The Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District, which provides wastewater
service to Fairfield, Suisun City and Travis Air Force Base, is
kicking off a long-range planning initiative. The purpose of
the initiative is to “safeguard nearly $1 billion in aging
infrastructure and control future costs.” “Our goal is to plan
smarter now so we complete needed replacements and upgrades
responsibly and efficiently,” Engineering Manager Irene
O’Sullivan said in a statement. “This is about continuing safe
and reliable sewer service to our community.” Many facilities
are more than 50 years old. ”The district is investing
$2.8 million, 1.5% of its 10-year capital budget, into a series
of master plans for sewer collection, treatment, recycled
water, storm drainage and mapping systems,” the statement said.
The master plans were unveiled during a recent district board
meeting. The Fairfield and Suisun City council members sit as
the directors.
The role of water in the high-growth data center market is fast
becoming a critical factor in site selection, design, and
operations. By 2030, annual water-related capital and
operational expenditures are forecasted to reach US$797.1M,
representing a 31.4% increase from today. According to a new
report from Bluefield Research, U.S. Water for Data Centers:
Market Trends, Opportunities, and Forecasts, 2025–2030, this
surge in activity is accelerating—driven by artificial
intelligence (AI)-fueled growth, mounting local concerns over
water availability, and the tech sector’s urgent push to
safeguard operational resilience amid growing environmental
scrutiny. Hyperscale data centers, which currently represent
51.4% of total market demand, are forecasted to withdraw 150.4
billion gallons of water between 2025 and 2030. This volume is
equivalent to the annual water withdrawals of 4.6 million U.S.
households.
Much of the prized public land in the Sierras above Fresno that
was at risk of getting sold off to real estate developers as
part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” such as
Huntington Lake and Edison Lake, was taken off the bargaining
table Monday afternoon after senate officials ruled that
selling these key parcels owned by the National Forest Service
could not be voted on in its current state due to procedural
issues. But one of Fresno’s top hiking spots, with
cultural significance to local tribes – the San Joaquin River
Gorge – could still be at risk of getting auctioned
off. It is expected that the final decision will be made
before the 4th of July. … The new proposal from Sen.
Mike Lee, R-Utah, would still allow public land to be sold to
developers to create more housing, but only land held by the
Bureau of Land Management within five miles of a population
center. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that Lee couldn’t
sell off the national forest land, the Associate Press
reported, due to restrictions in the budget reconciliation
process.
A Department of Defense weather satellite program that collects
vital information for hurricane forecasts will stop
distributing data products to users Monday. The
termination of data products from the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program could lead to dangerous declines in the
quality of hurricane forecasts, meteorologists say. …
NOAA, which provides operational support for the program,
issued a termination notice Wednesday. The agency did not
provide reasons for the decision. An official for the U.S.
Space Force, which manages the program, confirmed that the
satellites and their instruments are still fully functional.
And the Defense Department will still have access to DMSP data.
But for the program’s large network of users, the data products
are going dark — and it’s still unclear why. … It’s a
constellation of weather satellites collecting a variety of
measurements used to track everything from thunderstorms to fog
to snow and ice cover. Its data products are
used by researchers around the world, including forecasters at
the National Weather Service.
Oil and gas companies are running out of options for disposing
of polluted water they generate every day, a problem for the
Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda. EPA is
offering the industry a hand by promoting reuse of that
wastewater. The effort worries environmentalists, but it could
draw crucial political allies in oil-producing states. The
agency plans to update rules for what can be done with water
that emerges from the ground during oil and gas extraction. The
goal is to allow the chemical-laden, super-salty brine to be
substantially cleaned and reused for power generation,
water-guzzling data centers and irrigating
rangeland. Reusing the water could
address a major industry challenge and help ease crippling
drought in parts of Texas and New Mexico, two of the nation’s
most prolific oil-producing states. A growing body of research
suggests that the water — which is three or more times saltier
than seawater — can now be safely treated for certain
applications, from industrial cooling to growing alfalfa and
other non-food crops, proponents say.
PFAS are everywhere. Manufacturers have been using “forever
chemicals” for their durability and resistance to heat and
water, adding them in countless everyday products for decades,
such as cell phones, laptops, medical devices, textiles and
food packaging. … California, Maine and Minnesota have
taken the strictest actions to restrict the use of
fluorochemicals, but other states are following suit. Minnesota
and others are also enacting legislation mandating
manufacturers publicly report their use of
PFAS. Manufacturing Dive is tracking the status of bills
related to PFAS oversight and use during states’ legislative
sessions in 2025 and beyond, with updates to be added over
time. Read on for the status and details of each bill.
Dams and barriers placed on Alameda Creek have prevented
migratory fish from entering their native spawning grounds for
more than 50 years, but an $80 million effort to raze the last
significant obstacles and restore trout, salmon and other fish
to their historical habitat are now underway. A PG&E gas
pipeline is the last major barrier to restoring 20 miles of
upstream spawning habitat for Chinook salmon and steelhead
trout and will be relocated and buried by a coalition that
includes the Alameda County Water District, PG&E and the
San Francisco-based nonprofit California Trout. … The
plan is to remove the concrete barrier and move the gas
pipeline 100 feet downstream and bury it 20 feet underground to
reopen the creek for migratory fish, according to California
Trout senior project manager Claire Buchanan. Construction
will need to move quickly in order to return the creek to its
natural flow by Oct. 31, ahead of the fish migration season,
Buchanan said.
