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.
Two Central Valley Democrats are pitching a new water bill
designed to protect water access for the region’s
farmers. Rep. Adam Gray (D–Merced) introduced the Valley
Water Protection Act last week and was joined by Rep. Jim Costa
(D–Fresno). The Valley Water Protection Act would amend
the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to protect
farmers from enforcement actions that could pose national
security threats or regional economic harm. … The bill
has widespread support from water users across the Central
Valley, including the Turlock Irrigation District, the Merced
Irrigation District, the Modesto Irrigation District, the San
Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority and the Friant Water
Authority. … Along with Gray’s bill, Westerman
introduced the Endangered Species Act Amendments Act of 2025,
which would streamline the ESA permitting process and establish
clear definitions within the act.
In recent years, scientists and water managers have started
using the term “snow drought” to describe meager snowpacks in
the American West. … Because a lack of snow has
such profound implications for the West’s water supply,
wildfire risk, recreational activities and ecosystem health,
the federal government now regularly tracks the severity of
snow drought across the region. The reports rely on data from
hundreds of SNOTEL stations—a network of automated sensors that
use “snow pillows” to weigh the snowpack and calculate its
water content—but federal budget cuts may hamper that system
going forward. To learn more about snow droughts, I
recently spoke with one of the authors of those reports: Dan
McEvoy, regional climatologist at the Western Regional Climate
Center and the Desert Research Institute.
Housing developers left stranded and stalled by a lack of an
assured water supply are getting a lifeline under a deal cut
between Republicans and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. The
proposal, known as “Ag-to-Urban,” allows homebuilders
to buy water rights from farmers who retire their agricultural
land if they promise to use only a certain percentage of the
water to supply new developments. … The deal
immediately affects only Maricopa and Pinal counties, but the
Pima County Active Management Area may also fall under its
guidance if a moratorium on new water certificates is put in
place by state water regulators, (Sen. T.J.) Shope said. If all
three areas were included, more than 400,000 acres of farmland
could be eligible for conversion. … While big developers
are celebrating a win, elected officials in rural Arizona are
criticizing Hobbs for backing the proposal without tying it to
new protections for groundwater in their areas.
Five years ago, Plains Miwok cultural practitioner Don Hankins
got a surprising invitation from Russ Ryan, a project manager
at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The
agency owns four islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta, including one called Webb Tract, and Ryan asked Hankins
for help stewarding them from an Indigenous perspective.
Hankins was skeptical at first. … But Hankins feels a
deep-rooted responsibility toward the Delta. He was also moved
when Ryan visited him at California State University Chico,
where he’s a professor of geography and planning. On a walk in
Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, the pair forged a
partnership that included bringing tribes into planning a new
wetland on Webb Tract from the very beginning. “It’s a game
changer,” says Hankins, noting that this is the first time
tribes have been integral to a restoration project in the
Delta.
Nevada is taking action to preserve its state animal, the
Desert Bighorn Sheep, by relocating part of a herd based in
Southern Nevada. … The reason for the relocation is a
lack of available food and water for the herd, with drought
being the common denominator. In just one year, dry conditions
have significantly worsened across Nevada. While only a small
area was abnormally dry in June 2024, now most of the state is
experiencing all four levels of drought extremes. “We had to
take action,” said Joe Bennett, a specialist with the Nevada
Department of Wildlife. According to Bennett, since December,
122,000 gallons of water have been hauled to watering holes, or
guzzlers, in Southern Nevada to support sheep hydration.
… According to the Nevada Climate Initiative, drought is
expected to increase in frequency and severity in the future
due to higher temperatures, even if precipitation remains the
same or increases slightly.
… While stakeholders wait to see how the EPA’s
announcements will develop into specific actions, one
particular area of continued uncertainty relates to PFAS in
drinking water. … Following its request to stay legal
challenges to these two Biden-era actions to allow the new EPA
leadership to review these rules, the EPA on May 14 announced
that it would maintain the current national primary drinking
water regulation for PFOA and PFOS and introduce a proposal to
extend the compliance date to 2031. At the same time, the EPA
said it would rescind regulations and reconsider regulatory
determinations for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (commonly known as
GenX), and the hazard index mixture of these three, plus PFBS,
citing compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act as its
rationale.
Fire and water are seemingly opposing forces. But in the
context of global climate, they go together like peanut butter
and jelly. And looking at the fire and flood tally so far, 2025
has been extra. … Aridification is causing the arid west
to move eastward, encroaching on the mid longitude regions of
the U.S. and Canada. Aridity, drought and heat
combine to make ideal conditions for fire. Increased average
air temperature leads to more water in the atmosphere as water
vapor. More energy in the form of heat moves storms. The
combination of the two–more water and more energy–means more
disasters with higher consequences measured in deaths and
dollars. The end result is that communities are sandwiched
between dry and wet extremes and the economic consequences of
fire and flood disasters. The U.S. sustained 403 weather
and climate disasters from 1980–2024 where overall damages and
costs reached or exceeded $1 billion each (including the
Consumer Price Index adjustment to 2024). When you add them
together, the total cost of these 403 events exceeds $2.915
trillion.
