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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Legislation based around “chemtrail” conspiracy theories was
killed by lawmakers, although there’s still a narrowing window
for it to resurface. Meanwhile, state funding for cloud
seeding, which is at the root of the conspiracies, is moving
forward. On the first day of the Legislature’s budget session,
lawmakers reviewed dozens of bills. Some didn’t make the cut,
including HB 12 Clean Air and Geoengineering Prohibition Act.
After being introduced to the House floor Feb. 9 by Rep. Mike
Schmid (R-La Barge), the bill failed 24 to 38. … The
chemtrail conspiracy theory gained momentum in the Wyoming
Legislature during the 2025 session. Several lawmakers,
including Schmid, sponsored similar bills that also failed. But
they successfully ended Wyoming’s aerial cloud seeding and
nixed state funding for ground operations, leaving other
Colorado River states to largely foot the bill. … This
year’s Omnibus water bill-construction, SF 70, would reinstate
some of that funding.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has issued a tentative order
that would excuse 115 small-scale landowners in California’s
Cuyama Valley from a 2021 groundwater rights
adjudication. The case was filed by land management
companies linked to Grimmway Enterprises Inc. and Bolthouse
Farms. Judge William F. Highberger said at a February 2 hearing
that he wanted to give “minor extractors,” or small-scale water
users, “as much of a free pass as possible.” He indicated he
did not want to subject these growers to mandatory pumping
reductions and legal costs that larger farming operations may
face. The tentative order would also allow small-scale users to
pump more water annually than their historical use, up to five
acre-feet per year, subject to a collective cap of 400
acre-feet. Historically, this group has used about one
acre-foot per user per year, or 132 acre-feet
collectively.
… Over the past few years, mining proponents and companies
have been working on new technologies to help extract lithium
from the Salton Sea. But calls for rapid lithium development
have revealed competing views of what that extraction could or
should look like. … For the relatively impoverished
area surrounding the Salton Sea, the rush for lithium comes
amid water woes, disputes about labor conditions, and concerns
over tribal sovereignty. … In the Salton Sea region,
companies plan to use what they say is an innovative mining
method called “direct lithium extraction.” The process is akin
to treatment methods used to remove metals from water supplies,
where the water is pumped through a device called an ion
exchange column. … What this means for the Imperial
Valley is unclear, but any strain to the freshwater there could
threaten the region’s limited water supply.
A 4.5-acre site in Novato that was set to become an 87-room
hotel might end up a pump station as part of a drought
resiliency effort. The Marin Municipal Water District
has signed an agreement to purchase the property on Wood Hollow
Drive at Redwood Boulevard from the developer, Navin LLC. The
utility announced the $4.8 million deal as it gears up to begin
public outreach on an environmental study called the
“atmospheric river capture” project. The initiative involves a
proposed pipeline that would replenish Marin reservoirs with
Sonoma County rainwater during droughts. The purchase of the
property is contingent upon clearance of an environmental
impact report, an analysis mandated under the California
Environmental Quality Act to clear the way for construction.
Colorado officials are failing to require legally mandated
water quality monitoring near concentrated animal feeding
operations, allowing for widespread water contamination with
animal waste, conservation groups allege in a new legal
challenge to the state. The Center for Biological Diversity and
Food & Water Watch say the state permits for the animal feeding
operations, commonly called CAFOs, lack the type of water
monitoring needed near lagoons where massive amounts of animal
manure and waste are stored. … CAFO waste can contaminate
water with bacteria like E. coli, antibiotics and hormones,
heavy metals and excess nutrients, such as phosphorus and
nitrogen, all of which can be harmful to human and
environmental health. A report released last week found that
industrial animal farming is responsible for about half of all
of the country’s nutrient pollution.
The Tahoe Fund has announced the first million dollars of
private funding to help restore the former Motel 6 site has
been raised by its donors as part of the “Million for the
Marsh” campaign. Launched in November, the campaign set out to
raise the first $1 million of private funds to help
secure the public funds the
California Tahoe Conservancy will need to restore the
Upper Truckee Marsh in South Lake Tahoe. … The
whole Upper Truckee River Marsh area is over 600 acres,
spanning on each side of Lake Tahoe Blvd. They have already
completed 250 acres of the marsh on the south side of the road
by restoring natural river flows and increasing its capacity to
filter pollutants.
A coalition of farmers in Central Valley sent a letter to
President Trump on Monday, urging advancement of the
controversial Shasta Dam enlargement plan. The development
follows a series of letters sent late last year by local water
agencies, state Republican lawmakers and water contractors,
where they called the administration to fund the Shasta Dam
raise project using money from Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill
budget. The project is estimated to cost between $1.4 billion
and $2 billion. … Meanwhile, state officials and tribes
and environmental groups have argued the project would threaten
an already struggling salmon population and increase flood
risks.
