News
Colorado River officials weigh how to cut water, include tribes ahead of looming negotiations
 The Colorado Sun – June 12
At the University of Colorado last Thursday, tribal representatives from around the Colorado River Basin had a message for their federal and state counterparts: Tribes won’t be cut out of key water talks that will decide the future of the basin. The Colorado River Basin provides water to 40 million people across the West, but the basin’s future has become increasingly uncertain in the face of a now 23-year drought, overuse, and unresolved debates over how to actually cut back water use. Now basin governments are turning their attention to 2026, when they will face a deadline to decide how to manage the basin’s precarious water situation for the long term. Negotiations are set to ramp up this summer.
Arizona, low on water, weighs taking it from the sea. In Mexico.
The New York Times – June 10
As Arizona’s two major sources of water, groundwater and the Colorado River, dwindle from drought, climate change, and overuse, state officials are considering building a plant in Mexico to suck salt out of seawater, then pipe that water hundreds of miles, much of it uphill, to Phoenix. The idea of building a desalination plant in Mexico has been discussed in Arizona for years, but now the $5 billion project is under serious consideration, an indication of how worries about water shortages are rattling policymakers in Arizona and across the American West. On June 1, the state announced that the Phoenix area, the fastest-growing region in the country, doesn’t have enough groundwater to support all the future housing that has already been approved. Cities and developers that want to build additional projects beyond what has already been allowed would have to find new sources of water.
Environmental nonprofits sue Sonoma County over groundwater well regulations
The Press Democrat – May 26
Two environmental groups sued Sonoma County in Sonoma County Superior Court, alleging that the county’s new well ordinance does not sufficiently protect waterways from depletion. The suit reopens a debate over how the county should regulate new wells and limit their impact on the region’s major rivers and feeder streams. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to approve the new ordinance in April. Under the regulations, certain high-volume users must comply with new monitoring requirements and, in some cases, pass a closer study of potential environmental impacts. Those users will also pay thousands of dollars more in application fees — up to eight times the existing rate — for an over-the-counter well review.
Newsom signs new executive order for flood support in Central Valley
Hanford Sentinel – May 23
Governor Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order that extends recent emergency actions to support the flooding response for the Tulare Lake and San Joaquin River basins. Under the order, certain regulations previously determining how groundwater could be collected will have their suspension continued until August 31. Newsom’s administration says it is proposing legislation that codifies provisions from the March 10 executive order and sets clear conditions for diverting floodwaters for groundwater recharge without permits or affecting water rights.
Winter storms boost Central Valley water supplies, but aquifer levels remain depleted
Los Angeles Times – June 9
The historic winter storms that filled California’s reservoirs and covered the Sierra Nevada with snow have brought a major boost to water supplies across Central Valley watersheds — an increase that measurements from NASA satellites show is the largest year-over-year gain in more than two decades of records. Satellite data analyzed by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory show that the series of atmospheric river storms this winter alleviated some of California's water deficit, but that groundwater levels remain depleted from years of drought and chronic overpumping in the Central Valley.
Two California lakes are making comebacks with different results
NBC News – June 6
Some of California’s biggest lakes are making dramatic comebacks as the state’s “big melt” of snowpack reshapes the landscape in historic — and perhaps unexpected — ways. Owens Lake, which dried up in the 1920s after its streams were diverted to quench the thirst of Los Angeles, has re-emerged. The new water on the dry lake bed threatens to damage infrastructure designed to keep down dust, a problem that emerged when the lake was drained decades ago. The salt lake’s re-emergence could ultimately cause more air pollution and be a setback to a yearslong project on which the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has spent billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Mono Lake, beleaguered by three years of drought, is expected to rise by several feet, a welcome reprieve as the lake has struggled to reach target levels.
Cities turn to ‘extreme’ water recycling
Yale Environment 360 – June 6
In downtown San Francisco, a gleaming white-and-blue appliance about the size of a commercial refrigerator is being prepared for transport to a hotel in Los Angeles. There, this unit, called a OneWater System, will be installed in the basement, where its collection of pipes will take in much of the hotel’s graywater — from sinks, showers, and laundry. The system will clean the water with membrane filtration, ultraviolet light, and chlorine, and then send it back upstairs to be used again for nonpotable uses. While centralized water reuse for nonpotable purposes has been around for decades, a trend called the “extreme decentralization of water and wastewater” — also known as “distributed water systems,” or “on-site” or “premise” recycling — is now emerging as a leading strategy in the effort to make water use more sustainable.
Winter rains good news for endangered Marin County salmon
NBC Bay Area – June 9
Biologists who study fish in the tributaries of West Marin said the winter’s heavy rain is fueling a healthy population of endangered coho salmon smolts as they make their way from the creeks of their birth out to the ocean. Researchers with the environmental group SPAWN said their daily counts have logged record daily numbers of salmon and steelhead smolts in the San Geronimo Creek - one of the last spawning grounds for the endangered fish in California. The year’s abundance of water and its coho population boom stand in contrast to the adult salmon that returned to the creeks over the winter to spawn.
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