Water and energy are interconnected. A frequent term to describe
this relationship is the “water-energy nexus.”
Energy for Water: Energy is needed to store water, get it where
it is needed and also treat it to be used:
* Extracting water from rivers and streams or pumping it
from aquifers, and then conveying it over hills and into storage
facilities is a highly energy intensive process. The State Water
Project (SWP) pumps water 700 miles, including up nearly 2,000
feet over the Tehachapi Mountains. The SWP is the largest single
user of energy in California. It consumes an average of 5 billion
kWh per year. That’s about 2 to 3 percent of all electricity
consumed in California
* Water treatment facilities use energy to pump and process
water for use in homes, businesses and industry
* Consumers use energy to treat water with softeners or
filters, to circulate and pressurize water and to heat and cool
water
* Wastewater plants use energy to pump wastewater to
treatment plants, and also to aerate and filter it at the plant.
Different end uses require more electricity for delivery than
others. Water for residential, commercial and industrial end-use
needs the most energy (11 percent), followed by agricultural
end-use (3 percent), residential, commercial and industrial
supply and treatment (3 percent), agricultural water supply and
treatment (1 percent) and wastewater treatment (1 percent),
according to the California Energy Commission.
Water for Energy: Water is used to generate electricity
* Water is needed either to process raw materials used in a
facility or maintaining a plant,or to just generate electricity
itself.
Overall, the electricity industry is second only to agriculture
as the largest user of water in the United States. Electricity
production from fossil fuels and nuclear energy requires 190,000
million gallons of water per day, accounting for 39 percent of
all freshwater withdrawals in the nation. Coal, the most abundant
fossil fuel, currently accounts for 52 percent of U.S.
electricity generation, and each kWh generated from coal requires
withdrawal of 25 gallons of water.
The group behind a controversial data center in Box Elder
County has filed a notice to withdraw its water rights
application, but it does not appear it will abandon the
project. In a notice sent Wednesday to the Utah State Engineer,
Bar H Ranch announced its application will “be stopped and the
application be considered withdrawn.” Utah State Engineer
Teresa Wilhelmsen’s office confirmed to FOX 13 News on Thursday
morning that she had canceled the application, ending any
review of their water rights application. It’s expected
that the company will resubmit its application at a later time.
… [M]ore than 3,800 people paid $15 and submitted formal
protests to the Utah State Engineer over a 1,900-acre-foot
water rights application for the data center.
The owners of a planned data center in Box Elder County will be
subject to a new Utah law about water reporting requirements
that coincidentally just went into effect on Wednesday. “When
it comes to this proposed project in Box Elder County, they
will have to report 90 days prior to construction what their
estimated water use would look like and then there’s annual
reporting required,” said Representative Jill Koford, the
sponsor of the bill. Koford clarified that this
legislation did not come about because of a specific data
center plan, like the one in Box Elder County that has been
drawing a lot of criticism. She said she is heavily involved in
water policy and this law was conceptualized before the last
legislative session when she and other leaders were talking
about ways to help the Great Salt Lake.
San Luis Obispo County is studying the construction of a major
seawater desalination plant along its 90-mile coastline, to
provide a drought-proof water supply for 16 partner water
agencies. One of the leading options involves pairing or
expanding the plant at or near Diablo Canyon, California’s last
operating nuclear power station. … This path carries
substantial risks. Critics contend economic pressures and
electric grid reliability concerns shouldn’t be prioritized
over public health, safety and the environment. –Written by William Simpson, executive director of the
Wild Horse Fire Brigade.
City officials shut off water access to the planned
Project Blue data centers complex and are demanding
reimbursement after discovering what they call unauthorized use
of city water at the construction site. Tucson City
Manager Timothy Thomure sent a letter to the project’s
developers Monday, stating that the city revoked a construction
water meter obtained by contractor Ames Construction, which was
using city water for “dust control purposes at the Project Blue
site” on South Houghton Road near the Pima County
Fairgrounds. The letter claims the contractor obtained the
water meter within the Tucson Water service area and
transported it out for use at the site. “This was completely
unacceptable and was terminated by Tucson Water immediately,”
the letter says.
The Box Elder County Commission [Utah] has voted unanimously
to allowa massive data center project
to move forward. The commission held a “special”
meeting Monday afternoon to decide if they’ll approve
the construction of a massive data center, a proposal
that has garnered widespread opposition in their county and
across the state. … The Box Elder County Commission,
made up of three elected commissioners, was supposed to vote on
the proposal last Monday. However, they delayed the vote after
hearing concerns about water usage,
electricity, and fears that the proposal was being
rushed toward a final decision.
