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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New Mexico environment officials released data showing higher
levels of so-called “forever chemicals” in water systems across
the state ahead of hearings starting this week to write rules
for phasing out their use in makeup, upholstery, cooking gear
and more. The data, published Friday, showed 15 New Mexico
water systems … have PFAS levels exceeding federal drinking
water guidelines. … Despite the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency under the Trump Administration
delaying implementation of the tougher
standards until 2031, New Mexico is trying to address
current PFAS levels in smaller water systems.
The Middle Colorado Watershed Council (MCWC) announced its 2026
Fire and Water Speaker Series will begin Thursday, with
award-winning author and hydrologist Robert R. Crifasi
discussing how the history of water continues to shape current
geology, infrastructure, and legal systems. … When
setting out to write his second book, “Western Water A-Z,”
Crifasi said he wanted to create a sort of almanac explaining
the situation and history in layman’s terms. “I wanted to
create a guidebook to Western waters that someone could pick up
and bring on a road trip or down a river on a raft trip,”
Crifasi said. “I wanted them to be able to read it and have
more information about how all this stuff is going on and why.”
For almost a century, Hoover Dam has stood tall, delivering
water and reliable hydropower to cities throughout the American
West. But even the most impressive feats of human engineering
need maintenance — $200 million of it over the next decade, to
be exact, according to estimates from the Bureau of
Reclamation, the federal agency in charge of water and dams in
the West. … [Nev. Rep. Susie] Lee and Sen. Catherine
Cortez Masto, D-Nev., joined Colorado River Commission of
Nevada Chairwoman Puoy Premsrirut at a Lake Mead outlook Friday
to celebrate the release of $52 million to the Bureau of
Reclamation for necessary work.
A lawsuit brought by homebuilders to invalidate actions by the
state’s water department was back in court on Friday.
The outcome of the case could upend the state’s entire
groundwater protection framework. The lawsuit was
filed at the beginning of last year and stems from a report
Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration released in 2023 showing
groundwater levels in the Phoenix metro area were unexpectedly
low. As a result, the Arizona Department of Water Resources
stopped granting certificates to developers that are required
to build new housing developments in parts of the Valley —
including Buckeye and Queen Creek. The Homebuilders Association
of Central Arizona argued in a hearing Friday that ADWR
illegally overstepped its authority with its response.
Colorado’s record-low snowpack is already raising concerns
about increased wildfire risk and water shortages this summer,
even as the mountains are still in the depths of winter.
Statewide, the snowpack levels are just 61% of median for this
time of year, and it would take consistent, record-breaking
snowfall for the rest of the season to reach normal peak
snowpack levels, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. … The Laramie-North Platte and
Colorado Headwaters river basins, which encompass much of
northwest Colorado, have some of the lowest streamflow
forecasts in the state, at 50% of 58% of normal, according to
the water supply outlook.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
A Central Arizona Project-backed advocacy group called the
Coalition for Protecting Arizona’s Lifeline has begun rolling
out television ads and online videos defending the water
supplier’s rights to a Colorado River that is under serious
hydrological and political strain. … While the materials
don’t directly state members’ intended method of securing
water, some of the videos lean heavily on the so-called Law of
the River and its guarantee of water from the four headwaters
states to Arizona, California and Nevada. This theme reiterates
a point that CAP and Arizona water officials have stressed over
the last year or so, that if push comes to shove in a legal
battle, they have the 1922 Colorado River Compact on their
side.
A coalition of tribes and environmental advocates are calling
on the Delta Stewardship Council to reject the California
Department of Water Resources Certification of Consistency for
the proposed Delta Conveyance Project. “The coalition includes
the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, the Winnemem Wintu
Tribe, San Francisco Baykeeper, Center for Biological
Diversity, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Little
Manila Rising, Friends of the River, California Indian
Environmental Alliance, Sierra Club California and Restore the
Delta,” the coalition said in a statement. The group is holding
a virtual press conference on Wednesday to outline its legal
concerns. It is scheduled prior to the two-day Delta
Stewardship Council hearings to consider the
certification.
… The Central Arizona [Central Arizona Irrigation and
Drainage District] was one of 18 irrigation districts spread
across 12 western states initially selected to receive up to
$15 million each from the USDA. The agency’s Water-Saving
Commodities program also earmarked grants for three tribal
communities and two state associations of conservation
districts. … Beginning last January, the Trump administration
threw that into a tailspin. Federal monies were frozen, grant
programs culled, and an unprecedented number of federal
staffers were forced out of work. Many operations at USDA have
since resumed to some semblance of normalcy. But the $400
million promised to the irrigation districts, associations, and
tribes in 2024 remains unaccounted for, and the grant
recipients have received no indication of whether the program
would start or the money would be paid out.
