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 Trump administration on Monday proposed rolling back limits
on “forever chemicals” that contaminate millions of Americans’
drinking water and have been linked to a range of health
problems. The proposal would partially rescind the first
national drinking water limits for the chemicals — also known
as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — set by the
Biden administration. Under the changes, EPA would eliminate
strict limits for four PFAS and allow utilities to request a
two-year extension to remove two other PFAS from tap water.
PFAS are a class of thousands of synthetic substances nicknamed
“forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break
down.
The Denver City Council unanimously approved a one-year
moratorium [Monday] on new data center development in the city,
marking a major policy pause as officials work to establish new
regulations. The measure halts the acceptance and processing of
new zoning permits and site development plans for data centers
while Denver drafts rules addressing energy use, water
consumption, noise and citing standards. The
moratorium remains in place for up to one year, or until the
city adopts updated data center regulations. The vote
comes despite construction well underway on a data center in
the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood that is estimated to use far
more water and power than anything currently operating in
Denver.
A late-season snowstorm has brought several inches of May
powder to the high country, offering a modest but welcome boost
to a state grappling with drought conditions. Snow fell
steadily throughout the day Monday and into Tuesday morning,
with more than five inches of snow reported in Aspen Springs,
Walden, Nederland, Sawpit, and Estes Park. … While the storm
is part of a pattern of late-April and May precipitation
events, the 9NEWS Weather Impact Team has cautioned it will do
little to reverse the region’s critically low snowpack [in the
headwaters of the Colorado River].
Statewide snowpack is currently sitting around 20% of
normal, and even lower in parts of Clear Creek County,
where it stands at just 9%. … Still, the moisture carries
real benefits as Colorado begins the summer season.
California officials on Thursday convened the inaugural board
meeting of the newly minted Salton Sea Conservancy, marking the
state’s first new conservancy in over fifteen years and
signaling a major escalation in the battle to save its largest,
most troubled lake. The high-stakes session, led by Joe Shea,
Assistant Secretary for Salton Sea Policy at the California
Natural Resources Agency (CNRA), introduced the new governing
board to the public, detailed its financial blueprint, and
underscored a renewed commitment to grassroots community
involvement. … According to the CNRA, the Salton Sea
Conservancy is uniquely armed with a dual mandate: overseeing
the long-term operations and maintenance of projects
constructed under the Salton Sea Management Plan and
aggressively acquiring and holding vital land and water rights.
It’s the time of year, when a massive 100-foot rubber
dam emerges from the bottom of the Russian River near
Forestville. That’s to ensure the 600,000 residents of Sonoma
and Marin counties who rely on the river for drinking water
have a stable supply during summer, when demand for water
increases but river levels are lower. Monday marked the
start of the three-day process of raising the dam, which was
first raised in the 1970s. … Most of the year, residents
of the area consume 20-40 million gallons of water a day. At
the height of summer, consumption can reach up to 60 million
gallons a day.
An endangered fish recovery project near Moab is trying a new
approach this year after unusually low Colorado River flows
disrupted the wetland nursery process normally used to raise
young razorback sucker. Earlier this month, biologists
with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stocked 5,000
larval bonytail chub — the rarest endangered native fish in the
Colorado River Basin — into the central pond at the Scott and
Norma Matheson Wetlands Preserve as part of an experimental
recovery effort. Instead of relying on spring runoff to
naturally carry endangered razorback sucker larvae into the
preserve, DWR biologists directly introduced the bonytail in
hopes that fish raised in a more natural environment may
ultimately survive better once released into the Colorado
River.
Other habitat and species restoration news around the West:
House lawmakers will consider a range of water sector
challenges this week, with hearings on both cybersecurity
threats to infrastructure as well as a recent massive sewage
spill in the Potomac River. The House Science, Space and
Technology Subcommittee on Environment will convene Thursday
to discuss cybersecurity threats facing the nation’s
water infrastructure and new research on how to prevent
them. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations is meeting Wednesday to scrutinize
the causes of a massive sewage spill in the Potomac River.