… Los Alamos National Laboratory is facing its biggest
expansion since the World War II-era Manhattan Project, the
top-secret government effort to produce the world’s first
atomic weapons. The current expansion will require a colossal
use of resources, including one that New Mexico has in
short supply these days — water. Last month, the U.S.
Department of Energy projected that the Los Alamos
expansion would require around 504 million gallons of water
annually — about 1.4 million gallons of water per day — for at
least another decade. … Plans include building a new
100,000-square-foot facility dedicated solely to artificial
intelligence supercomputers, along with one or more
microreactors, a compact nuclear reactor designed to generate
small-scale power and facilities for staging nuclear waste.
Across the country, data centers are drawing backlash from
across the political spectrum as Americans raise
concerns over drained water supplies and spiking energy
costs. The recently unveiled Stratos data center in
Box Elder County, backed by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary,
shows many Utahns share the same sentiment. Days after a
crowd packed the historic courthouse in Brigham City to decry a
potential vote that would allow the project to proceed, the
Utah Division of Water Rights received a deluge of protests
over a water rights application submitted by the developer for
the project, totaling nearly 400 as of Thursday evening.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the completion of California’s
first solar-covered canal in the Central Valley [Turlock],
launching a first-of-its-kind pilot project aimed at
saving water, generating renewable energy and
reducing maintenance costs. Known as Project Nexus, the $20
million initiative places solar panels directly over irrigation
canals to test whether the approach can help California better
manage water resources while expanding clean energy
production. State officials say the project is designed to
evaluate whether covering canals with solar infrastructure can
reduce water lost to evaporation before it reaches farms, homes
and businesses.
… [T]he second-largest new data center being considered
statewide … would be less than half a mile from … the
center of Imperial Valley. If finished by 2028, as the
developer expects, the at least 950,000-square-foot, two-story
data center could be the largest operating statewide, taking up
17 football fields’ worth of land. The roughly $10
billion, 330-megawatt data center would require 750,000 gallons
of water a day to operate, said developer Sebastian Rucci, who
insists electricity and water costs won’t rise due to the data
center. … On top of the data center boom in California,
the hundreds of water districts, a deepening
Southwestern megadrought and the diminishing of the Colorado
River increasingly complicate water issues.
Utah has taken steps to rein in water use by large data centers
but conservationists and other advocates said more needs to be
done to protect the state’s dwindling water resources.
Lawmakers recently passed the Data Center Water Transparency
Amendments, which require server farm developers to provide an
estimate of future water use. The facilities often need
massive amounts of water to cool their servers,
particularly for artificial intelligence systems. … Utah
is a rapidly growing hub for data centers, featuring 48
operational facilities with more than 900 megawatts of
capacity.
California’s largest agricultural water district wants to turn
a growing water crisis into an economic pivot. The Valley Clean
Infrastructure Plan aims to repurpose tens of thousands of
acres of water‑starved farmland in California’s San Joaquin
Valley into a massive solar‑and‑battery network, producing
power for the state’s grid, lowering energy costs for farmers,
and creating a new economic lifeline as groundwater rules force
fields to fallow. … Under California’s
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley must reach sustainability by
the early 2040s — sharply limiting how much water farmers can
pump. District officials say that could force growers to fallow
hundreds of thousands of acres.
… Indigenous leaders at the United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, are wrestling with a
paradox: how to harness AI’s protective capabilities without
fueling the extractive forces they’ve resisted for
generations. A new study published by Hindou Oumarou
Ibrahim, who is Mbororo and a former chair of the permanent
forum, highlighted some of the possibilities and challenges AI
presents for environmental protection, as well as the impacts
of the technology on Indigenous territories. These include
land-grabbing, water overexploitation and land degradation due
to its high energy, water and critical mineral needs.
At the Edmonston Pumping Plant in Kern County, giant pumps lift
water from an aqueduct near the Central Valley’s floor high up
over the Tehachapi Mountains — roughly 2,000 feet — through a
series of tunnels and tanks to the Southern California cities
below. It’s part of the State Water Project, a
sprawling state-run system of pumps, canals and reservoirs that
delivers water to 27 million Californians. It’s also the single
biggest electricity user in the state. The project’s massive
energy demand makes it an early testing ground for one
of California’s most aggressive climate targets: that
state agencies must run on 100 percent renewable and
zero-carbon electricity by 2035, a full decade ahead of the
state’s broader 2045 goal.
