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.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Please Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Also, 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 California Water Institute at Fresno State announced Laura
Ramos has been appointed director, after serving in an interim
role since January 2023. Since that time, Ramos guided the
institute through significant advancements in research,
educational partnerships and community outreach. … Ramos played
a key role in launching several educational initiatives
including the option for Fresno State students to minor in
water education, the Water Book Club, the Water Bootcamp in
both English and Spanish and the Legislative Water Bootcamp in
partnership with the Maddy Institute. She has also co-authored
several reports and publications and secured nearly $1 million
in grants during her tenure as interim director.
From ducks and cranes to giant garter snakes and salmon,
flooded rice fields in California’s Central Valley offer
important — often vital — habitat to many wildlife species. Yet
uncertainties around crop markets, water and climate can prompt
some growers to fallow rice fields or change their management
practices. Will today’s rice acreage under current practices be
enough to meet key species’ needs? If not, how much rice is
needed? Where should it be planted? And what management
practices offer the greatest benefit for species of
concern? Scientists from the University of California,
Davis, and Point Blue Conservation Science address these
questions in a new report, “A Conservation Footprint for
California Rice,” written for the California Rice
Commission.
… The current inflationary environment and uncertain political
climate—particularly at the federal level—are only amplifying
these challenges for local utilities. This report describes the
country’s water affordability challenge in more depth by
focusing on utilities, including where they stand in the
current federal moment and new national data on the geographic
extent of this challenge. The report also discusses potential
water affordability strategies that local utilities—alongside
supportive state and federal leaders—can pursue (or are already
pursuing) to help alleviate these fiscal pressures.
… The last known Hayden Creek cutthroat trout — probably most
closely related to Colorado’s state fish, the greenback
cutthroat trout — were literally pulled from an active fire
zone on Hayden Pass in 2016 in order to keep the fish from
winking out altogether. Just last fall, Colorado Parks and
Wildlife biologists confirmed that reintroduced populations of
the fish were reproducing, and, more importantly, they
reported, the fish had reproduced several times since they were
reintroduced in their once-native waters.
Freshman Rep. Adam Gray is challenging 10 Republicans to show
up at his office. But the moderate Blue Dog from California
isn’t luring Republicans to bark at them. It’s so he can
convince them that there’s power to be had in a House with a
razor-thin margin and to work together on subjects like water
issues crucial to his Central Valley district. “Imagine if 10
Republicans and 10 Democrats could get together in a Congress
where there’s a margin of three or four votes and say, ‘You
know what? We’re gonna sit down, and we’re gonna craft
bipartisan solutions to some of these big topics,’” Gray said.
West Basin Municipal Water District (West Basin) – a wholesale
water agency that serves nearly one million people in Los
Angeles County – has announced a major milestone in water
recycling with the completion of the Phase II Expansion Project
at the Juanita Millender-McDonald Carson Regional Water
Recycling Plant (JMMCRWRP). This project includes the
installation of a Custom Engineered Membrane Filtration (CEMF)
system. … The new CEMF system is an advanced open-platform
microfiltration system capable of accommodating up to six
different membranes.
Admiring the beautiful view of the ocean, Shelly Moore looks
beyond the surface, having trained her eyes to see the problems
hidden below. On her quick walk outside, she notices the
glass and plastic bottles peeking from under the ocean along
the Long Beach marina. It’s a reminder of the 11 million metric
tons of plastic the California Ocean Protection Council
estimates enter global oceans every year. Although as the
executive director of the Moore Institue for Plastic Pollution,
she said the effort to change that starts at home. … That is
exactly what she and her team at the Moore Institute for
Plastic Pollution Research are doing, taking a rather
microscopic view of the problem.
The Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District will take
advantage of lower rates to pre-purchase Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California imported water. The EVMWD board
voted 5-0 February 13 to execute a purchase agreement with the
Western Municipal Water District for 3,835 acre-feet (one
acre-foot is approximately 325,850 gallons) of MWD supply.
EVMWD is not a direct MWD member but purchases MWD imported
water from Western. The recent wet water years (a water year is
from July 1 through June 30) have allowed for higher MWD
storage levels, but the decreased demand for water has reduced
MWD revenue.
A newly formed community group, Friends of the Lower Colorado
River, is taking action to preserve and protect the waterway by
organizing cleanup events. The organization, founded just two
months ago, was created by a group who wanted to combat the
growing issue of litter along the riverbanks. Working
alongside the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Land
Management, the group is focused on making the river a cleaner
and safer space for families and outdoor enthusiasts. Their
first official cleanup event is scheduled for Sunday,
April 13, at 9:30 a.m. at the Gila River Confluence.
Nevada and the Great Basin lost Simeon Herskovits, one of its
most passionate and dedicated public interest water attorneys,
last week. Through his calm but assertive rhetorical style,
Herskovits played a pivotal role in ensuring water officials
weighed the impacts of their policymaking on the public
interest and the environment. Over the past two decades,
Herskovits was a constant presence in Nevada courtrooms,
advising rural counties and advocating on behalf of the Great
Basin Water Network in challenging the Southern Nevada Water
Authority’s bid to ship rural groundwater to Las Vegas. He was
persistent in his legal challenges, a true thorn in the side of
the water authority as the network cleverly contested the
project through every avenue.