Last August, Northwest salmon caught a break when four dams on
the Klamath River, which flows from mountain country in
southwest Oregon through northern California to the Pacific
Ocean, were demolished. But it was a limited break. The goal of
that $500 million project, possibly the largest of its kind in
American history, remains unreached, and serious effort still
is needed to fulfill it. A fully free-flowing Klamath River may
be beyond us for a while, but certain half-measures could
help. Hanging over it is the shadow of the decision this
month by the Trump administration to abandon a regional
agreement involving breach of the four lower Snake River dams
in Washington state, also partly for fish run purposes.
… Some news stories at the time proclaiming the return
of a free run of the Klamath River spoke too optimistically. In
Oregon, much of the upper river is blocked by the last two
dams, the Keno, west of Klamath Falls and near the same-named
unincorporated community, and the Link River, which impounds
and partly creates Upper Klamath Lake.
Harmful blooms of algae like the one floating near the dam on
Apache Lake are on the rise worldwide and are likely to
proliferate more in Arizona as warming temperatures create
encouraging habitats for the blue-green toxic scum. The Apache
Lake bloom, reported May 29, is the second this year in Arizona
following one spotted on Lake Havasu a month prior. About 30
harmful blooms plagued Arizona waters last year, affecting
parts of Lake Havasu, Saguaro and Canyon lakes and Tempe Town
Lake. That’s likely an undercount as the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality voluntarily collects reports and doesn’t
have the authority to force water managers to post warnings or
test the water. … Harmful blooms also are likely to become
more common and more severe in Arizona as conditions get dryer
and hotter, said Taylor L. Weiss, with the Arizona Center for
Algae Technology and Innovation and assistant professor at
Arizona State University.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s effort to remove barriers
to energy development within the 3.6 million-acre Rock Springs
Resource Management Plan area (which replaced Green River RMP
in 2024) will include revised estimates of oil and natural gas
reserves, according to the agency. … Initial “low” estimates,
which may change dramatically based on new calculations, will
potentially be used to reduce restrictions on oil and natural
gas development imposed under “area of critical environmental
concern” designations in the Rock Springs RMP updated in
December. That plan will likely change after a review spurred
by President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American Energy
executive order, and Interior orders under his administration.
The U.S. Geological Survey — the BLM’s sister agency under the
Interior Department — released a report Wednesday revising
estimates of “undiscovered, technically recoverable” oil and
natural gas reserves underlying onshore federal lands, boasting
“significant increases.”
A June quarterly monitoring report from a Department of Toxic
Substance Control order for the Saugus Industrial Center,
former home of the Keysor-Century Corp., revealed groundwater
contamination levels many times above the state’s limits as
cleanup continues and plans for nearby properties are filed at
City Hall. A Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency spokesman
said Thursday the reports are from monitoring wells and not
from any sources in circulation for
customers. Water-contamination concerns in that area are
expected to cost tens of millions of dollars for the agency for
years to come, according to officials in court records and past
statements. … The process, which began a decade ago,
involves the injection of emulsified vegetable oil into the
wells as part of a complicated process to “promote anaerobic
biodegradation of volatile organic compounds in saturated soils
and groundwater,” according to (the) report.
The community is set to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the
completion of Shasta Dam, a key structure in California’s
Central Valley Project. The celebration on Friday, June 20
promises a full day of events in The City of Shasta Lake.
Construction of Shasta Dam began in 1938 and was completed in
1945. President Truman once referred to the dam as “symbolic of
the hopes and aspirations of generations who would make the
broadest, wisest uses of their natural resources.” The
festivities will kick off Friday morning with a Shasta Lake
business mixer at the Shasta Dam Visitors Center at 10 a.m. A
celebration program will follow at 11 a.m., and an open house
will start at noon. … The Bureau of Reclamation, along
with the Shasta County Board of Supervisors and the Shasta
BoomTown Museum, organized the event to commemorate this
milestone. The Shasta Dam plays a crucial role in regulating
the Sacramento River’s flow and creates the largest water
storage facility in California, holding more than 4.5 million
acre-feet of water.
Yesterday, the unincorporated community of West Goshen in
Tulare County hit a key milestone to achieve their Human Right
to Water by breaking ground on their safe drinking water
project. Many families in this area currently rely on drinking
water contaminated with concerning levels of contaminants
including nitrate, 1,2,3-trichloropropane, and uranium.
… In 2021, residents formed the community based
organization West Goshen Water for Life. … Through an
alternatives analysis funded by State Water Board technical
assistance funding, the community decided that connecting to a
safe piped water supply from the California Water Service (Cal
Water) Visalia system was the most sustainable long-term
drinking water solution. Their efforts to implement that
solution were met with collaboration from Tulare County,
California Water Service, and funding from the Department of
Water Resources through a $3.4 million grant aimed at emergency
drought relief.