A group of young Indigenous kayakers is headed to the mouth of
the Klamath River in free-flowing water after portaging around
two dams and paddling through four former dam sites. They
launched into the Klamath River headwaters two weeks ago and
are now more than halfway through a momentous 30-day journey.
So far, they’ve paddled through waves on a treacherous lake,
portaged around the two remaining dams on the river, plunged
into canyons with class 3, 4 and 5 rapids, and paddled through
four former dam sites where removal operations wrapped up last
fall. The nonprofit Rios to Rivers organized the event, which
is the first source-to-sea descent of the Klamath since dam
removal. Their Paddle Tribal Waters team aims to reach the
mouth of the river by July 11 and celebrate the removal of J.C.
Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate dams.
Caltrans got one step closer to its controversial $500 million
project to widen Highway 37, a notoriously trafficky corridor,
with an infusion of funding Thursday. But critics said the
money could be wasted as rising tides are expected to
flood the low–lying highway within decades. On
Thursday, the California Transportation Commission approved $73
million toward the plan, which calls for widening Highway 37
between Sears Point in Sonoma and Mare Island in Vallejo from
two lanes to four. Caltrans said the project will greatly
reduce congestion on a highway used by 47,000 daily. However,
the highway is also expected to be inundated by rising tides by
2050, threats that will not be addressed by the project,
Caltrans said. Instead, the agency has a separate $10 billion
plan to elevate and protect the highway in the future.
… Portions of Highway 37 “will be completely inundated
by 2050,” especially during major storms and king tides, and
there will be increased flooding leading up to that time,
Caltrans said in a statement.
State negotiators grappling with how to share the
drought-ravaged Colorado River say they could be close to
breaking free from gridlock just as the Trump administration
warns that missing a November deadline could force the federal
government to take control. Members of the Upper Colorado River
Commission — which represents Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and
Wyoming — announced Thursday that the states are weighing a new
method of sharing the waterway based on the actual flow of the
river, as opposed to projected flows and historical agreements.
… The plan — at the heart of which is a formula for declaring
how much water can be shared among the seven states each year,
based on actual flows from the preceding three years — was
proposed by the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and
Nevada. … On Thursday, he (Interior Department acting
secretary for water and science Scott Cameron) set hard
deadlines for the states to meet, warning that if a draft
agreement has not taken shape by Nov. 11, then Reclamation will
need to shift its focus to federal action.
Wholesale water rates in San Diego County — a key factor in how
much local residents and businesses pay for water — will rise
next year by less than half of what officials were predicting
last winter: 8.3% instead of 18%. But the Jan. 1 increase,
which the county water authority’s board of directors approved
Thursday after months of debate and negotiation, is still a
substantial hike that brings the cumulative two-year increase
to 23.1%. Board members said they were frustrated that they
have to ask residents and businesses to pay so much more for
water at a time when everyone is already facing higher costs
for groceries and many other things. “Am I happy about it? No,”
board Chair Nick Serrano told his colleagues Thursday. “But it
reflects a meaningful downward trend and it shows that this
authority is listening and is turning the ship.”
As wildfires grow in size and intensity, older communities are
recognizing the need to update their municipal water systems.
In Lake Tahoe, a robust water infrastructure is now considered
one of the three cornerstones of wildfire readiness, alongside
forest and fuels management and community and home
hardening. Each summer, utility companies on both sides of
the lake race to complete water system upgrades within the
limited six-month construction window. Today, the Lake Tahoe
community is leading the way in ensuring that firefighters
always have access to water. … The Tahoe Water for Fire
Suppression Partnership estimates that the Tahoe Basin will
need an additional $125 million in funding over the next five
years to upgrade its water systems.
You’ve probably come across more stories about water woes in
California than you can recall, so you may feel you’ve had
enough for a while. I understand. … But there is one
indisputable fact that keeps surfacing in the conversations I
have about California water that feels like something of a
beacon. The first time I heard it, it came as quite a surprise.
Over the last half century or so, millions more people have
moved to greater Los Angeles. … And during this same
time, Angelenos have been consuming less water. … So,
how did this happen? The answer speaks to a general truth about
progress, which, in big, messy democracies, tends to occur not
all at once but in incremental, often unsexy ways, mostly out
of the news cycle. In this case the shift has involved some
simple, practical, boring fixes, like better plumbing,
alongside larger transformations in social norms, policies and
politics.
… Climate change has exacerbated shortages, with studies
indicating that recent Colorado River flows are near their
lowest in at least 2,000 years. That has had severe
consequences for fish: Of the 49 fish species native to the
Colorado River Basin, 44 are already threatened, endangered or
extinct. … New research led by University of Washington water
policy expert Philip Womble found that a market-based approach
to managing water could provide more reliable supplies for
farmers, communities and industry. The right market design and
a little extra investment could also help threatened fish
species. The study, published June 20 in Nature
Sustainability, details a new system for leasing rights to
water from the basin while reallocating some water to imperiled
habitats. Among the paper’s most substantial findings,
researchers estimate that strategically spending 8% more than
under the cheapest water conservation program could nearly
triple the ecological benefits.
