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.
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A report last year from the Director of National Intelligence
found that of the reported cyberattacks on critical
infrastructure, more than a dozen were on water utilities,
water systems and wastewater treatment facilities. The cyber
threats look to only be multiplying, too. A separate report
from the House Homeland Security Committee highlighted “rising
threats” from nation-state actors like China, Iran and Russia,
with utilities in Pennsylvania and Texas among those hit in
recent years. It puts the onus on critical infrastructure
operators and state governments to invest more in cybersecurity
to ward off those threats.
A formerly controversial bill aimed at addressing a future in
which New Mexico’s limited water supplies become even more
strained will soon have its first (New Mexico State) Senate
committee hearing following House passage last week. That
passage came with no debate, following a significant overhaul
in the face of considerable environmental opposition to the
so-called Strategic Water Supply. In a nutshell, the bill
proposes a a $40 million program for removing the salt from
less drinkable aquifers and $19 million to map how much water
is available beneath the ground.
A mix of creative problem solving, careful planning and lean
management were key in delivering Denver’s newest drinking
water treatment plant on time, under budget and without lost
time safety incidents, said its project team. As the team grew
to include eight prime design firms, meetings in “big rooms”
kept challenges small, according to the submission, as
stakeholders were able to distill and streamline solutions,
improve issue resolution and cut times for submittals and
requests for information, which also drove staff
accountability. This approach also improved the team’s ability
to act quickly in times of emergency.
As extreme weather events have hit the world hard in recent
years, one meteorology term — atmospheric rivers — has made the
leap from scientific circles to common language, particularly
in places that have been hit by them. That stands to reason.
The heavy rain and wind events most known for dousing
California and other parts of the West have been getting
bigger, wetter and more frequent in the past 45 years as the
world warms, according to a comprehensive study of atmospheric
rivers in the current issue of the Journal of Climate.
Other atmospheric river and snowpack news across the West:
Farmers and others reliant on water provided by the Bureau of
Reclamation are warning that staffing cuts at the agency could
threaten access to supplies — and in one case are offering to
step into the breach to help keep flows moving. Reclamation,
like other federal agencies operating under a directive from
the White House and so-called Department of Government
Efficiency, has been actively reducing its staff across the 17
states where it manages canals, reservoirs, dams and hydropower
facilities. That leaves open concerns that the agency
won’t merely be short-staffed, but lack employees who are
literally responsible for turning on pumps and releasing water
to irrigators, said Shane Leonard, who serves as secretary and
district manager for the Kennewick Irrigation District.
Other Bureau of Reclamation and water agency news:
President Trump’s new EPA administrator said Wednesday he was
preparing to roll back dozens of landmark environmental rules,
including those crucial to California programs on climate
change and electric vehicles. … Among the rules to be
overhauled are those restricting industrial pollution of
mercury and other air toxins, as well as those limiting soot
pollution and protecting wetlands.
Learn the importance of atmospheric rivers to California’s
hydrology and the impacts of climate whiplash during a session
at our Water
101 Workshop led by Marty Ralph,
director of the Center for Western
Weather and Water Extremes. The workshop, April 10 in
Sacramento, is among the events, tours and publications the
Water Education Foundation offers to help you get beyond the
stream of recent national headlines and better understand how
water is managed and moved across the Golden State. Our
Central Valley
Tour and series of Layperson’s Guides to key water
topics are great resources.
… I first met JB (John Brooks Hamby) during the Colorado River
Water Users Association conference—affectionately called CRWUA
(pronounced “crew-uh”)—at the Paris Casino in Las Vegas last
December. It was, at first glance, like any other Vegas
conference: morning registration a few feet away from people
who’d been up all night playing slot machines, panels held in
windowless ballrooms, attendees milling around in lanyards,
with a few casino-specific details like fake French boulevards,
not to mention “toilettes” instead of restrooms. … CRWUA,
as JB put it to me later, “is the prom of the Colorado River.”
… Hood, population 271, is facing a formidable transformation
that residents fear will shatter their sleepy agricultural
community. One of the smallest towns in the region, Hood lies
at ground zero of the main construction site for the Newsom
administration’s proposed Delta water tunnel project. …
The tunnel project still needs several state and federal
permits, and faces multiple legal challenges from environmental
and community groups, including the Delta Legacy Communities, a
nonprofit representing Hood and other small towns along the
lower Sacramento River. In spite of these obstacles, state
officials anticipate starting construction as soon as
2029.
A plan to build a new reservoir in Stanislaus County is getting
some pushback. The Del Puerto Canyon Reservoir would basically
cover the current Del Puerto Canyon Road, west of Interstate 5.
The project would cause a roadway and power lines to be
rerouted. The reservoir would hold water to be used for local
agriculture. The Del Puerto Water District’s Patterson general
manager, Anthea Hansen, said hundreds of thousands of acres of
land would benefit the district, as the current water supply it
uses is unreliable. … In a Stanislaus County Board of
Supervisors meeting, some residents in the community expressed
concerns about the project.
