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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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.
Lawmakers this week made good on a year-old promise, passing a
bill to narrow a controversial exemption from California’s
environmental review law. The proposal passed both houses of
the Legislature and now goes to the governor’s
desk. Senate Bill 954 follows through on a pledge state
legislative leaders made last year, when Gov. Gavin Newsom
threatened to withhold approval of a $300 billion spending plan
unless lawmakers passed sweeping changes to the California
Environmental Quality Act. Lawmakers complied by passing
Senate Bill 131, which exempted “advanced manufacturing
facilities” from environmental review. But more than 30
lawmakers objected to how broad that exemption could be,
because it could increase pollution in already vulnerable
communities. They pledged to narrow it this year.
It may sound simple, but water doesn’t burn. That’s the opening
line of a recent federal report on the promise of process-based
restoration — or PBR — for wildland firefighters, who are
increasingly turning to the practice to aid their suppression
and prescribed fire efforts. There are a number of PBR
techniques used to restore rivers and streams, but their common
effects are raising water tables and increasing soil moisture.
Those changes come with a number of ecological benefits, like
improving habitats for fish and elk. But they can also aid
firefighters when trying to suppress blazes, as well as making
ecosystems more resilient to wildfires when they come and
better able to recover in their wake.
California’s State Water Resources Control Board is preparing
to select the next deputy director of its Division of Drinking
Water. The choice deserves far more attention than a routine
executive appointment. The person who replaces Darrin Polhemus,
who is retiring at the end of August, will have a major role in
deciding how California protects the drinking water systems
that serve tens of millions of people. That includes deciding
which risks deserve immediate attention, where regulatory
resources should be focused, and how the state responds when
public health goals run up against aging infrastructure,
limited resources, and the cost of new requirements. –Written by Roy L. Wolfe, former board chair of the Water
Research Foundation and former executive at the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California.
After weeks of intense negotiation, state lawmakers on Friday
reached a compromise on legislation to regulate energy use by
California’s growing data center industry, action triggered by
community anger over the facilities and fears of high utility
bills in some communities. The goal, according to legislators
and advocates, is to protect consumers from growing electricity
costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to
track the centers’ immense energy and water
consumption. … Separate bills that would
require the centers to disclose their energy and water
use were recently approved by state lawmakers.
The U.S. government needs to launch a massive federal public
works program to build more infrastructure to help Arizona and
other Southwestern states cope with impending Colorado River
water cutbacks, said U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego and Tucson Mayor
Regina Romero. “We’re going to have to have a massive
government works program like what created the CAP, to help
towns update their water systems … to create and conserve
water, to make up for the loss we are going to end up
taking,” Gallego said Friday at a “Water Summit” panel
discussion in Tucson. He was talking about the
construction of the 330-mile-long Central Arizona Project canal
system that delivers drinking and irrigation water to the
Tucson and Phoenix areas.
Kern County has collected $4,076,000 from oil permits issued
since the start of the year as part of its strategy to
help disadvantaged communities with failing water
systems. But it can only actually spend $9,592 of
that, so far. That’s because, until oil companies begin the
drilling process– known as spudding in – the $9,732 water fee
charged as part of county permits doesn’t technically belong to
the county, explained Planning Director Craig
Murphy. “It’s held in trust while the oil company works to
get its permits from CalGEM (California Geologic Energy
Management), and then get all its equipment, financing and
people in place,” Murphy said. “Once they notify the county
that they’re activating the permit, that triggers the
money to be transferred into the Disadvantaged Communities
Water Relief Fund.”
Farmers have relied on plastic since the 1960s, when the mass
production of affordable agricultural tools derived from
petrochemicals made them widely accessible. Plastic
mulch quickly became a cornerstone of crop production.
… [S]cientists and policymakers are struggling to preserve
the benefits of farmers’ dependence on plastic—dubbed
“plasticulture”—while mitigating a growing litany of
environmental costs. “How do you balance the use of this
technology that has completely revolutionized agriculture with
the environmental concerns that arise from that?” asked Jazmine
Mejia-Muñoz, a water quality program manager at the nonprofit
California Marine Sanctuary Foundation, at a recent briefing on
plasticulture. … The marine sanctuary foundation works with
agricultural stakeholders to prevent plastic materials
from draining into the bay and ocean.
