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 federal government has agreed to pump more than
$450 million into programs to carry out additional
Colorado River water conservation, Arizona Department of Water
Resources chief Tom Buschatzke said Monday. The
spending is necessary to make the new proposal from
Arizona, Nevada and California work, Buschatzke
and other water officials said Friday in releasing their offer
to save 700,000 to 1 million acre-feet of river water through
2028. … The U.S. Interior Department proposed that the money
be spent, and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, which
must sign off on all federal expenditures, approved it,
Buschatze said at a news briefing Monday afternoon on the new
plan from the three Lower Colorado River Basin states.
Weeks after most of Colorado’s ski resorts shut down for the
spring, a late-season snowstorm is expected to drop more than
two feet of snow across the Rocky Mountains this week. Snow
this time of year is not unusual for the region, but it is
unusual for this year, after a prolonged snow drought
and record heat in March all but eliminated the critical
snowpack across much of the American West. As of late
last week, nearly 60 percent of Colorado was in an “extreme” or
“exceptional” drought, according to the U.S. drought
monitor. “In terms of the liquid content, this will
certainly be one of the bigger storms” the region has had this
year, said Russell Danielson, a meteorologist with the National
Weather Service in Boulder.
A land study shows California’s bearing almond acreage
decreasing for the first time in more than three decades. The
Almond Board of California reported that the 1.385 million
acres of almond acres measured in its Land IQ study means a net
decrease of 15,227 acres from last year. … The
orchard removals come as the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act has growers pulling up trees, especially in areas
outside the scope of California water agencies — called white
areas. … Grape grower Linda Pandol, head of operations
for Pandol Brothers Inc., said at the economic outlook that
because of SGMA, about 70% of the company’s land gets farmed.
In wet years, her family may plant grains on fallowed land.
Despite Paldon Brothers digging recharge basins, Pandol said
the state is not yet giving out credits for water put back into
the ground.
The Box Elder County Commission [Utah] has voted unanimously
to allowa massive data center project
to move forward. The commission held a “special”
meeting Monday afternoon to decide if they’ll approve
the construction of a massive data center, a proposal
that has garnered widespread opposition in their county and
across the state. … The Box Elder County Commission,
made up of three elected commissioners, was supposed to vote on
the proposal last Monday. However, they delayed the vote after
hearing concerns about water usage,
electricity, and fears that the proposal was being
rushed toward a final decision.
A coalition of healthcare workers, first responders and union
leaders Monday submitted more than 151,000 signatures for
a [county] ballot measure intended to stop
the Tijuana River pollution crisis on a
local level, while also bolstering healthcare. If passed, the
measure would increase the county sales tax by 0.5%. The
San Diego Health & Safety Act, which needs 102,923 valid
signatures from San Diego County registered voters, will likely
make it to November’s ballot. Proponents said they want to take
matters into their own hands after decades of state and federal
leadership not solving the pollution issue. It is also intended
to handle a bevy of issues related to public health and safety.
It has been widely reported that March was a disaster for
California’s snowpack. Summer seemed to arrive three months
early, with record-shattering heat and dryness and a mere
pittance of precipitation. Did a relatively cool, rainy, and
even snowy April make up for it? The short answer is no—but it
helped. It’s important to remember that snowpack is
California’s third-largest source of water storage, behind
surface reservoirs and groundwater. Our statewide
water supply grid is built around storing roughly 30% of
statewide water supply in snowpack, a relatively reliable
source of water through the 20th century. … Depending on
how thick the snowpack is, this melting can last well into June
and even July in some years.
Fishermen in Arena Cove are abuzz as they prepare their boats
for salmon fishing for the first time since 2022. This
week marks the end of a three-year closure on commercial salmon
fishing. … The decision to resume commercial
salmon fishing came via the Pacific Fishery Management Council
Agency after significant improvements in key California salmon
populations were observed. … Along the Mendocino coast,
salmon fishing opened in the southern part of the county, in an
area that stretches from Pigeon Point in Pescadero to Point
Arena. Salmon fishing is allowed exclusively between May 1-6,
9-13, 16-20, 23-29, and August 1-7, 13-16, and 25-27.
