A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation Writer Matt Jenkins.
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Lake Mead could soon benefit from the nation’s largest
desalination plant thanks to an agreement that
would allow water agencies in Nevada, Arizona, and California
to explore ways to exchange water supplies across the
drought-challenged Colorado River Basin. On Wednesday,
the federal government and water agencies in the three states
signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a framework for
an interstate pilot program that could let agencies in Arizona
and Nevada tap San Diego’s Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad
Desalination Plant. … The plan would not
directly send desalination-treated water to Lake Mead, but
would allow “paper” transfers and exchanges between states
using existing infrastructure and credits.
Water contractors can expect to pay between 1% to 3% more for
the energy it takes to bring supplies down the state through
California’s largest project thanks to just one renewable
energy project that came online recently in Kern County – the
Pastoria Solar Project. And that’s just the beginning. When the
Department of Water Resources (DWR) brings on enough renewable
energy projects to fully power the State Water
Project (SWP), contractors can expect their costs to
increase another 10% to 20%, according to a presentation at the
May 20 California Water Commission meeting by DWR Manager of
Power Operations Jorge Quintero. … The SWP is the
state’s largest single electricity consumer, using between 2.5
million and 9.5 million megawatt hours a year, depending on how
much water it’s moving.
Voters in a Southern California city moved to cement what is
believed to be the nation’s first ban on data
centers, appearing to resoundingly approve a ballot
measure that prohibits the facilities citywide. The
Monterey Park City Council unanimously voted in March to submit
the ballot measure — known as Measure NDC — to the June 2
special municipal election, seeking to permanently prohibit
data centers within city limits. The measure amends the city’s
general plan and land use framework to add a citywide ban on
data centers, according to city officials. … City
officials described the ban as a way to protect air
quality, drinking water resources, and public health,
and to avoid potential impacts to electricity and water rates
from the large-scale computing facilities.
Other data center moratorium news around the West:
Denver Parks and Recreation is taking steps to reduce water use
across the city as drought conditions persist along Colorado’s
Front Range. The department announced a water reduction
strategy in response to Denver Water’s Stage 1 Drought
declaration, which calls for voluntary conservation
efforts to help protect water supplies. As part
of the plan, Denver Parks and Recreation will reduce irrigation
at select parks, medians and other landscaped areas. Officials
said watering schedules will be adjusted to focus on
maintaining the health and safety of trees and high-use
recreational spaces while allowing some turf areas to go
dormant. … City officials said they will continue
monitoring drought conditions and could implement additional
conservation measures if conditions worsen.
Lake Tahoe inspectors stopped a watercraft carrying invasive
golden mussels from entering the lake last week, their second
such stop since the mollusk was first discovered in California
waters in 2024. Officials earlier this week in Meyers spotted
four of the invasive species aboard a craft during an aquatic
invasive species inspection, officials with the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency said Wednesday in a news release. That craft is
now under watch of California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The vessel was arriving from the Sacramento
area, said agency officials. The first sightings of
golden mussels in North America were in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta near the Port of Stockton in 2024.
A new county survey could help capture a fuller picture of how
much the ongoing cross-border sewage crisis has cost the
region, particularly for those living near the sewage-laden
Tijuana River. County officials announced May 28 the launch of
the Tijuana River Sewage Crisis Economic Impact Study. It poses
questions about how pollution in the river and beach closures
have affected local businesses, employment, property values,
tourism and school attendance. … Questions for business
owners include whether employees have missed work because of
health impacts related to the pollution, whether they have
struggled to attract new workers or customers and how much
revenue they have lost because of the crisis.