Experts say the spill highlights the risk of aging, underfunded
water infrastructure. The Science panel’s hearing comes as
federal agencies are warning of an uptick in attempted
cyberattacks from Iran-affiliated actors targeting critical
sectors such as water and wastewater utilities.
A broad coalition of Colorado River water users is calling on
the federal government to provide at least $2 billion in new
funding for drought programs. The letter to congress comes from
a strikingly diverse group. Its co-signers include farm
districts, environmental nonprofits, Native American tribes,
cities and others. The Colorado River has been stretched thin
for more than two decades. A 26-year megadrought,
fueled by climate change, has shrunk supplies.
Policymakers across the Southwest have not done enough to rein
in demand accordingly. As a result, the nation’s two largest
reservoirs have dropped to anxiety-inducing low levels for the
users that depend on their water.
Advocates are urging the restoration of full funding for
California’s Safer program, which aims to help rural
communities address contaminated water issues and secure
long-term solutions. … The Community Water Center
highlighted the struggles of residents in unincorporated areas
such as Royal Oaks, Las Lomas, and Castroville, where
contaminated wells have been a persistent issue. … The
Monterey County Public Health Bureau identified several
contaminants in water across the state, including nitrate, TCP,
PFAS, and chromium 6, all of which can cause cancer with
prolonged exposure. … [A]round 240 households are working
together to find a long-term solution, with many relying on
bottled water as a temporary measure.
… The severe drought seizing Colorado may leave some of the
state’s most popular lakes looking more like puddles by the end
of the summer. Lakes aren’t just places for recreation and
relaxation. … Many are reservoirs, and all that water goes
toward agriculture and irrigation, in addition to the
municipalities that need it for things like drinking water.
This year, of course, there isn’t much water to go around. …
In a normal year, those snowpacks feed our rivers, which flow
into those reservoirs, leaving them plump and happy. This year,
the rivers were more like a trickle, and that not only means
not much went into the reservoirs, but that those who own water
rights will likely have to use them sooner and in much greater
gallons.
Continued dredging issues related to U.S. Army Corps of
Engineer (USACE) practices have frustrated the Port of
Stockton’s ability to reach its legally mandated 35-foot draft
undermining waterborne transport volumes of import and export
cargoes, according to Kirk DeJesus, Executive Director, Port of
Stockton. Resolving these challenges will increase cargo
volumes and growth, he said. In an interview with AJOT on
April 20th, DeJesus described problems getting the US Army
Corps of Engineers San Francisco District to fully dredge the
Stockton Ship Channel which stretches along the San Joaquin
River to Stockton, an inland river port that is a major
import/export link for warehouses and agricultural growers in
California’s San Joaquin Valley.
Descanso Gardens broke ground on a series of water reclamation,
wildfire readiness and habitat restoration projects designed to
improve long-term sustainability and public access at the
botanical garden on Monday morning. The groundbreaking ceremony
was held in the auxiliary parking lot at Descanso Gardens,
where excavation will begin on a new underground stormwater
capture system. According to Descanso Gardens officials, the
project will include a cistern system capable of storing about
1.5 million gallons of water and capturing up to 21 million
gallons of stormwater annually from a 256-acre watershed. The
reclaimed water will be reused for irrigation, lake
replenishment and habitat support.
California officials announced Friday that the State Water
Project will deliver more water than expected in 2026. The
Department of Water Resources increased the project’s water
allocation to 45% from 30% of requested supplies. … Lake
Oroville, the state’s largest reservoir, is now at 99% of
capacity, according to the California Department of Water
Resources. Across California, reservoirs are at 117% of
average levels for this time of year.
… “California’s reservoirs are full, but most snowpack
melted off weeks ago,” Department of Water Resources Director
Karla Nemeth said. “We must use this stored water carefully
because there’s no backfill until next season.”