Healthy watersheds support wildlife, recreation, and
clean water for communities across California. From a
public-health standpoint, we need to know if a river or stream
is safe to swim or fish in. From the lens of wildlife support,
in addition to being clean, a healthy aquatic habitat must
sustain a whole food web. Knowing a stream’s health also
indicates how resilient it is to adversities such as wildfires,
land-use changes and agricultural runoff. … Now,
researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have
been awarded a $2.2 million grant from the program for a
project based on a rising and effective monitoring tool:
environmental DNA (eDNA). With the CDFW grant funding, UC Santa
Cruz researchers will lead a project to extend their
genomics-based biodiversity-monitoring platform to create an
eDNA-based stream-health index.
… The [Great Salt] lake has peaked at around 4,192 feet in
elevation and roughly a month earlier than expected, said Brian
Steed, the Great Salt Lake Commissioner, who is tasked by Utah
political leaders with saving the lake. Temperatures were
warmer than usual over the winter. Snowpack has been called
“no-pack” by state water officials. … The Great
Salt Lake presents an ecological crisis for northern
Utah, with reduced snowpack that fuels the water
supply; toxic dust storms from an exposed lake bed (arsenic is
among the naturally-occurring minerals in it); impacts to the
state’s economy, public health and wildlife.
At least 18 households in Mountain View are expected to remain
under a boil water notice as the city works to disinfect a
pipeline this week. Test results continue to show coliform
bacteria in a pipeline serving Drucilla Drive and Carla Court,
according to the city. On Wednesday, the city will begin the
process for a “super chlorination” of the pipeline.
… “This ‘super chlorination’ process is intended to
address the presence of low levels of coliform bacteria, which
appear to be concentrated in the water line serving homes on
Drucilla Drive and Carla Court,” the city said in an update
Monday night. … The city shut off water service to 67
households on April 24 after a cement slurry mix came into
contact with a water main during a pipe replacement project
near Bonita Avenue and Cuesta Drive.
Gilbert leaders are considering a $250,000 plan to expand a
grass removal rebate program as the town faces growing pressure
on its Colorado River water supply. The Town
Council is expected to look at a resolution this week on
whether to apply for a $125,000 federal grant through the
Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART Small-Scale Water Efficiency
Project. The total cost of the project with a match would bring
the budget to $250,000. The funding, according to the town,
would expand Gilbert’s Non-Residential Grass Removal Rebate
Program. … Since the program launched in May 2023, 15
projects have removed 149,600 square feet of grass.
Nevada Gold Mines donated $500,000 to a PAC affiliated with
Gov. Joe Lombardo in March, making the mining conglomerate
one of the Republican governor’s top donors in his bid for
re-election. … The latest cash infusion has raised more
questions in comments on news articles and other online spaces
than usual because it followed the firing of Adam Sullivan, the
top official responsible for regulating water rights in the
state after the mining industry complained about him to the
governor’s office. … The mining industry’s complaints to
Lombardo’s office related to a draft proposal by the former
state water engineer designed as a “starting point” for public
input to reduce groundwater pumping in the Humboldt River
Basin, site of many Nevada Gold Mines properties.
A long-vacant city-owned parcel next to Eaton Blanche Park is
about to become two things at once: a passive park with
gardens, walking paths and a dog run, and an underground
stormwater capture facility designed to clean polluted runoff
before it reaches the Los Angeles River. … The Eaton
Wash Stormwater Capture Project sits on a vacant city-owned
parcel east of the Eaton Wash Channel, adjacent to Eaton
Blanche Park. The site was first identified as part of the
city’s Storm Drain Master Plan, according to the Public Works
Department. Underground, the system will divert storm and
dry-weather flows from the channel into a subterranean concrete
basin for treatment and infiltration, with a capture capacity
of 3.4 acre-feet, according to a state environmental
filing.
With the Colorado River’s giant reservoirs declining toward
critically low levels, negotiators for California,
Arizona and Nevada announced a new water-saving plan
for the next two years. Representatives of the three states
said in a written statement Friday night that their plan aims
to “stabilize the Colorado River through 2028.” It will require
larger cuts in water use than they had pledged previously in
talks with other states and the federal government.
