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 Interim Director Doug Beeman.
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It took nearly 25 years to figure out how to supply running
water to homes in Westwater, a small Navajo community in
southeastern Utah. … The Westwater project is one of many
efforts to provide reliable water to communities around the
27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation reservation, where 30%-40% of
homes lack access to running water. … Building
infrastructure and resolving water rights have been ongoing
challenges for tribal nations in the Colorado River
Basin. Together, tribes have rights to about 25% of
the basin’s water, but about 12 tribes were still working to
settle their water rights as of 2021, including the Navajo
Nation. Settling rights is a legal step that must be done
before water can be used and infrastructure built.
A bill that would finally formalize a 2007 agreement between
the Tule River Indian Tribe and several downstream agricultural
users advanced to the Senate earlier this month. The
“Tule River Tribe Reserved Water Rights Settlement Act of
2025,” introduced by Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff
(both D-California), advanced from the Committee on Indian
Affairs and will be heard on the Senate floor. If passed,
the bill would accomplish several tasks, including securing an
annual supply of 5,828 acre feet of surface water from the
South Fork of the Tule River for the reservation’s domestic
water system, which serves more than 400 homes and all of its
administration buildings.
A handful of residents who live near the Tijuana River Valley
protested the smell of sewage coming from the river (on
Sunday). … Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre is
protesting, too. She said she hears residents’ concerns about
what needs to be done, and said the Trump administration and
Governor Newsom need to help solve the problem. ”We’re
hearing people who have COPD and chronic pneumonia and sinus
situs and migraines,” saids Aguirre. “These are all consistent
with exposure to all of these pollutants. What’s it going to
take? We need our federal government to come down here, do a
tour of the area, declare a state of emergency, and divert and
treat the river.”
Justices with the 5th District Court of Appeal peppered
attorneys with questions about the application of state water
law and the fight over Kern River flows during arguments in
Fresno on Thursday. How the 5th District rules on this appeal
could have far-reaching effects on river conservation efforts
throughout California as it involves California Fish and Game
Code 5937. That code states dam owners must keep enough water
downstream to keep fish in good condition. It was the linchpin
in restoring other California rivers, including the San Joaquin
River in Fresno County. And 5937 is the underpinning of a
preliminary injunction and implementation order issued in late
fall 2023 by Kern County Superior Court Gregory Pulskamp that
mandated the City of Bakersfield keep enough water in the river
through town for fish.
Prolonged droughts, wildfires and water shortages. Torrential
downpours that overwhelm dams and cause catastrophic flooding.
Around the globe, rising temperatures stoked by climate change
are increasing the odds of both severe drought and heavier
precipitation that wreak havoc on people and the environment.
Rainfall can disappear for years only to return with a
vengeance, as it did in California in 2023, with record-setting
rain and snowfall. That led to heavy vegetation growth that
provided fuel for the devastating January wildfires in Los
Angeles after drought returned. But how can global warming
cause both drier and wetter extremes? Here’s what experts say.
The question for the past year on most northern California
anglers’ lips has been: Will there be a salmon season in 2025?
That question has changed to: Why bother having a salmon
season? That question is based upon the Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s annual salmon information meeting and the three
proposed alternatives listed by the Pacific Fisheries
Management Council (PFMC). A third consecutive year of an ocean
and river salmon closure will further devastate the economies
of northern California’s coastal communities, the proposed
alternatives are based on a 4,000-fish commercial quota and a
12-day ocean recreational season at best. –Written by Dave Hurley, a fishing writer and member of
the California Outdoors Hall of Fame.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has fixed or
replaced the vast majority of fire hydrants flagged for repairs
in last year’s inspections after a long delay by the L.A. Fire
Department in forwarding the inspection results, officials
confirmed this week. The LAFD — which is contracted to annually
inspect 66,000 fire hydrants across the city — had identified
at least 1,350 hydrants in need of repair, according to its
2024 inspection. But the department did not properly transmit
the data to DWP in August, a lapse that came to light only
after the Palisades fire when LAFD shared its year-old
inspection data with KCBS-TV. DWP finally received the data
Feb. 14.
A California Court of Appeal (Fifth District) (“Court”)
addressed in a March 14th Opinion whether water in an aquifer
could be personal property. … The land and attached
improvements were appraised in 2019 at $14,985,000. The
appraisal excluded any subsurface water or mineral rights. In
addition, the appraisal indicated that due to two perpetual
United States Fish and Wildlife conservation easements, that
the land was limited to its current use as an irrigated and dry
pasture ranch with some lower intensity farming uses. The
trial court had held, and this Court agreed that: Water
was not personal property owned by 4-S; and,
Rights to use of the water ran with the land
and therefore the lender acquired those rights at the
foreclosure sale.
Attorneys for the mining conglomerate Cemex filed their latest
appeal in the effort to build a sand-and-gravel mine in Soledad
Canyon, just east of the city of Santa Clarita. The mining
company purchased the mineral rights to extract 56 million tons
of aggregate, a material vital for construction that’s in rich
supply there, according to the federal government. Cemex
needs a beneficial-use permit from the State Water Resources
Control Board to use the Santa Clara River in order to sustain
its mining operations. … Opponents of the mine, which
include the city, argue that the facility would add hundreds of
truckloads daily to an already congested Highway 14, a massive
amount of air pollution from mining operations, and impacts to
the river, including about 322-acre-feet of water use
annually.
