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.
New research from Colorado State University and Cornell
University shows that the presence of solar panels in
Colorado’s grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil
moisture levels and – particularly during dry years – increase
plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open fields. The
findings were published in Environmental Research Letters this
week. The paper outlines the potential benefits and challenges
when photovoltaic (PV) arrays are located in grassland
ecosystems. The findings are particularly relevant when
considering drought in the arid west and the
potential for future climate change.
… Colorado’s semi-arid grasslands often need more water
than is available through precipitation in each season. The
team found that plants beneath and around the solar systems in
that environment benefited from partial shading and additional
water that collects on panels – aiding in their fight to
survive during the harsh summer months.
… Local agencies are hosting community workshops to explain
how the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
works—and why it matters to you. The act, also known as SGMA,
is a California law that requires local water agencies to
manage groundwater to prevent overuse and water scarcity.
… Dan Bartel, Engineer Manager at RRB, says: “SGMA
requires that we coordinate not just amongst the public
agencies, but with the public—because in the public, there are
so many private pumpers. We’re required to get input from those
beneficial users and incorporate their opinions, thoughts,
questions, and concerns into our plans so we can, as a
community, reach sustainability by 2040.” Starting last summer,
GSAs held workshops across Kern County. More recently, they’ve
been hosting pop-up events—going to the community rather than
waiting for the community to come to them.
In early 2025, California faced a series of devastating
wildfires that ravaged vast areas of the state—particularly its
southern regions. Two weeks after the fires broke out in Los
Angeles, President Donald Trump issued an executive order
mandating the release of 2.2 billion gallons of water from
reservoirs in the Central Valley. This directive was presented
as a measure to combat the wildfires. However, a closer
examination reveals that the action was motivated more by
politics than by emergency, ultimately undermining California’s
water management authority, favoring agribusiness interests,
and jeopardizing the state’s environmental and water resources.
Fifteen states, led by California, are suing the
White House over its April executive order
to protect American energy from state overreach. They
claim the order is an unconstitutional interference in state
affairs. But they’re wrong. President Trump is doing what the
Constitution empowers him to do — protect interstate commerce
and ensure that America’s energy security is not compromised by
a patchwork of state-led, politically motivated lawsuits. For
years, progressive attorneys general — led by
California’s — have kowtowed to the environmental lobby, waging
lawfare through coordinated lawsuits against American
companies for “causing” climate change. These suits are
designed to bankrupt the energy sector, force Americans onto
unreliable grids, and shift power to unelected climate
czars. –Written by Mimi Walters, who represented California in
the U.S. Congress and served on the House Judiciary and Energy
& Commerce Committees.
Concerningly low amounts of water are flowing from Rocky
Mountain snowpack this spring, a summer of drought looms across
swaths of the West, and the negotiators tasked with devising a
sustainable long-term water plan for the 40 million people who
rely on the Colorado River are running out of time.
Commissioners from the seven states in the Colorado River Basin
— Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, California and
Nevada — must create a plan that will govern how those states
divvy up the river’s water after the current guidelines expire
at the end of 2026. As the river shrinks due to drought and
climate change, the negotiators must decide who will take less
water — and they need to do so in the next few months. … The
negotiators, who met in Las Vegas this week, have repeatedly
said they are committed to finding a consensus solution, but
have not yet done so and have already blown past previous
deadlines set by federal authorities more than a year ago.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling on the Trump administration to do
more to harden California’s forests to fire as the state
fast-tracks plans of its own to confront the wildfire threat.
On Friday, the governor announced $72 million of funding for a
slew of large-scale forest resiliency projects, primarily
tree-thinning and prescribed burns. All of the projects qualify
for an expedited environmental review process initiated by
Newsom in March for fire safety work. … The state funding
announced this week will go to 12 forestry projects, from
pulling out highly combustible weeds and planting
fire-resistant trees in San Bernardino County to paring back
overgrown forests with proactive burns in Humboldt County. One
$7 million project would create a “ring” of protected space
around communities in Santa Cruz County. Another project,
costing $4.2 million, seeks to improve the health of forests in
the upper Mokelumne River watershed in the
central Sierra Nevada.
The San Diego County Water Authority and Metropolitan Water
District are set to announce a historic settlement of decades
of legal disputes following the 2003 deal to purchase water
from Imperial Valley farmers. The disputes are insanely
complex and they have cost San Diego ratepayers an estimated
$20 million in legal fees. … The Water Authority agreed to
purchase water for several decades from IID. It also invested
heavily in lining the canals that bring water from the
Colorado River, saving significant amounts of
water that had been lost to seepage. … The settlement
will set a framework for the Water Authority to sell water to
other Southern California water agencies or to Metropolitan
itself. And Metropolitan has agreed to even allow the Water
Authority to sell water out of state, if it’s not needed here.
The Trump administration’s proposed budget for 2026 slashes
about 90 percent of the funding for one of the country’s
cornerstone biological and ecological research programs. Known
as the Ecosystems Mission Area, the program is part of the U.S.
