Incompatible pumping allocations being considered by two
groundwater agencies in north Kings County have prompted a
blizzard of responses, and even some accusations, from farmers
and multiple entities. The South Fork Kings Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) and Mid-Kings River GSA each had
draft pumping allocation policies out for public comment.
… The allocation amounts differ significantly, with
Mid-Kings proposing to allow its farmers to pump a base amount
of 1.43 acre feet per acre of land, which is more than double
South Fork’s proposed base allocation of .66 of an acre foot
per acre of land. That discrepancy initiated opposition
from South Fork farmers.
… Trump’s executive order pushed the Bureau of Reclamation to
modify how it operates the Central Valley Project, a complex of
reservoirs — including Lake Shasta — and canals that captures
runoff from Northern California mountains and supplies water
agencies in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Last week,
the bureau announced an operational modification that would
increase annual water deliveries by 130,000 to 180,000
acre-feet from the Central Valley Project and another 120,000
to 220,000 from the State Water Project, the latter chiefly
generated from the Oroville Dam on the Feather River. … The
announcement sparked reactions, both pro and con, that reflect
the state’s long-running water allocation battles. –Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
The City of Santa Barbara has released a Draft Wastewater and
Water Systems Climate Adaptation Plan the first of its kind in
California. It is seeking public comments through Feb. 10.
Jointly funded by the California Coastal Commission, California
Coastal Conservancy and the City. The plan lays out how Santa
Barbara will shield critical water and wastewater
infrastructure from rising seas, heavier storms and increased
flooding. City officials say the wastewater system is the
highest-priority risk. Heavy rain can push floodwater into
sewer pipes and manholes, overwhelming the system and causing
sanitary sewer overflows.
After fishing out more than 25,000 pounds of underwater junk
from Lake Tahoe, divers are gearing up for another round. On
Thursday, environmental nonprofit Clean Up the Lake plans to
start a multi-year effort to remove trash from deeper parts of
the lake, where divers expect to find bigger and heavier items
than in shallower areas. … In addition to
collecting underwater garbage, Clean Up the Lake’s divers look
for invasive species and send any samples they
find to the California Department of Agriculture for further
analysis. The team is also beginning to monitor for algae and
keeping an eye out for harmful algal blooms.
California cities pay far more for water on average than
districts that supply farms — with some urban water agencies
shelling out more than $2,500 per acre-foot of surface water,
and some irrigation districts paying nothing, according to new
research. A report published today by researchers with the
UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and
advocates with the Natural Resources Defense Council shines a
light on vast disparities in the price of water across
California, Arizona and
Nevada. … Their overarching conclusion:
One of the West’s most valuable resources has no consistent
valuation – and sometimes costs nothing at all.
November temperatures were four degrees above average
region-wide and much of Utah and Wyoming baked under mean
temperatures that were six to ten degrees above average. High
temperatures coupled with mostly below normal precipitation
caused low snow water equivalent (SWE) and worsening drought
conditions. November precipitation was much below average for
much of the region, especially in Wyoming, northern Colorado
and northern Utah, which received less than half of normal
precipitation. Much above average November precipitation was
observed in southern Utah and eastern Colorado.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
A 20-year study conducted by the University of California,
Berkeley in the Sierra Nevada has provided new evidence
supporting prescribed burns as an effective way to manage
forests and reduce wildfire risk. The study, released in
November, suggests that CAL FIRE’s ongoing use of prescribed
burns has been beneficial, not only in lessening the risk of
wildfire but also in helping forests recover and grow stronger
over time. The findings are giving fire officials additional
motivation to continue the practice, which could also improve
insurance costs for homeowners in mountain communities.
… State, federal and local agencies recently established a
workgroup to explore creating a dredging
program for the South Delta’s clogged channels.
[Farmer Mary] Hildebrand is part of a surprising new coalition
called the Great Valley Farm Water Partnership that aims to
nudge the South Delta dredging program along. The Great Valley
Farm Water Partnership brings together growers from the Delta
and the San Joaquin Valley, which have historically clashed
over water, to find common ground. The Partnership identified
seven joint problems, including modernizing levees in the Delta
and boosting water exports from the Delta during wet years, and
prioritized tackling the build up of South Delta sediment.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of
Engineers will hold public meetings this month on their revised
definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), according
to a regulatory alert from the Office of Advocacy within the
U.S. Small Business Administration. The WOTUS rule helps
determine which water bodies the federal government can
regulate under the Clean Water Act. The revised WOTUS
definition aims to bring the regulations in line with the
Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA and provide
clarity on the CWA’s regulatory scope, the Advocacy alert
stated.
A new Tulare County water district is on a tight timeline to
balance an opportunity to buy water for its farmers with the
need to fund its operations long term. The board of the newly
formed Consolidated Water District voted Dec. 3 to buy 2,900
acre-feet of water from three private ditch companies, the
Persian, Watson and Matthews ditch companies. The timing is
both good and bad. Good because the district is preparing for a
Proposition 218 election in spring to assess new fees to
farmland and this purchase is a clear example of what that
money pays for. The timing is also bad because the district is
operating on a $500,000 loan from Consolidated People’s Ditch
Company while it gets established. The 2,900 acre feet purchase
will eat up $290,000 of that loan.
A Shasta County man is being sued by the California Department
of Forestry and Fire Protection for illegally swiping water
from the Pit River and diverting it to a storage pond on his
property in Montgomery Creek, according to the complaint.
