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 Chris Bowman.
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Nearly 775,000 illegally cultivated cannabis plants across the
state were eradicated in a joint effort by California Attorney
General Rob Bonta’s office and local and federal law
enforcement partners. The enforcement was part of the
Eradication and Prevention of Illicit Cannabis program (EPIC),
Bonta announced this month. … The teams recovered 201
weapons, and removed infrastructure, including dams, water
lines, and containers of toxic chemicals, such as carbofuran,
methyl parathion, aluminum phosphate, zinc phosphide, and
illegal fertilizers, state officials reported. Carbofuran,
in particular, poses untold risks to public health, state
officials said. A lethal insecticide that is banned in the
United States, carbofuran remains on plants after application
and seeps into soil and nearby water sources.
… Kettleman City’s location at the junction of Highway 41 and
Interstate 5 — the country’s busiest interstate — brings high
pollution levels. Contaminated water is still a problem for the
community despite some improvements in recent years. At the
same time, hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural
fields have created extreme levels of pesticide pollution.
There’s even a human waste compost facility and multiple
shipping facilities, like FedEx and UPS. … There have
also been vital victories for residents. Since 2017, community
advocates have secured improved air and water monitoring
supported by state grants. In 2018, the town’s campaign against
diesel emissions saw the state help with educational efforts
and “No Diesel Idling.” The biggest victory coming out of the
civil rights agreement was convincing the state to replace the
town’s aging and unreliable water treatment system and water
source.
Demolishing the Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery will have only
one “significant and unavoidable” environmental impact,
according to the final environmental impact report for the
project. … The draft environmental impact report
analyzed how demolishing the oil refinery and remediating the
soil would effect the environment surrounding it. On Thursday,
the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission voted
unanimously to certify the report and approve a coastal
development permit for the demolition and remediation project.
… The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
will set standards for and oversee the remediation efforts. The
soil will be cleaned up to an industrial land use standard,
while the water must be cleaned to “background level,” which is
the state of the water before contamination occurred, county
project manager Susan Strachan said.
The South Tahoe Public Utilities Department (STPUD) held a
stakeholders advisory group and public information meeting
regarding how they deal with recycled water. The plan is open
for comment from October 24 to November 11. STPUD was
established in 1950 to provide drinking water and provide
sewage collection, treatment, and export for the South Tahoe
community. Since California has limited water supplies, the
entire state has recycled wastewater for decades through
chemical and microbiological treatment. STPUD is no different
and currently recycles 100% of its wastewater. Because of
the Porter Cologne Act, which protects water quality and water
use in the state, the STPUD began exporting its wastewater to
facilities in Alpine County in 1967, a response to
environmentally protect the watershed of Lake Tahoe. Since
then, STPUD has worked with Alpine County and Harvey Place
Reservoir to store and distribute wastewater—a costly endeavor,
as the water must be pumped over 26 miles over major elevation
changes.
Seats at the Monte Rio Community Center were full Thursday
night for what residents thought was the final step before
county supervisors forced them into an unpopular and expensive
plan to replace their septic systems. Clarity only came
late in the meeting, when Deputy County Administrator Barbara
Lee attempted to calm frustrated residents. Until then, the
prevailing assumption was the Sonoma County board of
supervisors would decide in January whether every household in
Monte Rio and Villa Grande had to connect to a new sewer line
or create community leach fields, all at a cost of tens of
thousands of dollars per home.
… An estimated eight to ten species of lamprey are native to
California (Auringer et al 2023), providing many ecological and
cultural benefits. … And, like salmon, carcasses of
anadromous species (such as the Pacific lamprey) shuttle marine
nutrients to our freshwater rivers after completing upstream
spawning migration. It is likely that all native species
of lamprey in California are in decline, yet a dearth of
information on their ecology and population status makes it
difficult to know how to conserve them. This is especially true
of the small and often forgotten river resident species like
the endemic Kern brook lamprey pictured below. Indeed, lampreys
are one of the least studied groups of fishes in
California. Without these important ecosystem engineers
and aquatic health indicators, we could miss processes
with big roles in keeping our freshwater systems healthy and
full of life. And importantly, population declines of
Pacific lamprey threaten Indigenous culture and food
sovereignty for tribal communities.
