A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Vik Jolly.
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The headlines below are the original headlines used in the publication cited at the time they are posted here and do not reflect the stance of the Water Education Foundation, an impartial nonprofit that remains neutral.
… According to a 2021 study from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and California Water: Assessment of
Toxins for Community Health, more than 50% of tested homes
drawing drinking water from Clear Lake had detectable levels of
cyanotoxin, posing risks ranging from skin irritation to liver
damage. … The Clear Lake hitch (also referred to as Chi by
native peoples since time immemorial), a native fish species
that holds deep spiritual and cultural significance for local
tribes, is now at risk of extinction. … This crisis is
decades in the making, but solutions are within reach: In 2017,
the California Legislature established the Blue-Ribbon
Committee for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake through Assembly
Bill 707, championed by Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry,
which is composed of a diverse coalition of voices, including
tribal representatives, Lake County officials, agricultural
leaders, scientists and state agency partners.
--Written by Eric Sklar, chair of the Blue Ribbon Committee
for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake, and Sarah Ryan,
environmental director of the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians
who represents the Tribe on the Blue Ribbon Committee.
… The 1944 Water Treaty between the U.S. and Mexico was
signed in a different world, when rivers seemed eternal and
drought was merely a seasonal phenomenon. It obligated Mexico
to deliver 430 million cubic meters of water to the U.S. each
year, while the U.S. released over four times that amount to
Mexico from the Colorado River. But the math no longer
works. Mexico is now 1.5 billion cubic meters behind on
its side of the deal. The tributaries it relies on—especially
the Conchos—have dried. … Legal scholars at El
Colegio de la Frontera Norte argue the treaty must evolve.
Since 1944, basin populations have doubled, farming has
intensified, and the Rio Grande basin has warmed 1.3°C (2.3°F).
They propose adding a “flex clause” that would scale water
allocations to real-time climate and hydrological data.
However, U.S. officials fear that any renegotiation might
threaten Mexico’s Colorado River entitlements, which are
already shrinking due to record-low water levels at Lake Mead.
In the meantime, the treaty isn’t solving the conflict—it’s
deepening it.
… Damming a river is always a partisan act. Even when
explicit infrastructure goals—irrigation, flood control,
electrification—were met, other consequences were significant
and often deleterious. … Still, something profound is
unfolding along the Klamath River, a waterway that flows out of
Oregon into northern California before emptying into the
Pacific. There, the largest such project in U.S. history has
successfully de-constructed four large dams, restoring the
river’s unimpeded flow, and begun the slow, careful work of
restoring the habitat. The removals are the result of decades
of advocacy by Native Americans, including members of the
Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa, and Klamath tribes. Their ancestral
homelands were once host to some of the most plentiful salmon
runs in the world, but by the end of the twentieth century,
fish populations dropped precipitously—in some cases, nearing
extinction.
Across the world, access to clean running water has long been
considered a key marker of economic advancement. Yet in several
of the most prosperous cities in the richest nation on Earth,
the share of households living without that critical service is
climbing—a trend that researchers say demands attention,
particularly as President Donald Trump moves to sharply pare
back federal funding for water infrastructure. Katie
Meehan, a professor of environmental justice at King’s College
London, has for years been studying what she and other
researchers call “plumbing poverty” in the US. Utility
shut-offs because of nonpayment or substandard housing where
landlords fail to properly maintain properties are the main
factors behind the problem. … Overall the number of US
households that lack running water has declined since the
1970s. But those improvements primarily happened for White
families. Today, in 12 of the 15 largest US cities, people of
color are disproportionately represented among those lacking
running water.
Nearly $180 million in federal funding will be spent on a new
advanced water purification facility in Phoenix, officials
announced Wednesday. The funding will help cover the design and
construction costs of Phoenix’s new North Gateway Advanced
Water Purification Facility that will treat 8 million gallons
of recycled water each day. When combined with in-progress
upgrades to the Cave Creek Water Reclamation Plant, the city’s
water treatment sites will produce about 12.5 million gallons
of water per day. Advanced Water Purification (AWP), which
both sites will use, is the process by which wastewater is
recycled into drinking water “so clean it meets or exceeds
federal and local drinking water requirements,” according to
the city’s website. The Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality permitted the technology to be used at
the local level in March.
Oceanside residents and business owners can expect a bump in
water and sewer rates beginning Jan. 1 under a proposal headed
to the Oceanside City Council for approval in September. The
city’s Water Utilities Department has proposed an average 6%
increase for water rates across all categories of users in 2026
and the same amount again in 2027, and 4% more each year for
sewer rates, officials said Tuesday. … The commission voted
4-0, with three members absent, to recommend the City Council’s
approval. The proposed increase reflects higher costs for
labor, supplies, maintenance, and charges passed along from the
city’s two suppliers — San Diego County Water Authority and the
Metropolitan Water District. Along with the rate increases,
three other charges will be passed along to water users if the
water department’s request is approved.
