Officials are investigating several fire stations between
Livermore and Pleasanton for water contamination as Pleasanton
continues looking for new well sites. In 2023, The San
Francisco Bay Regional Water Board started to examine
facilities for evidence of possible PFAS, or polyfluoroalkyl
substances, in groundwater and runoff storm water in the two
cities. The board chose to investigate the fire stations
after Pleasanton in 2019 began shutting down its three
wells due to significant PFAS contamination. The board now
wants to figure out if fire-fighting foams, which contain the
forever chemical, were a significant source of a massive
subsurface plume of those substances.
The EPA recently announced a consent decree with the operators
of the Oasis Mobile Home Park in California to resolve
violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The consent
decree requires the park’s operators to upgrade its drinking
water and wastewater systems and pay a $50,000 penalty. … The
mobile home park is located within the Torres Martinez Desert
Cahuilla Indians Tribal Reservation boundaries in Thermal,
California, which is in the Eastern Coachella Valley. With an
estimated population of 1,000 people, it’s the valley’s largest
mobile home park, primarily serving agricultural workers,
according to the EPA. “While situated on Tribal land, the
public water and wastewater systems at Oasis operate
independently from Tribal control or ownership,” the EPA
release notes. “The Park’s drinking water system uses
groundwater that has high levels of naturally occurring
arsenic.”
A large number of people were scheduled today to testify and
comment on the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) … when a bizarre
hacking incident occurred on the Zoom platform that the
California State Water Resources Control Board was using for a
hearing. The hearing was regarding the pending petitions for a
change in water rights by the California Department of Water
Resources that are required to move forward with the Delta
Tunnel. … When the hearing started, one of the attendee windows
displayed a graphic obscene video with a synthetic or altered
voice saying loudly, “Shut this Zoom Call Down.” The hacker
took over the audio so the Hearing Officer could not speak, so
she shut the hearing down.
California is not alone in its struggles to save its freshwater
biodiversity. Across the West, rivers and lakes have been
tapped to supply water to farms and cities—and ecosystems have
paid the price. One project has been restoring water to a
Nevada lake through an unusual mechanism: environmental water
acquisitions. We spoke with the Walker Basin Conservancy’s
Carlie Henneman and Peter Stanton to learn more.
At the California Tahoe Conservancy Board meeting on Thursday,
the board acquired a parcel of land at the entrance of Van
Sickle Bi-State Park, approved the Senate Bill 630 public
access grants for Regan and Secline Beach, and approved Tahoe
City Public Utility District’s water main extension into Meeks
Bay. … The passing of Proposition 4 this past election
authorized $10 billion to spend on environmental and climate
projects. Here in the Basin, Vasques said there is $25.5
million available for watershed and forest health work and $29
million allocated for reducing the risk of climate change;
impacts on communities, fish, wildlife, natural resources; and
increasing public access. Vasques also said that the bond will
drive benefits towards disadvantaged communities, including
tribes like the Washoe.
At its February 13, 2025, meeting, the Mendocino County Inland
Water & Power Commission (IWPC) discussed a landmark Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) that sets the stage for a New
Eel-Russian Diversion Facility (NERF). … IWPC also
discussed efforts to restart the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE)
Feasibility Study on raising Coyote Dam, a long-debated project
aimed at increasing water storage capacity in the Upper Russian
River Watershed. Coyote Dam was originally designed to be
36 feet taller, but funding shortfalls prevented the full
construction. Increasing the dam height would allow more water
to be stored for dry-season use, especially as flows from the
Potter Valley Project decrease.
A long-running fight over California water and the fate of a
tiny fish found a new front with a House measure to strip
federal protections from the longfin smelt. Introduced Friday
by Rep. Doug LaMalfa and six fellow Golden State Republicans,
H.J. Res. 78 would undo the Fish and Wildlife Service’s listing
of the longfin smelt’s San Francisco Bay Delta
population as endangered. “This listing is just another example
of out-of-touch environmental policies making it harder to
store and deliver water in California,” LaMalfa said in a
statement first published by LassenNews.com.
