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.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.
We occasionally bold words in the text to ensure the water connection is clear.
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.
As wildfires grow in size and intensity, older communities are
recognizing the need to update their municipal water systems.
In Lake Tahoe, a robust water infrastructure is now considered
one of the three cornerstones of wildfire readiness, alongside
forest and fuels management and community and home
hardening. Each summer, utility companies on both sides of
the lake race to complete water system upgrades within the
limited six-month construction window. Today, the Lake Tahoe
community is leading the way in ensuring that firefighters
always have access to water. … The Tahoe Water for Fire
Suppression Partnership estimates that the Tahoe Basin will
need an additional $125 million in funding over the next five
years to upgrade its water systems.
Much of the prized public land in the Sierras above Fresno that
was at risk of getting sold off to real estate developers as
part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” such as
Huntington Lake and Edison Lake, was taken off the bargaining
table Monday afternoon after senate officials ruled that
selling these key parcels owned by the National Forest Service
could not be voted on in its current state due to procedural
issues. But one of Fresno’s top hiking spots, with
cultural significance to local tribes – the San Joaquin River
Gorge – could still be at risk of getting auctioned
off. It is expected that the final decision will be made
before the 4th of July. … The new proposal from Sen.
Mike Lee, R-Utah, would still allow public land to be sold to
developers to create more housing, but only land held by the
Bureau of Land Management within five miles of a population
center. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that Lee couldn’t
sell off the national forest land, the Associate Press
reported, due to restrictions in the budget reconciliation
process.
A group of young Indigenous kayakers is headed to the mouth of
the Klamath River in free-flowing water after portaging around
two dams and paddling through four former dam sites. They
launched into the Klamath River headwaters two weeks ago and
are now more than halfway through a momentous 30-day journey.
So far, they’ve paddled through waves on a treacherous lake,
portaged around the two remaining dams on the river, plunged
into canyons with class 3, 4 and 5 rapids, and paddled through
four former dam sites where removal operations wrapped up last
fall. The nonprofit Rios to Rivers organized the event, which
is the first source-to-sea descent of the Klamath since dam
removal. Their Paddle Tribal Waters team aims to reach the
mouth of the river by July 11 and celebrate the removal of J.C.
Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate dams.
Caltrans got one step closer to its controversial $500 million
project to widen Highway 37, a notoriously trafficky corridor,
with an infusion of funding Thursday. But critics said the
money could be wasted as rising tides are expected to
flood the low–lying highway within decades. On
Thursday, the California Transportation Commission approved $73
million toward the plan, which calls for widening Highway 37
between Sears Point in Sonoma and Mare Island in Vallejo from
two lanes to four. Caltrans said the project will greatly
reduce congestion on a highway used by 47,000 daily. However,
the highway is also expected to be inundated by rising tides by
2050, threats that will not be addressed by the project,
Caltrans said. Instead, the agency has a separate $10 billion
plan to elevate and protect the highway in the future.
… Portions of Highway 37 “will be completely inundated
by 2050,” especially during major storms and king tides, and
there will be increased flooding leading up to that time,
Caltrans said in a statement.
The Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District, which provides wastewater
service to Fairfield, Suisun City and Travis Air Force Base, is
kicking off a long-range planning initiative. The purpose of
the initiative is to “safeguard nearly $1 billion in aging
infrastructure and control future costs.” “Our goal is to plan
smarter now so we complete needed replacements and upgrades
responsibly and efficiently,” Engineering Manager Irene
O’Sullivan said in a statement. “This is about continuing safe
and reliable sewer service to our community.” Many facilities
are more than 50 years old. ”The district is investing
$2.8 million, 1.5% of its 10-year capital budget, into a series
of master plans for sewer collection, treatment, recycled
water, storm drainage and mapping systems,” the statement said.
The master plans were unveiled during a recent district board
meeting. The Fairfield and Suisun City council members sit as
the directors.
