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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Efforts to strengthen water storage and delivery
systems in California’s Central Valley are gaining
momentum, as federal and local leaders emphasize the need for
groundwater recharge projects and long-overdue infrastructure
upgrades. For communities like Arvin and Lamont, water largely
comes from underground sources, making stable groundwater
levels essential. … [T]he Arvin Community Services District
is partnering with the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District on a
$2 million project to expand groundwater recharge capacity. The
project is funded through federal dollars secured by Rep. David
Valadao and is one of several water infrastructure efforts
across the 22nd Congressional District.
After two winters of La Niña, an official “El Niño Watch” is
underway, the National Weather Service Climate Protection
Center said Thursday. In its latest ENSO Alert System Status
report, the Climate Protection Center said there’s a 61% chance
that an El Niño is “likely to emerge” between this May and
June, and “persist through at least the end of 2026.” The
agency’s outlook also notes there’s a 25% chance that the
Pacific seasonal variation could develop into a “strong” or
“very strong” El Niño this winter. … [I]t’s hard
to predict if the emergence of El Niño this year will lead to a
wet winter. … [O]ne of California’s worst drought years
occurred during an El Niño in 1976-1977, but then the following
year, still during an El Niño, the state had more than double
its average rainfall with nearly 31 inches of rain.
Gov. Mark Gordon joined fellow governors from other Colorado
River headwater states Thursday to announce that a significant
extra water release from Flaming Gorge is imminent. Dire water
conditions in the region will likely require reducing water
use, he warned. “Because of such diminished runoff,
existing state laws in the Upper Division States
[Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico]
require water users to face cuts to water rights dating back to
the 1800s — these cuts are mandatory, uncompensated, and will
have significant impacts on water users, including Upper Basin
tribes, and local economies,” Gordon said Thursday afternoon in
a joint press release with Govs. Spencer Cox of Utah, Michelle
Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Jared Polis of Colorado.
Flush with water supplies amid dry conditions statewide, the
San Diego County Water Authority‘s board on Thursday voted to
approve the second long-term sale to customers in Riverside
County. Last month, the Water Authority signed 21-year deal
with Western Municipal Water District in southwest Riverside
County to supply 10,000 acre-feet of water — enough for 30,000
households — for $13 million annually. Now the Water Authority
has approved a similar deal with Eastern Municipal
Water District of Southern California, which serves nearly 1
million residents in Perris, Hemet, San Jacinto and
the Elsinore Valley. … Thanks to three decades of
investment in aqueduct improvements, increased dam capacity and
desalination, the Water Authority projects ample supply through
2050.
You’re going to hear a lot about El Niño this year. The term
refers to warmer-than-average waters along the equatorial
Pacific that can influence weather across the globe,
raising the odds of searing drought in some regions and
torrential rain in others. Indicators increasingly
suggest such an event will develop later this summer, and it’s
possible it could be the strongest of the century to affect
Southern California. … In Southern California, strong El
Niños increase the likelihood of wet winters that replenish
water supplies and tamp down wildfire risk but can also unleash
flooding, debris flows and coastal erosion. Still, the exact
effects are impossible to predict.
… Glenn Merrill, hydrologist with the National Weather
Service’s Salt Lake City office, can sum up this year’s spring
runoff, which peaked on March 9 about a month early, with one
four-letter word: weak. … One bright spot in the
otherwise cheerless forecast is the summer monsoon season. Due
to the lack of snowpack … the season is expected to arrive
early and be more active than normal due to warm surface
temperatures in the Gulf of California in the Baja region of
northwestern Mexico.
Attorneys for conservation and Indigenous rights groups filed
an appeal Wednesday in the effort to stop an open-pit
lithium-boron mine from being built on the only known habitat
of an endangered wildflower. … The Western Shoshone
Defense Project, who are represented in the appeal by the
Western Mining Action Project, said the mine’s water use could
also potentially dry out Cave Spring, a sacred site less than a
mile from the proposed mine quarry. According to the project’s
final environmental review, if Cave Spring is fed by
groundwater the mine could potentially decrease the amount of
water discharged from the spring.