AB 460 addresses a critical gap in our state’s water management
by substantially increasing the fines that the State Water
Resources Control Board can impose on illegal water diverters.
This is particularly important during critically dry years in
sensitive watersheds, where every drop of water counts.
Previously, the penalties for illegal water diversion were so
minimal that they could be easily disregarded, essentially
creating a loophole in our water protection efforts. AB 460
closes this loophole, giving real teeth to existing laws and
providing a powerful deterrent against harmful water use
practices. CalTrout’s primary focus in supporting this
bill was to discourage illegal water diversions during
curtailment actions, which harm both fish and downstream water
users. These diversions pose an existential threat to our
state’s already limited water resources, particularly during
drought conditions when our rivers and streams are most
vulnerable.
The Biden and Newsom administrations will soon adopt new rules
for California’s major water delivery systems that will
determine how much water may be pumped from rivers while
providing protections for imperiled fish species. But
California environmental groups, while supportive of efforts to
rewrite the rules, are criticizing the proposed changes and
warning that the resulting plans would fail to protect fish
species that are declining toward extinction in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay.
… The rules under revision govern dams, aqueducts and
pumping plants in California’s two main water systems, the
Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, which
deliver water to millions of acres of farmland and more than 25
million people. Pumping to supply farms and cities has
contributed to the ecological degradation of the Delta, where
threatened and endangered fish species include steelhead trout,
two types of Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, Delta smelt and
green sturgeon.
In the push to stop burning fossil fuels, California may find
itself becoming less of a national power player after November.
That’s if Donald Trump or the Supreme Court dismantles one of
the state’s key weapons against carbon emissions, a
half-century old Environmental Protection Agency waiver program
that allows California to set regulations that are stronger
than federal rules. … Among other programs, [Pres. Joe]
Biden’s landmark climate law is expected to support the state’s
transition to clean energy with funding for renewables, to
modernize the electric grid and expand EV charging
infrastructure. The state climate bond, Prop 4, will also fund
a wide variety of programs from clean drinking
water to habitat restoration across the state.
A federal judge on Friday granted in part a preliminary
injunction against a Northern California county accused of
discriminating against its Asian American population over
access to water. The plaintiffs live in parts of the county
with no wells or other means of accessing water, and say that a
blanket prohibition on transporting water offsite — which isn’t
enforced across the board — disproportionately hurts Asian
American residents.
Tübatulabal Tribal Chairman Robert Gomez sat quietly for most
of the four-and-a-half hour meeting Oct. 23 about the adequacy
of studies on the impacts of Southern California Edison’s
Kernville power plant – Kern River No. 3 (KR3). Then he calmly
rolled in what could be a mini-grenade, just as things were
wrapping up. Gomez said the Tübatulabal tribe
was disenfranchised back in 1995 when KR3’s current license,
set to expire in 2026, was being discussed. The tribe had
hoped to get 1% of the gross revenue from commercial rafting on
the river, which, Gomez said, has since become big business.
But the tribe was shut out of the process, he said. “In the
interim, between 1995 and now, I’ve discovered a document from
the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” he said. “A tribal member had
asked the BIA back in 1914 for assistance because someone was
trying to take her water rights.” The Bureau of Indian
Affairs wrote back affirming the tribal member did in fact own
those rights.
… In 2024, Northern Nevada was under a blizzard warning in
the spring and Southern Nevada shattered heat records in the
summer. By fall, most of the state was in some level of drought
— despite the 2024 water year wrapping up Sept. 30 with mostly
normal numbers. Now, water scientists and wildfire experts are
looking for signs of what 2025 might hold for the state but
it’s largely still up in the air — according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate
Prediction Center, the region has an equal chance of having
above, near or below-normal precipitation in 2025.
… The region has been battered by extreme weather whiplash in
recent years, with sweltering summer heatwaves and long
stretches of drought alternating with furious winter storms and
spring floods. Fires that roar across the hillsides, consuming
homes and the treasured land around them, have terrorized the
town and others that dot the California mountainsides time and
time again. Residents who have paid a heavy toll to recover
from and prepare for these extreme elements are increasingly
worried that, along with fire dangers, a boost in tourists will
drain their waning water supply, overwhelm
infrastructure and put additional strain on the delicate
ecosystems.
