Santa Cruz Water Department

10/23/2026

🎲 Join us to play Aqua Cruz with The Game Night Collective on Monday, Oct. 26, at the Cruz Room!

Try your hand at managing the local water supply. Play starts at 6:30! The event is free to attend.

10/22/2026

💧 The Santa Cruz Water Department has completed the relocation of 3.7 miles of the Newell Creek Pipeline nearly three months ahead of schedule! The new pipeline replaces aging infrastructure vulnerable to storm damage, strengthening the city’s water supply ahead of the anticipated El Niño winter.

This $29 million project improves water system reliability, protects environmentally sensitive areas, and supports the City’s Climate Resilient Santa Cruz initiative. The pipeline supplies approximately 10% of the City’s annual water needs.

10/21/2026

👏 Newell Creek Pipeline relocation finishes ahead of schedule! Read more: https://mrf.lu/2bnfH

For over a year, the Santa Cruz Water Department has been working to replace and relocate a 60-year-old segment of Newel Creek Pipeline. As of late September, water is flowing through the new section of pipeline, months ahead of schedule,…
Read more below

10/21/2026

We focus most of our fisheries work on steelhead and coho but there are many other interesting critters in our local watersheds. Check out this post from UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences about Threespine Stickleback. These are interesting fish that we often see in the San Lorenzo River and North Coast streams. To quote the authors, "abundance of Threespine Sticklebacks is a good indicator of habitat quality and diversity"

Happy !

By Peter Moyle and Tom Taylor . . . The fresh waters of California support a diverse, highly endemic fish fauna. Many of the fishes are on extinction trajectories. In this blog series, however, we discuss native fishes that have sufficient resiliency to keep populations large and sustainable, even i...

10/19/2026

🔧 Santa Cruz Trades Day is Friday, Oct. 23, bringing 400–600 high school students from more than 25 schools to the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium for a hands-on look at careers in the skilled trades.

👷 From water and wastewater to fleet, fire, police, parks and recreation, students can explore career opportunities with the City and organizations throughout Santa Cruz County.

💧 The Santa Cruz Water Department is excited to showcase the variety of careers in the water trades and connect with students who may be part of the local water workforce in the future.

10/16/2026

✅ UPDATE: Water Advisory Lifted — Portola Drive Area

The localized Do Not Drink advisory shared in our previous post has been lifted. Water is now safe to use at all previously affected addresses near Portola Drive and 26th Avenue, including addresses on Samuel Street.

Affected addresses have been notified that the advisory has been lifted.

Thank you for your patience while crews completed repairs and water quality testing.

10/14/2026

⚠️ Water Service Advisory — Portola Drive Area

A localized Do Not Drink advisory is in effect for specific addresses near Portola Drive and 26th Avenue, including addresses on Samuel Street.

📢 Affected addresses received notices directly. It DOES NOT apply to the entire Santa Cruz water system.

If your address is affected, please continue following the instructions in your notice, even if water service has resumed, until the Water Department lifts the advisory.

10/14/2026

As part of our commitment to help recovery our local anadromous fish species we've installed a PIT antenna in one of the local creeks that provides water for the City. This antenna will help us better understand steelhead and coho movement - which (with the help of this tech) we're learning is more complex than previously thought. Hopefully, we'll get some good flows (but not floods!) this winter that will provide lots of migration opportunities for them...and lots of opportunities for us to learn more about their fascinating and complex life histories!

Thanks to California State Parks, Biomark, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and California Department of Fish and Wildlife for their support of this work!

You can learn more about how they are using this technology in other creeks at the link below.

Happy !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YSGMjWBeAA&time_continue=80&source_ve_path=NzY3NTg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Ffishbio.com%2F

10/14/2026

Santa Cruz Water crews continue to work to resolve a water outage on Portola Drive near 26th Avenue.  

Customers affected by this prolonged outage will receive written notices from the Santa Cruz Water Department and have access to bottled drinking water.  

Residents of 2505, 2531, 2533, 2635, 2608. 2604, 2602, 2590 Portola Drive, and 761, 763, 765 and 767 Samuel Street, as well as the mobile home parks at 2630 and 2565 Portola Drive, are affected.

The Water Department thanks the community for their patience.

10/13/2026

🚧 Santa Cruz Water crews responded to a water main break around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning on Portola Drive near 26th Avenue. The 8-inch water main, originally installed in 1959, broke, and crews immediately began working to locate and isolate the break and begin repairs.

💧 Two mobile home communities at 2565 and 2630 Portola Drive, along with Cole’s BBQ at 2590 Portola Drive, are currently experiencing a water service outage.

⏰ Water service is expected to be restored by approximately 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.

Santa Cruz Water appreciates the community’s patience and understanding while crews work to complete repairs and restore service. 💙