California is now ten years into a revolution in groundwater
management. In 2014, the state passed the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) which requires newly formed
local groundwater sustainability agencies to develop long-term
plans to reduce overdraft by 2040. To date, more than 250 local
agencies have written and begun implementing groundwater
sustainability plans, with more than 100 plans in action. This
has taken enormous effort and represents a significant
departure from the prior status quo for groundwater management
in California. Many wonder, however, if SGMA is affecting
behavior around the use of the groundwater resource yet. Are
farmers making decisions around planting or drilling new
groundwater wells with future SGMA reductions in mind? If so,
are they switching away from permanent crops that may not have
available water through 2040? We set out to answer those
questions with publicly available data.
Wholesale water rates in San Diego County — a key factor in how
much local residents and businesses pay for water — will rise
next year by less than half of what officials were predicting
last winter: 8.3% instead of 18%. But the Jan. 1 increase,
which the county water authority’s board of directors approved
Thursday after months of debate and negotiation, is still a
substantial hike that brings the cumulative two-year increase
to 23.1%. Board members said they were frustrated that they
have to ask residents and businesses to pay so much more for
water at a time when everyone is already facing higher costs
for groceries and many other things. “Am I happy about it? No,”
board Chair Nick Serrano told his colleagues Thursday. “But it
reflects a meaningful downward trend and it shows that this
authority is listening and is turning the ship.”
PFAS are everywhere. Manufacturers have been using “forever
chemicals” for their durability and resistance to heat and
water, adding them in countless everyday products for decades,
such as cell phones, laptops, medical devices, textiles and
food packaging. … California, Maine and Minnesota have
taken the strictest actions to restrict the use of
fluorochemicals, but other states are following suit. Minnesota
and others are also enacting legislation mandating
manufacturers publicly report their use of
PFAS. Manufacturing Dive is tracking the status of bills
related to PFAS oversight and use during states’ legislative
sessions in 2025 and beyond, with updates to be added over
time. Read on for the status and details of each bill.
The Trump administration is proposing to cut the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers’ construction budget next fiscal year by
more than half, a move that could devastate levee restoration
projects in the Delta. The proposed cuts, which would reduce
the construction budget by 53% compared to the amount
previously allocated, could include work on the San Joaquin
Basin Project in Stockton, said U.S. Rep. Josh Harder, D-Tracy.
The basin project is directed at protecting 300,000 residents
from flooding. Harder is one of 12 members of Congress who
sent a letter urging that funding be restored. The
congressional members sent the letter to the chairperson and
ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee and the
Energy and Water Subcommittee. … Besides the San Joaquin
Basin Project, the letter lists other environmental works that
are in jeopardy. One involves 42 miles of American River levees
protecting Sacramento and the Natomas Basin. Another includes
41 miles of levees along the Sacramento River and its ship
canal that would protect West Sacramento.
The Trump administration’s plan to repeal a rule prohibiting
logging and road construction in undeveloped parts of national
forests would strip protection from more than 4 million acres
within California’s borders. U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced on Monday that she will
act to rescind the “roadless rule,” developed during the
Clinton administration, to allow “for fire prevention and
responsible timber production” on more than 58 million acres of
national forests. … These roadless areas are considered
important for providing habitat for more than 200 threatened or
endangered species of wildlife, including owls, salmon and
frogs, and for protecting vital watersheds.
… U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat representing
Northern California coastal communities and parts of Trinity
and Six Rivers national forests, said the revision would
threaten watersheds that provide clean drinking
water, the rights of tribes and local communities, and
the power of forests to hold onto climate-warming carbon.
