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.
Near Hickman, California, just outside Modesto, a 110-foot-wide
grid of solar panels now tops a section of canal, arching over
the gently flowing water. Solar projects have long been a
crucial piece of the state’s movement to clean energy, and
these panels are part of a new project that’s hoping to do far
more than just generate electricity. Dubbed Project Nexus, the
$20 million state-funded initiative hopes to better understand
whether these installations can be an even more efficient
approach to solar energy.
The Cawelo Water District is working on a new “produced water”
project to increase its irrigation supplies. Produced water is
water that comes up with oil during pumping. The district has
used oilfield produced water blended with other surface
supplies for irrigation for about two decades. Discussion
about the new project began in early August. The project is
expected to be completed in early 2026. Construction was pushed
back due to a delay in biological studies but is expected to
start at the end of this month.
Something big was stirring in the flora at the Five-Mile
Recreation Area as trees rustled and vibrations ran along the
ground Monday. It was the work of heavy machinery like
excavators and bulldozers, clearing out debris and biological
materials with the goal of clearing more space for water in Big
Chico Creek and the surrounding flood protection channels.
Butte County announced its new plan to mitigate flood risk in
northeast Chico on Monday, the Five-Mile Stream Action for
Flood Emergency project, which is already underway at the
park.
The City of Brawley will consider on Tuesday supporting a $5
million funding request by the Salton Sea Authority (SSA),
advocating for an equitable distribution of funds from
Proposition 4, a $10 billion climate resilience bond approved
by California voters in November 2024. … Proposition 4
allocated $605 million for watershed resilience, with a
specific $10 million earmarked for the Salton Sea region. The
funds are designated to either create the new Salton Sea
Conservancy or to support the existing Salton Sea
Authority.
In a decision with major implications for Western agriculture,
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the Clean Water
Act exemption for irrigation return flows. The ruling in
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations v. Nickels
affirms that discharges from irrigated agriculture are exempt
from federal permitting requirements so long as they do not
include additional point source discharges unrelated to crop
production. The case centered on California’s Grassland Bypass
Project, a drainage system that conveys water from nearly
100,000 acres of farmland.
To address growing AI demand, many companies are building or
leasing data centers around the globe. DCs that use water-based
cooling consume significant amounts of water, and in this
research, we have analyzed DC exposure to water stress
globally. We examined the current decade and the 2050s decade
under both moderate and moderate-to-high emissions scenarios,
using projections from the S&P Global Sustainable1 Physical
Risk dataset. We found that exposure is already high in some
regions, and we expect the industry’s exposure to water stress
will slightly increase by the 2050s.
The 2025 surface and groundwater monitoring under the RPP and
WDR programs was completed by August. For the Rice Pesticide
Program (RPP), no detections of thiobencarb were reported above
the agricultural drain performance goal. … The Rice
Waste Discharge Requirements (WDR) surface water program
monitored benzobicyclon and bispyribac-sodium, with generally
good results. … The Rice Waste Discharge Requirements
(WDR) groundwater program reported low levels (consistent with
historical averages) of nitrates in shallow groundwater beneath
rice fields.
Water agencies in Northern California are warning against a
scam of people targeting homes and claiming the residents’ tap
water could be unsafe. According to a news release from Citrus
Heights Water District, various water agencies said there have
been increased reports of people posing as water officials and
knocking on doors to do in-home water tests. … The
reports have been increasing across Northern California,
including cities like Elk Grove, Fairfield and Sacramento.
Officials said some people were pushed into buying expensive
water treatment systems after unsolicited tests.
The Colorado River’s massive reservoirs are now so depleted
that another dry year could send them plunging to dangerously
low levels, a group of prominent scholars warns in a new
analysis. The researchers are urging the Trump administration
to intervene and impose substantial cutbacks in water use
across the seven states that rely on the river — California,
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
… If next year turns out to be a repeat of this year,
they wrote, total water use would exceed the river’s natural
flow by at least 3.6 million acre feet — nearly as much as
California used in all last year.
A California lawmaker’s proposal to make it easier to build
solar projects on former farmland stalled in the early hours of
Saturday amid continued divisions among agricultural groups.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks pulled her AB 1156, which would have
streamlined land-use changes to allow solar development on
water-scarce farmland, from consideration in the final hours of
the legislative session. … [T]housands of acres of fields and
orchards are set to become fallow in the next decades as local
officials and farmers work to meet the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act.