Directors of a Riverside County water agency said to be
interested in a pair of Eel River dams, 600 miles away from
their jurisdiction, held a public meeting Thursday night that
proved revelatory. It shed light on a recent trip by Elsinore
Valley Municipal Water District directors and representatives
of a neighboring water agency to the North Coast waterworks. It
also gave both supporters and opponents of dam removal on the
Eel River a chance to weigh in on the seemingly far-fetched,
Trump-era move by the Southern California entities in a complex
Northern California water dispute. The updates and public input
came in a May 14 board meeting of the Elsinore Valley Municipal
Water District, which now has an ad hoc committee dedicated to
“exploring opportunities associated with Potter Valley,”
according to Director Chance Edmondson.
An alfalfa-growing megafarm can’t halt a public nuisance
lawsuit accusing it of excessive groundwater pumping in the
southwest corner of Arizona, plagued with fissures and land
subsidence, a state judge ruled Friday. Fondomonte
Arizona LLC, which accounts for more than 80% of groundwater
pumping in the 912-square-mile Ranegras Plain Basin,
asked Maricopa County Judge Scott Minder to pause a 2024
lawsuit filed by Attorney General Kris Mayes so the Arizona
Department of Water Resources could first implement its own
restrictions. The department designated the basin an active
management area in January and has begun a two-year process
aimed at cutting groundwater pumping by 50% over 50
years.
Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they
use, according to a new report — and the industry is
encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities. The
report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara
University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of
artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions
reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water,
with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial
Valleys. But, reinforcing previous studies, the
researchers found that a patchwork of state, federal and local
policies allow data center operators to avoid publicly
disclosing their actual water use.
Gov. Gavin Newsom set aside $25 million for the Healthy Rivers
and Landscapes Program in his May budget revision – a Delta
Plan option strongly supported by Solano County, Suisun City
and a number of other local agencies. However, a usual Solano
water ally is not happy with Sacramento. Restore the Delta, a
coalition of regional tribes, farming, environmental and
fishing interests, called the revise a “major blow to an
already declining Delta.” It was particularly unhappy that no
funding was provided for what it says are critical Delta levee
protections. … Solano County Water Agency General
Manager Chris Lee had not seen the revise details, so he did
not want to comment. However, he has strongly advocated for
the Healthy Rivers and Landscapes Program over an earlier
Unimpaired Flow state proposal that Lee and others have said
would devastate Solano.
The U.S. government has proposed a new water-sharing plan for
the drought-stricken Colorado River that could cut up
to 40% of current supplies to Arizona, California and
Nevada, according to a senior Arizona official. With a
20-year-old plan expiring this year, and talks between seven
states that share the river at an impasse, the federal
government late last week intervened with a strategy to deal
with severe water shortages, according to Tom Buschatzke,
director of the Arizona Department of Water
Resources. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation proposed a
10-year plan in which Arizona, California and Nevada would
potentially cut water use by up to 3 million acre-feet per year
to maintain water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
San Diego County officials are warning South Bay residents
about possible sewage impacts after failures in Tijuana’s
wastewater system prompted concerns about increased
cross-border flows into the United States. According to the
U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC),
emergency repairs are underway on a leak involving the Parallel
Gravity Line, a major pipeline that carries wastewater through
Tijuana. … During the repairs, pump stations known as PBCILA
and PB1 will be taken offline, forcing additional wastewater
from Tijuana’s sanitation system toward the treatment plant
near the U.S.-Mexico border. Officials say South Bay
residents could notice stronger sewage odors and increased
wastewater flows in the Tijuana River Channel while repairs are
underway.
The West is entering the summer in a drought. The Wyoming state
engineer’s office is in charge of water rights in the state.
It’s preparing for the summer with some water restrictions
already in place. Wyoming Public Radio’s Kamila Kudelska spoke
with Deputy State Engineer Jack Morey to learn about what this
summer might look like. … KK: Could you say some
examples of some tributaries that would be affected that you
said have never been affected before? JM: On the western side
of the state, there’s a lot of tributaries. … I think it
would be safe to say pretty much any tributary in Wyoming,
there’s a chance of being on regulation this summer.