Federal forecasters dramatically cut their estimates Friday for
how much water will flow down the Colorado River this year —
projections that now thrust the Trump administration into
politically contentious decisions about how to operate the
river’s dams. The Feb. 1 forecast the Colorado Basin Forecast
Center released last week projects the amount of water flowing
from the river’s headwaters into Lake Powell this year will be
one-third less compared with its already grim Jan. 1 forecast.
… The new forecast comes at a critical moment for the
management of the drought-riddled waterway, which serves 40
million people from Denver to Los Angeles to Phoenix. The
Interior Department’s deadline for a major new
water-sharing deal is less than one week away.
The Trump administration wants some of the world’s largest
technology companies to publicly commit to a new compact
governing the rapid expansion of AI data centers, according to
two administration officials granted anonymity to discuss
private conversations. A draft of the compact obtained by
POLITICO lays out commitments designed to ensure data centers
powering the AI boom do not raise household electricity prices,
strain water supplies or undermine grid
reliability — and that the companies driving power demand also
carry the cost of building new infrastructure. The proposed
pact, which is not final and could be subject to change …
could bind OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook parent
Meta and other AI giants to a broad set of energy,
water and community principles.
… For over a decade, [ecologist Greta] Wengert and her
colleagues have warned that illegal cannabis grows …
dangerously pollute California’s public lands and pristine
watersheds, with lasting consequences for ecosystems,
water and wildlife. … In recent work they
published with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the
team found that illegal grows pulsed pollutants from plastic,
painkillers, personal care products, pot and pesticides into
the soil that could be detected months or even years later.
Some contaminants also showed up in nearby streams.
… Force-feeding waterways the excess nutrients in
fertilizer can upend entire ecosystems and spur algae blooms.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is
inviting the public to its annual Salmon Information Meeting on
Feb. 25, 2026, at 1 p.m. The hybrid event will take place at
the California Natural Resources Agency Auditorium in
Sacramento and will be livestreamed online. The meeting will
provide an outlook for this year’s ocean salmon fisheries and
review last year’s salmon fisheries and inland spawner returns.
… The meeting marks the start of a two-month public
process to develop annual sport and commercial ocean salmon
fishing seasons.
The Westlands Water District Board of Directors has certified
the environmental review for the Valley Clean Infrastructure
Plan (VCIP), a master-planned renewable energy project that
aims to transform up to 136,000 acres of fallowed farmland into
clean energy infrastructure. The board voted unanimously on
December 16, 2025 to certify the Final Programmatic
Environmental Impact Report and approve the project. With no
lawsuits filed during the 30-day challenge period, the
certification is now final and cannot be contested.
… The project has been strategically sited on impaired
or fallowed agricultural land in areas affected by reduced
surface water supplies, groundwater depletion, and Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requirements.
A long-running dispute over water deliveries to the Diablo
Grande community in western Stanislaus County escalated again
this month, as the Kern County Water Agency said negotiations
with the community’s water provider have stalled over a $14
million debt. In a recent letter, the agency said it had
proposed “certain financial adjustments in an attempt to
significantly reduce Western Hills’ outstanding $14M financial
obligation,” and offered to modify water purchase volumes to
better align with the community’s demand. The agency said
Western Hills Water District declined those proposals and
instead requested payment terms “substantially below” the
agency’s actual cost of delivering water.
When the golden mussel was discovered near the Port of Stockton
in late 2024, lakes and reservoirs across Northern California
imposed new rules on boaters to try to keep the invasive
species out. EBMUD, the water supplier for most of the East
Bay, took no chances, banning all boats from entering its
reservoirs. On Sunday, after more than a year, they began
inviting boats back to the water, but they’re being very
careful about it. … EBMUD has decided the most effective
action is a 30-day quarantine. After an inspection to be
sure they’re completely clean and dry, boats will be tethered
to their trailers with sealed cables to prevent them from being
launched. After the waiting period, they will be allowed back
on the lake and then, upon leaving, given another sealed
tether, specific to San Pablo.
On Jan. 3rd, low-lying areas of Marin County were hit with
massive flooding from an unexpectedly high king tide.
Some say it is a preview of what will become common as sea
levels rise. And the city of San Rafael isn’t waiting for it to
become a reality to try and protect its most vulnerable
neighborhood. … The first proposal, Alternative 1, is to
raise all the edges of the creek, increasing the height of the
banks and flood walls. … Alternative 2 is to raise the outer
banks and add a gate at the end that can be closed when the
tide gets too high. That would cost more, but with sea level
rise projections, might only be effective until about the year
2050. Finally, Alternative 3 is a complete renovation of
the Canal District shoreline, removing about 550 existing homes
and raising the land high enough to safely redevelop on top of
it.
As water agencies across California grapple with the
increasingly extreme effects of climate change, they’re also
facing another problem: the incoming “silver tsunami.” That’s
the phrase coined by the industry to illustrate the fact that
much of the workforce — largely baby boomers — that keeps our
water flowing and safe are getting ready to retire. Nationwide,
about a third of the nation’s water workforce is eligible for
retirement within the next decade, “the majority being workers
with trade jobs in mission critical positions,” the
Environmental Protection Agency wrote in a 2024 report.
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.
