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.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced two recent key victories to
advance the Delta Conveyance Project — a critical
infrastructure project to safeguard California’s water supplies
amid a hotter, drier future. The administration secured a court
decision reversing a preliminary injunction that was previously
blocking pre-construction geotechnical work. Additionally, the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has submitted a
certification of consistency for the broader project to the
Delta Stewardship Council (DSC).
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority (IWVGA) and
Searles Valley Minerals have reached a comprehensive settlement
agreement, marking a significant step toward achieving
groundwater sustainability in the Indian Wells
Valley. The agreement states that both IWVGA and Searles have
permanently dropped (“dismissed with prejudice”) the separate
lawsuits they filed against each other. While the main,
comprehensive water rights lawsuit continues, Searles has
agreed not to challenge the scientific and technical findings
of the valley’s mandated Groundwater Sustainability Plan and
will instead work with the IWVGA to implement the plan.
… As the planet’s atmosphere has quickly warmed thanks to the
burning of fossil fuels, the amount of water available in the
world’s rivers, lakes, and reservoirs has shrunk. To
compensate, nations the world over have plundered the water
stored underground to irrigate crops and hydrate parched
citizens. But many of these hidden water reserves are being
sucked dry by humans quicker than they are being replenished
through rainfall and snowmelt, or through artificial
groundwater recharge. The cascading consequences are immense.
Next month, the seven Colorado River Basin states — Arizona,
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming —
are set to finalize a new framework for sharing a shrinking
resource. Billed as a modern compact for a hotter, drier
century, it will shape how the West survives in an age of
scarcity. Yet amid debates over drought, equity, and cutbacks,
one rapidly expanding demand remains almost invisible: the
immense water consumption of artificial intelligence and the
data centers that sustain it. –Written by nature photographer Rusty Childress.
… As part of DWR’s California Stream Gage Improvement Program
(CalSIP), DWR and Napa County are collaborating to bring five
stream gages online in the Napa River watershed, targeting data
gaps in the watershed and key tributaries which will help water
managers plan for dry periods and make faster emergency
decisions during flooding events. Made possible with
funding from the Budget Act of 2023, the CalSIP program is
enabling the revival and deployment of gages at five critical
sites in Napa County.
Utah leaders are extending a deadline for projects that may
help bring water to the Great Salt Lake because they say the
ongoing government shutdown makes it challenging to coordinate
with federal agencies. The Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s
Office had set a Friday deadline for government agencies,
nongovernment organizations, institutions and private entities
to submit their proposals to receive a share of $53 million in
grants for projects that support the Great Salt Lake or its
wetlands. However, it’s been pushed to Jan. 16, 2026, to allow
more time for the state to organize planning with the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is reminding
eligible small businesses and private nonprofit (PNP)
organizations in California of the Nov. 25, 2025 deadline to
apply for low interest federal disaster loans to offset
economic losses caused by drought beginning Oct. 1, 2024. The
disaster declaration covers the California counties of Alpine,
Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Mono,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo,
Santa Barbara, Tulare, Tuolumne and Ventura as well as the
Arizona counties of La Paz, Mohave and Yuma, and the Nevada
counties of Clark, Douglas, Esmeralda, Lyon, Mineral and Nye.
San Diego County has launched a formal search for the next
operator who will manage the Tijuana River Community Garden.
… Growers received a 60-day notice to vacate from the
Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County in
early October. The district has rented the land from the county
and managed it since 2002. … In late September, district
officials told gardeners that they would no longer renew their
lease with the county, blaming the ongoing Tijuana River sewage
crisis.
A powerful storm is expected to bring several days of heavy
rain, strong winds and mountain snow to parts of the Western
United States this week. The storm is the result of an
atmospheric river. … The atmospheric river season
typically runs from October through March, and is responsible
for up to half of California’s annual precipitation. While
these systems are vital to replenishing water supplies, they
can also cause flooding when they combine with other weather
systems, bringing heavy rainfall. … Heavy mountain snow
was expected across parts of mountain ranges like the
Cascades, the Northern Sierra Nevada and the Northern
Rockies.
After a lengthy public comment session that included dozens of
speakers both for and against a resolution that many argued
would jeopardize years of painstaking progress made toward
continuing water diversions from the Eel River into the Russian
River following the removal of the Potter Valley Project dams,
the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors instead voted to
consider an alternative resolution proposed by Fifth District
Supervisor Ted Williams at its next meeting. … [H]e was
concerned about the “unanticipated consequences” of passing the
resolution … that asks the Pacific Gas and Electric Company
to reconsider its decision to decommission the hydroelectric
plant known as the Potter Valley Project.
