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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One of the world’s top climate models puts a bull’s-eye on the
California coast as El Niño strengthens, with a greater
than 90% chance of above-normal precipitation from December
through February. There’s at least a 70% chance of
well-above-normal precipitation. That outlook is from the
European Center for Medium-Range Forecasts, which on Wednesday
released its first full supercomputer forecast that includes 51
model simulations of winter. … In California, a
run-of-the-mill storm this winter may be a few degrees warmer
than in a typical year as mild, tropical air is directed toward
the state. That means pushing the snow line up hundreds
of feet higher in the Sierra Nevada.
New big data centers in Tucson must now comply to a host of new
rules and restrictions, after the City Council voted 6-1 on
Wednesday to approve an ordinance governing their construction
and operation. The regulations pay specific attention to noise,
public notice, land use andwater and energy use.
… Large-scale data centers will have to prove
they have access to enough water and energy to make their
projects work. They would also have to disclose the
energy mix, including how much renewable energy the project
would use. Also, the builders of these developments would be
required to follow the city’s rules specifically users of large
amounts of water and noise ordinances. A large-water-use
ordinance is in the works at City Hall.
No silver bullets to eradicate golden mussels were revealed at
a symposium on the invasive species held Wednesday by the Water
Association of Kern County and Kern County Farm Bureau. But
participants got a solid overview of what water districts have
learned so far – what’s worked, what to look out for and how
big the bill is expected to be Agricultural water districts in
Kern have spent about $9 million combined trying to keep
the rapidly reproducing, pipe clogging little mollusks
at bay, according to Stacy Kuwahara, Assistant County
Administrative Officer. She said she expects those
costs to balloon to $36 million a year –
conservatively.
At this point, it’s old news to say that the Colorado
River is in crisis. … But on nearby Lake Havasu,
the water’s not just fine; it’s perfect for an endless
summertime party. … The discord is a side effect of the
complex series of compacts, court decisions, federal laws and
other regulations that guide policy along the Colorado
River. … Because Lake Havasu must maintain a
certain elevation to keep water flowing into the [Colorado
River] aqueduct, which provides water to some of the most
powerful water users in the Colorado River system, the lake’s
surface elevation typically stays between 445 feet and its
maximum of 450 feet. Water is also diverted from the lake for
the Central Arizona Project, which carries river water to
Phoenix and Tucson.
In a challenge by environmental groups to the pumping of
groundwater from rivers to fill wells for farmers, homes and
businesses in Sonoma County, a state appeals court says
counties must consider the impact of their water wells on fish
and the environment. Tuesday’s ruling by the 1st District Court
of Appeal in San Francisco said Sonoma County had not properly
considered the effects of new rules it issued in 2023 for
increased pumping from the Russian River and
other waterways, but might be able to meet legal
standards with an environmental review. On the central
legal issue in the case, however, the court rejected the
county’s argument that such reviews of water wells are required
only for the state, and not for local governments.
In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden
administration proposed creating stronger cybersecurity
guidelines to better safeguard the nation’s water supply from
hackers. The steps were modest, but necessary, officials said
at the time: Many municipalities lacked even basic protections,
and the computers that monitor and adjust water quality,
including chemical-treatment levels, were easy-to-find targets
for a would-be intruder. The E.P.A. rescinded the order,
however, after Republican-led states and industry groups sued
to block its enforcement. … The episode is just one of
several in recent years in which efforts to bolster the
cyberdefenses of America’s water systems were blocked despite
repeated attacks that highlighted vulnerabilities.
A group of homeowners has filed a class-action lawsuit against
the Las Vegas Valley Water District, alleging the
agency has imposed excessive water use charges without due
process while residents watch their yards, trees, and
plants die. The lawsuit came into focus this week at a Las
Vegas Valley Water District Board of Directors meeting.
… According to the lawsuit, the Las Vegas Valley Water
District has collected more than $96 million from residential
users since the excess use fee began in 2023. The suit contends
that money should be returned to homeowners. … The
lawsuit also points to a new state law taking effect at the end
of the year that mandates the removal of non-functional grass
anywhere served by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, with
the exception of single-family homes.
