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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Both the Utah House and Senate signed off on a proposal to
require large data centers moving to Utah to report their
annual water use to state officials. … “The market itself has
reacted to the concern nationwide about water use,” said State
Representative Jill Koford, R-Ogden, who sponsored the bill.
“In the second-driest state in the nation, I think it’s good
for us to set the tone nationally.” … Koford’s bill
would require data centers that are at least 10,000 square feet
and use at least 75 acre-feet of water a year to report
their water usage tothe state. That
water usage data would also be accessible to the public.
The planet may experience a strong or even a super El Niño
later this year, one that could rival the strongest ones in
history. … [I]mpacts can include the frequency and location
of heat waves, the locations of flooding downpours and drought
could focus, where hurricanes may hit, and declining sea ice
concentrations. For example, the Western United States
could face a hotter than average summer. … Late
in the year, a stronger southern branch of the jet stream could
influence heavy downpours and the potential for flooding. …
That stronger southern jet stream can also increase the
chance for flooding wintertime downpours in
California.
This past winter was officially Utah’s warmest in over a
century, contributing to many of the snowpack challenges facing
the state. Utah posted a statewide average temperature of 36.4
degrees between Dec. 1 and Feb. 28, shattering the previous
meteorological record — set during the 2014-2015 winter — by
2.2 degrees, according to National Centers for Environmental
Information data released on Monday. … It could have
repercussions for later this year. The National Weather
Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center updated its
spring runoff outlook on Friday, projecting that
snowmelt could be approximately 60% of normal or
lessat many of the major creeks and rivers in
the state.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
Arizona will take nearly a $3 trillion total economic hit and
lose millions of jobs that would have come to the state by 2060
if Central Arizona Project deliveries are halted by the federal
government, a new report from the project’s governing agency
says. A CAP consultant’s report said the state’s total economic
output would by 2060 be 11% to 14% lower than it otherwise
would have been, under two proposed federal alternatives for
managing the Colorado River. At worst, the state’s total jobs
would shrink by 7.9% if the project’s supplies were eliminated,
the report said.
The Marin Municipal Water District has secured a $1.1 million
state grant to support its ongoing effort to restore habitat
for endangered coho salmon and other aquatic species in
Lagunitas Creek. The district plans to use the grant to
initiate the project “phase 2,” which is set for construction
in 2027. … Marin County has the largest population of
wild endangered coho salmon from Monterey Bay to the Mendocino
County-Sonoma County line. Once believed to have
numbered in the thousands, coho populations dwindled to the
hundreds during the 20th century because dam
construction blocked miles of former spawning grounds and
tributaries.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is launching an awareness campaign
called “Oh Shell No” to address the spread of zebra mussels in
the state, with a focus on impacts to agriculture and water
infrastructure. In 2025, CPW detected adult zebra mussels in
the Colorado River for the first time, as well as in smaller
lakes and ponds in the Grand Junction area. … As
temperatures rise, CPW plans to put more technicians in the
field for sampling. The agency said it will focus monitoring
efforts upstream of areas where zebra mussels have already been
found.
Three new groundwater wells are giving the city of Antelope
more reliable access to drinking water and the flexibility to
meet water needs in wet and dry years. The Sacramento Suburban
Water District formally commissioned the three wells, known as
“the triplets” on Monday. The three wells plus a fourth
recently brought online can serve up to 33,500 homes in the
Antelope area daily. This project is part of a decades-long
larger effort to balance the Sacramento region’s use of
groundwater and surface water. During dry years, the use of
groundwater wells reduces the demand on surface water sources
like Folsom Lake and the Lower American River.
… Colorado has already seen multiple wildfires break out in
the past couple weeks alone; and though most experts recognize
the state’s fire season is year round at this point, they still
have great concern for the upcoming core summer fire season.
… “We’ve seen an unprecedented drying trend this winter
and no one really knows when that’s going to end,” said Jeff
Rasmussen, branch chief of fire planning for the Division of
Fire Prevention and Control. … “Those fuels will be
available as long as there’s no snow on the ground.”
Rapidly falling rain can overwhelm storm drains and cause
flooding. Windy rainstorms drenching the San Francisco Bay Area
occur on average once a year, but over the past 30 years these
storms have become wetter and more frequent. Rainstorms
are increasingly dangerous for homeless people living near
rivers and streams, according to University of California
scientists. … Nikhil Kumar, a hydroclimatologist, worked
with Lacan and UC Davis professor Gregory Pasternack to study
the impact of the wetter storms on some of the Bay Area’s most
vulnerable communities.
… [T]he Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California
… recently purchased significant portions of ancestral
land in the Sierra region. … The purchase was made
possible through a conservation partnership model, increasingly
common for tribal land returns in California. Over several
years, the Feather River Land Trust (FRLT) worked with the
Washoe Tribe to incorporate their perspectives into land
management and interpretive programming. … Alongside
reclaiming the ability to carry out traditional practices, the
tribe plans to manage the land with conservation as its guiding
principle, protecting habitats for pronghorn, mule deer, gray
wolves, natural springs, and vital water
sources.
