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.
Over three sunny-but-cool October days, a team of scientists
and volunteers dug up and hauled away the root crowns of trees
along the Crystal River, a first step toward a potential
strategy to protect flows on one of the last
free-flowing rivers in Colorado.
… Environmental and recreation advocates and local
municipalities, as well as many residents of the Crystal River
Valley, have long sought to protect the river from future dams
and diversions — infrastructure projects that have left many
other Western Slope rivers depleted.
When buying property in Arizona, water is often an important
part of the decision, particularly in rural areas. The way real
estate agents address questions like how secure the water
supply is can influence a buyer’s confidence in their purchase.
As Arizona continues to navigate long-term water challenges,
ensuring that agents are informed and equipped to communicate
accurately about water is critical for their clients and
communities. That’s the motivation behind REAL Water Arizona —
Improving Water Education for Real Estate Professionals.
… [T]he program is reimagining how water education is
taught in the state’s mandatory continuing education course for
licensed real estate professionals.
Are you an emerging leader passionate about shaping the future
of water in California or across the Colorado River Basin? The
Water Education Foundation will be hosting two dynamic water
leadership programs in 2026 – one focused on California
water issues and the other on the Colorado
River Basin. These competitive programs are designed
for rising stars from diverse sectors who are ready to deepen
their water knowledge, strengthen their leadership
skills and collaborate on real-world water challenges.
Applications for the California Program are open now, and
the Colorado River Program application window will open
in mid-November.
Misinformation and confusion fueled a recent Wyoming
legislative meeting on how to stop chemtrails, a debunked
conspiracy that claims the government is controlling our health
with airborne chemicals. … Cloud
seeding was also tied up in the Wyoming legislation.
… Wyoming has been doing it for at least two decades, as
it’s considered a “tool in the toolbox” for helping the
drought-stricken Colorado River
system. Last legislative session, lawmakers
banned aerial cloud seeding and defunded the ground operations.
It’s up to Wyoming water groups, municipalities and industry,
as well as other Colorado River states, to foot the bill for
the 2026 season.
When it comes to water, honesty matters as much as
infrastructure. On Tuesday, the San Diego City Council narrowly
approved a two-year water rate increase — 14.7 percent next
year and 14.5 percent the following year — rejecting staff’s
push for a four-year plan. The Council’s message was clear:
They want answers and accountability, not finger-pointing. …
Water independence is desirable — but not at any price. San
Diego already enjoys one of the most diversified and reliable
water portfolios in the West, built over decades of investment
by the San Diego County Water Authority. Our region is not
facing an immediate supply cliff that demands a
“build-everything-now” approach. –Written by Jim Madaffer, a member and past chair of the
Water Authority Board of Directors representing the city of San
Diego.
Lessons learned from destructive wildfires in Ventura County
have given avocado growers a fighting chance to save their
orchards when the next big blaze hits. … The losses of
trees and production from fires dating back to the mid-1990s
have Ventura County ranchers—especially those on hillsides in
burn-prone areas—considering establishing reservoirs to hold
water year-round. Brokaw Ranch Co. in Santa Paula keeps
two reservoirs filled. They are gravity-driven and can deliver
water even when the electrical power goes out, ranch manager
Nathan Lurie said. Whether it’s a fire or a heat wave, the
reservoirs give Lurie “ownership and flexibility” on when and
how the water gets used, he added.
Clean Up The Lake (CUTL) has completed its Tahoe Deep Dive
Pilot Project, a six-month effort that explored litter
accumulation and underwater health at depths of 35 to 55 feet
in Lake Tahoe. The research tested new diving methods and
gathered data to guide future large-scale cleanup operations.
Between February and July 2025, CUTL held 14 cleanup days and
29 dives, with 26 volunteers filling 80 positions and
contributing 480 hours both underwater and onshore. Divers
removed 1,933 pounds of debris, totaling 1,042 individual
items, from 6.1 miles of lakebed and 4.75 miles of shoreline in
Placer County.
After the heavy rains earlier this month, when remnants of a
Pacific hurricane flooded much of the city, Maricopa’s
flatlands have been teeming with unexpected life. Among the
most striking visitors: great egrets, the tall, snow-white
wading birds more commonly seen in coastal wetlands than desert
farmland. … When the Gila and Santa Cruz Rivers dried up
under decades of groundwater pumping and diversion, canals and
agricultural basins elsewhere in the state offered replacement
habitat. Over time, egrets followed these human-made water
routes inland. … So, when Maricopa’s washes flood, they act
like temporary extensions of those migration corridors.
The Merced Irrigation District has issued a Request for
Qualifications (RFQ) for the future recreation management of
MID’s land around Lake Yosemite. … Lake Yosemite and
some surrounding land is owned by MID. The lake serves a vital
role in its irrigation and water management operations.
… The County of Merced entered into an agreement with
MID in 1976 that allowed the County to develop and operate
recreational facilities at the lake. With the upcoming
expiration of the agreement on January 31, 2026, MID will open
recreation management of Lake Yosemite to a potential new
operator – or operators – with the vision of improving and
expanding the current facilities and opportunities.
… A year ago, we argued in Charging Forward that the
clean-energy transition would only be part of a “just
transition” if the communities living at its frontlines were
full partners in shaping it. That principle is being tested
now. … In September 2025, Comité Cívico del Valle
… and Earthworks released The Devil is in the Details, a
powerful report detailing deep community concerns with the
project’s Environmental Impact Report. They argue it
underestimates the risks to water supplies,
ignores air-quality and toxic-waste implications, and fails to
safeguard sacred Indigenous lands around the Salton
Sea. But this is not just a story of opposition.
A new regional coalition, Valle Unido por Beneficios
Comunitarios … is pressing for a Community Benefits Agreement
(CBA) that would guarantee tangible returns to frontline
communities.
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.
After nearly a century of people building dams on most of the
world’s major rivers, artificial reservoirs now represent an
immense freshwater footprint across the landscape. Yet, these
reservoirs are understudied and overlooked for their fisheries
production and management potential, indicates a study from the
University of California, Davis. The study, published
in the journal Scientific Reports, estimates that U.S.
reservoirs hold 3.5 billion kilograms (7.7 billion pounds) of
fish. Properly managed, these existing reservoir ecosystems
could play major roles in food security and fisheries
conservation.
California has unveiled an ambitious plan to help combat the
worsening climate crisis with one of its invaluable assets: its
land. Over the next 20 years, the state will work to transform
more than half of its 100 million acres into multi-benefit
landscapes that can absorb more carbon than they release,
officials announced Monday. … The plan also calls for
11.9 million acres of forestland to be managed for biodiversity
protection, carbon storage and water supply protection by 2045,
and 2.7 million acres of shrublands and chaparral to be managed
for carbon storage, resilience and habitat connectivity, among
other efforts.
