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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Despite some heavy rainstorms and squalls of snow in recent
months, the Sierra Nevada snowpack today stands at 90% of
average, according to state officials. This year’s measurements
mark the first below-average snowpack since 2022, when it
dropped to a dismal 38% of the historical average. Last year at
this time, the statewide calculation reached 110% of the
average, and in 2023, the snowpack was one of the largest ever,
measuring more than twice the average. More snow is on the way,
however, which could make this year right around average.
Colorado River states have weeks remaining to resolve deep
divides over how to manage the river for years to come,
officials at a water conference in southwestern Colorado said
Friday. … Basin officials must submit a joint management
proposal by May for it to be considered in the larger federal
process that will decide how the river is managed. A
seven-state agreement would send a clear signal to federal
decision-makers about how the basin wants to manage its own
water future. But for months, basin state officials at the
center of negotiations have been at odds. … The current
river management agreement lapses fully in September 2026, and
there are many steps left in a larger federal process before a
new management plan is finalized.
The chinook salmon has upset a quiet truce in
the California water wars between Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom
and President Donald Trump. Last week, when the winter-run
chinook got caught in pumps that funnel water south from the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farms and cities, California
officials dialed down water deliveries in line with the state’s
endangered species rules. Their federal counterparts didn’t
restrict the flows — at least not at first. The fishy foul-up
started when officials with the California Department of Water
Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation didn’t immediately
agree on what to do when the salmon got caught up in the pumps
beyond an allowable limit. State officials argued their joint
rules warranted an immediate ramping down of pumping, while
Reclamation staff pushed for more analysis of whether the
changes would actually help the fish population.
In a continued effort to expedite rebuilding after Los Angeles’
devastating firestorms, Gov. Gavin Newsom this week suspended
California environmental laws for utility providers working to
reinstall key infrastructure. His latest executive order
eliminates requirements to comply with the California
Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, and the California Coastal
Act for utilities working to rebuild “electric, gas, water,
sewer and telecommunication infrastructure” in the Palisades
and Eaton fire burn zones. Newsom also continued to encourage
the “undergrounding” of utility equipment when feasible, which
he said will help minimize the future fire risk in these
communities.
More than 37 million Americans drink water from systems that
exceed limits on toxic “forever chemicals,” according to USA
TODAY’s analysis of the first update of Environmental
Protection Agency data under the Trump administration. The
EPA had been updating the records quarterly like clockwork, but
the latest data release came more than a month later than
expected, tucked amid an onslaught of cuts and
changes within the agency. … The number of affected drinking
water systems grows with each update as the EPA adds more test
results, and USA TODAY’s analysis shows annual averages at 667
water systems have now surpassed limits the EPA announced a
year ago. Check your local drinking water system’s results in
the map below, or explore the full map here.
The long-delayed restoration of the Salton Sea, the large,
ultra-briny California lake almost universally described as an
“environmental disaster,’’ could be starting to finally get its
sea legs. … Now a combination of factors, including the
presence of vast deposits of lithium about a mile under the
Salton Sea’s bottom, might provide enough impetus for a major
reclamation project that is certain to cost several billions of
dollars. Last fall Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill creating a
conservancy to manage efforts to rehabilitate the lake and
minimize its health impacts, and the state followed by
assigning $480 million – more than half of it from the federal
Inflation Reduction Act – to the project.
Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public
drinking water, pushing past opposition from dentists and
national health organizations who warn the move will lead to
medical problems that disproportionately affect low-income
communities. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation
Thursday barring cities and communities from deciding whether
to add the mineral to their water systems. Florida, Ohio and
South Carolina are considering similar measures, while in New
Hampshire, North Dakota and Tennessee, lawmakers have rejected
them. A bill in Kentucky to make fluoridation optional stalled
in the state Senate.
County water officials said Thursday that financial challenges
they face may force them to substantially raise rates for
wholesale water next year, a move that would lead to higher
water bills across much of the county. … While the
authority has made water sale deals in recent years that have
yielded $40 million, those have left fewer opportunities for
potential additional deals to pursue. The Trump
administration could try to cancel a $19.4 million grant the
authority was awarded last spring by the U.S. Department of the
Interior for an intake pipe at the Carlsbad desalination plant.
And while demand can fluctuate, the largest variable appears to
be how sharply March rains cut back on customers’ March
irrigation usage. Drops in usage make the authority’s finances
worse, not better.
… Phoenix endured its second-longest dry spell on record, with
159 days without measurable rainfall from the end of a
lackluster 2024 monsoon through January 2025. In Flagstaff,
Arizona’s snowiest city, snow on the peaks during most of the
season was created by Snowbowl snow machines. While a few
early March storm systems brought snow and rain across much of
the state, it won’t be enough to offset months of extreme
drought. “It’s going to do very little to move the drought
indices in both the short and long term,” said Michael
Crimmins, a climatologist at the University of Arizona. “We
have precipitation deficits that extend all the way back to the
summer. It’s just too late in the season.”
The Kern County Water Agency voted Thursday to pony up its
$32.6 million share of planning and pre-construction costs for
the so-called delta tunnel after its member districts gave a
somewhat grudging go-ahead. This phase of the tunnel is
expected to cost $300 million, a tiny fraction of the eventual
cost, estimated at $20 billion by the Department of Water
Resources but closer to $50 billion by environmental opponents.
“The decision was not easy for us. There were a lot of thoughts
and discussion about dropping out entirely or lowering our
participation level,” said Sheridan Nicholas, General Manager
of the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District. The
district ultimately voted at its March 12 meeting to continue
funding the tunnel but sent a letter to the agency with
contingencies.
