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 Department of Water Resources (DWR) has released the final
version of California’s Groundwater: Bulletin 118 – Update
2025, the State’s official and most comprehensive report of
groundwater monitoring, conditions, and management across
California. The report builds upon the previous update in 2020
and contains critical information about the state’s groundwater
supplies from 2020 to 2024, a period marked by record-setting
dry and wet weather events and increasing ambient temperatures.
It shows considerable progress made by California and local
agencies towards reaching the goals of groundwater
sustainability outlined in the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA).
Residents of Scotia were under a boil water advisory for six
days after turbidity spiked in the water treatment system. The
advisory was lifted Tuesday after operator efforts to flush the
system resulted in tests coming back within regulatory limits —
but structural problems with old water infrastructure remain.
The state water board is pushing for the district to get
funding for infrastructure replacement. The state Water Board,
which regulates drinking water, got involved Wednesday when the
Scotia Community Services District (SCSD) reported a turbidity
of 16 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) measured at the plant.
This is about 50 times above the state’s standard of 0.3 or
below.
Recent court rulings on tiered water rates are creating
confusion and uncertainty at water agencies across California —
including in San Diego, where one of the rulings will mean rate
hikes for most single-family homes. The confusion stems
from conflicting rulings by separate California appellate
courts last year on tiered rates, which aim to reward
conservation by charging heavy water users more per gallon than
people who use less. San Diego’s use of tiered rates was ruled
unconstitutional last April by the Fourth District Court of
Appeal, forcing the city to abandon tiers and then hike rates
by roughly $6 a month for about 150,000 single-family homes.
But tiered rates in Los Angeles were vindicated in December by
the Second District Court of Appeal.
Senior leaders and project delivery team members with the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers joined key partners for a meeting and
site tour of the Salton Sea Feb. 22-23 in Imperial County. The
interagency teams met to discuss updates on the Imperial
Streams and Salton Sea Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration
Feasibility Study and provide leaders with a deeper familiarity
with the issues surrounding the Salton Sea. USACE Los Angeles
District and its partners—the California Department of Water
Resources and Salton Sea Authority—signed a cost-share
agreement in December 2022 for the feasibility study, aimed at
identifying potential ecosystem, flood-risk management, or
other land- and water-resource projects and actions for the
long-term restoration of the sea.
Tribal leaders and U.S. senators spoke out in support of a
measure that would solidify access to water for three tribes
with land in Arizona during a Wednesday hearing at the Senate
Indian Affairs Committee. The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water
Rights Settlement, or NAIWRSA, would settle claims to water by
the Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes, and
provide $5 billion to build new water delivery systems
and help the tribes access their water. The settlement
would need to be authorized by congress to go into effect. At
Wednesday’s Senate committee hearing, impassioned pleas to
bring water to tribal communities ran up against federal
concerns about the cost of a settlement, and talks of
hesitation from some states that use the Colorado
River.
… An “extraordinary and prolonged March heatwave,” was how
Daniel Swain, University of California climate scientist,
described the days ahead. It will “break records and decimate
mountain snowpack across the U.S. Southwest, including much of
California.” … Karla Nemeth, director of the California
Department of Water Resources, said warm temperatures and
below-average snowpack — statewide snow water content
is around 53% of the normal for this time of year —
are creating challenges. … “For public safety reasons,
we have to release much of it to make space for flood control.
That means we forgo having stored that water for release later
in the summer, when rivers and streams run lower and warmer,”
Nemeth said.
Other snowpack and weather forecast news around the West:
In a direct response to the persistent water crisis gripping
the American West, Rep. Raul Ruiz (CA-25) joined a coalition of
California lawmakers this week to introduce the Drought Relief
Obtained Using Government Help Today (DROUGHT) Act. … The
bill, led by Reps. Scott Peters (CA-50) and John Garamendi
(CA-08), would adjust the funding limits for the Water
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA). Under
current law, the federal government cannot cover more than 80%
of a project’s cost. The DROUGHT Act would raise that cap to
90% for projects in areas facing extreme drought or serving
historically disadvantaged communities.
Two bills in the Arizona Legislature would let groundwater from
western Arizona be sold to cities like Phoenix, drawing
criticism from local leaders who warn it could harm rural
communities House Bills 2757 and 2758 would affect groundwater
in McMullen Valley and Butler Valley in western Arizona.
Investment group Water Asset Management owns thousands of acres
of farmland in both areas and could profit by moving and
selling groundwater from the aquifer under those lands,
according to critics of the bills. … Rep. Gail Griffin,
a sponsor of the legislation, said looming Colorado River cuts
are driving the need for the bills.
… Excess nitrogen from dairies turns into excess nitrate in
the soil, spilling into waterways, seeping into groundwater and
contributing to widespread contamination of drinking water in
the Central Valley. In some counties there, 40 percent of
drinking wells are above the safe limit established by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, posing health risks like
miscarriages and infant mortality. In the next two months, the
State Water Board says it will release a long overdue draft
order that will chart a course to fix that. A first draft
of the board’s thinking came in October 2024, when it proposed
a new framework requiring that Central Valley dairies comply
with a nitrate drinking water standard of 10 milligrams per
liter.
El Niño, the seasonal climate pattern that brings a cascade of
global weather impacts, is emerging in the Pacific Ocean,
according to new data. There is a 62% chance that El Niño
conditions will begin between June and August and last at least
through the end of the year, the National Weather Service’s
Climate Prediction Center reported on Thursday. … In
general terms, El Niño signals a wet winter for California,
especially the southern part. But experts cautioned that may
not always be true. “Even if a Niño is born in summer, there’s
no guarantee that California will get a wet winter,” Alexander
Gershunov, a research meteorologist at Scripps Institution of
Oceanography at UC San Diego, wrote.
