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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For almost a century, Hoover Dam has stood tall, delivering
water and reliable hydropower to cities throughout the American
West. But even the most impressive feats of human engineering
need maintenance — $200 million of it over the next decade, to
be exact, according to estimates from the Bureau of
Reclamation, the federal agency in charge of water and dams in
the West. … [Nev. Rep. Susie] Lee and Sen. Catherine
Cortez Masto, D-Nev., joined Colorado River Commission of
Nevada Chairwoman Puoy Premsrirut at a Lake Mead outlook Friday
to celebrate the release of $52 million to the Bureau of
Reclamation for necessary work.
A lawsuit brought by homebuilders to invalidate actions by the
state’s water department was back in court on Friday.
The outcome of the case could upend the state’s entire
groundwater protection framework. The lawsuit was
filed at the beginning of last year and stems from a report
Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration released in 2023 showing
groundwater levels in the Phoenix metro area were unexpectedly
low. As a result, the Arizona Department of Water Resources
stopped granting certificates to developers that are required
to build new housing developments in parts of the Valley —
including Buckeye and Queen Creek. The Homebuilders Association
of Central Arizona argued in a hearing Friday that ADWR
illegally overstepped its authority with its response.
Colorado’s record-low snowpack is already raising concerns
about increased wildfire risk and water shortages this summer,
even as the mountains are still in the depths of winter.
Statewide, the snowpack levels are just 61% of median for this
time of year, and it would take consistent, record-breaking
snowfall for the rest of the season to reach normal peak
snowpack levels, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. … The Laramie-North Platte and
Colorado Headwaters river basins, which encompass much of
northwest Colorado, have some of the lowest streamflow
forecasts in the state, at 50% of 58% of normal, according to
the water supply outlook.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
A Central Arizona Project-backed advocacy group called the
Coalition for Protecting Arizona’s Lifeline has begun rolling
out television ads and online videos defending the water
supplier’s rights to a Colorado River that is under serious
hydrological and political strain. … While the materials
don’t directly state members’ intended method of securing
water, some of the videos lean heavily on the so-called Law of
the River and its guarantee of water from the four headwaters
states to Arizona, California and Nevada. This theme reiterates
a point that CAP and Arizona water officials have stressed over
the last year or so, that if push comes to shove in a legal
battle, they have the 1922 Colorado River Compact on their
side.
A coalition of tribes and environmental advocates are calling
on the Delta Stewardship Council to reject the California
Department of Water Resources Certification of Consistency for
the proposed Delta Conveyance Project. “The coalition includes
the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, the Winnemem Wintu
Tribe, San Francisco Baykeeper, Center for Biological
Diversity, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Little
Manila Rising, Friends of the River, California Indian
Environmental Alliance, Sierra Club California and Restore the
Delta,” the coalition said in a statement. The group is holding
a virtual press conference on Wednesday to outline its legal
concerns. It is scheduled prior to the two-day Delta
Stewardship Council hearings to consider the
certification.
… The Central Arizona [Central Arizona Irrigation and
Drainage District] was one of 18 irrigation districts spread
across 12 western states initially selected to receive up to
$15 million each from the USDA. The agency’s Water-Saving
Commodities program also earmarked grants for three tribal
communities and two state associations of conservation
districts. … Beginning last January, the Trump administration
threw that into a tailspin. Federal monies were frozen, grant
programs culled, and an unprecedented number of federal
staffers were forced out of work. Many operations at USDA have
since resumed to some semblance of normalcy. But the $400
million promised to the irrigation districts, associations, and
tribes in 2024 remains unaccounted for, and the grant
recipients have received no indication of whether the program
would start or the money would be paid out.
The data from documents released [Feb. 19] by the Pacific
Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) reveals salmon
returns to California’s Central Valley in 2025 were much
improved over the previous two years. … The number
of returning jacks is key to forecasting the number of adult
salmon that are in the ocean every year. This ocean abundance
forecast is used to determine the number of salmon that can be
caught by the ocean commercial and recreational salmon
fisheries and the in-river recreational and tribal fisheries
while allowing enough salmon to escape harvest to spawn in the
Central Valley rivers. The abundance estimate should become
available by February 25 when CDFW will hold its annual one day
salmon information meeting to update the public.
The boss of Santa Clara County’s largest water supplier is
stepping down — and officials will keep paying him for a year
without disclosing what they discovered in a misconduct probe
against him. Valley Water CEO Rick Callender is resigning
effective March 1 after more than a year-long investigation
into misconduct allegations by an employee, which one board
director has said involves sexual harassment. The board of
directors announced Callender’s resignation at a special
meeting Friday, but said nothing about the misconduct probe or
what they found. Officials have not disclosed the nature of the
employee misconduct complaint.
In the cool dawn of a February morning, a crew is assembling to
do maintenance work on a water canal in Tempe. This crew will
spend the rest of its life in the canal, removing the plants
that stop water from flowing. That’s because the workers aren’t
human — they’re fish. The Salt River Project, which operates
this canal, estimates that about 44,000 of these fish live in
its canal system. This morning, it’s adding about 1,000 more.
The fish are a species of carp called white amur. They’re
native to Asia and especially adept at eating the aquatic
vegetation that grows along the walls of the canal. Those
plants can slow down the water and make it harder to send to
faraway users of the canal or gum up the intakes that divert
water in different directions.
… The fear of flooding has steadily faded in Sacramento
because of what happened after the great storms of 1986.