Lemoore area growers and landowners weren’t happy about giving
out their well locations and pumping data but said, if they had
to, they’d rather give that information to a local agency than
the state. … Wednesday’s turnout, about 45 people, was
significantly higher than the GSA’s first workshop March 3
where only nine people showed up. “We’ve made really good
progress,” South Fork General Manager Johnny Gailey reported at
a grower’s advisory group March 27. The GSA now has 45 accounts
in its system with 120 ag and 38 domestic wells registered.
South Fork Kings is aiming to register all wells within its
boundaries by July 1.
From Obama to Trump to Biden, each of the last three
administrations has directed the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (“EPA”) to conduct rulemakings to define the
scope of what constitutes a Water of the United States, or
WOTUS, under the federal Clean Water Act (“CWA”). Many
commentators anticipated the new Trump administration would
embark on yet another WOTUS rulemaking in the wake of the U.S.
Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA. … According to
the interim guidance, wetlands must have “a continuous surface
connection to a requisite covered water making it difficult to
determine where the water ends and wetland begins.”… Until a
new WOTUS rule is finalized, EPA and the Corps will apply the
interim guidance when determining whether a wetland has a
“continuous surface connection” to a WOTUS under the CWA.
… The Colorado River in the United States is one of the main
arenas in the global water crisis. In the summer of 2022, Lake
Mead, formed by the Hoover Dam, was holding just a quarter of
its potential water capacity. The Colorado River arises in the
Rocky Mountains and supplies water to seven US states.
California is the largest consumer. Cities with millions of
inhabitants, such as Los Angeles and San Diego, depend on its
water but most of it flows into this agricultural zone in the
middle of the desert. The All American Canal carries 80% of
California’s share of Colorado water to the Imperial Valley
along the Mexican border. Until the early 20th century, the
Imperial Valley was an uninhabited desert. Now it’s one of the
key cultivation zones in the US, all thanks to the waters of
the Colorado River. The most important crop is clover, or more
precisely alfalfa, animal feed.
Aquafornia is off Friday, March 28, in honor of César
Chávez Day, a holiday the state of California recognizes on
Monday. We’ll return Monday with a full slate of water news. In
the meantime, follow us on X (Twitter) where we
post breaking water news and on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
The federal government has restored funding for a captive
breeding program designed to ensure survival of California’s
delta smelt, even as President Donald Trump has sharpened
criticism of the endangered fish. A five-year grant for the UC
Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory in Contra Costa
County, which raises the smelt, expired last month, and many
believed the funding would not be reinstated. Eleven of the
lab’s 17 employees were let go. This week, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and UC Davis confirmed that the federal funding,
which makes up about three-quarters of the lab’s budget, would
resume. Why the financing lapsed and why it ultimately returned
amid the widespread funding cuts initiated by the Trump
administration over the past two months was not immediately
clear.
The Trump administration’s pick to lead EPA’s water office
seemed on track Wednesday to secure the job, winning praise
from Republicans and at least one Democrat on the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee. Jessica
Kramer, the nominee for assistant administrator for
water, fielded questions from Republicans about the agency’s
regulation of wetlands under the Clean Water Act. Amid the
Trump administration’s freeze on hundreds of EPA grants,
multiple Democrats also asked her to commit to ensuring funding
goes out to fix water infrastructure. “I, of course, will
commit to working with this committee to follow the law,”
Kramer said, referring to money for drinking water from the
bipartisan infrastructure law.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced
today the release of the California Salmon Strategy for a
Hotter, Drier Future: Progress Report, developed in partnership
with the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) with
support from the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the
State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). The Progress
Report follows the release of the California Salmon Strategy
for a Hotter, Drier Future, released in January 2024.
California’s salmon populations are struggling to recover from
years of drought, climate disruption, and other environmental
and human-made challenges. … Of the 71 action items outlined in
the Progress Report, roughly 67% of the projects are actively
in development. Another 26% have already been fully completed.
Only 7% of the action items are in the early, preliminary
stages.
On Tuesday, a crew from Pacific Gas & Electric took to the
skies in a helicopter to access a remote part of the Lassen
Volcanic National Park for their snow survey. PG&E, which
is dependent on the snow melt to help generate hydroelectricity
around the state of California, conducted the survey to help
predict just how much snow melt is expected in the coming
months. … At the conclusion of the survey, PG&E says
that crews measured 119 inches of water content at the
measurement location in Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is
11 percent above average for this time of the year.
Republican state lawmakers advanced an Arizona rural
groundwater protection bill in the House on Tuesday, but rural
stakeholders say the bill doesn’t do enough. Groundwater
aquifers are running low in rural areas of the state, but
Democrats and Republicans haven’t been able to come to an
agreement on a conservation plan. The GOP management plan is in
the form of a bill pushed by Sen. Tim Dunn (R-Yuma). It
advanced out of a House committee on party lines Tuesday,
despite the concerns of speakers and several lawmakers. The
main sticking point is the amount of water use the plan would
allow. In Dunn’s bill, SB 1520, water users would have to cut
up to 10% of their use. Opponents say that isn’t enough. A
group of rural stakeholders held a hearing protesting the bill
before the committee hearing and said the maximum cuts to water
use should be 25%.
The California Solar Canal Initiative (CSCI) aims to increase
the number of solar installations on California’s canals. The
initiative is led by the University of Southern California
(USC) Dornsife Public Exchange and independent advisory Solar
AquaGrid, and includes faculty from seven universities, six of
which are in California. A 2021 study conducted by researchers
from University of California, Merced, found that covering
large sections of California’s 4,000 miles of canals with
arrays of solar panels could help conserve water, reduce air
pollution, save land and generate clean energy using existing
land and infrastructure.
