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 Interim Director Doug Beeman.
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… Nutria are rodents native to South America, but they are
causing a headache for crews in California. … Crews are now
getting help from outside the state. The Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta Conservancy supplied an $11 million grant to bring in
detection dogs from the East Coast. The dogs are experts at
finding nutria scat, which helps find the best area for DFW
crews to set traps. Congressman Josh Harder has backed bills
authorizing federal funds in the fight. “These nutria cost
places like Louisiana hundreds of millions of dollars every
year in infrastructure losses,” Harder said. “That’s going to
happen to California if we don’t get this eradicated.”
An international company is asking for a 100-year extension to
continue mining operations along the San Joaquin River. If
approved, crews with CEMEX would blast hard rock and
drill a 600-foot-deep pit at one of the two sites for the
Rockfield Project located on Friant Road north of Willow
Avenue. According to the Draft Environmental Impact
Report (DEIR) for the project, the output would increase
to 3 metric tons in about 10 years, causing production in the
area to double. The changes are sparking some concern among
community members and environmental advocates in Fresno
County.
San Diego utility customers will see another upcharge on their
water bills starting May 1 after a 5.5% rate adjustment was
approved by the San Diego City Council last week. The city of
San Diego said the rate hike passed last Tuesday was a
pass-through charge necessary to cover a 14% increase approved
by the San Diego County Water Authority in July 2024. …
The SDCWA, which obtains water on behalf of 22 local agencies,
said the increase would help cover infrastructure, operation
and maintenance costs.
City of Redding staff members are urging water conservation,
going along with new California guidelines. They said the State
Water Board recently rolled out new regulations across
California, including indoor water use limits. Now, they
stated, each person per household should not use more than 47
gallons of water per day, which is roughly a 15% drop from
previous regulations. There’s no penalty right now for people
who exceed the amount, but it’s possible the city could have to
pay as a result. … Following the new requirements, the
city has begun a campaign called 47 Tips for 47 Gallons,
offering weekly water conservation pointers.
In a significant conservation effort, over 200 critically
endangered Southern California steelhead trout, rescued from
Topanga Creek following the devastating Palisades Fire in
January 2025, have been successfully relocated to The Land
Trust for Santa Barbara County’s Arroyo Hondo Preserve. This
release made possible through a partnership between The Land
Trust, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW),
and Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica
Mountains (RCDSMM) marks an important step in the preservation
of the region’s native fish populations and their habitats.
The Trump administration is pulling back on staff firings at
the federal agency that runs California’s sprawling water
system after the cuts threatened undercut President Donald
Trump’s order to maximize water deliveries to farms, according
to three agency staffers. The Bureau of Reclamation employees,
who were granted anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said
political officials have paused an additional planned round of
terminations across the federal agency that manages Western
water and are bringing back five previously fired employees of
the California office. The move comes after POLITICO reported
that the firings were impacting Reclamation’s ability to
operate facilities that are crucial to carrying out Trump’s
executive orders calling for California water supplies to be
dialed up.
A major winter storm, fueled by a renewed atmospheric river,
will bring heavy rain and mountain snow to both Northern and
Southern California on Wednesday and Thursday. … By
Wednesday evening and into Thursday morning, showers and
thunderstorms will linger locally, while the pulse of heavy
precipitation will shift southward, bringing several inches of
rain and mountain snow to Central and Southern
California. … Across the Sierra, snowfall levels will
start out above 6,000 feet when snow begins Wednesday morning.
As precipitation intensifies Wednesday evening, much colder air
will sweep in, dropping snow levels to around 2,500 to 3,000
feet.
The federal agency charged with managing the Colorado River
failed to do its job properly when it excluded a viable option
presented by Nevada, Arizona and California, according to
documents that surfaced Friday. The three states that make up
the Lower Basin are fighting a critical war for their rights to
water from the river. The future of growing cities is in the
balance, along with farms, businesses and everyone else in the
desert Southwest. On Friday, a Feb. 13 letter to incoming
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was obtained by 8 News Now,
along with a supporting document that argues the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation is making a big mistake by refusing to address a
known problem with Glen Canyon Dam, which creates the nation’s
second-largest reservoir, Lake Powell.
Twenty-five more Pacific Palisades residents who were affected
by January’s deadly brush fire have joined a lawsuit against
the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power over the disaster. A lawsuit filed on behalf of 23
residents in January accuses the city and department of having
a failed water supply system in the coastal community that was
ravaged by the blaze. On Wednesday, an additional 25 plaintiffs
were added to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges LADWP designed
a water supply system that would not have enough water pressure
to fight an urban wildfire. It also says the Santa Ynez
Reservoir, which is located atop Pacific Palisades, had been
empty since February of last year, leading to more difficulty
in accessing water during the firefight.
The new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency has seemingly responded to Imperial Beach Mayor
Paloma Aguirre’s letter urging federal action on the Tijuana
River sewage crisis impacting southern San Diego County. Lee
Zeldin, the 17th administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) since January 29, 2025, posted on X
Saturday evening that he was recently briefed on the large
amounts of raw sewage flowing into the U.S. from Mexico, which
is impacting the water and air quality for residents in San
Diego’s South Bay.
