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Aquafornia
Water news you need to know

A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation Writer Matt Jenkins.

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Aquafornia news Action News Now (Chico, Calif.)

Chico council to continue sewer rate hearing amid business concerns, discusses oversight in Chico Police ALPR audit

The Chico City Council discussed protests over a sewer rate hike and a third-party review of the Chico Police Department’s audit of its automated license plate reader program at its meeting Tuesday night. The Chico City Council began a public hearing on recently approved sewer rate hikes. … The council decided to continue the hearing on November 17th after the city received protest letters from property owners. The protest letters are part of the Proposition 218 process, which limits local governments from increasing property-related fees without specific taxpayer consent or voter approval. … The city council approved the rate increase in June. It amounts to, on average, more than a 160-percent rate increase over the next 5 years.

Other Prop. 218 news:

Aquafornia news Los Banos Enterprise (Calif.)

The ground is sinking in parts of Merced County. Here’s what’s causing it

Parts of Merced County have slowly sunk over time because large amounts of groundwater have been pumped from beneath the San Joaquin Valley, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. One of the most heavily affected areas is near El Nido, south of Merced. USGS has mapped a large sinking area covering about 1,200 square miles. The area stretches roughly from Merced to Mendota and from Los Banos to Madera. … USGS researchers found significant sinking near El Nido between 2007 and 2014. At the fastest point measured during that study period, the ground near El Nido was sinking at about 270 millimeters per year.

Other groundwater news:

Aquafornia news Carmichael Times (Calif.)

Carmichael Water District selects new general manager

The Carmichael Water District (CWD) Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Pablo Arroyave as the district’s new general manager. Arroyave will lead the public agency responsible for providing water to Carmichael residents and oversee its operations, workforce, finances and customer service. … Arroyave joins CWD from the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, where he has served as chief operating officer since 2019. … Arroyave previously held senior leadership positions with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, including acting regional director and deputy regional director for the Mid-Pacific Region. 

Other water leadership news:

Aquafornia news Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)

Tucson long-term water supply in ‘danger’ without cleanup

Tucson’s long-term water supply “is in significant danger” if PFAS contamination of the city’s central wellfield isn’t addressed, City Manager Tim Thomure says. He made the statement Tuesday in a pitch to the City Council to approve what he said is a first step toward launching a cleanup: the proposed agreement between the city and a private, nonprofit group of Air Force veterans, which sources previously told the Star would result in the Air Force helping to pay to start PFAS cleanup. … In the past 20 years, the city has stopped using most of those [contaminated] wells in favor of the renewable CAP water delivered from the Colorado River. But with CAP supplies jeopardized for the long-term due to river flow declines, city officials may need to rely on city groundwater supplies to some extent instead.

Aquafornia news Courthouse News Service

Forest Service claims no authority over public land degradation caused by private wells

A federal judge appears split on a bid to stop the expansion of a pit mine in eastern Arizona that has reduced the flow of a nearby creek by more than 90% in the last decade. The Pinto Valley Mine uses more than 5 trillion gallons of water per year, extracting copper from the Tonto National Forest east of Miami, Arizona, and consequently reducing subflow of Pinto Creek, home to at least two species of endangered birds. Because the mine extracts most of its water from privately owned wells on private land outside Forest Service jurisdiction, the government claims it has no authority to limit how much water the mine can pump. In a Phoenix courtroom Tuesday afternoon, Thomas Delehanty said the federal government can and should regulate activity on private land if the result of that activity materially harms conditions on nearby public land.

Aquafornia news The Guardian

Go with the flow: do you need to filter US tap water?

Americans have a lot of questions about their drinking water. How is it treated? What’s in it? Most importantly, is it safe? “I’ve even been out to eat where people overhear me talking about my work and come over to ask me a question about their tap water,” said Kimberly Parker, an environmental engineer who studies chemical contaminants in drinking water at Washington University in St Louis. Most Americans have access to municipal water, which “tends to be really well treated” and largely safe to drink, said Parker. Across the US, water is monitored for contamination via centralized infrastructure at federal and state levels. In Parker’s experience, “many environmental engineers choose not to use filtered water” because of their informed confidence in the safety of tap water, she said.

Aquafornia news The Colorado Sun (Denver)

Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Colorado River officials support more emergency releases from Wyoming reservoir to prop up Lake Powell

Officials in the Upper Colorado River Basin plan to continue draining Flaming Gorge in Wyoming to protect Lake Powell, one of the basin’s largest reservoirs. The Colorado River Basin, which extends from Colorado to California and northern Mexico, uses a network of reservoirs to store vital water supplies for cities, farms, recreation, the environment and millions of people. But the basin’s overall storage has dropped to a third of its capacity, officials said during an Upper Colorado River Basin meeting Monday. Lake Powell holds about 22% of its total capacity. Since April, the Bureau of Reclamation has released about 450,000 acre-feet of water to help boost storage in Lake Powell. Colorado and other Upper Basin state officials agreed Monday that those releases should continue through April. 