… In an interview with the Record Searchlight on
Tuesday, Dec. 9, Borgna said he had not been served with the
lawsuit, that he does possess water rights and that he didn’t
build the ditch. ”That tributary has been there for 115
years,” Borgna said of the body carrying water from the river
to the storage pond on his nearly 18-acre property, which he’s
owned since 2003.
… Changing weather patterns, droughts and competing water
demands have led to the rapid shrinking of the Salton
Sea and have left large areas of the lake bed
exposed. Dr. Emma Aronson is a professor of environmental
microbiology at the University of California, Riverside. For
years, her team has been collecting and studying dust from the
dried-up lake bed to find out how it is impacting residents’
lungs. “The Salton Sea region has been becoming
incredibly prone to dust storms, and daily dust exposure is
causing problems for people’s health,” said Aronson.
Recently, her team was able to determine that the Salton Sea
dust has an impact on our lung microbiome.
The City of Fresno is making its second major legal offensive
against corporate polluters in two years, filing suit against
more than 40 companies it accuses of contaminating the city’s
groundwater with PFAS, the synthetic compounds
known as “forever chemicals.” Fresno’s groundwater is over 600%
EPA standards for forever chemicals — some of the worst
contamination in California, according to a 2024 investigation
from USA Today. An analysis from the Environmental Working
Group found contaminated sites across central and north Fresno,
from Old Fig Garden to Pinedale.
The contentious Central Coast Blue recycled water project is
set to move forward in a new form in Grover Beach — but the
city won’t have any control over whether it ultimately gets
approved. … Once completed, the project is intended to
take wastewater from the Pismo Beach Wastewater Treatment
facility, clean it, and inject that water back into the
Northern Cities Management Area of the Santa Maria Groundwater
Basin, which supplies the Five Cities with water. Despite
Grover Beach withdrawing from the project, officials said some
of the water treatment and then injection would still have to
happen from a new facility within the city’s limits — a move
that left some Grover Beach residents concerned.
The Colorado River Basin, like much of the southwestern U.S.,
is experiencing a drought so historic—it began in 1999—that
it’s been called a megadrought. In the basin,
whose river provides water to seven states and Mexico, that
drought is the product of warming temperatures and reduced
precipitation, especially in the form of winter
snow. While the warming trend has been conclusively linked
to human activities driving climate change, the cause of the
waning precipitation wasn’t as clear. Now, however, Jonathan
Overpeck of the University of Michigan and Brad Udall of the
Colorado Water Center at Colorado State University are
convinced that anthropogenic climate change is the culprit as
well.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico struck a conciliatory
tone on Tuesday in response to President Trump’s threats of
additional tariffs over a long-running dispute between the two
nations over water. Mr. Trump said on Monday that he would
place an additional 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports if
Mexico didn’t release 200,000 acre-feet of water, or about 65
billion gallons, to the United States by the end of the year.
He said Mexico owed more than 260 billion gallons under a 1944
treaty mediating the distribution of water from the Rio
Grande, Colorado and Tijuana rivers. Ms. Sheinbaum
told reporters on Tuesday that … it was impossible to
immediately deliver the water Mr. Trump requested because of
physical constraints.
Early last year, the hydropower company Nature and People First
set its sights on Black Mesa, a mountainous region on the
Navajo Nation in northern Arizona. … Pumped-storage
operations involve moving water in and out of reservoirs, which
could affect the habitats of endangered fish and require
massive groundwater withdrawals from an already-depleted
aquifer. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which
has authority over non-federal hydropower projects on the
Colorado River and its tributaries, ultimately
denied the project’s permit. The decision was among the first
under a new policy: FERC would not approve projects on tribal
land without the support of the affected tribe. … Now,
Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright wants to reverse
this policy.
Federal fisheries officials on Monday rejected a bid to
designate West Coast Chinook salmon as threatened or endangered
under the Endangered Species Act. In response, one of the
conservation groups that petitioned for the listing, the Center
for Biological Diversity, says it is considering a legal
challenge. … The listing of the fish would have meant
stronger oversight of logging near rivers, new requirements for
dams to allow salmon to pass and to release colder water, and
an influx of restoration work that usually follows an
endangered species designation.
A big thank you to everyone who attended the International
Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference, hosted by the
Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS)! The International
Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference took place October
6th–9th and featured 4 days of speakers hailing from across the
globe, many field trips, and an excellent evening of
water-themed trivia. This conference had nearly 300 attendees
from over 10 different countries across several different
disciplines, speaking on a range of topics such as floodplains,
rivers as classrooms, flow management, and more! By bringing so
many people together from across job sectors and fields of
river research, the conference fostered collaboration on both a
national and international level.
US water and wastewater utilities navigated a year marked by
disruption and shifting federal policies. Stakeholders
navigated a maze of permitting reforms, evolving EPA guidance
on PFAS and new interpretations of the Clean Water Act after
Sackett v. EPA. For operators, the rulebook kept changing,
while costs and compliance risks continued to rise.
… With all that as backdrop, let’s look back on 2025.
We’ll dig into the shifting permitting and WRDA/IIJA landscape,
the ongoing tug-of-war over PFAS and WOTUS, Colorado River
uncertainty, the emerging water-AI connection and the growing
momentum behind collaborative delivery.
