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 Arizona official nominated to anchor a rocky Colorado River
negotiation process with an impending deadline claims he was
iced out by Upper Basin officials who thought he would be
biased against them. Ted Cooke, who said he came out of
retirement to try and help the two divided groups of states
come to a consensus, alleged in an interview Thursday that
Upper Basin state officials from Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and
New Mexico urged members of Congress to oppose his nomination
for Bureau of Reclamation commissioner. “I’ve never seen this
kind of vitriol and opposition based on presumed bias,” Cooke
told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The Environmental Protection Agency will keep polluters on the
hook to clean up “forever chemicals” linked to serious health
risks, upholding a major rule despite chemical industry
opposition. … The Biden administration last year
designated two types of forever chemicals as hazardous
substances under the nation’s Superfund law. … [EPA
administrator Lee] Zeldin was briefed on the issue this month
and ultimately decided to keep the designation in
place. That decision came after he also elected to keep
strict drinking water standards in place for the same two kinds
of forever chemicals, though the agency eliminated standards
for four others.
State water officials debated a controversial proposal to use
two powerful Colorado River water rights to help the
environment, weighing competing interests from Front Range and
Western Slope water managers. Almost 100 water professionals
gathered in Durango this week for a 14-hour hearing focused on
the water rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant, owned by an
Xcel Energy subsidiary. … Their decision could make a
historic contribution to the state’s environmental water rights
program and impact how Colorado River water will flow around
the state long into the future.
The global water cycle has become “increasingly erratic and
extreme” with wild swings between droughts and
floods, spelling big trouble for economies and
societies, according to a report published Thursday by the
World Meteorological Organization. The water cycle refers to
the complex system by which water moves around the Earth. It
evaporates from the ground — including from lakes and rivers —
and rises into the atmosphere, forming large streams of water
vapor able to travel long distances, before eventually falling
back down to Earth as rain or snow. Climate change, driven by
humans burning fossil fuels, is upending this process.
Can Page’s infrastructure and environment handle a gigawatt
data center? The proposed Huntley LLC data center would consume
as much electricity as a major power plant while demanding
millions of gallons of water daily in one of America’s most
water-stressed regions. … The Colorado River system, which
supplies Page through Lake Powell, faces its worst crisis in
recorded history. … A large data center could double the
community’s water demand. … Unlike agricultural or municipal
water use, data center cooling water is typically not returned
to the system in reusable form. The water evaporates through
cooling towers or becomes too thermally polluted for other
uses, representing a permanent withdrawal from the Colorado
River system.
Critics of a proposed lithium mine near the Salton Sea entered
round two of their fight to force stricter environmental review
of the project. … The nonprofits Comite Civico del Valle
and Earthworks filed arguments with the Fourth District Court
of Appeal last week, asking the court to reconsider a claim
they filed in 2024, which a superior court judge dismissed
earlier this year. In their appeal filed Sept. 11, the groups
argue that the environmental impact report for the Hell’s
Kitchen lithium mine neglects potential problems with air
quality, water use, hazardous materials and
tribal cultural resources.
For the first time in months, widespread rainfall is drenching
the Los Angeles area as a strong band of moisture from a
dissipated tropical storm moves north. … Flooding
concerns would extend further north into Friday. … But
despite the widespread rains Thursday, officials said it likely
wouldn’t be enough to pull southwestern California out of
“severe drought” conditions, which the region has remained in
since March. … It’s also likely not enough to eliminate the
threat of another punishing wildfire season. … And
forecasters are expecting a La Niña cycle to
emerge soon and remain in place through December, a shift in
climate patterns that historically swings the state toward
drought.
For more than a decade, the Walker River Paiute Tribe has been
working to update their limited water infrastructure. On Sept.
15 they were finally able to break ground on a water looping
system that will add nearly 1,600 linear feet of water lines to
the reservation. Earlier this year the tribe was counting on a
$20 million EPA grant to help build the water looping system.
Then, in March President Trump’s administration suddenly and
swiftly took it away. … The tribe had been saving funds,
because their revenue is limited by lack of economic
opportunity, says Walker River Paiute Tribe Chairwoman Melanie
McFalls. The tribe will use three million dollars of that
funding to pay for the water-looping project.
In a startling development for California’s water system, state
officials have confirmed the infestation of invasive golden
mussels (Limnoperna fortunei) at two major Southern California
lakes: Silverwood Lake in San Bernardino County and Pyramid
Lake in Los Angeles County. The rapid spread of this highly
destructive species from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to
the southern reaches of the State Water Project marks a new
chapter in the state’s ongoing struggle to safeguard both water
infrastructure and delicate aquatic ecosystems. The golden
mussel is notorious worldwide for its ability to multiply
quickly, clog pipes and screens, destabilize local ecology, and
create costly headaches for urban, agricultural, and
recreational water systems.
Spencer Creek will close to fishing Sept. 30, a month earlier
than usual, to protect fall Chinook salmon that have returned
for the first time in more than a century after dam
removal, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The tributary of the Klamath River will be closed
starting Oct. 1 to protect spawning fall Chinook salmon. … In
October 2024, fall Chinook were documented in Spencer Creek for
the first time since 1912 after four Lower Klamath River dams
were removed, ODFW said.
