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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… EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has championed fossil fuels
and the rollback of major clean air and water rules. His
history with PFAS is more nuanced; during his time as a New
York congressman, he supported legislation to regulate forever
chemicals in drinking water. … Zeldin has offered clues
about what the EPA could do. The agency estimated the rule
would cost about $1.5 billion annually and Zeldin said recently
that communities struggling to afford a fix for PFAS that are
just above the standard might be handled differently than
wealthy places with lots of it. … On Monday, the EPA
said it will establish an agency lead for PFAS, develop
wastewater limits for PFAS manufacturers and investigate
sources that pose an immediate danger to drinking water, among
other actions.
With seven states, 30 tribes and Mexico, the Central Arizona
Project and the Gila River Indian Community addressed the
uncertainty of the Colorado River Basin water
shortage at the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalist
Conference. Facing water shortages in the Colorado River Basin
in the early 200s, the 2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines
and later the 2019 Drought Contingency Plans were created to
mitigate water use. These plans expire in 2026. New agreements
could potentially lead to less availability of water. “We’re
looking at a new water supply someday. It might not only be
Colorado River water going through the canal system,” said
DeEtte Person, communications strategist for the Central
Arizona Project.
Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency got another
nudge toward the door in an email offering a second chance at
voluntary retirement or deferred resignation. The agency
is encouraging thousands of workers who remain after
several rounds of buyouts and layoffs to voluntarily leave the
agency, according to an April 28 email received by USA TODAY.
The ongoing staff reductions are part of a sweeping effort by
President Donald Trump’s administration to slash the size of
the federal work force and reduce federal spending and the
federal deficit. … The two departure programs are being
offered to most employees, with some exclusions, according to
the April 28 notice.
For the third consecutive year, commercial salmon fishing off
the California coast will be prohibited, although there will be
a limited opportunity for recreational anglers for the first
time since 2022. However, officials say data indicates the
industry could see a return in 2026. Angela Forristall, salmon
staff officer with the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said
the decision to recommend closing the state’s commercial salmon
fisheries for the year followed a challenging debate among the
council and stakeholders from both the recreational and
commercial fishing industries. Forristall shared that there
were several versions of the recommendation that did open
commercial fishing briefly, but the data they’re seeing from
populations in the Klamath and Sacramento rivers says it’s
potentially too soon for major operations.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wants to marshal his agency to
speed production of oil and gas on public lands, cut
regulations and “right-size” national monuments, according to a
draft strategic plan viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News. The
draft document calls for targeting “our National assets for the
benefit of the American people” by, among other things,
increasing development of “clean coal, oil, and gas” with
“faster and easier permitting.” Interior aspires to “streamline
processes,” with the goal of also ramping up “revenues from
grazing, timber, critical minerals, gravel and other non-energy
resources.”
A bill introduced by Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula aimed at
stopping a century-long mining project in Fresno County did not
make it out of committee Monday afternoon. That mining project
would drill a 600-foot deep pit near the San Joaquin River in
Fresno County. Arambula introduced a bill, AB1425, which went
before the Natural Resources Committee in Sacramento this
afternoon. It would have disqualified building materials
company CEMEX’s proposed 100-year mining expansion project
utilizing hard rock mining, blasting and drilling that deep
pit. … The San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust
has been strongly opposed to the project because of its
potential impact on the environment.
The principles of environmental justice call for the fair
treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless
of race, culture, national origin, or income, in the
development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of
environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Environmental
justice also necessitates dedicated outreach and transparent
opportunities for all community members to represent their
concerns in the decision-making process. The Delta Stewardship
Council has worked to incorporate environmental justice into
several recent and ongoing initiatives, described below. These
initiatives also identify the next steps to address
environmental justice in our future work.
The long-standing rule against swimming in Lake Cachuma has
come under renewed focus. Santa Barbara County is exploring how
to change the rule that prevents visitors from swimming in the
local reservoir while still maintaining its status as a water
source for the region. … The rule against swimming
in the lake goes back to its creation in 1953, when the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation created Lake Cachuma through the
construction of the Bradbury Dam. Even though the county
manages the park, the lake itself is still owned by the Bureau
of Reclamation. Brian Soares, the operations and maintenance
manager for Lake Cachuma, said the reason swimming has not been
allowed at the lake is that the water is used to supply Santa
Barbara County areas with drinking water.
… The concept is known as “ag-to-urban.” It’s a pathway to
convert farmland to residential use, a process that is
currently restricted because of groundwater shortages in Active
Management Areas — parts of Arizona, including the metro
Phoenix region, that are subject to regulation under the
state’s groundwater code. Certain housing projects in areas
like the Phoenix AMA must prove they have at least 100 years of
assured water supply before building. When Democratic Gov.
Katie Hobbs took office in 2023, she announced groundwater
levels in the West Valley were too low to meet that
requirement. As a result, developers are not currently allowed
to build new subdivisions there. Building homes on agricultural
land provides developers an opportunity to meet the 100-year
requirement in a different way — by retiring the agricultural
water rights on that land.
Burbank residents face significant water rate increases as the
city grapples with its complete dependence on imported water
and rising costs from external suppliers. Burbank Water and
Power recently proposed water rate increases of 14% beginning
Jan. 1, 2026, and an additional 14% beginning Jan. 1, 2027.
… The utility expects to pay up to 21% more for imported
water in 2026 compared to 2024. Burbank relies on
groundwater storage since it lacks direct access to natural
water sources. However, BWP must first purchase and spread
imported water before extracting it from the groundwater basin.
To maximize its limited supply, the utility produces
approximately 4 million gallons of recycled water daily for
non-potable purposes, such as irrigating school fields and
parks and operating the Magnolia Power Plant.
