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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With desert cities like Phoenix and Tucson bracing for their
allotments of Colorado River water to be slashed dramatically,
San Diego County’s water agency could for the first time sell
some of its water to other states by drawing on its ample
supplies from the nation’s largest desalination plant.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s board
unanimously approved an initial agreement last week to consider
selling some of its water to Arizona and Nevada, where
cities that depend on the over-tapped Colorado River are
expected to face substantial cuts in water supplies. The
approach would not involve sending desalinated water to other
states, but rather selling some of San Diego County’s allotment
of Colorado River water, which in turn would generate funds to
increase output at the Carlsbad desalination plant.
Recent storms in Colorado’s high country last month did not
dramatically improve what’s still on track to be a record low
snowpack season in the Rockies. … Statewide snowpack was
hovering at about 62% of normal entering March.
… Water managers are already warning of
potential water restrictions in the Colorado River
basin. Denver Water said that as of March 2, the
Colorado River snowpack ranked the second worst since tracking
started decades ago. “It is likely that we will need to
implement additional drought response measures this year,” the
company wrote in a snowpack update this week.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
Though some valley groundwater managers say new state
guidelines “move the goal posts” on subsidence, state
regulators gave fair warning of what was coming. At a September
workshop Deputy Director of the Department of Water Resources
Paul Gosselin told attendees the new guidelines would require
hard commitments and detailed action plans to stop the rapid
sinking that has damaged canals and sunk such large sections of
the San Joaquin Valley, the resulting “bowl” can be seen from
space. … The guidelines, released by the Department of
Water Resources in January, outline how agencies should manage
aquifers to avoid further subsidence.
… Even though Arizona will soon be home to nearly 200 data
centers and chip factories, these facilities have not yet
caused a major bump in the state’s water consumption. The
companies’ precise effects on water supply are hard to discern
due to their own secrecy about their water usage, but the
aggregate picture suggests they have found ways to minimize
their impact, whether through new cooling technologies or by
recycling water on-site. And despite local backlash, water
experts and many local officials appear to have largely made
their peace with the industry’s arrival — and with the Phoenix
region’s emergence as one of the nation’s largest AI
infrastructure clusters. … Arizona is home
to more than 150 data centers, according to an
analysis from the Data Center Map, an industry resource.
Researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, have received a
$9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study an
unlikely candidate for future fuels: cactus pear. The
desert-adapted plant already grows across much of the Mountain
West, including Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado,
Utah and Arizona. Scientists say it could help farmers produce
renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel while using
significantly less water than traditional biofuel crops like
corn and soybeans. Over the next five years,
researchers will test hundreds of cactus pear varieties at
sites from Arizona to Florida.
Earlier this week, the Delta Stewardship Council’s (Council)
held a hearing on appeals of the Department of Water Resources’
(DWR) Delta Plan consistency certification for the Delta
Conveyance Project (Delta Tunnel). … According to a Yolo
County press release, the certification submitted by DWR is not
supported by substantial evidence that the Delta Tunnel is
consistent with the Delta Reform Act, or the coequal goals of
the Delta Plan: a more reliable statewide water supply and a
healthy and protected Delta ecosystem. Further, it would
forever alter the character of the Delta and harm the “Delta as
a place” with monolithic intakes and years of construction with
massive staging areas.
As Marin County wrestles with coastal flooding, king tides and
federal bureaucracy, two significant flood control projects are
suspended and they won’t be restarted until the county can
figure out how to balance all the interests. … In early
January, Marin County had multiple low-lying area floods.
Though it’s not the first time, Marin is becoming an early
model for what will impact other bay side and seaside
communities as sea level rises, flooding other areas.
… A flood control project to lessen or eliminate
flooding here is now on hold by the county after FEMA, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, said work here could flood
other locales further downstream.
… For the past couple of weeks [a] boat pushed
barges several miles each way up and down the lake, bringing
empty containers deep into the canyon and returning them to
land full of oil-covered debris and refuse. The wreckage in the
water had been flushed into the North Yuba River and stalled
about a mile downstream at the mouth of Englebright Lake in
mid-February after a ruptured pipe at New Colgate Powerhouse
sent a deluge of water and hillside into the river.
… Environmental and Yuba Water Agency workers and
contractors on Tuesday began wrapping up their efforts to
remove debris and oil captured downstream of the powerhouse,
and they expect to complete the job within days.
Nearly 70,000 salmon returned to the Klamath River and its
tributaries, according to a recently released Review of 2026
Ocean Salmon Fisheries. Published by the Pacific Fishery
Management Council (PFMC), the report says a total of 39,860
adult fall-run Chinook salmon returned to spawn in the Klamath
River and its tributaries in the fall of 2025, two years after
dam removal was completed. The salmon return was 205% of the
preseason prediction of 19,417 adults, according to the
document used to help plan West Coast commercial, Tribal and
recreational salmon fishing season alternatives every year.
The Fortuna City Council unanimously voted Monday to approve
the purchase of nearly 244 acres of undeveloped land
along the Lower Eel River — most of which will
be returned to the Wiyot Tribe. At last night’s meeting, the
council approved a purchase agreement for four parcels — 236
acres on the west side of the Eel River and 7.2 acres at
Riverwalk Drive and Alamar Way, behind Eel River Brewery — to
improve public access and preserve riparian habitat along the
Eel River. The land, owned by Troy Elbert Land and Trudy
Marilyn Ehmke, will be purchased using grant funds.
