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 State Water Resources Control Board unanimously adopted an
order extending its approval of the landmark Lower Yuba River
Accord for another 25 years. Specifically, the board approved
Yuba Water Agency’s petition for a long-term extension of the
points of diversion and places of use associated with
the Lower Yuba River Accord through 2050.
… Since the mid-2000s, the Yuba Accord has advanced a
broad suite of important benefits [including]:
… science-based minimum instream flows to protect
spring-run Chinook salmon and steelhead trout … a
reliable source of water available to improve statewide water
supplies … a reliable source of supply to ensure local
agricultural needs can be met, while also maintaining
hydropower production.
The Delta Science Program leads the development of the Delta
Science Plan, a shared framework that provides vision,
principles, and approaches for better coordinating science in
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and more effectively
communicating the outcomes of science activities and their
management implications to policymakers. … The due date for
public comments on the draft 2026 Delta Science
Plan has been extended until January 30,
2026, and we encourage community feedback to help
shape its final form.
San Diego County leaders announced Thursday they have a plan to
help reduce toxic sewage pollution in the Tijuana River Valley
and measure its impact on residents’ health. At a news
conference from the river valley, Supervisors Paloma Aguirre
and Terra Lawson-Remer said they want the county to use
reserves typically set aside for emergencies for two
initiatives they estimate would cost $4.75 million. The
proposal to use rainy-day funds for Tijuana River sewage
efforts is the latest Aguirre has made this week. On Tuesday,
she suggested using $19.25 million to buy more air purifiers
for residents and air monitors for the county to record
real-time data of hydrogen sulfide levels and to run a
treatment pilot program that would improve the river water’s
conditions.
The story of California begins with water. Without the mass
import of the wet stuff from parts north and east, much of
Southern and Central California would be barely inhabitable. No
one tells the story of water in California’s heartland in more
detail, or with more tenacity, than Lois
Henry. She’s a former Bakersfield Californian
columnist who six years ago launched
SJVWater.org. Mega-farmers, environmentalists
and everyday folk read her site to learn about arcane water
district policies, the effect of those policies on farmland and
fish and for insights on the political intrigue that powers the
San Joaquin Valley.
Water-related violence has almost doubled since 2022 and little
is being done to understand and address the trend and prevent
new and escalating risks, experts have said. There were 419
incidents of water-related violence recorded in 2024, up from
235 in 2022, according to the Pacific Institute. … [Pacific
Institute Co-Founder Peter] Gleick said: “The Colorado
River and the Rio Grande in the US have become
increasingly politically contentious in recent years. There are
treaties dating back to 1944 that govern both rivers, requiring
the US to deliver Colorado River water to Mexico and Mexico to
deliver Rio Grande water to the US. But as border politics
ramped up under the Trump administration, these issues became
more contentious. Several people were killed in Mexico during a
protest at a dam used to deliver water to the US, after farmers
objected to the releases.”
The No Desert Data Center Coalition filed a lawsuit last week
against Pima County in southern Arizona for approving a land
sale and rezoning request from a data center developer — just
the latest move in the battle over data centers amid
water concerns in Arizona. … Local
opposition to data centers in Tucson, a Democratic stronghold,
Marana, a conservative-leaning district, and Chandler, a
Republican suburb, suggests bipartisan consensus over concerns
of water scarcity and rising energy costs. … Beale
Infrastructure, the data center developer, said the data
centers will be air-cooled instead of using millions of gallons
of water to “wash” the heat away from servers. But the
trade-off in this case is a massive energy draw in an already
strained region.
Poway residents will be paying more for water after the City
Council’s Jan. 20 approval of a 9.9% rate increase this year,
with another 4% hike each year for the next four years.
Additionally, the cost of recycled water is increasing by 23%
this year and wastewater costs are scheduled to rise by 3% each
year from 2028 through 2030, according to a staff report.
… The increases are needed to fund the costs of imported
water, capital expenses, operational expenses and appropriate
reserve levels. … Also leading to the rising rates are
the wholesale costs associated with operating the Claude “Bud”
Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant and from the detachment of
the Rainbow and Fallbrook municipal water districts from the
County Water Authority.
Governor Spencer Cox said he and his fellow governors of states
along the Colorado River have been summoned to Washington D.C.
to try to negotiate an agreement. ”I will be going back to
D.C., I think towards the end of next week; all the governors
are going to be getting together with the Department of
Interior to have a discussion there,” Gov. Cox said.
… FOX 13 News reached out to the governors offices in
several states to see if they intended to participate in the
talks. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon’s office confirmed he would
attend. So did Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office.
… Utah’s governor also expressed support for an idea to
pay California to build more desalination plants along the
Pacific Coast in exchange for Colorado River water shares
upstream.
… Climate scientists have long warned that when storms
ride on top of high tides, bayside Marin County will flood and
cause chaos, especially in low-lying areas like San Rafael.
… Flooding experts predict that the changing climate
will turn today’s king tides into the everyday tides of the
future. They want Marin County to learn from the recent
disaster and to install better pumps, engineer new seawalls and
even pilot out-of-the-box ideas like floating homes.
… The city’s flatlands are shaped like a bowl, protected
by makeshift levees — some constructed with plywood, cement or
asphalt — and pumps that are already struggling.
Developers in Arizona are planning to build a $10 billion data
center next to Horseshoe Bend, an iconic viewpoint
along the Colorado River. The 500-acre parcel,
located a mile from Horseshoe Bend, was previously protected
for outdoor recreation. … A petition to stop the data
center’s construction has already netted over 1,800 signatures
as of this publication. The document cites concerns over water
consumption and contamination, pollution, and an “unsightly
blight that will detract from the scenic beauty.”
