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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Last winter, endangered Central California Coast coho salmon
(CCC coho) returned to Mendocino Coast rivers and streams in
the highest numbers since monitoring began 16 years ago.
Monitoring led by the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife to track their population status estimated more than
15,000 adult CCC coho returned to spawn during the 2023–24
season. The Ten Mile and Noyo rivers exceeded recovery targets
set by NOAA for delisting CCC coho under the Endangered Species
Act, and the Big and Garcia rivers experienced record
returns. While the overall numbers remain low compared to
the species’ past abundance, NOAA scientists are excited by the
results.
Communities in 27 states saw important progress for river
health, clean water, and public safety in 2024 thanks to the
removal of 108 outdated, unsafe, and uneconomical dams,
American Rivers announced today. 2024 tied with 2019 for the
most dams removed in a single year. The dam removals
reconnected more than 2,528 miles of rivers, improving river
habitats for fish and wildlife and public safety for thousands
of people across the country. A total of 2,240 dams have been
removed in the U.S. since 1912. The nation is blanketed with
more than 550,000 dams.
Veolia Water North America-West, the federal government’s
contractor tasked with maintaining its wastewater treatment
plant at the U.S.-Mexico border, is the subject of a new
lawsuit alleging failure to contain crossborder sewage. On
Monday, the Coronado Unified School District sued the plant
operator and its former manager, Mark Wippler, marking the
first time a school district joins local municipalities,
environmental groups and homeowners that are suing and
previously sued the international engineering company and
federal government. San Diego-based Frantz Law Group, which
opened a mass tort case late last year over similar claims, is
representing the school district. It’s unclear whether other
South County school districts may join or follow suit.
A concrete company has plans to ramp up its production by
drilling hundreds of feet into the San Joaquin River – while
the new lease on the project would more than double the
company’s current output, the potential move has sparked
concerns from the river’s advocates. … (A)ccording
to the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust, the
project will have significant impacts on the San Joaquin River
and surrounding lands, presenting an existential threat to the
river. … Additionally, the Trust says the project could
negatively impact residential wells, claiming an extensive dig
raises concerns of dropping the level of the water table.
… Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks sees the
slow, occasionally redundant, often litigious process of
getting construction projects okayed by federal, state and
local governments as a chief roadblock to fixing California’s
most pressing problems, from housing to water to public
transportation to climate change. Last year, Wicks helmed a
select committee on “permitting reform” — a catch-all term for
speeding up government review at all stages of a project’s
development, not just its literal permits. The committee went
on a state-hopping fact-finding mission, taking testimony from
experts, builders and advocates on why it takes so long to
build apartment buildings, wind farms, water storage and public
transit, to name a few notoriously slow and desperately needed
project types.
Sonoma County has an extra few weeks to issue permits for
nonemergency wells under a recent court order. A judge ordered
the county stop issuing nonemergency permits in December after
ruling that the county had failed to follow state environmental
requirements. A second judge lifted the order temporarily,
allowing permit applications through the end of February. He
has now extended that window to March 27. … Under the temporary
reprieve, the county has issued 69 well permits, since Feb. 6,
and there are an additional 24 in process, Tennis Wick, the
director of the county permitting department confirmed Tuesday.
Plans for a $2 billion water supply project in northern
Colorado will move forward after the communities supporting it
agreed to pump $100 million into improving the health of the
Cache la Poudre River — a settlement ending decades of dispute
over the water infrastructure plans. Leaders from the Northern
Integrated Supply Project and the nonprofit environmental group
Save the Poudre finalized the settlement on Friday, clearing
the way for two new reservoirs. The deal will funnel $100
million over 20 years into a fund to sustain 50 miles of the
river from the mouth of the Poudre Canyon, northwest of Fort
Collins, to the river’s confluence with the South Platte. The
Poudre River Improvement Fund will pay for projects to enhance
the river’s flows, water quality, ecosystem and recreational
opportunities.
… The road work happening is all part of the Harvest Water
pipeline construction project, which according to planners,
will ultimately result in California’s largest agricultural
water recycling project. The goal with Harvest Water is to
provide recycled water instead of groundwater for use on
agricultural lands and existing habitats across southern
Sacramento County. To do that, lots of pipe work needs to
be put in. Roughly 42 miles of new pipeline, a new pumping
station and service connections to control water delivery to
the agricultural customers will be installed when the project
is scheduled for completion in 2026. The system is expected to
be operational sometime in 2027.
San Diego’s coastal wetlands are home to rich biodiversity,
critical migratory bird habitats, and culturally significant
lands. Thanks to a generous two-year grant from the Dorrance
Family Foundation, Audubon California and our partners,
including the Buena Vista Audubon and the San Diego Bird
Alliance, will continue making important progress in restoring
key estuarine habitats in the region. For the fourth year in a
row, the Dorrance Family Foundation has awarded significant
funding to Audubon California and our partners to restore
critical habitat along San Diego County’s Mission Bay and Buena
Vista Lagoon.
A NASA and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)-supported research and
development team is making it easier for farmers and ranchers
to manage their water resources. The team, called OpenET,
created the Farm and Ranch Management Support (FARMS) tool,
which puts timely, high-resolution water data directly in the
hands of individuals and small farm operators. By making the
information more accessible, the platform can better support
decision-making around agricultural planning, water
conservation, and water efficiency. The OpenET team hopes
this will help farmers who are working to build greater
resiliency in local and regional agriculture communities.