For a century, the Colorado River has been managed in pieces.
Legally and politically, it’s divided into two basins, with
each state and community focused on securing its respective
water supply. But that is not how a river functions. The
Colorado River is an interconnected system, sustained by Rocky
Mountain snowpack, rainfall and groundwater. It is fragile, and
under increasing stress. Two and a half decades into this
century, the river that built the modern West has 20% less
water flowing through it than it did on average in the last
century. As heat and drought intensify, so do the stakes.
Authorities charged with cleaning up Tijuana River pollution
should finish upgrades to wastewater plants on both sides of
the border, fund operations as well as construction of those
facilities, and plan for eventual wastewater reuse, a report
issued today recommended. Those are some key suggestions of the
report “Tijuana River Contamination Crisis: A Five-Pillar
Framework for Binational Solutions,” released today by the San
Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Prebys Foundation.
… The report offers an overview of how the cross-border
river became one of the most polluted waterways in the country,
recent efforts to fix that, and what’s still needed to clean it
up.
Wildlife officials are just weeks away from turning the water
on at the Lake Mead Fish Hatchery, a facility that had to
abandon raising trout as water levels dropped at the nation’s
largest reservoir. Now, the hatchery is refitted to bolster
numbers of two endangered fish native in the Colorado River —
the “rarest of the rare” bonytail chub, and the razorback
sucker. … When water levels plummeted in 2022, the pipe
that supplied water to the hatchery went dry, but problems at
the hatchery started long before that. … In early 2007, an
invasive species that spreads quickly and damages natural
habitats was found in Lake Mead and lower areas of the Colorado
River. That meant trout from the hatchery couldn’t be stocked
anywhere outside those areas to eliminate the risk of
introducing quagga mussels.
The International Energy Agency’s executive director has called
hydropower a “forgotten giant,” and has urged governments to do
more to remember it. U.S. President Donald Trump has said
hydropower is “fantastic,” a sharp contrast to his disdain for
wind and solar. But federal energy data shows that U.S.
hydropower output has been nearly flat while other sources are
growing. Last year, electricity generation from hydroelectric
dams was up 1.7 percent from the prior year, according to the
Energy Information Administration. … [Climate change] leads
to alterations in water flow patterns. While some regions, such
as the Colorado River Basin, have seen low water levels and
reduced hydropower, others have been steadier.
Following hours of public testimony and discussion, the Oakley
City Council voted 4-1 on Tuesday to approve a controversial
industrial project that will convert vineyards into a logistics
hub, though the plan no longer includes data centers. The
developer removed that possibility from the project’s
application before the council’s final vote around midnight.
… During Tuesday’s meeting, residents packed the
council’s chambers to express their concerns about the
environmental impact of the project on their community and
nearby ecosystems. The most pressing objections centered on the
enormous water and electricity demands of the
potential data centers.
An otherwise dismal snow year in Colorado has one clear upside:
At least the snow that has fallen on the state isn’t dusty.
Each year, storms pick up dust from across the Southwest and
drop it on Colorado’s mountain snowpack, where it can hasten
melting. Earlier snowmelt has ripple effects on water supplies,
forecasts, irrigators and ecosystems. … Dark dust layers
on the snow’s surface absorb more solar radiation, which causes
the snow to melt faster and earlier in the season. When that
happens, it changes how plants use water. They send more
moisture into the air, which reduces the amount of water
entering streams and rivers, according to researchers.
The Delta-Mendota subbasin, one of the largest in
California, will likely avoid state enforcement. Staff
from the state Water Resources Control Board issued an
assessment March 2 that recommends the basin, which stretches
over 765,000 acres across six counties, return to the oversight
of the Department of Water Resources (DWR). The state
Water Board will consider the recommendation at its April 7
board meeting. … In its assessment, Water Board staff
determined that Delta-Mendota’s 2024 revised Groundwater
Sustainability Plan made significant progress resolving
deficiencies that sent the basin into the state’s intervention
process in 2023 per the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA).
The city of Chandler is expanding its well system with the help
of a $1 million federal grant. City leaders say it will help
them diversify their water portfolio as the Colorado
River gets less reliable. Arizona water leaders have
stressed the need for resilient water systems that draw from
multiple sources. Those calls have come into focus in recent
months, as proposed federal plans for managing the Colorado
River could deal significant cutbacks to Arizona’s share of
Colorado River water. Water leaders said those cuts would be
“devastating.” … [C]ity leaders around the Valley made
the case that water reductions could harm the growing
technological manufacturing industry in Arizona.
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is meeting to focus on
tribal water rights, including a bill to settle a long-running
dispute in Arizona. At an oversight hearing and legislative
hearing on Wednesday afternoon, the committee will take
testimony about tribal water rights in general. The Department
of the Interior is sending an official to discuss the policy of
President Donald Trump and his administration. The committee is
also taking testimony on S.953, the Northeastern Arizona Indian
Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025. The bipartisan bill
settles the water rights of the Hopi Tribe, the Navajo
Nation and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe in the Colorado
River basin in northeastern Arizona.
… State records show that Stanislaus County has about 20,000
water wells, with nearly half used domestically. Those wells
are more likely than not to contain unsafe drinking water,
according to test results reviewed by The Bee. They tend to be
shallow and therefore more prone to surface contaminants like
pesticide residue, heavy metals and nitrate contamination from
fertilizer, dairies or septic tanks. Domestic wells are a blind
spot for water quality data since the state does not regulate
private wells. It’s only through voluntary programs like the
Valley Water Collaborative that data on these wells are
gathered. … [E]ven if nitrate stopped percolating into the
shallow aquifers in the county today, it may take 50 years to
get back to normal.
