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 State Water Resources Control Board on Aug. 5 adopted
revised Water Measurement and Reporting regulations, which
apply to water rights holders that divert over 10 acre-feet per
year. The State Water board unanimously approved the
regulations and they are set to take effect Oct. 1. More
information on the regulations and rulemaking process is
available online.
As California’s farmers adjust to restrictions on groundwater
pumping under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA), tools to foster adaptation can be a big help.
Groundwater markets are one promising tool, but how can
groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) design groundwater
markets to protect those who might be affected by trading?
… The flexible, decentralized nature of markets makes
them powerful, but they can be unpredictable. Groundwater
markets need clear rules that support SGMA, prevent
overpumping, and reduce local economic impacts. Good market
design requires careful thought, planning, and communication
with farmers and the broader community.
… In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science
Advances, researchers said hotter, drier conditions over the
last three decades had gradually elevated the state’s fire
risk. Between 1992 and 2020, global warming made the fire
season earlier by about a week in some regions and by more than
two months in others. … Climate change is responsible
for a range of factors that set the stage for earlier wildfire
seasons, the study found. Higher temperatures and an earlier
melt-off of California’s snowpack allows
vegetation to dry up earlier, adding fuel to rapidly spreading
blazes. Meanwhile, drought conditions mean dryer soil and less
of the cool-season precipitation that historically help tamp
down winter wildfires.
Central California is experiencing a break from its typical
summer heat, bringing relief to local farmers and their crops.
Cooler temperatures this season are having a positive impact on
agricultural yields, according to experts. … [T]he cooler
weather has reduced farmers’ water
requirements, as the soil retains moisture better than
in high temperatures. … Crops such as cotton, corn,
tomatoes, onions, and grapes have benefited from the less
stressful weather.
… American bullfrogs are not native to the Western US. Humans
brought them to the region more than a century ago, largely as
a food source. And in the years since, the frogs — which are
forest green and the size of a small house cat — have
multiplied dramatically. … They escaped from farms and, with
other accidental and intentional introductions, proliferated
until they were common in ponds, lakes, and other water bodies
throughout much of the West, including Arizona, California, and
the Pacific Northwest. … While western states have rivers and
wetlands, permanent warm waterbodies weren’t common until the
spread of agriculture and the need for irrigation. … Now
ponds, reservoirs, and canals — which bullfrogs love — are
everywhere.
This year’s Tahoe Summit theme is “Protecting Lake Tahoe:
Balancing Sustainable Recreation and Conservation.” Leaders
from California and Nevada, on both sides of the
aisle, joined together to reach that goal. … Even though
the Tahoe summit celebrates bipartisanship, California leaders
say they are concerned about the decisions made on the federal
level when it comes to cuts to the Lake Tahoe area.
…[A] pioneering program to harvest rainwater on a commercial
scale in Colorado will likely end next year if lawmakers don’t
find a way to continue the work. … The commercial pilot
program was created in 2016 and authorized up to 10 water
districts across the state to build site-specific rainwater
harvesting programs that would work under Colorado’s complex
water court system, where water rights are intensely
scrutinized by other users, engineers and attorneys. … But
only one water district in fast-growing Douglas County stepped
forward to participate. Until lawmakers took action,
large-scale site-specific rainwater harvesting was illegal
because of the state’s water laws, which dictated that water
that falls from the sky must flow to existing water right
holders.
About 9,200 households in Granada Hills and Porter Ranch were
dealing with a water service outage on Wednesday after the Los
Angeles Department of Water Power announced that emergency
repairs were underway at a pump station. The problem arose on
Tuesday afternoon. The DWP said that as crews were making
repairs of a leak at a pump station that connects to a
10-million-gallon tank, a valve controlling the flow of water
failed to open. … On Wednesday morning, as DWP worked to
make the permanent repairs, staff discovered two oil pipelines,
a gas line, and large boulders that complicated their
excavation efforts.
A new study links widespread deficiency of vitamin B1, or
thiamine, among California Chinook salmon to their deaths. This
adds yet another challenge for this iconic species whose
population is already imperiled by climate change, habitat loss
and overfishing. … Researchers began to suspect an
anchovy-heavy diet was to blame when they examined the guts of
ocean-caught Chinook salmon from 2020-22. They found anchovies
almost exclusively, suggesting the thiamine deficiency in
salmon likely stems from eating too many anchovies. …
Treating every spawning salmon with thiamine is logistically
impossible, [NOAA scientist Nate] Mantua said, but we can
support them in other ways, like removing dams and reducing
fishing pressure on other important forage species including
herring and squid.
When Reclamation District 800 (RD 800) was selected as one of
only four private levee districts nationwide to take part in a
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pilot study in late 2022, it was
already a major win. The program promised expert inspection,
risk analysis, and long-term data — all at no cost to the
district. But what may be even more rewarding, district leaders
say, is that it also brought long-sought recognition and
support from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR)
– the most likely source for future funding. … The pilot
project began in earnest on Feb. 13, 2024, when Army Corps
engineers conducted their first levee tour on the north side of
the Cosumnes River. Top DWR officials from the Division of
Flood Management joined that tour — an unusual show of support
for a rural district long accustomed to going it alone.
Dogs drink water wherever they happen to find it — a puddle, a
pond, a toilet. But the stuff in their actual water bowls
almost always comes from the same tap their owners use. When
that water is contaminated, both dogs and humans may suffer.