Citing a rise in costs to deliver gas and water to the public,
the Long Beach Board of Utilities Commissioners on Tuesday
approved higher rates, as part of their $397.4 million budget
for the fiscal year that begins in October. Under the plan,
water and sewer rates will go up starting Oct. 1. Under the
proposal, the monthly charge for the typical single-family home
will increase by 12% for water and sewer rates. This translates
to an average increase of $8.26 per month for a single-family
water bill and $1.47 for a monthly sewer charge. For gas
services, the board approved a 15% increase starting in August,
followed by a 12% hike next April. For a typical single-family
home, this translates to an estimated monthly increase of
$4.67. … The increase in rates, officials say, are meant
to offset the rising costs of construction, imported
water and other “inflationary pressures.”
California’s state auditor will not investigate the state’s
controversial Delta Conveyance Project, which would divert
water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta down to farms and
consumers in Southern California. Despite the proposal
receiving some bipartisan support Wednesday afternoon,
lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee stopped
short of recommending the project be
audited. … Despite six lawmakers voting to approve
the audit, no one made a vocal endorsement. The proposal failed
because it didn’t receive the votes necessary from the state
Senate side. At least four votes are necessary from both houses
on the joint committee. At her request, (Assemblymember
Rhodesia) Ransom (D-Stockton) was granted reconsideration of
the audit proposal, meaning the issue will be on a future audit
committee agenda.
Negotiators for the seven states arguing over diminished
Colorado River water are discussing an option they hope will
end their deadlock, one that Arizona officials say would focus
less on who gets what and more on what the river can
realistically provide. They’re calling it the “supply-driven”
solution, Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said,
and it links the required water deliveries out of Glen Canyon
Dam to what might naturally be flowing downstream at Lees Ferry
if the dam weren’t there. The Rocky Mountain states upstream
from there would have to let that amount pass, and the
Southwestern states would have to live within its limits. It’s
intended as a fair way of adapting — and shrinking — the
region’s use of a river whose flow was once thought to exceed
15 million acre-feet of water a year but, in the last 25 years,
has averaged 12.4 million.
… After trying and failing for more than two decades to pump
ancient groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and sell it
to Southern California water districts, the controversial
company (Cadiz) has set its sights on new customers over
the border in the Grand Canyon State. … On Monday, the
Interior Department announced plans to sign a memorandum of
understanding with the latest incarnation of the project,
called the Mojave Groundwater Bank, touting it as “an important
tool to improve drought resiliency in the Colorado River Basin”
though recognizing that it is only in “early development.” And
on Tuesday, the Trump administration official leading Colorado
River negotiations for the federal government suggested to
water power players in Arizona that they consider the project.
… Opponents of the project, including conservation
groups who say it could harm sensitive desert ecosystems, still
see it as the same old concept.
Registration is now open for the Water Education
Foundation’s 41ˢᵗ annual Water
Summit featuring leading policymakers and
experts in conversation about the latest information and
insights on water in California and the West. The daylong
summit on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in
Sacramento is our premier event and an ideal
way to get up to speed on current topics for water district
managers and board members, state and federal agency officials,
city and county government leaders, farmers, environmentalists,
attorneys, consultants, engineers, business executives and
public interest groups. Plus, don’t forget
to enter the ticket lottery for our first-ever
Klamath River
Tour Sept. 8-12 and snatch a ticket for our
Northern
California Tour Oct. 22-24.
The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t required to revise
every outdated wastewater pollution standard
for various industries, but its decision in 2023 to not revise
standards using new pollution control technologies is both
arbitrary and capricious, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled
Wednesday. In 2023 several environmental groups, including
Waterkeeper Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity,
filed a complaint directly to the Ninth Circuit, challenging
the EPA’s decision to not revise “effluent limitations,
effluent limitation guidelines, standards of performance for
new sources, and pretreatment standards” that haven’t been
updated in decades. Passed in 1972, the Clean Water
Act requires the agency to regulate industrial
pollutants that make their way into the water, based on the
best available wastewater treatment technology. But according
to the plaintiffs, the EPA has never set limits on plants that
mold and form plastic, and has gone nearly 40 years without
updating wastewater limits on inorganic chemical plants and
petroleum refineries.
Last week, lawmakers introduced a new proposal to sell off
roughly 3 million acres of public land in the Western U.S. as
part of President Trump’s omnibus spending and tax bill, known
as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” According to the
Wilderness Society, more than 250 million acres of land managed
by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management could
be up for grabs under a leaked June 14 version of the proposal.
Though the plan focuses on land, its effects on
water could be profound. The eligible
land excludes national parks and a few other protected areas,
but it leaves open massive amounts of acreage in each Western
state. These eligible areas include land with wilderness
characteristics, grazing lands, wildlife corridors for
threatened and endangered species, recreation areas and popular
camping sites. Its also land that buffers the
headwaters of some of our most important rivers in the
West.