A fish dieoff that’s impacting several species of fish is
taking place in Clear Lake. The dieoff may have started as
early as Sept. 3, according to the Clear Lake Water Quality
Facebook page, run by the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians. …
At one site, at Lucerne Harbor Park, several species of fish —
from threadfin shad to bass and carp — have been found washing
up on the beach in large numbers. The discovery on Monday
of a dead 7-foot-long white sturgeon in Buckingham — a fish
whose natural range does not include Clear Lake — coincides
with the dieoff, which wildlife officials are attributing to
oxygen levels.
California’s State Lands Commission (SLC) has approved Canadian
firm Oneka Technologies’ lease application for its wave-powered
desalination pilot project with the City of Fort Bragg.
… The company noted that the next steps in the
permitting process include regulatory reviews by the US Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE), the US Coast Guard (USCG), the
California Coastal Commission (CCC), and the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A recent grand jury report stated that Foster City’s water
district doesn’t have sufficient water supply or fuel storage
in the event of an emergency, but the city says it “wholly
disagrees” with some of the findings. On July 8, the San Mateo
County Civil Grand Jury released a report of its study looking
to what extent water providers prepared to supply water to
customers in the event of an emergency. … The
report recommended that EMID [Estero Municipal Improvement
District] develop plans to provide water pumping capabilities
to provide emergency water to its community for a minimum of
three days, a recommendation that Foster City staff say they
have implemented since the recent completion of a water tanks
and facilities improvement project.
… Unlike almost every other grower and winemaker in
California, Mr. [Matt] Niess, the proprietor of North American
Press in Sonoma County, is focusing squarely on hybrid grapes.
… In addition to global warming, wine regions have
experienced more frequent catastrophic weather events, like
hail, drought and spring frosts, along with
devastating bouts with fungal diseases and insect infestations.
… And so, grape-growers across the wine-producing world
are beginning to examine the possibilities of hybrid grapes,
which often have far-greater resistance to these diseases and
don’t require the same sort of intensive chemical crutches.
The White House plans to pull back its nomination of a former a
veteran Arizona water official to lead the Bureau of
Reclamation, leaving the agency without permanent leadership
nine months into President Donald Trump’s second term. Ted
Cooke, a former top official at the Central Arizona Project,
told POLITICO’s E&E News on Wednesday that he has been
informed his nomination will be rescinded. … Although it
is not unusual for Reclamation to be without permanent
leadership until late in the first year of a new
president term, the Colorado River negotiations put more
pressure on the White House to fill the post.
Adding new snowpack monitoring stations at strategic locations
would be better at predicting water supply in the western U.S.
than basin-wide mapping — and it would be less expensive —
according to a new study. … On average, about half of
the water in western streams is driven by snowmelt.
… For the study, researchers analyzed more than 20 years
of snow estimates and streamflow data across 390 snow-fed
basins in 11 states. Their analysis found the location and
importance of “hotspots” — areas where snowpack isn’t currently
measured but is especially predictive of water supply.
It took half a dozen attempts but Kern water managers finally
came up with a groundwater plan that met with state approval.
The state Water Resources Control Board voted on Wednesday to
move the Kern subbasin out from under its enforcement purview
and back under oversight of the Department of Water Resources
(DWR). The move is a huge relief to area farmers and water
managers who had been facing the prospect of being put on
probation. Probation comes with severe sanctions including
requiring farmers to meter and register wells at $300 each,
report extractions to the state and pay $20 per acre foot
pumped.
California was supposed to kick off a new era of dam building
when voters passed a $7.5 billion water bond in 2014. But ten
years later, only one dam project from the list is still alive.
Sites, which would divert water from the Sacramento River into
an offstream reservoir capable of storing water for 3 million
homes annually, is the sole survivor, as of Wednesday, of a
batch of four new or expanded reservoirs that California
officials had envisioned would bolster supplies for cities and
farmers. … The string of project failures underscores an
inconvenient reality: even with the rare political alignment of
Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump in support of more
water storage, the numbers haven’t penciled out.
Wade Crowfoot and Brenda Burman lead an exciting line-up of
water and policy experts who will be speaking about
Embracing Uncertainty in the Westat our 2025
Water Summit on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in downtown
Sacramento. Now in its 41ˢᵗ year, the event will once
again gather leading experts and top policymakers from
California and across the West for engaging conversations
focused on how to move forward with critical decisions despite
myriad unknowns facing the West’s most precious natural
resource. Foundation members receive a $100 discount on
registration, but space is limited, so get your ticket to the
Water Summit here!
The nation’s leading scientific advisory body [the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine] issued a
major report on Wednesday detailing the strongest evidence to
date that carbon dioxide, methane and other planet-warming
greenhouse gases are threatening human health. … The
136-page report, assembled by a committee of two dozen
scientists, concludes that the original endangerment finding
was accurate. … Climate-driven changes in temperature
and rainfall patterns have also led to
negative effects on crops and less water
availability in some places, among other disruptions.