Have you ever wondered where exactly your wastewater goes? The
water from your dirty dishes, the water that goes down the
shower drain, and yes, the water for every flush. All that
water is treated by the Sacramento Area Sewer District
(SacSewer) at its wastewater treatment plant known as the
EchoWater Resource Recovery Facility. Located in Sacramento
County, near Elk Grove, the facility is the second largest
sewage treatment plant in the U.S. and the region’s largest
sewage collection, treatment and resource recovery utility,
according to its website. This site is the only wastewater
facility in Sacramento County and serves every city and
multiple unincorporated areas, including Locke, Walnut Grove,
Freeport, Franklin, and Hood.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District joined
the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation
District May 8 for a hard hat tour of the Riverside Levees
Rehabilitation Project in Riverside, California. The tour
brought together USACE leaders, project team members, local
partners and stakeholders, including U.S. Rep. Mark Takano of
California’s 39th Congressional District. Participants gathered
on the still-active left side of the levee system, where
construction is currently focused, to highlight ongoing
engineering efforts and gain a clear view of the recently
completed repairs on the right side. Originally built in the
1950s to channel floodwater safely through urban areas, the
two parallel levees help provide vital flood-risk
management for nearby communities, including the
cities of Riverside and Jurupa Valley.
The Trinity River is getting its salmon season back, and we
have the full rundown on what anglers need to know. Late
spring-run Chinook fishing on the Trinity opens August 1 and
continues through August 31. … The Klamath River opens a
month earlier, with late spring-run fishing starting July 1 and
running through August 14. Fall-run on the Klamath begins
August 15 and continues through December 31. This is the first
salmon season on the Trinity and Klamath rivers since 2022.
Three consecutive years of closures devastated fishing
communities, guides, tackle shops and the rural economies that
depend on salmon season traffic. The reopening is the result of
increased hatchery production, habitat restoration, dam removal
on the Klamath and three years of ocean and inland closures
that gave populations room to recover.
The State Water Resources Control Board is lowering the
notification and response levels for manganese in drinking
water based on data evaluating potential health risks to
formula-fed infants. Public water systems must now take certain
actions when manganese levels are exceeded. Notification and
response levels are non-regulatory health-based thresholds used
for contaminants that do not currently have a state-established
primary maximum contaminant level. Public notification or
additional actions may be warranted to reduce exposure.
… Officials say that as the first step toward
establishing a primary maximum contaminant level for manganese,
the State Water Board has requested that the Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment develop a Public Health
Goal for manganese.
KJZZ’s Alex Hager is reporting that the Bureau
of Reclamation, the top federal agency for Colorado River
matters, is poised to get a new leader in the coming weeks,
according to multiple people familiar with the
situation. Federal officials are soon expected to announce
the nomination of Aubrey Bettencourt to lead
Reclamation.
On Monday, SpaceX amended its initial public
offering to state that water conditions—including water
scarcity, regulations around water, and drought—could constrain
data center development. It isn’t the only tech company trying
to assess how water scarcity might impact its business. Water
use is emerging as one of the most contentious data center
issues. A recent Gallup poll found that seven
out of 10 Americans are opposed to data center development,
with water scarcity ranking as the top resource
concern. Facing increasingly fierce resistance, some
tech companies are scrambling to assure the public that they’re
facing the issue head-on. … Google is taking a
different approach … the company rolled out a series
of water-related commitments to communities where it has data
centers, along with funding announcements for water-related
projects in the US.
Members of the Colorado Drought Task Force want Gov. Jared
Polis to issue an emergency proclamation to unlock more help,
potentially from state coffers, in face of worrisome drought
conditions. After a historically bad winter that ended a
month early, Colorado is already feeling the impacts — whether
that’s financial strain, tough business decisions or an
overstressed environment. As part of the state’s response,
the task force recommended Monday moving into the
highest level, phase three, of the state’s drought response
plan. The move could allow the state to tap more
resources or seek a presidential declaration. … The
officials gathered for their third meeting in Winter Park to
hear updates about drought conditions and impacts on fisheries,
water providers and wildfire risk.
A new report from a group of widely respected Colorado River
experts says the region’s major reservoirs are sliding toward
“devastating consequences” as water levels continue to drop.
The authors write that another dry year, on the heels of last
winter’s record-setting dry conditions, would send the nation’s
largest reservoirs to “run-of-the-river” levels, meaning that
they are unable to store water for the future, and simply pass
water downstream. As a result, the paper’s authors — a group of
academics and retired water officials — are calling on state
water managers and the federal government to work quickly on
new rules for sharing the Colorado River and avert
infrastructure problems at Lake Powell and Lake Mead,
the nation’s two largest reservoirs.
