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.
An invasion of smallmouth bass from the Great Lakes region is
spreading to new areas of the Colorado River in Arizona. The
bass have already thwarted efforts to save threatened native
fish in the upper river basin, and wildlife officials are
fighting to keep the same from happening below Lake Powell,
even if it requires cranes, excavators and maybe one day, a
giant metal curtain. Federal officials say they took a major
step in fighting the bass invasion below the Glen Canyon Dam in
June. The National Park Service and Bureau of Reclamation have
cleared out a warm backwater in the river where bass and other
invasive species used to spawn, eliminating a critical resource
for the predatory fish that could wipe out one of the last
holdouts for some of the Colorado River’s threatened and
endangered fish. Every bass that spawned in the slough
became a threat to native fish, experts say. Smallmouth bass
eat native fish eggs and young.
Over 500,000 acres of farmland in California are expected to
come out of production by 2040 because of water limitations
from drought and state regulations. While some of this land may
be put to other uses, much of this acreage could be left
fallow. Finding ways to keep growing crops even when water is
limited would help farmers, protect the environment, and
support the economy. Winter cereals such as wheat, barley, and
triticale could be a part of the solution. These crops are low
maintenance and offer growers options for flexible management.
They can be grown with little water input, relying mostly on
precipitation from the winter rains, and can be harvested for a
range of forage and grain products. In some parts of
California, winter cereals are grown without any irrigation,
but rainfall in the San Joaquin Valley is unpredictable and
typically lower than the state average, making dryland
agriculture more difficult.
A magnitude 3.6 earthquake shook Shasta County early Friday
morning, waking residents shortly before 4 a.m. The quake’s
epicenter was not far from Shasta and Keswick Dams, prompting
dam operators to conduct precautionary inspections. Michael
Burke from the Bureau of Reclamation said … ”After the
earthquake, we actually went out to Spring Creek, Whiskeytown,
Lewiston and Shasta Dam and did a visual inspection, and there
was no findings.” The Shasta Dam, which recently celebrated its
80th anniversary, remains structurally sound despite showing
some wear. Experts said the dam’s concrete will not fully cure
for another 20 years. In related news, the Bureau of
Reclamation’s brand-new Shasta Dam Cam has gone live, offering
a 24/7 view from atop the visitors center. The camera provides
a continuous view of the three Shastas: Shasta Dam, the Shasta
Reservoir and Mount Shasta.
The South Yuba River Citizens League, in partnership with the
U.S. Forest Service, is launching the Salmon & Packer Creek
Aspen Restoration Project, a major forest restoration effort
aimed at revitalizing quaking aspen habitat within the Tahoe
National Forest. The State of California’s Wildlife
Conservation Board granted SYRCL $1.7 million for this
Restoration Project. Spanning a total of 292 acres north of
Highway 49 and west of Gold Lakes Highway, this project
includes degraded quaking aspen stands along Packer and Samon
Creek in the Lost Sierra along Packer Lake Road. The primary
goal is to restore and enhance 116 acres of aspen habitat, a
critical but declining habitat in the Sierra
Nevada. … One highlight of the project involves
installing approximately 15 Beaver Dam Analogs
(BDAs) in Salmon Creek Meadow. These low-tech
structures, built from earthen materials and small conifer
saplings, mimic natural beaver dams to slow water flow, expand
wet meadow habitat, and promote fringe aspen growth.
On June 4 our Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) split 3-3 on
a vote to update some water contracts. … The issue at hand
was a pretty straight-forward one. The 26 wholesale customers
of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC),
including Palo Alto, negotiated new terms for minimum purchase
requirements, water allocation during drought, and a few other
things. The 26 customers all use the same contracts, so it took
a while (three years) to come to an agreement on changes. SFPUC
helped the process along by making some concessions. For
example, SFPUC agreed to collect no overuse fees from customers
if aggregate usage was within limits. … Fixing this for
these four customers will slightly increase water rates for the
others. (2) Drought allocations similarly have some give and
take, with Palo Alto needing to save somewhat more since much
of the city’s water is for outdoor (irrigation) use and not for
indoor (less flexible) use.
… The city of Santa Clarita, in collaboration with the Santa
Clarita Valley Water Agency, New York-based artist Sujin Lim,
the Visual Terrain design firm and the Santa Clarita Symphony
Orchestra, offered the free “River of Lights” experience
Wednesday evening to celebrate the unveiling of a public art
installation at Central Park in Saugus. According to Miranda,
the presentation was a celebration of creativity, innovation
and the connection the community shares with nature.
… At the center of the plaza stood the newly unveiled
art piece — a 14-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide set of steel clouds
and cascading raindrop piping called “When Cloud Met a Cloud.”
According to artist Lim, who specializes in creating
site-specific installations and sculptures, the pipes symbolize
both falling rain and the nearby pipeline in the Saugus hills
that bring water to the area. … Santa Clarita Mayor
Pro Tem Laurene Weste, in an interview before the “River of
Lights” presentation, spoke about the importance of teaching
children about water through art.
State negotiators grappling with how to share the
drought-ravaged Colorado River say they could be close to
breaking free from gridlock just as the Trump administration
warns that missing a November deadline could force the federal
government to take control. Members of the Upper Colorado River
Commission — which represents Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and
Wyoming — announced Thursday that the states are weighing a new
method of sharing the waterway based on the actual flow of the
river, as opposed to projected flows and historical agreements.
