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Morning Report: Las Vegas Signals It’s Interested in Buying San Diego Water (scroll down)

/in , /by /Voice of San Diego Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Las Vegas has signaled interest in buying San Diego’s desalination water, the latest development in what will surely be a complex agreement permitting cities to trade water over state lines.

Last week, the board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which provides water to the Las Vegas metropolitan area, officially signaled it wants to talk interstate water transfers by signing onto a memorandum of understanding proposed by the San Diego County Water Authority. San Diego is keen to sell off water it doesn’t need but is obligated to buy, like de-salted ocean water from a desalination plant in Carlsbad.

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Can AI Help Predict and Manage Drought?

/in , /by /UC Mercedby Patty Guerra

After a couple of years of sufficient water, much of California is showing “abnormally dry” conditions in spring 2026, according to the state drought monitor.

And as climate change adds more swings between wet and dry conditions, researchers are working on ways to better identify, predict and manage drought.

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California Lawmakers Move To Pull Back Curtain on AI Data Centers Amid Strain on Power and Water

/in , /by /Imperial Valley Press Sacramento

As the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence drives an unprecedented boom in data center construction across California, a bipartisan push for tighter industry oversight is gaining traction in the state capitol.

Assemblyman Jeff Gonzalez (R-Indio) cast his vote this week in favor of a sweeping package of legislation designed to pull back the curtain on the secretive, energy-hungry facilities. The move highlights growing anxiety in rural and suburban communities over how the massive computing hubs will affect local infrastructure.

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Supreme Court Settles Long-Running Water Dispute Over Dwindling Rio Grande

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Susan Montoya Bryan

The U.S. Supreme Court has approved a settlement package designed to rein in groundwater pumping along one of North America’s longest rivers and ensure enough water reliably makes it from New Mexico to Texas, ending a long-running dispute over management of the Rio Grande.

In a brief order Tuesday, the court accepted the recommendation of a special master to move forward with agreements first proposed last year by New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.

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The Great Water Heist: How AI Data Centers are Draining the Heartland

/in , /by /Yahoo Newsby Alex Barrientos

American data centers collectively consume unprecedented amounts of water, with AI driving exponential demand growth.

Data centers across the United States consume massive quantities of water for cooling their servers. These facilities require constant temperature regulation to prevent overheating, and that cooling comes at a steep environmental cost. The scale of consumption continues growing as AI workloads demand more computational power.

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Southern Nevada Confronts a Challenging Future After Water Cuts Further Deplete Lake Mead

/in , /by /Las Vegas Weekly by Tyler Schneider
Amid the worst regional drought the Western U.S. has seen in 1,200 years, and in a year where Rocky Mountain snowpack levels also hit record lows, the Colorado River system is now barely over one-third of its total hydrological capacity, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

As a result, water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river’s two largest reservoirs, are also depleting rapidly. In April, with Lake Powell on track to fall below 3,490 feet later this year—the minimum level at which it can generate power—the Bureau of Reclamation stepped in to announce emergency reductions to the amount of Colorado River water released from Lake Powell downstream to Lake Mead.

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Utah To Receive $35M From Feds for Colorado River Projects

/in , /by /The Times-Independent Utahby Brooke Larsen

The Bureau of Reclamation plans to release about $35 million to Utah from the Inflation Reduction Act for drought mitigation projects in the Colorado River Basin, said Amy Haas, director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah.

That’s just a portion of the $90 million that the Biden administration awarded to Utah for 11 projects, ranging from wetland restoration near Moab to removal of invasive Russian olive trees along the Green River. Shortly after the funds were awarded in early January 2025, though, President Donald Trump froze spending from the IRA.

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Data Centers Are Guzzling California’s Water

/in , /by /Cal Mattersby Rachel Becker

Data center builders don’t tell the public how much water they use, according to a new report — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities.

The report, by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University, finds that planned data centers — the ganglia of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central and Imperial Valleys.

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Releasing Cool Water Protects Fish in the Grand Canyon. That Comes at Cost to Hydropower

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Dorany Pineda and Brittany Peterson

As the Colorado River and its once massive reservoirs shrink from overuse and climate change, officials are faced with a decision that pits conservation against ratepayer costs for electricity.

To fight off predators of the humpback chub, a threatened fish native to the river, Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona would need to do what is known as a “cool mix flow,” where cold water is released from deep in its reservoir to cool the river below. But there are no hydropower turbines in the cool, deep section, so significant power generation would be lost.

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California Proposal Would Change How Millions Get Their Water

/in , /by /NewsWeekby Jasmine Laws

Conservation groups are pushing a major overhaul of how Southern California gets its water, arguing the state must rely less on imported supplies as climate change, drought and rising costs threaten long-term water security for millions of residents.

The coalition, made up of 12 groups, says California should dramatically expand local water capture, wastewater recycling and groundwater cleanup rather than continue depending heavily on imported supplies from the Colorado River and Northern California.

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