… [Tucson-area] utilities, including Tucson Water, held
a free public workshop Saturday and will hold a second one on
Aug. 2 to explain how people who want to remove their pools can
do that and how people can better understand the costs of pools
they swim in at home.The Tucson area has plenty of private
pools today — more than 59,000, or 18.7% of all residential
parcels in Pima County, says longtime Tucson water researcher
Gary Woodard. He cited December 2024 statistics he got from the
Pima County Assessor’s Office. And they use plenty of water —
an average of about 30,000 gallons a year. That’s almost half
the average Tucson Water household’s annual water consumption,
according to a news release announcing the pool removal
workshops.
Woodward Park. Woodward School. Woodward Avenue. Woodward
Reservoir. Just who is this Woodward who has so many things
named after him in the Manteca area? Walter Woodward is
considered among the top 12 prominent pioneers in Manteca
history. Woodward was Manteca’s first real estate agent and an
early advocate of irrigation. His irrigation advocacy helped
change the South San Joaquin County landscape as well as the
economy. Born in Vermont in 1858, Woodward’s embracing of the
economic value of irrigation was gleaned on stops on his way to
eventually moving to Manteca in 1905. … His company was
hired to lay the first pipe system to move water from the
Colorado River to Los Angeles by crossing the Mojave Desert. It
was during the laying of that pipe that Woodward invented and
obtained the patent on a molded redwood plume used to carry
water over steep desert terrain.
Some National Weather Service offices in California are among
those hit hardest by meteorologist vacancies, according to new
data from an employee union — heightening concerns as the state
contends with another potentially devastating fire season and
the ongoing threat of extreme weather. … Two of the
nation’s weather forecast offices with the worst meteorologist
vacancy rates are in California. They are the Hanford office,
which covers the San Joaquin Valley, including Fresno and
Bakersfield; and the Sacramento office, which also covers
Stockton, Modesto, Vallejo, Chico and Redding. The offices are
also responsible for the western Sierra Nevada. … Fall and
winter bring their own mix of extreme weather whiplash, with
some areas seeing extended perilous fire conditions just before
the arrival of punishing rain, sudden landslides and deadly
blizzards.
The Southwest United States is currently facing its worst
megadrought of the past 1,200 years. According to a recent
study by the University of Texas at Austin, the drought could
continue at least until the end of the century, if not longer.
… Much like the seven-year El Niño and La Niña climate
patterns, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has been a
dependable ocean climate cycle that alternately brings long
phases of drought and rains to the Southwest U.S. every 20 to
30 years. However, a study published in Nature Geoscience that
analyzed the area’s climate record going back for millennia
suggests that this is not necessarily the
case. Researchers found that during the last period of
hemispheric warming some 6,000 years ago, the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation was forced out of rhythm, leading to a drought that
lasted for thousands of years. Now, as the world warms under
the effects of climate change, it appears to be happening
again.
The Imperial Irrigation District, which provides water to
farmers in the southeastern corner of California, drew a
figurative line in the sand earlier this month, calling for a
halt to the conversion of agricultural fields into solar panel
farms. … The state Department of Conservation says that
agricultural lands declined by more than 1.6 million acres
between 1984 and 2018, averaging 47,000 acres a year. The most
productive land experienced the largest
decline. … As farmers, particularly the larger
corporate growers, take land out of production, many believe
that their economic salvation lies in solar panel arrays that
generate the emission-free electricity that the state wants, as
it phases out power fueled by hydrocarbons. However, that
doesn’t sit well with farmers who want to continue production,
as the Imperial Irrigation District’s call for a solar
moratorium implies. –Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
It’s never too early to start thinking about applying for
our preeminent water leadership programs.
Applications for the 2026 cohorts will be
available in the fall for the William R. Gianelli Water
Leadersprogram, focused on California
participants, and the biennial Colorado River
Water Leaders program, focused on
participants from across the basin. Consider now whether you or
someone at your organization is an emerging leader in their
early to mid-career and would be a good fit for one the
programs. The goal of both programs is to build a network of
water leaders from diverse backgrounds who will deepen their
water knowledge, build their leadership skills and learn
to take a collaborative approach to decision-making about water
resources.
House Appropriations subcommittees approved three fiscal 2026
bills Tuesday with significant cuts to energy, environment and
climate initiatives. The House Interior and Environment
Appropriations Subcommittee passed its bill on a party-line 8-5
vote. The legislation would slash funding for the Interior
Department, EPA and other environmental agencies, though not as
deeply as proposed by President Donald Trump’s budget plan.
Subcommittee Chair Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) noted the legislation
has funding for EPA grants that support water
infrastructure and reduce air pollution. In addition,
it targets several agency rules for the power sector.
… Democrats decried its cuts for national parks as well
as to EPA’s efforts to combat climate change. The agency would
receive $7 billion in fiscal 2026, a 23 percent drop.
Other environmental and resource management agency news:
… How water is used, moved, and managed in the Colorado River
Basin is dictated by a series of interwoven compacts, treaties,
laws, and court cases that collectively compose what is known
as the “Law of the River.” At the center of this legal manual
is the Colorado River Compact of 1922. That agreement divided
the river between an Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah,
and Wyoming) and a Lower Basin (Arizona, California, and
Nevada). The Upper Basin had to send a certain amount of water
to the Lower Basin. Each basin got an equal slice of the river:
7.5 million acre-feet. But these shares were based on faulty
assumptions about supply; They assumed the river’s volume was
larger than it was. … This is more pressing now because
the rules for how water moves through the river’s
infrastructure expire in 2026. The federal government has given
the states a deadline of November to come up with a draft of
something new. Here’s some of what’s at play.
The Delta Stewardship Council has announced that its Delta
Science Program will award $5.9 million to fund eight critical
scientific studies in the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta and Suisun Marsh over the next
three years. In addition to the eight projects selected for
Delta Science Program funding, the State Water Contractors will
fund two studies that support recovery efforts for endangered
fish in the Delta, bringing the total awards to over $7.8
million. … The awarded projects address high-priority
science actions identified in the collaboratively developed
2022-2026 Science Action Agenda, which prioritizes and aligns
science actions to inform management decisions. The projects
cover a range of important research topics, including harmful
algal blooms, eco-cultural restoration, tribal knowledge,
subsidence, hydrology, acoustic telemetry, endangered species,
and more.
The California State Assembly denied a hearing for Senate Bill
10, a bill that would use toll road revenues to help combat the
Tijuana River pollution crisis. The bill, SB 10, would
use funds from tolls collected at the proposed East Otay Mesa
toll facility to address water and air pollution. Additionally,
the funds would help offset the financial obligations of the
South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. … SB
10 was introduced in December and passed the Senate floor on
June 3, with a vote of 29-10. It then moved to the Assembly,
where it failed to gain momentum. … While SB 10 was
denied its hearing, the Tijuana River pollution crisis is also
being fought on the federal level. Bicameral legislation was
introduced just last week that would place the Environmental
Protection Agency in charge of mitigation efforts in hopes of
streamlining the process.
A landmark report for the global agreement on wetlands paints a
dire picture of the state of the world’s water bodies that
underpin all life on Earth. The report, released Tuesday
by the secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands, says that
since 1970 more than one-fifth of wetlands have been lost,
meaning they have shrunk so much they’re no longer viable or
have completely disappeared. … Wetlands feed
billions of people globally, play a crucial role in
replenishing drinking water sources, mitigate climate change
and protect communities from intense storms and flooding by
acting as natural barriers and sponges, among many other
services that support life. … The razing and filling of
wetlands for agriculture, urban settlements and
industrialization are top drivers of wetland loss and are
amplifying stress on global water resources, the report said.
Intensive water use for agriculture and other industry accounts
for a combined 89 percent of water withdrawals.
… Now that four dams have been completely removed from the
main stem of the Klamath, Tribes and fish advocates are hopeful
that water quality and fish runs can recover. But they know the
work is just beginning — not just on the Klamath, but its
tributaries. … The Trinity River is arguably the Klamath
watershed’s most important artery. Historically, it teemed with
salmon and steelhead and poured clean, cold water into the main
stem Klamath. But for over seven decades, dams have blocked 100
miles of habitat on the tributary, and enormous volumes of
water are diverted to an entirely different watershed. An
ambitious restoration program is improving habitat and how the
river flows, but climate change, over-allocation, and the
unpredictability of the Trump administration threaten the
river’s recovery.
Project partners are returning to Baldwin Beach this upcoming
fall to tackle the final phase of lead cable removal, pulling
out the last 75 feet of the nearly 100 year old cable system.
It’s the final leg of removal after a barge crew pulled around
eight miles of cable from Lake Tahoe’s depths in November. The
remaining length of cable runs from the sand on Baldwin Beach,
and into the land. Depending on the water level, the capped and
enclosed end can be underwater. It marks where the project’s
first phase stopped and the second phase will begin. The
project required two different permits, which necessitated the
two-part removal. The USDA Forest Service is the lead
permitting agency on this final phase at Baldwin Beach.
… According to the Forest Service’s Special Uses/Lands
Program Manager, Karen Kuentz, the fall removal allows time for
botanists to adequately survey the California endangered Tahoe
yellow cress and to minimally impact the recreating public.
More than 122,500 acres of San Luis Obispo County land could
open to oil and gas leasing if the Bureau of Land Management
revives a management plan developed during President Donald
Trump’s first term. On June 23, the bureau published a notice
in the Federal Registrar announcing plans to prepare a
supplemental environmental impact statement and a resource
management plan that would evaluate the impact of allowing oil
and gas leasing on land and mineral estate managed by its
Bakersfield Field Office. … In 2019, the bureau
published a new supplemental environmental impact statement for
the project. The Center for Biological Diversity and Los Padres
ForestWatch sued again, arguing that the bureau still failed to
address the impact of fracking on air and water
quality and the health of nearby communities. The
State of California filed a related lawsuit against the plan in
2020. … [T]he bureau is developing a supplemental
environmental impact statement to yet again review the impact
of expanded oil and gas production.