Effective water management and policy play a critical role in
shaping society’s evolving relationship with water. Yet, the
growing impacts of water-related risks worldwide show that many
responses remain ineffective, often leading to unintended
consequences that undermine stated policy objectives. These
contradictions—referred to in the literature as water
paradoxes—occur when well-intentioned efforts to manage water
backfire. This Review argues that researchers should better
characterize these paradoxes, and practitioners must integrate
them in decision-making processes and economic evaluations of
water policy.
Proposals for reopening Turlock Lake to recreation were
approved Tuesday, clearing a hurdle to start seasonal
recreation activities in summer 2027. The Stanislaus County
Board of Supervisors and the Turlock Irrigation District board
both unanimously approved a 10-year joint agreement with the
state to reopen Turlock Lake State Recreation Area. The TID
reservoir was closed to recreation six years ago when a
concessionaire departed. … The county is planning
family-friendly recreation with a waterpark, picnicking,
swimming, fishing and other day-use recreation. The activities
will include nonmotorized boating such as kayaking and
canoeing.
Lake Powell has an issue: More water is streaming out than
flowing in. As of Sunday, Lake Powell’s water
level measured 3,530 feet above sea level. Though this is
higher than it was at this time in 2022 and 2023, officials in
Utah and at the Bureau of Reclamation are worried that
water levels could dip beneath what is required to generate
hydropower. The reservoir is currently 26% full and
could drop to 16% by Sept. 30. By March 2027, Lake Powell’s
elevations could hit 3,476 feet, a record low. … To
stabilize Lake Powell’s water levels, there are two options:
increase the flow by releasing water from upper dams or
decrease the amount of water taken out.
The San Francisco Baykeeper and others sued the federal
government on Monday, accusing it of harming fish protected by
the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological
Diversity, Friends of the River and baykeeper claim that
pumping excessive amounts of water from the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta hurts fish like the Central Valley
steelhead, North American green sturgeon and Chinook
salmon. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s operation of the
Central Valley Project affects factors like water temperature
and salinity. Those factors, along with the volume and
direction of the water, cause fish to swim into harmful
environments, the conservation groups say in their suit.
It’s now March in California, which means the wettest stretch
of the water year – December, January, and February – have come
and gone. It’s the time of year when we take stock of the
winter that was, and what that means for our water resources.
… The three biggest reservoirs – Shasta, Trinity, and
Oroville, all in Northern California – are nearly at capacity
and well above average. … Statewide, California’s
snowpack is at 62% of the March 2nd average, and 55% of April
1st average. So essentially, we’ve received half of the snow
we’d expect to get. But even that is somewhat remarkable,
considering the Sierra had its lowest snowpack on record before
the big Christmas week snowstorm.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
GOP lawmakers are pushing several bills to regulate Arizona’s
groundwater, but none would do anything to conserve the state’s
water supply. Democrats and Republicans got close to passing
bipartisan legislation to conserve rural groundwater supplies
over the last few years, but a final deal has never
materialized. This year, GOP lawmakers are instead pushing a
series of partisan water bills, including one that would
protect the rights of Arizona residents and businesses to
continue pumping groundwater. GOP lawmakers’ bills generally
protect the water allocation rights of industries like
agriculture and homebuilding. Conserving groundwater often
means restricting development.
… What looks like prolonged drought may actually be something
more permanent in the Southwest, a shift toward a drier
baseline driven by rising temperatures. Even when rain and snow
return, the landscape holds less water than it once
did. Scientists have a term for this larger shift:
aridification. Unlike drought, which is defined by
below-average precipitation over months to decades,
aridification describes a long-term transformation of the
climate system itself. Warming temperatures increase
evaporation from soils, plants and snowpack, meaning the same
amount of precipitation now produces less usable water.
… Over the long term, aridification favors fast-growing,
non-native species over slow-growing natives adapted to
historic rainfall patterns. Invasive grasses fill the gaps,
increasing fire risk and reducing biodiversity.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will
take up a sweeping legislative package this week aimed at
bolstering weather forecasting and warning programs. Chair Ted
Cruz (R-Texas) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) are
moving quickly to turn around their “Weather Research and
Forecasting Innovation Reauthorization Act,” S. 3923. They
introduced the legislation last week and will bring it to a
committee vote Wednesday. Lawmakers will also consider a
two-year NASA reauthorization, an amended version ofS. 933,
that has the support of both Cruz and Cantwell. The weather
package includes 17 bills meant to strengthen forecasting and
weather warning programs at NOAA.
State officials in California have announced the implementation
of a statewide water-saving plan meant to conserve water
resources amid worsening climate change. … The program, born
out of a successful 2025 bill by state Sen. Anna Caballero,
D-Fresno, would update California’s current water program by
using data from watersheds throughout the state to help close
gaps between water demand and supply. The push to update the
state’s water program comes from concerns that worsening
climate change is depleting the state’s already-sensitive water
supply. … According to the Department of Water
Resources, climate change could cause the state to lose up to 9
million acre-feet of water by 2040.
A new report published by Bluefield Research suggests that the
biggest risk to water infrastructure is not happening on-site
within data center facilities, but rather at electric power
plants. Titled The Water-Power Nexus: How Data Centers are
Reshaping the U.S. Water Landscape, the report explains that
surging electricity demand is shifting water risks upstream to
power generation and impacting communities that never
anticipated becoming “ground zero for AI infrastructure.”
… The report explains that indirect water consumption
linked to electricity generation is expected to nearly double
in the next five years, increasing from 54 billion gallons in
2025 to 91 billion gallons by 2030.