In California’s Central Valley, the value of farmland is
closely tied to agricultural production, which relies on water.
Cropland prices can range from less than $10,000 per acre to
over $60,000 per acre. … Land prices can also be
influenced by longer-term changes in water scarcity and
environmental factors. For instance, implementation of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), passed in 2014,
will likely require reductions of intense agricultural
production in areas of long-term groundwater overdraft. If less
irrigation water is available, how will cropland production and
acreage be affected? Are long-term regulatory changes already
getting incorporated into farmland values in the state? Parsing
out these influences from the many factors affecting farmland
values requires lots of data, especially to detect both spatial
and temporal trends.
U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.)
announced that the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs advanced
their legislation to formally recognize the Tule River Tribe’s
reserved water rights and quantify the Tribe’s water right of
5,828 acre-feet per year of surface water from the South Fork
of the Tule River (in the San Joaquin Valley). The bill passed
out of committee by voice vote and now moves to the Senate
floor for consideration by the full Senate. For decades, the
Tule River Tribe has worked with the federal government and
downstream water users to advance a settlement agreement,
avoiding costly and adversarial litigation for both the Tribe
and the United States government.
Millions of Californians are set to see significant water rate
hikes over the next few years, with prices for essential water
supplies jumping by double-digit percentage points. In one
large city, cumulative increases could see prices jump about
70% just in the next five years. San Diego County,
the second-largest county in California by
population, will see its water rates jump 14% for 2025,
according to the San Diego County Water Authority. The
utility blamed the rate hikes on increased costs to import
water, among other issues.
The sprawling estuary about 70 miles inland from San Francisco
feels distinctly out of place — more like the swampy Florida
Everglades than arid California. But from that confluence of
two great rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, 1,100
miles of webbed waterways and levees send upward of six million
acre-feet of freshwater a year to thirstier parts of the state,
from farms in the San Joaquin Valley to the Southern California
megalopolis. Known as the California Delta, the estuary is
among the state’s most important sources of water — and most
consistent flash points over environmental protection. –Written by Ryan Christopher Jones, a photojournalist and
doctoral student in anthropology at Harvard studying the local
politics of water transfers in the California Delta.
SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc. is violating the Clean
Water Act by discharging pollutants from fireworks displays and
wastewater into San Diego’s Mission Bay, according to a new
lawsuit from environmental groups. The complaint, filed
Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of
California, alleges that SeaWorld’s discharges violate its
General National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit
for Residual Firework Pollutant Discharges and its NPDES Permit
for wastewater discharges. The fireworks displays at SeaWorld’s
San Diego park discharge debris, toxic metals, and other
pollutants that harm water quality, ecosystems, and public
health in Mission Bay.
The Oroville Dam Citizens Advisory Committee met Friday to
address safety and flood concerns, as well as the next steps to
improve the Oroville levee. The levee that protects Downtown
Oroville from flooding is over a hundred years old and has
fallen into disrepair in recent decades. … The Army Corps
of Engineers will be inspecting the levee to determine what
needs to be done next to improve it. As for the cost to make
those repairs, for local leaders, the hope is to have DWR cover
it.
Last month’s devastating fires in Los Angeles brought attention
to the need for California to build needed water storage
facilities throughout the state. Case in point is the proposed
expansion of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir, which was halted in
November after the Contra Costa Water District (CCWD) withdrew
from the plans. The CCWD board explained: “Beyond the
significant cost increase, there were several other significant
factors that led to this project – including decreased benefits
for partners, increased benefit uncertainty and insufficient
guarantees of backup water supplies for CCWD customers while
the reservoir is demolished and reconstructed.”
According to the NOAA California Current Integrated Ecosystem
Assessment’s annual report, the California Current
Ecosystem pulled out of a strong El Niño pattern in 2024.
That El Niño delayed the onset of the annual spring upwelling
of nutrient-laden water that, was nevertheless strong enough to
fuel the rich West Coast ecosystem and improve environmental
conditions for salmon. NOAA Fisheries scientists
presented the report to the Pacific Fishery Management Council
to inform upcoming decisions on fishing seasons. The report
provides a snapshot of ocean conditions, fish population
abundance and habitat, and fisheries landings and fishing
communities’ conditions.
A new multi-million dollar trash-collecting water wheel was
unveiled in Newport Beach Friday, the first-of-its-kind in the
state, to collect floating trash before it contaminates the
local harbors and beaches. City leaders said every year,
hundreds of tons of floating trash and debris enter Newport Bay
through San Diego Creek. The garbage eventually makes its way
to the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve, Newport Harbor and
beaches. The $5.5 million Newport Bay Trash Interceptor will
supplement other cleaning efforts including trash booms, catch
basin collection systems and floating skimmers, city officials
said.
Rural Kings County residents concerned about their drinking
water may sign up to have their wells tested for free at an
event to be held at 5:30 p.m. March 18. The Kings Water
Alliance is hosting the informational event for residents to
apply to have their wells tested for nitrate contamination. The
event will be held at the Kings Cultural Center, 14054 Front
Street, Armona. The well testing program is free for Kings
County residents who rely on wells for drinking water. The
alliance has offered its free program to residents in portions
of Fresno and Tulare Counties and a small northeast portion of
Kings County.