The bones of a 193-acre data center campus in Eagle Mountain
are ready after developers placed the project’s last beam on
Friday in an event crowded by the about 2,000 construction
workers employed at the site. … One aspect of the
facilities that company executives highlighted during the event
centered around the immense need for water notorious among most
data centers. This one, they said, uses a closed-loop cooling
system that would only need to be filled once and won’t consume
any additional water for cooling systems once the project is
operational. … Data centers across the country consumed
about 2.66 trillion liters of water in 2025, according to the
research firm Mordor Intelligence, and are estimated to
increase the number to 2.97 trillion liters this year.
Oakley has become the first Bay Area city to temporarily
ban new data centers, signaling a more cautious approach
as other parts of Silicon Valley continue to line up
projects to meet rising demand for artificial
intelligence. The Oakley City Council voted
unanimously Tuesday to impose a 45-day moratorium on data
center projects, barring the city from accepting or processing
related land-use applications. … The decision follows
growing concern among residents in the eastern Contra Costa
city about the impacts of large-scale data centers,
particularly their heavy demand for electricity and
water.
There are currently no active applications for a data center in
Cochise County. Still, many residents wanted to ban the
facilities outright. On Tuesday, the county adopted a set of
data center regulations after a 3-0 vote by its supervisors.
… Its new regulations ask data center developers
to submit noise impact analyses and water use plans.
They will also require them to show they can supply power
without “adversely impacting existing users” and mostly bar
them from using potable water for cooling servers.
… Still, many county residents who spoke at the April 7
board meeting felt that a moratorium, not the regulations,
better reflected their wishes.
A nationwide expansion of controversial and resource-guzzling
artificial intelligence data centers has reached Los Angeles
County, and the wave has cities in the region grappling with
questions over their impact. In addition to data centers’
energy demands, critics highlighted concerning impacts to
water, pollutants from backup generators and data centers
creating heat islands. … Underpinning the data
center question is the amount of energy they use and the impact
on the environment as they power vast servers needed for modern
tech life. Many data centers use water for cooling. That
same size data center may consume about 40 acre-feet of water
per year, the equivalent of the water use of 120
households.
… [Khara] Boender is the senior manager of state policy for
the Data Center Coalition, the industry group that represents
data centers owners and their interests. She’s been extremely
busy in recent weeks, wading through the many, many new
proposals targeting their members. The bevy of new bills is
linked to the explosion of artificial intelligence, which has
spurred a nationwide race to build out the digital
infrastructure needed to support new AI models. And while data
centers are nothing new — they expanded in lockstep with the
growth of the internet — state officials expect them to use
huge amounts of electricity and water in
coming years. … POLITICO caught up with Boender to hear
more about why her industry is against the proposals, and its
ideas on how regulations should work.
Last year, Long Beach celebrated a deal Synergy Oil & Gas
negotiated with a regional wetlands authority in Southern
California. A former oil field, 154 acres of land in the city
of Long Beach would become public wetlands;
the company would gain a more valuable property and
environmental credits. But a state law meant to keep wells away
from homes and schools thwarted the company’s plan for more
drilling – and now the wetlands deal has become fodder for the
Trump administration’s war against California Democratic energy
policies. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to
the property, owned by Synergy Oil & Gas, on Wednesday with a
message to Gov. Gavin Newsom: state policies are increasing
costs for Californians, and the Trump administration will be
challenging them.
Attorneys for conservation and Indigenous rights groups filed
an appeal Wednesday in the effort to stop an open-pit
lithium-boron mine from being built on the only known habitat
of an endangered wildflower. … The Western Shoshone
Defense Project, who are represented in the appeal by the
Western Mining Action Project, said the mine’s water use could
also potentially dry out Cave Spring, a sacred site less than a
mile from the proposed mine quarry. According to the project’s
final environmental review, if Cave Spring is fed by
groundwater the mine could potentially decrease the amount of
water discharged from the spring.
The explosive growth in data centers is fueling concerns in
California, as well as across the country, about water and
energy use. Some have gone as far as to propose a water usage
fee on data centers. However, others argue that data center
water use is just a drop in the bucket compared to other uses
or that most data centers are moving toward less
water-intensive practices, such as reusing water in closed-loop
systems. To help us understand what we do and don’t know about
California data centers and water use, we spoke with Dr. Marie
Grimm, an environmental policy research fellow at UC Berkeley’s
Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment, about their new
report “Regulating Data Center Water Use in California.”
In Aurora, data center proposals run through a simple filter.
City officials compare total water use against how much of that
water won’t come back—lost to evaporation. If either number
gets too high, the project doesn’t move forward. When a
developer wants to build in Denver, there is no matrix. That
gap—two cities, two standards, nothing statewide connecting
them—is the center of a question Colorado has avoided
answering: who is responsible for knowing how much
water AI data centers use, and when does that become too
much? The question got harder to ignore this spring.