The Solano County Water Agency’s free vessel decontamination
program will end on April 7. … The Bureau of Reclamation
announced that, beginning April 7, direct-managed concessions
and the Solano County Water Agency will charge for vessel
decontaminations for boaters seeking to launch at Lake
Berryessa. … “Moving forward, boaters who seek to avoid a
30-day, mandatory quarantine to protect the reservoir
from invasive mussels, will need to reach out to
either the Solano County Water Agency, Markley Cove Resort,
Pleasure Cove Marina, or Putah Canyon Recreation Area to
arrange for a vessel decontamination for any motorized vessel
or vessel launched from a trailer,” the Bureau of Reclamation
announcement states.
A river that runs between the U.S. and Canada has now run
itself right into the middle of the fight between the two
allies. President Donald Trump’s administration has now stopped
negotiations to re-up a decades-old U.S.-Canada treaty that
controls the flow of the Columbia River between British
Columbia after claiming it could play a role in solving
California water shortages. … Trump’s decision to pause
treaty negotiations comes after he once called the river a
“very large faucet” that he said could provide much-needed
water to California if diverted — indicating he may be
interested in ending the treaty to access more water from the
river.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern
California will receive an increased allocation of 35 percent
from the California Department of Water Resources this year,
according to a report by Cynthia Kurtz, Pasadena’s
representative on the MWD Board. The City of Pasadena
imports about 60% of its water from the MWD. Kurtz
will present detailed information about the water supply
outlook during a meeting of the Pasadena Municipal Services
Committee on Tuesday, where she will deliver her first
quarterly update to the Committee. … Despite the
Colorado River Aqueduct currently being shut down for annual
inspection and maintenance, the MWD expects to receive its
normal supply of Colorado River water this year due to reserves
stored in Lake Mead.
The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) said it
submitted comments to the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF) regarding the development of a national artificial
intelligence (AI) action plan. AMWA, which represents large
drinking water systems across the United States, highlighted
the critical intersection of AI development and water resource
management in its comments. The association said it is urging
policymakers to assess AI’s impact on water demand while
leveraging AI for water efficiency.
… A recent study “Same data, different analysts: variation in
effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and
evolutionary biology” highlights concerns for how we draw
conclusions from scientific study and how science can inform
policy. … Collaborative synthesis science is one way to
strengthen consensus and to understand the roots of disparities
between different studies and approaches, leading to more
robust science. In the realm of California
water, contemporary models of collaborative synthesis
include the CVPIA Science Integration Team and subgroups,
Interagency Ecological Program Project Work Teams, and working
groups at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis. At its best, this approach brings together
cooperative teams with diverse perspectives and expertise to
achieve highly innovative solutions to research problems.
The United States has refused a request by Mexico for water,
alleging shortfalls in sharing by its southern neighbor, as
Donald Trump ramps up a battle on another front. The state
department said on Thursday it was the first time that the
United States had rejected a request by Mexico for special
delivery of water, which would have gone to the border city of
Tijuana. … The 1944 treaty, which governs water allocation from
the Rio Grande and Colorado River, has come under growing
strain in recent years due to the pressures of the climate
crisis and the burgeoning populations and agriculture in
parched areas. … Under the treaty, Mexico sends water from
rivers in the Rio Grande basin to the US, which in turn sends
Mexico water from the Colorado River, further to the west. But
Mexico has fallen behind in its water payments due to drought
conditions in the arid north of the country.
Californians could be drinking water tapped from the Pacific
Ocean off Malibu several years from now — that is, if a
company’s new desalination technology proves viable. OceanWell
Co. plans to anchor about two dozen 40-foot-long devices,
called pods, to the seafloor several miles offshore and use
them to take in saltwater and pump purified fresh water to
shore in a pipeline. The company calls the concept a water farm
and is testing a prototype of its pod at a reservoir in the
foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. The pilot study,
supported by Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, is being
closely watched by managers of several large water agencies in
Southern California.
Recent snowstorms in the Colorado Rockies have helped elevate
snowpack levels as the calendar turns to spring. About two
weeks remain to build up snowpack ahead of what climate experts
say will be another dry year in the desert Southwest. A report
released on Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) forecasts a greater-than-50% chance that
the drought will persist through the end of June. The affected
area includes Southern Nevada, Southern California, Southern
Utah, all of Arizona, and southwest Colorado.
Alfred E. Smith II, a Southern California water law attorney
and an alumnus of the Water Education Foundation’s Water
Leaders program, has been elected president of the Foundation’s
board of directors. As chair of Nossaman LLP’s Water Group and
a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles office, Smith serves as
general counsel to several Southern California water districts
and represents clients on water rights, groundwater
adjudications, water contamination litigation and remediation
matters.
Environmental groups clashed Thursday with California water
districts before a state appeals court over water flows in the
Kern River in central California, buoying their arguments on
seemingly conflicting laws and supposed failures of the trial
court. Groups like the North Kern Water Storage District last
year appealed a preliminary injunction requiring enough flows
to keep fish in good condition. They argued that it’s improper
to interpret state fish and game code as favoring fish over all
other needs, adding that a balancing test must occur. They want
the injunction and related implementation order shelved, with
instructions relayed to the lower court from the Fifth District
Court of Appeal on next steps. No ruling occurred Thursday but
the three-judge panel took the matter under submission.
As firefighters in Los Angeles finally contained the flames
from the devastating fires in January, the Trump administration
made the curious decision to order the sudden release of
billions of gallons of fresh water from two dams about 360km
north of the city. … Now California’s environmental
policymakers are braced for four years of possible
interventions from Trump as the state faces many water
management challenges, including declining surface and
groundwater — not to mention the impact of a changing climate.