Freshwater use in oil and gas drilling has come under scrutiny
in Colorado as the state faces a historic drought. On
Wednesday, March 12, state regulators announced new rules that
will require drillers to use more recycled water in their
operations and, hopefully, relieve pressure on scarce
freshwater resources. … Under Colorado’s new regulations,
by the beginning of 2026, oil companies must use at least 4
percent recycled produced water across their operations in the
state. In 2030, that requirement increases to a minimum of 10
percent.
An invisible contamination problem has been brewing in
America’s underground water supplies for decades. New research
from the U.S. Geological Survey has finally mapped its extent,
showing that between 71 and 95 million Americans rely on
groundwater containing detectable levels of “forever
chemicals,” synthetic compounds linked to cancer, fertility
issues, and other health problems. This research,
published in Science, includes a first-of-its-kind map that
comes as public awareness about these contaminants grows.
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors upheld up its
vote to allow four development projects in the bayside town of
Los Osos after lifting a 35-year building moratorium, despite
community concerns over new construction threatening their
water source. The moratorium, lifted last year, was placed on
town over three decades ago to protect it’s only water source,
the Los Osos groundwater basin. … The Los Osos Sustainability
Group appealed the construction permits for two homes and two
hotels in Los Osos at Tuesday’s board meeting, arguing that the
projects threaten the sustainability of the town’s fragile
groundwater basin by placing additional demand on a water
supply that is already in “critical overdraft,” according to
the group.
“I can’t imagine coming back to this,” said Albert Kyi, a
graduate student researcher at the University of Texas at
Austin, briefly looking up from his laptop and out the van’s
window. … The data the team was gathering was part of a newly
launched study tracking the health impacts of the Los Angeles
wildfires over the next decade. By traversing the 38,000 acres
that encompass the two burn zones in Altadena and the Pacific
Palisades along with the surrounding region, the researchers
hope to fill gaps in the data on air, soil and water
quality. Already, they have found cause for concern.
A desalination plant in Baja California. A large-scale water
storage project in the Mexico City metropolitan area. A flood
prevention initiative in Tabasco. A new system of reservoirs in
Sonora. All these water infrastructure projects — and more than
a dozen more — are slated to be built in the coming years
in Mexico, a country where water scarcity is a major
concern. National Water Commission (Conagua) General
Director Efraín Morales said Wednesday at President Claudia
Sheinbaum’s morning press conference that federal and state
authorities will invest more than 120 billion pesos in
strategic water infrastructure projects between 2025 and 2030.
Protecting our water starts with understanding what’s in it.
That’s exactly what interns with the Goleta Water Quality
Monitoring Program are doing through the Santa Barbara
Channelkeeper—testing local streams to ensure our waterways
remain clean and safe. Each month, interns visit 20 stream
sites across the Goleta Valley Watershed, collecting vital
data. They measure dissolved oxygen, pH levels, conductivity,
turbidity, and temperature directly in the stream. They also
collect water samples for lab analysis, testing for nitrates
and bacteria that could indicate pollution. Additionally, they
document algae coverage, water flow, and even trash
accumulation at each site.
Decarbonization and water technology startup Capture6 announced
that it has raised $27.5 million in a Series A funding round,
with proceeds aimed at advancing its projects converting water
treatment brine into a carbon removal solution, while also
recovering fresh water. Established in 2021, California and New
Zealand-based Capture 6 offers a solution that simultaneously
provides carbon removal and water treatment, and connects
directly with existing water infrastructure. The company has
developed a system that transforms waste brine, a byproduct of
many water treatment and desalination methods that is expensive
to dispose of, into a solvent that mineralizes CO2. This
material can then be used to trap the carbon produced in the
water treatment process.
The State Water Resources Control Board is now assessing late
fees for water rightsholders who missed the February 1 deadline
to file their 2023-24 Water Use Reports. These fees, which are
new this year, will be included in the annual water rights fee
billing sent out this fall. If you still need to file your
report, don’t delay—filing now can help avoid steeper penalties
in the coming months starting with the next elevation on April
1. If you haven’t filed, you are not alone. As of February 27,
38% of reports remained past due.
A Native American tribe with a powerful water claim had an
ultimatum for the Trump administration: Release money to
protect the Colorado River — or fight over the future of the
most important river in the West. Uncharacteristically, the
Trump administration backed down. The Interior Department
released $105 million eight days later to repay the tribe for
work it had done to line leaky canals and take other measures
to protect a waterway that supports farms and cities in seven
states. It was a victory for Arizona’s Gila River Indian
Community. … But the episode last month, previously unreported,
underscores the alarm that Western officials are feeling over
the Trump administration’s freeze of hundreds of millions of
dollars in federal funding for the waterway.
The Trump administration intends to eliminate Environmental
Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing the
disproportionately high levels of pollution facing poor
communities, according to a memo from Lee Zeldin, the agency
administrator. In the internal memo, viewed by The New York
Times, Mr. Zeldin informed agency leaders that he was directing
“the reorganization and elimination” of the offices of
environmental justice at all 10 E.P.A. regional offices
(including Denver and San Francisco) as well as the one in
Washington.