In a comment letter to the state Water Resources Control Board,
one of the plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuit over Kern River
flows alleges information has been withheld from the region’s
groundwater plan to the detriment of the river. Water Audit
California states a number of entities, including the City of
Bakersfield and its main drinking water purveyor California
Water Services, “…failed to disclose the adverse impacts that
their groundwater extraction is having on
interconnected surface waters, thereby causing
injury to the public trust and its biological components,”
according to the June 20 letter. … Water Audit contends
that diverting Kern River water into groundwater recharge
basins that are then pumped for drinking water, creates an
interconnectivity that may affect stream flows. … Kern’s
plan states that there are no areas of interconnectivty in the
subbasin per the definition under SGMA regulations, which is
that there must be a continuous connection between underground
and overlying surface water.
… Climate change has exacerbated shortages, with studies
indicating that recent Colorado River flows are near their
lowest in at least 2,000 years. That has had severe
consequences for fish: Of the 49 fish species native to the
Colorado River Basin, 44 are already threatened, endangered or
extinct. … New research led by University of Washington water
policy expert Philip Womble found that a market-based approach
to managing water could provide more reliable supplies for
farmers, communities and industry. The right market design and
a little extra investment could also help threatened fish
species. The study, published June 20 in Nature
Sustainability, details a new system for leasing rights to
water from the basin while reallocating some water to imperiled
habitats. Among the paper’s most substantial findings,
researchers estimate that strategically spending 8% more than
under the cheapest water conservation program could nearly
triple the ecological benefits.
A vitamin deficiency likely killed as many as
half of newly hatched fry of endangered winter-run Chinook
salmon in the Sacramento River in 2020 and 2021. These new
findings were published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. The deficiency of
thiamine, or Vitamin B1, is linked to
large-scale shifts in the ocean ecosystem. These shifts changed
the prey adult salmon consume before they return to West Coast
rivers to spawn, scientists reported. They said the longtime
loss of habitat and water has already weakened many California
salmon populations. Further declines from thiamine deficiency
or other impacts may lead to their extinction. The deficiency
syndrome can also affect salmon runs like the Central Valley’s
fall-run that once supported valuable commercial fisheries
across California. They have since dwindled to the point that
commercial ocean salmon fishing in California has been closed
for the last 3 years. … Anchovy manufacture an enzyme
called thiaminase that breaks down thiamine and can, in turn,
affect salmon that eat large amounts of the small fish.
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court slashed federal Clean
Water Act protection of wetlands, streams, and all of our clean
water with its decision in the Sackett v. EPA case. NRDC
scientists mapped the potential impact of the Sackett decision
and found it devastating—threatening harmful repercussions for
droughts, wildfires, flooding, wildlife, and the drinking water
supply. In the absence of federal protection, the
imperative to defend our shared waters falls increasingly on
individuals, states, and Native American Tribal
Nations. NRDC is actively working to prevent any further
weakening of the Clean Water Act (which the federal U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency intends to pursue) and to
ensure the law remains a robust tool for all wetland and stream
advocates, including Indigenous Peoples. Tribal Nations protect
and manage millions of acres of wetlands in the United States,
and with commitments made by the U.S. government to Tribal
co-management and co-stewardship of federal lands, the amount
of clean water safeguarded by Tribal Nations is growing.
Lake Berryessa remains free of invasive freshwater mussels —
for now. But the recent arrival of golden mussels in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has prompted Napa County to
bolster its efforts to keep the pests out. On Tuesday, the Napa
County Board of Supervisors signaled support for a new
ordinance that would give county inspectors and sheriff’s
deputies the authority to stop and inspect any vehicles,
trailers, boats or other watercraft that could be carrying
mussels — either adult or larval — at any of the lake’s resort
areas. The ordinance would also allow them to issue citations,
including fines and misdemeanor charges, to violators. The
inspection program itself isn’t new, said Thomas Zeleny, chief
deputy county counsel. The ordinance essentially codifies what
the county is already doing. … Sheriff Oscar Ortiz added
that existing rules lack enforcement power. Right now, there’s
“no teeth” — nothing inspectors can actually write a citation
for, he said.
