(CN) — A new study of groundwater in California’s Sacramento Valley shows that the ground sank faster than expected during the 2020-2022 drought due to heavy groundwater pumping, resulting in less water storage capacity in the aquifer. The authors of the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say the damage to the aquifer may […]
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Tuesday’s ruling said Sonoma County had not properly considered the effects of new rules it issued for increased pumping from the Russian River By Bob Egelko,Staff WriterAug 5, 2026 In a challenge by environmental groups to the pumping of groundwater from rivers to fill wells for farmers, homes and businesses in Sonoma County, a state appeals […]
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The latest flurries that dusted parts of the Sierra Nevada this week are unlikely to do much to ease California’s snow drought. Since April 1 — when the state measured its second-lowest snowpack on record — the Sierra Nevada has seen a few rounds of storms. This week’s system triggered winter storm warnings in the […]
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Warm Storms and High‑Elevation Rain Accelerate Melt Months Ahead of Schedule, Impacting Water Supply for the Remainder of the Year SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today conducted the critical April snow survey at Phillips Station and found no measurable snow, a stark indicator of how record‑hot March temperatures and high‑elevation rain have […]
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The city is hoping to take its suit alleging PFAS contamination of the city’s groundwater, by more than 40 companies, to trial.by Gregory Weaver December 9, 2025 What’s at stake? Fresno’s water has been clocked with some of the worst contamination of ‘forever chemicals,’ known as PFAS, across the U.S. Cleanup is expected to be prohibitably expensive. […]
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Sinking Ground Puts San Joaquin Valley Water Systems at Risk The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has released a comprehensive new assessment of water conveyance in the San Joaquin Valley – home to more than 4 million Californians and one of the nation’s most important agricultural regions. The San Joaquin Valley Conveyance Study examines the effects of […]
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Groundwater isn’t just important for California’s water users—it also sustains plants and wildlife all over the state. How does this work, and how can we protect ecosystems that rely on groundwater? We spoke with SUNY professor John Stella to find out. What are groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and why do they matter? Groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are natural communities that […]
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Sonoma County’s groundwater levels are plunging fast—wells drying, vineyards threatened. Find out why your water might vanish next.
Sonoma County’s groundwater is quietly vanishing beneath our feet, and the numbers are alarming. In parts of Sonoma Valley, deep aquifers have plummeted nearly 100 feet in the last decade, according to recent reports from the Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA). With some wells dropping as much as eight feet per year, residents and businesses alike have […]
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Aug 21, 2025 What you need to know: California’s strategies to expand water storage capacity and provide water to its 40 million residents continue, as Governor Newsom announces new funding to move the Sites Reservoir project forward. SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom is continuing to prepare the state for the water shortages impacting western states and […]
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Published: May 06, 2025 A recently released technical report concludes that the sinking of land in the Central Valley due to over-pumping of groundwater, referred to as subsidence, has restricted the amount of water the State Water Project (SWP) can deliver in a year by 3 percent. By 2043, if no action is taken, the current […]
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I’ve always cared deeply about my local watershed’s health. When I was in my 20s, I volunteered with local protection groups—joining stream cleanups and actively monitoring our local water for pollution. Back then, when we discovered contaminants, we didn’t hesitate to report them to our state environmental agency or the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). […]
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Dec. 18, 2024 SANTA ROSA, CA – Permit Sonoma has suspended issuing non-emergency well permits in compliance with a Sonoma County Superior Court order. The order, which was served to the County on Dec. 17, 2024 stems from the lawsuit Russian Riverkeeper and California Coastkeeper vs. County of Sonoma. It requires, among other things, the […]
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In a landmark decision that could change how California manages its water, a Sonoma County court has slammed the brakes on groundwater over-pumping, demanding new measures to protect rivers, fish, and public resources.
