2028, buying time for states to get
back to the negotiating table and work on a longer-term plan.
The plan is not formal yet, and would need sign-off from the
federal government before going into effect. … So what are
the details of the proposal, and what happens next? KJZZ spoke
with experts around the region to break it down.
Recognizing “very dry conditions,” the state’s [Wyo.] water
boss Tuesday declared an emergency to allow ranchers to more
easily get water to their stock. State Engineer Brandon Gebhart
gave local water supervisors the authority to move what’s known
as the “point of use” of water that sustains livestock. Four
district supervisors can now authorize the shift in water use
with a simple form instead of requiring more burdensome changes
to permits at state offices in Cheyenne. The emergency
authorization came as the state faces a dire summer, Gebhart
told legislators and members of the Water Development
Commission on Wednesday.
For the first time, golden mussels, an invasive species of
tiny mollusks that can rapidly reproduce and cause
millions of dollars in damage to pipes, drinking water plants,
irrigation systems and dams — sparking growing
concerns across California — have been found in Santa Clara
County. Last month, a juvenile golden mussel was discovered in
the raw water intake area at the Penitencia Water Treatment
plant near Alum Rock Park in San Jose. A few weeks later, in
late April, an adult was found in a raw water strainer at the
Santa Teresa Water Treatment Plant in San Jose’s Almaden area.
… [T]he discovery of the diminutive invaders has alarmed
local officials, who say they must now install equipment
costing hundreds of thousands of dollars at some district
facilities to remove them.
Assurances that a “highly efficient hybrid cooling system” will
keep a proposed AI data center from sucking up all the water in
the already overdrafted Indian Wells Valley fell flat with
residents who’ve bombarded the state with negative comments on
the proposal. The proposed RB Inyokern Data Center being
championed by R&L Capital, Inc. would only use up
to 50 acre feet a year to keep its whirring data halls
cool, according to an application filed with the
California Energy Commission in late April. A “will serve
letter” issued to R&L Capital, Inc. by the Inyokern
Community Services District commits to providing about that
same amount. But desert residents aren’t buying it.
Colorado waved goodbye to winter with a late-season blast, as a
May snowstorm brought more than 2 feet of snow to some areas of
the state. But was the storm enough to keep the snowpack above
the zeroth percentile? The statewide snowpack is at 25% of
median as of May 8, meaning the mountains have
one-quarter of the typical amount of snow-water equivalent
compared to the median for that specific date. Despite
still being on the lower end of snowpack for an average spring
in Colorado, the state is officially out of historically low
levels for the first week of May. … While this is good
news, Colorado is still on track to lose its snowpack earlier
than normal.
… While the impacts on humans, forests and the animals that
live in them are the most observable effects, wildfires also
have devastating impacts on aquatic life, especially fish. Many
of these occur during and shortly after the fire is out, but
others can continue for years, and potentially, decades.
… One of the immediate impacts on fish after a wildfire
comes from the increase in water draining from the burned land
and entering rivers. Without thick forest cover to store and
use rainfall, more water runs off over the soil towards rivers.
In some situations, soil can become water-repellent, as gases
from the burning vegetation enter and condense below the
topsoil, forming a barrier and limiting the amount of rainfall
that can infiltrate.
… The fact that more than 1 million people “in the wealthiest
state and the wealthiest democracy God has ever conceived”
lacked access to clean drinking water inspired him to overhaul
the state’s water infrastructure, [Gov. Gavin] Newsom said
Thursday at an Association of California Water Agencies
conference. Over the next seven years, his administration
fast-tracked projects like the Delta Conveyance tunnel and
spent hundreds of millions to shore up the state’s climate
defenses, like removing dams on the Klamath River to restore
salmon populations, negotiating with Arizona and Nevada to
preserve water from the rapidly shrinking Colorado River, and
restoring the Salton Sea. … The governor’s overview of his
water policy was likely one of his last chances to frame his
state climate record before he leaves office at the end of the
year.
Anglers will once again be able to fish for Chinook salmon in
the Sacramento River this summer, after a three-year closure.
On Wednesday, the California Fish and Game Commission
unanimously passed new fishing regulations. The updated
regulations reverse fishing closures for Chinook salmon as
populations continue to rebound in the central valley. “We’ve
increased hatchery production. We’ve got more investments in
salmon research and habitat restoration projects. We’ve had a
series of good water years,” said Krysten Kellum, information
officer with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
This year’s salmon season will begin July 16 for most stretches
of the Sacramento River. Anglers will be allowed to keep two
Chinook salmon per day, with a four-fish possession limit.
On May 7, the California Natural Resources Agency held a
meeting in the town of Niland. It was one of a series of
meetings being held by the agency and meant to educate the
public on what the Salton Sea Program is doing to
restore the ecosystem, which has been collapsing for
decades. “This program is focused on building 47 square
miles of these projects that are bringing plants, cleaner water
and wildlife back to the Salton Sea,” said Joe Shea, Assistant
secretary for Salton Sea Policy while presenting to a handful
of Salton sea area residents. … In April, Gov. Gavin
Newsom announced the creation of the state’s first new
conservancy in more than 15 years.
Winter is months away, but the mere possibility that a major El
Niño will whack places like San Diego late this year is
stirring deep concern in the town square that is social media.
A flood tide of people are saying they’re worried that warm
water from the equatorial Pacific will produce a “super” El
Niño that will enhance winds, waves and rain storms on the West
Coast. … “Confidence is building, the trends are there,”
said Brian D’Agostino, who oversees wildfire and climate
science at San Diego Gas & Electric. “El Niño is on the way.”
… There’s no guarantee of this. “The research is still
being done on what impacts this will have,” said D’Agostino,
who is responsible for spotting storms that could damage
SDG&E’s delivery system.
