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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… 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.
Back-to-back storms hitting Southern California this week have
triggered evacuation warnings for some areas burned in the
January firestorms, with the potential for wild weather and
falling snow levels. … The storms are expected to
drop a fresh dusting of powder across California’s mountain
ranges. … Officials expect to issue a winter storm warning
for the greater Lake Tahoe area beginning late Tuesday warning
of accumulations up to 2 to 3 feet along the Sierra
crest. The Sierra communities could see accumulations
up to 18 inches.
… State officials have wrestled with the (Salton Sea’s)
deteriorating condition as its water becomes fouler and its
footprint shrinks, exposing toxic dust that wafts through the
region. This year, the state took a step toward a
solution, creating a new Salton Sea Conservancy and earmarking
nearly half a billion dollars to revive the deteriorating water
body. While the funds will help restore native vegetation
and improve water quality, some community organizers think it
will ultimately take tens of billions of dollars to save the
sea. And the conservancy alone can’t address the impact its
pollution has on human health, including the elevated asthma
rates among nearby residents.
California Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump
administration for details about the Army Corps of Engineers’
decision to “sacrifice” more than 2 billion gallons of water in
California’s Central Valley in late January, following reports
that the agency knew the water would be wasted. Rep. Jared
Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources
Committee, along with Reps. Mike Levin and Laura Friedman,
demanded answers in a Tuesday letter to Interior Secretary Doug
Burgum and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This is water that
should have been saved for critical water needs and summer
irrigation for farmers that could have irrigated 6,000 acres of
agricultural trees for an entire year,” the lawmakers wrote.
With a major storm approaching the Tijuana-San Diego region
this week, employees at a sod farm in the Tijuana River Valley
dismissed the possibility of any flooding now that an earthen
levee has been repaired. That same berm, which snakes along the
north bank of the Tijuana River, gave way nearly 14 months ago
leading to catastrophic flooding at the grass-growing
operation. … The International Boundary and Water
Commission, which oversees the land, took months to remove 650
tons of waste materials from the site. But repairing the
berm was the responsibility of West Coast Turf, the company
that leases the land from IBWC to grow sod. Workers spent
weeks filling in two gaping openings in the levee; their work
was finished earlier this month.
California environmental regulators are considering rolling
back the state’s hazardous waste disposal rules, potentially
permitting some municipal landfills to accept more contaminated
soil from heavily polluted areas. … Environmental
groups say allowing nonhazardous waste landfills to accept
chemical-laced soil would be a grave mistake. By dumping more
toxic substances into the landfills, there’s a higher chance of
chemicals leaking into groundwater or becoming
part of airborne dust blowing into nearby communities.
Despite recent political momentum, the tiny Tulare County
community of East Orosi remains without a clear path forward to
solving its decades-long struggle with contaminated drinking
water. Disputes between local and state officials, coupled with
deep divisions and infighting among local district water board
members have thwarted efforts to clear up the community’s water
for many years. … The slow crawl towards a solution has
left East Orosi residents in fear of their own tap water. Many
rely on bottled water deliveries, despite living less than a
mile from Orosi and its safe, clean water.
The Arizona Legislature’s Republican leadership and a
homebuilders group are suing the state water department over a
groundwater rule for developers. The Department of Water
Resources regulation permits developers to build where
groundwater is the only water source – areas that are otherwise
under a building moratorium instituted by Gov. Katie Hobbs. …
Under the Alternative Path to Designation of Assured Water
Supply rules, developers in those areas must provide additional
water to offset their groundwater usage. … House
Speaker Steve Montenegro calls the regulation “a 33.3%
groundwater tax,” saying it threatens housing affordability.