Sacramento came together and created flood control protections,
arguably the most effective regional government effort in local
history. And now, some $5 billion in flood protection
improvements later, Sacramento is almost ready for much bigger
storms. Still, this region does not take flooding as seriously
as it should. Public attention is far more focused on how a
warming climate increases the risk of wildfires and heat waves.
But hotter temperatures are also creating more vapor in the
atmosphere, a flood waiting to happen. –Written by Sacramento Bee columnist Tom Philp.
Utah leaders are preparing for a legal fight over the Colorado
River as the seven states that share the dwindling water supply
remain at odds. Utah lawmakers have requested roughly $6
million to be earmarked for litigation over the Colorado River.
… Utah wants a deal where states agree to not sue one
another if the river’s flow below Glen Canyon Dam falls short
of what states committed to in the Colorado River Compact over
a century ago. The flow may drop below that “tripwire,” as
Colorado River experts call it, as soon as this year.
Ever since California was pummeled by a series of storms in
fall and early winter, experts have said the state’s water
supply is looking strong for this year. … But experts also
say that a few wet storms don’t mean we’re out of the woods.
That’s because this winter is a “classically
climate-change-flavored one,” according to Daniel Swain, a
weather and climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural
Resources. And that’s not because it’s been a particularly
dry winter, he explained. It’s because it’s the warmest winter
the West has ever seen. “In the Western U.S., the snowpack
is, on average, terrible,” Swain said. “It’s about as bad as
it’s ever been in observed history.”
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
A long-awaited set of reports on how to build a fire-resilient
Pacific Palisades, commissioned by Los Angeles city officials
for $5 million, found that much of the hilly enclave remains
out of compliance with standards for evacuating during a
disaster. … The public infrastructure report listed $150
million for “wet” infrastructure repairs, which included
replacing aging and leaky water main pipelines. The resiliency
report outlined further potential improvements to provide more
water for firefighting, such as building larger pipelines and
additional tanks to move and store more drinking water;
improving connections between local water systems; and tapping
stormwater, treated wastewater or even seawater from the
Pacific.
Officials are sounding the alarm over an invasive species
threatening one of California’s key water systems. Golden
mussels, first detected in the Friant-Kern Canal two months
ago, are rapidly multiplying and could disrupt water delivery
to farms and communities in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
The Friant Water Authority held a board meeting Thursday to
address the infestation and outline next steps. The board voted
to hire a consultant to develop a comprehensive control plan,
though any treatment would require permits and could take
several months. The agency is also seeking grants to help fund
prevention and control efforts.
A California lawmaker is calling on the Imperial County Board
of Supervisors to halt a controversial data center project
until they answer “critical questions.” In sharply-worded
statements last week, State Sen. Steve Padilla (D-San Diego)
said the development, specifically the county’s planning
process, had been “shrouded in secrecy.” He said county
officials had yet to reply directly to his December letter
seeking more information about their planning process and
the data center’s water and energy needs.
… County staffers told Padilla’s office they expected
the data center would use reclaimed water or
alternative cooling technologies, “rather than
reliance on water supplied by [the Imperial Irrigation
District].”
Some landowners in Tulare and Kings counties are facing a
mandatory well registration deadline of July 1, 2026. The
Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency board of
directors passed the resolution at its Feb. 9 meeting to gather
depth, location, and type on approximately 2,000 wells in its
boundaries. It is seeking the information on
agricultural, domestic, industrial and retired wells that have
not been destroyed. … The Kaweah subbasin GSAs, which
also include East Kaweah and Mid-Kaweah, all have well
registration programs as part of their groundwater
sustainability plan. But Greater Kaweah is the only one to make
it mandatory.
n 2021, California suffered a severe drought and the hottest
summer then on record. … But that year also saw the
beginnings of a new National Academies study to help
California’s imperiled salmon, smelt and sturgeon survive
people’s relentless water diversions from the Bay-Delta system.
… The new National Academies study, which came at the
request of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, is the first in a
biennial series reviewing the scientific underpinnings of key
water project actions in the Bay-Delta system.
Democratic states are preparing to challenge a Trump
administration plan that would limit their oversight of water
pollution from major energy projects. The administration’s
proposal to prevent states from blocking or imposing
environmental conditions on pipelines, dams and other
infrastructure violates the Clean Water Act and runs afoul of
Supreme Court precedent, attorneys general from 16 blue states
and Washington said Tuesday. The states called on EPA to
abandon its draft rule curtailing states’ role in energy
permitting and signaled they will sue if it is finalized.
Appearing like something out of science fiction, harmful algal
blooms (HABs) can form thick mats that accumulate on freshwater
surfaces throughout California. … DWR is addressing the issue
by drawing on its own expertise and that of partner agencies to
better understand the drivers and dynamics of HABs. DWR is in
the midst of a five-year, $3 million research project by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National
Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s Monitoring and Event
Response for Harmful Algal Blooms program, or MERHAB, with the
aim of developing a HAB monitoring program for the Bay-Delta
estuary.
More than 80% of watersheds in the United States lack adequate
protection and now, a new online tool will tell you
if the river or creek in your neighborhood is in trouble. The
National Protected Rivers Assessment from the nonprofit
American Rivers and Conservation Science Partners shows
hundreds of rivers and creeks across California remain woefully
underprotected. … The tool includes more than 70
possible mechanisms of protection from buffer zones of
vegetation on riverbanks to local zoning ordinances and
wildlife habitat protections. The data show California
watersheds are only 31% protected but it is one of the highest
scores in the nation.