On March 16, Governor Jared Polis activated Phase 2 of the
state’s Drought Response Plan—the first activation in nearly
six years—after federal water managers ranked this year’s
snowpack 45th out of 46 years on record.
… [A] group of residents is gathering signatures for a
potential November 2026 ballot initiative that would block data
centers in Imperial County altogether. They’re calling it the
“Imperial County Data Center Prohibition Act.” …
[Developer Sebastian] Rucci has proposed obtaining 6
million gallons per day of reclaimed water from
Imperial and El Centro to cool a massive data center, which
would use 750,000 gallons a day. Rucci said the unused
water would be funneled into the Salton Sea to
ameliorate environmental damage there. Reclaimed water from
both cities is already channeled into the sea, though at a
lesser level of treatment, so the project would ultimately
result in less water in the sea.
City officials began weighing whether to allow data centers in
the City, with discussion focusing on the facilities’
significant demands on electricity and water infrastructure as
well as how they should be defined and regulated. The
Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee on Wednesday
received a staff presentation outlining what data centers are,
how they operate and the potential impacts they could have
if permitted locally. … Officials underscored
the scale of resources required to operate such facilities. A
10-megawatt data center can consume roughly the same amount of
electricity as 8,000 households and use water equivalent to
about 120 households annually, depending on cooling methods.
… At least 36 states now offer tax incentives to attract data
center projects. But a backlash is growing in tandem — at least
12 states have filed moratorium bills this legislative cycle to
pause new data center construction while they sort out impacts
on electric grids, water supplies and public
health. Against that backdrop, the closed-door “Data x
Power” summit in Jackson April 1-2 will convene about 50 senior
leaders from hyperscale technology companies, energy
developers, government agencies and academia to explore whether
Wyoming belongs in the conversation.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes the latest information on the state’s
changing hydrology, recent water conservation legislation and the
state’s efforts to stretch the available water supplies.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
On this first-ever Foundation water tourwe examined water issues along the 263-mile Klamath River, from its spring-fed headwaters in south-central Oregon to its redwood-lined estuary on the Pacific Ocean in California.
Running Y Resort
5500 Running Y Rd
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
This 30-minute documentary-style DVD on the history and current
state of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program includes an
overview of the geography and history of the river, historical
and current water delivery and uses, the genesis and timeline of
the 1988 lawsuit, how the settlement was reached and what was
agreed to.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this
24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson
River, and its link to the Truckee River. The map includes the
Lahontan Dam and reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming
areas in the basin. Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and
geography, the Newlands Project, land and water use within the
basin and wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant
from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan
Basin Area Office.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch map, which is
suitable for framing, explains the river’s apportionment, history
and the need to adapt its management for urban growth and
expected climate change impacts.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
The construction of Glen Canyon Dam
in 1964 created Lake Powell. Both are located in north-central
Arizona near the Utah border. Lake Powell acts as a holding tank
for outflow from the Colorado River Upper Basin States: Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power
generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of
California, Arizona, and Nevada.
Every five years the California Department of Water Resources
updates its strategic plan for managing the state’s water
resources, as required by state law.
The California Water Plan, or Bulletin 160, projects the
status and trends of the state’s water supplies and demands
under a range of future scenarios.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
The connection between water and energy is more relevant than
ever. After existing in separate realms for years, the maxim that
it takes water to produce energy and energy to produce water has
prompted a re-thinking of management strategies, including an
emphasis on renewable energy use by water agencies.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at the energy
requirements associated with water use and the means by which
state and local agencies are working to increase their knowledge
and improve the management of both resources.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed copy of Western Water examines climate change –
what’s known about it, the remaining uncertainty and what steps
water agencies are talking to prepare for its impact. Much of the
information comes from the October 2007 California Climate Change
and Water Adaptation Summit sponsored by the Water Education
Foundation and DWR and the November 2007 California Water Policy
Conference sponsored by Public Officials for Water and
Environmental Reform.
Hydropower generation is prevalent in the West, where rapidly
flowing river systems have been tapped for generations to produce
electricity. Hydropower is a clean, steady and reliable energy
source, but the damming of rivers has exacted a toll on the
environment, affecting, among other things, the migration of fish
to vestigial spawning grounds. Many of those projects are due to
be relicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The California power crisis has made international headlines. But
what is the link between water and power in California? How is
the state’s dry spell affecting its hydropower generation? How
has the electric crisis affected water users in the state? These
questions and others are addressed in this issue of Western
Water.