The data from documents released [Feb. 19] by the Pacific
Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) reveals salmon
returns to California’s Central Valley in 2025 were much
improved over the previous two years. … The number
of returning jacks is key to forecasting the number of adult
salmon that are in the ocean every year. This ocean abundance
forecast is used to determine the number of salmon that can be
caught by the ocean commercial and recreational salmon
fisheries and the in-river recreational and tribal fisheries
while allowing enough salmon to escape harvest to spawn in the
Central Valley rivers. The abundance estimate should become
available by February 25 when CDFW will hold its annual one day
salmon information meeting to update the public.
The boss of Santa Clara County’s largest water supplier is
stepping down — and officials will keep paying him for a year
without disclosing what they discovered in a misconduct probe
against him. Valley Water CEO Rick Callender is resigning
effective March 1 after more than a year-long investigation
into misconduct allegations by an employee, which one board
director has said involves sexual harassment. The board of
directors announced Callender’s resignation at a special
meeting Friday, but said nothing about the misconduct probe or
what they found. Officials have not disclosed the nature of the
employee misconduct complaint.
In the cool dawn of a February morning, a crew is assembling to
do maintenance work on a water canal in Tempe. This crew will
spend the rest of its life in the canal, removing the plants
that stop water from flowing. That’s because the workers aren’t
human — they’re fish. The Salt River Project, which operates
this canal, estimates that about 44,000 of these fish live in
its canal system. This morning, it’s adding about 1,000 more.
The fish are a species of carp called white amur. They’re
native to Asia and especially adept at eating the aquatic
vegetation that grows along the walls of the canal. Those
plants can slow down the water and make it harder to send to
faraway users of the canal or gum up the intakes that divert
water in different directions.
… The fear of flooding has steadily faded in Sacramento
because of what happened after the great storms of 1986.
Sacramento came together and created flood control protections,
arguably the most effective regional government effort in local
history. And now, some $5 billion in flood protection
improvements later, Sacramento is almost ready for much bigger
storms. Still, this region does not take flooding as seriously
as it should. Public attention is far more focused on how a
warming climate increases the risk of wildfires and heat waves.
But hotter temperatures are also creating more vapor in the
atmosphere, a flood waiting to happen. –Written by Sacramento Bee columnist Tom Philp.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
Last year’s snow deluge in California, which quickly erased a
two decade long megadrought, was essentially a
once-in-a-lifetime rescue from above, a new study found. Don’t
get used to it because with climate change the 2023 California
snow bonanza —a record for snow on the ground on April 1 — will
be less likely in the future, said the study in Monday’s
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
… UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who wasn’t part
of the study but specializes in weather in the U.S. West, said,
“I would not be surprised if 2023 was the coldest, snowiest
winter for the rest of my own lifetime in California.”
Six tribes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including two in
Colorado, have gained long-awaited access to discussions about
the basin’s water issues — talks that were formerly
limited to states and the federal government. Under an
agreement finalized this month, the tribes will meet every two
months to discuss Colorado River issues with an interstate
water policy commission, the Upper Colorado River Commission,
or UCRC. It’s the first time in the commission’s 76-year
history that tribes have been formally included, and the timing
is key as negotiations about the river’s future intensify.
… Most immediately, the commission wants a key number:
How much water goes unused by tribes and flows down to the
Lower Basin?
A group of Western lawmakers pressed the Biden administration
Monday to ramp up water conservation, especially in national
forests that provide nearly half the region’s surface water.
“Reliable and sustainable water availability is absolutely
critical to any agricultural commodity production in the
American West,” wrote the lawmakers, including Sens.
Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), in a
letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The 31
members of the Senate and House, all Democrats except for Sen.
Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), credited the administration for
several efforts related to water conservation, including
promoting irrigation efficiency as a climate-smart practice
eligible for certain USDA funding through the Inflation
Reduction Act.
A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how
much water courses through Earth’s rivers, the rates at which
it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures
have fluctuated over time—crucial information for understanding
the planet’s water cycle and managing its freshwater supplies.
The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use,
including the Colorado River basin in the United States, the
Amazon basin in South America, and the Orange River basin in
southern Africa.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
A steady stream of water spilled from Lake Casitas Friday, a
few days after officials declared the Ojai Valley reservoir had
reached capacity for the first time in a quarter century. Just
two years earlier, the drought-stressed reservoir, which
provides drinking water for the Ojai
Valley and parts of Ventura, had dropped under 30%.
The Casitas Municipal Water District was looking at emergency
measures if conditions didn’t improve, board President Richard
Hajas said. Now, the lake is full, holding roughly 20 years of
water.