Geological Survey and studies nearly every aspect of the
ecology and biology of natural and human-altered landscapes and
waters around the country. The 2026 proposed budget allocates
$29 million for the project, a cut from its current funding
level of $293 million. The budget proposal also reduces funds
for other programs in the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as
other federal science agencies. … The E.M.A. is also a
core part of federal climate research. The Trump administration
has sharply reduced or eliminated funds for climate science
across federal agencies, calling the study of climate change
part of “social agenda” research in an earlier version of the
budget proposal.
Other water and environmental project funding news:
The flood plains of Sacramento are a geologic
world away from the more cinematic California of coastal crags
and lofty peaks. Yet that sometimes overlooked region could be
home to one of California’s great disasters waiting to happen,
according to a February report from First Street, a prominent
climate risk prediction firm. The firm’s models suggest
that the mounting risks of catastrophic
flooding will drive Sacramento County — the heart of
California’s fourth-largest metro area, at about 2.4 million
people — to lose, in the average scenario, 28% of its
population by 2055. … Few places in the U.S., if any,
are more at risk of catastrophic flood than
Sacramento. … In modern times, water has been
corralled into aqueducts and dams and not allowed to pool into
the fertile soil, drying out the wetlands and leaving hard,
dusty earth that offers no buffer against floodwater.
A Town Hall convened Thursday aimed at protecting a vital water
resource that has, and could again, prove critical to fighting
wildfires, but also to sustain the economy and enhance
recreational opportunities for an isolated, yet popular
destination point for longtime residents. The Lake County
Chamber of Commerce hosted the event at the Soper Reese
Theater, Thursday. Master of Ceremonies was Amanda Martin,
Chief Economic Officer of the Chamber. Martin said the
presentation was to promote awareness and to educate the
community on the critical issue of a potential removal of
Scotts Dam from the Potter Valley Project. … Should the
dam be torn down, Lake County Treasurer estimated there could
be a loss of $850,000 in tax revenue. Additionally, property
values of $40 million could depreciate. … Meanwhile the
decommissioning of Scotts Dam is estimated at $500 million and
probably more, by the time the work is completed, based on a
study by The Eel River Power Authority.
Santa Clara leaders are raising concerns about how the city’s
dozens of data centers affect residents and the environment.
Santa Clara has more standalone data centers than any other
California city — 55 in operation and three in the pipeline,
according to the city. Demand is growing as more people use the
internet and digitally demanding technology advances, such as
artificial intelligence. With data centers providing the city
with millions in revenue, officials are questioning impacts to
water and the electrical grid. … (Planning
Commissioner Priya) Cherukuru, who is the executive director of
space planning for Stanford Health Care, said Santa Clara needs
to conduct a deeper study on the strain data centers put on
city resources, such as electricity and water. Data centers use
water to cool their densely packed servers. Ahmed Aly, the
city’s principal engineer for water and sewer utilities, said
more data centers are starting to use water efficient cooling
systems, and 31 data centers in the city use recycled
water.
Solano County’s congressional representatives teamed up with
collegues representing Sacramento, San Joaquin and Contra Costa
counties to fire off a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom protesting
his latest proposal to use the budget process to fast-track the
Delta Conveyance Project, also known as the Delta Tunnel. The
controversial project is a $20 billion plan to funnel more
water south. U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson and John Garamendi teamed
with representatives Doris Matsui, Mark DeSaulnier and Josh
Harder to issue the letter to the governor and state
legislative leadership reaffirming their strong opposition to
the proposed tunnel. … Noting that the Bay-Delta is one
of the most ecologically significant estuaries on the West
Coast, and that it supports thousands of fishing jobs, vital
agricultural lands, tribal and environmental justice
communities as well as some of the most vulnerable ecosystems
in the state, the legislators said the tunnel plan would be
devastating for the region.
Researchers at Stanford are hoping to jump start a water
revolution in California. The goal is to rapidly expand the
areas where we store water – not by building reservoirs,
but by returning millions of gallons back into the ground in a
new and efficient way. … A recent study found the
elevation of San Jose has risen slightly over the decades,
while dozens of other cities around the country are steadily
sinking. One common factor is groundwater. … Valley
Water manages a sophisticated system of ponds and groundwater
injection wells to help replenish the area’s aquifers. While
sites, like the Laguna Seca basin at Coyote Valley are being
conserved as open space, allowing additional stormwater to sink
into the water table. These are long term strategies that are
paying off. … And now, researchers at Stanford’s Doerr
School of Sustainability are hoping to use ground-breaking
technology to expand groundwater recharge across California’s
Central Valley.
Democratic senators are pressing the Interior Department to
determine whether significant staff losses at the Bureau of
Reclamation could put water infrastructure at risk as well as
derail the agency’s ability to fulfill congressional mandates.