Goodbye, climate.gov, the popular online clearinghouse for
federal climate science. Hello, noaa.gov/climate, a revamped
website that deemphasizes the previous site’s content. Kim
Doster, a NOAA spokesperson, said in an email that “NOAA is
relocating all research products from Climate.gov to
NOAA.gov/climate in an effort to centralize and consolidate
resources. Future research products previously housed under
Climate.gov will be available at NOAA.gov and its affiliate
websites.” In a reader notice atop the redirected website, NOAA
said the change was to comply with President Donald Trump’s May
23 executive order titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science”
followed by a Monday memorandum from the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy about implementing the order.
“For the curious citizen, if you click on climate.gov, you get
redirected and the archived components of climate.gov are
buried,” said Craig McLean, the former assistant administrator
for research at NOAA and a Trump administration critic.
Tomorrow, June 26, the California Public Utilities Commission
was scheduled to adopt a proposed decision regarding the
Monterey Peninsula’s current water supply and forecasted demand
by 2050. And after already being rescheduled from the June
12 CPUC meeting by Commissioner Darcie Houck, who’s presiding
over the matter, on June 24 Houck pulled it from the agenda
again and rescheduled it until July 24, the CPUC’s next
meeting. … The talking points discussed were a rehashing
of Cal Am’s disagreement with the proposed decision, which
projected a 2050 water demand of 13,732 acre-feet per year—the
number Cal Am had been pushing for, and far higher than five
outside estimates—and a current water supply of 11,204
acre-feet per year, which Cal Am thinks is too high. Cal Am
officials also reiterated why they think the demand numbers are
correct. Water demand on the Peninsula last year dipped
below 9,000 acre-feet, the lowest level in decades, and the
proposed decision presumes it will increase more than 4,500
acre-feet over the next 25 years.
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court slashed federal Clean
Water Act protection of wetlands, streams, and all of our clean
water with its decision in the Sackett v. EPA case. NRDC
scientists mapped the potential impact of the Sackett decision
and found it devastating—threatening harmful repercussions for
droughts, wildfires, flooding, wildlife, and the drinking water
supply. In the absence of federal protection, the
imperative to defend our shared waters falls increasingly on
individuals, states, and Native American Tribal
Nations. NRDC is actively working to prevent any further
weakening of the Clean Water Act (which the federal U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency intends to pursue) and to
ensure the law remains a robust tool for all wetland and stream
advocates, including Indigenous Peoples. Tribal Nations protect
and manage millions of acres of wetlands in the United States,
and with commitments made by the U.S. government to Tribal
co-management and co-stewardship of federal lands, the amount
of clean water safeguarded by Tribal Nations is growing.
… As the United States grapples with an escalating water
crisis, a powerful solution is gaining momentum. Buildings can
intelligently capture, treat, and reuse their own wastewater by
leveraging advanced technology, data analytics, and automation
to optimize every step of the water reuse process. These smart
systems continuously monitor water quality and usage,
automatically adjusting treatment processes to ensure safety
and efficiency. While current regulations limit this recycled
water to non-potable applications, the reality is that water
from these systems is often treated to a level that is
scientifically safe enough to drink. This isn’t about
compromise—it’s about building smarter, managing water as a
circular resource, and using it where it’s needed most, all
within the building itself. This innovation comes at a critical
moment. Nearly 45% of the lower 48 states are currently
experiencing drought conditions, with the Southwest and Plains
regions particularly hard-hit.
It’s not uncommon nowadays to fill a glass of water from your
tap and wonder what chemicals and contaminants may be lurking
in there. That’s because research has increasingly revealed
that heavy metals, radioactive substances, and harmful PFAS
(“forever chemicals”) are present in our water
systems. … The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found
that roughly 60% of the U.S. population—about 200 million
people—are served by water systems that have the chemicals PFOA
or PFOS in their drinking water at a concentration of 1 part
per trillion or higher, which is the maximum limit for PFAS in
drinking water endorsed by the EWG. Knowing there are
chemicals in your water is one thing—but should you be worried?
And is there anything you can do to reduce your exposure?
Here’s everything you need to know, according to experts who
spoke with Fortune.
The Trump administration’s plan to repeal a rule prohibiting
logging and road construction in undeveloped parts of national
forests would strip protection from more than 4 million acres
within California’s borders. U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced on Monday that she will
act to rescind the “roadless rule,” developed during the
Clinton administration, to allow “for fire prevention and
responsible timber production” on more than 58 million acres of
national forests. … These roadless areas are considered
important for providing habitat for more than 200 threatened or
endangered species of wildlife, including owls, salmon and
frogs, and for protecting vital watersheds.
… U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat representing
Northern California coastal communities and parts of Trinity
and Six Rivers national forests, said the revision would
threaten watersheds that provide clean drinking
water, the rights of tribes and local communities, and
the power of forests to hold onto climate-warming carbon.