The Sonoma Superior Court ruled that Sonoma County violated both the Public Trust Doctrine and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by adopting a well ordinance that inadequately safeguarded local waterways. The court is ordering the county to conduct extensive environmental assessments and implement new measures to prevent harm to rivers, fish populations, and other public trust resources. […]
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Toxic Algal Blooms can harm people and pets. They can ruin vacations and wreck recreation and tourist economies. They can happen anywhere. And they’re entirely preventable. We were fortunate. Though he waded and drank some of the contaminated water, our dog Wooly escaped with a few days of severe vomiting and diarrhea. He’s now fully […]
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BAKERSFIELD, California — The California Water Service in Bakersfield has found that 22 of its water wells could be contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’, also known as PFAS. The water utility company came across these findings when they tested several of their wells ahead of the Environmental Protection Agency’s introduction of new PFAS guidelines. We knew of […]
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By Clark MindockApril 15, 20241:06 PM PDTUpdated 19 days ago April 15 (Reuters) – A new lawsuit filed by public drinking water systems in California against manufacturers of toxic “forever chemicals” is among the first to cite new Biden administration regulations that set strict limits for the chemicals in drinking water. The Orange County Water […]
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Tom Perkins Rules celebrated for reducing exposures, but experts say it’s not enough and will lead to ‘an endless game of Whac-A-Mole Strong new limits for some PFAS compounds in drinking water set by the US Environmental Protection Agency this week are being celebrated for how far they go in reducing exposures to the dangerous chemicals. But […]
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BY JOHN COX jcox@bakersfield.comApr 15, 2024 A preliminary assessment suggests nearly two dozen Bakersfield water wells suspected of containing harmful “forever chemicals” may have to be treated within five years to bring local taps served by California Water Service into compliance with new federal rules. Expectations are that reverse osmosis or granular activated carbon will effectively remove the […]
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A judge in Montana recently ruled in favor of landowners and ranchers fighting against a housing development project near Helena that could have put further stress on steadily declining groundwater reserves. Public defiance: Initially, the state and county governments had signed off on a developer’s plans to build 39 homes that would pull their water from […]
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North Coast Stream Flow Coalition The Coalition is strongly in favor of regulation for California Groundwater Resources. Groundwater and surface waters constitute a single resource (see: Thomas C. Winter, Judson W. Harvey, O. Lehn Franke, and William M. Alley, Groundwater and Surface Water: A Single Resource, U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1139, 2006). This means that […]
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Abstract Across the world, declining groundwater levels cause wells to run dry, increase water and food insecurity, and often acutely impact groundwater-dependent communities. Despite the ubiquity and severity of these impacts, groundwater research has primarily focused on economic policy instruments for sustainable management or the quantification of groundwater depletion, rather than assessing the impacts of […]
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In March 2023, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) determined that the groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) for six critically overdrafted, high-priority groundwater basins in the Central Valley are inadequate. The six basins with inadequate GSPs, from north to south, are the Chowchilla, Delta-Mendota, Kaweah, Tulare Lake, Tule, and Kern County subbasins (please see map below). […]
Read More By Ian JamesSept. 9, 2023 A spokesperson for BlueTriton Brands said in an email that the company and its predecessors “have collected water from Arrowhead Springs in Strawberry Canyon in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way for more than 125 years.” BlueTriton, based in Stamford, Conn., took over the operation when Nestlé Waters North America was […]
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In January 2022, the State Water Resources Control Board launched a new project called Updating Water Rights Data for California (UPWARD California) to improve how the state collects and manages its water rights data and information. […]
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Napa County has work to do to get Napa Valley wine country groundwater supplies in balance for the long haul. Groundwater pumping in 2021-22 was 18,790 acre-feet, according to a new report. It was the third consecutive year that pumping exceeded the Napa Valley sub-basin’s sustainable yield of 15,000 acre-feet, coinciding with a three-year drought. […]
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By Andrew Fisher, Resilience. January 15, 2023 Instead of watching epic atmospheric river rainfall drain into the Pacific. California has seen so much rain over the past few weeks that farm fields are inundated and normally dry creeks and drainage ditches have become torrents of water racing toward the ocean. Yet, most of the state remains in severe drought. […]
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Plot maps from the monthly NOAA/NCEI U.S. Climate Division dataset including means, anomalies, and climatologies. Maps can be created for an average (“composite”) of different years.
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By Janny Choy and Geoff McGhee Groundwater is back in the spotlight. Largely invisible, lightly regulated and used by 85% of California’s population and much of the state’s $45 billion agriculture industry, groundwater is a crucial reserve that helps stave off catastrophe during drought periods like we’ve experienced over the past three years. Unheralded, Underregulated and Overused, […]
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Chloe Sorvino Forbes Staff Sep 22, 2022, 06:30am EDT Broiling heat in the middle of the worst drought in 1,200 years has strained the state’s underground water supply, pitting the Central Valley’s $20 billion agriculture industry against many of its own workers. Nature has a way of telling people when their wells are running dry. […]
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SmartWaterMagazine.com reports that as climate change increases extreme weather events, such as megadroughts, groundwater management is key for sustaining water supply. But current monitoring tools are either costly or insufficient for deeper aquifers, limiting our ability to monitor and practice sustainable management. Now, a new paper bridges seismology and hydrology with an application that uses seismometers […]
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