The Trump administration has announced that two key California
reservoir projects will receive $315 million in federal funding
to help the state store more water in wet years to reduce
shortages in dry years. The administration is investing the
money toward the costs of constructing the massive new Sites
Reservoir, proposed for Colusa County about 70 miles north of
Sacramento, and to raise the height of the dam at San Luis
Reservoir, along Highway 152 east of Gilroy, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation said in a news release Tuesday. But there’s
fine print in the deal that the agency didn’t explain. Trump
isn’t providing any new federal money for either project.
Other water and natural resource project funding news:
Arizona’s Department of Water Resources released a draft
proposal Wednesday that it says will conserve water and promote
new housing construction by converting farmland into urban
developments. The so-called “Ag-to-Urban,” plan would
allow farmers in areas of Phoenix and Pinal County that require
active management of groundwater to relinquish groundwater
rights in exchange for credits of physical water availability,
then sell the land and water rights to land developers to build
new communities with a lower water demand than the farming
operations.
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore will retire effective March 3,
according to an email sent to agency staff Wednesday and viewed
by POLITICO. … Moore, who has led the agency that
manages 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands
since 2021 and became the first African American to serve as
chief, is capping off a 45-year career with the Forest Service.
… Lawmakers and officials from Western states have warned that
President Donald Trump’s cuts to agencies like the Forest
Service and funding freezes will threaten critical prevention
and mitigation work, leaving the region woefully unprepared for
the coming wildfire season.
Other natural resource agency resignation and layoff news:
Go beyond the recent headlines and gain a deeper understanding
of how water flows across California during our Water
101 Workshop at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento on April 10, with an optional watershed
tour April 11. And if you join our Central Valley
Tour happening April 23-25, you can stand
atop Terminus Dam where the federal government released water
from Lake Kaweah in late January.
Utah could soon become the first U.S. state to ban the addition
of fluoride to drinking water. On Friday, the Utah State Senate
approved a bill that prohibits adding the mineral to public
water systems. If signed by Governor Spencer Cox, the measure
would go into effect on May 7. The governor has not publicly
commented on whether he supports the bill. The passage of the
Utah bill comes roughly two weeks after the confirmation of
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as health secretary. In November, Mr.
Kennedy vowed that the Trump administration would “advise all
U.S. systems to remove fluoride from public water.”
While the rains were a welcome respite from the month of
destructive wildfires, they also raised concerns about
contaminated runoff and questions on how to rebuild a
climate-resilient city. Heavy rains after a fire can be
dangerous, increasing the risk of flash flooding, mudslides and
debris flows, as witnessed in Pacific Palisades and Sierra
Madre. But, perhaps less obvious, is the serious threat of
toxic chemicals in fire-ravaged areas that gets washed into
waterways, threatening water quality, public health and the
environment, according to the State Water Resources Control
Board.
In the winter, rice fields in the Sacramento region are flooded
with water. It’s a common method to prepare the field for new
growth. With the help of a program led by California Trout,
some farmers have opted to start flushing that water into the
Sacramento River as a way to aid winter-run Chinook
salmon. Researchers have found that this water is rich
with zooplankton (sometimes referred to as “bugs”), which is a
main source of food for young salmon. As the species’
population struggles in the face of impacts from human
development and shrinking habitats, researchers say access to
this water source could help them thrive.
Federal wildlife officials are promoting a unique strategy to
help eliminate nutria, the pesky critters that have invaded
California’s Delta: Eat ’em. Turns out that nutria, a giant
rodent that looks like an outsized guinea pig, can be a
mouth-watering entree. “Their meat is lean, mild and tastes
like rabbit,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says, urging
the consumption of nutria and four other bothersome invasive
species. Nutrias have been particularly troublesome in the
Delta because they can reproduce quickly and are tearing up the
marshlands. A single female can birth up to 200 offspring in a
year, and their burrowing causes erosion of riverbanks. Plus,
they have a voracious appetite. A single nutria can consume up
to 25% of its body weight in vegetation a day.
Recent atmospheric rivers and a supply of water in the state’s
reservoirs has boosted the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s
springtime water allocation to 35% for west side farmers in
Central California. The allocation, announced Tuesday, is 20%
higher than the allocation this time last year. … The current
water year has been somewhat inconsistent in California with an
extremely wet November followed by an exceptionally dry
January. Reclamation officials will continue to review
conditions and make updates as new information and data are
analyzed, and assumptions are adjusted.
Residents of Boulder Creek’s Echo Lane neighborhood are seeking
answers as the aging wooden water tanks—commonly referred to as
the “Echo Tanks” by the San Lorenzo Valley Water
District—continue to deteriorate rapidly. The tanks continue to
lie in disrepair despite a $4.5 million grant from the
Department of Water Resources’ Urban Community Drought Relief
program. In addition, $1.5 million was given by the district
for repairs. The plans called for replacing the outdated wooden
structures and fire-damaged plastic ones with six new
120,000-gallon bolted-steel tanks. … These tanks supply
drinking water to a large part of the San Lorenzo Valley
community, but also provide critical water storage for
firefighting during the area’s fire season.