Goodbye, climate.gov, the popular online clearinghouse for
federal climate science. Hello, noaa.gov/climate, a revamped
website that deemphasizes the previous site’s content. Kim
Doster, a NOAA spokesperson, said in an email that “NOAA is
relocating all research products from Climate.gov to
NOAA.gov/climate in an effort to centralize and consolidate
resources. Future research products previously housed under
Climate.gov will be available at NOAA.gov and its affiliate
websites.” In a reader notice atop the redirected website, NOAA
said the change was to comply with President Donald Trump’s May
23 executive order titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science”
followed by a Monday memorandum from the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy about implementing the order.
“For the curious citizen, if you click on climate.gov, you get
redirected and the archived components of climate.gov are
buried,” said Craig McLean, the former assistant administrator
for research at NOAA and a Trump administration critic.
Demler Brothers Egg Ranch is proposing a newwastewater handling
system to address one of the major issues that resulted in a
cease-and-desist order from the San Diego Regional Water
Quality Control Board. The order against Demler Brothers, often
referred to by its former name of Pine Hill, was issued in
November 2023 after a three-year investigation over complaints
about odors and possibly contaminated water runoff at the
facility at 25818 Highway 78 in Ramona. The
improper discharge of wastewater used for
washing eggs produced at the ranch resulted in the
contamination of two nearby creeks and stormwater basins, water
board staff reported. Although water board inspectors
originally found high levels of ammonium-nitrate and phosphorus
at the egg ranch, later tests found almost no contaminants
after the facility began putting all of the egg wash wastewater
into temporary holding tanks and hauling it offsite. The
new wastewater system will feature 34 above-ground,
double-lined evaporation ponds housed in four barns.
… As the United States grapples with an escalating water
crisis, a powerful solution is gaining momentum. Buildings can
intelligently capture, treat, and reuse their own wastewater by
leveraging advanced technology, data analytics, and automation
to optimize every step of the water reuse process. These smart
systems continuously monitor water quality and usage,
automatically adjusting treatment processes to ensure safety
and efficiency. While current regulations limit this recycled
water to non-potable applications, the reality is that water
from these systems is often treated to a level that is
scientifically safe enough to drink. This isn’t about
compromise—it’s about building smarter, managing water as a
circular resource, and using it where it’s needed most, all
within the building itself. This innovation comes at a critical
moment. Nearly 45% of the lower 48 states are currently
experiencing drought conditions, with the Southwest and Plains
regions particularly hard-hit.
It’s not uncommon nowadays to fill a glass of water from your
tap and wonder what chemicals and contaminants may be lurking
in there. That’s because research has increasingly revealed
that heavy metals, radioactive substances, and harmful PFAS
(“forever chemicals”) are present in our water
systems. … The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found
that roughly 60% of the U.S. population—about 200 million
people—are served by water systems that have the chemicals PFOA
or PFOS in their drinking water at a concentration of 1 part
per trillion or higher, which is the maximum limit for PFAS in
drinking water endorsed by the EWG. Knowing there are
chemicals in your water is one thing—but should you be worried?
And is there anything you can do to reduce your exposure?
Here’s everything you need to know, according to experts who
spoke with Fortune.
Beginning January 1, 2025, the “Making Conservation a
California Way of Life” regulatory framework requires
urban retail water suppliers — not individual households or
businesses — to adopt a series of “urban water use
objectives.” And beginning January 1, 2027, the
regulations require urban retail water suppliers to annually
demonstrate compliance with those objectives. The objectives
are calculated based on indoor residential water use; outdoor
residential water use; commercial, industrial and institutional
irrigation use; and potable reuse. Implementation of the
objectives includes setting and meeting specific targets for
reducing water use per capita, improving system efficiency, and
reporting progress to state regulators. Urban retail water
suppliers are also required to implement water conservation
programs, support the development of drought–resilient
infrastructure, and encourage customers to adopt water-saving
practices such as using “climate ready” landscapes.