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California Is Betting on a Groundbreaking Underwater Power Plant to Transform Pacific Ocean Water Into Drinking Water

/in , /by /CPGby Bruno Teles

OceanWell’s new underwater desalination plant in Santa Monica Bay promises to install 60 pods at a depth of 400 meters by 2030, producing 227 million liters of potable water daily and reinforcing the water supply for 70 residents in western Los Angeles amid recurring drought.

Announced on August 20, 2025, the underwater power plant Water Farm 1 inaugurates the first major underwater desalination project in the United States, focused on directly transforming water from the Pacific Ocean into potable water on an industrial scale. The system will be installed in Santa Monica Bay, near Malibu, where approximately 60 modules are expected to operate at a depth of about 400 meters.

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Opinion: California’s Water Partnerships Are Effective and in Danger

/in , /by /CalMattersby Letitia Grenier & Jeffrey Mount

In a year of profound shifts at the federal level, uncertainty has been the name of the game across the United States. Nowhere is that truer than in the California water world.

Over many decades, the state has forged a symbiotic relationship with federal agencies to manage its notoriously complex — and aging — water system. The state has worked with an alphabet soup of federal agencies to manage some of the worst floods and droughts the state has ever seen.

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Watersmart Makeover: Adding Beauty, Family Style

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Caron Golden Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Patti and Don Boone are native San Diegans. Don grew up in Point Loma, the neighborhood where they raised their daughter Kim. After Patti’s mom passed away, the couple, now retired, decided to leave Point Loma to move into the Chula Vista home where Patti was raised. Patti had been a receptionist at a downtown San Diego law firm, while Don was a carpenter with Kaiser Permanente’s engineering department.

About 10 years in, during the fall of 2022, they decided it was time to change up the front yard from the longtime lawn. Kim, now an adaptive physical education teacher, and her husband, Parker Richardson, a biologist and restoration ecologist, encouraged her parents to install a native garden. They also played a large role in helping select the plants and put in the garden. It truly was a family project that took about six months.

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East County AWP Construction Boosts Cost, but Officials Say Recycled Water Supply Is Worth the Price

/in , /by /East County Magazineby Mike Allen Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Three years into construction, the massive East County Advanced Water Purification Program is approaching the finish line late next year when the region’s sewage now being treated at Point Loma will be pumped to a new Santee plant and converted to drinkable, purified water.

Last month, the four-person board that oversees the more than $1 billion AWP project approved a $34 million allocation for another phase of Package 5 of the project that broke ground in mid-2022. There are five packages for the AWP that is a collaboration among four agencies—Padre Dam Municipal Water District, San Diego County, the city of El Cajon, and Helix Water District.

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U.S. Pressures Mexico for Violating the 1944 Water Treaty

/in , /by /El Paisby Erika Rosete

Water has become a source of internal and external dispute for the Mexican government in recent months. On November 25, the U.S. State Department reported on a meeting between Mexican and U.S. officials in which, it claims, it “pressed” Mexico to comply with its obligation—stipulated in the 1944 Water Treaty—and supply “the maximum possible amount” of water to users in Texas. “The shortfall in water deliveries has exacerbated the shortage in Texas and contributed to hundreds of millions of dollars in crop losses,” they warned.

The demand echoes months of complaints made by farmers in the southern United States, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz, some of the voices that have most pressured Mexico to comply with what was agreed in 1944, in the bilateral treaty that manages the distribution of water from three rivers: the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, and the Conchos River, for the population of both countries.

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Supreme Court Urged to Decide if Diverting Water in California Counts as Government ‘Theft’

/in , /by /Tampa Free Pressby Leslie Bolden

A legal battle over California water rights has reached the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court, raising a fundamental constitutional question: When the government commandeers water for environmental reasons, is it merely regulating a resource or physically seizing private property?

The Liberty Justice Center filed an amicus brief last week in the case of United Water Conservation District v. United States, asking the high court to clarify the boundaries of the Fifth Amendment. The brief argues that diverting water specifically for government use should be classified as a “physical taking,” a designation that would mandate just compensation for property owners.

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California Adds 2.9 Billion Gallons of Drinking Water Through New Infrastructure Projects

/in , /by /Santa Monica Mirror

California has added an estimated 2.9 billion gallons of drinking water to its annual supply following the completion or groundbreaking of eight state-funded water infrastructure projects this fall, according to state officials. The projects — located in communities from Orange County to the Bay Area and the Sierra — include wastewater treatment upgrades, recycled water systems and new desalination facilities.

State data shows the work is supported by about $590 million in grants and low-interest loans, much of it from the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. The investments are part of a broader effort to expand local water supplies and modernize aging systems as the state faces more volatile weather patterns. More than 1 million Californians are expected to benefit from the latest round of projects.

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But Where Will the Water Come From?

/in , /by /Politicoby Camille Von Kaenel

California can still wring water out of its rivers — in theory, and only if you’re willing to pay an increasingly steep premium for it.

Take Sites Reservoir, which could become the first new major reservoir in California in decades. It would pull water from the Sacramento River to fill a valley in the coast range with enough water for roughly 3 million households, then distribute it to the local farmers and Southern California cities that would partly fund its construction.

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California Strongly Objects to Trump’s Plan to Pump More Delta Water South

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

The Trump administration plans to weaken environmental protections for threatened fish in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and pump more water to Central Valley farmlands, according to letters obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The letters show Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration strongly criticizing the Trump administration plan.

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Loveland Reservoir Levels Cause Concern for East County Residents

/in , /by /Fox 5 San Diegoby Kasia Gregorczyk

Residents who frequent Loveland Reservoir are again raising alarms about water being drained from the area’s largest public open-space reservoir. The concerns come three years after the reservoir was lowered to deadpool levels, killing off the fish population and severely impacting recreation.

Now, locals fear the reservoir may be headed down the same path.

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