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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To replenish California’s chronically depleted aquifers, the
state’s Department of Water Resources is taking a hard look at
a new line of attack: Pairing more sophisticated reservoir
operations with groundwater recharge. Water managers are aiming
to make greater use of the increased floodwater that’s expected
to come with flashier, more intense storms and earlier
snowmelt. The new approach is known as
FIRO-MAR, which stands for Forecast-Informed
Reservoir Operations-Managed Aquifer Recharge. In December, DWR
released a study focused on the five main tributary watersheds
of California’s second-largest river, the San Joaquin, that
provides the most comprehensive assessment of the concept’s
potential yet.
With a Lake Powell conservation pool nearly guaranteed for the
future of Colorado River management, the four Upper Basin
states are exploring and refining the ways they could fill it.
Conservation by those states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and
Wyoming) could be one of the keys to reaching a deal among the
seven states that share the Colorado River and an important
part of the framework for managing the drought-stricken river
after this year. The water saved by the Upper Basin states
could be stored in Lake Powell as a means of maintaining higher
water levels and as an insurance policy against drastic cuts.
Governor Spencer Cox said he would not rule out seeking a
drought declaration if Utah’s already-bleak water situation
intensified. While the good news is that water supplies are
good because reservoirs are full, FOX 13 News first reported on
Wednesday that new government reports showed snowpack levels
are among the worst ever; Utah’s snow water equivalent (the
water we get out of snow) is at a record low; and this winter
was the warmest on record. The Great Salt Lake could hit a new
record low this year and Lake Powell, which helps prop up the
Colorado River system, could drop to such a low it ceases to
generate electricity for millions of people across the West.
Other drought and water restriction news around the West:
The San Diego County Water Authority has inked its first deal
to sell excess water to other communities in Southern
California, a landmark overhaul of the water authority’s
business model that’s long been promised by top officials. The
water authority’s new agreement to sell water to the Western
Municipal Water District in Riverside County will bring in $100
million in new revenue for the San Diego region’s financially
strapped water system over the next five years. That influx of
cash could temper future rate hikes for many county residents.
But it’s too early to say what impact the deal might
have. The water authority’s Board of Directors unanimously
backed the agreement with Western on Thursday.
Groundwater depletion is a growing concern for regions that
need to provide water for growing cities and thirsty
agriculture in a drying climate, but Las Vegas offers a case
study for how intervention can help stabilize a major source of
potable water. New research published in Science
Magazine Thursday documents dozens of cases of
“groundwater recovery” across the globe — where groundwater
levels rose after a prolonged period of depletion. Las
Vegas stood out as a rare case of groundwater levels recovering
significantly after intervention through artificial recharge,
which involves direct injection of treated unused Colorado
River water into the local groundwater aquifer.
A new bipartisan bill before the U.S. House of Representatives
seeks to fund advanced wastewater treatment upgrades across the
country, with a particular focus on PFAS contamination and
infrastructure affordability. A new bipartisan bill introduced
in the U.S. House of Representatives aims to modernise
wastewater treatment systems nationwide by establishing a
five-year federal grant programme worth $1 billion. The
Advanced Wastewater Treatment Assistance Act of 2026, sponsored
by Representatives Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick
(R-PA), would cover up to 50% of project costs for eligible
water utilities deploying technologies such as granular
activated carbon and reverse osmosis.
State lawmakers should tighten their oversight of water
regulators who are set to adopt a controversial plan pushed by
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for water flows in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the Legislative Analyst’s
Office said Wednesday. A new report from the Legislative
Analyst’s Office comes as the State Water Resources Control
Board weighs a revised version of its long-delayed Bay-Delta
water quality plan, which sets the minimum amount of water that
must flow down rivers to keep fish healthy. The new
proposal would allow water agencies to divert more water from
the Delta than originally planned if they pay for habitat
restoration and other environmental improvements.
For several generations, the Berry family has logged the forest
on their sprawling coastal property near the mouth of the
Russian River to feed a sawmill they continue
to operate a few miles upstream. But the family’s latest plan
for 1,099 acres of forest they own overlooking the river near
its outlet at Jenner has riled this small community, raising
concerns about the long-term impacts on drinking
water and imperiled salmon runs that
have yet to recover from a century of destructive commercial
logging. … [P]roject opponents … worry that more heavy
equipment on forest slopes could unleash more sediment into the
waterway — a chronic problem in the wake of heavy-handed
logging over the past century or more, with especially harmful
fallout for fish populations.
… Western ridged mussels once ranged from San Diego
County into Canada, including parts of Idaho and Nevada. …
[T]heir range has shrunk by 43%, and they have disappeared
entirely from the southern part of their California range. …
The species faces several threats, including dams, pollution
and runoff from agriculture and urban areas. … [T]he Center
for Biological Diversity petitioned in 2020 to have the western
ridged mussel listed under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish
and Wildlife Service found the petition presented enough
scientific information to warrant a full review … but missed
its August 2021 deadline to make a required decision. Now, the
group has issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue the agency.
… Once widespread across California, vernal pools have become
incredibly rare. The Central Valley was chock-full of them, but
nearly all historic valley-floor vernal pool habitat has been
lost to agriculture. … Development and other land-use changes
still threaten some existing vernal pools, and even those
protected in preserves must contend with non-native grasses,
which crowd out delicate flowers and raise pool elevations
through accumulated thatch, as well as climate change, which
will alter precipitation patterns, promote algae growth, and
accelerate late-season drying. Fortunately, there are still a
number of places where you can experience these unique
ecosystems. … Here are some of the best places to visit
vernal pools in Sonoma County and beyond this spring.