… The plan — at the heart of which is a formula for declaring
how much water can be shared among the seven states each year,
based on actual flows from the preceding three years — was
proposed by the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and
Nevada. … On Thursday, he (Interior Department acting
secretary for water and science Scott Cameron) set hard
deadlines for the states to meet, warning that if a draft
agreement has not taken shape by Nov. 11, then Reclamation will
need to shift its focus to federal action.
At its June 26, 2025, meeting, the Delta Stewardship Council
adopted the first-ever comprehensive regional climate
adaptation plan for California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Part of the Council’s Delta Adapts climate initiative, the
Adaptation Plan details strategies and actions to improve
regional resilience to climate change across four focus areas:
flood risk reduction, ecosystems, agriculture, and water supply
reliability. It also identifies equity considerations of
adaptation, costs, and governance challenges. The Council will
work with its partners and other interested parties to
implement the Adaptation Plan’s strategies, which will benefit
current and future generations. … “As the climate
continues to change, adaptation is no longer optional – it is
essential,” says Executive Officer Jessica R.
Pearson. “Investing in resilience today is how we
safeguard our communities, water supply, ecosystems, and
economies for tomorrow.”
A Department of Defense weather satellite program that collects
vital information for hurricane forecasts will stop
distributing data products to users Monday. The
termination of data products from the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program could lead to dangerous declines in the
quality of hurricane forecasts, meteorologists say. …
NOAA, which provides operational support for the program,
issued a termination notice Wednesday. The agency did not
provide reasons for the decision. An official for the U.S.
Space Force, which manages the program, confirmed that the
satellites and their instruments are still fully functional.
And the Defense Department will still have access to DMSP data.
But for the program’s large network of users, the data products
are going dark — and it’s still unclear why. … It’s a
constellation of weather satellites collecting a variety of
measurements used to track everything from thunderstorms to fog
to snow and ice cover. Its data products are
used by researchers around the world, including forecasters at
the National Weather Service.
You’ve probably come across more stories about water woes in
California than you can recall, so you may feel you’ve had
enough for a while. I understand. … But there is one
indisputable fact that keeps surfacing in the conversations I
have about California water that feels like something of a
beacon. The first time I heard it, it came as quite a surprise.
Over the last half century or so, millions more people have
moved to greater Los Angeles. … And during this same
time, Angelenos have been consuming less water. … So,
how did this happen? The answer speaks to a general truth about
progress, which, in big, messy democracies, tends to occur not
all at once but in incremental, often unsexy ways, mostly out
of the news cycle. In this case the shift has involved some
simple, practical, boring fixes, like better plumbing,
alongside larger transformations in social norms, policies and
politics.
Dams and barriers placed on Alameda Creek have prevented
migratory fish from entering their native spawning grounds for
more than 50 years, but an $80 million effort to raze the last
significant obstacles and restore trout, salmon and other fish
to their historical habitat are now underway. A PG&E gas
pipeline is the last major barrier to restoring 20 miles of
upstream spawning habitat for Chinook salmon and steelhead
trout and will be relocated and buried by a coalition that
includes the Alameda County Water District, PG&E and the
San Francisco-based nonprofit California Trout. … The
plan is to remove the concrete barrier and move the gas
pipeline 100 feet downstream and bury it 20 feet underground to
reopen the creek for migratory fish, according to California
Trout senior project manager Claire Buchanan. Construction
will need to move quickly in order to return the creek to its
natural flow by Oct. 31, ahead of the fish migration season,
Buchanan said.
The role of water in the high-growth data center market is fast
becoming a critical factor in site selection, design, and
operations. By 2030, annual water-related capital and
operational expenditures are forecasted to reach US$797.1M,
representing a 31.4% increase from today. According to a new
report from Bluefield Research, U.S. Water for Data Centers:
Market Trends, Opportunities, and Forecasts, 2025–2030, this
surge in activity is accelerating—driven by artificial
intelligence (AI)-fueled growth, mounting local concerns over
water availability, and the tech sector’s urgent push to
safeguard operational resilience amid growing environmental
scrutiny. Hyperscale data centers, which currently represent
51.4% of total market demand, are forecasted to withdraw 150.4
billion gallons of water between 2025 and 2030. This volume is
equivalent to the annual water withdrawals of 4.6 million U.S.
households.
Oil and gas companies are running out of options for disposing
of polluted water they generate every day, a problem for the
Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda. EPA is
offering the industry a hand by promoting reuse of that
wastewater. The effort worries environmentalists, but it could
draw crucial political allies in oil-producing states. The
agency plans to update rules for what can be done with water
that emerges from the ground during oil and gas extraction. The
goal is to allow the chemical-laden, super-salty brine to be
substantially cleaned and reused for power generation,
water-guzzling data centers and irrigating
rangeland. Reusing the water could
address a major industry challenge and help ease crippling
drought in parts of Texas and New Mexico, two of the nation’s
most prolific oil-producing states. A growing body of research
suggests that the water — which is three or more times saltier
than seawater — can now be safely treated for certain
applications, from industrial cooling to growing alfalfa and
other non-food crops, proponents say.
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.”