To improve stream health and help restore wetlands, ecologists
have increasingly looked to beavers for inspiration.
Stream-spanning structures made of vegetation, called beaver
dam analogues (BDAs), offer a cost-efficient way to slow down
moving water. A new study suggests they have another benefit:
improving water quality downstream. This week in Applied
and Environmental Microbiology, researchers report that BDAs
significantly reduce the amount of a waterborne protozoal
pathogen, Giardia duodenalis, in stream water flowing through a
cattle ranch in California. “We found that slowing down
the water in these creeks allowed these pathogens, which can
cause disease in animals or people, to be removed by the BDA
structures,” said epidemiologist and senior author Woutrina
Smith, DVM, MPVM, Ph.D., from the University of California,
Davis.
Only about a dozen residents attended a recent event in Hanford
to learn about free well testing and organizers learned it’s a
trust thing. “(Rural Kings County residents) don’t want you
coming out and checking their water because they’re afraid
you’re going to close their well down and tell them they have
to dig a new well that they can’t afford,” said attendee Sandra
Martin. “A lot of elderly are afraid.” Kings Water
Alliance Executive Officer Debra Dunn assured attendees the
organization has no intent, nor authority, to shut anyone’s
well down. “We do not tell people what to do with their wells,”
Dunn said.
A bill that would finally formalize a 2007 agreement between
the Tule River Indian Tribe and several downstream agricultural
users advanced to the Senate earlier this month. The
“Tule River Tribe Reserved Water Rights Settlement Act of
2025,” introduced by Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff
(both D-California), advanced from the Committee on Indian
Affairs and will be heard on the Senate floor. If passed,
the bill would accomplish several tasks, including securing an
annual supply of 5,828 acre feet of surface water from the
South Fork of the Tule River for the reservation’s domestic
water system, which serves more than 400 homes and all of its
administration buildings.
A California Court of Appeal (Fifth District) (“Court”)
addressed in a March 14th Opinion whether water in an aquifer
could be personal property. … The land and attached
improvements were appraised in 2019 at $14,985,000. The
appraisal excluded any subsurface water or mineral rights. In
addition, the appraisal indicated that due to two perpetual
United States Fish and Wildlife conservation easements, that
the land was limited to its current use as an irrigated and dry
pasture ranch with some lower intensity farming uses. The
trial court had held, and this Court agreed that: Water
was not personal property owned by 4-S; and,
Rights to use of the water ran with the land
and therefore the lender acquired those rights at the
foreclosure sale.
Attorneys for the mining conglomerate Cemex filed their latest
appeal in the effort to build a sand-and-gravel mine in Soledad
Canyon, just east of the city of Santa Clarita. The mining
company purchased the mineral rights to extract 56 million tons
of aggregate, a material vital for construction that’s in rich
supply there, according to the federal government. Cemex
needs a beneficial-use permit from the State Water Resources
Control Board to use the Santa Clara River in order to sustain
its mining operations. … Opponents of the mine, which
include the city, argue that the facility would add hundreds of
truckloads daily to an already congested Highway 14, a massive
amount of air pollution from mining operations, and impacts to
the river, including about 322-acre-feet of water use
annually.
The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) said it
submitted comments to the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF) regarding the development of a national artificial
intelligence (AI) action plan. AMWA, which represents large
drinking water systems across the United States, highlighted
the critical intersection of AI development and water resource
management in its comments. The association said it is urging
policymakers to assess AI’s impact on water demand while
leveraging AI for water efficiency.
With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is
eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight
northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency
leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as
severe weather season kicks in. The normally twice-daily
launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide
information that forecasters and computer models use to figure
out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get.
… Launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Nebraska, and
Rapid City, South Dakota, “due to a lack of Weather Forecast
Office (WFO) staffing,” the weather service said in a notice
issued late Thursday. It also is cutting from twice daily to
once daily launches in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Grand
Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Gaylord,
Michigan; North Platte, Nebraska and Riverton,
Wyoming.
Other federal weather and environmental agency news:
Prolonged droughts, wildfires and water shortages. Torrential
downpours that overwhelm dams and cause catastrophic flooding.
Around the globe, rising temperatures stoked by climate change
are increasing the odds of both severe drought and heavier
precipitation that wreak havoc on people and the environment.
Rainfall can disappear for years only to return with a
vengeance, as it did in California in 2023, with record-setting
rain and snowfall. That led to heavy vegetation growth that
provided fuel for the devastating January wildfires in Los
Angeles after drought returned. But how can global warming
cause both drier and wetter extremes? Here’s what experts say.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern
California will receive an increased allocation of 35 percent
from the California Department of Water Resources this year,
according to a report by Cynthia Kurtz, Pasadena’s
representative on the MWD Board. The City of Pasadena
imports about 60% of its water from the MWD. Kurtz
will present detailed information about the water supply
outlook during a meeting of the Pasadena Municipal Services
Committee on Tuesday, where she will deliver her first
quarterly update to the Committee. … Despite the
Colorado River Aqueduct currently being shut down for annual
inspection and maintenance, the MWD expects to receive its
normal supply of Colorado River water this year due to reserves
stored in Lake Mead.
The Solano County Water Agency’s free vessel decontamination
program will end on April 7. … The Bureau of Reclamation
announced that, beginning April 7, direct-managed concessions
and the Solano County Water Agency will charge for vessel
decontaminations for boaters seeking to launch at Lake
Berryessa. … “Moving forward, boaters who seek to avoid a
30-day, mandatory quarantine to protect the reservoir
from invasive mussels, will need to reach out to
either the Solano County Water Agency, Markley Cove Resort,
Pleasure Cove Marina, or Putah Canyon Recreation Area to
arrange for a vessel decontamination for any motorized vessel
or vessel launched from a trailer,” the Bureau of Reclamation
announcement states.
… A recent study “Same data, different analysts: variation in
effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and
evolutionary biology” highlights concerns for how we draw
conclusions from scientific study and how science can inform
policy. … Collaborative synthesis science is one way to
strengthen consensus and to understand the roots of disparities
between different studies and approaches, leading to more
robust science. In the realm of California
water, contemporary models of collaborative synthesis
include the CVPIA Science Integration Team and subgroups,
Interagency Ecological Program Project Work Teams, and working
groups at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis. At its best, this approach brings together
cooperative teams with diverse perspectives and expertise to
achieve highly innovative solutions to research problems.
After decades of trial and error, a new plan is taking shape
around the Salton Sea, California’s largest — and endlessly
troubled — lake. The accidental inland sea, some 35 miles long,
sprung to life 120 years ago when the Colorado River breached
an irrigation canal east of Palm Springs. The sudden,
shimmering water briefly created a tourist boom that lasted
into the 1960s, though for much of the half-century, the lake
could more aptly be described as an environmental disaster
zone. Now a new wave of conservation efforts, sparked by
millions of dollars in recent federal funding, has washed
ashore at the ultra-briny sea, and there’s
cautious hope from some that incoming industry will bring
an economic boom. That is, if it doesn’t all fall apart
first.
More than 200 people from Humboldt to Marin counties packed the
Cloverdale Veterans Memorial Hall Thursday night for a town
hall meeting about how PG&E’s planned shutdown of its
Potter Valley hydropower plant would impact the region’s water
supply. The controversial project involves the removal of the
Scott and Cape Horn dams and PG&E’s nearby hydroelectric
facility in Lake County, with PG&E saying it won’t shut
down the plant and begin dam removal until 2028 at the
earliest. Residents and some elected officials are
concerned the project will spark the potential loss of water
from the Eel River to the Russian River that individuals from
Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties have relied on for more
than 100 years.
