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This fog-shrouded patch of coastal forest in the heart of Yurok Country was tended by the tribe for millennia. … Now, as the land heals from the scars of a long-running lumber mill, it has been returned to its original stewards, who will operate it as a public gateway to Redwood National and State Parks about 50 miles south of the Oregon border. … The announcement comes as California’s most populous Indigenous nation works to reclaim its homelands, a mission inscribed in its constitution. The Yurok Tribe has so far regained 60,000 acres — about 12% — of its 500,000-acre ancestral territory, which stretches along the North Coast and the Klamath River. … Prairie Creek [is] key habitat for coho salmon, which are federally protected in this portion of California. The stream has the potential to be particularly productive because its headwaters are already protected under the jurisdiction of Redwood National and State Parks. View Original Article read more

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) director Karla Nemeth left the department last month after nearly nine years of service. Before she takes over as the director of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), we sat down with her to talk about how DWR changed during her tenure, what (still) keeps her up at night, and what advice she’d offer California’s next governor. … [Nemeth:] If I could sit down with the next governor, I would first urge him to become familiar with the incredibly dynamic nature of California’s hydrology and how we manage it. … Second, get behind the backbone infrastructure projects: large-scale groundwater recharge, large-scale water recycling, the tunnel, and Sites Reservoir. They are big, but they are the most affordable solutions over the long haul.  Other water leadership news: California WaterBlog (UC Davis): UC Davis Alumnus Kaveh Madani wins the 2026 Stockholm Water Prize View Original Article read more

This morning [July 27], the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – the agency overseeing Pacific Gas and Electric’s effort to decommission two dams on the upper Eel River – told a Southern California water agency that its late bid to take over the project, along with the water rights that come with it, will not be allowed to proceed. In making its decision, FERC staff told the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District that it presented no compelling argument as to why it should be allowed to intervene in the case more than eight months after the deadline to do so had passed. … Elsinore Valley now has 30 days to ask the commission to revisit the decision, according to the notice. Other dam and reservoir news: Active NorCal (Redding, Calif.): A Southern California water agency tried to take over two Eel River dams. Federal regulators just said no. Los Banos Enterprise (Calif.): Federal $16 million plan targets more drought storage at Los Banos Creek reservoir Marin Independent Journal (San Rafael, Calif.): MMWD ordered to develop repair plan for dam View Original Article read more

Two years ago, the Bay Area’s 40 publicly owned wastewater treatment agencies got some hard news. They had 10 years to upgrade their facilities to reduce pollutants entering the bay by 40%, at an estimated cost of $11 billion. At a Thursday meeting of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, a pathway was initiated for certain projects to get a deadline extension, if they qualify and are moving as quickly as possible. The 2034 deadline was established when the water board tightened the rules for issuing the permit required to discharge treated effluent into Bay Area waters. The move was in response to massive fish kills in 2022 and 2023 caused by consecutive algae blooms.  Other water quality news: ABC10 (San Diego): Brown water at Coronado Beach: Algae bloom or Tijuana sewage? Ebb and Flow (California Water Boards): Blog: How good policy and prudent planning kept California’s drinking water safe from lead View Original Article read more

… Around dinner time on July 31, 1976, a storm system stalled high in the sky above the center of the canyon, which stretches between Estes Park and Loveland. Over the course of an hour, the clouds unleashed more than 7 inches of rain, swelling the river encased in the narrow canyon by a foot every three minutes. By the end of the storm the following day, the system had dumped the equivalent of the area’s normal yearly rainfall on the canyon. … The 1976 flood was one in a series of disasters that prompted the creation of incident command centers — which serve as a central hub for decision-making for all agencies responding to a crisis. … The emergency system in the 1970s was primarily focused on nuclear threats … and then expanded to encompass floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other disasters. View Original Article read more

… Welcome to one of the hottest and driest summers metro Denver has seen in years, notwithstanding scattered monsoon rain relief last week in pockets of the Front Range. And the critical buffer the state relies on — stored water in reservoirs — is shrinking steadily, hobbled by the lowest recorded snowpack in Colorado since 1941. … Cities and towns are grappling with whether to boost limits on water consumption, especially with forecasts calling for high temperatures to remain in the 90s well into this week. And don’t be surprised if a citation arrives in your mailbox, as new monitoring technology gives water providers a precise view of who is complying with watering rules at any hour — and who is trying to get away with an extra helping of forbidden H2O. Other drought news around the West: The Washington Post: A desert town may run out of water. Others could face the same fate. AP News: Water hauling is the new chore no rancher asked for RFD-TV (Nashville, Tenn.): Colorado potato farm adapts to drought and market challenges Axios Salt Lake City: Here’s why Utah’s wildflower season was a dud Manteca Bulletin (Calif.): Blog: LA may have ravished the Owens River but SJ farmers dried up the San Joaquin View Original Article read more

Hurricane Genevieve on Monday became the first Category 5 storm in the eastern Pacific Ocean since Hurricane Kristy in 2024, with winds peaking at 160 mph, and the strongest July Cat 5 in the basin since 2002. … The hurricane’s remarkable intensification is fueled by a deep pool of anomalously warm water directly linked to the rapidly strengthening El Niño, which works to greatly warm sea surface temperatures in this part of the ocean. … It also means that the hurricane season will last longer. That distinction itself is important for California. Typically, water temperatures are starting to cool down in October and November, marking the tail end of hurricane season. With El Niño still strengthening, that window for tropical cyclone development will last longer into fall when the atmospheric pattern that governs our weather is set to change. Other El Niño news: Los Angeles Times: Hurricane Genevieve to bring massive swells, life-threatening surf, rip currents to SoCal KRCB (Rohnert Park, Calif.): El Niño in Northern California: What Sonoma County could expect this year SFGate: Warming seas have less oxygen. California experts say that’s really bad. San Francisco Chronicle: Opinion: San Francisco isn’t ready for this year’s El Niño National Law Review: Blog: El Niño is coming – what California industrial facilities need to know about stormwater compliance View Original Article read more

As a data center developer moves its project forward on federal land in Boulder City using an unusual regulatory mechanism, a heated land use debate has sparked appeals and a resolution in Congress that would ban data centers on federal land. On Monday, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club jointly filed a petition for a stay to the Interior Board of Land Appeals, asking a judge to halt construction while an appeal is processed. … While building the solar project would have required the use of 25 acre-feet of water, building the data center would need 560 acre-feet. … That water might come from Boulder City’s wastewater treatment plant — the only one in the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s purview that doesn’t send treated water back into Lake Mead. But if no deal is reached with the city, questions remain about where that water may come from. Other data center water use news: FOX13 (Salt Lake City): Utah’s new Great Salt Lake Commissioner on conservation, data centers and new water FOX13 (Salt Lake City): Hundreds gather in-person and online in opposition to proposed Tooele data center View Original Article read more