Forecasting the weather in Nevada presents unique challenges
due to the state’s distinctive geography and limited resources,
according to experts. Dawn Johnson, a warning coordination
meteorologist, explained that the Sierra Nevada Mountains play
a significant role in the state’s weather patterns. “We’ve got
a little mountain range to the west, so once it reaches the
Sierra Nevada mountain range that is the big difference. It
acts as a blocking and modifying mechanism for our weather
systems as they come in,” said Johnson. This natural barrier
traps moisture carried by winds from the Pacific Ocean,
contributing to Nevada’s status as the driest state in the
country. The National Weather Service office in Reno operates
with significantly fewer weather stations than neighboring
California, with only about 60 compared to California’s
100.
… Formed in 1993, the Salton Sea Authority serves as a
central hub where local leaders, agencies, and community
members bring ideas for projects like trail systems and
community-centric developments. The Authority plays a crucial
role in aligning these ideas with the overarching restoration
plan. In an interview with NBC Palm Springs, the Authority’s
CEO discussed a significant new initiative: a $22.3 million
comprehensive feasibility study. The study will help develop a
realistic, achievable ecosystem restoration plan for the entire
Salton Sea, based on available resources. “Recently, we signed
an agreement to implement a longer-term feasibility study,” the
CEO explained. “It will effectively develop a feasible and
achievable ecosystem restoration plan for the entire sea based
on the resources that are available.”
A long-term shift toward drier conditions is reshaping
landscapes and livelihoods across the globe. Known as
aridification, this gradual drying trend now affects 2.3
billion people and 40% of Earth’s land, with serious
implications for agriculture and water systems—especially in
the U.S. From California’s Central Valley to the Great Plains,
often called the world’s breadbasket, farmers are facing tough
decisions about what to plant, how to irrigate, and how to
adapt to a future where water is no longer guaranteed. These
findings appear in the Nature Water article “Increasing
aridification calls for urgent global adaptive solutions and
policy action,” led by Mississippi State University
Associate Vice President and Professor Narcisa Pricope in
collaboration with a team of international scientists.
… (E)very human interaction with water is connected to a
broader water system. But water practitioners haven’t always
treated their work with the same interconnected approach.
Instead, many cities and regions divide their water into three
silos: drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater, each managed
separately. That approach is not meeting the needs of many
communities. And a different approach, called One Water, is
beginning to take its place. One Water treats drinking water,
wastewater, and stormwater as a single, interconnected entity
and attempts to manage it holistically, bringing together water
utilities, community members, business and industry leaders,
researchers, politicians, engineers, and advocacy groups.
… The key to preventing disasters … is regular inspection
of sewer lines, hunting down any cracks and fissures that, if
left unattended, can lead to soil ingress and eventual collapse
of the pipe. Sewer pipes can be dark, cramped, and filled
with pockets of gas, making inspecting large networks using
traditional methods (typically a tethered, remotely operated
crawler fitted with a camera or even in-person) a slow, costly,
and often hazardous process. This is where drones come in.
Designed and engineered to operate in confined spaces, a new
generation of flying robots is being sent into sewers to
perform inspections in a safer, more efficient way.
An agreement to build a waterway allowing fish to swim freely
past a dam on the lower Yuba River has moved forward as part of
an initiative that also includes returning a threatened salmon
species to another part of the watershed. Federal, state and
local agencies have partnered on the potentially $100 million
project and tout its goal of restoring access for a variety of
fish species to parts of the river system walled off for more
than a century. … But local anglers have raised concerns
about the project, fearing that the free-flowing bypass will
allow predatory fish, particularly striped bass, to access a
section of the river seen as a haven for certain species.
Sen. Jerry McNerney is stepping into the fight over one of the
biggest modern-day water projects in California — a tunnel to
reroute more water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta south to farmers and cities — just as it’s heating up.
Representatives of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region have
long railed against the project for its potential impact on the
environment and local water supplies. But McNerney, a 22-year
veteran of Congress who came to the state Senate last year to
represent San Joaquin County, which will bear the brunt of the
tunnel’s construction, sees political forces aligning in a way
that they haven’t in decades. “It’s going to be more of a
challenge for us to keep the discussion to actually the benefit
and cost of this thing, as opposed to just the will to get it
done,” he said.
For years, the Klamath Basin along California’s remote northern
border has been mired in drought, missing out on the string of
wet winters that benefited the rest of the state. But not
any longer. Officials at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced this past week that stormy weather over the past
several months was enough, alongside the removal of four
dams on the Klamath River and other water projects, to
likely ensure sufficient water for farms, fish and wildlife
refuges in the region. The federally run Klamath Project, the
extensive network of dams and canals that supplies water along
the California-Oregon state line, is projected to deliver the
most water it has since at least 2019 this year — 330,000
acre-feet — according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
A group* of my Colorado River collaborators
has put together what we hope can be a useful set of
foundational principles as the basin states and federal
leadership search for a path toward a negotiated agreement for
post-2026 Colorado River management. They’re based on a number
of key premises: The Colorado River Compact will remain the
foundation of the river’s management, but we have to find a way
past the deep disagreement between Upper and Lower basin states
on what the Compact actually says.
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding President Donald
Trump’s EPA is how it plans to revoke the endangerment finding
— the lifeblood of most climate regulations. … Experts said
EPA may be betting that it can upend the scientific finding —
which paved the way for the nation’s rules on climate pollution
on cars, power plants and across other sectors — without taking
direct aim at the overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases
are driving up global temperatures. Instead EPA
Administrator Lee Zeldin and other officials whom the president
tasked in January with undoing the finding could raise
questions about whether a sector — or even the whole country —
contributes enough climate pollution globally to warrant
regulation.
