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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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.
The federal agencies responsible for managing the
ever-shrinking Colorado River have two new leaders at the helm.
Scott Cameron, who previously served as acting assistant
Interior secretary for water and science, will lead the Bureau
of Reclamation as acting commissioner. Interior Secretary Doug
Burgum appointed him Wednesday through a secretarial
order. … The post Cameron was filling will go
permanently to Andrea Travnicek, who has experience leading the
North Dakota Department of Water Resources and served in the
first Trump administration’s Interior Department in various
roles.
Only a few seats are left on the bus for our Northern
California Tour on Oct. 22-24. This 3-day,
2-night excursion travels across the Sacramento Valley and
follows the river north from Sacramento through Oroville to
Redding and Shasta Lake. Tour participants will also get an
up-close view of Oroville Dam’s repaired main spillway
that suffered major damage during a power 2017 storm. Claim
your seat now!
The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board,
represented by the California Attorney General’s Office, filed
suit against Sable Offshore Corp., alleging repeated violations
tied to the repair and restart of the Santa Ynez Unit oil and
gas operation. … It alleges that Sable repeatedly discharged
or threatened to discharge waste to waters of the state without
authorization, despite being notified by the Central Coast
Water Board that permits were required for the activities. The
complaint also contends that Sable activities resulted in the
discharge of sediment and vegetative debris to various bodies
of water inland and near the Gaviota Coast.
On a bright afternoon in August, the shore on the North Arm of
the Great Salt Lake looks like something out of a science
fiction film set in a scorching alien world. … This
otherworldly scene is the test site for a company called Lilac
Solutions, which is developing a technology it says will shake
up the United States’ efforts to pry control over the global
supply of lithium, the so-called “white gold” needed for
electric vehicles and batteries, away from China.
… Lilac is not the only company in the US pushing for
DLE. In California’s Salton Sea, developers such as
EnergySource Minerals are looking to build a geothermal power
plant to power a DLE facility pulling lithium from the inland
desert lake.
… Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of
Land Management approved a plan to round up and
remove hundreds of wild horses roaming beyond the roughly
200,000 acres designated for them along the California and
Nevada border. … Environmentalists say the horses are
degrading the otherworldly landscape at Mono Lake, including
bird habitat and its famed tufa. … Local tribes and
nonprofits have partnered to fight the roundup plan, arguing
that the Indigenous community should be tapped to manage the
animals that roam their ancestral lands. A separate group of
plaintiffs has sued the government, claiming it’s reneging on
its duty to protect the horses.
Each fall, one of Lake Tahoe’s most unique wildlife spectacles
comes alive at Taylor Creek. The Kokanee salmon are preparing
to begin their upstream journey, turning the waters of this
South Lake Tahoe stream into a vibrant scene of red and silver.
While the native Lahontan cutthroat trout spawn in the spring,
the Kokanee—a landlocked cousin of the Sockeye salmon—take
center stage in October and November. Their timing depends on
environmental factors like colder water and higher stream
flows, which are managed in part by the Fallen Leaf Lake Dam.
Without these carefully balanced flows, Taylor Creek could run
too low or even dry up in the fall.
Three years after the federal government listed a tiny Nevada
toad on the endangered species list, a geothermal company
seeking to develop a project near the toad’s only known habitat
in Northern Nevada is suing the government over the listing.
Ormat Technologies, headquartered in Reno, is suing the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and U.S. Department of the
Interior, saying that the Dixie Valley toad was placed on the
endangered species list “without any evidence” that its
population is declining. … One of the concerns is that
geothermal pumping in the area could affect the quality,
temperature, or quantity of water in the wetlands where the
toad lives.
… [A]s sea levels continue to rise and extreme weather events
become more frequent, the need for more effective response
strategies is greater than ever. The San Francisco Bay is one
such region experiencing this exact trajectory, making it a
focal point for scientists like Patrick Barnard, research
director for the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. Barnard co-authored a
paper recently published in the Journal of Waterway, Port,
Coastal, and Ocean Engineering that explores coastal flooding
patterns and mitigation strategies throughout the bay region.
The El Dorado Water Agency (EDWA) has announced that its
General Manager, Rebecca Guo, has been elected to the
Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) Board to
represent Region 3 for the 2026-27 term. Officials from EDWA
are celebrating this development, as Guo will be in a position
to advocate for El Dorado County’s water resource needs,
including investments in watershed management, water
reliability and drought preparedness.
For more than two decades, small-scale farmers and community
gardeners have grown fresh fruits and vegetables, native
plants, flowers and other produce at the Tijuana
River Valley Community Garden, a 20-acre complex of
publicly owned farmland adjacent to the Tijuana River.
… All of that came to a halt last week when
representatives from the Resource Conservation District of
Greater San Diego County, which manages the garden, issued mass
eviction notices to all 217 community gardeners and
farmers. One reason for the sudden eviction, the
district’s executive director said, was a series of pollution
warning signs erected six weeks ago at several locations
throughout the river valley, including at the garden itself.
Voluntary cleanup agreements have been a staple of cleanups
under both state and federal cleanup programs for
decades. … California Health & Safety (“H&S”)
Code § 101480 et seq. (“Section 101480”) allows local agencies
to enter into voluntary cleanup agreements and recover their
oversight costs. Section 101480 provides no framework or
authorization for local agencies to adopt their own corrective
action requirements but requires that they oversee the
investigation and cleanup consistent with the Water
Code. Several local agencies in California – including
some of the most populous cities and counties – have used
Section 101480 as enabling legislation to establish site
cleanup programs (“SCP”), including San Francisco City and
County, Alameda County, and Orange County.
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.
A steady stream of water spilled from Lake Casitas Friday, a
few days after officials declared the Ojai Valley reservoir had
reached capacity for the first time in a quarter century. Just
two years earlier, the drought-stressed reservoir, which
provides drinking water for the Ojai
Valley and parts of Ventura, had dropped under 30%.
The Casitas Municipal Water District was looking at emergency
measures if conditions didn’t improve, board President Richard
Hajas said. Now, the lake is full, holding roughly 20 years of
water.
After nearly a century of people building dams on most of the
world’s major rivers, artificial reservoirs now represent an
immense freshwater footprint across the landscape. Yet, these
reservoirs are understudied and overlooked for their fisheries
production and management potential, indicates a study from the
University of California, Davis. The study, published
in the journal Scientific Reports, estimates that U.S.
reservoirs hold 3.5 billion kilograms (7.7 billion pounds) of
fish. Properly managed, these existing reservoir ecosystems
could play major roles in food security and fisheries
conservation.
