A new break in a Mexican sewer line has sent raw sewage to
South Bay communities, taking a toll on residents who live by
the Tijuana River and Imperial Beach in what locals call an
ongoing “sewage saga.” Officials with the U.S. International
Boundary and Water Commission say they were working on
improvements at the Hollister and Goats pump station when a
sewage line broke in Mexico, sending 120,000 gallons of sewage
through two layers of berms and vacuum trucks all the way to
Monument Road. The line broke because of recent rain.
… The U.S. and Mexico have agreed to what they call
permanent solutions, including a $600 million expansion of the
South Bay Treatment Plant.
Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA) and the Salinas
Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency
(SVBGSA) have launched a new well registration program to
better understand and protect groundwater resources in the
Salinas Valley. All well owners are asked to register their
wells for free by Jan. 31, 2026. The program, approved by the
Monterey County Board of Supervisors earlier this year, is part
of a statewide requirement under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which calls for all
groundwater basins to be monitored to ensure long-term
sustainability for all users.
The state of Colorado is ramping up an effort to measure water
use on the Western Slope, developing rules and standards and
rolling out a grant program to help water users pay for
diversion measurement devices. With input from water users,
officials from the Colorado Division of Water Resources are
creating technical guidance for each of the four major Western
Slope river basins on how agricultural water users should
measure the water they take from streams. … The
push for more-accurate measurement comes at a time when there
is increasing competition for dwindling water supplies, as well
as growing pressure on the Colorado River’s Upper
Basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming)
to conserve water.
When Colorado Parks and Wildlife personnel tested a small pond
that feeds the irrigation system at the Mesa County
Fairgrounds, looking for invasive zebra mussels, the results
came back as a surprise. … Mussels of different ages,
including adult ones, were discovered during the early-October
testing. … It seemed more likely that mussels might be
present at some of the public areas along the Colorado
River or on larger reservoirs with a lot of potential
for cross-contamination involving things such as watercraft.
… This very issue is high on the minds of Parks and Wildlife
officials as the agency deals with an expanding zebra mussels
problem along the Colorado River in multiple counties.
The Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday updated the long-term
operations plan for the Central Valley Project to allow
increased exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a move
that conflicts with California’s own requirements, potentially
shifts more of the water burden onto the state and threatens
the Delta’s ecosystem and water quality. … The
Reclamation Bureau stated that under the updated plan, the
federal-managed CVP could gain an additional 130,000 to 180,000
acre-feet of water a year — roughly 40 billion to 60 billion
gallons — while the State Water Project could see an increase
of 120,000 to 220,000 acre-feet, or about 39 billion to 70
billion gallons.
On November 21, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
the National Marine Fisheries Service released four proposed
rules revising implementation of the Endangered Species Act.
Two proposed rules issued jointly by USFWS and NMFS relate
to (i) interagency consultation and (ii) listing/delisting of
species and designation of critical habitat. Two additional
proposed rules issued solely by USFWS relate to (iii) critical
habitat exclusions and (iv) threatened species protections.
These alterations to the ESA framework could impact local land
use and economic development priorities, advancement of public
infrastructure, and federal water project
operations.
A settlement between a desert mining company and groundwater
authority in eastern Kern County will erase $24 million in past
groundwater fees by allowing the company to use other sources,
including 2,000 acre feet of reclaimed water. In exchange
Searles Valley Minerals agreed to drop its lawsuits against the
Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and not oppose its
planned pipeline project to import water from the Antelope
Valley, according to recent press releases. Searles will,
however, continue to “actively participate” in a larger legal
action, known as an “adjudication,” in which a judge will
ultimately determine how much water can be pumped from the
Indian Wells Valley basin and who has rights to that water.
… Tijuana River pollution dates back to at least the 1930s,
when the U.S. and Mexican governments built the first
cross-border sewage plants. As Tijuana’s population soared with
its booming industry, the city’s waste outstripped its
treatment systems. … After decades of
deterioration, major improvements came online this year. The
South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, which was
barely operable, is now fully functioning and expanded its
capacity from 25 million to 35 million gallons of wastewater
per day. The project was expected to take two years, but was
completed in 100 days, according to the U.S. International
Boundary and Water Commission.
… Monterey One Water held a ribbon-cutting on Dec. 2 at its
Marina facility for a new food waste receiving and co-digestion
program that will divert up to 51,000 tons of organic food
waste from local landfills annually. … By adding a
food-waste receiving station and upgrades to existing anaerobic
digesters, Monterey One now combines food waste with wastewater
biosolids to significantly increase biogas production.
… The new infrastructure project at Monterey One Water
was made possible by a $4.2 million grant from CalRecycle.
… The Colorado River and its reservoirs are not sufficient to
meet the regional demand for water, so
groundwater has been extracted from the
aquifers. … In a recent study published in Geophysical
Research Letters, a research team used gravity data from NASA’s
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and GRACE
Follow-On to determine how much water has been withdrawn from
Colorado River Basin aquifers since 2002. … The results
indicate that the reservoirs and the aquifers have lost a
combined 52 cubic kilometers of water since 2002. The reduction
of groundwater was 65% of that total, about 34 cubic
kilometers.