Other Colorado River management news:

Aquafornia news The Sacramento Bee (Calif.)

El Niño-born ‘Kelvin waves’ are sneaking towards California. What to know

… [S]omething unusual is sliding up the west coast of Mexico right now, and it is aimed squarely at California. A mass of warm, elevated ocean water hundreds of miles long is moving north at roughly 6 mph — about the pace of a jogger — and currently less than 350 miles from Southern California’s beaches. … For Sacramento and the Delta region, the connection is closer than it looks on a map. The Delta is tidal, and in early fall — when river flows are near an annual low — the ocean’s twice-daily pulse reaches all the way up the Sacramento River to downtown. A higher ocean at the Golden Gate Bridge also translates into a smaller but measurable lift in water levels through the Delta’s leveed margins upstream. It also shifts the balance in the ongoing tug-of-war between river outflow and salty bay water pushing inland.

Other El Niño news:

Aquafornia news SJV Water (Bakersfield, Calif.)

Knives are out for nascent groundwater agency struggling to govern its own “dead men walking” in Tulare County

The Tule East Groundwater Sustainability Agency in southern Tulare County just can’t seem to put a foot right. The state is bearing down, demanding an end to overpumping that has sunk huge swaths of land – taking the critical Friant-Kern Canal with it. Surrounding farmers and water managers want action and they want it now. Tule East directors and staff are still dotting the “i”s to create a legitimate governing agency. Meanwhile, Tule East farmers have apparently abandoned all restraint and are “pumping like it’s the wild west.” The situation is a mess, according to someone familiar with the process and the players who agreed to talk with SJV Water.  

Other groundwater news:

Aquafornia news The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Byron Sher, veteran lawmaker who wrote many of California’s landmark environmental laws, dies at 98

Byron Sher, a collegial Stanford University law professor who ran for Palo Alto City Council in the 1960s after losing a battle over the widening of a local street, then rose to the state Legislature, writing many of California’s landmark environmental laws over three decades, has died. … Over a career that stretched from 1980 to 1996 in the state Assembly, and from 1996 to 2004 in the state Senate, Sher passed dozens of groundbreaking bills that made California a national leader in environmental policy. Among them are the California Clean Air Act in 1987, the state’s Safe Drinking Water Act in 1989, and a complex deal with former Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 1999 to preserve thousands of acres of old-growth redwoods at Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County.

Related:

Aquafornia news DW (Germany)

Iran and US: Two countries and the pistachio between them

Hand-width cracks crisscross Armin’s pistachio orchard in southeastern Iran, damaging irrigation pipes and swallowing precious water as the ground beneath him sinks. … The region has long covered much of the world’s demand for pistachios, but a combination of drought and groundwater extraction for irrigation has made Rafsanjan one of the fastest-sinking areas in Iran. One study found parts of the ground are dropping by up to 37 centimeters (14 inches) annually. And that is impacting production. It’s a similar picture in California, where some pistachio farmers are also seeing their ground sink. … The link between growers in the two countries goes back to the 1960s when US famers started building a pistachio industry. They did it using an Iranian variety.

Other water and agriculture news:

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix)

Residents push back on ‘grave danger’ from proposed mining and pipelines around San Pedro River

In a rugged, sparsely populated patch of Arizona, there’s a fragile system of rivers and creeks that cuts through the desert. The San Pedro River and its tributaries, locals and environmentalists say, are a unique gem. Now, they’re sounding the alarm about a number of potential threats to its water and surrounding ecosystems. Residents are pushing back on a number of proposed developments, including two mining projects, a natural gas pipeline and a petroleum pipeline. Organizers say they could harm the San Pedro, one of the last undammed, free-flowing rivers in the Southwest, and the Aravaipa Canyon area, a striking section of wilderness that attracts tourists from around the state. Melissa Crytzer Fry, chair of the board of directors for the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance, said new mining activity could pose a “grave danger” by leading to over-pumping of groundwater.

Other water and mining news:

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix)

Arizona lawmakers to invest in water reuse research for semiconductor manufacturing

Members of Arizona’s congressional delegation on Monday announced a $2 million investment into water reuse research for semiconductor manufacturing. The federal funding will go to Arizona State University to “develop, test, and demonstrate innovative water reuse technologies.” The announcement comes from Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, along with Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari and Congressman Greg Stanton. The project will test out various water treatment technologies at ASU’s MacroTechnology Works facility in Tempe. Researchers will measure each technology’s water savings, cost reductions and any operational benefits. The data can inform what works best for water conservation.

