The Trump administration says it will defend a Biden era-rule that is expected to keep polluters on the hook to clean up toxic “forever chemicals.”
The rule in question designated two types of these chemicals as “hazardous substances,” giving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more authority to clean up their contamination and require polluters to pay for it.
A new report from Colorado River researchers found water levels at the nation’s two largest reservoirs are dropping fast and on track for dire consequences. The authors are calling on policymakers to move with urgency and protect Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Negotiators are locked in talks about the future of those reservoirs after 2026, when the current rules for managing water there expire.
But the authors of this report say a dry year could bring levels so low, the reservoirs stop working before any new rules go into effect.
California was supposed to kick off a new era of dam building when voters passed a $7.5 billion water bond in 2014. But ten years later, only one dam project from the list is still alive.
Sites, which would divert water from the Sacramento River into an offstream reservoir capable of storing water for 3 million homes annually, is the sole survivor, as of Wednesday, of a batch of four new or expanded reservoirs that California officials had envisioned would bolster supplies for cities and farmers.
Adding new snowpack monitoring stations at strategic locations would be better at predicting water supply in the western U.S. than basin-wide mapping — and it would be less expensive — according to a new study.
“Measuring snow in the right places can benefit forecasts more than measuring it everywhere,” said lead author Mark Raleigh, an Oregon State University snow hydrologist.
When Lena Astilli first bought her home outside of Denver, she had no interest in matching the wall-to-wall green lawns that dominated her block. She wanted native plants — the kind she remembered and loved as a child in New Mexico, that require far less water and have far more to offer insects and birds that are in decline.
“A monoculture of Kentucky bluegrass is not helping anybody,” Astilli said. After checking several nurseries before finding one that had what she wanted, she has slowly been reintroducing those native plants to her yard.
California’s water system is considered to be one of the most complex in the world. Thousands of miles of canals snake through Central California’s agricultural fields, transporting water from the state’s intricate network of dams and reservoirs to feed the thirsty almonds, strawberries and grapes (among other crops) that cover sprawling fields. Most Californians only glance at this system from a passing highway, remarking at its many miles of efficient uniformity. But soon, these waterways may start to look a little different.
Near Hickman, California, just outside Modesto, a 110-foot-wide grid of solar panels now tops a section of canal, arching over the gently flowing water. Solar projects have long been a crucial piece of the state’s movement to clean energy, and these panels are part of a new project that’s hoping to do far more than just generate electricity. Dubbed Project Nexus, the $20 million state-funded initiative hopes to better understand whether these installations can be an even more efficient approach to solar energy.
Last Tuesday, the California Legislature cast a vote on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial water tunnel project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by not voting at all.
A couple of bills meant to speed up the process were allowed to die in committee before reaching the state Assembly. Opponents of the project consider it a victory in a fight to protect the water of the delta and the towns that live along its banks.
A novel solar power project just went online in California’s Central Valley, with panels that span across canals in the vast agricultural region. The 1.6-megawatt installation, called Project Nexus, was fully completed late last month. The $20-million state-funded pilot has turned stretches of the Turlock Irrigation District’s canals into hubs of clean electricity generation in a remote area where cotton, tomatoes, almonds and hundreds of other crops are grown.
Project Nexus is only the second canal-based solar array to operate in the United States – and one of just a handful in the world. The United States’ first solar-canal project started producing power in October 2024 for the Pima and Maricopa tribes, known together as the Gila River Indian Community, on their reservation near Phoenix, Arizona. Two more canal-top arrays are already in the works there.
Low water levels at one of the City of San Diego’s reservoirs have halted some water activities. According to an announcement by the city on Thursday, the boat launch ramp at El Capitan Reservoir in Lakeside has been closed due to low water levels.
However, available water activities include shore fishing, canoeing, car toppers, kayaking and float tubes, the city said.
The Colorado River’s massive reservoirs are now so depleted that another dry year could send them plunging to dangerously low levels, a group of prominent scholars warns in a new analysis.
The researchers are urging the Trump administration to intervene and impose substantial cutbacks in water use across the seven states that rely on the river — California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
