The Rundown
- Interior Department overhauls its environmental review procedures.
- GAO says NOAA, which has oversight authority, should do a better job of tracking cloud seeding and other weather modification.
- Senate passes a bill to allow southern Nevada’s water authority to build a water-supply pipeline beneath a national conservation area.
- EPA staff decreased 7 percent in the nine months through June 2025, GAO found.
- Army Corps directive aims to speed up infrastructure work, prioritize projects.
- House Democrats from the D.C. region ask Congress to fund the repair of a major sewer pipe break.
And lastly, Bureau of Reclamation officials outline options for propping up a shrinking Lake Powell.
“I think it’s safe for us to assume that unless Mother Nature is uncharacteristically generous, that Lake Powell elevations are going to fluctuate at elevations that we’re not comfortable with.” – Wayne Pullan, Bureau of Reclamation Upper Colorado regional director, speaking about the possibility that Lake Powell drops low enough later this year that Glen Canyon Dam cannot generate hydropower.
In context: Two-Decade Hydropower Plunge at Big Colorado River Dams
By the Numbers
7 Percent: Decrease in EPA staff between September 2024 and June 2025, according to a Government Accountability Office audit.
10: States that have weather modification programs, typically cloud seeding to induce rainfall, according to a GAO report.
News Briefs
Interior NEPA Changes
The Interior Department overhauled its environmental review procedures, aligning them with recent court decisions, congressional action, and Trump administration priorities.
The final rule sets page limits (150 pages in most cases, up to 300 for actions of “extraordinary complexity”) and time limits (generally two years) on environmental impact statements.
The new rules do not require public comment on draft environmental impact statements. The only mandatory opportunity for public comment is after the department issues a notice that it intends to prepare an EIS.
Reviews already in progress, those with “applications that are sufficiently advanced,” will be held to the previous standard.
Lake Powell Options
Officials at the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages Colorado River dams, outlined several actions they are considering in the coming months to boost water levels in a rapidly shrinking Lake Powell, which could drop to a record low later this year that would halt hydropower production from Glen Canyon Dam for the first time.
The Colorado River’s second-largest reservoir behind Lake Mead is entering one of the most difficult periods in its six-decade history. The basin is drying due to a warming climate. Powell is just a quarter full, and projected to drop lower this year. Winter has been a dud, with warm temperatures and a historically bad snowpack in the Colorado mountains that feed into the reservoir.
Reclamation officials discussed their options during a meeting last week of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Work Group, an expert committee that advises on the dam’s ecological impacts.
A 2024 decision allows Reclamation to “consider all tools that are available” to keep Powell from dropping below 3,500 feet, an elevation that provides a little wiggle room for maintaining hydropower production. Powell today sits at 3,531 feet.
The tool from the 2024 decision is Section 6(E), which grants Reclamation the authority to restrict water releases from Powell to as low as 6 million acre-feet. The planned release this year is 7.48 million acre-feet, so the Section 6(E) authority represents a potential 20 percent reduction.
A cut of that magnitude might not be necessary because Reclamation has another tool it can use in tandem.
That option is releasing more water from Flaming Gorge and other smaller reservoirs located higher in the watershed. This is called a DROA release after its authorizing document. Pullan said this action, which states in the lower basin are advocating for, is being discussed and the volume of those releases would be determined in the spring, around April or May.
In context: Big Decisions Loom for a Rapidly Shrinking Lake Powell
Southern Nevada Water Pipeline
The Senate passed a bill that allows southern Nevada’s water provider to tunnel beneath Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area in order to build a pipeline to increase the water-supply system’s reliability. The bill now goes to the president’s desk.
Studies and Reports
‘Army Mode’ for the Army Corps
Adam Telle, head of the Army Corps of Engineers, issued a collection of directives aimed at reducing paperwork and speeding up water infrastructure construction.
In one memo, Telle called for an “Army Mode” mobilization. He ordered a bottom-up approach whereby officials will select at least 20 projects nationally to prioritize. The list is due March 20.
A separate memo lists seven focus areas for infrastructure work. In descending order of importance: human life and safety, economically or strategically important infrastructure, efficient navigation and supply chains, human property, aquatic ecosystems, state-level infrastructure, and municipal infrastructure.
In yet another memo, he said that project investigations – part of the planning phase – should take no more than three years and $3 million.
Cost of Natural Hazards for the Defense Department
The Defense Department lacks data to understand fully the costs of natural hazards to its installations, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
The GAO made five recommendations, including resilience planning, data collection standards, guidance, and procedures. The Defense Department agreed with all of them.
Weather Modification
The GAO also looked into NOAA’s tracking of activities to induce rainfall or otherwise change the weather.
Thanks to a 1972 law, NOAA has oversight authority over weather modification and any entity that shoots silver iodide into clouds to make it rain is required to file a report with the agency. Solar geoengineering, which attempts to reduce air temperatures, is far less common but also covered under this authority.
The GAO found that NOAA’s database is incomplete, inconsistent, and unreliable. One fifth of interim and final reports had at least one error, the GAO estimates.
“Consequently, NOAA is not fully aware of the extent of weather modification activities that have occurred and are occurring within the U.S., how they are being conducted, or potential effects,” the GAO concluded.
On the Radar
How to Sue the EPA
The EPA is proposing to change the process for filing citizen lawsuits, moving from mail delivery to electronic submissions.
Public comments are due March 26. Submit them via www.regulations.gov using docket number EPA-HQ-OGC-2024-0557.
Water Infrastructure Funding
In the wake of a large-diameter sewer line rupture along the Potomac River, House Democrats from Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia wrote to leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee asking for funding for repairs.
The letter also asked for the Army Corps of Engineers to prioritize a study of a backup drinking water source for the capital region, which relies on the Potomac.
“Unlike other major metropolitan areas, the region lacks a secondary water supply, which would provide critical redundancy in the event of a future crisis.”
Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.