Other water recycling news:

Aquafornia news KJZZ (Phoenix)

Hualapai Tribe enacts moratorium to halt ‘irresponsible development of hyperscale data centers’

Municipalities across the Grand Canyon State are raising concern over the rapid rise of data centers, especially when it comes to water consumption in the drought-stricken Southwest. But an Arizona tribe that shares a 108-mile border with the Colorado River has enacted a moratorium on its nearly 1 million-acre reservation. The Hualapai Tribal Council in northern Arizona recently passed a resolution opposing “the irresponsible development of hyperscale data centers.” Such facilities powering AI, they say, pose “a direct and severe threat to the tribe’s sacred water, lands, environment and way of life.” … According to the city’s project FAQ webpage, Page has not committed any municipal water source to the pending data center — adding that rumors about drawing from Lake Powell remain “speculative at this time.”

Other data center water use news:

Aquafornia news National Fisherman

More than $100 million in habitat funding targets key US fisheries

NOAA Fisheries is directing $103 million toward habitat restoration projects across the country, with several of the largest awards aimed at improving habitat for commercially important salmon, shrimp, oysters, and other species. … A significant portion of the funding will go toward salmon habitat and fish passage projects. … California projects include $5.4 million for California Trout to reconnect floodplain habitat for coho salmon in the Klamath River. The California Department of Water Resources will receive $8 million for fish passage work benefiting salmon and sturgeon. Farther north, NOAA awarded $6.1 million to The Freshwater Trust for salmon and steelhead habitat restoration in Oregon’s Sandy River Basin.

Other fishery news:

Aquafornia news KPBS (San Diego)

Report: Tijuana River is chronically polluted with sewage, chemicals

E. coli levels in the Tijuana River watershed are often 30,000 times higher than the federal standard for freshwater bodies, according to a new report San Diego Coastkeeper released last week. And chemicals researchers said they can’t find thresholds for because they’re not expected to be found in water are also being detected in the binational river. … Coastkeeper’s findings come ahead of what could be another public health report on the Tijuana River crisis. San Diego County announced last week that it’s launching a second survey with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). … CDC and county volunteers conducting the survey are expected to select households randomly Sept. 17 and 18 between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Other Tijuana River news:

Aquafornia news The Center Square

Millions in bond money going to Calif. Water Project if this bill becomes law

Approximately $158.2 million of bond money approved in 2024 will pay for projects in the State Water Project and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta levees, according to an announcement from state Sen. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton. The money was approved as part of the budget bill Assembly Bill 113, which passed the legislature in August and is on the governor’s desk. According to McNerney’s office, the funding comes from Proposition 4, which California voters passed in 2024. … Part of that money, $90.2 million, will go to paying for fortification of the Delta’s aging levees, while $68 million will pay for the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct and canals. … According to a 2025 report from the California Department of Water Resources, the State Water Project has suffered from underinvestment and deterioration.

Aquafornia news NBC Bay Area (San Jose, Calif.)

Less grass, more bark coming to city parks across California

People visiting parks in San Jose and other cities across California will soon see less grass and more bark as part of an effort to save water. Cities are making the move to the more brown look in order to comply with Assembly Bill 1572, which goes into effect January 1, 2027. “Basically it says cities generally cannot use potable or drinking water to irrigate grass that does not serve a recreational, community or public use function,” said Ed Bautista with San Jose Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services. In San Jose, sections of non-functional turf at about 50 city parks will be replaced with tanbark or mulch. ”We’re turning off the irrigation in areas that are on the periphery of parks, that are not really recreation areas that are used for sports or designated picnic areas,” Bautista said.

Aquafornia news Colorado State University

Blog: New CSU tool predicts streamflow in Colorado’s thousands of unmonitored streams

Stand beside almost any mountain creek in Colorado, and there’s a good chance no one has ever measured how much water is flowing past your boots. Of the thousands of small headwater streams that lace the state’s high country, feeding its rivers, irrigating its farms, and sustaining fish and wildlife, only a small fraction has a streamflow gauge. For the rest, knowing whether a stream is running high, low, or somewhere in between has traditionally meant a trip into the field and an educated guess.  Researchers in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, ESS, have built a new tool designed to close that gap. CSUFlow25, a free, publicly available web application, lets anyone drop a pin on a Colorado stream and get a statistically modeled estimate of how that stream flows across the year, no gauge or field visit required. 

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Monday Top of the Scroll: California tribes sign historic agreement to save Clear Lake fish

As Clear Lake, which sits in Lake County, north of Napa, faces mercury contamination, toxic algal blooms and predatory invasive fish, the Clear Lake hitch — known by local tribes as the chi — are in serious trouble. Another fish unique to the watershed, the Clear Lake splittail, is already extinct. After years of advocacy and on-the-ground work to save the fish, the seven tribes around the lake signed an agreement with state agencies and local governments Friday to formally co-manage the troubled body of water. Nearly two centuries after Europeans took over these lands, it’s a literal watershed: the first agreement governing a watershed since the state launched an initiative to bring 7% of California’s lands and waters under the care of tribes. The tribes hope it will turn their ad hoc emergency work — which has coincided with an increase of chi in the lake — into a lasting strategy to protect the fish.

Other watershed and habitat restoration news: