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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In 2022, Governor Newsom released California’s Water Supply
Strategy, outlining how the state must adapt to a hotter, drier
future. As temperatures rise, more precipitation will be
absorbed by dry soils, consumed by plants, or evaporate —
meaning less water reaches streams, rivers, and reservoirs,
placing new strain on the state’s water supply. In October
2025, the Governor and Legislature gave the Department of Water
Resources (DWR) an important opportunity to address this
challenge: Senate Bill 72 (SB 72). SB 72 directs DWR to
modernize the California Water Plan by building a data-driven
playbook for the state’s water future.
More than 10,000 Chinook salmon made the long journey home this
year, returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the
Mokelumne River—a strong sign of resilience for one of Northern
California’s most important salmon rivers. The East Bay
Municipal Utility District reports that approximately 10,500
Chinook salmon returned during the 2025 fall run. That number
is right in line with the river’s long-term average and
marks a successful season for both natural spawning and
hatchery operations. Those returns allowed EBMUD,
working alongside the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, to meet its goal of collecting and fertilizing 7.5
million salmon eggs at the Mokelumne River Hatchery below
Camanche Dam.
The world is looking for more clean water. Intense storms and
warmer weather have worsened droughts and reduced the
amount of clean water underground and in rivers and lakes
on the surface. Under pressure to provide water for
drinking and irrigation, people around the globe are trying to
figure out how to save, conserve and reuse water in a variety
of ways, including reusing treated sewage wastewater and
removing valuable salts from seawater. But for all the clean
water they may produce, those processes, as well as
water-intensive industries like mining, manufacturing and
energy production, inevitably leave behind a type of liquid
called brine: water that contains high concentrations of salt,
metals and other contaminants. I’m working on getting the water
out of that potential source, too.
California is on the cusp of adopting a sweeping plan to manage
the ecologically stressed Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a
move that Gov. Gavin Newsom deems “critical” to protecting
state water supplies but critics are calling a major
environmental setback. The state’s Bay Delta Plan, years in the
making, aims to moderate the amount of water that cities and
farms take out of rivers and creeks, from Fresno to the Oregon
border, to ensure enough is left to flow downstream to the
delta. … Last week, at three days of public hearings in
Sacramento, scores of conservationists, fishermen, delta
residents and Native Americans blasted the plan as doing too
little to rein in water users, saying struggling fish, wildlife
and water quality would not see the improvements they
need.
Arizona officials have a blunt message to other states in the
protracted fight over the Colorado River: Give up more water or
we’re going to take it from you. More than two years of
negotiations between the seven states that share the
drought-stricken Colorado River — and countless meetings,
including Interior Department officials waving the threat of
federal intervention — have failed to produce a deal about how
to share the waterway, including who must use less of it. With
less than two weeks before a last-ditch federal deadline on
Feb. 14, the states are still attempting to come up with at
least a short-term, five-year agreement.
Mexico and the United States have agreed to a plan for Mexico
to deliver the water it owes to Texas under a 1944 treaty. The
U.S. State Department and Department of Agriculture said in a
joint statement Tuesday that Mexico will deliver a minimum of
350,000 acre-feet of water per year to Texas, which is the
amount it owes annually under the water-sharing agreement.
Mexico has been behind on its deliveries of water after years
of drought, delivering only about half of the water it owes
Texas from the Rio Grande during a five year
cycle that ended in October. In exchange for water from the Rio
Grande, the United States promises water deliveries from the
Colorado River to Mexico under the treaty.
Over 60 Colorado water groups want a seat at the table to weigh
in on a historic Western Slope bid to purchase powerful water
rights tied to a small power plant on the Colorado River.
Cities, irrigation districts, hydroelectric companies and other
groups submitted filings Friday to have a say in a water court
case that will decide the future of Shoshone Power
Plant’s rights to access water. The rights are
old and large enough to shape how Colorado River water flows
around the state. A proposed change to the legal rights has
sparked concerns from big dogs in water, like Denver Water,
Colorado’s oldest water utility, over possible impacts to their
water supplies and a debate that continues decades of
west-versus-east water fights in Colorado.
Federal water managers and the local agencies they serve
usually gather every January in Reno, Nevada, to swap wish
lists, from higher dams to new reservoirs to changes to
endangered species rules. This year, at the Mid-Pacific Water
Users Conference, the focus was more basic: whether the federal
water system has enough people left to keep it running. …
President Donald Trump has made Western water a priority,
maintaining close ties with farm districts that receive federal
deliveries — including Westlands Water District — and ordering
agencies like Reclamation to move more water, faster. Yet
a year into his return to office, talk of marquee projects like
raising Shasta Dam to store and deliver more water to Central
Valley farmers (overriding longstanding environmental and
tribal opposition) was largely absent.
The Southwest Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
held its first meeting in six months and covered a lot of
ground including setting a policy to fine landowners $1,000 a
day for not registering their wells and vowing to sue a
neighboring GSA. … [Southwest’s chair John] Vidovich also
said landowners with wells that are within 1,000 feet of
Southwest’s boundaries would be required to register those
wells with the GSA and report their pumping or face a
$1,000-per-day fine as well. … Engineering consultant
Amer Hussain said neighboring GSAs have already enacted well
registration policies and it may be easier for Southwest to ask
for that data from them instead of having farmers register
wells a second time.
A Lake Tahoe boater is facing thousands of dollars worth
of fines after an alleged violation posed a threat to golden
mussels. According to the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, the boater “tried to skirt Lake Tahoe’s boat
inspection and found out the hard way how seriously the threat
of golden mussels is being taken.” CDFW said the Tahoe
Regional Planning Agency discovered that the boat had a
tampered inspection seal and was recently launched at Folsom
Reservoir. The boater was fined $5,000.
Nevada Irrigation District’s (NID) first snow survey of the
year found the mountain snowpack well below average, even as
District reservoirs remain near full following strong
early-season storms. Surveyors measured only 47 percent of the
historical snowpack across NID’s five snow courses. The average
snow water content was 9.5 inches. By comparison, the
historical average water content is 20.2 inches. Despite the
low snowpack, reservoir storage remains well above average,
largely due to heavy precipitation in December.
Keene residents are facing the possibility of water bills
skyrocketing as the Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary that
operates their water system seeks dramatic rate increases or
permission to abandon service entirely. The Keene water system,
originally built to supply steam locomotives, has been
maintained under a legacy agreement since trains were phased
out. Union Pacific has been trucking in water to supply the
small community, but now says the operation is financially
unsustainable. … The water system has petitioned the
California Public Utilities Commission for permission to either
dramatically increase rates or abandon the system altogether.
The Center for Biological Diversity notified the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service today that it intends to sue the agency for
failing to finalize Endangered Species Act protection for the
Clear Lake hitch — a rare fish found only in Lake County,
California. … Each spring, adult Clear Lake hitch
migrate into tributary streams to spawn before returning to the
lake. … The main threat to the hitch is a lack of
water flowing in spawning tributaries, driven by chronic
over-withdrawal, both legal and illegal, and worsening
climate-driven drought.
A recycling system that’s capable of simulating a free flowing
fire hose — without wasting water — will be the main feature of
a Riverside Fire Department drill Tuesday attended by the
mayor, fire chief and other officials. The agency’s new
“PumpPod” will be unveiled during a demonstration exercise
scheduled for Tuesday morning at the city’s Emergency
Operations Center on Saint Lawrence Street. The recirculation
system was acquired by the fire department thanks to a $3
million California Department of Water Resources grant
administered by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California.
Ultrarunner Mina Guli says she doesn’t actually love running.
The Thirst Foundation nonprofit CEO is somewhat of a living
contradiction, after running 200 marathons in 2022 across 32
countries to bring awareness to the world’s water crises that
are being roiled by warming temperatures. … This summer,
Guli plans to run the 1,800-mile span of the Colorado River,
all the way from the headwaters in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains
to the Colorado River Delta outside of Mexicali, Mexico, before
finishing in Los Angeles. … She hopes her run will sound
alarm bells for the rapidly drying, beating heart that keeps
taps flowing in Las Vegas and throughout the American West: the
Colorado River.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