A long-running binational effort to improve wastewater
infrastructure in the Tijuana-San Diego region has reached a
new milestone, with authorities reporting significant progress
on projects designed to reduce cross-border sewage pollution
and improve water treatment. According to Baja California’s
Secretariat for Water Management, Sanitation and Protection
(SEPROA), the initiative represents a joint investment of more
than 15.6 billion pesos (around $900,000) by Mexico and the
United States. SEPROA Secretary Víctor Daniel Amador
Barragán said authorities are overseeing 20 infrastructure
projects grouped under 16 initiatives established through
Minute 328, a binational agreement focused on modernizing
wastewater infrastructure in the Tijuana River watershed.
The call that might have averted disaster came into William
Mulholland’s office that morning. Stubborn, single-minded and
tireless, lionized and controversial, the Los Angeles water
boss was 72. Fifteen years earlier, he had opened the great
aqueduct that carried Sierra snowmelt to the San Fernando
Valley and made the metropolis possible. Now, on March 12,
1928, a supervisor at the St. Francis Dam was calling to say
there might be a problem. Water was seeping from under the
structure. It looked muddy, which might indicate real trouble —
erosion in the foundation. … “Like all dams, there are
little seeps here and there,” Mulholland would later testify at
a coroner’s inquest. “Of all the dams I have built and of all
the dams I have ever seen, it was the driest dam of its size I
ever saw in my life.”
… The state [Wyo.] has issued toxic algae advisories at 20
lakes and reservoirs. … Many affected waters are in
watersheds where agriculture and livestock production are
dominant land uses. Runoff carrying fertilizer, manure and
eroding soil can deliver phosphorus and nitrogen to streams and
reservoirs, feeding the toxic algae. Livestock with direct
access to waterways and irrigation return flows can also
contribute pollution. In more developed areas, failing septic
systems and sewage discharges can add to this problem. Warmer
water creates conditions in which outbreaks occur more readily.
… Wyoming should examine the pollution sources most likely to
affect these waters and address them before toxic conditions
threaten public health and recreation each summer. –Written by Justin Hayes, the Northern Rockies
Conservation Director for American Rivers.
On July 7 and 8, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC), the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR), and Blue
Forest, held an Upper Feather River Tour for State Water
Project contractors. The tour highlighted the importance of
protecting and enhancing forest health and mountain meadows
within the Feather River headwaters and showcased important
work the State Water Project is doing to improve water quality,
water supply, flow timing, public safety, and ecosystem
health. The health of California’s water supply is tied to
the health of the headwaters, and the State Water Project
depends on the short- and long-term resilience of the Upper
Feather River in the Sierra Nevada.
… The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal steward for the
river under the Department of the Interior, last week released
a 10-year framework that establishes rough parameters for
managing the river, but imposes no specific long-term plan. …
The federal government plans to roll out more detailed
management plans every two years if the states continue their
impasse. The agency will release the first of those
plans any day, imposing cuts in the downstream states
of California, Arizona and Nevada — an estimated 10% cut to
California’s supply through 2028, or roughly 440,000 acre-feet
a year. No mandatory cuts are expected in the upper basin
states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, according to
those involved in negotiations. … This isn’t the
long-term plan that California’s water suppliers were hoping
for.
Kevin Clyde’s mind is always in the clouds. As a water district
board member in southeastern Utah, he’s constantly checking a
patch of sky near the La Sal Mountains. He swears he’s seen
more wisps of white near a new cloud seeding station in the
area — one that, he hopes, has prompted more rain and snow in
his region. … These stations aim to increase rain and
snow by shooting charged ions into the sky, as opposed
to the better-known method of shooting chemicals out of a
plane. It’s a new approach to cloud seeding, aka weather
modification, which dates back to the early 1900s and
manipulates clouds to drop more precipitation. … But the
ion stations have also sparked skepticism from some
researchers, who say industry is too far ahead of the science.
And it raises the question of whether unproven technologies are
raising false hope for communities frantic for water.
Growing more drought-tolerant crops could be an option for San
Joaquin Valley farmers facing severe groundwater cutbacks,
according to two joint studies by the Public Policy Institute
of California (PPIC). The studies looked at growing
winter crops or forage using less water as an economic
alternative to straight out fallowing ground. “This is
not a solution or means of (groundwater) demand reductions, but
a way to make that fallowing less bad,” Caitlin Peterson, PPIC
Associate Director and one of the authors of the studies, told
SJV Water. “How can we still achieve that reduction in pumping
but not reduce productivity?” The studies looked at
types of crops that could be grown with much less water
and the economic viability of those crops.