In the heart of Napa Valley, St. Helena is home
to world-class Cabernet Sauvignon, a historic
stone-and-brick downtown and, to locals at least, brown tap
water. … The problem is that naturally occurring
minerals, mostly iron and manganese, have built up in the
city’s aging pipes. … City officials have insisted the water
may seem unappealing at times, but it is not harmful and is
safe to drink. The city’s reassurances have not satisfied some
residents who argue they can’t be expected to consume or bathe
in brown water — while still paying some of the Bay Area’s
highest water bills.
Amid Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson’s mission to put the “river”
back in Riverside, Councilmember Steve Hemenway is starting
with a lake – the former reservoir in the southwestern part of
the city known as Hole Lake. … Hemenway said Hole Lake’s
revitalization project is in partnership with the mayor’s
vision to reconnect Riverside with the Santa Ana River, as the
lake serves as a “bookend” to the stretch of river in the city.
Lock Dawson said the lake effort is a “meaningful step toward
putting the river back in Riverside” by investing in
restoration and addressing issues like illegal dumping.
… The Bureau of Reclamation’s latest most probable forecast
for Lake Powell shows it sinking below “power pool” — 3,490
feet — by December. At that level, water can’t make it through
the turbines at Glen Canyon Dam that generate hydropower and
keep the lights on across Utah and six other states.
… To prop up Powell, the bureau will likely rely on
another popular Utah reservoir: Flaming Gorge. The reservoir
that straddles the border of Utah and Wyoming has the best
water outlook in the basin, at 64% of normal, according to the
forecast center.
There was no reason for the hydrologists who help predict the
annual water supply for metro Phoenix to visit
the snow survey site here until the last week of February.
Until a storm passed through heading into that week, there had
been no snow to speak of. … The federal government’s
Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s March report noted much
of the drainage, especially in the mountains of
Colorado and Utah, had experienced their worst snowpack since
at least 1981. … The warmth that pervaded the West
had melted much of the existing snowpack or caused it to fall
as rain instead, encouraging evaporation and plant uptake and
reducing the amount that will reach reservoirs this spring and
summer.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday,
March 10, to consider sending a formal request to Governor
Gavin Newsom for $6.3 million in state funding for a critical
water infrastructure project. The funding would support
construction of the Sierra Pines Raw Water Reservoir, a
shovel-ready project designed to protect public health, fire
safety, and disaster response. The request follows severe
damage to the Pacific Gas and Electric Main Tuolumne
Canal during a multi-day winter storm on Feb. 17. More
than 200 trees fell onto the canal, damaging wooden flumes and
forcing PG&E to halt water flows. The interruption cut off
95% of Tuolumne Utilities District’s drinking water
supply.
A large-scale pilot project studying the effects of recharging
water onto pistachio orchards, some with cover crops and some
without, is in full swing across the San Joaquin
Valley. The project, a collaboration between private
nonprofit Sustainable Conservation, American Pistachio Growers
and Fresno State University kicked off in January and will
study recharge on six orchards in Tulare, Merced and Madera
counties. Each pilot partner recharges onto 20 acres of orchard
with cover crops and 20 acres with no cover crops. …
Specifically, the project will look at whether recharge
cover crops can reduce nitrates in groundwater.
… [W]hat’s now known as geoengineering remains a strange,
somewhat ad hoc field even today. A recent report by the
Government Accountability Office, or GAO, found that the
federal government still does not have sufficient oversight
over weather modification activities and is also “not fully
meeting its responsibilities to maintain and share weather
modification reports.” … As drought
intensifies and water demand increases across the West, states
have been ramping up cloud-seeding efforts, as one way
to work around the lack of water. … Cloud seeding
alone can’t fix that. Another report from the GAO last
year found that the process still needs more research to
determine how well it works and why.
An Aspen activist is hoping to gain support for a paradigm
shift in the way people view their local waterway by granting
rights to the Roaring Fork River. Environmental psychologist,
author and Aspen Times columnist Lindsay Branham is asking
local elected officials to consider a resolution protecting the
Roaring Fork and its tributaries by recognizing that nature has
rights and that it’s the government’s responsibility to care
for them. … The Rights of Nature is a small but growing
movement that seeks to evolve the legal system’s relationship
with nature from one that views rivers as a resource and
property for human use, to recognizing that natural entities
have intrinsic value and an inherent right to exist.
California parks officials will begin another season of
herbicide treatments in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta later
this month, targeting invasive aquatic plants that clog
waterways, threaten boaters and disrupt marinas and irrigation
systems. Starting March 19, California State Parks’ Division of
Boating and Waterways (DBW) plans to treat thousands of acres
across the Delta and its southern tributaries as part of its
2026 control program. The invasive plants include water
hyacinth, South American spongeplant, Uruguay water primrose,
Alligator weed, Brazilian waterweed, curlyleaf pondweed,
Eurasian watermilfoil, coontail, fanwort and ribbon weed.
Conservation groups joined state Rep. Mandy Lindsay, Rep.
Elizabeth Velasco, Sen. Cathy Kipp and Sen. Lisa Cutter
Thursday to introduce a first-of-its-kind bill to protect
beavers on public lands and support their proven role in
building drought and wildfire resilience. The bill is
especially important as historically low snowpack heightens
drought and wildfire danger across Colorado. … House
Bill 26-1323 would prohibit killing beavers on public lands
while preserving flexibility to remove beavers when necessary
to address conflicts involving infrastructure, agriculture or
other management needs.