… As drought tightened its grip on the Klamath basin,
wetlands at Lower Klamath and the neighboring Tule Lake
National Wildlife Refuge began drying rapidly. Many grebe nests
were abandoned. Then avian botulism began killing waterbirds
and hatchlings. … But as the outbreak worsened, groups often
divided over the Klamath Basin’s scarce water began working
together to get more water to the refuges. Water users,
irrigation districts, conservation groups, tribes and
government agencies helped make the deliveries possible. Since
the water arrived in mid-August, bird deaths have declined.
Now, some of those groups are asking whether the emergency
collaboration can yield something more permanent.
Coloradans will weigh in on a ballot measure to redirect excess
funding from the state’s sporting goods and outdoor gear tax to
support conservation projects. The measure, which will appear
on the ballot as Proposition 137, is being supported by a
coalition of conservation groups. … If passed, it would
allow the state to keep the tax revenue generated by the
state’s sales tax on sporting goods and outdoor equipment,
exempting it from being refunded to taxpayers under
TABOR. This excess revenue — which is estimated to
generate around $175 million annually — would go toward
projects like wildfire mitigation, new state parks, river and
clean water protection, improved outdoor recreation
infrastructure, wildlife and habitat management, land
conservation and restoration, grants and more.
This year’s El Niño might be one of the strongest on record,
but its impacts on Colorado’s weather — and upcoming snow
season — are still to be determined, climate and weather
experts say. The El Niño, a climate pattern that begins
in the Pacific Ocean, can drive dry periods in some regions
while others are hit by storms. And this year, it is already
strong and likely to keep growing, according to forecasts. But
because of Colorado’s inland location, and other factors that
influence its weather cycle, climatologists aren’t yet ready to
promise relief from this summer’s punishing drought.
… Western Colorado falls in an in-between area —
there’s a 50-50 chance that it would be a wetter or drier year
than usual.
… On Monday, board chair supervisor Tara Lawson Remer and
Supervisor Paloma Aguirre will unveil a new proposal.
… The idea is to design a treatment system on the U.S.
side of the border that catches the raw sewage before it moves
down stream in San Diego communities and beaches. It appears
the construction of this type of infrastructure would happen in
phases. While the details of the proposal are still up in the
air, Board Chair Supervisor Tara Lawson Remer and Supervisor
Paloma Aguirre will unveil some of the specifics at a press
conference Monday. … County Supervisors said they hope
introducing this new initiative will protect the public health,
environment, and local economy; and get the Tijuana River off
the American Rivers conservation group’s most endangered list.
Stockton boaters got good news and bad news on Friday. The good
news: Dredges are on the way to Buckley Cove to clear out
sediment that has made boating a dicey proposition in some
spots. The built-up silt and sludge can make it particularly
troublesome for those trying to keep their vessels from running
aground. The bad news: The project will require closing the
Buckley Cove Boat Launch from October through December. Boaters
can sill use the launches in Louis and Morelli
parks. Dredging will remove “many years of built-up
sediment to bring back safer, more navigable depths,” Mayor
Christina Fugazi said in a social media post. “This type of
infrastructure work is easy to miss, yet it is vital for
keeping Stockton’s waterways open.”
A Denver man faces multiple felony charges after being accused
of tampering with water infrastructure that transports water to
Front Range cities. The Colorado Attorney General’s Office and
the 14th District Attorney’s Office this week charged Fabrizio
Lorenzin, 65, with four felonies in connection with repeated
sabotage of the Berthoud Pass Watershed Ditch and its
security cameras over several years. … Lorenzinallegedly
forced open headgates on the system’s ditches, damaging the
infrastructure and diverting millions of dollars’ worth
of drinking water from its intended destination
downstream. … Charging and arrest documents do
not specify why Lorenzin allegedly tampered with the gates and
diverted water, or for what purpose.
After Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed her data center water
disclosure bill last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan,
D-San Mateo, returned this year with a two-bill package. One of
the bills, AB 2619, was passed by the Legislature Thursday
morning, sending to Newsom a measure that would require
data centers to report their water consumption
annually. The other bill, AB 2469, which would require
information about projected water demand before new
data centers are approved, is still moving through the
Legislature. … Opponents have argued that existing state
law already gives local water agencies the information they
need to plan for new development and that additional reporting
requirements would place unnecessary burdens on the industry.
… This year, El Niño is “becoming so
dominant” that it is “drowning out” another key weather factor,
the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the National Hurricane
Center said. The MJO is an area of thunderstorms
circumnavigating the tropics, and typically central and east
Pacific tropical cyclone activity ebbs and flows every two to
six weeks due to those storms. But in recent months,
record-warm ocean temperatures fueled by El Niño are supporting
the nearly nonstop thunderstorms that provide
the first key ingredient for potential tropical
cyclones. The Pacific “hot spot” will continue through
early September, the center said. … “There is growing
potential for one of these tropical storms or
hurricanes to make a right hook toward California,”
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UC Agriculture and Natural
Resources, said.
Nevada’s decision to take the federal government to court over
the Colorado River’s new operating rules could stall
the Navajo Nation’s push to get its Arizona water rights
settlement through Congress before the year ends, a
Navajo Nation water rights attorney said this week. “We’re on
an extremely limited window of time,” said Dwight Witherspoon,
an attorney with the Water Rights Unit of the Navajo Nation
Department of Justice. … The state of Nevada, the Colorado
River Commission of Nevada and the Southern Nevada Water
Authority filed a complaint Monday, Aug. 24, in U.S. District
Court for the District of Nevada against Interior Secretary
Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of
Reclamation and Aubrey Bettencourt, the bureau’s principal
deputy commissioner.
The San Diego County Water Authority is expected to generate
$15 million in revenue during the first five years of a
long-term agreement announced Thursday that will allow Burbank,
in Los Angeles County, to purchase water from the
agency. Under the agreement, Burbank will be able to
purchase up to 5,000 acre- feet of water annually through 2047,
according to the Water Authority. The agencies will use
existing infrastructure to share the water, with no new
pipelines required. Water Authority officials said
revenue from the agreement will help offset costs associated
with investments made over the past three decades to improve
San Diego County’s water supply reliability. … The
agreement is the Water Authority’s third regional water
supply partnership announced this year.
New research methods are revealing how much water can
be found buried in Utah’s mountains, leading to an
updated understanding of our water supply and knowledge of
future hazards. There is enough water in the Timpanogos
Rock Glacier to fill 600 Olympic swimming pools, according to
new research by University of Utah geologists.
… [Glaciologist Lief] Anderson says the presence of
these ice-filled rock glaciers can be good news for
Utah. Firstly, because the glacier can be good for arid,
dry climates like Utah where rock glacier ice melts more slowly
than an exposed glacier would. … Second, since the ice
is covered, its melted water is much cooler and can
bring important ecological benefits to cold water
species.
In August 2024, excavation crews breached the last of four dams
on the Klamath River in far northern California, marking the
first time in over a century 100 years that salmon could swim
above the dam sites. Now, new research published on
Thursday shows that in the two years since dam removal, over
20,000 chinook salmon have migrated up the Klamath River, many
past the former dam sites and into traditional spawning
grounds. … Even now that the PacifiCorps dams are gone,
two dams with fish passage regulate flows on the river. The
federal Bureau of Reclamation manages the Link River and Keno
dams, located below Klamath lake as part of the Klamath
Project, which allocates water to farmers, fish, tribes, and
other stakeholders.
Other anadromous fish and habitat restoration news:
The Imperial County Board of Supervisors authorized the
submission of a $750,000 grant application to the State Water
Resources Control Board on Tuesday, August 25, for the
Proposition 4 United States-Mexico Border Funding Program. Prop
4, also known as the Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention,
Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act, passed in 2024 to
provide $50 million for projects to address water quality
problems in the California-Mexico cross-border rivers and
coastal waters, including the New River. Prop 4 provides
funding for projects focused on research and planning, with a
separate grant application type for construction and
implementation projects. The county’s grant application would
not be in competition with efforts or grants coming out of the
City of Calexico’s operations.