The Trump administration on Thursday proposed weakening rules
for the disposal of ash produced by burning coal that
can contain hazardous heavy metals and contaminate
groundwater. Those regulations were strengthened under
the Biden administration as part of a wider crackdown on
pollution from coal-fired power plants. The Trump
administration proposed easing standards for monitoring and
protecting groundwater near some coal ash sites, and rolling
back rules that require the cleanup of entire coal properties
rather than just the sites where ash was dumped. The revisions
would also make it easier to reuse coal ash for other purposes.
The sewage runoff affecting the Tijuana River is the result of
repair work being carried out by the United States, not Mexico,
according to Víctor Manuel Amador, head of Baja California’s
Secretariat for Water Management, Sanitation, and Protection
(Seproa). Speaking during the state government’s morning
conference, Amador explained that the runoff stems from repairs
to the JB-1 gate, which began in November. The gate is located
on the U.S. side of the border. Over the weekend, U.S.
authorities issued an alert regarding high concentrations of
hydrogen sulfide in the Tijuana River Valley. That gas, which
is associated with the decomposition of wastewater, has been
linked to structural issues involving discharges into the river
basin.
A newly published study by California Department of Fish and
Wildlife scientists offers the clearest picture yet of how
nutria — a destructive, invasive rodent —
reappeared in California after being declared eradicated
decades ago. Using advanced genomic analysis, researchers
determined that nutria discovered in Merced County in 2017 are
most closely linked to a population in central Oregon, rather
than descendants of animals believed wiped out in California in
the 1970s. … Nutria can eat up to 25% of their body
weight in plants each day, and their feeding often destroys far
more vegetation than they consume, leading to erosion that can
permanently convert marshland into open water.
The fallout and potential exposure from Iran’s state-backed
targeting of U.S. critical infrastructure extends to more than
5,200 internet-connected devices, researchers at Censys said in
a threat intelligence brief Wednesday. Of the programmable
logic controllers manufactured by Rockwell
Automation/Allen-Bradley that Censys identified
as potentially exposed to Iranian government attackers,
nearly 3,900, or about 3 out of every 4, are based in the
United States. The cybersecurity firm identified the
devices based on details multiple federal agencies shared in a
joint alert Tuesday. … The operational technology
devices are deployed across the energy sector, water
and wastewater systems, and U.S. government services
and facilities.
Last year, Long Beach celebrated a deal Synergy Oil & Gas
negotiated with a regional wetlands authority in Southern
California. A former oil field, 154 acres of land in the city
of Long Beach would become public wetlands;
the company would gain a more valuable property and
environmental credits. But a state law meant to keep wells away
from homes and schools thwarted the company’s plan for more
drilling – and now the wetlands deal has become fodder for the
Trump administration’s war against California Democratic energy
policies. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to
the property, owned by Synergy Oil & Gas, on Wednesday with a
message to Gov. Gavin Newsom: state policies are increasing
costs for Californians, and the Trump administration will be
challenging them.
Our tribes — the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe and the Fort Mojave
Indian Tribe — have lived and stewarded lands in the California
desert since time immemorial. … For over 40 years, our
traditional territories have been targeted for the corporate
extraction of vulnerable desert water resources by Cadiz, Inc.,
a foreign investor-backed company. We have successfully opposed
their efforts to extract and sell desert ground water, but
still they continue to pursue an unrealistic scheme to drain
the desert to make a profit for their shareholders. Today, we
write to urge others – both tribal nations and tribal allies to
stand with us – in solidarity against Cadiz’s efforts. –Written by Daniel Leivas, chairman of the Chemehuevi
Indian Tribe, and Timothy Williams, chairman of the Fort Mojave
Indian Tribe.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
