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 Director Vik Jolly.
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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 points and counterpoints are in: Colorado’s water
heavyweights have laid out their arguments about the future of
a powerful Colorado River water right ahead of a state hearing
in mid-September. A Western Slope coalition led by the
Colorado River District and Front Range groups — Aurora Water,
Colorado Springs Utilities, Denver Water and Northern Water —
are debating a potential change to water rights tied to the
Shoshone Power Plant in Glenwood Canyon. The influential water
rights, owned by an Xcel Energy subsidiary, impact how water
flows across the state.
For more than two decades, satellites have tracked the total
amounts of water held in glaciers, ice sheets, lakes, rivers,
soil and the world’s vast natural reservoirs underground —
aquifers. An extensive global analysis of that data now reveals
fresh water is rapidly disappearing beneath much of humanity’s
feet. … Scientists are seeing “mega-drying”
regions that are immense and expanding — one stretching from
the western United States through Mexico to
Central America. … There are two primary causes of the
desiccation: rising temperatures unleashed by using oil and
gas, and widespread overpumping of water that took millennia to
accumulate underground.
The state is poised to spend a little more than $7 million to
get the fish hatchery near Kernville back up and running in
order to protect the endemic Kern River rainbow trout. The plan
is to find pure Kern River rainbow DNA to start a broodstock at
the hatchery and stock only those fish in the upper reaches of
the north fork of the river. Somewhere above Fairview Dam,
about 16 miles upriver from Kernville. … The hatchery has
been deemed vital to the maintenance of the species, already
listed as “of concern” by CDFW and the U.S. Forest Service.
… The leafy greens and other produce grown in the Salinas
Valley need lots of fertilizer, but that demand plus the fact
that most of these crops have shallow roots, means it’s easy
for extra nitrogen to get into the groundwater here. It
dissolves in water and sinks below the roots, eventually
reaching the aquifer. And once it’s there, nitrate—which is the
form of nitrogen most fertilizers take—is hard to remove.
… That’s part of the challenge for the Central Coast,
where over 14,000 people rely on water with dangerous levels of
nitrates that can elevate risks of cancers, thyroid problems
and blue baby syndrome.
The California State Senate today voted unanimously to confirm
new terms for current State Water Resources Control Board Chair
E. Joaquin Esquivel and Board Member Nichole Morgan. Gov. Gavin
Newsom on Jan. 6, 2025, re-appointed Esquivel and Morgan to
serve on the State Water Board for another four years. The
five-member board is responsible for protecting all water
quality and water supplies in California, including drinking
water.
Last week the Department of Agriculture advanced plans to
rollback the roadless area conservation rule. … The rule was
intended to mitigate negative impacts from road construction
and usage on forests and watersheds. Now
environmental groups across the nation, including here in
Humboldt County, are rallying to stop the rule from being
rescinded. … “[A]bout 354 municipal water districts that get
their water from national forest systems … and new road
construction would contribute more sedimentation and
decreased water quality within those 354 municipal
water districts,” said Josefina Barrantes, the 30X30
Coordinator for EPIC. The rollback would affect 4 million acres
of national forests in California.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced plans to prepare an
environmental impact statement for proposed “North-to-South
Water Transfers” in California. The intent is to evaluate the
potential effects of annual water transfers starting as soon as
2028. These transfers would move water from Northern California
sellers to buyers in the south and the San Francisco Bay Area.
According to Reclamation, the transfers aim to meet existing
water demands without creating new ones.
… The Imperial Irrigation District, which delivers water to
farmers in southeastern California, adopted a resolution
endorsing the proposed Delta Conveyance Project on Tuesday,
despite not anticipating getting any of the project’s water
because of its sole reliance on the Colorado River. Instead,
the resolution says the district will benefit indirectly from
the project because it could relieve pressure on the Colorado
River from other California water agencies that can tap more
into Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
instead.
… [S]everal wildlife agencies have emphasized late-summer
programs that pay farmers to convert fallow and
recently-harvested farmland into shallow-water habitat for the
dwindling shorebird species that migrate along the Pacific
Flyway through the Central Valley in July, August and
September. Through a farmland program run through BirdReturns —
a partnership among the Nature Conservancy, Audubon California
and Point Blue Conservation Science — stakeholders have
emphasized the late-summer time frame and shorebirds, which
migrate as early as July, months before other species and the
majority of birds trek to their winter homes.
The Imperial Irrigation District (IID) officially declared a
local emergency at its regular meeting on Sept. 2, in response
to the catastrophic August 2025 Monsoon Storms that battered
its service territory in Imperial and Riverside counties. The
IID Board of Directors ratified the emergency proclamation
initially issued by Power Manager Matthew Smelser on Aug. 24,
acknowledging the extreme peril to public safety and property.