A collapse in a major Tijuana sewage pipeline has sent millions
of gallons of raw wastewater surging into the Tijuana River
Valley, pushing a South Bay treatment plant far beyond its
capacity and driving dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide gas
into surrounding neighborhoods overnight. The U.S.
International Boundary and Water Commission reported the
failure of Tijuana’s Parallel Gravity Line [last] Friday
night. The line conveys wastewater across Tijuana and its
collapse sent excessive flows to the South Bay International
Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is designed to handle 35
million gallons per day. The plant sustained flows above 45
million gallons per day for 13 hours over the weekend and
peaked above 60 million gallons per day for nine hours.
Harmful algal blooms were rarely observed in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta before 2000. Over the past two decades, they have
become a regular summer event, and scientists are racing to
understand why. DWR is co-leading a five-year, $3 million
research project funded by NOAA to investigate what is driving
the increase in harmful algal blooms across the Delta and San
Francisco Bay. The effort, called MERHAB, brings together
scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the San Francisco
Estuary Institute, UC Santa Cruz, Cal Poly Maritime Academy and
several regulatory agencies. … The research team is
using remote sensing technology, continuous monitoring
stations, laboratory analysis and community volunteers to track
where blooms form, how they move and what conditions trigger
them.
The water that keeps the upper Russian River
flowing through the dry months — the flow farms and towns from
Ukiah to Healdsburg lean on every summer — comes from a
century-old diversion the federal government spent six years
agreeing to shrink. On Friday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke
Rollins told Congressman Jared Huffman in a letter dated
May 29 she’s not done fighting to keep that system in place,
dams and all. On Tuesday, Congressman Huffman, who represents
the district in which the dams are located, told the Voice her
letter was “incoherent.” … “Like most of the
gobbledygook in that letter, it’s nonsense,” he said in an
interview Tuesday, after his office gave the letter to The
Mendocino Voice and Bay City News.
With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act supplemental
five-year water infrastructure funding set to expire Sept. 30,
local government and water stakeholders are urging federal
lawmakers to reauthorize core water programs and fully fund
water infrastructure programs in fiscal year 2027. The 2021
IIJA allocated $50 billion for water infrastructure over five
years, divided across five pots under the Clean Water State
Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund,
with specific funding to replace lead pipes and address PFAS
and other contaminants. The National League of Cities is asking
Congress to maintain the IIJA’s authorization amount — $5.85
billion each to the Clean Water SRF and the Drinking
Water SRF — and reauthorize grant and technical
assistance programs to address PFAS, lead pipes and other water
infrastructure projects in FY27.
Other Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act news:
“Forever chemicals” are everywhere — in our drinking water, in
our food and in products like nonstick frying pans, raincoats
and even some types of floss. … If your community has
water contaminated by PFAS chemicals, drinking water could be
your main source of exposure. According to the U.S.
Geological Survey, they’re in nearly half of the nation’s tap
water. Many cities and towns have already tested
public water for these chemicals, so a good first step is to
check with your water utility to see if they have published
those results. To do that, you can call your utility’s customer
service line or look online to see if they’ve published PFAS
data in water quality reports. … Once you figure out the
levels of PFAS chemicals in your water, you can compare them to
the EPA’s regulations.
A reshaped agreement for the Kern County Water Agency to
provide water to a housing development 200 miles to the north
erased $14 million in debt, giving residents water certainty
into the future just days before KCWA had threatened to shut
off their supplies. … The letter of intent, provided to
SJV Water Monday, was signed May 28, just days before the
agency said it would cut off Western Hills. The water entities
are still working out a formal contract. … The new,
draft deal caps more than a year of back and forth between the
entities over Western Hills’ skipped water payments. How a Kern
County water agency ended up supplying a housing development
200 miles to the north is a complex, somewhat convoluted, deal
going back 28 years.