… The three states’ negotiators said their plan
identifies more than 3.2 million acre-feet of water cutbacks
through 2028, building on their previous proposal.
Representatives of the three states negotiated the short-term
deal after they deadlocked in talks with four other states on a
long-term plan for sharing the river’s diminishing water.
A thin snowpack is making Northern California and the
West vulnerable to major summer fires as forests dry
quickly. Fire activity is expected to be above normal
in June for the Bay Area, Sacramento Valley, northern Sierra
foothills, parts of the North Coast and much of northeast
California, according to a forecast released Friday by the
National Interagency Fire Center. By July and August, the fire
danger will expand to mountainous regions. … California got
plenty of rain this winter. But the weather was warm, and not
enough snow fell. California’s snowpack stood at just
21% of normal Friday, with less in the north and more
to the south. That means drier vegetation at high elevations as
summer kicks in.
For the first time since December 2021, all of Colorado is in a
drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor published
on Thursday. The Pikes Peak region was the only part of the
state that was not in a drought until this week, when parts of
El Paso, Fremont, Pueblo and Teller counties moved from
abnormally dry to experiencing moderate drought. The percentage
of El Paso County in moderate drought increased from 0% to 100%
from the beginning of April to the end of the month. The county
has not been entirely in a drought since March 2022, according
to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Those conditions were exacerbated
by prolonged above-average temperatures, causing the
lowest snowpack in Colorado’s recorded history
to melt earlier than usual.
The San Joaquin Valley is at a turning point, where
long-standing complex and interconnected water management
challenges are intensifying with climate change and creating
mounting pressures for communities, agriculture, and
ecosystems. To confront these growing pressures, the Department
of Water Resources (DWR) has developed A Vision for the
San Joaquin Valley, an integrated plan with near- and long-term
strategies to strengthen water management and climate
resilience. … A key focus is raising groundwater
levels to reduce damaging land subsidence, which is
currently reducing the capacity of key state and federal canals
to deliver water where it is needed.
The Potter Valley Project, a century-old hydropower complex in
Mendocino County, is on its way to the recycle bin. PG&E
filed last summer to surrender its federal license. Two dams —
Scott and Cape Horn — are coming down. The Eel
River water rights pass to the Round Valley Indian
Tribes for the first time in a century. Now a Riverside County
water district 600 miles to the south says it might want to buy
a piece. The Trump administration is backing the bid. What the
district actually wants — water, electricity, or both — is the
question. … PG&E’s surrender filing says only
one thing is still on the table for any third party: “certain
features of the project such as those for water conveyance.”
The federal hydropower license, the company says, is no longer
transferable. That’s the narrow opening the Riverside district
is reaching into.
… Los Alamos National Laboratory is facing its biggest
expansion since the World War II-era Manhattan Project, the
top-secret government effort to produce the world’s first
atomic weapons. The current expansion will require a colossal
use of resources, including one that New Mexico has in
short supply these days — water. Last month, the U.S.
Department of Energy projected that the Los Alamos
expansion would require around 504 million gallons of water
annually — about 1.4 million gallons of water per day — for at
least another decade. … Plans include building a new
100,000-square-foot facility dedicated solely to artificial
intelligence supercomputers, along with one or more
microreactors, a compact nuclear reactor designed to generate
small-scale power and facilities for staging nuclear waste.
The House Committee on Natural Resources heard testimony
Wednesday on legislation aimed at giving local irrigators a
stronger voice in decisions affecting their water
use and the lands they depend on. H.R. 8259, the
Federal Water Projects Consultation Improvement Act of 2026,
was introduced April 14 in the U.S. House of Representatives in
Washington, D.C., by Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz. The bill seeks to
improve transparency and ensure more direct input from local
water users in the operation of federal water projects.
“Federal agencies often make decisions without sufficient input
from local communities that depend on and operate irrigation
systems and water projects affected by Endangered Species Act
listings,” Bentz said.