The risk is especially high for the 15 million American
households that rely on private wells, according to a new
Virginia Tech study in the journal PLOS Water. In dog drinking
water sampled from wells across the country, 64 percent
contained excessive levels of at least one potentially toxic
heavy metal, such as lead, iron, sulfur, or arsenic.
… Because heavy metal contaminants are often tasteless,
odorless, and invisible, homeowners may not know there’s
something in the water — until their dog gets sick.
Throughout the school year, Eastern Municipal Water District
staff are helping to educate the students who one day may be
taking their jobs. A year ago, EMWD launched a modernization of
its longstanding education program. The focus is on developing
its future workforce through a yearslong Environmental Water
Resource Career Technical Education (CTE) program. The result
is that EMWD staff can promote water industry careers to the
industry’s future workforce. That program – the first of its
kind in the region – was recently honored by the California
Association of Sanitation Agencies (CASA) with its Excellence
in Public Outreach and Education Award. CASA is an industry
organization committed to the collection, treatment, and
recycling of wastewater.
… The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta is an epicenter of
California’s bitter water wars, supplying water to fish,
farmers and semi-arid Southern California. Stakeholders —
fishermen, farmers, water managers, researchers, agencies —
often find themselves at odds with one another, in need of a
living and quick to fight. But recent fish and water crises
have challenged these groups to set aside their competing
interests. California’s commercial salmon fishing ban and
drought-induced water curtailment to agriculture have rallied
an unlikely coalition of fishermen, farmers and water managers
hoping to find solutions.
Tucson’s City Council is expected to vote Wednesday on whether
to annex land for the construction of Project Blue, a proposed
data center that has sparked concern among residents and public
health advocates over its potential environmental and health
impacts. On Tuesday morning, roughly 20 demonstrators gathered
downtown to protest the project, voicing fears about the
center’s water usage in an already
drought-prone region. … “Our water supplies are
dwindling,” said Mike Humphrey, vice chair of the Pima County
Board of Health and an outspoken critic of the project. “We
only have one source of water, which is our aquifer. We don’t
have lakes, we don’t have rivers. And we need to protect that
aquifer because it’s the only water source we have.”
Colorado’s congressional delegation has united to ask the Trump
administration to release $140 million in funding
previously granted to water projects in the state,
including $40 million to aid in the Colorado River District’s
purchase of the Shoshone water rights. … Of the
Colorado awardees, the largest allocation was $40 million to
the Colorado River District to purchase the Shoshone water
rights from Xcel Energy. … The Shoshone water rights —
which include a 1905 senior right tied to the Shoshone Power
Plant in Glenwood Canyon and a secondary, junior right
established in 1929 for other water users, including Front
Range providers — are among the oldest and largest
non-consumptive rights on the Colorado River.
It’s been an entire month since a measurable amount of rain has
fallen in Salt Lake City. And according to the U.S. Drought
Monitor, more than 60% of the state has fallen into severe
drought. National Weather Service Lead Meteorologist Christine
Kruse says little relief is expected in the coming weeks. If
current conditions persist, drought and fire risks will likely
worsen, and much of the next snowpack could be absorbed by
parched soil before reaching reservoirs. … The months of
June and July are typically dry. The average is just under an
inch-and-a-half of rain for both months in Salt Lake City. But
this year, the state didn’t receive even a quarter of that
average, and the whole state is seeing the impact of abnormally
dry weather.
Other drought and precipitation news around the West:
… Urban development and water shortages are
major drivers of farmland loss. Between 2016 and 2040,
California is projected to lose more cropland to urbanization
than any other state — over 300,000 acres. … There are few
truly small farms left that are aiming to turn significant
profits, according to Daniel Sumners, a professor of
agricultural economics at UC Davis. The operations that can
afford and benefit from agrobotics are mid-to-large farms that
can secure loans for equipment purchases. … Across
California’s Central Valley, a new generation of agrobotics
founders is reshaping how innovation happens on the farm.
… According to a study released last week in the
peer-reviewed academic journal Science Advances, fresh water
has been declining at an alarming rate since researchers began
observing global groundwater in 2002, creating areas of
“mega-drying” that cover much of the Northern Hemisphere.
… The United States, which sources half of its
drinking water from groundwater, has no unifying water
management plan, instead relying on a piecemeal local network
of regulations. California passed the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, which aims to regulate
water withdrawals and prevent aquifer exhaustion, in 2014, but
the state isn’t expected to reach sustainable water use
patterns until the early 2040s.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it will defend
the Biden administration’s aggressive rule for reducing lead in
drinking water against a court challenge, though public health
advocates worry officials could still weaken it. The rule gave
cities and towns a 10-year deadline to replace all of their
lead pipes and was the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water
standards in roughly three decades. Litigation against the rule
was on pause so the Trump administration could decide whether
it supported the policy. On Tuesday, the agency said it would
defend the tough standards.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s waterways span over a
thousand miles. The region serves as a critical source
of water for California, a transportation corridor
linking ports in Sacramento and Stockton with the Bay Area, and
a habitat for hundreds of wildlife species. But these rivers,
streams and sloughs also conceal a man-made danger which poses
significant environmental and navigational threats. Dozens of
abandoned vessels — ranging from small speedboats and pleasure
craft, to barges and cruise ships — litter the Delta, some of
which have sat derelict for decades.