… These servers generate immense heat, and keeping them
cool requires a large amount of water, the bipartisan think
tank Environmental and Energy Study Institute writes.
Snowpack in Nevada is off to a grim start as high temperatures
have prevented snow packs from forming, despite high
precipitation. Snowpack in Nevada and the Eastern Sierra – a
major source of water for the Truckee River in northern Nevada
– are below normal at 74% of median for the time of year. While
precipitation in December was well above normal, warmer than
normal temperatures mean that has not translated to robust
snowpacks throughout much of the state. … The decrease
in snowpack across Nevada was largely a result of above normal
temperatures melting snowpack away, according to Nevada State
Climatologist Baker Perry.
Dozens of the world’s major rivers are so heavily tapped, they
often run dry before reaching the sea. More than half of all
large lakes are shrinking, and most of the world’s major
underground sources are declining irreversibly as agricultural
pumping drains water that took centuries or even thousands of
years to accumulate. In a report this week, U.N. scientists
warn that the world has entered a new era of “global water
bankruptcy.” … The report points to the Colorado
River and its depleted reservoirs, on which California
and other western states depend, as symbols of over-promised
water. … These problems are compounded by climate
change, which is upending the water cycle and bringing more
severe droughts and floods.
… Adding groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)
has only multiplied the many cross connected lines, in some
cases creating conflicts. Joe Neves, who serves as a Kings
County Supervisor, as well as a director on both the Mid-Kings
River and South Fork Kings GSAs decided that was his case and
announced Jan. 15 he was offloading his position on the
Mid-Kings board. Serving on both boards was
“incompatible,” Neves said at South Fork’s Jan. 15 meeting. His
resignation came after Neves voted to approve a letter from
South Fork opposing Mid-Kings’ draft pumping allocation policy,
though he had approved the policy as a member of Mid-Kings’
board.
In a significant move to bolster California’s salmon
population, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
(CDFW) has allocated over $10 million in grants to 16 projects
aimed at restoring, enhancing and protecting salmon and
steelhead habitats across the state. … Among the funded
projects, the Upper Klamath River Design and Planning Project
was awarded $739,196 to the Mid Klamath Watershed Council. The
project will develop a 100% level fisheries restoration design
on 7 miles of Beaver Creek. … The FRGP is now accepting
concept proposals for the 2026 grant solicitation.
We’ve been following the ongoing pollution crisis in the
Tijuana River Valley, and today, we’re zeroing in on a spot
that’s drawing a lot of attention: Trash piled up in Smuggler’s
Gulch, just feet from where stormwater flows straight into the
estuary. … During heavy rain, the creek bed turns into a
roaring river. When that happens, trash gets swept downstream
and straight into the Tijuana River Estuary and, eventually,
the ocean. … This part of the Tijuana River Valley is a
complex network of streams and creeks all feeding into the
estuary. County officials say trash booms can only do so much,
especially when flooding moves fast and carries heavy debris.
Close to 100 community members impacted by a massive sewage
spill in the northern part of the city of Clearlake attended a
town hall on Wednesday evening to hear the latest about efforts
to test wells and help residents try to get back to normal.
Wednesday marked 10 days since a 16-inch force main operated by
the Lake County Sanitation District ruptured in the area of
Robin Lane in Clearlake, spilling an estimated 2.9 million
gallons during the 38-hour period of time in which repairs were
underway. … [Environmental Health Department Director Craig
Wetherbee] said monitoring will be long-term — for years — but
the response itself won’t last that long. If there is more
rain, he said it could cause more contamination, with the
bacteria mobilized in the soil.
Most of you have heard that California’s Salton Sea would not
currently exist were it not for the nearly 1 million acre feet
of agricultural runoff that’s drained into it every year.
… Meanwhile 132 miles south in Sonora another body of
water has formed from American-made runoff, and it’s also a
paradox. Ciénega de Santa Clara is technically a brackish water
wetland consisting of marshlands and lagoons, and its
classification as “anthropogenic” stems from the fact that it
was inadvertently created by, and entirely sustained by human
engineering. This “human engineering” began in 1965 after the
U.S.Bureau of Reclamation rerouted approximately 100,000 acre
feet of salty runoff from the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation
District away from the Colorado River and 13 miles into Mexico.
California Water Service has announced the recipients of its
seventh annual Firefighter Grant Program, awarding more than
$186,000 to nine fire departments across its service areas. The
grants aim to enhance rescue and emergency services by funding
critical resources and equipment. … The grants will
cover a range of needs, from laryngoscopes for pre-hospital
emergency care to ventilation fans and gas detection equipment.
… These grants are part of Cal Water’s philanthropic
giving program and do not impact customer rates.
The world has entered “an era of global water bankruptcy” with
irreversible consequences, according to a new United Nations
report. Regions across the world are afflicted by severe water
problems: Kabul may be on course to be the first modern city to
run out of water. Mexico City is sinking at a rate of around 20
inches a year as the vast aquifer beneath its streets is
over-pumped. In the US Southwest, states are
locked in a continual battle over the how to share the
shrinking water of the drought-stricken Colorado
River. The global situation is so severe that terms
like “water crisis” or “water stressed” fail to capture its
magnitude, according to the report published Tuesday by the
United Nations University and based on a study in the journal
Water Resources.
With just weeks to decide how to share the Colorado River’s
shrinking water supply, negotiators from seven states hunkered
down in a Salt Lake City conference room. … The states
moved forward on a deal for two-and-a-half days, then went back
by almost as far as they’d come, [Utah chief
negotiator Gene] Shawcroft said. … Shawcroft
reiterated Tuesday what he and his counterparts from the other
Colorado River states have said in recent months: They don’t
have a deal, but they do have a commitment to keep talking and
meet their upcoming February deadline.