Senate Democrats are urging the Trump administration to
reconsider plans to repeal drinking water limits for some
“forever chemicals” and delay compliance deadlines for others,
arguing that the changes contradict prior EPA findings. In a
letter Tuesday to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, 26 Democrats
said the proposed changes to a Biden-era drinking water
regulation for the harmful chemicals could violate the
Safe Drinking Water Act and aren’t supported by
science. “EPA has repeatedly stated that protecting
Americans from PFAS is a top priority,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Yet these proposed rollbacks move in the opposite direction.”
Known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, “forever
chemicals” have been widely used by the military and in
consumer products because of their extreme resistance to heat,
water and oil.
Wildfire is reshaping the forests of California’s Sierra Nevada
and affecting the water those forests supply to downstream
users. A paper published in Hydrology and Earth System
Science reports that the effect of wildfire on potential
runoff from the state’s main water-supply watersheds has
increased in the period 1985-2023, most markedly since 2019. To
measure how much water forests use, researchers from UC Merced,
UC Berkeley and UC Irvine used data on evapotranspiration, the
measure of water evaporating from soil and released by plants.
… The researchers found that by 2023, the cumulative burned
area,about one-fifth of the total watershed, resulted
in a potential runoff increase of about 740,000 acre-feet per
year, or about 5.4 percent of the combined average
full-natural flow from these basins.
The Butte County Water Commission will discuss what the process
would be if there was a proposal to build an AI data center in
Butte County at its meeting Wednesday afternoon. The
agenda item has sparked controversy on social media over the
last couple of days, with some urging public participation to
express opposition. The county responded with a statement
clarifying that it has not received an application or
development proposal for a center. The county said the
commission requested a general discussion to better understand
the process for what would happen if a proposal was submitted.
… Butte County says the commission’s discussion
will provide an overview of how AI data centers would
impact water usage.
Malicious cyber activity has affected technology at water
systems in at least seven states last week, forcing some
facilities to switch to manual operations and prompting the FBI
and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to warn facilities
nationwide of hackers. … United States water systems are a
part of critical infrastructure in the country, which makes
them attractive targets for cyberattacks. The EPA has warned in
recent years that a significant number of local water systems
had critical or high-risk vulnerabilities, including “outdated
software, poor network security, weak access controls, and a
lack of employee cybersecurity training.” But it has also
indicated that it’s up to individual operators to protect their
own systems from external threats. An EPA spokesperson pointed
TIME to Administrator Lee Zeldin’s comments on FOX on Saturday,
where he called on utility operators and local entities to
protect themselves.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency cuts its workforce
without assessing how that would impact disaster response and
recovery, the Government Accountability Office determined in a
report published Tuesday. Despite previous reports that
staffing shortages have impeded past recovery efforts, FEMA in
2025 and 2026 pushed staffers to take voluntary separation
incentives like the deferred resignation program and fired new
and recently promoted employees who were still in their
probationary periods. Ultimately, GAO found that about 17%
of FEMA’s workforce, more than 4,300 employees, separated in
fiscal 2025 and that, as of April, the agency employed nearly
21,000 staffers. … “We found no evidence that DHS and
FEMA leadership assessed whether the nonrenewal of CORE
employees’ contracts in January 2026 would affect FEMA’s
ability to respond to disasters,” investigators wrote.
State regulators will consider escalating enforcement this week
against a landowner accused of years of illegal dumping,
grading and unmanaged cattle grazing along Little River, where
fecal bacteria levels have remained high for more than a
decade. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
will meet on Thursday in Crescent City to decide whether to
refer the case to the California Attorney General’s Office, a
rare step that could lead to judicial civil enforcement after
years of violation notices and warnings. … Little River,
which flows directly into Moonstone Beach, has been listed as
an impaired water body under Section 303(d) since 2015 due to
fecal pathogens. The designation requires state regulators to
identify pollution sources and develop a plan to reduce
contamination.
