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 Interim Director Doug Beeman.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Please Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing. Also, the headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
From my home in Los Angeles, I witnessed the devastation of
wildfires earlier this year and how they underscored the rising
urgency to modernize water infrastructure. … As wildfires grow
more frequent and intense, it becomes even more urgent to adapt
our water infrastructure to meet this new reality. Much of the
nation’s water infrastructure is nearing the end of its
lifespan. And yet, modernizing drinking and wastewater systems
could exceed $744 billion in costs over the next 20
years. Between the urgent need to upgrade decades-old
systems and the rising impacts of climate-driven weather
extremes, the vast networks of pipes, treatment plants, and
drainage systems across the U.S. are under immense strain. –Written by Kirsten James, senior program director for
water at the nonprofit sustainability organization Ceres.
The San Miguel Community Services District declined to join a
new agency that will charge fees for pumping groundwater from
the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin. The basin is managed by five
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies, four of which voted to
create a Joint Powers Authority that would have the power to
levy fees. On Thursday night, the San Miguel Community Services
District Board of Directors voted 2-2 on a motion to join the
Joint Powers Authority. Because the board was tied, the motion
failed, and the agency missed the Friday deadline to join the
Joint Powers Authority.
The Marin Municipal Water District Board of Directors just
decided on our “path to resiliency” by approving a pipeline to
bring water from the Russian River in Sonoma County. As a
director and co-founder of the Marin Coalition for Water
Solutions group, I can say our members thank the board for this
step, as it will help. However, it won’t completely solve
the problem. The pipeline will provide a limited amount of
water under contract with the Sonoma County agency. … (T)he
board should also aggressively pursue a longer-term,
drought-proof alternative – water reuse. –Written by Steve Isaacs, co-founder of Marin Coalition
for Water Solutions.
The first time I went to Imperial Beach, California, I was
struck by the community’s kindness. I went to the pier first,
not knowing where to find people to talk to, only knowing that
the pier was an iconic fixture of the town. … At first,
the story was about the loss of this beach, a community space
to swim and gather. But as I spoke to more people, and felt how
genuine they were and ready to talk to me and direct me to
where to go next, it was almost overwhelming how far the
impacts of the polluted water in Imperial Beach reached.
In 2024, after years of deliberation, California water
officials adopted landmark rules that will guide future water
use and conservation in the state. The “Making Conservation a
California Way of Life” framework went into effect at the
beginning of 2025 and requires compliance by 2027. The
framework is intended to help preserve water supplies as
climate change drives hotter, drier conditions and droughts
become more frequent and longer lasting, and is expected to
help save 500,000 acre-feet of water annually by 2040. That is
enough to supply more than 1.4 million households for a
year.
Dozens of Central Valley residents are planning to gather in
Fresno to voice their opposition to a plan to expand dumping
they say will bring dangerous waste to the region. On
March 20, residents and environmental justice advocates plan to
protest on the steps of Fresno City Hall against a proposed
expansion of hazardous waste dumping that could permit city
landfills to take more contaminated soil. … According to a
news release from the California Environmental Justice
Coalition, the plan threatens air and water quality, public
health, and community safety, especially in communities already
burdened by pollution.
… (T)echnologies that collect water vapor and turn it into
pure, liquid water are emerging to tackle global water
challenges — and, to help, industries including pharmaceutical
and semiconductor manufacturing are pouring money into research
and pilot testing. At Arizona State University, experts in the
field recently gathered for the second International
Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit hosted in
collaboration with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering,
Global Center for Water Technology, Julie Ann Wrigley Global
Futures Laboratory, Arizona Water Innovation Initiative and
Southwest Sustainability Engine. ASU News spoke with Paul
Westerhoff, a Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable
Engineering and the Built Environment, who chaired the summit.
California State Parks, the California Coastal
Commission’s Boating Clean and Green Program, and The Bay
Foundation invite the public to participate in California’s
Dockwalker Program, now in its 25th year. Free virtual and
in-person training sessions will be held from mid-March through
May 2025. By joining the program and attending the training,
participants provide a critical community service by sharing
educational tools to promote clean boating and help reduce
water quality impacts. Dockwalkers help raise awareness
about important boating practices related to curbing pollutants
such as oil, fuel, sewage, trash, and marine debris through the
distribution of educational materials, such as the California
Boater Kits, at marinas, boat launch ramps and boating events,
or anywhere where boaters are.
Representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada are urging
the Trump administration to take a different approach in
confronting the problems of the water-starved Colorado River.
As Trump’s appointees inherit the task of writing new rules for
dealing with the river’s chronic water shortages, the three
states are raising several concerns they want to see addressed.
One of their top asks: consider fixing or overhauling Glen
Canyon Dam. … If the levels of Lake Powell continue to
decline and reach critically low levels, water could be
released only through four 8-foot-wide steel tubes. … Last
year, federal officials discovered damage inside those
four tubes that could severely restrict water flow
when reservoir levels are low.
… The Trump administration’s plan to alter the Clean Water
Act’s definition of wetlands to exclude (seasonal streams,
ponds and pools) could render vast areas of California
essentially unprotected from developers and
growers. … (A) new bill introduced last month,
(state) Senate Bill 601, would build in more protection,
amending the state Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act to
copy existing federal protections. It would, among other
provisions, require new permitting rules for pollutants from
business operations or construction.