A sprawling ranch that crosses ridgetops, valleys and redwood
forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains, formerly eyed for luxury
homes and once part of a still-pending quarry proposal, is
being spared from development and turned into a preserve.
Peninsula Open Space Trust announced Monday that it has paid
$15.65 million for 1,340 acres of ranchlands southwest of
Gilroy with plans to permanently protect the site for wildlife,
clean water, carbon sequestration and tribal
value. Land trust officials say the property became a top
priority for preservation because of its location along a thin
corridor that animals use to get in and out of the Santa Cruz
Mountains from the south. The beneficiaries, they say, include
local mountain lions, which have struggled to find safe ways to
leave the region to breed and stay genetically strong.
Anyone violating California’s water diversion laws is in for a
sharp wake-up call. Violators will no longer be subject to
minimal penalties but will face stiffer ones. According
to the Los Angeles Times, the California legislature passed
Assembly Bill 460 in late August, and the Valley AG Voice noted
Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law at the end of
September. The bill increases fines for violations and helps
the State Water Resources Control Board enforce the penalties
for curtailing water use. The bill will prevent violators
from getting off with minimal fines and continued
violations.
… Moving to make the most of its natural resources, companies
want to tap its lithium-rich groundwater to create
rechargeable batteries, the sunlight that warms its desert
stretches for solar power and the uranium veins
concentrated underground to fuel nuclear reactors. Western
Uranium & Vanadium Corp. announced in January
2023 that it planned to build a new uranium mill just
miles from the city of Green River, to process ore from its own
mines in Utah and Colorado and from other mining businesses.
Approaching two years later, earlier timelines for starting up
the proposed Maverick Minerals Processing Plant have been
delayed from 2025 and 2026. In a recent interview, CEO George
Glasier said that 2028 is “more realistic based on our progress
so far.”
… The Arizona Department of Water Resources announced
Wednesday [Oct. 23] that, for the first time ever, it was
beginning the process of creating an Active Management Area
within the boundaries of the Willcox groundwater basin, setting
the stage to finally regulate groundwater in the region where
dozens of wells have run dry over the past decade.
… It’s a significant attempt by the state to rein in the
overconsumption of groundwater that has plagued rural Arizona
for decades and that, in the face of climate-driven drought, is
becoming harder to ignore. AMAs are the one tool the state
currently has to deal with water shortages in rural Arizona.
… [Jared Lorraine, president and CEO of Nichols Farms] said
he sees pistachio production reaching 2 billion pounds within
the next 10 years. However, that’s not without some challenges.
“In the coming years, California’s agriculture industry is
going to face water limits under the requirements of the
state’s [Sustainable Groundwater Management Act] regulations,”
he said. “I see it potentially reaching a 2-billion-pound
industry, but I think SGMA is really going to slow that pace
down, just [based] off of what the numbers look like.” The
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was passed in 2014 and
requires local agencies to adopt groundwater sustainability
plans for high- and medium-priority groundwater basins, and
they must meet those sustainability goals within 20 years of
implementing the plans. Lorraine said about 5 million acres of
pistachios are irrigated within the San Joaquin Valley. He
estimates about 20% of those acres will be taken out of
production due to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
With Colorado and the southwest looking at an increasingly
hotter and drier future, researchers with Colorado State
University in the Grand Valley are looking into how alternative
hay crops respond to drought and whether they can use less
water than the thirsty alfalfa grown throughout the region. On
Tuesday, The Water for Colorado Coalition hosted several tours
along the Colorado River corridor looking at different water
conservation projects. The last stop was at the CSU Western
Colorado Research Center where Dr. Perry Cabot, a research
scientist with CSU, is conducting trials on alternative forage
or hay crops.
San Francisco has long used the Pacific Ocean as its toilet. In
heavy rains, the city on the hill cannot store all the storm
runoff and sewage that flows toward an oceanside treatment
plant in a single old pipe, so some heads out to sea. Now, in a
case with national implications, San Francisco is hoping that
the U.S. Supreme Court will allow it to pollute the ocean on
occasion without violating the federal Clean Water Act.
Although San Francisco has lived under this regulatory
construct for decades, it has now decided to test the limits of
federal regulations with a right-leaning high court known for
restricting environmental laws. —Written by Tom Philp, columnist with The
Sacramento Bee