Researchers have gotten a good — and unique — look at the
country’s groundwater system. And it shows that system is more
interconnected than scientists previously thought. Laura
Condon, an associate professor in the Department of Hydrology
and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona, where
she builds large models of hydrologic systems, worked on this
research, along with scientists at Princeton. Condon joined The
Show to talk more about things she found that were surprising.
… Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines a
small water system as serving fewer than 3,300 people (with
“very small” systems serving fewer 500), many of the systems
undergoing a consolidation serve only a couple hundred
residents. At such a small scale, maintaining a water system is
prohibitively expensive – and smaller communities often lack
the technical capability and staffing to install and adequately
maintain the infrastructure. Consolidation aims to create
economies of scale for the participating systems, which can
help ensure a better quality, more sustainable water supply for
all community members. … Remarkably, of the 78 systems that
responded, 100% of them reported that their consolidation was a
success, and 82% indicated their motivations for pursuing
consolidation were fully addressed.
… (I)f (Rep. Josh Harder) wants to enlist the public’s help to
turn the tide against invasive species with the potential to
destroy the Delta, he might want to consider adding invasive
bass to his list. The Pacific Marine Fisheries manages the
Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program that has been in place
on the Snake and Columbia rivers since 1991 in Oregon and
Washington. … The program in Oregon and Washington
gives credence to the potential effectiveness of a plan batted
down in Sacramento 12 years ago to save the threatened salmon
and steelhead. The plan was an aggressive cutback on the
non-native bass that are huge consumers of the native salmon
and steelhead as well as the almost extinct Delta smelt. –Written by Manteca Bulletin editor Dennis Wyatt.
On Sunday, March 2, Imperial County welcomed newly elected U.S.
Senator Adam Schiff and Congressman Raul Ruiz for a tour of the
Salton Sea and Lithium Valley region to discuss ongoing
economic diversification initiatives, workforce development
programs, and Salton Sea conservation and management efforts.
The visit provided key federal representatives with a firsthand
look at the region’s progress in environmental conservation,
clean energy innovation, and job creation strategies.
“Mirasol, Looking at the Sun” is about (Pueblo chile breeder
Mike Bartolo), his legacy championing agriculture and
water protection in the Lower Arkansas Valley,
and the fight producers there are increasingly up against amid
population growth and urban spread in places like Colorado
Springs and Aurora. It was co-produced by the Palmer Land
Conservancy and Kristie Nackord, who brought in acclaimed
documentarian Ben Knight to direct it. … She recently discussed
the 37-minute film, farming and how cities are sipping water
from the lower Arkansas River with The Colorado Sun.
The Trump administration has ordered firings and buyouts at the
federal agency that operates water infrastructure in
California, potentially jeopardizing the agency’s ability to
manage dams and deliver water, according to Central Valley
water officials. … The bureau, which employs about 1,000
people, is set to lose about 100 employees in California
through terminations and buyouts, eliminating about 10% of its
regional staff, one of the employees said. But larger workforce
reductions are slated, and the bureau has been ordered to
prepare plans to cut its staff by 40%, this person said. …
Internal documents reviewed by The Times show that the
positions being eliminated include maintenance mechanics,
engineers, fish biology specialists and others.
Other water and natural resource jobs and funding news across
the West:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that EPA cannot enforce
requirements in wastewater permits that “do not spell out what
a permittee must do or refrain from doing,” in a major blow to
the agency’s power under the Clean Water Act. The 5-4 decision
in San Francisco v. EPA resolves a long-running dispute between
the progressive West Coast city and the nation’s environmental
regulator. … San Francisco had challenged EPA’s attempts to
fine the city for allegedly violating its wastewater permit for
a sewage treatment plant, which releases large quantities of
stormwater and sewage during rain events. The city argued
that EPA was wrong to rely on generic provisions in the
wastewater permit to impose crushing fines under the Clean
Water Act. EPA, city attorneys said, could only go after sewage
treatment plants for quantitative pollutant discharges.
Senate Democrats from the U.S. West on Monday urged the
Department of the Interior to end a funding freeze that could
endanger the flow of the Colorado River. The lawmakers, from
California, Nevada and Arizona, slammed the Trump
administration’s day-one executive order that halted
disbursements from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — including
$4 billion that Congress had earmarked for water management and
conservation in the West. Among the projects that were supposed
to benefit from those funds was the Lower Colorado River System
Conservation and Efficiency Program, which had aimed to raise
the elevation of Lake Mead — the basin’s largest reservoir — by
9 feet this year, the senators wrote in a letter to
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Discussions among Kern County agricultural water districts on
whether to continue funding the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP)
are ramping up. … Kern ag district participation is key
to helping pay for the $20 billion project, as the districts,
collectively, make up the second largest contractor on the
State Water Project, at nearly 1 million acre feet per year.
The contract is held by the Kern County Water Agency on behalf
of 13 local ag districts. The Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California is the SWP’s largest contractor. MWD
recently agreed to pay its share of $141 million of $300
million the Department of Water Resources needs to begin the
planning and preconstruction phase of the project. The state is
waiting to hear whether Kern districts will pay their $33
million share.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for the
state’s forests, allowing his administration to bypass more
coastal and permitting regulations and expedite wildfire
prevention projects as California recovers from the Los Angeles
wildfires. On Saturday, the governor ordered the suspension of
some provisions within the California Environmental Quality Act
and Coastal Act that he said are holding up authorities’
ability to quickly clear away dead vegetation and other debris
that act as wildfire accelerators. … The governor’s action
appears to be part of his overall strategy at assuaging
President Donald Trump and his allies as Congress considers
California’s request for $40 billion in disaster relief aid.
