Tahoe Truckee Region Water Digest

Munition boxes, depth charges and smoke floats have been found 3,000 feet underwater off the coast of Los Angeles. More than 100 square miles of ocean might be contaminated.

Bright blue waves have been spotted in Long Beach, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. The bioluminescence is caused by organisms known as dinoflagellates and can impact fish populations.

The California Department of Water Resources has found that the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is at just 25% of normal levels for this time of year. This could potentially impact water supply and wildfire protection.

The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages federal water such as the Central Valley Project, has a new regional director for the California-Great Basin Region.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe announced it is acquiring about 10,000 acres of land in Northern California for $14.1 million. As part of this, the tribe will remove dams along the Klamath River and restore salmon runs.

The California Department of Water Resources has approved building a tunnel between the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The approval could signal a new wave of legal challenges to the long-running and controversial project.

Suppliers now have detailed steps to create a new source of drinking water. But it’s not really “toilet-to-tap.” Due to the cost, it’ll likely be only large suppliers.

Salmon populations in the Scott and Shasta rivers have crashed, so state officials are about to restrict irrigation again. And the controversial rules may even become permanent.

Water fights have shaped California since its infancy as a state, when its abundance seemed limitless. Now, Californians are being forced to confront limitations, and the state that prides itself on creating the future is now reckoning with its past.

The California Department of Water Resources released an environmental impact report for a tunnel that the state would like to build through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The report identifies potential impacts to farmland, tribal remains and endangered species of fish.

Water managers in Pajaro Valley are paying farmers for water they get back into the ground. The move comes as California has grappled with water shortages in recent years.

In preparation for the single-use plastic bottle ban South Lake Tahoe will implement in 2024, Take Care Tahoe has released a new Drink Tahoe Tap Map that lists locations where people can freely fill up reusable water bottles.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is getting a $100 million loan to help cover a shortfall more than three times as large. The district also may change how it charges its more than 19 million customers for water.

Unlike a year ago, water storage is above average. Whether the year is wet or dry, though, remains uncertain despite El Niño conditions.

Much of California could get hit by extreme weather conditions this winter. A major storm is due to hit Northern California this week.

The Elmore Desert Ranch gets 22.5 billion gallons of water from the Colorado River, almost as much as is cleared for Scottsdale, Ariz. And that’s just a fraction of the 386.5 billion gallons from the river going to 19 other families in Imperial Valley.

The first reservoir in California in nearly 50 years is now on the fast track for completion.

Intense rains have California out of a drought less than a year after most of the state faced water shortages. A climatologist is urging wise water usage ahead of California’s next drought.

Wet weather and planned cuts by California, Arizona and Nevada averted declines that could have threatened water deliveries and power production—but long-term threats to the Colorado River remain.

Hundreds of wells in Tulare Lake aquifer are at risk of going dry. Today's recommendation is the first time that state officials have moved to crack down on local plans that fail to stop excessive groundwater pumping.

Water providers say rebates for residential areas are costly and residents may refuse to remove their lawns. The rules aim to save enough water for more than a million households a year.

The irrigation bill, which aims to force businesses and institutions to remove their lawns, now goes to the governor.

The Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) Board of Directors allocated money for two new programs to help ensure customer water supplies are protected from both near-term and long-term disasters.

Clean Up the Lake, known for its 72-mile cleanup project around the shores of Lake Tahoe, has opened its Environmental Dive Center at Lake Tahoe.

Raising Shasta Dam to increase its capacity would provide 634,000 more acre-feet of water per year, legislators say. But that assumes there will always be enough precipitation, and the move risks flooding sacred Native American lands and harming local habitats.

In the magazine Nature, a team of scientists reports that they have detected changes in ocean color that cannot be explained by natural, year-to-year variability alone. These color shifts have occurred over 56 percent of the world’s oceans.

The environmental costs of ending water diversions from Mono Lake to Los Angeles would be mixed: It might help a shore bird habitat but would require changes that increase carbon emissions.

In an effort to improve lake clarity and reduce sediment loading from roadway runoff to protect the natural beauty of Lake Tahoe, Placer County is moving forward with construction of the transformative Lower Secline Water Quality project in Kings Beach.

Small fragments of fibers from clothing, packaging and other plastic residue have invaded freshwater lakes and watersheds globally and in alarming quantities, according to new research.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom had to concede defeat on trying to get the Legislature to give a very contentious water tunnel project streamlined regulatory treatment.

U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) announced $3.1 million in funding she secured for Lake Tahoe in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to prevent and combat the spread of aquatic invasive species in the lake through the Lake Tahoe Aquatic Invasive Species Program.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Montana ruled the U.S. Forest Service can continue to use aerial fire retardant to fight wildfires while waiting on a Clean Water Act permit.