While the product may look strange, Dr. Michel Boudrias is leading a team of students at University of San Diego with what might be the future of ocean cleanup.
“It smells like a like a fish market,” undergraduate student Nikki Cardino says. “But like not one that you wanna buy any fish from!”
After the thirtieth consecutive month without rain, the townsfolk of San Francisco de Conchos in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua gather to plead for divine intervention.
On the shores of Lake Toronto, the reservoir behind the state’s most important dam – called La Boquilla, a priest leads local farmers on horseback and their families in prayer, the stony ground beneath their feet once part of the lakebed before the waters receded to today’s critically low levels.
In the contentious talks over how states will split the shrinking Colorado River, negotiators are reaching consensus on one point: Just go with the “natural flow.”
The concept is a somewhat simple one. Instead of negotiating future cuts across the entire seven-state region, the process would rely on recent water records — the amount of water flowing from the Colorado River headwaters in the Upper Basin to a point in Arizona marking the boundary of the Lower Basin states.
If there is anything that might constitute an overwhelming institutional consensus in California, it’s that we are experiencing climate change, and that one of the consequences will be more rain, less snow, and more so-called whiplash between very wet years and very dry years.
In an average year these days, 30 million acre feet of water flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But nearly half of that water comes down in the form of a melting Sierra snowpack which in an average year holds 15 million acre feet of water. This snowmelt fills the reservoirs and feeds the rivers from April through June. With climate change, so we’re told, the volume of runoff won’t change. But we’ll get almost all of it in the three months of winter. Do we have a system to handle winter flows into the delta that are twice today’s volume?
California’s drinking water has elevated levels of a certain contaminant found to be associated with adverse birth outcomes, causing experts to advise that safe water advisories need to be updated.
According to a nationwide study led by researchers at Columbia University, parts of the state have levels of arsenic in public drinking water higher than 5 micrograms per liter.
The Helix Water District — a public water utility serving 278,000 people in San Diego’s East County suburbs — recently received a Green Business certification from the California Green Business Network and the City of La Mesa.
This certification recognizes the district’s ongoing commitment to environmentally responsible business practices.
The U.S. House passed President Donald Trump’s spending bill on July 3, 2025, that includes tax cuts and cuts to Medicaid and various other programs. The bill now goes to the President to be signed. Initial estimates suggest the bill would add roughly $3 trillion to the national debt.
Mentions of water within the bill, as it pertains to the industry, are few and far between. The bill includes funding for a source water protection program and a watershed protection program.
The deadly flash flood along Texas’ Guadalupe River showed the devastating toll such a disaster can take, and California could face similar dangers when extreme weather strikes.
Low-lying areas along rivers and creeks can be hazardous when downpours and torrents come, as shown by past floods in parts of the state including the Los Angeles area, the Central Valley and the Central Coast.
The deadly floods in Central Texas, which had killed more than 100 people as of Tuesday afternoon, have become a flashpoint for discussions of government preparedness for flood emergencies. Kerr County abandoned efforts to build a more robust warning system, reportedly due to budget issues; officials also appear not to have issued evacuation orders at the start of the flood.
But one expert tells Governing that local officials across the country should also be using this moment to reflect on the need for updated water infrastructure, the first line of defense for communities experiencing extreme rain events.
The role of water in the high-growth data center market is fast becoming a critical factor in site selection, design, and operations. By 2030, annual water-related capital and operational expenditures are forecasted to reach US$797.1 million, representing a 31.4% increase from today.
According to a new report from Bluefield Research, U.S. Water for Data Centers: Market Trends, Opportunities, and Forecasts, 2025–2030, this surge in activity is accelerating—driven by artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled growth, mounting local concerns over water availability, and the tech sector’s urgent push to safeguard operational resilience amid growing environmental scrutiny.