In a Friday letter to Interior acting Inspector General Caryl
Brzymialkiewicz, eight senators asked for a review of staff
reductions at Reclamation, pointing to an estimated loss of up
to 25 percent of the agency’s staff under the Trump
administration. “We are concerned that the administration’s
actions to gut the agency of qualified public servants could
leave critical water infrastructure and communities vulnerable
to operational disruptions,” states the letter, led by Sen.
Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), ranking member on the Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee.
Coronado’s northern beaches are open again after the city’s
entire shoreline closed over Memorial Day weekend as wastewater
from the ongoing Tijuana sewage crisis pushed bacteria
into coastal waters. The reopenings came as Mexico completed
work on its two-phase International Collector project. …
Mexico completed the second and final phase of its
International Collector project on May 21. During the two
phases of the construction, excess sewage was pushed into the
Tijuana River, causing beach closures in Coronado in April and
in May. However, Mexico used temporary bypasses to prevent
about 75 million gallons of untreated sewage from entering the
river during phase two, the US International Boundary and Water
Commission (IBWC) said. The International Collector is a
pipeline that carries raw sewage from Tijuana to treatment
plants, and it was aging and prone to leaks. Mexico has now
relined the pipeline.
Native fish populations are returning more quickly than
anticipated in the Colorado River Connectivity Channel near
Granby. This news is according to the latest Colorado Parks and
Wildlife electrofishing survey of the trout population along
the newly constructed 1-mile river channel. In May, Parks and
Wildlife biologists estimated that approximately 848 brown
trout and 221 rainbow trout over 6 inches in length live within
the channel. The $33 million connectivity channel project
sought to establish connectivity along the Colorado River after
the construction of the 445-acre-foot Windy Gap Reservoir in
1985 disrupted flows in the region. The reservoir and dam —
which were constructed to help divert water to two northern
Front Range cities — impacted stream flows, caused sediment
buildup and decimated fish populations.
Nicasio residents are urging the Marin Municipal Water District
to reconsider a proposal to add storage to the nearby
reservoir. Over the past two weeks, residents have told
district officials that they fear the project could exacerbate
flooding along Nicasio and Halleck creeks, and that the
community would see no benefit from the added storage at
Nicasio Reservoir. The community uses well water and is not
served by the reservoir or the district’s supply. Residents
said increased flooding would threaten their properties, the
roads, the school and their well water and septic systems.
… The proposal calls for modifying the spillway gates at
Seeger Dam, which was constructed on Nicasio Creek in 1960 to
create the reservoir. … The project would install a
280-foot-long, 4.4-foot-high inflatable rubber gate spanning
the spillway crest to increase capacity by about 3,700
acre-feet. The project was selected from several proposals as a
short-term and efficient way to increase supply.
Lake Tahoe watercraft inspectors on Friday identified highly
invasive golden mussels on a vessel at the Alpine Meadows,
Calif. inspection station. This is the first interception of
the new invasive species by Lake Tahoe watercraft inspectors
since their first detection in North America in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in October, 2024.
… Inspectors at the Alpine Meadows station conducted an
initial decontamination of the 65-foot vessel. It will be held
under quarantine under California Department of Fish and
Wildlife regulations until the vessel is deemed risk-free.
Watercraft Inspection Program managers are also coordinating
with Nevada Division of Wildlife and other state agencies and
continue to share information on all detections with agencies
in both states and the western U.S. As new threats to Lake
Tahoe emerge, the emphasis on following Clean, Drain, Dry
protocols remains for all boaters, paddlers, anglers, and
beachgoers.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins today (May 30) announced
the release of congressionally mandated Emergency Livestock
Relief Program payments to cover grazing losses due to eligible
drought or wildfire events in 2023 and/or
2024. USDA explained that USDA’s Farm Service Agency is
leveraging existing Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP)
data to streamline payment calculations and expedite relief.
Emergency relief payments are automatically issued for
producers who have an approved LFP application on file for 2023
and/or 2024, and do not have to contact USDA to receive
payments. USDA added, “The American Relief Act, 2025,
provided funds for emergency relief payments. This program is
the first of two programs authorized to assist with eligible
losses suffered by livestock producers. FSA will announce
additional ELRP assistance for other losses authorized by the
act, including flooding, later this summer.”
The tiny native oysters of San
Francisco Bay managed to outlive the Gold Rush,
bay-shore development and decades of punishing pollution. New
research shows they have a fighting chance to survive global
warming as well. … In recent years, extreme heat waves
killed thousands of shellfish that inhabit the same type of
intertidal zone, including mussels that were baked in their
shells in both the Pacific Northwest and Northern California
during low tide. Scientists involved with oyster restoration
were really concerned when that happened, said Chela Zabin,
ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and
one of two dozen co-authors on the study. … The
study, which was published last month and involved significant
team effort in 26 locations up and down the West Coast, with
funding from the nonprofit organization the Nature Conservancy,
showed that native oysters thrive in a wide range of
habitats.