Other federal and Calif. environmental regulation news:
Trump administration workforce cuts at federal agencies
overseeing U.S. dams are threatening their ability to provide
reliable electricity, supply farmers with water and protect
communities from floods, employees and industry experts warn.
The Bureau of Reclamation provides water and hydropower to the
public in 17 western states. Nearly 400 agency workers have
been cut through the Trump reduction plan, an administration
official said. “Reductions-in-force” memos have also been
sent to current workers, and more layoffs are expected.
Other environmental and public resource agency job
cut news:
Modernized changes to long-held operating procedures at the
dams walling Lake Oroville and New Bullards Bar Reservoir in
Northern California could improve flood safety for communities
along the Feather and Yuba rivers. That’s the finding several
agencies reached in a new report exploring the effects of using
improved monitoring, weather and runoff projections to
determine when and how to release water from the
reservoirs. … The Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations
report, a collaboration of several local and state agencies,
found that timing water releases in advance of atmospheric
rivers — using forecasts to predict storms’ strength and
duration — could mitigate the risk of flooding downstream while
improving water storage, according to the news release.
As winter nears its end and Colorado’s mountains get hit with
the latest March snowstorm, climatologists and forecasters are
predicting that the spring will bring drier weather and, in
turn, lead to drought developing or deepening across much of
the state. … Across the Colorado River basin, “winter
snowpack in the Colorado Rockies usually sets the tone for
drought conditions from year to year,” according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Snowpack
from the Upper Basin constitutes the majority of the Colorado
River’s water supply, acting as a reservoir, said John
Berggren, the regional policy manager for Western Resource
Advocates.
Other snowpack and water supply news across the West:
Klamath County in Oregon and Siskiyou and Modoc counties in
California (Tri-Counties) announced Friday that the Bureau of
Reclamation is anticipating a full allocation from Upper
Klamath Lake to support the Klamath Project. The Klamath
Project would provide water to about 240,000 acres of cropland
in south central Oregon and north central California. A news
release from the Tri-Counties on Friday said the project would
help agricultural communities by providing resources to
irrigators and the greater Klamath Watershed.
President Donald Trump keeps telling a story about how he sent
fire-plagued Los Angeles the critical water he says
California’s leaders foolishly refused to provide. But the
story, which Trump delivered in an especially colorful form at
the White House on Thursday, is not true. The 2 billion-plus
gallons of water Trump had released from two dams in
California’s Central Valley agricultural hub in late January
and early February did not actually go to Los Angeles. In
reality, the water was directed to a dry lake basin elsewhere
in the Central Valley – more than 100 miles north of Los
Angeles.
A settlement could be on the horizon in the long-running legal
battle over the waters of the Rio Grande nearly a year after
the Supreme Court rejected a previous deal, according to new
court documents. The states engaged in Texas v. New Mexico and
Colorado and the federal government revealed their progress
during a status hearing late last month before federal Judge D.
Brooks Smith. “The parties expressed optimism that they had
identified a path toward settlement,” wrote Smith, a George W.
Bush appointee. “They explained, however, that more work needed
to be done, especially with regard to aspects of any potential
agreement which will require input and advice from technical
experts.”
A march in the mostly dry Kern River bed from the Panorama
bluffs eight miles west to the Bellevue Weir started with about
30 people and gained steam to end with about 130 marchers,
according to organizers. “It was successful for what we wanted
to do,” said Chris Molina, an organizer with the public
interest group Bring Back the Kern. “What we wanted was to get
media attention as a last-minute rallying cry to hopefully put
pressure on the court to lean in favor of a flowing river. And
the event exceeded our expectations.” He referred to a hearing
scheduled for Thursday, March 20 before the 5th District Court
of Appeals in Fresno on whether to uphold a preliminary
injunction issued by Kern County Superior Court Gregory
Pulskamp in October 2023 mandating the City of Bakersfield keep
enough water in the river for fish to survive.
The long-awaited California State Water Resources Control Board
hearing expected to occur in 2025 will be a critical moment for
reviewing the significant environmental issues tied to the Los
Angeles Department of Water & Power’s (DWP) water exports in
the Mono Basin. However, as the Mono Lake Committee prepares
for that hearing, another important environmental review
process is occurring simultaneously. There are three Mono Basin
hydropower projects currently under review, and though their
effects are very different from the issues associated with
DWP’s water exports, they have important long-term implications
for stream health.
Small water and wastewater utilities would get a boost to their
cybersecurity defenses under a bipartisan Senate bill that a
pair of lawmakers re-introduced Thursday. Sens. Catherine
Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., are taking
another swing at the Cybersecurity for Rural Water Systems Act
after the legislation stalled out in the 118th Congress. The
bill would update and expand the Department of Agriculture’s
Circuit Rider Program, which provides technical assistance to
rural water systems. The lawmakers’ legislation calls on the
program to develop protocols to bolster water systems’ cyber
defenses and provide additional aid to improve
protections.
In recognition of Groundwater Awareness Week, it’s incredible
to think about the tremendous work California has accomplished
since our legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) in 2014. Work that wouldn’t have been
possible without the partnership and effort of over 250 local
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs). To our partners,
thank you for your time and dedication to writing over 100
groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) that protect drinking
water wells, reduce land sinking, and improve groundwater
supplies for our communities. –Written by By Paul Gosselin, DWR Deputy Director for
Sustainable Water Management