The Klamath Tribes are opposing a new federal water plan they
say risks killing off endangered fish. The Bureau of
Reclamation’s proposal would send up to 38,000 additional
acre-feet of water — roughly 12.4 billion gallons — to Klamath
Project irrigators in southern Oregon and northern California.
… But the Klamath Tribes said in an email that the
additional 38,000 acre-feet would not come from the designated
excess water supply. The Tribes said the allocation would lower
lake levels.
Drought continues to worsen in several parts of the country,
meteorologists warned in early September as dry conditions are
forecast for many areas later in the month, sparking additional
fears about wildfires in the fire-prone West. … In June,
51% of the West was in a drought. Now it’s ballooned to 64%,
according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor. Additionally,
100% of the giant Colorado River basin is now
in a drought.
The Trump administration asked a federal court Thursday to toss
out parts of EPA’s first-ever drinking water regulation for
“forever chemicals,” on the grounds that the Biden-era rule
violated a legal requirement under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Adopting an argument made by water utilities and chemical
companies seeking to overturn the rule, the Trump
administration wrote that the prior administration failed to
give the public an opportunity to weigh in before proposing
strict legal limits in drinking water for four versions of the
chemicals.
A California Fish and Game commissioner urged staff on Thursday
to look for ways to better protect the upper Kern River
watershed and fishery as part of the ongoing relicensing of
Southern California Edison’s Kern River 3 (KR3) power plant
near Kernville. … At issue is how much water Edison is
required to leave in the river between Fairview Dam, near
McNally’s, and the plant at Kernville, a 16-mile stretch. …
[A]dvocates say the minimum flows required under Edison’s
current license aren’t enough to maintain a healthy
river. … CDFW, however, is OK with Edison’s
proposal to marginally decrease minimum flows.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR), California Department
of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), and California State
Parks have confirmed presence of the invasive golden
mussel at Pyramid Lake in Los Angeles County
and Silverwood Lake in San Bernardino County. These lakes
are the southernmost State Water Project (SWP) reservoirs
where golden mussels have been detected. The invasive
species was recently discovered during a routine water test by
DWR; in response, State Parks has updated Silverwood
Lake’s boat inspection protocols, effective immediately.
Last Tuesday, the California Legislature cast a vote on Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s controversial water tunnel project in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by not voting at all. A
couple of bills meant to speed up the process were allowed to
die in committee before reaching the state Assembly. Opponents
of the project consider it a victory in a fight to protect the
water of the delta and the towns that live along its banks.
… Newsom said he would like to see the tunnel fully
entitled by the time he leaves the governor’s seat.
Over the last decade, water bills in Los Angeles County have
risen nearly 60% on average, outpacing inflation and adding to
financial strain for low-income households, according to a UCLA
report. The researchers compared average costs for the same
amount of drinking water in 2015 and 2025, and said the results
show water affordability is an escalating problem in Southern
California. … In addition to water costs, the
researchers looked at quality as they updated their Southern
California Water Systems Atlas with details on 663 water
systems across six counties that serve about 40% of
California’s population.
… On Sept. 10, members of the House Appropriations Committee
made clear that they heard this message, rejecting the White
House proposal to eliminate NOAA’s research arm and cut the
agency’s budget by one-third. Instead, the legislators approved
a fiscal year 2026 spending bill that includes a modest
trim—about 6 percent—and directs the agency to avoid closure of
any of its laboratories or cooperative research institutes. The
Senate, meanwhile, is set to consider a budget bill that would
maintain the current funding level at NOAA: about $6.1
billion.
A major boost for Central Valley livestock producers impacted
by recent floods and wildfires has been
announced. In an exclusive interview with the Deputy Secretary
of Agriculture Stephen Alexander, the USDA has announced it’s
offering $1 billion in disaster recovery assistance to eligible
livestock producers here in California. … The USDA says
dairy farmers in all Central Valley counties qualify and can
receive up to 60 percent of one month of calculated feed costs
for a qualifying wildfire or three months for a qualifying
flood.
On Wednesday, the Tahoe City Public Utility District celebrated
the Grand Opening of the West Lake Tahoe Regional Water
Treatment Plant. … The plant can currently deliver one
million gallons of water per day and may be further expanded to
reach more customers from Tahoma to Timberland. The utility
district stated that the approximately $30 million project was
made possible by grant funding as well as a loan from the CA
State Water Resources Control Board.