… Water Manager Mike Pacheco reported damage to the
Highline Canal, saying most of the destruction was in the
northwestern part of the valley along the Trifolium Canal to
the Elmore Desert Ranch.
As the US wrestles with how to deal with widespread PFAS
pollution in drinking water supplies, most utilities are
lacking advanced filtration systems that could protect public
health from not just PFAS but an array of harmful contaminants,
according to a new study. Small, rural communities are the
least likely to have the advanced systems in place, the study
notes. Among the contaminants that the advanced systems can
reduce are the water disinfectant byproducts trihalomethanes
and haloacetic acid, according to the study from the
Environmental Working Group (EWG), which was published Thursday
in the journal ACS ES&T Water. Both byproducts are
considered potential carcinogens.
More than one in four U.S. homes—amounting to $12.7 trillion in
real estate—faces at least one type of “severe or extreme
climate risk,” like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires,
according to a Realtor.com Climate Risk Report. The report
by economist Jiayi Xu details how these mounting climate
threats are reshaping housing markets, creating major financial
burdens for homeowners, and driving up the cost and complexity
of insurance nationwide.
The public is invited to comment on new state subsidence
guidelines at three workshops next week. The Department of
Water Resources is holding meetings on Sept. 9 in Clovis, Sept.
10 in Delano and Sept. 11 in Willows. The workshops are focused
solely on collecting feedback on a recently released draft
document that supports one of the goals of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act — avoiding or minimizing subsidence,
land sinking. The document outlines fundamental concepts
of subsidence and explains what practices local groundwater
agencies should use in their groundwater sustainability plans
to halt or minimize subsidence.
Over the holiday weekend, many people looking to cool off from
the summer heat were disappointed as some beaches were closed
or authorities advised against swimming because of unsafe
levels of bacteria. The advisories and closures popped up
across the East Coast, from Florida to Maine, along inland
streams and rivers, and throughout the California coast. The
culprit: fecal contamination detected in the water that
presents a risk of illness. … Experts told USA TODAY
that stormwater runoff and sewage overflows were among the most
likely causes, both of which are exacerbated by heavy rains,
flooding and warming temperatures.
Dozens of the world’s leading climate researchers on Tuesday
publicly rebuked a hastily assembled report from the Trump
administration that questions the severity of global warming —
marking one of the strongest repudiations yet of the
president’s efforts to downplay climate change. In a withering
459-page document, more than 85 scientists denounced the
Department of Energy‘s July report as biased, error-ridden and
unfit for guiding policy.
California Biodiversity Day is a time to celebrate our state’s
remarkable nature while encouraging actions to protect and
steward it for future generations. … During the week of Sept.
6-14, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife,
California State Parks, the California Academy of Sciences and
numerous other partner organizations will be hosting more than
200 events statewide to celebrate California Biodiversity Day.
From webinars to restoration projects to bioblitzes, there are
a variety of virtual and in-person events being offered.
The Water Technology Education program at Palomar College is
receiving a little help from its friends on the national level
to support water technician and training programs at the
college. The college announced Wednesday that it received a
$471,000 Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant from the
National Science Foundation (NSF), which will go towards its
Tomorrow’s Water Technicians Project over the next three years.
The project aims to develop and test new approaches related to
water technician education and training.
California’s biggest irrigation district is throwing its
support behind a controversial water diversion project that
aims to help relieve the Golden State’s historic battle with
drought but also faces widespread local opposition. The
Imperial Irrigation District — the biggest district not only in
California, but also the nation — declared on Tuesday that it
was issuing “a significant and unusual endorsement” for the
state’s proposed Delta Conveyance Project.
… Although Imperial County is the only county in
Southern California that does not receive State Water Project
water, as it draws exclusively from the Colorado River, the
district adopted a resolution this week stressing the
importance of the proposed plans.
In late July, PG&E officially submitted its plans to tear
down the Potter Valley Project, a century-old piece of
water infrastructure built to siphon flows from the Eel River
into the Russian River. The utility’s pending abandonment
of the project has led to fierce debates over agriculture,
tourism and healthy river ecosystems. … Yet as California
enters the height of its now never-ending fire season, one more
consequence of letting the Eel River run free looms: the
seasonal drying of the Russian River and the dissolution of
Lake Pillsbury, two water sources that fire chiefs in the
region have argued are crucial for wildfire-fighting efforts.
Lawyers for the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency
(GSA) recently fired a fusillade of legal arguments against
Friant Water Authority’s contention that the GSA shorted its
obligation to help pay for repairs to the sinking
Friant-Kern Canal. … Friant says Eastern Tule was
supposed to charge its landowners enough in pumping fees to
both pay Friant a minimum of $200 million and
disincentivize excessive pumping, which is what sank the canal
in the first place. But after four years, Friant collected only
$23 million because of what it says were Eastern Tule’s lenient
use of groundwater credits.