Drinking water for at least one of every seven Americans –
about 49.5 million people – contains unsafe levels of “forever
chemicals,” according to new test results the Environmental
Protection Agency published in November. … USA TODAY’s
analysis of the records shows water utilities in
Anaheim and San Jose, California, and
Brownsville, Texas, have now joined the 944 systems scattered
across the country that have recently failed to meet the new
EPA standards. … The count of municipalities not meeting
these two limits is likely to grow as the EPA wraps up a
three-year initiative that required all public utilities
serving at least a few thousand customers to check for forever
chemicals in their drinking water.
Democratic state Sen. Steve Padilla is calling for public
review of a massive data center designed to power generative
artificial intelligence technology that has been proposed in
the heart of the Imperial Valley. … In a letter to
the Imperial County Board of Supervisors this week, Padilla,
whose district includes Imperial County and South San Diego
County, said the public deserved “a complete picture of the
water usage and energy demands” of the nearly 1million square
foot data center project. … The data center would
require 750,000 gallons of water per day for facility
operations. … The concerns over the Imperial Valley data
center come amid a growing fight over the growth of data
centers and how lawmakers should regulate them — in California
and elsewhere.
The U.S. House Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries Subcommittee held
a hearing on sea lion predation on salmon and the effectiveness
of killing the mammals to slow down the trend. Under the
Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), sea lions skyrocketed from
a population of roughly 10,000 in the 1950s to 250,000 today.
That spike has been seen as a success story for the MMPA, but
it’s also had a major impact on salmon populations.
… That predation has undermined the federal government’s
attempts to help salmon recover in the Pacific Northwest, which
includes tens of millions of dollars in funding every year.
A rapidly growing infestation of invasive golden mussels is
raising concerns among engineers, boaters, and water agencies
as the species spreads through the Sacramento–San Joaquin
Delta. … So far, crews have resorted to scraping pipes
by hand or using pressure-washing equipment. Some agencies are
testing ultrasonic or electronic systems that discourage marine
growth, but there is no proven long-term solution.
… Local boaters and maritime experts are raising the
alarm over the rapid spread of golden mussels in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, warning of rising maintenance
costs and potential risks to water infrastructure.
Californians can be excused for being confused about the
weather forecast. Scientists in October said La Niña had
arrived, which many associate with dry conditions, particularly
in the Southland. But we have instead experienced a very wet
season — at least so far — with rain bringing much-needed
moisture to the brush, likely putting an end to the autumn fire
season, and helping to keep the state’s reservoirs in good
shape. … But La Niña “doesn’t always mean
drought,” said meteorologist Jan Null, an adjunct
professor at San Jose State University. In fact, out of the
seven La Niñas seen over the last 15 years, three were whoppers
when it came to rain. … A healthy snowpack is
key to California’s annual water supply.
Other weather and water supply news around the West:
The Trump administration’s speedy timeline for enacting a major
Clean Water Act rule has drawn pushback from state regulators,
local governments, utilities and environmentalists, who said
they will be scrambling over the holidays to digest the
proposal. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers gave the public
45 days to comment on the proposed new “waters of the U.S.”
definition unveiled Nov. 17. … The proposal would
shrink the number of wetlands and streams regulated by
the Clean Water Act. It seeks comment on a range of
technical issues, including how “wet” wetlands and small
streams must be to qualify for the law’s protections.
The 31 national monuments designated since the Clinton
administration, which could be downsized as the Trump
administration pushes to open more public lands to extractive
industries, safeguard clean water for millions of Americans,
according to a new analysis from the Center for American
Progress. … The report found that the water supplies for more
than 13 million Americans are directly provided by watersheds
within or downstream of these national monuments. About 83
percent of the water passing through these public lands has no
other protection besides the monument designations, it found.
California’s infrastructure earned a C- grade in a new report
that highlights where improvement and resources are needed the
most. … The California Section for the American Society of
Civil Engineers released its 2025 report card for the state on
Wednesday, Dec. 3. … There are some challenges in
delivering drinking water to Californians.
Over 85% of water utilities surveyed for the report “indicated
that portions of their pipelines or facilities have exceeded
their design life,” according to the report.
… Additionally, about 103 million gallons of
water statewide were lost annually due to system
leakage based on data reported by urban retail water suppliers
from 2017 to 2020, the report cited.
The Trump administration is making good on a promise to send
more water to California farmers in the state’s crop-rich
Central Valley. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday
announced a new plan for operating the Central Valley Project.
… It follows an executive order President Donald Trump signed
in January calling for more water to flow to farmers, arguing
the state was wasting the precious resource in the name of
protecting endangered fish species. U.S. Secretary of the
Interior Doug Burgum said the plan will help the federal
government “strengthen California’s water resilience.” It takes
effect Friday.
California can still wring water out of its rivers — in theory,
and only if you’re willing to pay an increasingly steep premium
for it. Take Sites Reservoir, which could become the first new
major reservoir in California in decades. It would pull water
from the Sacramento River to fill a valley in the
coast range with enough water for roughly 3 million households,
then distribute it to the local farmers and Southern California
cities that would partly fund its construction. Sites has
serious political weight: it’s on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
priority list, has growing interest from the Trump
administration and is drawing on tens of millions in state
dollars reallocated from other now-defunct water projects.