Colorado Springs resident Bradley White says a simple lever in
his laundry room sends water from his washing machine outside
and helps water shrubs in his yard. White has installed these
residential graywater systems professionally in California for
years. But in Colorado Springs, where he lives, city code
prohibits graywater use and only allows residents to use water
once. … State-compliant graywater systems can be
expensive, and few Colorado communities have widely adopted
programs, the Colorado Springs Utilities wrote in an emailed
statement explaining its stance on graywater. The city also
wants more time to study how home systems would fit into its
broader water reuse strategy. Right now, the utility captures
and reuses water through a centralized treatment system.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said his administration is “moving forward
aggressively” to continue laying the groundwork for a giant
tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
replumb the state’s water system. “We got to move faster. Move
faster,” Newsom said … during a speech Thursday at a
conference held by the Assn. of California Water Agencies.
… Newsom cast the tunnel as a “climate adaptation
project,” noting that climate change is projected to shrink the
amount of water the state can deliver with its current
infrastructure. … The project is particularly
acrimonious, drawing out geographical battles between north and
south and thorny fights between officials who want to build the
tunnel and environmentalists and Delta residents seeking to
protect the local ecosystem and their way of life.
The Trump administration will soon propose softening Biden-era
limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking
water, delaying but keeping tough standards for two common
types and rescinding limits on some rarer forms of the
substance, according to an EPA official. The proposal will
start the formal process of rolling back parts of the
first-ever limits on PFAS in drinking water finalized during
former President Joe Biden’s administration. … Jessica
Kramer, head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of
Water, said at a conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday
the agency intended to rescind and revisit certain limits she
said were improperly issued by the Biden administration.
Federal forecasters are predicting an increasingly dire summer
across the Colorado River basin, with the latest
projections showing the waterway on track for record-low
flows. The Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s May
projections for the West’s most important river show
just 13 percent of average flowsinto the
river’s biggest headwaters reservoir, Lake Powell, amounting to
just 800,000 acre-feet. “The record hot and dry winter is the
main story,” Cody Moser, a hydrologist with the center, said on
a webinar Thursday. “Just really no good news this winter.”
Monitoring stations across the region’s mountainous headwaters
registered record-low snowpack at many locations, he said.
The heinously polluted Tijuana River, which has sickened
residents and even researchers with its hydrogen sulfide fumes,
is gaining attention, and now a coalition of politicians,
activists, physicians and economists are pushing California
Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare the fetid and toxic river valley a
public health emergency. They’ve also put together a plan to
clean it up and are pleading with state lawmakers to fund it,
even as the state faces a multibillion-dollar deficit.
… Among the elements in the package announced Thursday:
state Senate Bill 58, which would establish air quality
standards for hydrogen sulfide, a toxic pollutant emitted from
the river, and Senate Bill 1046, which would set standards and
guidelines for workers employed near the river.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed
a 41 percent budget cut to NOAA Fisheries, which
includes the removal of effectively all protected
species and habitat conservation functions.
… The proposal mirrors many of Trump’s priorities
in the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. … Trump is
again pushing for steep spending cuts and the elimination of
conservation and habitat work at NOAA Fisheries. Many of those
conservation functions – specifically around the Marine Mammal
Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) –
would instead be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (USFWS). Spending on some projects – such as Species
Recovery Grants – would be outright terminated.
The group behind a controversial data center in Box Elder
County has filed a notice to withdraw its water rights
application, but it does not appear it will abandon the
project. In a notice sent Wednesday to the Utah State Engineer,
Bar H Ranch announced its application will “be stopped and the
application be considered withdrawn.” Utah State Engineer
Teresa Wilhelmsen’s office confirmed to FOX 13 News on Thursday
morning that she had canceled the application, ending any
review of their water rights application. It’s expected
that the company will resubmit its application at a later time.
… [M]ore than 3,800 people paid $15 and submitted formal
protests to the Utah State Engineer over a 1,900-acre-foot
water rights application for the data center.
A late spring snowstorm is offering a brief reprieve from
drought conditions across the Front Range, but experts say the
region still has a long way to go. … Denver7 Chief
Meteorologist Lisa Hidalgo said the storm did provide some
benefit to the state’s snowpack but cautioned that drought
concerns remain. “I think at one point we were down to about
18% of normal — as of this morning with this most recent snow,
statewide snowpack is at about 25% of normal,” Hidalgo said.
“People are still going to be mindful, and we’ll likely see
more drought restrictions pop up here.” Many Front Range
residents are already under water restrictions, including
limits on lawn irrigation.
The future of Arizona’s water will depend not only on
Colorado River negotiations and groundwater
policy, but also on long-unresolved tribal water rights, three
water experts told attendees at the 99th Annual Arizona Water
Conference and Exhibition here on April 28. … [T]he
Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement is one step
toward addressing that gap. The settlement involves 39 parties,
including the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, San Juan Southern
Paiute Tribe, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the state of
Arizona, the Arizona Department of Water Resources, Salt River
Project and the city of Flagstaff. The settlement would resolve
claims involving the upper and lower Colorado River, the Little
Colorado River, Cibola allocations, groundwater and supplies
tied to the Navajo-owned Big Boquillas Ranch.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) has
appointed Karla Nemeth, current director of the California
Department of Water Resources (DWR), as its next Executive
Director. The announcement was made by ACWA President Ernie
Avila following a nationwide recruitment process and approval
from the association’s Board of Directors. Nemeth will assume
the role on 1 September, succeeding the leadership of the
organisation that represents around 470 public water agencies
across California. … Nemeth has led the California
Department of Water Resources since 2018, after being appointed
by Governor Jerry Brown and later reappointed by Governor Gavin
Newsom.