Deandre Presswood is no stranger to digging himself out of deep
snow – literally. A graduate student at the University of
Nevada, Reno, he’s studying snow hydrology and giving others a
glimpse of the field’s quirks through his Instagram page,
@hydrosciguy. … Right now, he’s a student, but when
Presswood achieves his PhD in about two years, he’ll mark a
unique accomplishment: he may become the first Black snow
hydrologist in the nation. … In the Sierra region,
trusted snow hydrologists are especially
important. Northern Nevada’s water supply is reliant on
snowpack.
The Colorado River system’s immediate outlook got even worse
this week when federal forecasters downgraded the expected
inflows into Lake Powell to just 27 percent of
average. … The news comes days after the
Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages water
and dams in the American West, released a bleak warning
for levels at Lake Mead. … Meanwhile, officials from the
seven states in the Colorado River Basin have blown past two
separate deadlines to update river operation guidelines that
will expire this year. The Bureau of Reclamation and its parent
Interior Department have said they will decide for the states
in the absence of an agreement. … In a statement Wednesday,
the Bureau of Reclamation said its staff is keeping a close eye
on the forecast.
… [A] rapidly-shrinking snowpack is undercutting plans from
the governor’s office and White House, exposing the limits of
California’s water playbook and leaving the state on
the precipice of drought. The early-season heat wave
now gripping the state is wiping out much of its remaining
Sierra Nevada snowpack, which acts as a frozen reservoir to
dribble out roughly a third of California’s water supply
throughout the spring and summer. … The Department of
Water Resources said on Wednesday that it got permission from
the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees flood control,
to fill up Lake Oroville past the usual safety limit
meant to accommodate possible floods to capture remaining
snowmelt.
The analyst for California lawmakers advised Wednesday for the
Legislature to lean into its oversight role of an upcoming
water plan to firm up water supply throughout the parched
state. The Legislative Analyst’s Office in its
report focused on an update to the water quality control
plan for the San Francisco Bay-Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. That plan will create water quality standards
intended to protect fish and wildlife in the Bay-Delta, along
with the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their
tributaries. … The analyst’s office noted that the State
Water Resource Control Board likely will approve an updated
Bay-Delta plan this year.
As California has endured increasingly severe droughts, a
long-running federal research program has used planes to
survey, and help explain, the growing toll on the landscape:
how many trees have died, what areas are being hit hardest and
where wildfire risk is greatest. The state Aerial Detection
Survey, run by the U.S. Forest Service, however, has become a
casualty of the Trump administration. … The research flights,
which for decades crisscrossed California’s forests to assess
their health, ground to a halt last year because of funding and
staffing reductions, federal officials say.
Registration closes Mondayfor ourWater
101 Workshop, a
once-a-year daylong course on California water hosted
nextThursday
at Cal State Sacramento’s Harper Alumni Center!
Speakers will go beyond the headlines to give participants
a deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved across
California. Workshop participants are also able to grab
one of the few remaining seats on the optional
watershed tour the next dayfrom the foothills of the Sierra Nevada
along the American River to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,
including alunch cruise on the
Sacramento River aboard the River City
Queen.View an agenda herefor our popular workshop taught by some
of the state’s leading policy and legal
experts, andregister
here by Monday, March 23!
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority board agreed at
its March 11 meeting to provide the data it used to set its
safe, or sustainable, yield amount to the Department of Water
Resources for review. DWR made the request as a trial over the
issue is upcoming this June where a judge will look over
evidence and set a safe yield figure for the eastern Kern
County basin independently. … The Indian Wells
Groundwater Authority groundwater plan, including its safe
yield estimate of 7,600 acre feet per year, was approved by DWR
in 2022. Others in the basin, principally the Indian Wells
Water District, have disputed the authority’s safe yield
figure, suggesting the amount is closer to 14,000 acre feet a
year.
Crews are putting dead salmon back into the Sacramento River,
trying to rebuild something most people never see: the
nutrients that keep the river alive. Along a stretch near
Jellys Ferry Bridge, workers are releasing fish carcasses from
a nearby hatchery into the water. The goal is simple: feed the
river so young salmon have a better chance of surviving.
… The program uses salmon from Coleman National Fish
Hatchery, which was built decades ago to make up for habitat
lost when Shasta Dam blocked natural spawning areas upstream.
The state of California has received $540 million for critical
water infrastructure projects that will help bolster water
conveyance and improve capacity, including the state’s largest
reservoir. The money will go to five federally managed projects
across the Central Valley and Northern
California. … The Delta-Mendota Canal will receive
$235 million. … The Friant-Kern Canal will receive $200
million. … The 102-mile San Luis Canal will receive $50
million. … The Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority pumping
plant will receive $15 million. … $40 million will go
towards efforts to raise the Shasta Dam.
The Westside Water Authority, at its March 11 meeting, got an
idea of how much it will likely cost to combat the golden
mussel invasion – at least $3.8 million. And that’s just
the start. The authority is composed of Belridge Water Storage
District, Lost Hills Water District, Berrenda Mesa Water
District, and Dudley Ridge Water District. Belridge first
detected the mussels in its facilities in October 2025. The
mollusks have since spread throughout all four districts on
Kern County’s western edge. … If authority member
districts agree to use GreenLeaf Ag, it would employ the
chemical EarthTecQZ. … Even at lower doses, the chemical
could potentially affect carp but not game fish.