A storm wiped out millions of dollars’ worth of experimental
Tijuana River treatment technology paid for by a cash-strapped
federal agency just months after setting it up. Others working
to manage trash on a separate project where the river crosses
from Mexico into the United States said they warned the tech
company, Greenwater Services, of the poor location of their
equipment next to the flood-prone river. But last week’s
intense rainstorm swept away their equipment trailers and
overturned at least one diesel generator, spilling an estimated
1,000 gallons of fuel into the river.
Another Kings County groundwater agency has issued a draft
policy on one of its thorniest issues – pumping allotments. The
South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
approved a draft pumping allocation policy at its Oct. 16
meeting, which opens a 45-day comment period. The neighboring
Mid-Kings River GSA issued its draft policy Oct. 14.
… Both policies allow farmers to pump one amount that’s
considered “sustainable” yield, or the amount that can be
extracted without causing negative impacts.
… As Dubai chocolate’s popularity soars, so has the demand
for this unassuming nut that for decades has quietly thrived in
the heat of the Central Valley and provided a livelihood to
generations of rural and immigrant communities. But while the
state’s pistachio growers and chocolatiers have big dreams of
what could come from this culinary phenomenon, California faces
a dryer, hotter future that could soon put all of that to the
test. … And water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta — the only other source of water for many
pistachio farms — is controlled by federal regulators that cut
water deliveries if they threaten the survival of wildlife in
the Delta.
How democratic is your water utility? Does everyone who is
registered to vote get to choose their leaders in elections? Or
do only property owners get to vote for the managers? Maybe the
public has no say at all in selecting the people who make
decisions that determine safe and affordable drinking water?
“We see significant differences based on democracy,” said
Kristin Dobbin, a researcher at UC Berkeley. “It really does
influence the outcomes of a water system.” In a new study she
led, it turns out that water utilities where all voters have a
say in choosing leaders tend to perform better.
If you’re a steelhead trout wanting to start a
family, it’s a long swim from San Francisco Bay to the
sheltered breeding grounds of Alameda Creek. But now, for the
first time in nearly three decades, that winding 40-mile path
from Union City to the rolling foothills of Sunol is finally
flowing free. “The flows get really high here,” says California
Trout Regional Director Claire Buchanan, pointing to the
running creek. The environmental group helped push through the
final removal of a structural barrier allowing migrating fish
to reach the shaded banks.
The Utah Supreme Court has rejected a project that proposes to
take water from the Colorado River system in Utah, pump it
hundreds of miles across Wyoming into Colorado. In a unanimous
decision, the state’s top court sided with the Utah State
Engineer, who rejected Water Horse Resources application to
take 55,000 acre-feet of water from the Green River, a
tributary of the Colorado River, and pump it to the Fort
Collins, Colo., area. … The ruling hit during a
particularly delicate time for Utah and other states who rely
on the Colorado River.
The Trump administration has paused more than $11 billion in
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water infrastructure projects
across 12 states, citing the ongoing federal government
shutdown and budget constraints. The projects—spanning
California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico,
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island,
Delaware and Colorado—are now under review by the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB). According to OMB Director Russ
Vought, the decision stems from what he described as the impact
of the shutdown on the Corps’ ability to manage its project
portfolio.
… [W]hile Angelenos must curtail their water use, California
data centers won’t even be forced to disclose their water
consumption. Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a
bill that would have required the facilities, which can guzzle
millions of gallons in a single day, to report their water
usage. … The Data Center Coalition, an industry lobbying
group, opposed the California disclosure bill—the one that
Newsom then vetoed. In 2021, a city in the neighboring state of
Oregon sued a local newspaper to prevent it from reporting on
Google’s water use. … After the case was finally settled,
news reports revealed that Google’s data centers accounted for
more than a quarter of local water consumption.
… [N]utria are distinctly rat-like in appearance, with long
naked tails and vivid orange buck teeth. And they are big – up
to 20 pounds. They can consume 25% of their body weight in
vegetation daily and despoil up to 10 times that quantity.
They’re vectors for a variety of diseases and parasites, and
they burrow incessantly, posing a significant risk to
levees. … Agency [California Department
of Fish and Wildlife] staffers have trapped thousands over
the past seven years, but the doughty animals have maintained a
steady, seemingly inexorable expansion in range: north to the
Suisun Marsh and perhaps beyond, east up the
drainages of at least two rivers that feed into the San Joaquin
Valley.
… Although the Interior Department has a large presence in
Wyoming — a state that’s half federal land — the legal filing
only revealed two clearly in-state positions that are being
eliminated. Both those “abolished” positions are with the
Bureau of Reclamation’s Wyoming Area Office. The filing does
not specify which jobs are being removed from the office, which
manages irrigation, flood control infrastructure and associated
land in river basins west of the Continental Divide in Wyoming
and parts of Colorado and Montana.
